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Sarah & James P. Rassmussen

by Amy Allred:

 Ingred Sophia Jensen, my father's mother, was born on December 16, 1847, a daughter of Jens Jorgensen and Anne Katrine Nielsen, in Aastrup, Kongsted,
Praesto, Denmark. That year had a deep meaning and memory for all Latter-day Saints. It was on July 24, 1847, that Brigham Young and a band of weary pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley and began a new era in Latter-day Mormondom, wherein great steps in history were made. Ingred became interested in Mormonism and on August 2, 1864, she was baptized. When her family found out about her joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they became so bitter and turned her away from their home. She found a home with a family who had small children in need of care, worked for them, and came to America with them in 1865. They came to Mantua, Box Elder County, Utah (then known as Point Look Out, so named because it was on a high place where the saints could keep a lookout for Indians), and settled with other Danish people.
Sometime later my father's father, Jens Rasmussen, who was born in Nidlose, Holbaek, Denmark, on November 2, 1845, a son of Christen Rasmussen and Fredericke Kirstine Hutzfeldt, also came to Mantua, Box Elder County, Utah, perhaps because it was a Danish community. Jens Rasmussen married Ingred Sophia Jensen on April 20, 1874, in the Salt Lake Endowment House. They lived in Mantua and it was there that my father, James Peter Rasmussen, was born on February 4, 1875, in a little log cabin which used to stand in the west part of Mantua, just north of the old road. Record of his birth is found in the early Brigham City Ward records. Jens Rasmussen and his family moved to Mink Creek, Oneida County (now known as Franklin County), Idaho, in 1876. They lived in a two-room log house for some time. Christen Rasmussen and his family also came to Mink Creek before the ward was organized in 1877. Jens and Ingred Sophia had eight children, seven of them born in Mink Creek. Erastus Wilhelm was born May 12, 1877 and died January 28, 1934. Anna Sophia was born February 7, 1879 and died February 12, 1891. Christian Alfred was born March 30, 1881 and died January 1891. Frank Edwin was born February 23, 1883 and died February 1891.
Christena was born January 2, 1885 and died the same day. Martha Maria was born December 23, 1887 and died February 1891. Alma was born and died in 1889.
In January and February 1891, an epidemic of diphtheria hit Mink Creek and most of the country around, and four of their children died. Two of them died at the same time and were buried in one grave. A little Jepsen girl living with the family, whose mother had died when she was a tiny baby and grandmother had taken to raise, also died of diphtheria at this time. Five of their loved ones were laid down in their graves in such a short time, and it was a sore trial to our grandfather and grandmother. Life was never the same after that, and neither was grandmother's health. Such an ordeal would take great courage and faith. My father said the only reason he and Uncle Will lived was because they were old enough to eat straight pepper, and the pepper was so hot that it cut the phlegm in their throats. Many years later when my brother, Glen, was in grade school in Preston, he came home one day and said one of the kids in his class had come down with diphtheria. Dad was so fearful and turned pale at the thought of it, but with the shots in use at that time it was not serious. However, what a memory it brought back.
My father was raised on the family farm with his brother and his parents in Mink Creek. They were among the first pioneers of this valley. The pioneer life had many difficulties and dad suffered an injury in his leg which he carried most of his life in the way of a limp. He was baptized May 3, 1883. He went to all the grade schools, and went to the Oneida Stake Academy.
When he was 28 years, nine months of age, he married Sarah Jensen on November 9, 1903, in Logan, Cache County, Utah. She was 11 years his junior. Sarah Jensen was born August 19, 1885, in Mink Creek, Franklin County, Idaho, a daughter of Thomas Jensen and Hansina Marie Jensen, Mink Creek pioneers. James Peter and Sarah moved to Preston, Franklin County, Idaho, in 1904. Their first child, James Floyd Rasmussen was born December 31, 1904. When James Floyd was about nine month's old, he was bitten by a poisonous spider and became very ill. In fact, no one thought he would live; and if he did, that his mind would be affected. His fever was extremely high. Mother and grandmother cared for him and prayed so hard for him that he recovered.
