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CATHERINE AURELIA CARLING PORTER
Edson and Catherine Porter
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Catherine Aurelia Carling was born March 2, 1865 at Fillmore, Millard County, Utah. My father Isaac Van Wagoner Carling was born November 30, 1831 at Kingston, Ulster County, New York. My mother, Asenath Elizabeth Browning, was born at Adams County, Illinois. She was the daughter of Jonathan Browning and Elizabeth Stalcup. My parents were both born in the L.D.S church. After the beautiful city of Nauvoo was built, the surrounding people looked upon the saints with a jealous eye and began to persecute them on account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which they were preaching and living.
They threatened to destroy them or drive them from their fine homes and beautiful Temple which they had built. My grandfathers both helped build the Nauvoo Temple. My Grandfather Browning was a fine gunsmith and Grandfather Carling was a cabinet-maker and helped with the fine finishing work. He helped make the pattern for the oxen that held up the Baptismal fount and carved the wreath around the clock in the tower and other fine work as well as the heavy work.
There were so many people joining the church and moving into Nauvoo that it excited the other people and a wicked mob murdered the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith. They were driving people from their homes and doing so many wicked things that the Prophet Joseph received a revelation before his death that the saints would move to the Rocky Mountains and become a mighty people.
After Brigham Young became President of the church he began to prepare to make the great move to the Rocky Mountains. My grandfather John Carling's wife, my grandmother Emeline Carling, died a few months before the death of the Prophet Joseph. My grandfather hired an English doctor woman to come to his home and take care of his sick wife and family. After his wife, died he married that women, Ann Dutson. She was a widow with children, a son and daughter. She had joined the church in England and came to America in the company with Apostle Orson Hyde, who was returning from his mission to Jerusalem, when he was to dedicate that land for the return of the Jews.
She proved to be a very good wife and a wonderful mother to my grandfather's three living children and her own two children. My father, Aunt Catherine and Uncle Abraham were like own brothers and sisters and were loved by her as their own mother would. Everyone loved her. She went to help all the sick wherever she lived.
President Young called both of my grandfathers to stay to help fit out all of the pioneers for the long journey across the plains. When President Young called her husband to stay she cried and said, "The mob will kill us all," and President Young said, "If you will stay and do your duty, I will promise you in the name of Israel's God that not one of you will be harmed and your family will never cry for bread". I can say that I never saw the time when I was in my father's home that they had no bread to eat. The same in my home; we have never gone a day without bread to eat and other things to go with it, though sometimes we did not have the variety we would have liked.
My grandfathers were both master mechanics. Grandfather Carling did all kinds of carpenter work as well as cabinet work. Grandfather Browning was a gunsmith and made guns for the pioneers. They stayed in Nauvoo with the saints to help them prepare for the journey; they were the last boat to leave the shore. One of them made a jump thinking he would make a landing in the boat, but he fell in the river. The mob let out a volley of wicked words, among them was, "go and be damned."
Grandfathers and their families were with the Saints in Winter Quarters and helped them at that place to get prepared for the journey west. They were five years helping the pioneers prepare for their journey. My Grandfather Carling served as constable, and among other activities a chorister, and many other church activities.
They crossed the plains in Henry Miller's company. My father and mother were not married until they had been in the valley two years. I did not hear them talk much about the hard times they had on their journey crossing the plains. As it was the time of their courtship days, they told more about the times the young people had in their moonlight parties around the camp fires night. Mother talked about the nice things they used to make that they cooked over the camp fires that were made from buffalo chips and how the butter was churned in the can as it splashed as they were traveling along. The milk was given from the cows that helped form the ox teams that were hauling their load that was carrying them to their destination. They arrived in Utah in 1852. Then Grandfather Browning went north where Ogden became his home and he established several industries, among them a gun factory, a tannery, a brick kiln and farming, etc.
Grandfather Carling and my father were called to go south and help build settlements. They were called to Provo first, and then to help build the capitol City of Fillmore, that being the center place in Utah where the legal business of the territory would be carried on. When the railroad came through Salt Lake, they could see that this was the place for the capitol to be built, so they built another building and carried the business to Salt Lake City.
My father liked the Provo country better than he did Fillmore country, so went to work on his place rather half heartedly. One day when he was plowing, he began to think how ungrateful he was to be dissatisfied after the Lord had brought them over the dreary plains in safety, where they could live in peace and safety from the wicked people that they had just left because of their persecution so they could be free to worship God and live the Gospel according to their desires. He felt ashamed and repentant and knelt down and asked his Heavenly Father to forgive him for his being so ungrateful for his wonderful blessings which he had received and help him to be satisfied with his blessings. When he arose from his prayer everything looked brighter and he was satisfied with his lot, and tried to appreciate his blessings. He could see beauty in his surroundings.
His dear father only lived three years after he arrived in Utah. I think the poor man was just worn out and had finished his work on Earth and passed away at the age of 55 to receive his reward in Heaven where he would meet his first wife and other dear ones who had gone before. Dear step-grandmother lived to a good old age of 94. She waited on the sick and dying all over the country and everyone loved her.
Father built a little home for his expected wife. He went to Ogden where she and her father's family lived and where everything was made ready for the wedding. They were married in the Endowment house in Salt Lake City, October 1854.
Father stayed in Ogden two years to work for Grandfather Browning in his gun shop. Their first child was born there, my sister Sarah. I think all of my mother's brothers and sisters settled near Ogden in the north, and my mother always grieved so much about being so far away from her relatives. Father had only been married a few years when the president of the church counseled him to take a plural wife, so he married Miriam Elizabeth Hobson. She died when her fourth child was three weeks old, it weighed three pounds. It was too much of a strain on her body and she became broken in health and never regained it again. He was born three months before my mother's eighth child was born. A kind friend took him and cared for him until my mother was able to take care of the two babies. The little three-year-old girl used to come to Father and say, "When will mama come alive again?" and he would say, "After awhile." Then she would run and play and come back and say, "Is it after awhile now?" I sympathized so keenly with them that I thought if the Lord would just spare my mother till I was old enough to get married and have a home of my own I could be better prepared to stand her leaving me.
Father and his family lived at Fillmore twenty-six years. President Young organized the United Order in all the wards in the church. The people in Fillmore worked one summer together and did not seem to care to continue to work together any longer. Father heard the President say that if the Saints did not live the United Order he did not want to live to see what would be fall them. Father knew of two more places where the people were living the United Order, and as long as there were people living it he was going to see if he would be welcome to join them. As he had friends living in Orderville he went to see them and find out how conditions were there. They welcomed him and his family of sixteen in number with open arms. The other place where they were living in the order was Brigham City, Box Elder County, Utah.
Orderville was in the southern part of Utah. After the decision to go south was made all was excitement and preparation were soon made to make the great move. Four covered wagons were provided and everything was made ready for the journey. It was the 4th of August 1876, just one month after the grand centennial celebration of the 4th of July 1876 at the state capitol at Fillmore. They also had a fair and that was the last thing I remembered of Fillmore. But we still remembered the dear relatives and friends we had to leave. That was the first great move in my life, but I have made many since then.
I was not twelve years old when we moved to Orderville. Father turned all his property over to the United Order, except the household and personal things. We experienced a great change in our lives, making new friends and changing our way of life among new people who became dear friends and a good people to live among.
They raised sheep and sold the wool. Some of it they sent to Manti to be made into rolls that they spun into yarn, which they wove into cloth and used for making clothing. They used to weave the cloth on a hand loom until they built a woolen factory, then the spinning wheels were no longer in use.
Soon after we moved to Orderville my father took me to one of the best spinners to get her to teach me how to spin. That teacher said she had spun six skeins of yarn in a day. After I had learned to spin well, I thought I would try to see if I could reach that mark. It was in the winter time; we were eating at the dining hall and I did not have to stop to prepare meals, so I started my spinning before daylight before a fire in a fireplace. To make it lighter on my feet I left off my shoes and went in my stocking feet. I tripped along as fast as I could all day, but I did not go fast enough to keep my feet warm, so I took cold. I spun my six skeins of yarn. Three skeins was a days work or it was counted as such. But I had to pay for my foolishness. I was not able to get out of bed hardly for about a week after.
When we first went to Orderville the people were all eating at a large dining hall in the center of the little town. There were three rows of tables, that could seat about two hundred people at a time. Soon after we went to Orderville, there were about seven hundred people and we had to set the tables three times. Besides the dining hall, there was the kitchen, supervised over by a man and a good sized boy to help tend the furnace and do chores, and a bakery, where the baker make all the bread fresh every day. There were three married women and three young ladies to work in the kitchen. There were six set of cooks and six sets of girls to work in the dining hall. We took our turn at the work.
The men were given the privilege of choosing the job of work they liked best. My father being a cabinet maker, was given a shop and materials to work with. He made furniture for the people. My older sister was married, but she had no children, and her husband Howard Spencer was on a mission in England, so she did the painting of the furniture for some time. There was another man who ran a furniture shop, so the people were soon well supplied with furniture.
