12 Feb 1837 – 18 Jul 1923
Wife of Louis Philip Cardon, daughter of Jean Pierre Stalé and Jeanne Marie Gaudin-Moise
A landscape 8-1/2 x 14 two column transcript of the following was found in the files of Louis B. Cardon. His grandchildren transcribed it for publication on this website. It is a piece by Lucille Cardon Matthews. Any errors or apparent errors in the material do not arise from errors in the course of the transcription, but are intentionally reproduced, exactly as they appear in the source text with the exception that the Milton Sonnet was corrected back to the form written by Milton instead of as transcribed by Matthews.
Susette Stale’ Cardon was my Grandmother
by Lucille Cardon Matthews
Foreword:
I think no history of anyone of those valiant saints “gathered to Zion” from the Alpine Valleys of Italy would be complete without a little background history to help us realize how blessed we are to have them for progenitors.
From an article written for the Improvement Era, December 1948 by Archibald F. Bennett we learn the Vaudois in their homeland amid the Alpine valleys, are aptly described by one author as “Israel of the Alps”.
The Vaudois or Waldense are probably the oldest continuous Protestant community in the world. By tradition they are credited with a line of pastors running back even to the time of the apostles. All other dissenter groups were crushed by Rome. Thirty-five or more prosecutions have been launched against them. Francis I ordered their extinction in 1541. In 1655, their overlord, the Duke of Savoy, issued his edict proclaiming all his Vaudois subjects must renounce their religion in 20 days or be massacred. The tales of those atrocities which brought death to thousands burned at the stake, by famine, buried alive, etc., horrified all Protestant peoples.
The poor Vaudois who were able to escape concealed in their alpine fastness sent to Cromwell for relief. It was then that Milton penned his great sonnet:
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll’d
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubl’d to the hills, and they
To Heav’n. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow
O’er all th’ Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
Sonnet 18 by John Milton
Cromwell raised money to help them, then sent a protest to the rulers with the threat that unless the edict was repealed, he would send force to the rescue. The persecution was stopped until the death of Cromwell, then the rulers broke faith. In 1685, Louis IX gave them fifteen days to publicly denounce their faith. There were only 15,000 eft, 2500 capable of bearing arms against France and Savoy. Their battle-cry “Death rather than the mass” France poured in on them from that side, and savoy from the other, Turin.
The Vaudois held out for three days, then because of false promises they ceased fighting and devastation followed in every hamlet. In crowded prisons only 3000 remained at the end of six months. These were released, banished from their homes, their children torn from them to be reared Catholics.
It was three years before they made their way home by crossing the Switzerland Alps, where so many perished from hunger and cold. Eight hundred were all that were left; by the time they had taken possession of their homes, five hundred more were gone. France and Savoy quarreled, and the exiled brethren were reinstated. 17 February 1848, Charles Albert, King of Sardoni signed a decree allowing Vaudois to enjoy civil and political rights, to attend schools, and universities, and a little more religious freedom
Next year in 1849, President Lorenzo Snow was called to a mission in Italy. In trying to decide just what to do, his attention was called to these Valleys, for Sicily and all other potions of Italy were hostile. A flood of light seemed to burst on his mind whenever he thought of these people whose origin the night of time had overspread, those dissenters from Rome who existed long before Martin Luther was born.
President Snow wrote to President Richards of the European Mission 20 July. 1849 “I believe that the Lord has therein the Piedmont Valleys hidden up a people among the Alpine Mountains. And it is the voice of the spirit I shall Commence something of importance in that part of this dark nation.”
I am sure President Snow, and his companions, Elders Joseph Toronto and T.B. Stenhouse, were divinely directed only on year after the beginning of toleration to these people, of whom he wrote in his biography, :When the anathemas of Rome shook the world, and princes fell from their thrones, they dared to brave the mandates of the Pope, and the armies of the might, hold to their creed, which had been handed down from sire to son for a thousand years. And often he will lay his hand on his heart and swear to live by the faith of his fathers, that he will live and die as they lived and died.
For that, we their grandchildren must give thanks and bear testimony that God remembers and blesses his children. For Grandmother told me over and over it is to that I owe all the privileges I have so abundantly had. She seemed to feel a Catholic would never dare to join another Church, even if he should recognize its truth.
PARENTS, BROTHER, AND SISTERS OF SUSETTE STALE’
Susette Stale’ Cardon was the daughter of Jean Pierre Stale’ and Jeanne Marie Gaudin. He was born 25 December 1805, at Angrogne, Savoy, Italy, home of the Stale’s before they moved to Praraustin.
There are written documents still extant that contained the name Stale’ in 1232. One of the churches as well as one of their generals bore the name of Gaudin. Jean Pierre was the son of Jean and Magdaliene (Madaleine) Meille Stale’. He married first Marie Rivoire, daughter of Daniel Rivoire. Their baby girl was Mary Magdaliene, born 13 April 1833. Marie died the 25th day of that same month. I have been told that Marie Magdaliene was married when her father came to America; she was not with the family then.
