Anna Eliza Winter

Written By Eliza Halls
Edited by Kristine Halls Smith

 Grandma wrote interesting stories of her life, but she only got as far as 1925 in her writings.
          —Kristine Halls Smith

I was born October 31, 1893 to Jens Niels Christensen Winter, son of Jens Peder Christensen Winter and Anne Petersen Winter of Trige, Aarhus, Denmark, and Mary Margaret Petersen Winter, daughter of Lars Petersen and Anne Larsen Jensen Petersen of Systoff, Gundsley, Denmark. I was named Anna Eliza Winter. My aunt, Mary Petersen told me that I was two months premature at birth, brought on under the stress of a Halloween prankster. At this time, Mother and Father were living in Grandfather Winter’s house which he had helped to build at the age of ten. They built it by mixing the adobes by hand. The adobes were made of red sand and lime mixed together and dried in the summer sun. The house was built on the top of a hill at the south edge of Huntsville.

Grandfather Winter lived at the homestead on Hawkins Southwest Creek. In those days, they would go out and file on what they called a homestead. They had to live on it three months each year for three years, and then it belonged to them. I remember being told that Aunt Sine (Jensine Christensen Winter), my father’s younger and only surviving sister, stayed with them in the winter to go to school. My father was the second child. My grandparents lost six children at birth or shortly after. Some lived to be two and one half years.

Somewhere between 1893 and 1898 we moved down the road to the house that Dad built. He had cleared the ground of willows and built a two-room adobe house. Dad and Mother planted trees, and until the advent of the Pine View Dam, it was known as Winter’s Grove.

On January 25, 1896, Dora Estelle was born with red, curly hair. She was the third child and I was the second. Our older sister, Margaret Rozina was born on August 14, 1891 and had blond hair. I do not remember moving, but I do remember the building addition of the kitchen and pantry. Mary and Pete, Grandpa’s children, and Margaret used to play on the floor joists. I was afraid of falling through. We were living in this house when Elmer Jens, my only brother and last child of my mother, was born December, 21, 1899. I was just six years old. I remember Mrs. Hislop, the midwife, coming and going, telling me to keep Dora, age three, busy and not let her in the other room. Margaret was nowhere around. This baby boy I fetched and cared for, and I also cared for Mother. I remember that I must have asked over and over, “Is a couple two?” because Mother got impatient with me. (Well, I still cannot remember more than five minutes).

We were a happy family. Some evenings when Dad came home he would pretend to make a big issue of Margaret and me helping to pull off his boots. At times we would get on his knees and he would jiggle and sing to us while waiting for supper. In the summer we played on the river’s edge which ran a short distance from the house and was never very deep. I do not remember ever falling in, but I have a faint memory of being pulled out of a ditch of water by the pond and of backing up into a bucket of water that had been carried by Dad for washing clothes, etc. On wash days he would carry the water from the river and fill all the buckets, tubs, and boilers before going to work. He bought one of the first washers out. It operated with two curved washboards (like boards) that ran opposite directions, the top one inside the other, the clothes in between. 

In the fall when school days came, to put shoes and stockings on was pure torture. We walked to school in good weather. We would go to Grandpa Winter’s and wait for Mary, and walk together from there three blocks, a distance of one mile in all.

Anne, Mary, and Pete were the children of Grandpa Winter and his second wife, Mette Marie Petersen. For lunch we walked three blocks to Grandpa’s and back. My legs were short, and it was hard to keep up with Mary and Margaret. It was hurry, hurry, hurry. I saw others at school who took their lunch, having time for play at noon. I thought how nice it would be to take my lunch, but I had to have an excuse, for I was afraid the plain truth would not be good enough; so I came up with the excuse that Mary wouldn’t give me enough time to eat. There may have been some truth in that as I have always been a slow eater. Even then my teeth were poor. I remember having a toothache at the age of five, sitting by the stove and holding hot packs to my face. Anyhow, one morning we appeared at Grandpa’s with our lunch buckets and, of course, Grandpa wanted to know why. I told him the same story. We got a real Danish Scotch blessing, a good bawling out. I could not understand a word he said, but the tone I heard. It may have been directed at Mary as much as me for she understood and she wouldn’t walk to school with us that morning. We tagged along behind, and I bet Grandpa hotfooted it down home to get the straight of things. Well it was fun while it lasted, and it was not long before we were back at Grandpa’s for lunch, no more foolishness.

