The Story of

Pearl
Clawson
Bennett
Mouse over the parts of Pearl’s collage to learn more about her life.
 Click on the top of any page to bring up a Table of Contents flyout menu
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F CONTENTS Branch President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Click on a topic to go there Pearl’s Early Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Birth and Childhood Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
List of Photographs and Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Childhood Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Family in the Rock Pile . . . . . . . . . . 17
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
“Go Away, Big Dog!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Finding the Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Baptism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Move to Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Spiritual Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Midnight Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Polygamy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Dishwasher for Hire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Pearl’s Father George Washington Clawson . . 7
Tragedy at the Mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Flour Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Courtship & Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
50th Wedding Anniversary . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
“Oh, the bliss of all that day” . . . . . . . . . . 21
Pearl’s Mother, Jeanette Orilla Clawson . . . . 8
“You don’t like it, do you?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The Christmas Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Thunder and Lightning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Pearl’s Husband, Stephen Nathaniel Bennett 10
Pearl’s Adult Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
“The Indians have me!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Starting a New Life in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
“If you can, I can” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
“Nestled Next to My Heart” . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Making a Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Pearl & Stephen’s family . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Cattle Rancher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Snowbanks and Beggars Coyotes . . . . . 25
The Move To California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Return to Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Scriptures or Shakespeare? . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Henry, Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Report Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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 Life in Henry, Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 A Community Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
“Life is a Blessed Gift” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Community Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Meadow Creek Homestead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Church Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Water Fight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Settling Down in Charlo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Pack Rat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Visiting Dignitaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
The Meadow By Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Broken Arm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Sibling Protection Training . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Old Folks Parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Frozen Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Los Angeles, California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Inflammatory Rheumatism . . . . . . . . . . 29 A Final Road Trip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Influenza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 What Pearl was Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Gibson, Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 List Of Favorites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Good Times In Gibson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
International Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Community Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Making Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Drama, Music & Literature . . . . . . . . . . 50
Musical Lambs and Predatory Pigs . . 34 Gregarious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
S.P. Sorenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 A Spirit of Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chief William Penn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Self-Aware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Boarding House & Selling Cider 38 Spiritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Pocatello, Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Absolutely Sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Charlo, Montana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Passing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
It Began With a Picnic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Starting on a Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Help us tell Pearl’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Discovering More of the Story . . . . . . . 40
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 List of Photographs and Maps
Click on a caption to go to its picture
§ Pearl’s 5-Year Diary   4
§ Family tree back to Pearl’s grandparents   6
§ Pearl’s father   7
§ Pearl’s mother   8
§ Stephen Bennett, age 20   10
§ The Charlo, Montana Branch   15
§ The Clawsons, children older   16
§ Pearl Clawson, age 6   17
§ Pearl & friends at Ricks Academy   19
§ Pearl and her older brother, George   20
§ The Clawsons, children younger   21
§ The Mormon temple in Salt Lake City   23
§ Blanche Bennett, age six months   24
§ The Bennett family   24
§ House at Raymond, Alberta, Canada   25
§ Pearl Bennett at Lava Hot Springs   30
§ Map of Gibson, Idaho and vicinity   32
§ Children eating watermelon   33
§ Fourth of July parade in Blackfoot, Idaho 33
§ Clawson Bennett singing, age 41⁄2   34
§ Stephen R. Bennett with Fritz the Sheep   35
§ A visit to Billy George and his wife   36
§ Chief William Penn   37
§ Map of Charlo, Montana and vicinity   39
§ Organizing a branch of The Mormon Church
in Charlo, Montana   40
§ The Bennetts begin building a home   42
§ An outing to the mountains   43
§ Poster advertising a play, “Girl Shy”   44
§ Guests at an Old Folks Party   45
§ Family gathering, Los Angeles, 1938   46
§ Pearl with daughters, Vilate and Maude   48
§ A Pearl Clawson Bennett collage   48
§ The Bennett family   51
§ The mothers of the Charlo Branch   52
§ Flower card from Pearl’s funeral   53
§ Cover of Pearl’s funeral program   53
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Introduction planned second CD-ROM . See the 8 contact page 9
for more information.
We had to include a biography of some sort Marcile Whitehead Stettler, granddaughter
in the Pearl Bennett Project. In the process April 2003
of scanning Pearl’s two main diaries followed
by her photographs, notebooks and pieces of
memorabilia connected with her life—the pattern
of her life seemed to speak to us. Pearl spoke Navigation
to us, over and over. Her belief
• Click the mouse cursor on the BAC K and N E X T
in the power of friendship, of
buttons below to turn the page. • Click the mouse
Christ-like service and joyful
cursor on a photograph or illustration to see an
living in the face of all trials
enlarged view of it; click again to return to the
and obstacles spoke to us. We
whole page. • Click on a Bookmark on the left
felt compelled to attempt to
to go directly to that topic. • Place the mouse
organize and share what we’ve
cursor over words highlighted in brown to bring
learned about this remarkable
Pearl’s 5-Year up more information. • Click on words highlighted
Diary woman that we have come to
in brown with 8 accent lines 9 to go to a new page
admire and love so much. We hope you enjoy
of more information.
the story of Pearl Clawson Bennett.
As we’ve uncovered Pearl’s story this project Finding the Diaries
has progressed through several revisions. If
By Marcile Whitehead Stettler
you have any information, photos or documents
relating to Pearl Bennett that you’d be willing Since the Pearl Bennett Project CD-ROM started
to share we would consider including them in a with the decision to digitize two of Pearl’s diaries,
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the story of finding those diaries is a good place
to begin her story. Pearl’s fourth child, Vilate
(rhymes with ‘the plate’), was my mother. When
Vilate had to move from her home of forty years
she asked me if I would like some boxes of old
Relief Society magazines and Improvement Era’s,
publications of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church. I was
teaching a monthly Relief Society lesson at the
time and was always looking for useful material
for my lesson so I took the boxes home.
As I got to the bottom of one of the boxes, I
found two small, green books. The more tattered
of the two books had the words, “FIVE YEA R
DIARY” stamped on the front cover; the second
volume had the words, “DIARY 1937” stamped
on the front cover. When I opened the diaries I
realized with a rush of excitement
that these were my Grandma
Bennett’s diaries that she had kept
for six of her last seven years on
earth. She died in 1938, one year
before my mother married.
I had in my hands the words of the
grandmother I had known only through my
mother’s stories. My mother had told me many
things about Pearl Bennett and always said, “Oh,
I know you would have loved her!” All during my
childhood I remember having a burning desire
to know my grandmother. As I sat holding Pearl
Bennett’s diaries, I had a strong impression that
these family treasures should be preserved and
eventually shared with her descendants.
As I read and reread the diaries I gained new
insights into my grandmother and found a great
love for her growing inside me. I ached when I
read of her struggles and sorrows; I rejoiced to
feel of her faith in God and her strong belief that
life is meant to be joyful. It has been so exciting
for me to find and read the books preserved on
this disk—and now to share them with you.
On 11 December 1932 Pearl wrote: “I wish I
were as lofty as some of my thoughts. I’ve always
wanted to write some thing worth while.” You did
write something worthwhile, Grandma, and now
we’re sharing it with the world.
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Heritage
Spiritual Heritage
Pearl liked to tell her children about the
family’s roots in The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, especially
their connections to Joseph Smith, the George Ellen Manhardt
Washington Clawson
Joseph Lee
Robinson
8 Laurinda
Maria Atwood 9
founding prophet of the church. She
described how her maternal grandfather,
8 Joseph Lee Robinson 9 , studied under
Joseph Smith in the early Mormon
seminary known as The School of the George Washington Clawson Jr. Jeanette Orilla Robinson

Prophets; how her paternal grandfather,

George Washington Clawson Sr., was at the
prophet’s side when he was jailed in Missouri
and how her maternal great grandfather,
Elisha Atwood died guarding Joseph Smith. The Pearl Clawson Bennett

faith and spiritual strength of these ancestors

were important to Pearl and she delighted in
teaching her family about them as part of her
testimony of the truthfulness of the restored
gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pearl’s family tree back to her grandparents 7