There was a man and his family by the name of Warriner A. Porter who moved into the community. His brother Edson accompanied him to help him, but intended to return to his home in Porterville. He stayed at Orderville three weeks, and as all young men are interested in girls, he had an idea he might see one that would suit him. The first week passed and he said to himself, there is not a girl here that I would have. The second week brought a new set of girls into the dining hall. As the girls came in, he saw one among them and he thought, she is mine. He stayed another week and then found a chance to go back home to Porterville with a man who was going north to get a load of goods. There was also an Orderville woman who was going to visit her parents, and as they were setting around the campfire that evening she asked Edson if he had found him a girl at Orderville. He said, yes, and she asked him what is her name was. He said he didn't know, he hadn't talked to her but described her dress and her appearance. She said that her name was Catherine Carling and she was a mighty fine little girl. He went back home feeling like he had his girl picked out.
He decided to come back to Orderville during the summer. He completed his arrangements to get ready to move his widowed mother and two brothers and a sister to Orderville in the fall. When they arrived, he soon started looking for work. His brother Warriner was running a sawmill in the mountains, and their brother Omni went to work with him hauling logs. While he was rolling a large log on the wagon, the chain broke and it killed him, hitting him in the head. He was a very promising young man only sixteen -- everyone loved him. It was a terrible sudden shock to his grief stricken mother, family and friends.
Edson went to work in the carpenter shop. He worked there a couple of months, when one day the Bishop asked him how he would like to be a tanner? He said he was well satisfied with the job he had, but if he would like him to learn the tanning business, he would change his work. The Bishop said the superintendent of the Tannery wanted a man who would make a good tanner to learn the trade so he could handle the business also, as the man he had working for him would never make a good tanner. The bishop had told the tanner to look around among the young men and see if he could find one he thought suited him. He did as the bishop had told him and went back to him and told him he had found his man. The bishop said that was fine, who was he. I don't know his name, but I know that he will make a good tanner. The old gentleman's name was Samuel Mulliner. He held the Gold Medal that was given as a prize to the man who tanned the first sole leather that was make in Utah in pioneer days. Brother Mulliner was so pleased with Edson's work. He said he took to the work like he was used to it. He always called him his son and they became life long friends.
After Edson and his mother became established in their new home, his sister Annie and my sister Ellen and I worked in the dining hall together. She invited us to go to their home and spend the evening. We went and spent a very enjoyable time until about 9 o'clock when we bade them good night. Edson followed us and asked if he might accompany us home. The snow was several inches deep, and he saw us home safely. After that, he came to our home quite often. We would walk to Sunday evening meetings together. He and my sister Ellen and I became fast friends. Ellen was older than I and we were always together. I thought I was just going along with my sister and Edson. As we became acquainted, he paid so much attention to me that I really enjoyed being with him.
One day Ellen said to me, "I am going to quit Edson."
I said, "I don't care if you do quit him, but why are you going to quit him."
"Oh," she said, "I am going with someone else." She was going with Thomas Chamberlain and in due time she married him.
Those fleeting years -- how quickly they passed leaving sweet memories of times long passed and gone. I felt that there was no other man I could ever love as I did him. But there was something I must know for myself. My older sister Ann told me how she fasted and prayed three days and three nights to the Lord that she might know if this man who wanted her to be his wife was the proper man to be her husband and she received such a wonderful testimony that he was.
I said to myself, if the Lord answered my sister's prayer, he can do the same for me. I have never done anything that would hinder me from receiving his blessing, so when the time came that I must know for myself, I, too, fasted three days and three nights and my Heavenly Father did hear and answer my prayers whether the man who had asked me to be his wife for time and all eternity would be a proper companion for me. I did receive a testimony that has always, since then, been as an anchor to my soul. I have never felt that I had made a mistake in my choice. I have never felt that I might have done better if I had married someone else.
After we had made plans for our wedding, one morning in June we started from Orderville to go to St. George to be married in the Temple. On the 2nd of June, we and Edson's brother and his companion, who were in company with us, went through the Temple and received our endowments and sealing. I had never felt like I was so near Heaven before in my life and felt like my joy was complete.
On the morrow we were on our way back home and another pleasant journey. We were all eating at the dining hall when we left home and when we returned the folks were eating dinner at home. I asked, " Is it a birthday or something?"
They said, "The morning you left, when the head man went to his work at the kitchen, he found the water system had broken somewhere, and the basement was filled with water." We were very much surprised and had not expected to have anything happen. I had heard some of the people say it would be much better to have our meals at home, it was a surprise to us both. I had taken pleasure and pride in my work in the kitchen and dining room. My memories of my work in the Order will always be pleasant ones. I learned to be industrious, learned to spin, weave, braid hats with straw, also with other materials, make shoes, gloves, did all of my family sewing, men's suits, several kinds of knitting and many other things. We have always heard, and have found by experience, that labor brings the sweetest joy, especially in our young days, when we are full of ambition and hope for the future.
Edson's work was at the tannery, and now that I did not have to work in the kitchen or dining room, I would have time to enjoy fixing up our little new home. We hadn't much to start with, but the cabinet shop was turning out nice furniture. We got bedsteads, chairs, a table, a dresser, cupboards, and other things as we needed them.
Our first home was with my mother-in-law. She was such a lovely, good woman, everyone who knew her loved her. She was so good to me -- I loved her as I did my own mother.
I did another unwise trick. I heard my mother-in-law say an old carpet weaver could weave nine yards of carpet in a day. I was weaving my first carpet, and when I had woven a few yards and could do pretty good work, I thought I would try to see if I could do that much, so I did do nine yards in one day, but I felt like I had been hammered all over my body. The next day I went along with my work and I found that by doing those same movements over again I worked all of my troubles away. After I finished my carpet, my sister Phoebe was going to weave her one. I told her I had gotten used to weaving and there was no use for her to have that hard experience, I would weave hers, too. I did not know how much worse it might have served her, so I wove hers.
The next job that came into our lives was the birth of our baby girl, which seemed to complete the joy of our home. When she was seven months old, Edson went to Salt Lake City to learn the trade of finishing leather, as that did not belong to the tanner's trade. There was a man in Orderville who did understand it, but he did not want to teach anyone else to do that work.
When he had been gone a month, his brother Alma came from Porterville and took his mother north to visit awhile. His brother Binnie went with them. Then I was left alone with my baby. I had been alone for a few weeks when we took quite sick. I did not think she was very ill, but knew she was not well. In the evening my sister and her husband and another sister came to spend the evening. He was a fine violinist; they were newlyweds. When they were gone I put the baby to bed, and I noticed she gave a little moan as I laid her down. I put out the light and went to bed as quickly as I could. When I took her in my arms, she was dead -- not a sign of life about her, no pulse or quiver of a muscle of any kind. I went to the door to see if I could see if the folks were in sight, the moon was shinning brightly, but they were not in sight. I had finished reading the Book of Mormon where they told of the sick being healed and the dead being brought to life, so that strengthen my faith. I worked with her by trying to blow the breath of life in her mouth. I prayed as I had never done before and asked the Lord to bring her back to life again. In my simple faith, I knew He had the power to restore her life. I did not even think to tell Him to let His will not mine be done. He did bring her back to life, she lived to be thirty years old, married a good man in the Temple, but was quite delicate in health. She lived a good life and was faithful to the last in her devotion to her church, her religion, and family.
Edson was away six months learning the business of finishing leather. While he was gone, a very nice old lady stayed with me; she went to her home when he returned home. His mother had been gone a year and had only been home a month when she passed away. She had been a very industrious, active woman. She always wanted me to have things as I would like best and I wanted her to have them her way, so we had no trouble living together.
The place where we were living was quite a ways from the new tannery they had built. They finished three rooms, and there was a large hall besides, and we lived there for several years. Those rooms were on the second floor in the east end that opened on the south side where the town ditch ran along. They piped the water into the Tannery from that ditch; three of our children were born there. Our second baby, little Alice died; she was a premature baby. Our third child, Delilah, brought comfort to our grief-stricken hearts, as she seemed to take the place of her little sister.
It was about this time that a great change was made in Orderville, at conference time at Kanab. There were some matters that came up before the Stake High Council, Apostle Erastus Snow was presiding. One of the Orderville brethren said they did not enjoy the liberties that should be theirs, and they were deprived of the luxuries of life, etc. Then Brother Snow said that they couldn't call that the United Order any more than the Kanab Co-op (a stock company) was the United Order. At that remark from the President, our Orderville Presiding brethren said, "If it was not required of us to live as we were doing, they did not propose to carry on any longer, at the sacrifice we are making. There were many slighting remarks made about the people of Orderville on account of jealousy arising among the surrounding settlements accusing them of thinking they were better than their neighbors, and would say we were sprouting wings and would soon be ready to go up, and such talk as that. After that conference, word was sent to the church authorities and two of the youngest apostles were sent down to investigate conditions. They were Brigham Young Jr. and Heber J. Grant. They asked President Taylor what message he had to give the Orderville people and he told them to get the Spirit of the Lord, and find out what the trouble was, but not discourage them or advise them to discontinue their working together. They called the people together and gave all of them the privilege of expressing their feelings about breaking up the Order. It took about a week to give all a chance to talk. There were very few who wanted to break up.
