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Show and said I'd go down in Utah History for it. The picture of T. W. which you all have a copy of, shows him wearing the vest and tie I knitted from the silk. also made the suit he is wearing, in fact, every stitch of clothing he has on in that picture, I made -- wove the cloth and spun the wool and the cotton. Brigham Young was so overjoyed with the gift of silk soc~, tie, and vest that he made a special trip out to Centerville to see for ~lmsel: the whole set-up and insisted we should start up the first silk bus1ness 1n the West. But I ;anted none of that. The worms were really a nuisance. We :ed them on mulberry leaves. T. W. planted the trees and raised them espec1ally for that purpose. We gatb~red th~ _~Qol, cleaned and carded and dyed it: Then I spun it into yarn fine enough to weave into cloth and made the SU1t. I made all the woolen stockings for the family, knitted them by hand. My friend, Mary, loved to knit. She would knit constantly when we were together, unless we were quilting. When we read from The New York Ledger one wou ld read and the others would do hand work, knitting, tatting, mending, none was idle. . 0 fl"1v1ng. I had many I was happy, content, and felt the real JOy . fri ..ends and no enemies. Annie was a good help and had a sweet, pleasan~ dlSposltlon, very pleasant to have around. She was just like one of the famlly. It was she who tended the children when we met at my place to quilt or sew. Chapter 23 SARA TALKS OF MANY THINGS -- ESPECIALLY HER FATHER Next time we settled down to talk of her life, Sara said: "I can't remember my father's mother, but I remember hearing father say once that they were well to do people and owned and ran their Own Tin-smith business. My father played the cla~net and the violin and he belonged to a band in the Isle of Man. He had a fine sense of music, and loved it. He sang tenor. He said his mother was never sick a day in her life. But one day, while eating dinner, she started with a dreadful nose-bleed, and bled to death. Her maiden name was Alice McDonald. Father was twelve years older than Uncle William, whose mother was Jane Gill. Their father married her after mother died. So far as I know Uncle William was the only child of that marriage . Uncle tells a little story about father and himself. When they were left at home alone one day to get their own lunch, father decided to make an apple dumpling, their favorite dessert. But he ate all the apples out of it during the proces s of making and cooking. Often when father worked he couldn't get money for his work and had to take "garden sass" and "soft soap". He hated thi s worst of all for we needed the money and it was hard on mother too and she let him know it. Sometimes he'd have to go down to St. Louis to work. But there wasn't much money anywhere. St. Louis is not too far from Nauvoo. I remember it was right on the river. Somet~mes the river would overflow and there would be great ponds ' of water filled with the most beautiful pond 1illies I ever saw. My mother did the most beautiful handwork I ever saw, exquisite, she even sold some of it when we needed money so desperately. It was so perfectly done that it looked as though hands had never touched it. Now this I have never mentioned to anyone of my family. But, if you are gOing to write a book about me, perhaps it should be noted: There was something between my parents . I never knew what it was, that became a pOint of real irritation and difference between them and it grew in that last year before he went to California. I never heard them quarrel openly. But my mother hated his long absences from home. She hated being left alone without her man. She was a very beautiful, attractive woman and men were naturally attracted to her but she never gave any of them the slightest encouragement while he lived. 242 243 |
