Mary Rose Jones 

(Photo of Mary Rose Jones) 

I was born of goodly parents. My father was Alfred Rose and my mother was Mary Ann Brookes Rose. They were married at Union, Utah, and later sealed. And from this union six children were born–(me), Mary Brookes Rose, being the fifth child and fourth daughter. There was one son younger than me. The older ones were Ethel, Albert, Hazel, Dora, and then me (Mary), and Delbert Judd who was the youngest of us all. I was born August 17, 1907. 

My father came over from London, England, where he was born. My mother came from Cheltenham, England, where she was born. But they came to this country to join the LDS Church. They were married in Utah, where they made their home for about ten years at Centerville, Davis County, Utah, where five of their children were born. 

When I was two years old my folks decided to move to Malad, Idaho. After arriving here, we lived at the Big Bend Country, which was named after a large river that ran through the places we lived on. My Dad worked for several men who had farms in that area. 

Then he took up and filed on some land above there. (They done that in those days.) This land was in the Elk Horn area but still in Oneida County and close to Malad. So, we grew up on the ranch in the summertime, moved back to the Big Bend in the school district in the winters. There, we did this for years. 

We still went about six miles to school. In the good weather we walked, which seemed a very long way when you were only six years old. 

Many times I used to lay on the grass and feel like I couldn’t go on, but the other children would coax me on. Then sometimes we rode a horse and a donkey. The horse used to refuse to go sometimes, and he would sit right down on the road with his two front legs still up and we would slide down off his back. He would stay there until he had rested and then he would go on again. Then the donkey started doing the same thing. We would hear the school bell ringing, but sometimes the horses made us late. 

Our little brother, Del, didn’t live to start school. He died at the age of three years, seven months. We were all broken-hearted. He is buried in the Pleasant View Cemetery by our parents. My dad got killed in the canyon at the age of fifty-seven, and my mother died at the age of forty-eight, when I was eleven years old. All the years since have never stamped out her image and teachings. 

My first recollection is when I was barely two years old. It was when we moved up here to Idaho. My dad and brother brought the furniture up in a covered wagon. It took them two or three days to make the trip, but my mother brought us girls on the train. I remember it had red plush seats in it. It was a slow train, but I thought it was beautiful. We sat on those red plush seats and played. Hazel was the mother, and Doris and I were her children. It was so much fun. 

Three weeks after we arrived here, my mother had Del, her sixth child, a boy. That is what they wanted so badly. He was a beautiful child, but died so young, at the tender age of three years and seven months. Six years later we lost our mother with influenza. That was a very hard time in our life. 

I had always been my mother’s girl. I always idolized her. My sister, Dora, was my dad’s girl in every way. I clung to my mother with an intense devotion, for some reason I felt like she was the best friend I had in the whole world. People seemed to prefer my sister to me because she was prettier than I. She could visit freely with people, while I was blond and shy, with short blond straight hair; so I always went to my mother when we were little. If someone came to see us, I watched them make a fuss over Dora and seen the nickels they gave her, leaving me out. I wasn’t a jealous child, but it made me feel so unimportant. This is why I suppose I clung to my mother so closely. 

She always helped me over the rough spots, and if I went to a little birthday party, I always brought back the little refreshments home to her. I wanted to share them with her–just a childish devotion, of course. 

The day my mother died almost ended the desire to live for me. I felt like I had lost the  

only friend I had. My dad was good to me, but Dora was still his little girl. My sisters were good to me, but I had lost my best pal. A few years later my dad married again, but first he took us to the Salt Lake Temple. I was sealed to our mother, and us children were sealed also to them that day and he to his parents. I was fourteen by then and we had a wonderful day. Only our dear mother wasn’t there. 

But that lonely gap always remained in my heart. My father married again. Then my two older sisters got married, which left Dora and me together. We went to school, but seen some awful hard times staying here and there with other people. My father always paid for our room and board in the fall of the year when he got his crop. He paid up in advance in the fall for our whole school season. That was fine. The people would go through the money, and then we were treated like imposters, but there was no other way if we were to get an education. 

Time passed and soon my sister Dora got married. We had always shared our hardships together. There was not any work for girls in those days; you had to be at least 18 years old to even get housework then. There were such a few girls that got to go to college that there were always plenty of older girls available. There were no baby sitting jobs then, either. People took their children with them if they went anywhere for there was very little night life outside of a few dances. If the married folks went, they usually had some children old enough to tend to the rest, so thus no baby sitting jobs. 

I was practically alone in the world at the age of 14. Work seemed impossible to get; my dad and sisters had all gotten married so close together that it had changed everything for me. All the old familiar things had all changed now. Somehow I didn’t seem to fit into their lives anymore. My old home was not the same, my stepmother had two sweet little children when she married my father. I loved them both dearly and cooked and made them things. I used to take them swimming and picking flowers and such, but somehow I wasn’t wanted at home much anymore. 

I used to harness horses and plow, work in the wild hay or help with chores of any kind. Before Dora got married she did more of this than I did. We used to ride horses a lot. 

I remember when we used to take a big tub and walk all over the plowed land and fill the tub with clumps of sagebrush that was good to burn in our coal stove. By the time the tub was full, it was so heavy we were exhausted when we finally got home with it.  

My father had a dry farm–640 acres–one half mile above the Big Malad River. They called it the Box Bar Ranch (the box bar was his brand), where we used to haul our water from. There was a swimming hole down below there. It was deep and there was a big culvert there, which was built under the road that crossed the river. Just about every afternoon in the summertime, we took our suits and went swimming. Often that was part of our recreation. 

On Saturday nights, we went into town to the dances. Everyone went then because there were few cars and fewer rides to get elsewhere. We used to have so much fun. It was a big dance hall with a big jazzy orchestra. The girls and boys were so happy to get together. The boys were gentlemen in those days and the girls were ladies. 

We would get together sometimes and take lunch and go up in the canyon. But the whole group always stayed together. Dora and I always palled around together in the same group. Sometimes we dressed alike, but we were always together. There was less than two years between us. The folks called us the two little girls and my older sisters Ethel and Hazel were referred to as the two big girls.  

Pa hired our cousin and his wife to come and take charge the first summer after mother died, so my two older sisters went into town and found work. That lasted one summer. My two oldest sisters felt that they could have handled the household. His wife was very little older than they were, so they left and went to town and found jobs, and later husbands, and were married within the year. This was before Dad got married again. His hired help went back in the fall. My oldest sister came back home until February and then she was married. Soon Hazel got married, which left Dora and I. But we learned to cook fairly well and do things in the house. It was hard. We washed our clothes on the board and boiled the white things. That is how people washed then. There were no washers in those days. We scrubbed bar board floors and found it hard. 

Then Dora developed a terrible sickness that lasted for months and months. A lady we knew took her to her home to care for her so that left me alone to do the best I could. I was about 13 years old. 

I remember one day before my mother died, we were all sitting at the table having dinner. Albert was cleaning his shotgun and was sitting back on the couch just behind Dora and me. My mother kept telling him to come to the dinner table. He said, “I am through now.” He had taken his gun all apart and cleaned it, so he put it back together, thinking it had to be empty. He was admiring his job, and he aimed it at the ceiling and fired. There was still one bullet in the magazine, and the shot went in between Dora and I, but happened to miss both of us. But it fanned my ear so close I felt the breeze from it. I could hear nothing for two days, only that deafening roar which nearly drove me wild. My poor mother dropped to her knees and started to pray. She thought one of us had surely been shot. The old house still shows the splinters and big hole of the shot marks today in that ceiling. That was some fifty-six years ago. The old house still stands empty on the ranch under another person’s name with the shot marks still present, of course. 

After my sisters were gone and before my dad got married again, it left me to be the housekeeper. I don’t know how well I done. I was only 12 years old. Dora was still very sickly and helpless to do anything, but I done the best I could. Somehow I learned to bake fairly good bread and could cook good plain food. I wasn’t too good on pastry but learned to make good rice puddings and fairly good plain cakes. 

I had to cook for the headers for a couple of years, for several days during the summer. There were about 13 men and several men at thrashing times too. But somehow I made it through. I hope they did too. 

I had one special school teacher that I loved most dearly. She taught me for years. I always loved her so much and she seemed to like me too. 

After mother died, I sort of turned to her and she in turn was so good to me. She was not married and was middle-aged, lived alone in a nice big brick house. I used to go to her place sometimes for Sunday dinner. She would boil eggs sometimes and let me hold the sandtimer she had. She let me count the time. I used to get a big kick out of that. She was so kind to me. I loved her so much that I turned to her for love after my mother died, and we seemed to have a need for each other. 

She liked my mother very much and always said I was like her. She and her brothers owned a swimming resort fairly close to her home. We used to spend at least one day a week there. This also gave me a chance to see her after school was out for the summer and we were living on the ranch. 

As I grew older this love for her grew stronger. All our lives we stayed in touch. She was a teacher that showed no partiality in her students. We were all treated alike and fairly. I studied so hard for her and was one of the smartest students she had. But after I left her, I never really liked school again, and it seemed harder to study under other teachers somehow. Her name  was Effie Pilgrim. 

In later life she got married but went on teaching. She was only married a few years when her husband died. She taught a while longer, then retired and moved to Salt Lake City. I sure hated to see her go, but went to see her in her new home. We used to correspond, and we exchanged little gifts once in a while. 

She was getting older now and one day I got down to visit her, two of her sisters were there and one of her sister’s husbands. We had just sat down at the dinner table and started to eat, and she said, “Mary, when I die will you write a poem for my funeral?” (Writing is a hobby of mine). A lump came in my throat and it took the wind out of my sails. I had never thought of her dying.  She was in her seventies, of course. But I just couldn’t think about it. I often read my poems at funerals, etc. and wondered how I could ever do it with ease. But when the time come that she passed away, I was very ill myself. They buried her by her husband in Smithfield, Utah. I was unable to attend, so someone else read my poem for me. Thus our life together ended.  

