MAUDE REBECCA KIDD- HISTORY
This Biographic history was typed from information as written by Maude’s sister, Willia Kidd
(Bresock), her brother Henry Mike Lee Kidd and her daughter Sivilla (Patten) Hardy:
Maude Rebecca Kidd, the second child. of George Washington Kidd and Mary Belinda
Elizabeth Morrow, was born December. 6 1883, in Hillsboro, near Manchester, Coffee Co.,
Tennessee, she died. March 22 1930, and was buried March 25, 1930 in the Lost River
Cemetery, at Moore, Butte Co. Idaho.
She married William Neuman Patten on December 22, 1909 in the Logan Temple of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, He was a son of David Wyman Patten and
Sarah Catherine Brown and was born May 31, 1677 in Rockville, Washington Co., Utah.
William Neuman died March 11 1948 in Salmon, Lemhi Co., Idaho, and was buried March
16, 1948 in the Lost River Cemetery, at Moore, Butte Co., Idaho.
Maude Rebecca was a woman of rare charm with a wonderful magnetic personality. She
was admired for her mild disposition and even temper, and never complained about
conditions or how much work there was to do. In her young life, she was very popular,
outgoing and had a host of friends. Maude loved writing letters to girl and boy friends; she
liked to sew and did most of the sewing for the family; she also made quilts and did a lot
of knitting. Maude, however, never cared for fancy work.
During the summer, Maude worked by helping to put in the crops. Then, during the harvest,
she picked tomatoes, pulled corn from the crops, stripped corn fodder or leaves from the
stalks and tied the leaves in bundles for feed for the horses and cows, also helped to gather
the pumpkins. Because the health of Maude was somewhat delicate, her father relieved her
as much as possible from the heavy farm labor work, giving it to her sister Cora Alma. This
allowed Maude to be more of a help to her mother.
Maude and Cora Alma, were always so understanding of each other; there was never a cross
word between them. They were never allowed to go out to parties or square dances in the
neighborhood homes unless they had the consent of their father. He ruled his household
with an iron hand— what he said was law.
One night the Mormon missionaries stopped at the residence of George Washington Kidd
(Maude’ s father), and he stated “You’re most welcome to come in and stay all night, but I
don’t want to hear anything about your religion!”
Oftentimes Maude would spend an afternoon with a girlfriend. She also visited friends who
lived some distance away, whom she would visit for a week at a time. She also had friends
who visited with her for up to a week. With her friends, she would attend local religious
revivals. It was while attending these revivals, Maude had learned more toward the
teachings of the Mormons.
When Maude was about 20 years old, she had a dream. She saw a couple of Mormon elders
who had come to a place in Ragsdale, (which is near Manchester, Tennessee), and stayed
overnight. They had an old spring wagon that Maude and Cora Alma were in. The elders
drove the wagon up along a dugway and she and Cora Alma stepped right out of the wagon
and walked over to the canal where they were baptized. After the baptism, they returned to
the wagon and came home.
One evening the elders that she had seen in her dream came to their house; she felt very
excited about it, but she really didn’t know whether to be baptized or not. The elders stayed
all night. The next morning after breakfast when they started to go out the gate, Maude went
to her mother and said, “1 just can’t see them leave; those are the elders that were in my
dream–they are supposed to baptize me.” Her mother said, “Well, go call them back then.”
So, she went and called the elders back and everything happened just as she had seen in her
dream. Maude and Cora Alma were baptized by the missionaries on November 3, 1903.
Mary Elinda, the mother of Maude and Cora Alma, had been the first person in the Kidd
family to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints. She was baptized on May
18, 1901. After the baptism, the family and missionaries went back to the house, where Mary
Elinda was confirmed a member of the church. Because it was early summer, the windows
and doors were opened. When the elders put their hands on her head to confirm her, a dove
flew in the door, made a circle, and went out the window. The elders stopped speaking while
the dove was there. This was always a testimony to Mary Elinda that she had done the right
thing, and that the restored gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints was
true.
