My father hearing of better conditions south some 70 miles and having tried many ways to make a living with his small family. His oldest daughter Lizzie was now married to Robert L. Campbell and they had started a family. They decided to go with our family. Fahter had his high meat cart and a wagon loaded and they started in April 1893 to go south, going as far as Provo making camp for the night. Lizzie's oldest boy Alfred about eight or nine years old was playing on the high cart and he pulled it down on his leg and broke it. They had to take him to the hospital where had to leave him until he was well enough for them to come back and get him. When we finally arrived at Benjamin our destination, Robert Campbell moved into a two room house and we with another family, George Knighton, who was with us moved one block east on the grassy banks of a slough that ran past there. We were a little ways from a nice flowing well so here we pitched our tents and finally got one room built to live in. The slough brought plenty of mosquitoes to annoy us all, and we children ran barefoot most of the time.
The folks fixed up a nice big square box about a foot high in which we kept our milk and butter. They placed in on some rocks at the spring where the nice cold water could run through it and it kept everything nice and cool.
My Father secured a job cooking for a surveying outfit some distance from here and one day when he went to pitch his non camp under a large cedar tree he heard rattles and looking around saw a large rattlesnake all coiled up. It didn't take him long to move out into the open. When the men came in for dinner they made short work of the snake and kept the rattlers for souvenirs.
All at once my father became impressed to go home and after telling the men he left shortly for home. Hurrying he arrived home about the time his son John was born 20 April 1894. He found a very serious condition, there was what they call the hourglass contraction, after the head came then everything stops. As Father came in the door Sister Hand who was with Mother said come quick and administer to her and Father washed his hands and did so. As soon as he had finished, things relaxed and all went well. Perhaps this isn't just the right thing to put into a hisotry but they had no doctors in those days with miles and the the horse and buggy took too long to get one there. But it showed their splendid faith. While Mother was in bed a heavy rainstorm came up and in order to keep water off of the bed, we had to put pans on the bed to keep Mother and the baby dry.
There was a nice large meadow here and several springs making good pasture for the cows and horses. The children soon learned to ride horses. There was salt grass and alkali soil to contend with. The second year Father moved about a mile north and a half east into a log room house, The Knighton's moved a mile north and a half east into a one-room log house. After getting settled here on 25 acres the second little curly haired son was born 17 March 1895, and they named him William Everington Barnard. Then a little girl was born 2 November 1896, whem they named lilly to add some care and joy to the family.
There was no flowing well or water on the place so it was up to us children to get the drinking water. We had a square sugar can of water would last one day. Many times I have trudged barefotted in nasty rainy waether with the mud squashing up between my toes and a stubbed toe going down to the Campbell's to get the water from the flowing well, slipping along the little trail we made. We would get our milki and butter at the same time as the Campbell's still had our cows.
The next year we moved two or three miles from here onto a farm of Mr. Stuart. There was a nice flowing well here and we were sure glad to have a rest from hauling water every day. The next fall in August 1897 little Lilly came down with measles and took cold which caused her death. I had learned to milk cows and milked two cows before going to school and at night after getting home. We had a little burro to ride to school on and he sure liked to play tricks on us getting under the fence making us walk, until we found a gate to get him back out again or laying down in a creek making us walk in the water no matter how we were dressed Sunday or not. They used to get into the hay stack and one morning when my Father was friving them out one whirled and kicked him in the eyebrow taking most of it off and if it had been a little lower it would have taken his eye but it only left a large scar.
Our neighbors little girl came down with diptheria and no matter what they did she soon died. She was a beautiful little girl about three and a half years old. Mother went into their house doing what she could hanging and bathing before coming back to our house. They were a real help to one another and lived the law of help thy neighbor.
One time I and my nephew chased out in the meadows we ran into a skunk and we had to bathe outside and bury our clothes for a couple of days before washing them. We moved back onto our 25 acres in the spring and then during the summer our dear friends the Knighton's little dark haired girl Myrtle came down with membranous croup which caused her death. She was two or three years old. Here again my Mother was much help and comfort to her girlhood chum, Wliza Knighton. They had been pals many years as were the children.
