We Return to Our Home in Monroe
In the spring, April of 1891, my husband sent for me to meet him in Manti, as he and Aunt Julia and nearly all of his mother’s family were there working in the temple. It was the rainy season and the railroad had been damaged in places.
Daniel came in one morning and said, “Sister, I see that your children’s shoes are in a bad condition and I know that with your pride it will be hard to travel on the train and not be embarrased. You go down to the store and ask them to let you have new shoes for the children, and let Bro. Larsen pay for them later. I was afraid that Bro. Larsen’s money was scarce. I took some beautiful tidies down to the store and asked them to give me orders for enough tidies [Page 109] to cover the price of the children’s shoes, and to let me have the shoes now, and make and send the tidies after I got home. They were perfectly willing. I got the shoes, and paid the bill with tidies which I made after I got home.
When I arrived at Manti at 2:00A.M. the children were all asleep and had been for hours. Bishop Reed of Manti, who had been my school teacher when I was a child, was glad to meet me again. He had helped me hold the children part of the way from Thistle. The roads were very dangerous to travel over on account of the storms, and in places the train barely moved, for fear of a wreck.
When we arrived at Manti I expected to meet my husband as he had sent for me to come on that train. But no husband was there. Bro. Reed helped me get the children into a cab, and I asked the driver to take me to Thomas Higgs’ place. The snow was a few inches deep, and the cab driver said he would go to the door and announce my coming as I had a sleeping child in my arms. I had been off away from home for more than two years, three months, two weeks, and three days when I finally returned, and having different assumed names in different societies so that it would be more difficult for U.S. marshals to find me in case they wanted me as a witness against my husband if he happened to be arrested for having more wives than one. In Redmond I was Hannah Thompson and in Huntington I was Mary Peterson, and I had to address all my letters to my husband, and put on an extra envelope on the outside addressed to Sam Peterson of Elsinore. My husband went there for his letters from me.
Well when the cab driver asked what name to announce I didn’t dare tell him my own name and the Higges wouldn’t know me by any other. So I said, “Say it is a lady friend from Colorado.” But they told him they had no room for strangers. He came to the cab and told me there was no use trying to stay there. I did not know where to find the Larsens. He said, “I will take you gladly to the hotel.” Then I was compelled to tell him that I had just given him the last half dollar that I owned. He urged me to take it back but I would not. Then he took my sleeping baby and I got out of the cab and went to Sister Higgses’ door and when she heard my voice she opened the door quickly and had me in her arms, with many an apology. She and her husband did too much to make us comfortable.
Next morning I went to the Temple Hotel where the Larsens were staying. I met Grandma Larsen and Aunt Maria Peterson at the gate. Then Grandma Larsen almost screamed, “Oh have you come back to put my boy in the pen?” Aunt Maria said, “Ingeberg, you must not talk like that.” [Page 110]
I went up to the temple expecting to stay in the outer hall and tend the babies for some of those who were going through.
I told someone to tell Sister Minerva Snow that I was there. She came out quickly, put her arms around me, and told me to come in, but I told her I had just arrived in the night, and that I had no temple recommend with me. She went and told President Wells and he sent for me immediately to come to his office. He greeted me like a father would his child, and told me to go get temple clothes and go through the temple for the dead. I told him that I had no temple recommend. He said, “We will make that all right later.” He also said, “Bring your children and visit me at the temple boarding house tonight.” I did as he told me. When Aunt Julia heard that I with my children was to visit Brother Wells she wanted to go too. I told her all right.
When we arrived for the visit that evening, besides President Wells there was Bishop Farnsworth of Sanpete Co., and the lady who kept the hotel. Brother Wells asked me to sit by a table close to where he was sitting and the children to come there also, while the others sat a distance away. He looked at my four fine children and said, “Sister Larsen, you are surely repaid in these fine children for any thing you have gone through in your life.” I told him I surely was. Then he said, “You will be repaid just the same for those that are yet to come.” I said, “Brother Wells, there can be no more because we have to obey the law.” He said, “There is no law but the law of God for you.” He then told me just how to live. He spoke low, and I don’t think the others heard the conversation, but after he finished he said to Bishop Farnsworth and the others, “I have told Sister Larsen what I daren’t tell anyone but the most faithful of the brethren, but I know Sister Larsen, and I knew her father before her.”
This talk with Bro. Wells which was only a few weeks before he died, helped me bear up under the trials of the years which followed. If sometimes the load was too great, I went and talked with some of the other authorities. President Lund, on one occasion, when Floy was three months old, shed tears with me and told me to walk straight ahead amid the sneers and jeers of everybody. “You are all right, God bless you.”
The Great Test, My Husband’s Decision
After arriving at home the responsibility for the support of my family partly depended on me. I went to dressmaking, but on account of other dressmakers working so cheap, it didn’t pay very [Page 111] well, and to keep the children in clothes and other things which called for money, it kept me working pretty hard.
My husband furnished bread, potatoes, wood, and hay for one cow, and sometimes a few other things.
My great trials came because the whole people felt that the Manifesto almost automatically divorced men and their plural wives, that their family ties, their marriage relations were dissolved, and my advice from the highest sources was quite different, yet I could not explain to a living soul.
I was pregnant, but kept it a secret for months. My sister told me one day that a pregnant plural wife was equal to an adulterer. And two weeks before Floy was born, Mother came to see me and told me that my brother Parley was almost apostatizing on account of my condition. It was a terrible blow to be so misunderstood by my loved ones.
That evening my husband came about 10:00 P. M. to chop some wood for me, and he brought the deed to my lot, which had been at Aunt Julia’s while we had been in Colorado. And after putting on one of my dress skirts, and a shawl around his shoulders, as was his custom when coming to cut wood, so that any passer by would think it was me cutting wood, he came in for a little talk.
