History of Anna Carolina (Carrie) Peterson Wrathall (1888 - 1972)

According the memory and research of her daughter, Pauline Wrathall Hawker


My mother, Ann Carolina Peterson Wrathall, was born May 20, 1888 in Ramdala, Blekinge, Sweden, to Holger and Cecelia Peterson. This was not a great time of opportunities for a woman, but she made the most of every good thing that came her way. She came to Grantsville, Utah, U.S.A. in 1891 with her parents and a sister, Della (Della Peterson Durfey was born in Ramdala 10 June 1885 and died in Grantsville, Utah on 25 March 1956). She also had a brother, Gustof Adolf, who was born in Jemjo, Blekinge, Sweden on 19 February 1882 and died of a ruptured appendix on 17 June 1886. She was three years old when she came to this country. Her parents were very poor. She remembered that most of their meals were clabbered milk. She remembered having only one dress, of blue flannel. She was wearing this dress when my Father, who was in the same class in school, asked her why she was wearing her nightgown to school. None of her handicaps seemed to cool her ardor for life.

When she started school, her teacher said that he could not pronounce her long name (she probably used the Swedish pronunciation), so he told her he would call her Carrie, and "Carrie" she became for the rest of her life.

She voted in every election from the time she turned 21 and was active in politics, yet, when she, was 80 years old and was planning to travel back to Sweden with her son James Wrathall and his wife, Gloria and son Tony, she couldn't prove her citizenship. Some of the problems she encountered were, when Grandpa Holger Peterson filled out his citizenship papers, he only named himself and family without naming his children, so Mother had to prove she was his daughter; the records of the ship on which she came to the U.S. were burned accidentally; the census was closed; and there were very few people left alive who could swear that she was Holger Peterson's daughter. Manda Spencer (mother's cousin), Claude Sutton (Mother's dear friend in their declining years), and Sterl Halladay signed affidavits that she was Holger's child. I can't remember exactly how she proved she was a citizen, but I think that they opened the census for her, so she eventually got her passport. She had a wonderful time and met some of her Swedish relatives all thanks to Jim and his family.

Mother wrote of her trip saying, "We left Los Angeles on a huge 747 TWA plane for a non-stop flight to London. As I sat on the plane in complete comfort, I could not help contrasting this trip with the time when my parents brought me to Utah. The long slow dangerous journey in a small, not very comfortable, steam boat over the Atlantic (1891), the long wait in New York, and the slow ride (train) across the country here. Now I was going back on the same route in 10 hours. I thought how wonderful is the mind of man."

They were only in London for 6 hours so she and her Grandson Tony Wrathall took a sight-seeing bus, and saw many of the famous and renowned buildings and places there. Then they were on their way to Stockholm, Sweden.

The real reason for her visit was to see the place of her birth. "I had no real memories of Sweden, for I was only three years old when we left. But all through my childhood I remembered the talk of my parents about their home, their work, and their close friends and relations, so I almost felt that I was sort of going home." Mother was born in Ramdala and Grandpa Peterson was born in Jemjo. Mother met several cousins, relations, and the children and grandchildren of her parent's good friends, who showed her the house where she was born and the beautiful Church where she was christened and churchyards where her ancestors were buried. My brother James L. Wrathall and his wife Gloria F. Wrathall made this trip possible.

As a child, Mother wanted to play the organ so much that she always managed to sit as close as possible to the organist so that she could watch every move that he or she made. Then she went home and practiced everything that she had seen on a washstand. Later, she took piano lessons and finally studied with a Tabernacle Organist, who finally told her that she was wasting her time because she didn't have an ear to hear music tones; she was tone-deaf. She didn't believe this until her three-year-old daughter, Irene, told her that she was playing the notes wrong. Mother asked her how she knew this, and Irene said it didn't sound good. She checked the notes and the child was right. That convinced her.

