SYNOPTIC HISTORIES WITH TRIBUTES AND MEMORIES
OF THE

MCBRIDE

BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Published especially for their nieces and nephews and their descendants
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The Brothers and Sisters

Clara "Gladys" McBride Stewart
Floyd Franklin McBride
Leonard Robert McBride
Orlando Sims McBride
Darvil Burns McBride
Rubie Ruth (Ruthie) McBride Cochran
Bruce Lane McBride
Stanley Gage McBride
Frankie Thursa McBride Farr

CLARA “GLADYS”MCBRIDESTEWART

[This is condensed from the original history converting much of the story to the “first person,” to simplify it. I believe that Gladys could have recorded it herself in this manner. However, the full history is beautifully done by Gladys’s daughters, Leva Gene Kempton and Carma Rae Neese, and contains the drama of episodes of her life.]
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Young Gladys peeked around the door and viewed the scene that was taking place in the living room. A handsome, well dressed young man was hugging her mother and shaking hands and laughing with the others in the room. Grandma Sims was there and just moments before, Gladys was clutching Grandma’s skirts and watching the young man. He saw her and moved toward her. Gladys screamed in terror and ran from the room.

Soon, curiosity overcame terror and Gladys returned to the scene, to watch from the door. So this was her father. My – isn’t he handsome, and look how happy he is! And Mother, she looks radiant.

Her father, Robert Franklin McBride, had been away serving for two years on a mission for the Mormon Church. When he left, Gladys was about one and one-half years old. Now she was four. Glsdys didn’t remember her father, or, that as a family they had their own home and had lived on the McBride farm in Smithville, now called Pima, in Graham County, Arizona. Gladys saw her little brother, Floyd, had joined the gathering and as she watched father and mother, she felt warm and happy inside. Drawn into the family circle, her father gathered Floyd, her and her mother to him in an embrace. How wonderful to feel her father’s arms about her and sense the feeling of a complete family. The father’s homecoming, meeting him with such fright became a favorite family story, and as Grandma Sims would often relate, “No one knew who was the most scarred, the frightened Gladys or the very surprised Frank.”

When Gladys’ parents, Robert Franklin McBride and Clara Sims, married on August 14, 1889, they settled into a small house her father had built just across the canal on his own father’s place (the Peter McBride farm). His brother, Howard , and he, bought a small herd of cattle and leased range to run them on. Thus, he established himself in the cattle business. Along with the cattle business, he also worked as a carpenter for John Sims, his father-in-law, helped his own parents—across the canal—with their farming and at intervals, hired out to ride the range for local cattle companies.

Clara Gladys, the first child in the family was born June 23, 1900, in Pima, Arizona. She would become big sister to 8 others. Her life would span 88 years, from horse-drawn stagecoaches to super-sonic jets and outer-space exploration, including man’s firs steps on the surface of the moon. After Gladys’s birth, Floyd Franklin was born May 18, 1902, while his father was away serving as a missionary. Then, three more brothers in a row arrived: Leonard Robert – February 14, 1904; Orlando Sims - November 23, 1907; and Darvil Burns – December 28, 1908. Finally, a sister, Ruby Ruth, was born February 13, 1911. Then two more brothers, Bruce Lane – August 14, 1913, and Stanley Gage -September 29, 1915, who died in infancy. The last, Frankie Thurza, was born April 13, 1918, just two months after the tragic death of her father.

When Gladys’s father left the family, answering the call to the Prophet to serve a s a missionary, her mother had a home. There were cattle on the range and there would be plenty for them until Frank returned.

Floyd was born after Frank left and little Gladys, her younger brother and mother were comfortably settled in their own home.

The following is an excerpt from the McBride Story as told by Gladys Stewart, our mother: “No one anticipated the drought that came upon the western land that year. (Gladys says that she always cries when I read or tell this story.) There was no rain in the mountains or in the valley. No water in the rivers or the canals and mountain streams. The vast grass range and table lands lay barren and brown. No feed had grown for the cattle to feed on. The ridges and plains were dotted wit the dead cattle and livestock. Large cattle herds were simply wiped out. When the first payment for the cattle loan was due, Howard and Perle gathered the remaining stock in and sold them, but it was only enough to pay the interest on the loan.” Mother and the two small children left their home to move in with her parents in Pima. There, she helped with the cooking and housekeeping and tending the young Sims children who were still at home.