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Polygamy
Pearl’s grandfather, 8 Joseph Lee Robinson 9 ,
accepted Joseph Smith’s instruction to enter
into plural marriage. Grandfather Robinson was
a devoted member of the Church and took each of
his five wives only after receiving the prompting
of the Holy Spirit in the matter. Joseph’s posterity
included noted Church leaders, W. O. Robinson,
Stephen L. Richards and LeGrand Richards.
Pearl’s Father
George Washington Clawson, Jr.
George Washington Clawson Jr. was
born in Draper, Utah in 1860. The
family moved first to Salt Lake City,
Utah and later to Farmington, Utah where George
worked in his father’s wheelwright shop at age
fourteen. After taking some cattle to Idaho for his
father, George Jr. teamed and freighted between
Kolton, Boise and Idaho City, a mining town in
the mountains above Boise.
In July of 1882 he returned to Farmington
where he was baptized a member of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ordained
an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood of the
Church. At age twenty-two he married Jeanette
Robinson in the Salt Lake Endowment House, a
building used for performing sacred ordinances
while the Salt Lake Temple was being built.
Flour Mills
George wrote of his career, “Since my Marriage
I have built and Operated Flour mills. Altogether
I have built and operated about 30 mills. This
type of work took me away from home much of
the time. I have also donated my labor on six
churches at different places.”
George took great pride in his craft. Pearl’s
sister, Maude, remembered their father
going to California to be part of the
housing building boom following
World War I only to leave after a
couple of years, disgusted by building
standards too low for his tastes.
In his career he built flour mills in Mesquite,
Nevada; Spokane, Washington; Ucon, Idaho;
Rexburg, Idaho; Ririe, Idaho; Firth, Idaho;
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Blackfoot, Idaho; Shelley, Idaho then another one
later in Shelley when the first one burned down.
Even to this day, the extremely fine particles
of milled flour make fire or explosions an ever
present danger in flour mills and grain silos.
George also built a gold mill and a
courthouse in Seattle, Washington; a courthouse
in Montpelier, Idaho; an academy in Farmington,
Utah and churches in Belvedere, California and
Charlo (pronounced ‘shar-low’), Montana.
50th Wedding Anniversary
In 1932—the year Pearl started her 5-Year-Diary
in Charlo, Montana—her parents were preparing
for their golden wedding anniversary. During
the preparations for the celebration George
was stricken with angina and double pneumonia,
conditions so serious that the celebration was
called off.
Unfortunately, he received less than ad-
equate medical care and the circulation in his
right leg deteriorated to the point that the leg
had to be amputated. Pearl’s parents moved in
with their daughter, Ida, where they were living
when George 8 passed away 9 three years later.
Pearl’s diary entries about her father’s passing
are brief but poignant. Even years later she
records a deep tender grief at the memory of
her father’s passing.
Pearl’s Mother
Jeanette Orilla Clawson
One of the few surviving impressions
of Pearl’s mother, Jeanette Orilla
Robinson Clawson, comes from
Pearl’s sister, Oral. Thinking back to her
childhood in Utah, Oral wrote: “We used to love
to sit on the floor and listen to Mother tell us
Bible stories and sing to us. She was a wonderful
Mother, her Heavenly Father blessed her with the
gift of singing in tongues. I have been relieved
of much pain many times through her faith and
mine in her.” Oral also remembered her mother
having to make do to keep the family fed while
her father was away following his trade of
building flour mills. “Mother had to care for us
children while he was away.” She wrote. “I know
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that some times all we had to eat was the fruit
and bread and molasses, but it didn’t seem to
hurt us any.”
Another impression of Jeanette Clawson
comes from Pearl’s youngest sister, Maude.
Considering that Jeanette was fourteen years
older when she had Maude than when she
had Pearl, there’s a good chance the two girls
would’ve remembered their mother differently.
Nevertheless, with little else to go on, this
passage from Maude’s memoirs is priceless:
“Mother had a sober disposition and was very
superstitious. She had the gift of healing, using
herbs as her father taught her to do. There was
rarely a doctor in the towns where we lived, so
she was a real blessing to her family and to the
people of the towns. She helped women in child-
bearing, and washed, dressed and laid out the
dead. Her people were of the Quaker [Friends]
faith, originally from England. They emigrated
to Connecticut before coming west to Utah and
Idaho.”
Maude also remembered, “. . .my mother
was extremely modest about her body and taught
her daughters to be the same. Their clothing was
voluminous and revealed nothing.”
The Christmas Tree
Late in 1908, Pearl and her husband, Stephen,
and their first two children, Blanche and Maude,
traveled down from Alberta, Canada to visit her
parents over the Christmas holiday. While they
were there Jeanette helped Pearl deliver her third
child, a little boy they would name, Stephen, after
his father.
Pearl’s sister, Maude, was almost eight years
old at the time and later recalled:
“Pearl and my older sisters
prevailed upon Mother to
let us have a Christmas
tree. We had never had one
before as Mother thought it was a heathen custom
and would bring bad luck to the family.
Almost to prove her point I came down
with chicken pox. Just as I was getting better,
I got the mumps on both sides and was very ill.
Pearl’s baby was born and the two of them had to
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be isolated from the rest. I was just recovering
when I came down with the measles! Chicken pox,
mumps and measles! It’s a wonder I survived!
To compound our troubles, Pearl’s husband
came down with the mumps and was dangerously
ill. In his delirium he insisted on having my bed.
Mother put a bread board between two chairs
and that became my bed.
Mother could not stand the situation one
minute longer and insisted that the older girls get
rid of the Christmas tree—the first and the last
one we ever had! Mother, always superstitious,
was convinced it was the cause of all our
problems.”
On 20 February 1936 Pearl pasted an old
8 photo 9 of her mother on a sheet of notebook
paper and penned the following tribute: “To day
as I write this it is Feb 20, 1936, many years later
than when this picture was taken. And I have a
great desire to pay tribute to a very good woman
that has been tried, tested and proven. To day
she is 75 years of age.” The following year, Pearl
made several entries in her diary in which she
worried about her mother’s failing health and
longed to bring her to California despite the
Bennetts’ destitute circumstances.
Finally, on Thanksgiving 1937, Pearl noted in
her diary a large family Thanksgiving dinner at
her sister, Marie’s, house in Santa Monica. With
a glow of satisfaction no doubt made complete
by the presence of her mother Pearl concluded,
“We arrived at our home at 12 o’clock [midnight].
Having had a full day of association with our
loved ones and appreciation for life.” Pearl would
not live to see another Thanksgiving with her
mother. Jeanette continued living in poor health
with her daughter, Ida, for another seven years
before passing away in 1945.
Pearl’s Husband
Stephen Nathaniel Bennett
Stephen Nathaniel Bennett was
born in Cannah Quay, Wales,
England in 1877, making him
ten years older than Pearl. When
Stephen’s mother passed away
Stephen Bennett,
age 20 three weeks after giving birth,
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Stephen’s father gave the newborn to his childless
sister, Katherine. At birth Stephen weighed just
three pounds; he was so small that his father
presented him to his aunt on a pillow.
In 1884 Stephen’s foster father, Thomas
Hewitt, joined the Mormon Church in England.
The family followed the pattern of new converts
in Europe and sailed to America to be with the
main body of the Church. Stephen was eight years
old when the family arrived in New York on a
ship owned by the White Star Line called The
Arizona. They made their way to Utah and settled
in Holden, Millard County.
“The Indians have me!”
Vilate Bennett included in her father’s life sketch
the following pair of stories from his youth in
Utah. “When Father was between the ages of
eight and nine this happened. He always went to
church with his father, or I should say, uncle, and
always sat by him. This Sunday night he asked
if he might go down to the Co-op store and stay
until time for church. His father consented.
So when he arrived at the store he met a
fellow who was four years older than himself,
John Mitchell, and two Indians with braids. The
old store had a porch on it and Dad hung on to
one of the posts. Knowing that Steve was afraid
of Indians, John asked, ‘Steve, how would you like
to go with these Indians to their Wickiup?’ Steve
swung around the post and said, ‘I won’t go—’ and
began running as fast as he could go with one of
the Indians following him now and again.
When Steve arrived at the church door the
Indian left him. With the meeting just beginning
Steve burst into the church and ran screaming to
the stand. The people all arose and
were very excited, wanting to know
what had happened. Dad yelled,
‘The Indians have me!’ The
people felt sorry that he was so
frightened. You see—they had read and heard
so many stories of the Indians that it was hard
to believe that they were harmless.”
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“If you can, I can”
The Mormon faith follows a code of health called
the Word of Wisdom which forbids drinking tea,
among other things. This coupled with the British
tradition of drinking tea which followed the early
Saints across the Atlantic, makes for a wonderful
moment of faith and the power of example in the
second story. “When he was sixteen he [Stephen]
was very ill with typhoid fever. His aunt promised
the Lord that she would give up the thing she
loved most if he would spare the life of Father.
One day when a neighbor, Lily Crosslin, was there
to see how Steve was, Steve’s mother said, ‘I’m
going to quit my tea, as I love that most of all.’
Steve said, ‘If you can, I can,’ and Lily said, ‘If
you two can, I can.’ And to this day they haven’t
touched it.”
Making a Living
As a young man Stephen worked as a rancher
then attended Brigham Young University in
Provo, Utah. After finishing his university
studies he went to Canada to work. According
to his daughter, Vilate, “Here he had many
experiences with bad men and cattle men. He
made many friends in Canada. He made quite
a little money.” From there Stephen and his
brother, Thomas, moved to Shelley, Idaho where
they went into the mercantile business. It was
Thomas’ wife who later introduced Stephen and
Pearl at a church dance.
Cattle Rancher
Stephen’s daughter, Vilate, remembered that
her father loved horses and cattle;
as a young man in Canada he
became prosperous raising cattle.
After they were married Pearl and
Stephen moved back to Raymond,
Alberta, Canada where in Pearl’s words, they
“made lots of money and lost lots” raising cattle
and dry farming.
From Raymond the Bennetts moved back
to the United States where for the most part the
family farmed in Idaho and Montana for the
next twenty-five years. When the Bennetts lived
in Gibson, Idaho Stephen got a job for several
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years as a ditch rider with the irrigation authority
of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.
When the family lived in Charlo, Montana,
Pearl made several entries in her journal about
Stephen’s work—once when he and a son went
off to work with a bailer; once when he went
off to help harvest sugar
beets and a time that surely
troubled Stephen when they
decided to sell a horse so they
could buy chickens. These were hard times and
the family relied on a large garden, a cow and as
many as three hundred chickens to eat.
The Move To California
Broke and unemployed, the Bennetts moved to
California late in 1936 hoping for a better life.
They lived with friends for six months while
searching unsuccessfully for employment. At
the age of fifty-nine Stephen enrolled in the
Frank Wiggins trade school to learn to be a
custodian. Even when he graduated with new
skills, employment was still hard to find and
only temporary when it came along. He became
discouraged and sick under the stress. Pearl tried
to encourage him the best she could, even prod
