History of Mapleton Home

 History of Mapleton Home

Some of this information comes from Janis Angus, the daughter of Boyd and Melvina Johnson; the rest are memories of Cheryl Merrick July 2013 (dates are not exact)

Janis was ten years old when her grandfather, Joseph William (wife Mary Alice) Gividen, sold the 40 acres across the road to Harrisons and Stevens. (the whole block on the east side of 300 West over to main street in 1930's 1940's) It was becoming too much for him to care for. The land was in berries of many types; raspberries, strawberries, etc. and fruit trees of all kinds especially cherries and apricots. They had a packing shed where the Bushnel home is now (the house on the other side of the duplex). They packed peaches and sent them out on the railroad. Workers were brought in from Springville.

The daughter of the Harrisons, Thomas and Agnus, was Colleen. She and Janis were friends. Janis was the only person they would allow Colleen to play with. They would play dolls under the trees and had many fun times together. They put cherries, peaches and pears in bottles to make fruit cocktail.

The Harrisons and Stevens bought the property together. This was in 1943. Howard Stevens was a supervisor at a mine in Castle Gate, Utah. (I believe the Harrisons were also from that area and may have worked in the coal mine there. After a mine explosion, Castle Gate was abandoned in 1972 and is now a ghost town). Howard married the sister of the Harrisons (not sure if sister of wife or husband). Her name was Mary. They had two children Lou Ann, who was a very quiet person, and a son. On weekends and as he could, Howard worked on building their house. About 1947 they moved into the home in Mapleton.

Mary had a bad heart and Howard tried to make things easier for her. He made room upstairs for the washer in the area over the stairs, so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs to do laundry. He did the ironing for the family and tried to help all he could. After the children were grown (I believe) Mary died. Howard remarried. Stella was a very kind person. I knew her when she was in her sixties. She said that the Harrisons never approved of their marriage or accepted her (also the Gividens and Johnson’s?) It may have been because Howard remarried, but mainly because she was a divorced woman. Stella said that she married very young and he left her (I believe), anyway she was very unhappy in her first marriage.

On Julene’s birthday, July 15, 1976, we looked at Howard and Stella’s Stevens’ home which was for sale in Mapleton. We had been driving around Mapleton for a couple of years and knew we wanted to live here. It just felt like home. We had bought some land on Main Street in 1974 up on the hill. The land had a beautiful view of the valley, but since it had no water or utilities (just a dirt road) we hadn’t been able to build. (still can’t)

When we saw the Stevens’s home there was a strong feeling that this was our home. So when we looked at the home and Garrett suddenly said, “We’ll take it”; it just felt right. Howard told us that there were six people ahead of us who wanted the house. We knew that this was the place for us. Six weeks later, on our fourth wedding anniversary (August 23, 1976, we moved in.

The house was thirty years old then, and we have now lived here for 37 years. Julene was just three and David turned two a couple of weeks after we moved in. Almost everything we had fit into the kitchen. The kids ran around the house in snow boots for a few days. Ken helped us move and then they moved into our trailer in Provo. It was wonderful to be in a home after four years in a ten foot wide trailer!

Howard and Stella Stevens moved into the south side of the duplex which they had built to the north of the house. A few months later they left on a mission. When they returned, they served as temple workers at the Provo temple. They moved to Provo when Laura was one to be nearer to the temple. (1981) I also think it was hard for them to watch us in their old home. They each had ideas of how they wanted the home and yard and wanted us to fulfill their dreams (from him, “You can cut down those trees. She just wanted them to shield from the traffic, but they shade the garden; From her, “You can put up some pretty wall paper” etc) It was a bit of a strain for all of us, but they were very kind to us and our children. Howard was seventy years older than David and lived into his nineties. Stella was several years younger than Howard. She was quite deaf, but had hearing aids and did well. Their granddaughter and her husband and twin girls lived in the duplex for a couple of years before the Stevens sold it.

Howard still had a sheep shed and sheep grazing behind our yard for several years after we moved in. Later, her sold this land to Glen Calder. At first we tried to do things their way, even making apple juice with a pole from the sheep shed (What a mess!!!) and trying to can all the fruit, but we quickly realized that I neither had the health, time, or inclination for all the canning their little “farm” required. They had many trees: plumcot, apricot, apple, 2 cherry, 2 pear, peach, pecan (still here), walnut (still here), elms, birch, 2 maple (still here), cedar, and large honey locust, and Mountain Ash tree (had orange berries). There was a fence behind the small grass yard even with the walnut tree which separated the garden area. In the garden were raspberries, gooseberries, grapes (concord and green) and most of the fruit trees. The Cherry and peach trees were on the north side by the driveway. There was also an old wild rose bush, rose bushes, a French lilac bush, peonies, iris, hen and chicks (little rubbery plants), large red tulips and a few of other colors, snow ball bush, yellow forsythia, wild Geranium (still here), periwinkle (still here), and other flowers. There was Boston Ivy on the house (still here), but they kept it pruned back to just the few feet by the back door. The was a small grass yard in the back with a small patio by the house and grass out front. There was a root cellar in the middle of the backyard just after you went through the gate into the garden area. It had a heavy sheet metal door (scary place with spiders and tunnels for mice into it). There was a cedar tree by the cellar and grape vines. On the south there was a juniper hedge on and several evergreen bushes and trees around the house (removed all of them).

