UDORA HUNT-LEAVITT

Mother's s Life Story

by Agnes Leavitt

(For some time I have teen trying to get: a few extra hours whereby I might write the many things that i would. like. my children, and grandchildren to read so that they would more fully appreciate the many opportunities and blessings that are theirs; that come to them through poverty, hardships sacrifice and heartache. Many of them they will never know of the courage and faith that lies now as a forgotten past of their forefathers that: made possible. the great heritage that is theirs.

My thoughts run back to some two years before my Mother passed away She was visiting at my home. As we sat that winter evening before the fireplace with the fire burning low, as we had so often done after the children were put to bed and the house was quiet, we talked of the past, or the present, or the future. These had always been happy hours for me, receiving counsel from my Mother that she never knew she was giving. For Mother was never one to give counsel to her married children unless she was asked to do so. Mother never knew what these hours meant to me, of the courage and strength that I received from these heart to heart talks. This certain evening I got out my notebook and pencil and asked her to relate her life story to me as near as she could remember it. This is the story as she related it to me. These were the highlights of her life story as she remembered them. Many were sad memories filled with sorrow, poverty and hunger which were faced with faith, love and understanding which only knit them more closely in family ties. As she talked I wrote, and we cried together. She poured oust all her faith and love and gave praise to her Divine Maker for the bountiful blessings that had been theirs, made clean through the tears and heartaches they had shared together, always trusting in their Heavenly Father for his guidance.

Before I go on with my 'story I want to describe some of the highlights of that wonderful Mother of mine:

She was small in stature with a head of beautiful auburn hair.

Eyes of the darkest hazel shone bright with the love that lingered there.

With hands so tender to touch, her blessings you did share

With understanding and sympathy your sorrows were handled with care.

And lips that never uttered a cross or unpleasant word

Only kindness and love from my Mother could be heard

And the examples she gave us, was our fellowmen to serve.

And the prayers she uttered in our behalf were more than we deserved.

Oh what love and devotion, what more could children need

One of God’s choicest spirits my Mother was indeed.

Praying for his counsel and accepting of his will

One of God’s choicest Mothers, her life with faith was filled.

I will now try to tell her story as near in her own words as it was told to me.)

I was born in Muhlenburg County Kentucky on November 29, 1870. I was the third child of Jonathan Hunt and Susan Charlottie Temple Nanny Hunt. We lived in the back wood in a lumber room. Father had cleared a small tract of land around our little lumber home where he did a little farming. Most of the country was covered with heavy timber and there was some nut trees we only had to turn our pigs out and they got fat on the nuts.

Father was a lumber man, and had a small lumber mill where he sawed out door and window frames. All of the homes were made of logs. Mother came from a large family and they were very poor. There were thirteen children in all, their parents died when some of them were very young. Mother said most of the time wherever she went at work or at play she packed her baby brother astride her hip or back.

Father’s parents had quite a large family and they had joined the Church before Mother met him. Father had been married before and had a son named John Walkins Hunt but both his wife and child had died. All of Father’s family but he and two sisters had gone West to join the Saints. Aunt Sena Hunt lived in Kentucky while the other sister Betsy Hunt Medford lived in Iowa. Mother being raised in such poverty learned to work while still very young. She worked and saved quite a few things that came in very handy when she married Father. Among the things she had was a riding saddle. This was the one thing she dreaded to leave of all her possessions as their only means of getting from one place to the other was on horse back. Father converted Mother to the gospel after they were married but she wasn't baptized at that time. (I do not know why but it may have been that there wasn't anyone there that held the priesthood that could officiate in that ordinance.) Before 'I was born, Father became awfully sick and Mother was afraid he was dying many times He had a lung disease something like TB. From that time on Father was a sick man, never knowing a day that he felt well, but working every hour that he could get around. He had begun to worry that he might never be able to join his loved ones in Utah. His folks wrote often encouraging him to come but it was a long hard journey. He feared to go on account of Mother and the children. He was afraid something might happen to prevent him from reaching Utah, then Mother and us children would be left alone. There were three children: Idella, Parley, and me. His folks in Zion begged him to sell his belongings, if only it brought him enough to come with, and they would help him all they could when he arrived. At last Father and Mother decided to try the trip as Father’s health seemed to be getting no better. They sold all their belongings and started West. Mother did save out of her belongings two feather beds and six feather pillows. These she had made before she was married. We stopped and visited Uncle Jefferson and Aunt Sena Hunt the first night. Aunt Sena had married her cousin Jefferson Hunt. I well remember that we children were playing under a large tree, swinging each other in a swing. Uncle Jeff came out where we were and gave Idella and Parley each fifty cents and then handed me a dollar saying, "When you get to Utah buy you first, little girl, a new dress." At this time I was between three and four years old.

