FAMILY HISTORY FRIDAY

LIFE HISTORY OF CARBON DEWEY DONOHOO

Carbon Dewey Donohoo was born on May the 9th, 1898, the eighth child of a family of eleven to Robert Burns Donohoo and Ella Rebecca Workman. He had 5 brothers and 5 sisters. In a letter he wrote to his children on October 18, 1982, he describes his childhood. "Dear Family, I remember milking cows when I was about 9 years old. Even before that I helped milk and helped herd the cows. There were about 16 of us and we lived together in a three room log house. We lived up in the mountains and we gathered alot of wood to store up for heat and cooking. We had a special kind of dirt which we soaked and put on the roof. It held up all winter but in the summer we had to patch it up some.""After we did our chores, carrying wood, milking cows, feeding animals, taking care of chickens and still more; we played some games like hide and seek. Our beds were homemade from quilts made into mattresses which were filled with hay then sewn together. We lived right near the road and people going by sometimes stopped for the night. Our Dad tied up the horses. We raised most of our food, pigs, lambs, chickens and we canned berries and vegetables.""My mother died when I was about nine and my sisters worked hard cooking-- Martha, Ella, Lucy, and Susie. We hauled all our water from the creek. We were all healthy-- never got sick. We lived about one mile from school and the stores and while we were in school we would bring home the mail and some groceries."Dad was older than our mother, He was a civil war veteran and he had a hearing problem. He was still alive until we all grew up. Love, Dewey"On the 21st of Sept, 1923, Dewey eloped with his sweetheart, Mary Bullock, to Evanston, Wyo. They went by wagon to Carter and took the train to Evanston. Times were always hard for Dewey and Mary and he worked hard at many things to support his family. He worked on the raiload the first winter they were married, in Green River, and herded sheep in the summer. One year, he went to Yellowstone and worked in the timber. In 1930, while working at Lapoint, Utah in the coal mines he was in an explosion. He lost his left eye and spent three months in the hospital in Denver. His face was peppered with coal and even now you can still see some of the coal in his face.By this time, Dewey had three children. Ross was born 3 Dec, 1924 in Ogden at Gramma Webb's. Ella Mae arrived 9 April, 1927 in Mountain View, Wyo, and Barbara was born just before the explosion on 15 Oct 1929 in Lapointe.After he recovered from the accident, the family moved to Logan so Dewey could go to school. It was here that David was born on 15 Dec 1933 in the house on the corner of 1st South and 5th West. Shortly thereafter, Dewey was baptized a member of the L.D.S. church on the 2nd of February 1934 in the swimming pool at Logan High. He was confirmed on the 4th of Feb., 1934, the same day as David was blessed. They were sealed for time and all eternity in the Logan Temple on the 7th of July 1936. Mary, having lived on the ranch all her life, had not had any of the childhood diseaes. She wad whooping cough, scarlet fever, chicken pox, measles, and mumps along with the kids and Dewey had to take care of the family while they were all sick.In 1934 the family moved to North Logan, living there for eight years. Dewey worked on a farm to support the family. Eldon was born on the 14th of May, 1941. The following winter the family moved to Logan. The war had started and Ross was drafted into the army.Karen completed the family with her arrival on the 27th of August 1943. Nineteen months later, Dewey lost his beloved Mary on the 10th of April, 1945. At this time, there were offers to adopt out the younger children, but Dewey insisted the family would be kept together. Even though it was rough, he succeeded in doing so.He worked as a night watchman for the Borden Milk Company. He would get home before the kids were up and work in his garden. He would get them off to school and be up in time to fix lunch and up again when they got home from school. They often wondered when he slept. He was a good father and spent alot of time with his children. He would read stories to them in the evening and took them to ballgames.He taught his children to be honest, hard workers. The family struggled those early years after Mary's death. One neighbor, Ada Morrill was always willing to pitch in and help. She was always willing to help out the older children with their new responsibility of trying to manage a household and taking care of two small children. She was loved dearly by the family.Dewey was a good neighbor to everyone. He was always willing to pitch in and help when someone was in need. He spent many hours working on the stake welfare farm. The neighborhood children lovingly called him Uncle Dewey or Grampa.After the Borden Milk Company closed down, he went to work for the City of Logan supervising the city landfill. He worked there until his retirement in 1966. His dream was to buy a truck and camper when he retired and travel and fish, which he did. He wintered in Arizona with Karen and traveled between children and fishing holes during the summer. When his brother George retired, he joined Dewey in the camper and became his traveling companion.He saved enough money to fly to Hawaii to see Ross and family when Ross was stationed there in the army. Every couple of years he would save enough to fly to Massachusetts to see Barbara and her family. During the summers he would park his camper in David's driveway.After his second heart attack in August of 1978, he was unable to drive anymore. He lived for awhile with either Ross or David or Karen. In 1980, he went to Arizona to live on a permanent basis with Karen only comng to Utah to visit each summer. His declining years were made brighter by going to the Sirrine Adult Day Care Center on weekdays-- a program for the frail elderly who are not quite ready for total nursing care. He made many friends there and loved the time he spent there. He was in charge of the flower boxes and always had a beautiful flower garden for all to enjoy. He was a member of the kitchen band and was an expert skillet player.Because of declining health it became necessary to place him in a nursing home in May of 1984, where he passed away peacefully on the 1st of March, 1985. He was a WWI veteran serving in Panama. He was active in the L.D.S. church having served as Elder's Quorum Secretary, Temple Committee, Secretary of High Priests Group and a Home Teacher.In Dewey's own words he said, "In spite of losing my mother and wife at an early age, its been a real good life."