Jean Pierre married second Susanne Gardiol, daughter of Jean Gardiol. To them a son was born 5 September 1835. He lived but 19 days; 16 days later Jean Pierre Stale was called to bury a second companion. On 11 May 1836, John Pierre married Jeanne Marie Gaudin, daughter of Barthelemy Gaudin, and Marie Roman, born 6 June 1811. Susette, their oldest child was born 12 Feb 1837 at Poiza, Angrogne, Italy. After the birth of her brother, Barthelemi Daniel, the family moved to Praraustin, Piedmont, Italy, where the two younger girls were born, Marie, 15 August 1844, and Marguerite, 28 October 1850.
HOME CONDITIONS
The Vaudois had constantly been subject to unjust taxation. They were allowed no titles to any land outside these narrow mountain valleys, which in some places are only a bow’s shot in breadth. They were not allowed to have a profession, or could they expect to have redress for any wrong or injustice heaped upon them, in fact they could not go to court. The soldiers of Rome were continually confiscating their property, destroying it, kidnapping their children, and molesting in other ways. They were unable to accumulate any riches. Nevertheless, each family owned their home and a small plot of land, so lived in independent poverty.
Jean Pierre had two places, one their winter home, and one a sunny southern slope of a beautiful valley, the other some distance away, straight up the rugged mountain side, where the soil was so thin, the family carried sod up in baskets when they took the sheep and goats up there in the summer time. They made the cheese and butter they sold there and stored it later for their own larder.
Susette spent much time caring for the animals. She loved the cows they owned. She also did much of the gardening.
Grandmother told us that while the lower place was warm in the summer, the winters were severe. Since it was customary among the peasantry of those countries to build stables either under or adjoining their living quarters, the Stale’s home was over their animal shelter, saving precious land space, also easier to guard the animals from thieves.
They lived mostly from the products from their small herds and lands. Grapes, figs, grains, and chestnuts were the main crops. Then there was the culture of silk worms. The value of the chestnut was almost inestimable; they ate then ground into meal, used the oil for butter, and burned it for light, the hulls were ground by hand for fuel and cattle feed in the winter.
HOME LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS
Wine was a common drink. The first day of the grape harvest, and crushing them was to start the wine presses, and was a gala fair day, was looked forward to from one season to the next. One of grandmother’s favorite memories was going down the mountain “to Italy where one nice Italiana” had a large vineyard. She worked for him. They picked the grapes, put them in a large cat, everyone danced on them in the bare feet during the day; at night they danced to string music, bu the firelight. It was with pleasure she recalled she was never without a partner, and although the “young Italiana” asked to marry her, she just could not leave her people. “I never lived to regret that” she would say.
I think she always had a longing for the good old bred she had as a child. It was sweeter and better than any in America. You may be sure it was also blacker, harder, and healthier. Made from rye and wheat flours by her father in quantities baked in a large oven two or three times a year. They washed their woolens once a year when the moon was right. The moon permitted them to wash other clothes more often, oh—every two or three months she said. One time in Old Mexico, when the moon was ready to have the woolens washed, she was ill, and forced to allow me to wash them for her, under her strict supervision. With the care and pains I had to take with time, I am sure the moon would have been right many more times than she gave it credit for.
SCHOOLS AND RELIGION
Schools, churches, meetings of any kind had been forbidden for the Vaudois. They had never been allowed to go to any university or study any profession. Their ministers and priests had to walk to Holland to study. It was almost impossible to preserve any records.
They managed to hold church and a sort of Sunday School. For that is where grandmother learned how to read. A provincial deit and dialect and French were generally spoken, and Italian was frequently understood. Grandmother explained, “I talka the Poddawah (Vaudois) I reada the French”. They read the Bible for a text-book, and she quoted long passages from it.
After she reached Salt Lake City, President Taylor gave her a French hymn book. When she was old she would sit in her chair and rock and sing from it, to our great delight, even if we did have to hide out to hear her.
She had a Book of Mormon, in French, which she said helped her to understand the bible so much better. Both of these books were written without the pages being numbered and no chapter heading. After about sixty years of constant service the backs wore out. One day she had the misfortune to drop them and the pages scattered. Clarence Cardon, a grandson while on a mission in France had taken great pleasure in sending her a new set in French. She appreciated it, but she never used it for she was no “comfortable” with it, so she gathered up the fallen yellowed pages from memory put them back in place and mother glued them for her. –Her constant companions until the day of her death.
BAPTISM
When the missionaries of the Latter-Day Saints church came to Prarustin she attended all their meetings. Opposition grew with the success of the elders. Susette and her companions kept themselves between a mob and the elders until they were able to slip away in the dark. The angered mob threw stones and bricks at them with threats of great violence.
The record of the Bethelemi Branch in Italy has it Jean Pierre Stale’ and his wife Marie were baptized and confirmed 25 Sept 1853. I have always understood Susette accepted the Gospel more readily than they did and was baptized earlier. The first baptism in the Valley was a Mr. Malan. We are descendants of the Malen family also.
