Lorena Eugenia Washburn Part 5

Dream

When I was quite a young child I dreamed I was on a level plain, and in the midst of the plain was a high pole, with one end fastened into the ground; the pole was literally covered, and recovered with serpents of various sizes, with a part of their bodies and their heads reaching out toward the great group of people who were standing around. I was given to understand that the serpents on the pole represented sin and vice.

In my childhood days our whole group of children used to go east of town, each carrying a sego digger. It was a piece of wood sharpened on one end, and flat on the other. We would go just out of town and look for segos, which were quite plentiful. When we found them we each went to digging by putting the sharp end of the stick into the ground close beside the sego and pressing down on the flat end of the digger until it was a few inches in the ground. Sometimes we pounded on the top of the dipper with a rock, and if the ground was too resistant we put our stomach against the flat end of our digger and with all our strength tried to loosen the dirt around the sego. When the stick was far enough in the ground to suit us, we just pushed it to one side, and up came the segos. Then we ate them, and oh how we enjoyed hunting them. On one of those excursions we discovered that the mud in a deep wash just east of town was fine for molding things. The wash had likely been there for ages, and was perhaps from six to ten feet deep, had almost perpendicular walls on either side, and was several feet wide at the bottom.

There were very few toys in those days, and children in all ages love toys, and at certain ages love to mold things with mud or clay. The whole group went into this pastime with vigor. We each leveled a place where we could dry our own things by themselves. We made stoves, dishes, cooking utensils and anything that suited our fancy, and though a trifle older than the youngsters who love to make mud pies, I think a few of those were on our drying fields also. As we were leaving for home we each made a pledge that we would not injure in any way the property of the others. When we came back to see how our things were drying, everything was in fine shape.

There was a family of Danish people by the name of Monk who moved into a room of the Dennison house just through the fence from our home. One girl Maria was about my own age, and being children [Page 17] we soon played together. Although at first we couldn’t understand each other. But after a short time I began saying some broken Danish words, and they some broken English ones, and so our difficulty of understanding vanished. Our parents often smiled at the sudden mixing in the Great Melting Pot.

There were some very fine children in our immediate neighborhood, some of whom were my close associates. Alice and Hannah Ware who lived one half block to the north, and across the street east from our home, and Mary Sorenson a half block north on the north east corner of the block. Maggie Moffat and Nettie, her younger sister, lived in the little fort just back of our corrals which had been built by early Pioneers, but later when their new home was built it was a half block south and across the street east.

There were others too who lived farther away who were very fine.

Then there were the boys who were just a little older, my brother Parley, Ephriam Peterson, George and John Snow, and several others.

We often gathered at our homes in the early evening and made molasses or sugar candy, or parched sweet corn which was very tender when parched. The boys often carried small tin cake molds, to mold the sugar candy.

I remember how very acurate they were in dividing either candy or corn to see that each one got their full share.

My father owned a molasses mill which was built about 2 blocks east of our street. And after school during the molasses making season, the children fairly swarmed there and sometimes became a nuisance to the workers by their eagerness to help skim the boiling molasses, or by wanting to taste the molasses from the different barrels or containers, often asking for the skimmings from the almost finished molasses.

They often went home with faces and clothing besmeared, from their adventures among the molasses mill utensils, but often overjoyed as they journeyed home with some of the last skimmings in their dinner bucket.

[Page 18] The only children’s dances that I remember of in my childhood were those arranged by the children themselves in our neighborhood. We occasionally had a dance, by getting permission to use a large room in the Dennison home which was sometimes unoccupied. Then make arrangements with some of our mothers to serve a fine lunch to the violinist at the close of the dance. The violinist would usually play 2 or 3 hours in the early evening for us children for a good dinner.

The violinists whom I remember best in Manti were the Westenscows, “high class musicians,” and Fiddler Hans who later moved south, Pat Murphy (Peter Marker) and -----.

