Lovina | Emma | Fred | George | Edward | Ella | Julia | Amelia | Amy | Conclusion
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families had combed its surface for the same purpose, we seldom went away without some.
After Heaton Brothers dissolved partnership, we didn't go any more, but Strawberry is still ours, and when w talk of it, as we often do, it is like going back home.
Lovina always crowded a lot of activity into each day. Up early she would hurry through her work, leaving each room tidy and spotlessly clean. No files were allowed to rest comfortably in her house. With a shoo-fly in each hand she would frighten them to the door, and out they would go, glad to escape.
She never complained of being over-worked and underpaid. She made the best of what they could afford, and was generous in sharing it with others. All of mother's girls responded willingly to a call for public service, Perhaps more than any in our family she went most often among the sick and needy to give comfort and help. She didn’t have to be told what to do, she could see for herself. She swept and dusted, did dishes, cleaned lamps, made beds, helped with washing and ironing, carried in wood, chips, and kindling, and was an efficient practical nurse. She was cheerful in a sick roam and quietly entertaining.
She was a counselor in Relief Society, and children especially loved her as a teacher. She was nimble as they on hikes and games - even Jump-the-rope, She attended church regularly, and when the Relief Society made a project of reading the scriptures, she kept the Bible on her night stand and closed each day by reading a few chapters. Her choice of reading material has been religious literature.
Emma who didn't marry until late in 1889, spent the first winter and part of the second in Salt Lake City attending the Latter Day Saints College. It was during that time that time that the clouds gradually cleared from Amelia's and my mind as to the real reason of Brother Seegmiller's friendly interest in Father and his family; his staying at our house at conference-time; his occasional calls when passing through the Valley, and the good, blooded horses Father acquired at reasonable prices, and Ed's close friendship young Will Seegmiller. Emma, too, Seemed to have more money than we did; she sometimes sent us parcels from Salt Lake containing intriguing items for each of us -- even the candy was different and prettier. She sent Amelia and me the first picture storybook I remember having. We gave them special ears and
read them through uncountable times memorizing most of the poems. I still have mine.
Approaching motherhood placed her "in exile", too. Her first baby was born at Pipe Springs, over the line in Arizona, where Brother Seegmiller, with his business partner Edwin D. Wooley established headquarters for their cattle industry. It was "home on the range" for them. This was not, all a handicap for our family for Pipe Springs and Moccasin were interesting attractions for trips and short vacations.
I shall never forget them – Pipe, with its rock fort close against a hill, the wild range cattle crowding the water troughs, dust storms and whirlwinds cutting capers on the desert. Amelia sometimes stayed with Em for company, and those were lonesome days for me. After the manifesto, Emma moved to the ranch at Upper Kanab where Brother Seegmiller's first familiy was living. "Aunt Misia" was very kind to Emma and their congenial relationship lasted through all their lives. The Seegmillers took great pride in their thoroughbred horses and cattle; Their favorite sport was the races.
When Emma’s fifth child, Paul, was a baby, her husband met with a tragic death, and after a year or more, when their property was settled, our brothers moved Emma and her five children to Orderville. After getting settled, the lot cleaned, and a garden planted, she said to Mother, "No one will ever know how good it seems to have a place of my very own where the children can play in complete freedom."
Emma entered into public activities and gave devoted and efficient service. She taught in an intermediate class in Sunday School for many years; also in the Mutual Improvement Association, and religion class, and was on the town school board. She was president of the Relief Society for thirteen years, longer than any other previous or succeeding president in our ward. In those days that organization was responsible for the added care needed in illness
and death in the community, so often the sisters of the ward were called on to sit up nights, as well as help in the day time, in needy cases. All of Mother’s girls responded readily.
When Emma's children began to grow up, her ambition to give them a high school education took her to Cedar. There they attended school, formed new friendships, and married, Emma worked in the Relief Society there and served on the Stake Board. She gave numerous lassons and public talks and made many close and admirable friendships.
