Parley Pratt Anderson

Parley Pratt Anderson was born on 22 October 1878 in Gorgoza, Parley’s Park, Summit County, Utah, the son of William Ove Anderson and Elsie Ericksen Anderson, pioneers who had converted to the Church in their homeland of Denmark and crossed the plains to join the Saints in Utah. Parley was named after Church leader Parley Pratt because his parents had a great admiration for him. Parley was raised in a large family on a large and remote ranch in the mountains east of Salt Lake City. From boyhood, he had a love of horses and always had one of his own. His small community offered only an elementary-level education. Parley learned how to read at home and didn’t begin formal schooling until the 3rd grade. He attended school for just 4 winters. (His teachers included Med Pack, Mr. Pohe, Mr. Bunnell, Rob King, and Miss Maudnelly). However, Parley loved to learn and was well-read in classic literature. At the age of 15, Parley and his older brother, Will (21), went to Coalville for a load of coal. On their way home, they camped at Wanship, cooking their supper over a campfire and making their beds on the hard ground. Around 3 in the morning, a storm came up suddenly, so they broke up camp and headed for home, a good 15 miles away. The snow began accumulating so quickly that it soon reached the hubs of the wagon wheels, making progress difficult. The horses—Old Bill and Nell—strained beneath the hindered load. To ease the animals’ burden, Parley and Will walked all the way up Silver Creek Canyon. By the time they reached Kimball’s Junction, the weather was so bitter and the snow so deep, that Parley’s feet began to freeze. When he came near his neighbor Mrs. Rasmussen’s house, he called for help. Mrs. Rasmussen put his feet in a tub of snow and water to draw the frost out and then soaked his feet in coal oil, wrapping them in gunny sacks. As Parley’s daughter Jean later recalled, “He blesses her to this day for saving his feet.” When Parley was 18 years old, he bought a wild horse, a pinto. He was determined to break the horse himself. His friends tried to talk him out of it, certain that the horse would kill him in the process. His friend Dave Dahl even got a rifle and sat by the corner of the house ready to shoot the horse should it throw Parley. Parley’s daughter Jean wrote: “Dad got on him and the horse trembled but instead of jumping, he stretched his legs out until his belly touched the ground and then he sprang up and ran out of the gate and he ran like the wind for 3 miles to Bert Kimball’s and back. He had bucked the saddle loose so they cinched it again and Dad rode him all day. The horse was trim and built like a jack-rabbit. Dad had to blindfold him every time he rode him.” When Parley left for his mission to Scandinavia in 1899, he turned the horse loose, but his friend Dave Dahl caught him again and sold him, sending the money to Parley on his mission. By the time Parley got home, the horse had earned the reputation of being the best saddle horse in the country. Parley tried to buy him back, but was unable to. In October of 1899, around the time of his 21st birthday, Parley received a letter calling him to serve in the Scandinavian Mission. He threw the letter to the ground. He had made up his mind not to serve a mission—he had plans to go to Canada with friends instead. After much thought and deliberation, Parley approached his father, William Ove Anderson, and told him that he would go as quickly as the Church wanted him to. It’s a tradition in the Church to send missionaries off with a farewell of some kind. In Parley’s case, his ward gifted him with $100 and held a dance in his honor. At one point in the evening, Parley danced the quadrille (where 4 couples dance together in a rectangular formation) with his Bishop’s wife. Afterwards, the Bishop’s wife sat down next to Parley’s sister, Edith. Suddenly, her head dropped on Edith’s shoulder and her false teeth popped out. Pandemonium broke out and the doctor was called, but it was too late. The Bishop’s wife died. Parley’s mother Elsie later remarked that it was the most hectic night of her life. It gave Parley a good scare—he didn’t want to go out after dark after that and would jump at the slightest sound. It was the hardest thing to have happened to him in his life up until that point. Parley arrived in Denmark and was assigned to the most northern section of the Scandinavian Mission. He was disappointed at this assignment as it was his preference to remain in Denmark where both of his parents were from and where he had extended family. His parents, William and Elsie, wanted him to stay in Denmark, too. Parley prayed that he’d be permitted to remain in Denmark. The next day, with his bags packed and ready to head north, Parley’s mission president stopped by his hotel to tell him that he’d be staying in Denmark after all. Apparently, Parley’s father William had mailed a letter to the mission president