Robert Lee Wright 1873 - 1953

 

by Phyllis Higley, his granddaughter, in 1975 [editorial comments by Beth]

 

Robert Lee "Bob" Wright was just a small child [two years old] when his mother died from complications of childbirth. At the time DAN and EMILY WRIGHT lived in Linden, California. After Bob's mother passed away, his mother's parents, JOHN JACKSON MUNSEE BUTLER and SARAH DONALDSON BUTLER came from Ogden [or he went to Ogden...] and took the four children back to the Ogden area, where they were living at Promentory Point. Little is known how long the children stayed with their grandparents or when they went back to California. [But they were there at the time of the 1880 census, which would have been at least 5 years.] 

 

I do remember my grandfather saying he was on his own from the time he was fourteen. He also said he did everything from bronco riding to horse stealing. My early memories of hiim were that he had a severe limp in his right leg, but I have no knowledge of how he got the injury. He walked with a cane most of the time. Also, one of my early memories of him was sitting in a big brown leather chair with a small card table and he would have his Church books open, along with the Bible and he would study from one book to prove the other. He loved to hunt and he had a dog named Freddie that the whole family loved. He would bring Granddad's slippers to him, get the paper and bring it to him, and he would do all sorts of tricks. Grandad loved to hunt sage hens out north from St. Anthony and once in a while he and grandmother would take one of us kids with him. They had some good friends that lived out that way by the name of McQuestions, and Grandma would visit while the two men went hunting. This one time I had gone along and Grandad had stopped the car - I think it was a big "Whippet" car - anyway, when we got home, the dog wasn't there. He would ride on the running board of the car, which was a wide ledge from the trunk of the car to the front fender. So he got right back in the car and went back to where he had stopped the car - and there sat the dog, as much as to say, "Why did you leave me? or what took you so long?" The dog was very old when he died and I remember the whole family crying and burying the dog.

 

Grandad worked for the U. I. Sugar Company at the factory which was there at the time from 1919 until he retired at age 65. He lived in Lima, Montana, and worked for the railroad until they moved to Sugar City. At the time I never did question him as to his childhood, I guess when one is young,you don't think of things like that. I do know he and Grandma had a lot of her brothers and her sister come to their home in Sugar City for Sunday dinners. From talking to my mother since Grandad's death, Grandad had lost all track of his brothers and knew nothing about them until he was about 65 years old. He had one aunt, his mother's only sister, ANGELINA MELVINA BUTLER CARR, who was married and living around Annis, Idaho, and Grandad's only sister, MARY EMILY WRIGHT, came out to see her aunt and liked the country, so she stayed and met and married a JAMES DOUGLAS, so Grandad did associate with her. Mom said she was a tall, very quiet,hard working woman and could ride horses better than most men. She was an excellent shot with a pistol. Some way Grandad Bob decided to come and see his sister and his aunt when he was younger. He worked at logging and on farms and at whatever jobs he could find.

 

At the time, not far from Annis, was "Butler's Island". I suppose it was called that because at the time most of the people living there were Butlers. There were several families of Woolseys also. Upper LaBelle was known then as "Toads Heaven" and LEAH ANNE WOOLSEY lived there with her family. She was a very good friend of Aunt Angelina Butler Carr's daughter Lydia Carr, and she went to see her friend and met BOB WRIGHT. Now Leah Anne's family was strict LDS and Bob didn't belong to any religion and her folks weren't happy with the attraction between the two, but love does prevail, and Leah and Bob were married at the Woolsey home, with MARY WRIGHT DOUGLAS and Leah Anne's father [ABRAHAM MITCHELL WOOLSEY] and they went to their Aunt Melina's place to stay that night. It was just a small wedding, mostly neighbors and some family. A Justice of the Peace married them; I don't know why a Bishop didn't, as Daniel Gard and Emily Lenora Wright were LDS members. [He wasn't practicing the religion and she was dead for many years, however.] In later life Grandad would laugh and say he started to study Mormon doctrine so he could argue again it and he said he converted himself. He did love to argue religion and if anyone didn't know him, he would argue again the LDS religion. He and Grandmother went to the Temple and at the time of his death he was a High Priest. He also loved to argue politics and people would go out of their way to avoid him, so he wouldn't get them started in his "discussions". He had a temper, but he could be easy to get along with if he liked you. He and my father never did see eye to eye and he did make my dad's life miserable in ways after he and mom got married. [LESLIE LAVERN WARDLE AND GLADYS REBECCA WRIGHT]

 

EDITH and ANCEL WRIGHT came from Portland, Oregon, to see Bob and Leah Wright, and they were going on down to California for a little trip. While they were going through Stockton, California, Ancel had a headache, so they decided to go into a drug store and ge some aspirin, as they had seen a "Wright Drugstore". Ancel laughed and said, "Well, my name, so I guess I'll go in there." and as he later told it, there was this man and Ancel said he looked so much like his dad (and in the family, Grandad, Mom, Pleiad and Ellen and Ed all had odd shaped long ears and rather large noses...) and he knew his dad had some brothers, but had lost track of them, so as he was paying for the aspirin, he told the man it was uncanny because he looked so much like his father, and he asked if he had any brothers The man said yes, one had died, and he didn't know where his yunger brother was, so they got to talking, and it was Bob's brother EDWARD LORENZO WRIGHT. Well, he had three half-sisters with the same father [DANIEL GARD WRIGHT] and one brother was a druggist there as he owned the store, so they got addresses and visited and through that Grandad was reunited with his family. They all, except ETHEL WRIGHT TAYLOR, came every year until Grandad passed away to visit, and one half-sister PLEIAD WRIGHT SELVESTER, came to our home and I got a family history from her evan after Grandad passed away. It was odd - two brothers not knowing anything of each other each had a son - Grandad named his William Ervin and Uncle Ed named his William Edward. The other brother [WILLIAM DANIEL WRIGHT] died in Legion, Texas in 1938 from TB. He was a Spanish American War veteran and Wold War I veteran. We still keep in touch, as of this writing, to members of their families.

 

Grandad Wright and my mother (Gladys) never got along very well, and she would never talk about it or why.

 

Grandad liked to stretch the truth at times on different things, but as I grow older and know what I do now, I would love to sit down and talk with him and question him. He told me once that his genealogy was all done. What an understatement! He never knew anything of his parents or grandparents, as I have proven through many years of research and trials in tracing my Wright family tree. Grandad Wright was always good to us kids and after Clyde [Higley] and I were married, he was very good to us. My older children have memories of him, but Kim was too young.

 

Phyllis Wardle Higley

December 1975