Olive Kemp

Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

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Olive Kemp (Mrs. Floyd Turley) (1905-1994)

The Theodore Turley Family Book, pp. 229-232

Olive Kemp Turley was born in Logan, Utah. In the summer of 1910 the family bought a farm in North Logan and moved to that locality. Olive went through the first seven grades of school at the North Logan School, then attended the Brigham Young College Training School for the eighth grade, so she could play violin in the school orchestra. She attended four years of high school at the Brigham Young College, then two years of normal school, from which she graduated in the spring of 1926. Playing with the BYC orchestra was the highlight of her younger years.

Olive taught school for the next three years, then left for a mission in June, 1929. She spent a few months in Oklahoma City, then the rest of her mission in Houston, Texas. It was while in Houston that she became acquainted with Floyd Turley, who was serving in the Mexican Mission.

Olive had grown up on a farm and decided to try her hand at gardening during the depression years, to help out with the needs of the family. This became quite a profitable hobby and helped very much while the family was growing up.

She has helped in most organizations in the Church, both in her younger years and after marriage. Three of Olive’s grandparents were born in England, and about 1952 she became interested in doing genealogical research in England through researchers there. It was while she was getting started with this hobby that a researcher asked if her husband’s people were of the Birmingham area in England, saying that a director of the company for which he worked was interested in the Turley name in that area and it was possible to obtain some material on that surname quite readily. With the permission of the president of the Theodore Turley Family Organization, she then began doing research on the Turley lines in England. Researching on one of her own lines in England and on the Turley lines has taken considerable time and thought, but it has been a very enjoyable part of her life since the early 1950's. She greatly appreciates the support of both her own family and the many members of the Turley family in this work.

In December, 1976 Olive, with [husband] Floyd as her assistant, was called to head the Branch Genealogical Library in the Holbrook Stake. This assignment takes considerable time but gives her an opportunity to pursue genealogy.