A sketch of the Life of Hyrum Charles and Macy Brown Robinson

A Sketch of the Life of Hyrum Charles and Macy Brown Robinson

by Stewart C. Robinson

Hyrum Charles Robinson was born Oct. 12, 1882 in Pinto Washington co., Utah to Richard Smith Robinson and Mary Ann Eccles Robinson, a polygamist family.

Richard and Mary Ann had been living in Pinto for many years, having been called to help colonize the Dixie country. In 1875, the Robinson’s were called to move to Sink Valley in Kane county, where they ran a dairy. We do not know for positive why Mary Ann went back to Pinto when Hyrum was born, unless it was because she wanted to be with her mother at the time the baby was born. Because the records show he was born at Pinto and also that the family was living at Sink Valley, very little is known about the growing up years of Hyrum. We have been told he had very little education, about fourth grade level. From there on, he was self-taught.


He would run the calves into their mothers while the older boys would do the milking of the cows. Then as he grew older, he also took part in the milking process. On a dairy there is much work for everyone to do. Hyrum told of a water wheel with paddles that he made in a small ditch. His older brothers took his design and made a water wheel to do the irrigating of the fields.

He was passed from around from brother to brother after he was about 11 years old. He lived in Kanab with uncle Dave and aunt Nell Robinson. When he was 17 years old, he worked with his brothers with the goat herd. He was living in Kanab when he met Macy Brown.

Macy was born in Kanab, a daughter of Abia William Brown, a school teacher, and Lucinda Araminta Stewart. Lucinda was called aunt Luny. She was a midwife and delivered quiet a lot of babies. This was also a polygamist family. Macy was born June 30, 1888. She spent her early years in Fredonia, Arizona where her father had moved his families due to the persecution of the polygamists in Utah. Lucinda’s family lived on one side of the street and aunt Emma’s lived across the street to the east. While living in Fredonia, Lucinda went to midwifery and nursing school in Salt Lake City, leaving her family. Macy took in washing to earn money to help the family. Aunt Emma would take the money and use it.

Lucinda graduated on April 6, 1903, from nursing and midwifery school. Macy graduated from 8th grade in Fredonia. She took 8th grade for two years because her father wanted her in school. She graduated in 1904. After getting out of school, Macy lived in Kanab at the home of Brig(ham) and Anne Riggs.

Macy had quite a sense of humor, and she would pull tricks on her sister Margery. One night Margery’s boyfriend came to get her. While he was in the house waiting for Margery, Macy and her friends took the horse and buggy and went for a ride. Margery and her boyfriend stayed home. Another time Margery and friends were having a special party and dinner. Macy and her friends went to the house of the party and wired all the doors shut so no one could get out of the house. Then they, Macy and friends, took a rooster which they had tied paper butterflies all over and threw it onto the table and really broke up the party.

We don’t know anything about the courtship of Hyrum and Macy, but they were married on Oct. 4, 1906 in the Salt Lake Temple. When they went to Salt Lake to be married, grandmother Brown, her brother-in-law Parly Henrie , and sister Ethel Henrie, went with them. They didn’t take their Temple recommend with them, their Bishop sent it to the Temple and it was there for them when they arrived. It took them three weeks to make the trip, as they went part way by team and wagon, then on the train from Marysvale. They bought their home from Frank and Elizabeth Little for $100.00, on August 11, 1907.

Hyrum was about 5' 9" tall, had light brown hair, blue eyes and weighed about 160 pounds. He was quite well built. Macy was short, about 5' or 5'1". In her older years she was quite chunky, but in her youth, she was smaller. She had very long, dark black hair, very dark blue eyes (when Hyrum married her, he thought they were black). Everyone figured her hair was a wig or hairpiece, as they were called. And Macy had to prove on several occasions that it was her own hair. It was very long and very thick. Hy was very sad when Macy finally cut her hair. Hyrum was a big tease and Macy was quite stubborn.

Hyrum loved to go fishing. He fished up at Major’s ranch and also at McDonald’s ranch. He would drive his little black coupe up and park it under a big pine tree near the road and walk to the stream. He also hunted rabbits out in the cactus patch in Johnson canyon where the roads make the junction to go to Page and up Johnson Canyon.