Later in life after she married Myron Higby, Emma spent much of her leisure time in gathering genealogy and family history. She was the best fitted for this work of any in the family, and I truly believe she was inspired to do it. Two summers while Mother was still alive, she came on purpose to gather information and personal experiences. She wrote to all the families for their genealogical data and recorded it, no small task in a family as large as ours. I am sure we are more grateful to her than we ever let her know.
She also wrote her "Personal Memories of the United Order", which was published in the Utah Historical Quarterly. I have heard it is considered one of the best and most popular of any published, as it gives the warm, human touch and local color and is also reliable in dates and historical facts as well. I have assisted Emma in gathering some of her material, as she lived in Cedar, and I lived on the spot and among the people of that early day.
And it is to Emma, we sisters owe the initiation of our "Sisters Reunions" once a year. We began them while Jane was still alive, making seven in all. Emma was an excellent cook and housekeeper, taking time to do things the best possible way. We had delectable food, daintily served; also lots of laughs and fun. We had a habit of continuing those conversations well into the night.
I remember one day we all went into town to shop. In front of one of the stores, we met a lady who seemed in quite a hurry, but on meeting us she stopped suddenly. "Are all of you ladies, sisters?" she asked. "You look it, but seven of you – all with gray hair; I can't, quite believe it, but I think it is wonderful; I am going home and tell my folks." When we went to church together, we created quite a stir, not by our good looks, but by our numbers.
Part of our reunions wa spent at my place in Orderville, but I thought those at Em's the most enjoyable – perhaps because I worried about competing with her in the cooking department. The largest gathering we had at my place was the time Verna and family brought Amelia out from Hurricane, and I had sent word for my Kezia and her daughter Rene to come over from Fredonia. I settled back in comfort, leaving the preparation end serving of our plate lunch to the younger generations. During the afternoon a number of our nieces called in for a visit, also Lucy's Charl and his wife Maggie. He was then president of our stake.
Emma was a good conversationalist and well informed. While she was visiting at our home at one time, Ed came up, and we had the usual talk-fest, most of it on religion. My daughter Kezia, who was over from Fredonia, commented, "I am so glad I was here today. I have missed so much the good conversations that always went on when the aunts and uncles got together."
Emma kept physically and mentally active up to her last short illness. She was a devoted mother, keenly interested in her children’s welfare, and although widowed young in life, she remained courageous, energetic, and generous. She gave freely to needy people and causes – her time, means, and talents,
Fred was married when I was not quite eight years old, so I have little recollection of him as a growing boy. For the first years of their married life, he and Clara lived in the southwest apartment of the Section House. Here their first two children were born, the second one after Fred returned from hie mission. The first year after he and Clara moved from the Section, they lived with Vine and Fred, the two Freds having decided to work together. They took turns farming and shepherding. When they divided up our brother Fred received the lot across the creek from Vine’s, and there built his permanent home. He and Clara had seven children, five boys and two girls. Three of the boys died in infancy.
Fred's yards and gardens and fields were kept with meticulous care. The home, too, Clara's domain, was the same way. Both were ambitious and thrifty, and their home was one of order and system.
For a number of years Fred and George worked in partnership in the sheep business. After George decided to leave Southern Utah, Fred continued until his death in the same business, first with his two sons and later working with Henry. Some time earlier Fred and Ed had put chased the last remaining public shares in the old Orderville Co-op Store; at first Ed acted as manager; later Fred bought all the stock and his son Rulon took over the management.
For years Fred and Clara kept a hotel, ran the first tourist cottages and occasionally took in boarders. Ed and Fred had the first electric system in town.
Though his only education was a few years of grade school, Fred was intuitively keen in perception, and had well balanced judgment, and often was appealed to for advice and counsel. Someone once asked him where he received his education when Fred laid no claims to such an advantage, the gentleman replied, "you converse like an educatad man." He said to me a number of times, "Amy, if you ever hear me mispronounce a word or make a mistake in English, I want you to correct, me. I will remember not to make the same mistake twice."
