Payson City Celebration Highlighted On National Onion Day

The Utah State History organization highlighted Payson City’s annual celebration on the date in which the nation celebrates the onion.

“You probably didn't know that today is National Onion Day,” they noted June 27. “With that in mind we took a lot back at Payson Onion Days. The celebration, which continues to this day started back in 1929. An effort to highlight the great onions grown in the agricultural district of Payson.”

Utah State historians continued: “In 1936, Payson Onion Days sent its Queen, Cecil Gale with a parade float up to Salt Lake City for the Legion Parade in July. That year Payson Onion Days event had more than ten thousand attend the opening on August 31, 1936. Spectators braved the rainy weather and an estimated 3,000 watched the horse racing events. Payson Golden Onion Days went on for three years and featured more races, parades, and numerous bands. The parades were a serious affair. Featuring more than 100 floats from around the state and Payson's Queen, Cecil Gale stood in the middle of a large golden onion on the main float. The Payson high school marching band took part along with the Payson American Legion auxiliary chorus and the Payson unit of the National Guard turned out. Cecil was one of 11 candidates that year for Payson Onion Queen. Names were put in a hat and 2 names drawn out. The voting took place between those lucky 2 candidates.

“Cecil was born in Payson on February 19, 1913 to farmer Charles Gale and Phoebe Lorraine Hancock. She was the eighth child in a family of nine siblings. Her mother died in 1934 and her father remarried a year later to Elizabeth Crook, who brought to the marriage five children of her own. The 1940 Census lists her as still living with her father and step-mother in Payson and working as a beauty operator.  In December 1942 she enlisted in the Women’s Naval Reserve more commonly known as WAVES (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). In 1950, she is living in the house of Iona Perkins with Iona’s two adult daughters and still working as a cosmetic clerk in a retail department store. She married Joseph Raymond Coulter in Nevada in 1951. They were living in New York City where Ray worked with the American Cynamid Company when he died in 1962.

“Cecil made her way back to Utah where she died in Salt Lake City on February 12, 1984. They had no children. Cecil is buried in Payson near her parents.”