Leona was married three times as follows:
Ferrel H. Hepworth (1908-1991) 10 Apr 1928 Salt Lake City, Utah
Ralph Iwar Westerberg (1913-1969) 2 Feb 1944 Salt Lake City, Utah
Thomas Henry Hunsaker (1903-1963) 21 May 1958 Elko, Nevada
Information provided by Dan Rollins #47595299
Memories of Leona Hunsaker
Daughter of Elizabeth & George Rollins
Leona Hunsaker was born in Centerville, Utah, on November 23, 1910. I lived in the old Rollins home my father bought from his mother and Father [Stueben & Amanda Rollins]. The home was built with adobe bricks, made from mud pressed into molds and left to dry in the sun. The home was built by my great grandfather, Henry Rollins in the early 1850's. The house was okay, but when the rain and winter came, it eroded the bricks so they didn't last long as regular brick or wood homes. The foundation and basement was made of rock and the rattle snakes used to coil on the rocks in the sun. My mother was so scared of them she was afraid to go outside at times. There were apple trees, cherry trees, peach trees, and pear trees around the house. There were also violets and lilacs that lined the path to the street.
When I was about five years old, my father bought the Spencer property across the street and we moved into that home. It was rock with walls over three feet thick. The window sills were deep and we could play jacks in them until our mother filled them up with flowers. She loved flowers and always had a house full.
My sister Iva was born there in that house on May 29, 1916. Our mother, Elizabeth loved her so much. Iva had blonde fluffy curly hair, wide open blue eyes, and pink cheeks. She had a bright happy smile and sunny disposition. Mother's pet name for her was "chickie". Iva was so happy and very loving. Iva was her papa's girl. She followed her papa around the field and to the barn, where she helped with the horses, cows, calves, and etc.
The Spencer property went from the upper road in Centerville up to the mountains - foothills, where there was a large sand pit. We use to hike in the foothills and slide down the edges of the sandpit. That was a lot of fun for us. We would also sleigh ride from the sand pit down past the Denver and Rio Grand tracks, over 2 miles without stopping. But it was a long way back to the top again. Oh such fun we had had. Sometimes my father would ride down to the bottom on "old Bell" and he would hitch ropes to the saddle horn and old Bell would pull us back to the top so we could go down again. Fun, fun, fun…
My father, George Rollins, was tall, handsome, and loving. He was a good man, honest, and his word was his bond. He had very light brown hair and blue blue eyes. His hair got darker as he got older. He loved his family very much.
The TV story "Little House on the Prairie" always reminded me of my childhood. Michael Landon was so strong and wise, honest and good, soft and caring, and hard working for his family. That's how my father and mother were. I judged everyone by my father. I thought all men were like him. That was the way men were supposed to be. I never dreamed that there were any other kind. It was an awful sad thing for me to learn that some are very different. That there are all kinds of people in the world and we have to live with that knowledge and cope with these people.
We used to play around the cellar. Iva was too small to get up on top. Father warned us to stay off because the dirt sifted down into the walk in. My father built a root cellar in the back
of our house. It was a dug out down in the ground about 8 feet and lined with rock and a cement floor. Each side [north and south] were shelves for fruit, etc. The north side had a large table where mother churned her butter and set the fresh milk in large milk pans [12" diameter and 4' high]. Grass grew on the roof. The cellar came out of the ground about 2 feet and had a dirt roof which had to be replaced every year or so because the dirt got wet and rotted the wood. The cellar was about 15 feet square and had about 7 steps down to get inside. The vegetables, fruit, etc. were mostly all stored in the cellar. The east side was divided into bins for the vegetables and apples.
My father took some of the wheat, after it was harvested and thrashed, to the flour mill in Bountiful to be milled into flour for our family use. He stored it in our cellar on a huge swing built by hanging metal cables from the ceiling pole to a 1 foot wide, 5 foot plank off the floor 6 to 9 inches or so. It held 16 to 18, fifty pound sacks of flour for a years supply to be used by our family. The swing kept the mice out of the flour. Mother made the best homemade bread and fresh butter!!
My father turned the ditch water on the lawns and trees. Iva, Wallace, Athen and myself spent our summers climbing the cherry trees. They were so huge and tall and loaded with fruit. We also helped pick the fruit. My father and mother would get up early and pick the fruit and pack it in crates for the market. When father was gone to market in Salt Lake City, mother would can fruit. We always had our 600 quarts of fruit, etc. put away for winter. Plus bins of potatoes, dried carrots, dried corn, turnips, parsnips, onions, and flour.
We lived about one mile from our ward church house. My father would put Iva and Athen, one on each shoulder, their arms around his neck. My mother would follow with my older brother and me by the hands and we would all walk to church. When the weather was bad father hitched up the horses to the surrey, a covered two seated horse carriage. The horses and carriage were tethered to the fence posts behind the church. But the noises, other horses and many people bothered the horses and they became very restless and unruly. It was better and less bother to just take off and walk to church.
