A Call to Work in the Manti Temple
And after living thus for about year and 8 months I had to leave and go into hiding to save my husband from going to the pen again. I and my children had to leave our precious home and hide somewhere, probably for years, and leave that beloved little home which was to us the dearest spot on earth, but where would we go?
At the same time the bishopric were to choose a person to go to the Manti Temple as an ordinance worker. They were to be called on that mission for 6 months. Sister Conover had been selected at Richfield. The Monroe bishopric (Thomas Cooper, William A. Warnock, and Bent R. Larsen) had about decided on Sister Ann Tidd, who was thoroughly qualified for the position. She was a fine faithful saint, had no children, but if she was called they must also send her husband. While they were thinking the matter over Sunday came. After sacramental meeting, Bishop Cooper called his councilors to one side, and after the congregation passed out, he said “As I sat here today and looked over the group I knew who we were to send to the Temple, it is Lorena E. W. Larsen. She is the person to go.”
I was thankful when they told me, but when the bishop said you are to leave your children at home with their father, it was almost more than I could endure, for my children were dearer than life itself. It surely was a test of my faith, but I thought if I trust in the Lord some way will open so the children can be with me. Many other women in our church had to leave their children and go into hiding in obscure farm houses or wherever they could find a hiding place. My opportunity was the best imaginable, so I prayed for strength and for the protection of my loved ones, and hard as it was I went. I stayed with Sister Higgs a few days. She was my brother Orson’s mother in law and an ordinance worker in the Temple. Her husband was the Temple engineer.
I rented an upstairs room in the home of Little Johnson, who lived about 2 blocks south of Temple Hill. The room was rented for a week to some people by the name of Holt. The family consisted of a middle aged woman, her son and daughter, and the daughter’s fiance. The young couple had come to the temple to get married, and the whole group were doing ordinance work for the dead. When I went there to look at the room the two women persuaded me to move right in and not wait for them to go. They were so nice and friendly that I had my things brought right there. It was one large room with two beds in it. The mother and daughter occupied one bed and I occupied the other. The menfolk slept in their 2 large carriages out in the back door yard. The couple were not married until the day before they were to return home. [Page 70]
It was such a trial for me to be away from my children, it was constantly on my mind. One night during that first week I dreamed my baby, Lottie, was a short distance away crying, reaching out her little arms toward me. I rushed forward trying to get to her, and awoke crying bitterly. At the same instant I found myself in the arms of that dear older lady from the other bed, saying over and over “Oh dear Sister, what is it?” When I told her we both cried. She was so sympathetic and full, of human understanding.
They had brought cake and everything for a wedding dinner - and the evening after the wedding we all had a lovely wedding feast, and a very pleasant, happy time.
I think it was the young married man whose name was Holt. I believe the young couple stayed at the hotel that night. Next morning they all started for home. The older lady and her family lived on a ranch between Payson and Spanish Fork. They were very hospitable people. Dozens of nights she had gotten out of bed, made a fire, and fixed a warm drink to cheer and comfort some belated wayfarer who was traveling in the old fashioned covered wagon drawn by either ox, or horse teams, and many were the thankful travelers thus taken in on cold stormy nights.
I went to work with a will trying to learn the temple ordinance work, and assisting in the morning washroom work, and studying during the day. Everybody was so kind and considerate. Sister Minerva Snow, the leading lady at the temple, was just like a mother to me. Every day when she went down to dinner she took me with her (she was Apostle Erastus Snow’s second wife, married to him in Nauvoo. Her first baby was born there. She told me many things about her life that were confidential.)
She was not seen in Nauvoo for some months before her first baby was born. She stayed in upper rooms in her husband’s home during the day time, and for fresh air, a change and exercise she walked in the garden at night. One night her baby was born. It died, and was buried in the garden. She told me that that was the darkest hour of her whole life. It was reported that she had been visiting in the east during this period. There are many things which she told me at the Temple as we leisurely walked through the halls, up, and down stairs, day after day.