him along; in the end she ended up enrolling in
the trade school herself.
After Pearl’s death, Stephen eventually
landed a managerial position in Los Angeles
with Deseret Industries, the welfare arm of the
Mormon Church. Stephen apparently had found
his niche; he excelled at management and thrived
in this job for many years afterwards.
Scriptures or Shakespeare?
According to Vilate Bennett, her father could
be strict, having been raised in the ways
of the old country. He believed that things
should be a certain way—such as placing the
silverware correctly and neatly at the dinner
table—and he expected the family to abide by
his expectations.
Vilate remembered her father frowning
on reading materials other than church books
or scriptures. He also believed that everyone
should keep busy. For a free spirit like Pearl
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who counted Shakespeare as her favorite poet,
this posed an interesting challenge. She loved
telling and reading stories from the classics to
her children—and she loved her husband. When
Stephen returned home Pearl would quickly hide
any books they were using and remind everyone
to look busy. On balance, Pearl enjoyed
studying the scriptures and other
church materials and was by
nature an industrious soul.
Report Card
In Charlo, Montana Pearl wrote a report card
of sorts on her husband’s character in her blue
notebook—and the marks were high. She wrote,
“At this writing he [Stephen] has been married 28
years and his wife has never heard him profane.
He uses neither tea, coffee, liquor, or tobacco.
He prays, exhorts, begs, and commands that
the Saints who labor under his leadership live
their religion.
He is morally clean and mentally straight.
Six years of service he gave to Uncle Sam.
He has always been prayerful and honest and
has never refused to pay an honest debt.
His wife and family love and honor him
for his stick-with-it-ness and his courage in
doing what he knows is right under any and all
circumstances.
He is small of stature with piercing blue eyes,
black hair. His teeth through life have been even
and beautiful.
He has never had much patience with people
who are weak in their morals.
He is blessed with discernment. He has had
a wonderful memory for remembering faces.
He has always liked the poor man best. He
never tells vulgar stories.”
Even when she became frustrated with
Stephen’s occasional discouragement and lack
of success in finding employment—and at times
she got extremely frustrated—Pearl always
came back to writing something positive about
her husband.
Branch President
During eight of his nine years in Charlo, Montana,
Stephen served as branch president of the Charlo
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branch of the Mormon Church. Unlike a paid
clergyman, he filled this assignment as an unpaid
lay leader. Not only was he struggling to feed
his family but he also labored for the spiritual
welfare of the other members in the Flathead
Valley as well.
Once when several men in the branch made
vicious verbal attacks on Stephen’s character,
Pearl recorded that he took it quietly, humbly.
They later came to ask his forgiveness but it
The Charlo, Montana Branch of the Mormon Church, circa 1930. Pearl’s
father directed the construction of the chapel which was shipped in
from Washington State in precut pieces. Prior to construction of the
chapel the group met in the local schoolhouse. The chapel was used
for many community activities besides Mormon worship services.
distressed Pearl that the head instigator was
later put in as the new branch president when
Stephen was eventually released.
Pearl’s Early Life
Birth and Childhood Years
Pearl Clawson was born to George Washington
Clawson Jr. and Jeannette Orilla Robinson on 26
March 1887 in Farmington, Davis County, Utah.
Pearl noted that a friend of her mother suggested
her name: “Zina D. Young chose my name, Pearl,
(calling me a little smoked Pearl. My eyes and
hair being so dark.)”
Pearl was the third of nine children:
1. Ellen LaRinda Clawson was born 16 April
1883. She married William Hardy Fowers on 13
December 1900.
2. George Robinson Clawson was born 4 April
1885. He died on 26 January 1903.
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 3. Pearl Clawson was born 26 March 1887.
She married Stephen Nathaniel Bennett on 17
April 1905.
4. Ruby Clawson was born 15 February 1889.
She died on 20 June 1890.
5. Oral Clawson was born 12 March 1891. She
married Joseph Wilford Peterson on 25 December
1911.
The Clawsons Back row L to R: Ellen, Pearl, Ray, Ida, Oral. Front
row L to R: Maude (or Marjorie), George, Jeanette, Marie. Missing
from the photo are George R., who was born two before Pearl but
died in a flour mill accident at the age of eighteen, and Ruby, who
was born two years after Pearl but died from scarlet fever at the
age of sixteen months.
6. Ida Clawson was born 23 September 1893.
She married Edward C. Phillips on 22 December
1920.
7. Ray Clawson was born 14 January 1896. He
married Veva Harker on 18 May 1942.
8. Marie Clawson was born 18 September 1898.
She married Earl S. Simons on 16 April 1917.
9. Maude Clawson (she went by the name
Marjorie because she wasn’t fond of the name
Maude) was born 3 January 1901. She married
Frank Casey on 9 March 1926.
Childhood Home
During her childhood years Pearl’s family lived
in Farmington, Utah in a large, white, two-story
house. Pearl’s sister, Oral, remembered, “My
Grandfather Joseph Lee Robinson built it for
two of his families when they arrived in Utah
after crossing the plains. After his families had
grown up and moved away my mother and father
lived in one part and mother’s brother Jedediah
Nephi Robinson lived in the other part.”
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 Pearl fondly recalled her early home: “A
five-room house painted
white set back in the trees
with a big front porch and
a well in the back—one of
those old-fashioned wells
with two barrel buckets
on either end of the rope.
And the water was great.
The fruit trees were many,
Pearl Clawson, age 6 all kinds. The big shade
Farmington, Utah trees in front with the little
elderberry tree by the fence and the big walnut
trees at each end of a lot.
Many times while living in that home I have
picked mulberry leaves for my mother’s silk
worms. My mother’s wedding dress was made of
the silk my dear old Grandmother Robinson made.
She raised the silk worms, spun the floss with the
silk and made the dress. After mother had worn
her wedding dress she sent it to St. Louis to the
fair. But it was never returned.”
Pearl’s sister, Oral, remembered, “The
Mulberry trees had large white and blue berries.
They were very good to eat. One of the older
children would climb the tree and shake the
berries down. We would hold our aprons out to
catch them.”
The Family in the Rock Pile
Pearl’s daughter, Vilate, preserved a wonderful
pair of stories about her mother as a child in
Farmington. “She [Pearl] would go day after
day down a certain path to play. So, one day
Grandfather followed her to see what was so
fascinating to her. Well, she had a rag rug covered
over a family of blue racers. She would tap them
on the heads with her fingers and call them by
name and say, ‘No! No! You go back under your
blanket.’ Well, needless to say she was called to
lunch very soon, and Grandfather slipped out and
went down and killed them before they decided
to kill her.”
“Go Away, Big Dog!”
“When Mother was about 5 years old, she was
sent to get some yeast start from the neighbor
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 in Farmington, Utah. It was evening
and on her way home she saw what
she thought was a big dog. He met
her face to face. She stomped
her foot, clapped her hands and
demanded, ‘Go away, big dog!’ and
he cleared a high fence. When she
went home and told her Mother,
Grandma said, “A dog couldn’t do that.” That
night they were having a barn dance and social
and the men heard the cattle stirring below and
they went down and killed the largest mountain
lion ever seen around those parts.”
Baptism
Pearl was baptized a member of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormon
Church when she was eight years old. The
ordinance was performed by Jonathan D.
Wood in a big creek in Daniel Miller’s pasture
in Farmington, Utah, just east of the Lagoon
amusement park. Pearl wrote in her 8 scrapbook 9
about the occasion, “The day was warm, with
bees humming and birds singing. I was dressed in
a black and white striped dress ‘Mother Hubbard
style.’”
Following the Mormon tradition of baptism
Pearl would have been immersed completely
under the water. Often times a creek would be
dammed up temporarily to create a body of water
deep enough to accommodate the ordinance.
The Move to Idaho
When Pearl was twelve years old her family
moved from Utah to Shelley, Idaho where her
father built and operated a flour mill on the
banks of the Snake River. There she became
known as Pearl the Miller’s Daughter. She
found a lifelong friend, Lottie Shelley, in the
new town. Pearl’s daughter, Vilate, wrote that
“It was at Shelley she [Pearl] met her girlhood
chum, Lottie Shelley with whom she never had a
quarrel. She and Lottie always played on the same
side in games, dressed alike and went to Ricks
Academy together.” The girlhood chums became
kinfolk when Lottie married Pearl’s cousin, Jed
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Robinson. Decades later Pearl noted Lottie’s forty-
sixth birthday in her diary.
Friends at Ricks Academy, Rexburg, Idaho. L to R: Mary Robb, Edna
Jenkins; Pearl’s chum and future cousin by marriage, Lottie Robinson,
Mary Miller and Pearl Bennett. The date on the back suggests a pos-
sible explanation for the unusual costumes: “April 1st, 1903”
Midnight Train
In Shelley, Idaho Pearl not only missed everything
about her life in Utah but she found her new
surroundings wanting. She later wrote that she
“despised the lonely little old frontier Saloon town.”
So much so that at the age of fourteen on a bet
from her friends she took the midnight train to
Utah with all of $1.50 in her pocket. (Later after
living in Canada for a number of years, Pearl
would find herself homesick for Shelley and her
family and friends who lived there.)
When she arrived in Salt Lake City, she was
greeted with open arms at the home of her uncle,
Jed Robinson. After writing to her parents, Pearl
spent three months in Utah having “a grand time”
including excursions to Salt Aire and Lagoon. It
wasn’t until later that she learned of the great
distress she had put her parents through.
Dishwasher for Hire
Some time after coming home from
Utah, Pearl suddenly decided that she
wanted to make her own living. With
much persuasion and many tears she
at last was allowed to go nine miles
away to the town of Idaho Falls
seek her fortune. She found a job
at a restaurant washing dishes for $3.00 a
week. She recalled meeting railroad men, saloon
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 bums and a boy about her own age who came to
the parlor of the restaurant to practice the piano.
The last would have been of special interest to
Pearl as she played the piano and liked boys.
After three weeks of washing dishes her
fortunes changed. She later wrote that after she
“accidentally put scraps from the table into the
soup stock for the next day things didn’t go so
good. With very red chappy hands she gladly
took her pay in silver dollars—9 whole ‘Wagon
wheels’”. She took her silver dollars and went
shopping—a little something for each member
of her family with just enough left over to cover
the train fare home.
Tragedy at the Mill
On 26 January 1903 tragedy befell Pearl and her
family. Pearl’s brother, George, with whom she
was very close, was working as the night miller
at his father’s flour mill. George was eighteen
years old, stood six feet in height, weighed one
hundred seventy pounds, had blue eyes, and light
brown hair.
Pearl’s daughter,
Vilate, recorded the
story: “George had slept
all day and had only been
at work one-half hour,
when he was caught in
a belt and thrown into
the main shaft of the
mill. Every bone in his
Pearl and her older brother,
body was broken. He was
George, who was killed at their hanging by the cords of
father’s flour mill, circa 1902 his leg to the main shaft,
head down. His body had been thrown with
such force that new wheat spouts were torn out
completely. The only part of his being that was
saved was his face: his cap had fallen over it and
saved it from being mangled like his body was.
Grandmother [Pearl’s mother, Jeanette] lost
her mind for three days. Mother [Pearl] was so
shocked that she had St. Vitus’ dance and was
unable to talk for many weeks; she could not eat
or walk as her tongue would swell so.”