We had always belonged to the Pleasant View ward. My parents and brother are buried out there in the Pleasant View cemetery and now a little niece. My mother was the second one buried there. Now it is filled up since then with scarcely a vacant lot. 

So, we have always felt very close to the Pleasant View ward. How well I remember one morning my friend coming to school, her father was the chorister at that time, and for years after, of the Pleasant View ward. She sat by me in school. Her name was Bertha Brown. One day she turned to me and said, “Do you know what Daddy done last night?” I said, “What?” And she said, “He made out a new choir list, and your name is at the top of the list.” I was only 13 years old and I couldn’t believe it. But I was a good alto singer like my sister and mother. She was an alto singer, too. Dora also got in. Ethel and Hazel were already members. Bertha and a few others got in too. We had a large choir, about 36 or 40 people, I guess. That was such a big thrill to me. 

My sisters and I sang together a lot. Ethel used to accompany us on the piano. She was a beautiful player. She played by ear. She had never had a lesson in her life, nor did we ever have a 

piano or organ in our home; she picked it up from places she had worked, wherever there was a piano. 

We were quite a musical family. We had been blessed with good singing voices. My dad used to play the banjo and sing. Albert played the guitar and sang. Ethel and I played the harmonica and I used to like to rattle the bones, and play the guitar a little. At night we would get around Hazel’s old organ and would we ever have a ball, especially at Christmas time. 

One time I had the opportunity of singing over KSL Radio. They were very nice people that operated the station. I was plugging a song I had written, so I took it up to the KSL station. That’s how I got into the singing act. I also visited Woody Woodpecker’s program. They invited us (my stepmother and I) to join them in four or five little songs; we gathered close to the microphone and the man that played the organ accompanied us. It was a child’s program and the children were so pleased that we were singing too. I was about 40 then, but I felt like a kid with the rest of them, of course. I was married and had kids too.  

The man that played the organ, played a solo and he did so many silly stunts while he was playing and pulled so many faces just to make the kids laugh. I believe I laughed harder than any of them. I gave him a copy of my song when I left and thanked them for their hospitality. We also visited the KDYL studio and left a copy of my song with them, and also a copy at KLO in the Ogden studio. Lanny Ross played my song through; he had an orchestra of his own. He really liked the song and kept another copy of it for his dad, Ron Ross, who was the manager of KLO at that time, and also had an orchestra of his own. 

A Johnny Parry got a copy of my song; he was an Hawaiian fellow with a five piece orchestra that played at various night clubs. He liked my song real well, and set it to a faster rhythm. He played it at those night clubs four or five times a night. The crowd seemed to like it; he had made such a jazzy number out of it. 

My niece, Arlene, told me how they would all get up and dance whenever they played my song. Of course, I thought she was kidding me to make me feel good. But she insisted on me going to Salt Lake and find out for myself. She lived in Salt Lake then, so I went down just for the fun of it. They had just built a brand new night club out near Bountiful and it was beautiful. It was built sort of in an Hawaiian theme. There were palm trees (small ones) by the bandstand that stood in the corner of the floor. There were about four steps leading up to the bandstand which made it so you could see the players at all times. 

During the first dance recess, Arlene had the orchestra group come down to our table to meet me. She was acquainted with them. I was 40 at the time; they had already played my number twice, not knowing that I was there. We had a nice visit out on a side porch as everyone had gone outside to catch a cool breath of air, as it was summertime. 

Soon the crowd came back in, and Johnny Parry announced over the loud speaker that the author of this piece “Riding the Rainbow” was with them tonight. He put it so flatteringly, I felt embarrassed. They played it through again and the couples got up and danced again to it, then they sat down. He called me up to the bandstand (we see it a lot now on television, but that was before television was really out). As I made my walk across the floor and up to the bandstand, I wondered what I would say. I had never been interviewed like that before. 

But they were so nice to me, and Johnny Parry was the leader, so naturally he did everything to make me feel at ease. After he had introduced me to the crowd and our little interview was over, the people applauded most graciously for me. Then they played my tune again and just my partner and I were the only two on the floor. No others were allowed. My partner was Arlene’s boyfriend at that time. I was a young widow, but I was alone there. 

Anyway that was what I call my big moment. That only happens once in a lifetime, but it is a night I shall always remember and even though my song caught on and was rather popular on the juke boxes and night clubs here and in Utah, I never did realize any financial gain from it. 

I had offers from a few companies in Hollywood, but they all wanted money to take it a little further. I didn’t have the money to follow it through, before I would derive anything from it. 

A singer, Alice Rhinehart, who was very popular then, wanted it, but there was just too much money involved. Fay did most of the financing. Thus our song ended. I still have a record and sheet music, published, but there was no gold at the end of the rainbow. I also have a song on record called “Please Take Me Back Into Your Heart”, sung by a Hollywood star, but no luck there either. 

So, I turned to writing poetry. I have made that my hobby ever since I was about eleven years old, when I first started. I have had several published, but I have written hundreds of them. I have written and read them at funerals, weddings, social gatherings, golden weddings, churches, farewells, and for about anything you could mention. I have written and directed many plays and road shows. I really love to write. 

I will never forget the day I was baptized into the LDS Church. It was on my eighth birthday. My sister, Dora, was baptized on the same day. They didn’t have baptismal fonts in the church buildings then, so we were baptized in the big Pleasant View river by Harry Brown, a Mormon Elder in the Pleasant View ward. I was confirmed the next Sunday by Jerry Jones Sr. 

One day I was caught in a flood going home from the St. John school. Dora and I stayed with our eldest sister, Ethel, and her husband at that time. They lived about four miles from the school, right up against the foothills, where there were no close neighbors or empty houses or sheds. When school let out that night it was easy to see there was a wicked storm coming. You couldn’t see the mountains, the black clouds were hanging so low, almost to the ground. 

People had come in buggies to get their children that ordinarily walked because they lived within walking distance. 

When I walked out of the school house, I knew I was in for it; Dora wasn’t at school that day and I was glad. It was so black up by the foothills and the thunder and lightning was so terrific it seemed like it would rip the sky apart. It was my first year in St. John. I didn’t know any of the people, no one invited me to come in until the storm was over, even though you could hear a terrible roar right where I had to go. 

No one paid any attention to me so I started up the road alone. I knew I’d never get far before the storm would hit, but I didn’t realize I was walking into a cloudburst. I had passed all the houses about a mile back. I got as far as an old dugway, but didn’t get across before the flood hit. The water was about ten inches deep on the level; it was washing the top soil off and even the spring grain too. I had to get across this dugway; the hill was so steep. It was like crossing a swift river. It swept me off my feet and I went down into the water. It was a good thing I could swim, or I could never have made that crossing. 

But after I finally got back on the road, I couldn’t stand up, the water was coming so swift and was still just as deep, about ten inches deep. The lightning and thunder was the worst I have ever seen. I knew I would be taking an awful chance to touch the fence, but I couldn’t stand up any other way.  So I went like that on the fence until I came to Dan Kent’s place. The storm was still raging, the water nearly took my breath away, but Dan came out and wanted me to come in the house until it was over. He said he would take me home after the storm. 

The water was running out of my pockets and out of the hem of my dress. It was running in a steady stream off my hat and down my back. There were six brothers (all single) staying at the ranch, and I just couldn’t let them see me like that, my clothes were clinging to me like I had nothing on. But, I only had about a half a mile more to go, so I thanked him kindly and went on. There was a big amount of water down in the field; it was about 50 feet high and looked like a huge water wheel. But thank goodness, it wasn’t where I had to pass by. 

When I came up over the hill at last, I saw Ethel standing outside on a big rock crying and she was drenched. She was afraid her house would be washed away; her little chickens had been crowned and she felt bad. 

But when she looked up and saw me, she started to laugh and laugh at how funny I looked. I guess I did look awful, but I tried to think she could laugh when it had been such a tragedy for me. No one will ever know what a miracle it was that I had ever made it. 

I used to pal around with my brother a lot; he is six years older than I; but somehow he used to expect me to go skiing with him, which I was fairly good at. I used to ride the skis double with him sometimes. We had a hill or knoll just in back of our house; the snow was so deep out in the country then that you couldn’t see the tops of a fence post. It was frozen so hard that even a sleigh and horse never broke through the crust of snow. You couldn’t tell where the road was, and you could just head whichever direction you were going to drive right to it.  

The open fields used to give us free sailing, and so we would climb up on the big hill, sometimes riding double and sometimes on our skis. We got off to such a fast start that we would go for miles before we could ever stop. The wind would almost take our breath away. Because of our speed, there was not a chance to stop like there is in soft fluffy snow, but our way was so much more fun, until we finally got stopped. But to cover all those miles back carrying our skis was when we paid for the fun. But we sure had a ball while it lasted. 

I got to be quite a crack shot with the 22. Only I never wanted to kill anything. But I got real good at shooting targets etc. We used to hunt for hours in the hills and through the fields. I never once shot to hit anything that had life and I am still happy about that. 

I used to stay quite a lot with my sister Hazel. We got along good and she would allow me to have a party and ask all the kids down. She could make such good ice cream and cake. They lived in Pocatello Valley then. It was a little valley out west of Malad and the valley got snowed in in the wintertime. Everyone that had ranches out there stayed all winter. They got their winter supplies in the fall; their basements looked like stores, and they never seemed to run out of anything. Everyone went to Church out there. They also had dances every week which everyone from the old to the young attended. 

