Melba Arthena Larson

Melba Arthena Larson would have been 78 on Oct. 6 the year she died in 1990. She was born in Harrisburg, Utah in the home of Grandpa and Grandma Lee in the year of 1912. (Great Grandma Esther Elizabeth Tye Booth married Joseph Lee, son of John D. Lee, after the death of Great Grandpa Booth.)

Harrisburg is a ghost town now.  Someone had bought the old stone house Mom was born in. The house is one two built identically, standing not far from each other. They are relics of the past and belonged to polygamist pioneer Mormons.

There has been built a fence around them to preserve the tiny homes from vandalism. Quail Lake Estates Trailer Park had been built behind the fenced area for the tourist and new comers who enjoy Quail Lake Reservoir.

Just a year before Mom died she and I stopped by the house of her birth for our first close up look at the place together. I had always wondered how Grandma Lee had found room for her daughter to come home to have her babies since there were only two rooms to the house. Mom explained how there was also a cellar dug under the houses to keep the food stored where it was coolest. There we a lean-to added to the back side for cooking and extra sleeping room. People would sleep out side under the stars during good weather way back then. The house was used mainly for security from bad weather.

Some kind pioneer husband of two wives, the original builder of the homes, left evidence of trying to treat both wives equal by planting a pear tree near their back doors. the trees are standing dead now. Mom said the fruit was wonderful when she was small and would go for visits to her Grandmother.

The visits to Harrisburg from Bloomington were about 25 miles in length, not far by todays standards. When Mom was small this was an all day journey i a horse drawn wagon.

Mom's mother, Emma LaPreal Booth, was the youngest daughter of James Joseph Booth, an English born convert to the Mormon religion,  and Esther Elizabeth Tye, the daughter of two English converts who gathered to Utah as pioneers in 1856.

James Booth was a professional Photographer and storekeeper in St. George, Utah.

Mom's father was Willard Larson, son of Lars James Larson and Olena Peterson, more Mormons, who pioneered Bloomington, Utah.

Mom was the second born in a family of eight children. Being the oldest girl she was expected to help her mother with the many chores required to keep a growing family working well.

Mom grew up in Bloomington. she always talked of the good times and friends she made in the small Bloomington school. Most of the kids there were cousins of one kind or other which made it more special.

She told of the time she and her older brother Ruland stayed late after school and got caught out after dark. They had to walk home with the sound of rattlesnakes scurrying in front and behind their pathway. never had she been so frightened!

Mom's father was gone from home for long periods of time while herding  sheep in the mountains. There came a time when Grandma Emma was ill from a pregnancy and she decided it was time to move the family into St. George to be closer to help. Their home was eventually built at 427 East Tabernacle.

So many of the students attending Bloomington's one room school were Larsons that with the the absence of Mom's family, there weren't enough students left to keep the school open. Eventually all Bloomington families had to move too, leaving Bloomington a ghost town for many years.

Mom was amazed with what happened to Bloomington real estate in recent years. it was the poorest people who lived there in her youth. now it is the wealthy.