Orange Seely Home In Mt. Pleasant ~~~ by Sarah Rasmussen Anderson
I was raised in the Orange Seely Home in Mt. Pleasant.Uncle Orange built the house. It was located at the corner of 5th West and Main Street.The walls were 2 feet thick, and the rooms 20 by 20ft. When Uncle Orange moved over to Castle Dale, he sold the home to his parents J. W. Seely and Clarissa Jane Wilcox Seely who lived in a log cabin with a thatched roof.
After J. W. died, his wife Clarissa Jane needed someone to help her and so my grandma, Miranda Seely Peel Oman, who was her daughter, went to live with her as my grandfather Chris Peel had also died.
Grandma took care of her mother for eight years, and when Clarissa Jane died, the brothers and sisters all voted for the house to go to her (Miranda), as she was a widow and needed a place to live. Then when my grandmother got older, she asked my mother (Jennie Peel Rasmussen) to move in to be with her in her later years. But my mother was killed in a car accident, so that changed things and Uncle Fred Peel got the house.
In due time, Fred found it necessary to sell the house, and some time after that the new owners razed it to make room for a commercial establishment.
My uncle Azel Peel told me how he shed tears every day when he'd pass by and see how that well-built home had been destroyed. And I have cried many times because that was my home too. The big locust tree that grew by the home was a seedling brought across the plains and planted there. It was destroyed and cut down. Some townspeople begged the owners not to cut the tree down as it was a landmark, but they did anyway.
Taken from "A legacy of Love" Justice Azel Seelye Family Organization ~ February 1995