The next morning we left Uncle Jeff’s place and traveled twelve miles horseback down to the Green River, Mother riding all the way on her side-saddle that later she had to leave behind. We now got .on a steam boat traveling down the river to Ohio and then up to Evansville. From there we took the train. I don't remember much about our trip only that we were surrounded water and Mother watching me awfully close for fear I would fall off the boat. I remember being afraid of a large negro that 1ifted me into a high chair to eat:

We stopped at Council Bluff, Iowa to visit Aunt Betsy Medford, Father’s sister, and Enoch Hunt, Father’s brother. We visited with them two weeks. We then took the train for Ogden Utah. Father's oldest brother Wilson Hunt lived in Ogden. We stayed in Ogden that year and Linda was born there. The next spring we rented a little farm three miles from Ogden. That summer Mother, Idella and I were baptized. That winter Uncle Amos Hunt, Father’s brother who lived down at Hebron and was very comfortably fixed, wrote many times for us to come down to Hebron where he could help us. Uncle Amos had made a trip to Salt Lake to bring his two children Amos and Linda to get married. After the wedding they came over to Ogden to visit us. Seeing the condition of Father’s health and the circumstances we were in, Uncle Amos insisted that we come to Hebron. After his return home he sent his son,. Jimmy back to move us down. His two sisters, Linda and Eliza, came with him. When Linda saw our new baby, she begged Mother to name it Linda. She said she would buy it a new dress. Mother gave her the name of Linda although she didn't much like the name and our baby received a new calico dress which she needed badly. Father took Uncle Amos' advice and sold everything but what he could put in a wagon and with his family moved to Hebron. We arrived at Hebron where I first saw Grandpa and Grandma Hunt who were living with Uncle Amos. I remember Grandma Hunt coming to our place to stay. She walked with a cane and always wore a cap. She seemed very happy with us and didn't want to go back to Uncle Amos’. I suppose it was because Uncle Amos had a house full of grown children and the noise made her nervous. It was at Hebron I remember of riding on a sleigh to a Christmas dance. Mother was very fond of music and dancing. Uncle Amos helped us all he could but by this time Father’s health was so bad he couldn't do much in helping to make a living. Uncle Amos had a son living at Gunlock by the name of Jonathan. He was named for Father. They figured that Father's health would be better if he moved to Gunlock as the climate was somewhat warmer. Jonathan Hunt had a small two roomed house but welcomed us. He had a wife and six children. Nephi had been born at Hebron so there were Mother, Father, and five children. It made rather cramped conditions but Jonathan did everything he could do to help us. Later on he and his family moved in one room and gave us the other. He helped father clear a small piece of ground and build a little lumber shanty. We raised a lot of melons and corn on that land that summer. Mother boiled the melon juice and made a syrup without sugar, for sugar was something we hardly ever saw. We children gathered the berries off the creek. Mother made a berry pudding out of them and used the melon syrup for dip. We also gathered greens from the fields called pig weeds With vinegar on them they made a very good dish. We gathered the dog berries which Mother stirred into a thick batter of flour and water, then dropped a spoonful at a time into a pan of boiling water, making a berry dumpling. We were very poor. I never remember seeing any money and clothes were hard to get. Mother made Linda and I a dress out of flour sacks but we went out to play around a bonfire. Linda's dress caught fire and was burned so badly that it was never fixed again as Mother didn't have the cloth to patch it. Parley got a chance to go into the mountains to help a man get a load of wood but it was in mid-winter and the mountains were covered with snow. It seemed to be a chance of a life time so Mother helped him rap burlap around his feet so they wouldn't freeze and he went.

