A brief Sketch of the Life of Mother, by Heber D. Clark 29 November 1948.

Ann Eliza Porter, third child and second daughter of Alma and Minerva Adeline Deuel Porter, was born in a small log cabin on the East bank of Canyon Creek six miles south of Morgan, Utah, on October 22, 1962. This little settlement was named Porterville where her Grandfather Chauncy Warriner Porter was Presiding Elder and where his Father, Sanford Porter, Sr., the first Bishop of Centerville, Utah, built a home, the first one in that place, 1860. He and family had joined the church soon after its organization and had gone through the persecutions of those days and had come across the plains to Utah in 1847 and 1848. Horace W. Porter, now of Porterville, says that his father, Alma Porter, came with his father in the company of Ezra T. Clark, leaving Winter Quarters June 3, 1848 and arriving in the "The Promised Valley" October 22, 1848. Alma's mother, Amy Sumner, died at Winter Quarters on the banks of the Missouri River in December 1846 where four of her little boys also died, leaving Alma and three sisters; Malinda Ann, Sarah Angeline, and Nancy Areta.

Mother was named in honor of her Aunt Malinda Ann and her Aunt Eliza Frances Deuel Goodrich and her Grandmother Eliza Avery Whiting Deuel; the last named died in Centerville before her husband William Henry moved South with his sons at the call of President Brigham Young.

Mother spoke of her Mother as a school teacher and as the "the sweetest singer in Morgan County." She was set against Polygamy and at one time cried almost continuously for three days over one of her dear girlhood friends marrying in Polygamy. She stamped this feeling very deeply upon Mother. She remembered going as a child with her parents and the other children to Centerville where they visited the Deuel grandparents and put up fruit. She thought of her Grandfather as very stern. When at the table he would say in a deep strong voice to the children: "Keep your eyes on your own plate." Grandmother Deuel possessed unusual charm and was loved by all who knew her.

Alma and Minerva had nine children; three little boys died young and Minerva died when her baby Amy Vilate was less than two weeks old. Mother was ten and Mary twelve. Lyman Porter and Aunt Sarah took Vilate to raise and later Aunt Sarah Leavitt, who had separated from her husband, George Leavitt, came and for several years took charge of the home and taught all the six girls (four of her own) to do housework and chores especially milking cows, were a daily part of the home work. The three boys learned to cook and to do all kinds of farm work. Canyon work was a large order of the day. Alma suffered a broken leg while in the canyon. His Uncle Sanford, Sr., set the broken leg but the bandage was so tight that he could not bear it, so it was loosened and the bones slipped by each other, leaving the leg short and it never healed normally so that he limped and was weak on that leg ever after.

Mother fell out of a high swing at play when a small child which left her with a weak back which became more bent as she grew older. She and Mary loved to dance and Alma also. They played in the snow often and had many house parties with singing, poems and stunts. Going berrying was a favorite seasonal recreation. Mother was a fast picker and knitter and fast with her hands at all kinds of work. She often said that she could get ready for meeting or other places in seven minutes. Her hair was thin and combed readily. She usually parted it in the middle plain and straight.

She told of Ezra T. Clark who built a grist mill at Morgan at the call of Brigham Young, coming to their home when she was about 12. He took her on his knee and said: "When you get to be a young lady I'll send one of my boys here to get you for his wife." He kept his promise. He had married Aunt Nancy Porter, sister of Warriner, as a plural wife and so was Mother's Great Uncle by marriage before she met Father.

Some young man in or near Porterville paid some attention to Mother before she met Father. The sudden death of this young man, whose name I have never known, left the way open. Returning home by wagon with her Father, Mother met her future companion at the mouth of Weber Canyon. He was driving four horses on a wagon loaded with mill products from Morgan. He threw the long whip lash out so that it wrapped around Mother's body. It gave her a real thrill. While the three camped together the young couple had a chance to get a little acquainted. Father took his sister Sarah and two saddle ponies up to see Mother at her home but she would not go horse-back riding that evening because she said, "Pa will be coming in from work soon and he will expect his supper to be ready. I can't disappoint him." Father said to himself, "She's obedient to her Father, anyway." After the visit Father asked Aunt Sarah what she thought of Mother. She answered, "I think she is a good deal finer than a certain other girl." At one time the getting acquainted couple stood on a bridge over Weber River. Father, looking down into the water asked, "If you were a fish there in the water and I should cast a hook into that place, would you bite?" "Eh ha, " came the answer.

The wedding day was set to come off in October but Grandfather asked his dutiful son to go with others up to Bear Valley and bring the cattle home for winter. Each summer the cattle were taken up there for grazing. Too bashful and secretive to tell of his own plans, Father went and Mother did not come his mate until November. She was disappointed, but waited. With a light rig and with his chum brother Joseph and wife, the three come into the Porter homestead on the evening of November 10, 1990. Father gave Uncle Charles a hair cut and Uncle Joseph visited with Grandpa Porter but soon fell asleep.

