Mary was born in Elkhorn, Idaho, April 27, 1896 in a little sod roof log cabin with earth for its floor. All the neighborhood homesteaders had similar ones, a few had two room sod or log cabins. In nearby hills a few had dug out cave homes with a log front with a door, a small window and a stove pipe. All these homes were low and warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. Some winters they were almost covered with snow.
Mary was very young when they built a new larger two room log cabin with a board floor near the corner of the ranch where a road runs on each side. This house eventually burned down. They soon built a log cabin supply store about 40 or 50 feet from their house. They sold supplies mainly to the sheep men and Indians. Mary’s father was very ambitious and very strict, and the hardest working man in the whole country side. He worked the farm, also he made trips into Corinne, Utah in the Conestoga Wagon to haul the supplies for the store; because of the poor roads and storms these trips sometimes took many days. Mary’s mother took care of the store, big garden, milked cows, made cheese, soap, and all the other ranch chores, such as set the hen’s and turkeys to raise baby chicks.
Looking back it’s easy to see why Mary was not allowed to gad about, play or visit with us few other Elkhorn kids. We, according to Mary’s father, ran wild, rode our ponies from morning to night. We rode into the hills or from one ranch to another, played ball, or even marbles with the boys. Mary was never allowed to join us or to waste time in fun.
The little one room schoolhouse was just across the road from their store, but Mary and Dewey went straight home from school to do their chores. Eggs were as good as money at Billie Nicholas store. Some of the kids whenever they did some work at home wanted five or six eggs in pay so they could be taken to the store. Mary’s mother would give us an opera bar that cost five cents or six eggs and penny candy was one egg. First, she put us through the third degree, making sure our parents gave us the eggs. Also she said, “No, Mary’s helping me today, you children go home so your mother won’t worry about you.”
In the early days there were lots of large herds of sheep that came into the valley to be fed during the winters, and after spring lambing was over, the sheepherders moved the sheep into the hills or high country for the summer. The sheep would run in and out of the barbed wire fences along the roads and each barb would pull a small gob of wool on the fence. Then Mary’s mother and my mother sent us out with sacks to collect every bit of wool on the fences. They had wool carders, two small three by six flat boards with short center handles on one side. They lay a few gobs of wool on one side on the short wire teeth, with the other had brush or comb until that wool was fluffy , clean, and a sheet 3×6. They worked at that and saved until they had enough to make a bed mattress. All the ambitious ranch wives had a feather mattress to lay on straw ticks. The ticks had to be filled after every harvest.
By the time Mary was about eight years old her father was very prosperous, and he became more friendly. One winter we had a very socially inclined school teacher, and she started a party every Friday night at the school house. All the families would gather and we children were part of the fun, singing, playing, and sometimes a so called fiddler and mouth organ played for dancing. Mary was a very plump little girl, and a bit backward to run races, ice skate, or ride homemade sled belly buster down the slopes, or any tomboy games. Mary always had her school work on time and made good grades in school. The Nicholas family never moved into town like some of our parents did for the school year.
While living with her Aunt, Mary had more time to be with us girls, now a large group of town girls, and we had a party or spent the night together every Friday night. The 8th and 9th grades had a Saturday night dance. Mary, true to her upbringing, liked work better than play, and went to work as a clerk in the dry goods section of the Evans Co-op Mercantile store in Malad City. The store is still there.
Edgar Hansen’s family moved from Utah to Malad. Edgar was a handsome young man, a very smart dresser, and how he could dance. Mary’s folks were not happy with Mar;y’s choice for a husband but Mary and Edgar were married in the Logan Temple in Logan, Utah.
Mary and I lived through the early years of plenty. Our homesteads, Prices, Nicholas’, Madon’, Evans’ were the richest soil. The little Malad River ran through the farms and we had all the water we needed to irrigate our alfalfa, oats, grain, orchards, and gardens. We butchered our beef, hogs, sheep, turkeys, ducks, geese, and chickens. Most ranchers milked many cows, then sold the butter in town,. When the roads were improved they sold their cream. The Nicholas’s milked many cows long after the other ranchers started buying their butter and cheese in town.