One Friday afternoon at the temple, Sister Snow asked who would assist the females wring their clothes after baptisms next Tuesday. I looked around and realized that I was the youngest of the group of workers. No one knew that I was in a delicate condition, so I volunteered. Next Tuesday was a busy day. The work kept me constantly going for quite some time, and the end of the day found me with labor pains. I told Sister Snow. She reported [Page 71] it to President Wells, and he wanted me to take a bedroom in the Temple and stay right there. But I preferred to take a bedroom at Sister Higgs’ home. So, they took me there.
Before this however, Pres. Wells called me to his office and told me it was too hard for me to be away from my children, told me I could make arrangements to have the children brought to me, and have someone look after them during Temple hours.
There was a lady who had been sealed to Pres. Wells who wanted me to take room in her home. I told Bro. Wells and he approved, so it was arranged that Pa would bring the children and Maria, Aunt Julia’s daughter, should tend the children in the daytime.
But later President Wells said to me, “You are honorably released. Go and take care of your family, and when they are all raised come back to the Temple and finish your mission then.”
I had a telegram sent to my husband and my mother telling them I was ill. Next day they arrived, bringing my children. That night I was taken to Sister Higgs’ home. I lay praying that I might be healed. My eyes were closed, but I could see a man dressed in Temple clothes. He was standing by my bed. He said, “You shall be healed, and go to the full time of your delivery, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Enoch, for in him shall be a generation of usefulness.” When my husband came I told him about this experience, he smiled and said, “It will be a great joke on you, if you have a girl.”
On the Underground We Change Our Names and Live at Redmond.
My husband took us to Redmond, as he supposed there was no one in that place who knew us. He got a two-roomed adobe house of Christian Jenson, just next to the north field fence. My husband and mother went on home that day but before leaving it was decided that while I lived there my name should be Hannah Thompson (Polygamists were hunted down everywhere) and the children were to be taught to call their father Uncle Thompson when he came. It was not hard for B. F. and Ida to learn this, but it took a lot of training for baby Lottie. I had to repeat it many times a day for a while. She would say, “Is my daddy my uncle?” I told her while we were in Redmond to call him that. [Page 72]
The same afternoon of our arrival, B. F. was standing outside the house in the warm sunshine when a crowd of small boys from the neighborhood gathered in the street outside of our gate and asked B. F. what his name was; they repeated the question several times without an answer, then they began throwing rocks at him. He came into the house, when for twenty minutes or a half hour there was a perfect shower of rocks against our door and the side of the house.
When we came, there was nothing in the house. It was the home of Christian Jensen’s plural wife, and she had been in hiding for some time. The place needed cleaning. So I proceeded to house clean. I had nothing but some bedding and some clothes. Pa went home to bring the absolute necessities. We lived just outside the north field fence and just inside the field fence lived Chris Brineholt and his two wives, one had a larger adobe house, the other a smaller one. I didn’t think there was a person in town who knew me. When I started to clean, I decided to ask the lady in the smaller house to loan me her broom so I could wipe down the walls, and sweep the floor, and dooryards. She was very gracious, and said if there was any thing she could do to help me she would be very glad to do it. When I took the broom back and thanked her, she smiled and said she did not want to be inquisitive, but she said “Aren’t you related to Louisa Washburn Black?” I hesitated, and then asked, “Who are you?” “I am Anna Hanson Brineholt, Marie _____ Black’s sister. We each have a sister married to William Morley Black.” I told her she was not to tell a living soul who I was because our safety from the pen depended on it. She gave her promise, and I was really glad to have a friend whom I could talk to.
We had to keep away from public places so each Sunday forenoon we had a little family Sunday School. We sang songs and told stories. The afternoons were spent on a grassy knoll in the field, by the side of a small spring whose water fell a few feet and made a beautiful little waterfall. The streams of water around Redmond were filled with fish from the lake. The children caught them with their hands in the irrigation ditches and in the furrows when the city lot was irrigated.
I sat and crocheted tidies and lace while the children played. I also did some dress making while in Redmond. Lottie sometimes carried off pieces of my work but she could take my hand and lead me every time to the place where she had put it.