In the autumn of 1900, Uncle Lauritz and Aunt Hannah from Provo came to visit us. He was my mother’s brother, a handsome man with black hair and short black whiskers on his face. He frightened me a little. He and his family had been sick and their oldest boy was left with a weak heart from rheumatic fever and died at the age of fifteen. As no one else was sick, I presume we got the germ from them. We all got sick, Dad and Mother first, then the rest of the family. Dad was the first to recover and nursed the rest of us. I remember I had a big pus bag under my left ear. I can remember the bed quilts raising and rolling from the foot of the bed to the head, also the walls from the top to the bottom, but I guess I was too sick to care. Dora and Elmer had festers around their fingernails and toenails. Dad would pick these pus bags with a needle to drain them. I guess the poison came to the outside of us and that is why we survived. Mother was sick in a different way. She was down for so long, but at last she was up and around once more. However, she had lost her voice.

Grandpa Petersen, her father, came to see us one day while we were sick and they talked for a long time. He sat in the kitchen and Mother stood in the bedroom door. As far as I remember, he was our only visitor. At one point, Dad had a doctor come from Ogden because there were no doctors in Huntsville. He gave Mother a bottle of medicine and told her to scrape her tongue. He pronounced it diphtheria.

On January 10, 1901, early in the morning, Dad said to us, “Don’t disturb your mother, she is sleeping.” I can see her now laying in bed. “And don’t let Elmer get in bed with her.” He was in the cradle. “I have to go see Grandma.” We slept on, as did Elmer. Mother had passed away in her sleep. The poison of the disease had gone inwards and too, she was five months pregnant according to Aunt Mary Petersen. The funeral was small. Very few came to the house as people were afraid. I stood by Mother’s casket and looked at her until someone pulled me away. We children did not go to the funeral. Grandma Winter stayed with us.

Uncle Joe Petersen said of my mother’s death, “My sister Mary died suddenly, supposedly of heart failure, January 11, 1901. At six o’clock in the morning, she raised up and asked her husband if the baby was covered, and, on lying down again, gave a couple of gasps and was gone. She died with a smile on her face, and looked very beautiful. The funeral was held the following Tuesday, January 15, in the Huntsville meeting house, but was poorly attended, probably because it was reported that she had been suffering from diphtheria. My cousin, Henry Petersen, gave the funeral sermon, a very excellent one. Brother David McKay dedicated the grave.”

When they thought we were safely well we moved, lock, stock, and barrel, along with beds and washer, to Grandpa Winter’s. I was only seven years old at this time, but I immediately adopted Elmer, age one. He was my little boy. Peter Winter told me in later years how I really took good care of that little boy. Poor Grandma [Ane Petersen Winter], then about 67 years old, now had a third family to care for. She was raising the children of Grandfather’s second wife, Mette, who died giving birth to Mary. Anne and Mary took the disease and were real sick for weeks.

In the morning when the milking and other chores were done and all were gathered for breakfast, we would have family prayer, always. We would place our chairs in a circle and all kneel for family prayer. Grandpa always said the prayer. It was said in Danish, of which I never understood a word, but I knew what it was all about.

Because one of Grandpa’s children was named Anne, the name I was called was changed to my middle name, Eliza, shortened to Liza or Lize. Grandma Petersen wanted to take two of us, but Dad would not separate the family. The adjustment must have been hard. Although they were not strangers to us, all was different.

Some weeks later, I had a strange dream which I remember very well. I saw the Devil standing in the bedroom door. He was dressed in black and red. He had two horns and a two-tined pitchfork. I must have seen his picture somewhere. I must have cried out in my sleep. Anne said I had had a bad dream, to go back to sleep. So I went to sleep, I guess, and then I saw Mother very plainly standing in the door. She was holding a baby in her arms. I saw these things just as plain as if I had been awake. Seeing Mother was very comforting. I guess a little girl was a bit lonesome.

Things were different, but gradually we got used to things. Mary would not give up her place by Grandma at the table. She would have been eleven years old. She could have been sort of spoiled and jealous of our intrusion. Gradually we all got used to the change. Dad, when he came to see us in the evening, would sometimes bring his violin with him and play for us. Grandma loved to hear him play her Danish songs. He played by ear. As time went on and we grew older, his visits came less often. We became sort of separated, and our relationship to him was never as it should have been.