He was quiet and modest, but very efficient, He held his share of civic and church positions, worked diligently andnever sought recognition or praise for what he did. Like Mother, he felt "The works speaks for itself." Fred was more like Mother than any of the boys. He inherited generously the Giles family characteristics.
One of the civic positions he held was as a member of the board of County Commissioners. It was while he was serving in this position that it became imperative that an automobile road be built between Kanab and the Valley to accommodate the increasing number of cars appearing on the highway. Up to that time except for a round about route by way of Alton (There was no other way to take an automobile to Kanab.) it was impossible to drive a car over the deep sand road between the two parts of the county. To go by team and light vehicle was a time-consuming trip. Fred, together with Henry Bowman, had supervision of the building of that first real hard surfaced highway to tie the county together.
Fred was active in the priesthood quorums and church auxiliaries, was counselor in the stake presidency, and rounded out his years as a patriarch in the church. He and George were called to go on missions for the church, but both contracted malaria and were released before their appointed two years. I remember, especially, how thin and white Fred was the first time I saw him after his return. He had served one year in the Central States Mission. A few years later he spent several months on a "home mission" to Wasatch Stake where he was able to renew friendships with the many members of the family still living there in the valley of his birth.
It is in Fred's that the Irish "0" in our name is preserved. His son Rulon named his youngest boy Charles 0. Carroll. It was Rulon who became the second bishop Carroll in our ward.
Because of a family business arrangement, one of our years of Section life was spent in town. Father, George, and Ed decided to pool their interests, moving George and his wife Clarissa and their three little girls in our side of the house; Ed and Rye (Maria) remaining in the apartment on the Southwest. My regrets in moving to town were in leaving their baby Giles, of whom I was very fond; also our flower garden. Flowers and all growing plants seemed to me to possess an elusive soul, and as I worked or played among them, I felt a definite response from the depth at their beauty and mystery. As we drove away my last glance was at the row of purple Iris on each side of the path and the yellow roses by the fence.
During the summer George and Ed had a run-in with the Indians, who, this particular time, had pitched Camp across the creek beyond the fields. Some of the young Indians became rather belligerent, shooting toward the corral, frightening the animals and endangering their 1ives. The men went down to talk things over with them, but they were in rather a surly mood and wanted a bribe for their good behavior. Neither party would bargain to the other's satisfaction, and George and Ed left with nothing settled. That night a shot came through the lighted window of George's front room, barely missing Clarissa, The next day the Indians moved on and the incident settled itself.
Clarissa didn't like living at the Section, and I didn't blame her. Their town home was just across the street from her mother and only sister, and she was accustomed to seeing them every day. On the farm she was stuck with three little girls too young to walk a mile, and she couldn't carry them all.
The partnership lasted only a year, so she and George were soon back in their own home. They lived there until they had four more girls, seven in all. Vilate died when a baby. Then came their first boy, healthy, strong, fine looking. We all shared in their pride in him, but he lived only a year, one of the first casualties of the worst epidemic of whooping cough our town
has ever known.
Their next two boys were born in Provo, where George moved to take over the management of a dairy. I had a lovely visit with them while there, and for the first time in my life attended a circus. This was a real Ringling Brothers production. George, himself, took Susie and me on the inspection tour of the animals. I was scared motionless as he headed up the narrow path
at the horses’ heels, Susie following close behind him. They were at the far end of the line before I forced my courage to take over. The constant roar of the lions up ahead didn't add to my peace of mind. It was a wonderful circus, though, one for a lifetime.
George soon bought a fruit farm on Provo bench, now Orem, and I visited them there; I always felt at home with George and Clarissa, and in later years, when they made trips down our way I enjoyed equally their visits with us. There was lots of work and fun and laughter in George's household, He was full of fun and energy as a boy, friendly and outgoing.
