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Show nIH ~l" ' llt my 1l\1~\ " 1'111\11,1: IlhBITALE hllnrs was a short \"e l~ ,"l i l,lIl'(l ill 1,Ltl'k kltns , ; 11 muslin, I :l ~ k, ' ,l Sister On' son, the l.td)" nf lh,' hOll\e \I"here \I "C \\"ere sLlyil lg, \I'hat the words s,lid, " \\ '1;\' tlLtt is Ih t' molto of onr Church. TIll' Glary of God i5 !1//l'lli!!:c/1i'(:," she t'\plaineo, and :1 , ltlcll that \IT wCI'e the tlllly people in the \Vorhl II Ito hc'longed to the Irul' Church. all(l we IIltlst show the \I'odd that we are tht' k :H1H'd lwople, I thought about this and dccided I had better learn the English language. That evening when I told my hu sband, he said that Sistl'r On'son was right; the Ieadcrs of thc Chnrch insisted \I'e let the people of the \\'orld know the Saints are the most intelligent people of all. TIle next day I ~t_arted t? learn ~nglish which at first seemed an impossible task. But httle by httle, I learned enough words to understand II-hat people \\'ere saying. A, C. borrowed a copy of ~IcGuffey's reader, and I wore it out. I used it too hard. \Ve moved the next summer. Our new house wasn't finished but that didn't matter a bit; it was our home. I had gotten son~e .red yarn from Sister Oveson and one of the first things I (ltd 111 our new home was to embroider in rcd yarn on a piece of clean flour sack the motto, "The glory of God is intelligence." This \vas the first thing to hang on the wall. I would. spend all day and most of the I~ight making clothes for the famIly. It was easy to keep the gll'ls dressed, for all I h ad to do was take the clothes I had brought with me and make th cm into small dresses. But the boys yelled and complained about th eir clothes, wh ich I had to make from scratch and we~~ itchy. I had to make pa nts out of homespun, "linsey\\'o~lsey was what we called it. The boys wore homespun until they \verc half grown. The food problem was harder to solve" especially in the winter. 'Ve tired of our evening meal of b~lled wheat and wild jack rabhit. Once one of our boys, Launtz, was asked to say the blessing on the meal. He did with the following vcrse he had made up: ' Habbit young, Rabbit old, Rabbit hot, Rabbit cold, Rabbit tendcr and Rabbit tough. Oh please, Dear Lord, We've had enough. \Ve bought a young cow, six hens and a rooster, but they had to he saved so we could raise sOl11e young for the next year. 'Ve did have a few eggs to spare, and I made a cake for every birthday that came up. The menfolk said th erc were deer in the llilk But the only bullct gun evcr around was the old H enry rifle which w()tJ Jdn't shoot vcry far or vcry well. .~o one h ad cvcr killed ,lIJything with it. There was a lot of talk ah () ut thc CIlIIrch , or rathe' .. , tl\(: Z,C.\J.J" locatill~ a store ill (J1If tow n, a nd this was surely tIle b es t lIews we hitd heard TIiItEE hII'OIlTA\T \Y ,\'.;I :S CIlII'TS for a IOllg tillH', TIll' II('xt '1 11 1l 111('/' tlJ{' ~, t(lrt , hec:tlJle a reality, and wlla! a cclc1 )I,Jlioll (JIll' tOWl1 had! As the childr"1 1 gil '\\' old('!', it Iwc;\Ille more difficult to keep thell1 at hOll1c, III the CV(,llillgS whcn we always bad one !,I(}~lr of !JOllie school, ()11t' "f tlw boys called it "skIdl practi ce." \\'11)' do we have to study ('very night?" This was th(~ II sual complaillt. \Vhen this outburst came, and it Came often, I told the children that because we were the chosen children of the Lord, we must dew'lop ourselves spiritually as well as physically; that we mllst read as well as work. 11lCll I would always point to the embroidered motto han ging on thc wall and ask "Don't yO\l want to bc one of Cod's chosen?" One day in early spring, my husband came back from \Veber Canyon at Devil's Slide where he had secured winter el~lployment on the new railroad; he had stopped in Salt Lake CIty where he bought cloth, shoes for the children, and best of all, vcgetable. seed. Carrots, turnips, potatoes and cabbage seeds could go 1!1 the ground the next spring. "Hurrah!" ~f y oldest boy, Anton, shouted, "No more rabbit!" As soon as the warm weather came, we carefully prepared the grollnd - a small pateh - :md planted our seed and waited. The following days were ~nXIOl1S ones; we madc at least a dozen trips every day to see 1f the ~eed had sprouted. After ten days, small green leaves appeared 111 rows about the ground , Indced a miracle had come to pass. During thosc years our food was not so b ad, especially in the summer months. 'Ve had white meadow thiate, black mustard, sego lily bulbs, roots of \\'eed onion and dandelion greens .... ~ly husband was called to go to Europe on a mission for the Church. \Ve all cried our hearts out when he left but we were told by the bishop, "We !lformons are suppos; d to be b,rave.", 'rVe tried our best. I well rcmember the day Pa left. 1 he chJ!dren and I had a very long three-mile walk back from town to the farm. 'nlC first evcning the children didn't want to go outside to play, so while the older boys milked the cow, chopped and hauled in the wood, I hurried and whipped up a cake and opened a bottle of scrvieeberry preserves from the year before. After we ate a good suppcr, the children began to fecI bettcr. No study that night; we just said our prayers and went to bcd. The nc~t week two of the boys got jobs on what we c~llled the west SIde of the valley. They stayed there until the flr~t part of D cccmlwr. For pay they rl' C'c in'cl three old cwes, a sow pi g :lIld ;t sih ('r dollar each, So \\"l' lx ]('br;ltnl illl'ir r~tul'll that lIi i,;llt hy ,\ ill gillg hymJls amI playing :~:1Il1 I'S , That llIght as I pa s~;, ' d lll< ~ O[ )( ' ll d oor of thc bo),s' rO OIl1, I hl'arc! Peter Alltone and Andrcw ( ;llr i, ti ;l11 pray illg. I ).;1ll'W it was wrollg to stop and listell, hut I d id, TI\(' old('\' hoy was doing the |
