SEVEY, Margaret

1919 - 1999  (79 years)  Submit Photo / Document

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• Name	SEVEY, Margaret
  Birth	19 Sep 1919	Gilbert, Maricopa, Arizona, United States
  Gender	Female
  WAC	3 Jun 1937	SLAKE
  _TAG	Reviewed on FS
  Death	30 Mar 1999	King City, Monterey, California, United States
  Burial	Apr 1999	Patterson Cemetery, Stanislaus, California, United States
  Headstones	Submit Headstone Photo
  Person ID	I64182	Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith
  Last Modified	19 Aug 2021

  
  

  Family ID

  F30618

  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	ANDERSEN, René ,   b. 18 Mar 1915, Overton, Clark, Nevada, United States Overton, Clark, Nevada, United Statesd. 14 Dec 1982, Gustine, Merced, California, United States (Age 67 years)
  Marriage	3 Jun 1937	Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
  Family ID	F21093	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	24 Jan 2022

  
  

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  Margaret Sevey Andersen Mother of Margaret Ann Andersen Wilcox Your great-grandmother Margaret insisted on being called Grandma Great!! Three things stand out in my mind about my mother. #1. SENSE OF HUMOR She was over-flowing with this gift. She made everything fun and caused people to feel uplifted by all her antics AND brought laughter! Apparently, her grandmother (Margaret Nebraska Imlay) was very much the same. There are so many stories about the humor she shared. Believe me….there were many times during hard difficult years that her humor was needed to buoy Dad up and keep our family from being weighed down. How many mothers build a rock fire pit so we could cook “outdoors” during the summer, sit around the fire and talk then sleep under the stars after all of us had worked out in the field all day? For years, mom worked side by side with dad out in the fields all day and then come home to do all the household chores. Sing! She had a song for every topic. While dressing her for her funeral, my sister-in-law and her friend did something that made them feel apologetic but Teresa heard mom chuckle and say, “That’s OK Teresa”. Walking out to the car afterward, Teresa’s friend say, “I heard Margaret chuckle….almost laugh.” So they both heard mom using her sense of humor again. I am sure she keeps things going where she is now. #2. CREATIVENESS We lived in some pretty crumby places for several years….in a barn, in a garage house, and in a building that had once been a chicken coop. I was a sophomore in high school before we lived in a real house. Did we feel ashamed or embarrassed or feel like we were very poor? Not one minute. Mom made every place we lived in a HOME. How she did it and how she created such a homey environment is a wonder. She was one of those people that could take nothing and make something out of it. Family members loved coming to her home because it was so comfortable and inviting….nothing outstanding….just homey. One thing that made her homes so unique was her hand painted china. She took lessons and did beautiful work which she put on display in our bookcases. I loved her painting talent. #3. FAITH Mom was just as generous as Dad in her own way. She gave her all to the church and her callings. In her patriarchal blessing, she was told she was blessed with extra energy. She needed it!!!!! We traveled to Turlock for every church meeting (25 miles one way) which meant miles and miles each week. After I left home to be married, a little branch was begun in the farming community where they lived. Dad traded in their cars every year to 18 months because mom put so many miles on the cars doing church work for that little branch. She and two of her friends kept that little branch of 25 people going for 25 years while it grew to 150 members…enough to become an independent branch. That little branch became a ward and then two wards and a branch. I do not specifically remember Mom bearing her testimony in words (except in talks) but her life was her testimony…..giving so much of her time, talents and…. Dad’s means. Margaret Sevey *additions by Edward Andersen Gilbert, Arizona Our family, a few years before my birth, had come out of Old Mexico (1912) leaving everything they had. The family then consisted of Mother and Daddy, Maude 10 years, Francis 8 years, Millard 6 years, and Lucille 4 years. They left Gay who would have been 2, but she had died of scarlet fever and was buried there in Old Mexico. Mother was expecting Minerva who was born soon after their arrival. Mother helped clear the land of desert trees and shrubs and they organized the first branch at Jaures, just out of Tucson, Arizona. I was named in honor of my Grandmother Sevey, Margaret Nebraska Imlay, who was born on the plains of Nebraska as her parents pioneered their way to Salt Lake Valley in 1853. I grew up very proud of the name, Margaret, but smiling about the “Nebraska” part and glad that part was left off for me. Now, however, I am exceptionally pleased to have this name and I dearly wish I had the “Nebraska” also. When mother took me places, she pushed me in a little cart like a little seat on 2 wheels. One day, she took me to Relief Society which was held in a small building with screened windows with large awnings. During the work period, I went out and pushed out the pole holding the awnings up. They fell, leaving the room in darkness. A lady came out and guided me into the building by my shoulders. I was embarrassed and wanted to sit on my mother’s lap. I headed out for her but got tangled up in a lady’s yarn and strung it out across the room. I was steered away from that and I hurried to mother and climbed on her lap, only to learn I was on another lady’s lap. My poor mother must have been mortified. On the 19th day of the 9th month in the year 1919, our sister Maude had a special date. I ruined it! Mother, realizing that she was about to give birth to her 9th child, kept Maude home to help out. Mother had given birth to 6 children before she knew what it was to have an anesthetic. I was the third child born to her with this aid, and it must have been a miracle to mother for this anesthetic because there were 12 pounds of me! She and Dad were surprised to get a blond child. All of the others were brunettes. Mother told me I was a very happy child and it is plain to see why. I had come into a family who loved each other, whose parents had great respect for each other and the children for them. We had the gospel in our home. How could I have been anything less? Of the days in Gilbert, I have very few memories: a canal with a grove on the other side, where the older kids went swimming (but I wasn’t allowed to go alone); a watermelon patch; one of my brothers or sisters had a scooter or something similar because I remember taking someone’s chalk doll with feather skirt and fan (won at a fair) for a ride on the scooter and breaking the doll, of course; baths in a tin tub. Because of my blond hair, I’m told I was called the “pongee-haired baby”. Phyllis was called “Ninita Bonita Chiquita” or something on that order, by a Mexican woman who admired and kisser her profusely. We moved to Santa Monica [California] in May 1923. Phyllis and I went by train with Maude and I recall her waking me to show me the Colorado River when we crossed it. Later in life I was always so positive that I had crossed the Mississippi till I learned a little “Joggerfy”. I was lonesome for the rest of the family and always asked when they would come. Our house was just a few blocks from the beach. When the family arrived, they went straight to the ocean and got out and ran in the water. Maude had big bowls of strawberries prepared for everyone. I was constantly amazed at the way Maude was a second mother to us. It was quite an experience for the school kids in our family to transfer from a tiny school in Gilbert to a huge one in Santa Monica. After a few months in Santa Monica we moved to Wilmar. My memories there include a smoke house or store room; a talk of bananas hanging in there; a tent room for a bedroom, which burned down; a cesspool being dug; Aunt Alta [Richardson] and Uncle Earl [John Earl Heder] living down the street; picking up walnuts, putting old stockings on our hands and peeling off the hulls and drying them on the roof; starting school there; the woman next door who always had cookies and set them on the bed to cool; I went to kindergarten and first grade there. It was while we lived there or in Ocean Park [Cal.] that mother gave birth to a stillborn child and I think maybe she was not expected to live because I was taken to her room and the door was opened and I was permitted to look in at her. OH, our dear sweet mother! One experience I haven’t forgotten was when I went to town with mother and Maude. We were shopping and apparently I was pretty naughty, because they walked off and left me there on the sidewalk. They went up about 2 stores and went in to wait to see what I would do. Of course, I cried and soon two ladies with huge broad rimmed hats were leaning over me and I felt completely overpowered. As they were trying to find out why I was there alone, I saw mother and Maude peek around the corner of the store. I must have learned a lesson because I never forgot about it. Mother was about to have a baby and we, that is the older family members, didn’t expect her to pull through. We younger ones didn’t know she was even expecting. It was never discussed at all. One night Daddy took me to see her. I think maybe some of us were “farmed out” and staying with someone else for a few days because I kept asking to see mother so Daddy took me there in a car. He opened the door and just let me look. Mother was sitting in a chair gasping for breath. I’m sure they didn’t expect her to last much longer. She finally had the baby boy but it was