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 While Pearl remembered never being the
same after the accident she nevertheless had
recovered enough by the following year to attend
Ricks Academy in Rexburg, Idaho with several
friends and cousins.
The Clawsons, L to R: Marie, Oral, Ray, George, Jeanette, Ida and
Maude. Missing from the photo are Pearl and her older sister, Ellen,
who had married and moved away. Pearl either would have been
attending Ricks Academy or living in Raymond, Alberta Canada as
a new bride. Pearl received this photo as a picture postcard from
her sister, Ida. Shelley, Idaho circa 1905.
Courtship & Marriage
“Oh, the bliss of all that day”
In one of her notebooks Pearl lists thirty-eight
young men friends or beaus as she calls them.
The first name on the list is Lottie’s brother,
Thomas; the last name on the list is Stephen
Nathaniel Bennett a young shop keeper in Shelley,
Idaho. The next sentence following the list says
it all: “The last the best of all I met—loved—and
married him.”
In December 1904, Pearl was introduced to
her future husband at a Leap Year ball held at
the old hall in Shelley. Stephen and his brother,
Thomas, ran a mercantile business in Shelley
and Thomas’ wife, Kate Bennett, made the
introductions.
When Stephen asked Pearl to dance, she
explained that the only dance she had free
on her dance card was a plain quadrille. This
was a popular old country dance performed by
four couples that later evolved into the square
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dance. They danced the quadrille, which Pearl
remembered being much too “hoppy” for such
a romantic moment, and Stephen asked her out
on a date.
The hours preceding that first date remained
etched in Pearl’s mind as much as the date itself.
She remembered: “Oh the bliss of all that day.
I sang – laughed – danced – worked – played the
organ – hugged my daddy – kissed my mother a
half dozen times – drank a dozen glasses of water.
In fact I don’t know all I did do. Just because I
knew Steve was coming. He came a little early but
I had been ready for hours. We went to the show.
It was The Two Orphans, played by
John S. Lindsay. Of course I cried
a little and he wanted to hold his
hat to catch the tears. Then he
put his hat over my hands and
held them during the rest of the show.
I think we must have loved each other from
the first. I know I thought he was the best man I
had ever met. He said he loved me the first time
he ever saw me, and he wondered what I would
think if I knew he had such thoughts because
he was 27 and I was 18. We saw each other most
every day for three months.”
“You don’t like it, do you?”
Then one night when Stephen came to call he
announced that he’d been to Idaho Falls and had
something to show Pearl. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a ring with an opal and
a couple of tiny diamonds set in it. She paused,
greatly disappointed that it wasn’t the diamond
solitaire they’d talked about earlier.
He smiled, put the ring on her finger and
said, “You don’t like it, do you?” Pearl wrote later
that “all of her air castles came tumbling down.”
The ring was attractive enough, but she wondered
if this lesser ring was an indication of what he’d
be like as a husband.
Stephen said, “Here, give it back to me—you
do not like it.” Pearl took off the ring, trying to
hide her disappointment and said, “Oh it’s alright,
I guess.” They sat for a moment suspended in
strained silence.
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 Then Stephen reached into another pocket,
pulled out a beautiful jewel case and handed it to
her. There was the diamond solitaire she had her
heart set on. Pearl later wrote, “He was looking
into her eyes. ‘Well, how does this one appeal
to you?’ Tears came quickly—not so much for
the value of the ring—but—if—yes if he could
choose such a beautiful ring then he surely would
be like that in other ways and after all it was a
grand thing to be sure again and ten times more
in love with him.”
Thunder and Lightning
Pearl wrote, “Just before we went down to be
married, my friends gave me a bridal shower. It
was a terrible night. The thunder and lightning
was so bad and the rain fell in streams so
everybody stayed all night. Then when we left on
the train they showered us with rice and oranges.
I kept my hat that I wore at that time and as I
was showing it to a friend years later I turned it
over and rice fell out of it on the floor.
17th of May 1905 we took the train for
Salt Lake City and were 8 married 9 in the Salt
Lake Temple by John R. Winder. We had a swell
room at the Cannon House. We got out of the
Temple at 4:30. I
can not describe
my feelings. I was
rather shaken and I
felt like I wanted to
laugh and then cry.
As a child Pearl attented the dedica- But he was so sweet
tion of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake
City, Utah then returned to be married
and good it wasn’t
there when she was eighteen. so bad after all. I
really believe he was the most perfect man in
the world, that is he was in my eyes.
We returned home to Shelly and they had a
big reception for us at home.”
Pearl’s Adult Years
Starting a New Life in Canada
In August of 1905 the newlyweds arrived in
Raymond, Alberta, Canada where Stephen had
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connections and plans to go into cattle ranching.
Pearl remembered: “I was so happy and I was
so sick and everything was so new and strange.
Steve thought if I went up on a big cattle ranch
for a change the hills would do me good.
So we spent six weeks with an old gray
headed couple living in a log cabin with a spring
of cold water bubbling out of the side hill into one
of the rooms and running out at the side under
the logs. The old lady’s name was Polly and the
man’s name was Rone. Polly was very deaf and
smoked a pipe. But she was very clean and the
best cook that ever hit a cabin.”
25 minutes to 11 on Wednesday she was born to us
—a beautiful black headed baby girl with big blue
eyes and she was the very image of her daddy. We
had her named before she came. Blanche is what
we called her. Oh yes she was well worth all the
sickness and pain I went through to get her.”
Pearl & Stephen’s family
While they lived in Raymond, the Bennett family
grew by another three children, Maude, Stephen

