Andrew A. Nelson

Andrew A. Nelson

• born August 16, 1889 in Smithfield, Utah
• died July 31, 1979 in Rexburg, Idaho
• his father died when he was 1 1/2 years
• he was very intelligent and graduated from 8th grade early
• he worked primarily as a teacher and also had a farm
• he was known for his ability to tell stories and write poetry

Andrew as a young boy with his mother, Almira Mae and brothers.

Andrew's Eighth grade class, he stand third from the left, his brother Sterling stands  second from the right

Andrew A. Nelson was interviewed by Harold Forbush.  It's rather lengthy but very interesting, you can access that interview here.

LIFE HISTORY OF ANDREW A. NELSON

Andrew Anderson Nelson, the youngest child of David William Nelson and Almira Mae Nelson was born August 16, 1889 at Smithfield, Cache County, Utah in a small log home by an orchard. It was here he spent his first six years frolicking, romping and climbing trees as children do. It was where he grew fond of the land, gardens, berries and orchards.  His father died March 2, 1891 of pneumonia. About 1895 his mother took a job at the Frisco mining camp in Utah and her children accompanied her there. There he trailed through the buildings and roamed the desert

hills gathering pine nuts and roasting them. For him the Frisco mining camp was an exciting and adventurous place.

About 1897 his mother sent him to Rexburg, Idaho where he lived with his grandfather Andrew A. Anderson and his grandmother Mary Smith Anderson in a log home on the corner of first west and first north. He attended the first grade at the old Second Ward Church which was first a school and then later adapted to church use. He was baptized November 3, 1897, in the

West Side Canal north of where he lived. He said, "It was very cold and I ran home all wet and cold about the distance of two city blocks." It was this same canal in which he learned how to swim. His grandfather sold part of the property to the school district and the rock Washington School was built. It was at this school that Andrew graduated from the eighth grade.

During these years of his youth he grew gardens and he often accompanied his grandfather on fishing excursions along the Teton and Snake Rivers. In those days they caught many large fish from the rivers.  During his high school years he also worked on the railroad as one of the section crew. It was long hours and hard work, a muscle building job.  He attended and graduated from high school in 1909 at the rock building on the hill which was later the Ricks College Gym Building and has now been removed and replaced by the Snow Building. The same year that he graduated from high school he took a teaching job at the Archer Grade School about

ten or twelve miles south of Rexburg. There were about eighty students ranging from first to eighth grade. He said, "That was some job!"

About 1910 the log home in Rexburg was moved to the family farm in Burton which is located southwest of Rexburg. Here he planted an orchard and started farming and worked to pay for the farm. He raised sugar beets, onion, grain, hay and had dairy cows, chickens and about forty hives of honeybees. During some of the winters he taught school at Cedar Point and Hibbard.

On May 23, 1922 he married Wilma Vanderwel in the Salt Lake Temple in Utah.  Eleven children were born, six sons and five daughters: Arlene, Lois, Kwenden, Merla, Marvin, Dwain, Zyrl, David, Nylin, Coral and NellJean.  In 1932 Andrew served as a County Commissioner for Madison County.  In 1937 due to the economic depression in the country he lost his farm and moved to a place in Rexburg located at 211 west third south. Here he once again planted an orchard and went back to teaching school at Herbert which was about 12 miles southeast of Rexburg. When the Herbert School closed he worked at the Challenge Creamery in Rexburg. In 1943 he took a teaching job at Canyon Creek Elementary School. That school closed and the next year in 1944 he took a teaching job at the Clementsville School in Teton County. In 1947 he taught school again at Cedar Point. When he taught school for story time he often made up stories instead of reading stories from a book. These stories he created held the students spellbound. He always had a quiet and orderly classroom and taught the students well in

reading, writing and arithmetic. Through the years former students would come and visit him and express their appreciation for how he made them work and learn their lessons well when he was their teacher.

For many summers he worked in the fields with his sons and daughters thinning sugar beets, hoeing and topping them, teaching his children the art of good work and endurance. He would have them check their work and you can be sure there were very few double beets. It was a super thinning job; He also picked potatoes with his children and there was thousands of

potatoes sacked with that crew of farm workers. (thousands of sacks of potatoes He always had some milk cows and chickens and spent a great deal of time gardening - raising many kinds of vegetables, strawberries, raspberries and currents. In his orchard he had red and yellow sweet cherries, plums, pears, and many different varieties of apples. He tried several varieties of peach

and apricot trees but they never produced fruit and would winter kill. There were more than a hundred and fifty trees in his orchard. 