Some of the good women at Gunlock gave us skimmed milk. Once in awhile they gave us some butter milk with a small hunk of butter in it. That was really a treat for us. The winter was very cold and it was hard to keep warm in our little shanty with the clothes and bedding that we had. Father still tried to get out and do little odd jobs. He even attempted to go to Silver Reef, but when he came home he had not made as much as Mother did at gleaning grain which she threshed out and ground to make our flour. George was born here at Gunlock. Father seemed to grow worse by the day. Mother got a cow to milk and we felt that we were really blessed. Father grew worse and became bedfast. His mind seemed to be affected. Mother wasn't able to take care of him alone. Uncle Amos sent two of his sons to help Mother and to sit up at night with him. Father steadily grew worse. He died when George was a year old. We were very poor. Mother gleaned in the summer and washed for anyone that could give her something to help feed us children or 50¢ for a hard day work washing on the board. That summer Uncle Amos took Parley with him to Rabbit Valley where he had moved. He gave him his food and clothing. Uncle Amos’ married daughter took me to live with her so Mother had two less to feed. I was so homesick even before we were hardly out of town. I spent a very lonesome and homesick summer. When Uncle Amos came along in the fall taking Parley home I went home too. Mother had go t acquainted with Bishop Crosby when she lived at Hebron and he had moved to Leeds when Silver Reef was running or that mine opened up and there was quite a group of men working at the Silver Reef mine and hauling ore down to the. River Mill. Mother wrote to Bishop Crosby to see if there was any chance of her getting work there as she seemed to have gone as far as she could go without some financial help. He wrote back that there has a possibility of different kinds of work. It might be possible for her to get a cooking job but some time before this Idella had met Wire Leavitt and had married him although she was only fourteen years old. At this time there was quite a bit of cotton raised on the Virgin Valley so Uncle Wire came and took our family to Bunkerville to pick cotton. We took our cow with us and we staked her along the ditch banks of the field that we picked cotton which we made our camp without even canvas to protect us. Here we had our milk and a sweet milk hot cake with a little molasses with it and all the family picked cotton but Parley. He had gotten a chance to work down in Bunkerville. One night a terrible electric storm came up and just nearly swept the country. That night your Father and Parley came and moved us down to Grandpa Dudley's home until the storm was over. This was the first I met your Father. He was a young man and I just a kid.

When we went back to Gunlock after the cotton season was over, Bishop Crosby gave Mother new hope of cooking at Silver Reef. Uncle Wire took us to St. George where Mother stopped and did the work in the Temple for her and Father and her own Father and Mother. Parley standing in both cases. We were taken on to Leeds by a man by the name of Riding. We arrived in Leeds late at night and it was cold and we were hungry with no place to go. The little cabin that we were to live in was there alright but no way of making a light or nothing to make a fire. Bishop Crosby was not at home so Mother went over to a house about a block away to see if she could get some kind of light. It was a boarding house some old batch was running. He invited Mother to bring us children and come and have supper as his men had just gotten through eating. It was a wonderful supper for us who had had so little. This was the first time I ever tasted salmon. This gentleman was very kind to us, he even later gave up his boarding house so Mother could try to make a living for us children. Mother tried the boarding house for awhile but she didn't have anything to go on or anyway of getting credit and she had to give it up and go back to washing and all kind of odd jobs. She received 75 cents for a hard days scrubbing on the board. Only when she washed for Bishop Crosby he gave her a dollar.

