By Adele Thomas Harker 

Adele Thomas Harker, daughter of David Phillip Thomas and Anna Davis Thomas, was born 27 May 1920 at Samaria, Oneida Co., Idaho. My paternal grandparents were David Bynon (Beynon) Thomas and Martha Ann Reese (Rees) Thomas. My maternal grandparents were Samuel Watkins (Williams) Davis and Mary Ann Martin Davis. 

My family consisted of myself, three brothers and two sisters, David Kenneth Thomas, a brother by my father’s first wife, Esther Ellen Martin, Mary Donna, Dallon Dale, Martha and Russell Davis Thomas. 

The first six years of my life were spent in the little town of Samaria, Idaho. Samaria is about 10 miles out from Malad, Idaho. My father had a dry farm two miles above Samaria, close to the mountains. Samaria was a small country community settled by early pioneers that came to America from Wales after joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Read the book “The Samaritans” put out in 1968. This book gives the history of Samaria and its people. The people of this community farmed to make a living. When I grew up, the town consisted of a church, one store, and the homes of the people living there. The church was one large room and a stage. When we divided for our classes each Sunday, we would go to different parts of this very large room and have our lessons. There was also a two story, six room school. There used to be six teachers in the early days but when I was going to school, in first grade, there were four teachers. The school had a large bell out front. When it was time for school to begin, someone would ring this bell and you could hear it for several miles away. I went to school in Samaria when I was in first grade. We had to walk 2 ½ miles to school. It used to snow so much in the winter time that the snow would cover the tops of the fences. The top of the snow became so crusted that we could walk over the top of the snow to go to school. That was great because we could walk over the fences straight through fields to school. It was shorter to school that way. 

My maternal grandparents lived in Samaria. I used to walk many times to see my grandmother Davis. Grandmother Davis always had a piece of cake for me. I always enjoyed that. Grandmother and Grandfather lived in a three room house with a well out from the back door. They pumped the water that they used. I used to think that was so elegant to have a well with a pump. Such luxury! My parents didn’t have a well. We had a small stream of water that flowed down from the mountains. Each morning we would have to get up very, very early and dip barrels of water while the stream was nice and clear. We would then use the water from these wooden barrels for our daily use. None of the people had modern conveniences such as water in the house, electricity, electric washing machines, radios, televisions, cars, etc. We had kerosene lamps that we lit each night. In order to see, we would all have to gather around the lamp at the kitchen table. We used to wash our clothes in a round metal tub on a washing board. That was a board with metal on the front of it. The metal had ridges on it. We would rub-a-dub and scrub the clothes with homemade soap and then rinse them in clear water. Much different nowadays. We used this same round tub for our Saturday night baths. We used to heat the water on top of a coal stove. It was this same coal stove that we cooked our meals on and heated our rooms. 

All families were like this. It wasn’t until years later that people had electricity, radios, etc. It wasn’t until after I was married that television was invented. Looking back one might think we had a hard life but it really wasn’t. All families were the same and we learned to work and enjoy what we had. I can remember my mother working hard with six children, three rooms, no conveniences, raising everything we ate, making all our clothes, walking everywhere we went, living three miles from everything etc. I knew it was hard on her. I can remember my mother gathering us all around on several occasions and praying fervently for the Lord to send rain so that we would have a crop on the farm. One of these times, just as we got off our knees, it started to rain. I remember seeing the tears in her eyes at this particular time. I also remember another time Mom called us around for a special prayer. The doctor said my brother Russell needed his appendix out. My parents didn’t have the money. I can still hear my mother praying, asking the Lord to make Russell well. Almost immediately my brother was running around. The doctor couldn’t believe it. 

Well, we all learned to work, made our own entertainment, went swimming in the mud hole below Samaria, played games, saw a silent movie once in a long while, made our own toys etc. Things were not complicated. We just had to work hard. 

