-written and submitted to the Cloward site by
Marian Bird <[email protected]>
In Salem, Utah Zella May Cloward was born August 18, 1901 to John Mason Cloward and Stacy Lee Stone. She was the 7th child of nine. The oldest, Mary Ann died when she was just 24 hours old, Ray was the oldest boy, then there was Lynn, Cora, Earl, Ivy, Zella, and Eva. There was also a baby boy born dead.
Ray was 15 years old and Eva was 2 years old when Stacy Lee died, she was delivering her 9th child. During the pregnancy she felt there was something wrong, the baby did not seem to be growing as it should and there was no movement the last few weeks. Her mother was called when she was trying to deliver the baby, she cleared the kitchen table and put Stacy Lee on it, she could not deliver the baby for many hours and a Doctor was called in from Provo but the baby had died inside her some weeks before and the doctor cleaned her out and left a foreign object inside her and infection set in and Stacy Lee died after 10 days. They called it childbed fever.
John Mason was left with 7 children to raise alone, he never remarried and devoted his life to raising his family. He was a very gentle, humble man, easy to get along with. He was honest in all his dealings and expected everyone to be honest with him. He hired different girls from the community to help him when the family was young, but as they grew up the older girls were old enough to care for the younger children. Cora was the house cleaner and kept the house in order as she grew older still she worked at the train station selling tickets, Ivy was the cook, she would bakje bread and churn butter and put it in molds to sell at the general store in town. Zella was the seamstress and she made clothes for all the girls. Her father would go to town and buy bolts of fabric and she would cut it out without a pattern and sew for everyone. The girls would take their turn getting breakfast each day. The family would kneel at the table before breakfast for family prayer. John always said that he wanted to keep his family together and he did all he could to do to that end.
The boys grew old enough to work on the farm with their father. John had a large farm, between Spanish Fork and Salem, where the BYU farm is now and they would haul wheat and plow and plant the seeds and thresh the wheat. John planted fruit trees and built a potato cellar to store root vegetables in for their use in summer and winter. He also planted a strawberry patch by his summer kitchen.
John Mason had built a house for his family and it had three bedrooms, the boys had one and the girls had one and John had the other one. He insisted that the house always be neat and clean. He took care of th coal stove keeping it shined and clean and always building the fires in it. He built a summer kitchen directly behind the house where they kept the stove so the house could be kept cool in the heat of the summer. Everyone had their work to do and if the girls became lazy and didn't do their work he would say "it looks like I need to get a mother in this house," they did not want him to marry so they would get busy and do their work.
John Mason was not a large man, about medium build. He had sandy colored hair and hazel eyes. He had a soft heart and would be an easy mark for his children. He was father and mother to his family. He carried white peppermints in his pocket to give them. At that time movies were 11 cents and he would let them go often to the movies. One day Ivy was sent to buy some butter on a hot day and John felt so bad that she was walking in the heat when she returned home he said "bless your little heart, that was too hot for you to walk". One of the games they played was called "smut", a card game. When a player lost, a black soot mark was put on the face and when there were four black marks the player lost.
John was a good money manager, he made sure the family always had the latest of everything. He bought a piano and the girls took lessons. He told his girls when thry started dating that he had taught them right from wrong and he expected them to do the right thing.
John Mason had cancer on his cheek, he had surgery to remove the cancer and it caused a facial defect on his right side.
Cora was a beautiful girl, she had very dark hair that hung to her waist and dark brown eyes. She was fastidious in her dress and dressed in the latest fashions her sister Zella made most of her clothes. She married Leo Davis when she was 19 years old and they had two children, a girl, Marvel and a boy, Blair.
Ivy had sandy to reddish hair and hazel eyes and freckles. She was a very sweet girl and felt a lot of responsibility for the family after her mother died. Ivy was seven years old when her mother died. She was very musically talented, she took piano lessons but could play by ear. She accompanied at weddings, funerals and other social events. She married Ernest Davis, they were a very sociable couple, they gave and went to many parties. Ernest liked to chew tobacco. The men liked to go to the general store in town and "bum", talk to other men and get the daily update. That left the women to get their work done. She was an excellent cook and baked pies for friends and neighbors until she was over 80 years old. She lived to be 84.
Eva was 2 years old when her mother died, and she was very spoiled by her father and all of her older siblings. Zella made almost all of her clothes and she lived with Bill and Zella a lot of the time. She went to California when she was 18 years old to stay with an aunt and this is where she met and married Pete Bush. They had two boys, Gordon and Douglas. Eva did not graduate from high school and this was an embarassment. She loved literature and liked to write poetry. Eva was very small, under 5 feet and about 90 pounds. She had blonde hair and hazel eyes.