That winter us children came down with the measles and Mother tried to care for us and still keep up with her washing. Then Mother came down with the measles and still tried to get out and wash, then she had the yellow jaundice and was sick for a long time and pneumonia set in. She had no one to doctor her and us children did not know what to do. We tried to feed her a little porridge and we had very little in the house to eat. Parley got a job or two chopping wood but Mother seemed to get no bettor. At last Mother was delirious and the days seemed to go and come with no difference. We could no longer get her to take the porridge we made and we had very little flour in the house. Each day I cooked a few water cakes and that was about all we had. Our flour got so low that Parley and I went without meal after meal so the younger children could have more but the food that George was given was not enough. He was still a baby and he cried a lot. His.crying, I think, was the one thing that made Mother make an extra fight to live. She seemed to revive a little and ask about the flour, if it was gone or what we had, but then she was so weak she trailed off into a sleep of unsconsciousness of what went on around her. It was nearing Christmas time and Parley was without shoes but the children talked of Santa Claus so Parley rapped his feat in rags and climbed the mountain to cut a scrub cedar and drag it to our shanty and then the children went to where the cans had been dumped from the cook shack and gathered all the paper off the cans that had a bright color on them and tied on their Christmas tree. Mother seemed to come out of her stupor time and time again only to ask about the baby and if we had food. She seemed to realize that our food was gone and it helped her to fight a little harder to live. She begged Parley to go to Bishop Crosby's home and tell him and ask for help she and I would wash and pay him back when she got well. But Parley was so bashful and independent that he just couldn't do it. So Mother asked us children to kneel around her bed and pray for bread. We hadn't gotten off our knees until a knock came on the door and a group of Relief Society women were there with cake and pie and such things as the dainties for Christmas. We were very happy and thankful but still we had no bread. It wasn't long until Mother was out washing again. Parley got a job cutting wood and I got a job at 75¢ a week washing dishes and doing other jobs whatever I could do for a child my age. I also got my board. Later on I worked for a family by the name of Lathens down by the river mill. They had three children and I had most of the work to do, making bread, washing dishes. The woman was a sickly woman and I had most of the work to do. I received one dollar and I went home every two weeks on Saturday night. I rode up with the ore haulers and spent the Sunday with Mother and came back Monday morning with them. Mother had another attack of yellow jaundice but still went on working. I now found a job with a family by the name of Miller. They were a family of six boys. The woman had been married before and had three boys and the man had three boys by another marriage. I went to school and helped after school and before school. They paid my tuition and gave me a dollar a week. I worked for a family that had two girls near my own age. The man was a very rough spoken man and seemed to watch everything I ate or did. One day we had ham for dinner and I wanted to take a piece so bad but he seemed to watch me so close I never ate what I wanted because I was afraid. After dinner that day, of course the girls went out to play and I had the table to clear and dishes to do and floor to sweep, but there was two pieces of ham left and I would have liked one so much but I put them on a saucer and put them in the cupboard and in the afternoon while I was sweeping the floor the girls came in and made them a sandwich. I was awful glad that I hadn't taken a piece then but later on I was surprised to see the old man coming in looking for that ham. He asked me where I put it, I told him and when he found it wasn't there he said I had taken it. I didn’t tell him about the girls, I knew it wouldn’t do any good as the girls would say I lied so I took the blame. I went to Sunday School with those two girls, them with their pretty dresses and ribbons on their hair and their nice new shoes. Oh I used to envy them as I trotted along behind them with my bare feet my calico dress and my hair tied with a thread.

Later I worked for a family by the name of Nesbitt and did all kinds of work for a dollar a week. Here I became acquainted with two different boys. David Chister, he was a dark complectioned boy and came from a poor family and was a hard worker so didn't have time to hang around our places while Will Adair was a blond, a musician, a singer, and a dancer and never let work bother him and he could call at our place anytime he found I was home. About this time Uncle Wire and Uncle Lister came through going north with a load of molasses to trade for flour. They stopped at our place and told Mother there was land at Mesquite that could be taken up and homesteaded so Mother planned to go back with them. The day before we left to go to Mesquite Will Adair came with two horses and wanted me to go horseback riding so of course he sang his love song while we rode along. The next morning Will was there to see me off and as I shook hands with him he reached down and gave me an unexpected kiss. Just then I looked up and saw David coming down the walk and he had seen the kiss and sidetracked. I never saw David again.

This is the song that Will Adair sang as we rode along

HIGH LAND MARY

Ye banks and brae's and streams around
The Castle O’Montgomery
Green be your woods' and fair your flower
Your Water's never drumlie
The summer first unfurled her robes
And there the langest terry
For here I took the last farewell
O' my sweet Highland Mary

How sweetly bloomed the gay green birch
How rich the hawthorns blooms
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasped her to my bosom
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o’er me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary

Nie’ monie a row locked embrace
Our parling was fee tender
And pledging aft to meet again
We tore our selves asunder
But oh fell dath’s untimely frost
That nipped my flower sac early
Now green's the sod and cold’s the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary

O’• pale pale now, those rosey lips
I oft hae kissed sae fondly.
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly
And mold’ring now in silent dust
That heart that to lo’ed me dearly
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary

The next morning we left for Mesquite. On our way we stopped at Gunlock and saw about what little we had left there.

When we arrived at Mesquite, Mother was no time until she got a little lumber room and set it up close to Wire’s and Idella's place. Mother planted cotton that summer but had a hard time keeping the cattle out as we had no fence.

We picked cotton for people that summer. Parley had him a job at Bunkerville. We gleaned grain after people had harvested their grain. The next summer I went back to Jont’s place and dried fruit; also made some grape jam that was boiled down without any sugar. So I was rather proud to know I could help with Mother's problems and make things a little lighter for her. That winter Will came down to Mesquite to see me but I didn't want him around. Mother was quite vexed to think Will with his song and flashy clothes and music and dancing did not interest me. I had met your Father and there was no one else that interested me.

