William Alden and Matilda Gray: They were married in June 1915 and they had three boys. They were the first family that moved to Ivins in January 1922 with their family. They moved into a two-room house which Alden and his father had built. Matilda made a loving home for her family, even with extreme desert conditions. Barefoot boys, with sore feet, chased rabbits for food (sometimes a necessity). As the other families came to settle in Ivins, she through neighborliness, concern, and love, helped the new settlers in joining the community and meeting the new challenges they faced.
During a horrible electrical storm, the lightning and thunder made it seem like the little house would be destroyed. They were all upset and frightened. After a seemingly long time with no end to the storm, she prayed with the children for divine protection during the storm. Shortly thereafter, lightning struck with an enormous blast of thunder and the storm ended. Another time a horrendous windstorm with a tornado-like effect crossed their lot and took the chicken coop with the chickens flying in the air and deposited it in the open sage brush some distance away.
In 1923 Alden Gray and Reuben Ence had children ready to go to school, and as the nearest school was in Santa Clara, each morning they put their children on an old gray horse and sent them off to school. You can imagine the worries of these parents, as they saw their children leave in the morning and anxiously waited for the old gray horse to return in the evening. The distance to Santa Clara was about three miles. Sometimes, when it was stormy weather, these children were obligated to stay at home. In the fall of 1924, the government granted Ivins a post office. Alden Gray was the first mail driver. At first he carried it on horseback. There were now six children going to school that winter. The school board gave Mr. Gray a small wage for hauling the students to Santa Clara School. In order to take all the children to school, Mr. Gray bought a secondhand Model T Ford.
"Tilda", as she was affectionately called by friends and neighbors, was a guiding light, a teacher who used her talents to produce and direct a stage play using the local residents. The play involved a family with children and their parents. She selected the actors and rehearsed them for opening night. The people of Ivins put on plays to earn money. The play was given in Ivins, and then went on the road in wagons in cold weather to Santa Clara and Washington with good performances and acceptance. Tilda and Alden, like other settlers, lived under harsh conditions but always enjoyed music, plays, dances and parties, and sometimes met with neighbors for social gatherings. Community celebrations were held during holidays throughout the year. Ball games, foot races, other games and dances were always part of the festivities. On Sundays they would hitch up their wagon and go three miles to Santa Clara to Church and have a family dinner. After the other settlers arrived in Ivins they built a little one room chapel; it was finished in 1926. This provided an opportunity for conducting church services and other community activities. After the Church was built, the town held dances and socials in the new building.
Their son Reed remembers "At certain seasons of the year, our food consisted mainly of bread and milk. However, in the springtime my father shot cottontail rabbits, which tried to get under the fence and eat our vegetables in the garden. Eating those fried rabbits was a real treat. I remember how I also loved to eat that fried bread dough, which we called pancakes when my Mother made bread. We used to put bacon grease and molasses on these pancakes and it was delicious! We also had a ten-acre farm located on the western edge of town about one mile away. There we raised mostly wheat and alfalfa. After the alfalfa was cut and dried in place, the whole family including my mother would go to the farm in our wagon to rake, pile, load onto the wagon, and bring the hay home. My job was to stomp each pile of hay as my father threw a forkful on the wagon. Stomping compressed the hay so we could haul larger loads.
"Matilda wanted to raise a fine, kind and educated family. She became pregnant in 1928 and was due to have a child around the first of the year, after Christmas. A rather violent influenza epidemic struck the area. No one was spared, including Tilda. She recovered as did everyone but it was not a good time for her. The baby, a boy, was stillborn in the last part of January 1929 and Tilda died of complications January 27, 1929 in Ivins. Infection set in since the baby boy was stillborn. It was a very sad day in Ivins. The rest of the mothers living there were much younger and had depended on Tilda to help them. She was, at this time, forty years old. With three boys Alden lived in Ivins for the next eight months.
In October, 1929, Alden was on his way home from a peddling trip, it is thought that on his way up the hill to Ivins he remembered his three boys were still in Santa Clara being watched over when he tried to turn their new International truck around the front wheels went slightly off the road and tumbled down a thirty foot embankment. Unfortunately, tragedy struck this family again and Alden was found dead at the scene. Now orphaned, the three boys went to live with different family members up in the Salt Lake City area and were able to see each other regularly while growing up.
Written by Cherise Ence Spencer September 2022, Vol. 22 Issue 9 Ivins Newletter