Grandpa made all of his furniture. His table was a bit small with his son’s family there. He sat at the head of the table, Grandma at his right, Dora at his left on a bench next to Elmer, then Peter, Anne and I sat at the end. Margaret was next to Mary. I sat far enough away from Grandpa that I could get away with putting my crust of bread under my plate. I had always had trouble with bad teeth. I remember sitting by the stove with hot packs on my face. Grandma set a good table, but there was one thing Dora could not eat, the fat part of the meat. Grandpa thought she was just being fussy, I guess, wasting all that meat, and made her eat it. It didn’t stay down long. She didn’t even get away from the table. Margaret did not like kenmilk velling (soup made of rice cooked in buttermilk) that would be our noon lunch. Margaret would eat her bread and butter, but that was all.

Sometimes in winter, after supper, with table cleared and dishes put away, Grandpa would let us all play hide-and-seek or blindman’s bluff for awhile, then it was down to school lessons. He would read his paper. When doughnuts were made we would play even or uneven with the cooked middles. We young ones always lost, then they were divided up and eaten. Other, times we would play cards. I think Grandpa thought we needed a bit of fun.

Always we had bread and milk for breakfast, skim milk, cold in summer, hot on winter mornings. On Sunday, we had what was supposed to be a treat, bread, and milk fresh and warm from the cow. I did not like it, but of course, I ate it. When they got a separator, and Grandpa was not in, we would take our bowl and catch a bit of cream. Peter did not care; I think he did it first.

In winter, we would sleigh ride on a hill just out from the gate. In summer, we would play the games outside. Blindman’s bluff would be played in the shadows of the barn on moonlit nights, also kick-the-can, duck-off, and-hide-and-seek. I was afraid to go hunting the others in the dark, so I kept well hidden until the first one was caught, so as not to be “it.”

During the grazing season, it was my job to go with Mary to the hills after the cows. If they were not at the gate, or if one was missing, we hiked over the hills until they were found. Sometimes, but not often, we came home without one. Usually it was one with a new calf. I remember coming from school, changing my dress, peeling potatoes for supper, and down the road we would go, with a big raw potato to eat on the way, or a big hunk of bread and butter. Sometimes we took turns churning butter instead of peeling potatoes. We all had work to do after school. There was wood and water to be carried, milking to be done, supper and dishes. We each had our own job to do. We would also pick chokecherries and service berries which Grandma dried in the attic. She would use them for a drink by boiling them, draining, and using the juice. Grandpa had a large pea patch by the river. We would pick peas, eat peas, and swim in the river. Grandpa had a few sheep and I liked to watch Grandma card the wool into little white fluffs. These fluffs she would stretch and twist into yarn and wind around a spindle on a spinning wheel, after which it would be dyed black, and she would make stockings for all of us. I also liked to watch her needles fly. These warm black stockings would itch for two weeks.

Every summer a group of Indians would camp for a month or so across the road from our gate. They would go begging around town asking for bread and sugar. They would catch squirrels to eat and would dry the hides. They made bead things to sell. When they had gone, we would always go out and see if we could find any of the little blue beads. We would find only one or two. One day Grandmother, with Elmer who was only two, and an Indian mother with her little girl about the same age, were talking out in the yard. Of course I was there. Elmer always played with a sawed-off broomstick which he was holding onto that day. All at once wham! He struck that little Indian girl over the head. I was afraid of what that Indian woman would do, but she seemed to take it all right.

I remember Christmas. I must have been nine years old, the doubtful age. “Was there or was there not a Santa Claus?” I guess I wanted to believe there was, so Dora, Elmer, and I hung our stockings. Next morning at daylight, Dora and I were up. We slept together. We got one of Grandma’s freckadels, a ten-page story book, and a few pieces of candy. We ate the freckadels and candy, looked at our book, and crawled back down under the covers. Goodbye Santa.