Hyrum also liked to hunt deer. One trip with Vernon, Hyrum sat on a cactus while he was hunting. Sure must have looked funny, two old men pulling cactus splines out of Hyrum’s backside so they could come home. Stewart had to pull more out when his dad got home.

Macy was a great confident, people would confide in her and tell her their troubles. She would cheer them up as best she could.

Hyrum and Macy had three babies who died at birth or the next day after birth. Hyrum Charles, Macy, and Dora. They were born in 1907, 1908, 1909, on April 4th, 1911, their son Stewart Cadwallader was born. Macy had gone to Salt Lake City to be with her mother, so she could be well taken care of. Macy stayed in bed practically the whole time she carried the baby. He was born real early, 6 ½ months, and was not expected to live. Grandmother Brown and a Dr. Middleton, delivered the baby and took care of him. He weighed approximately 2 ½ to 3 pounds. He was kept wrapped in cotton, wore a man’s handkerchief for diapers. When Stewart was 6 months old, they moved back to Kanab. Hyrum had homesteaded Tinny canyon, approximately 1911 or 1912, where they spent their summers. Hy bought some sheep at this time also.

One couple from California came out to Kanab and went to the ranch with them. The man was an artist. He painted lots of pictures of the mountains. The ranch was situated just under Powell Point, under East Fork Mountain. Mr. Phares would pound money, nickels and dimes and quarters into the ground and tell Stewart he could have all the money he could dig up. Mr. and Mrs. Phares came out to Kanab and the ranch from California for several years. When Anna Deal was born on March 9th, 1915, she was named after Mrs. Phares and grandmother Robinson.

Hyrum ran sheep and cows on the Tinny ranch. The meadow and grain fields were beautiful. Hy and Macy lived in a tent at first on the ranch, then they built a cabin. A big meadow was in front of the house, a spring to the north of the house, which they piped down to the outside of the house, where they could just carry the water into the house.

In the summer or fall of 1916, the old house in Kanab burned down. Not sure where the family was at the time, whether at Alamo with grandmother Brown or up at the ranch. Anyway, some one broke into the house and it caught on fire. Very little furniture and personal things were saved. Neighbors got as much out of the house as they could. They went to the ranch. Hyrum contracted Frank Rider to build a new house, to be finished so they could be moved into it before the baby was born in the fall.

Uncle Dave Robinson was left in charge to see that the house was built to specifications. Frank didn’t leave a room for the bathroom, so he had to take space out of the two bedrooms to make a room for the bathroom, which was not finished until 1945.

Hy and Macy came from the ranch one trip and Frank had plastered the dining room and kitchen with plain old red mud. They were very unhappy with this, so he put a thin layer of white plaster over the walls of the two rooms, then finished the rest of the house in good plaster.

Helen was born in the living room of the new house, before the family could get moved out of the tents. They moved the rest of the family and the furniture, etc., in later on. Helen was born 25 Oct., 1917.

When Stewart was old enough to go to school, Hy and Macy would leave the ranch in the fall, then go back up to the ranch in time to do the spring work. They raised oats and wheat and cut some of the meadow for what grass hay he could use. He took his own wheat to the grist mill for flour and used the rest for feed for his animals. Oats were all used for feed for the animals. He would sell the wheat that was not used.

Hy and Quincy Adams traded work. Alma Carroll cut posts and worked for Hy. Alma fenced most of the ranch while he was working for Hy.

Macy learned to shoot her pistol, a single shot, two barrel 32 revolver. She was a very good shot. When friends would go to the ranch, they would sometimes have a shooting match and Macy would usually win. She practiced by shooting at the hawks that would fly down to the ground to catch the young chickens.

