| Kate Elizabeth Gardner |
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MY LIFE HISTORY By Kate Elizabeth Gardner, Erickson I was born in Huntington, Utah June 16, 1897, to Albert Clifton and Sarah Chase Gardner, both of whom were a son and Daughter of Utah Pioneers also both of their father's were members of the Mormon Battalion and both of them were pioneer settlers of Huntington, Emery Co., Utah. I was blessed Sept. 5, 1897 by my Father: Baptized Aug. 5, 1905 by John W. Brasher: Confirmed Aug. 5, 1905 By Edward G. Geary: I received a patriarchal blessing by Charles Pulsifer, when I was about 7, I don't know for sure as the blessing was burned in a house fire which burned almost all of our clothing (but what we had on) our bedding and did much damage to our home. I received another Patriarchal blessing under the hands of Joseph J. Larson, May 2, 1948. My Mother's mother (Almira Higgins) died when my mother was a very small girl, she went to live with an older sister who was married to Curtis Washington Caldwell, whom she came to Huntington with. They being about the 3rd couple to arrive in Huntington for the purpose of settling the town. My Father came soon after, and the soon became acquainted and started a courtship and were married 6th of Aug. 1885, three months later their marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple, Nov. 13, 1885, from this reunion were born nine children, six girls and three boys. From the oldest to the youngest were: Sarah Elmeda 9 May 1886, Myrtle Almira, 7 Feb. 1888, George Albert, 3 Feb. 1890, Loran Farr. Nov. 1892, Mary Mindwell 9 Jan. 1894, Ruth Ada 28 Sept. 1895, Kate Elizabeth 16 June 1897, James Erastus 2 July, 1899, Clarcie Gean 14 Oct. 1901. Six of these had temple marriages, 1 died before marriage and two were solemnized after marriage in the Temple making a total of 8 temple marriage. Farr's work was done after his death. We as a family lived very meager and humble with very little of the world's goods, gut we were a very happy and contented family. My Father was a hard working farmer and good provider as far as his meager earnings would allow. He was loving, kind and charitable, One of my earliest recollections of him is when he presented each of us girls with a new Deserette Sunday School Song Book. The church did not use the same songbook, for both Sunday School and Sacrament meetings and they used the hymn book when the Sunday school used a smaller song book called the Deserette Sunday School Song Book. Each morning we were all called up a half hour early and Father would have us pick out a song from our book and we would gather around the organ and sing one or two songs, then we had family prayer after which we each went about our own individual chores. The boys doing the outside chores, such as milking and feeding the cows, horses, sloop the pigs, chopping wood for the day, etc., while we girls prepared the meals and did the house work, everything was done orderly, with love and obedience. My mother was a very loving, kind, charitable and industrious woman. My earliest recollections of her is going out among the sick and afflicted, as she was a registered nurse. I remember (although I was very young) when diseases such as measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, scarlet fever and may others were so very contagious and were always quarantined in by putting a large red or yellow flag (depending on what disease it was) with the name of the disease written in large letters across it and no one was allowed to go either in or out only the attending physician or the nurse. They had to fumigate after each exposure before coming in contact with any person who did not have the disease. I remember when my mother would go and stay with the sick sometimes for days at a time with hardly any sleep or rest and no matter what time of day or night, winter or summer, when she did come home, she would first go to the granary where my father would have a large hot rock, (if it were in the winter or cold weather) and a lighted lantern and all other accommodations that was possible for him to provide for her convenience and comfort, together with fumigation materials and there she would fumigate herself and clothing before coming into the house or around any of her children. When mother went on these charitable missions we children were always left in the care of Father and my two older sisters Emeda and Myrtle, (and they did a wonderful job). I call it charitable missions because never did my mother ever put a price on the assistance and help that she rendered, but it all came back to her ten fold in future days. I remember so so well of many times at Christmas time or Thanksgiving or her birthday or even many times at no special occasion at all, but more especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas the gifts and supplies of all sorts and descriptions would flow in until she didn't know where to put it all. My Father went on a mission when I was seven years old (returning when I was 9) to the Eastern states leaving mother with 8 children (the oldest of which was married) to feed and clothe and keep him on his mission. Many times when mother would be walking to town to shop or on business she would meet someone who would walk up and shake hands with her and leave a 5 or 10 dollar bill and on a few occasions a 20 dollar bill in her hand and say send it to Brother Gardner or keep it for your family, where ever it is needed most. My very earliest recollections of my home life with my parents is when I was 41/2 years old. When my mother was sent to the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City. My younger sister, Clarcie, was only 3 weeks old. Sister Nhoberry, a nurse, took her home and cared for her for almost two months. My sister Ruth and I went to stay with Sister Minnie Ipson, she was very good and kind to us and we learned to love her very much. When my mother returned Ruth and I accompanied my father to Price to meet her at the railroad station. Father fixed a covered wagon (for cars were unknown at that time) with a nice soft bed and a coal heater in to make it as comfortable as possible for her to ride the 25 miles from Price to Huntington. When we met her at the depot she had a little basket of lunch with her which contained some fish sandwiches, she gave Ruth and I each one. We ate them and enjoyed them but if I should live to be 100 years old I don't think I could ever forget how sick I got from eating that fish. That was the first we knew that I was allergic to fish. I can remember many times after that of getting sick just to smell them frying, I still can't eat fish in any form, only salmon and tuna and I have to eat them very sparingly or I get ill. I had several accidents in my preschool