PIONEER GATHERINGS Easter Party, held in Moroni Wheeler's Grove April 23, 1916 Extreme back: L-to-R: Roland Wheeler, Jerome Wheeler, Clarence Wheeler, Marie Hutchins(on tree), Wm. J. Smout, Blanche Perry. 2nd Row from back: Joseph Smout, Maude Wheeler, Florence Manning, Almira Bartholomew (sitting), Sam Goss with Raymond Talbot and Nephi Manning on his knees, Stella Knight, Etta Wheeler, Erma Stratton Front row: (sitting on ground) Pearl Rose, June Thompson, Earl Knight, Mrs Ethel W. Talbot. Ammon Bartholomew took picture Front Row: Priscilla Cowan, Ed Webb, Ben Chadwick. Standing: -; Julia Chadwick, _, Mae Cowan, Jane Ann Hudman, Lizzy Cargill Ann Sharp, Sarah Chadwick, Beth Cargill, Rachel Foy -134- surprise of all, President Lorin Farr, Bishop Chauncey W. West, and Apostles John Taylor and Orson Hyde stepped from the coach. The account of this happy incident was to the effect the unexpected visitors were given a cordial ovation. The part these brethren took on the program by urgent request, the diary emphasized, gave added zest and stimulus to the day's activities. After redition of the program, the distinguidhed visitors were given seats at a special table on which food prepared by the good sisters was served. Nothing elaborate such as appears on tables in homes today, but good, clean, substantial food that God in his goodness had so generously provided a grateful people. The afternoon of the celebration was passed in foot racing, horseshoe pitching, ball games, etc, while branch authorities visited with their noted guests, who were compelled by appointment to return to Ogden early in the evening. After evening chores at homes were over, members of the settlement returned to the celebration grounds and danced on the ground by light from candles to music of a violin and banjo until wee hours of the following morning. A history made colorful with events such as this tinted with joys and thrills of romantic adventures, and sorrows, and disappointments our Pioneer Fathers experienced during the colonization and development Slaterville, should be guarded and preserved as a sacred heritage by the generations of our ward who boast with pride relationship to the noble men and women who laid and built on the foundation on which our spiritual and economic structures rest today. Few, if any, changes took place in the social or economic aspects of Slaterville up until 1890 which was the beginning of a decade captioned in history the "Gay '90's." Shortly preceding this period, Eastern centers of population were flooded with the latest song hits, newest dances, and dance music, but stage shows had long been a popular feature of entertainment. By the time the intermountain west was awakened by the surge of Eastern fads, styles, fashions, and various types of intertainments, New York's fun seekers were dancing the hiland fling, rage guadrille, to name a few, and sang such popular songs as "On the Sidewalks of New York," "After the Ball," "Buffalo Girls" or "Coming Down Tonight," "In the Good Old Summertime," and "Coming Through the Rye." In Slaterville the stage show and light drama found fertile soil in which to take root and grow. The value of a dramatic company in a settlement like ours where Church people had in the past given undivided support to projects that united them, many of whom exhibited unusual talent and interesting such an organization was conceived and stressed by Charles Wright, the able, energetic, schoolteacher referred to previously in this history. Mr. Wright who taught here two seasons from the fall of 1889 to the spring of 1891, was instrumental in interesting the younger set, who were past grade school age in supporting such an organization. Reaction of a representative number of residents who attended a meeting Mr. Wright called in the fall of 1889 was favorable to the move, and those present proceeded to organize a dramatic club, which was soon afterward changed in name to dramatic society and still later to -135-