“Nestled Next to My Heart”

Life at the cabin seems to have
helped Pearl. She wrote, “I was
better when we went down to
Raymond again and I began
to sew. For I was expecting
something in the future and I
Blanche Bennett, at
six months old. She knew it was nestled next to my The Bennett family, L to R: Stephen N., Pearl, Blanche, Maude, Ste-
is wearing a little
white hood made by
heart and I knew it was his and phen R., Vilate, Clawson, Bryant. Charlo, Montana circa 1930.
a family friend, Nell mine. So on March 29, 1906 at
Hunter. 25
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R. and Vilate. The Bennetts went on to raise a Snowbanks and Beggars Coyotes
family of six children: The year after Blanche was born the little family
1. 8 Blanche 9 Bennett was born 29 March moved out on a ranch. Pearl recalled, “In the year
1906 in Raymond, Alberta, Canada. She married 1907 we lived on a big ranch out on Milk River
Lebro Charles Conti on 26 October 1937. in Canada. It was the hardest winter Canada had
2. 8 Maude 9 Bennett was born 30 June 1908 known in 30 years. All I could see was snow banks
in Raymond, Alberta, Canada. She married and beggars coyotes and parkpines. It was so cold
Alexander Joseph Tubbs on 1 October 1925. for two weeks that it froze all the cattle’s tails
3. 8 Stephen 9 Rouse Bennett was born 7 off. The cattle would walk over hay and bellow.
January 1911 in Ucon, Idaho. He married Thelma It registered 42 degrees below zero, this is the
Gallup on 7 November 1929. facts. We lived there a year and a half then moved
4. Pearl “ 8 Vilate 9 ” (rhymes with ‘the plate’) to the next ranch six miles away.”
Bennett was born 31 October 1913 in Raymond, Besides cattle ranch-
Alberta, Canada. She married Reed William ing the Bennetts also
Whitehead on 12 June 1939. tried raising grain on a
5. 8 Clawson 9 Hewitt Bennett was born 17 fourteen hundred-acre dry
July 1917 in Shelley, Idaho. He married Elma farm, but, as Pearl put it,
Grey on 18 July 1936. “The year was dry and our
6. 8 Bryant 9 Boyd Bennett was born 30 May Pearl with her first three
children standing in front
crops failed.” Summing up
1928 in Charlo, Montana. He married Theresa of their home in Raymond, their fortunes in Canada
May Dale on 14 January 1952. Alberta, Canada. L to R:
Pearl noted simply, “We
Maude, Pearl, Stephen R.
and Blanche, circa 1913. made lots of money and
lost lots.”
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Return to Idaho
With Pearl homesick for family and friends in
Idaho, the Bennetts moved from Canada back to
Shelley, Idaho for several months then in fairly
quick succession moved to a little town seven
miles away called Goshen; then back to Shelley;
then to Sugar Row; then to a facility called the
Government Dam or the Blackfoot Dam and
then to Henry, Idaho. Pearl’s daughter, Vilate,
remembered Sugar Row as the place where the
family first owned a newfangled device called a
phonograph: “It was while we lived here that I
remember my parents getting new furniture and
among the things was an Edison phonograph. It
was wonderful, we thought.”
Henry, Idaho
The next stop for the family was the little town
of Henry, Idaho, near what is today Gray’s Lake,
a marshy national wildlife refuge noted for its
population of sandhill cranes. The Bennetts’ stay
in Henry is noteworthy for a page Pearl wrote
about her experience there. In it she affirms her
determination to keep going, to make the best of
things in the face of boredom, frustration and
emotional drought.
Life in Henry, Idaho
“Life in Henry for Six Months
The mail wagon comes at noon— ‘exciting’
Go in the store, ginger snaps on shelves. lovely.
Come back home, take care of kids, grand
Work day after day with nothing to work with,
great. Sunday comes and you sit and hold your
crossed hands, and talk about your neighbors.
You get kids off to school, wash dishes,
sweep floors, dust, bake scrub, iron, darn, and
mend. Go to a dance, get your feelings
hurt by everybody in general and
nobody particularly. ‘No church,’
‘no theaters’ ‘no club’ no meetings.
Get the [Soda Springs, Idaho]
Chieftain once a week, read
the news you have already
written.
No magazines, no books, the
piano, and not many friends. Few letters and
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d— little loving, and a pain in your back and a
pain in your ‘heart’. Is it any wonder that it’s
hard to be good.
‘So here goes nothing’”
For a woman of Pearl’s talents, free spirit
and love of the desserts of civilization, Pearl
knew what it was like to struggle just to stay
alive. She wrote a short melodrama entitled,
8 Her Awakening 9 that we’ve included in the
Scrapbook section of this C D - RO M . The setting
and situation of the heroine in the story bear
some resemblance to Pearl as a young wife
and mother living on cattle ranches in Canada.
While this type of story was popular in America
at the turn of the 20th Century and we’ve found
nothing to indicate that Pearl was ever tempted
to escape life on the frontier—the story does offer
some insights into how she may have felt and is
consistent with her belief in choosing the right
course at all costs.
“Life is a Blessed Gift”
Four pages after she wrote about the challenges of
her life in Henry, Pearl recorded what appears to
be a quotation expressing the power of cherishing
life, of living life well: “Life is a blessed gift and
if we knew its worth how we might profit by it.
Would we find contentment no matter how hardly
fate may deal with us. Because life is opportunity
and opportunity rightly used is progress and
progress is exaltation and exaltation happiness.
Today is ours and it is only today we have. What
is distant we are approaching. Let us make the
most of what is here about us and with us. And
by reason of the development today finally, so we
will enjoy what is in our path as we come to it.”
Meadow Creek Homestead
In the summer of 1918 the Bennetts got the
opportunity to prove up a homestead
roughly
forty miles
southeast of
Shelley in an
area called
Meadow
Creek. The family planned to dry farm and raise
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sheep to support themselves. Pearl’s sister, Oral,
and her family filed a claim on a 360-acre parcel
of land next to the Bennetts.
In her life sketch, Pearl’s daughter, Vilate,
captured some of the best existing details about
life on the homestead. She wrote: “We lived in
the quakenasps in a log house. I remember when
going up there, a sheep herder let my mother
and the children sleep in his sheep camp over
night as it took quite a while going with a team
and wagon.
Water Fight
I remember while there my mother was very
ill. And one day my brother Steve and my sister
Maude decided to have a water fight and they
used all the water in the spring. Then, somehow
they set fire to something and when Mother got
up and ran for some water there wasn’t any. So
they had to beat the fire out.
Pack Rats
I remember the pack rats would come and
my oldest sister Blanche would hold the coal
oil lamp and my dad had to jab them with a
pitchfork. He knew they were coming because
they would always knock and then come in and
take something shiny, but they would always
bring something and leave it in exchange.
The Meadow By Night
The next summer my father had to leave and my
brother went down across the meadow to get a
little lamb. My mother told him not
to stay and play too long with a boy
that lived there because he wasn’t
to come home in the dark. Well,
time passed more rapidly than
he thought and it was very dark.
When he came to the meadow, the
coyotes and other wild animals were howling. So,
he put his hand over the little lamb’s mouth so
it wouldn’t cry out. All this time Mother was
praying that he would be safe. Mother said she
heard a knock at the door and he called out softly,
‘Mother’, and she opened the door and was so
thankful that her prayers were answered.
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Sibling Protection Training
One day my brother, Stephen, took me down the
path past a big rock cliff to play, and all of a
sudden we heard the call of a wildcat. He was
so frightened he just ran up the path and there
he met Mother. She said, ‘Now I made the sound
of the cat to see if you would protect your little
sister and you ran away leaving her to be eaten.’
He never forgot that because the rest of his life
he was always standing up for his sisters and up
to people who he thought were
trying to put his friends down.
He always wanted to do his
part to protect others. Even
though he was short, he was
strong and muscular.
Frozen Clothes
While living there, my parents had to ski over the
mountains to the government dam to get supplies.
They would also fish while there. One day my
mother fell into the icy water and they didn’t have
any other clothing with them. They decided that
if they kept moving and her clothes froze on her
she wouldn’t freeze or get pneumonia. So they
skied over the mountain to the homestead with
her clothes frozen on her.
My parents could both ski quite well as it
was the only way they had of traveling in that
area. I remember two things that happened
while they were skiing. My father put a box on
his skis and carried me in it. I rode on the back
of his skis. One day Mother was coming down
the hill through the trees and we had 2 or 3 little
pups. They came bounding through the snow and
Mother couldn’t stop quickly enough and she and
the pups went end over end.
Inflammatory Rheumatism
The summer before this I think what my mother
had was inflammatory rheumatism and nearly
died. They took her to Lava Hot Springs and my
oldest sister and dad went with her. My brother
Stephen and my sister Maude stayed with a couple
up there and they took my brother Clawson and
I to my mother’s parents in Shelley, Idaho. I
remember Grandfather and Grandmother took
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us on a train to see my mother and when we saw
Mother, we didn’t know her. She was so thin and
had lost a lot of her beautiful long hair.”
Pearl Bennett, center, at Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Today there are
health spas in eastern Europe built around mineral hot springs that
tout their waters as a cure for inflammatory rheumatism.
Influenza
The fact that Pearl nearly died not once but twice
in two years out in the middle of nowhere surely
made this an intense, remarkably
trying time in her life. In the spring
of 1919 the entire Bennett family
was stricken with influenza. At
first no one dared even to go in
to check on the family, leaving
them to fend for themselves. Finally a
pair of saviors appeared: Pearl’s brother-in-law,
Wilford Peterson, and Pearl’s lifelong chum,
Lottie Robinson came for a week and nursed the
family back to health.
In the midst of the crisis it appeared they
might lose Pearl. On the evening of what she
believed might be her final day on earth she wrote
a short 8 farewell 9 to each member of her family.
As death’s door seems to open, witness Pearl
opening her soul, revealing a deeply devoted
wife and mother focussed on the well-being of
those she loved:
“March 25th 1919
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ve just been
sick. My lungs are filling. I may not live to be 32
years old.
And to you Steve I would say before I go,
I have tried to do my part in our marriage
contract even if I have failed in some things.
But you know I have tried, so of course that
helps. Be good to our children and please stop
and look into their little troubles before scolding.
All children quarrel so give them your love and
please keep them together, & may God bless you
& help you.
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 Blanche dear Blanche. So much of my life’s
hopes are in you. I know you won’t fail me even
if I am gone from you. You have always had to
be a little mother and maybe God planned it that
way. Remember Blanche girl, I’d rather see you
buried that have you do a wrong, but I do want
your life to be happy. Ask God to guide you and
follow your conscience and you will win.
Maude my little Maude. I can not endure
the thoughts of leaving you. You need me so
much. And I am worried for you. Can you be
sweet enough to follow Blanche and do as papa
tells you and be good to your little brother and
sisters. And pray and pray in earnest and God
will help you.
Stephen my little man. I love you so much
and I am sure you’ll grow to be great good
honorable man, and be a comfort to your father.
Papa loves you very much and you and papa
must be chums. Tell him your troubles and he
will comfort you. And if God will let me I will
come to guide you sometimes.
Little Pearl Vilate. You are so small. You
won’t remember me long, but oh I love you so
much and I wanted to live to guide and teach you
and pray for you.
When you are a little older papa can tell you
that more than anything in the world I want you
to always be a lady. I pray that those that take
care of you may understand your little heart and
treat you kind.
Clawson Hewitt, ‘my baby’. I’ve prayed so
hard to our Father in Heaven to spare you to me
and now I’m leaving you to the cruel world. You’re
a very affectionate little fellow. When you love
one you love with all your heart.
Be wise in your love. Love God most, and
trust in him to guide you. I want you to do
wonderful things in music. In fact I expect you to
be a very great man. And always remember your
mother asked God for you before you came and
she thought big thoughts while you were growing
next to her heart, and oh boy how I love you.
Your wife and mother, Pearl Bennett”
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Today the only thing left of Gibson, Idaho is a sign standing by the
railroad. Gibson was located near the Snake River Bottoms, a rich,
river lowland area long favored by Native American peoples, white
fur trappers of the Dutch East India Company, white settlers and
today’s outdoor sportsmen. The Bottoms was a favorite destination
for church socials and outings in Pearl’s time.
Gibson, Idaho
Pearl did live to see her thirty-second birthday
and to move back to civilization. In her scrapbook
she noted that the Bennetts received the title
to their homestead in 1919 and sold it for
$1300.00.
From Meadow Creek the family moved
back to Shelley for a short time then on to
Gibson, Idaho, located southwest of Blackfoot,
Idaho on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Like
the homestead at Meadow Creek, Gibson has
disappeared; all that’s left of Gibson today is a
sign of the same name standing by the railroad
tracks and an old cemetery.
In Gibson, Stephen Bennett found em-
ployment as a ditch rider for the Fort Hall
irrigation district, enforcing the water rights
among the local farmers. Pearl also found
employment in the area as a teacher, cook and
musician at the Fort Hall Indian School, a position
she thrived in and found rewarding.
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Good Times In Gibson We went to Lava to swim a lot. It would take
Vilate remembered all day, as the cars didn’t run quite as fast. We
all sorts of happy used to go to the Bottoms also with other families.
family activities in When winter came our parents went to town and
Gibson. She wrote: bought new clothes and winter underwear and
“While living there high shoes. In the summer sometimes they went
[in Gibson] Mother to Utah and brought home lovely fruit—peaches,
had people coming melons, etc.
to eat all the time. Fourth of July parade in Blackfoot, Mother & Dad played ‘Run My Sheepy Run’
Every summer we Idaho, circa 1920 and ‘Steal Sticks’ and ‘Fox and Geese’ & Hide
had relatives come for Easter and every holiday. and Seek with us. One day my mother slid down
I remember they had our family sing at the the top of an old shed and got a big sliver and the
celebration of all the little towns about and we Dr. had to remove it. While there, she had her
always had new clothes for the 4th of July, and appendix and tonsils out.”
we would go to Blackfoot or somewhere and see
International Night
the parade.
We had many wonderful picnics. Mother Pearl also applied her creative knack for
used to fill a baby entertainment to adult activities. “While in
basket with goodies Gibson,” Vilate wrote, “Mother thought up a plan
she made, and she to help entertain the married couples. She said,
made home-made ‘Let’s put the names of countries in a hat and
root beer, and we draw, and whatever country we get we will cook
would put melons in
the cold streams. children eating watermelon
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the meal, dress and have songs and atmosphere.’
So it turned out to be a great success.”
Making Music
Making music was an important part of life for
the Bennett family. Vilate Bennett remembered
Gibson, Idaho as a place where everyone in the
family sang or played music: “When I was 6 years
old, I made up an Indian dance tune as I had been
to many dances and Mother would have me play
it on the piano for people when
they came, especially our Indian
friends.
Clawson [her brother] used
to sing with us and alone at
many celebrations. The people
would throw money at him as he
was just 4 1⁄2 and just would sing
his heart out.
Clawson Bennett, Some of the songs we used
the young singing
to sing were, ‘Who Killed Cock
wonder, age 41⁄2
Robin’, ‘My Dear Waikiki’, and
“There Was A Man named Angeline”. And my
Father sang in a concert garden, ‘Who Put The
Overalls In Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder’, and ‘Rose
Is A Southern Lassie’. Mother and him sang ‘Two
Little Boys In Blue’ and ‘Mama Dear, I Want My
Papa’, ‘Baggage Coach Ahead’, and Dad sang
‘Letter Edged In Black.’
We sang all the popular songs of that day and
quite a few character songs. Mother accompanied
us, also my Sister Blanche. Mother played by ear.
She could play piano, organ, guitar, banjo and
violin.”
Pearl inherited a tradition of singing from
her parents. For a list of several dozen songs that
Pearl remembered her parents singing as she
was growing up in the late 1800s, see her 8 diary 9
entry of 12 February 1937 on this C D - RO M .
Musical Lambs and Predatory Pigs
Animals also figure in Vilate Bennett’s memories
of her family living in Gibson, Idaho. “We had a
pet sheep called Fritz,” she wrote, “And he would
run races with us and seemed almost human.
I remember we had a pet lamb that would
go put his front hoofs on the piano keys when
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 Mother would play. One day
when my cousins, Lucille,
Theo, Moriece and Virginia
Robinson came, the lamb got
too close to the pig pen and
an old bore caught him and
started eating him. My Dad
took a crowbar and tried to
Stephen R. Bennett with stop him, but he had eaten
Fritz the Sheep.
the little lamb’s stomach &
killed it. We all felt so bad. My dad had to kill
the boar as he said he was too dangerous for we
children to be around. We also had a rooster that
would jump at us and peck we little children’s
heads. So, one day Mother got tired of this, so
that night we had chicken for dinner.
We had a magpie. My folks split his tongue
so we could teach him to talk. Well, he died one
day. So we kids had a funeral for him. None of
them wanted to Pray, so they said, ‘You do it.’ So
I did.”
Vilate also recorded the death of two
animals a bit more important to the family than
a talking magpie. “My Father brought two pure
bred horses down with him from Canada,” she
wrote, “One named Pearl after my Mother. It was
a Clydesdale. One called [Jennie, a sorel mare]
was hit by a train, and one called Pearl died which
really upset my Dad.”
S.P. Sorenson
One of the few people outside the Bennett family
that we know anything about was Stephen’s boss,
S.P. Sorenson, the watermaster for the Fort Hall
Reservation. Vilate Bennett remember Mr.
Sorenson: “Our old boss—or I should say, my
Dad’s old boss—while living near Fort Hall, was
a dear friend to my parents and we children. His
name was Mr. S.P. Sorenson and he used to go on
picnics and all with us. He took many pictures
of us.”
Mr. Sorenson appears in one of our favorite
photos on this C D - RO M : Pearl, friends, children
and Mr. Sorenson visiting a Shoshone Bannock
gentleman named Billie George and Wee-to-watsi
his wife. In her life story Vilate Bennett offered
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A visit to Billy George and his wife, Gibson, Idaho circa 1920. 10. Billy Carter, twin brother to Wilma Carter
Pearl taught at the Fort Hall Indian School for several years. and daughter of Laura Carter
1. Pearl Bennett 11. Laura Carter, cousin of Pearl
2. Vilate Bennett, Pearl’s 3rd daughter 12. Lottie Robinson, girlhood chum and later
3. Stephen R. Bennett, Pearl’s first son cousin of Pearl by marriage
4. Billie George, also known as Topuda 13. Virginia Robinson, Lotties’ daughter
Breechcloth
5. Clawson Bennett, Pearl’s 2nd son
6. Maude Bennett, Pearl’s 2nd daughter 1 6
9
2 4
7. Wilma Carter, twin sister to Billie 5
12
Carter and daughter of Laura Carter 3
7
11
8
8. A.P. Sorensen, family friend of the 10 13