THE TRIP TO AMERICA
In 1855, Franklin D. Richards and two other missionaries were hiding in the high mountain passes from an angry mob; had been without food for three days when they sought refuge at the Stale’ “mountain retreat”. Susette grabbed a vessel, ran out and milked a goat while her mother sat out cheese, butter and bread for them. When they were ready to leave, Elder Richards told the mother her family would go to Zion. She thanked him for his good will, she had no hope of such a thing. They couldn’t dispose of their property there was so much bitterness; their wheat had been stolen. It was decided Susette and her cousin Madeleine Gaudin should go. They said what they thought would be their last farewells and left for Liverpool where they were to embark for America. When the company was ready to sail, Elder Richards realized it would be the last opportunity for the Saints to leave Italy. He had the boat wait while he sent word to the Elders and Prarustin to send the family of the girl who milked the goat. He told them not to try to sell anything, just be ready to leave Turin for Liverpool, and Zion. They had about 60 hours. Grandmother said her father had to get the son Daniel released from the army and papers to they could leave. That took most of the time. They with nothing but what clothes weren’t waiting for the moon to be right for washing. These were left in the deep barrel where stored.
What suspense they must have endured, and what joy when they were united with Susette and Madeleine. To sail on the ship John J. Boyd, with about five hundred other saints from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, and their own Valleys, with Canute Peterson in charge. Their way was paid by the Perpetual emigration fund. 20 Nov 1855
Incidentally, immediately afterward the Italian mission was closed not to be opened for 40 years. How near we came not to be born in America the land of the free.
The John J. Boyd arrived in New York 15 Feb 1856. The saints traveled by rail to Chicago, from there to Saint Louis, next stop Florence, Nebraska. There they waited three months while the first handcarts were being completed. Jean Pierre Stale’ spent his time digging wells. The dampness caused him to suffer with rheumatism.
They were with the first handcart company when it left Iowa City to cross the plains. These handcarts were rather primitive in construction. The whole clumsy thing weighed about sixty pounds. The weather soon made the wheels rickety and they broke. Before reaching the Salt Lake Valley the teams for pulling provisions, and carrying the sick became weak from lack of food, and a sack of flour had to be added to each cart loads had to be lightened, possession and clothes were thrown away, until all they had was what they wore, they even slept in them. When they entered Salt Lake Valley, they had little more than when they entered the world. It didn’t help to see others of the company wearing what they had thrown away.
The greatest difficulty they encountered was from not being able to understand English or make themselves understood; that no doubt complicated the already unnecessary hardships that accompany every new undertaking. At times the water was scarce, and they dipped it out of buffalo tracks after a rain storm. Other times unusually long marches were made in search of water and fuel. When there was no expectation of finding wood, a sack was hung on the back of the cart for buffalo chips that were picked up along the way. Buffalo were plentiful in some parts; there was no ammunition to kill it so if they got one everything was utilized; even the hide was scraped and boiled.
DEATH OF JEAN PIERRE STALE’
Sleeping on the ground aggravated Jean Pierre’s rheumatism. He would get up early and walk around to get the stiffness out of his joints so he would be able to push the cart and keep up with the company. When food became scarce and was rationed Father Stale’ often added his share to that of his children, for he knew he would never live to reach Salt Lake Valley. He told Mother Stale’ not to worry, for she and the children would, then they would never want for the necessities of life, and food again, and Marguerite would be well fixed.
The day came when he was no longer able to walk; that night he had been taken “home” his body was wrapped in a sheet laid between two layers of sage brush. On the bank of the Platte River 17 Aug 1856, another unmarked grave on the plains was added to those of the noble people who gave their all that we their children might be heirs to the greatest of all life’s blessings, the Priesthood.
ON TO SALT LAKE
His forlorn family trudged on to the land of Zion with Susette and Daniel pulling the cart. The mother had been ill ever since they were on the boat. Sometimes Marie, eleven, would take Marguerite, five, on her back to rest her. Outside of that Marguerite walked all the way.
Grandmother said she heard people say that those who came with the handcart companies spent the evenings dancing around the campfires. She seemed to think that whoever said that was not on the trek. Campfires were few and far between. Buffalo chips do not make a fire, – they smolder; besides they were not waiting them. Their shoes were wore thin from many weary miles, they were hungry too. Many loved ones were buried along the trail. She saw no dancing, but times when they were not too tired, they did spend the evening in singing, teaching the Gospel, reminiscing, and praying. She loved “Come Come Ye Saints” and sang it both in French and English.
The first handcart company reached the Salt Lake Valley 26 Sept 1856. The widow Stale’ and her children, in a new country among strangers, with strange customs, language handicaps and faced with no means of resources. They were met by Philippe Cardon, and his son Paul, from their own Alpine Valleys, who had been there two years, living at Ogden.
NEW HOMES
Two days later, Mother Stale’, Daniel and Marguerite accompanied them to Ogden. Marguerite related that at “Bingham’s” Fort they dug a “dugout” to live in. the roof was made of willows with cattails on top, then dirt. The floor was covered with fresh straw every Saturday, when they could get it. There was no furniture; for a bed, forked sticks were put in the wall and floor, rushes were woven in between, and covered with straw. For seats, forked sticks were used the same way.
In the year following, “hard time” grain was plentiful in the fields. They gleaned enough for their winter’s bread. Marguerite gathered sunflowers, and lighted them one so her mother could see to spin and weave at night.
