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A good part of the west side of Cedar's Main Street was left to her after the death of her first husband, David Williams.
Her first home was a brick house near the corner of Main Street and Harding Avenue. Here she lived until she sold the property to accommodate the growing business district. This house had a stone step at the entrance on Main Street. My mother, Sarah and her brother, David, have told of having to get up early, much to their irritation, to scrub this stone step with sand every morning before the town's business got started for the day. The house was later used as a drug store, liquor store or saloon, and the north part of the house was used, at one time, for the first telephone office.
After selling the Main Street house, she moved to a house she owned at the corner of 1st West and Harding avenue, just one block West of her first home. This was a smaller house.
Through the years she sold her Main Street property in sma11 portions, to supplement her income which she earned by dairying on the mountain and support her six children which included John Williams, a son by her first husband.
John, being older, of course, was a great help to his mother and his younger half-brothers and half-sisters, and with his team and wagon, etc., greatly assisted by making the hauls which were necessary in moving back and forth to the mountain and also did a large share of the work of dairying while at the mountain place where they spent their summers.
Sketch by anonymous members of Amelia's family
Due to Grandmother's hospitality and the fact that her mountain house had the largest room of any around, many of the entertainments were held there. Sometimes after a party, beds were made all over the floor for the guests who spent the remainder of the night there. Because young and old were made welcome at her mountain home, her house became known as the Amelia Palace, and even though the house has now almost fallen dawn, it is still known among the stockmen and ranchers as the Amelia Palace.
Her cows were rented from people who lived in the vicinity. For the rental fee she paid 2 lbs. of butter or an equivalent value of cheese per week per cow. If the cows were new and needed breaking, she retained half of the summer's rental fee for the labor of breaking the cows to be milked. According to different people's versions of the story, the number of cows they milked varys. Some say as many as sixty cows, but the number generally accepted by most runs around 40 or 50 head as the most.
Uncle Jode tells of coming to town for the 4th of July celebrations. They would have to get the morning chores done and then come to town on horses, with a roll (2 lbs.) of butter each, to be sold for money to defray the expenses of the days celebration. They had to return in time to help with the evening chores.
While on the mountain, Grandma Webster always carried a knife in her pocket to bleed cattle which had eaten the poison larkspur. One day, while on her way to visit a neighbor who was ill, she crossed the Co-op pasture and a mad bull came after her. She raised her long skirts and flapped her red petticoat and frightened the bull away.
She did alot of work among the sick. She helped Sister Pryor, who had been set apart by the L.D.S. Church authorities to care for the sick. They gathered herbs on the mountain and in the valley to be used for medicine, and by Divine guidance they seemed to know which to use for which type of illness.
One time while coming down the mountain on a load of poles with Joe Smith, his wife Annas, their baby, Emma Daugherity, and Will Pucil who was a son of Daugherity received very severe head injuries. Both of Grandmother's legs were broken, one badly crushed. The Smith baby and young Pucil were tossed by Mrs. Smith and Grandmother from the wagon before it went over, and they were not injured. Grandmother's legs both became infected and the Doctors wanted to amputate but Grandfather Webster refused to allow this. The Elders were called and she was promised that she would recover. Her legs healed and she was able to walk again, but as long as she lived, splinters of bone festered and came out.
During the period of time that her legs were mending, Jode, Frances, Agnes carried on her affairs. After she got on her feet again, she returned to her dairying on the mountain.
Hard work and years took it's toll and Grandmother became ill and was brought to town to stay with Sarah and her husband Owen Matheson while Jode, Frances, and Agnes finished the summers work. Then they took her to her home on first West where she passed away March 6, 1913.
Generations of Websters, Amy L. Van Cott and Allen W. Leigh, Thomas Webster Family Organization, Cedar City, Utah, 1960, pp. 81-83. Minor changes made.
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