Dr. Alice Jeanette Tippets

Dr. Alice Jeanette Tippets

June 18, 1998

By Rebecca T. Hall

Copyrights Retained

Bear Lake County History Book

in Montpelier, Idaho

Alice Jeanette Tippets was born March 15, 1844, at Liberty, Missouri. She was the oldest child of William Plummer Tippets and Sophia Burnham Mead.

Her parents had been acquainted for many years, each had lost a spouse. They were joined in marriage by Joseph Smith and a reception was held for them at his house. At the time of their marriage, they were living in Independence, Missouri. Alice Jeannette was three months old when the Prophet and his brother were martyred.

Her parents later gathered with the Saints in Council Bluffs (then called Kanesville) and on July 4, 1850, left with the Captain Hunt Co. for the valley of the Great Salt Lake, arriving around the middle of October. Although she was only six years old at the time, Jeannette walked most of the way. Her job was to help with the younger children of the family. She wore a dress, the skirt of which was made from the cover of an umbrella.

Jeanette chose an honest and honorable companion, a distant cousin, Joseph Mahonri Tippets. They were married on the first day of January, 1860, at Perry, Utah.

While she was yet a very young woman, Jeannette became interested in comforting and caring for the sick. She gained a special knowledge of simple remedies and was called upon countless times to aid those who were sick or in distress. Whenever she entered a home of sorrow a feeling of

hope and well being came with her.

She was living in Brigham City at the time she was called to study in the school of medicine and surgery. Alice Jeanette Tippets was one of the women chosen to take this training and graduated with the Dr. Ellis R. Shipp class of 188384. She moved to Bear Lake County in 1887, settling about three miles south and east of the settlement called Twin Creeks or Georgetown, Idaho and was the only doctor there for many years.

Although her training was meager, Dr. Jeanette was often called upon to perform, what at that time, and perhaps would still be, considered, almost miraculous works. At one time two of her grandchildren had been sent out to cut kindling. As boys will, they began to play around daringly with the ax. One of them, who was barefoot at the time, had two of his toes cut completely off. Witnesses say they were not hanging by the skin at all, but lying on the ground.

Dr. Jeanette came quickly from the house, picked up the severed toes, and with someone holding the screaming child steady, she bound the toes back into place, where, contrary to all medical theory, they grew back, and are still part of the foot of that no longer young man (1967). A tomato

can was fastened over the foot to protect it while the toes grew back on.

Another instance was of William McCammon who was a young married man at the time. He was thrown from his horse; his foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged for quiet some distance, his scalp was torn from his head until he was almost scalped. Dr. Jeanette sewed it back on and he

was soon as good as new.

The Tippets family lived at the mouth of Three Mile Canyon for a number of years, after which, Alice Jeanette and her family moved into the settlement of Georgetown, (named after George Q. Cannon who had visited there for a time along with President Brigham Young.

During the time they lived in Three Mile she owned and operated a small grocery and clothing store. A school house was also built by these families. The teacher was Jeanette Sorensen (Nettie), who was Jeanette's oldest grandchild.

In the little store, which was in a small log building just a few steps from the house, Jeanette kept dry goods, children's shoes, and always a few buckets of candy. The grandchildren loved to go to the store with Grandma. Most of the customers were relatives and friends living in the vicinity.

In 1889 Dr. Jeanette was persuaded to move into the larger settlement because her help was so often needed and the snow fell to great depth in the winter time. It was, at times, almost impossible to get through the roads. When the snow was deep, four or five men would take teams of horses to open the road, each team taking their turn in the lead to "wallow" the snow, the other horses following to pack the snow so a sleigh could get through.

Loving her work as she did, and having such success, her service was soon much in demand. So she traveled all over the county wherever she was needed.

She took care of hundreds and hundreds of confinement cases during her ministrations of twenty seven years in that locality. The last case she attended was the birth of a great granddaughter born April 20, 1914. She died in October of that same year. Besides confinements she was called upon to treat broken bones, burns, cuts, and in fact, injuries and disease of every kind, until men doctors moved into the larger settlements and relieved her of this kind of work.

August 7, 1902 Alice Jeanette was made president of the Relief Society. At that time it fell to the lot of the "Sisters" of the R.S. to do all kinds of service in the interest of the community, from caring for the sick and needy to preparing the dead for burial, making the burial clothes, etc. After the harvest in the fall the women would go into the grain fields to glean the wheat. The wheat was stored in a small granary which was built on skids so it could be moved to the Relief Society President's home. Many would borrow seed grain in the spring from planting and pay it back in the fall with interest.

A few days before her death she made this statement "I know if my Heavenly Father is pleased with my work, as I have done it, He will take me without my lingering and suffering." A few days later, while she was eating her supper, she fell asleep. She decided she was more sleepy than

hungry and was helped to her bed, where she went to sleep and gently and peacefully passed on. She died as calmly as a baby going to sleep without any sign of sufferinga testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel she believed in.

Sue Prescott Thomsen and Judi Prescott Schuerman visited the Georgetown

Cemetery and took a photo of her tombstone. It is beautiful

Early History of Perry

Published Box Elder News 16 Nov 1911

[The following historical sketch of the early settlement of Perry was written by Mrs. Jeanette Tippets of Georgetown, Bear Lake County, Idaho. Mrs. Tippets was a little girl when some of the early events hereafter enumerated took place, but she remembers them distinctly and feels that the younger generations now growing up are entitled to know something of the early history of this locality, hence she asks the News to give space following which is cheerfully granted—Ed J.]