After hearing how the people felt, the Apostles said President Taylor told them if the people did not want to continue any longer, they should hold the lines while they let go. Division of the property, now that a new order of things was at hand. The Authorities decided to divide the property according to the value of the stock each one turned in to the order.
My husband turned in, as capitol stock, a yoke of young oxen, which were valued at forty dollars each, making eighty dollars capitol stock. He bought a bare lot with it. After the order broke up, he took up shoe making as there was no one else making shoes. While he was making leather in the Order he used to take a roll of leather to the shoe shop. After he had finished his work at the tannery, he would watch the men make shoes. That is where he learned to make shoes, partly. His grandfather used to make shoes and my father made shoes for his growing family in pioneer days. So, he came to the business quite naturally. I did a good deal of the machine work, on the shoes and boots. He made chaps for the cowboys also, he did some harness work as well, and made leather jackets. His business grew quite rapidly and he soon had material enough to build a house. After he had the material and a house started, he sold it for fifteen acres of land on the south side of the river. He started another house; it was a six-room house. Before it was completed he had enough money to pay for it. He employed his brother Warriner and his sons to build it, that was not long before they moved to Mexico, when he went to work at the shoe business. He soon had enough customers to keep him pretty busy, with my helping a good deal of the time.
In the meantime, Edson took my sister Phoebe as his plural wife, having received council from the President of the Church to obey that principle. We were so delighted when our new home was finished, we moved into it with high hopes of making it just what we desired. We planted a nice variety of fruit trees, grape vines and fenced the lot in and planted shade trees all around the fence. We had not lived in it four years when our happy home was broken up and we soon had to move away.
The U.S. government instituted a raid against all polygamist in the L.D.S. Church. They imprisoned all that they could find. Edson and his brothers Warriner and Lysander and Henry A. Fowler went away to the underground and were gone for six months. By their leaving, the Deputy Marshall did not come into town while they were gone and for a year after they came back. We both gave birth to a baby while he was away in exile.
My baby was only five weeks old when Phoebe's baby was born, a premature child, and he lay as if dying for days and we did not think it possible that he could live, but he did live and grew to be a healthy man. My little girl just older than the baby took cold and she needed so much of my attention in the night that I took cold and it settled in my breast and gathered almost ready to break. A neighbor came into see me. She told me to take some homemade soap and cut it in fine chips, put enough water on it to melt it into a paste and stir salt into it as thick as it would spread on a cloth. I put the plaster on my breast and it killed all the pain and absorbed the swelling all away. I had dear, kind friends who came to see me and help me.
Trials in those conditions can not be lifted from a mother's shoulder. They say there is always a silver lining to the darkest cloud, and so it was. In due time, my husband returned home, bringing joy and happiness with him.
The next fall I went with him to Salt Lake City, where we attended the October Conference. It was a fine conference. We had a nice visit with our relatives after conference. Edson bought a supply of fine leather to make a new start at his shoe business. He thought after that long rest from the marshals he could go to work again unmolested, but not so, they were soon back again.
President Woodruff sent word to all the Presidents of the Stakes, to tell the brethren who were liable to the law, that if they would like to take their families and move into Old Mexico they could do so and they would go with his blessing. The Saints were establishing colonies there. Warriner Porter was there with his families from Orderville.
The authorities of the L. D. S. Church asked permission from the Mexican government to establish colonies in their country and told them the purpose of their going there. They gladly welcomed our people to their country. President Woodruff said they would not call any one to go, but if they would rather stay at home and run the risk of being arrested and taken to prison, they could choose for themselves. Edson said, "What shall we do, I would rather stay home and be free to work out my plans, but it looks like I will not be able to do that." I said, "Let's ask our Heavenly Father to help us to decide what would be the best thing for us to do." I had thought Mexico would be the last place I would think of going, but I said, "If you decide to go there, I will go with you."
The next morning, after we had asked the Lord to help us decide, Edson said, "I have decided to advertise the place for sale and if I get a chance to sell right soon, I will take it." As soon as he said the word, almost, the place was sold. We felt that was an answer to our prayer, and soon we were preparing to get ready to go on a long journey to a distant land among a strange people, to seek another place to build another new home.
It was on the 4th of September 1890 that we bade our father, mother, brothers, sisters, and home good-bye. We bought two almost new wagons, two of the best teams in the country and an extra horse in case we might need one, a tent and a good camp outfit. Then we were ready for our journey. Our brother, Isaac and sister Eliza, who were not married, took a team and accompanied us the first day and night on our journey. He took his accordion with them and gave us some sweet music. We will always remember. Later, our brother Isaac died and left his young wife, son and daughter. He was building them a home and tried to lift a stone that was too heavy for him, and he died shortly after. Our sister Eliza died and left a young family. So that was the last sweet remembrance of our dear brother and sister. Those were scenes never to be forgotten. The country was new to us and interesting to travel through.
I will describe more fully our camping outfit; we had our bed springs fixed in the wagon so we could sleep on them. As there was not room for all of us to sleep in the wagon, we pitched a tent at night. We had camp chairs, a cupboard made in the back of the wagon and the door to the cupboard on the outside was made so that when it was let down there were legs on hinges that would fall to the ground and hold it up for a table. We had a dutch oven to bake in. We fixed everything as comfortable as we could for the long journey. A friend of ours from Orderville, Brother Willard Carroll and family, his wife, four sons and two daughters accompanied us to Mexico. They had two grown sons, one of them drove one of our teams. We appreciated their company.
My children that were living then were Arvena, nine years old, Delilah, Geneva, Clara, and Leona. Phoebe had two little boys, Zenos and Jesse.
September 1890 now that we were on our way, each day brought us through new country that we had never seen before. Having been a rainy season, the whole country for miles and miles of plain country were covered with dry grass, which looked like fields of ripened grain, and the forests were tall pine trees with beautiful fern and flowers.
In those plain stretches of country, they had to drill deep down in the earth for water to water their stock, but a part of the country we would find natural rock tanks filled with water from the recent rains. We all enjoyed camping in those scenic places, but they were few and far between, making our journey long and dreary at times.
When we reached Winslow, Arizona, Brother Carroll wanted us to join him and charter a car and continue our journey by train. We did not want to do that, so they left us. We went on to Woodruff, where my sister Sarah lived with her family. Eddie Webb with his three wives and their families left Orderville and moved to Arizona four years before. It was a joyous meeting to visit with my sister and the other families again. The next night I went to visit with my sister Martha and her husband, Delly Webb. They were living at Snowflake and there I had a nice visit with them.
The company laid over for few days. In the meantime Brother Carrol and family returned to join us in the journey to Mexico. He found that the expense by train was more than he was able to meet. He was a school teacher and he thought he would be able to get a school to go into and it would pay him to go by train.
After our nice visit with our relatives at Snowflake and Woodruff, we were prepared to continue on our journey. We had no more layovers until we arrived at Thatcher, where we saw our dear, old friend Samuel Claridge. He was one of the first settlers at Orderville. He was the first baker when we were living in the Order and I worked with him in the bakery. When we called on him in his home he and his nice wife would not listen to our going on our way till we spent one evening with him. They invited some other friends we had been acquainted with, so we had another joyful time with dear friends and close neighbors while they lived at Orderville in the United Order. There seemed to be a kindred tie between those people who lived in the Order and worked together.
On account of the unusual rainy season, the Gila River had been so high the people hadn't been able to cross it for three months before we crossed it. The day we crossed, a few Indians crossed on horses. If we had waited until the next day, I do not know how much longer it would have been before we could have crossed it because the next morning, the river was swollen to the top of the highest banks. I felt very nervous about crossing. There were some Mexicans on the other side who were going to cross, and I begged the men folks to wait until they had crossed, but they paid no attention to my pleading. I was in the first wagon that crossed and the water ran over the top of the wagon and wet some of the things. I thanked my Father in Heaven for his kindness to us in helping over the river safely. I have not mentioned our crossing the big Colorado River on a boat. They drove the four teams all hitched to the wagons two abreast on to the boat at once and all of us sat in our places in the wagons as the rowed the boat across the stream. The day before we crossed, Brother Warren Johnson, the ferry man fell over the side of the boat into the river, but being a good swimmer swam out unharmed.
We continued our journey through the settlements on the Gila River and on through the great stretches of unsettled country of waving grass, where large herds of cattle roamed. There was no running streams of water; the cattle men had bored down through the earth seven hundred feet to get water for the cattle. We had to buy all the water we used for ourselves and for the animals from there on until we reached Colonia Diaz in Mexico.
The next stop we made was at Deming, New Mexico where the customs house was located. We stopped there a week, camping out in the suburbs of town in a nice camping place. We had to have our teams, wagons and things that were dutiable, listed by the Mexican government Officers. It was while we were camped there that we had an accident happen that might have killed some of us, but it just cut one of the animals shoulder blades, but not badly enough to hinder her from working. My husband took one wagon and four horses and bought some furniture to take back to camp to be reloaded. We had to have all the horses listed at the custom house, so he put the two teams on the one wagon. It had a double bed on. After he loaded the furniture, he saw he had not loaded his little box of tools in, so he just put them on the dash board in front, not thinking that they were in a dangerous place. And as we were going along between two wire fences, the horses started to go too fast, so he put his foot too near the little box of tools and they fell down at the horses feet. Those four big, fat horses ran as frightened horses do, and no man could have stopped them. In their fright, with the small leather lines and the light load, with nothing to hinder them from running away, our kind Father in Heaven heard our prayers. One of the Wheelers jumped into the stretchers of the lead horse and it threw him on his side and stopped the whole team. That was another time we could give our heart felt thanks to the Lord for his blessings for sparing our lives. I had my five-months baby Leona on my lap and it looked like death was staring us in the face.
