https://thetrekplanner.com/kiz-ghost-town-utah/Lydia Kiziah Dimick Succumbs Wednesday - Mrs. Lydia Kiziah Dimick, 74, widow of Ephraim Joseph Dimick died Wednesday afternoon at the home of her daughter, Mrs. P J Ledger of Consumers. Mrs. Dimick was born June 13 1861, at Spanish Fork a daughter of Orlando F Mead and Lydia Presley Mead. Funeral arrangements will be announced by the Wallace mortuary.
She is survived by the following sons and daughters; Ira Dimick, Mohrland; Ruben Dimick, Wattis; F J Dimick, Sunnyside; E A Dimick Grand Junction; A P Dimick, Kiz; Mrs. Abbie Pollock, Price; Mrs. J. E. Paschal, Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Ledger, Consumers; Albert Dimick, Salt Lake City; George Dimick, Alberta, Canada and Mrs. John Higginson, Standardville. Also surviving are 43 grandchildren and 20 great great grandchildren.
The Life Story of Lydia Keziah Mead, known as "Kiz."Lydia Keziah Mead was the fifth daughter born to Orlando Fish Mead and Lydia Aby Presley. She was born June 13, 1861 in Spanish Fork, Utah. She must have favored her mother because she was given her mother's name, and none of her other sisters, either the four born before or the four born after her were christened with a part of their mother's name as Lydia Keziah was.
Lydia Keziah was favored, as are we, with a rich heritage. Her father heard about Mormonism in the East and he knew it was true. At the young age of fifteen he was baptized after being taught in January 1838. A few years later he joined the Mormon Battalion, and on July 16, 1846, he marched with the Battalion to Fort Leavenworth. He left August 13th of that year on that famous march westward.
One year, to the day later, he was honorably discharged at Los Angeles, California. He left Los Angeles and traveled to San Francisco where he worked as a shoemaker for Francis A Hammond. Francis later joined the church having been taught the principles of the gospel both in word and example from Orlando. In July of 1848, Orlando left California with a company of Mormons.
They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in October of that year. Orlando made his home in the Salt Lake Cottonwood area and on January 27, 1853, he married Lydia Aby Presley. Four years and two daughters later, Lydia Aby entered the waters of baptism and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A year later, on March 17, 1858, she took out her endowments in the Temple, and she and Orlando were married and sealed to one another for eternity.
They left the Salt Lake area and moved to Spanish Fork before Lydia Keziah was born. Lydia was a happy child. She loved her family, and she loved the gospel. Always did she seem to "just know" that Jesus was the Savior and her Elder Brother, and that he loved her very much. Lydia grew as young girls do, and lived and loved and completed her education in the Spanish Fork, Lake Shore area.
As a teenager, she procured a job from Ephraim Dimick. He was a widower with five young children. Lydia hired out to be his housekeeper. Being a loving, caring, kind, feeling young girl that she was, it didn't take her long to fall in love with his children. Lydia loved his children; Ephraim knew that. Besides--she was a hard-working, bright girl and his children needed a mother; and he needed a woman in the house.
His youngest child, little Alice was just two when her mother died and his oldest son, George Washington, was eleven. Yes, a mother was just what was need to make their house a home again. And so, on April 27, 1881, a nineteen-year-old Lydia married forty-seven-year-old Ephraim and became an instant mother to fifteen-year-old George Washington; thirteen-year-old Albert; eight-year-old David; seven-year-old Thomas; and six-year-old Alice.
It could not have been an easy assignment and stewardship Lydia had just undertaken. I wonder if her parents didn't have very mixed emotions about her marrying a man so much older than herself--in fact, he was old enough to be her father; and young George Washington was just four years her junior, but their marriage had been solemnized in the Temple of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, so Lydia knew it would work.
These children needed a mother. It had been exactly four years and two days since their mother died that Lydia became the second wife of Ephraim. Lydia began her married life with Ephraim in his home in Spanish Fork. One year later, on their first anniversary, Lydia at age twenty, gave birth to her first child; a son whom they named Orson Orlando--Orlando, after her beloved father.
Lydia gave birth to two more sons, Ira Ephraim--Ephraim after husband, born 7 November 1883; and Reuben Presly--Presley after her mother, born 8 September 1885.Then Ephraim moved his family from the Spanish Fork area to the Price area. Lydia must have had mixed emotions about leaving and moving away from her parents; what with three babies in three years plus five half-grown or nearly-grown children to care for. But move they did, and on May 31, 1887, Lydia's fourth son, Francis Joseph was born in a dug out along the Price River west and south of the old Peterson Cemetery.