They had good music too. One lady played the piano; a man played his accordion, and another fellow played the violin. Everybody danced from the marrieds to the singles. Some of those old time dances where a man had two partners and some other women trying to steal him away from you was more fun than a box of monkeys. 

My sister’s husband, Leo Jensen, was the presiding Elder out there. Sometimes it kept his hands full to keep everything under control. But the whole ward liked him, and no one drank or fought in those days. So did we ever have a ball. I was about sixteen then and always loved dancing.  

We used to go sleigh riding then. We’d get a bunch of kids together and run races in town. The roads were so slick on the street corners that it was hard for the horses to stand up unless they were sharp shod. But they used to make a sleigh whirl round and round until it swung clear around and hit the horses. 

After we were through riding, we would go to someone’s home and have chili and hot chocolate. Those were the days. We went ice skating when it was moonlight. We skated like everything. The kids would come from all around and we sure had fun. 

We have also had sadness in our lives. First my little brother died, six years later my mother died, then a few years later my eldest sister died, and her husband and baby died. Hazel’s husband died, and then my father died. We have had little grandchildren die too. I guess everyone gets their share. 

(Photo of Frederick Eugene ‘Bud’ Jones, husband of Mary Brookes Rose) 

(Photo of Marriage Certificate) 

When I was 17, I got married on 7 January 1925. I had gone with my husband for a year. He was 23 at the time. He wanted to get married so bad. I didn’t realize then that, that was the best years of my single life; my husband’s name was Frederick Eugene Jones, but he always went as “Bud.” He was six years older than I; all of my family were married and life seemed pretty dull alone. I was just helping my sisters out when they were having their babies or putting up fruit, helping them house clean and so forth. I was glad to help at those times to pay back a little of the kindness they had shown me by letting me stay in their homes. I was willing to do anything inside or out to make myself less than bothersome. I felt I was intruding in their lives, but I had to have a place to stay so I done everything from scrubbing floors to ploughing and picking up potatoes or what have you.  

I did at last get a job in the laundry. My sister, Ethel, was living in town when I got the job. She informed me that I would have to pay half the rent and some of the groceries, which I did. 

Life was hard for me but somehow the days passed. So my boyfriend and I had a lot of big dreams. I thought if I got married, I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I would have a house and something of our own, and it would be home. A place I had not known since my mother died. But most of all I wanted a baby of my own. My sisters had their sweet babies that I loved, but I was the youngest one home after our little Del died, so always I dreamed of having a baby all my own. 

So on a Saturday evening after we got to town, we slipped up to the court house and got married. We thought to surprise everyone. Joseph Parry married us, but before we could get out of town, the whole town knew it. 

I, being so young, hadn’t stopped to think how our parents would take it. I guess they all felt bad because we hadn’t said anything. I had just left home about two hours before I got married. Somehow I was so sure my folks would all be glad, as they were newly married, and had their first babies. But I found it turned out differently. My father didn’t speak to me for several months. Even when I went out home, he wouldn’t even answer me when I asked him how he was. This hurt me deeply. I guess he was hurt too, so after two or three times, I gave up going out home. 

They had to pass my house when they came into town, but they would pass by the door and never look that way. If the Jones’ saw them pass, they’d say there goes your folks, Mary. They just went passed. In a little while they would pass going home, but even if I was outside, they completely ignored me. The Jones’ couldn’t let it pass, even though it hurt me so deeply. 

We lived with the Jones’ the first year of our married life while Bud worked for his dad. His mother knew that my folks didn’t care for Bud, so they treated me the same way and so did his eight sisters, so we started out disliking each other’s folks and being disliked by them. 

But we finally got moved by ourselves, which helped a lot. But for some reason, I could not get pregnant. I thought if I was going to not get a baby, I was about to give up. But to our surprise almost three years later, we were blessed with a handsome baby boy. He had so much black hair it was clear around his shoulders and down in his eyes. We named him Fay Eugene. Then my life took on new meaning. I was so crazy about my baby, now I had someone to love, who loved me back with his smiles and kisses. Then two years later I had a beautiful black headed little girl; we named her Mary Lois. My babies seemed to be my whole life. 

Then the depression struck. Every man or at least nine out of ten men were without work. How we managed through those next two years was nothing short of a miracle. People had their lights and water cut off. Only the ones with jobs could buy coal. All the men went to the canyons to get wood out and cut it into stove lengths. My husband and his father went to the canyon till Christmas time. They got out large pine logs and sold them to the schools and stores for 50 cents a piece. They had to be sawed into stove lengths or they wouldn’t buy them. We had a big long saw. My husband got on one end and me on the other end and we sawed blocks until dark sometimes. 

We were living on the ranch at that time. Bud used to get out Christmas trees for sale at Christmas. Every store had a tree inside and outside. The ones that sell now for about eight or ten dollars, he could only get 10 cents for. The big tree that stood in the center of the cross roads, he got fifty cents for. It was magnificent. He went in snow up to his waist over in the canyons. But that was how tough it was. If the children was to have anything at all for Christmas, that was the only way he could do it. It was about the same for everybody one way or the other. 

I remember Dad (Bud) went up to the ranch with some of his folks. When they got back to town (we were living in town then), the folks came to tell me he had stayed up to the ranch to help his father in the hay. It was cold and stormy in town and my baby was two weeks old. I was too weak to chop wood and I didn’t have a cent. The roof was leaking and the water was running clear across the floor. I had no other place to go. We had no telephones then. It was June, but we were sure having a cold storm. I did not know how I was going to feed the babies. If I didn’t eat, I couldn’t feed my baby. She was breastfed. Then there was little Fay. Two years old and I was so weak I could hardly get around.  

Everything seemed so hopeless, so I kneeled down and prayed that I could find a way to eat until Dad got back. It had quit raining just then. Fay ran across the road to the tourist camp grounds. There was no one there because of the weather. Fay came back and said, “Look, Momma. I found a nickel on the ground.” It turned out to be a quarter. That was enough to buy two loaves of bread and a quart of milk back then. I got by until Dad got back. A ten dollar bill wouldn’t look that big even now. 

Yes, times were hard and it was a famine all over the world and people starving everywhere. 

But after two years when President Roosevelt got in, things started to pick up and come back again. I started to have bad health and operations. I went a long time in getting well enough to have another baby. I went about 13 years and then I got a beautiful baby girl, with a mop of black curly hair. The nurses used to take her all through the hospital showing her off. We were all so proud of her and Fay and Mary Lois were grown up then. We named her Sharon Lee. She was our pride and joy. But I didn’t want to raise her alone, so when she was three years and four months old, I had another golden curly-haired baby boy and that completed my family. They all have children of their own now. 

I have 25 grandchildren, three are married, and I have three great grandchildren at the present time (1974). 

But before all this happened, I had three little children come into my life, each one had different parents and was only with me for a short while and at different times. I grew to love them almost as much as my own. 

The first one was a black-eyed little baby girl with a mop of brown curly hair. I lived in part of her parent’s home. Her mother liked to go a lot so she left her with me. Her name was Emma Gene. We all delighted in having her. We had her so much that she called us Mama and Daddy. She wanted to be with us most of the time. I was nearly always home, so she just grew up to be like our own. We stayed down from the ranch an extra month because we couldn’t stand to leave her. It sure was hard for us. But the time came to move back up to the ranch and we didn’t get to see her until the fourth of July. When she saw us she was in the car. She kicked and yelled and we were just so pleased in our own way to see her. We were homesick, too. 

But later in the same month, they sent us word that she had passed away with pneumonia and whooping cough. She was two years old then. She was the prettiest little corpse you could ever see. We bought her the lot where she is buried. Her folks bought her a little headstone. I have decorated her little grave for over 40 years. I have never really gotten over her death. This was when we just had our first two children. 

The years passed and the two oldest children, Fay and Mary Lois, were grown up. Sharon was still young, Dad was working for Mrs. Owens with the turkeys then. That is when Fran came into our lives. Her husband died and she lived in a trailer down to the Point, they called it. She shipped her husband’s body back to New York and came to live with us until she could sell her turkeys and leave here. 

Lonnie was three years old and Fran had a boy the same age. Then she had a baby six weeks old. He was a delicate premature child, and I took care of him so that she could go on with her turkeys. She was trying to get them ready for sale at the Thanksgiving market. I took care of Billy too, her boy, he was well and strong, but the baby was the worry. He was so frail, and I just wondered if he could keep coming along. But, he was such a sweet little thing. He never had to be tended. Every time he caught you looking at him, he broke out into a big smile. That would bring you right over. I swore I wouldn’t let myself love him after being hurt so bad over Emma Gene. I thought I would just be good to him, feed and bath him and maybe play with him a little but watch my emotions. His mother did not seem to have any time for her children. 

She got chasing out and just left her children up to me. Soon I had taken them right over and found myself staying home with the kids and letting her go. But I had grown to love that baby like he was my own. I liked the little Billie, too, but still she stayed on. The baby had never been blessed. She called him Clarence Douglas, so I told her she had to get him blessed. He was about four months old or more. Every Fast Sunday she was sick from the night before and wouldn’t take him to be blessed. She wasn’t LDS and wouldn’t take him to any church. 