This sent her love of music in another direction. She literally made my father and me learn to sing and to be soloists. I sang my first solo ("Oh, Ye Mountains High") in Sacrament meeting when I was three years old and, later, my singing opened many opportunities to serve, meet people and develop my own talents. This was nothing to what my father did with his singing. He had a very sympathetic tenor voice and soon became sought-after to sing at funerals and other community activities. In his journals he would write what person's funeral it was and what song he sang. Sometimes he sang almost twice a week. I stopped counting, but I am sure he sang solos at as many as 500 or more funerals all over Tooele County. He also sang in a quartet with Erna Stromberg, Sue and Sterl Halladay. He sang the lead in many of the local productions of light operas and love stories. He almost always sang the lead because he was a tenor and handsome. I even sang the heroine in one of these musicals when I was 15. And my Mother started it all. She sought out the best music for us to sing and to listen to on our old Victrola. Her favorite records were those of the Irish tenor John McCormick. Because of her, I have a beautiful collection of old, classical solos as well as old folk songs and religious songs. She has blessed my life in many ways.

My Mother's impoverished beginnings did not hold her back in any way. At the age of 17 she had completed her teaching certificate at University of Deseret (the beginnings of the University of Utah) located where West High School in Salt Lake City now stands. And at 17 she went to American Falls in Idaho to teach school. I've wondered how she got there. Do you suppose stagecoach was the thing in 1905 in Idaho? I guess, in reality she probably traveled by train.

Most mothers are remembered by their daughters as working together in the kitchen, cooking, sewing or cleaning together, but my Mother was stricken with serious asthma when I was about two years old, and so my rancher/farmer father often tended me, I am told. He apparently took me with him on his saddle as he managed his cattle, and I had my own horse to ride when I was three and also my first runaway. From that time on, I spent most of my time outside with my father.

Just because I was seldom in the house doing domestic chores, doesn't mean that Mother did not have a great influence on my life. In Church she taught me to serve as she served. She was Tooele Stake MIA (young women's) President and later she served as Tooele Stake Relief Society President. When the new Grantsville Stake was organized in 1944, her husband, Paul Edward Wrathall, was called as the first Stake President, and, believe it or not, my mother was called as the first Grantsville Stake Relief Society President. I'll bet that doesn't happen very often.

In our own Ward, Grantsville First Ward, she taught the Literary Lesson in Relief Society for 40 consecutive years because she believed in fulfilling her callings. She was also president of the local Flower Club and served in leadership positions in community service groups and political activities.

Mother loved and read good literature. Our bookcases were full of the writings of great authors from Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson. She memorized many long and beautiful poems; also short and funny ones. While bedridden, sometimes just a few day and sometimes a few weeks, she would read often to my younger sister Saradelle and me. She read things like "Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare," "The Wolf King" (Joseph Wharton Lippincott), "The Famous Bedtime Storybooks" by Thornton W. Burgess about the "Crooked Little Path" and the "Smiling Pool," Richard Halliburton's "Royal Road to Romance," and also the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.

I was awakened nearly every morning with one of these poems like:

"A birdie with a yellow bill hopped upon my window sill.
Cocked his shiny eye and said,
"Aren't you ashamed you sleepy head?" (it is really "Ain't you ashamed ..." but my mother didn't like to say "ain't".)
On a rainy mornings I would hear,
" The rain is raining all a around,
It rains on field and tree.
It rains on the umbrellas here
And on the ships at sea."

I lay in bed with my mother on rainy or wintry days while she read me the classics and taught me good grammar. I played with my little animal toys among the sheets so I loved the poem she read to me called "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson.


When I was sick and lay abed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bedclothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets:
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Mother's real talent lay in public speaking. She had sort of an Ingrid Bergman way of speaking, possibly because she spoke Swedish in her youth and still spoke an Americanized Swedish in her later life. She spoke on many public occasions such as Christmas programs, Patriotic programs, Old Folks Sociable programs, including funerals. She gave a talk at a celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the organization of Grantsville First Ward in 1966 (1866 to 1966). President J. Reuben Clark was a fellow speaker on this occasion. He was born and raised in Grantsville and at the time owned a farm there, which bordered my father's farm.

