History of
Ernest LeRoy Brough (1885-1918)
and Mima Marshall

Quoted from the 1980 RBFO book:
Samuel Richard Brough, 1857-1947: His History, Ancestors & Descendants
Originally written by Ida Berenice Brough in 1980
Edited by R. Clayton Brough in August 2007

Ernest LeRoy Brough was born on December 13, 1885 in Porterville, Utah, to Samuel Richard Brough and Phoebe Adeline Cherry. Roy was the third son to Samuel Richard Brough, and as he grew up he was a great joy and comfort to his father.

Roy was a good natured boy and loved everyone. He particularly loved all of the Lord's creations, including any kind of animal, and tried to live by the teachings of the Gospel throughout his life.

As a youth, Roy was a fine young man with large blue eyes, brown curly hair, an honest face and a kind eye, and had a straight, strong and well-built body. He loved the outdoors and spent a great deal of time with his father and his two older brothers, Thomas and Jessie, taking care of the chores of a farm. In his dealings with his fellowman, he was always found to be more than fair. He believed in the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and he taught this principal to all his children.

Roy was a happy person and loved to dance. With his limber body and small feet he became well known for his dancing abilities. It was at one of these dances that he met the girl that was to become his wife: Mima Marshall, daughter of Ephraim Marshall and Ida Dotson. She was a pretty young lady and Roy really took to her. The only disappointment he found was that she was beginning to go out with his brother, Tom, and Roy knew that if he was ever going to get to know Mima, he had to learn to "beat Tom's time." So one night in 1909, Roy went to a church "box lunch dinner and dance," where the women fixed a lunch for two and placed it in a beautifully decorated lunch box to be raffled off later in the dance. Roy then spied which lunch box Mima had brought and bid top dollar for it. Of course, the price he paid for Mima's lunch box didn't bother him, since it gave him a chance to be with her. This began their courtship and they were finally married in the Salt Lake City L.D.S. Temple on July 28, 1909.

After Roy married Mima, he purchased a 960 acre ranch of his own on the Black Smith Fork River (which is about five miles out of Lyman, Wyoming) and did quite well. He and Mima fixed up the ranch house that was on the land, which had two rooms--a long room with a kitchen at one end and a small bedroom. Then Roy built a meat house just outside the kitchen door where Mima later hung and stored the meat that he slaughtered for the winter months. In addition, Roy and Mima owned a house in Lyman, Wyoming.

On August 30, 1910, Mima gave birth to Roy's first child and son, Louis LeRoy. As mentioned before, Roy and Mima really enjoyed dancing together and they often went to church dances, where they and other couples would bring their babies and put them to sleep along the wall of the dance floor on coats. However, one evening when Louis was still a baby, they decided to leave him at home, and when they returned from the dance they couldn't find him. They were frantic and feared that perhaps someone had kidnapped Louis. Finally after searching for some time, they heard a faint cry between the bed and the wall where Louis had been sleeping. Sure enough, there was Louis, caught in a blanket which was hanging between the wall and the bed. This event so scared Roy and Mima that they never left Louis alone in the house again until he was older. At the age of four, Louis became Roy's constant companion, with Roy often taking Louis out into the fields on horseback to care for the cattle.

On July 19, 1912, Mima gave birth to their second child, Ida Berenice, who quickly became the apple of her father's eye, as Roy never went on a trip but what he would bring something home for Berenice. She would have probably been spoiled if her father had lived longer. During the next few years, Roy saw two more of his children born: Robert Marshall, born on June 7, 1914; and Veda Mima, born on October 26, 1916.
Roy loved his children and took time to let them know he loved them and never punished them harshly or unwisely. After more children began to come, the ranch house became too small, so Mima and the children would spend the winter months in Roy's house in Lyman. Roy owned a blacksmith's shop in Lyman, and during the cold snowy months, when planting could not be done down on the ranch, he would work in his blacksmith shop. Every spring, Roy planted a large vegetable garden and instructed Louis and Berenice how to take care of it, this way teaching his children the value of work.

Roy was a very hard worker and had one of the largest cattle ranches in the region. The only bad habit he had was that he chewed tobacco whenever he did his slaughtering, and he was not a regular church goer. However, he never failed to see that his wife and family got to church and he was always at church to bless and name his children. In addition, Roy paid a full tithing every month for as long as he lived.