stillborn. Wilmar & Alhambra Daddy’s work was mostly in the Alhambra, Monterey Park, and El Monte area. Mother needed to get away form the sea air because of asthma, so we moved to Wilmar. We bought a lot in a walnut grove and the men folks built a small home with a living room, 2 bedrooms, kitchen-dinning room and bathroom. In back there was a tent bedroom. It had floors and walls of lumber and top half of canvas. Also there was a shed and a store room. A stem of bananas hung there. The kitchen, being rather small could not seat all of us at the table at once so we children did what was always done in those days under those circumstances. We always waited for “second table”. In the kitchen the cupboards were open shelves covered with curtains. I always use to get myself under those curtains, thinking I was hidden from those who would “tattle” and eat a spoonful of sugar. One day, mother walked in as I was doing it and it startled me so the I jerked and flipped the sugar bowl across the kitchen. That ended that! Phyllis, Eileen, and I used to go into the tent bedroom and romp on the beds and use the bedsteads for “tricky bars”. We had many games and tricks to play. I just can’t imagine now, how Maude and Lucille stood it. Also, when the cesspool was being dug, we kids, of course, thought it was a game and we used to let each down to the bottom in a bucket, like the old fashioned water well. I could never go down after I saw a frog at the bottom. When walnuts were ready, we would put them on the roof and there was a car port which was flat also. We put old stockings on our hands and arms and hulled the nuts. Uncle Earl and Aunt Alta lived down the street and all of their kids and all of us played all of those wonderful games: Washington Poke, hide and seek, here comes a Duke Riding, kick the can, tag, and etc. They were in the process o f building their home and lived in part of it. There was a big pile of lumber to be used and Phyllis and I and Verona climbed on it and made the whole thing fall over. We sneaked off and didn’t admit to doing it. To this day, the words “Lumber Pile” makes me feel guilty. The tent room where the girls slept in burned down one night and it was terrifying. Ruthie was born there and she was the doll of the family. We all enjoyed her so much. She was the last baby. The older kids were going to Garvey School and I longed to go too. One day Minerva and one of our cousins took me with them. It was so fun and glamorous. One of them gave me a “pink pearl” eraser to chew! I thought chewing erasers was part of the curriculum and didn’t think too much of that part. When I finally did start school, I just loved everything about it. Kindergarten was neat and first grade was super. Of course, I was the smartest one! We learned to do the Maypole dance and wore wreaths of real flowers on our heads. It was so beautiful. Then one day the older kids told of a student braking his arm on the play ground. I ran back to school and searched and searched for the arm. Whenever mother made a cake, she would always put 2 or 3 spoons full of batter into a pan and bake it to “try” the oven. Since there wasn’t a thermostat or control and it was heated with wood, she had to test the oven this way. Then we all quarreled about who cold have the “Try” cake and who licked the bowl. When I was in first grade, we had some sort of class in a small building across the street from the school. It was my cousin Verona who had her class there and I went there to meet her after school and there were some lunches there so we each took one and ate on the way home. Now my sins were piling up. First a broken doll in Gilbert, then the sugar bowl, the lumber pile, and now the stolen lunch. Whenever any of us needed a spanking, mother sent us out to get our own switch and then she gave us some “Willow Tea” on our legs. One day, Junius went after his willow and came in with a “log”. Mother laughed so, she gave up spanking him. When we used language we shouldn’t mother would wash our mouth out with soap. I think the last time I said a bad word was when we three girls were picking up nails and I was poked and used the word, “Damn” and of course, the others hurried in to “Tell” and I was made to wash my own mouth out. At this time, there was just one stake in the Los Angeles area. Our older brothers and sisters had wonderful and exciting times with their church activities. Eileen was confirmed in the Alhambra Ward by Glen Wilcox, who in later years lived in Baldwin Park Ward. Margaret Ann married his son. I think we moved to Bowie [Arizona] from there and I remember the instant we got out of the car, Phyllis walked into a sand-burr patch. I went to 2nd grade there. Mostly I remember the carbide tanks for gas lights, ironing with [cast iron] irons that were heated on the stove; picking poppies on the desert; kerosene lamps and the older girls marcelling their hair; heating the curling irons in