There wasn’t a Sunday School of the Mormon church in Ragsdale, Tennessee, so Maude,
Cora Alma, and their mother still attended the Southern Baptist Church. Before Maude had
joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, she had been a Sunday School
teacher in the Southern Baptist Church; however, after her baptism they got a new teacher.
The people who had been so friendly to them before were now cold and antagonistic toward
them. When Maude, Cora, or other members of the family would walk in and sit down on
one of the benches where any one else was sitting, they would get up and sit somewhere
else.
The women within the congregation would also hold their skirts back so they wouldn’t touch
as they passed Maude’s family. It was puzzling to them that people would treat them that
way, just because they had joined a different church. However, they continued going to their
Baptist Sunday School since there wasn’t a Mormon church in town.
One sultry summer evening two Mormon missionaries came to the Kidd home for a night’s
entertainment with the family. William Neuman Patten was one of the missionaries.
This same evening, Maude received word from Lawrence Cunningham (her sweetheart who
only lived four miles away) that he was dying from pneumonia and he requested her to
come as quickly as she could.
There was a black thunder cloud arising in the western sky; her brother George Clement
Kidd (about 16-17 years old at the time) took Maude in the buggy to her sweetheart’s
bedside. He tried with much effort to tell her something, but was so weak she never did
understand what he wanted. He died before dawn the next day. Many years later she had
the temple work done for him by an Elder Tanner of Nephi, Utah.
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Note: The following was written by Sivilla (Patten) Hardy
“William Neuman Patten as a young man went to school at St. John’s Missionary
Academy to prepare for a mission, and in 1905 he was called on a mission to the
Southern States.
In those days they were to travel without purse or script, one day he and his companion
hadn’t had anything to eat the day before, they were very hungry and faint and just felt
like they could not go on. They were walking down the Ragsdale Road which was one
lane traffic and very dusty. This road at that time separated the property of Rebecca
Adaline Lones and George Washington Kidd.
While walking along the road they came to a shed at the side of the dusty road, these two
elders went into the shed and knelt down and prayed to their Heavenly Father that He
would help them to find sustenance in order that they might have the strength to continue
their missionary work.
After praying, they came back out onto the road and had but walked a very short distance
when there lay a loaf of bread at the side of the road. This they were glad to receive, it
gave them something to eat and the strength to go on.
After partaking of the bread, these same Mormon missionaries continued down the
Ragsdale Road to a dirt lane that led them to the house of George Washington Kidd and
family. His house stood on a little knoll overlooking his farming property.”
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Maude’s mother would often write letters to the elders they had met in the Ragsdale-
Manchester, Tennessee area. As her eyes were very bad, she would request that Maude
write the letters for her, and then she would sign them. This way they were able to keep
in touch with the missionaries.
After completing his mission, William Neuman Patten returned to his parents’ home, and
he corresponded with Mary Elinda Elizabeth (Morrow) Kidd; he knew that Maude was
writing the letters for her mother and he asked that Maude correspond with him herself.
In one letter, he wrote to her parents stating that he wanted to marry their daughter
Maude.
When two of George Washington’s oldest sons Walter and George) had grown old
enough to leave home, they desired to go west to obtain work, where they had heard of
many opportunities. Walter moved west in 1903, and George moved there in 1906.
They both would write glowing reports home of all the wonderful things that there were in
the west.
Maude, Cora Alma, and their mother began praying that George Washington would move
to Utah, but he had absolutely no inclination to do so. He wasn’t going to go back there to
live where the Mormons were! The persistent prayers, however, finally paid off.
George Washington Kidd finally decided that he was going to move his family west. His
mother, Rebecca Adeline Lones, living in her own house had no one to take care of her,
therefore she moved with them; George’s widowed sister, Evaline (Kidd) Gravitt, came as
well. They moved to Avon, Utah in March of 1909.
After moving, the family’s financial condition prompted Maude to seek employment. She
was able to obtain work in Brigham City, Utah, from some people who owned a Boarding
House. While in Brigham City, she met a young Mormon boy who fell in love with her and
he proposed marriage to her.
This marriage proposal created a dilemma for Maude, which she discussed with her mother
one weekend when she visited with her parents. There were now two men who proposed to
marry her, and she did not know which man she loved best.