Dad was in the mercantile business, having a clothing store on Main Street, for ten years in partnership with his father-in-law, Thomas Jensen. For a time the store seemed to do okay but through inexperience and some bad judgment of people, they went broke and lost the whole deal. A lot of the fixtures and mannequins were brought to the Jensen home and stored in an upstairs room until they could be sold.
Dad bought a farm in Poverty Flats as it was called then (now Winder, Franklin County, Idaho). He farmed, raised sheep and other livestock. They were very poor and times were hard at Poverty Flats. They cooked in a sheep camp for the sheepherders. They scrubbed out a granary and put a table and benches on it for the men to eat on. Food had to be carried out there, and then the dishes brought back to the camp to wash them. They had to draw all the water they used out of a deep well. Dad was out with the sheep a lot and mother was alone with the children a great deal of the time. Their venture in Poverty Flats turned out to be a bad deal. The soil was so dry and sandy. Dad also became very bitter against the LDS Church and the schools at this time. It seemed he trusted the wrong men, and they always beat him out of every deal he made. Maybe the Lord was keeping him for the job he did in later years when they moved to Cedarville, near Weston, Franklin County, Idaho, in 1920 on a farm. James Peter and Sarah had ten children: James Floyd (mentioned above); Dewey born December 20, 1906; Eveleen born August 28, 1908 and died December 9, 1972; Harvey Hans born March 20, 1912; Marie born June 1, 1915 and died November 16, 1933; Inez Sophia born July 9, 1917; Verdell born May 17, 1919; Karma born June 7, 1921; Glen Joseph born April 2, 1924; and Amy Ivonne born May 16, 1926. (Mother also lost a set of twins in a miscarriage when they lived in Poverty Flats between 1909 and 1910. She felt very badly about this.) These first seven children were born in Preston and the last three children were born on a farm in Cedarville, near Weston, Franklin County, Idaho, which was their next move. Dad took an "about face" and began to work in the Church. He was called to be the Bishop of the Cedarville Ward that was organized September 7, 1902, and from all reports he did a wonderful job. He was Bishop for ten years from 1922 through 1932.
My parents and their family lived next door to the Reuben Buttars family in Cedarville. They tell the following story which I will include in this history because it also sheds a lot of light on the character of my father.
'When we moved to Cedarville in the spring of 1929, Brother James Peter Rasmussen was Bishop. He served from 1922 to 1932. (His first counselor was John Neuenswander from 1922-1929 and Albert LaPray from 1929-1932; his second counselor was Albert LaPray from 1922-1929 and William Binggeli from 1929- 1932.) The ward consisted of about twenty families. The ward members were very friendly, just like one big happy family. It took everyone in the ward to fill all the positions, and often some members had more than one job. Bishop Rasmussen was very dedicated to his Church work. At times when there was no car available or the roads were bad, he rode a horse to Preston to attend stake meetings (about 20 miles). Many times he went clear to Logan, Utah, and did Temple work all day. He had a dry farm that joined ours but it was about two miles via the road from our house to theirs. Reuben and Bishop Rasmussen often worked together and borrowed each other's machinery. They helped each other every way they could like good neighbors should. He was always willing to do more than his share. Bishop Rasmussen had a large family, and we were all very poor. He encouraged all his boys and girls to work, and they worked hard. In those days everyone had a few cows, some chickens and pigs, a small herd of sheep, and horses. We all planted gardens. The farm work was done by horses. They raised grain and hay so nearly all the families were self-sustaining, having their own vegetables, milk, eggs, and meat.
Bishop Rasmussen was a kind man. I never heard him raise his voice or get angry. We will always feel indebted to him for his encouragement and help in getting us to go to the Temple. When we were married, Reuben wasn't an Elder so we had a civil marriage; but through our good Bishop's efforts, Reuben was ordained an Elder on January 28, 1928, and on our second wedding anniversary we took our six month old daughter to the Logan Temple and were sealed to each other.
In 1930-1932 the great depression came and times were bad, and the Rasmussen's, with many others, lost their farm and moved to Preston. From then on we only saw them occasionally. When they left the farm, Harvey and Dewey got a job hauling milk, and they boarded with us for about a year. I feel like our lives have been enriched by having known this family.
