STEELE, Arthello Mahonri-[76] ^{2 3 4 5}

   Ancestral File Number: 71NC-3D.

   General Notes:

LIFE OF ARTHELLO MAHONRI STEELE
Written by himself for the book, “Memoirs of Mahonri Moriancumer Steele, Jr.”

Today is March 10, 1963. I have been asked to make a record of where I have lived and what I have done and a few things of interest in my life. Delbert’s wife Lois has consented to type this for me if I will put it on my tape recorder. It seems as though they want to put something in a book and they would like to have something from me. I don’t know what I could do or say to add to a book that has been written, but anyway I shall try and say a few things while I sit this beautiful Sabbath Day waiting for the time to pass so that I can attend our Stake Sunday School Preparation meeting over at the Stake House here in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

I was born September 8, 1908 in Panguitch, Garfield County, Utah. I was the eighth child born to Mahonri Moriancumer Steele and Charlotte LeFevre. I was their fourth boy and was given the name of Arthello Mahonri Steele. I have three sisters younger than myself, making a total of eleven children in the family.

When I was about a year old, the family moved to Junction, Utah, Circleville, Utah, Beaver, Utah, and then on to Delta, Utah. My first recollection of life was when we moved to Delta, being in the neighborhood of four years old. The few things that went on in Delta, but not too much. I remember when we moved to the ranch out in Sutherland, Utah. We lived in a little old tar-paper shack, two rooms, and we had to keep high boards on the doors to keep the pigs from coming in. We had quite a lot of pigs out on the ranch to take care of the rattle snakes. My younger life was spent on this ranch, and it was indeed a wonderful experience. Before I was too old, the older girls, Fern and Abbie were married and my older brother was married. My oldest sister and brother have children almost the same age as me but not quite. So you see, I was kinda the tale-end of a big family, although I do have three sisters younger than I. It made me living at home with five girls and me being the only boy at home most of the time, I was pampered quite a bit.

We went to school in Sutherland to the eighth grade and then when I got out of the eighth grade, Dad moved over to Delta to take care of the family store, so naturally we moved over with him to go to school there in Delta. I attended the Delta High School, needless to say I did not graduate from high school. I went there the biggest part of three years. When I became too smart for the teachers, I decided that it was time I left school.

In the meantime, Dad was a mining down around Kanosh, Utah. He had a little mine down there which we called the MM Lead. We thought the sun rose and set in the mine, and we were going to make everybody rich. We spent a lot of time down there. It was while working at this mine that my sister Faymetta met and married Sheridon Prows of Kanosh, Utah. It was while at the reception that I met my wife-to-be, Eva Lois Ahlstrom, daughter of Charles Delbert Ahlstrom and Sariah Campbell Ahlstrom of Kanosh, Utah. I had the privilege of making her acquaintance and associating with her for several years before I talked her into accepting the privilege of being my wife, which I am sure as no privilege. We were married September 12, 1928 in the Manti Temple, Manti, Utah.

Our early married life was spent in dire circumstances. Money was very hard to come by, and we got by with very little necessities of life. In our first year of marriage, we lived in Ely, Nevada, where we operated a service station. We were out there for about eight months. My wife returned to Delta, Utah where our first child, a son, was born June 17, 1929. We named him Delbert Mahonri Steele, named for his two grandpas. He was a beautiful baby, and we were surely proud of him. Today he is married to Lois Elaine Walker and residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. They were married June 1, 1956 in the Salt Lake Temple. They have blessed us with three beautiful grandchildren, Delbert Mahonri Steele, Jr., age 5, David Walker Steele, age 4, and Lynette Steele, age 1. Delbert is employed as a structural draftsman at Sperry Utah Company, the firm that makes the Sergeant Missile. He served four years in the United States Marine Corps after graduation from high school and was wounded in the Korean War. We were very grateful for his return home to us from that war.

While Delbert was a baby, I worked hauling ore out of the Drum Mountains and hauling sheep to the desert for the sheep herde4rs. In the winter time I worked as an all-around handyman with Uncle John and his trucks, and we made a bare existence.

Shirlene, our first daughter, was born in Delta, September 23, 1930. It was really a rainy time of the year when she was born, and mud was knee deep to a tall squaw up in the Delta Country at that time. Everything went along fine, and when she was about a year old, we moved to Kanosh, Utah. Shirlene is married to Willis LaVerne Sergent. They were married October 17, 1953 at Hamilton Field, San Rafael, California. They are now residing in San Francisco, California. Shirlene spent two years in the Air Force, and it was while in the Air Force that she met her husband. Vern is now making the Navy his career. They have had six children, but misfortune has not always smiled upon them and they have lost a son and two daughters at childbirth. They have three beautiful daughters living, Lois Leile, age 8, Debra Susan, Age 5, and Patti Ann born February 18, 1963.