My mother took more than her turn in serving someone who would play for our dances.

There were a number of families who had recently migrated from Scotland, some of these came to our neighborhood, one family by the name of Jack. There were besides the parents, three boys, James, William and Gavin, and a daughter Janette.

On one moonlight Xmas eve, many of the Scotch and English people were enjoying a real holiday at the home of Little Johnson. The children of the Jack family invited the neighborhood children to their home to have a party, they decided on a theatre, after the Robinhood order. One of the boys conducted the program, and with difficulty brought us through to a triumphant ending.

The Jack home was a two roomed adobe house just recently built. One room housed the family and as winter came on before out buildings could be built, one room housed their flock of chickens. In preparation for the play that Xmas eve and for lack of costumes, we girls were told to go into the north room while Robinhood and his men dressed in their lincoln green, which was done by turning their coats wrong side out. They had gay colored home made linings, at least some of them. We immediately discovered we were among an excited flock of birds, and before the costuming of the boys was complete, those hens were dashing themselves against our heads, trying to make their escape. We were sure glad to be ushered into the theater.

After the play we all started for home, when we heard boys in all directions doing mischevious work on Xmas eve. So we, mainly the boys in our group, turned over a few planks which served [Page 19] as bridges on some sidewalks. Some large boys saw us, and ran toward us. Then the boys in our group took hold of our hands and we went flying home as fast as our legs would carry us.

One fine evening George Snow invited us all to come to his home and make sugar candy. Each boy in the crowd had a small sack of brown sugar and tin moulds to mould the candy when cooked. And the whole group at twilight, stood before George’s door. Imagine our disappointment when we found no one at home. We found later that George’s parents had been invited out to dinner and had taken George with them.

The boys said we must go somewhere and make this candy.

Across the street to the south stood the one roomed adobe home of John Grear and the boys with some persuasion got the girls’ consent to go there and make the candy.

The door was unlocked, a part of the furniture and cooking utensils were there, all in their proper place. The Grear family consisted of the father, mother, Alic, Miriam, and Jene. Miriam was a charming, talented young lady and had a season’s stage contract with the Provo Theater Company to play, and the family was there with her.

After going timidly into the Grear home the boys assuring us that it would be all right and no harm would come from it if we all behaved ourselves, and left things as we found them.

The boys ran out and gathered wood and made a fire in the fireplace while we washed the dust from a suitable small kettle. Then the boys proceeded to make, mold, and divide the candy. After a few ghost and other stories were indulged in as we sat around the bright fire, we girls washed the little kettle, spoon, and candy molds and stepped out into the moonlight while the boys with an old broom swept up the ashes from the hearth and carefully put out the fire.

Most of the boys and girls walked along side by side. One young fellow stepped up beside me, but I refused to walk by him, as I very much disliked him. The following day after school, he handed me the following note and told me that Brigham Peacock had sent it.

[Page 20] Darling do you know, I love you.
Do you know my heart is yours.
I am lonesome here without you,
While this parting time endures.
As every morn to school I go
I sure would like to be your beau-

I knew that he was the Brigham who was the author of that note, and so with a little assistance I wrote and next day handed him this:

Young man. I think you are rather fast,
Your love note perished in a wintery blast.
Now, please bother me no more.
Your messages are not welcome at our door.

The boys of our young group who lived nearest our home were my brother Parley, George and John Snow, Ephriam Peterson, and Hans Dennison, and George the bishop’s son, who was perhaps 3 years younger than the rest. The older boys refused to have him in their crowd because of his size and age, but he living just back of our corrals in the little fort and coming across our lot every time he went to his daddy’s lot where they were to build their new home. And as he had been a playmate of mine, day after day in my young childhood, when he came and helped me build my playhouses, tended my dolls while I ran into the house and brought bread and butter, sometimes gingerbread or cake, for our play lunch.

