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History of Alfred Hezekiah Mitchell

Alfred Hezekiah Mitchell

MITCHELL, ALFRED HEZEKIAH (son of Frederick Augustus Herman Frank Mitchell and Margaret Thompson). Born March 26, 1879, Salt Lake City.

Married Beatrice Carlisle Nov. 19, 1902, Logan, Cache Co., Utah (daughter of John G. Carlisle, pioneer 1855, Wm. S. Godbe company, and Margaret Kewley, who came to Utah Nov. 30, 1856, Edward Martin company, of Logan, Utah). She was born April 13, 1882. Their children: Beatrice b. Sept. 5, 1903; Lavinia b. Sept. 13, 1905; Margaret b. Nov. 3, 1908; Alfred Hezekiah b. June 19, 1911. [others came after this was published] Family home Logan, Utah.

Member of 8^th quorum of elders of Cache stake of Zion; second of 8^th quorum of elders. Barber.

Dennis Lythgoe tells the following as related to him by his mother, Lavinia, Alfred's daughter: Alfred was a strange man--quiet, a tightwad, and sometimes a wife beater. Leo (Lavinia's husband) despised him.

Since Alfred was a hairdresser, Lavinia took the children to him for free haircuts, but he seldom said much during the visits ("Open your eyes!" was about all, says Dennis). He owned a string of salons, but later lost them all due to poor management. For a while during the depression Leo worked in his salons cleaning the floors. Alfred agreed to pay him the amount needed to pay the mortgage (about $35 a month), but after a while he stopped paying it so Leo stopped working there.

He didn't want to spend any of his money on his family, and even refused to buy Lavinia glasses when she needed them. She went for three or four years without them. Dennis attributes some of Lavinia's idiosyncratic behaviors to he upbringing.

Once Alfred came home and found that dinner was not ready. As a punishment for his wife, he told all the children to get their coats on. He was going to take them all to a restaurant--but not Beatrice, his wife. Lavinia was so angry that she refused to go, though all the others went.

Another time Alfred was so angry with Beatrice that he started choking her and might have killed her had not one of his sons pulled him off in time.

Uncle Tom contributes the following: At 14 he ran away from home and didn't come back for six years. His parents had put him on a farm, and he didn't like that. His father may have been mean to him. While away he worked in mines and learned to be a barber. He was found in Oregon by some missionaries who told him "Your mother misses you." He went back to Logan, where he met Beatrice Carlisle. He told her, "If you don't marry me, I'll kill myself." His parents cut him out of their will.