We were near our destination so we sold the extra horse. The gray mare was able to do her part. As we left Deming we were soon traveling in a stranger's land. We came upon two guards to tell us what to do. We camped with them the first night in their country, they came to us and told us of their business there. They were every friendly. They could not speak English very well and our men could not speak much Spanish, so they chatted as best they could together for awhile and seemed to enjoy meeting us.
We arrived at Colonia Diaz, the first L.D.S. colony, in November. We were happy to be among L.D.S. friends that used to live in Utah that we were acquainted with. We had been on the road for seven weeks, and stayed in Diaz ten weeks, and hadn't made up our minds where we wanted to locate.
There were several brethren from Utah, Bishop Winslow Farr, Fred I. Williams, Anson B. Call, who were going up to the Casa Grandes Valley where they had laid out a mile square town. My husband accompanied them, and when he came back, he soon took us up to that country, fifty miles farther up the country. So we were soon on our way again and happy when our journey was ended. We camped on Brother Call's place. It was February before we moved up to Dublan, our new home. We bought two city lots and built a lumber three-roomed house on it. We were so happy when we could begin to make plans again to build another home. We thought we were sure of some land adjoining the town.
There was an old lady who had a place for sale. Brother Call told us about it and she promised to sell to us. In the meantime, someone told her that if she could keep her place a while longer she could get a better price for it, so in a few days she decided not to sell it. My husband had a chance to buy some land on the west side of the river from town, so that was a disappointment to us. We moved our lumber house over on our farm at San Jose. We lived in Dublan about two years. They organized a ward in Dublan with Winslow Farr as Bishop, Fred Williams as 2nd Councilor. I can not name all the ward officers, but they appointed Edson as President of the M.I.A and Catherine A. Porter as president of the Young Ladies M.I.A. We served in those positions for about three years. We found that we could not do justice to those callings because we lived so far away and much of the time we could not cross the river on account of the high water, so we had to resign. We did enjoy the M.I.A. work. Dublan grew so rapidly in numbers that it was soon the largest ward in the Stake. At one time there were twelve hundred members. But on account of not having the new canal built, the people began to leave for other parts.
We lived in Dublan about two years. My oldest son Edson was born on June 10, 1892. Then we moved over to the farm across the river at San Jose. My husband hadn't had much success with farming yet, so he accepted an invitation to go to Juarez to make shoes for a store. The man that owned the store was Henry Eyring. He was one of the stake presidents. The stake president was Anthony W. Ivins, before he was chosen as one of the twelve Apostles.
We moved to Colonia Juarez, and we felt much more satisfied to live among friends where the children could walk to school and we could all walk to meetings and go where and when we pleased without having to hitch up a team to take us wherever we wanted to go. We did enjoy the friendship of kind neighbors, but we have to take our sorrows along with our joys. It was while we were living at Juarez that we came very near loosing our little son Edson. It was cold weather and he took cold, and became very ill. His spine seemed to be stiff and he had a high fever. Our neighbor, John McNeil, was quite a doctor and there was no doctor living in town so he came to see what he could do. He told me to steep some horehound and hops in vinegar and wring out a cloth in it as hot as could be borne and put it next to the body and keep changing it until he was relieved. I did as he told me to do and he became perfectly relieved of the trouble. I put dry warm clothes on him and kept him by the warm fire, but the same trouble came back and I did the same thing over again, but it did not effect him a bit. The next day was Sunday and I told his father, I felt like if we both would fast and pray for the child, the Lord would heal him. We did fast and pray and our little son was healed. We could give all the praise to our Heavenly Father for the sparing of his life to us.
While we yet lived at Juarez, another little son came to bless our home; we named him Legrand, he was born August 4, 1894. He lived to be 14 months old and passed away November 1895.
Another little girl came to take his place. She was born July 1896 and passed away 1897 in November. She had the measles and took cold when the door blew open and the wind struck her and the measles went in. We did every thing we knew what to do, but could not get them to break out again. It was hard for us to understand why the Lord would take our dear little children away from us. But we are told that we must acknowledge His hand in all things, though it might be hard to bear.
Now that we were in a new country among a strange people, I did appreciate our L.D.S. people. But I never did get to feeling really at home in that country. It had a beautiful climate -- never did get very cold in winter or very warm in summer -- and if there had been plenty of water to grow crops, it would have been a wonderful country, but there was so many years of drought to contend with.
My trip to Chihuahua City, Mexico:
My daughter Delilah married Calvin Miller, a new convert to the L.D.S. church. They moved to Chihuahua City before their second baby was born. I received a letter from her that she had a false alarm and had to have the doctor and his nurse. He was a white man but his nurse was a Mexican. She got better and she said in her letter that she would like me to go with her during her confinement. She felt like she could not stand the treatment of that Mexican nurse. I was living at Dublan and my husband and Aunt Phoebe were over on the farm. Some of her children were staying with me in town going to school and did not go home until Friday night after school. I did not receive her letter till after they had gone home and I had no way of communicating with them, so I went to my old friend Anson B. Call to see what he could do for me. He sent his nephew to take me over to see my husband about going to see my daughter. The conveyance was a wagon with a double bed with two spring seats. The one I sat in, with my daughter Leona and Brother Call's daughter Ivis, I think it was, had one of the springs broken, and the team he had were fat and ready to go at a word. When he came to the waste ditch at the end of the field, the water was still running down a wagon track. It was nearly dark, and there was quite a bit of water in the ditch. When the wagon struck that track, the wagon tipped and the broken spring gave way, and I being on the lower side, went out head first, my feet in the air, and my head touching the water and mud. My daughter grabbed the toes of my shoes and I felt some power bearing me up. The man with the team could not help me for he had all he could to quiet the frightened horses. The girls didn't know what to think and said they never had seen anything like that before and were very glad they were with me. Before we left, her father gave me some money. It was enough to pay my way there and back -- it was paper money. I put it in an envelope and I had it in my hand. Then it was as if some one said to me, "Put it down the neck of your dress". I did just that. If I hadn't put it where it would have been safe, it might have been thrown in the ditch. After having so many things happen that were beyond anything that I could take any credit for, I feel almost like it is too sacred to mention to anyone about it for fear they would only say that it could not be true. But I could not say anything, only that it was the pure power of God in my behalf.
I had to get myself ready to leave Dublan at 7 o'clock a.m. for El Paso. Ben Moffatt was on the train and I told him where I was going. He used to be Delilah's boyfriend, and he asked me if I had wired her that I was coming. I said, "No" and he said he would do that for me. So Calvin was at the train to meet me at Chihuahua City when I arrived. The people were all dark. While Calvin was hunting for a cab to take us to his place on the other side of the city, I could see how lost I would have been were it not for the kindness of my friends. I visited with my friends, Brother and Sister Mortensen, and when I got ready to go home they took me to the train depot. It was while Delilah was living in Chihuahua City that she found out that she could not live with him, Calvin, and in a few months after I was there, she left him and came home.
Before I went to Chihuahua City, my husband's life was spared in a marvelous manner. He was fixing an iron pipe, and he had a chain around the pipe and over the beam. While the pipe was suspended, the chain broke. My husband had his head right under the pipe to see if it was going straight, when it broke, and he was on the other side away from it. The Mexican who was helping him said, all excited, "Mr. Porter! how did you get out of the way of that pipe so soon?"
And he said, "It was not me that did it, it was God that did it."
There are other cases of healing I have not mentioned. When my daughter Geneva was thirteen months old, she had whooping cough and it seemed to be pretty hard on babies. Several of them had died. My neighbors knew how ill my baby was and they expected she would be the next one to go. Her father had to be away this particular day and I do not know how he was praying for her, but I had been fasting and praying all day that our Father in Heaven would restore her health. He heard our prayers and she was healed. How our hearts were made to rejoice in His loving kindness. I try to show my appreciation for my many blessings, but how I will ever be able to measure up for the blessings I am daily receiving, I can not tell, but I am still asking for more blessings each day.
MY TRIP TO DEMING, NEW MEXICO:
Deming is the city where the custom house was located, and in those early days of the settlement of the colonies in Mexico we used to go out to those places in the U.S. to get supplies of clothing and other things as there were no store at Dublan at that time. Brother and Sister F.G. Williams were going out to do some shopping and they invited me to go along with them. Unless we could wear clothing over the line, we would have to pay duty on them. We had to go through Colonia Diaz so we stopped at Sister Verona Whitings place, an old, dear friend of us both. Apostle George Teasdale and his two wives were living there and he invited us to have dinner with them, it being Sunday. In the afternoon it rained so hard it flooded the streets and filled the ditches so that we could not walk back. There were no such things as automobiles in those days. Brother Williams had to go and get his horses to take us back to Sister Whitings. He rode one and she rode the other one and Brother Teasdale insisted on me staying with them that night. They were very sociable and treated us very nice and I had a lovely visit with them. Brother Williams came the next morning with his team and took me to Sister Whiting's place and we were soon on our way to Deming. I enjoyed my trip and returned home safely.