So he said if the boys wouldn’t have him in their gang he was going to come to our house sometimes and talk to me, even if I was 10 months older than he.

George sometimes got into mischief. As a small boy he sometimes took eggs from our hens’ nests in the corral, and when mother told him if he did not stop it, she would have to report it to his father, he would look up laughingly and say, “Oh if you should tell father he would never believe I would do such a thing.” And so time passed on, and George, with all the rest of us, grew and became more mature.

Some of those boys were very fine. My brother and the Snow boys and Ephriam Peterson were favorites among the group of girls. George had his fine points too. He was handsome, clever, and kindly. And later if he had kept in the proper environment would have developed into a fine young man. He no doubt had ambitions too. I remember [Page 21] after we moved to Monroe, and I would go back to Manti to visit my sister, George would be among the first of my many childhood friends to come to see me. And sometimes in the lingering twilight when we were in our early teens, we would sit on my sister’s doorstep and he would tell me of his plans for the future.

Once he said his dad had made arrangements with the Nailor Brothers in Salt Lake for him to come and take a business course under them, and they would give him a good job in their business when he was old enough. And he said even if you are 10 months older than I am that won’t make one bit of difference when a few years have passed. Why said he Aunt Sally Peacock is two years older than her husband.

That is all the talk of marriage which ever passed between us, and we were just children then, and childhood friends.

A few years passed. And I was warned by a boy friend that George was not keeping good company, so I shunned him, but after I was married he came twice to Monroe and cried and took on like a mad man. And said that although we had never been really engaged, he had always thought that someday I should be his wife. He was desperate, and I was very much afraid of him.

Our bishop, George’s father was a jolly man, and a great tease. He usually wore boots, with one trouser leg inside the boot, and one outside. He always had a twinkle in his eyes. He was medium height, dark complexioned, not overly large, yet a bit inclined to be fleshy.

From the time I was 6 or 8 years old, I always felt like hiding, or running in the opposite direction when I saw him, for no-matter where I was, nor how large the crowd, he would always announce that here is the girl which will be my wife some day. “Why” said he on many occasions, “When she is old enough to marry I will just be in the prime of life, and she shall be mine.”

He was president of the Coop store, and as he did not appear to have much to do, he was often at the store. I did the small shopping for my mother and two married sisters. On one occasion they sent me to get a supply of nutmegs which in those days we bought whole, and grated them on a grater.

James or Jim Browne, a Scotchman, was store clerk, and one time he gave me wormy nutmegs, quite a package of them. When I [Page 22] got home mother and my sisters examined them and told me to take them right back and tell Mr. Browne that they could not use them. I tried to make excuses. I would have preferred taking a whipping, I thought, though I had never had a real one. But my excuses were of no avail, back I must go. So with faltering steps and shaky nerves I went back to the store. And when I got there, to my great dismay, Mr. Browne was busy with other customers and the bishop hopped over the counter and came to me and said, “What can I do for my best girl today.” If blushing was possible, I must have blushed scarlet, but I knew I must face the music, so I handed him the paper sack of nutmegs, and said, “Mother said tell Mr, Browne to never send nutmegs like these to her again, because she had no use for them.” He looked into the sack, and then said, “Jim, don’t ever send out such things to the people again.” To me he said, “You are a brave little girl.” And to the crowd he said, “I will marry this girl some day.” And with the newly selected nutmegs he gave me a sack of candy, which was a rarity in those days.

The mother of Alice and Hannah Ware died when they were very young. She was very ill for some time before her death, and was removed to the home of a dear friend, that she might have better care. There was Ruth the oldest, a girl in her teens, who, with the assistance of a younger sister Mary Ann managed, as best they could, the housework. Their father Samuel Ware, a mild kindly man, was the town miller. Tommy was the little brother who was the family pet. Alice was a year older, and Hannah a year younger than I. They stayed for some time at our home during their mother’s illness and death. And we loved each other like sisters.