She prayed constantly for the Lord to direct her choice, and the more she prayed, the more
inclined she was to think of marrying William Neuman Patten. William hadn’t seen Maude
since he was on his mission in Tennessee, but they had kept in touch through letters. She
finally decided that she would like to marry him.
William picked Maude up from the Boarding House in Brigham City in December of 1909,
and they were married in the Logan Temple on December 22, 1909. The newly wedded
couple moved to Moore, Idaho (Lost River Valley area) , where William was working on
the canal that the Utah Construction Company was putting down the west side of the valley.
William and Maude first lived in a little three-room log cabin, which was about a mile
southeast of Moore, Idaho. It had a board floor, and in the bedroom, they covered the floor
with clean, new straw. Maude sewed gunnysacks together and stretched them over the clean
straw and tacked them to the sides of the room, making a lovely carpet. Then she took three
different-sized plates and drew designs all over this gunny sack carpet, and painted it black
and red. It looked very nice and made the room much warmer and more comfortable.
William was called as Bishop of the Moore Ward in November 1910 (he was the second
Bishop of that Ward). He was Bishop for nine years, until the Lost River Stake was
organized and William was chosen to be the Stake President. Because of his church
responsibilities, William and Maude had many opportunities to host general authorities of
the Church in their home, including Oscar AA Kirkham, Melvin J. Ballard, and others. When
they visited, Maude would worry about preparing meals for them.
One incident close to the heart of her children was when Maude had said, “Oh, I hope it isn’t
Brother Talmage coming to speak.” He had written some books on nutrition and was quite a
writer. She was timid in that she was in awe of his status.
In that Stake, they always served lunch at noon as there were so many people who had come
from so far away. Different Mutuals or Relief Societies would prepare a luncheon and sell
the price of the food as a fund-raising project.
Much to the delight and worry of Maude, that evening William came home from the Stake
conference and who did he bring with him, but Brother Talmage. Maude was very nervous,
“Oh what can I fix for Brother Talmage?” The response was “There isn’t anything I would
sooner have, than some good old homemade bread and milk.” That was what the family had
for their own evening meal. So, Maude went ahead and prepared bread and milk for their
supper.
After the family had eaten, Brother Talmage told of an experience he had in the Southern
part of the country, where he had been called to go there to speak.
**********
“The people were kind of antagonistic there, he came in and hung his hat on the rack and
went up on the stage to speak. The people were hissing and booing, during his talk.
Brother Talmage sat down after speaking to them, someone leaned over and said, “Brother
Talmage, there’s a mob waiting outside when the meeting is over and Brother Talmage
said, “Thanks.” Well, when the meeting was over, he went down through the crowd, got his
hat, and the minute. he stepped outside the door, he heard voices saying, “There he
is!” “Let’s get him!”
Then someone said, “Where did he go?” “Where did he go?” Brother Talmage said that he
walked right on through the crowd, down the road, caught the train, and left the town. The
mob that was waiting for him was unable to see him as he went through them. This was a
great source of testimony to Maude and the family, to see how the Lord had protected Brother
Talmage when he was fulfilling the assignment that had been given to him,”
**********
Following the birth of their second child, Maude’s sister, Cora Alma, died at the age of 28
after giving birth to a daughter. Maude missed the companionship of her sister; it was a
great loss in her life.
Maude and William remained in the Lost River Valley, and six more children were born to
them. They were able to homestead about 160 acres of land on the west side of the Valley.
The homestead was right by the UC Drop, which was a place where the water came down a
spillway, to the valley floor. This canal ran just at the bottom of the hill. They built a home
in a little curve in the hill, for a while the family had to go to the drop to obtain all their
household water.
William planted an orchard and some berries. The barns, corrals and granaries were built
up on the side of a knoll that ran out into the property. This knoll protected their house
from the winds and was a source of interest to the children. They used to walk out on this
little knoll (someone in the past had dug a hole back in it). There were a lot of sparkling
stones in it, which the children were always interested in collecting.
William was Bishop in the Moore Ward at this time; one Sunday they were having a
Church conference, and President James Duckworth was there to attend the conference.