My father was Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years. When he was up there at the podium, I thought that he was the most handsome man in the whole world. I adored him. He was so good and strong. When the music, piano, or organ played and we all stood up to sing the hymns, I was so very proud and I sang loudest of all I think. That is where I learned our gospel songs and learned to love them very much.
Mother was in the ward choir. She had a lovely soprano voice and loved to sing. When we came home from school we could hear her singing half a mile up the road. She loved the lovely church songs and sang while she worked. Her favorite song, well my favorite to hear her sing was "Nearer My God to Thee" and "Come Come Ye Saints". Also "Prayer is the Souls Sincere Desire". Mother played the harmonica and in the evenings she would sit on the back steps playing it while father along with us kids played on the lawn and listened, sang, or hummed with her.
Mother taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School for over 15 years. It was the young people from 14 to 16 years old. There were always 20 to 35 young people in her class. She was really dedicated to those young people and they loved her because they showed up every Sunday morning for the class. Mother really studied the scriptures and worked hard to teach the young people the Gospel and make it interesting. Mother was very active in all of her church callings. She had been in the Young Women's Mutual Assoc. She was also on the Mutual Stake Board in Davis County for several years.
When Iva was small we were all in Primary. Mother taught the Blue Bird class and Seagulls. She would take Iva and lay her on the seat while she taught her class. Mother loved it and worked hard at it always. We would wait for her to finish on the front steps of the church house. She shook hands with everyone and had a kind word as she entered the building and as she left. Sometimes it got very cold on those cement steps waiting for her to get through and go home. She was in her glory and loved every minute of it and the lovely people in our ward. Also my father, he was very proud of his family and loved us very much.
Mother was Relief Society President for a few years when we got older and were not in Primary. Relief Society and Primary were held at about the same time in the ward house. The ladies met in the Relief Society room and the primary in the main room. Then Mutual was held at night on the same day, Tuesdays. It saved on heating bills, etc. which was always a big concern in our ward.
My father was "Ward Teacher" in our ward for many years. He loved visiting with the people and his gospel. Monday night at 7:00 pm was Priesthood meeting. He considered it one of the most important meetings of the church. He read the scriptures religiously and would talk for hours of the Bible stores and quoted the Bible, Book of Mormon, and his favorite the Pearl of Great Price from memory. He went to the Southern States on his mission in 1896. He contracted malaria fever while there and was very sick.
My father loved his animals. He always had a matched team of horses. At Christmas time he would harness them up and hitch them to our sleigh. He added a string of bells to the harness and it was a happy sound as we glided through the snow. Father heated large rocks and bricks in our oven to keep our feet warm. Also straw in the sleigh box and some seats for comfort but mostly we snuggled in the straw and had blankets to keep us warm.
On occasion we ran along behind the sleigh or skied on barrel stoves and hooked a rope to the sleigh. Sometimes several small sleighs on ropes would be hooked to the sleigh. It was such fun!! There was very little traffic in those days, so we were safe. Now days it would be impossible.
We had very large alfalfa fields for feed for the horses and cows. Father rotated the hay fields every few years. The alfalfa put nutrients back into the ground that other crops used up and rotation was a form of fertilizing the fields. In the fall and winter time Father made a ball diamond with sacks of sand for the bases, etc. All the kids and young men in town came there to play ball. Iva loved to play baseball and could hit as well and as hard as anyone. She was very good at baseball. She could run like a deer. I can see her now - her cap with the visor turned to the side and in overalls chasing the balls and laughing because she could get the boys out in baseball.
Iva was very athletic. She could roller skate and climb the mountains with the very best. Mostly I remember how she loved to ride horses. She would always volunteer to take the cows to pasture after they were milked, about a mile and half from our house, every morning and get them at night because it was an excuse to ride her horse.
On very snowy cold days, especially if the weather was bad and it had snowed all night, there was no path. My father had a 'slide' he called it. It was about 5 feet square with brackets to hitch the horse to. He would take us to school a couple miles away. The front of the slide was built up to deflect the snow and made a good path up the road. We would all pile on and always the sleigh bells.
Leona worked at the restaurant at the Hotel Utah for many years. She loved seeing the various prophets and general authorities come into the restaurant and being able to wait on them. She loved doing her job at the Hotel Utah.
Leona was the mother of two girls and three boys. She loved being a mother. Her daughters were Louise Rollins Hepworth born 4 Dec 1931 and died 2 June 2007; and Katherine Ellen Westerburg born 20 May 1945. Her three sons were: Glen Earl Hepworth born 10 March 1933; Sherman Randolph Hepworth, Sr. born 25 Jan 1936 and died 14 April 2011; and Eugene Rollins Hepworth born 10 July 1937 and died 24 Nov 1937.
Leona died 30 May 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was buried in the Centerville Cemetery, near her parents. Leona was a much loved mother by her children and they greatly miss the joy and happiness she brought into their lives.