After the death of their mother, their father married an immigrant girl, who could scarcely speak a word of English, but she was a very capable woman, skilled in housekeeping and all kinds of fine knitting and needle work.

There was just two years and two days between the ages of Alice and Hannah, and although Caroline their stepmother was very strict, each year on the day between their birthdays, she arranged the finest parties for them that the children of our neighborhood had ever seen,

My sister Louisa’s first confinement was drawing near, so she came from Washington, “Dixie” home to Manti to be under mother’s care. And Caroline Ware had a baby boy about the same time that William or Willie, my sister’s baby came.

[Page 23] The Ware girls and I were overjoyed at the sight of those sweet babies. We wanted so much to make them each an appropriate present.

Caroline had knitted beautiful booties for her baby. And the Ware girls borrowed one, and we got beautiful yarn and sat day after day in a playhouse in our haystack and tried to knit booties for those dear babies, but ours would not turn out beautiful like the sample which we had, so we unraveled, and knit again until at last we decided we would get Caroline to give us lessons on that kind of work. And although our efforts were a failure, there was lots of love went into that knitting.

Among my early recollections are the lovely flower gardens around our home. The old fashioned flowers, snapdragons, larkspurs, marigolds, poppies, and bachelor buttons, with a fine plot of asparagus close by, which was so tall and feathery by the side of a few moss roses which nestled just in front.

And the dear old peach tree, with its large yellow peaches, which were so delicious. Years after, I put my hands almost lovingly onto that old tree, remembering how as a tiny tot, I had stood on tip-toe reaching up to the lower limbs to pick one of those golden treasures.

Then there were the apricot trees, the English currants, and gooseberry-bushes, and the two lovely catalpas flowering trees, and other shrubs which mother had brought from Utah County in the early sixties. She was among the first to raise tomatoes, and strawberries in both Manti and Monroe.

I remember the interesting quilting bees at our home just before my sisters Philena and Louisa were married, the laughter which followed when sister Tooth while drinking the last drop of tea from the teapot, said, “It is better to have a stomach ache than waste a drop of tea.”

After dinner she laughingly groaned from an overloaded stomach and some of the ladies proposed rubbing her, while I looked on in wonderment wondering what was going to happen.

On one occasion as they took the quilt from the frames, they rolled my sister Louisa in the quilt, while I stood wondering what it was all about. Louisa arose and unwrapping the quilt from herself quick as a flash she rolled 2 of those ladies at the same time in that [Page 24] quilt; the others ran outside, and into the bedroom, to avoid taking their turn at that game.

In the evening during those years the grown girls of our neighborhood often gathered into our large living room, with their knitting, and in couples would measure off yards of yarn, and have contests to see who could knit the fastest. They all knitted men’s socks, and sent them to Salt Lake with the Coop store freight man, and sold them for $.50 per pair to get beautiful delane and other fine material for their best dresses and linens for their Hope Chests, and other finery which girls always used.

Before the year 1869 there were no Primary associations, no Mutuals, no auxiliaries in our church except the Sunday School. All the grown girls belonged to the Relief Society where they often had very enjoyable times with their mothers in their interesting work bees and socials.

In my group the spirit of expansion and growth was developing. We felt that we must have an organization of our own. We thought of a Child’s Relief Society. We called all of the girls in our neighborhood together, and talked the matter over. They were all delighted at the thought of having such an organization.

The Manti Relief Society was in session while we were having our discussion. Mother was President of that organization, and we – about 25 of us decided to wait at our house until she returned and ask her permission to organize. When she arrived we told her how we longed to have a child’s organization. She went to Bishop Moffatt’s who lived near by and laid our case before him. He said, “Let them organize, and hold their meetings and sing as much as they please, but they had better not pray in opening and dismissing their meetings, for fear it might be a mockery.”

On mother’s return home she told us what the bishop had said, and that he heartily approved of the organization. We were overjoyed and proceeded to organize immediately.