This period of living with her parents within a busy family was the time when Gladys became old enough to remember back. She remembered how her uncles teased and played with her. They would pick her up and toss her back and forth to one another. There were many aunts and uncles on both sides of the family. Clara was one of 11 children, 6 sisters and 4 brothers: Mary , Susan, Lucy, Amanda, Maude and Nancy, and Samuel, Ammon, Albert and Oscar. Frank had many brothers and sisters, there were 22 in all. His father, Peter, had married twice. His mother was Ruth Burns, and later his father married Laura Lewis. Sadly, of the 22 children, only 12 lived to adulthood. His brothers and sisters were Howard, Perle, Enoch, Claude and Bessie Belle; and his half brothers an sisters were Ether, Clyde, Laura, Della, Grace and Florence. Aunts Uncles and cousins galore made up Gladys’s life as she grew up. There were many family trades and skills to observe and Gladys, always one to watch and learn, was especially interested in carpentry. She expressed later that there was a time when she would rather watch her Grandfather Sims and her father doing carpentry than play with the other children. Apparently, she was her grandfather’s pet, for he took great delight in teaching her to properly saw lumber and hammer nails, a skill which would serve her nicely later in life.

On April 5, 1905, a month shy of two and a-half years, her father returned home from his mission. He and Clara, and the two children settled back into the house on the Glenbar farm and Frank resumed making a living for his family. In late 1905, he moved his family to Globe, Arizona, where he obtained work on the Roosevelt Dam Project, hauling and freighting. Then, he worked for his father-in-law’s firm, “Sims and Sons Construction Company,” building houses and commercial building in Globe, for the Sims family had moved there earlier.

The year 1908 found the family back in the GilaValley. They sold the small house on the farm and moved into a larger house that Frank had built to accommodate his growing family. The next few years would see Frank with jobs and positions that would lead him into law enforcement. He worked as a ranch foreman, a cattle inspector, a legislative assistant, a deputy sheriff and then became the Sheriff of Graham County, Arizona.

In 1916, Gladys was her mother’s right hand helper in every way. Big sister to the five younger brothers and her first little sister was a difficult chore, for there were many, and her mother, always pregnant, or with a brand new baby—they depended on her. She often felt it unfair as her brothers went off to play leaving her with heavy responsibility. However, seniority had its advantages and Gladys often accompanied her father on many of his community and political engagements, for he became an active community participant and a popular speaker. She prized those times with her father.

Education held high priority with the McBrides. Learning and improving, whether from formal training or self-training found Gladys a ready student. She attended grade school in Pima which had a small school touting four grades in one room. Though a small country school, it graduated some famous people. Henry Eyring, a world class chemist and scientist, and Camilla Eyring, future elite lady of the Mormon Church, wife of the future President and Prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, to name a couple. Both were her classmates. A good student, especially adept with numbers and figures, she eventually became a bookkeeper and a super genealogist.

After Gladys finished eighth grade in Pima, the family moved to Safford where her Sheriff father could be closer to his offices in the County Court House. There she attended her first two years of high school after which she attended the LDSAcademy, a combination of the last two years of high school and two of junior college. She graduated from it at the age of 16. (The LDSAcademy, forerunner of GilaJunior college eventually became EasternArizonaJunior college and then EasternArizonaCollege: a four year institution).

Regressing, Gladys, at 14 was recognized as an outstanding student. Told by her teacher that she would be given a special award for her scholastic achievements and had won a very special something which would arrive after several weeks, she was disappointed upon its delivery. When the “something special” did arrive, she found it to be only a painting of the SaltLakeTemple, like one the family already had hanging in the living room. Later she learned it was a reversed painting, done on the inside back of the domed glass. In time, she grew to cherish it, not only for its own loveliness but for the beautiful frame also. This style of painting, now a lost art-form is displayed with pride in the home of Carma Neese, her daughter, and ranks among her most prized possessions.

Parties, dances, picnics, Sunday afternoon ice cream socials, taffy pulls and bon fires. County fairs, Church bazaars, rodeos and ball games. Wherever the action was, that’s where Gladys longed to be, there with the other teenagers having fun. But, as often the case, her parents felt that she should pursue a more serious path and should not concern herself with too much frivolous behavior. Gladys especially liked to dance, she learned all the popular dances of her day: the Charleston, the Turkey Trot, and she taught them to her daughters. Gladys also played a mean piano. The McBride family excelled in music and she inherited this gift. As a youngster she was given music lessons, but her teacher and her father lost patience with her because she wanted to play “Ragtime,” which was the popular music among the youth of that day. So, it was decided she didn’t need piano lessons if she wasn’t going to do serious music. Her favorite tunes were Mexicali Rose, It’s Only a Shanty in Old Shanty Town, Dear Old Hawaii, Land of My Dreams, There’s a Long Trail a Winding, Listen to the Mocking Bird, and the Missouri Waltz, to name a few. She entertained her children and grandchildren with her unique Ragtime style. Mostly, she played by ear. She also learned to play the harmonica and had a lovely alto voice which she added to many choirs and choruses. She often sang hymns and “old time” songs and accompanied herself on the piano.

