HISTORY OF MARY CATHERINE BARTON IVIE
Written by:
Ida Belle Gledhill & Christensen Buchanan

Submitted by Brett Gledhill

Ancestors - Family Links

Aunt Ida Dix visited here during the last April and the first part of May 1960. I had her talk about her mother and this was what I was told.

Mary Katherine Barton Ivie was born 30 June 1837 in Northumberland County, PA. She was the first of eight children. She lived with her parents in Hancock County, ILL., and Pottowattamie, IN., on the trek to Utah with her pioneer parents as other children were born at these places where they stopped.

Her parents and family came to Utah in the second wagon train after the coming of Brigham Young. In 1847, October, I think, they settled in Bountiful, she was ten years old. Here she met John Lehi Ivie and on 16 May 1862 they were married in the Endowment House. Twelve children were born to them, Joseph Alma, Phoebe Ellen, Mary Susanna, Rosella Ann, John Lafayette, James Oscar, Lilly Belle, Catherine May, Seymour Cliff, Alden Salathiel, Ida Priscilla, and Ray Ivie. John Lehi Ivie was called to go to Mt. Pleasant to settle, and persuaded the Barton's to go too. They all built homes there. The Ivie home was a two-story house with a porch all along the front.

My father, Thomas Gledhill, used to say Grandmother Mary Katherine was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was refined, kind spoken, thrifty, and made a fine home. She had black curly hair, and laughing eyes. Aunt Ida told me she had met an old friend of her mothers in Bountiful, who said, "She was the prettiest, and the most popular girl in the crowd. She was loved by everyone who knew her. When she married we all hated to have her leave Bountiful."

Grandpa John Lehi was made a colonel in the Walker and Black Hawk Indian Wars. He was away much of the time, so she raised her family alone much of the time. Also he had another wife, Maretta Carter, and after the breakup between he and Maretta, he married Violet Gledhill, sister to my father Thomas. He was in Sevier much of his time and grandmother saw some really hard times there along with her family at Mt. Pleasant. Food was scarce and her family had to come to her rescue may times to keep them from starving.

She didn't ever whip her children, but her talks to them were punishment enough. One time, Aunt Ida took a dollar and ran off to school. Of course, she had many friends who could suggest ways to spend it. So they bought candy and sluffed school and went home late. Grandmother just talked to her and it was agreed that as punishment Ida was to sit in the high chair all day. She was to tell everyone who came in what she had done, and as she received any money, she paid ten cents of it until the dollar was paid back. But all of that didn't hurt like hurting her mother and knowing how bad her mother felt.

Mary Katherine lost two girls, Phoebe Ellen and Rosella Ann. They were buried in Ephraim Cemetery, so could have lived there for a long time. They lost the eldest child, a son, at Provo, he was just a few months old. Two later sons at Mt. Pleasant, Seymour Cliff was six years old when he died of dropsy. John Lafayette died at 20 years of age. When John Lafayette was 20 years of age, they had a good crop of grain and he was carrying large sacks of grain up a steep stair to put it in the loft. He became overbalanced and fell and injured his back on the steps. He suffered terribly, grandmother took him to a doctor in Salt Lake, but he died and was buried in Mt. Pleasant. She was just heartbroken

Grandmother was a nurse and midwife in her spare time. She treated the sick and set bones. She had many old pioneer remedies, salves and liniments. One salve was made of bees wax, sticky pine gum, and mutton tallow. One time she was making liniment on wash day, and the boiler boiled over and somehow her liniment caught fire. She burnt her hands badly. But instructed the children to grate up potatoes, put them in two salt sacks, then she put her hands in the sacks. It cured her. She had no blisters or trouble with them.

She carded wool, made lye soap and did much sewing. After she and grandfather separated, she did much sewing for a very wealthy woman, a Mrs. Lewis. She did much of her cooking in black iron pots, which hung in the fireplace that had to be whitewashed. That was Aunt Ida's job while she was in the Ivie home.

She knitted all the socks, caps and sweaters for the family. She could walk and go right on knitting. The socks for the girls were flowered patterns, white for summer, black for winter. Of course, they all wore long-legged underwear too.

Then trouble came to this couple. You see, grandfather had a business partner, Lime Peters, who lived much at their home even when grandfather was away. People talked, grandfather believed the gossip and so grandmother went away with Lime Peters, taking her four youngest children (May, Alden, Ida, and Ray) with her. Ida says she remembers grandmother telling her own mother, Grandma Barton, it was unfounded gossip. She and lime were married in Provo and went to Idaho to live. I guess divorce was a formality and not required in those days.