The following letter is very typical of him, I am glad it survived the ravages of time. It gives a number of revealing touches at family affairs and was written to Emma while she was going to school in Salt Lake City.
This is a verbatim copy:
"Emma dear Sister it is with joy that I write to you how I long to see your face again. I hope youare well and I think this will find you so. We have Brother Puph and son here tonight. Hea is after corn we have sold 182 dollars of corn and about $30 of potatoes our crops has done
well this year. We raised 250 bushels of potatoes 400 of wheat and 500 of corn, about 80 of turnips. We dug our turnips today. My dang pen spilt so you can see.
We are very busy and have been all summer. I have two more weeks to work and then I am going to school. I’ll have to tell you some about the horses we sold old dick and got a horse that is about four years old he was 11 hundred and 35 lbs, Charlie was 11hundred or 1150 last winter. Cap took the cake for running.
I feel well in the gospel and know for myself that it is true. there is quite a lot of excitement in this part of the country now, brother Adair says he haint apostize as president Woodruff has and neither have I but he is all right yet. Well I guess I'll hafto stop Clarissa told me to send you her love. the girls is washing the dishes and they gigel the table some so be patience and don't get mad at my writing. Fred sends his love and so do I mine this is from your bad brother George to his good sister Emma so good night sleep tight & don't let the bugs bight."
Ed and Rye remained at the farm a few years after we moved to town, then they sold it to George Burnham, a native of the Pacific Islands, who lived for some time with George Q. Cannon, a councilor in the first presidency of the church. Brother Burnham, who had a large family, was a builder and interior decorator. They remained at the Section a year or two, then salvaged the lumber in the granary, the windows and doors and a few odds and ends of the house and built a small cottage on the north side of town, close to the hills. The Henry Chamberlain and Lawrence Esplin families succeeded the Burnhams in the house; then the grounds were sold for the purpose of building a new schoolhouse – our first high school building in Orderville. The last vestige of the Section House was thus obliterated – but you cannot obliterate the treasure house of memory.
Ed and Rye bought Charles's home when the latter moved to Provo and lived there until Ry's death from a heart ailment. Ed later married her younger sister Lillian. He was then manager of the Co-op Store. He was our ward bishop for ten years. Then they moved to Holden and eventually back home again, answering the call of the Stake Presidency to take over the church welfare storehouse.
When Ed and Lillie came home from their wedding trip, they came to see mother. We had a pleasant evening's visit; and before they left, mother asked them what they wanted for a wedding present. Ed looked quickly at the top shelf or the cupboards and with a smile and nod of the head indicated the large blue willowware platter that was grandma Giles' and brought from England, This added another proof that Mother had an extra soft spot in her heart for her youngest son. Without hesitation, and in spite of the fact that every one of us girls especially wanted it, she said, "Well, you can have it. Give it to Giles when you are through with it."
Giles was an only living child, but, he and Reta gave Ed eleven grandchildren to perpetuate his name and posterity in the earth. Not too long before he died of a heart attack, Ed told Giles that the first grandson born, if named Charles Negus Carroll to carry on the family name, was the one that should inherit the blue willowware platter. Giles and Reta’s second son
Ralph drew the lucky number, his baby being father's great-great grandson.
Ed was always considerate of Mother, talking freely to her about his work and experiences. He visited her more often than the other boys, remembering her with choice bits to tempt her appetite and gifts to cheer her on special occasions.
Ed was a great public servant – superintendent of the Sunday School at nineteen, a few years later president of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, then stake counselor in the same organization. He was school trustee, justice of the peace, juvenile Judge, bishop for ten years, stake high counselor, and then a patriarch, This latter position, also stake storehouse manager and Juvenile Judge are the positions he held at the time of his death at eighty-two.