I was sixteen that fall and your Father and I planned to get married but thought it was best to wait until I was seventeen. After we were married we moved to Bunkerville in a small doby house and your Father ran Uncle Dudley's farm. The next fall Grandma Leavitt and her family and Uncle Dudley and his family all moved down and we all lived in that one room, making sheds around to help to shelter us. I had put up a factory ceiling and made curtains to my windows and was really proud of my home but with such a crowd we could not keep anything straight. We all had chills and fever all summer and winter. The next spring Pa got a lumber room from over to Mesquite and moved it down on the head of the field he was farming. There in this lumber room Ralph, Roxie, and Agnes were born.

Later on Pa built a rock room just across the street and tore down the lumber to put a roof on the rock building but it only covered half of the roof on the rock building but we moved in it and lived that way until Pa got some more lumber to finish it up. When Roxie was a year old my sister Linda died. Her second child was nine days old when she hemorrhaged to death. She had married Pa’s brother Frank. She left two baby boys. Aunt Mame nursed the new baby as her own, and Grandma Leavitt raised both boys until Uncle Frank was married again. After my fourth baby Inez was born in November, Idella, my oldest sister tryed to give birth to her baby (in January) but had complications and after many hours of hard labor the midwife saw she could not give birth to the baby. Pa rode horse back to St. George for a doctor. When the doctor arrived Idella was still in labor. The doctor took the baby which was dead and Idella passed away some hours later leaving a large family.

Now I will tell some of the many things I remember of my Mother during my childhood. I am ever grateful for that Father and Mother of mine and thankful to my Heavenly Father for being born of such humble parents as mine. I never remember of hearing Mother and Father dickering before us children. If they had any differences, We children never knew of them and that is why we can only think of a home of love, patience, and consideration for each other. We were treated as individuals that should have a say and choice in a family group. I would like to describe my Father. He was rather short with the bluest eyes and a smile that shone and lit up his face. I never remember him without a streak of gray. He was a jolly Father and loved his children. In fact, all children and there was nothing too good for his own. He believed in honesty and fairness and lived according to those rules. He was a friend to the downtrodden and was always ready to help them on their feet again. He never condemned or fudged but made every effort to help in every way he could.

For a moment I will reflect on that wonderful Father of mine
Who walked beside my Mother with a love so sacred and divine.
And through his faith in brotherhood, in charity and sympathy did find
There was no one so lowly or trodden down so deep
That Father would not try to help or his problems try to meet
He was not a man to boast or make the highlight of one day
But trod through life giving love and service on his way.

I will not say more about my Father because this book is my Mother's and her family life that I will try to write. My first recollection is of my Father and a brother and sister, his Grandma and one or two aunts and two or three uncles and as I grew older I realized I had uncles and aunts that played very little part in my life but as time went on I met and knew them all and enjoyed the association of each one, each in a different way. But the net that was most closely woven in my childhood days was with my own family and Grandma Hunt, Mother's Mother, and Grandma Leavitt, Father's Mother. These played a full part in my life from my first remembrance.

We lived in a small lumber room at the head of a little track of land that was owned by Uncle Dudley, Father's oldest brother. In my childhood I seemed to need a little more, or probably I demanded a little more. I was much different than my brother and sister as both were very quiet and reserved. I seemed to want to be in the headlight, seeking adventures, picking up all the slang that I heard. Many pranks lead me in a little different situation than my Mother and Father’s teachings and example should have lead me. As I look back and think how she handled situations with her kindness, and love and a faith that never faltered. To me the memory of my Mother's character as she carried all qualities a Mother could have: love, patience, charity, virtue, kindness, mercifulness, she was reserved and refined with sympathy and courage and a lasting faith in a divine Heavenly Father.

We lived in the lumber room some time and then I remember the rock home as Mother tells about it. How our humble home was as clean as if she had had a mansion to live in. The yards were swept clean although I remember of Mother picking the branches of the evergreen brush and making them into a broom to sweep her yards.

My first remembrance of my Grandma Hunt as she lived in the upper end of town in a lumber room and a leanto lumber kitchen and a brush shed that covered one full side of the house and the yard swept clean with a nice clean walk leading to the house with rows of old-fashioned pinks and carnations all in delicate colors that sent their perfume all around the house. I remember Uncle Parley as he came home from work. He helped a lot with the house work. He was a good cook and Uncle Hephi, what a tease he was, always tormenting someone. He would put us kids up on the roof of the leanto kitchen and then get his old double barrel shot gun and tell us to jump or he would shoot us. Of course we cryed and called for Grandma but her threatening did no good as we were forced to jump but he always caught us. I have seen him meet Mother on the street and he be on a horse and he would chase her around a tree, her begging him every moment to stop.