My mother decided to move to Malad, ten miles away, when I was in first grade. This was so that the older children could go to high school. Mom wanted her children to have more schooling than she had. She rented a three room house, went to work and put us all in school. School was 2 ½ blocks away. We went home for lunch and the first day of school I got lost. I got my directions mixed up and went the wrong way. My brother Dallon found me sitting on the school steps. He had brought me some lunch from home. 

All my brothers and sisters found little odd jobs to do. I used to baby sit for a lot of people and when I got older, I used to clean houses to earn money. It used to cost $6.00 a year for tuition in high school. I used to get 25¢ an evening to tend children. It took me forever to pay that $6.00 off. There was a barn on this land where we lived. Mom brought a cow from the farm so we would have our milk. Dad would bring hay from the farm. We had our own milk and delivered milk to other people for 5¢a quart. I, along with my brothers and sisters, delivered many, many quarts of milk. 

I remember the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. We would have our holiday dinner and then go to a children’s dance at the old dance hall two blocks away. The town used to hold Saturday night dances for the adults each week at this same dance hall. This and the movie theater were the main entertainment of the town. I remember my mom coming after me one night. My girlfriend and I had gone to a movie which was so good we sat and saw it twice. My mother was worried about me. She slipped out of the house with her coat on over her nightgown. Mom was walking down the middle of the street, her gown had slipped below her coat and was almost to town when she saw me coming home. I never did that again. I was so embarrassed! 

I remember my Aunt Eliza and Uncle Henry John got one of the first radios. That was really great stuff. Aunt Eliza lived a block from us and we used to go to her house to listen to a radio program called “Amos and Andy.” That was real entertainment. My father finally got an old car. We were in the big time then. My father would just let my brothers drive the car. One time I went from Malad to Samaria with my brother Russell. I begged my brother Russell to let me drive this car so he did. We had a great big wide gate that went into my father’s farm. My brother, Russell, got out, opened the gate, I drove in and took a post out as I drove in. Boy did we ever hurry to get that post back in the ground so that my father wouldn’t give us both heck. I don’t think my father ever knew I had knocked over that post. Russell soon got behind the wheel of the car and didn’t let me drive anymore. 

I never did learn to drive until I was out of high school. I had a date once while I was in high school. There were four of us who went to Preston, Idaho to see a basketball game. We were so late that I was worried that my mom would be upset. I asked my date to hurry and get me home. He thought that was funny and said he was tired and if I got home when I wanted to, I’d have to drive. I told him I didn’t know how but he said he would sit real close and would take the wheel if he needed to. I drove and what a drive. I got home on time but needless to say I never dated that fellow again. When I was told to be home at a certain time, I had to be there. 

I went my senior year of high school to Shelley, Idaho. My brother, Kenneth, lived in Shelley. Kenneth was the principal of the grade schools in Shelley. I had gone up the summer before to stay with my sister-in-law, Frances, while my brother went to summer school at Moscow, Idaho. Frances had a new baby so I supposedly went to help her out for the summer. I stayed and went my senior year in high school at Shelley High. It was this year that I met my husband, Max Clinton Harker. I met Max while my brother Ken and I were digging potatoes on the farm of Max’s brother. Max decided that I was a good worker, must not be too high hatted if I would come out in that dirty potato field and work, and that I would make a good wife. Max seemed to like me and I liked him. We were married the following year just a month before I turned nineteen. Too young but we’ve had a good life and Max tells me I’m beautiful even when I look awful. We were young, had nothing, and thought we could live on love. We soon learned you need more than love to survive. It was Max that taught me how to drive. I almost landed us in the Great Salt Lake but Max was there to grab the wheel. Needless to say I learned to drive and turned out to be a pretty good driver. 

Max was the youngest of his family. We lived with his parents to help them with the farm. We soon realized that we would never have anything of our own unless we went out on our own. It isn’t fun for young married people to live with anyone else. 