Ephraim and Lydia lived her during the summer, During the winters they moved into Wellington where the children went to school. Their cabin in Wellington was said to have the "nicest" roof on it for miles around. This was an important factor, too; for long, cold snowy winters and Heavy spring rains were common in this area. Six babies were born to Lydia in Wellington. There were three sons and three daughters.
Sylvan Lorenzo was born May 30, 1889 and Abbie Keziah made her appearance on 16 July 1892. Oh, how Lydia's heart must have rejoiced. After giving birth to five big, strapping sons, Lydia now held a tiny baby daughter against her bosom, next to her heart. She gave her the name Abbie Keziah, Abbie after her beloved mother and Keziah after her own name. Earl Avon was born on 2 December 1894 and Aaron Plyn on 24 January 1896.
Then on 24 February 1898, Lydia's second baby daughter Zina Arilla was born. Her heart again rejoiced with the thought--two little girls. They will be such good friends; two little girls to grow up together. Two years to the month later, on 14 February 1900, Lydia's tenth child and third baby daughter, Eva Fern, was born. Oh, how she loved this baby. She had brought such a special joy and sweetness with her.
In the summer of that same year, Ephraim saw fit to m ove his family to Sunnyside. Sunnyside was a new town--a coal mining town. There weren't many house there yet, mostly tents, so Ephraim and his family grew with the town. The older boys attended school for a short time, but were soon taken out to go to work in No. 1 mine for 12 1/2 cents an hour, which was $1.00 for eight hours. The boys brought their paychecks home.
Times were hard and conditions were not the best for expecting and birthing mothers. No one knew this better than Lydia did. Being the type of person that she was, when she saw a job needing doing, she simply rolled up her sleeves and did it. She had such a deep love and genuine concern for those around her; especially new and expecting mothers. Too many babies were dying because the mother didn't have any help with the birth or sanitary conditions.
When she started, we are not sure, but start she did, and before long, she was delivering babies. Whenever anyone was in need, they knew they could rely on Lydia Keziah. How she ever kept up with it all is a miracle at best, what with ten children of her own, and several grandchildren and she had not lived forty years yet.Then tragedy struck. He darling, beloved baby daughter died. She was barely six months old--so little to lay ever so gently and lovingly in that rough, pine box never to see again on this earth or to hold against her empty breast. How did Lydia Keziah stand it? I;m sure she asked herself that question more than once; but stand it she did, because she knew her Savior, and she knew that he beloved father who had gone on three years before, was there to greet her beloved Eva Fern.
No one knows the tearing within of a mother's heart until she, too, buries a child! When Lydia Keziah became known as "Kiz" we are not sure, but "Kiz" she was to all her patients and to all who knew and loved her. Her grandchildren still refer to her as "Grandma Kiz" as do others who knew her well. Sadness came into Kiz's life again. It was 1905, and in the space of twenty-three days, two of her sisters died.
These were hard days for Kiz. Her eleventh child and fourth daughter was not quite two when her sister, Francis Idona died. Then just three weeks later, her beloved sister, Emely Jane passed away. Their life was to change again. In 1906, Ephraim move Kiz and his family to the ranch. His son, Orson, and son-in-law, John Higginson, had settled the abandoned ranch in June of that year.
A man named Clark originally owned the ranch which was well stocked with horses and cattle. There were also stables, granaries and a blacksmith shop on his place. Rumor tells it that he sold the place for $75,000. The Clark ownership antedated 1898. In that year a man named Fausett owned the ranch and stocked it with a large band of horses. Then a drout came, water was scarce, and the fields were again covered with brush, until Ephraim's son, Orson, and John Higginson settled the land.
Ephraim and Nephi Perkings and others joined Orson and Higginson taking possession of the land under "squatter's rights" The sheepmen came into the valley and used the fertile grasing lands.This valley was "Their" new home. Again, Kiz and Ephraim grew with the valley. The first school was started in the fall of 1924, and in 1926, the valley was populated enough that they requested their own post office.
The name proposed for the Post Office, and thus the name of the town and valley would be given was "Kiz", in honor of Lydia Keziah, or "Aunt Kiz". The first mail left the Kiz Post Office on November 2 of that year and the community of Kiz came into being. . .but. . .Life at the ranch was not that easy. Kiz's family lived on the "ranch" during the warm months when the ground could be worked.