Mary’s folks had a large patch of English Currents. We would pick two quarts and Mary’s mother took one and gave us one. She was busy with the store but always managed a few hundred jars of fruit and jelly. Madison had a field of strawberries, Prices had gooseberries, and we had raspberries. The rule in all patches was to pick one quart for yourself and give one to the owner.
Then one year just before the harvest time a great black cloud appeared in the northeast, by the time it reached our ranches the day was as dark as night, everyone ran for shelter. There was a roar like you have never heard before. The air was full of grasshoppers. After they attacked the grain fields, gardens, orchards were all bare. That year there was no harvest, and for years we fought grasshoppers. The big yield, abundance of crops was never very good.
The farmers decided to build an earth dam on the little Malad River to form a reservoir and save water. It was fine for a time. Then one morning it gave way. Mary’s and our place was flooded. What a clean up job for everyone.
From a paradise our good old days saw hard times. All this time they were improving the roads so it was easier to get into Malad City, a town of 500 Mormon settlers sent by Brigham Young to settle this rich valley. Many had two wives and were much better off than we homesteaders. The poor of the town were not interested in farming and turned to hauling freight from Utah to the miners in Idaho.
Everything changed when the railroad came to Malad. Everyone in the town and for miles around were waiting to see the first one arrive. Mary and I were so thrilled we even got to walk through it.
Life for the farmers was never the same after the train, and Sears Catalog arrived. It was just like today’s credit cards. The farmers never stopped buying. Then came good roads and cars. Most of the homesteaders were so in debt that the prosperous years of the First World War wasn’t enough to save them. In 1930 the big money lenders foreclosed and dozens of beautiful farms were lost.
Mary’s father by now had pulled down the little log store. Quit milking cows and other chores. He built the first big brick home. It was two stories with a windmill in front of it. I’m sure he never in his life borrowed a cent of money. He bought a second ranch across the road. Years later he turned the ranch over to his son Dewey, eldest, and continued to live in the brick house until he died.
When Dewey’s wife passed away leaving three baby boys, Mrs. Nicholas raised the three boys but their life wasn’t like Mary’s. They had horses, cars, and all the freedom that the outside world let us know about when the train came to town. Until then, Elkhorn was 50 years behind any place in the United States.
The first time I saw Mary after she married Edgar was in Santa Ana, California. Edgar, Mary, Neva, and Howard came to spend an Easter Sunday with us. Since Mary lived in Los Angeles, we didn’t see each other very often. We have always kept in touch. Mary has amazed me with her courage and understanding in all her years of joys and sorrows. She had more sorrows than joys but was able to keep a joyful spirit.
Mr. Nicholas had sisters, Martha and Emma, and a brother Dave, who went to Alaska to make his fortune. Martha lived in her parents’ home. Emma married Frank Sawyer and had a daughter Edna, and a son, Frank.
Margaret Evans Nicholas, Mary’s mother, came over from Wales with her mother and five children. Her mother was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She came to Idaho to be near church members. She worked doing housework to support her children. She left her husband in Wales. He was a coal miner. He came to Idaho but was never happy there. One of her sisters was named Annie. She married Ed Hill, a cattle rancher. She had a brother named Ike Evans. He married my father’s cousin Annie Jones. He lived on the grandparents homestead.
Sometime when we were quite small Elkhorn people talked about an earthquake in California. I remember Alice, Mary and I decided it was God’s way of punishing wicked people. In the early days we had blizzards in Malad, and many feet of snow every winter. Now it’s only inches. Thunder and lightning storms we were afraid of because it was God’s way of telling us to behave.
Alice Price’s mother was dead, and her stepfather was a very kind easy going man from Denmark. He gave Alice a set of fairytale books. We read them over and over. What dreams we had!
Irene’s mother came from a very poor Mormon family with 9 children. At the age of 8 years old she became a servant in a home in Malad, and lived there until she was 22 years of age. She married and moved to Elkhorn, Idaho. She made a big mistake raising us children without having to do work.
Katherine White was another girl we grew up with. Her folks came from Holland. Mary, Alice, Katherine and I kept in touch with each other over the years. Of the four of us, Katherine died first, then Alice Price Pierson, and then Mary, on November 3rd, 1974. I and my husband Homer who also came from the Malad area now reside in a rest home together in Hemet, California.