William had gone over to the drop to a bucket of water, and there was a great big fish
swimming around in the canal where he was trying to dip up the water.
William had always taught his children and others not to fish on Sunday, but he loved fish
and couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to get that fish in the bucket of water to bring
home from then on, he was forever being teased about fishing on Sunday.
Eventually he dug a well at the homestead. They used a windless: somebody who would
stay up at the top to bring the dirt up and empty it; others would be down, digging by
hand.
There were hard times on the homestead due to problems with the weather and water. In
spite of their problems, Maude and William were very generous. They never failed to give
help to tramps/ Indians, or any one in need. If any one came around wanting food, Maude
never failed to fix them a meal.
The oldest child, Sivilla, stated in her history when she was about 7 or 8 years old, that
Maude and William told their children they didn’t have any money that year to give Santa
Claus. Unless they gave money to Santa Claus, he couldn’t come and visit them, so Santa
Claus wouldn’t be there. The children were very upset about this, but, as was their daily
habit, they folded their clothing that evening and put them on the chair; after having their
prayers at their mother’s knee they went to bed. They knew Santa Claus wasn’t going to
come during the night, so they weren’t particularly anxious to get up the following
morning.
But when they finally got up and got dressed, they found to their delight that their
stockings were full. William and Maude had bought large stockings from Sears that were
filled with all kinds of little toys, and they had divided these up among the children.
Maude had also made some honey taffy; they also got an apple, orange, and banana for
each child. While it was a meager Christmas, the children never remembered a happier
one; they were thrilled that Santa hadn’t forgotten them.
William had some pretty good horses. Many times, when he’d be coming into town, with
those horses pulling a white top buggy, someone would try and pass him. He would urge
the horses on, and pretty soon they’d be running–and so would the other team. No matter
who was in the white top buggy with him, or how bumpy it got, William would always
manage to just keep ahead of the other buggy team.
Sometimes it was quite to the disarray of the occupants of the white top. Maude didn’t
particularly care for the speed of the horses, but she understood her husband’s desire to win.
He was that way in all areas of his life, even checkers.
William was an avid hunter, and went hunting every fall. He always came home with a deer.
He was a good shot and most of the time he would kill more than his share, so that everybody
in the party came home with their deer.
The family always had a good garden. William was a good gardener and Maude would
always can the produce that they raised. Maude would also can the deer meat that her
husband brought home.
She did most of her canning in the old wash boiler, using a rack that William had built to fit
in the bottom of it. Maude would fill quart bottles and submerge them in the boiler where
she would cook them for a long time. It seemed that her beans would cook in the boiling
water for about four hours.
William always raised plenty of cabbage, and when harvest time came, the family could be
sure that he would have a barrel of sauerkraut. He made some of the best sauerkraut you
ever tasted, although it was quite a lot of work to prepare. The cabbage had to be shredded,
packed in salt, and then they had to let it sit until the sauerkraut was ready to use. Maude’s
brothers enjoyed coming for a visit so they could dip into the sauerkraut barrel. When it got
just right, Maude would pack the bottles and boil them so that they always had sauerkraut.
The children learned to like it very much.
Maude would make her own sausage and head cheese; she would pack this in little cloth
bags that she would make and then store it in the Cellar She also made her own lye soap for
household use. She was a very good cook, and knew how to make many southern dishes.
Her husband especially loved her milk gravy. After Maude would serve the gravy to the
family, William would take a piece of bread and sop the gravy from the sides of the fry pan.
They always had plenty of pork when they butchered in the fall. It was mostly salt-cured,
and sometimes it would have to be boiled in water to get some of the salt out. Maude was
used to preparing meat like they do in the South. The family always had their own meat,
milk, eggs, butter, and the things that Maude would can. For their evening meal, the family
normally had bread and milk. Maude also made many good cakes, pies and cookies. Maude
always liked to make special things that her husband and family enjoyed eating. They always
had plenty.
The family generally separated the milk they got, and on their cereal, they would have cream
right from the separator. They made their own butter, and would sell some of it. They had a
butter mold that made one-pound cubes; the children took turns running the old dasher butter
churn. The family usually had chickens and would sell a few eggs to the local grocery store
in exchange for groceries and other things the family needed.