that the mission president had only just opened (after it had sat unopened on his desk for two weeks), requesting that Parley stay in Denmark where Parley had family. The mission president, Andreas Peterson, changed Parley’s appointment to Aarhus, Denmark. While in Denmark, Parley was able to locate two of his mother Elsie’s sisters and one of his cousins. Both of the women were widows. He visited each of them, walking 20 miles to see his Aunt Sophia Ericksen and her middle-aged son, Hans. His aunt extended an invitation for him to spend the night, about which his cousin was not pleased—they would have to share a bed and Hans was sure Parley would pull the covers off of him and he’d catch cold. Parley managed to win over Hans in the end, though. The following morning, Hans was up early loading beets in a wheelbarrow. Parley went out to help him, pushing a loaded wheelbarrow that Hans could not even budge. After a full day’s work in which more was accomplished than Hans could have done by himself in an entire week, Hans became friendly towards Parley and even took him to see the graves of some of their relatives. Parley returned from his mission in 1902 and found ranch and ice work in Parley’s Park, Summit County and Colton, Carbon County. Among other odd jobs, he cut and packed ice and shipped it to Salt Lake. (These were the days, when, instead of a refrigerator, homes and businesses and train cars used large blocks of ice to keep perishables cool.) During his time in Summit County, Parley met a lovely young school teacher at the Gogorza school by the name of Sarah Ettie Jeremy. When they were courting, Parley would often ride his horse all the way to Salt Lake and back in the early morning hours just so that they could spend time together. Once, he was showing off for her—skating as fast as he could across a frozen pond—when his skates came off and he crashed. Parley and Sarah married in the Salt Lake Temple on 01 June 1904 and settled in their lifelong home at 758 South 800 West in Salt Lake City. Parley first worked for the Salt Lake Ice Company, but later transferred to the Utah Ice & Storage Company where he remained as a loved and respected employee and supervisor for 49 years. He retired in 1954 as the Superintendent of the Ice Department (in charge of loading train cars with ice). He enjoyed his work and made an effort during his time there to employ young men in need of work, especially during the Depression. All his life, Parley loved baseball, horse-racing, the out-of-doors, and dancing, often participating in those beloved activities through his local ward. He played on the 26th Ward baseball team and served as his stake’s dance director for 20 years. As Parley’s daughter Jean wrote, “He enjoyed dancing all his life and no function of the Stake or Ward found him absent. His sweetheart companion, Sarah, was a perfect partner in life and in the dance.” Parley’s daughter Ardella wrote of her father that he was “a handsome man with dark hair, blue eyes, and rosey cheeks. He was sturdy and well-built with broad shoulders and a regal carriage . . . He held many teaching and leadership positions in the Church, and paid an honest tithe and fulfilled all Church financial obligations throughout his life. He always paid his way and was never in debt to anyone . . . During his later years, he was blessed to be able to help at Welfare Square, an assignment that was very dear to his heart.” Ardella went on to say that “he was always a kind and loving father and was so generous with his children.” She remembered how when, as a child, she had an earache, Parley would carry her in his arms, breathing warm air into her ear to make the pain go away. And when her brother Wayne had the chickenpox and convulsions, Parley would walk the floor with him night after night until he was well. At Christmas, he always arranged to have Santa Claus drive near the children’s bedroom windows so that they could hear his sleigh bells. To entertain his children, Parley would play a mouth organ to accompany their dancing or put a large handkerchief over his hand and make shadow-people on the wall, carrying on a conversation with the shadows all the while to make his children laugh. Ardella wrote of her father: “He always had the blessing of administering to the sick with the faith of healing. During the influenza epidemic of 1918, he accompanied Bishop White to many homes in the 26th Ward where the people were ill and dying with the dread disease. The Bishop told him that if he would go with him in faith and help him bless the people, that he and his family would be spared and would not suffer with the influenza. This promise was literally fulfilled.” Jean wrote of her father, “Dad has been a wonderful father, kind, understanding, gentle and interested in all we did. He is a father whose example is worthy of emulation. We have a heritage to be proud of.” Parley passed away on 01 May 1975 at the age of 96.