-The following was written by Madoline Cloward Dixon, for the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers May, 1985
-submitted to the Cloward site by Marian Bird <[email protected]>

Charles Edgar Cloward Sr., was born midway through the Civil War, on February 7, 1863, in Payson, Utah. He lived in Payson almost all his life and died there August 2, 1939. He is buried in the Payson City Cemetery.

Charles was a son of Thomas P. Cloward, a member of Brigham Young's original party of 143 pioneers, and Mary Amelia Gardner Cloward, whose father was one of the first two missionaries to depart from Utah after the pioneers settled there.

As a child and throughout his youth, Charles lived with his parents in their brick home "over the bench" a mile east of Payson. Also living in the house, which was built with two front doors, was his father's plural wife, Mary Page Gardner, and her children. He called his mother "Ma" and the other wife "Aunt Mary."

After polygamy was abolished by law in 1886, Mary Page Cloward, the first wife, moved to a little house on the Dixon property just north of the cemetery. Charles later recalled that he and the other children sometimes stayed a little too late at Aunt Mary's place, and as they passed the cemetery they would run as fast as their legs would carry them, since they were afraid they might be chased by ghosts.

Charles attended school in a one-room school house later known as the Manwill House. It was located on the corner of Third East and Second North streets. He gained what education was available for the times and became an excellent penman. Sometimes as he was en route from school, he stopped to speak to his father, who would be sitting at his cobbler's bench in a shoe shop located at the corner of Second East and Second North streets. The building was doubled in size later and used as a shoe shop.

His aunt, Amanda Cloward Gale, resided across the street east of the school, and in later years his father's first wife, Mary Page Cloward, lived in the rear of a house located south of the school house. Charles was reared in a deeply religious home. His father took a second wife because he had been advised to do so by Brigham Young.

When Charles was a child, it was the custom at Christmastime for children to go from house to house calling "Christmas gift!" and they were given apples and cakes and other small items to eat. He remembered later the pleasure he felt when he found some hardtack candy under the seat of a stagecoach that had been left at his father's farm home after it had broken down.

In the wintertime, the boys hitched teams of horses to bobsleds and with their girl friends had many joyous rides in the crisp, clear air of the winter season. He helped his father with farm work, milking cows and planting and harvesting crops of corn, grain and hay. He also helped his mother in the kitchen when he was needed. They attended public events on the second floor of the Hancock Building, Main and First North streets, where plays were presented on stage. One night Charles and his young boy friends rocked the bleacher-type seats until they collapsed.

Another favorite prank was pushing over outdoor toilets on Halloween. One of his best friends was Arden Elmer, a man who in old age was as handsome as Charles; both were six-footers. This writer recently heard a woman say that Charles was the handsomest man she had ever seen.

As he grew to manhood, Charles went to parties and dances, and to one particular party he escorted a young lady named Lizzie Knight. During the festivities, he and Lizzie changed partners with another couple. Charles later married the girl he took home from the party and the girl he had escorted there married the other man.

He was wed to Emma Rosetta Moesser on July 22, 1884, when he was twenty-one years of age and his bride was twenty. She was called Ettie, and he always said she had the prettiest black hair he had ever seen. He was also brunette, but his hair was not quite as dark as Ettie's. They were married by H.W. Barnett, justice of the peace, in a little one-room office, and spent their first night as man and wife in a room at the Barnett house nearby.

Soon they moved to a little log house located a few yards west of his father's home east of Payson. Two or three of their children were born there. Later, they homesteaded a farm east of Salem. After crops were planted in the spring, Charles went to Wyoming to help build a railroad, and Ettie remained at the farm with the children. This practice was carried out during several summers in order to help the financial condition of the family.

There was an unspoken rivalry between Charles and his brothers Tom, John, Orson and Parley, who had also homesteaded land in the area east of Salem. But the brothers helped each other to get the work done. Meals were prepared by the wife where the work was in progress, and the families often joined for jolly, good times. Sometimes the rag carpets would be taken up from the floor, the straw padding underneath swept up, and an evening of dancing would be enjoyed. Horses, steaming from the effort in the cold evening air, would be covered with blankets and left tied to the posts outside, still harnessed to the straw-filled sleds.

