From The Past

A Look Back From
Charles Mabey

Quote from Charles R. Mabey, former mayor of Bountiful and Governor of Utah, recalling the Bountiful parades of the 1880s and 1890s.

We had no automobiles, our roads were dusty beyond belief, the vehicles were mostly lumber wagons without springs. But when, on Pioneer Day for instance, we gathered into a procession several miles long, wains adorned with products of the farm, fruits and vegetables hung in festoons from the bows of the open white top, draft animals blazing with flags, old buggies that had come all the way across the Plains, bedecked with sage brush and heirlooms, members of the Nauvoo Legion dragging our one rusty cannon after them, the band playing and the people shouting their joyous approval, it was a never-to be forotten sight. Some of us have seen the pomp and circumstance of this and the Old World, kings and emperors on display before their subjects, huge parades in which literally hundreds of thousands participated, but not one of them has left as deep a mark on the memory as these simple ceremonies of an almost forgotten day. Some may decry the use of pageantry as being for paganistic and simpleminded folk; but you show me a community that honors the deeds of its forbears and pays tribute to the ideals for which they stood and I will show you a community whose future is safe and whose people are sane.
Submitted by his grandson, Ralph R. Mabey, June 2011