Next morning we took the train for Salt Lake. When I wrote that everything was all right home, as Mother had paid the rent while I was away. We made up our minds that we would get married , but her Father told Bishop Booth not to give her a recommend. When she asked him for a recommend, he could not give it to her unless she was rebaptized. She told him that she had done nothing wrong and she was not going to be baptized so he would not give her a recommend. She wrote me about it and in my letter I mentioned Bishop George Taylor. She wrote Brother Taylor and asked him if he would give her a recommend and he wrote back stating that he would if she came to Salt Lake City. She left Diannah Smoot after showing her Brother Taylor's letter and came to Salt Lake. Having no other place to go she came to our home and stopped with me and my brother Will. When I applied to be ordained an Elder, Brother Ware was away from home as he worked for the Utah Central Railway. When he came back, Bishop Joseph Pollard said I would have to wait until the next Priesthood meeting. While waiting I moved into the 15th Ward to two rooms in a basement. Brother Pollard visited us several times and likewise had us come to his place and wanted to know how we were carrying ourselves, as people did some talking about Lizzie living there with me. At last Priesthood meeting came around and I was recommended to be ordained an Elder. The following is from a copy of the Elder's Certificate: This certifies that Robert Campbell was ordained an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the 5th day of November 1883, at Salt Lake City in Salt Lake County and duly received as a member of the 5th Quorum of Elders of the Salt Lake Stake, Nov. 1883. James Ware, President; William R. Jones, Secretary Fifth Elders Quorum.
On the 7th of November 1883, both of us went to President John Taylor to get our recommends signed so we could go to the Endowment House. He invited us into the office and asked us to be seated and then he asked us a few questions. What Ward we lived in; then he took the recommends, looked them over; then he looked straight at us. His eyes seemed to see right through us. Then he asked the names of the Stake Presidency. I mentioned Angus M. Cannon, Charles W. Penrose, and Joseph W. Taylor, so he signed the recommends and we thanked him and left to go home and get ready, as we had to be at the Endowment House at 7 o'clock the following morning. We have made the remark many times as to how his eyes pierced us.
During that night it began to rain and in the morning it was no better, so we thought it was no use to wait for the street car, as it was run by small mules and very seldom on time and we would have to change cars to get to the Tabernacle grounds and the West gate was the only one that would be open. The only was to be sure that we got there on time was to walk.
Lizzie had made the clothes for us and we put them together and away we went. We walked as fast as we could. We got there early and the workers helped us dry our clothes, so we were made quite comfortable. Everything proceeded nicely and of course we all had to be shown and told what to do. There were so many of us that it was slow going but as far as I know no one felt worried until we went upstairs to the sealing room and right on the top of the stairs we could see the clock and the hands were pointing to 4 o'clock. For myself, I can say I was hungry right away.
President Joseph F. Smith got us all seated and then he told us to make ourselves comfortable as was possible and those that were going North would be sealed first so as to catch the train. After that those going South would go through next and then those that lived in the City would be left until the last. You will have to guess how we felt, but then what about the workers and they had the work to do and as far as I know they had had nothing to eat and they were there before we were.
At last our turn came and as Mother had prepared something for us at the hospital, we rode up there. Sister Emma Everett was up there when we got there and we stayed there until 10 o'clock. The street cars had quit running on the account of the storm. Oh, how it did thunder and lightning was fierce and the rain like a sheet of water, but we had to make the best of it for it did not take long to get soaked through. We took the short cut for home. The houses were not so close together then as they are now, so Lizzie went into the house and Sister Everett had to go to the West of the 16th Ward and she wanted to go home on account of the storm being so bad, so I went with her through the depot grounds to the North. After we got away from the lights in the yard we would have to stop until the lightning flashed to show us where to go. When she got where she was familiar with the surroundings she wanted me to go back as she thought Lizzie would be scared, the thunder made such a noise and I was soaked so when I got back Lizzie had my dry clothes ready. I was not long in getting out of my wet ones and into the dry ones. That was our wedding reception.
A few weeks after that the hospital quit running and Mother, of course, had to come home for she had said several times that the hospital could not run much longer the way things were going. When she came, she did not like to live in the basement as she had seen enough of how people down South did in houses partly above ground. She looked around for another place and I got a little work at Silver's Foundry when they were making castings for different mines. I also helped Brother James King in the foundry, but when the silver mines were closed down, Mr. Silver and his two sons, Joseph and Hyrum did what little there was to be done. They almost closed down. While I was working there, Mother got a small house on City Creek, on block South of Sister Fielding's place which was owned by Sister Thompson, a near relative of Sister Fielding, but we did not take our recommends from the 15th Ward. My Brother Will had a little work hauling salt from the Salt Lake or near there and he boarded with us which helped us all to get through the winter.
My Brother John was working for Bishop Peter Barton at Kaysville. It was some time in April when I walked out there to see John and when I was about to leave he gave me a six week old little pig to take home. By the time I got to Salt Lake City, I began to think I had the sow, I mean the Mother of the little pig.
