Monday, August 1, 2011

GEORGE E. SIMMONS


                                              HISTORY OF GEORGE E. SIMMONS
                                                                  by Maude Bate

George E. Simmons was born in Clayton, Sussex, England, January 19, 1828 a son of John and martha Brayser Simmons.  He was baptized September 19, 1852.  He was married to Charity Waller.  After the death of charity, he married Dora Turner (my Mother) January 1875.  Eleven children were born to each marriage: twin girls to the first marriage and twin boys to the second marriage.  The first family was musically inclined. 

In England Father took care of horses.  He worked for one man for sixteen years feeding scientifically and all the hay was chopped and both hay and grain was weighed.  When the horses were not working they were not fed so much so father would store half of the grain in a secret bin and could feed heavier when work started and his horses could stand the work better than the other fellows horses. 
 Father made his money to emigrate to Utah by having a machine and went from place to place making chaff or chopping hay for the farmers who had horses.  He had a hand made machine and fed it with his left hand while he chopped it with a long knife which he worked with his right hand.
Father was very active in church work in England and at one time he was President of the Branch.  He had a friend that played the coronet and George his ??n could play the coronet, in fact George could play almost everything.  In after years they could draw a crowd with their playing.  Then Father would take over and preach the gospel on the street corner. 
When Father was about sixty years old, he and the boys went to Lake Creek to get a load of lumber.  They had two wagons and two teams.  They started down the canyon, but the brake broke and the horses couldn't hold the wagon back and it ran into the horses and they ran away, throwing Father under the wheels   and running over his back, injuring him very bad.  He was in a bad way for a long time.
I remember all of us children kneeling around the bed every morning and night and Mother saying,"Father can not die, his family won't let him.  He was ill for a long time.  In after years, when he got worse, Steve used to sleep by his bed to help him move when he had to.   Steve says, " One morning Father said to him, 'it was made known to him that he could live fifteen more years,`" and he did live about that long. 
His feet went back on him.  He used to walk up the field in the morning and when he didn't come back, Mother would send Steve after him in the buggy.  He always found him sitting on the ditch bank.  The feeling went over him and for a long time he took to riding around in the buggy and overseeing the farm.  When he could no longer get in the buggy, he took to the wheelchair.  Then his speech left him and he got worse until it took him.  He took to his bed and died at the age of seventy-four years old.

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