Ferrel H. Hepworth (1908-1991) 10 Apr 1928 Salt Lake City, Utah
Ralph Iwar Westerberg (1913-1969) 2 Feb 1944 Salt Lake City, Utah
Thomas Henry Hunsaker (1903-1963) 21 May 1958 Elko, Nevada
Information provided by Dan Rollins #47595299
Memories of Leona Hunsaker
Daughter of Elizabeth & George Rollins
Leona Hunsaker was born in Centerville, Utah, on November 23, 1910. I lived in the old Rollins home my father bought from his mother and Father [Stueben & Amanda Rollins]. The home was built with adobe bricks, made from mud pressed into molds and left to dry in the sun. The home was built by my great grandfather, Henry Rollins in the early 1850's. The house was okay, but when the rain and winter came, it eroded the bricks so they didn't last long as regular brick or wood homes. The foundation and basement was made of rock and the rattle snakes used to coil on the rocks in the sun. My mother was so scared of them she was afraid to go outside at times. There were apple trees, cherry trees, peach trees, and pear trees around the house. There were also violets and lilacs that lined the path to the street.
When I was about five years old, my father bought the Spencer property across the street and we moved into that home. It was rock with walls over three feet thick. The window sills were deep and we could play jacks in them until our mother filled them up with flowers. She loved flowers and always had a house full.
My sister Iva was born there in that house on May 29, 1916. Our mother, Elizabeth loved her so much. Iva had blonde fluffy curly hair, wide open blue eyes, and pink cheeks. She had a bright happy smile and sunny disposition. Mother's pet name for her was "chickie". Iva was so happy and very loving. Iva was her papa's girl. She followed her papa around the field and to the barn, where she helped with the horses, cows, calves, and etc.
The Spencer property went from the upper road in Centerville up to the mountains - foothills, where there was a large sand pit. We use to hike in the foothills and slide down the edges of the sandpit. That was a lot of fun for us. We would also sleigh ride from the sand pit down past the Denver and Rio Grand tracks, over 2 miles without stopping. But it was a long way back to the top again. Oh such fun we had had. Sometimes my father would ride down to the bottom on "old Bell" and he would hitch ropes to the saddle horn and old Bell would pull us back to the top so we could go down again. Fun, fun, fun…
My father, George Rollins, was tall, handsome, and loving. He was a good man, honest, and his word was his bond. He had very light brown hair and blue blue eyes. His hair got darker as he got older. He loved his family very much.
The TV story "Little House on the Prairie" always reminded me of my childhood. Michael Landon was so strong and wise, honest and good, soft and caring, and hard working for his family. That's how my father and mother were. I judged everyone by my father. I thought all men were like him. That was the way men were supposed to be. I never dreamed that there were any other kind. It was an awful sad thing for me to learn that some are very different. That there are all kinds of people in the world and we have to live with that knowledge and cope with these people.
We used to play around the cellar. Iva was too small to get up on top. Father warned us to stay off because the dirt sifted down into the walk in. My father built a root cellar in the back
of our house. It was a dug out down in the ground about 8 feet and lined with rock and a cement floor. Each side [north and south] were shelves for fruit, etc. The north side had a large table where mother churned her butter and set the fresh milk in large milk pans [12" diameter and 4' high]. Grass grew on the roof. The cellar came out of the ground about 2 feet and had a dirt roof which had to be replaced every year or so because the dirt got wet and rotted the wood. The cellar was about 15 feet square and had about 7 steps down to get inside. The vegetables, fruit, etc. were mostly all stored in the cellar. The east side was divided into bins for the vegetables and apples.
My father took some of the wheat, after it was harvested and thrashed, to the flour mill in Bountiful to be milled into flour for our family use. He stored it in our cellar on a huge swing built by hanging metal cables from the ceiling pole to a 1 foot wide, 5 foot plank off the floor 6 to 9 inches or so. It held 16 to 18, fifty pound sacks of flour for a years supply to be used by our family. The swing kept the mice out of the flour. Mother made the best homemade bread and fresh butter!!
My father turned the ditch water on the lawns and trees. Iva, Wallace, Athen and myself spent our summers climbing the cherry trees. They were so huge and tall and loaded with fruit. We also helped pick the fruit. My father and mother would get up early and pick the fruit and pack it in crates for the market. When father was gone to market in Salt Lake City, mother would can fruit. We always had our 600 quarts of fruit, etc. put away for winter. Plus bins of potatoes, dried carrots, dried corn, turnips, parsnips, onions, and flour.
We lived about one mile from our ward church house. My father would put Iva and Athen, one on each shoulder, their arms around his neck. My mother would follow with my older brother and me by the hands and we would all walk to church. When the weather was bad father hitched up the horses to the surrey, a covered two seated horse carriage. The horses and carriage were tethered to the fence posts behind the church. But the noises, other horses and many people bothered the horses and they became very restless and unruly. It was better and less bother to just take off and walk to church.