I remember staying with Grandma Hunt when the boys were away from home. As I grew older I milked her cows and did the chores and saved her many a step. Grandma and her boys always had a nice garden and mellon patch and corn and everything that it took to set a good table. Grandma liked nice clothes and had a little store in her home of beautiful hats, beads, and shoes and card upon card of pretty buttons that fascinated me. Grandma spent so many days working in the Temple. She would go in the wagon and George went with her most of the time and she would work a week at a time camping out. I often wondered if she owned some part of the Temple as I heard of no one else working in the Temple at that time. I remember very little about Aunt Idella but the picture that is most vivid in my mind was as Mother sent me after some butter milk she was standing in front of the fire place. She was a tall stout woman with a pleasant smile and a heart of gold. As Mother has already told of her death I will not add to it only as I grew older Aunt Idella's small children spent much of their time in our home. Mother worried about them as if they were her own and did everything she could to help them. I remember Mother staying from Church and letting Thirza wear her shoes as she figured it was more important for a teenage girl to go to Church than she. Mother had us children to train alone a lot of the time as Father took every bit of work he could to make a living and with Mother's faith and love and prayers along with the little green switch that stood in the corner she was able to control us and take some of the fiery temper out of us. We always had five or six milk cows and when spring rolled around and the grain and alfalfa began to grow it seemed like the cows got restless and would break out in the night and be gone when we woke up. Mother would strike for the field as there was always the danger of them bloating. You would never have known that Mother was prepared for every emergency as she carried in her hand, hidden under her apron, a big butcher knife. Mother was never forced to stick a cow but I have no doubt in my mind but what she would have done if ever the occasion arose. Mother was determined to accomplish something of life and she wasn't a person to give up. If she ever set a task to do, she saw it through. It was about nine months after Aunt Idella died that my little sister passed away at the age of eleven month. She had had what they called summer complaint all summer and she steadily grew worse and she passed away that fall. Mother and Father grieved much over the death of this baby but I was too young to know anything about death. I have told my experiences of this occasion in my Fathers story so I will say no more about it.

I remember attending corn silking bees at my Grandma Hunt's place and she would play games with us children. I have never since seen anyone that enjoyed the association of the young people as she did. Grandma was a hard worker. I have seen her time and time again carrying a bucket of water or milk or slop or whatever it might be in one hand and having another of grain or corn sitting on her hip with her arm over it to steady it. I have often wondered if this could not have been the thing that caused her death in later years, as she died as a result of a cancer under the arms just about where that bucket rubbed. I remember Uncle George going to work somewhere in California. He came down with the smallpox, Grandma was so worried as she couldn’t go to him and how happy she was when he was able to come home and how Mother took us children and went up to see him. Grandmother Hunt lived in one end of town and Mother in the other; so one day a week, Mother took us children and went to visit Grandma. She took her patching and oh that was a great affair for us children. They would work and visit all day until the sun went down and then sometimes Father came after us in the wagon. It was really a day of vacation for us kids and then, of course, Grandma returned the visit bringing her patching and work with her. Of course those were special days for us. Mother always made it a grand occasion with a chicken for dinner or a special pie or something real tasty. I remember when Uncle George began to take Christina Hansen out and I can still hear Uncle Wire and Father tormenting her about Uncle George, my the big stories they could tell. Because Christina was bashful and couldn't take the kidding she came almost quitting Uncle George. I have seen them on a horse going up to Grandma's or riding around. I never forget Father had a long legged horse he named "Legs". It had never been ridden but was a good work animal, George was bringing Christina from choir practice one night and "Legs" was standing on the street. It was dark and Uncle George figured his horse had gotten out of the correl so he found a piece of wire and put it around "Legs'" neck and he and Christina got on the horse to take it home. To their surprise when they got there Uncle George's horse was home and they were riding Fathers old Legs. Oh how Father did laugh and kid Christina about that. I guess it solved one problem to find the horse could be ridden. Uncle George and Christina were married, I do not remember the wedding but I do remember her beautiful white silk wedding dress that she had made. I remember when the rock house was built that still stands. I stayed with Grandma a good deal those days and helped her with the chores. Grandma was a great entertainer and put every effort to entertain us children when we were staying with her. She loved music and dancing and never missed many dances even in her old age. She loved to mingle with the young people and understood them much better than some of their own parents. She was a Church goer and loved the Gospel and lived it. I remember being in Uncle Nephi's home many times and remember them losing a baby by the name of Claudia and I sat with Aunt May and Albert Leavitt with the corpse as they didn't embalm people those days but kept cold salt peter cloths on them to keep their skin from coloring and of course someone had to sit up and change the cloths.