The basement was fairly finished. When we took out the old acoustic ceiling and paneling this month (July 2013 started remodeling the basement) we discovered that the Stevens had once wallpapered the family room walls and ceiling with a floral paper. Once they also had a door between the family room (south room) and the room to the west of the furnace. They had dug out the basement after they built the house and didn’t do it all at once. Part of it had been used as a coal bin (pantry or fruit room under the stairs), and the duct work had been set up for a coal system. The walls were later paneled with nice mahogany paneling and they covered the family room ceiling with acoustic tiles. There was a wood burning Franklin Stove in the family room on a tile base, and old brown linoleum on the floor. In 1986 we painted the hall and bedroom floors blue, then a few years later we painted all the downstairs floor green. There were old wool carpets downstairs which we got rid of after they got wet and smelled dirty and of coal dust. They were going to make the basement into a small apartment (bedroom, bathroom, storage room, kitchenette living area on the north of the basement) with the south part of it as a family room for them, but it didn’t work out (had to have a separate heating system), so they built the duplex next door. Howard repaired TV’s and had a small shop in the large closet on the west end in the family room. They had a fruit room under the stairs (pantry). They put in an dropped acoustical ceiling in the apartment section of the basement and drywall ceiling in the large north room. For a short time Garrett used this room as a shop. When Julene and David were small (only a couple of years after we moved in), we put the north stairs in and divided this large room in two as bedrooms one for Julene and one for David. We are now removing all the old paneling and drywall. We will plaster the walls in pastel colors and put white tile on the floor and bathroom walls.

The attic had very steep stairs. Stella did oil painting and painted in the attic and they stored winter coats there. Only a small part of the north of the attic by the stairs had floor. The rest of the area was open old gray rock wool insulation. We put in the floor after a few years. In 2002 we put in the new insulation. Shortly after we moved in Garrett took out the steep attic stairs which went through the northwest bedroom and put in safer stairs to the attic with a landing.

The kitchen had old blue linoleum on the counters, contact paper on the walls by the counters and by the stove area which looked like blue and white Holand tiles, white cabinets, a big double sink, and a large white stove by the chimney. We replaced the old contact paper with strawberry contact paper right after we moved in then with wallpaper in 1979. In 2012 Garrett painted the kitchen drawers and put in stainless steal bottoms and took out the old counter (we had put in Formica counters. )The floor was brown vinyl flooring in the kitchen, hall and bathroom and pea green acrylic carpet in the living room. Later, we found out that all the upstairs had solid oak flooring which we sanded and finished the oak floor in 1992. The Stevens just thought it was old wood and didn’t like it. My step-father, Lew Pearson, gave us new carpeting to carpet the bedrooms and hall. Julene and David shared the west bedroom for a short time then David moved into the family room. The hardware in the kitchen and bathroom was silver colored. We put the oak frame in the front window shortly after we moved in to keep the kids from running into the large low picture window. In 2003 we put in air conditioning.

There was gray wallpaper in the livingroom (made to look like paneling) and beige wallpaper in the bedroom. The other upstairs bedroom was used by Stella’s mother for several years while they took care of her. There was a bedroom closet where we put stairs into the attic. The mother lived to be about ninety. The only stairs to the basement were by the back door. The Stevens had a large chest freezer in the laundry room and had walled off the upper laundry area which we later removed. They left the yellow (blond wood) cabinet, an old gold recliner, and a small beige love seat for us.

There was an old garage where the Stevens lived while they built the house. It leaned a little. Later, we used the good wood in it and made it into a shed. Garrett put in the porch railing which he made in a BYU class. We cemented in the space outside the family room windows by the sidewalk. In 2012 (after our 18 year old cat, Misty, died) we enclosed the front porch making it into a office area. We were on a septic system. The tank was under the ground by the back door. Garrett put in a washer drain line a few years after we moved in. In 1997 we connected to the sewer system

There was a cement driveway on the north of the house. We added the wider part on the West. We put in a drive around cement driveway in the back of the house in 2000. In 2001 Garrett, David and Dan helped re-roof the house. In 2009 Garrett and David built the garage. In 2010 Garrett made a paver patio under the Walnut tree and a larger one under the pecan tree.

1200 North was just a gravel road with a ditch and large Cottonwood trees growing along it. Main Street was just dirt . I often took Julene and David to ride down a little dirt hill there in their red wagon. 1200 N did not go to the highway (just a little past the red church). There were two churches in town; the White Church and the Red Church. At first we went to the White church. There was one school - Mapleton Elementary which was less than half the size it is now. There was a bank and small grocery store in Mapleton and one park (the old one by the white church).There was a small take out chicken place in Springville, an A&W Drive-in where we went for Root Beer floats, an Allens pharmacy and cleaners, a Happy Service Market, and very little traffic.

We have enjoyed raising our children in this home and are now about the age the Stevens were when they sold this home to us.