In April 1920, Margery was born. The family spent their summers on the ranch and would come down to town in time for the kids to go to school. When they would go back to the ranch in the spring, Hy would usually have to repair the road. They went by team and wagon. It would usually take two days to get to Tinny (38 miles). They would go as far as the Jo — Johnson ranch and camp for the night. This is about 16 or 17 miles. The folks would visit with the family at Scutumpah ranch. There was also several other ranchers in the area and they would visit each other. Macy would get on her horse, put Margery on in front of her and Helen in back. Stewart and Deal would walk and they would go visit at the Alma and Minnie Carroll ranch, where there was children to play with. Stewart and Deal would go over to Carroll’s without Macy. Helen was kinda small to walk that far, so she usually rode. When Hy and Macy went to Scutumpah or over to Quincy and Zoe Adam’s ranch, they would take the team and wagon. Lucinda was born in August1924.

Each year when the family went to the ranch, Stewart, Deal and Margery would coax Helen to eat the sour apples that grew on the side hill. They would all take a bite and say how good the apples were, so Helen would try them again, then she would scold and sputter at them for teasing her. The kids had play houses in the willows. The kids had most all the regular childhood diseases and Macy would take care of them. Until Stewart was old enough to saddle his own horse, Macy would saddle it for him. Unless Hy was where he could do it for Stewart. Hy would make water guns for Stewart to play with out of an elderberry bush for the tube, a piece of oak for the plunger, a willow for the piece in the end of the tube, a piece of wool yarn wrapped around the end of the plunger to soak up the water. This made a real good water gun. Hy was a great one to play with the children, to make bone horses and farm animals, use tinker toys to make buildings and toys out of. He also would pop popcorn that he had grown. He would pop the corn in an old wire popper over the coals in the fireplace or in the old heater.

When Stewart was 6 or 8 years old, Hy and Macy made arrangements for some of their friends to come up to the ranch and go on up on East Fork mountain on a fishing trip. They all met at Scutumpah and then went up through the meadows (those who went with the team and wagons), down Crawford Canyon to the main stream. Those of the group who had saddle horses rode up from Scutumpah to Mill Creek to the main stream where they met the folks with the wagons. They made camp and proceeded to fish, etc. Some of the people who were there were; Gene and Fran R. Swapp and family, uncle Que and aunt Maude and family. Alton Adams, a young man was also there. Alton would play horse for the young children. Stewart was too big for a ride, so he had to ride a real horse.

Hy and Macy took the children and went to Alamo to spend Christmas with grandmother Brown in 1920, 21, 22, or 23. It was so cold over there the car froze up and broke the motor and they had to leave the car in Alamo.

Jessel would come and stay with her sister, Macy. Grandpa Brown thought Macy was too lenient with Jessel and he came and took her back to Fredonia. Uncle Elmo and aunt Jessel Brown were married at the home of Macy and Hy in Kanab.

The old house in Kanab had a bedroom and a living room across the front, a kitchen in back with a lean-to on the back. It had a porch clear across the front of the house.

The new house was built over the foundation of the old house. It had three bedrooms on the north and a small room for the bathroom. A living room, a large dining room and small kitchen on the south, with a fruit room or pantry in the middle of the house, between Stewart’s bedroom and the kitchen. This was smaller than the other rooms. Across the front and the back of the house were large porches.

Macy was called on by many people in town when there was sickness in the home. She was a great comfort to have near. She nursed many a sick person.

Macy was also a great canner of fruit, meat and vegetables. She usually had more than a two year supply of canned or bottled food. She baked bread and churned lots of butter. She made cheese and butter while on the ranch, in the cabin at the ranch she kept cheese on a high shelf.

In about 1918 or 1919, Hyrum had Goat Fever. He was in so much misery he would scream when anyone walked across the floor. He had to be turned on a sheet because he could not stand to be touched.