Two years later they went with the move south as far as Spanish Fork. On the way back, for they didn’t stay there, Mother Stale’ stopped at Kayville and gleaned wheat again, she milked in return for milk. Cold weather found them in Ogden again. A year or two later, they moved to Logan where the Cardons had already moved. Later Jeanne Marie Gaudin Stale’ married Philippe Cardon. Marie, the daughter had been taken into the home of Alfred Randell. She married Elihu Warren and was living in Ogden when her mother remarried. Marguerite went to live with her, and four years later she married Henry Barker, as her father had seen it, she did have plenty.
The brother Daniel’s wife and children were staunch church workers.
Susette found work as soon as she arrived in Salt Lake City, the family was so in need of clothes and everything else. The people who employed her may have been church members, but they did not live its teachings. They took advantage of her, not realizing her understanding of the English language was not as limited as her ability to speak it; fortunately for her they disclosed plans they hadn’t wanted her to know about, and she left them. The next place she worked she was treated right, so loved the people. Her trials seemed to make her religion dearer to her. My memory of her faith, and that of her parents have been needed at times to help me get over jolts to my faith in people, when Latter Day Saints forget and do things really contrary to the gospel teachings. Remember always the Gospel is true, no matter how people in the church do or act. We too are not always right.
MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN
At Logan in 1857, Susette Stale’ married Louis Philip Cardon, son of Philippe and Martha Marie Tourn, born 9 Mar 1832, at Prarustin, Piedmont, Italy. It was a plural marriage. He first married Sarah Wellington Hunt, who had no children of her own, and always felt that grandmother’s were as much hers as they were grandmother’s. Joseph Samuel was the eldest of the group, born 9 Jan 1858; Emanuel Philip was born 29 Jan 1859, at Ogden, Utah. Mary Catherine, called Katie, born 15 Apr 1861, at Logan, Utah; Louis Paul born 17 Mar 1868 at Oxford, Idaho. There was one other child Isabelle Susette born in October 1872 at Oxford; she lived only two years.
The family lived in Oxford until Louis Paul, my father was about two years old. The persecutions over plural marriage were so persistent Grandfather Cardon made a trip to Salt Lake City to ask advice of President Brigham Young. He told his family President Young rose from his chair, smote the palm of one hand with the doubled fist of the other and said, “Brother Cardon, it is time for the Saints to settle Arizona as I have been thinking about. Be here in a week with your wife and belongings; the company will be ready to leave.”
Again, in 1875 with almost no notice, grandmother, and her husband set forth into an unknown wilderness in the hopes of finding religious peace. They took provisions, farm machinery, and seeds in wagons drawn by both oxen and horses. Joseph, their eldest son left his family behind and accompanied them; they joined what is known as the George Lake Company, at Salt Lake City. The Colorado River was crossed at Lee’s Ferry where everyone, but the driver got out to walk up the hill famous for its tortuous boulder strewn dugway. Grandmother drove up the hill. It may be she was driving one of the ox teams, and could handle them better than grandfather for he was walking. He was of that noble, stern, and rugged school of men who considered babies and young children, some sort of little creatures not quite human, supposed to be handled by mothers and female attendants only.
Having never known him to hold his own babies, grandmother could hardly believe her eyes when she saw him take from its mothers arms the baby of Lot and Sr. Smith, whose prairie schooner was just in front of ours, to carry it up the hill. If getting the wagon up the dugway had not taken every ounce of her strength and skill she might have had time to resent it, as Lot Smith seems to have done. Perhaps he felt Grandfather should have been free to block the wheels or put a shoulder to them. When they reached the top OF THE HILL, Lot stopped for his wife, answered something she said in a booming voice “I am not responsible for Brother Cardon and his baby” and drove on, leaving Grandfather to climb awkwardly over the wheel of his own prairie schooner with the baby, and clumsy hold it until all out for the next dugway. “I never forget to laugh (to myself) about that”, she finished telling the incident. One of her most truthful statements.
HOMES IN ARIZONA
In Arizona, the company stopped at Lakes Camp on the Little Colorado, called Obed, a few miles south of Allen’s camp, now called Joe City. They cleared land and planted crops. Grandfather was a stone mason bricklayer for the company.
A stone wall was built around the town. Nice buildings were erected. One year later Joseph returned to Utah for the “family”, his own wife Selina, and child Verminnie, Auntie, or Grandma Sarah, as we children called her. Emanuel and his bride, Amelia Merrick, Catherine and Louis, two or three boys who went along to help Louis drive the cattle and all their earthly good in wagons. By the time they reached Obed, Grandfather had arrangements made to move to Woodruff, for Obed was too swampy for homes.
At Obed and Woodruff, they lived in the United Order. It called for faith and sacrifice from the Cardons, for they had ample supplies for two years; they had also had more cattle than anyone else. However, they were willing to shar with those less blessed who would have suffered without help.
After two years in Woodruff, the family moved to Taylor where they hoped to make a permanent home. Peace was not here for those of plural families. In the year 1885, President Taylor advised grandfather Cardon and Uncle Joseph to move to Old Mexico, where the government had no objection to that practice. Now the family was divided, Grandfather, Grandma Sarah, Joseph’s families, and Emanuel’s Family going to Mexico. Aunt Katie married Joseph Inkley Clawson, grandmother Susette and Louis remaining in Taylor.