After Ed quit school, he often found a winter's job at the shepherd, and it became necessary to hire a boy to help Father with the chores at the farm, and to drive us girls to school in cold or stormy weather. Chris Bolander was one of these boys, sort of in the family anyway, as he was taken in by Fred and Vine in his early teens. He was an emigrant from Denmark, brought over when Hans Sorensen came from his mission. The winter he stayed with us, he was in his later teens but still going to school, he and Amelia being in the same classes. They had good times together, but there were other boys in the "offing" also, and Amelia was faced with the important decision, and it wasn’t Chris. To his advantage he didn’t have long to spend on self-centered disappointment for he was called on a mission to Samoa.
For three years I kept him informed about home town news. He really had quite an entanglement with us girls; courting Amelia, corresponding with me, and marrying Ella. They married about a year and a half after he came home from his mission. I was going to the Branch Normal at Cedar City at the time and missed much of the excitement. He finished clearing the debt for his mission and built a four room addition to our home, where he and Ella lived and where their five boys were born. Edward, named for Ella’s twin brother, died of pneumonia when two weeks old.
Ella and Chris were justly proud of their family – all of them filling missions for the church; Joseph and Giles served in World War II, William was trained in the reserve corps. Joseph, Giles and William were counselors in their ward bishopric; and Joseph and Giles became successful bishops. Reed, a talented radio technician, was sent on important business trips to New York, Chicago, and the West Coast by the company he worked for. All four inherited Chris' good nature and Ella's energetic drive.
Ella served actively in both ward and stake presidency of the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association organizations, in the ward Primary presidency and was a teacher in the Relief Society. Ella was very quick in her movements pushing her work instead of letting it, push her. She was a good manager and neat and tidy in her work. She did the family sewing from the time she was sixteen years old, and later took in dressmaking. She was clerk in the Co-op store for some time, and did housework for families in need. She was economical in spending the money she earned, and most of the time had some ahead.
She liked people better than books, and did less reading and more visiting than most of us did. She had an alert mind and quick decisions. She could also change her mind. Once I called her on one of her opinions, saying, "Yesterday you said just the opposite was what you believed. Quick as a flash she answered, "Oh, that was yesterday – today this is what I think."
In writing and giving lessons, she said a lot in a few words. In her home the principles of the gospel were consistently observed - tithing, the Word of Wisdom, fast day, family prayers, and preparation for church lessons and activities.
Ella served actively in both the ward and stake Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association as president, in the ward Primary presidency and was a teacher and visiting teacher in theRelief Society.
We girls were quite thrilled when we moved to town the winter of 1898, for we would be closer to public activities, and to each of our "Special Crowd". I was fourteen that winter, but true to form, spent the holidays, not actually in bed, because part of the time I could be helped into a chair and sit up for several hours at a time. It was another attack of rheumatism – the second hardest I ever had. My chief entertainment was memorizing poems and sketching in my brown-paper drawing book, which is still in my possess1on. My grand children often ask to look at it.
It was during this year that Julia committed her "unpardonable act", according to Amelia's and my opinion. She actually quit her missionary boy friend, with whom she had exchanged many letters and an equal amount of lonesome heart thrills. Not that we didn't like Howard, but to quit a missionary – never! Julia didn't intend to but circumstances took over. We all took a trip to the Factory one day and toured the entire building. It was as noisy as the Mill, and we could scarcely talk loud enough to be heard. We were cautioned not to go near any of the machinery, lest the fast turning rods and wheels would catch at our clothes and cause disaster.
It wasn't us that caused it – it was Howard. As Julia paused at the loom where he was spinning yarn, the dark, handsome young man became confused, and he never could explain what happened. There seemed to be more levers and rods and wheels than he could handle, and strands of yarn began to break, first here, there, then everywhere, until someone saw his predicament and threw the switch and stopped all operations throughout the building.