After Christina was married I became a constant visitor in their home and remember the birth of each child. After Christina's fifth child was born her health began to fail. During this time I had married and had my first child. The doctor told Christina that she would have to have an operation. I well remember the morning that she was to leave to go to St. George for the operation. I went down to see her as we had become very close friends. Christina was very quiet and reserved and seemed to always pick her words before she spoke as if she had chosen them in consideration of all those that were about her. She was a very religious girl and lived her religion every ordinance and precept as she believed. She was a great believer in prayer and her greatest desire was to raise her children in the fear of God and she had that great desire to be able to stay with them and through her example and teaching to bring them up in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have heard her talk of these desires of her heart with a fear that she never would be able to have the privilege to rear them. This seemed to make her put into her short life all the effort and the love and sympathy to those children she feared would be left to the mercy of someone else. This morning as I entered her home she was packing her trunk to go while Uncle George was getting the wagon prepared and the horses harnessed. As she folded each piece of clothing with care, we tried to take our minds away from the seriousness of her trip. We joked about different things as I had known how she felt and she was very worried, As she came to her comb and brush and then she picked up her powder box to put in I, in a kidding way, said, "Oh slipping your powder in so when you return you can make us believe you have been awful sick..” She smiled and said you know that powder could never make we white, if I were to die I would never be white. Christina had a beautiful complexion and a mass of auburn hair and dark hazel eyes. I had this to remember when she was brought home in her casket. She was operated on and seemed to be getting along all right and it ass gust a few days until Uncle George would be going to bring her home when one morning word came that she was very ill and for him to come at once. Uncle George went horse back as fast as he could but she was very ill as she had a twist in her intestine and died in just a few hours. The day she died Grandma Hunt told me she was awakened at daylight by hearing someone call Ma, Ma. She knew it was George's voice so she ran to the door. She could even hear the horse hooves on the hard gravel road but when she got to the door there was no one calling and no horse in sight. She knew then that Christina was dead for everytime that she had had a death in her family she had witnessed this same experience. Aunt Christina’s death left Uncle George alone with his four small children. Right away Grandma and Uncle Parley decided the thing to do was to move in Uncle George's home and help him raise the children. Uncle Parley had never married and he and George had worked together on their farms. Mother did what she could to help and Christina's Mother also did all she could but they both had families at home. Grandma was getting old and she was bothered with a lump under her arm. I will never forget as I was visiting her one day she told me she had a sore under her arm and asked me to look at it. She acted like a wounded animal that knew that it could not get help from anyone. I was so astonished when I looked at this sore. It was like a black hole with large feelers running in every direction from it and these feelers stood out under her skin like a large spider with a dozen legs. Grandma knew there was no help for her so she went on working as much as she could but the pain was so severe at last she was compelled to go to bed. She was determined to still be of some help so she would ask me to prop her up in bed with pillows and to give her her sewing basket and she would patch, even her dish towels would have the neatest patches on them and the smallest stitches. Now Mother spent most of her days and nights with Grandma. I tried to help but I had two small children and was expecting my third.

Grandma grew worse until it seemed she was daily dying and her awful moans still stay in my memory of the last days of her life. When she died I lost a wonderful Grandma, a chum, and girl friend, one I could share my every care and sorrow with and she gave me some of the best advice I ever had. Uncle Parley continued to live on with Uncle George helping him with the children. He was a good cook and house keeper so life went on. They had no Mother but two Fathers. Uncle Parley’s greatest desire seemed to be to raise those children to walk uprightly before the Lord. Uncle Parley served two missions and worked in every organization in the ward. In every undertaking he was respected as the Father of our ward. Everybody respected his word as counsel. Wherever he went his name is spoken with love and respect and the memory of his life will help as an example of honesty, honor, and kindness and humbleness. His humility will always be a guiding light to those that knew him and loved him. He lived with Ferlin and his wife and never passed away until George's family was all married. His last days were full of pain as he had a cancer on his thumb, then later his arm was amputated and from there it scattered into other parts of his body. Through all his hardships, pain and sorrow, he stood faithful and cheerful to the end.