Except for the two or three years she lived with her daughter Kate in Tucson, the rest of her life, grandmother either lived with, or in the same dooryard as her son Louis.
Eleven years later in 1896, Louis was called by President Woodruff to move his family to Colonia Dublan, Mexico, to teach in church school. Grandmother and Clawsons went with him. Another move for her religion. They arrived at Dublan, Chihuahua Mexico late August 1897.
A WORD ABOUT GRANDMOTHER HERSELF
From my earliest memory of grandmother to the last time I saw her she never seemed to age a day. She was not the type of grandmother whose lap you sat and leaned your head against her ample bosom and listened to her stories while you stuffed yourself sick on the cookies she baked for that purpose.
Her eyes were sparkling black; in her you her hair was a beautiful brown. She was small, weight not over a hundred pounds, not over five feet tall, in all the petti-skirts she wore. Her movements were quick, light and graceful. She had a keen sense of humor, a cheery disposition, was always energetic and industrious.
She took to Mexico almost enough clothes to be her life’s complete wardrobe. Some were the same she had when she moved to Arizona; they were still in excellent condition at the time of her death. I remember best three homespun woolen dresses, a bright dark blue, a magenta, (sort of red wine) and a forest green, each in about one third inch checks with black. She made them the same way she did most of the clothes for her children when they were young. By gleaning wool from bushes and fences after flocks of sheep brushed through them. She took her small children on these field trips. I think it would have just hurt her thrifty soul to see the wool go to waste. After cording it she would spin it into thread, dye it with indigo and dyes she made from roots and herbs native to the country and set with chamber lye. Their soap was made with wood ash lye. She exchanged spinning for weaving by someone who had a loom. For blankets she used a coarser thread. Some blankets she knit as she did their hose and stockings. I have a blanket she knit ash she did their hose and stockings. I have a blanked she decided needed cotton thread to give it “strength” so she unraveled the whole blanket, re-corded, res-pun and re-knit it with a fine silkateen. I saw her do it.
She had two fashionable winter dresses, made of very fine wool blue and wine they were, made in the style of the period before the gay nineties, as were all her dresses. Whenever there was a new one, it was made in the same period, if not the same style. From summer there it was a beautiful cream colored Challie printed with many colored pansies. The little bonnets she wore with them were what we call darling; usually a dainty shoulder shawl completed her dress. For ordinary war she wore black, somber, embossed sateen for summer; black wool crepe for winter, always with a long straight white apron with hand-made lace over the hem. The glimpse or wo I had of things in her trunk, I am sure grandmother used gayer colors in her yesteryear. She was never without a native Alpine headdress, or a kerchief to tie around her hair to keep it clean, for it was only laundered whine the moon was right. To shade her eyes? – A pioneer “sunbonetts”.
Grandmother promised me to the green homespun one because I chose that color, and the wine best dress the summer I carried so much water in five-gallon cans for her strawberries. They didn’t need it, but she wasn’t happy unless they had it, and I thought she was too old to do it herself. She didn’t forget her promise until very shortly before her death. Since she didn’t write she couldn’t put it down in writing. I was too naïve to see that she signed a will to that effect, so I didn’t get either one of them, until thirty-two years after her death. Isabelle read what I have just written an sent me the green one. She has one of the others.
After we left Mexico, and were living near Tucson, Arizona, how proud we were to take her to town on a window-shopping tour looking just like she had stepped out of a Currier and Ives print in her quaint clothes, and quite dignified bearing. She had no idea she was unusual and attracted attention wherever she went. People always turned to admire her. The comment was always “O” Isn’t she adorable? Where did she come from?” When the extent of ones shopping has been a small country store, Sears and Roebuch, or Montgomery Ward Catalogues, window shopping can be quite an exciting pastime, especially if there is nothing else in view. Grandmother enjoyed it as much as we did. We would never have taken her just one more time had she guessed we had her on parade.
HOMES IN MEXICO
The town of Dublan was blocked out the Mormon way, a mile square divided in blocks of ten acres each, minus a large street all the way around. Louis Paul and his sister Katie were happy to be able to purchase the block across the street, directly east of their brother Joseph. Once more the brothers and sister were in the same town. The father and Grandma Sarah made their home in Colonia Juarez until a year or so before their or his death they move to Dublan. Joseph built Grandma Sarah a home on his lot, but she didn’t care for Dublan, and moved back to Juarez to be by Joseph’s daughter Minnie. Grandfather Cardon died at his son Emanuel’s house 9 April 1911.
The Clauson house was built in the Northeast corner, the Cardon’s in the Northwest corner of the block they bought, with the Grandmother’s lot in between them on the same half as Louis’. Barn, stables, and orchards occupied the south half of the block, chicken runs in the middle.
Grandmother’s house consisted of two adobe rooms (large sun-dried blocks made of mud and straw) making a wall a foot deep, and another good-sized room made facing north. That was the most curiosity provoking room I was ever around, for she never asked us further in than just inside the door, even when she was using it as a summer kitchen. About two feet from the west wall hung an intriguing red print curtain, from the ceiling to the floor, hiding bumpy things. With the passing years a section at a time crept around the entire room. She could no longer use it as a simmer kitchen. We understood it was a store-room, but for what?