But it was the start of something. Howard couldn't forget Julia's beautiful blue eyes and captivating smile, and bashful though he was, he purposely "cut in" on a missionary’s g1rl friend, and Julia, offered very little resistance. We always thought Howard something special; he was "handsome as they come", and had a natural refinement and culture seldom found in country towns in those days.
Julia was a good cook, and when Emma married, stepped into her place to help mother. When Julia married, I slipped easily into her shoes in the cooking department. As previously noted, Ella did the family sewing. After both were married and each had a family of her own, Ella saw Julia one day struggling with a difficult piece of sewing and made this forthright comment, "Having a family of all girls, Julia, it would be handy if you were better at sewing."
Julia quickly countered, "I can sew for my girls as well as you can cook for your boys." Julia later remarked, "That is the first time in my life I ever talked back to Ella."
Julia did have an unusually happy disposition. She and Lucy were the ones who could dance mother around the room, set her in the rocker, and make her stay out of the kitchen and like it.
When first married she lived in Kanab, and Howard was a clerk in the old Bowman Store, of which his father was manager. It was there that Annie and Irene were born. In a short time they moved to Provo Bench, now Orem, where Brother Chamberlain had bought a large farm and moved part of his family there. They didn’t stay long, and, on moving back, settled in Orderville. When their girls were nearing high school age, they moved to Cedar to make their permanent home.
Julia's public positions were secretary in the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association and later as president. After she moved to Cedar she was president of Primary for five years.
Amelia and I always considered ourselves "twin souls" and identical at that – always so close were we in sympathetic understanding and companionship. Together we raced the long porch to jump off at the end; gathered bulrushes and reeds at the small swamp at the head of Charlie's field; braided grass for belts and bracelets; made necklaces and decked ourselves out like native islanders; searched the hills for gum and wild flowers; romped on the straw
sheds at the corral; fed the chickens and gathered eggs in our little brass buckets, one of them being Grandma Giles', did the dishes without quarreling; and spent hours and hours in the attic. We read old Juvenile Instructors over and over, especially the continued story, "Up from Tribulation, by Susie Young Gates, a daughter of President Brigham Young. It was the first
story I ever read, perhaps the first one ever written, about polygamy. It must have been good, for we cried every time we read the sad parts. We sewed for and played with our doll rags and cut out paper dolls.
Not infrequently Amelia would say "Amy, go down and get us something to eat."
"You go; I went last time."
"No, you go, and don’t bring bread and molasses; think of something else. Now hurry! I'll start to hold my breath, and hold it till you get back - now!"
I would take her at her word and scamper down to do her bidding, returning with bread and molasses. I always found her still breathing. Especially did we like to play upstairs after Ella and Julia took the East room for a bedroom. They papered the unfinished walls with newspaper, hung a crisp, white, lawn curtain at the window, placing under it a goods-box dressing stand for their lamp. The sack of sugar was kept upstairs, too, and we helped ourselves to many a lump, so careful not to spill a telltale grain – it was impossible.
We took evening strolls, hand in hand, or with our arms around each other affectionately. We sat on the homemade wooden wheat roller in the moonlight, talking long and confidentially; wandered down the lane to the creek, or on the clay hill above the corral. Sometimes we sat there so long the bushes or a lone tree would begin to move and come toward us. Then one of us would say, "I guess we'd better go to the house." Never did we divulge our reasons.
Our physical separation began slower but inevitably when Amelia began to step out with the boys. However, the next day I mould be briefed as to what went on, thus sharing her good times vicariously. She quit school after Brother Cutler graduated us. A girl has to have a little time to get her trousseau together, but I can't remember a thing she did or had. But I do remember the September morning Jode drove up in a covered wagon and stopped at our front gate. Martha and Alvin were in the back seat, and after a bit of hurried bustling, my dearest sister got in the front seat with the driver, who headed the team directly toward the Saint George temple. Very vividly do I remember watching them drive down the road, across the flood-wash bridge and out of sight. Amelia and Martha, both slipping out of my life at the same time, leaving me alone and lonely. That empty feeling never quite left me, and nothing eases it's restless nagging except the infrequent visits when Amelia and I are together.