Roy lived to be only 33 years of age, but he lived those 33 years very fully and richly. In the middle of October, 1918, he made a trip by wagon to Carter, Wyoming, to bring back a load of coal for his family for the winter. However, on his way home he ran into a terrible blizzard, and by the time he reached his home he was very wet and cold. Mima had him get into some dry clothes, wrapped him in a blanket, gave him a hot toddy and stuck his feet in the oven. However, it was too late, for he had already gotten the flu and was running a very high fever. The flu was at an epidemic stage at this time and many families were dying from it. His father, mother, Mima's mother and oldest sister, Metta Heder, were all at Roy's house at the time, because Mima and the children had also come down with the flu. The epidemic was so bad that doctors would not even make house calls, and every family had to take care of themselves and their own dead. Roy died from the flu on October 16, 1918 and was buried by his father, Samuel R. Brough, his brother Thomas and brother-in-law, Clyde Bradshaw, on October 19, 1918 in Lyman. (His body was later moved to Ogden, Utah). A few hours following Roy's burial, Mima gave birth to their last child, a girl: Helen Metta, who just like her father, had large blue eyes and brown curly hair.

With the loss of her husband and the birth of their last child within two days of each other, Mima went through a very trying time. However, she knew what she had to do for her young family, and so she rolled up her sleeves and went ahead with life. Louis grew up over night and throughout his 21 years of life was a tremendous help to his mother.

Mima continued to live in Lyman a year after Roy's death. Then she decided that Lyman did not hold much future for her children, so in the latter part of 1919 she sold her husband's ranch, cattle livestock, their home and other major assets, and moved to Evanston, Wyoming where her mother, Ida Marshall Dotson, was living with her sister Metta Heder, who owned the Smith Hotel in Evanston. Mima stayed with her sister at the Smith Hotel until she was able to find a house to rent, thereby giving Louis and Berenice a chance to get started in their new school.

Mima finally moved her family into a small two-story house and remained there for a few years. This gave her and her children a chance to make new friends and for Mima to be able to find a house to buy. She then bought a large two-story house with a basement that belonged to a Mr. Bird, located at 341 Main Street in Evanston, and it was in this house where most of her children's memories began.

Mima took in roomers and boarders, and sewed, ironed and washed in order to be near her children and at the same time provide them with the necessities of life. She also gave piano lessons and saw to it that all her children learned to play a musical instrument. Louis learned to play the saxophone, Berenice the piano, Marshall the trombone, Veda the violin, and Helen sang. Many nights she and her children would gather in the parlor of their home for a musical evening, and since some of the boarders and roomers also played a musical instrument, they really had some exciting and beautiful evenings together. In these early years in Evanston, Mima set one night out of the week for her family to be together and called it a "family night." She did this in her own home long before the L.D.S. Church set it down as a practice, which all families should engage in today.

Mima was an industrious woman and made all her children's clothing from "hand-me-downs. She would take sugar and salt sacks and make the girls' underwear from them. She would also add lace and embroidery to her other remodeled clothing to make it more attractive. Berenice never had a store-bought dress or coat until she was in the eleventh grade in school, yet Mima's children were considered the best-dressed children in Evanston. Many nights Mima would sew all night in order to complete an article for a friend or neighbor, and then cook, wash, iron or whatever else had to be done for her children and boarders during the next day.
As busy as she was, Mima always had time to be close to her Church and her Father in Heaven, and saw to it that her children always got to their church meetings. Louis was very active in scouting and was called to be the Assistant Scout Master. He was a leader and was loved by all who knew him. He later became an Eagle Scout. He went on many of the scout outings and was given an honor for saving a boy's life while on a trip to Jackson Hole Lake in Wyoming.

The large house that Mima and her family lived in gave them many advantages because of the space inside and the large yard that surrounded it. During the time her children lived in the home, it was the largest house in their neighborhood and therefore its size encouraged neighborhood children to often gather for an evening of fun, sports and games. Mima always encouraged her children to bring their friends home. She was a good mother and always took time from her busy schedule to be with her children. She never went to sleep at night until she knew that all of her children were tucked snugly in their beds. Indeed, as Louis and Berenice began to date, they were encouraged by their mother to come into her bedroom and sit on their father's trunk beside the bed and relate their activities to her. She never discouraged any of her children in feeling free to talk with her.