Strawberries were traditional. Grandmother without a strawberry patch was unthinkable. From the time she was married she planted strawberries, a source of revenue. In Mexico her patch was between her house and the fence. She wanted no gate in front of her house. The whole block was fenced, an old time custom. IN Idaho she had a strawberry parlor, where she sold them with sugar and cream, a forerunner to the ice-cram shop. She made “preserva” and dried them to sell, as well as for their own use, years they were plentiful, that is. During the United Order days in Arizona, she just had to hold back a few jars, and some of the dried ones as souvenirs. They traveled to Mexico along with her and some very sour dried blue plums.
She had to leave them when we came out of Mexico. Louis felt very sorry for her and offered to bury them so they would not fall into the hands of vandals. I am sure she must have prayed about it for she answered serenely “No, for they will not touch a thing I my house.” Nearly a year later when Elmer, one of her grandsons when back to gather up what he could of cows, horses, wagons, farm machinery, books and her things. He said he was sure the door had not been open form the time she closed it and walked away. He uncovered the secret behind the curtain. – Wheat cut wood paper, and cans, the things they were most in need of in crossing the plains, in the early pioneer days.
At the request of the University of Arizona Home Economics Department, Grandmother let them cook samples of her berries. They didn’t think fruit would be edible after forty years in countries as infested with moth as Mexico and Arizona are. A good sunning once or twice a year, with plenty of moth balls between sunnings does the trick. They were of good texture, and good flavored, with just a faint tinge of mothball, after a few days airing. Grandmother drowned that with cinnamon when she decided it was time to eat them during World War I. Then she said, “I fixa, I fixa, and I fussa and I fussa and to make for you pa to eat.” She is the only one ever to call him that. She joined him in the eating, a little item the older members of his family appreciated after one taste (after all, they were an oddity) and quite enjoyed watching him manfully swallow them, because he could not hurt her feelings by not eating them. Thirty years later Dora one of our little sisters at the time, said she envied them, for she was sure it was ambrosia, — food for the Gods – especially when by steamed bread. Grandmother let homemade bread dry out, then steamed it. Probably the nearest thing to that her father made in the Alpine home.
Butter and eggs were another source of income. She took care of and milked her own cow until she was seventy years of age, comparable with a person of ninety now. She made butter she sold at the store for cash, others traded theirs. Grandmother got cast for hers and her eggs. Her chickens were the cause of what friction there was between her and us children. Every afternoon at four o’clock she would turn her chickens out of their run, supposedly to pick weed greens. They were separated in groups and pastured in spots all over the place. She had them well trained for she was able to “spina” or knit while herding them in their allotted place.
It was fun to watch them during their training period with a long branch of cottonwood she beat along the ground around them. Before long she didn’t use it very often. We just couldn’t see any need for her to herd one bunch of them along under the shed, one side of the granary, where the carriage, wagon, farm machinery and mother’s setting hens in season were housed, and nearly always a bag of black walnuts we made a picnic every fall to gather every fall, our whole years supply. One of the corner rocks the granary set on was such a good cracking block, with a smaller rock for a hammer, and we used horseshoe nails for picks. One spent many an hour there. A rope fastened to a rafter made a swing, and every afternoon at four o’clock we went out to use it, and argued with her, there was no grass there for her chickens. She hadn’t let us play in the mornings because we were too close to her hen house, and “disturbad’” layers. The answer to that, they could “scratcha”. We were no little angels, and every once in a while, she had to resort to persuasion. It went thus “I’ll fixa you, I’ll maka one big confusiona. I’ll fixa you pa. I’ll make him move-a his kitchena off my land”. That did it. We cleared out but not so fast we couldn’t hear her point out just where the future fence between the places would be. Papa would not only have to move his kitchen, but his pantry, a bedroom, and two porches as well.
We couldn’t understand how he ever built on her land in the first place, were sure it would embarrass him if we asked so we never did, besides he might wonder what brought the subject up. We had to tell him that anyway, the time she was going to make him move it the next day.
That was the first time I remember he tying up the north gate. It had been left open. A stray calf got in her strawberries. From his hearty laugh we knew Papa had heard the whole thing. He told us she was old, not to annoy her or be rude, and we had better leave the gate tied, until she undid it for he had looked it over and was sure Houdini himself couldn’t have unraveled it. Her strings and wires were not to be cut, for she set a great store by them. After that it seemed like that gate was tied up half the time. It was half a block around the west gate. We were not forbidden to play under the shed, nor did he explain the land puzzle until years after her death. One day he remembered, and laughing about it, explained when they first divided the block she had chosen to have the long side of her lot along the north frontage. Part of his house stood on one end of that division, then before he was ready to build she wanted to trade places with him on part of her land, so the deep part of her lot would be in the center of the block, where people passing wouldn’t bother her chickens. A much nicer division; he had not realized it bothered us and it seemed a good way to keep us from being free with her.