The thing that ameliorated the situation was our permanent move to town in May, 1901. About the same time Amelia and Jode moved into the Dick Norwood house, alongside the highway opposite Jack Hill. The narrow bridge across the creek was in frequent use as we visited back and forth morning, noon and evening. In July Linden was born and three years later, Bessie.
Jode couldn't have been home when she was christened, for I remember him arriving soon after the event, and taking her in his arms, asked what she had been named. Tears slowly came to his eyes as he said, "I wanted her named Amelia."
Far away in Samoa, Chris had better success. While conducting church one Sunday, a native sister brought her baby to be blessed. When Chris asked her, "What name?, she replied, "I don’t know; you name her." And he named her Amelia.
To my complete surprise, Amelia named her next baby, Amy. She had big, brown eyes and an abundance of dark, brown hair. I began wistfully longing for children of my own. The winter of 1909-1910 was wet and cold. On father’s birthday, December seventh, Amelia’s twin girls, Lorene and Lucille, were born. They weighed a little less than five pounds each, and Harriet Bowers, the midwife said, "I have never seen a likelier pair of twins," meaning likely to survive. But a severe siege of whooping cough went its frequent rounds, as that was before antibiotics were known to the medical profession. Pneumonia accompanied the cough and took its toll of eleven babies, including Amelia's twins and Bessie and Amy. It was a time of anxious, weary days and sleepless nights; and so long as memory lasts, one never quite recovers from so heartbreaking an experience as that.
The following summer, Jode acquired land and a building lot in Alton, and that was their home for a number of years. Carroll, Lorraine and Verna were born there, and we visited occasionally. They moved to Hurricane the Spring Weldon was born, and that seemed as far away as forever. We have visited occasionally, but not as often as our hearts desired. Yet through the years, by means of a most interesting correspondence, we have remained
as close together in our love and need for each other as though we were still the two little girls we once were, playing and working and loving life on the Section farm.
Amelia has led a busy life; aside from her family responsibilities she has been president and counselor in the Primary and president of the local Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, andtaught various age groups of children in all the church auxiliary organizations. They loved her and she them. She is warm and comforting and has a dry sense of humor. She has served twice as a stake home missionary, and at seventy-eight is still working as a temple hand in the Saint George Temple.
I still miss her keenly and always will. We often say we hope that our eternal homes will be on the same street and side by side.
In the foregoing pages you will find the story of my childhood and youth. I was eighteen years old when we moved from the Section. Our new home in the Northeast part of town sits snugly at the foot of a long rock ledge carved picturesquely by time and weather. Father bought it from Thomas Chamberlain, paying $750 in seed wheat. It had four large rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, with an old granary attached at the back for a kitchen. After Ella and Chris were married they added four rooms and a bath.
After moving to town I was kept busy in church activities; twice president of our ward Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association, also stake president of that organization; and twice serving on the stake board of the Relief Society in the visiting teachers and literary departments. At the age at fourteen, I taught in the Sunday School in the first kindergarten organized in our ward, but the longest in the second intermediate class, the boys and girls just
emerging into youthful activity. I learned from them that choice lesson material and thorough preparation were vital factors in controlling their exuberant spirits. I thoroughly enjoyed working with those teenagers. I also taught in Religion class, Primary and Relief Society.
In the autumn of 1904, Clarissa Esplin called at our house with the proposition that we team up as roommates to attend high school at the Branch Normal in Cedar City. She had been there the previous year. I thought it impossible on account of finances, but after talking it over with mother and Ella, we decided if we were very economical, we might manage a year or two.
I could scarcely believe it, but we proceeded to make preparations. Ella made all the clothes I would need for the year: two new skirts, three blouses, or "shirt waists" we called them. I took my best used clothes, and after I arrived in Cedar, I bought my first long coat far $4,98.
