Courtship, 1919-1923

AS TOLD IN 1985 BY RAPHAEL'S WIFE, PEARL OLSEN CLEMENT

It was the fall of my first year in Snow College that I met Raphael Clement. I will never understand why my 19-year-old sister wanted me, a 15 year old, to go with her and two friends from Ephraim where we lived, to Mt. Pleasant, Utah, about 16 miles away. We had to go by train. The occasion was what was known as the Black Hawk celebration, held each year in commemoration of winning the war over the renegade Indian, Black Hawk, in and around Mt. Pleasant and Fairview. 

There was horse racing, cattle roping and a carnival where it seemed like everybody came. It was after the rodeo was over and we had just come out of the grandstand, that a young man saw us and knew one of the girls we were with. He had a friend with him and we were all introduced to each other. It was funny to watch the coy smiles and maneuvering to see who was going to ask who for a date. Of course, me being younger, I sort of stood out to the side, when I felt someone take hold of my arm and ask me if I'd like to go with them for something to eat. Would I! I could hardly talk because I had been sure I'd just be a tag-along. 

Lovebirds: Raphael and Pearl in 1923 before their marriage.
Pearl said she wouldn't get down until he kissed her.

Sure, I said, and a group was made up into couples and we started walking toward main street. As we were walking down the sidewalk where so many people were going in both directions, I saw an elderly couple coming toward us and the man had a new broom along with other things in his hands. Of course, they saw their son with me and I was promptly jabbed (lightly) in the stomach with the broom handle. And that's the way I met Grandpa and Grandma Clement, parents of this neat young man Raphael I was with, and who were to become my future parents-in-law. So I met my future husband and his parents all on the same day. I guess it was destiny that I was to go with my sister and her friends to that Black Hawk celebration.

The boy that knew my sister's friend had a car and later, after the dance, they decided to take us home to Ephraim, but they didn't want Raphael to go with them because Mt. Pleasant and Fairview kids were rivals. I was so embarrassed and sad. I'm afraid the young man they had chosen to go with me didn't enjoy his ride very much.

I was not to hear from Raphael for many months, and I thought I never would after his experience, but one day as I was coming home from a funeral with my mother, and had stopped at the post office for the mail, there was a letter addressed to me from Fairview. I hurriedly stuck it down my neck, because I was afraid Mother would want to read it or have me read it to her, but I wanted to be alone when I read this letter. When I got home, I ran upstairs and gobbled up every word! He didn't write much but just apologized for the way we parted.

We continued to correspond with months between letters because he had gone to Yellowstone to work. I had many friends and good times at home and school, and had about forgotten him, when one evening he came to see me. I was quite perturbed, it was still light outside and I had done a big washing that day. I had an old dress on and my hair was a mess. Mother and I were standing together outside by the porch. When I saw him I grabbed my hair and made a survey of myself, and started running as fast as I could, down toward the corrals.

Well, he took out after me and caught me as I was trying to squeeze through a space where a board was missing. That was the beginning of four long years courtship off and on. I often wonder how come he fell in love with me because I was anything but quiet and didn't always keep my own counsel, which he found out.

We went together off and on between other boy and girl friends. It would be months between times we'd see each other, but we never forgot and our friendship ripened into love and we decided to get married, August 15, 1923.

We were married by my Bishop, Henry Beal of Ephraim, Utah, North Ward about 6:00 o'clock in the evening in our [my parents] front parlor. Mother and Dad had a large reception at home for us, a three course dinner - some having to wait until others were through, and we had to sit with each group until all were served. I was so tired I wanted to die and so was he, so finally we slipped out to a room he had made arrangements for at the only hotel in town.

The very next morning, Mother and Dad decided to have a family picture taken before we moved away. 

We then moved our gifts and all our things to Murray [Taylorsville], Utah where his folks had bought another farm. We lived with Raphael's father and mother in Murray [Taylorsville] for the first nine months on a dairy farm they had purchased, with their daughter Nancy and her husband, Ruben Orton. Raph drove a big milk truck picking up cans

of milk at the farms, and hauling it to the dairies."

Pearl said that when she and Raphael were married a short time, her father Charles Olsen generously gave her a small flock of sheep as a gift, which amounted to several hundred dollars each.