SICKNESS AND OTHER ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS
The 24th of July was sacred to Grandmother. Our town staged its biggest celebration on that day, like the old fashioned Fourth of July in the States. Primary children always had a Pioneer Parade. To the delight of the children, Grandmother joined them to demonstrate how they pulled the carts across the plains.
I never knew her to be really ill, –upset a few days maybe. I understand that the last two or three years of her life she had spells of pain in her stomach, and for years cramps in her fingers, arms and legs, like old folks do who have done so much hard labor. My father and Aunt Katie teased her about the time she outrun the horses. I was never just sure where it happened, Idaho, maybe. It was during the time it was not uncommon for the saints to be baptized at the time they were administered for the healing of the sick Grandmother had an advanced case of erysipelas, was with several others down by the river for that purpose. It was a winter day, a fire was built, a carriage ready to take those baptized home. Grandmother had been ill for some time and needed help into the water. So those holding a blanket to wrap her in were not a little surprised when she passed them on a run down the street for home. The carriage was sent in pursuit, but it didn’t overtake her; when they reached her home, she was nearly dressed in dry clothes. She saw no reason for them to follow her. She had been baptized to be made well, and well people don’t need to ride. Through her faith and prayer, she had been completely cured.
My father had another remembrance of her. He had been forbidden to go swimming with the older boys but went anyway. The swim ended suddenly for this six-year-old when he saw his mother coming with a six- or eight-foot willow in her hand. He tried to get into his clothes as far as he could get before she reached him. He was pantless in his effort to outrun her home, he remembered he suffered from modesty, but he found it was not the same way he did, if he didn’t keep far enough ahead of the switch so that it would always land where he had been. He was sent to bed without supper. Before long she came carrying a large bowl of strawberries and cream. As a rule he didn’t get any that could be sold.
East of Dublan there were many acres of fertile land lying idle because there was no way to reach it with life-giving water. The colony planned to build a large canal that would take the water from the river in flood seasons, carry it to reservoirs to be stored and then used on these many acres. My father did all the surveying. Uncle Joseph was the chief engineer for the project. They were both stricken with typhoid when the construction of the canal was just going good. Uncle Joseph, unable to survive, died in our home, 28 Sept 1909. When Papa was able to work again, he took Joseph’s place as engineer of the project.
Dedication day came; everyone was in the procession formed at the church to walk the six miles to the reservoir where the ceremonies were to be held. The line of march was led by a band, the president, or manager of the project, the engineer (our father), then Aunt Katie, because Joseph’s mother was with her. She was driving her beautiful spirited buggy horse, with a brand-new buggy with a top. I was with her. Directly behind us was Uncle Joseph’s family. There were no cars down there as the road was only a wagon trail, some places through private pastures, or ranges. In one of these it was close to fence. Across the range was a man and woman from Colonia Juarez, in a surrey with a fringe on top, drawn by another spirited horse(?). We could tell the man was going to try to force his way into the column as close to the band as he could. My father called to Aunt Katie, “Because you are a woman that scoundrel will try to force himself in head of you but don’t let him!” The marshal of the day didn’t get there in time to prevent him crowding Aunt Katie’s horse into the fence. I tried to hold Grandmother for she was in the middle and had nothing to cling to; the jolt knocked her out of my hands to the ground between the wheels, landing on her head and shoulders. When she regained consciousness, she insisted on going on. She said she felt like she was going to Joseph’s funeral. She said he had given his life for the good of the community, and she wanted to be there to honor him, as she knew they intended to that day and they did. The man stayed also, but he was most unpopular.
In the summer of 1912 Mexico’s political unrest reached the Latter-Day Saint colonies. My sister Katie and I were home alone with Isabelle, our baby sister, one day when a neighbor boy rushed to the door to tell us the rebels were going through the people’s houses and stealing their guns. Katie and I gathered Papa’s guns up and poked them into the attic, through the manhole. To reach it we opened a door that came directly under it for it was in the upstairs hall ceiling. One steadied the door, the other climbed then to the top of the door and was handed the guns. From there she could poke them into the attic. I ran across the lot to tell Aunt Katie to hide theirs, almost as I ran out of the back door the rebels came through the front and held poor Katie at the point of the gun while they searched the house. No guns.
Next day it was discovered our town was covered on all sides by cannon as well as guns, and as well as being disarmed. By 4 p.m. word went out that woman and children would be evacuated. Everyone understood that we were to be at the train stop in front of “the store” at nine p.m., when a train was supposed to pick us up.
What a long night! A whole town of stunned people standing in a drizzling rain, with one trunk and a roll of bedding to a family. It was 4 a.m. before the train finally arrived. Susette’ Cardon with ninety-six others piled into a box-car already half filled with bedding rolls. I was glad Mother, who was helpless with asthma, and Grandmother who was 75, and others with afflictions and small babies had seats in front of the doors, for they could hang their feet down, while the rest of us sat flat on the floor.
Once again, on the shortest notice Susette’ left the comfort of her home, because of her religion; this time by train, even if it was a box car used for coal. We reached El Paso in the evening. Those good people and the soldiers of the United States Infantry fed us. We spent that night and several more in an empty lumber yard. We were grateful for the chicken wire enclosure that kept sensation-seekers from trampling in our beds as we lay on the floor or ground. Misplaced persons, -a name coined for such as we. Grandmother and Aunt Katie accepted invitations from relatives in Utah and went to visit them.