Finally I told her it will be Fast Sunday next Sunday and Dougie is going to be blessed. I said, “No baby goes without a name around me.” She said, “Anyway, I haven’t got anything to dress him in.” I said, “I’ll see to that.” She didn’t seem to belong to any church unless she belonged to the Catholic Church. Her mother was a Catholic, but she was dead now. Fran didn’t care about any church, so when Fast Sunday rolled around again, I got up early and woke Fran up. She was moaning and groaning because she was sick from the night before and wouldn’t get up. I said this baby is going to be blessed today, if I have to go without you. And I meant it. She said, “I don’t want him blessed in the damn Mormon Church,” and I said, “Well take him then to one of the others, but if I take him, he will be blessed into the Mormon Church.” So I got ready and fixed the baby all up cute and when she seen I meant it, she finally got out of bed and got ready. So we went up to the First Ward LDS Church and Bishop Hughes blessed him. Clarence Douglas Sarett, her choice of course, and we called him Dougie. She surprised me when they blessed him by the tears rolling down both sides of her face and onto her clothes. She was so hard in her outlook on life. I was surprised she could be so toughened, but there was a lot of good in her too. But I didn’t think she could cry. 

She promised me then that when he got to be eight years old, she would bring him back so I could have him baptized, but that was not the case. She left us when Dougie was a year old and as much as she knew we loved him, she gave him to some people here that didn’t care anymore about religion than she did. 

I watched him grow up. These folks were good to him. He had everything that money could buy. But his personal habits were terrible, I guess. The way he talked to the cops when they picked him up and he had his own way in everything. His name was always in the red for doing this and that. In our town paper, people seemed to delight in bringing it to my attention. (He is known now as Dick Dudley). I used to feel so bad and think if I could have raised him, maybe he would be on a mission now, but there always seemed to be something sad about him too. I still love him even though he has never been a part of my life since I had him with me. It almost broke my heart to give him up, but I did get one satisfaction as time went on. He met and married a Mormon girl and was baptized into the Mormon Church. I don’t know what priesthood he holds. They have one or two children now. He is about 27 years old and turned out to be a darn good kid, I understand, after he was married. 

Then I had another boy for a long time. I grew to love him too. His name was Kenneth Abbott. When he was about two years old, his mother was neighbors to us. His father was sick in the hospital. She had five children. 

Kenneth was a few months younger than Lonnie, so they grew up together. It wasn’t long before Kenneth’s father passed away. She was left with five children and naturally had to go to work when Kenneth was three years old. He developed Rheumatic Fever; he was small and frail anyway; and after a while his mother got married again. But it didn’t work out and Kenneth loved to be with Lonnie and we loved to have him with us. His step-dad drank and wasn’t nice to Kenneth so he practically made his home with us. He stayed most of the time with us until he was fifteen. Then, he seemed to work away a lot and went to school. He got married quite young and moved away. He has three or four children now and I seldom get to see him. So thus our lives together ended. 

Through my experience I have learned one thing, to never take another person’s child and learn to love them over a period of time unless you can make it legal. Otherwise it only means heartache for you and the child. 

Later on I was so thankful that no one but the Lord could take Sharon and Lonnie away from me, which in his kindness he let me raise and keep them. I have all my family but one (Fay and Ruth lost a baby boy six weeks old, which broke us all up.) 

But I still have 25 grandchildren, which is a joy to me. They range from about two years to 26 years, the oldest ones could not be better to me then they are. They all have good jobs and spend too much of their money on me and help me so much whenever they can. They take me to dinner and for long rides, make me beautiful things and so forth. I am alone now and my health is gone, but I am so lucky to have my family. 

The little children give me so much love and satisfaction too and come bringing me their little gifts of love that helps me through the hardest days. I love them all so much. 

My own children could never do more, or be kinder to me. They say there is only one family and every mother’s got it, but mine would measure up to any of them, bar none. They are all religious and well thought of and are raising their children just as righteously as they can. So far I have had a son and three grandchildren that have been on missions. 

First Lonnie went to England on his mission. Then Gary went to California and served a mission there. Brenda served her mission in Germany and Hal served his in Uruguay and several parts of South America. Hal just married on June 1, 1974. They are Fay’s boys and Brenda is Mary Lois’s girl. 

My husband did not live to share all this pleasure with us. He died in 1952 when we just had Fay who had four children and Mary Lois who had two. He loved children and he especially took to Fay’s and Ruth’s little baby. There seemed to be a tie between them. All he could talk about was that baby. He was a big husky baby. He was one of the sweetest, but he only lived for six weeks and died in the night unexpectedly. The doctors did not really know what he died of, but he seemed fine when he went to bed. It was heart breaking to see how hard Fay and Ruth took it. We were heartbroken too. Dad had been ill for six years, his heart and liver were so bad, he was just living on borrowed time. It just seemed like he mourned the baby’s death all the time. But just six weeks later after that little Lance died, Grandpa passed away. So we had two funerals in six weeks in our family. It about broke us up for some time, but I was left with Sharon and Lonnie to raise, so I devoted all my time to raising them. I don’t know what I would have done without them. I never remarried, but in time we got adjusted again and were happy to be together. 

But still my mind wandered back and still does, to when we lived on the ranch, up to east Daniels. I think of how hard we both worked, we couldn’t afford a hired man, so I had to be the extra man as well as the woman. 

I will never forget how hard I worked on that ranch. We used to get up at four o’clock in the morning, so Dad could get out on the field plowing by five, so it would be cooler on the horses. The stars would still be shining when he went down to the lower field to get the horses. It came from East Canyon, just above our place, so it was my job to take a bucket and go out and fill up our barrels and water for the house before the animals above there got on the creek. Then I got breakfast by the time Grandpa got back with the horses. After breakfast was over, he went out to grease and fix the plow. While he was doing that (it was daylight then), I went out to the corral and caught seven head of horses, bridled and harnessed them, coupled them together and drove them out to the field where the plow was. Then when he got plowing, I had little chickens to take care of and the milk to separate by hand. Sometimes I could hardly get the handle to turn on the separator, it was so heavy. You had to get it up to a high speed before you could release the milk. We had big heavy buckets that I could barely lift when they were full of milk. Then I had the cream to take off and put in the little cupboard down in the cellar. Then once a week I churned 12 pounds of butter and had to turn that big wooden churn by hand. It was harder than the separator. I had the butter to pound to get the buttermilk out of it and I had a pound mold that I put the butter in to make the pounds, work salt into it before then. Then I put in the butter paper and kept a wet cloth over it. I put it back in the cellar cupboard so it wouldn’t melt. Then when I took it to town to sell it, it was 10 cents a pound, so I just gave it away to the folks. 

I had a big garden to water and take care of, a big raspberry patch to pick three times a week, 30 gooseberry bushes to be picked by the fourth of July or else they molded,  black English kerns to pick, blue plums and native kerns to be picked, and an orchard to irrigate. We had little chickens and ducks to take care of and setting hems to feed and water. We had calves, and pigs to be watered and fed. I used to carry sixteen big galvanized buckets of water to the pigs and calves from the ditch. 

There were vegetables to pick and clear every morning so I could have dinner by eleven. It got too hot for the horses to work until noon. I had the separator to take apart and wash and scald and wipe; my breakfast dishes to do, beds to make and floors to sweep all by eleven o’clock. 

I baked about six big loaves of bread three or four times a week, washed my clothes on the board and boiled the white ones. I used to be all through and have them hung out on the line by eight a.m., but everything else was waiting for me after. It soon came time to go and get the horses again and unharness them, turn them loose before dinner. I cooked on a coal range and no matter how hot it was, I had to iron with the stove irons. We ironed everything then, the material was different. 

We had to starch our clothes then and have a big fire to keep our stove irons hot. I used to bake bread while I had to have a fire, heat bath water and cook, in those days. We used to bottle fruit and vegetables. I used to put up about four hundred quarts. We would go up to the canyon and pick chokecherries for all of us. I would bring them down by the baskets full for the folks. They would just let them stand and spoil. I used to put about 19 or 20 quarts of jelly up just for us.  

We would take our lunch and go for the day. Dad, up the canyon, would go with us and help us pick. Fay and Lois were big enough to pick too. We sure would work. But we would get a lot of chokecherries. I used to make a lot of homemade rootbeer. We lived 18 miles from town and had no car, so we would take big bottles of root beer and lay them in the water at the head of East Canyon where the water first sprang up. It was shady and cool up there and the water was so cold it would chill our root beer until it was as cold as ice. We used to lay a cloth on the grass where it was shadiest and have our lunch up there. The kids used to think it was really special. 

There was not a school up to Daniels where we lived, so when school started in the fall, the kids would go to town and stay with some of the folks until we could move down. We were always up there until Thanksgiving time, harvesting, putting in crops, and getting wood out of the canyon. Fay and Mary Lois would get so homesick. I think I was worse than them. We would go and get them on Friday night and bring them back to town on Sunday night. It would nearly break their hearts. Fay was eight and Lois was six. No matter how much milk, butter, eggs or fruits and garden stuff I took down from the ranch, it was never enough for their keep. 

We let Bud’s mother keep the first farm allotment of $500 dollars. We gave her the crop off it from the year before. I cooked, fed her combine men for nothing because they had the ranch before us and she had lost her husband. All we kept was forty acres of barley for all our work and crop expenses. We seeded it ourselves, but she wasn’t willing for us to have one thing. 

So I said, “This does it! I will not let my little kids stay around anymore, just for someone else’s benefit.” She had turned the place back to the real owners that fall, to the Davies. So that fall we moved over to Preston on a nice farm and the school bus came right to the gate morning and night so that ended that. 

It seemed so good to have them home during the week again. I used to have a little treat for them when they got home from school; it was such fun. 

My husband was a lover of horses, he and his dad broke horses for everyone. They used to shoe them and break them. The wilder they were, the more enjoyable it was. They sure enjoyed the days of the horses. I had always handled my dad’s horses a lot, on the plow and so forth, so I loved the horses too. I was crazy about the little colts. I made pets out of everyone of them. Dad loved horses above everything else. 