For years during that polygamous persecution if our neighbors had seen him come to my home they would have reported to either spies or U. S. marshals; he never ate a meal in my house in Monroe for several years.
Well after the wood chopping that night I told him about Mother’s visit, and what she had said. Then he told me he was of the same opinion as Mother, and that he and Brother Andelin, and Paul Poulsen of Richfield had had a consultation, and decided to take their first wives and live with them for this life, and the rest must keep themselves pure for them in Eternity.
I was almost struck dumb. He had repeatedly told me that although the whole world turned in the opposite direction, he would never forsake me. --- I had always had the utmost confidence in him, and sometimes when he seemed to be a bit partial in his family dealings, I thought it was just a slip of his judgement.
Well here I was expecting to be confined at any moment. I didn’t know that I had an earthly friend now that my husband had turned. [Page 112] God was my only friend, and only He knew what I suffered that night, as I wept and talked to my husband. We talked until the day was breaking, and he told me I had wept rivers of tears since he married me, but weeping didn’t change his plans, but the dawn was here and he must go. I told him that if I didn’t believe that he thought he was doing God’s service, I could never forgive him.
After he left, I pled with the Lord to give me strength and wisdom. About sunrise I went crosslots to the stables on Aunt Julia’s place where I found him feeding stock, and with dry eyes I told him that he had got to stand by me until baby was born, and then he could go where he wanted to go.
I had always felt that my husband loved his two wives as a mother loves her children, but since he had made a choice in his wives, was willing for me and mine to be sent adrift, something happened to my confidence. And the days which followed before baby came were days of almost blighted hope concerning my husband. Yet days of work, and earnest prayer followed.
I had dressmaking heaped up high, and I worked all day and until far into the night, and often when I got up from my sewing machine, I could not stand straight, and had to take hold of any piece of furniture in reaching distance to get to my bed. I did this so that I could earn enough money to get my children comfortably clothed before my confinement, and comfortable in other ways.
Dream - A Call to the Beyond
On January 28, 1892, I had been confined, my baby Floy was five days old. I dreamed that father came and told me that at 5:00 P.M. his vehicle would be there and that I should come to him. I thought of my five small children. To leave them seemed more than I could endure. I pled with father to let me stay for the sake of my dear children, but he said the Lord had decided that I should come. I asked him to go and plead with the Lord to let me stay. I told him to tell the Lord that I would be patient, endure whatever trials came to me and never complain if only He would let me live until my children were grown and able to take care of themselves. Father said, “You will have to come unless the Lord changes the decision. It is like this,” he said, “If you do not come some other member of my family must come because I have to have help.” I awoke. It was 5:00 A. M., and my feelings can scarcely be described. I felt that it was real, that my father had been there. [Page 113]
I knew that my husband was going in the mountains for wood that morning, so I sent immediately for him to come, and when he arrived I told him my dream and asked him to stay at home that day, but he said, “It’s only a dream,” and he went to the wood hills.
I began to pray, and never ceased praying until after 5 o’clock P. M. I repeated many times in my prayers that day the promise that I would try by the help of the Lord to endure trials and hardships and do all I could to further the work of the Lord in the earth if only He would let me live for the sake of my children.
And as I prayed my anxiety was so great that great drops of perspiration stood out all over my body, and even after 5 o’clock had passed I had no assurance that I should live.
I prayed many times a day during the months which followed, and whenever I thought of the dream again the perspiration stood out all over me. My recovery to health was very slow, and I was so poorly that I was afraid I might go yet.
Two weeks after I had this dream my brother Daniel died. They kept the news of his death from me for several weeks for fear the shock would be too much for me, but even after I knew of his death I was not sure that I would live.
I think that the realization of the fact that I was just about to be taken helped me to be more patient, to endure with greater fortitude, and be truly thankful to the Lord for life during the years of trial which followed.
On one occasion, later when I was at Manti Temple and received a blessing from President McCalister, he said I should live as long as I desired. [Page 114]
Life’s Voyage
I am alone calmly reflecting
On the happy long ago,
When trials like the present ones
I thought we never should know.
I knew we had entered the work of life
Each with an honest heart
From the fond embrace of each other
I thought we never should part.
The sun shone brightly down that morn,
Fate and fortune seemed to smile on me.
As I left the shores of parental care
To embark dear one with thee.
The breezes blew so favorably,
The day was so pleasant and bright,
The ocean smooth, all was peace
Until the shore had vanished from sight.
Now it is a stern reality
We are on the great ocean of life.
I have a heroic work to perform
As mother and wife,
In training the minds of the little ones
Which God to us has given.
They are more precious than the wealth of earth
They are precious gems from heaven.
It is true we now are sailing
On the ocean broad and deep,
And we must steer our vessel well
Or we will have cause to weep.
The breeze has changed
The storm breaks forth.
Life’s sky is often overcast
With clouds which seem as dark as night,
Ah we feel the wintry blast.
The blast that kills the summer flowers
Which bloom along the shore,
And filled man’s hearts with glad delight
Shall we see them never more?
Ah yes, the flowers will bloom again
When wintry days have passed
When gentle springtime zephyrs blow
And not the wintry blast.
The hearts that ache, shall happy be
In the glorious blooming spring. [Page 115]
The hopes we cherished long ago
Their fragrant flowers will bring.
And when the golden summer sun
Shines on the tree of life.
I then will not regret I have been
An exiled plural wife.
Autumn I trust, will crown our lives
With a harvest rich and rare,
Let us praise our God who gives us strength
And keeps us from despair.
Redmond, March 23, 1889.
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