' My dad and mother went to the Logan Temple on January 5, 1922, received their endowments, were married for time and eternity, and had their first eight children sealed to them. The last two children, Glen Joseph and Amy Ivonne, were born under the covenant. In Cedarville, my mother was active in the Church and did a lot of work in the Primary. She was a helpful person to my dad in his calling as Bishop; she was a wonderful and kind mother to her family. She worked at gardening and keeping the house and children clean and fed. She was a very good seamstress and made all the clothes for the family. She also made many clothes for her niece, Lillie Jensen Kofoed. She could make them from a picture in a catalog and they were more beautiful and made much nicer. She was always so ambitious. It was stated that she never walked; she always went on the run wherever she went. She was faithful in her beliefs and had such a strong faith in prayers.
 		 

Lillie Kofoed tells this story of her when they were in Poverty Flats.

 I well remember when I worked for her when they were in Poverty Flats. One day the men left a horse near the camp for the sheep for us to watch, as she was kinda sick so they couldn't use her. Well, we got busy in the camp and forgot about her for a while. The horse got into a barrel that held soaked wheat that the men had standing there. She ate so much wheat that she got bloated and so stiff she couldn't hardly move. We didn't know what to do only to keep her moving. We took turns leading her around so she wouldn't lie down or she would have never been able to get up. She bloated so much that we were afraid she would die. Aunt Sarah said we must kneel down and pray for help. She really prayed from her heart. Our prayers were answered real soon for we saw a man on horseback coming towards us. When he got there he said, "It looks like you are having trouble, maybe I can help you as I used to be a veterinarian." So he told us what to do and he stayed until the horse was better. He had been at the Point of the Mountain about two miles away. There was one road leading west and one east. He said he thought he would take the one west but something told him to go east so that's what he did. We were surely happy to see him, and so thankful her prayers were answered. I have seen and heard her pray many times. Aunt Sarah had great faith. I also remember the time Aunt Sarah was caring for a cow and her calf. She staked them out on the lot to eat the grass. One day she was out trying to move the calf and it was really stubborn so she kicked real hard and broke her toe. She always said, "That served me right for losing my temper; I learned my lesson.’
She always seemed so healthy and strong, until she got a sore on her cheek that did not heal. My dad became frightened when he had a dream and saw her in a casket. This shock made him take her to a specialist in Logan and it was diagnosed as cancer. This cancer spread all over the left side of her cheek and down into her windpipe. It was a fast growing cancer but she suffered with it for a couple of years. She was such a courageous, uncomplaining, long-suffering person. My sister, Eveleen, took care of me when I was a baby, because my mother was so ill. She also took care of the rest of the family when our mother died on January 17, 1929, of cancer in Weston, Franklin County, Idaho. She was buried January 21, 1929 in the Weston cemetery.
After our mother died and the great depression of 1930-32 deprived us of our farm and our livestock, we moved to Preston, Franklin County, Idaho. This move was when I, the youngest child, was 5 years old. We lived in a large house with an upstairs and a balcony on an acre and one-quarter lot in Preston Third Ward. We had cows, chickens, fruit trees and bushes, and raised our own food. Dewey and Harvey, my brothers, stayed in Cedarville and hauled milk to the Sego Milk Plant in Preston everyday. Eveleen, with the help of the other older sisters, kept the family together. Eveleen was also such a kind, wonderful, and unselfish person, and she was a mother to all of us. We are all gratefully thankful to her devotion, love, and service.
Dad had many callings in the LDS Church in Preston. He served as a leader in Priesthood Quorums and class groups, and he did a splendid job. He taught Sunday School and Mutual, and was affiliated with other church auxiliaries. He knew his subject, and was always eager to learn more of it. He was the Ward Teacher Superintendent. He was always very dependable. He attended all his meetings religiously. He supervised and took care of the LDS Church welfare farm and he and his son, James Floyd, did a lot of the irrigating there. He was the caretaker of the Preston Third Ward LDS meetinghouse and he received much help in this endeavor from this same son. They both worked very efficiently and diligently at this responsibility. But most of all, he did a lot of genealogy work; he is a Savior to his kin. He was very anxious to do more so that his kin would reach Heaven.