Max and I decided to go to a teaching college. We went to Albion Teacher’s College at Albion, Idaho. One could teach school with two years of college at that time. Max and I got part-time jobs at school, rented a two room house for $10.00 a month, heated the house with a coal stove, made cupboards out of orange crates, etc. We used to crawl into a cold, cold bed at night and hang onto each other to keep warm. I worked a part-time job at school and took in washing for a couple of the teachers in order to earn money. We had no help from anyone. In order to see a show once in a while, I sold tickets and Max collected them at the local movie house. Our other main entertainment was to walk to the little grocery store for a milk nickel. That was ice cream on a stick that cost a mickle. Now they cost a lot more. We were really splurging to do that. 

We were together working towards our future so we enjoyed it even though we had to work hard along with our school work. We really didn’t think it was work, just daily living trying to get some schooling and trying to make ends meet. We got by without owing a cent after two years of school. At the end of two years we found a job teaching school so we thought we would borrow $50.00 and splurge. I can’t even remember what we spent it on but I do remember it took the longest time to repay that $50.00. During our two years in school, Max found time to be in a singing group called the Cardinals, was Senior Class President and voted Prince of the school. At the end of our first year at school, some fellow decided to run Max to be President for the coming year. They would blast his name out a dormitory window with a loud speaker as we went to classes. That was the first year in the history of the school that they had a run off election of the two highest vote getters. Max won but the Dean of Men decided he wanted a man living on campus to be school president, so Max came in second on the next voting, but I was told by the outgoing school president that Max had really won anyway. Politics. Max had the Dean of Men as a math teacher our first year at school. One day this “Mr. Reed” (Dean of Men) was working a math problem for the class and was doing it wrong. Max, with some other fellows, went up after class and corrected him. You never saw such a mad professor in all your life. I don’t think he wanted Max as president of the school. Max was then elected Senior Class President instead! 

I often think of that math teacher and the saying, “What goes around, comes around.” I won’t take time to write what happened to that teacher but what went around came back to him. It’s sad we can’t be truthful and kind to one another. We all have a long way to go. 

One time while at college, my mother was very ill. She was living in Malad, Idaho. Max and I didn’t have a car, and my mother needed my help. Max and I decided to hitch hike home to help her out. What an experience! Never again. I didn’t think we would make it. One person that gave us a ride nearly killed us all with his reckless driving. Another time I asked a fellow at school if he would take me home to help Mom if I bought his gas. This fellow was from Malad and had a girlfriend down that way. He was glad to do this for me. It was during World War II and tires were rationed. We got back to school the following Monday morning just as the sun was coming up. We drove into Albion on four rims. All his tires had blown out and no extra ones. What a ride! I was soooo tired but like a nut, I went to school that day. 

I was the only one of my brothers and sisters that ever lived close to my parents, and being a daughter, I was called on many, many times to go to them. I went every time they needed me, whether it was to cook for threshing men, to help clean house, to help paint, work in the yard, when Mom was sick or what have you. My husband, Max, was very good to my parents too. 

Well, we graduated, got a teaching job in a little town of Almo, Idaho. We moved what little furniture we had into an old house in Almo. We were to go the following fall to teach in this two teacher school. During that summer we were offered a job in my old hometown of Samaria, Idaho, so we went to Almo and got out of our contract. Right after we did that the school in Almo and the house burned to the ground. How sad. We were glad we had gone to get our things before this happened. 

The next two years were spent in Samaria, Idaho. It was a three teacher school. I had first and second grades, Max was the principal and also taught 6th, 7th and 8th grades. They were two very enjoyable years. The people were good to us. In 1968, I was asked to write our memories of Samaria. It is in the book, “The Samaritans” that was put out in 1968 to celebrate the Centennial of Samaria. We tried to be good to everyone, too. We bought a used car that first year we taught. We would give some of the people rides into Malad on weekends. A mother of one of my first graders wanted a ride. I told her to come and have lunch with us before we left for Malad. We asked her little six year old boy to give the blessing on the food. He folded his arms and said, “Bless the food and damn the meat, turn up your plates and start to eat.” You never saw such an embarrassed mother in all your life. I guess that story has been told in their family for many years because not long ago we ran into that boy. He brought his daughter to me and asked me to tell her that story. His daughter hadn’t believed her father when he told her about it. I don’t think she believed me either. 