She was over 80 years old when she was asked to be Mistress of Ceremonies at a Tooele Stake wide celebration of the Founding of the Relief Society.

My Mother did not like to cook, but her meals, pies and lemon tarts were legend in our family as well as among the hay men and threshers who came to work on my father's farm, and had to be fed 3 meals a day. Imagine three meals a day for 7 to 12 men for as long as they worked for my father. I was speaking to former Grantsville City mayor, Merle Cole, who said he had worked for my father during his teenage years, and he said that all the farm workers really wanted to work for my Dad because of mother's wonderful meals. My sister Irene said that Mother always set her table with nice dinnerware and a white tablecloth and maybe fresh flowers. Irene said, "Imagine serving dinner to a bunch of dusty farm hands with a white tablecloth and fancy dishes." But apparently Mother insisted. It appears that she treated everyone like they were honored guests. I do not remember this, but I wasn't very conscious of the finer things of life at that time. I wonder how many of our young women would consider doing this kind of hard labor. I presume all of the farmer's wives in the early 1900 to 1930 were expected to do this if their husband's were fortunate enough to own a good-sized farm. No wonder she didn't like to cook, but she had lots of experience.

My brother James L. Wrathall wrote a paragraph in his "Childhood Memories" which I will now quote.

"Taft (Taft Wrathall was Charlotte Rowberry Wrathall's son and my Father's half brother) wrote in his memoirs about the early Grantsville, and I have a copy, which is about 20 pages long. Taft's memoirs cover a lot of things, but one thing he wrote about that applies here is how much he enjoyed the dinners he got when he was working for his half brother "Paul Ed." Taft went into almost ecstatic detail in listing all the different kinds of meat, fowl, fruit, vegetables, and especially pies and even homemade ice cream that were served at these dinners. His praise was profuse for the people that prepared the meals. Taft also mentioned that dinner was served at noon, for those who might have thought of it as an evening meal. This certainly underlines the hard work mother performed at haying time." Also, at threshing time.

I remember being the beneficiary of the entire experience Mother had when I had the privilege of joining the family for Thanksgiving Dinners and other meals. Her turkey gravy and stuffing were the best I have ever tasted and I have eaten some very fine Thanksgiving Dinners. She would get up early Thanksgiving morning and make dozens of her famous Lemon Tarts, and they were mostly eaten by the time she served the dinner. She made these tarts for almost all holidays and special occasions. The turkey noodle soup we enjoyed a couple of days after the main dinner was almost as good as the dinner. I recall my friend Jean Williams Wilkey telling me how much she loved to come to my house to eat this wonderful soup. She told me this when we were both in our 70s .... good memories last a long time.

Many times I heard mother say that she would rather speak to a packed tabernacle than cook a meal for four people.

My Mother was a Stake President's wife during the time after January 1944, when my father was called to this position in the church (he served for 10 years) when two apostles came to every Stake Conference. This was also the time of gas rationing because of World War II, so these church leaders stayed Saturday night of the two-day conference in my parent's home. She served the two apostles, my Father's two Councilors, and Pres. J. Reuben Clark dinner on Saturday night, and, since the Apostles slept at our house, she served them breakfast (minus the Councilors) but including Pres. Clark, who had a home in Grantsville and also came to breakfast. She always prepared his favorite food, bread and milk gravy.

Needless to say, I have the signatures of nearly every apostle of the era after Pres. Heber J. Grant because they all wrote personal notes of thank you for my parent's hospitality.