We had one brown saddle horse we called Shorty, even though he was quite a good size animal. He was dark brown, a pretty high spirited horse. He wouldn’t let just anybody ride or even touch him. I didn’t know that a person could love a horse as much as I did him. 

We used to run and play and he would beg for oats and salt. I would sneak salt out of the house for him when the block salt was gone. I also had Tony, who was all white with black eyes. When those two horses died, I didn’t eat for about three days, I felt so bad. 

And then Dad had Old Chief. He was a magnificent big brown horse. There was only one horse in the valley that mated him. But neither man would sell their horse and each one wanted the other man’s horse. The horses were half-brothers. But when Chief was about three years old, he stepped on a rusty nail and got blood poisoning. The vet came up to take care of him, but in two days, he died and my husband never farmed again. Once more we had lost this wonderful horse, so he just gave up the ranch and quit. 

Just about that same time, we left Preston and came back to Malad. Dad worked in the lumber and we lived in town from then on. We lived or rented several different places. Then World War II came along and Fay went into the Navy. Mary Lois was in high school and Sharon and Lonnie were just babies. I had never had good health and I had had several major operations, making my family rather far apart. But we all enjoyed the two little ones so much. 

But it wasn’t long before Dad got sick with liver and heart trouble. He worked at the gravel pit off and on for a long time but he was in the Ogden hospital for five and six weeks at a time. He got so bad I had to be with him. Lonnie was three years old and Sharon was just starting school. I don’t know how Lois ever managed. She worked downtown in an office and took Lonnie with her. One day he nearly got run over. 

This went on for six years. Fay was married and they had a baby. Soon Mary Lois got married. But Dad was home most of the time then. He weighed 89 pounds and looked like a dead man. No one changed me off day or night. He folks said I should go and get a job to keep us, but there wasn’t one of his family of 13 who could stay with him for one night or day to let me rest. 

But one day he got worse again and we took him to the Ogden hospital again. But in about three days he passed away. I was alone, only with my children. My married children could never have been better or I don’t know how I’d have managed. But the Lord blessed us all and still does most generously. All my children are married now and just can’t do enough for me. I sure depend a lot on them now that I have been stricken with bad health. Dad has been gone for nearly 22 years, and it will be our golden wedding anniversary on January 7, 1975. Our married life was hard, but so was most everyone’s in those days. But to me, they were the good old days when it wasn’t war and fighting. Everyone loved and helped their neighbor. The spring before Dad died (in December), his folks were determined that we would have a trip to California. He had been before, but I had never been, so we went down early in May. We went on the train as far as Reno and Max came and got us at 2:30 in the morning. When we got into Reno, there were quite a few of his folks living there and Max lived in Gardenorville, Nevada. He and four other fellows owned their own plane between them, so when we got ready to go on to California, him and another owner took us by plane. It was lots different than I thought it would be. I thought I would be scared to death, but I loved every bit of it. 

But poor Dad was so scared, he was sick then and he couldn’t stand the jar of the air pockets, nor he couldn’t look down. But my heart was good then and we flew over valleys and mountains and water. We were 60,000 feet above sea level and that was too high for Dad’s heart. But I had a blast. 

I have always thought that of all the places I have ever seen, Lake Tahoe was the prettiest place there could be, unless it is the Tetons over in Wyoming. It is most beautiful too. We had a wonderful trip and we saw so many things. I saw a big ship come in and we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, visited the Fisherman’s Wharf, and I put my hands in the ocean and talked to the sea lions that were close to the surf. Hundreds of people had done these things, but it was all so new to me. 

We had dinner there at the Wharf. I’ve never seen such ugly fish in my life as I saw there. They were big ugly things with their eyes open and their feet sticking up. Then, when they were ready to eat, the waitresses carried them to everyone. 

Dad turned sick at the sight. The woman that came to wait on us was red-headed and I never saw anyone that laughed so hard as she did at Dad, because he couldn’t stand the sight of those fish. Leda and Vic ordered a variety platter and Dad turned green. So he ordered a toasted cheese sandwich. I thought this waitress would kill herself laughing. She said, “We only serve fish here,” and he said, “Well, don’t bring me anything then.” I ordered salmon myself, but when she brought mine, she brought him a grilled cheese sandwich and said that one was the only one that they had ever served. She was still laughing. 

We went back to Reno on the bus and came home on the train. 

One day when Fay and Mary Lois were just little, I lay down on the bed with them so they would go to sleep. A quick thunder shower came up. There were only two clouds in the sky and they seemed far apart, but they were moving toward each other. My sewing machine was sitting right under the window. All at once there was a big ball of fire the size of a basket ball came in through my closed window and set for a second right on the sewing machine. It sort of balanced there, then it went out through the window at about the same time these two clouds had come together. The rest of the sky was blue, but when these two clouds hit together, we had one of the worst cloud bursts I have ever seen. It absolutely poured until the water was running down the roads like a river and the report was like a dozen rifles. 

It was just a miracle for us that that big ball of fire had gone back out through the window before it exploded or the children and I and the house would have been blown to pieces. In a split second it had crossed the road. The explosion itself was deafening. It broke a tree off just across the park and tore the heart out of it and flung it all over, knocked another tree out by the roots and flung it down by the school house. It knocked the big board fence down on two sides of the ball park and split every tree along the ballpark. It was an exciting and scary experience. I’ll tell you, that the Lord was with us and we have him to thank as always. 

I am one of a religious family. I learned to know the Lord at my mother’s knee. We always gave thanks at the table in our turn. We never missed Primary or religion class that they taught at the school. We all went to church on Sunday with our parents. My dear mother never failed to take us. Her legs and feet were so bad but she never failed us, even if we had to walk when Pa could not take us the six miles. 

We used to bear our testimony in class. I was always a little timid, but I would get up proudly and take my turn along with the rest because my mother had taught me to know it was a privilege and honor to do so. 

I thank the Lord for blessing me with such a wonderful memory. As I’ve stated before, I can remember ever since I was two years old. Ma died when I was 11, so that gave me just nine years to learn her teachings, but I believe I remember most of them to this day. 

I have had many miracles in my life. The Lord has been so good to me. I was not blessed with money and unusual things. I was not blessed with good health or showy things, but there never has been a time that I was in a tight squeeze that He hasn’t come through for me, always for the best. 

Some may doubt this little story, but I swear it’s true. I had been sick for some time. I had been to several doctors but I seemed to keep having worse attacks and finally we moved to Preston. I had a really good doctor there, but I kept getting worse. We didn’t get out of town much then to doctors. That has been a good many years ago. There were few cars. But someone that had one took me to Ogden, on second thought, I believe it was our first pickup. I went to see Dr. Dunke, whom many remember, was rated the most famous surgeon in the west. At that time, he had just returned that day from the east where he had learned something new in the line of surgery. He was a left-handed doctor, but I was the first one he operated on this new way that he had just learned. 

He sent me right to the hospital and operated on me the next morning. I had waited too long to be operated on. I had to have three major operations all at one time. He said each one of them should have been done separately, but when they got started they couldn’t quit. So, my appendix broke before they got through. My gall bladder was decayed into holes and I had a female operation all at one time. My heart was good then. I got double pneumonia on the second day. I guess my heart was what brought me through at last, but I know it was only prayer that saved me. 

They didn’t have the medicines that they have now, not even penicillin. I laid under the oxygen tent for days. My temperature kept going to 106 degrees or more. They kept an ice pack on my head, but the ice would melt in it before it could penetrate my scalp. So I was in the hospital for about ten days before I knew anything. I just laid there unconscious. I had three special nurses, each one took an eight hour shift. This sounds exaggerated, but I swear it’s the truth. Whenever a nurse came on to let the other go, my temperature was so high they had to change bed linen clear through. They would have a big bucket on the floor and actually ring those sheets out by hand into this bucket and you could hear the water run. That was three times every 24 hours. The only time I knew anything was when the elders came. They would come but I wouldn’t hear them. But, I knew they were there because the pain would leave my whole body. Then later on it would return. My husband was the only visitor that could step in but they wouldn’t let him stay. I was there for 18 days. 

Finally, they thought I was dying. I had turned cold clear to my heart. So, they sent for my folks and told them they would have to hurry if they wanted to see me alive. I didn’t realize any of this, of course, and Malad is a long way from Ogden. But the folks came in such a hurry, they could have been killed on the way. They had Fay and Mary Lois with them. While this was all going on, I had sort of a vision. My father was dead, but I saw him coming after me. He was walking, looking everywhere for me. Somehow it was like I knew he was coming to take me with him. 

I could see him so plain and was trying my best to stay hid so I wouldn’t have to go with him. Finally at last he left, but he looked thoroughly disgusted. Then it seemed like it changed and I was walking out to the Pleasant View cemetery where my folks are buried. I thought I was carrying large suit cases that felt like they were filled with iron. It was so black and dark and I could not see a thing. The road and gravel on it was like it was painted black. The telephone poles and fence posts were just as black, even the sky was black as thunder. 

I felt like I couldn’t make another step. I was all alone and just couldn’t go on. So I sat these heavy suit cases down and was like I was hopelessly lost. I turned and looked to the south and it was just as white as the road I was on was black. The sky was so blue without a cloud, the telephone poles and fence posts were like they were painted white, the road and gravel was as white as snow. 

There was a little hill right near and somehow I knew if I hurried and ran I could catch my Dad just under that little hill. There was like a black line about two inches wide that ran crossways between the two roads. I was just going to step over this line and run to catch Pa, when it came to me that the black road was where my children were. So I picked up my two heavy suitcases and started on the dark road again. But this is where it ended. But I will always think that I did see a small part of the other side, and I swear this story is true. When Dr. Dunke came in my room the next morning, he went over to me and then he hit me on the knee and said, “Well, you are over the hump!” I was 28 then and I bear testimony that every word is true. I begged the Lord to let me get well and I would have more children. I did get better and he did send me two more children, thanks to Him. 