After we left Samaria we went to Jameston, Idaho, just out of Shelley, Idaho, and lived on Max’s parent’s farm. We rented the farm for two years while his parents served a two year mission to Louisiana. Max taught school those two years at the Shelley High School. The summers were spent taking care of the farm. Our son, Max Elliott Harker, was born the second year we lived on the farm. We had been married seven years and Max Elliott was a very wanted child. 

We moved to Pocatello, Idaho, in the fall after Max Elliott was born. We bought our first home at 41 Maplewood and Max was Principal of Bonneville Grade School. Max had a teacher with him at Bonneville School whose husband owned Bistline Lumber Yard in Pocatello. After a couple of years of teaching, this lady got her husband and a Mr. Chase to talk Max into managing their lumber yard. Max didn’t know much about the lumber business but with their help Max learned. During the next few years I had another son and a daughter that I carried full time but they both died.  

From Pocatello, Idaho, we moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Max had accepted a job as a salesman with Simpson Timber Co. of Seattle, Washington. We had built a home in Pocatello on 15th Street. We sold that home and bought a home in Salt Lake at 1389 East Claybourne St. We lived in Salt Lake for almost four years when Max’s company transferred him to Northern California. We lived in San Leandro, California, for four years on Dutton Street. During our stay in California, Max was made the first Stake Sunday School Superintendent of the new Hayward Stake of our church. 

During our years in Salt Lake and California, I worked in the Primary, Mutual, and the P.T.A., (Parent Teacher Association) of the schools. It kept me busy along with keeping up my home. My mother had always worked when I was growing up and I always said that I wouldn’t work if I didn’t have to. We only had the one child and he didn’t have brothers or sisters to be at home with him. I felt that I was needed at home. 

After four years in California, Max’s company wanted him to transfer to Minnesota. He told them no but to send him back to Salt Lake, Utah. We bought a home at 1781 Yuma St in 1959 and have lived here ever since except for four years that we spent living in Hawaii. Max’s company sent him to Hawaii in 1975. We lived there for four years before returning to Salt Lake. We kept our home in Salt Lake and had our son and his family live in it while we were gone for those four years. We moved back to Salt Lake in 1979. 

Our son, Max Elliott, went on a mission in 1966 to Southern Australia. I went to work at Auerbach Department Store when Max Elliott left for his mission. I continued to work for ten years until my husband, Max, was sent to Hawaii. While in Hawaii, a salesman that I had known wrote to a buyer of one of the stores in Hawaii and told her to be on the lookout for me. I was offered a job at Liberty House and worked the four years while in the Islands. 

Max’s company was going to pull the salesman out of the Islands. It seemed that the wives couldn’t take it longer than two years in the Islands. The president of Max’s company said, “No, we’ll send Max Harker there. There are a lot of Mormons in the Islands and Max Harker will get along there.” We had to promise to stay four years and the company would give me a free trip home each year. We stayed the four years, had lots of company from the mainland and we did find lots of Mormons in the Islands.  

Max and I have always held positions in the Church. Max was in two different Bishoprics, was a sealer in the Hawaiian Temple etc. I was always active in the P.T.A. while my son was in school. We were active in the Scouting program while our son was in Scouts. We had many choice experiences in these positions. Max retired shortly after returning from Hawaii and now we are enjoying our grandchildren. Five of the most precious grandchildren in the world. Their parents have been very free to let them sleep over and we love it. 

I guess we looked pretty old to our two oldest grandchildren when we returned from the Islands. They were always asking us when we were going to die etc. That soon stopped and now, at times, we do feel pretty old. We are getting there. 

We have had a good life, love each other and our children and hope we can always be a family forever. This will end my history up to 1988. Max and I don’t know how much longer we have in this mortal life but hope we have a while left. We hope we will always be able to take care of ourselves, and never be a burden on our children. That is one of our greatest desires. I’ve left out a lot of details but this will do. 

With love to all my children, grandchildren, etc. 

Adele Thomas Harker