LYDIA GOVER & JOHN EZEKIEL GODFREY FAMILY 
Emma Gover and Daniel Buttars 
Emma Gover was born on November 19, 1864 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some of Emma's first recollections were going with her mother and other family members to gather sagebrush on a hill north of the city. The trip was made once a week to get extra fuel for washday. This hill is probably in the vicinity of where the State Capitol Building is now located. 
Morris, Emma's father, did a lot of reading. He insisted that everyone should be very quiet. 
Emma recalls that she would get under the bed and play with her favorite kitten to keep quiet. 
The first dresses that Emma remembered that she wore were dark blue denim skirts, with light colored waists (now called blouses) and front aprons tied around the waist. The waists and aprons were changed often and washed while the denim skirts could be worn much longer. A red calico dress was one of the highlights of her childhood clothes. She insisted on wearing it long after it was dirty. Her mother had gone with her father to Cache Valley to look over the possibilities of moving there. It became the strenuous task of her sister Lydia, to change the dress. After a game of Hide and Seek with the dress it was put up on some of the high rafters in the house, out of her reach. Emma said, "And did I cry and set it up." 

Emma's first recollection of a bed was holes bored into the log walls of the house and posts set up to form a bed. Rawhide and later ropes were stretched across instead of springs. A bed tick stuffed with straw or cattails that had been burst open to expose their fluffiness, served as a mattress. 
Emma was five years old when the family moved to Newton for a few months and then to Clarkston in 1869. Their first home in Clarkston was a one-room log house. It did not have a ceiling in it, only rafters and a dirt roof. 
Soon Emma was old enough to start school. The children only received as much education as their parents could pay for. Thus when the parents had a little money, the children were sent to school. When the money was used up, the children had to stay home. The pupils progressed by completing readers, not by grades. They also furnished their own books, slates and slate pencils. 
The desks were flat boards fastened to the walls around the log room. The boards were on hinges so they could be raised or let down. There were pegs to put into holes in the logs to hold the flat board up. The seats were flat boards set on stumps. Art was not encouraged in these pioneer schools. The children were punished if they were caught drawing any pictures. 
The games played at recess were ball and Run Sheep. Emma's closest friend was her niece, Ann Godfrey Sparks. Most of their clothes were made alike. 

As Emma was eating a delicacy in later life, she said, "There wasn't much variety in the food we ate when Clarkston was first settled." It was homemade bread, potatoes, milk, mush, salted pork and mutton, and a few eggs of a poor grade because the chickens were left outside to hunt their own food. The fruit was dried peaches, plums, apples, and prunes. It was necessary to dry the fruit because glass jars weren't available then and refrigeration was an invention yet to be discovered. Molasses and honey were used as sweetening. 

Emma was baptized in Clarkston in 1874 in Big Ceek by Andrew Heggie Sr. and confirmed by Henry Stokes. She was re-baptized in October 1875, a year later, by her father Morris Gover and confirmed by Alfred Atkinson. 

Daniel (seated), holding Margaret, Emma (standing), and Daniel David Buttars 

The entertainment for the young people, Emma recalled, was sleigh riding on homemade sleds, molasses candy pulls, and dances. The dances were held about once a week and enjoyed by old and young alike. The stage in the old rock-meeting house was usually filled with sleeping children in beds made on the benches. The dances consisted ofthe French Fours, Reels, Quadrille, and square dances. When the waltz was first introduced it was called round dancing. Only one or two waltzes were permitted each evening. 
The Young Ladies Retrenchment Society was organized in the Clarkston Ward on 5 March 1877 and Emma was accepted into the Society at the first meeting. 
Emma Gover married Daniel Buttars on December 27, 1883 in the Endowment House at Salt Lake City. Daniel Buttars was born September 22, 1859 in Lehi, Utah to David Buttars and Margaret Spalding. Daniel had three sisters and three brothers. One brother, David, died while the family was coming to America and was buried at sea. Margaret, Daniel's mother, died August 10, 1863 just five days after the birth of his youngest sister, Margaret, who only lived 16 days. Daniel's father, David, married Sarah Keep Francis on December 16, 1866 and they had eight more children plus a daughter Sarah already had. This "new" family moved to Clarkston from Lehi in October 1868 building a tworoom house in the Fort. In 1880, when most of the Indian trouble was over, the family built another twe room house on their farm north of Clarkston. 
Daniel worked on his father's farm and on the railroad. When he was twenty-one years old his father gave him a team of horses, a wagon, a new pair of homemade overalls and a quilt. He went to live with his brother John and his wife until he married Emma. 
Their trip to Salt Lake was made in a wagon drawn by a team of horses and took three days each way. Sarah Gover accompanied them on the trip to see her daughter married. They stayed at the homes of friends and relatives on the way. Their first home in Clarkston was a one-room log house. 
Daniel was a stockman and a farmer. He took every opportunity to improve himself financially. He moved his wife and family west of Clarkston to what is now called City Creek, where he homesteaded 160 acres of land. To homestead land, one had to live on the land at least six months of each year for five years. The land was covered with sagebrush, chokecherry bushes, and other trees. He worked hard clearing the trees and walking behind the hand plow and harrows to prepare the ground for planting grain. Emma worked hard carrying water up a hill for about a block for the family's general use and for laundry purposes. She often walked the two miles to town, bringing her four children with her, carrying each of the younger ones as they became tired. 
          Her next home was located on the same lot where the big house now stands. This consisted of two rooms and an unfinished attic. The children reached their attic bedroom first by a ladder attached to the outside of the log house, later a platform and steps were installed inside. All ten children were born in these small houses, -six boys and four girls. 
The only carpets they had at that time were made of strips of rags about one inch wide, which Emma sewed together and then wove into strips of carpet about twenty-seven inches wide. These 
strips were sewn in a shape to best fit the room. Each fall at thrashing time and in the spring these carpets were taken up and fresh clean straw was put under them to make the floor warmer and the carpet last longer. 
The bed ticks were also stuffed with straw and changed regularly. Feathers replaced the straw as soon as enough feathers had been accumulated. A white gathered curtain that reached to the floor was placed around the bed (a bolster), and one long pillow that reached across the head of the bed was used. The bolster was stuffed with chicken or duck feathers. 