He married Ellen Eliza Wickens Thomas on March 7, 1934, in the Salt Lake Temple, in Salt Lake County, State of Utah. She was born September 4, 1878, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, State of Utah, and was the widow of Thomas Morgan Thomas. They did a lot of temple work and genealogy together; she was also very active in the Church. It was stated that they did more temple work than any other couple in the stake at that time. Even though they were poor, they hired a genealogist to do the work for them that they couldn't do themselves. Many family members on both the Rasmussen and Jensen sides helped with this beautiful and necessary work of love. They also did a lot of work on Aunt Ellen's side (this is the name that we all called our stepmother). Aunt Ellen died on August 3, 1950, again leaving Dad a widower.
He also had a voice in the community. The Preston/Mink Creek Canal Company asked him to take inventory for a tunnel that would deliver water to Preston. The government men working on this project have told the directors that this man is 100% on the job. He had spent the major part of his life in farming and livestock raising but he also hauled lumber, worked at saw mills, sold fruit trees, and in the construction of roads.
In his later years he became very active politically. He was secretary of the Democrat party for many years. He ran for Probate Judge four different times, and was elected two times for a total of four years service. I believe he enjoyed this position very much. He was a very kind, honest, trustworthy, hard- working, compassionate, dependable, special individual devoted to his Church, Country, and family. Everyone who knew him can attest to this. He lived his life with service to his fellowmen and to his God, and especially to his ancestors.
He died in Preston, Franklin County, Idaho, on December 15, 1951, and was buried alongside his first wife, Sarah and his daughter, Marie, on December 20, 1951, in Weston, Franklin County, Idaho. His passing was so sudden. He was serving lunch at a High Priest party he was in charge of and it was at this party that he became ill. True to his nature, he stayed at the party and served. He felt that his lungs were failing on him. He called the Bishop and asked to have the Elders administer to him. The doctor was then called and he was given some medicine and was told to stay in bed as he had pneumonia. His sons and daughters asked to spend the night with him and he told them he would be okay. The next morning he called Sister Lillie Jensen Kofoed and she and her husband, Eugene, came over to take him to the hospital. He died on the way to the hospital in their car. The last words he spoke were, "Floyd, you will have to take care of things until I get back."
James Peter Rasmussen was truly a remarkable man; one all his descendants can be proud of. He had great moral strength; he was a pillar in his Church and community. He always tried to keep God's commandments. He was a noble countryman. I would like this history to be a tribute to his memory and to the example he has set for us to follow."

(Written by Amy Rasmussen Pringle Allred)
WILD ANIMAL STORES ABOUT MY DAD, JAMES PETER RASMUSSEN (By: Verdell R. Williams)
I remember one day my dad told us stories about his experiences when he was herding sheep when he was younger. He told us the story about this bear. He had this bacon in the sheep camp and he came back from going and checking the sheep to see if they were where they were supposed to be on the range. He heard a noise in the sheep camp and so he waited outside. He shot up in the air, I think to scare it out. Pretty soon it came running out of there; anyhow it had gone inside the sheep camp after the bacon he had put in there. He said he shot at this bear. The bear was up above on a hill a little ways above him and he shot it and it fell down. He started to walk up the hill towards the bear and all of a sudden it started rolling down the hill. My dad said it startled him, and he shot again. He found out it wasn't alive; it was dead, but it was just the gravity that caused it to roll down the hill towards him because he was below it. I'm sure that my dad gulped a little bit right then. He was a brave man.
I remember another time when my dad and mother with the rest of the family went visiting some of the people in the ward, as he was the Bishop. There was this one family of people that lived quite a ways away; I cannot remember their names. We were in a car, our old Studebaker, with little sit down seats (jump seats). It had front seats and back seats, then in between that they had little chairs you pulled out of the back seats. You could sit down on these, and we thought that was great sport. My dad stopped and we wondered why and he said, "Look up there behind that rock." There behind a big rock or boulder was the head of a mountain lion. He said, "Can you see that lion right there?" and we watched it. Pretty soon my dad shot at it and scared it and he pulled his head back behind the rock. We never did go after it. It was something to see this lion just laying there by this rock.