Then, when the frost set on the pumpkins, they moved back into the town of Sunnyside so the younger children could get their book learning, too. Ranch life was hard, but through hard work and much determination and perseverance, they were able to scratch out a living and they lived as well as most. Kiz would say, "We are all poor together." As the years passed so the children grew and one by one they left the nest. A part of Kiz left with each one of them.
Her whole life had been given in service to her God and to her family and to her fellowmen. She could hardly stand seeing the empty places on the floor at night where each child's bed had once lain. Her fame had traveled from Wellington to Sunnyside to the ranch in Clarks Valley and back again. She was gone several days at a time delivering babies and giving help when needed. Why was she delivering babies while she was still having her own babies?
That was not an easy job within and of itself. Finally, the doctor approached her and asked her if she would consider working for him. This would give her an income to ease her own family's burdens, and maybe compensate, in part, for the much needed service she was forever rendering. Kiz agreed. Kiz regularly traveled from Clarks Valley either by horse or team and wagon to Wellington or Sunnyside or Price to deliver babies. She would go wherever anyone needed her, whatever hour of the day or night.
It is told by Grant Powell of her; "One time during the bad flu epidemic I was real sick and needed medicine. The medicine was in Price and I lived six miles away in Wellington and had not way to get it.
When KIz found out that I needed the medicine, she simply bundled up and walked the six miles to Price to get the medicine for me." Kiz was in her late fifties at the time.It was told of her by others that during the bad flu epidemic of 1918, that Kiz would carry water and food to all who were sick, never stopping to think of herself or her own great weariness. Lydia Keziah Mead Dimick, Great Grandma Kiz. Oh, how I, as her great granddaughter love her! Even though, I have never known her in the flesh, I know her, and I know her well. I am told that she was a small woman in frame until her later years and she had brown hair and the kindest face. She was "An Angel of a Woman", soft-spoken, loving, tender, patient and kind and good.
She was a woman of great faith, and she was humble, and meek, teachable and very courageous. She was hardworking, and resourceful, determined and long suffering. She was sweet and very fair and concerned about others. Her perseverance helped her to endure to the end and she was a true picture of a virtuous, charitable handmaiden of the Lord. She will be well known by her posterity as a "savior" amongst her own.
She gave of herself and when she grew weary, she simply gave some more. She knew the meaning of the words "to be lost in the service of your fellowman." Twenty-one children call her Mother, and countless others know and love her as Grandma, great-grandma and great great grandma. In her later years after all her children but her youngest daughter Lucy Roberta were grown and married, she left Ephraim in Sunnyside.
She and Roberta relocated to Salt Lake where they took a small, upstairs apartment just north of the Temple. A story is related of Kiz's great wit. "One day one of Birdie's (Roberta's) boyfriends came to see her. Kiz introduced her fellow to a third guest like this' 'Arilla, this is Mr. Bum. . ' Mr. Bum corrected her, saying, 'No, Mam' it's no Mr. Bum, it's Mr. Rump.'
Kiz went on, 'Oh, that's okay, it's in the same place.'"
Kiz died of cancer on July 31, 1935, and was buried in Price, Utah. The doctor marvelled at her passing that one so full of cancer and using no medication for pain, died such a peaceful death.Kiz apparently felt no pain from the cancer eating away within her. Thirty years earlier, she had undergone uterine surgery, or a hysterectomy, because of cancer. The cancer had returned and crept throughout her body, but she who had given her life in complete service to others, felt no pain in her cancer-ridden body.
Death was sweet for her. Just before dying, she raised up on her pillow, looked up and said, "Father, haven't you got that bridge built yet?" I wonder how many hundreds greeted her on the other side of the veil? For she had given those last years of her life in Salt Lake to her kindred dead in searching out their genealogy and then going herself to the Temple and doing their ordinance work and sealing for them. Yes. . .she cared. Every fiber of her mortal body cared, and it is my testimony that she still cares and her spirit is as vibrant and pure now as she was as she lived in the flesh on this earth.
FamilySearch.org.
https://i.postimg.cc/gj1QTmrF/Kiz.png![]()
i]I stumbled onto "Kiz" while viewing the video [BigRigSteve - Price, Utah East on US 6 & Interstate 70, then checking the location on Google Earth encountered a listing for Kiz Cemetery.[/i]