The winters in Evanston were quite severe, but Mima taught her children to work hard, to be responsible for their deeds and actions, and to do whatever they did very well and completely. As they were growing up, Louis and Marshall regularly delivered papers on their bicycles, and when the weather really turned bad, such as during the winter, they delivered these papers in a small wagon, walking the whole route through town. These two boys never missed a single delivery to a customer all the time they had the paper route in Evanston. While living in Evanston, Mima cooked on a large coal stove and did her washing by hand with a hand wringer. Sometimes Louis and Berenice had to stay home from school on wash day to help her. She was finally able to purchase a copper-tub electric washing- machine, and that made things very much easier for her. Louis, Berenice, Marshall, Veda and Helen all remembered very well the tin bath tub that they had to use. It was so cold that hot water had to first be put in the tub just to warm up the tin. Also, their home first had a pot-bellied stove in the dining room that used coal and wood and that was where the children would gather around in the mornings to dress. Finally when the Utah Gas line was brought into Evanston, Mima was able to get gas into her home and she had her stove and furnace changed over to gas. The gas line brought more boarders into Mima's home and Louis got a job with the gas company as a laborer. One young man, Milton Kendall Maynard, was one of Mima's roomers and Louis really liked him. Milton later became one of Mima's sons-in-law, through the hard efforts of Louis.

After Louis graduated from Evanston High School, he got a job working for the Evanston Bank, while Marshall got a part-time job working in a mortuary.

In 1930, Mima moved her family to Ogden, Utah where they could have more advantages. She sold cosmetics and other things to help sustain her family, while Louis worked in a service station, and Berenice worked part time at the J & J Newberry Store in Ogden. A year after they had moved to Ogden, Louis, then 21 years of age, died from a ruptured appendix on June 10, 1931. This was hard on Mima, because she had first lost her husband, and now her oldest son was gone as well. However, she again held to her family and faith in the Gospel and carried on.

After Louis died, Veda went to Los Angeles, California to live with a cousin and to complete her high school education. When Marshall graduated from Ogden High School, he and a boy friend bought an old Model T-Ford car, fixed it up and headed for California. They got just outside of Los Angeles when the car broke down, and for a while they were forced to hike and sleep behind billboards. Fortunately, Marshall had an uncle living in the Los Angeles area, Uncle Fay Marshall, who took care of them for awhile. Eventually Marshall got a job working for Sears Roebuck and Company, after which he worked for Sears for over forty years and became manager of the large Sears store in Inglewood, California.

In the meantime, Mima got a job working in a home in Ogden taking care of a fine old gentleman and it gave her and Helen a place to live and an income besides. Milton and Berenice got married on February 14, 1934, in the Salt Lake Temple and made their home in Ogden, Utah. Berenice then gave birth to two children. While in Ogden, Mima continually worried about Veda and Marshall being in California, so in 1939 she went to California, leaving Helen to stay with Milt and Berenice so Helen could complete her high school education in Ogden.

While in California, Marshall met a fine young lady, Utahna Peterson from Preston, Idaho, and they were married on June 11, 1937 in the Salt Lake Temple. Five children were born into this family.

Veda met a returned missionary, Walter Otto Dorny, and they were married on April 28, 1938 in the Salt Lake Temple. Four children came from this marriage.

When Helen graduated from Ogden High School, she went to Los Angeles to live with her mother. Mima found a position in a home taking care of a man and his son, so she and Helen went there to live. The man was Rudolph Rode and his son was Robert Rode. Mima later married Rudolph, and Helen later married his son, Robert. Rudolph Rode was a fine man and loved Mima and her family very much. He truly became a father to Mima's children, who had missed having a father for so many years.

Helen worked for Sears for awhile in California and then got a fine job working for KHJ Radio Station. After she and Bob were married on August 5, 1942, Bob was called into the Navy during the Second World War and was shipped out on a torpedo boat into the Pacific Ocean. Helen then took a job at North American Defense Plant and did what she could for the war effort. Bob and Helen had three fine children. One of her children was killed in a car accident, which was a real shock to Helen and quite a trial for her, but she kept in mind the example that Mima had set for her and carried on as her mother had. Bob and Helen eventually divorced.

As Berenice, Marshall, Veda and Helen raised their families, they stayed close to their mother, and Mima was blessed with fourteen wonderful grandchildren. All eight of Mima's grandsons served missions for the L.D.S. Church, and all fourteen of her grandchildren were married in the House of the Lord to their companions. In addition, Berenice and Marshall spent considerable time and money throughout their lives doing genealogical research and temple work for their ancestors, with their two younger sisters, Helen and Veda, occasionally assisting them in these endeavors.

Mima lived to be 78 years old and saw many of the fruits of her labors come to pass. She died on July 13, 1965, of a heart attack at Knotts Berry Farm in California, while eating one of their wonderful chicken dinners. She was buried in Ogden, Utah in the Altorest Mortuary between her husband, Roy, and her oldest son, Louis. Since her death another daughter, Helen Metta, has died (on May 30, 1979), as has her second and last son, Robert Marshall (who died on September 8, 1979).

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