Life moves on. In the winter of 1902-03 Grandma slipped on the ice and cracked her shin on the edge of the rock step, leaving an open sore. I remember watching her rub mutton tallow on it and wrapping it up. It did not heal. We think it was blood poisoning. Grandpa had phoned to an Ogden doctor who sent some medicine. It was so nasty tasting that Grandpa would not give it to her. She passed away June 2, 1903 at the age of sixty-nine. She had been born August 31, 1833 in Tilst, Aarhus, Denmark. Again I stood by the casket looking at Grandma until I was pulled away to make room for others. I was nine at that time.

Fast day came, and as usual we fasted. Grandpa said, “Why are you fasting today? Why didn’t you fast last Sunday?” Poor Grandpa, he and Grandma had been through so much together. Grandpa was crippled in one leg. He had fallen off a roof into a cellar they were digging, and had to use a cane.

Anne, age 19, took over. As we grew older, we all had our work to do. Margaret and I scrubbed the kitchen floor’s bare boards with soap and water every Saturday, also the chairs. These we would clean outside in summer. Anne and Mary did the big front room. The whole house was scrubbed every spring. In the fall, the bed ticks were taken out, emptied, washed and filled with new straw. It was so soft and smelled so fresh.

Each night, winter and summer, we filled the wood boxes. Up the little hill we carried the wood that Grandpa had sawed by hand during the day. It took many trips as we burned only wood. We had two stoves in winter, as Grandpa liked a warm house. He would open the oven of the one in the front room and put in his feet, still wearing his clogs, to warm them on winter nights. We also helped to carry water up the hill which was drawn out of a well, and learned how to milk cows. Dora and I, in summer when we were out of school, and with our work all done, would have to sew carpet rags one half hour each afternoon, then we could go play.

Anne sewed our clothes from the skin out. We each had two sets of underwear, one Sunday dress, and two school dresses. We wore one to school all week, then after school the next week. Then on Friday, the dirty one would be washed and made ready for the next week. When our Sunday dress got soiled a bit, we sometimes wore it to school for a few days. Bath was on Saturday night in a round tub, with water heated in a wash boiler on the stove. There were many things to be done. We all worked, although sometimes it took a box on the ear to get me started.

One morning we were out enjoying the early sun. Anne was talking to someone, and Dora was on the porch just above the rock step. I was on the other side of it holding my china doll, the only one I ever remember. It had a china head with blue eyes, and hair and eyebrows painted black. Dora begged to hold it. I gave it to her. She dropped it on the rock and splattered its head. I remember shouting to her, “Now you broke it.” I think she did it on purpose. Recently I asked her if she had one also. She said she had left hers on the platform by the attic door, and one of the neighbor boys had shot at it and shattered the head. We had a neighbor like that, just a bit older than I. So what kind of dolls did we play with? We got long, stitched, tied strips of cloth, with tied strips around the top for hair. This could be braided before playing that we sent them to school.

One summer, Dora and I were allowed to go with Anne to Ogden to pick out cloth for our Fourth of July dresses, material that had tiny pink flowers and green leaves on it. Dad must have taken us as that was the only way we could get there. It was a big day for Dora and me. It was the first time we had been to Ogden.

Life was good, but changes came. Dad, after four years alone, married again. Jens Niels Christensen Winter and Mamie Emma Tribe were married November 18, 1904, when I was eleven years old. We had seen her but once when Dad brought her to look us over. They came for us one Saturday morning, lock, stock, and organ. I wouldn’t go and leave Anne and Mary with all that work. I scrubbed the kitchen floor and the chairs, filled the wood box to the limit, carried water, and bawled all day. When all was done, about four o’clock in the afternoon, I walked down the road and took up a new life. Elmer recently told me that he kept going out to the gate to see if I was coming. He was afraid I wouldn’t. He was then almost five years old.

The furniture was about the same in the kitchen. The cupboard had been moved to the other end, and a new kitchen cabinet had been added. He had fixed the house inside and out, paper on the walls, linoleum on the kitchen floor, carpet in the front room and bedroom, the woodwork painted inside, and shiplap was put over the outside adobe. All was painted white. He built a stairway from the kitchen to the attic to make a room upstairs. The rafters were covered with boards, lacking three boards at the top. Dad was always going to finish it, but never did. A curtain was hung across the middle, making two rooms. It was a lovely place to sleep. We had new beds with no more straw. In the winter, the humming of the cold telephone wires would put us to sleep. The colder the weather, the louder they would hum. The chimney would help keep us warm, and if it was extra cold, Dad would open the stairway door. In summer, we would take out the windows on each end and a lovely breeze would blow through. Robins built a nest in a corner under the edge of the roof just outside the window, and yellow martins were on the other end. These we would watch all summer. The robins came back year after year. Best of all we could hear the rain on the roof and the croaking of the frogs in the spring.