Uncle George is still living while I am writing this history. He lives with Ferlin's family working a little every day. Doing some work in the Temple and enjoying his life with his children and grandchildren. Faithful to his religion and attending his duties at Church in every way making himself useful in his old age enjoying life and accepting it as it comes, leaving his care and keeping unto his maker, never faltering in his faith that God is a just God, never complaining what his lot has been, leaving his destiny to his maker and accepting His will in all things. After Grandmother’s death, Mother moved to Overton. They had started to move before her death but she came back and stayed with Grandma until she was lain away.

After Mother moved to Overton she made many friends and her oldest son lived there but I don’t think she was as happy as she was in Bunkerville. She visited me quite often and I, her, and of course she came to my every need watch was very often in time of sickness among my children and at time of birth of my children. I lived on her faith and her visits.

Not too long after she moved to Overton her son’s wife died leaving him with four boys, the older being somewhere the age of 14 or 15. Mother served them their every need and care. A year or so later my Father died leaving her very lonesome and her only source of relaxation from grief was work. About a year and half later my brother died leaving the four orphan boys the oldest being 18 years old and, of course, Mother's s service was increased. Every wakening hour for her was work. Alton, her youngest son, had not married but it was not long until he married and as Ralph’ s boys grew to manhood Mother was left rather let down on that she was not needed. She visited us girls quite often from one to the other, not staying long at any place. Overton was her home now and, of coarse, she couldn’t stay away long at a time.

When Mother came to visit us it was indeed a wonderful day, not only for me but for the children and my husband as we11. They enjoyed every minute of her stay and begged her to stay longer. Mother had aged quite fast and now began to worry about her place of burial as Father was buried in the Overton Cemetery and she now wished she had had Father buried at Bunkerville. This had been her home and she had a baby buried here. She wondered if Dad could be moved or what red tape we would have to go through to have him moved as she wanted to be buried her at her old home place. She worried because she didn't have her burial clothes bought.

The year 19~, I received a letter from her stating that she was coming up for a visit and would stay until the Leavitt reunion which was going to be held at Mesquite and it was being held the 28 of November on her birthday. One of my sisters lived in St. George one in Scippio, and one in Ursine, Nevada and Alton at Overton. Through our correspondence we decided that they should come to the Leavitt reunion and we would meet after it in the evening and have a surprise party for Mother and we had all put in so much money to buy her a complete set of burial clothes and after they were bought we bought a suitcase to put them in and had $25.00 cash left over to give her.

The day arrived and we went over to Mesquite for the reunion. We had a wonderful time. After it was over my husband and I had to leave and get prepared for the little party we were having that night. We told Mother that we would go on and she could stay and visit and come over with La Rue or Elva but she insisted on going home, said she just wanted to sit around the fireplace and rest. So she came with us. I went in and began to make a fire for it was rather chilly at nights. Mother said I'll get a few chips to help start the fire and I told her there was plenty right on the porch. She just seemed to love to gather chips in her apron and the next thing I heard a funny sounding groan as Mother came up to the porch. When she stepped on the step she had missed it and fell and broke her hip. At first she said she thought it was only a sprain but by the time the children got there from Mesquite we had her in bed and she said she felt pretty good. She said she would be alright but by morning she knew it wasn't a sprain and we took her to St. George to Dr. Reichman. We took her to LaRue's home and sent for him and he soon gave us the verdict that it was broken in the hip and she could never have it fixed as her bones were in a condition that they never would knit or heal. When Mother heard this she cried like a baby.

She was left at LaRue's and I ran back and forth giving all the help I could. Roxie came and helped and then we brought her back to my home and Roxie came to help me with her. Elva was teaching school and she got a two week vacation and came to help but this time Mother was in an awful condition. Her mind was being affected and we couldn't leave her for a minute night or day. We had to wash every day. Roxie took sick as she had stomach trouble and was very nervous. She had to go to the doctor and then be taken home. Alton and Zelma came from Overton to sit up at night. LaRue was ill and couldn't come as she had a family of small children. We decided the only thing we could do was to put her in the hospital and hire special nurses to look after her and we girls would take turns so one of us would be there most of the time. When we got her to the hospital there was only one special nurse available so they recommended we take her to the rest home in St. George where we hired a night nurse to be with her all night and the main nurse to look after her during the day. Roxie had come back down so with La Rue, Roxie and myself and Elva coming on the weekends some of us were there most of the time and then the doctor saw her every other day. She steadily grew worse until March 24 she passed away.