LIFE SKETCH OF
EMILY CHARLOTTE BROGESON BROWN BUNKER
by
EMILY CHARLOTTE BORGESON BROWN
(Transcribed from her own handwriting)
1885 - 1966

I was born at Santaquin, a beautiful little village in the south end of Utah county. My father was Andrew Borgeson and my mother Necoline Emily Olsen Borgeson.

I was the seventh child, the seventh daughter in the family: born on the seventh day of the seventh month in the year 1885.

My sisters and brother are as follows: Annie Necoline Borgeson, born Jan 23, 1874, Mary Christine Borgeson, born Oct 7, 1875; Julia Josephine Borgeson, born Aug 18, 1877; Ellenora Eliza Borgeson, born June 13, 1879; Nettie Lovina Borgeson, born March 12, 1887; Jenny Isabella Borgeson, born May 17, 1883; Emily Charlotte Borgeson, born July 7, 1885; Clara Octavia Borgeson, born June 2, 1887; Lizzie Olivia Borgeson, born April 25, 1889; Andrew Alvin Borgeson, born Oct 14, 1891, Rhoda Rebecca Borgeson, born Dec 17, 1893.

My father was a farmer, adobe maker, and also made molasses. From my earliest recollection, I can remember my father as a prosperous industrious honest man, whose earnest desire was to train his children to be self-supporting honorable citizens.

I can always see my mother, a true help-mate to her husband in every way, self-sacrificing, intelligent, clean, refined, in every sense of the word a lady, a wonderful mother to the eleven children she brought into the world. With such a heritage, one could not help but make life a success.

In my early childhood, I had the advantage of a home consisting of two large rooms built of adobe which my father made. There was also a good rock cellar under the one room.

The lot on which the house was built was very large, so we children had the freedom of the big outdoors without the constraint of very near neighbors.

We had very good neighbors on all sides, and they remained good neighbors, because my parents always enforced a rule they made, that we as a family were to stay home and mind our own business and not get too intimate with anybody.

I was taught to work from the time I was old enough to do small jobs, such as picking up apples from the ground to feed pigs, feed and water chickens, bring in wood (we never burned coal in those days), keep an eye on the baby and a dozen other things that small children were able to do. As I grew older, there were harder chores to do, such as pulling weeds, herding cows, washing dishes, cleaning the house, going on errands, etc.

One particular thing my parents taught their children, was to keep personal or family business to themselves. We were trained not to blab all that we knew. While in the seventh grade, I memorized this maxim:— “What's in your mind let no one know, Nor to your friends your secret show, For if your friend becomes your foe, Then everyone your secrets will know.”

I think the ability to mind one's own business shows great strength of character, and I can truthfully say that my father and mother never did ...

A History handwritten by Emily's daughter, Julia Romania Brown (transcribed)

Emily Charlotte Borgeson Brown Bunker was born July 7, 1885 at Santaquin, Utah of Pioneer parents, Andrew Borgeson and Necoline Emily Olsen Borgeson. Emily was the seventh girl in a family of 10 girls and one boy.

She was blessed by her father Andrew Borgeson Aug. 6, 1885, and baptized by Bishop Eli Openshaw July 6, 1893 and confirmed by Lars Anstrum Johnson, Sr.

She could remember as a pioneer child, sitting at the breakfast table, sensing when Indians were looking in the window.

As a child, Emily was delicate and thin and as a young girl shot up in height and was very slender.

At school, she was very brilliant, always being at the head of the class. She was polite and had every qualification of a model student. Her family consisting [of] 10 sisters & one brother, therefore the girls had to work like boys to help on the farm. She helped plant, irrigate and weed, put up hay and grain. Grandfather made molasses and the girls helped with that. Every fall, Emily had to stay out of school and help on the farm and every spring.

Grandfather built grandmother a loom and the girls wove rugs for people. It was [a] very flourishing business for she told how she and her sisters worked in shifts night and day weaving carpet.

Her family decided, being as she was so scholastically inclined, she should go to college at the Brigham Young University. She took a Normal Course and after two years at BYU, she began teaching school. Her first year was at Molin in Millard County. The next year, she taught at Alpine, Utah. In Dec. of the year, she suffered with a partial stroke. In time, however, she recovered and was able to resume her teaching. She had a lovely high soprano voice and sang in quartetes and duets, both in family and Ward Choir assignments. While she was teaching in Alpine, she met William Henry Brown. He was the son of William Thomas Brown, a sheepman. He also had sheep. He was very attracted to Emily. It was before automobiles were available. He had a very classy rubber tired buggy, and a very beautiful high-spirited horse to go with it. At first she gave him the brush off, but later, they were married July 22, 1907. Emily was then 22 years of age. She was a very good homemaker, being very neat and a good seamstress, and a good cook. Emily and Will first lived in the old Brown home in Alpine, Utah, which had been remodeled and the adobe walls plastered on the outside. They had wonderful times in Alpine. She always had a tender place in her heart for Alpine. They enjoyed the dances in Alpine very much. They had been married 3 years before they were blessed with a child. It was a son. They named him Whitmore Halvor, born Sept 3, 1913.

Some years after their marriage, they moved to American Fork to a nice brick house on Main Street, with fine new furniture in all rooms. Later they moved back to the old home in Alpine. In 1915, they moved back to American fork where their second child, a daughter, Julia Romania was born Sept 29, 1916. In 1917, they moved to Midvale, Utah and early in 1919, they moved to Sandy, Utah where they were blessed with a son, Stanford William, Feb 13, 1919, and yet another son, Gerald LaMar, born Feb 10, 1922.