Mother, like all of us, had her idiosyncrasies. She was absolutely terrified of mice. We all knew that mother was probably standing on a chair when we heard her "Whoooooo...", which rang out loud and clear all over the house. Mother's granddaughter Jill, who lived next door, was asked to dispose of any mouse caught in one of Mother's traps. Jill took the trap way down in the field back of the house and emptied it. Not wanting to handle the trap any more than necessary, she carried the trap back to the house holding it by the trip wire. It must have looked like she was holding the dead mouse by the tail because Mother, upon seeing this, nearly went into hysterics and started whooping and screaming. No one had informed Jill of her phobia.
She also, at least in her later years, was crazy about horse races. She would watch every minute of the pre-race talk of the sports commentators before the Kentucky Derby and was unbelievably excited as the race was run. She would even cheer and encourage the racers. She never missed a horse race on TV.

Mother was very adventurous. My husband Don Hawker did some automobile travel in his work and would often stop on his way to California and invite her to accompany him on these trips. She almost always accepted his invitations (two of her children lived in Northern California). She would be ready to go in 15 minutes. Once, after she was 80 years old or more, she accompanied our family on a boating trip to Flaming Gorge. She participated in all our activities except fishing and water skiing, and she slept in a tent in a sleeping bag on the bare ground. She was always eager and willing to join in family activities.
My brother Jim gave Mother an airplane ride. In his words, this is how it came about.

"This must have happened in 1943 or 1944, but I am not sure and I can't find any reference to it in my records.

"During the war, the Army Air Corps had a program that permitted a qualified pilot to take his mother on a flight. I discussed this with Mother on one of my visits and she said she would like to do it, so when I got back to my base I applied for permission, and my application was approved.

"I was given an AT-6, which was a two-seated (fore and aft) training plane in which I had about 2,000 to 3,000 hours of time instructing cadets. The Air Corps gave me a week's leave, and I took off for Salt Lake City. It took me about 1 1/2 days to get there as it was about 2,000 miles, and my cruising speed was only about 130 mph.

"I went to Grantsville, told Mother what she could expect and what the risks were, and she still wanted to go. I spent the rest of that day and the next day visiting, and the following day we were taken to the Salt Lake Airport. When we got there, the plane was serviced and ready to go.

"She borrowed a pair of Dad's pants, because the parachute had to be buckled between her legs and over her shoulders, and because no one was allowed to fly in an Air Corps plane without one. Here is my best recollection of the actual flight.

"We took off from the Salt Lake Airport at about noon in an AT-6, a two-seat training plane, with Mother in the back and me in the front. We flew over Black Rock and then left around the point of the mountain over ET, then right over the Mill Pond and along the road toward Grantsville. We couldn't go any farther south in that area because the air space above T.O.D. was restricted. The plane had an intercom in it so we could talk to each other. We were about 1000 feet above the ground. She commented on how different the valley looked from the air than it does from the ground. For instance, the ground looked quite steep until just a little north of Clark Street where it seemed to level out.

"We circled over Grantsville for a while, looking at landmarks and commenting on them, then we went south and looked at what was left of the Box Elder Ranch, then over the mountains to Skull Valley and tried to find Orr's Ranch but couldn't. We looked at the Indian Reservation, and then we flew north to look at the Lakeside ranch, and finally back around the south shore of the lake, and back to the airport. The whole flight took about an hour.

"I stayed and visited for a few days, and then I flew back to Tuskegee."

There are pictures of her, in a long skirt, as a young woman near the top of Deseret Peak in Tooele County at the top of South Willow Canyon. My father and a group of their friends accompanied her. I know where they were because I recognized the South Willow Lake in the foreground and Deseret Peak in the background. Imagine hiking to that Lake in skirts.

She took a trip to Seattle by automobile with our family when our children were young, which must have been an ordeal for an older person. She, however, seemed to enjoy visiting a new place that she had never visited before. She also visited Yellowstone Park with our family, Don's mother and Saradelle, which I know she enjoyed.

