My mother was one of the best cooks of all time. And a good manager too, she had to be with such a large family and small home. I can never remember a time when there was not food a plenty and some to share for the neighbors children who were always dropping in, to, Aunt Sarah’s as she was called. There was always a crowd in our home, of good jolly people. Mother worked continually in the primary and Relief Society. When I was right young she would hook old Nig. to the buggy and we would be off to Primary, that was before I started school. There was never a fast meeting passed without her standing and bearing testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel and thanking the Lord for his goodness to her and her family. She lived her whole life for her family and taught them all the principles of the gospel. Which some of us have failed to live up to fully.
I will remember November 11, 1918 when the Armistice was signed ending World War #1, how happy father and mother were (along with everyone else) that their boys had been spared and would now return. Had the War kept up another year I would have gone in myself. Though young I was as large in stature as I have ever been in my lifetime. At 15 years I was 5’ 11” tall and weighed 145 pounds. I was head and shoulders above anyone of my age. This abnormal height made me very self conscious and bashful. (I have over come this a little by now) I wasn’t much in a crowd but when the girls got me alone “You’d be surprised”. However I always got along pretty good at a dance and ere I was 18 years old I would rather dance than eat, and many times did.
In June 1917 my father bought a modle T Ford. At that time there were very few cars on the road (and in fact no roads) We really thought we were somebody.
I should go back here a ways and say that when I was 5 years old my father was called on a mission to England, his homeland. My oldest brother Heber, who had been away working, came home to run the farm. And he, with my other brother Will who was 12 years old, made the living for the family and enough besides to keep father in the mission field. It was a great sacrifice for my mother. But then she had done this before when she had only three small children. Now she was the mother of 12, I being the youngest. Three had died young. I well remember the night that father left. Mother and I had been to Salt Lake with him and as the train went East on the Union Pacific we got off at Morgan and he stayed on. My brother Heber was there to meet us in a big heavy wagon, and it took us most of the night to reach home six miles away. The roads were hub deep in mud and we kept getting stuck.
When we bought the Model T Ford, only my brother Will learned to drive it, one day later on my father said to me “son come with me, we are going to learn to drive this contraption if it’s the last thing we do” so away we went. I was afraid at times that it was going to be the last thing we would do on earth, at one time it headed for a barb wire fence and instead of applying the brake father hollered “Whoa” “Whoa” as he would to his horses, but the Ford didn’t stop. Luckily one of the wires caught the radiator cap and killed the engine, so we got out and cranked the engine, got it started again, backed onto the road and away we went again. From that day we both knew what to do and what not to do in driving a car.
Work on the farm was always hard, I always had the job of tromping hay while two pitched it on. Sometimes would get completely buried in the hay, but when we got back to the barn mother would be there with a jug of lemonade to refresh us. When real young it was my job to ride the horse to cultivate acres of potatoes. About the only cash crop father raised. He kept us all fed on 30 acres of ground. However he was a share holder in a threshing machine company, and got some grain for flower to make bread. They would thresh for everyone in the community. Each would help each other. Six teams of horses furnished the power going around and around all day long tied to big sweep stakes. Uncle Hyrum Phillips was a large man and he sat in the center of the horses and knew just how to keep them going steady so the power and speed of the thrasher would be steady. When I was little I thought it was great if I could be around the machine and get a little dust on my hat. When about 15 I followed the machine each fall and became so good at knowing just how to fork the bundles of grain from the stack to the feeders table, so the feeder could feed the machine evenly, that they always gave me that job. One thing I liked about threshing was the great meals we would get. Breakfast, dinner and supper. Sometimes we would sleep in the straw stack if we were too far from home, as we would have to be up early.
No comments:
Post a Comment