Clara Margaret Soderborg
From autobiographical handwritten text
Daughter of Andreas P. Soderborg and Augusta Caroline Johnson Soderborg. Born March 12, 1883 in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was the eighth child in a family of eleven children, four boys and seven girls. Educated in public schools in Salt Lake City. My father died July 12, 1890 when I was seven years old. So I had to go to work as soon as I was old enough to help mother financially. Mother was a practical nurse. She went out on confinement cases with Dr. Wilcox as doctor. He got her as many cases as she was able to take care of. There were many women whom Mother nursed when each of their children were born.
I worked in the different organizations of the church in many capacities. When I was seventeen years old I began to work in the Junior Sunday School which I continued to do till I married which was when I was thirty seven years old. In the mean time, I worked in MIA first as a teacher, then as secretary, counselor and president. I was married January 19, 1921 in the Salt Lake Temple. After I married, I worked in Primary first as a teacher, then as counselor and president.
I was married to Carl A. Carlson on January 19, 1921 in the Temple at noon. At one o’clock we left for California on our wedding tour which was my first trip to California, but we went there many times after that. After we boarded the train, we went out on the back platform to wave goodbye to Frank and Ida who gave us a box of candy and a shower of rice. We had a nice trip down through the Feather River Canyon which is beautiful. We landed on Oakland and crossed the bay to San Francisco and down to Los Angeles. We went to the Clift House in San Francisco where I saw the ocean for the first time. It was marvelous to me. We went to Golden Gate Park which takes several days to go through. Then we went down to the beach to watch the big waves roll in, which was fascinating to me. We went to the Clift House to see the whales and sea lions on the big rocks in the ocean jumping in and out of the ocean. Then we went to Los Angeles to visit my husband’s children. Most of them were living down there and his sister and family were living there so we had many nice visits with them. We went to Catalina Island and went out on the ocean in a glass bottom boat where we could see the bottom of the ocean, beautiful sea vegetation, very colorful, also many different kinds of fish. We saw flying fish fly out of the ocean, fly around and back into the ocean. Then we went to San Diego where on of his daughters lived and visited with them, then we went across the border into Mexico for an hour or so. Then we went to the Zoo which is one of the largest zoos in the world. Then back to Los Angeles and home. It was a very lovely and interesting trip.
My husband had five of his first family home when we were married. Eva (17), Art (15), Marvin (13), Ray (11) and Kenneth (9). My mother died about a year before this and I was glad to get into a family. I had been very lonesome living alone. His first wife died a year before and they had two or three different housekeepers and when I came to live with them the youngest boy said “are you going to stay and live with us all the time now?” and I said “I sure am” and he said “I am sure glad” and we were glad to be together.
We were married nearly four years before our daughter was born and I was the happiest girl in the world when I first knew I was going to have a baby of my own. She was an answer to my prayers and she has been the joy of my life ever since. All of the other children loved her and we all lived happily together. When she was four years old, I was called to be President of the Twenty Second Ward Relief Society. When she was nine years old my husband and I were called to be Temple Ordinance Workers in the Salt Lake Temple, which made us very happy. We worked there for ten years from 1933 to 1943/ These were the depression years. Many people were out of work so they came to the temple. We had large sessions every day and we worked three days every week. My husband worked on Saturday also doing baptisms for the dead until he was not able to come any more because he had diabetes for five years and died on October 4, 1948. These were the days when the President of the Salt Lake Temple was President George F. Richards who was also President of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were working there when President Steven L. Chipman was president also. When my husband died, Margaret was married and had a baby boy one year and a half old whose name was David Perry Bradley. Then I came to live with Margaret and her family.