Lime, according to my father, was not a refined man. I doubt even a member of the church, and was a drinker. So with her refinement and ideals she must have had a bad, as he beat her and the children. He was often mean to them, but grandmother felt and was bound to him.

At some time in her life she lived in what is now Sun Valley. It was a big cattle ranch. They didn't own it though. Lime Peters managed it. Many men were working there at the time and grandmother took care of supplies and a Chinese cook, who died cooking. While Peters had all these vices, he wanted her and the children and held home in very strict circumstances.

She was very clean, and onetime hired a girl that brought them body lice. Grandmother worked very hard to get rid of them and felt so ashamed about having them around.
She had pierced ears and pierced all the ears of her girls. She heeded a needle and put linen thread in it and while the needle was hat put it through the ear lobe. Every day the string would be pulled a little, until the ears healed and left a hole for the earrings.

She was interested in mines and staked out many claims herself. One of her claims got jumped and it became the biggest mine in Idaho.

Aunt Ida hurt her leg and it got to be a very bad sore. Her mother healed it by using wagon grease on it, and while it was healing her mother pulled her in a wagon until her sore was gone.

When Aunt May was just past 14, a man named Solinder, almost Peters age and his friend, asked if she could go to visit the Catholic Church with him. Grandmother said yes, if Alden went along. But, they left Alden at the door and Solinder took Aunt May right up to the front and married to her. Uncle Alden ran home for grandmother, but by the time she got there they were on their horses and were gone, she was just past 14. She only lived with him a short time. She had Arther who lived, and twin boys who died by this man. Her husband drank, beat and choked her. Grandmother had to send money to feed them, and finally sent money for her to come home. Then grandmother built an extra room n the house for she and the child to live in.

Grandma had one other mining claim she expected much of. One August day she set out with a buyer for her mine. Uncle Ray was in the buckboard with her, with a horse tied behind, they went to inspect it and probably sell, if the price was offered. They went as far as they could in the buckboard, and got on horses. This was at Minamare Mt., Red Fish Lake. Something frightened the horse and thought grandmother was a good horsewoman she was thrown and her foot caught in the stirrup. She was drug along way, the horse kicking her in the head and chest, and bouncing her on the socks. She got loose, but was badly hurt. They got her to the buckboard and got her home. She was in great pain in the head and lungs. Her leg was twisted at the knee. She had no crutch, so she would put her leg on a chair and would drag the chair about. In October, she went back to bed and never got up again. Death came December 24, 1888.

A fine article was written about her life in the Deseret News. It told of her devotion to family and nurse for the community. Her friends were the influential people of the town, the banker, the hotel owner, etc. hr body was sent to Mt. Pleasant for burial. She was dressed in black, which hurt my mother very much.

After the funeral, Uncle Ray and Aunt Ida sat on the doorstep wondering and crying who would take care of them. Now Aunt May had married a man named Pierce and was living in Salt Lake. Uncle Alden wanted to stay there and work in the mine. He did and forgot some of his mothers teachings, and took up the bad habit of smoking. However, before his death he warned his family against it and getting lungs like his. Uncle Ray and Aunt Ida came back to their father's home in Sevier in Mt. Pleasant. Where in a few years Ida got courted by Eddie Gottfredson before the big fireplace she had always had to whitewash. Later she went to Salt Lake with Aunt May and still later to Idaho with her brothers, where she met Tom Stanford whom she married.

Later Aunt May married another man but he was the same kind, a drunkard. They lived in Salt Lake, his name was Pierce. She had three children. She couldn't stand the life and left him and went to live with her brothers, Alden and Ray at East Fork. Later they came in to Carey and lived in the Everett Dix home. Where May married Ernest Gile. She lived happily with him and raised her son Arther. Gile was captain in World War I, but was never heard from after the war was over. She died of cancer to the liver, brought on, by a bruise made by the horn of a saddle when her horse reared.

She was born with a broken blood vessel in her neck which spread to hair and tongue, but this left when she died. She was buried in black lace with a pink plume over her head and neck and covering the blood vessels.

When the four came to Carey to live, two brothers and two sisters, the boys had one pair of nice shoes between them so they would take sisters to the dance and would divide time and shoes between them.

My brother Alden's wife Eva says she remembers mother saying Grandmother died of typhoid and how bad she wanted to go to her, but didn't have the money, and there was a new baby, Alden. She said mother couldn't even talk about Grandmother without tears, so the subject was avoided. This is the reason, I guess, why we know so little of her. Aunt Ida was there so I think she knew about her mother