In 1925, Hyrum leased 800 acres of the ranch to Merl Brinkerhoff to run his sheep on. At this time Hyrum had leased his sheep to Will Segmiller. He kept the house and the meadow and the grain fields. In 1926 aunt Margery Cottom spent time at the ranch. While there she painted the picture of the ranch that hangs in the living room of Stewart’s home. The oats would grow so tall that a 6-foot man (Merl Adams) would walk out into the oats and you would not be able to see him. Along about the time the depression of 1929 hit, Hyrum lost his sheep to the bank. Will Segmiller had them leased. The price of wool went real high that year and will wanted to get $1.00 a lb. For the wool. Hyrum told him to sell the wool, but Will said no, he would get the $1.00 high money. The bottom dropped out of wool prices and Will finally ended up selling the wool for either 10 or 17 cents a pound. Hyrum had borrowed money on the sheep to buy a couple of fields below town and when wool dropped, the bank wanted their money, so Hy told them to take the sheep. After getting rid of his sheep, he still had a few cows which he kept until the Taylor Grazing started ad he had sold the ranch by this time. Therefore, he had no place to put his cows, only in the fields he owned, which was not enough ground to keep them on. So he had to sell his cows.

Hy worked in his fields and taught Stewart, about 13 then, to run the mower and rake and take care of the horses and wagons, etc. Uncle Lafe got after Hy one day for having Stewart run the mower without Hy being at the field. Lafe said the boy could get hurt and Hy replied, yes he could, but I also could get hurt . He can handle the horses as good or better than I can. Lafe didn’t have any of his boys run any of his machinery. And they didn’t even learn how to put the harness on the horses until they were quite old.

Hy had a milk cow they called Cherry. This cow would chase Helen up on the woodpile every time she went to the corral for wood. Helen would sit on the wood pile and yell for someone to come get her. One day while Stewart and cousin Elmer Robinson were in the backyard, the cow took after Elmer. He ran into the old outside toilet to get away from the cow and every time he would try to come out of the toilet, the cow would lower her head and act like she would bunt him. Stewart stood by and laughed. Finally he chased the cow away and let Elmer out of the toilet. Probably mom came out of the house and told Stewart to let Elmer out in case someone had to use the toilet.

Hyrum had an old Victrola he loved. You had to turn a crank to make it go. They used it at the ranch most of the time. One trip to the ranch in the spring, the cowboys were at the lower end of the pasture. Malcome Robinson had gone to the ranch house and taken the Victrola down to the camp. Hyrum was very upset to think they had gone into the house and gotten the Victrola. After that the Victrola was taken to Kanab in the fall.

For several years, Hy would cook for the cowboys when they gathered their cows and branded them. One trip while they were gathering cows, they had a stampede and lost almost all one-half the herd. While out along the road on the trail drives, the tourists would stop at the camp site where Hy was cooking and want to taste the fool. Then the cowboys would show off for the tourist spectators by riding, roping, etc.

After selling the ranch to Merl Brinkerhoff in about 1930 or 1931, Hyrum worked for different men around the area. In September 1931, he started to work for Jesse Johnson over in Johnson Canyon. He had to take his pay or wages in whatever Jesse had, because money was very scarce and Jesse was not the best paymaster in the country. Just as an example of the price of things, mutton was $2.00, 100 pounds of flour was $2.35, 8 pounds of lard $1.10, 6 pounds of bacon $1.80, 4 gallons of honey $3.85. This was a few of the commodities Hy took as wages.

Macy was active in Church organizations, Primary and Relief Society. In 1928, she was put in as president of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. She held this position for 5 years. Many successful projects were performed while she was president. She served in the Primary for 25 years. In March of 1932, Norine (Jackie) was born. And from them on Macy did not have the best of health. But her girls were old enough to take over and help her with the sewing, cooking and housework.

One year one of the milk cows was to have a new calf. Hy and Stewart tried to one of them be at home when this particular cow would have her calf, but this time they were unable to be at home when the calf was born. Hy had told Macy if the calf was born before they could get home that Macy was to of get either uncle Lafe Robinson or uncle Jed Shumway to come and milk the cow for her. Well, that’s the way it happened. Macy had Lafe come over to milk the cow and the old cow put Lafe out of the corral so he went and got Jed Shumway to come up and try to milk the cow. The old cow ran Jed out of the corral. It made him very angry and he wanted to shoot the cow. This upset Macy so she told the men to stay out of the corral. She picked up a stick and went into the corral, sat down and milked the old cow.