A few years earlier we went on a trip to Yellowstone Park. We took the children with us. We just had Fay and Mary Lois then. She used to get so tired tramping around with us. This one day she was sound asleep and we had stopped close to those boiling chocolate pots. We wanted to see them since they were close to the car. I thought I’d let her sleep. I could keep my eye on her. 

There was a big brick wall built around where the boiling pots were. They were  about 20 or 30 feet below the wall. We watched that for a few minutes and then stepped over on the other side of the road to see what there was. We soon turned around to go back and there was Mary Lois sitting on top of that brick wall with her feet hanging over the pots and kicking the wall with her feet, looking back at us laughing. The cars were flying past us. We were all so scared, none of us could move. It was worse than a nightmare. We expected her to fall down into those boiling mud pots any second. She had woken up and climbed up there that quick. Finally Dad got across and grabbed her. She was just young, but I always woke her up after that. The Lord was sure with us that time. It has always been a nightmare to me, even to this day and a testimony as well. 

Then we had another terrible scare with Fay when he was three years old. We went out to Aunt Etherl’s place for Sunday dinner. Aunt Dora and Uncle Bill were with us. It was wintertime and we went out in the sleigh. Dad just had the gravel bed on and it was built to come apart to dump the gravel. He always drove good horses and kept them fat and sort of crazy. 

He took Fay over by him to let Fay drive, of course, he held the lines too. But Dad kept making the horses go faster to pretend we were having a run away. And that’s just what we had. 

The horses got all excited and lit out on a run. It jerked Fay up against the dashboard and the dashboard fell out. Fay went out too, and under the sleigh.The horses kept running. Dad couldn’t get close enough to get the lines again. The sleigh didn’t pass over Fay. All we could see was a big streak of blood on the snow. I was running with the baby in my arms, crying and praying as I ran. I just knew that Fay was dead and ground to a pulp. Bill and Dora were running with us, and the horses ran about ¾ of a mile before Fay finally passed from underneath the sleigh. How he was ever alive I don’t know. He was bruised and bleeding, he had bumps on him as big as lumps can get. He was in shock, but in a day or two he seemed pretty good. I will always thank the Lord for that. I have always thought that the Lord has given me more blessings than I could ever thank Him for. 

I have been in the hospital so many times in my life and so far have had the blessings of the Lord and so far have always made it out. 

My husband and I used to have so many friends and we all were together so much. But they are all in the cemetery now, except two of us. I loved them all so much and I just can’t think they are all gone. I still have a lot of friends, but not like we used to. We were all together so much. I have had a lot of nice dear friends I have made in the hospital too. Many of them have passed away too. 

I am alone now and spend much time writing and doing genealogy. We have done and are still trying to do research for our dead. It is such a thrill to find information in the foreign countries on them and go to the temple and do their work. 

I have beautiful books I have made of my ancestors, most of them dead. It gives you such a wonderful feeling; anyone that works at genealogy will say the same. 

My health is gone now, but I think back to the days I used to work in the Church. First, I was a Sunday School teacher. Sharon was my assistant. She was sixteen years old and was capable of taking the class many times when I was ill and couldn’t make it. 

I spent much time at the funerals giving readings. One lady asked me if I could talk at her funeral, when the time came. I spoke, I made notes and got along fine. Her name was Pearl Brown, a lovely woman that I had known all my life. She had a large family and I felt honored to be there. It was Mrs. Brown’s wish. She asked me herself. She made up her own funeral program. 

I used to put on many plays in the Ward, and write them too. There were 14 Wards in the Stake at that time. We competed against each other in the roadshows and I say in all modesty that it was only once that my roadshow came in second! For years, my show took superior above the rest, but I had a lot of good stage help. I directed the shows myself, which were lots of work. But the other shows were so good too that you had to work to win.  

I was free to go and I got asked to do about everything that others couldn’t crowd in. I was Senior Secretary of the Sunday School for a long time, a job I really liked. I sang in the choir and sang with the singing mothers. I took care of the Sacrament linens and silver trays, and so forth. 

I’ve helped clean the Bishop’s Storehouse. I guess there wasn’t much I didn’t do. I’ve helped with the tithing and other money. Our Bishop was the best Bishop that a Ward could ever have. I love him and his wife very dearly. But his work took him away from Malad after he had served for nine years as Bishop. The whole town felt terrible when the Bishop and his family left Malad and the Third Ward. Our ward felt like they couldn’t go on. His name was Bishop Hubert Gleed. He was made Branch President after he got settled in John Day, Oregon. After six to eight years, he retired and they came back to Malad. His wife, Mary, is such a wonderful person too. 

But we were blessed with another most wonderful bishop again, Bishop Lon Corbridge. He also served nine years as did Bishop Gleed. 

There was no limit to what he would do for his Ward and people. He was so wonderful to me after I lost my health. His mother was one of my dearest friends until she died. 

We have a nice Bishop now again, but I am not so well acquainted with him yet, as I was with the other two because he hasn’t lived here so very long. 

After Lonnie was married, he served as a stake missionary after the one that he had served for two years in England. I have been proud of his work. He served in the Church. Fay and I went up to Burley to conference at that time. President LeGrand Richards set him apart as a Seventy. I was so proud to be there and shake his hand and talk to him. He turned and said, “Mrs. Jones, do you believe in missionary work?” I guess he could see how proud I was, Lonnie is President of the Seventy’s Quorum now and has been for some time. 

Fay is an Elder and has held several positions in the Church. He loved the MIA especially. Sharon is teaching a class in Sunday School and Lois has been president of the MIA and Primary and worked in about all the organizations in the Downey Ward. I am thankful they all took hold like they have. Lois and Sharon and I love to do research and genealogy. I have been lucky in doing it. My children have all been married in the temple. They are all sealed to their parents and children, which is a wonderful comfort to me. 

Lonnie served as a Marine in the Vietnam war for two years. They placed him over a group of 18 men. He was sort of responsible for them. When they went into battle, it was his place to see that each man was in the right position and that their big heavy guns that sat on the ground were in working order, before he could take his position.  

 One night Sharon and I were watching the war news, we watched it every night. They picked different places, of course, all over Vietnam. This night it showed this group under fire. The enemy just started firing. The camera men happened to pick Lonnie’s group. The shots were coming by the hundreds. The boys looked so much alike in their uniforms, we saw this tall fellow run from man to man to check their position and gun. And they were under this heavy bombardment. When this Marine ran at last to his gun, it showed him right up close on the television screen. It was Lonnie running to his gun. And that’s all it showed. That was the most anxious moment of my life. We didn’t know whether he had made it or not. For three weeks I worried and prayed constantly. Then at last I heard from him saying he was okay. But a little later on he was wounded, but not too serious. He was alright. He had a medal for that. 

When Fay was in the Navy during the Second War, he received the Asiatic and Pacific ribbons, also the American theater and Victory ribbons. 

I received a telegram stating he was missing in action. We were all worried sick. The same as any parents are. But two days later I got another telegram saying he had been accounted for. You see why I’ve always felt like I have been blessed to excess.  

Another time a miracle happened in my life. Some may think it’s a strange story to tell. Some may disagree with me. But again I swear it happened in just this way. My husband was hauling a load of gravel up to West Daniels. He was ill at the time and had been for about five years with heart and liver trouble. But at times he got pretty good and he and his brother ran a gravel pit. So when he was able, he hauled gravel to various places all over the valley. 

This day he went around a quick turn and a cow stood right in the middle of the road. He slammed on his brakes so hard as not to hit the cow, the truck stopped so quick that the gravel went straight up and then down on sort of a slant. It broke the window in the back of the cab and the gravel started pouring into the cab. It kept pouring through until the cab couldn’t hold anymore. My husband had been knocked unconscious and the weight of all this gravel had completely covered him, all but his head and neck. 

How long he was there like that I don’t know. It was a road that had little traffic, but at last a man came along in a truck and found him. I don’t know to this day who he was. But he stopped and got him out some way and brought him home in his truck. I looked out and saw this strange truck and this man was dragging Bud under his two arms up the walk. He knew where Dad lived, but I couldn’t place him. 

I rushed to the door and the man told me how he had found him. He pulled Dad in through the door and left him on the floor and then he went. 

Dad was still unconscious and I couldn’t start to move him. I called Dr. Mabey Sr. and he came right up. Together we got him in bed and he started to come to, then. So in a few minutes the doctor gave him a shot to make him sleep. 

Dad had had so many of those shots, sometimes they didn’t work. I never made a sound hoping he could sleep. Finally a knock came on the door. I was afraid Dad would arouse, but he didn’t stir. I hurried and went out on the stoop, hoping Dad had dropped off. 

There was a nice clean looking man there. He was all dressed in everyday clothes. He spoke so nice and talked for a minute. Then he handed me a slip of paper asking me if I could spare him a little money. This happened to me many times before. But somehow he seemed so different. I told him I had some money in the bedroom if he could just wait a minute until I knew my husband was asleep. And for some reason, I found myself telling him about my husband’s accident. 

He said, “I am so sorry I bothered you. I sure hope your husband gets better.” He seemed like the nicest young man so I said, “ I’ll tip toe in now. I think he’s asleep.” He was and so I grabbed this money I had and I hurried back out with it. He was gone. 

