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Show RACHEL PILLING TO CELEBRATE BIRTHDAY DUCHESNE - Mis. Rachel Ann Pilling will observe her 85th birthday here at an open house social at her home from 2 . to 4 p. m. April 7. She is believed to be Duchesne's Du-chesne's eldest woman. Duchesne Du-chesne has been her home for 4$ year. She was born April 7, 1876 at Joseph, Sevier Co. , Utah, the first of the 11 sons and daughters dau-ghters of William and Annie Rhoades Hadden. f ' When she was about 14 years of age, the family moved to Emery Co. on the Huntington , River. ( Here she married Wil- J Ham James Powell in 1892 and moved to Deseret Lake. In 1903, they movedto Emmett, Idaho, where Mr. Powell died while building a canal from the Snake River to Millner, Idaho. Soon afterwards, after-wards, she moved her family back to Utah; and in 1905, they moved to the Uintah Indian Reservation, Re-servation, coming by way of Nine Mile, settling on Indian Bench near Ft. Duchesne. For an income to support her family fa-mily of four children, she did laundry for the hospital and the officers at Ft. Duchesne. In 1905, she married John Pilling at Vernal. They moved to Hanna on a homestead she had filed on. She drove a wagon, wa-gon, in line with another driven by her husband,, from Ft. Duchesne Du-chesne to Hanna, passing through Duchesne (then just a city of tents and log cabins), having to ford both the Strawberry and Duchesne Rivers. That summer, she was the only white woman at Hanna. An Indian lady, named Josie, lived nearby. The Pilling family lived in a tent that sum- mer. Mrs. Pilling and the children helped her husband clear enough land for a large garden and potato patch, build a ditch and start a log house. That fall, they moved back to Deseret Lake for the winter, where her fifth child was born. They returned to Hanna in the late spring of 1906. They cleared clear-ed the rest of the homestead of sagebrush, built a good home and made one of the best farms in the area. Mr. Pilling died in 1929. Mrs. Pilling keeps house for herself and a son, Elbert. She is active for her 90 years, and is enjoying good health. Her three sons are Elbert ,and C. Dean Powell, Duchesne; Roy Pilling, Salt Lake City; two daughters, Mrs. Earl (Nettie), Jensen and Mrs. Claude (Stella) Davis, deceased. Mrs. Pilling has six grandchildren grand-children and 17 great grandchildren. |