My dad told another story about when he was younger. He and Uncle Will had lost many a head of cattle and sheep to the lions and bears. Maybe this was in Mink Creek, I don't know. They were determined that they were going to get the best of this situation. They decided they were going to sleep on the haystack this night. In those days they made haystacks and they would pile the hay and it seemed so awfully high, probably about 25 feet high, but it seemed 50 feet to me. My dad and Uncle Will were going to sleep up there. They decided that when they heard the noise on the ground they would get up and shoot them. In the night they heard the cattle making a noise. They came over to the edge and could see the lion down there chasing the cattle. All of a sudden they got too close to the edge and my dad fell off. He had his gun with him when he fell off down on the ground and here come the lion bounding at him. All of a sudden he shot at him really quick and killed the lion, otherwise he wouldn't have been around much longer. He told us this story and how excited he was. Also how disgusted he was when the lions and bears would kill the sheep and cattle when they fought so hard to get them matured, get some money out of them, and to use them like they were supposed to. My dad was a very good shot; apparently he had lots of practice. He had to be a good shot to save his own life.
Another time they devised a way of getting at another lion. They had a pile of logs in front of the barn window. They knew if the lion got on top of these logs, it would roll down into the barn where they had the animals to protect them somewhat. So my dad and somebody else decided they would stay inside the barn and watch for the lion and try to kill it. In the night they heard a noise. The lion must of got onto the bunch of logs and it rolled into the barn and my dad had to shoot it. That was really dangerous but it was the way they got rid of some of the wild animals in those early days.
Years later when I was very small, I remember my dad shooting a coyote. The coyote had been eating the chickens this time. We were up early this morning and us kids were out by dad by the barnyard. We could see some of the chickens had been killed. He looked up the ravine that runs between two hills above the barn. He could see this coyote running away, so he aimed his gun at it and shot. It plopped up in the air and fell down on the ground dead. I thought it was fun to see my dad do that. I thought my dad was really brave, but it was necessary in those days.
I wish I could remember all the stories he told us, as he was full of them. We loved our dad so very much. I'm glad he was my dad.

WHAT I REMEMBER ABOUT MY MOTHER AND FATHER
(By: Verdell R. Williams)

 I am the seventh child of Sarah Jensen Rasmussen. My mother was a very wonderful person; she was beautiful to me. She died of cancer on January 17, 1929, in Weston, Franklin County, Idaho. I loved her. I remember how sweet she was and how she was such a pleasant person. She was born in Mink Creek, Franklin County, Idaho on 19 August 1885. She was the fifth child of Thomas and Hansina Marie Jensen.
She seemed tall, dark haired, and walked erect. She was a very nice looking person. She was a healthy looking person until she became so ill with cancer. I remember she was ambitious, worked hard all the time, and oh, what a beautiful fruit she canned. It was so good! We would go to Brigham City, Utah, in the summer in our car. We would take the seats out; and we would come home and the whole back of the car was filled with fruit--peaches, watermelon, and all those good things. I remember we canned fruits for days and it was so good. We had a big orchard, lots of apples. This was in our home in Cedarville. I had better go back a ways.
I was born in Preston, Franklin County, Idaho. I understand that when I was around one year old we moved out to what was called Cedarville Ward, out in a farming community north and west of Weston, Franklin County, Idaho. I was the seventh child in the family when we first moved out there we lived in a little house; as I remember, it was small. It only had two big rooms that I recall, and it was next to a cool spring. All around this spring the watercress grew, and oh, it was so good. There were little skater bugs, we called them, and they would skate around on this water. We would go down there and watch them for hours, it seemed. It was a lot of fun. Karma was born in this house. We only lived there a year or two, and we moved to a bigger house with more land. It was a little farther northwest, about a mile, as I understand it. It was about 375 acres of dry farm land and some irrigated land, and we had lots of sheep, cattle and horses. We farmed it; and dad raised grain up in the hills on the dry farm and hay, potatoes, and other things on the irrigated land. Amy and Glen were born here.