It was 1898 when my brother-in-law Edward Webb with his first wife Ellen, the second, my sister Sarah, and the third wife, Lottie, arrived in Dublan.
The day I thought I was to be confined, we had the midwife there, but I got to feeling better and thought I was not going to need her and she went home. That was the day of the funeral of Phoebe's little boy Jonathan, who had died. The river was rising on account of heavy rains in the mountains, my husband, not daring to leave me in my condition, went with the little body to put in the care of our bishop, Brother Call. He returned as quickly as he could on one of our tallest horses, but the water ran over his back. My baby was born the same day, August 7, 1899. The midwife could not get back and I was in the care of my husband and sister Phoebe, but I got along fine until I overdid myself. So our joys and sorrows are mingled as we journey through life. When my little daughter was only one week old, my brother-in-law and his families came to visit with me. They stayed awhile, then said they had to leave me in my room alone to rest. I told them I wanted them to stay longer. I had been getting along so well, I felt there was no need of being fussy, so they stayed longer. In the evening a man came to visit my husband, they were in my room talking. He stayed until after bedtime, and I could tell I was just tired out -- my nerves were all worn out. I was in an awful condition for some time and did not recover for months.
The year before the Webb family moved to Mexico, Eddie went down to see the country. He took his three sons, Owen the oldest, my sister's son, Frank, Ellen's son, and Lottie's son.
In the spring of 1899 we moved to Colonia Diaz. Bishop W.D. Johnson wanted my husband to go to Diaz to establish a tannery and he asked President Ivins, who was then the stake President, to call him to go. President Ivins said he would not call him, but if he would like to go he would go with his blessing. The men in Diaz who wanted him to establish a Tannery said they would cooperate with their means to run it. One man did go in with him and help some. He agreed to pay half of the bills they ran at the store for supplies that they had to have to finish the leather. When it came to paying the bills, he would not pay a dollar. My husband was left to settle it all. He had to turn over his best young team to settle it. We lived in Diaz nineteen months, and while we were there, my daughter Delila had a siege of Typhoid fever and she came very near dying. My daughter just younger had a spell of Malaria fever, my son had it also. While living in Diaz we lost another baby girl. She was born December 20, 1900, and died January 11, 1901. She only lived three weeks. I had a spell of rheumatism that laid me up for awhile, but I had gotten on my way to recovery before we moved back to our farm at San Jose.
The next year after we moved, we had moved back. My husband raised a good crop of corn and hired Mexicans to help harvest it. It was piled up in a big mound near the house. One day I was all alone with just my little flirt Winnie, about three years old; all of the other children were at school, and I had no neighbors nearer than a half a mile away. A wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen with several Mexicans in it, stopped at my place. They said they had come for the corn to pay them for their work. I told them that my husband was not at home. The man who was attending to the business got so angry he turned pale and I do not know what he would have done, but just then Owen and Frank Webb appeared on the scene and they could speak Spanish. They started to talk to them and they got into that wagon as fast as they could and whipped up their team so fast that one of the men fell backwards on the ground. When Owen and Frank left me, I was alone again with my little Winnie to imagine what might have happened if they had not happened along just at the time they did.
I used to be so timid, but I prayed to my Heavenly Father that he would take that frightened feeling away from me. He did hear and answer my prayer. All through that Revolution while we were in Mexico, I did not get excited with fear, but I could remain calm while many other women were excited and frightened. Our Authorities told us that we would not be harmed if we would attend to our duties and for us to not get excited, but go about our own business and we would not be harmed.
After we had moved back from Diaz to our farm, we went to work with renewed courage to adjust ourselves to new conditions. We fixed up the home and tried to go to work and pick up where we had left off. Some time after we came back from Diaz, he built a tannery on the farm and got to work making leather again.
When we had been back two years, another little son was born to us which we named Evan Cook. He grew to be a healthy man. When he was thirteen-one months old, another girl was born to us which we named Margaret Irene, that made our number thirteen. After our Heavenly Father had taken four of our little treasures home to himself, it left nine living. The names of those that were taken were Alice, Legrand, Amelia and Justina.
Some time later Edson tried running a shoe shop in Dublan. I did not have the privilege of attending school very much, and I have no special vocation, but I have learned to do many things. In my early life I learned to spin yarn to weave into cloth as well as to knit sox and stockings, braid straw to make hats and make both men and women and children hats, make men's clothes, suits and all the clothes for my growing family until some of them were able to make their own and some for others. One time my husband was away from home, he had some nice fine leather on hand and I was hard pressed for money, so I made several pairs of fine shoes, several pairs of men and women and children shoes. I took them to the little store to sell. The man that owned the store asked me who made them. I told him I did. He looked funny, but did not know what to say. He did not like to tell me I was not telling the truth. He had no fault to find with the shoes so he paid me for them. In a few days a neighbor called in my home on her way from the store and showed me a pair of shoes she had bought, and said, "I guess they came from Z.C.M.I. in Utah."
On the 28th of July 1912 late in the afternoon, the Bishop sent a runner over to our place to tell us to be ready to leave on the train that would take us to El Paso that night at one o'clock a.m. We were to meet at the store where the train would take us on, but the train was way laid up in the mountains and did not arrive until 6 o'clock in the morning of July 29th. We, with all of the American people, were driven from the country on account of the Revolution of the Mexican people against their Government.
That same year the big canal was finished and opened up and the water was turned out on the land. Never in the twenty-two years we had lived in Mexico had we had such a bumper crop. We had to leave our fruit orchard of over 1000 bearing trees loaded with delicious fruit. We had been picking it for several days. We were getting a good supply of eggs; we had to leave a case of eggs on the table that we could not sell on account of the upset condition of the country. We had just bought one hundred pounds of sugar. My husband was running a thrashing machine and two headers, he had thrashed the wheat but had not sold it yet. We had to walk out of our homes and leave everything except the things we could pack in two trunks and our bedding. We had to leave all the cows, horses, chickens and all of our household things, with a big pantry full of bottled fresh fruit, preserves and jellies we expected to market at Pearson. At a big saw mill, where there were many men employed at work, the superintendent told us he would buy everything we had to sell. This Revolution came on and played havoc with everything. That trial cannot be described, but through the kindness of the people of El Paso City and the rail road company. As soon as our church authorities could receive the word, they came down to our rescue. They provided transportation for all those who had relatives they could go to, or where they would like to go. We stayed in the large lumber drying shed in the suburbs. They provided it with water piped, toilets installed and a large stove for cooking. The city officials sent food of every kind to all the people every day. The first night there were one thousand people camped in that lumber shed. They were sent away to their destinations as fast as they could provide it for them. After two weeks stay in the lumber shed, my husband found a job and went to work. We rented rooms and stayed four more weeks then he sent me and my three children, Winnie, Evan and Irene to Utah on the train.
After we went to Utah, Edson went back to Mexico to see if he could get some money from the wheat and fruit and other things we had to leave. The Chinaman had rented the Orchard and garden land. There were natural water holes in the river bed, that never went dry, so with a gasoline engine that he had, he pumped the water from them to water the orchard and garden. I think it was only $400 that Edson could collect from the wheat, fruit, and garden.
Our son Edson got married to Clara Jameson while we were stopping in El Paso. My daughter Clara had gone on to Utah with my sister Phoebe and her children before I and my three other children left El Paso. So I had four daughters in Utah to meet me there.
When we arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado and we had to change cars and take the train from Kansas City to take us to Utah. When the conductor came for my ticket, he said I had better go on to Ogden instead of getting off at Clearfield, the place my ticket called for my destination, as he was not familiar with that part of the country. Ogden was nine miles farther north. I was told to ask the man in grey when I could get a train that would take me to Clearfield. He showed me a seat in front of him and said for me to sit there and he would let me know when I should go. I waited quite a while and he did not say anything, so I asked him when that train would be going. He said, "My lady, why did you not say something before, the last train has gone for the night. I am sorry, but I can show you a hotel nearby that you can get to stay all night." I said I was not prepared to pay hotel bills. He knew I was one of the refugees from Mexico and he said I could stay all night in the rest room in the back where there was a cot where the children could lay down and some blankets to cover them with to keep them warm. Also there was an easy big chair I could sit in. It seemed that morning was a long time coming. When morning came at 9 o'clock, the man in grey put us on the train. We thought we were all okay, then he came and told us we were on the wrong train and that we should get on a little gasoline car that would take us there. He said I could flag it when it came. I said, "You are not leaving me to flag it are you?"
He said, "There is a boy out there that is going to flag it," so I was all right then.
When we were let off at the Clearfield station, there was no one to meet us because they had been there and we were not there. We went back into the depot and read a letter we had telling where to find my daughters place; we soon found it. When I told my experience to my son-in-law, he said the D.R.G. Railroad Company that we were riding on had no depot, and when any of their workmen were on their train there was a stopping place outside of a field fence where there was some planks to cross the field ditch. It would have been dark the night before, when we were trying to find a train to take. We would have been in a fine condition, so I could see again where my prayers were answered.
