Monday, January 12, 2015

Volunteer Spotlight--Fay Daniels Angus

    PETEETNEET VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT
    FAY DANIELS ANGUS

    The Peteetneet Museum is proud this week to spotlight one of our outstanding volunteers, Fay Daniels Angus.  Fay was a full-time Tour Guide until she began serving several missions for the LDS Church several years ago.  Now she is serving as substitute Tour Guide when some of the regular guides are unable to be at the museum on their assigned day of service.
    Fay was instrumental in overseeing the creation and changes to the Orson P. Daniels Photography.  She is numbered among the posterity of this early Payson photographer so the project has been very dear to her heart.
    She noted that she has been fascinated by the Peteetneet building since she was a child.  Even though she attended the Taylor School on the opposite side of town, the classes trooped up the hill to the big school, sat on the stairway and sang Christmas carols while looking down on a beautiful nativity seen below.
    She remembered walking through the building just before the renovation started.  She still marveled at the beauty of the abandoned building.  One of the beautiful old stairways had been removed to make space for a teacher workroom.  During renovation, the stairway was completely restored to appear as it did when the building was constructed.
    Her great-grandfather, Thomas E. Daniels, his brother, James, and his mother, Elizabeth arrived as one of the first settlers in the new community.  They had arrived immediately after the group headed by James Pace.
    The Daniels Family has contributed greatly to the community.  They printed one of the first newspapers, helped install electricity in the community, made brooms, opened a sawmill, and operated a pioneer photography studio.  They were also involved in music and drama in the community.  The list of their contribution could go on and on.
    Fay said it gave her great pleasure to fill a case in the Tanner Historical Room.  Her grandmother was Lydia Melissa Tanner.  Fay’s mother was Cora Harper Daniels.  After Cora’s mother passed away, she moved from Spring Lake to Payson with her grandmother.  She was eight years old at the time.  She entered Peteetneet in 1906.  Fay remembers her mother telling her about walking up the hill, being very much in awe of the beautiful, big school on the hill.
    Fay met Ray Angus from Benjamin in 1946, just two days after he returned from Germany at the end of World War II. They were married ten months later and stayed in Payson.  They were the parents of four children.  They have 13 grandchildren and a large number of great grandchildren.  Ray passed away in 1993 after 47 wonderful years together.
    Ray became a great “Payson Booster” being involved in the community from the beginning.  He was the first president of the Payson Beautification Committee.  This resulted in the removal of many hazardous barns, old dilapidated homes and just trash in general from many areas in the community.  He was involved in the restoration of the Park Pond after it was filled with dirt and about to be covered over.
    He also helped raise money for one of the pools that was constructed in the City Park.  He worked with the Chamber of Commerce,  the Homecoming Committee, the Lion’s Club and other groups over the years.  He did this all while serving his friends at both the Nebo Bowling Alley and later Ray’s Food Mart.   Everything he was involved in, Fay was supporting him in the background.
    Fay worked for Nebo School for 23 years.  She was a secretary at Payson Junior High for six years and the financial secretary at Payson High School for seventeen  years.
    After Ray’s passing she began volunteering at Peteetneet as a Tour Guide.  She continued this until she left for an LDS Church Mission to Omaha, Nebraska in 2000.  The later completed a four-year service mission at the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake City and then served two more years at the MTC.
    For a period of time she was a member of the PPP Board of Trustees.  She has been a member of “Jean’s Golden Girls,” a group of dancing seniors who performed in many places in the country.
    Fay loves Payson and the Peteetneet.  We feel very fortunate to have Fay numbered among our faithful volunteers at the Peteetneet Museum.  We cannot thank her enough for all that she has done for the museum.

No comments:

Post a Comment