ARIZONA AGAIN
After leaving El Paso, we located near Tucson, Arizona, one of the oldest cities in America; there, grandmother joined us to live, as pioneers once again, but in the midst of civilization.
To men with large families, whose whole financial structure has slipped from under them with no fault of their own; of necessity have to start again in a new country with nothing besides their hands and stalwart faith. It meant living in tents, or tent houses. A tent house is a tent boarded up three feet, and it has one by twelve boards for a floor. Water for household use was carried in buckets for blocks. The plumbing was in the raw. The head, relentless from June to October, was not to be thought of or it was not to he bad. Even when we had a cook-stove, we preferred to make a bed of coals away from our tent-houses for summer meals, heating water to wash on a board, and the sad irons for ironing. Took less wood chopping, an advantage one didn’t overlook; men had little time for that, with the land to be cleared and broken for planting, growing seasons wait for no cause. Since this was the virgin land, or new land we encountered the same problems any pioneers had to conquer desert and establish farms and homes. Our land was on the bank of a picturesque river, dry except in flood season, when it was out of bounds, tumbling and pounding with such violence against its banks, acre s of land were cut away, to be swallowed by the rushing waters, until controlling walls were built.
Coyotes and skunks raided the chickens, rabbits the crops that were left after the battle with the insect pests, that were not always won by man. We set out hundreds of peach trees. In less than two weeks, ants had killed every one of them.
There was always a shortage of water. We no longer had any comfort from the thought Gila Monsters move so slowly even a small child could get away from them, after experiences with angry ones. No box, from bread to wood, was ever reached in to before making sure some happy little or big snake wasn’t curled up in it. We learned never to drop guard for centipedes, the most poisonous of these being the smaller varieties. The bigger ones were never measured unless they were over a foot, looking most repulsive. If when trying to get rid of one you happened to cut it in tow, one part always escaped while you made sure the cornered one would never move again. Many a small article found its way into a pack rats’ nest.
THE JOURNEY ENDS
Binghampton, about nine miles and now a part northeast of Tucson was a branch of the California mission. It is now a ward of the Southern Arizona Stake. Grandmother lived a mile and a half from the schoolhouse where we held our religious gatherings. Her granddaughter Katie’s home was near the school grandmother walked to Sunday School (our one mode of getting from place to another). After Sunday School was over, she went to Katie’s place to wait for 2 PM sacrament meeting. She would take an eighteen handkerchief from one of her hidden pockets, tuck it in front of her apron as she did a napkin then walk the floor until diner was served. Each time she was so surprised and thankful to them for asking her to eat. They never ceased to be amused when she would say,” I never think to eat here”.
One summer day in the shimmering heat the folks saw grandmother running madly around, leaping into the air, flailing it with her hands. Afraid of a heat stroke they ran out and gathered her in. She was exhausted. With wet packs on her head, she soon had the breath enough to tell them she never liked bees anyway, one stung her, but she had fixed him, for she had run him down and killed him. “But, Grandma”, one of her grandsons said, “It died when it stung you”. In a second, she burst out laughing, “You mean I get even two times?”
It was there on 19 July 1923, in her eighty-sixth year, she was visiting her grandchildren, laughing at the difference in dress styles and dances, when and when she was a girl. To their delight she demonstrated their dances until she was out of breath. A few moments rest and she started to leave. As she reached the door she swayed slightly. Willing hands caught her and helped her to a bed. Papa came after a little, but she seemed to be over whatever bothered her, so he went back to the field. Then a change came over her face. They couldn’t understand what she was saying. Papa came in again, but she didn’t recognize him. She was praying in French, her native language when the shadows of life’s evening closed, as she had each night before gone to rest. On the shortest notice of all she moved to her home in another world.
The cemetery. Of the Binghampton Branch, where Susette Stale’ Cardon is buried by the side of her three little grandsons, was the loneliest barren spot miles out in the foothills. A nostalgic feeling mingles with the sadness of parting, every time one thinks of a loved one being there.
Papa said it was easier to leave his babies there, with grandmother beside them.
Susette Stale’ Cardon’s family, the year 1955
| families | mgs | their Children | their grand | their great | &great great grandchildren |
| Joseph Samuel | 120 | 21 | 89 | 245 | 51 |
| Emanuel Philip | 52 | 5 | 39 | 104 | 38 |
| Louis Paul | 41 | 29 | 77 | 40 |
In a struggle to reclaim the desert not once, but three times, to pave the way that others might pass and live with greater ease, Susette had to master the language handicaps. I am not sure she ever held a leadership in any of the church auxiliaries. I do know she fulfilled every request made by the president and other church leaders.
“For all have not every gift given unto them. . . To some it is given by the Holy ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. . . To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful”. Doctrine and Covenants Section 46 verses 11-14
Her life was a living testimony, and example that she did believe the words spoken by the prophets and was faithful to the end of this mortal estate. May we, her descendants, pattern our lives to be like hers, for Susette Stale’ Cardon was our GRANDMOTHER.