Circle of Sisters

James L. Davis

In he circle of sisters humor can always be found. Sometimes the humor lurks just beneath the surface in quiet conversation, sometimes it bubbles up in a soft laugh and sometimes it explodes in an uncontrollable bout of the giggles.

It has always been that way for the 10 daughters of Jesse and Edna Sitterud. “Our mother would say ‘oh you girls,’” said Sue Johnson, one of the nine sisters gathered in a circle for their weekly lunch.

“Nobody can laugh longer or louder than we can,” Karen Barton added with just a hint of pride and a large helping of love in her voice.

Within minutes of the sisters taking their seat on sister Selma Tuttle’s patio, the conversations start swirling here and there. If one sister isn’t directly involved in a conversation she seems to have the ability to pay attention to several conversations at once, throwing in a comment here, making a correction to a conversation there. For those unaccustomed to riding the wave of conversations it can be a little difficult to follow.

“You may not be able to keep us quiet long enough to interview us,” said Connie Jones as conversations expanded between multiple sisters.

Every week for the past 25 years or more the sisters have gathered to have lunch together, enjoy each others’ company, laugh, and talk of their individual families, which have grown to include children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The gatherings started when they realized that with children and families of their own they couldn’t keep track of what the other sister was doing.

“We decided to meet every Monday and those that could make it could and those that couldn’t couldn’t,” said Colleen Defriez.

The 10 daughters of Jesse and Edna Sitterud include: Colleen Defriez, Connie Jones, Karen Barton, Sue Johnson, Sally Ryan, Selma Tuttle, Phyllis May, Ruth Cox, Bessie McCarthur and Velda Crumpley. With them is their sister-in-law Donna Sitterud, a sister by marriage but a sister just the same. The 10 sisters have four brothers, Lavar, Raymond, Neldon and Mack Sitterud. Two other Sitterud children died at birth. As the sisters sit and talk they explain that in September of last year the brothers and sisters and their families gathered for a family reunion at the Orangeville first and second ward church. At that time all of the siblings were living and the church was overflowing with the descendants of their parents. Of the 600 descendants of Jesse and Edna Sitterud, roughly 500 of them made it to the reunion.

Since the reunion last fall two of the Sitterud siblings have passed away, Bessie McCarthur and Lavar Sitterud. The family has also lost a sister-in-law in the past year, Lola Anderson Sitterud.
During their weekly luncheons they spend the majority of their time talking about their expansive family and the love they all share. If you happen to have the last name of Sitterud, then the sisters claim you as one of their own.

“If there’s any Sitterud around here they belong to us. Because when our great grandparents came here they took the name of the farm as their name. They were Jorgensens,” Selma said.
Their weekly conversations usually orbit around their families and most weeks that orbit draws closer and closer until they are all remembering fondly their mother and father. The deep love they feel for them is evident in their every word.

“Our childhood was wonderful,” Ruth said. Ruth, by sisterhood decree is not only the quietest of the sisters, but the leader of them all.

“Ruth is the leader. She’s the softest spoken, but when she speaks we jump,” Colleen said, smiling.

When asked all of the sisters quickly point to a sense of humor as the one thing they all have in common and they are proud of the fact that they do not fight. Not to say that they don’t argue from time to time.

“We have heated discussions, but we don’t get our feelings hurt,” Ruth said.

“We weren’t allowed to fight when we were little. Our mother would sing songs whenever we started to fight,” Colleen said.

It is during their weekly gatherings, while talking about their own children and grandchildren that the sisters point back to what their parents taught them that made them what they are today.

“We never got a spanking in our life, we never had to. We didn’t sass our mother. Our dad taught us respect and respecting our mother was on top of the list. He thought our mom was perfect,” Connie said.

The 14 Sitterud children grew up in a five bedroom (and a couch) house in Orangeville and when they were little they slept three to a bed. Even in cramped quarters they most fondly remember the laughter that reverberated through their home and the soft singing of their mother.

“The neighbor kids would always be there too. Our mother used to bake nine loafs of bread every other day and they would come for the bread,” Connie said.

Jesse Sitterud was a coal miner by trade and an “amateur farmer” and all of the sisters speak with a sense of awe when they speak of their father.