The following officers were elected:

Lorena E. Washburn, President
Anna Wingate,
Alice Ware, Counselors
Hannah Ware, Secretary
Sally Parsons, Treasurer

We held meetings every Saturday at 2 P.M. In the summer they were held in our large frame granary, and in cool and cold weather in our living room.

We invited all the girls about our own age to join us, and they were glad indeed to have the privilege.

There was a girl or two that we were not extra fond of, but we felt that it was not right to bar them from enjoying this fine opportunity of organized associations.

We were a little afraid that friction might arise, so we made a bylaw that no one should say an unkind word to, or about, anybody while we were in our meetings.

We certainly enjoyed those meetings.

In those days instead of glass tumblers for children to drink from, for everyday use. the people used tin cups, which were made by a tinner who came to the homes and made all kinds of tin articles such as cups, milk and other pans, to order.

Those pioneer mothers were very neat, particular people, everything must be kept scrupulously clean. The uncarpeted floors must be scrubbed and kept white. Tin pans and cups, knives, forks and spoons must be polished every Saturday with wood ashes. The copper and brass articles must first be rubbed with salt and vinegar then washed with soap and water, and as soon as they were wiped dry, they must have a thorough polishing with wood ashes. The lighter part of the polishing was done by the children. And so when Saturday came the members of our Relief Society got busy because the work must be done before 2 o’clock. Not a single member wanted to miss the meetings.

At our meetings we sang songs, both religious and other. “Our Lovely Deseret” was a favorite.

The officers wanted something new that would represent our activities, so one evening Anna Wingate and I were sleeping with my sister Philena. We told her how anxious we were to have a new song about our Relief Society. She told us to go to work and compose one. And as we lay there we composed the following, which was happily adopted by the association, and was sung with vigor in each meeting thereafter [Page 26]

Our Relief Society Song

We organized our Society
The next thing we did do,
We gathered up donations
To make a quilt or two,
Some people gave quite liberally
Whilst others gave but few.
In our peaceful homes in Manti.

Chorus
Hurrah, hurrah, our quilt we have begun
Hurrah, hurrah, we are having lots of fun,
And while we are united together we will come
In the old board granary of Washburns.

Lorena Washburn is president,
Anna Wingate is the next,
Hannah Ware is secretary,
Sally furnishes the text.
Sally Parsons is our treasurer.
I think there is several more,
In the old board grainery of Washburns.

Chorus
Hurrah, hurrah, our quilts we have begun
Hurrah, hurrah, we are having lots of fun,
And while we are united together we will come
In the old board granary of Washburns.

We bring our eggs and quilt pieces
As many as we can .
The eggs we gather together,
And to the store we run,
To get a piece of calico, to help us with our quilts.
In the old board grainery of Washburns.

Chorus
Hurrah, hurrah, our quilts we have begun.
Hurrah, hurrah, we are having lots of fun
And while we are united together we will come
In the old board granary of Washburns.

[Page 27] The group of girls in our neighborhood just older than our group sometimes had theaters in some rooms in the little fort situated just back of our corrals, a lane running between.

Such plays as Cinderella were played. One, two, and sometimes 3 eggs were charged for admission. Occasionally Aunt Sally Peacock and Margaret Moffitte were in attendance among the audience.

On one occasion these older girls caught me on the street and compelled me to sing our Relief Society song before they would let me go. There was quite a stir among them about our organization, and song, and finally they organized. We smaller girls felt quite proud of ourselves when word came to us that the older girls sometimes quarreled in their meetings.

We held our meetings regularly during the years of 1869-1870-1871, and had gathered donations by sometimes going to the homes of our members and asking the mothers for pieces of cloth, or a little thread to help us in our work. And often the members would bring an egg or two or sometimes 3 eggs or some small pieces of cloth, or a little thread which mammas had wound from her spool on a paper or piece of cloth. A spool of thread was a choice article in those days.