My father was Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years. When he was up there at the podium, I thought that he was the most handsome man in the whole world. I adored him. He was so good and strong. When the music, piano, or organ played and we all stood up to sing the hymns, I was so very proud and I sang loudest of all I think. That is where I learned our gospel songs and learned to love them very much.
Mother was in the ward choir. She had a lovely soprano voice and loved to sing. When we came home from school we could hear her singing half a mile up the road. She loved the lovely church songs and sang while she worked. Her favorite song, well my favorite to hear her sing was "Nearer My God to Thee" and "Come Come Ye Saints". Also "Prayer is the Souls Sincere Desire". Mother played the harmonica and in the evenings she would sit on the back steps playing it while father along with us kids played on the lawn and listened, sang, or hummed with her.
Mother taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School for over 15 years. It was the young people from 14 to 16 years old. There were always 20 to 35 young people in her class. She was really dedicated to those young people and they loved her because they showed up every Sunday morning for the class. Mother really studied the scriptures and worked hard to teach the young people the Gospel and make it interesting. Mother was very active in all of her church callings. She had been in the Young Women's Mutual Assoc. She was also on the Mutual Stake Board in Davis County for several years.
When Iva was small we were all in Primary. Mother taught the Blue Bird class and Seagulls. She would take Iva and lay her on the seat while she taught her class. Mother loved it and worked hard at it always. We would wait for her to finish on the front steps of the church house. She shook hands with everyone and had a kind word as she entered the building and as she left. Sometimes it got very cold on those cement steps waiting for her to get through and go home. She was in her glory and loved every minute of it and the lovely people in our ward. Also my father, he was very proud of his family and loved us very much.
Mother was Relief Society President for a few years when we got older and were not in Primary. Relief Society and Primary were held at about the same time in the ward house. The ladies met in the Relief Society room and the primary in the main room. Then Mutual was held at night on the same day, Tuesdays. It saved on heating bills, etc. which was always a big concern in our ward.
My father was "Ward Teacher" in our ward for many years. He loved visiting with the people and his gospel. Monday night at 7:00 pm was Priesthood meeting. He considered it one of the most important meetings of the church. He read the scriptures religiously and would talk for hours of the Bible stores and quoted the Bible, Book of Mormon, and his favorite the Pearl of Great Price from memory. He went to the Southern States on his mission in 1896. He contracted malaria fever while there and was very sick.
My father loved his animals. He always had a matched team of horses. At Christmas time he would harness them up and hitch them to our sleigh. He added a string of bells to the harness and it was a happy sound as we glided through the snow. Father heated large rocks and bricks in our oven to keep our feet warm. Also straw in the sleigh box and some seats for comfort but mostly we snuggled in the straw and had blankets to keep us warm.
On occasion we ran along behind the sleigh or skied on barrel stoves and hooked a rope to the sleigh. Sometimes several small sleighs on ropes would be hooked to the sleigh. It was such fun!! There was very little traffic in those days, so we were safe. Now days it would be impossible.
We had very large alfalfa fields for feed for the horses and cows. Father rotated the hay fields every few years. The alfalfa put nutrients back into the ground that other crops used up and rotation was a form of fertilizing the fields. In the fall and winter time Father made a ball diamond with sacks of sand for the bases, etc. All the kids and young men in town came there to play ball. Iva loved to play baseball and could hit as well and as hard as anyone. She was very good at baseball. She could run like a deer. I can see her now - her cap with the visor turned to the side and in overalls chasing the balls and laughing because she could get the boys out in baseball.
Iva was very athletic. She could roller skate and climb the mountains with the very best. Mostly I remember how she loved to ride horses. She would always volunteer to take the cows to pasture after they were milked, about a mile and half from our house, every morning and get them at night because it was an excuse to ride her horse.
On very snowy cold days, especially if the weather was bad and it had snowed all night, there was no path. My father had a 'slide' he called it. It was about 5 feet square with brackets to hitch the horse to. He would take us to school a couple miles away. The front of the slide was built up to deflect the snow and made a good path up the road. We would all pile on and always the sleigh bells.
Leona worked at the restaurant at the Hotel Utah for many years. She loved seeing the various prophets and general authorities come into the restaurant and being able to wait on them. She loved doing her job at the Hotel Utah.
Leona was the mother of two girls and three boys. She loved being a mother. Her daughters were Louise Rollins Hepworth born 4 Dec 1931 and died 2 June 2007; and Katherine Ellen Westerburg born 20 May 1945. Her three sons were: Glen Earl Hepworth born 10 March 1933; Sherman Randolph Hepworth, Sr. born 25 Jan 1936 and died 14 April 2011; and Eugene Rollins Hepworth born 10 July 1937 and died 24 Nov 1937.
Leona died 30 May 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was buried in the Centerville Cemetery, near her parents. Leona was a much loved mother by her children and they greatly miss the joy and happiness she brought into their lives.