It was mine and Karma's job and some of the sisters, to herd the cows, milk cows that is. We would take them to the various fields, herd them all day, and bring them home in the evenings. I remember our mother would always have something good cooked; she was always a good cook. Our home there had a long narrow kitchen, a square dining/front room area, three large bedrooms, a couple of storage rooms, a back porch, and a fruit cellar or part basement under the kitchen. We had a big table in the dining room and we all ate around this big table. Mother would cook and feed us all on this one big table. I remember if there were too many, then us kids had to wait until after the older folks got through eating, then we could eat. My mother cooked for the men that were putting up the hay or threshing the grain. They would come and eat dinner in the middle of the day. I remember her killing and cleaning chickens and frying these young fryers. Oh boy, what good chickens they were and she made some potatoes that were so good. She would bake the potatoes and then she would open and scrape out the baked potatoes and mix it with some milk and probably cheese, butter, salt, and pepper. She would then put it back in the potatoes and put them in the oven to toast on top. They were so good. I wish I had her recipe but I'm sure she just knew it in her own mind. She cooked so many good things--cakes, cookies, pie, and always, homemade bread. She was a woman that was always busy.
Mother had ten children: Floyd, Dewey, Eveleen, Harvey, Marie, Inez, Verdell, Karma, Glen, and the youngest, Amy. We did a lot of work around the farm. We helped milk and herd the cows. I remember we had a lot of chickens. They would go anywhere and make a nest and lay a bunch of eggs, then sit on them. We called them "setting hens". Sometimes we would be playing around and we would find a whole nest of eggs. Sometimes the chicken would be setting on them and she wouldn't get off. We would let her stay of course, but sometimes they would leave the eggs and they would become rotten. They smelled terrible. We had a lot of fun and made mud pies out of dirt, eggs, and straw or whatever we could find. Then set them out in the sun to dry. They were real mud pies. Eggs were plentiful and I guess us mischief never realized their cost.
There isn't too much I remember about my mother except I remember the night Amy was born. My mother was in the room next to where I was sleeping. She was in the first big bedroom; I was in the middle bedroom. I remember in the night when Amy was born that my mother would moan when she was having her labor pains. I did not remember her crying but I remember hearing her moan. I remember how my heart was turning toward my mother and I just loved her so much. The next morning she had the little baby and it was Amy. She was born on the 16th of May 1926, and the next day the 17th of May was my birthday. I remember my mother saying to me, "I cannot get up to make you a birthday cake so the baby was to be my birthday present." This date I still tell Amy she was my birthday present. That was a lot of fun. Amy was to be her last baby. She was two years old when mother passed away in January so the next May she would be three. She was just a little girl. I remember Amy riding on a horse. Glen would hold her on and we would lead the horse around. She thought that was a lot of fun.
I do not know how long after this that mother got sick. She had sinus trouble, we would call it now, but then they called it catarrh of the nose. Apparently it did not heal, and her sinus was so bad so long that it turned into cancer. It was this cancer that broke out into a hole on her cheek. You could see her nose and later into her mouth. She really had a big hole in her face from cancer, and she died on 17 January 1929. She suffered very, very much. The summer before she died, I happened to go with dad and mother down to Logan to the doctor in the car. She apparently had some x-ray or something similar. They put something around her face to protect it; some black lead around the sore. They brought this lamp or light down close to her face. I guess it burned or something. It was just a few inches above her face. Then we went home. All that winter I remember that she was sick. She was down in bed, as I remember it. She got worse and worse and once she got so miserable that she could not lay still on the bed and she was in so much pain. She was jumping around on the bed. In those days they did not seem to have the drugs we do now. Sometimes she would go out of her head from the pain.
I remember a while before she died we had a prayer circle as she had asked us to pray for her to die. I remember just being by her. In the morning before she died, we all went into tell her goodbye before we went to school, apparently we had that custom. She looked at us and said, "Now you girls be good kids and all of you be good." Of course we said, "We will." How did we know that would be the last time we would see her alive, for Dewey took us to school in the sleigh pulled by a team of horses. It was about a mile or so down to a little one room school house, and we went down there. We had just arrived there; it was in the winter, January with snow. We got our coats off and things, and Dewey had gone home. Then immediately, Dad sent him right back after us. Apparently they knew she was going to pass on and he wanted us home. We all got in the sleigh and all went home. I remember how sad and crying we were. We got home and just got in the bedroom door and all stood around her bed. She heaved a sigh and took her last breath and passed away from us back into Heaven—we were sure of it-- because she was our mother. We all loved her.