Mamie Tribe (we called her Ma) was a good woman and she did her best, which was good. She had lived with her mother, taking in boarders to help with their income, which added to what her mother got from her husband who went with his second wife. Mamie could play the organ by ear; just hum a tune and she could play it. She was an excellent cook. She never taught us to cook for some reason, but we helped and learned a lot from her that way. I wish I knew how to make pumpkin pie and baked beans the way she did. She always made pumpkin pie for my birthday because I liked it so well.

In the summer, we practically moved out into the grove, between the house and the river. There was a nice flat spot there where we camped. Dad and Ma moved their bed into a big tent; their bedroom was rather small and stuffy in the summer. Sometimes we would get in a hurry and move out too early and have to move back into the house when the June rains came. Oh, what a muddy mess, so many things we needed were down in the grove. Many times the June rains came and the fishing season came together on the 15th of June. The poor drenched fishermen; how glad they were just for a cup of hot coffee. Dad and Ma were always the good guys. They loved doing things for people and, of course, got took by some. There was one group of businessmen who, when they came from Ogden to fish, would always bring something with them that was in season – apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, oranges, or candy. We were always glad to see them come.

My father loved to fish. He had done it from the time he was big enough. Now he sold the fish to the Ogden Canyon Hermitage Resort. He had a fish pond, so that made it legal. One game warden was a bit suspicious. He used to watch the river from his dad’s home through his spy glass. He was out to get someone. Ma used to go fishing and could catch them. She would take a bucket along with her. As we did not want to eat them, she put them in the pond. One time the warden caught her. This time she dumped them back in the river and that stopped her fishing for awhile. I think they earned their fishing privileges because, as the snow melted in the spring, the water came almost to the house and flooded part of the farm. One spring it dug a new river bed, and part of Dad’s farm was now on Grandpa’s side of the river.

When we hauled hay, someone would lead the horse on the hayfork. That was one hot job in July. When the man on the hay load said, “Ready,” we would lead the horse forward until the man in the barn yelled, “Trip,” then the one on the load would jerk the rope connected with the hayfork to drop the hay, and that was the signal to back the horse. So back and forth, back and forth we went as the loads of hay came in. These were long, hot days, but how fast the loads came in depended on which field was cut. The timothy hay, Dad said, was too heavy for us girls to lift, so he usually traded work with someone else.

We attended Sunday School. Dad was a teacher of the adult class, also a counselor for awhile. I attended Primary until age twelve, and then went to Mutual. Ma was organist in Primary for awhile. She taught me the words and tune of a song which was very pretty. I was asked to sing in Primary through Ma’s suggestion I presume, and when she was playing the organ, she looked down and noticed she had her skirt on wrong side-out. Our song almost stopped, but she picked it up again right quick. I would sing at times in church, solos and duets. At sixteen I also helped to teach a Junior Sunday School class, and went to church on Sunday as most everyone did. Around home I did a lot of singing, especially when I was washing dishes. No one ever told me to shut up, so I guess it was all okay. I took twelve organ lessons, at one dollar per, then they were stopped. I never knew why even though my teacher, walked down to talk to Dad about it. She got a “No,” I guess $4.00 a month in those days was considered quite a bit. I remember Dad and Grandpa Halls talked about it. They had cleared $300 one fall; they thought they had a good harvest. That does not sound like much, but in those days we had our own milk cows, chickens, eggs, pigs, and some ducks and geese. We stayed our distance from the gander; he would put down his head with his tongue out, and spread out his wings and come after us.

We used to wade in the river, and catch bullheads and minnows for Dad to fish with. We caught the bullheads with a two-tined fork. The dumb things would rest with their heads under a rock, but their hearing was good, so catching them was not easy. It depended on who was the smartest. The minnows we caught with a bent pin for a hook.