Leona was married three times as follows:
Ferrel H. Hepworth (1908-1991) 10 Apr 1928 Salt Lake City, Utah
Ralph Iwar Westerberg (1913-1969) 2 Feb 1944 Salt Lake City, Utah
Thomas Henry Hunsaker (1903-1963) 21 May 1958 Elko, Nevada
Information provided by Dan Rollins #47595299
Memories of Leona Hunsaker
Daughter of Elizabeth & George Rollins
Leona Hunsaker was born in Centerville, Utah, on November 23, 1910. I lived in the old Rollins home my father bought from his mother and Father [Stueben & Amanda Rollins]. The home was built with adobe bricks, made from mud pressed into molds and left to dry in the sun. The home was built by my great grandfather, Henry Rollins in the early 1850's. The house was okay, but when the rain and winter came, it eroded the bricks so they didn't last long as regular brick or wood homes. The foundation and basement was made of rock and the rattle snakes used to coil on the rocks in the sun. My mother was so scared of them she was afraid to go outside at times. There were apple trees, cherry trees, peach trees, and pear trees around the house. There were also violets and lilacs that lined the path to the street.
When I was about five years old, my father bought the Spencer property across the street and we moved into that home. It was rock with walls over three feet thick. The window sills were deep and we could play jacks in them until our mother filled them up with flowers. She loved flowers and always had a house full.
My sister Iva was born there in that house on May 29, 1916. Our mother, Elizabeth loved her so much. Iva had blonde fluffy curly hair, wide open blue eyes, and pink cheeks. She had a bright happy smile and sunny disposition. Mother's pet name for her was "chickie". Iva was so happy and very loving. Iva was her papa's girl. She followed her papa around the field and to the barn, where she helped with the horses, cows, calves, and etc.
The Spencer property went from the upper road in Centerville up to the mountains - foothills, where there was a large sand pit. We use to hike in the foothills and slide down the edges of the sandpit. That was a lot of fun for us. We would also sleigh ride from the sand pit down past the Denver and Rio Grand tracks, over 2 miles without stopping. But it was a long way back to the top again. Oh such fun we had had. Sometimes my father would ride down to the bottom on "old Bell" and he would hitch ropes to the saddle horn and old Bell would pull us back to the top so we could go down again. Fun, fun, fun…
My father, George Rollins, was tall, handsome, and loving. He was a good man, honest, and his word was his bond. He had very light brown hair and blue blue eyes. His hair got darker as he got older. He loved his family very much.
The TV story "Little House on the Prairie" always reminded me of my childhood. Michael Landon was so strong and wise, honest and good, soft and caring, and hard working for his family. That's how my father and mother were. I judged everyone by my father. I thought all men were like him. That was the way men were supposed to be. I never dreamed that there were any other kind. It was an awful sad thing for me to learn that some are very different. That there are all kinds of people in the world and we have to live with that knowledge and cope with these people.
We used to play around the cellar. Iva was too small to get up on top. Father warned us to stay off because the dirt sifted down into the walk in. My father built a root cellar in the back
of our house. It was a dug out down in the ground about 8 feet and lined with rock and a cement floor. Each side [north and south] were shelves for fruit, etc. The north side had a large table where mother churned her butter and set the fresh milk in large milk pans [12" diameter and 4' high]. Grass grew on the roof. The cellar came out of the ground about 2 feet and had a dirt roof which had to be replaced every year or so because the dirt got wet and rotted the wood. The cellar was about 15 feet square and had about 7 steps down to get inside. The vegetables, fruit, etc. were mostly all stored in the cellar. The east side was divided into bins for the vegetables and apples.
My father took some of the wheat, after it was harvested and thrashed, to the flour mill in Bountiful to be milled into flour for our family use. He stored it in our cellar on a huge swing built by hanging metal cables from the ceiling pole to a 1 foot wide, 5 foot plank off the floor 6 to 9 inches or so. It held 16 to 18, fifty pound sacks of flour for a years supply to be used by our family. The swing kept the mice out of the flour. Mother made the best homemade bread and fresh butter!!
My father turned the ditch water on the lawns and trees. Iva, Wallace, Athen and myself spent our summers climbing the cherry trees. They were so huge and tall and loaded with fruit. We also helped pick the fruit. My father and mother would get up early and pick the fruit and pack it in crates for the market. When father was gone to market in Salt Lake City, mother would can fruit. We always had our 600 quarts of fruit, etc. put away for winter. Plus bins of potatoes, dried carrots, dried corn, turnips, parsnips, onions, and flour.
We lived about one mile from our ward church house. My father would put Iva and Athen, one on each shoulder, their arms around his neck. My mother would follow with my older brother and me by the hands and we would all walk to church. When the weather was bad father hitched up the horses to the surrey, a covered two seated horse carriage. The horses and carriage were tethered to the fence posts behind the church. But the noises, other horses and many people bothered the horses and they became very restless and unruly. It was better and less bother to just take off and walk to church.