One little incident in her life ended up quite funny, but could have been fatal. Dad was taking some garbage down to the dump in his green flat-bed truck, and mother decided to go with him. Dad was in a kind of joking mood, so he told mother he was going to show her how he could dump the garbage without even laying a hand on it, so he made a very quick turn so that the garbage would slide of the truck's flat bed. It worked with the garbage and unfortunately; it also worked with my Mother, who flew out the door. She had her hand on the door handle and helped it open to let her fly out.

Dad was worried sick, and shame-facedly brought her home. She had no memory of it at all. They were putting in a heating-oil storage tank under the back lawn, so it was all dug up, and she was very worried about what they were doing in her yard. We put her in bed and called the doctor. She had a concussion.

Now began a series of questions that she began to ask, and repeated over and over for three or four hours. She would ask, "What happened?" We'd answer and she would ask "Where did this happen?" There were probably 15 or 20 questions in this series. After about three hours she went on asking the identical questions again, but she gradually started answering the questions as she asked them. She finally recovered all her memory except of the incident itself.

When we were children, there was an old coal stove with an ever-present teakettle on it. We would open the oven and sit with our feet on folded newspapers on the oven door. This was especially wonderful on cold winter mornings. In later years, she had a Monkey Stove, which was a small wood-burning stove. She would fix small meals on this stove, especially breakfast. She was still doing this when Jill, John and Rosemary Millward (grandchildren) were tended by her, while their mother taught school.

On holidays, like the 4th of July, we would all visit our parent's home to watch the local parades from the "best seats in the house," on the front porch. We would eat fresh peas (from my husband Don's parent's garden) and Jack Millward's Dutch-Oven Chicken, and the rest of us would bring other dishes for a wonderful celebration.

I saw her get bucked off a horse on the main driveway onto the farm. I just remember laughing; I suppose because I fell off horses so much as a child that I didn't think it was any big thing.

Mother used to set up her quilts in one of the upstairs rooms in the winter (too hot there in the summer). She would quilt by the hour there. One time I asked her why she didn't get a TV to watch and listen to while she quilted. She seemed a little surprised that I should ask such a question and said, "Oh, then I wouldn't be able to think. I love this time to just think."

My Father fell in love with my Mother when they were children. She was very poor, while he was from a well-to-do home. She only had one dress, which was made of flannel, and Dad asked her why she wore her nightgown to school. They were in the same grade in school, where they had old-fashioned double desks. The girls would sit two-by-two and the boys two-by-two. When the boys misbehaved, they were made to sit in a double desk with a girl (poor girls). One day my Father did something wrong and was sent to sit with Mother. She was so embarrassed that Dad stacked books between them because he felt so sorry for her. He loved her even then.

The pictures of them as young adults show some of their courtship activities. They would go horseback riding, hiking in South Willow canyon, and on picnics up the canyons. All these activities were participated in with their many good friends.

Paul Edward Wrathall and Anna Carolina Peterson were married Oct. 19, 1910 in the Salt Lake Temple, and my Father left on a two or so year mission just one week later. When asked why he got married before his mission my Father answered that he was afraid he might lose my Mother. Their love continued through the 76 years of my Father's life and into Eternity, I am sure.

Mother taught school at the Grantsville Old Academy while Dad served his first mission to the Central States mission with headquarters in Independence, MO. She traveled alone back to Independence to meet him when his mission was completed so that they could travel back together. I suppose that this was their Honeymoon.

When Dad returned from his mission, he bought the "Old Severe Place" for his farm and home in Grantsville on the west side of Cooley's Lane. This was one of the first areas farmed by the early pioneers. Mother had disliked this area from early childhood, when the school children would be led by their teachers on May Walks. They would walk down Cooley's Lane to the beautiful meadows and pick meadow flowers. This area was depressing to mother as a child, and also as an adult. Of course, at this time she assumed that Dad thought he was bringing her a wonderful surprise, so she held her peace and said nothing about her feelings.