Sometimes the children were allowed to take an egg to school with them; with the egg,
they were able to get a nickel’s worth of candy, which was a real treat to them since they
didn’t have very much of that type of thing.
Maude made their bedding, pieced the quilts from scraps from her sewing for her
daughters, carded the wool to lire, the quilts with, and was adept at making her own cotton
batting
In her early married life, Maude, did her washing by placing -two round
metal tubs on a bench that William built. She scrubbed clothes on a washboard in one tub,
rinsed them in the other tub, and hung
on the clothes-line to dry. This was an all-day job for bey and the children. Later on, they
were able to get a washing machine. It worked by having a person pull back and forth on the
handle to run the washer.
Maude kept their clothing mended, ironed, and folded. She spent many hours darning
stockings. She also made clothing from flour sacks printed with different designs. A
memorable design was the Indian Chief floor sack. She would put the Indian Chief sacks in
Lye water to get the color out. If it didn’t all come out, she would dye the material black.
She made underclothing from this. The “panty waist” (top piece of underwear) was made
from one side of the flour sack; “bloomers” (bottom piece) were made from the Indian Chief
side of the floor sack “which was dyed black”.
During the time that William was serving as Bishop of the Moore Ward, he was called on a
short-term 4-month mission to go with Elder Ballard to organize the Northwestern States
Mission. The family was living on the homestead at this time, and Maude was left with the
chores, in addition to taking care of the children. It was to be a long, hard winter for the
family.
This was the winter that there was a flu epidemic in the valley. It was especially hard on the
women of the community and Maude was pregnant. William was quite concerned about her
welfare. He had a dream one night that he got on the train, came home, and saw his wife and
children. Sivilla was very ill and he gave her a blessing. When he awoke in the morning, he
knew that everything was in the Lord’s hands, and that things would be taken care of while
he was away from his family.
Sivilla said, “I can remember going with my mother to take care of the cattle and to milk the
cows. The snow was up to my waist, and we would wade through the snow. I can remember
that one of the cows had a calf; I can see our mother so plainly with that calf backed up into
a corner of the old chicken coop.
She had the calf backed up and would straddle it with her fingers in its mouth trying to get
the calf to suck on her fingers. And, she was holding its head down in the bucket of milk so
that it could get its feed; she did teach the calf to drink. When father came home from his
mission, he said that the calf was mother’s.
When the calf got old enough, he took it down to sell it, and on the way back home “Sister
Pate” put up a real hard luck story and our father let her have the money that he had received
for the calf.”
The family moved from the homestead, to a place south of what used to be called the Fry
place, it was nearly a mile straight north of Moore, Idaho. The day they moved to this new
place their third child (William) who was five years old, became sick with what they thought
was tonsilitis. When it lingered for a number of days, the doctors did not know what was the
matter with him. The parents were told not to raise him up for food or drink, but just to raise
his head. He seemed to get worse and worse.
One day when they thought William was improving, they got him a little pup. He lay on
the bed playing with the pup with a string. His father was going to town and asked William
what he would like him to get for him. William responded that he would like some candy.
After her husband had left the house, Maude made the child some cocoa, then went to her
bedroom, knelt in prayer, and asked the Lord if it was His will to please spare her son
William. After Maude had risen to her feet, she had a premonition that her son wasn’t
going to live. That night, when it was time for the family to retire, William Neuman went
to blow the coal oil lamp out (which was next to the bed).
His wife Maude said, “Oh Will, don’t! Let’s leave it on!” and so he did. A few minutes later
they heard a “gurgling” sound, and before they could get to him, their son William had died.
They held his funeral on November 14, 1919, out in the yard because they didn’t know if the
disease he had was contagious or not. During the funeral, when one of the people was giving
the prayer, their daughter Sivilla heard beautiful music. There was no music there in the yard
of their home. After the funeral she told her father about it and he acknowledged hearing it
too. He said it was an Angel Choir rejoicing that William had come back to Heaven. William
was buried in the Lost River cemetery, south west of Moore, Idaho.