Their place was near the Clearfield Canning Factory. My two daughters, Clara and Leona, were at my daughters working at the cannery, so that made five of my family working in the Factory as Winnie and Evan, my little not-ten-year-old boy, went to work as soon as we got there. We were all at my son-in-law's and my daughter Geneva's place; her husband was Orson McClellan. They had two little girls, Oreva and Marguerite, and I had my little daughter, Irene, who was then seven years old. I stayed and took care of the little girls and cooked the meals at noon for the workers, until the close of the work in the factory in October. Then we moved to Salt Lake and rented a place for a month. Then my husband returned from Mexico, where he went after he put us on the train to go to Utah.
After arriving in Utah he started looking for a place to rent. In a few days he found one in Holladay, ten miles south of Salt Lake. There were fruit trees, strawberries, and raspberries, also farming land. It was there that I had my first experience of marketing the fruit.
After we moved to Holladay, my two daughters, Clara and Leona went to Salt Lake and took a dress making course at the Keaster dress making college. They got a job at the Paris Store in the dressmaking alteration department. While they were working there Leona became ill. We consulted a doctor and he said she had appendicitis and advised an operation at once. We had the operation performed and it proved successful, and she recovered rapidly. Within the year she became the wife of George B. Andrus and before another year had passed, Clara had married Edson Whipple from Mexico. In a short time they moved back to Mexico. Within a year my three daughters were all married. Changes come thick and fast.
I had quite an experience while living at Holladay. The boys were all away from home working except Evan and he was not old enough to do much. When the fruit began to be ready to market, my husband took the first load with the gray mare and the white top buggy. He could see what a job he had on his hands. He said, " I don't know how I am going to manage my work and do the marketing too."
I said, "I can decide that question for you. We can pick the fruit and get it all ready to leave here at 3 o'clock in the morning and I can get to the market place at 6:00 sunrise."
He said, "I couldn't do that."
I said, "I could." He said the mare was too skittish and I could not handle her, I said yes, I could, and he could see no other show for us. When he saw I was determined to do as I said, he said that he would take another load to town, and get the mare broken in better. If I started at 3:00, I could reach Salt Lake by 6:00 a.m. So we did that, and I arrived at the market place just at sunrise. There were not as many automobiles and trucks, as there were white top, the same as I had, but there were no other white women peddlers. There were a few dark women with their black serapes over their heads, and you may believe I felt very strange in that strange place. But I had made a firm resolve to do that job and I was out to do it, let come what may. I did not know what to do when I got to the market.
There was a kindly man, who had a load of fruit to sell, that stepped up to me and told me to open the end doors of the white top and stand outside to let the people know I had fruit to sell, and I soon had orders for my fruit. A man ordered four crates of raspberries and gave me the address to deliver them and while I sat waiting for the lady to take the fruit, a Catholic Priest with a long black robe came in and greeted me and started to talk. He asked my what denomination I belonged to. I told him I was a Latter-day Saint. He had no more to say, but left at once. While I was at the market place an Italian man came up to me and told me to drive up to his place of business. Just as we come in at the corner of the entrance gate, there was a platform to unload the truck on. He told me to drive up to his place every morning and he would take all I had to sell for the next few weeks. But he had a fruit orchard of his own at Garfield, which would be ripe soon, than he would have all he could handle. The fruit was later ripening out there. That made me very happy to think I could get by that easy for awhile anyway. But those few weeks were soon gone, and I had to make another decision. I decided to drive out in the suburbs of town. Sometimes I would have a few cases of berries left to bring home. One day I had an extra large load and it looked like we were not going to sell them all, but we did sell them all, regardless of our fears. My little boy that I took with me to help me, said, I knew we would get to sell them all, because I asked Heavenly Father to help us. Before the summer was over, one of the boys returned home, then I was released from that job.
I cannot express my joy and thankfulness for my release from that job. My little boy said, "Now I am willing to go with brother to help him, but I just couldn't stand to see you have to do a man's work." One day we saw a little white-headed lady driving a little donkey on a little wagon with willow bows to hold a sheet up over the produce to shade them from the hot sun, and he said, "See I just couldn't stand to see an old lady have to do things like that".
There were a few times I did have a little tough experience. One day I stopped at the lumber yard at Sugarhouse, to buy some fruit crates. Just as I was ready to start home, the mare heard the train coming. I hadn't gotten in the buggy yet, when the mare began to rear and snort. A man was standing near and he quickly grabbed the lines and held her until the train passed and she became quiet.
Another day I was driving through Holladay, an automobile passed and the old mare became frightened and started to run. She ran as fast as she could go, it seemed to me. I was holding the lines as tight as I could. She ran until I think she had nothing to be frightened at, then she slowed down. I never did have any accident with her.
One day I was very much embarrassed when I stopped at Z.C.M.I. I had no one with me to hold her while I went in the store. Just as I was going out the door, I met a Policeman. He asked if that was my outfit. I told him it was and he said that it was against the law and was punishable by a fine, but as that was my first offense, he would let me go that time. I had her fastened to a heavy iron, the boys used to use, it had held her before.
May 1914, the Bishop asked me if I would accept an appointment of being President of the Primary Association. I told him I had a job as teacher in the M.I.A. He said he would release me from that duty; they needed me in the Primary. If I hadn't been taught never to refuse a call from the Priesthood to do anything required of me in the church, I could not have accepted of it, because I did not feel that I was capable to occupy that position. I could not tell why the Bishop would think of choosing me, a stranger in the ward. I was deeply concerned over it and I offered up a prayer to my Heavenly Father to make it known to me if I was the proper one to hold that position. While I was praying, I felt a sensation like a finger touched me on my bosom which thrilled me all through my body, and I knew it was an answer to my prayer. I was set apart by my Bishop, through the Priesthood which he held, and I went to work putting my trust in the Lord who helped me carry on the work that was required of me. I was able to attend all of my meetings except one, when I was too ill to attend, all the two years that I was at Holladay.
April 1916, my daughter Delilah and her husband wanted me to move to Sandy, twelve miles south of Salt Lake City, to occupy a home they had bought when they were living at Bear River City, until they could move there. I moved to Sandy, which made it necessary for me to resign as President of the Primary. When I joined the ward at Sandy, the Bishop asked me if I would accept of an appointment as a teacher in the Religion class. I was also a Relief Society teacher.
I lived at Sandy just thirteen months, then on the 1st of June 1917, I moved to Tooele. It was there that my daughter Winnie met Lyman Jessop and they were married July 25th in the Logan Temple. She went away with him to live at Millville, Cash County. It was in Tooele that Geneva, my daughter died. In 1919 we moved over to Bauer ranch where my husband was running the Bauer farm, five miles from Tooele.
In Holladay I was living in my daughter Leona and her husband George B. Andrus' house. They had gone to Summit to live for awhile. Leona Andrus died nine months after her sister Geneva McCellen died from the affects of the flue. Besides her husband, Leona left three little girls. Geneva left two little girls and two boys and her husband.
I enjoyed living with the people of Holladay very much and did not like to move away, but conditions were such that I could not stay. I enjoyed the many friends I learned to love and enjoy working in the church with them. It was with feelings of sadness that I left them, but it was a lasting pleasure for having had the privilege of living there. My stay at Sandy was short since I was there only thirteen months. I became acquainted with some very nice people and enjoyed their association while I was there.
I enjoyed living at Tooele very much also and learned to love the people. We had some Porter relatives living there that I was very pleased to get acquainted with.
Wherever I have lived for any length of time, I have gone to the church services and attended the Relief Society meetings. The sisters would always, especially the officers of the association, would speak to me and make me feel at home, so I learned to love the sisters of the Relief Society.
It was January 1920 when the Stockton Ward, Tooele Stake, was organized. We were living a mile from Stockton. They appointed me the Relief Society President. I was a total stranger to those people; I had met a very few of them. I was at Holladay to my daughter's funeral at the time, and knew nothing about it until I returned. I just had eight months to serve in that capacity before my husband decided to give up the Bauer farm. He was not making enough pay for the work he was doing, so he asked for better terms, but was refused. One of the Stake Presidency was acquainted with my husband's condition, and knew about the Clarkdale Arizona Mining Company wanting to find an experienced farmer that would like to go to Clarkdale to investigate conditions. The mining company would pay their fair there and back and promised to give them all they could raise on the land for the first three years. They furnished the team to work with free.
He went to Clarkdale and they took him down river farms to see the crops. He saw some nice ones growing, and was told the smelter smoke did not damage anything except the most tender vegetables. The field of grain around the Tooele smelter smoke did not get damaged, so my husband thought he would be safe in accepting their proposition. He sold what he could of what we had and I resigned my position of Relief Society President. We were preparing for another move.
I spent all my time getting everything done that I had to do. After I had everything else done, I made a nice quilt from pieces of nice dress material, and made a beautiful rug from the pieces left from the quilt. I did not know how much my body was worn out until I got on the way traveling overland. I thought I could rest as we traveled along. But before we had reached Gunnison, Utah, I was not able to get out of the wagon anymore. I had taken cold and in my weaken condition, I was just bed fast. When we got within four miles of Marysvale, I had a heart attack and nearly passed out. They got a doctor form Marysvale to come to see what he could do for me, he said it was not caused from a weak heart, but I was just worn out.