I worked around Kanosh there at odd jobs,. That was the town where Eva’s folks lived. I went to California and picked walnuts one fall with Louie Jorgenson from Delta, Utah. When Dad got a lese on a mine down at Delamar, Nevada, we decided to go down there to live. Delamar was a ghost town, one of the old St. George widow-maker mining towns. The arsenic dust caused the miners’ death, thus causing a lot of widows in St. George, Utah. We moved down to Delamar in 1934, taking my family down there with me. We had an old rock house. It had a board roof and we had dirt on top of that. We did have a board floor, but the cracks were quite wide in it, but it wasn’t too bad, kinda inconvenient. We had to haul all of our water from downtown. That was the year we bought our first washing machine. It was a Sears and Roebuck washing machine with a gasoline motor on it, and I guess that we did more washings for the people of the town than we did for ourselves. That was a wonderful invention. Up until that time Eva had been doing all the washing of the clothes on the scrub board, and that was no picnic.

While living in Delamar, Nevada, our twins were born January 8, 1935–Arthello Ahlstrom Steele and our second infant daughter, which we did not get a chance to raise. We were very fortunate in saving Arthello, as they were both very small, and we had a very crude way of taking care of the youngsters in those days. No oxygen tents like they do nowadays. Arthello is married to Judith Ann Clemens of Tucson, Arizona. They were wed November 15, 1948 at Tucson, Arizona while he was stationed there in the Air Force. He is making a career of the Air Force. He has spent most of his time in Tucson, except for a year in Greenland. He is now stationed in Turkey and has been there over a year now. His family is with him. They have two daughters, Debra Sue, age 3, Lisa Kay, age 1, and they are expecting their third child at any time. We have been expecting any day to hear from them, and I have an idea that it shall be another girl. We have just received word that another daughter was born to them on the 14th day of March, and they shall name her Pamela.

We leased there in Delamar for a year or two while I was mining. In the later part of the second year, I went to work for the Delamar Cyanide Company which built a bit six-hundred-ton-a-day mill there. We worked the tilling dumps of the old Delamar, Nevada Mine, but in due course of time, my restless nature that I seem to have got the best of me, and we decided to move on. Dad had gotten another lease on a mine up at Gold Springs, Utah, so I decided that the grass would be greener up there, so we moved to Gold Springs, Utah. We worked at the Gold Springs for a couple of years. During the winter months we lived in Kanosh, Utah in order that Delbert could attend school. While in Kanosh our third daughter arrived on the 12th day of January 1936. We named her Lois. She married Larry LaRue Jardine on September 29, 1960 in Pleasant Grove Third Ward, Pleasant Grove, Utah. They are now residing in Logan, Utah. They have no children.

From Gold Springs, Utah we moved to Modena, Utah where we bought a home so that the children could attend school. It was while living in Modena that our third son was born to us on September 26, 1937 and died September 27, 1937. I was home with father at the time who was not expected to live, and Eva had a mishap, and they had to rush her to Cedar City, Utah and operate on her and the boy was born. He lived for a few hours. So there you have the six children that were born to us. We are very grateful for all of our children.

In 1941 the World War II broke out, and I came up here to the northern part of Utah looking for work and landed a job up here at what they called the Bit Springs Farm northeast of the town of Pleasant Grove. The family moved up, and we worked on that farm for three or four years. Then I went to work for the Walker Construction Company of Pleasant Grove, Utah where I have worked from then until now. As of tomorrow morning, March 11th, I am starting to work for the City of Pleasant Grove as superintendent of the Water Department, which has been quite a decision to make; to know whether to give up 15 years of labor for someone else and to start a new job, but as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So we are going to try it out. I can always go back to my old job and work if I want to.

So, that is about the extent of my life up to this point. I hope that this will in some way enlighten you on a few things that I have done in my life.

In regards to the church positions that I have held in my life: I have been in the Elder’s Quorum presidency in the Ely Ward in Nevada. I have been in the Elder’s Quorum Presidency here in the Third Ward of Pleasant Grove, Utah. I have been in the 44th Quorum of Seventies Presidency here in Pleasant Grove of the Timpanogos Stake. I have worked as the second and first assistants and then as superintendent of the Pleasant Grove Third Ward Sunday School. I have served as second assistant and now at the present time as first assistant in the Stake Sunday School of the Timpanogos Stake.

   Research Notes:

1908 BIRTH: UT, Garfield, Panguitch. Panguitch Ward record, FHL film 026392: 8 Sep 1908, Panguitch.

1917 BAPTISM: UT, Millard, Sutherland. Sutherland Ward record, FHL film 6525: 4 Aug 1917.

1928 MARRIAGE: UT, Sanpete, Manti. Manti Temple records: 12 Sep 1928. [License, Fillmore, Millard, Utah.]

1928 SEALING_SPOUSE: UT, Sanpte, Manti. Manti Temple records: 12 Sep 1928.

1986 DEATH: UT, Utah, American Fork. Died at American Fork Hospital.

1986 BURIAL: UT, Utah, Pleasant Grove. Pleasant Grove City Cemetery.

Arthello married Eva AHLSTROM-[87] [MRIN:44], daughter of Charles Delbert AHLSTROM-[2965] and Sariah Elizabeth CAMPBELL-[2966], on 12 Sep 1928 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah, USA.¹ (Eva AHLSTROM-[87] was born on 5 Feb 1910 in Henrieville, Garfield, Utah, USA, died on 29 Nov 1989 and was buried in Pleasant Grove, Utah, Utah, USA.)