They had her funeral but they didn't open the casket top, just the bottom part. The funeral was in Weston, and she was buried in Weston graveyard. My dad was the Bishop. I remember how sad we were; and we stopped at a friend's house on the way home but I cannot remember their names. These people were good friends of my mother and father. We had a good dinner there at their house. They had a daughter my age, and I enjoyed her. I remember us playing on the record player the song, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles." To this day whenever I hear that song, I'm reminded of my mother and the day we stopped at this house and heard that song.
Another thing I remember about my mother was one day we were sitting on the steps of our house, and I remember she told us she was going to have a new little baby. This baby turned out to be Amy.
I remember one time; I guess I was sorta mischievous. Like sisters are sometimes when you just do not want to do dishes, so what did I do but the kitchen door was handy so I just hid behind it in a little corner. There I was hiding behind the door and my sisters were saying, "Where's Verdell, why don't she come and help us do these dishes?" I remember my mother knew that I was there because she would look at me and grin kinda mischievous too. She knew that I was playing a trick on them and that I was getting away with things that I shouldn't be. She didn't give me away. She didn't say anything, just kinda grinned, but I have never forgotten it. I remember then that my mother did have a sense of humor; that she was real; she was sweet; and she was loving. I felt that she loved me. I knew that she loved me. Oh how I have missed her over the years. I would have liked to have shown her my family and husband, how proud I am of them. I hope I have made her proud of me in the Heavens where I am sure she is. My other sisters and brothers all loved her too. She was a stately woman and very sweet.
My sister, Inez, when she was down here in Arizona last month, told me some of the things she remembered about her. One was that she hummed a lot, all the time when she was sewing which she did a lot of. She sewed and made all our dresses and she would hum as she sewed on the treadle sewing machine. I remember we would have a catalog--a Montgomery Ward or Sears--and we would pick out a picture of a dress we liked. She would make the dress and it would look just like the one we wanted. How sweet it was that she would make us these dresses; and later on after my mother passed away, our older sister, Eveleen, would do the same thing. We grew up that way with them making our dresses and that's why--maybe even to this date--I'm thrilled with cloth and love to sew and make pretty dresses. I loved my mother very much.
Next I'd like to say something about the spring of this century that my mother and dad lived in. We only got one bath a week and that was on Saturday night and naturally we needed it by then. I remember that they heated the water on the stove in the boiler and in pans, then they would pour it into this big tub that was on the floor down at the end of the stove. This is where we would get our Saturday night bath. In the winter they would heat up the stove to get the kitchen warm. Naturally the stove was hot, so we had to make sure we did not get too close to the stove or we would get burned. I remember in the winter we would freeze on one side and feel like we were going to burn on the other. It wasn't the even heat that we have in our homes nowadays. You couldn't change water with each child because we had to haul our water. We had to be careful of the water and it was hard to heat. We got the water from the spring down by that first house, the little house where we first lived about a mile away. At least this is where we got our drinking water from. Maybe we got our water from the ditch that ran back behind our house, I can't remember for sure. We learned to conserve water.
We would wash our clothes every Monday morning. Our mother would put on a big fire in the cook stove. Then she would put on the boiler and fill it full of water and fill other pans. She would get the water really hot then she would put in some lye out of the can--one or two teaspoonful, I forget. We had to make sure we didn't get close to it because sometimes it would kinda spit out at you. After a few seconds the gray matter, which was the hard water scum in the water, would come to the top and my mother would skim it off. Then we would have soft water so it would work really well to do our washing in. My mother made her own soap out of lye and grease, etc. It was a brown soap but it was really strong. We put that big tub that we took our bath in up on two big chairs to get it the right height, and we would have a scrubbing board in it. We would rub some of this soap on the scrubbing board and on the clothes and run them up and down until they were clean. It seemed to take most of the day and we all had turns. We would take the overalls outside and scrub them with the scrubbing brush and some of the soap, and this would get the overalls clean. After we got the washing done on Mondays, we would take this water and scrub the floor in the kitchen. Some of the floor was wood, some linoleum, and some was worn off like felt. Later on, I think it was all wood, but it looked clean and pretty.
