Written by Rachel J. Evans 1959 

I was born October 18, 1890 at Malad, Idaho, in one of the rooms back of what used to be Jones & Richards store. My aunt Sarah Ann Jones, my mother’s older sister, was living there then. My parents were Benjamin David Jones and Claudia Richards Jones. 

My Grandmother Richards died when mother was a little girl and Auntie as we affectionately called my Aunt Sarah Ann Jones, really mothered my mother and when several of mother’s children were born she had Mother come and stay at her home. In those days they never had doctors to look after the women, so Mother had her Aunt Eliza Clark as her nurse. 

We lived on a farm in Cherry Creek six or seven miles from Malad. Father and Mother had twelve children. Their names are Charlotte Clauda, Sarah Eliza, John Henry, Rachel Pamela, (that’s when I came in, their fourth child) Benjamin David, Edith May, Mary Alberta, Irene Elizabeth, Thomas William, Milton Richards, Claude Waldo and Mabel Leone. My sister Sarah died when she was one month old. My brother Thomas died when he was two and one half years old, and my sister Charlotte died when she was forty one, when her fourth child was born. Two weeks later her baby died. 

My brother Thomas was a cute little fellow and it was the first time I knew what death and sorrow was in my young life. My mother was a dressmaker and she had her horse and cart and later a buggy and would go to different homes around and help people with their sewing. She usually took me along to tend the baby while she sewed. The other children would be home with my sister Charlotte. My sister Irene, had an accident when she was four years old. She stuck a fork in her eye which caused her to lose the sight in both eyes. My father spent thousands of dollars trying to get the sight back in the other eye but it was useless. She went to the Deaf and Blind School at Gooding and Ogden, where she graduated from High School and took a business course in Salt Lake. She is now teaching at the Primary Hospital in Salt Lake. 

My father used to freight from Collinston and Corrine to Montana, when I was born. My father didn’t see me until I was walking around. I weighed five pounds when I was born (believe it or not). When father came home in the spring I was walking, Dad and Mother said, but I can’t remember so I just took their word for it. The day I was five years old I started school in Cherry Creek. Mr. McGee was my first teacher. Other teachers I had, to mention a few, were Thomas Nibert, J. Peter Jensen, Sarah Dudley (Apgood), and others. I always liked school and went to the eighth grade at Cherry Creek. I never went to High School. I never had the chance for which I am sorry. My girlfriends in Cherry Creek were my cousin Rachel C. Jones, Estella Harris, Lennie and Rebecca Jardine, Maida Facer, Ella Facer, and her sister Eliza Facer, Eliza Dalton, and LIzzie Richards. 

We, as a family, always went to Church, Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, Primary, Religion Class and Mutual. I was baptized on my eighth birthday in the canal that ran by the home of William Facer. Mother carried her baby and we walked the two and one half miles across the valley to the point where the Facer’s lived and Brother William Facer baptized me and my grandfather John Morris Jones confirmed me a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

When I grew up I worked in the Young Ladies Mutual for a while. I was First Assistant for a few years to Clara Bukhardt, who later married my uncle Hyrum Jones. 

We had lots of fun when we were kids as large families usually do. My Uncle Hyrum used to come down to play with my brother John. We used to play games and have good times. 

My Grandmother, Sarah James Jones lived next door to us. She used to have the Post Office there for years. When she had to go to Malad for groceries or to trade, she would get me to tend the mail for her. I remember one day an inspector came with the mail, which was carried by white-top buggy from Collinston to Malad. Man, was I ever scared when he told me that he was an Inspector! Grandma had gone to town and there I was tending the Mail! But I guess it was OK. I never heard anything more about it, but since then every time I heard the world inspector I trembled. 

When I grew up I used to work out, as we called it, doing house work for people. We like to work in Malad, then we could go to the Saturday night dances in the old pavilion just south of Thomas Natell. We used to have good times there. 

On April 5, 1911, I married Richard J. Evans in the Salt Lake Temple. We went to St. John to live on his sister Hannah Deschamps’ farm. While there our first child was born June 5, 1912, my next sorrow, for it was born dead. We then moved to our dry farm which Dick had taken up, about eight miles north of Malad. Here we lived in the summers, moving to Malad in the winters. In December 22, 1913, our daughter Melba was born and no baby ever got a warmer welcome. I laughed and cried at the same time, to think that she was OK, and she has always been such a dear sweet daughter to me. Then November 1, 1915, our baby boy was born at Cherry Creek. He cried when he was born and I thought he was going to be alright, but he only lived an hour. 

We have had our happy times and our sad times, just as others have. In 1918, my Mother died of an accident she was in. We were always close, my mother and I. When Melba was six years old, we took Dale Speed to live with us. In 1926, my sister Charlotte died and we took her girls to live with us. Dale was from Texas and lived with us until he married and went to California to live. Mona and Orva, lived with us when we lived on the flat or Tipton Place which we leased. Mona lived with us for one year, then went to California and stayed with my sister Edith until she married. Orva lived with us for ten years then went to Eureka to live with her father. She is now living in Spanish Fork with her husband and two children. 