As we grew older, we took over the washing. It was a full day’s work. If we got through by two or three o’clock, we thought we were doing wonderfully well. But if we got through early, it was because the boiler of water went on the stove early, carried from ditch or river. Sometimes two of us would take a tub and two buckets to the river and fill them, carrying the tub between us and a full bucket, one on each side. For awhile we washed on washboards. The old washer must have given out. But whatever way we did it in those days, it was water and more water which was heated in a boiler. The white clothes were washed first, put in the boiler in soapy water and boiled for awhile, rinsed in a tub of water, then in a tub of water with bluing in it. The colored clothes got the same treatment, except the boil, and when they were all hung on the line to dry, they looked beautiful, so we could rest until evening when they were all brought in, folded, and put away. The ones that were to be ironed were sprinkled with water, folded and put away to be ironed on Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday were accounted for. We had no detergents, and no water softener, except lye if necessary. Later we got a washing machine. It was nice, but still a big job. We turned it fifteen minutes for each batch and also turned the wringer, but it beat doing it on the washboard. Lew Zitzman, Ma’s sister’s husband, put down a well a few feet from the door. It was grand for household use, but for washing in summer, the wash water came from the river.

There were raspberries to be picked, and red and black currants still in the garden that Dad and Mother had planted. It was now overgrown with grass, but a few strawberries also still survived. Such high hopes that ended all too soon. What we did not use, Ma would sell.

The following things are not in chronological order, but things we all did, year after year. The first year or two of our changed world is rather blank, but I do remember giving Elmer swift rides in his little red wagon, also playing with his dog. At times I would tease Elmer, but I don’t know why. Uncle Pete always teased me. Anyway, Elmer would take after me with the broomstick he still had. I would laugh so hard I could hardly run because I was afraid he would hit me. I asked him one day if he would have hit me. He said, “I don’t know, probably,” but I doubt it. He was maybe having as much fun as I. I presume we did what we were told to do. Margaret and I, on our knees, mopped the kitchen floor on Saturday. In fact the whole house was cleaned on Saturday with broom, dust cloth, muscles, and strong backs.

Sometimes in the summer we would hang bedding out in the sun all day. At night they would smell so sweet and fresh. This we did quite often. Once a year the house was cleaned thoroughly. Everything was carried out. The carpets were taken up, hung on the clothesline, and beaten to get the dust out. The old trodden straw was cleaned up, the floors swept and scrubbed. The walls were wiped, woodwork and windows washed, new clean straw put down, and carpet stretched and tacked down. It took us one or two days. Ma did not help as much now that we were old enough to do things ourselves. She washed the curtains and did the kitchen work with Dora’s help. In those days of housework we all worked, and I must say I sort of enjoyed it.

In the fall it was threshers. Although it was extra work, it was different and exciting, even with all the dishes we had to wash. A few men came for breakfast and some would stay for supper; others had home chores to do. Dinner at noon was the big meal, with ten to thirteen men. There was a hired girl who helped. We had potatoes to peel, a large table to set, dishes galore. Ma always made the pies. It was hard for me to decide which place to be, inside or out. I usually kept busy inside. How long the threshers were there depended on how much grain Dad harvested or how many times the threshing machine broke down. At first the machine was turned by horses going around and around all day. They were watered and fed at noon, along with a feed of grain. It was a long day’s work for them. We liked to run around the hard trail they left. I remember seeing Margaret pitching grain shocks onto the stack, but when the stack got so high, it had to be pitched by someone else.

We all had our turn working in the fields, bunching hay, and stomping and leveling it as it was pitched on the hayrack, also driving the horses from pile to pile. Later we gathered grain bundles from the binder, shocking them together, ready to be hauled to the stack.

The Fourth of July was a great day in Huntsville. The day would start with a big dynamite boom at four o’clock in the morning. By nine o’clock, the band wagon was out, playing music all around town. On the town square a program would be put on in the bowery. The bowery was made of posts in the ground with posts across overhead and tree branches spread over the top to keep out the sun. An organ was there and chairs were set for the speaker, and those on the program. Boards were set up for people to sit on. By ten or ten-thirty everything was ready to go – ice cream, candy, popcorn, lemonade – take your pick. I had five nickels so I could have five things. It was a hard choice. There was always a game of baseball in the afternoon. Elmer always managed to bring home some firecrackers. Whether Dad gave him more money than the rest of us, or whether his sweet tooth wasn’t as big as mine remains a secret. As I got older, I enjoyed the ball games.