As the four were bidding good bye to the dear ones, Uncle Myron broke down and wept and between sobs asked, "Who'll make our shirts and patch our pants now?" Mother was too full for any words and did not speak until they were well upon their way. Stopping at the home of the Stake President, Smith, to get his signature upon Mother's Temple recommend, the President said, "Young man, it seems to me that Brother Alma Porter needs a house keeper worse than you need a wife." Father was full of daring and courage and nearly 25. He replied in his characteristic way, "Hi, jucks, let him rustle one."

Arriving with good speed at the Clark homestead at Farmington, Aunt Nancy Porter, who had married Grandfather as a plural wife, met Mother and asked, "Lizy, are you and Hyrum about to be married?' Mother answered in the affirmative where upon Aunt Nancy said, "I know his Father doesn't know a thing about it." On to the Endowment House in Salt Lake they got their Endowments and were sealed together for time and all eternity by President Daniel Hamner Wells, who had been a councilor to President Brigham Young. On the way back to Farmington, Uncle Joseph galloped the horses a great part of the time, saying, "We must not spoil these horses for saddle ponies." A home reception greeted them upon arrival. The next morning at daylight Uncle Wilford W., then a boy 17, got out a big cow-bell and serenaded the newly-weds in great style.

Soon ready, the young folks set out in a wagon for Georgetown, Idaho where Grandfather had a crude ranch. At Clarkston, in Cache Valley, heavy snow caused Father to trade the wagon for a sleigh but even then they became snowbound at the foot of Mink Creek. With horses fagged out from wallowing snow all day, they slept in the sleigh and the next morning Mother had a cheerful out look. She said that she dreamed that 9 big teams came along and broke road all the way and as soon as they were ready to resume their long journey, along came those 9 big teams and so they had good roads all the way. At Paris they stopped with Aunt Mary Rich, Father's cousin and plural wife of Apostle Charles C. Rich. Her son, now Dr. Ezra Clark Rich says: "Your Father and Mother were the most devoted couple I ever saw in all my life." When Father had asked her if she did not think that she loved him too much, she answered. "My love for you will be like a living spring." In the spring of 1882, with their baby girl Avery, they moved away and took up a homestead on Birch Creek, near Oakley, Idaho. One night their cows got into the stack yard and Father got up and was going round and round trying to get them out. He did not know that Mother was just outside, it being very dark. In his aggravation he used some words that Mother didn't approve of. When he reached her he found her crying. She said, "Pa, never used any words like that."

When in Oakley as a teacher in 1922, I met a Sister Curtis who said that she waited upon Mother when her 3rd child, Hyrum T. was born and that one day Father was up in the loft of the house trying to put the stove pipe together. In his vexation he used a cuss word. Mother's strong voice at high pitch rang out, "Hyrum Don Carlos!" These two instances are the only ones ever reported to me of any objectionable words being used by Father.

The people in Oakley were mostly very poor and Mother resented anyone's slighting remarks about the clothes the women had to wear. She milked the cows when Father was away freighting supplies to the mines away to the north and sold butter to the sheep-men. Rough Eastern cowboys came to the dances and often shot all the lights out, etc. Father took part on the stage in home dramatics and they went to some dances and house parties and had lovely neighbors. In 1937 I chanced to meet a Sister John Barnett who was one of those neighbors in 1882-88. She said, "I never loved anyone of my own sisters as much as I loved your dear Mother." Her husband's brother Sam told me that he was with them when they drove past our homestead. He was 9 and remembered how Father and Mother were romping and playing in front of the log cabin like two happy children. No water for irrigation, Father went on horse-back to Star Valley in 1887 and bought a "squatter's right" and with Mother and four children left Oakley the spring of 1888. Father did not sell 5 cents worth of anything. The place sold for taxes later and the county moved the house into town for poor widows to occupy. Mother dreaded the long winters to be met in Star Valley as she knew from Bear Lake Valley what to expect. Father dried her tears by saying "Hi Jucks, we'll hitch up our fat horses and go sleigh riding." Sometimes snow would lay for over six months and would be four or more feet deep on the level as late as the middle of April. Forty degrees below zero was not uncommon. Mother would get "sea sick" riding under a cover and so we could not use wagon covered sleighs as most of us also got sick with such. The ranch was 2 1/4 miles from church, store, post office and school and many heavy snow blizzards were faced. Mother was in the Primary work, mostly as President, for about 11 years and Relief Society President 6 years. Driving her own team in many snow blizzards, she had to pass the home of some old German immigrants. Sister Lehmberg loved Mother dearly as did everybody who knew her. As Mother would be driving past, Sister Lehmberg would say, "That Lizy Clark is a good woman, and that Hyrum Clark better treat her right, by kosh!"