Another task that came more regularly than changing the straw was white washing the walls and ceilings of the house. Lime mixed water was used and applied with a brush, much the same as 

we use paint today. Emma said, "Quite often I would just get my white washing done and a rainstonn would come and spoil it. We had about a foot of dirt on the roof instead of shingles so if the rain lasted very long, it would wash some of the dirt through on my clean ceiling and walls". 
Knitting stockings for the family was a steady job for Emma. Fathers, mothers and all of the town children wore them. They were made of black or gray yam for the adults and white for the babies. The younger members of the family did not wear them many years as stockings were then made commercially and bought in the stores. 
Emma first washed on a washboard for her large family and for one or two hired men. 
Washday usually lasted all day for her. The first improvement was a western washer. The one who operated it stood up and pushed a wooden handle, which was about two feet long, over and back in a half circle. This motion on the top of the lid motivated the dolly inside the tub. Washers improved after time. All of the ironing was done with stove irons. A stove iron was a piece of iron weighing about three pounds. It was fashioned into an iron similar in shape to the modem iron. These irons were set on a stove, which was heated by coal, wood or in early days sagebrush to get hot. The handles also got hot so it was necessary to use a pad to protect the hand. 
Emma and Daniel cured their own meat by either dry salting or a brine and smoking. To smoke the meat a cellar was dug in the ground or a small airtight building made. The pork was hung from the ceiling. A slow, smoldering, smoking fire made of apple tree wood was kept burning for a few days. This gave the meat a delicious smoked flavor. They also made sausage, headcheese and beef jerky. Cutting the meat into strips made the jerky. It was then put into salt brine for about two weeks. Then it was hung in the sun to dry. Richard Godfrey would kill a beef the day before some special occasion and everyone would come to buy some fresh meat for a much-needed change. 
Daniel went with his half-brother, Jim Buttars, and Dan Costley up to Canada to buy a ranch. 

They moved their cattle up the next spring. Daniel later traded his share of the cattle and ranch to Mr. Costley for his farm in Clarkston and returned home. It was on this farm that he built a three-room house and made a reservoir to supply water for the animals. He also installed a hydrant close to the house, which was an unusual convenience at that time for a farmhouse. Most of the people had to haul water for several miles. 
When someone in Clarkston wanted an improvement made, they often turned to Daniel. He and Andrew Heggie laid out the channel for Birch Creek with a plank. They were also at the head when both water systems were put in the town. Daniel was always ready to build up the town and help people and was on the city council as well. He was an honest man and always willing to devote his time and means to help the poor. 
Dan was the biggest stockman in Clarkston and always had the best, both in cattle and horses. 
He rode horses a lot and brought the first purebred horses to town. His favorite pony's name was Sailor. 
He had a special gift for splicing and braiding rope. One of his specialties was securing a ring or snap in the end of a rope by braiding around it and back along the rope for several inches. He could splice a rope and make it almost as strong as it originally was. The work was done very neatly. Other people often brought braiding and splicing for him to do for them. 
Daniel was about five feet nine inches tall and quite heavily built. He had an unusually large bluish purple birthmark on his face, which covered most of his cheek and one side of his nose. 
Daniel was a member of the first prayer circle group that was organized in Clarkston by Bishop John Jardine on the June 23, 1901. They met twice each month in an upstairs room in the home of his father, David Buttars. 
Their large home in the west center part of Clarkston was started on July 25, 1906--the same day their tenth child was born. The contractors worked on the house two summers quitting during the winter months. The materials used for the house were all hauled from Logan by team and wagon. It was fInally fmished and the family moved in by Christmas of 1907. All new 
Daniel and Emma Buttars Home in Clarkston furniture, tables, chairs, beds, window curtains, blinds, etc. were purchased for the new house. Lundstrum Furniture Co. supplied and installed all the new furnishings. 
The house had all the plumbing fixtures, tub, sink, toilet, and washbasins--the first house in Clarkston to have such luxuries. Clarkston did not have a water system at that time so a five hundred gallon water tank was installed on the second floor. Each morning some one spent about an hour at the hand pump to fIll this tank. One tank full usually lasted through the day. 
Kerosene lamps were used in each of the eight rooms of the new house until about 1913 when gaslights were installed. Each house had a tank of gas and a hand pump to create pressure. These gaslights were not too successful. They were also dangerous. To get Utah Power and Light 
Company to bring electricity to Clarkston in 1916, each consumer had to sign a contract to pay twenty-four dollars a year for three years, so it was expensive to acquire the electricity and another 
big job to wire the two-story house. 
Daniel was a real fInancier both for the people and for himself. Things always seemed to come his way. He bought one of the fIrst three cars that came to town---a 1915 Model Buick. He was so used to riding horses that he called "Whoa" to stop it. One time he lost control, and it knocked out the boards in the end of the shed he was using for a garage. He fIlled two sacks with dirt after that and placed them so the front wheels of the car would hit them to prevent another accident. 
Daniel was very hospitable. Every one who came along was invited to come in to eat and sleep. The smaller children were very often tucked into beds on the floor, so the guests could occupy their beds. In fact so many stayed that the home was nicknamed, The Mountain View Hotel. One had only to look out the back door and see the beautiful mountains in the west, especially at sun set or early dawn, to appreciate the name. 