Zella was 5 years old when her mother died, all of her life she said that she prayed that she would live to raise her family and not leave her family like her mother did. She was named by her grandmother Stacy Lee, Zella is a southern name and since Stacy was from the south, she thought this was an appropriate name for her granddaughter. She was an extremely good seamstress even as a little girl, and started out by making doll clothes and made clothes for her sisters, neices, children and others in the community. She was very ambitious and a good cook, all of these talents came from having to help with her family after her mother died. She did have a habit of pouting and someone would always try to tease her out of her pouting mood, it did not always work. She loved animals and usually had a cat in her arms when she was little. When her children were little she would cut down old coats and remake them to fit the children. She was the best dressed and neatest of all the girls, she always took extra care in her appearance. She was about 5'5" and very slim. She had similar coloring to Ivy, light brown hair, hazel eyes and fair, slightly freckled skin.
She was baptised September 5, 1909 and graduated from 8th grade in Salem. Then she went to Spanish Fork to high school. She had a very sweet personality, always quiet, keeping her thoughts to herself instead of letting them out to hurt anyone. Her friends called her "Sunshine" because of her sunny disposition.
When she was 18 she was engaged to Emmett Hanks, he was going on a mission and Zella went to the train station to see him off. Mrs. Plum was there to catch the train and she reported that Zella was sad enough to cry at his leaving. Meantime, Leo Davis was going with Cora and Bill Nuttall had dated Ivy, one night came by the Cloward home, Leo and Cora, Ivy and Bill and there was Zella. A short time later Bill asked her out and she declined but when she learned that Emmett had written to a girl in Payson, she became angry and accepted Bill's invitation to go on a date. When Emmett came home from his mission Zella wanted to go to his homecoming, but Bill would not allow such a thing. Emmett gave Zella a ruby ring and when she gave it back to him when she became engaged to Bill, he made it into a tie tack and wore it always. Emmett loved Zella and always felt that her children should have been his.
Zella was very sociable and loved to have company, she always made Sunday a day of rest. She would stay dressed up after church and have a desert ready for any company that dropped by. A specialty of hers was a jelly roll. Family reunions were very popular at this time and at one of them, when Carole was about seven years old, she sang and recited a poem. Her mother was so proud of her. Carole ran to her mother when she had finished and Zella picked her up and loved her. She loved her family and sewed cute little dresses for her girls. The dresses were always starched and folded down in the middle. Every day they had a clean starched dress. Zella always went to church and worked in all of the organizations at different times.
John Mason gave each of his children 15-20 acres of land, except Ivy and she was given $800 cash and her land, she and Ernest did not want a house because they were going to move into his mother's house and take care of her since she was a widow and getting along in years. Eva was given the family home because she was the youngest and not yet married. Ross Nuttall, Bill's brother built the family home on the lot that John had given Zella. Leo and Cora's lot was directly north of Bill and Zella's.
When Zella was 32 she became ill and Dr. Curtis, the family physician, diagnosed it as a growth on the thyroid and so they removed the thyroid. She did not get better and one day when Carole was alone with her she fell and hit her head on the corner of the stove. They physician diagnosed it as a brain tumor. To treat it, they put her in a tub of warm water to dissolve the tumor. The doctor pulled some of her back teeth to bleed her, this was common treatment at the time, thought to help dissolve the tumor. She became more and more ill and finally died on March 2, 1935. Cause of death Viral Encephalitis. She left a family of 4 children, Kenneth, Pauline, Carole, Marian and a distraught husband. The viewing was at the house and the community came to view the body. Bill held his 2 year old daughter, Marian up to the casket to see her mother. She said "look at pretty mother".
Bill tried to keep his family together, it was the end of the depression and due to his wife's illness he had lost a lot of work and he was heavily in debt. He tried to borrow money from family members, but they too were having their money problems caused by the depression. So the only way he could see to solve his problem was to mortgage his house. He was able to do this and after several months he defaulted on the loan and the Federal Land Bank called the loan due. The land was then put up for auction and Mr. Nebo bought it and today Mrs. Nebo still lives on it.
Bill was very distraught over losing his house and now he needed a place for his family of 5 to live, he dug up some of the trees that he had recently planted, 2 ash, 3 peach and some June roses and he gave them to family members.
Margaret Jane Nuttall, Bill's mother, lived in a very large home just east of the pond and he took his little family of 4 and lived in part of his mother's home. Marian went to live with this same grandmother.
Zella was sorely missed by her family, sometimes you wonder why a mother is taken from her small family and then you have to trust in the Lord that He knew best.