Bennetts and Stephen Bennett’s boss

9. Wee-to-watsi, wife of Billy George 37
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 a possible insight into the photo when she wrote,
“Mother assisted Dr. Wheeler, the government
doctor delivering babies and helping the Indians.”
Perhaps Pearl and her party were visiting her
friends, Billy George and Wee-to-Watsi.
Chief William Penn
Beginning with her days in Canada as a new
bride, Pearl developed a tradition of respect
and friendship with the Indians where ever she
lived including her Shoshone Bannock neighbors
near Gibson.
Vilate continued, “While living in Gibson,
one day my two oldest sisters, Maude and
Blanche, decided to run away. So they packed a
suitcase and Mother said, ‘Goodbye’, and they
went across the sand and when they got tired they
sat down to rest. Along came the Indian Chief
William Penn. He said, ‘You run away from your
home?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘You
go back. You shouldn’t be out here all alone. You
will get into trouble.’ They said, ‘Oh, Mother
don’t want us. She said goodbye to us because
we quarrel.’ He said, ‘You go home. Your mother
will be sad if you leave her.’
He thought a lot of Mother because she was
on the school board and he went to her and said,
‘Benny’, as her name was Bennett, ‘You love your
children?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’ And, he said, ‘I
love my children. I live close to the school, but
they want to send my
children to the Indian
school.’ He said, ‘My
heart is heavy. Can you
help me?’ And she said,
‘Yes, I’ll do what I can.’
So, his children and their
cousins were allowed to
Chief William Penn a friend of the go to the Gibson School.
Bennetts in Gibson, Idaho, circa
The girls Maude and
1920.
Blanche said they were
hungry. So they decided to go home after he
talked to them.
Vilate also remembered Chief Penn
sometimes having to arm himself when he came
to visit the Bennetts: ‘We had geese, and one year