The Sunday afternoon lemonade social, a great get-together at someone’s home after church, was a favorite way for teens to socialize, and it was at such an affair that Gladys would meet her husband-to-be. In reflecting back to those teenage years, Gladys tells of her feelings (to her daughters): “Father was very selective in what he would allow me to attend and do. He was a very kind and loving person, but he was also a very strict and firm about, in what it was acceptable for me to be involved. Many times groups of laughing teenagers would pass by the house on the way to some get-together and would want me to come along. Father just wouldn’t let me go, especially if it was just to goof off and be silly. Sometimes it was because I was needed at home, but usually he felt I was better off not to be wasting my time on nonsense. This side of my father was very hard for me to understand. I loved my father and felt great affection and respect for him but I just couldn’t understand why he was so strict and, in my judgment, unfeeling. Why didn’t he want me to have fun? I was, however, an obedient child and usually did as he directed, but I would have hurt feelings for a long time.”

Gladys grew into a comely young lady. She was fashionably slender with hazel eyes and light brown hair that curled around her face. At five feet four and one-half inches tall she was about one-half inch taller than her daughters, and three inches taller than her mother. Though later, as an adult, she would take on the Sims stocky figure (though she struggled to stay slim) she was nicely proportioned and not too heavy. (Except for her youngest son, Lyle, her children struggled with the same problem.)

Gladys considered herself a plain child and something of a tomboy. She had a pet deer that she romped and played with until it became too aggressive and had to be given away. She confided to her daughter, Leva, that Sundee, her granddaughter who excelled in many sports—volley ball and baseball, and even captured a State championship in the discus throw, reminded her of herself, as she too was always involved in sports.

Gladys tells of when she was in the growing stage, with long arms, skinny legs and a lanky frame. Her father, with great affection and humor called her his “Ugly Duckling.” Gladys says she didn’t really mind because then she sort of wished she were a boy anyway. With five brothers as companions and playmates it was easy to be a tomboy. With her father at the mercantile store to by her shoes, he jokingly said to the proprietress (a cousin of her father) “do you have any shoes in this store to fit the big feet on this girl?” Gladys said she felt about as ugly and ungainly as a person could feel. The cousin took her father aside and gave him a good tongue lashing: “Frank, Gladys is a lovely spirited child and you just mustn’t put her down with such rude comments. Come on now Frank, you are going to give her an inferiority complex by such comments. It’s time you start treating her like a young lady instead of one of the rowdy boys.”

Her father took the advice from that time on she was regarded in a more genteel manner. Her dress and clothes became more stylish and feminine and she was expected to act in a more ladylike fashion.

I was born on June 23, 1900, in Pima, Arizona, the first born of six boys and three girls. (Her life spanned 88 years from the time of horse-drawn stage coaches, covered wagons, buggies and carriages, through the evolution into the age of jets, outer-space exploration and electronics).

My father left to serve a two-year Texas mission when I was a baby, and my mother was expecting her next. Left in relative comfort of good times on the productive farm, the immediate, unforeseen drought that set in devastated the hopes of security for my mother while Dad was away. The land turned brown and barren, the water disappeared and the live stock was sold, and finally, only enough remained to pay the interest on the loan. My mother, Clara, with her two children moved in with her parents in Pima until her husband returned. Meanwhile, I, they tell me, enjoyed loving attention from many uncles and aunts and a carpenter grandfather who later taught me the use of common tools. That teaching came in handy for me later.

When my Dad returned in April of 1905, my parents resettled us on their farm, but shortly moved to Globe for him to obtain work on the Roosevelt Dam, hauling and freighting and then in building for his father-in-law’s firm located in Globe too. Back at the farm in Glenbar, my father added to our home and worked at several jobs, as he began to revitalize the farm. I stayed plenty busy helping mother, dad and tending little brothers and sisters. By 1916, I was big sister to five brothers and a sister, and sometimes felt picked on. But, I experienced special occasions with my father as he became involved in community political affairs. I prized those special times with just he and I together.