Morgan Pioneer History Binds Us Together When I was twelve years old, my mother died, leaving a baby sixteen days old. Father had another wife and she took the baby and nursed him as her own son, but he died when two years old. After Mother's death, we children all had to get out and rustle for ourselves. I worked for sixty cents a week and ten cows to milk morning and night. I had to go barefooted and when a cow stepped on your bare foot, it sure did hurt. We had shoes for winter. Father made something to wear on our feet. He often made wooden soles and put a strip of leather on the top, but we felt ashamed to wear them. More than once, I left them under the bench and sat in my stocking feet. Eli Whittier organized the first choir in Milton. One night when we were all ready to go to singing practice, the crowd had all gathered at our place, and we were going to see how tall we were. I reached across with a ruler in my hand where my brother was chopping wood. The hatchet went into my arm. I fainted dead away. I got all right, but I will always have the scar. When I was fifteen years old, I went to Farmington to work. I worked six months and got ten dollars, some good pay. The next year I worked in Huntsville. All winter I had plenty of work and little pay. Then I had a chance to go to Ogden to work, but it took a long time before Father would let me go. I worked at one place five years and received three dollars a week. That was wonderful in those days. The people's name I worked for were Mr. and Mrs. John Stinger. They were sure fine people. They were as good to me as if I belonged to them. We had twenty boarders all the time. We also served ice cream and oysters in-between. We served meals at all hours. Then these people moved to Montana. I got another job and worked there three years. I had a wonderful time in Ogden. I was engaged to be married at one time, but something went wrong and it was all off, and I decided never to marry. My brother came down and brought me home While I was home, I met Nels Peterson, a violin player. Then I went to Evanston to work, but I wrote to this friend all the time. I worked there six months and then came back home. The next winter on December 3,1878, Nels and I were married. We lived in Richville that winter. I spun yarn, wove cloth, and made my husband the first overcoat he ever had. The next year we moved to Preston, Idaho, and took up land. There we were pioneers of Preston. I used to be at home alone the whole week, never seeing a soul. The men were in the hills working on a canal. The first winter my husband played and called for dances for seventy-five cents a night. My husband came to Richville for ten weeks that summer and I stayed in Preston all along with my little baby, Lee. I used to go three miles to hunt cows, and when I came home I would spread my skirt out and lay my baby on it while I milked. Three years later, I had another baby, May. I still was hunting cows. We lived there six years and proved up our land. We sold our place, and that helped to buy a place in Richville. I don't know how we would have lived if it hadn't been for the violin sometimes. For sometimes my husband would play every night of the week all over the county. We now had three children old enough to go to school. We traded our place in Richville for one in Milton. We had twin girls a year old when we moved here. We lived near both school and church house, so all of us could take part in everything that was going on. We lived very happy for six years, then my husband passed away and I was left alone. My youngest son and his wife came to live with me. I have found life is made up of little things. Of sorrow and joy, trials, pain, and pleasure. I have tried to treat others as I would like to be treated, and to give service whenever it has been needed. It has not been a hardship, but a pleasure. Today I feel that I haven't an enemy in the world; if I have, I don't know it. I have always been very industrious, weaving carpets, making all kinds of fancy quilts, silk and patch, which I have sold to help out. I am now eighty- four years old, and enjoying good health. "It is my joy in life to find At every turning of the road The strong arms of a comrade, kind To help me onward with my load, and since I have no gold to give. And Love alone must make amends, My only prayer is: 'While I live, God, make me worthy of my friends.'" ©9- i :;o