115 West 2nd Street
In England Walter Crane apprenticed to a miller and joined the Mormon Church at age 14. After a four-year apprenticeship, he immigrated with his parents to America in 1866. In Wyoming Territory Walter beheld his first glimpse of a Native American with great interest.
He and his parents arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1866. Walter moved on to Farmington to work at the flour mill of Mr. Clark. Most of the employees were converts and emigrants, experiencing their first jobs in the new country. Walter, however, was an experienced miller and became a valued worker. [1]
Mary Ann Rackham arrived in America from England in 1868. What she remembered about her journey across America was how large the country seemed and like a wilderness compared to England. The Civil War was just two years over, so she saw firsthand the scars of internal war on the first part of the journey. On the second part of the journey the railroad construction followed the wagon train trail part of the time, and her brothers were allowed to leave the wagon train and work for the railroad to earn much needed money.
In Salt Lake City Mary Ann lived with her aunt who prepared Mary Ann for the job of housework, teaching her the difference between service in England and that in Utah. With this preparation Mary Ann went to work for a family by the name of Clark in Farmington. She was the maid of all work, watching the children, and cooking and serving the men who worked for Mr. Clark in his flour mill. [2]
Walter was 21 and Mary Ann 19 when they were married in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City in 1869. Their employer, Mr. Clark, opened another mill in Morgan and put Walter in charge of it. During the following 10 years Walter worked as a miller in Morgan and then in Tooele. Walter took two plural wives, but they did not move with him in 1879 when he moved to Ogden with his wife, Mary Ann, and daughter Annie. They bought a small farm in what was then called Bingham Fort at Lynne (Ogden), Utah; Walter was now working for the Utah Central Railroad Co. as a brakeman and check master. [3]
Walter and Mary Ann first lived in a two-room log cabin already on the property left by the David Crowther family. They were delighted with the orchard, currant bushes and a small pond fed by a natural spring. Irrigation water was supplied by the Bingham Fort ditch, now called the Lower Lynne ditch. They planted more trees, bushes and flowers and planned to build a brick house and spend the rest of their lives here. By 1883 Walter had again changed vocations and was listed in the Ogden City Directory as “a contractor and builder”.
He started building the brick house at 115 W 2nd Street in the 1880s, but it was not completed until about 1895. His life became complicated by taking a fourth wife in 1889, appearing in court twice for unlawful cohabitation, and serving a mission to England. Upon his return from England, the house was finally completed. He served as secretary of Lynne Irrigation Co. and a counselor in the Lynne Ward. In addition to their daughter Annie, the Cranes adopted another child, Zina, and raised Mary Ann’s nephew. Mary Ann died in 1930 and Walter in 1932. [4]
Walter and Mary Ann’s daughter Annie and her husband, Anders Bolander, built the house at 133 W 2nd St. in about 1908, pictured on the right in the photo below. This house has been in possession of Annie Crane Bolander family for more than 100 years. Annie’s daughter Mary married Clarence Stromberg, and they created the house at 125 W 2nd St in 1930, pictured in the center in the photo below. The house at 125 W started as a one-room house that had belonged to the Clapier family and was moved to this site from Old Pioneer Road. In time an addition was made on the rear. [5]
[1] - Mary Bolander Strombery, Biography of William Walter Stannard Crane, manuscript, p. 1-3.
[2] - Alice Bolander Davison, Mary Ann Rackham Crane, manuscript, p .4, 5.
[3] - Stromberg, Biography of William Walter Stannard Crane, p. 3; Family Search, pedigree resource file.
[4] - Alice Bolander Davison, Mary Ann Rackham Crane, manuscript, p. 7; Stromberg, Biography of William Walter Stannard Crane, p.3; Andrew Jensen, History of the Lynne Ward, manuscript, 1893, p. 11, 12.
[5] - Letter of Evelyn Stromberg Kerr, Tooele, Utah, 23 Sept.1998; Mary Edith Bolander Stromberg, manuscript.