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they nested under our front porch. Whenever a
stranger came into the yard, that old gander
would really go after them. William Penn, the
Indian Chief, used to carry a
big stick whenever he came.”
Running a Boarding House & Selling Cider
Vilate Bennett continued. “While living in Gibson,
Mother moved to Blackfoot for a while and lived
in the Kennedy Home and took in boarders and
sold cider, as there were orchards all around the
house. The Miller Brothers who had bees and sold
honey, and two of the Kennedy Brothers Archie
and Forrest boarded with us. Mother took my
oldest sister, my brother Clawson and I with her,
and Maude and Steve stayed with Dad to take
care of the garden and the animals. They would
come to see us on the times they could.”
Pocatello, Idaho
Around 1922 the whole Bennett family moved to
Pocatello, Idaho, south of Gibson. While living in
Pocatello, Pearl and Stephen’s second daughter,
Maude, married Alex Tubbs. At the time the
oldest Bennett daughter, Blanche, was living in
California with her grandparents. The remaining
members of the family lived in Pocatello until
Stephen lost his ditch rider job to another ditch
rider and it seemed like a good time to move
again.
Charlo, Montana
From Pocatello the family moved to the Flathead
Valley in western Montana to the town of Charlo.
The years in Charlo, Montana saw Pearl’s drama
talents unfold as she directed plays that drew
audiences from all around the Flathead Valley.
She was active in community affairs and grew
spiritually. The Charlo years saw Stephen serve
as the lay spiritual leader of Mormon Church in
the valley. This even as he struggled in difficult
times to feed his family by farming.
Vilate Bennett’s memories of Charlo offer a
useful background reference to her mother’s 5-
Year Diary included on this C D - RO M . “When we
arrived at the Flathead Valley,” she wrote, “We
thought it was a very beautiful valley. But, where
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we went was Charlo, a wide spot in the road so
to speak. We had dinner with the Real Estate
man and later went out to a house across from
Glandons.”
It Began With a Picnic
As the Bennetts met the other residents of the
Flathead Valley it became apparent that there
were a number of families in the area who were
also members of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. In the summer of 1926 a picnic
was organized at McDonald Lake to explore the
possibility of organizing a branch of the Church.
The following Sunday an informal Sunday School
organization was set up with Stephen Bennett
agreeing to serve as one of the counselors to the
president, I.W. Pierce. The group wrote to William
R. Sloan in Portland, Oregon, president of the
Northwestern States Mission and presiding officer
of the Church for the Flathead Valley area.
In response, on 21 November 1926 President
Sloan came to officially set up a Mormon Sunday
School organization for the valley. The meeting
was held in a Northern Pacific railroad car and
resulted in Stephen Bennett being called to serve
as the superintendant of the Sunday School.
By April of the following year there were
enough members of the church to have President
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Sloan return to organize an official local branch,
holding the second meeting in a railroad car. At
this meeting Stephen was called to serve as the
branch president of the Charlo Branch.
Organizing a branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints or Mormon Church in Charlo, Montana, April 17, 1926. L to R:
Blaine Bauckman and his wife, Stephen and Pearl Bennett, William
R. Sloan and his wife. Pearl is wearing a favorite dress that features
a pleated ruffle at the back of the neck.
Starting on a Chapel
Vilate Bennett remembered the times. “We met
in the old school house. President William R.
Sloan was the President of the Mission. Father
contacted all the people and they decided to build
a church. But, no one started, so Dad had a horse
and an old scraper and he started the basement
alone. One day an old tramp came along the
railroad track. He stopped and gave him a hand.
Then, after that some of the men helped.”
Discovering More of the Story
Finding the following account remains one of
the dramatic moments in our search for Pearl
Bennett’s life story. Charlo residents, Grant and
Verna Hogge provided information about the
early Mormon branch in Charlo to Julie Wright,
a student in the history program at the University
of Montana. Julie created a website about Charlo
which we found. Thank you, Julie!
Julie appears to have a connection
to the Bennetts . On 5 August 1934 Pearl
noted in her diary that she invited Julie’s
great grandfather, Edwin Bingham,
and his wife over after church for
dinner followed by strawberries
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and ice cream. Another entry noted that the
Binghams cut some wood for the Bennetts. On 16
August 1934 Pearl noted that twenty-one members
of the branch traveled in Edwin Bingham’s bus
to a church conference in Butte, Montana. It’s a
small world.
A Community Effort
A builder by trade, Pearl’s father, George
Washington Clawson, directed the construction of
the Mormon chapel in Charlo. According to Julie
Wright’s account, a “pre-cut building was shipped
from Washington, but the members still had to
donate their labor and money to construct the
building. Many community members were so glad
to have the influence of a church in Charlo that
they also contributed to the work and finances. In
May 1929, it was completed and Joseph F. Smith
Jr. from Salt Lake City dedicated the building.
The members came many miles by horse and
buggy over rough roads.
Community Activities
The Church building became an activity place for
the entire community. Movies were even shown
once a week. Under the direction of James L.
Eddington, who replaced Stephen Bennett as
Branch President in 1935, the ward decided to
add a gymnasium. Once again, the members and
community came together to construct a building.
Edwin Bingham had moved his family to Charlo
by this time and he and his son worked together
on the gymnasium. The new addition made
possible a whole new variety of activities—roller
skating every Friday night, plays, dinners, dances,
basketball games, and the yearly highlight was
the Green and Gold Ball.
Church Activities
The building was used for work as well as play.
The Charlo Women’s Relief Society, formed in
1927, used the building for work days. They were
taught how to care for the needy, home-making
skills, and general knowledge. The Charlo Boy
Scouts were excited to have a building where they
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could meet and additional leaders that instructed
them. The Children’s Primary gathered to sing,
play, learn public speaking, and be instructed
in the Gospel. The Young Men and Women’s
Organizations were encouraged to meet in the
uplifting atmosphere of the church for their
socializing.”
Settling Down in Charlo
While the chapel was being built the Bennetts
built a house of their own. “In the meantime,”
The Bennetts begin building a home three miles south of Charlo,
Montana. L to R: Bryant, Pearl, Vilate, Lindy the dog, Stephen and
Clawson Bennett. Pearl noted that the Bennetts moved into their
new home on July 21, 1933 and that the windows and doors were
installed after they’d moved in.
she wrote, “We had built a house out on an 80-
acre farm, Spanish style. Until it was built, we
lived in a ‘lean-to’ house and Dad built a barn and
chicken coupe.
One day, while living there, they had a
twister and it went around where they were
building the house and took the chicken coop up
in the air and it landed on Dad’s new hay mower.
It’s the only twister we ever had there as the
climate is like Washington State, only we had
more sunshine.
We had many good times and many bad
times while living in the Flathead Valley. We
made many friends, and the girls from our town
went with the boys from the other places just
like it usually happens. The grass always looks
greener on the other side of the fence.
I played in many community plays and one
year took the lead role. These shows were
sponsored by the town and directed by
my Mother, and one year by Lynn Cooper,
as Mother was ill. This was done to raise
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money to build a gym for the high school and the
community.
People came from all over the Flathead
Valley and even out to see the shows. We had a
lot of name bands play at the dances at the Post
Creek Pavilion. It was a large hall made on Post
Creek.
An outing to the mountains, circa 1922. L to R, front row: Stephen
Bennett, Pearl’s husband; Jeanette Clawson, Pearl’s mother; 2nd
from right, Pearl Bennett. Behind and to the left of Pearl is her third
daughter, Vilate.
Visiting Dignitaries
While living in the Flathead Valley, my parents
were privileged to have President Joseph Fielding
Smith come and talk to Father about helping to
settle the Saints there. Father had just told him
the wind doesn’t blow much here and the climate
is like Washington only it doesn’t rain as much
and we have quite a lot of snow, but is just lays
on the fence posts.
Well, just them a whirlwind came up and
President Smith, who was an Apostle at that
time, said, ‘Who was it said the wind didn’t blow
here?’
They were also privileged to have President
David O. McKay and Rudger Clawson and
President 8 William R. Sloan 9 and others in there
home, and many, many missionaries as Dad was
Presiding Elder for over 8 years. My father was
gone so much that he lost his home and had to
move to town. While living on the ranch, we had
coyotes all around at night and some mountain
lions were seen in the mountains. My Brother
Steve worked on the Crazy Horse Dam and Reed,
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Clawson and Steve all worked on the Mission Dam fruit and some brought flowers, but knowing Pearl
above Saint Ignatius.” it would have been their company that warmed
her heart and helped the healing to begin.
The Broken Arm When she returned home Pearl refused to
On 8 December 1933 Pearl broke accept the verdict of not being able to raise her
her arm playing a game in the arm over her head. She made up her mind that
church basement. The next day she was going to be able to brush her own hair
she went to the neighboring town again and worked incessantly until she proved
of Polson for an x-ray and learned that the elbow the good doctor wrong.
had been shattered. Experiencing excruciating
pain by now, she traveled to Missoula, Montana to The Old Folks Parties
see a Dr. Harry C. Smith. An operation to remove On 14 April 1934 a three-act play directed
the ball of the elbow plus two inches of arm bone by Pearl Bennett entitled, “Girl Shy’ was
was scheduled for a month later. Always on the presented in the Charlo
lookout for a ray of hope even on dark days, Pearl gymnasium. According
wrote on 1 January 1934, “This day finds me with to the 8 poster 9 printed
a broken limb and a sad heart. But maybe all will to advertise the event,
be well—?” admission was either
The big day finally came. When Dr. Smith fifteen cents or twenty-
had finished the operation he cautioned Pearl that five cents per person;
she would never be able to raise the altered arm lunch cost twenty
over her head again. She stayed in the hospital cents per person and
for ten days, sick at first but greatly cheered by a dance featuring The
visits from friends and relatives. Some brought
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Tormentors cost thirty-five cents per person—
followed the play. For a small rural community
with few outlets for entertainment and gripped in
the Depression this must have been a wonderful
event. What is even more remarkable is that the
play and dance evolved into a means to a higher
end.
On 26 March 1934, Lulu K. Curtis, secretary
of the Old Folks Party committee in Charlo wrote
in the committee notebook: “Some time ago Mrs.
Bennett coached and staged a play ‘Girl Shy.’ She
also had a dream, how nice it would be to have
a party for the ‘Old Folks,’ so having mentioned
this to her cast—they kindly consented to give
their play at Round Butte and Moirse in order
to create a fund to finance said party—this they
did—and it is through their efforts that this plan
originated.”
Beginning in 1934 Pearl spearheaded an
effort to treat the old folks in the area to an
annual day of entertainment and recognition. In
the front of the committee notebook she explained
her vision for the project: “The purpose of the
Old Folks Day is to provide annually a banquet
The guests of one of Pearl Bennett’s Old Folks Parties. The purpose
of the parties was to honor and entertain the senior citizens of the
valley. Charlo, Montana, circa 1935.
and a day of entertainment for widows, widowers.
And all people sixty years or more of age. The
party is sponsored and arranged by people of the
community who have at heart the interests, well-
being, and happiness of their old folks.”
Mrs. S.N. Bennett
Charlo Mont May—1934
Further into the notebook we read about a
dance the following year. “A dance was given
June 1st 1935 as a means of helping finance the
1935 Old Folks Party.
The Tormentors and Red Jacket Orchestra
furnished the music free of charge. Received
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Family gathering, Los Angeles, California, 1938. Back two
rows, L to R: possibly Ida Phillips, Pearl’s sister; Jeanette
Clawson, Pearl’s mother; possibly Edward Phillips, Ida’s
husband; Vilate Whitehead, Pearl’s daughter; Reed White-
head, Vilate’s husband; unidentified gentleman; Frank Casey,
Pearl’s brother-in-law; unidentified gentleman. Middle row:
unidentified young lady and little girl; Pearl Bennett, Ste-
phen Bennett; Front row: Dennis Casey, Pearl’s nephew
and Frank Casey’s son; Michael Casey, Pearl’s nephew and
Frank Casey’s son; Bryant Bennett. This is one of the last
photos taken of Pearl Bennett; she passed away in 1938—the
year this photo was taken.
from supper and dance $ 37.07.” The effort was
repeated in 1936 for a third party. Each year
prizes were awarded for the oldest man and
woman, the couple married the longest and the
couple with the most grandchildren. Each year
all the guests were made to feel important and
appreciated.
Los Angeles, California
The end of 1936 found the Bennetts broke and
unemployed. After eight years of service, Stephen
also had been released as the branch president
of the Mormon Church in Charlo, Montana. On
18 November 1936 Pearl noted in her diary, “Left
for California. Hope to live there.” No further
entries appear until 31 December, 1936 when she
announces, “We are living in Calif. Have had a
grand time and hope to be able to live here. Spent
Xmas with Blanche [her oldest daughter] in San
Diego, Calif.” The Bennetts had high hopes of
connecting with some of the prosperity enjoyed
by family and friends in the Golden State.
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 For six months the Bennetts lived with those
family and friends while searching unsuccessfully
for employment. Eventually they decided they
simply had to move into a place of their own even
without significant employment—and moved into
a small apartment.
Pearl fell in love with California. California
was full of people, full of culture, full of energy
and full of natural wonders. Pearl gathered
her many relatives in California
together for a large, joyous family
reunion. She didn’t let the Bennetts’
meager circumstances stop her
from jumping into the rich opportunities for
genealogy at the Los Angeles City Library.
Yet California proved to be bittersweet. Pearl
and Stephen continued to struggle in search of
employment. Not even going through the custodial
program at the Frank Wiggins trade school would
guarantee them stable income. Pearl’s daughter,
Vilate, had serious medical concerns; Pearl’s
mother, Jeanette, was in failing health and
Pearl herself was would pass away from cancer
in California.
A Final Road Trip
On 28 July 1937 Pearl left LA on an extended road
trip through the western United States. It isn’t
clear from her diary what this trip meant to Pearl
or how she reconciled the cost of the trip with the
family’s desperate financial straits. What is clear
in hindsight is that this would be the last time she
would see most of the places and people she saw
on the trip; in eight months she would pass away.
Perhaps sensing a closing of her time on earth
Pearl wanted to give everyone one last hug.
She wrote: “Made a 4000 mile trip through
Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Cali-
fornia, Oregon and Washington going up the
coast from San Diego to Portland, Oregon. The
trip cost me actual cash $45.00.”
Pearl traveled by bus and train, staying
with friends & kinfolk along the
way, renewing old friendships
and relationships as she went.
On 22 August 1937 Pearl wrote
in her diary, “Attended second Sunday School in
Charlo. [Montana] In the evening they gave me
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a little party and presented me with a cut glass
basket for flowers. Mrs. Laura Olsen and Nell
Johnson were sponsoring it.” The following day
in the middle of a rain storm she boarded the bus
for the final stretch of the trip home.

