Grade School Years: 1920-1924

September 8, 1920, page 8 of the Parowan Times: MM Decker and family have moved back to Parowan after having lived for nearly a year at Delta. Mr. Decker state that he liked Delta very well, but as his wife’s health was not so good there as in Parowan he deemed it wise to return.

September 9, 1920, classified ad in the Millard County Chronicle: FOR SALE—5-room house, with full city lot, bath room, all well plumbed; 1/4 interest in the best well in town. For further information, see M.M. Decker, Delta, Utah.

Gone were the 80 acres of land Mahonri had bought with such enthusiasm the previous November. Gone was the new home he built in Delta for his family. Gone was the new car. The Decker family arrived back in Parowan just one month after burying baby Homer. Instead of returning to their fine home with the stained glass windows and the wide veranda, they settled into the old Norris family home, now owned by Harriet’s sister Anna. Florence described it as a humble home, part log, with two bedrooms of concrete. Mahonri and Harriet and their five children settled into the four simple rooms and began to rebuild their lives.

Early School Years

On a Monday morning in late September 1920, the Decker children started school in the long, yellow school house. Florence and Woodrow would have lined up with the other elementary school children outside the west wing of the school in time for 9:00 a.m. classes, while Fae and Blanche attended the higher grades in the east wing. 1920 marked the first year that Parowan offered all twelve grades. Previously, once Parowan teenagers finished the tenth grade, they had to travel to one of the bigger towns like Cedar City if they wanted to complete high school.

Josephine Peterson taught the third grade class that year, and Florence once again joined her friend Lillian Adams in her studies. The old three-story school house remained just east of their building for a while. Though the old building was considered mostly unsafe, occasionally the students were allowed to rollerskate in the second story gymnasium.

Florence (undated)

In fourth grade, the girls had Mrs. Myrtle Brown for a teacher. Lillian remembers that year, particularly. Because of overcrowding, one row of desks in the fourth grade was reserved for students from another grade, and the fourth graders had the opportunity to join the other class in some of their work. Mrs. Brown taught them geography and the history of Utah, bringing in some of the older townsfolk to tell them about pioneering. Many of the students, like Florence, had pioneer grandparents, so the stories held particular fascination.

During the 1921-22 school year, the Iron County Irrigation Company hired skilled workers to help with a project to irrigate land west of the Parowan Gap. They were to cut a drainage canal from the south end of the Little Salt Lake through the Gap to the Mud Spring wash, draining the lake and then building a dam. It was a large project, requiring a substantial labor force. The men hired from out of town brought their families, and several of the new children joined the fourth grade class. Mrs. Brown urged her students to treat the newcomers well, and they eventually became good friends.

Back at home, Harriet’s health continued to decline. In late October, she traveled to California for a few weeks to see if a change in climate would help. She likely stayed with her sister, Anna Norris Willette, who lived in Los Angeles and ran a boarding house. By early December, Harriet felt much better and traveled back to Parowan, stopping in Caliente, Nevada to visit her brothers. Upon arriving home, she reported that she felt better than she had felt in six years. About this time, Florence’s half-brother Earl returned to Parowan after living in Payson for a year or two.

Occasions Both Momentous and Mundane

September 1922 found Florence in Miss Robinson’s fifth grade class. According to Lillian Adams, Miss Robinson introduced a series of contests and tests to encourage her students to read. Florence and Lillian always ranked among the best. Although the students gave Miss Robinson quite a hard time that year, for some reason she petitioned the board to let her continue on as their teacher for sixth grade.

Around this time Hilda Harwood returned to Parowan after living up north in Smithfield for a couple of years. Hilda’s mother, Nellie Harwood, died in November of 1921, just a year after the family had purchased a farm up north. The six Harwood children were distributed among relatives, and Hilda returned to Parowan to live with Bain and Libby Matheson. She and Florence quickly became friends (or perhaps resumed a previous friendship), a friendship that would last throughout their lives. They were part of a larger group of close girlfriends that included Lillian Adams, Georgia Jensen, Della Smith, and a handful of other girls.

Hilda’s daughter remembers that her mother used to tell stories of the long stockings the girls had to wear back in those early days. All the girls wore them, and they probably all hated them. In the winter, the stockings would be black wool, knitted from “Germantown” yarn ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue. The coming of spring brought a welcome change to cotton stockings in a lighter tan. In either case, the girls wore a complicated harness with garters to hold the stockings in place. Florence and Hilda used to walk to school together, and on spring mornings they would duck behind a lilac bush and roll down the long stockings before continuing on to class.

Florence’s fifth grade year brought both tragedy and joy to the Decker family. In the fall, Alvin’s wife, Natine, gave birth to their second son. When Udell was just six months old, Natine passed away. She had suffered from heart trouble for years, with bouts of serious illness, but she had always pulled through. This time her heart had had enough.

Just weeks later, on 31 May 1923, Florence’s half-sister Rachel married Woodruff Pendleton in the St. George temple and settled in Parowan. That July, as the town prepared for their annual 24th of July celebration, Earl surprised everyone by announcing that he believed he would get married before going to the canyon for the celebration the next day. Earl and his fiancé, Ethel Frisby of Payson, managed to secure a marriage license and were married later that day.

Decker Family, probably around 1923, Florence on bottom left.
Likely Virgil and Edith, with their boys, next to MM.

Summer 1923 brought another momentous occasion to southern Utah with the visit, in late June, by President Warren G. Harding and his wife. The railroad had just reached Cedar City, and the Harding entourage took a special train south from Salt Lake City. 6,000 people lined the streets of Cedar City as the Hardings motored on to Zion National Park. With the railroad finally connecting Southern Utah to the rest of the country, and with the highlight of President Harding’s visit, Zion National Park began to emerge as an attractive travel destination, and the national parks grew to prominence. Just five weeks later, on August 2, President Harding died mysteriously in his hotel room in San Francisco. (Oddly enough, the Parowan Times managed to report the president’s death in their August 1 edition.)

Sixth Grade (1923-24)

Life rolled along its usual course that sixth grade year. In October, Uncle Al and Uncle Clair visited from Nevada, always a treat for the Decker children. In November, Mahonri and his son-in-law Ancel left for Nevada to work on a new road being constructed there. This was one of a number of odd jobs Mahonri took through the years to make ends meet. Though he worked hard, he was never quite able to recover financially from the Delta disaster.

Early in 1924, nine-year old Woodrow was rushed to Cedar City for an appendix operation, and by March Harriet felt well enough to serve in the Primary organization. Earl and Ethel had their first baby, a girl, early in the summer. That July, Harriet threw Fae an eighteenth birthday party. Fae would graduate from high school soon, with Blanche just a year behind her. Florence was just about to move into the west wing of the school with the high school students, and in fact she and Fae both earned parts in the school play that December. Harriet’s girls were growing up.