My father was Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years. When he was up there at the podium, I thought that he was the most handsome man in the whole world. I adored him. He was so good and strong. When the music, piano, or organ played and we all stood up to sing the hymns, I was so very proud and I sang loudest of all I think. That is where I learned our gospel songs and learned to love them very much.
Mother was in the ward choir. She had a lovely soprano voice and loved to sing. When we came home from school we could hear her singing half a mile up the road. She loved the lovely church songs and sang while she worked. Her favorite song, well my favorite to hear her sing was "Nearer My God to Thee" and "Come Come Ye Saints". Also "Prayer is the Souls Sincere Desire". Mother played the harmonica and in the evenings she would sit on the back steps playing it while father along with us kids played on the lawn and listened, sang, or hummed with her.
Mother taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School for over 15 years. It was the young people from 14 to 16 years old. There were always 20 to 35 young people in her class. She was really dedicated to those young people and they loved her because they showed up every Sunday morning for the class. Mother really studied the scriptures and worked hard to teach the young people the Gospel and make it interesting. Mother was very active in all of her church callings. She had been in the Young Women's Mutual Assoc. She was also on the Mutual Stake Board in Davis County for several years.
When Iva was small we were all in Primary. Mother taught the Blue Bird class and Seagulls. She would take Iva and lay her on the seat while she taught her class. Mother loved it and worked hard at it always. We would wait for her to finish on the front steps of the church house. She shook hands with everyone and had a kind word as she entered the building and as she left. Sometimes it got very cold on those cement steps waiting for her to get through and go home. She was in her glory and loved every minute of it and the lovely people in our ward. Also my father, he was very proud of his family and loved us very much.
Mother was Relief Society President for a few years when we got older and were not in Primary. Relief Society and Primary were held at about the same time in the ward house. The ladies met in the Relief Society room and the primary in the main room. Then Mutual was held at night on the same day, Tuesdays. It saved on heating bills, etc. which was always a big concern in our ward.
My father was "Ward Teacher" in our ward for many years. He loved visiting with the people and his gospel. Monday night at 7:00 pm was Priesthood meeting. He considered it one of the most important meetings of the church. He read the scriptures religiously and would talk for hours of the Bible stores and quoted the Bible, Book of Mormon, and his favorite the Pearl of Great Price from memory. He went to the Southern States on his mission in 1896. He contracted malaria fever while there and was very sick.
My father loved his animals. He always had a matched team of horses. At Christmas time he would harness them up and hitch them to our sleigh. He added a string of bells to the harness and it was a happy sound as we glided through the snow. Father heated large rocks and bricks in our oven to keep our feet warm. Also straw in the sleigh box and some seats for comfort but mostly we snuggled in the straw and had blankets to keep us warm.
On occasion we ran along behind the sleigh or skied on barrel stoves and hooked a rope to the sleigh. Sometimes several small sleighs on ropes would be hooked to the sleigh. It was such fun!! There was very little traffic in those days, so we were safe. Now days it would be impossible.
We had very large alfalfa fields for feed for the horses and cows. Father rotated the hay fields every few years. The alfalfa put nutrients back into the ground that other crops used up and rotation was a form of fertilizing the fields. In the fall and winter time Father made a ball diamond with sacks of sand for the bases, etc. All the kids and young men in town came there to play ball. Iva loved to play baseball and could hit as well and as hard as anyone. She was very good at baseball. She could run like a deer. I can see her now - her cap with the visor turned to the side and in overalls chasing the balls and laughing because she could get the boys out in baseball.
Iva was very athletic. She could roller skate and climb the mountains with the very best. Mostly I remember how she loved to ride horses. She would always volunteer to take the cows to pasture after they were milked, about a mile and half from our house, every morning and get them at night because it was an excuse to ride her horse.
On very snowy cold days, especially if the weather was bad and it had snowed all night, there was no path. My father had a 'slide' he called it. It was about 5 feet square with brackets to hitch the horse to. He would take us to school a couple miles away. The front of the slide was built up to deflect the snow and made a good path up the road. We would all pile on and always the sleigh bells.
Leona worked at the restaurant at the Hotel Utah for many years. She loved seeing the various prophets and general authorities come into the restaurant and being able to wait on them. She loved doing her job at the Hotel Utah.
Leona was the mother of two girls and three boys. She loved being a mother. Her daughters were Louise Rollins Hepworth born 4 Dec 1931 and died 2 June 2007; and Katherine Ellen Westerburg born 20 May 1945. Her three sons were: Glen Earl Hepworth born 10 March 1933; Sherman Randolph Hepworth, Sr. born 25 Jan 1936 and died 14 April 2011; and Eugene Rollins Hepworth born 10 July 1937 and died 24 Nov 1937.
Leona died 30 May 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was buried in the Centerville Cemetery, near her parents. Leona was a much loved mother by her children and they greatly miss the joy and happiness she brought into their lives.