When their last child (Grant) was born, the doctor that attended to Maude Rebecca was
drunk; he didn’t attend to her properly, and later she got blood poisoning. They had to bring
her down from Idaho to the hospital in Salt Lake City. The Stake held a special fast day for
her, and Brother Charles A. Callis (the head Patriarch of the church administered to her);
and promised her that she was going to recover to see her infant son old enough to take care
of himself.
When the doctors operated on Maude in the hospital, they found that her internal organs
had all matted together as a result of the blood poisoning. The doctor said, “There isn’t a
thing we can do, she isn’t going to live.” They just tore the organs apart and sewed her up.
William mailed a card to the parents of Maude, (they were then living in Drummond, Idaho)
stating that Maude was in the hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, and for them “not to grieve.
If it was the Lord’s will to take her, we will have to submit to His will”.
Maude’s mother had not been well for some time, but was up and did her daily work. The
day she received the card from William (informing them that Maude was in the hospital
and was not expected to live) was very hard for her. The shock of this news caused her to
have a heart attack, and she died that night at 10:00 p.m.
The next morning, as William was going up early into the hospital, he met the doctor
coming down. The doctor said, “Mr. Patten, I don’t know what’s happened, but your wife
is going to live.” Maude had started to improve. She was finally able to be put in a
wheelchair and rolled out of the room.
She said that various doctors passing her in the corridor would often stop and pat her on
the shoulder and say, “Sister Patten, you have been a miracle.” During the time that
Maude was in the hospital, Mrs. King offered to nurse baby Grant along with her own.
baby, Grandma Lemmon moved in with the family to take care of the other
When Maude was well enough to leave the hospital, William took her to the home of the
stake clerk for her to convalesce for a day or two before going home to the children. That
night when they retired to their bed, William said, “Maude, I have something to tell you
and I don’t want you to feel bad!” She said, “Mother is dead!’ He said, “That’s right.”
William was Stake President at the time of his wife’ s illness, and after going back to their
home, the health of Maude was not good, health continued to decline and the doctor
finally told. William that probably if Maude was taken to a lower climate her health
would be better. William resigned as Stake President and he prepared to move his family
to Springville, Utah. However, they first made a trip to Drummond, Idaho to visit Maude’s
father.
The family moved to Springville, Utah, and William did sales work, he sold what they
called “pants creasers” which were things that you put down inside of men’s trousers to
hold the crease in. Later he got a job at the Harris Dairy, which was run by John E. Harris,
a former acquaintance of his.
The family lived in Springville, Utah for about three years; Maude’ s health continued to
decline, and with wages being very poor at the Harris Dairy, William decided to move his
family to Blackfoot, Idaho There, he ran a farm, that was owned by the stake president,
James E. Duckworth. He had a number of cows and did ranching.
William used to get up in the morning and build a fire and then go out to milk the cows.
Maude would always have breakfast ready when he returned. She was a great support and
help to him in whatever he was asked to do.
Maude by this time had begun to have many headaches, and was quite frail. Possibly that
was why they gave up the farm and moved into town on east Alice Street where she lived
the last few years of her life.
This was a large home and it had running water at the kitchen sink. Water no longer had to
be carried into the house from an outside pump. In the wintertime their home was heated by
two stoves–the big black Monarch cook stove and a heater in the front room. It was the
children’s job to keep the wood box full of chopped wood through the winter, and what a
chore it was!
The bedrooms never had any heat, so in the evening’s flat irons (which were heated on the
stove and used for ironing clothes) and rocks, that had been warmed in the oven, along with
hot water bottles, that had been filled with hot water, would be wrapped in towels and placed
between covers at the foot of the beds before retiring.
Sometimes the edges of the quilts would be frozen from the dampness of the children’s
breath in the night. A back room was used for the washer and had clothes lines stretched
from wall to wall for winter drying of the clothes. The outhouse was conveniently located
in the back yard. Regardless of how Maude felt she always saw that her family was taken
care of.
William worked for a dairy delivering milk and other products. The cream would rise to the
top of the milk in the glass bottles, but it was never as thick as the cream that was skimmed
off the milk in the round shallow pans on the farm.
