MARY LANETA GALE MCARTHUR
Mary Laneta Gale was born October 19, 1885, in Ogden, Utah, the first child of Hyrum Edwin and Edna Stimpson Gale. She went by the name of Neta all her life.
Neta was a fun-loving girl and enjoyed going to parties. It is said she also had a very sharp tongue, but was quick to ask for forgiveness. She enjoyed sewing and was a good seamstress. She played the mandolin very well. Neta was a hard worker and held jobs in a flower shop and a laundry and dry cleaning business. At one time she worked for Ellison's Cleaners in Ogden.
Her first husband, Frederick George Groves, was the foreman of the Royal Laundry in SaltLake. She was 19 and he was 25 years old when they got married. The ceremony was performed at the Gale family home at 359-30th Street in Ogden on October 4, 1904, by Bishop Datus H. Ensign. A big family party was held for them after the ceremony at home. They moved to SaltLake to start their life together.
Two sons were born of this marriage: Herbert Melvin Groves, born April 26, 1905, and Leslie Gale Groves, born February 9, 1907. It is believed both boys were born in Ogden and delivered by Neta's mother, Edna, who was a midwife. There is no record in the vital statistics of either OgdenCity or in Salt Lake City of either birth.
Because Neta was already married to a non-member of the LDSChurch, she was not included when the Hyrum Gale family went to the SaltLakeLDSTemple to be sealed on November 1, 1905. This work was done for her many years later after she had passed away.
Neta discovered her husband was flirting around with the other women at the laundry and filed for divorce. The divorce was granted final September 12, 1911. Neta moved home with Herb and Les and lived with her parents a couple of years.
She married her second husband, J. David H. Wood, on June 27, 1914. He was a man of small stature and was a painter and paper hanger. The ceremony was performed by John V. Bluth in Ogden. Neta got tired of supporting her husband, who seemed to be always out of work, so she divorced him on November 23, 1915, after less than a year and a half of marriage.
Neta finally met the real love of her life and married James Taylor McArthur on March 27, 1916. He was known as Taylor or "Mac." He was a fireman for the Union Pacific Railroad. They were married by a Justice of the Peace, Casimis J. Welch, in Kansas City, Missouri. Taylor was transferred to Evanston, Wyoming, by the railroad. Two trains had crashed and everyone on the crew was layed off for three months. Taylor went to work at BinghamCanyon and Neta and the boys stayed in Evanston.
On the last day when the three months were to be up, Taylor was planning to end work at 6:00 a.m. At 4:00 a.m. he was asked by a man with a wooden leg to get under a train to fix a brake shoe. He was under the train when about six loose rail cars came rolling down the track and bumped into the car he was under. The train ran right over Taylor, cutting him in half from his right hip to his left shoulder. Les recalls that precisely at 4:00 a.m. his mother woke up screaming and told the kids that something was wrong. The boys thought she had just had a bad dream and quieted her down and got her back into bed. The next day Herb and Les went to school. They came home for lunch and the house was full of railroad officials. They found out that "Mac" had been killed. So the boys had lost another father on November 27, 1917.
Neta and her two sons took an all-night train to Ogden and got there about 7:00 a.m. the next day. They went to the Larkin Mortuary and found Taylor's body hadn't arrived yet. They were told they couldn't see the body until after the morticians had prepared it for viewing. They left for several hours and then went back to view the body. This was very hard emotionally on all of them. The funeral was held on November 30, 1917, and he was buried in the OgdenCityCemetery.
Neta had received a $4,000 settlement from the railroad for Taylor's death. With this money she was able to buy a house at 2586 Quincy Avenue in Ogden for $2,500. The house had an old barn and a fence in the back which they tore down. She owned this house the rest of her life. Herb and Les took the name of McArthur as their last name, never using the name Groves again. There was never any formal adoption.
George Edward Rose became Neta's fourth husband on November 19, 1918. They were married by Bishop J. B. Wheelwright in Ogden. Neta knew George had a drinking problem, but she thought she could reform him. George worked for the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Ogden. Neta worked next door in a flower shop. Shortly after they were married, George got transferred to Seattle with the Singer Company. He went up ahead to get a place to live while Neta made arrangements to rent her home.
George's drinking problem caused a lot of family problems. Neta divorced George Rose on December 3l, 1923. The family returned to the home in Ogden.
Neta dated a lot of men the remainder of her life, but never married again. One steady beau of hers was Harold Staker. They used to go to a lot of dances at the Hermitage in OgdenCanyon.
She was a hard worker at whatever job she was doing, mostly in the dry cleaning business. During the war years in the 1940's she worked for a short while at the Ogden Arsenal. She provided well for her two sons until they got on their own.
Neta had four grandchildren, Robert and Sally from Herb and Marion and Joy from Les, who she enjoyed doting over.
Mary Laneta Gale McArthur died July 18, 1956, at the DeeHospital in Ogden of cancer of the colon. She was 70 years old. Her funeral was held at Lindquist and Sons Mortuary at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 21, 1956. She is buried in the OgdenCityCemetery next to her husband, Taylor McArthur.
SOURCES;
Obituary, Ogden Standard Examiner
Original marriage certificates
Original divorce decree from Fred Groves
Certified copy of death certificate
Leslie G. McArthur (son), personal interview
Eva M. Gale Ogden (sister), personal interview
Written and submitted by Mrs. Joy McArthur Belnap (granddaughter)