One spring the high water had washed the road out beyond the bridge. Uncle Peter had put a log over so they could cross over. One day Dora and I decided to cross over and go to Aunt Mary’s. We made it both ways over that swiftly roaring, boiling water. If we had fallen in, we would never have survived. It makes me shiver to think about it even now.

When Margaret was 14, about 1905, she and Ma began to have trouble. Ma had a way of picking or nagging; I can’t explain it. Margaret, being the oldest, got it first. Somehow it was arranged for Margaret to go live with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen where she stayed for two years, until she finished school in the eighth grade. Then there came about a dispute of some kind. I think the grandparents could not afford to dress Margaret. Dad refused; if she was going to stay there then they had to dress her. Grandpa’s income was from two cows, a few bees and chickens, what he could make from selling his apples, and fixing clocks. He also had a small Army check from Denmark. Ma got Margaret a job with her aunt, who took in boarders. They paid her $3.00 a week and her room and board. Also, she was able to go to high school. Margaret earned what she got.

Margaret was quick and responsible, but it was all work and no play. I used to work in Ogden off and on. Ma got me the first job working for another of her relatives. They had one baby, but there was not much to do. I did not stay long, I thought if she wasn’t so lazy she could do her own work. Margaret left about the third year she was there. I was in Ogden and I went to see her. She was complaining about something which I have forgotten. I said, “Margaret, why don’t you come home?” She did. She would work for different people in Huntsville and I think she was more satisfied and happy. She helped Dad in lots of ways. She met Burt Burton and they were married. Grandpa Petersen offered them his home. He wanted them to come and live with him and take care of him, and they could have his home. She also taught Sunday School.

With Margaret gone, more responsibility fell on me. Now it was my turn to milk the cows and see to the chores, which were chickens, cows, pigs, ducks, geese. Dad did the feeding in winter, but he would not milk the cows. In summer the ducks and geese took care of themselves. The ducks would lay their eggs up the river and the geese around the pond. The little ducklings and goslings were so cute, but we kept away from Papa Goose. He would come after us, flapping his wings. In winter, milking cows was not too bad until the barn burned down, then the cows had to be tied to the fence out in the snow and cold. Those poor cows and the milker, we were chilled clear through on the cold mornings when it dropped below zero, and it was “get out and milk before school.” In the summer we had to get the milk cans out by 7:00 a.m. for the milkman, and the cows out by 7:30 when Pete came by to get them, or I had to take them to the pasture myself which happened quite often. But we seemed to take things in our stride. What had to be done was done without a fuss.

Time passed and I got older. I liked to read everything except what I was supposed to, especially books by Zane Grey and Harold Bell Wright. I played the mouth organ and could sing and whistle. I had the big outdoors and was happy. I had many rounds with Ma, same as Margaret. I would get angry and spout off, and it was over until the next time. Other than that we made out. I think she got that from her own Mother. When she came to visit or stay with us she would sit and complain until Ma got tired of it and told her to stop.

I worked for my Aunt Anne a couple of times. Her husband was Enoch Slater. He was a wallpaper hanger. They lived in Ogden and she paid me $2.00 a week which I think was really more than she could spare. They later moved to Idaho Falls where there was plenty of work. They had nine children, three boys, and six girls, four of them twins. Her husband eventually joined the L.D.S. Church. Later I worked for a family of five who had a new baby. I washed clothes on the washboard, hung the clothes out to dry on the clothes line, brought them in when they were dry, and ironed them, even the baby diapers which she insisted on. I was paid $5.00 per week. I thought I was rich. Dad thought I was paid a bit too much, but I earned it. I bought Elmer a Boy Scout book and enough material for me to make a dress for Dora. I also cooked for the family and kept house.

One fall Jacob Jensen came to live with us. He was Dad’s sister Sine’s boy. Jake was giving his mother some trouble and she asked Dad if he could stay with us for awhile. He started school, but in a few weeks he came down with typhoid fever. He was a very sick boy. But with Ma’s good nursing and Doctor Shield’s supervision, he recovered. All he had to eat for weeks was milk that had been poured on a hot piece of toast. He used to beg for a piece of that toast when he got out of bed. After about six weeks he was skin and bones. Uncle Brig, who had married again, said he would pay expenses, but he never did. Maybe his second wife wouldn’t let him. Aunt Sine worked and had two girls to care for. She had no transportation, but she phoned often to find out how her boy was.