the chimney lamps; the railroad “speeder” or whatever it was in our back yard where we sat and cracked and ate black walnuts; the evening meals of milk and bread; the sliding cellar door; the tin roof; Aunt Nelle [Nelle Jane Sevey] and Aunt Lola [Lola Myrl Sevey]; the empty houses and stores where we played. I remember the beautiful clothes and hairdos for Easter from Maude and Lucille; going to church once in a while in Safford [Arizona] and in the meantime attending the Methodist Sunday School and singing “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”; buying a new hat in exchange for butter. Also, taking eggs to Mrs. Grusendorf for 3Ë worth of candy; the Chautauqua; the time Junius had an airplane ride. We all really felt he was surely a man of the world; the job Junius had at the theater, going through town calling, “Tonight at the Bowie Theater…”! Our move to Salt Lake City from Bowie started a new sort of life. There were ten of us in the car. The top of the car and one running board and fender was loaded with stuff. We had a family meeting when we all decided to each be the very best we could on the whole trip. We really did live up to it. The day we drove into town we passed the 21st Ward Chapel and a group of children were sitting out on the lawn around a teacher and we asked a mother about them and she told us about primary. We had lived long distances from church before, but now we were across the street and our lives became church centered. The first two years in Salt Lake I remember mostly the snow; Eileen having polio; Francis returning from his mission; and washing dishes. Of course I did more than all the rest put together; at least it seemed like it. I attended 3rd grade here at Longfellow School, and we moved up the street where I attended 4th and 5th grades at Wasatch. It was here I learned a lesson from Mother that I’ve always been grateful for. She sent me to the grocery store down the alley, called the “Table Supply” with $1 to get a box of matches, which were 5Ë. I was given $4.95 change and I was overjoyed at the stroke of good fortune. We were so very hard up and I thought of all the things it would buy and how grateful mother would be and I burst in to tell the great news! She looked at me with a stark expression and said, “March! March right back with the $4 and explain what happened!” I was crestfallen on the way over but coming back I felt so thankful and good and I had a deeper respect for an honest mother. I remember the cold, the scarcity of food at times, and the need for clothes. But the Christmases were special. The red and green round windows with Santa Claus and his reindeer that Lucille and Minerva cut out and put there. This is where the family was all together for the last time in many years. I remember family prayers and singing hymns together to begin the day. I remember Amos and Andy, Myrt and Marge, and how mother enjoyed them on the radio. Phyllis and I slid down a rope from the upstairs porch and go bad rope burns on our hands. We had wonderful family experiences. Picnics up the canyons, driving to Huntsville to see mother’s hometown and sometimes eating our dinner outside under the pear tree. But our favorite diversion was going for a ride in the evening. Daddy always said mother was a “buggy rider” and I guess we inherited her love of it. On rare occasions we went to Kelley’s for an ice cream cone, a great treat for us. I’ll always be grateful that Lucille and Maude took mother for a last “buggy ride” just before she went into a coma during her last illness. We moved to a different house and I attended Emerson School and Emerson Ward. I loved both and had dear friends who I have to this day. I did well in Bee Hive work and was honored. Times were hard and Daddy and Mother did all they could for us, but we were many and dollars were few, but we kids were happy. We had a loving home, good friends and our church activities. I also attended 2 years of high school here. I worked after school and on Saturdays as mother’s helper for $1 a week and I thought that was pretty neat. I spent the next two years in Southern California staying with Maude to help with her children and it turned out to be the other way around. They helped me to mature and become a better person. My experiences with that commando troop would be a book in itself: all sweet, funny, happy, and inspiring. I graduated from Franklin High School here in 1936, and a day or two later Daddy and I went to Overton where Mother and the girls were living near Lucille. The day after I arrived there I met Rene’. He and a friend had “gathered” some watermelons and came to invite us to help eat them. I dated Rene’ all summer and enjoyed a true country courtship, and as the summer closed, I was engaged to marry Rene’. I returned to Southern California and went to work as a maid in a home in Beverly Hills. Through the winter I worked and saved and prepared for my wedding