Coats and wraps were laid on the foot of the beds, and dancing then began to the tunes played on a fiddle and a concertina. As a young man, Charles owned a concertina and occasionally played at the dances. He had a hearty laugh and enjoyed good times.

Later, Charles was able to purchase a reed organ for his family. It had a small mirror in the high back and small shelves at either side. They also bought a Edison phonograph with cylinder records. Taking turns on cold winter mornings, the children would climb out of bed, put on a record, and jump back into the bed.

From the small brick farmhouse, the children rode horseback to school in Salem, frequently three youngsters to a single horse. Sometimes the family drove to Payson where they visited Charlie's parents and other relatives. On Occasion, they went to Benjamin to visit with the Manwill family, who owned an organ. The entire group enjoyed singing to accompaniment played on the organ.

Charles eventually owned a surrey with the fringe on top, as mentioned in a popular song in later years. On one occasion he loaned it to a friend who was to pick up some people who had come by train to attend a funeral. The horse ran away and tipped the surrey over, doing damage to it that was sorely regretted, since it was new and highly prized.

The sons of Charles and Ettie were now maturing and often drove the surrey or a one-seated buggy with folding top to Salem or Payson for dances. Many a time the horse took the sleepy young man back home, stopping on it's own accord to drink in Salem Pond. This watering place is also where the sons learned to "swim in the nude" at the head of the pond, which was off-limits to the girls of the community.

During the first twenty-five years of their married life, Charl (as he was known to some people) and Ettie spent many winters in Payson, where they rented houses in various locations during the months when he could not find work on the farm. He went back and forth to Salem to care for stock there.

He stated that for a time it seemed that every new venture he tried turned out well financially, whether it was cattle, hogs or new crops. He gained a reputation as an honest man, and counseled his children, "Keep your word" or, "If you say you'll do a thing, so it."

Finally, in 1907, he built a fine brick house in Payson at 317 East First South, which was the pride of the family for many years. A carpenter who worked on it's construction acknowledged that it was the showplace of Payson for years after it was built. A housewarming was held after they moved into the new place, and they played a game that Charles laughed about to the end of his days. The folding doors between the parlor and the dining room were pulled almost shut and a sheet was hung in the space between. Guests on one side of the sheet stuck their noses through a little hole in the sheet while others, with soot on their fingers, tried to guess who the person was whose nose was showing through the hole. Blackened noses caused much merriment.

The cost of the house was $3500. Charles had accumulated a large amount of this before beginning construction, but also borrowed a rather large sum of money from a firm in Salt Lake City to finish payment. His means turned out better than he had expected, so he took the money into Salt Lake to pay off the debt. He was surprised and angered when the firm would not accept the money, but demanded that the loan go it's full term, making it necessary for him to pay the interest he had hoped to cancel.

Charles and his wife owned an entire half of a city block. Their home was on the southwest corner. A small adobe house was located in the center of the block and "Old Lady" Johansen lived there until her death, when the home reverted to the Clowards. On the east end of the block Charles had a big barn, which had been purchased and moved from a lot east of the tabernacle. He continued to farm east of Salem for a number of years and also on a five-acre piece of ground halfway between Payson and Salem. His son Charlie bought the home and farm where his father had lived as a boy and Charles became involved in helping the son make the farm pay.

Charles was reared in a home where religion was practiced as a way of life. As an adult he paid tithing to a certain extent but had an experience that embittered him toward the church. He hauled a load of hay to Salt Lake City to pay tithing, but when he arrived there, the hay was not accepted. He was told that he should have delivered the hay to another location, probably the Payson tithing office. After this experience, he had little to do with the church, but never missed attending a funeral of an aquaintance or relative, a habit that indicates that he still had a feeling of association with the church that he wanted to keep alive.

He kept up with the times and purchased his first automobile about 1915. It was a Maxwell with side curtains that could be put on in case of rain. He later had an Oldsmobile, also with side curtains; a Nash; then a Lafayette made by Nash. He and his wife spent many winters in California. In their later years they rented an apartment in San Diego near his brother Orson and his wife, Margaret Mendenhall Cloward. The two couples enjoyed many good times together.

After Charles retired from farming, he spent his time tending the lawn and flowers around his home. His wife died two years prior to his own death, which occurred in 1939. His last words were "Take care of the place," meaning the lawn and yard where he had worked so hard.