Ferrel H. Hepworth (1908-1991) 10 Apr 1928 Salt Lake City, Utah
Ralph Iwar Westerberg (1913-1969) 2 Feb 1944 Salt Lake City, Utah
Thomas Henry Hunsaker (1903-1963) 21 May 1958 Elko, Nevada
Information provided by Dan Rollins #47595299
Memories of Leona Hunsaker
Daughter of Elizabeth & George Rollins
Leona Hunsaker was born in Centerville, Utah, on November 23, 1910. I lived in the old Rollins home my father bought from his mother and Father [Stueben & Amanda Rollins]. The home was built with adobe bricks, made from mud pressed into molds and left to dry in the sun. The home was built by my great grandfather, Henry Rollins in the early 1850's. The house was okay, but when the rain and winter came, it eroded the bricks so they didn't last long as regular brick or wood homes. The foundation and basement was made of rock and the rattle snakes used to coil on the rocks in the sun. My mother was so scared of them she was afraid to go outside at times. There were apple trees, cherry trees, peach trees, and pear trees around the house. There were also violets and lilacs that lined the path to the street.
When I was about five years old, my father bought the Spencer property across the street and we moved into that home. It was rock with walls over three feet thick. The window sills were deep and we could play jacks in them until our mother filled them up with flowers. She loved flowers and always had a house full.
My sister Iva was born there in that house on May 29, 1916. Our mother, Elizabeth loved her so much. Iva had blonde fluffy curly hair, wide open blue eyes, and pink cheeks. She had a bright happy smile and sunny disposition. Mother's pet name for her was "chickie". Iva was so happy and very loving. Iva was her papa's girl. She followed her papa around the field and to the barn, where she helped with the horses, cows, calves, and etc.
The Spencer property went from the upper road in Centerville up to the mountains - foothills, where there was a large sand pit. We use to hike in the foothills and slide down the edges of the sandpit. That was a lot of fun for us. We would also sleigh ride from the sand pit down past the Denver and Rio Grand tracks, over 2 miles without stopping. But it was a long way back to the top again. Oh such fun we had had. Sometimes my father would ride down to the bottom on "old Bell" and he would hitch ropes to the saddle horn and old Bell would pull us back to the top so we could go down again. Fun, fun, fun…
My father, George Rollins, was tall, handsome, and loving. He was a good man, honest, and his word was his bond. He had very light brown hair and blue blue eyes. His hair got darker as he got older. He loved his family very much.
The TV story "Little House on the Prairie" always reminded me of my childhood. Michael Landon was so strong and wise, honest and good, soft and caring, and hard working for his family. That's how my father and mother were. I judged everyone by my father. I thought all men were like him. That was the way men were supposed to be. I never dreamed that there were any other kind. It was an awful sad thing for me to learn that some are very different. That there are all kinds of people in the world and we have to live with that knowledge and cope with these people.
We used to play around the cellar. Iva was too small to get up on top. Father warned us to stay off because the dirt sifted down into the walk in. My father built a root cellar in the back
of our house. It was a dug out down in the ground about 8 feet and lined with rock and a cement floor. Each side [north and south] were shelves for fruit, etc. The north side had a large table where mother churned her butter and set the fresh milk in large milk pans [12" diameter and 4' high]. Grass grew on the roof. The cellar came out of the ground about 2 feet and had a dirt roof which had to be replaced every year or so because the dirt got wet and rotted the wood. The cellar was about 15 feet square and had about 7 steps down to get inside. The vegetables, fruit, etc. were mostly all stored in the cellar. The east side was divided into bins for the vegetables and apples.
My father took some of the wheat, after it was harvested and thrashed, to the flour mill in Bountiful to be milled into flour for our family use. He stored it in our cellar on a huge swing built by hanging metal cables from the ceiling pole to a 1 foot wide, 5 foot plank off the floor 6 to 9 inches or so. It held 16 to 18, fifty pound sacks of flour for a years supply to be used by our family. The swing kept the mice out of the flour. Mother made the best homemade bread and fresh butter!!
My father turned the ditch water on the lawns and trees. Iva, Wallace, Athen and myself spent our summers climbing the cherry trees. They were so huge and tall and loaded with fruit. We also helped pick the fruit. My father and mother would get up early and pick the fruit and pack it in crates for the market. When father was gone to market in Salt Lake City, mother would can fruit. We always had our 600 quarts of fruit, etc. put away for winter. Plus bins of potatoes, dried carrots, dried corn, turnips, parsnips, onions, and flour.
We lived about one mile from our ward church house. My father would put Iva and Athen, one on each shoulder, their arms around his neck. My mother would follow with my older brother and me by the hands and we would all walk to church. When the weather was bad father hitched up the horses to the surrey, a covered two seated horse carriage. The horses and carriage were tethered to the fence posts behind the church. But the noises, other horses and many people bothered the horses and they became very restless and unruly. It was better and less bother to just take off and walk to church.