He said they must not try to take me with them, but wait until I was able to go by train. He told my husband to take me to the hotel at Marysvale. When I felt able to travel, I went back to Sandy to stay with with my daughter. I rested up until I was able to go to Arizona on the train. That was in April and I stayed until June 1921. My sister Phoebe's son put me on a pullman car and saw that I was made comfortable with a Porter to look after me and bade me goodbye. I was off at 11 o'clock p.m. from Salt Lake for Arizona.
When we arrived at Ashfork, we found that the bridge had been burned, between there and Clarkdale, the place I was going. Then I had to stay in Ashfork for a few days, then they told me I would have to take the Santa Fe to Prescott and go from there on the bus over the mountains to Clarkdale. I was happy to be with my loved ones again, and to have some one look after me.
The climate was so warm I thought I could hardly stand it. There was not much smelter smoke to get into my lungs the first year, things grew so nicely, and I soon began to get my health back. The next year, the smelter started their work of pouring the smoke upon us. It did not affect the rest of the family, but I could hardly stand it. The men worked so hard to get the place in a condition to raise crops, and before they accomplished the work, the smoke was killing everything, so they did not do much farming.
WHEN THE HOUSE BURNED DOWN:
It was October 1921 on a Sunday, just at noon, when some friends come by to buy a quart of milk to take with them. They were on their way up the river to have a picnic. They stayed awhile, and when they went to leave, they noticed on the corner of the porch a hammock my son Evan had made out of barrel staves. We went to get a better look and that brought us in sight of the corner of the porch where my son-in-law's bed room was and the flames of the fire were just bursting through the partition. It was on old house with ten or more rooms in it. We never did find the cause of the fire.
My daughter Irene had invited some of her friends to an afternoon dinner. She had her cake made, the chicken roasted, and other things completed in preparing for the dinner. Her friends hadn't arrived yet. When they did arrive, they helped to get some of the things out. I went in to get some things twice and my knees gave way and I went down and could not walk, being in a weak condition after my illness. The young man that was with his parents had his car, and they put me into it and drove where I could not see the flames. In a little while, my strength returned and I could help get some of the things farther away that were scorching. The big pantry that was in my room was full of bottled fruit we had just put up, and there was no more fruit on the trees. Nearly everything I had was destroyed. They saved our wardrobe that was in Irene's room that had our best clothes in. They got my bed out from the porch. They were all so busy and did not think about me, until it was too late to save many of my things. All of my books, family records, and photographs were burned.
They told me not to worry, they would get everything out before it was too late, but of course that did not keep me from worrying. The awful affect of a burn out just cannot be described; we just have to have the experience to realize what it really is.
I did not go out any place after the fire for about two weeks. One of the ladies I had met came to see us and invited me to go visit her. Her daughter was a friend of Evan and Irene. On a Sunday afternoon I went to their place at Clarkdale. Evan and Irene were there too. They were all singing and playing music. After listening to the sweet music and enjoying a social time with them, all of those awful feelings that the fire had left with me, left and I did not have them any more. That was an experience I shall never forget. This happened in the fall of 1921; we did not get acquainted with any L.D.S. people until 1923. In six weeks the company had another house built for us.
Sometime later, Evan got a job to work on the State Highway, so he could begin to help us. In the spring he bought 2,000 baby chicks and then we had something else to do. We had quite an experience at trying to raise baby chicks. In August there was a cloud burst on the bench above where we were living and it sent such a stream of water through the place and swept a lot of our little chicken down into the river. But there was a nice lot of them left. It looked like the flood did a lot of damage, but it wasn't so bad after it cleared away.
October 1923 Clara wrote and asked me to come and be with her during her confinement of her fourth child, she was living in old Mexico then. I could not go, but we let Irene go. On New Year's Day she and Emerson Pratt were married. When I come to realize that I would never again have a daughter home with me, I had to have a crying spell every day until I could reconcile myself to her being away from me. I did not see her again until June 1925 when she and her husband were returning from Salt Lake where they had been to have their temple work done. They had two small children at the time, we had a nice visit together for a few days.
In 1923 there was a Brother Parley Bigelow come to Clarkdale to visit his relatives. There was no branch of the church there and he said it looked like a little flock without a shepherd. He organized a little Sunday school, then he wrote President McMurrin of the California Mission and asked him to send some missionaries to Clarkdale to see if there were enough L.D.S. to justify organizing a branch of the church. The branch was formed with Elder Bigelow as President of the Branch. I was asked to be the Relief Society President. Brother Bigelow served for one year. In 1924, they reorganized and appointed my husband as Branch President. He served about two years, then his hearing became so bad that he felt that it would be best for him to resign.
We were small in number but we did quite a lot of work. I had something to keep me busy part of the time. We started out by each one of the Society donating two quilt blocks, all of one size, then donating money to buy material. That was the start of our quilt project. We sold them to the members, and we made thirteen quilts. Soon we had money to buy things for the chapel that was needed. When the missionaries came to labor, we gave them things to help furnish the apartment they rented. We tried to be a Relief Society to measure up to the requirements made of us.
In 1925 our son Evan married Inez Despain from Prescott. He was working for the Arizona Power Co. at the time. He had a good job, and helped us out a great deal. While my husband was President of the Branch, and we were living at the Tannery, down on the Verde, he became very ill. Our only neighbor had gone away for vacation, so we had no help. He was in such pain the next morning that I hailed a passing car to get a doctor at Cottonwood, which he did. When the doctor come, he said he would have to go to a hospital, so he took us to Prescott, where my son Evan and his family lived. He was in severe pain all day Saturday and Sunday. Sunday we fasted and prayed for him. The next morning when the doctor came, he was surprised. He said he was a well man and didn't need to be in the hospital, but to stay around for awhile to be checked on. He and his nurses said they could not tell what had happened. But sometimes things will happen that we can not understand.
That was another time, when our Heavenly Father had respect for our fasting and prayers, and we give Him all the honor for His kindness and the restoration of my husband's health. There have been three other times when my husband has been healed through fasting and prayer.
AN AWAKENING TO MY SOUL
A story in the life of Catherine A. Carling Porter
We were living in Holliday in 1912 after we came out of Mexico. I was asked to be an assistant class teacher to the senior class in the M.I.A. I did not feel capable, but they said all they wanted was my consent, they knew I could do the work. I said I would do my best.
We were expected to be at the Stake tabernacle to the monthly Stake preparation meeting. The meeting was the next night. It had only been a short time since we came from Mexico and my husband had gone to Nevada to get a job at a mine and hadn't yet sent any money home, so I felt justified in staying home that night (of the meeting). I would have to get the street car and go into Salt Lake City then transfer to another car and go to the Granite Stake House. It cost the price of 3 carfares each way, and I had to walk about a mile to get to the street car, and walk that distance after getting back. We had very little to go on so I thought I'd better not spend it on something I thought I didn't need. I went to bed and slept till just before daybreak, when I was awakened with a shock. I thought I was in a place where there were just one building in sight. There were no doors or windows in sight. There was a large wheel attached to a shaft going through the wall. The building looked like it was built of concrete and was round with a flat top. A large fine looking man stood near facing me, and no one else in sight. He looked as if his message was just for me. He put forth his hand to turn the wheel, and as he did so he said, in very emphatic words, "That which God hath brought together let no man put asunder."
Those words went through me like a bolt of thunder, which shook my whole being. I rose up in bed and said to myself, "What has caused such a terrible shock to me? Then like a flash the inspiration came to me. As he had turned that wheel I could hear a sound all through that building like fine machinery running in perfect order. That was a representation of the Church of Jesus Christ. I had given my word that I would be one who represented a Part of that machinery which caused the perfect workings in the Church to which I belonged. When the workers fail to take their part, it would have a tendency to tear asunder "that which God hath brought together". Those words have been an anchor to my soul.
In May 1928, we moved to Chino Valley, and stayed there until August 28th, 1928. Then I went to Mesa and stayed the winter with my daughters Clara and Irene, until May 1929 then went North to spend the summer in Utah and Idaho, staying until the latter part of August. In the meantime, I went to Porterville to visit with my sister Martha, then I came to Ogden to stay a few days with my sister Phoebe's daughter. I told her I had decided to go back to Salt Lake and Sandy the next morning. She said, "Oh, Aunt Kate, I have planned to take you for a trip up Ogden Canyon and a visit to see some of our relatives, a show to the movies at night, and I will be so disappointed if you do not stay." I told her that I decided when I left home (with my son, Evan's wife's sister and her mother in her car) that I was alone to make my own decisions, and I asked my Father in Heaven to guide my every act, that I would not do anything I should not do, and now that decision had come to me. I fear it would not be in accordance with His will, as I had paid heed to what would come to me to do and everything had gone well with me up to that time. She said that she would not have me stay against my will. I went on my way back to Sandy, and when I arrived there I found a telegram telling me that my son would be there a certain day and he would not have any time to spare. If I wanted to go back with him I must be there ready. Well, I could see then that my thought was right. He and his father and his wife were all there to meet me at Sandy. He wanted to start back the next day.