Clarissa's brother George took us over the mountain via the North Fork road, six weeks after schoo1 had begun. It took me until the Christmas holidays to catch up on back lessons, but the teachers were cooperative and merciful. There was no going home for week ends, not even for the holidays, and the only two persons we saw from Orderville were Jonathan Heaton and Frank Robertson.
We settled in one large room at the Lafe McConnel home about two blocks from school. Over the mountains in a two days' journey, we toted our winter’s supply of flour, potatoes, ham and bacon, lard and butter. The latter were put down in gallon cans and covered with a layer of salt to prevent their becoming rancid before we used them. We took dried apples and plums and several gallons of preserves. We bought no milk and had none until spring when Mrs. Perry, who boarded some of the professors and their wives, gave us some of her surplus skimmed milk; how thankful we were for that. I kept account of my cash expenses; it, was forty-three dollars, plus, the first year; and for the three years I was privileged to attend, my total cash expense was two hundred forty three dollar, plus an unremembered number of cents. George Decker, our principal, counseled me to stay with school until I graduated, even if I had to borrow the money to do it. Mother did borrow fifty dollars from Ella, which I later returned.
My two outstanding teachers were Howard R. Driggs and Charles R. Mabey, both English and literature teachers. Mr. Driggs later became professor of English education at the University of Utah, holding this position for ten years. For the next sixteen years he held the same position in New York University. He has published several textbooks, a few novels, and some poetry. Mr. Mabey became governor of Utah, wrote quite copiously, and published two long poems, one about the "Riders of the Overland Trail," and the other "The battle at San Juan Hill." He was one of the Rough Riders under Theodore Roosevelt.
I graduated with the class of 1907 and taught school in Orderville for four years, two in the first three grades and two in the fifth and sixth. I liked the upper grades best, as they were more of an intellectual challenge. It was a convenient arrangement for both mother and me to live together after my marriage. We were very congenial in our way of doing things, and she always gave me a close, tender companionship. When my husband became dissatisfied with working conditions in our locality and wanted to move out of Utah, I chose to remain with mother and security rather than follow him into a probable insecure future. This worked out well for both mother and myself. We had a comfortable home, ample room far gardening, a cow, a pig, and coop full of chickens, also some fruit trees.
My two children, Kezia and Marden, helped to make life interesting. Mother lived to the age of eighty-seven, maintaining her patience, independence, courage, and faith to the last. Those years of close companionship with mother, while the children were growing, are some of the most precious of my life. Many evenings were spent with my reading aloud, something I dearly love to do, and they enjoyed it equally well. But time doesn't stand still, and all too soon the children married, and I found myself alone – too much alone – for their love went beyond state boundaries. I have rented rooms in my house much of the time and formed valuable friendships thereby, but even those days are now in the past.
Reading and writing have been my hobbies; my most interesting subjects, religion, literature, nature, and psychology. While visiting in Modesto during the winter 1948-49 with Marden and his family, his wife Winnie urged me to take a night class in creative writing. I did so at the Modesto Junior College and proved one thing -- that at sixty-seven, if one’s interest is alerted and concentration called back into action, one can learn with a keenness almost comparable to that of youth. I surprised myself.
During World War II, I spent three winters and one summer with Kezia and Arland in San Diego, where Arland and Marden were employed in national civil defense. It was a great change for me, and the side trips and vacations we enjoyed from San Diego to San Francisco have enriched my life and given me beautiful and happy experiences to live again.
But memories that are the most heartwarming and comforting take me back to the security of family ties and the joy of abundant living as we knew it on our farm at the Section.
The foregoing sketch of our life at the Section has been written at the insistent request of my daughter Kezia, and my sister Amelia, and her girls. Emma, too, kept repeating, "Amy, you must get busy and write your personal history."
(end page 49)
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