On November 21, 1929, Dick and I, with Melba, Dale and Orva moved to Smithfield, Utah, where Dick worked for Walter Michaelis and Brothers in their flour mill. He drove a truck for them, trucking flour to different stores from Salt Lake and Wyoming, south to Lava Hot Springs, Blackfoot and other places in the north. 

Melba, Dale, and Orva went to school there; Melba and Dale to North Cache and Orva to kindergarten and grade school in Smithfield. Melba graduated from North Cache High School in 1932. 

My father went on a mission to the Northwestern states. While on his mission he wrote me a letter asking me if I was afraid Melba and Dale would find someone over in Cache Valley and marry them. I was, and they did. After father came home he liked to come over to Smithfield and visit us, as he liked to travel around with Dick on the truck and go different places with him. In August 1932, he came over to visit us and had a heart attack and died August 13, 1932. We moved back to Malad where we ran a cream, seed and gas station. In 1934, our daughter Melba married Windsor Rice of Logan. In December 20, 1935, their first child was born. (That was when I noticed my hair was going gray, I worried so much.) She had a little girl Lorna Rae, which made us all very happy. Dale married a girl from Richmond. Her name was Juanita McMurdie. They live in California and have three children: Elden Dale, Nancy Louise and Philip. On January 17, 1937, Melba and Win’s boy was born, Odell Windosr, and November 7, 1938 Richard Lynn was born. Win, Melba’s husband, met with an accident and died April 7, 1939, another sad day in our lives. After the funeral Melba came back home to live with us, with her three little children, the oldest being three years and the youngest five months. They brought their sunshine into our home and we loved them all very much and still do. Their mother said we spoiled them, but if we did we should spoil all her children because no nicer children ever lived. On May 15, 1944, five years later Melba married Harvey Jensen. They bought a home quite close to us and are living there now. They have two children Melba Lorene and Harvey Clayne. 

In 1950 my husband broke his neck in an accident and the doctor told him he could only do light work from then on, so after sitting around all winter with a support on his neck, so he could not move his neck up or down for six months, he was water master then for the MVI, and we knew he could not move the heavy headgates. We decided to go to Ogden to work, so in the spring of 1951 we moved to Ogden. Dick worked for the Federal Government at Hillfield and I worked for the Utah Canning Company during the summer months. In 1955, Dick got arthritis in his legs. He gradually grew worse. He went to doctor after doctor, but none of them could help him much, so he asked for medical discharge from his job. So in April 5, 1956 we moved back to Malad where we hope to remain for the rest of our lives. My granddaughter Lorna Rae was taking a course in nursing in Idaho Falls, and there she met and married Jerry Reed. They are living in Logan where her husband goes to Utah State University and a sweeter girl never lived than she is. They have two children, a boy and a baby girl, named Brad and Jerrilee and we are doing our best to spoil them too. Odell went two years to the U.S.U. at Logan, now he is on a mission for the LDS Church and we are very proud of him. His two years will be up next September. He is on the honor roll for the ten top missionaries for hours and selling more Books of Mormon. Richard Lynn goes to the U.S.U. at Logan, and he is the best boy in the world. I couldn’t be wrong, I’m his grandmother. Yes, I’m very proud of my grandchildren. 

I have worked in the Primary and as a Relief Society teacher in the First Ward for many years and as a Social Science Class Leader. In the Third Ward Primary and Relief Society as a teacher. I was First Assistant to Lyle Kern in the Primary and with Ethel Thomson as Second Assistant. In Smithfield as a Primary teacher and Relief Society block teacher. In Ogden, 19th Ward as a Primary teacher and Relief Society teacher. My husband was Superintendent of the First Ward Sunday School for five years and President of the 5th Quorum of Elders for a number of years. He has worked as First Assistant in the Sunday School in Ogden and as Ward Teacher in the Ogden 19th Ward. He was ordained a High Priest January 21, 1940. 

These are only a few of the things that have happened to us. We have had many good times in Malad First Ward: the chicken suppers and the quilting bees, the parties it would take too long to tell about, but we have enjoyed them all, besides all the friends we have had. No matter where we have lived we have made many friends and I’m thankful for all the blessings that we have had. I am thankful for the home we have, for the Church, for the testimony I have that the Church is true, and that I have been brought up in it and that our family will grow up to be good respectable people as our fathers and mothers and grandparents have been before us. Yes, I am proud of my parents and grandparents and my family. 

Richard J. Evans died June 25, 1965 and Rachel J. Evans died of a heart attack just six weeks later on August 10, 1965. 

(On the next page is a photo of a couple. Rachel Jones Evans Standing with her hands on her husband’s shoulders. Her husband, Richard Evans is sitting.)