For several years, Hyrum and Stewart would go out on the Kaibab mountain and catch deer fauns and raise them for the government. They would keep them in the lot in Kanab. If a stranger came on the lot, the deer would jump the fence and disappear, then during the night or later, the would return. They would get $25 and $30 the first year but then they changed it and paid $27.50 for each faun they raised. When the government man came to get the first bunch of fauns, he only took part of them at a time, but he must have got the leader the first time, because after that the rest of the fauns would not play as much as before, and they were more frightened of people. They caught several bunches of fauns and sold the last of them to the government in about 1932.

Hy worked at odd jobs around until the W.P.A. started in 1932. W.P.A. means Work Projects Administration, which started after President Roosevelt was put in office in 1932. Hy worked as foreman on some of the jobs he worked on. One was over on Coal hill near Zion. Hy would work three days, then Stewart would work three days. They would use the same team of horses, which belonged to Hy.

As a child growing up, Lucinda had bad luck with her arms. She broke separate arms three times when she was 3, 4, and 5 years old.

One day Stewart and Mike (Helen’s husband), were at the house, doing a little drinking. It was hot and they had mixed up some gin and lemonade. Macy came home from down town from a 24th of July parade. She saw those nice cool looking drinks, so she wanted one, which the guys gave to her. She drank one down and wanted another, so they let her have another one. About this time, she could tell there was something in the drink besides lemonade. She scolded Stewart and Mike for not telling her about the gin, and they sat and laughed about it, because Macy would never take a drink of liquor. This happened after Helen and Mike were married and Gayle was born. Macy had gone to the parade to watch Lou pull Jackie and Gayle in a little wagon during the parade.

Anna Deal and Vernon Black were married July 26, 1933. They have three girls and two boys, Gayle, Velden, Carolyn, Beverlee, and Kerry. In 1939 - 40, they took Hyrum and Macy to Yellowstone Park.

Hyrum worked for the W.P.A. until it ended. He would work part time for Alex Findlay. He would go to the sheep herd and take the place of Stewart and other men when they wanted time off.

Helen and Mike Griffiths were Married May 1936. They have two boys and one girl, Mont (Clairmont), Richard, and Rayola. They lost a baby boy, Charles Elgin.

Margery and Ellis Anderson married. They have two children living, Betty Lou and Raymond. Baby Mark died. After Ellis was killed, Margery married Bill Busch. He had three children, Norma, Gary and Lonny.

Lucinda and Jesse Williams were married. They had two boys and one girl, Larry, Barbara and Kyle. After their divorce, Lou married Cal Wheatley. They had three boys and one girl, Ben, Tom and Leo and Cindy.

Stewart went to Las Vegas, Nevada to work in the winter of 1940-41. Hy and Macy moved to Vegas in early 1941. Stewart and Hy worked on construction for Gibbons & Reed& McNeil Co. Grandmother Brown died in Vegas in October of 1941.

Stewart and Lenna Tait were married in February 1942. They have three boys and three girls, Stewart Jr.,Charles, Kenny, Lenna Jean, Ramona, and LaRee.

Hy, Macy and Norine, Ellis, Margery and Betty Lou and Stewart and Lenna all lived at the same place on Wilson Street in Las Vegas, NV. Hy and Macy stayed in Vegas until in 1942. For a short while they moved to Kanab, then back to Las Vegas just when Stewart was called into the army. They stayed there and worked at the Nellis Air Force Base airport until it was finished, then Hy and Macy, Helen and Mike moved to Provo, Utah to work. Hy worked for a contractor issuing tools to the men, then gathering the tools up and putting them away when the men were finished with them. They stayed in Provo until late 1944 or early 1945, when they moved back to Kanab to live. Hy then worked for Glen & Lester Johnson at their sawmill just north of town. In 1945 while Lenna with their son Stewart were in Kanab visiting, Hyrum finished the wall in the bathroom and had the bathroom fixtures installed.