“We all thought that we were the special one,” Ruth said.

“They all made us feel that we were the special one, but I know it was me,” Colleen said with a laugh.

That ever present laughter and the love of family are traits that can be found in each of the sisters and are traits they proudly point to having been passed down by loving parents.

“We had a family picture taken and our dad wanted to ask the newspaper to print it with appropriate remarks. We laughed at that and talked him out of it. When we think of it now we can see that to him he could see that he had succeeded in life, even though he had no worldly wealth, he felt rich. He took on a full load and must have pleased God,” Ruth said.

“I was the last one to leave home and when I left my father sat down and cried and I wondered if they were sad tears or happy tears,” Colleen said. “I think they were sad tears. He loved his family.”

The Joke’s On Him

James L. Davis

When it comes to humor, Neal Peacock is the butt of all of his own jokes. That is by design and it wasn’t always that way for the husband, father, teacher and mayor.

Early in his 24 year history as a school teacher, Peacock sharpened his humor skills on subjects other than himself and found out that humor can hurt, especially the young.

“When I teach I like to tell a lot of jokes. When I was younger I was quite sarcastic and cynical and that doesn’t work,” Peacock said. “If you want to tell jokes you tell jokes on yourself. Kids have very fragile egos.”

When and how and on who to tell a joke is just one of the lessons the Emery High School teacher has learned over the years. A favorite of many high school students he modestly and quickly points out that there are many students that can’t stand him as a teacher, which he accepts as part of being a teacher. As an instructor of advanced history, European history, debate, drama, American government and sociology, Peacock sees his job as a guide for his young charges.

“A teacher should be a guide rather than a dictator. I approach it that students like to learn if we can guide them in learning it’s better than pouring it in the top of their head. We need to have students who are involved in their own learning. The problem is we have students who have watched so much television or played so many video games and school is not flash, bang. If you can get them to put that on hold for a minute you can teach them,” he said.

Peacock’s philosophy on teaching was developed over time and was also developed by watching his own father who taught school for 31 years.

“Dad wasn’t just a teacher, he was a great teacher. I want to be as good as him some day.”
In a family of 11, six of Peacock’s siblings have also gone into teaching, which says a thing or two about the influence his father had on them all.

“He saw teaching as a mission. We caught that sense of mission. If you’re going to go into teaching as just a job, then you can find a better job. But if you’re going with a sense of mission, then there’s nothing better than teaching.”

Peacock married Gwen Cook of Fountain Green in 1979 and together they have five children, “all but four of them boys,” he said. They also have two grandchildren. Of his four girls and one son, none have followed him into the teaching profession, which he understands.

“It’s pretty hard to make a living as a teacher.”

Although teaching comes with its share of challenges and frustrations, Peacock said those frustrations do not come from where you might think..

“I’ve liked it all and I’ve had my struggles. It was never the kids or the other teachers, but it is the hatred the state legislature has for the education system,” he said.

In his years as a teacher the disconnect he believes exists between the leadership of the state legislature and the education system in the state has grown only worse.

“If anything the state legislature is as out of touch with the people of Utah as they’ve ever been.”
While he has firm opinions about the leadership of the legislature, he also has praise for the local representatives of Emery and Carbon County.

“Our local representatives are not your run of the mill legislators. There’s nobody luckier than Emery County in its representatives right now, but they are in the minority in a lot of their opinions up there,” he said.

Peacock’s feelings on politics have been honed by his own experience as mayor of Castle Dale. Now in his second term, he said he had no intention of entering politics until the day he did so.
“In my first term nobody had signed up and I was concerned about that. So I went down 15 minutes before the deadline and signed up because nobody else wanted the job,” he said.

As mayor he said he wants Castle Dale to be a good place to live and a good place for businesses to locate and he works with the city council toward those goals. He said by far the best part about being mayor is getting to know the people he represents.

“We have good people who live here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else,” Peacock said.
As a teacher and the mayor his responsibilities and dedication to them have afforded Peacock the opportunity to see the best in Emery County.

“I can’t think of any place that has as many talented people as Emery County. What do we make better in Emery County than anybody else? People,” he said.