About two weeks after that I met Bishop P. Barton in Salt Lake City and he asked me if I had anything to do. I told him I was still hunting work. Then he told me that he had just made an agreement with Will Woods, the butcher, to deliver 50 ewes and 100 lambs at the slaughter yard North of Salt Lake and that if I thought I could deliver them in three days I could have the job. I told him I would try it, so I went home and told Mother and Lizzie that I had got a job and was going to leave right away and walk out there. I got there about 10 o'clock that night. He told me in the morning that the sheep were in the care of the Webster boys at Providence, up the Weber Canyon. I got my breakfast and tied some food in a flour sack which was made fast to the saddle. The horse was an old sheep camp horse. Then I got a note telling me what I was to get and away I went. I kept going until I got there in the evening. I helped to get the sheep corralled so as to be ready for the morning. Then I made my bed on some wool sacks and went to bed. I had just two days left. I could not sleep much for I was tired and sheep ticks were bad. I was glad when it began to come daylight.
We cut out the ewes and lambs and they helped me to get them separated from the herd. Then they went with me for about a mile and went back to camp. The old ewes had been over the road, I suppose, many times for they took the lead and lambs tried to keep up and played as they went along. However, the ewes did not play. When it began to get warm, they began to lag, so I let them rest while it was hot and then towards evening I let them go along the road and pick where they could find something to eat.
I traveled all night and at about 11 a.m. the next morning I had them at the yard in good shape. I got my receipt for them and went home, but things were not as I had left them. Mother had taken the stove and her bed and bedding and had left the place. Lizzie had her bread ready to bake and no fire, so Sister Thompson's daughter took the bread and baked it for us. I did the best I could for my wife and much as I hated to leave her alone, I told her I had to go back with the receipt for the sheep and get my money. I bid her goodbye and told her I would get back just as soon as I could. He was surprised when I got there and he read the note that I brought him. He thanked me, but he did not give me my money, but he told me he would see me in the morning. His wife gave me some quilts and told me to make my bed in the hayloft which I did and was soon fast asleep. I did not wake up until morning. His second wife had nearly got the cows all milked and the other wife was getting breakfast. During breakfast he asked me if I would like to work on the farm. I told him I would, so he loaned me a team and wagon to go to Salt Lake and get the wife and what furniture we had.
Lizzie was surprised when I drove up there with the wagon. As my Brother Will had got work with Robert T. Burton South of town. It did not take many hours before we had started for Kaysville. We arrived there in the evening so that night and several nights we slept in the hayloft over the cows and both of us made ourselves useful around the place until I got a chance to get us a place which was close to Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Thomas Meeks, who were our neighbors. We got along fine and our little pig sure took up with the wife. It was just as good as a watch dog, for it lay on the doorstep at night. I had to walk to work most of the time and usually tried to catch the hand car when it went South in the morning. Sometimes it had to go towards Layton to the North, but I did not mind having to walk as it was only about a mile and we were doing fine.
On the 23 November 1884 the wife took sick and we had to have the midwife. She was one of Christopher Layton's wives and was a little nervous and allowed Mrs. Bailey to interfere. Between the two of them they made a bad job of it. They had to get a young man to go and get a Doctor from Farmington whose name was Parkinson. Of course, that took quite a while as there were no cars and horse and buggy were slow. When he got there he made an examination. He turned to me and said he would have to use the instruments as the child had to be forced, stating that it was jammed in the passage. He surely did work until the child was brought into the world. He thought he could save it and he tried his best, but it was too far gone. Then he tended to the wife. After that he told Mrs. Layton how it was the the cause. (Editors Note: according to family records and information taken from the headstone of Robert Lemuel and Victoria Elizabeth, this child was named Hisbadeck).
I stayed with the wife and neighbors came in and did what they could. On Sunday I was sitting in the doorway, reading when I looked down the street and saw Brother Mansell coming along. Every now and then he would stop and look around. At last he got in front of the house, but he was still in the middle of the street when he asked me if anyone was sick in the house. I told him, yes, my wife was sick. He came to the door and looked towards the bed. Then he said, yes, this is the place. Then he turned to me and asked me if I held the office of an Elder. I told that I did and then he asked if we had any consecrated oil. I went in the other little room and got it. Then he asked me to help him which I did, but he was mouth in the ordinance.
I was astonished at the blessing he gave her. As soon as he was through he left. Then I began to think of his words. It seemed impossible for them to come to pass when she was in (such a condition), yet I felt there was something about it that I could not get rid of the feeling that it would come to pass. He had said during the week she would leave to go on a journey to a near relative and that she would become strong in body and her health would be better and that inside of a year she would bring forth another boy and many other things and that she would be blessed with a large posterity, which would love and respect her and she would help the sick.
After that all pain left her and she felt she wanted to sit up, so during the week she got a letter from her Father who was working on the section up in Spanish Fork Canyon at Tucker, with a ticket and stating that he would meet the train on Sunday morning and for her to be sure and be there. She went and I realized that part of that wonderful blessing had some true. I figured that the rest would also.
A few days after that she wrote me that on Soldiers Summit they had a very bad snow storm and they wanted men to shovel snow up near the tunnel going over the divide. She asked me if I would come up there as her Father wanted her to help his wife run a boarding house at Tucker. He did not know that she had been ill so she was not much good for what help he wanted, but she soon got her strength back again. As she had written there was work up there I thought I could help myself by working up there and likewise be near her, so I took the train to Tucker and went to work the next morning.
When the drifts were cut through so they could get into the tunnel, then they could make their own way as it was down hill. While most of the men were from Springville and Spanish Fork they went home. Mr. Skunen who was a section boss and who boarded at Grandfather's offered me a job on the section. I worked there until the first of April.
To be continued.
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