One night I was so sick with fever and sore throat, I couldn’t talk straight. Kate Nielsen was there at the time helping out a bit. She and Ma wrapped my throat in hot bacon, and I went to bed. As I was no better the next morning, I was brought downstairs and put in Ma’s and Dad’s bed for when the doctor came. He said I was on the verge of having diphtheria. He gave me some medicine to take, put it and a clock on a chair by my bed, and I took care of myself on the hour. Doc said, “If this doesn’t stop it, I don’t know what will.” I sure did not want what Jake had. I guess the doctor knew what he was doing. It worked, and in two weeks I was up and well.

As time passed, people began to come from Ogden. They were Ma’s relations, bringing their tents to camp for a few weeks. That’s how the barn was set on fire. When the church bell and the school bell were both ringing, that meant fire somewhere in the town. This day they rang twice. I had walked the mile uptown to the store to get Ma some needed groceries, and while there I went to see the place that had burned, a log house, not too badly damaged. There were no fire engines or hose at that time, just ditch water and a bucket brigade. On the way home the bells began to ring again. A wagon loaded with men passed me, horses galloping. They yelled at me to say, “Your barn is on fire.” I took off on a run, stopping in at Grandpa’s with my heavy load. I started down the road hoping someone would pick me up; instead, they yelled at me to go back and get some buckets, which I did. Mary said they had to be back by milking time. Down the road I went on the run. Just as I got there, the fire had spread over the whole barn. By the time the water had got down the ditch and a bucket line formed, it was too late, but they did save the granary, the chicken coop, and the little outhouse. After all was over, I took the buckets back and got my groceries. That was one night that I didn’t sleep much. I kept getting up to see if all was well. Two little boys, age five and six, had found some matches, and because of the fire bells, I presume, thought they would have a fire also. So not knowing what they were doing, they made a little pile of straw out by the straw stack which was close to the barn, and got a big fire going. It spread, of course. The five-year-old ran to his mother, and the six-year-old ran and hid. Poor kid, he dared not show up. He wasn’t found for two hours or more. He was as far back as he could get, under the loading table of the grist mill.

One time there were three girls from Ogden, around my age, camping in the grove. One was older than the rest, but small. They were wondering what to do. I told them there was a dance in town that night, so we all went, three good-looking city girls and me. I was the one the boys knew. I never danced so much as I did that night. I was never a good dancer, so all the boys had to pay the price of an introduction. I knew what the score was. I danced with boys that I had never danced with before. The girls had fun. I was tired, but glad that they had enjoyed dancing with the country boys.

As time went on, more and more people came to the grove in the summers. It was a nice cool, clean place to camp or picnic. At first it was all free. Ma sold ice cream and candy which helped her, but I think that changed to an entrance fee, or rent. That was after I left home. I remember a group of people who wanted to hold an outing there. They offered to pay, but whether Ma took anything or not I do not know. There was about thirty-five in the group, so Ma stocked up on candy and ice cream. By watching them we knew they were enjoying themselves, and after a time of games and fun, they had their picnic and left without spending a nickel. They had their own ice cream.

The first I heard of the Halls was when Ruth Halls was eight years old. She was born January 6, 1893 in Mancos, Colorado. They were baptized on their birth date so she was baptized January 6, 1901. My dad did the baptism. I think they had to break the ice on the pond for this event. She was brought to the house with her mother. I remember my mother sending Margaret and me into the cold bedroom while she changed her clothes by the kitchen stove. A few days later, on the morning of January 11, my Mother passed away.

Dad and Will Halls were good friends. They had grown up together. Earl became a friend of Pete’s and was around whenever they had a few leisure hours, mostly on Sunday. I remember them playing marbles out in front of the house at Grandpa’s, and doing other things together with Mary and their friends. I looked on, but never was included; I was just a kid. Maybe if Margaret had stayed around, he would have chosen her instead of me, that will always be a question, won’t it? Mary, Pete, Earl and I used to play cards often.