One day when I came to Brinholts the R. S. teachers were there, and they giggled when I came in. After being introduced to [Page 73] them they told me that they had asked Lottie what her name was, and she had said her name was Uncle Thompson. She said, “Why isn’t my name what my Papa’s is?”
As I walked to the store the evening before May Day the small sister of the May Queen ran and overtook me, and told me that her big sister was to be May Queen tomorrow, and that she was in the tub right now taking a good scrubbing. She said, “I tell you Sis don’t want any dirt on her back tomorrow.”
The people grew to be very friendly and kind. The evening before Easter I opened the door, and there on the doorstep were several small buckets of eggs and a pound of nice fresh butter.
Bishop Cooper came there once to see me, but no one would tell him where we were, not even the bishop, until he finally went back to the bishop and said, “I am Thomas Cooper, bishop of Monroe. This woman that I am looking for is the wife of one of my counselors. If I am lying you may hang me to any of the large trees in your town.” Then the bishop told him to go to Mrs. Brineholt, my friend, maybe she could tell him. He came and asked her and when she said she didn’t know he said, “She is living somewhere in this neighborhood,” and he repeated the same thing he had said to the bishop. She told him to sit down and she would find out.
She came and told me all about it, and I told her to bring him over, and we were sure glad to see each other.
We had the most enjoyable chat imaginable. I plied him with questions and he told me about everybody at home and very much regretted that I couldn’t be there. He later sent me a fine recommend to carry with me in my travels; on this recommend he stated that any one showing me a kindness, he as my bishop would consider it a personal favor.
The Underground Tree
While there I had the following dream: I thought I had been away from my dear home a long time. And then I came home. It looked like the place had gone to ruin. My door-yard and front lawns were entirely overgrown with weeds, wild bushes, and vines. My heart ached at the sight. I immediately went to work on the north side of the front path pulling weeds and digging out the rubbish. I was very sad to think my place had gone to ruin while I was on the [Page 74] underground. While I was pulling at roots which went deep into the ground, suddenly I found myself by a beautiful tree completely covered with the finest fruit I had ever seen. It stood a few feet from the northeast corner of the house, and had been entirely underground. And as I looked in astonishment, a voice said, “The underground tree brings forth very choice fruit too.” I looked and there stood a man leaning over the fence who had been watching me. Presently my children were there, grown, and the place was filled with people. My children brought me dishes, bowls, and small baskets. We filled them with that delicious fruit and they passed them around to the people. Among the group were descendants of Grandma Larsen’s people, the Rolfsens and others. My heart rejoiced, and I was glad to see what my children were doing. I was thankful for what had, and was now happening.
There was another woman on the underground living in Redmond that winter, the plural wife of Sam Peterson of Elsinore. She had a fine cured ham stolen from her home one night. There was a man living in town who was a bit loose fingered, but there was no proof. So the whole town was searched next day. The neighbors told me not to feel bad if the searchers came, but they didn’t come. Mine was the only place that wasn’t searched. They went back to the suspicious man the second time and put rods down into his bins of flour. He told them that if he had stolen the ham he would not be fool enough to put it where they would find it.
The Sheriff had a field adjoining town and when he ploughed his field in the springtime he plowed up that ham.
Pa brought mother and my sister Almeda to visit me one day while I was living there. Meda told me afterwards that when she saw what a barren place I was living in, and compared it with my lovely little home, she felt like screaming.
Straw Hat
Christian Jenson Sr, was my landlord while living at Redmond.
He was a fine old man. The spring was early with plenty of lovely sunshine. One day I asked him if he would like a home-made straw hat for field work. He said he would, so I got my prepared straw, and within a few days had a lovely hat all ready to wear, with a ventilator around the crown just above the fine black band. I gave it [Page 75] to him and he was very much astonished to think I could make such a beautiful hat. He said, “This fine hat does not go into the field, it’s my Sunday hat.” Next day he wore it to Richfield to conference.
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