The next day would be ironing day. We would have to do it all. After they got through washing the clothes, while they were still wet, they would starch them with a mixture made out of flour and water. It was diluted and we would put the clothes in it that needed stiffening, then wring them out and hang them up. We would sprinkle the clothes the next day with water to make them damp for ironing. We would have a whole basket of ironing to do. We would have the stove hot again and have these old cast irons, called "SAD" irons. We had a handle that would hook onto the iron. We had about six of these on the stove. We would hook the wooden handle onto the hot one; take it over to the ironing board, and iron with it until it got too cool. We would then put it back on the stove to heat and take another one to use. We all had our turns at this also until the ironing was done. Our ironing board was different in those days; what we had was a plank, a board, about one inch thick and about a foot wide. It was probably a one by twelve, and four or five feet long. My mother had fastened on this board some old blankets or towels, covered with muslin, to pad it. It was our ironing board and we had to learn how to lay things in order to get the puff sleeves to look nice and the collars just so. We didn't have the end of the ironing board to work with like we do nowadays.
We had a big garden in those days. We would all get out there and weed the garden when it needed it. I remember one time when I was weeding away really fast, I was close to my brother, Glen, and I just chopped his toenail right off. I felt badly about this. He has been a good brother.
We had a lot of animals around and I loved it when an old hen would appear with a new batch of little chicks. They would trail along after her and she would be so proud. We had a lot of dogs and cats and the dogs would help us herd sheep. We had to help milk the cows. We would milk them in the morning and evening. We had one cow named Blackie and she chased Marie and she rolled under the fence to get away from her. In front of our house there was a road where men in the spring and fall would drive the range cattle back and forth. It had a wire fence to separate us from the road; it could have been broken down easy if the bulls had decided to. They had to pass our house to get to the mountain range. Us kids would stand right by the fence and the big bulls and cows would go right past. I remember how we would bellow and act like we were really furious, and they were supposed to be frightened of us. The men would be driving them with horses behind and we really should have been frightened because those bulls could have gone through that fence in nothing flat if they had decided to do so. We weren't scared of those cows; but now when I think about it, it was really dangerous.
Another thing my sister, Inez, said she remembered about our mother was that mother had some heads of very good cabbage in her garden. She kept the bugs off these cabbages by putting wood ashes on the cabbage; she grew beautiful cabbages that way.
I remember when the great depression hit; we were still out on the farm. My dad took a load of sheep to Omaha. He had this complete trainload of sheep; and by the time he got there, the price had gone down so low on those sheep that they wouldn't even pay the freight on the sheep. He lost the whole 10,000 head of sheep.
Inez also said that our mother always used to say, "Whatever you do, do well. " Telling the stories about my mother and dad have really brought a lot of things home to me, and it's made me appreciate the heritage that I have. The things that they went through so we could be here today to raise our families in the modern world that we live in. There are a lot of things wrong about this modern world, but it's a lot different than the one they lived in then. In those days they never had any TV or radio. All we had for music on the farm was a record player that Dewey had and some records. Harvey had a guitar and we sang. We were our own entertainment.
I need to put in the genealogy of my mother.
Thomas and Hansina Marie Jensen had ten children:
Eliza Kirstine born 1 August 1877 in Richfield, Utah;
Christena born 7 September 1879 in Point Look Out, Utah;
James Thomas born 6 August 1881 in Mink Creek, Idaho (all the rest were also born in Mink Creek, Idaho);
Hans Christian born 20 March 1883;
Sarah (our mother) born 19 August 1885;
Daniel born 10 January 1888;
Ezra born 7 February 1890 and died 8 February 1890;
Harry (twin) born 26 January 1891;
Hannah (twin) born 26 January 1891 and died 19 February 1891;
Frank George born 22 March 1894.
All have passed away by now; they were good people. I am glad to be a descendant.
My mother was not baptized before she was married. She got married 9 November 1903 and she didn't get baptized until 11 September 1911 because her father was against the Church at that time. I remember they said my mother was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bear River, a river that runs between Preston, Idaho, and farmland on the west. It was a few yards north of the river bridge and that she was baptized by my dad.
I know that our mother and father watch over us because they love us. I'm sure they know when we do things that are right and they are happy, but they are sad when we break the commandments. Maybe they have something to do with the good spirits that are coming down into our family these days. They will be with us again. Let us try to do the best we can. Like mom said, "Whatever you do, do well." Like dad used to say, "If it's wrong, do it right." Those are two things we can go by knowing they are watching over us the same as our Savior is watching over us. We are their children, the same as we are the children of our Father in Heaven.