In April, 1872, we moved to Monroe, Sevier County, and our dear Relief Society dissolved.

We presented to the Manti Woman’s Relief Society two fine quilt tops which we had cut and sewed by hand.

After going to Monroe I often longed for the association of my dear friends in Manti.

Most of the people lived in the fort at Monroe, and often I went outside the fort walls and looked toward Manti with a longing in my heart which is hard to describe. But I often went back to Manti and it was like going home to my own family.

There was a fine social spirit among the young people of Monroe. Most of the people were living in the fort. The young folks had the fort enclosure for evening playground. The whole group gathered there nearly every evening and played games. We were sometimes quite noisy, which was quite trying to the older people.

[Page 28] On May day 1872 the young lady who had been selected as May queen failed to appear. The Sunday School was all ready for their May March or parade, and although I had been there less than a month, they insisted that I lead the parade. I wore a light dress with small blue figures, ruffled on neck and skirt with a light blue pannier or overskirt which was short on the sides with a few folds on side seams, and dipped to the bottom of my dress back and front. It was a delightful day and I had a splendid time. The evening dance was in the log school house at the north east corner of the fort, which served as church, schoolhouse, and dance pavilion. There was just a path between that and our living quarters.

During that summer father built an adobe house with one basement room four blocks south from the fort. He owned the whole block. We moved there as soon as the house was completed.

In the early days, there were more boys in Monroe than girls, so the girls could have their choice among them. There were a number of very fine young men in Monroe, among them the Harris boys, the father and uncles of President Franklin Harris of the B. Y. U. I am thankful that they were among my close friends as I grew to womanhood.

In the first years at Monroe young men seldom wore their coats to dances in warm weather, and I thought the two Harris boys Dennie and Martin looked so much alike that I could scarcely tell them apart unless they had on different colored shirts. Sometimes I could not tell whether I had been dancing with both, or was I dancing with one of them many times.

I met Hyrum Harris the first Sunday after I came to Monroe. Our family were all taking a walk south of town to see the land which had been taken up by our family menfolk, and as we came to the first of the three streams of water which came from the canyon and ran in a westerly direction, there was Hyrum Harris with his sister Ellen and her family. And as there was no bridge, no stones to step on, we all decided to take off our shoes and stockings and wade the streams.

In 1873 the Monroe people were preparing to have a big celebration. The Relief Society made a large flag to be put on the high liberty pole in the center of the public square. Dennison E. Harris and I were chosen to select 24 young men “who were to wear dark suits, and 24 young ladies who were to wear white dresses who were to march next after the martial band in the big parade.” But on the 21st, as the Relief Society were finishing the flag, I was taken very ill. And so when [Page 29] the 24th arrived, the parade came up by our home, and I was propped up with pillows to see them pass. I remained in a serious condition for some time. There were no dependable doctors in the country. Mother did all she could with careful nursing - still I did not recover. One day mother asked sister Eliza Cooper, and Hannah Bertelsen to come and help her wash and anoint me for the restoration of my health. They lifted me out of bed and into a tub of water, and began to wash me. I was very weak, and the washing was done hurriedly and I was soon lifted back into bed; Eliza Cooper commenced anointing me with oil, I felt that I was dying, my breath grew shorter, and shorter, until it was almost gone. I was perfectly calm.

I had heard what a glorious, sacred thing the temple endowments were, and I regretted that I had not had mine before I had to pass away, and I longed to have my mother stand right by me until I was gone; I saw mother leave the room, and I was grieved to see her go. All at once Sister Hannah Bertelsen put her hands upon my head, and said in a commanding voice, “You shall not die, but shall live and have a large family of children, and do a great work in the Church of God.” She said many other things which have come to pass.

While she yet prayed for my recovery, my breath began to come, I could breathe more easily, until it soon became normal.

I did not regain health immediately but my recovery was wrought by the inspiration and power of God.