So I looked over to the neighbors and I couldn’t see anyone. I went out on the sidewalk, but I couldn’t see him coming from the neighbors’ places on the street. I could see their doors, but after about a half an hour I came back into the house. Later, after it was cool and neighbors were all out digging in their flowers or watering, I asked them if a man like that had been to their place. There wasn’t one person for two blocks that had seen that man. I decided the man was John. They said he had been seen in Utah and at the Logan temple and just disappeared like he did with me. But anyway, Bud got better and I will always figure that man was John. There were stories he had helped a family in Utah and then disappeared in a minute’s notice just like he had with me. I will always think he knew all about everything and that he knew what had happened. The note asking for money was just his way of trying me out, because he didn’t want the money really or he would not have disappeared the way he did in the second it took me to get it. 

Our Sunday School class was going over to the Logan Temple. I didn’t happen to be with them, but when they got nearly to the Logan Bridge, a man was walking along in the same direction. They stopped and gave him a ride over. They told about it later. This was a few days after I had had my experience. They said after he got into the car he said, “You are going over to the temple, aren’t you?” They said yes and he said, “That’s fine. You know the time is getting short. So get your work done as fast as you can or else the temples won’t be available to us.” When they stopped at the temple and got out, they said they turned to say goodbye to him but he had vanished and they said he was no where to be seen. They figured it was John, and I’m sure that it was. I have had several experiences that are of a spiritual nature, but these two always come to mind. I believe there are few in this world who have more or stronger faith than I do. I have been blessed so much. 

I have stated before that I am alone except for my family who are all so wonderful to me. But they are married and gone from home now. 

But I think a lot and can remember so much about when we were kids on the ranch. We all had our work to do. We had lots of fun and we had our little quarrels. Hazel was good to me when I was small. I used to try to do whatever she asked me to do. 

We used to be the biggest laughers. We could laugh at nothing then. I guess life was pretty hard for Pa after Ma died, but we tried to comfort him too. 

I remember the circus came to town and, of course, we kids wanted to go to it. The folks were quite poor, like all the other ranchers, but we begged to go, so finally the folks consented to take us if we wouldn’t want candy and ice cream and all they were selling. Pa said, “It will take all my money to get our tickets.”  We all agreed to not want anything else if we could just go. 

So we went but couldn’t get seats all together. Dora and I had to sit about three rows of seats above where the folks were. Pretty soon here comes a big dark man selling hot dogs. They looked so good. Pretty soon he was selling drinks and pop corn. We didn’t get much of that. We seldom even got to town then. But we watched the show and tried not to notice the man selling stuff. But after a while he came selling ice cream cones. They were great big pink ones, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. Dora sat watching the show just like she couldn’t see him, but I wanted one so bad I couldn’t watch the show. They were only five cents and the kids and people were buying them faster than he could bring them in. 

But not once did I see anyone pay him. I guess they dropped the nickel in his hand as they took the ice cream. I couldn’t see that, I was so little. I foolishly thought he was giving them away, so soon he came past us again and he said, “Does anyone want ice cream?”  I thought if it was free, I’d like one and I raised my hand. He gave me one and I took it and licked it. He said, “Where is your five cents?” I said I haven’t got a nickel. He couldn’t take it from me because I had already licked it. He bawled me out as loud as he could. I was scared to death that he was going to beat me. Everyone was taking it all in and finally he said, “Who’s child is this?” Pa handed him a nickel. I was so scared I tried to give it to Dora. I thought maybe Pa wouldn’t be quite so mad if she had it, but she wouldn’t even taste it. But I couldn’t tell you one thing that happened in that circus. I didn’t get a whipping like I thought I would, but I made sure after that I had the money first. 

I don’t want to give you the impression my Dad didn’t love me, even though he was rather partial to Dora. She was just the image of him and his folks. I was like my mother’s side and Dora had been so sick too, they had nearly lost her. 

One day the thrashers pulled into Pa’s place earlier than they said. He had not gotten his granary fixed up yet. There were cracks that leaked around the floor that let the wheat escape and run under the floor. Pa was trying to stuff these places with old sacks before they started to bring the grain to dump it. He was working so fast and he ran out of old sacks and rags. I was standing there watching him. He said to me, “Hurry and run outside and get me some sacks, Mary.” 

So I ran around looking for a pile of sacks, but just like a five year old kid, I couldn’t see any. I went back in and I said, “Pa, I can’t see any sacks.” So he jumped up and he was excited and mad. He said, “Get out of my road before I eat you!” I flew out the door ahead of him. He pulled an old sack from under a big rock and another from out of an old stove pipe, and he found several from odd places like that until he had a whole armful of them. 

He was still mad at me for not finding them, so he took time out to chase me round and round the granary, his arms stuffed full with sacks. I was silly enough to think he might kick me, where his arms were full of sacks. Pa wouldn’t have done that in a million years, but I kept running until I was ready to drop and him after me. Everyone else was laughing. The kids and even all the thrasher men had stuck their fork in the sacks and were laughing to kill theirselves. 

Finally Mr. Anderson rode up on his horse, Liberty, and I ran up to him. He got off his horse and he looked like he wondered what was happening. Pa went up to talk to Mr. Anderson. Finally everyone quit laughing, Pa and Mr. Anderson went into the granary, the thrashers started up again, and I sat on a rock to catch my breath, and the party was over. But my sisters and brother still laugh and tease me about it to this day. To me, it was like a nightmare at five years old. I guess everyone else had forgotten the incident but me. 

When I was little (5), Ethel was crossing the floor with a big pan of ice cream to put in the freezer. They used to make it thick then. A lot like corn starch pudding, then poured the cream in last. This was still boiling and I was bent over and didn’t see Ethel. Dora and I were pulling in a box of wood across the floor, just as Ethel got to me. I raised up to say something and caught the pan right under my chin. 

It knocked it out of Ethel’s hands and it tipped toward me and it all ran down the front of me underneath my clothes. I could feel it run slowly because it was thick. My mother threw me across the table and zipped my clothes down the front. She wiped me off with a dish towel as soon as she could, but it had burned my chest clear to the bone and had a blister like a ball. I still have a scar about one-half inch in thickness today. I had cared for that for a good many months. But my whole chest carries that scar today. 

Then I have a nasty scar under my jaw that will always be there. It was caused from whooping cough when I was little. The strain from the cough caused a large lump to develop under my jaw. The doctor wanted to lance it, but my mother was afraid it would leave a scar if they lanced it. She wouldn’t give her consent to have it done. 

One day I had a terrible coughing spell and this big abscess broke and drained from the outside. It drained for three years. I had my head tied up for at least three years, and went to the doctor twice a week. To this day, it still hurts. Dora coughed so hard she bled from the eyes and nose and mouth. The doctors just did not have shots and medicine like they do now. 

Yes, I have had sickness all my life. I started when I had pneumonia at two months old. Of course, there was a lot of the time I was well too. I used to be very strong in my arms when I was young. When I was ten years old, I could throw my brother, Albert. He was 16 at that time. I did it many times to his displeasure. But I thought it rather clever, of course. 

I had many dogs in my life. They were real good dogs. We had one yellow dog we called Sam. That was when I was a kid. Dora and I had to herd the pigs and keep them out of the wheat. We had 40 head and it was a job. Pigs are so stupid anyway. I don’t know how we could have done it if we hadn’t had Sam. Boy, was he trained to herd pigs! He would herd them while Dora and I went to dinner. There were 40 of them. 

If one pig bolted away in the wheat field, they all went. The grain was clear up to our shoulders. He was only a medium sized dog, but he’d jump up until he could see over the top of the grain. Wherever he saw that grain move, he knew they were there. He’d come down on the ground again and take off for that spot. Pretty soon pigs were coming from everywhere. But he brought them out. 

Sometimes they bolted for the spring that was a half mile south of our place. He wouldn’t catch them until they had their drink and started to roll around in the water. One day Pa was fixing fence and I was helping him. A man was visiting with him. He said to Pa, “That’s the last you’ll ever see of those pigs.” Pa didn’t answer but I could see how proud he was. He just let the dog and pigs go. 

After a little while here come the pigs all wet on a little run and Sam right behind them. If one of them tried to turn back he gave it a little nip. Every pig went right in the pen. I shut the pen door and the dog laid down to rest. I noticed how surprised this man was. He said, “I will just give you $50 for that dog right now.” And Pa said, “No sir, I wouldn’t sell that dog at any price.” But it wasn’t long before a car ran over him and killed him. Pa sold the pigs and poor Sam has never been forgotten to this day, especially by Dora and me. 

I mentioned how much we thought of our horse, Shorty. We went on a trip to Nevada. There was a little brown horse sitting on the dresser. It was the image of our horse, Shorty. Built the same with the same proud head and neck. Dad said, “Doesn’t that horse look like old Shorty,” and I agreed. 

After that he started teasing Ileen about taking it home with him. He was such a tease anyway. Then he quit teasing her and forgot all about it. 

But the day we got ready to come home, all of Max’s family was out by the car. All at once Ileen went into the house and the horse was upstairs. Ileen ran upstairs to get it for Dad. He told her he didn’t want it and that he was just teasing her. But she made him take it as a gift. So he brought it home and stood it on the buffet; he thought so much of it and so did I, because we had loved our real horse so much. He had lived to be 21. That is old for a horse. Dad had raised him from a colt and taught him to be such a wonderful horse. He had taught him everything. 

He had taught him to outrun any sleigh when we were running races and cutting geezers. His friend, Fay Jones, used to run his horse Babe with him, and they had never been outrun by another team in the valley. We would dance when Dad sat on him and snapped his fingers. He always came to meet you when you picked up his bridle. I don’t believe anyone ever loved a horse quite as much as I did him. Both of us, in fact. 