My father was Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years. When he was up there at the podium, I thought that he was the most handsome man in the whole world. I adored him. He was so good and strong. When the music, piano, or organ played and we all stood up to sing the hymns, I was so very proud and I sang loudest of all I think. That is where I learned our gospel songs and learned to love them very much.
Mother was in the ward choir. She had a lovely soprano voice and loved to sing. When we came home from school we could hear her singing half a mile up the road. She loved the lovely church songs and sang while she worked. Her favorite song, well my favorite to hear her sing was "Nearer My God to Thee" and "Come Come Ye Saints". Also "Prayer is the Souls Sincere Desire". Mother played the harmonica and in the evenings she would sit on the back steps playing it while father along with us kids played on the lawn and listened, sang, or hummed with her.
Mother taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School for over 15 years. It was the young people from 14 to 16 years old. There were always 20 to 35 young people in her class. She was really dedicated to those young people and they loved her because they showed up every Sunday morning for the class. Mother really studied the scriptures and worked hard to teach the young people the Gospel and make it interesting. Mother was very active in all of her church callings. She had been in the Young Women's Mutual Assoc. She was also on the Mutual Stake Board in Davis County for several years.
When Iva was small we were all in Primary. Mother taught the Blue Bird class and Seagulls. She would take Iva and lay her on the seat while she taught her class. Mother loved it and worked hard at it always. We would wait for her to finish on the front steps of the church house. She shook hands with everyone and had a kind word as she entered the building and as she left. Sometimes it got very cold on those cement steps waiting for her to get through and go home. She was in her glory and loved every minute of it and the lovely people in our ward. Also my father, he was very proud of his family and loved us very much.
Mother was Relief Society President for a few years when we got older and were not in Primary. Relief Society and Primary were held at about the same time in the ward house. The ladies met in the Relief Society room and the primary in the main room. Then Mutual was held at night on the same day, Tuesdays. It saved on heating bills, etc. which was always a big concern in our ward.
My father was "Ward Teacher" in our ward for many years. He loved visiting with the people and his gospel. Monday night at 7:00 pm was Priesthood meeting. He considered it one of the most important meetings of the church. He read the scriptures religiously and would talk for hours of the Bible stores and quoted the Bible, Book of Mormon, and his favorite the Pearl of Great Price from memory. He went to the Southern States on his mission in 1896. He contracted malaria fever while there and was very sick.
My father loved his animals. He always had a matched team of horses. At Christmas time he would harness them up and hitch them to our sleigh. He added a string of bells to the harness and it was a happy sound as we glided through the snow. Father heated large rocks and bricks in our oven to keep our feet warm. Also straw in the sleigh box and some seats for comfort but mostly we snuggled in the straw and had blankets to keep us warm.
On occasion we ran along behind the sleigh or skied on barrel stoves and hooked a rope to the sleigh. Sometimes several small sleighs on ropes would be hooked to the sleigh. It was such fun!! There was very little traffic in those days, so we were safe. Now days it would be impossible.
We had very large alfalfa fields for feed for the horses and cows. Father rotated the hay fields every few years. The alfalfa put nutrients back into the ground that other crops used up and rotation was a form of fertilizing the fields. In the fall and winter time Father made a ball diamond with sacks of sand for the bases, etc. All the kids and young men in town came there to play ball. Iva loved to play baseball and could hit as well and as hard as anyone. She was very good at baseball. She could run like a deer. I can see her now - her cap with the visor turned to the side and in overalls chasing the balls and laughing because she could get the boys out in baseball.
Iva was very athletic. She could roller skate and climb the mountains with the very best. Mostly I remember how she loved to ride horses. She would always volunteer to take the cows to pasture after they were milked, about a mile and half from our house, every morning and get them at night because it was an excuse to ride her horse.
On very snowy cold days, especially if the weather was bad and it had snowed all night, there was no path. My father had a 'slide' he called it. It was about 5 feet square with brackets to hitch the horse to. He would take us to school a couple miles away. The front of the slide was built up to deflect the snow and made a good path up the road. We would all pile on and always the sleigh bells.
Leona worked at the restaurant at the Hotel Utah for many years. She loved seeing the various prophets and general authorities come into the restaurant and being able to wait on them. She loved doing her job at the Hotel Utah.
Leona was the mother of two girls and three boys. She loved being a mother. Her daughters were Louise Rollins Hepworth born 4 Dec 1931 and died 2 June 2007; and Katherine Ellen Westerburg born 20 May 1945. Her three sons were: Glen Earl Hepworth born 10 March 1933; Sherman Randolph Hepworth, Sr. born 25 Jan 1936 and died 14 April 2011; and Eugene Rollins Hepworth born 10 July 1937 and died 24 Nov 1937.
Leona died 30 May 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was buried in the Centerville Cemetery, near her parents. Leona was a much loved mother by her children and they greatly miss the joy and happiness she brought into their lives.
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