Maud Louisa Thompson Coleman

      She was born, the third child of John Richard Thompson and Anna Louisa Jones Thompson.  Her birthplace was Richfield, Sevier County, Utah, on Aug. 12, 1878.  Shortly after her birth, her father left and her parents apparently divorced.  She probably never saw her father again.

One Dress
Of her early life she wrote:
"I was born Aug. 12, 1878 in Richfield, Sevier, Utah.  Not long after I was born my father left us.  And as widows sometimes don't have the best of everything, so it was at our house.  My mother was a good worker.  She kept everything neat and clean.  One day a lady said, 'Why do you make all your daughter's dresses just alike?'  My mother was usually proud, but she confided in this good lady and told her she only had one good dress for her daughter, Leah, to wear to school, so at night, after she was in bed, she washed and hung her dress to dry during the night, then awoke early in the morning so she could iron it and have it ready for her to wear to school.

The Lord Answered Their Prayers
"One day there wasn't much to eat in the house.  My Mother prayed and asked the Lord to help us obtain food.  The next morning a friend came, knocked on our door, saying "I brought you a sack of flour.  We have more than we need.!  I thought you might be able to use a sack."  My mother was very grateful to this good man and also to our dear Father in Heaven whom she knew had put it in the heart of this good man to want to bring her the flour.

A Frightening River Crossing
She wrote that her first memory was of their move,  "When we were crossing the Sevier River at the age of two yrs. in 1880, with my mother and other relatives in a covered wagon.  The water was very deep and a long way across.  The horses had to swim and pull the wagon through. 
"I was very frightened, and wanted to cry out.  I did not, only wanted to, but was going to, but my mother told me I would frighten the horses and if I cried she would throw me in the river. 
"I will never forget the awful sight of it all, and how fearful I felt, but never a sound did I make.  If the horses had got frightened and confused they never would have been able to have forged their way through that powerful body of water with a covered wagon loaded to pull behind them, and although I was but two years old, I understood that my Mother's word was law and I believed what she said was the right thing to do and knew that I must be obedient.
"Then I remember after we were there how nice it seemed to be there and how I enjoyed myself. 
"I was a very quiet child and understood my mother required strict obedience.  But I think I appreciated what we had much better than had I been permitted and inclined to do otherwise, because children are not happy when they are unruly.  Nor anyone else for that matter.  We must do right to be happy."

Early Injuries
When Maud was about 2 years she was burned when a "buck" of soup her mother was lifting from the stove by it's "bail" spilled on her head when the "bail" came off as she lifted it.
When she was about 3 she wrote that she was standing between her mother and aunt and fell against the stove hearth and cut her head.  She was about 3 years old at the time and cut it so badly she carried the scar the rest of her life.


Abandoned by her Father
  Her early memories include her mother spending each morning polishing the stove, cleaning the house and always keeping everything neat and tidy.  After her mother was a widow [divorced] she earned a living by selling books and taking in washing and ironing.
In 1947, she also remembered: "My next recollection I have was when I was about 2 1/2 years old.  I can remember Mr. Pressett carrying me about and taking me to his home where he had dried meat hanging up to the rafters of a building.  He gave me a piece of it to eat. He was rather elderly at that time and later became my stepfather, as my own had deserted Mother, my sister and myself.  My poor mother went through many hardships and suffering the following winter with us two girls to keep from starving and freezing.  I was then about 1 1/2 years and my sister 3 years, 3 months older than I.  There was a little brother between us two girls who was layed away at the age of 9 months, who Mother grieved very deeply over."
They moved to a small town near Salt Lake in about 1880.

Her New Stepfather
In Lyle's Book of Remembrance, in the 1950's, she recalled, "When I was about 4, or in the year of 1881, on the 24th of May, my mother married Louis Samuel Presset.  He had been married before so some of his children came to live with us part of the time.  One day one of his sons went to find our horses.  He found them, was riding on one horse, leading another, when lightning struck them and kill all three.
"My baby brother Ernest was born in Richfield on the 29th of March 1882.  It was nice to have a baby brother, as my other brother had died before I was born.
"We then moved to Union, where my sister Julia Pearl was born on the 16 March 1884.  Then my brother Vasco Savoy 4 Sept. 1886."
In 1948, Maud recalled: "The next I remember was when my stepfather stepped in to our lives.  He made many nice promises to my mother, who could not support us girls as it was very hard for a woman to get work those days.  About all there was for a woman to do was washing and house work and very little pay.  So she married him, thinking he would provide for us."
  They moved to Union, Utah, 12 miles from Salt Lake.  Then around 1888, they moved to Woodside, Emery County, Utah, where they lived on a farm near the D. and R.G. railroad station, 40 miles from the closest grocery store.

Living in Poverty Still
They were very poor.  There were 12 families within a radius of 10 miles.
Maud probably also had to go to work from a young age, as did her sister, Leah.  Leah described traveling on the railroad to Green River, sometimes for free, in order to work for families in Green River.
Published Poet
From Ogden, Utah, in 1895, sixteen year old Maud Louisa Thompson had a booklet of her poems published and copyrighted.  She said they were poems she had written as a child. Thus she followed MORE