August 1929, Sandy, Utah, at my daughter, Delilah's place, my son Edson was down from Idaho, and my son Evan from Arizona and my sister Phoebe's sons, Zenos, Francis, Edward and her daughter Asenath and husband were all there. She had two other sons not there. They were trying to discuss plans as to how they could help their father take care of his families, after he had lost practically all his earnings since he came to Arizona from the smelter smoke at Clarkdale and the Tannery did not prove a success down on the Verde. When he had his leather ready to sell, it was at the time of the great slump in all businesses throughout the nation, he could not sell it.
While we were living in the Jerome branch there were some men who wanted to go to California to start a tannery. My husband told them if they wanted to start a tannery, there was no need to go the California because there was everything right there in abundance that was needed to make leather. There were loads of hides shipped out of the country every week and the plants that they used to tan leather with grew in abundance along the river beds. There was a spring at the place where they built the tannery. All the men pledged themselves so much toward building the tannery, but when the money was needed, their money did not come forth. Some of them helped make the adobes and laid them up to make the walls of the building, but when the material was needed that they had to pay cash for, my husband had to furnish it as best he could. They said, "But who can teach us how to make leather?" He being a tanner told them he could teach them, but none of them learned to make leather.
Well, my sons were discussing plans to help us but had not made any decision and I said, "Let me decide this great question -- just let Aunt Phoebe's five sons help her and my two sons help me, and that will be satisfactory to me." My sons did not want me to live with their sisters, so they gave me money to pay rent for a room for a year or more. Then I had a chance to buy a lot near the Temple at Mesa. We bought a small lumber house and moved it on the lot. There was some controversy over building houses on that street because of it being laid off too narrow.
My husband and son, Evan, had been down from Prescott to remodel and fix the house up so it would be comfortable. Some of the neighbors said to them they would not touch it to make any repairs, for he might get into trouble over it, so they went back to their work in Prescott. My daughter Irene and her husband, Emerson Pratt, were over not long after that and we were talking about conditions. My husband came back from Prescott while they were there. Emerson said to him that if he were in his place he would go to work and fix the house up and move in. The City might not want to widen the street for ten years and it would not be hard to move the small house when they did get ready. It was in 1930 and Emerson said that he was off work for a week and he could help him. So they went to work and soon had the house finished, painted on the outside and papered on the inside walls, the floor covered with linoleum. They moved me in from the rented house. I was very happy and said, "Here is where I stay."
I had been in that house about a year and had been working in the Temple when I received a call to be one of the Temple ordinance workers. Edson went back to the Verde where he was making leather and as soon as he finished his leather he brought it to Mesa. He was also called to be an ordinance worker in the Temple. He could only work at the evening sessions, on account of having to work at home.
I was so happy to think we could both be together working in the Temple. But our joy was not for long. He had only been in Mesa about eighteen months, and he had never enjoyed better health than he had during that time since he had been here at Mesa the last time. It was Sunday morning on the 10th of December 1933. We went to Sunday School, and we came home and ate dinner. After he had eaten, he complained of feeling sick at the stomach. I fixed some mustard and salts and gave it to him, a remedy that has always been a tried and true remedy for stomach trouble of that kind. I gave him lemonade, thinking it might move the gas if there could be any, then I prevailed on him to lie down on the bed. I then turned away and left him, thinking he was comfortable; he closed his eyes. I went to the other side of the room and sat down. I had been there a very few minutes when I heard a little death gurgle in his throat. I went to him immediately and he was turning purple, his life had passed out without a struggle. Oh, what a shock had come about so suddenly, leaving the sting of death. Instead of the joy and happiness we were enjoying those eighteen months before, now he had gone to meet our three married daughters, three baby girls, and a baby boy. Twelve years later, his second wife, my sister Phoebe, passed away March 14, 1945 as suddenly as he did. She would meet her several dear ones, who had gone before. They both would meet their fathers and mothers, brothers and sister, except Phoebe had four sisters yet living. I am left at 85 with four daughters and two sons and their companions to be a comfort and blessing to me, besides my sister's family of five sons and one daughter.
A week after his death, our daughter Irene had a breakdown in health, which disabled her for some time. I stayed with her for three months, which caused an intermission in my Temple work. She continued to be in a weakly condition for years.
I continued my work at the Temple until 1941 when I was released from working in the ordinance room on account of ill health. Then I started to do genealogical work, preparing the work to be ready to have the endowments done. I did that work until 1946. My daughter thought I should not live alone. So after living in my little Mesa home for about sixteen years, I rented it. My daughter Delilah, who lived in Salt Lake City, invited me to go and stay with her. I made some improvements on my home by having two rooms built on the back with a bathroom and a porch on the front. I covered the outside with siding and a new roof, painted it an ivory color and added other conveniences. Then I went to stay with my daughter in Salt Lake where I thought I could continue my Temple work, as I had a lot of families who lacked some dates of the Endowments done in the Salt Lake temple. When I went to the library to get those dates, they told me I was working on the wrong line, so I could not go on with the work.
I stayed at Salt Lake twenty-one months and returned to Mesa. I came back with Martin Young in his car. I got so sick on the way, I decided I would never try going on a long trip again at my age.
A DREAM:
One night in my dream I was attacked by a horrible looking beast, very ugly. It was trying to put his feet on my shoulders and I heard a voice above me telling me not to be afraid. It was the voice of my departed husband. He told me the beast could not harm me. I could not see him, but I was not afraid. I knew he would protect me. He told me three times not to be afraid. He seemed to be quite near.
Not long after my dream there was something that happened twice that gave me a great deal of anxiety and I felt very much concerned about it. Nothing came of either case, and I was not hurt by what had happened. I do not care to mention what happened.
This is a song I used to sing:
Beautiful and winding river, Gliding through the sunny vale,
Rippling with harmonious murmur, Through the green and mossy dale,
Drooping willows bending o'er thee, Richly crown the grassy side
And thy bosom moon beams silver, through thy stilly even tide.
Wander onward gentle river, Ever wander on thy way.
In thy wavelets soft are shadowed, fleecy clouds and sunlit skies,
Leaves are bending low to kiss thee, lilies on thy bosom lie,
Daisies nestle among the mosses, watered by thy falling spray,
Perfumed laden breezes fan thee, golden sunbeams o'er thee play,
Wander onward gentle river, ever wander on thy way.
River gliding every onward, sweetly plaintive sad and low,
Never can thy sun kissed waters, aught of care or sorrow know,
Beautiful and winding river, oft we linger by thy side,
Listening to the witching music, oft thy singing rippling tide,
Wander onward gentle river, Ever wander on thy way.
I am now living with my daughter, Clara and her husband, Edson Whipple, in their new home. They have prepared an apartment for me so I could be by myself when I desire to be alone. I appreciate their kindness to me very much, as I also appreciated the kindness of my daughter Delilah and her husband Joseph Porter to me while I was staying with them. I do appreciate the kindness of all of my dear ones, they all treat me very kindly.
I try to show my appreciation by being helpful. I try to keep busy at something that is useful and do a good deal of reading when I get tired of work. I try to watch my diet and not eat the food that causes me trouble on that account. I enjoy good health most of the time, I want to keep myself in good health so I will not be too much of a burden on any one. It is a pleasure to me to keep busy when I feel able. I have lived a busy life raising a large family and now I have no one to work for. I can not change my life to sit and do nothing. To labor has always brought the sweetest joy to me.
MY TESTIMONY:
Now that I have about finished my history, I would like to leave my testimony to my family and relatives and friends who might desire to read it. That I have a testimony that God does live and did answer my prayers many times. I learned to trust Him at an early age and I have never had a shadow of a doubt that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was true. If there had have been nothing besides what my father and mother told me of the Prophet Joseph Smith, I knew what they told me was true. They were young people and lived in Nauvoo when he lived there, who would doubt the words of their parents.
Besides, I have always prayed to my Heavenly Father to strengthen my testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which Joseph Smith was instrumental in establishing in the earth. I do love to read his history, and I do know he was and is a true Prophet of God and no man could accomplish the things he did with his own strength and wisdom.
I know that God does live for what he had done for me and my family, and I know that Jesus is the only begotten of the Father and He is the Savior of the world. I believe all of the Presidents of the Church down to David O. McKay were and are Prophets of God and that this church is guided by revelation and that if we will but give heed to their council we will receive a reward in the Celestial Kingdom. I feel that my work on earth has been of such little consequences that I will not inherit much of a reward in Heaven for I have been blessed with more than I have earned while I have lived.
My joys and sorrows have been co-mingled and to expect more than I have given I might get disappointed. But I can not be expected to be of much use at my age 86. But will try to set a good example to all of my associates by attending to my church duties and all other that I am capable of doing. If there is anything I can say to encourage anyone to be more strict in attending to their duties, I would be pleased to say the things that would be to that point. My daily prayer is that we may all strive earnestly to be worthy of a place in the Celestial Kingdom of our God.
*****
Catherine A. Carling died at age ninety-two on November 1, 1957 in Mesa, Arizona.
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