William kept that job in Blackfoot for a number of years. He was also called to be a member
of the Blackfoot Stake High Council. He was an excellent speaker and was always in demand
throughout the valley to speak at funerals and other occasions. It was hard for anybody to
go to sleep while he was speaking-he used to get a little excited sometimes. Many times, he
would pound the pulpit from which he was speaking. He had a very good reputation all his
life for being a good speaker, Maude always supported her husband in his church activities.
Maude loved ballads; she had a notebook with many songs which she had copied while she
lived in Tennessee, including songs such as “A Blind Child, ” “Jim Bobo Rode a Safety
Wheel,” “Hello Central, Give Me Heaven,” “The Baggage Coach Ahead,” “The Letter Edged
in Black,” and many of those kinds of songs. She sang these songs and taught them to her
children. Her children would shed tears of compassion at some of the songs.
Maude also liked stories and poems that touched the heart. She was very tender-hearted and
had a great deal of feeling for those who were down-trodden and in trouble. Her family
loved to gather around her in the evening so she could sing these songs to them, and so she
could read stories to them. William sometimes would laugh because Maude and the children
would shed tears over some of these stories, poems, and songs, but they liked them. They
especially liked the song about the “Blind Child.” On some occasions William would also
sing songs and quote poems to his family; the ones the children remember of their father
were, “Casey at The Bat,” and “Casey Jones.”
When Maude came back from the hospital in Salt Lake City, she used to have such terrific
headaches that she could hardly stand it.
Those headaches were sometimes so intense that she would become dizzy and almost pass
out. The medical doctors couldn’t seem to find the cause. An osteopath once told a friend of
his that he thought Maude had a tumor, but the medical doctors denied it.
After Maude became paralyzed, they acknowledged that she did indeed have a tumor in her
brain, which had caused this paralysis. It was too late to do anything about it then. She also
went blind.
To Maude and William Patten, their main purpose of life was to make their children
candidates for the Celestial Kingdom. One never saw them quarrel. They had their
differences, of course, but they never resorted to loud or harsh words at one another. Theirs
was a bond of patience, kindness and understanding.
Maude Rebecca Kidd, wife of William Neuman Patten, died of a brain tumor March 22,
1930, in Blackfoot, Bingham Co., Idaho. It was very hard for William with a family of six
living children at home after his wife passed away. He missed the love and support of
Maude very much. He spent many lonely years after her death.
William Patten later married Minerva DuRell Dutson, on May 7, 1943. They were blessed
with a daughter, Helen DuRell Patten, who was born April 13, 1947 in Logan, Cache Co.,
Utah. (She died January 9,1993 in Bountiful, Utah). William died March 11, 1948 in
Salmon, Lemhi Co., Idaho.
CHILDREN OF MAUDE REBECCA KIDD AND WILLIAM NEUMAN PAT TEN ARE:
(1) Sivilla “M” Patten, b. 4 Feb 1911, Moore, Butte Co., Idaho
Died: 7 Apr 1980
Marr: Ernest Lovel Hardy, 6 Jun 1928
His Parents: Heber Bickmore Hardy
Hannah Flavilla Cordingley
(2) Oral Wanda Patten, b. 12 Sep 1912, Moore, Butte Co., Idaho
Died: 5 Jun 1968
Marr: Karl Thornton Duffin, 10 Oct 1934
His Parents: Hezekiah Erastus Duffin
Lydia Adeline Thornton
(3) William Neuman Patten, b. 29 Jun 1914, Moore, Butte Co., Idaho
Died: 14 Nov 1919
(4) Phoebe Ann Patten, b. 2 May 1916, Moore, Butte Co., Idaho
Died: Marr: Gar L. Hodges, 19 Feb 1934 His Parents: George Arthur
Hodges Chloe Elma Lisonbee
(5) Edna K “Kay” Patten, b. 4 Sep 1917, Moore, Butte Co., Idaho
Died:
Marr: Lorenzo Elmer Whiting, 14 Sep 1937
His Parents: Lorenzo Snow Whiting Perlina Fannin