What Pearl was like

As Marcile Whitehead Stettler was growing
up, her mother—the Vilate Bennett quoted
throughout this biography—liked to tell her about
Pearl. Vilate described
Pearl having brown eyes,
brown hair and standing
about five feet four in
height. She remembered
her mother as an active,
creative soul—something
A Pearl Clawson Bennett collage. Clock-wise from lower left:
of a free spirit—who loved
Pearl with her baby sister, Marie; Pearl with her first three
being with other people, children in Canada around 1913; Pearl with her family shortly
a charitable, spiritual before she passed away in 1938; Pearl’s signature from her
Pearl, center, with daugh- 1937 diary; large image, taken in a photo booth in the 1930’s;
ters, Vilate, left, and Maude, woman. & Pearl at Ricks Academy in 1903.
right. Sugar Row, Idaho,
circa 1915. 49
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List Of Favorites
Vilate, wrote down a list of things that brought Pearl joy in her short life:
Favorite Poet . . . . . . . . . . . . Shakespeare
Favorite Hobby . . . . . . . . . Drama
Favorite Fairy tale . . . . . . Cinderella
Favorite Songs . . . . . . . . . . “When I Leave the World Behind”
“Have I Done Any Good In the World Today?”
Favorite Hymn . . . . . . . . . . “Though Deepening Trials”
Favorite Flowers . . . . . . . . Lilacs, violets and chrysanthemums
Favorite Season . . . . . . . . . Fall
Favorite Radio Programs . One Man’s Family & Ted Malone
Favorite Announcer . . . . . Ben Bernie
Favorite Colors . . . . . . . . . . White and peach
Favorite Foods . . . . . . . . . . Hot rolls & fried chicken
Favorite Relative . . . . . . . . 8 Grandmother Robinson 9
Favorite Book . . . . . . . . . . . Biography of Mark Twain by Albert Bigelow Paine
Favorite Movie Stars. . . . Marie Dressler, William Powell, and Janet Gaynor
Favorite Fruits . . . . . . . . . . Apples & raspberries

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Characteristics
Community Service
Pearl liked to involve herself in community
events. On 19 December 1932 she wrote, “Served
soup at the High school, not so hard to do this
year, Every thing becomes easier with a little
knowledge of the same.” She describes mixing
up six different kinds of soup for the students
in eight-gallon batches every day
for a week. In another entry she
reports collecting $18.10 for a Red
Cross drive. And yet another entry
records Pearl finishing a twenty-six
hour marathon stint as judge of the US
presidential election of 1936 in Charlo,
Montana.
Drama, Music & Literature
Pearl’s daughter, Vilate, remembered that in spite
of her mother never taking lessons Pearl played
the piano by ear. She loved acting, teaching acting
and directing plays; she was fond of going to the
movies. Vilate remembered her mother giving
8 dramatic readings 9 , which were dramatic
monologues—as a form of entertainment at
church and community functions. Vilate grew up
to continue the tradition of dramatic readings and
passed it down to her daughter, Jeanene.
Gregarious
Pearl loved being with other people. Family
photos show her with her arms around the
shoulders of the persons on either side of her.
On 25 September 1935 she noted that her husband,
Stephen, had gone to harvest sugar beets. Then,
referring to her seven-year old son, Bryant, she
wrote on the following day, “Bryant and I are
alone it isn’t a good feeling to be all alone. I love
people, lots of them. I dislike solitude.”
When people paid a visit to the Bennett home
Pearl let them know they were welcomed and
appreciated. Her daughter, Vilate, remembered
Pearl always opening her arms wide and
exclaiming, “Oh, look who’s here! . . .so glad to
have you.” Then she would invite them in and
“even if they had nothing to eat but bread and
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The Bennett family, Charlo, Montana, 1927 on the occasion of Pearl’s
fortieth birthday. L to R: Stephen R., Vilate, Pearl, Stephen N. and
Clawson. The last member of the family—Bryant—would be born
the following year.
milk she would make it seem like a banquet and
they were invited to stay.” Vilate remembered
that “Visitors never noticed if a banquet wasn’t
available because they enjoyed Pearl’s company
so much.”
A Spirit of Giving
Not only did Pearl like being with other people,
but she felt the need to be of service to them.
Whether she was serving as a mid-wife, teaching
8 school 9 at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in
Idaho or occasionally baby-sitting a neighbor’s
children, she seems to have believed that she
could make a difference in the world.
In the true spirit of service, Pearl helped
out even when it didn’t make sense to help. On 11
November 1934, she recorded how three fellow
members of the church accused her husband,
“of being a crook, and abused him terribly.” The
following day she wrote, “I went to see old W. G.
Homer, [one of the accusers] he is a bad wicked
man. I told him he was a mockery to the Holy
Priesthood.” Then she finishes the entry with
a statement that speaks volumes about her
character when she says, “I’ll watch his kids.”
Self-Aware
The path to enlightenment begins and ends
with self-awareness. On 9 December 1932 Pearl
quipped, “A Diary is rather a nice bit of sport – put
your real thoughts on paper – No ones business.
They will read it when you’re gone and call you
an ass a fool or what have you.”
Witness a soul moving forward, then, when
Pearl confided on 13 December 1932 in her diary,
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“I love clean people, clean homes, clean beds, do it. Just gratitude to God that he has stood by
clean Sunday, clean thots, and yet every little me all the way.”
while my thots “hit the gutter.” Several of her diary entries note the faithful
Or this bit of self evaluation jotted down payment of tithing or one tenth of the family’s
four years later in her spiral notebook: “When income to the Church. Even when this left the
some one hurts me badly I wish I could be big family temporarily penniless, Pearl felt that it
and good enough to go to them and say why did put them right with God. On 22 December 1935
you wish to hurt me? I want you for a friend as she described one of these leaps of faith when
I need all my friends—
If that did not make peace I would like to
be able to say—Well I’m going to go right on
liking you and being a friend—But I’m not at
all like this person I would like to be. I usually
say—Well—who gives a dam?”

Spiritual
Pearl’s life was anchored by a spiritual foundation.
Many of her diary entries refer to fellow church
members, church meetings or church-related
activities. Several entries end with a plea for The mothers of the Charlo Branch of the Mormon Church in Charlo,
Montana. According to the note on the back of the photo, this was
divine strength or assistance. Pearl’s spiritual
Mothers Day 1932. Pearl is three rows up in the middle of the group;
depth is suggested in the entry of 14 December her daughter-in-law, Thelma, is on the front row on the right.
1932 when she writes, “I never feel puffed up over
anything clever I do, only grateful that I could
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she wrote, “Paid up our tithing to the very penny world lost another of the brightest and best people,
which leaves us with absolutely no money to start and she undoubtedly was ready to meet God.
the New year on, and no Job.” Like their pioneer For a glimpse of Pearl’s devout and lyrical
forefathers the Bennetts put their trust in God, soul see the handwritten 8 poem 9 , “If I Could
believing that he would provide. Be the Woman of My Desires” in the scrapbook
section.
Absolutely Sure
Three years later, on 30 October 1935, Pearl Passing
made a simple yet profound claim: “A change On 27 April 1938 Pearl passed away from cancer
seems to have taken place in my being I am in Los Angeles, California;
absolutely sure Jesus is the Christ – and he is the she was fifty-one years old.
Way.” Could it be that this new awareness, this Her youngest son, Bryant,
spiritual knowing was connected to Pearl’s time was nine years old. Pearl’s
on earth coming to an end? daughter, Vilate, took care
Pearl noted the death of beloved American of her brother
folk philosopher, Will Rogers, on 17 August 1935. until she got
Two months later, on 17 October 1935 she noted married and
the passing of Elsie Talmage Brandley, whom moved away
she greatly admired, and wrote, “It seems to from home
me the brightest and best people are all being the following
called home. I’d like to stay until I felt sure of my year. Vilate
worthyness to meet God.” When that day came recalled the
for Pearl two-and-a-half years later in 1938, the Top, flower card from Pearl’s sister, Ida, and her financial
family. Bottom, cover of the funeral program
held for Pearl. Los Angeles, 1938. 54
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pressures of her mother’s death. “I worked for a
sign company in Hollywood,” she wrote, “To help
pay for my wedding dress as Father was having a
hard time to pay off Dr. bills and all for Mother’s
death. Some of the Brothers and Sisters helped
him pay it off.”
Bryant grew up with few memories of the
mother that brought him into the world but he
loved Vilate dearly and always considered her
his mother. He grew up with his father in Los
Angeles. As a young man he served a mission in
Argentina for his Church and eventually served
in the U. S . Army.
Dedication
At the release of this C D - ROM , Bryant Bennett is
the last living member of the
family that Pearl and Stephen
brought into the world and
loved and sacrificed for and
taught. We dedicate this
project to Bryant Bennett.
Bryant & Theresa Bennett
Help us tell Pearl’s story
Your memories, photos and memorabilia of Pearl
Bennett could help us more clearly tell her
story. Since all but one of her descendants are
separated from her by at least two generations,
our connections to her are tucked away in boxes,
photo albums and fading memories.
We invite you to send us your Pearl Bennett
stories, photos and memorabilia. We would
consider your material for a second, expanded
version of the C D - RO M . We would scan or
photograph your material—handling it with the
utmost care—and send it back within a week of
receiving it. If you have access to a scanner and
a CD burner you could also scan your photos/
memorabilia at 300 dpi and send them
to us on a CD.
Marcile Stettler
6401 Oreana Dr.
Boise, ID 83709
(208) 376-0178
bwstettler@prodigy.net
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