Memorial is dedicated to 'Poor Farm' inhabitants
By Deseret News May 28, 2001, 10:40am MDT
Carma Wadley senior writer
https://www.deseret.com/2001/5/28/19588594/sanpete-honors-forgotten-souls
William Ditmer was a blind shoemaker who lived and worked in Fairview. At the end of his life, he went to live at the "Poor Farm," as the Sanpete County Infirmary was called in those days. When he died in 1916, Ditmer was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.
Legacy's a quirky thing. Those who try to manufacture it are not always successful. Those who never give it a thought are often the ones who have untold impact.
When William Ditmer lived out his quiet, useful life in Fairview, he probably had no idea that all these years later people would be remembering him. Or that because of him, others whose only claim to fame might be that they did the best they could would be honored.
This Memorial Day, the town of Fairview is dedicating a monument to all those who lived and died at the Infirmary. They need to be remembered in a positive way, said Norma Vance, who has spearheaded the the memorial project. "At the time, there was a bit of a stigma attached to going to the Poor Farm. Maybe this will help to exonerate them."
Many of them were immigrants, far from their families. But to come here showed such faith and courage, she said. And many were simply caught by circumstance. "When age came upon them, some fell victim to ill health and could no longer do for themselves."
The story of the monument actually began on a wintry day in 1992. A former resident of Fairview came to the home of Norma and Herald Vance with an old clarinet. It had belonged to William Ditmer, the man said, and it should go in the Fairview Museum.
"I had read a little about Ditmer, but when I actually saw and touched his clarinet, he seemed so real, and I wanted to know more about him," Norma said.
She thought about him from time to time. But it wasn't until 1998, when she and Herald were asked to speak at Fairview's Patriotic Program, that she did more research. "I knew I wanted to talk about William Ditmer."
He had been born in Denmark in 1857, she found. As a small boy he had contracted the measles, which had taken his sight. He learned the shoemaker trade at a school for the blind in Denmark. He joined the LDS Church and came to Fairview in 1886.
Golden Sanderson, one of Fairview's long-time residents, remembered Ditmer in his life story. "He did his shoe repairing mostly by feel," Sanderson wrote, "and could always pick up the right tool or tacks. . . . He lived an isolated life and barely lived off his trade. My parents often helped him with a bowl of soup or other food."
But Ditmer was also a skilled musician. "When darkness came with only the flicker of the kerosene lamp, it was comforting to hear strains of music coming from the old man's house," wrote Sanderson. "It was Ditmer who started some students out on reed instruments until finally a band was organized."
That's what struck her about Ditmer, says Norma. Here he was, blind and barely getting by, "but he gave something back to the community."
Norma went to the Fairview sexton's office to get Ditmer's exact birth and death dates, and that's when she found out that he had gone to live at the Poor Farm. "And I was shocked to see so many more names on the sexton's records of people who had died there."
At least 34 other men and women had died at the Infirmary during its years of operation, and many had been buried in unmarked graves at the Fairview Cemetery, she found.
After the talk at the Patriotic Program, one of the audience members commented on the need for a monument, and that kept nagging at the Vances, who finally took the matter to the City Council in September 1999.
The council agreed, but it has taken awhile to get it all put together. And it has become a community project.
"The Poor Farm was a special spot. Everyone knew where it was, and that's what everyone called it," says Margaret Bench, chaplain of the North Bench Camp of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, which has been involved.
"One of our DUP themes is that our heritage binds us together," adds DUP secretary Becky Roberts. "And this is our heritage."
The infirmary was built in 1895. At that time, not only was the county's population increasing, but the economic depression of 1893 had created a growing number of indigents, and county commissioners looked for ways to support them.
"They settled upon the idea of purchasing a farm where able-bodied indigents could work," Norma said. A two-story building was constructed, with separate wings for the men and women. At any one time, it could accommodate between 16-20 men and eight women.
It operated until the early 1930s. The abandoned building was finally torn down in 1980.
Nowadays, you probably couldn't get away with calling it the Poor Farm, but it was an important part of Fairview history, Mayor Ron Giles said.
The granite marker has been created by Leon Monk, who owns a monument shop in Mt. Pleasant. The marker features a drawing of the building on one side, and a tribute to those who lived and died there on the other. They decided not to list individual names, Monk said, because there were some discrepancies in names and dates and they weren't sure they even had all of them.
It's been quite a project, but he's been glad to be involved, said Monk, who has donated all his labor in creating the monument. "Those people had tough lives. But we need to remember them."
Remembering, after all, is what this day is all about.
But it is not just for their sake that we remember the William Ditmers of the world, Norma said, it is also for our own. The very act of remembering can make us more aware, more appreciative, more connected to each other.
And that, as much as anything, may be the legacy of the blind shoemaker of Fairview.
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