Well, it was only nine months later that Dad passed away. I guarded that little horse with my life. I wouldn’t let the grandchildren hold him or hardly look at him. He seemed so much like a part of Dad. If I would have given him back then, it wouldn’t have hurt so bad. Ileen came over one day and we asked her if she wanted Shorty back and she said no. She said she had another one now that she liked as well and for me to keep him. The years had passed now and that horse was the closest to my husband I had. It had been 20 years since Dad had gone. I had polished that horse until it was just like new, after 20 years. I had become so attached to him because he was Dad’s, but one day Max came and took the horse. It really wasn’t mine, but I cried like a baby. But he took him anyway and left $20 on the table. But, that wasn’t anything compared to the sentiment I felt for the horse even though it was just an ornament. 

But I have pretty well gotten over it and accepted it as just another disappointment in my life. That horse saved our lives one day. We were on our way to town with the team and buggy. We were half way down a very steep crooked road. The road was only wide enough for one outfit at a time. It was on the very edge of a deep embankment. If you lost control, you landed at the bottom of the canyon, outfit, horses, and all. 

Our horses had traveled that road a lot, so they knew it pretty well. There was a sharp curve at the top of the grade. The road could not be seen until you had made the turn. 

We were on our way to town and was half way down the grade. It’s a good thing that we were on the inside of the grade; we had Bud’s mother and Fay and Lois with us. We did not hear this car coming from the top of the grade. All at once we heard this terrible scream from behind us. Mr. Dudley was in his car and had stripped his gears just as he made the turn behind us. He had his family with him and his car was just running wild. He knew he would hit us and probably go over the grade. 

But Shorty saved us all.  Just as they screamed their car was right even with us. Shorty leaped clear up the bank and jerked the other horse with him. It jerked the buggy too. The car flew past, just by sheer luck. Because Mr. Dudley had fainted, they all got hurt bad, but they all got better in time. Only Mr. Dudley was unconscious for days. 

They claim there is usually something funny that usually happens in such a tragedy. After the Dudley family had been taken to the hospital, we stayed at the scene of the accident for a while. The car had been smashed and the windshield had been smashed into bits. The car was lying on its side and there were six wiener pigs in there. Each one was tied in a separate gunny sack. They had managed to root their way out onto the road, and were rooting around and squealing. Morg Jones lived right there and his cow was loose onto the road. She didn’t know what they were and she took in after them. We couldn’t do a thing but stand there and laugh. 

There were a lot of people who had come by, by then. Finally they got the cow in the corral and someone took the pigs into the pen. But everything turned out okay. But we sure did laugh at the pigs and the cow.  

When we were kids at home, we used to pull sunflowers out of the grain. It was sure hard work. The weeds were so thick and strong, sometimes we would have Albert come and pull certain ones for us. We used to get in a row and take a swathe clear through the patch. I don’t think there was ever a harder job. But hard work is all we knew. If we ever got to a picture show it was only once a year on the Fourth of July. When I look back now at my poor mother’s life, I wonder how she stood it, or Pa either, but that was the good old pioneer days. We lived in a shack and a tent in the summertime and hauled water. 

We did have a floor in our house. That’s more than some people had. But the folks provided the best they could for us. I remember this man and his wife that Pa worked for in the wintertime, used to come up to the ranch. They had a seven passenger car, a brand new Buick. They had a new house and a big flowing well. He had cattle by the score in his field. It was Pa’s job to feed them in the winter months. That is how come we moved to the Bend in the winter. That and for school. While they moved to their home in town. 

I remember one day they came up and he let Dora and me sit in the back seat of this big swell car. We had hardly seen a car, there were so few of them then. So we were thrilled to pieces.  

It was getting near suppertime and they planned on staying. You could tell she was wealthy too. While we were sitting in the car, I seen my poor mother come out the door. She was walking back and forth wringing her hands and didn’t know what she was going to give them for supper. She was out of everything. They used to like to catch her that way and it made them feel rich in comparison. I thought as long as I live I will never see my mother out like this again. I don’t know how she managed, but they stayed. 

The next time Pa went into town, he bought a large supply of groceries. He could charge them and pay it up when he got his crop in the fall. That was the way most of the farmers done. He carried the groceries down the cellar where it was cool. The cellar ceiling had first willows and then dirt on top. It was good and solid. I watched until the excitement had died down. Then I went down the cellar and I put a can of salmon, pineapple, corn, milk, etc. and I hid them up in these willows. I tried to take one of everything without it being noticed that it was gone. 

No one seemed to notice anything was missing, but pretty soon the supply was gone again, and here come the big Buick up the road. About an hour before suppertime. 

Poor Ma was caught again. They used to delight to catch her this way. She didn’t have a garden, this was a dry farm. It was the same thing over again. Ma was outside wringing her hands and wondering what to do for supper. She just looked sick. She was so short of everything and it was so hard to get to town to get supplies. It was about 10 miles and Pa was using all his horses to get his work done. 

It was the custom then to ask your company to stay and eat, and they usually did. My poor mother was pale and pacing back and forth. I said, “Come with me, Ma, down the cellar” and she said, “Oh, I can’t now. I have got to fix supper.” She thought I just wanted to go because it was cool down there. So I went down and got these groceries that I had hidden in the cellar. When she turned around and saw what I had, I will never forget the look of relief that come over her face. She was so surprised. I never let anyone know where I hid the groceries, but she fixed them a nice supper that surprised them for once. They had a big garden and potatoes and beef, but never once did they bring her one thing. I still feel my childish anger to this day, which I regret. They have all been gone for many years. Anybody that hurt my mother was no friend of mine, even in those childish years. 

The years long ago were hard years for everyone, but one farmer helped another. And one neighbor helped another in sickness and health and especially in death. They can laugh now at the “good old times” but they don’t know what they missed when everyone loved each other and there was no greed in people’s hearts. Anyway if they could help each other, they done it. 

People felt no greed. Each family was living about the same. There was an equal loving feeling that this generation knows nothing about. But you couldn’t tell them that. This corrupt world did not exist in our day. But thanks to all the soldier boys for still keeping our flag clean and free. May God bless them for it and giving their lives to do it. Every veteran is a symbol of the good old USA. 

Before we had all this war, we were living out to the Bend. the man that owned the place where we lived, raised beets as well as other things. He hired three Koreans to work in the beets. They lived in the granary which was quite close to the house. We were all kids then, but the folks soon got acquainted with them even though they talked very little English. They were cleaner than lots of whites. The one man kept house. He scrubbed those bare board floors and the top of the table and chairs until they were as white as boards can be. But the folks didn’t allow us to be around there for a long time. They seemed to get a bang out of us kids. But they always come over to our house to play. 

They didn’t seem to have any evil intentions, but they would play “button buttons” with us and let us hide the button in their boots. Of course, the folks were always there. They were all grown men, but played with us kids more than they visited with the folks. Two of them were brothers. One was Kim Park. He liked Dora the best. Soe Park, his brother, like us all. The man that kept the house was Joe Junk and he liked me. He just really liked me. I was three or four at the most. He always wanted to hold me all the time. But for some reason I didn’t take to him so much. 

But whenever one of them went to town, they come back loaded down with gifts for us kids. I remember one of them coming home with a pair of high top, high heel shoes for Ethel, one day. She was only 12 and couldn’t wear them. They bought what they thought was pretty. It would generally have a Japanese touch to it, but Joe, the one that liked me, liked to buy popcorn, candy, beads and that sort of thing. I always knew the biggest one was for me. If I figured like I was asleep, he would take the biggest one and say, “You can put this up for Many.” He always called me, “Many.” He couldn’t say, “Mary.” 

But you know they turned out to be three of the best friends we ever had. Then one day they left to go far away to work in the beets and nothing would do but what us kids would go over and have something for supper. So Ma thought it would be okay and Albert was going with us. 

So we went over to supper and they were so tickled we had come. They had a pretty white cloth on the table and the dishes were shining and all they put on the table to eat was plain boiled rice. No sugar or milk, no bread, just plain rice. I don’t know how we gagged it down, but we went home and had supper again. 

Anyway the next day they said goodbye and left. We hated to see them go and then when they got through with that job, they were going home to Korea. 

So it went on for several months and we thought they were back in Korea. Pa was fixing the bedroom window on the outside and I was inside the bedroom. I heard Pa say, “I thought you had gone back to Korea and he said, “We are through now. Kim and Soe are waiting for me now. It is many miles and they wait. But I had to come back and see Many.” 

Pa brought him in the house and he loved me like I was his own. Then he pulled me down on his lap and reached for a little box he had in his pocket. It was a little gold ring and a good one. Then he said, “Goodbye,” and he was gone forever. 

I hope the Lord blesses them now for being so good to all of us. They must have been gone for many years now, but I can hardly think of him coming back all those hundreds of miles just to see me once more. I didn’t appreciate it then, but I sure do now. 

I have lived and loved many people, school chums, babies old and young. I have lost hospital pals, and seen they suffered the same losses. 

But there has been a lot of happiness in my life and a lot of sadness, loneliness untold, much sickness, but I have always had enough blessings to go around. 

I am not a well person nor do I intend to be, the shadows are getting a little longer each year. I have had my ups and down like everyone of us do. 

I have had my dancing and singing and many boyfriends in my earlier years. I guess I’ve had my share of about everything there is. 

But I still have the most wonderful family that I love so dearly and the most precious grandchildren in the world, and at this time three darling little great-grandchildren, and a wonderful step sister. Who could ask for more. 

Perhaps there will be a sequel to this story, but if there should not be, I hope when I pass into the sunset, I will leave many golden memories with you. And pray I’ll also touch your lives with golden memories. 

(Photo of descendants of Mary Rose and Bud Jones, July 15, 1990) 

(Photo of family of Bud and Mary Rose Jones: Fay, Sharon, Lois, Lonnie) 

(Photo of Utah Certificate of Death for Frederick Eugene Jones)