Vernon and Anna Deal had moved back to Kanab also at this time. Helen and Mike had moved home to Fredonia, AZ. Lucinda and Jesse had gotten their divorce while Hy and Macy were in Provo, and she had moved back to Utah, to Brigham City, where she had met and married Calvin Wheatley. Stewart came home from the army in December 1945, when they, too, moved back to Kanab to live.

Hyrum and Macy took several fishing trips with the families up on the Mammoth Creek, and over on East Fork Mountain. Many hunting trips did Hy, Stewart and Vernon go on. I remember one hunting trip Vernon and Anna Deal, Helen and Mike, Stewart and Lenna and Hy went on up Water Canyon, Mill Creek, and Birch. This was in 1943 while Stewart was in the army, but home on furlough. Such a good outing.

Hyrum and Lloyd Pugh had corrals back to back. They would get some wiener pigs, then bet on whose pig would be the biggest by time to kill them.. Hy usually had the biggest pig because he usually had more table scraps and extra milk to feed his pigs.

Macy was a great reader. She loved books and made them a great part of her life. She liked to travel and she would go on a trip whenever she got a chance.

When Glen and Lester Johnson sold their sawmill to Rowley Brothers, Hy worked for Howley’s for a while, then he became the janitor of the L.D.S. Church house and yards and also was custodian at the cemetery.

In 1947, Hy and Macy went with Stewart and Lenna and Lenna’s sister, out to the Grand Canyon for a weekend. While sightseeing at Angel’s Window, Macy tripped and stumbled until she almost went over the edge of the trail. She was very scared. Stewart and Rhoana, Lenna’s sister, were with her, but neither one of them could catch her. They were both afraid she was gone, but she finally caught herself. Hy always told Macy he was going to sneak up behind her one time because she always had to get close to the edge. Anyway, he said he would push her off, but she told him, no danger of that because he was too frightened of high places to get close enough to push her. After that trip to Grand Canyon, she was not so brave about the high places.

In 1950, Christmas time, Norine (Jackie) married Ervin Hoyt of Orderville, in Las Vegas. Macy went to Vegas with them. Jackie and Erv have a boy, Doug, three girls, Danice, Mychelle, and Patrice. Ervin died in June 1977.

Hyrum and Macy went to Caldwell, Idaho, in 1950, when Vernon and Anna Deal lived there. They spent a month with them. During this visit, their fourth child, Beverlee, was born. They then went to Dillon and Twin Falls, Montana, to visit Lucinda and Cal. This was the last time Deal and Lou saw Hyrum alive.

On January 1951, Hyrum had a terrific heart attack and was taken from us. Hyrum liked to play pool. The night he died, he had been down playing pool. When he would go to Las Vegas, the first thing Ellis, Hyrum, and Stewart would do is go play pool. We have all mourned his passing very much.

After the death of Hyrum, Macy was never content to stay at home. She would travel to Vegas and stay with Margery and Ellis then back home to Kanab where Deal and Stewart were, and Helen in Fredonia. Lou in Montana. For several years Jackie and Erv were back east in the air force so Macy went back east to Chicopee, Mass. to be with Jackie when Doug was born. She also spent some time in Washington D.C. (Chevy Chase, Maryland) with her sister Margery. While there she went to the Library of Congress and looked up many pages of genealogy.

Several years after Hyrum died, Jode Wooly asked Stewart and Lenna if he could come and see Macy and visit with her. They gave their permission. He asked her to go have ice cream with him. She refused. Then he asked her to marry him. Jode was a poor old fellow with a very bad speech impediment, so he wrote most of his speech down on paper. He was also crippled in mainly one leg. When Macy would tell him no, her health wasn’t too good, Jode would stroke her arm and say, “Oh, but you look good to me”. When Jode got ready to leave, he told Macy, “Well, if you won’t marry me, I’ll have to see your sister Jessel.” Later we found out he went to see all the older widows in town.

Then on May 28, 1957, Macy also passed away from a heart attack. Hyrum and Macy are both buried in the Kanab cemetery along with their three babies who preceded them in death. We, their children, love and honor them and are trying to live up to their teachings and are trying to keep their memories alive for our children and grandchildren. Their posterity at this time is 174 in 1982.