On the 30th day of April, 1853, the first white man and his family located on Three Mile Creek, in Box Elder County. He was assisted in moving by his son-in-law, Hyrum Pew, who brought one wagon load for him. The little company pitched camp on a dark, rainy night, it being so dark that my father could not find the spot that he had chosen to locate on, one year previously. My father and grandfather came in the year of 1852 to select a claim but owing to sickness in my father’s family, he did not move his family that year, and upon going back south, Grandfather Nokes took a liking to the country around Springville and decided to move his family there which he did, leaving my father to come north alone with his family.

The morning after our arrival, May 1st, dawned clear and bright and we celebrated Mayday by moving to the tract of land father had selected, near a spring. Some ground was also plowed in order that we might raise a little wheat and garden vegetables, and Father went up on the mountain and plowed a ditch leading down from the canyon in order to get water with which to irrigate our land. My father and brother-in-law also cut some stakes which they drove into the ground and made a platform upon which the wagon boxes were placed in order to elevate them out of the reach of the pigs which were running around loose.

The following morning, my brother-in-law started back to Salt Lake City and I recall how lonely we felt as we were the only persons in the place. I had read the story of ‘The Babes in the Woods’, and child like, I began telling my little sisters about it, but my mother hushed me, between her tears, telling me not to talk like that. Mother was afraid of Indians as we had no neighbors closer than a family who resided at what is now the old Wood’s place north Willard, and Kildwalander Owens, who resided to the north of us at what was then the Welsh Settlement. We were father, mother and five little girls and our earthly possessions consisted of a wagon, two yoke of cattle, three cows, one calf, one mare, two large hogs, three small hogs, and eighteen chickens.

The next settlers to come to Perry after my father’s family were Lorenzo Perry and his wife, and William Walker and his sister; they came about three weeks after we did, and remained that summer. They erected a log room near my father’s place, but returned to Farmington to winter, returning on the 28th day of the following March, which was in the year 1854, bringing father Perry’s family with them.

The home that Lorenzo Perry had built and left for the winter was occupied by four men, all of whom were Gentiles. One of them, Thomas Elliot, had been to California and then went back East to get a herd of cattle, engaging the other men to assist him, and they were forced to remain with us over winter, as it was too late to venture on farther. The cattle belonged to Elliot. The other members of the party were a young American whose name I have forgotten, an Irishman, by name Patrick O’Brien, and a Spaniard named Raphael Luteris. They were all very brave men, but kind of disposition and they were ‘armed to the teeth’ as we say. Upon two occasions during the winter, they fought a whole band of Indians and drove them off, both of which attacks were brought upon them through their love of a little fun and their determination to protect their property.

The first occasion was brought about as follows: An Indian came to their cabin door one day and asked for food. The men had made some soup with drop dumplings, like mother used to make, but the finished article was a disappointment in that it burned, soup, dumplings and all. The men could eat very little of their meal, so when the Indian came he was invited to help himself, which he did with apparent relish until his hunger was satisfied, then he made off to leave. There was still some soup in the kettle, and thinking to have a little fun, the men drew their revolvers and commanded him to eat it all, which he did with reluctance, but to their great amusement the entire balance of the day. Next morning a large band of Indians surrounded their cabin and the chief informed the men that one of their number was sick as a result of being compelled to eat so much burned soup the day before, and pay was demanded from the men for treating him thus. They asked for flour, meat and blankets, which the men refused to give them, and after some parlance, the Indians rode off.

The other occasion was when Elliot threshed an Indian for stealing his calves, cutting his face up terribly. A number of calves had disappeared from the herd, so one night Elliot went out and concealed himself near the corral to capture the thief. In the early morning an Indian rode into the herd and threw a lasso around the neck of a fine fat calf and started off on the run. Elliot dodged around among the cattle and caught up to the redskin who had stopped some little distance away to see if the calf was dead. Elliot pounced upon him and began whipping him, applying the lash until the Indian was nearly dead. His face was so terribly cut up that my mother named him Scabnose, a name that clung to him after that. As before, the Indians came next morning and demanded pay but the four men stood out in front of them and gave them to understand that they could not be frightened, neither did they propose to sit quietly by while their stock was being stolen. Thus the incident closed, but mother and we children were nearly frightened to death, and I have never forgotten it.

There were seven persons in grandfather Perry’s family. Lorenzo Perry lived in the house he had lived in the summer before and grandfather Perry lived in the house that was built for Hyrum Perry—he having moved up there during the winter. But he had lost his yoke of oxen and one cow in a day, so he hired out to help Elliot drive his herd of cattle on toward California. He returned in the fall with a man by the name of Louis Sholes who brought in a herd of stock to winter from out near Humbolt. (This Louis Sholes was the engineer who surveyed the railroad from California to Ogden.)

Mr. Sholes boarded with my father that winter and let his stock graze on the bottom land to the west. He made a number of trips to Salt Lake City on horseback and once by team.

In the spring of 1855, Asael Thorn moved into the neighborhood and settled on the claim that was selected by my grandfather Nokes and later by Wm. Tattersall. The fall of the same year the family of Henry Perry, Alonzo Perry and son, and Angus McDonald arrived.

My father sold the north half of his farm to Henry Perry and removed his family to the house that was built for Hyrum Perry. He received for the farm five hundred dollars, two yoke of oxen being taken as part payment and the balance in money. My father and his family lived at this place until 1877, in the month of March.

There were three children born on the creek in the spring of 1854. My sister, Fidelia Sophia Tippets, was born March 28th 1854 and four days later a son was born to a man by the name of Alanson Allen, the family having just moved into their place. In April following, my sister gave birth to a child.

There was a German man living on the creek that winter, who had a flock of sheep which he was bringing from the east to California and stopped to winter with us. There were three other men with him and a woman. (article ends as scanned, may continue elsewhere but no way to search on line at this time)