Front: Daniel David, Hattie, Emma, Wallace, Daniel, Archulious, and Margaret. Back: Orson, Gover, Maybelle, Ira, and Melvin Buttars 
 
Emma said later, "If! could have had this electric stove and been able to go to the store and buy a loaf of bread like I can now, instead of having to make soda or baking powder biscuits each time company came and my bread supply was low, it would have been easier." 

Eight loaves of bread and a big pan of biscuits were mixed and baked every day. During the haying and the harvesting season when there was extra hired help, this same amount was baked twice each day. 

Emma was a wonderful homemaker. She was clean and particular in every detail. Her home was decorated with her own handiwork. Beautiful patchwork quilts and fancy pillowslips were on the beds. Braided and crocheted throw rugs were on the floors. Doilies were on every cupboard shelf, and there were embroidered tablecloths and comfortable chair back covers. She could knit, crochet, embroider, and do tatting. She did this kind of handwork until she was eighty-five years old. 

Daniel died very suddenly of a heart attack about five am on January 10,1916. He was sitting in his big leather chair in front of the Heatrola. He slipped out onto the floor. He and Emma were the only ones up that early but it didn't take the rest long to get up when Emma called for help. There was a lot of snow that winter so horses and a sleigh were used in the funeral cortege. The casket was placed in the sleigh and covered with a quilt. Spring seats and boards were placed across the other sleigh boxes for the family and friends to sit on. He was buried in the Clarkston Cemetery. 

Emma was only fifty-two years old at this time and there were four children between nine and eighteen years old who were not married. Her husband had always taken care of all the fmancial and business affairs himself,· but Emma soon learned by experience and became very efficient in farm management. Emma was a widow for thirty-six years, three years longer than she lived with her husband. 
When Emma's mother became too old to live alone, she spent part of her time with Emma. She was living there when she died in Feb 1917, just thirteen months after Emma's husband's death. Emma was very kind and thoughtful of her mother. She also insisted that her children treat her very respectfully. 
One of Emma's church activities was working on the Old Folks committee with her husband. 
She was frrst counselor to Sarah H. Clark in the Primary for many years with Mary E. Burt the second counselor. She served as Counselor to Clara Ravsten in the Relief Society Presidency. She also served as a Visiting Teacher and a teacher in the Sunday school. 
Emma moved to Logan for two winters to work in the temple, usually attending three sessions each day. She also spent several hundred dollars on genealogical research and hiring men's names done. She got very homesick those two winters. 
Emma enjoyed a trip she made to Los Angles, California, in December 1924 with her daughter-in-law, Maggie Buttars, Elizabeth Layne and Hannah Blair. Some other places she visited were Yellowstone Park, Salt Lake City for conferences and other church organization conventions, Bear Lake, Burley and Teton, Idaho. Her desire to visit England where her parents were born was never fulfilled. 

Her son Gover with his three children, Ervin, Gordon, and Milton lived with Emma for two years after Gordon wife, Mary Godfrey Buttars died. Milton, who was born the day of his mother's death, lived with his grandmother until he was eight years old. He always called her mother. She missed him very much when he went to Burley to live with his father. Emma said, "I thoroughly enjoyed raising Milton. I had so many modem conveniences and more time to enjoy him than I did my own children." 
Emma's last illness began on March 21, 1951 when she had a serious heart attack. She wanted to stay in her own home, so her four daughters and Wallace took turns staying with her. Several other heart attacks followed. She passed away July 1, 1952 at the age of eighty-seven. Funeral services were held on July fifth and internment was in the Clarkston cemetery. 
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