Winnie Riggs Swapp

Grandmother

Obituary 1970

Winnie Riggs Swapp funeral held in Kanab June 20th
Funeral services were conducted in Kanab June 20 for Winnie Riggs Swapp, 86, who passed away June 18 in the Kane Couty Hospital of natural causes.
Mrs. Swapp was born July 16, 1883 in Kanab to Brigham Adelbert and Rachel Ford Riggs. She married John Edwin Swapp May 30, 1906 in the St. George LDS Temple. He died in 1946
She received her schooling in Kanab and also attended two years at the Brigham Young Academy in Provo. She also attended summer sessions in the northern part of the state, learning to make fancy cookies and decorate cakes.
During most of her married life she would spend the summers at the ranch at Sink Valley and the winter in Kanab, near schools. She would drive a four-horse team to the ranch every spring where she planted a garden and flowers and milked cows, made cheese and butter, raised chickens, turkeys and geese. She kept her family in pillows filled with down from the geese. She also washed, picked and corded wool to make batts for the quilts she pieced and quilted.
Her hospitality was superior, and she made her home like the "House By the Side of the Road" in the Samuel Walter Foff poem.
She was an active member of the LDS church having taught theology lessons in the Relief Society and also working in the Primary organization.
She is survived by sons and daughters, Herman E., Central, New Mex; Mrs Lynn B. (Madge) Green, Cedar City; Mrs Owen H. (Adeline) Johnson, Moccasin,m Ariz.; Preston D., Edwin B., Mrs. Charles (Norma) French; Mrs. Sterling (Irene) Johnson, Kanab; 27 grandchildren; 28 Great Grandchildren; brothers, sisters: John Ensign, Ruth Drew, Adeline Egbert; Kanab.
Services were held at 2 p.m. in the Kanab Stake Center as follows:
Family prayer, Preston Swapp; prelude and postlude music Zelma Johnson; opening hymn by the Singing Mothers, "O My Father"; invocation, Fred E. Heaton; remarks, Taylor Crosby; vocal trio, "In the Garden" by Ramona Johnson, Nabbie Glazier and Julia Young; sentiments, Joanne Nisson; song, song Neil Crosby "wonderful Mother of Mine"; speaker, Preston Bunting, closing hymn, Singing Mothers; benediction, LaMar Bybee.
Pall bearers were Clyde Young, Elson Riggs, Cliff Swapp, Dave Johnson, Jerry Green, Jim Johnson. Flowers were under the direction of the Kanab North Ward Relief Society.
Interment was in the Kanab City Cemetery where the grave was dedicated by Owen H. Johnson.

Grandma before she was married

Grandma's house in Kanab with her on the porch

Grandma's house at Sink Valley

The House by the Side of the Road

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran-
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat
Nor hurl the cynic's ban-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man. 

Sam Walter Foss