He had teaching jobs in The Church and was very principled in his conduct. During his last years he wrote some poems that reflect the deep and seasoned feelings of his heart and soul. He passed away July 31, 1979 sixteen days before his ninetieth birthday and was laid to rest in the Annis Little Butte Cemetery.

His life spanned the greatest century of progress the world has ever known.  From the time of the horse and carriage (when sixty miles an hour was a fantastic speed and men only dreamed of flying) to the time of modern automobiles, supersonic jets, rockets, satellites in space exploring the planets and man pressing his footprints upon the surface of the moon. In his life

time he saw many new things and changes when folks went from the lantern to the electric light. He saw the dawn of an innumerable array of technical advances to make life easier in the air, upon the seas and on the land.  Radio, television, movies, household appliances and great improvements in agricultural implements and he watched astonished as old things became

valuable antiques. He saw his nation engage in five wars and watched man develop weapons so terrible they now fear to use them.  The forces of nature roll on. The song of the birds in his orchard can still be heard and the wind yet rustles the leaves of his apple trees.  While the corn, tomatoes and cucumbers mature in the summer sun. Yet there is a void - the wrinkled hands wielding the hoe are missing and the snap of the weed roots against its ' sharpened edges will no longer be heard. The hoe now abandoned leans against the lilac bush where he left it and the

shovel silently awaits a fair autumn day and the command of his once strong arms to turn up out of the soil new potatoes, carrots and onions.  He farmed the land himself, he knew the real meaning of living by the sweat of his brow as he walked for miles in Sugar Beet fields behind his

favorite horse, Caesar guiding hand cultivators. He was always enthused about life and enjoyed living amid the hardships and good times. He learned to be content with what he had and only sought the necessities of life. The desire to gain great wealth and acclaim was against his nature. Fruits were his great interest from ripe strawberries and raspberries in early summer to

watermelon on a hot summer day and a well ripened {mellow) apple in the fall.  He had a deep love for his family and others and yearned for the time when mankind would live in peace and treat each other decently in all ways including economic justice and equality. (D&C 70 : 14 and 78:5-6 and Jacob 2: 17-19) He often read and studied and quoted the scriptures with his family. The strength of his testimony and example are yet felt among his posterity.

(Prepared by a son, Nylin B. Nelson ~ June of 1983)

*He was also good with the ax.  He cut down trees and sawed them into stove box lengths.  Then he chopped the wood with precision.  Then carried the wood to the house and it was burned in the stove for heat and cooking.

I love his smile.

My own thoughts:  I didn't know my grandfather well, he died when I was just five years old.  I remember that he would walk around his home and yard bent over and focused.  He lived a full and challenging life.  I think about the different things that faced him, growing up without a father,  living for a time at a mine where his mother worked, then getting sent to live with his grandparents, his mother was gone much of the time, getting her education and then working long hours to support her children.  I think about what he faced after he married,  losing his farm through questionable and probably unfair means, finding his wife in a hospital being neglected and taking her home to nurse her back to health.  He was separated from his family often as he and Wilhelmina taught at different locations to support their own family.  Yet when I see pictures of him I see a light in his eyes and a smile so infectious that I want to curl up next to him and let him tell me the stories that he was so famous for.  I may not have known him well while he was here but my dad had the same light and smile, he had the same precision in all that he did.  I love my dad, so I am pretty sure I would love my grandfather just as much

The following poem is one of Andrew's most familiar poems, it sat in a frame in my front room for as long as I can remember.

AGED LOVE

What if there's silver in my hair

My love is as fresh as the morning air,

Love and my soul are united in one

Reaching out like the light of the rising sun.

What if my body is bent and old

My love is as pure as the purest gold,

Tested and tried by the troubled years

And washed out clean by rivers of tears.

What of my cheek and wrinkled brow

I've all the love that life will allow,

My heart is strong with the love it holds

As beat by beat its joy unfolds.

What if my eyes are dim and weak

The love in my soul is eager to speak,

My life has built me a dynamo

Through which the current of love can flow.

What of my trembling hands and voice

The love in my soul can still rejoice;

It lives forever, Oh, the magic joy

Of the love that grows in an old, old, boy.

Choke Fuller

(Andrew A. Nelson's pen name)