on 3 June 1937 in the Salt Lake Temple. Rene’ was operating a service station and café on the Desert Highway and I shared this with him our first few months of marriage. Then Rene’ obtained a job as a truck driver for Shell Oil Company so we moved to Las Vegas, but spent our weekends mostly with Rene’s folks in Overton, Nevada. Margaret Ann was born on 3 April 1938 and became the darling of the family. She was the only grandchild on the Andersen side for about 5 years. We, being the only married couple in Las Vegas Ward M-Men and Gleaner class, had a houseful of company most of the time, and lots of wonderful times. Rene’ was promoted to the office at Shell Oil and we bought a small house and two acres. Eddie was born 3 March 1943 when Margaret Ann was almost 5 years old, and we immediately moved to Southern California where Rene’ worked on a ranch for a whole year and then went into farming for himself. Paul Christiansen came out on weekends and through the summers to help and was part of the family, a wonderful part, for the next few years. Rene’ raised cauliflower, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, cantaloupe, etc. Rene’ was a counselor to the Sunday school superintendent and I worked in the Primary, then MIA for four years each, then in the Relief Society. Margaret Ann graduated from high school and we moved north to Patterson [California] where Rene’ went into faming on a much larger scale. This move made a real change in our lives. We had left hundreds of good friends and some of them very close ones, plus members of the family whom we’d been able to be with occasionally. All the exciting, fun and wonderful times we’d had with family and friends were at an end. In our new home we were so far from the church (20 miles at first, then 30) that we couldn’t have every day associations with the members. But how wonderful to be near Minerva and her family. I’ve often felt I’d never have survived without them. Margaret Ann married Ken Wilcox (21 Jun 1957) , leaving out home feeling so empty. Eddie grew to manhood making a wonderful help for Rene’ on the farm. We moved to Newman and lived there four years while Eddie was in High School. He was selected as an Exchange Student to go to Germany and live with a family there, a great experience for him. After graduation he went to Cal Poly and then on a mission to the West Central States. After his return home, he married Linda Lee Coon (Oct 30, 1964). We bought a home in Gustine and Rene’s farming ventures expanded even more. Margaret Ann’s first baby (Jolene Marie Wilcox) was born with Cerebral Palsy and severe brain damage and of course this was heartbreaking to her family. Later they adopted a girl (Ann Danelle), and then had a boy of their own (Richard Andersen Wilcox), then adopted another girl (Sarah Diane) and then a boy (KendallPaul). Marilyn was born 20 January 1954 in Covina, California,and Dan Sevey Andersen was born June 5, 1956 in West Covina California. Marilyn and Danny grew up in Gustine where Brian was born 20 November 1962. Marilyn was a marvelous addition to the family. Ed was almost eleven so there hadn’t been a baby in the family for a long time. Every one enjoyed holding and taking care of her. At the dinner table, we all sang each evening “Ito tiny sweetie pie, Daddy’s home so don’t you cry. Ito tiny sweetie pie, do you wanna go bye, bye”. A couple of years later, Dan joined the family. Dan became a great help on the farm. Dad enjoyed his “new” family and enjoyed going places with them. Here (in Gustine) Rene’ was our Branch President and we are so proud of him. He was truly a wonderful, loving leader. His parents went on a mission for the church to Florida. While there they found four girls in a family needing a home so we took them on 17 March 1966, and May 1967, we legally adopted them. At the time the girls came to us Ruth was 7, Karen 9, Alice 13, and Jerri 15. Now in 1970, the family is really growing and bringing happiness to us in many ways. Danny is a great help on the farm. Working with Rene’ and Eddie. We have been truly blessed through the years and we are proud of our heritage, which has come form our wonderful families. November 20, 1962, Brian Scott Andersen decided to join the family. When mom found that she was expecting a new baby, “Why is this happening to me?”. But, like so many loving families, when the last one arrives, they are so special and loved so dearly. Not that the others weren’t loved, but this one is special.Dad truly found this to be the case. He loved all his children (but could not say it verbally), but his little boy was always close to his heart. Dan and Ed could definitely see this. They didn’t feel any less love from Dad, but Dad really liked having Brian with him and doing special things with him. Brian showed his true faith to his father and in his Heavenly Father when Dad died during Brian’s mission by completing hiscommitment to the Lord.