As President of the Primary she often had to be teacher and all the officers in one. Standing before about 20 rough boys who would be chugging at each other, she never spoke in cross tones but would stand there until full attention came. Then she would say, "Boys, I just can't tell you how much I love every one of you." With such a love flowing like a fountain into his very soul no boy could make an awkward move but each would respond to his part on the program readily. Never had I known when any child forgot the starting of a line of poetry that Mother did not readily give the right wording, even with no book in her hand. She seemed to know everything and was "as quick as a wink". As President of the Relief Society she helped to prepare every body for burial during that time. Of course she took a few weeks off to give birth to 13 of her own children. She took a little boy to raise for a few years when his parents separated and the court gave him to his father. In such a large family and with a dozen hired men in two months of haying season every year, one more was hardly noticeable.

With a worn-out body when her 13th child came, Mother was told by R. Seymour B. Young that she could not live through another winter in Star Valley. So, in the fall of 1908, after twenty years in that country, she moved to Farmington, Utah, where Father had contracted her new home. It was ready. The Bishop soon discovered her and made her President of the Young Women's Mutual because, he said, of her great spirituality. The young girls and women all fell deeply in love with her. She also went to the Temple when able to and about 1918 visited her dear sister Mary in Gila Valley, Arizona at Central. They had not seen each other for 32 years. Mother met Myrtle who had visited her at Farmington when getting married and they planned a little surprise. Aunt Mary came in from Relief Society at the back door and Mother knocked at the front door and asked if she might stay over night. Aunt Mary thought she looked like an angel and bade her come in. As each sat looking at the other, Mother thought of some of the hardships that Aunt Mary had endured: the drifting sands, the Gila Monsters and centipedes, the Apache Indians, the dam washing out at Joseph City year after year, of the 14 children she had brought into the world, of the weaving and spinning; a thousand struggles had stamped themselves upon her sweet face. "Do you know who I am?" Aunt Mary looked carefully. Could this possibly be someone she had known? "No, I can't remember ever seeing you before." Let the reader supply the rest. And so they wept on each other's necks a good while.

"Mother, whatever made you go through all those snow blizzards and cold all those years to hold Primary and Relief Society meeting?" I asked, near the close. She answered, "I knew that blessed Bishop Hyde was depending on me to do it and I could not disappoint him." How that early training by her Father came in to sustain her. Then when Father's oldest girl from the second family married and lived near Salt Lake, Mother had them come and spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with her just as she would do for her own children. "Whatever made you do it, Mother?" I once asked. She answered, "I knew it would please your Daddy, and it was good for the soul."

On the first Sunday of June 1927, we came from Logan where I had just received a Master's degree and I put the cap and gown on Mother and she posed for a picture. I said, "Mother, you are hereby awarded the honorary degree of Master of Arts in Motherhood." She turned and said to her some six of the seven girls present, "Now girls, when you had had thirteen children and raised them all, you may also have this honor."

Mother had said that she was ready to go at any time. She had her burial clothes all ready with notes attached with needle and thread already and instructions to her daughters just how to dress her body, which, she wrote, was not to be handled by anyone else and no blood was to be drawn from it. Father was away on a mission in California. "I am like an old gate on its last hinges", she would say. She had newly painted the kitchen for Father's return as his mission was almost completed. Morell, her 12th, looked through the window at dark before going on an overnight scout trip. She sat there chatting with Mary, her second daughter. All looked OK. Midnight a heart attack struck her and as I entered the room at 3 a.m. Sunday, June 12, 1927, she was going. Seven of us were there. We cried like broken hearted children. As I looked at her body and gave that last kiss on her forehead, she seemed to say, "Well, I find everything all right over here."

In eleven years, the dear old Bishop Hyde, then 83 past, came along at Father's funeral. He approached Mary's home where the body was waiting for a prayer and last look for us. As he met me and held out the long bony arm and hand I knew that he wanted to say the very finest thing that it was possible for him to say. I looked into his kind gray eyes and his thin lips moved with deep firmness as he said, with all the sincerity of a great heart that had drunk deeply of "that bitter cup", "Your Mother was the greatest woman that ever lived in Auburn, in my estimation." That was the last word I remember hearing from this noble man and this the last time I ever saw him.

Father and Mother had lived together nearly 47 years and we had hoped for a Golden Wedding but as it was not to be, on their 50th anniversary with Father, Avery, Mary, Blanche, and one or two of the boys present, I read a poem which I had written for the occasion, as we stood at Mother's grave.