Emily was left with 4 children to raise alone without much money. Will hadn't been dead long when Emily was so ill they sent her to the hospital. She took LaMar home to mother, Necoline Borgeson [Halvor was working for Brother Andrew, so was at mother Borgeson's too] and Clara Johnson, sister Mary's daughter came to take care of Julia and Stan. Stanford and Julia going [went] to sister Mary's in Santaquin, where shortly they both had typhoid fever that fall. Finally everyone recuperated and we lost our home in Sandy so she moved into her Grandfather Olsen's home in Santaquin. That winter LaMar was very ill and nearly died, but finally he recuperated too. He was such a comfort to his mother. He seemed to know when she was lonely or troubled, indeed he was a darling child. She taught school as a substitute teacher that winter when everyone recuperated. By that time, she would have to go back to college for 2 years in order to teach permanently. She moved to Provo and worked at the State Mental Hospital. She moved to Salem, lived there for 2 years. She then moved to Salt Lake. She had much adversity to contend with, but she was a scrapper and worked very hard and did everything no matter how hard to make ends meet. We enjoyed our lives if we were poor in purse. We enjoyed our talks in the twilight very much and felt very close. We had an eisenglass door on our stove and it was [a] combination firelight, twilight and lights from the service station on the corner that lit our home evenings. Wouldn't that bring feelings of confidence, closeness, etc.? No wonder we felt close while we waved on our electric bill.

Around this time, LaMar was killed by an automobile when he was 8 years old on May 30, 1930.

Emily was very talented writing poetry and it seemed the worse her adversity, the more wonderful and beautiful was her poetry.

After several years of widowhood, she met and married Benjamin Bunker. She moved to Moapa, Nevada first, then to Delamar, a ghost mining town where they were reworking an old dump. She lived in a screened tent inside an old store where only the walls were standing from Delamar's boom days. She made it very homey and planted flowers inside the walls. It was a beauty spot. All the water had to be hauled 2 blocks up hill, so all dish water, bath water & wash water was utilized for the flowers.

Finally they moved to Delta where mother finally had a phone. It wasn't very nice when she moved in, but she painted, made over furniture, planted lawn & flowers and it was lovely when she was able to do it.

Benjamin Bunker died 18 May 1963. She lived alone for a while, then lived with a daughter for the winter when she moved back to Delta, she lived alone a year where Stan and family were very good to her, then decided to go into a rest home run by her cousin Esther Halladay. She stayed there nearly a year. She passed away Sept 3, 1966 in the Cottonwood Hospital.

During her life, she loved associating with relatives & friends and she loved to go for rides. [also, don't interrupt when she and her husband were watching wrestling!!]

A telephone conversation of Julia Romania Brown Peterson with Emily Borgeson Brown Bunker shortly before her death:

In regards to her family, she said [the] only thing grandfather Borgeson [Andrew Borgeson, grandfather of Julia Peterson] remembered was he was born during midsummer week, June. It was later found he was born on June 20. He was an orphan and worked for an uncle. The only bed he had consisted of a bag of straw. He went barefooted even when there was deep snow, and would sit on his feet when he opened gates for nobility in between times. He was a servant for his uncle. His clothes consisted of a few rags to cover him. His uncle took what should have belonged to him when he his parents died.

He was a sailor on a cargo ship. He married a widow woman.

Mother remembered vividly how [they] were told how they were persecuted for joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, being imprisoned for 28 days in Vennesborg Prison for preaching the gospel. He never got meals like the rest of the prisoners. A crowd gathered to see him when he got out. He hadn't even lost any weight and the crowd said the Devil must have kept him alive.

Mother remembered the molasses he used to make.

The only member of his family he ever communicated with was his brother, Joseph. They wrote to one another. Joseph had a son named August, who lived in Pennsylvania. Aunt Lizzie White visited August Josephson when she was on her mission to the Eastern States. He was Uncle Joseph's son. He was very bitter against the Mormons and unfriendly to Mormons. Aunt Lizzie picked up the Swedish Family Bible in the kitchen and it was snatched out of her hands. During the night, she heard strange noises and heard them plotting against her so she left.

While Aunt Lizzie was on her mission, she visited the Sacred Grove and got some parchment from the Sacred Grove.

Another handwritten start on Julia's mother's history:

Emily Charlotte Borgeson Brown Bunker

Emily was born July 7, 1885 at Santaquin, Utah of pioneer parents. Emily was the 7th girl in a family of 10 girls and one boy. She could remember as a pioneer child [that] they could sense when Indians were looking in the window when they were sitting at the breakfast table. Seeing as the family was mostly girls, the girls had to work like boys. She was very brilliant in school, was always the head of her class. The family decided she should go to college at the Brigham Young University. She taught school in Molen, in Emery County. She also taught at Alpine, Utah, where she was considered a very good teacher. While there, she met and married William Brown. She really enriched his live. She was a very neat person, a good seamstress, a good cook. She had a good sense of humor which helped her very much through her trials. She and Bill had 4 children; Halvor, Julia, Stanford and LaMar. When LaMar was one year old, she lost her dearly beloved husband. While he was so sick, he told her how much he loved and appreciated her.

She worked very hard to support her children. She worked by day and sewed and patched by night. We were all happy. We can remember especially sitting in the twilight & saving on light bills & having our best visits. In later years, she married Benjamin Bunker. She loved her grandchildren and enjoyed them very much during her later life and her friends were cherished.