My Fther dug a flowing well on our place so after this we didn't have to carry water anymore and he built a dyke around the well making a pond of water which helped to water the garden. We tried to go boat riding in a number 3 wash tub with sticks for ears but landed in the water most of the time. The garden helped out a lot with our ever growing family for a little girl Bertha was born 7 April 1898, at Benjamin, Utah Co.k, Utah. When she was a year and a half she became very sick and they took her to Payson to a doctor who said don't bring her back because he could do nothing more for her. When my parents got home they threw the medicine away. She was cold to her waist so my Father got some olive oil and went to her bed, got down on his knees and administered to little Bertha and sealed the anointing and she seemed to rally. I remember my parents getting some black current juice from one of the neighbors to give to her. She improved a little each day. When they took her to see the doctor again he said, "I can't believe she is alive" this showed how much faith our parents lived by and was worthy to receive the blessings of the Lord.
On 1 July 1900, they had another little girl Myrtle Byrnina who had curly hair, which grew into ringlets. In the spring my parents bought a lumber house off the Knightons because they were moving away. They moved it onto our place making us two rooms and that helped a lot. One day a hard wind came up it seemed to blow everything to pieces and we lost part of our roof. Father called us all together and we had prayers and in time the wind quit and Father went out and fixed the roof before dark that night.
Father's daughter Lizzie's sicth child a boy Napthali two and a half years old came down with spinal meningitis and his little head would curl right back to his heels. I remember them tying him on an ironing borad to keep him stright. With their faith and prayers they saved him but as he grew older he always talked a little affected.
My Father at different times worked at a brick kiln helping to make brick. He also thinned beets and I went with him to pick out the doubles crawling on my knees all day. I was about 8 years old then.
One winter my mother lay in bed with inflammatory rheumatism, her hands and feet were so swollen Father had to feed her and take care of her and all us children doing what we could to help. About this time Father took a job as a janitor of two small schoolhouses, which were about half a black apart. I was not all 11 or 12 years old and could help him by going around a milk route gathering up the milk and taking it to the creamery then taking the skim milk or whey in the cans with the team to school about a half mile to where Father would take the team and the cans home and I went to school. I look back now and think I don't know how I ever lifted thos 5 and 10 gallon cans full of milk in and out of the wagon bed, and that awful smell and taste it yet. We used to boil wheat and use the milk on it and how my Mother lived and raised her family on such stuff I'll never know and keep us as well as she did.
Father carried mortar in a hod on his shoulder up a flight of stairs all day and for these jobs he received fifty cents a day. One day while he was watering beets for a Mr. Henry Hone, we stopped by the side of a potato patch where there was a nice flowing well to get us some water to drink so we would not have to drink ditch water. The epople were picking up potatoes and at night they said they were short a sack of spuds. A few days later my Father and Mother went over to Payson to have their Patriarchal Blessing and the Patriarch said in the blessing to Father thou art an honest man this very hour they adversary will seek to destroy. They went home which was about 4 miles and on their arrival there was a man to summon Father to a Bishop's meeting, where he was tired for stealing a sack of potatoes. The Bishop said he was in the place of Peter and Father was in the place of Anias and Sophis and could strike himdead if he did not confess. At this time Father was the teacher in the parents class and also a ward teacher and the treatment he received at that time would have caused some people to leave the church. But he went on with more faith than ever and he lived to see the men who condemned him apostatize and be disfellowshipped. Mother was also a Sunday School Teacher and Mutual worker and they both took an active part in the ward, Mother often helping in home dramatics and played in them. Also putting some of them on some like "Ten Nights in a Arroom" some of the kids started saying we were potato thieves so one fast Sunday in meeting Father got up and wanted to know why his children were called potato thieves and wanted a meeting called to prove it. He said why is it you keep me in a Sunday School class teacher if you think I am guilty of taking things that don't belong to me. They had a meeting and could find no fault with Father and all the men that time lost standing in the Church. Father and Mother had another blessing where he was told to be aware of Satan as he was trying to destroy him. Later that fall we went out after a farmer had harvested his crop of spuds and we narrowed the field pickup up ten sacks of potatoes for our winter use. This man was real kind to Father having a large family of his own.
To be continued #3
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