Mother suffered with her severe asthma until 1941, when my father contracted to have our whole house moved "Right Up On Main Street" in the middle of town to help mother be happier, because she had not liked farm life. We only moved about a mile and a half as the crow flies, but she never had asthma again. This could have been an allergy or psychosomatic problem.... no one knows for sure.

My mother gave me and, I presume my siblings, the freedom to roam with my horse and dog, to go fishing for minnows down at Fishing Creek, to try out for everything in school and to make the most of our talents. There were no kneepads, helmets, elbow pads or constant cautions, even though I fell off my various horses hundreds of times (with only one broken arm.) I am sure that my siblings had similar experiences.

Paul and Carrie were the parents of four living children and one stillborn son, her first. Her living children were Cecilia Irene Wrathall Millward (Jack), James Leishman Wrathall (Gloria Foy), Anna Pauline Wrathall Hawker (Don) and Saradelle Wrathall Knowlton. Each of us were born in the house down the lane, which was later moved uptown in Grantsville, and now stands at 84 West Main Street. Her oldest daughter (Irene) passed away in October of 2002 at the age of 86.

My parents served a two-year mission to the Temple in Hawaii at the age of 74. While they were away, my family lived in their home and rented our home in Salt Lake City. My husband, our children and I took care of the farm and animals, and my sister Irene took care of my parent's finances. They served from Sept. 1962 to August 1964. My father was not well enough to report to the ward on their mission, so Mother spoke alone. My father passed away on September 21, 1964, just one month after they arrived home from their mission. He died of heart failure in his sleep, He was not well enough to report to the ward Sacrament meeting, so mother went to church and reported alone.

These two years were among the happiest times in our Hawker family's life. We rode horses (Babe, Frosty, Pal and Princess), fixed fences, took care of lambing and pet lambs (in the kitchen in a box), picnics, 4th of July Parades and dinners with the Millwards, Rook games, a chance to get to know our niece and cousin Jill Millward Juchau, etc. All this was made possible because Mother and Dad were willing to serve the Lord in Hawaii. I think, except for my Father's heart problems, these were happy years for them too, because they were able to spend so much time together.

I never remember either of my parents bearing their Testimonies of the Gospel---probably because I wasn't listening, but their lives, the way they lived, the way they served their church, community and their fellowman showed me how deeply they believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and lived it. I never saw my parents sitting together in a church meeting because either one or the other had special callings. Dad was usually on the stand, and if he wasn't, mother probably was. Dad was a Bishop too.

Mother loved to garden, which was always a challenge in the arid conditions which existed then in Grantsville (They now have water shares in the reservoir with plenty of water and pressure). She had a lovely rose garden, beautiful orange blossom shrubs, and peonies for Memorial day (she always decorated the graves), lilacs, etc. She especially had a yard full of beautiful daffodils each spring, along with her tulips and other spring flowers. One year a church Mutual group of young people were having a dance or some other activity and came to mother to ask her to give them all her blooming daffodils to decorate their party. Mother was aghast that they would ask her to give up her flowers. She told them "no" and said the flowers she worked to plant and care for in her yard, were for hers, her family's, and friend's enjoyment. They were as valuable to her as the furniture, art objects and decorations she had in her living room. She obviously wasn't a pushover.

Mother's life was one of peace and beauty. She simply wouldn't have it any other way. She ignored unpleasantness and tawdry things. I never heard her utter any kind of profanity or gossip. She gave quietly to the poor and those who mourned. She always helped in the homes of mourners on the funeral day, and she was much appreciated by the families and by the Mortuary (Tate) people, who expressed their appreciation many times. She loved beautiful music, beautiful words, and visual beauty. She was a lady who lived a life of service to others. She led a productive, good religious life and developed every talent she had. She did not hide her talent under a bushel.

Anna Carolina (Carrie) Peterson Wrathall died in a Tooele Rest Home of pneumonia after a Stroke on December 18, 1972 at the age of 84. She is buried in the Grantsville City Cemetery.