age and they all seemed to be on my head. The first one I was to small to remember but my mother told me many times about it. I guess I'm lucky from what she said that I have my left eye. I still carry the scar. She gave me jam sandwich on day and I walked outside and set on the door step to eat it. The neighbors old turkey gobbler was close by in the yard and when he saw the bread in my hand he walked right up to me. When I detected he was about to take it from me I threw my hand up over my head in an attempt to keep it from him but he made a grab for it and got me on the lower eye lid, taking a chunk of flesh and leaving a bad scar and a scratch on the eyeball but not serious. It healed in a few weeks. Mother said I had the eye bandaged for about 4 or 5 weeks. The first accident I had that I can remember myself was just before I turned six. It was on the 17th of March and the day the Relief Society had their annual Celebration. Mother and Father were both at the church. This was before they had any modern water facilities. We had to get our culinary water from a running stream just outside our gate by the side of the walk. I had taken a little blue mug that I had got for Christmas out to the ditch to get myself a drink. My brother George, was standing out by the gate talking to a couple of other boys and on my way back to the house about halfway between the gate and the house George started screaming at me to run quick that wild cow of Brockbanks is coming, hurry and run. But as the cow had come into the yard on the opposite side of the house I could not see or tell from which direction she was coming and didn't know which way I should run. I think I was too frightened to move even if I could see her. Well, when she came around the house where she could see me she made straight for me. Mr. Brockbank was chasing her on a horse and they were both coming full speed. She picked me up between her horns, which were about 8 or 12 inches long and curved so that they said they fit around my waist like a belt. It was a miracle that she didn't put one right through me for they were very pointed and sharp. She carried me about half a block on her head and between her horns, then she tossed me over her back and out into the snow, which was about 7 inches deep. When they picked me up I was unconscious and remained so for about three and a half hours. I was in bed for weeks, to sore and lame to move but otherwise fine. We never did find the mug I had in my hand. The other accidents I mentioned are to lengthy to write in detail so I'll just say I have three large scars on my head. One from getting hit with a sharp horse shoe, one from getting hit with a pick and one from getting hit in the head with a large rock. Each time loosing enough blood to almost sap out my life. When I was 15 years of age I went to live with and care for my invalid cousin, Fern Howard and her 3 year old son, Voyn. She had heart trouble which rendered her almost totally invalid. I was in high school then but was with them almost constantly when not in school. I had much valuable and interesting experiences during the 3 years I was with them. Voyan always called me his second momma and even now when I meat him and he has occasion to introduce me, his introduction is always, "this is my second mother". Fern died about 3 months after I left them and went to the reservation. Voyan stayed alone with his father until he married and moved to Salt Lake City to make his home there. I was out to the reservation about five months, at Myton, Ducheane Co., with a friend of mine, Mrs. Ethel Cooley. While there I met and was engaged to Stone Whitmore. We were to be married the 20th of December, two years after our acquaintance, but he became sick with influenza and died 2nd of Dec. 1919. The last two months of my stay on the reservation I went to Mt. Emons, Ducheane Co. and stayed with my Aunt Mira and Uncle Wash Caldwell and had many exciting and happy experiences with them. I then returned home and stayed with my parents for a couple of months. I then went to Helper to work for a Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Jones. I stayed with them a little over a year and received another proposal for marriage from Phill West, which I did not accept. Mr. Jones was transferred from Helper to Springville. They tried very hard to get me to go with them to Springville., But I got awful homesick while in Helper and didn't care to get any farther away so I returned home again. My parents were living on the farm at the time and my sister Mary was having a courtship with Erick R. Erickson who had had a previous marriage but had lost his companion in death leaving him with 6 small children, 3 boys and 3 girls, Maynard, Harry, Leona, Marie, Russell and Louise. My sister and he were married that fall, 3 Oct 1918, but hard luck hit him again. She became very ill with a blood disease and died just 4 months after their marriage. He then moved his family from Cleveland, Emery Co. Utah to Price, Carbon Co., Utah and got a job up at Coltan and I went to Price to care for his children while he was away. A couple of weeks before Erick returned home I had a very strange dream which connected with a dream and experience I had had the day before Mary died, which I will relate at the end of my history, which led to my marriage to Erick a year later. Erick came home from his job in the late summer. By that time I had became very attached to the children and because of the dreams and experienced I accepted his proposal. We were married the 26 of Nov. 1919 in the Salt Lake Temple, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and from this wedlock were born 10 children, 6 boys and 4 girls. I raised the two families. Erick got a job dropping cars at Castle Gate, Carbon Co., Utah. We lived there for one year, where our first child was born 20th Sept. 1920, a boy, Albert LeVon. We were living in two tents at the time. The company had started to build a house for us in the early summer and was to have had it finished in August but was delayed because they could not get material to finish it within due to the shortage during World War I, so we were still in the tent until he was three weeks old. When he was five months old he became very seriously ill with pneumonia. I was up with him for nine nights and days with almost no sleep or rest at all. Then we got a trained nurse, a Mrs. Taylor to come to our home and care for him. The tenth night the nurse and Dr. (Dr. McDurmid) gave him up, as he laid perfectly motionless and so limp. They said there was not a chance in a hundred for him and that he would pass through the crisis at 1 o'clock A.M. that night and if they could pull him through that he had on chance. We had the Elders come and administer to him at 10:30 P.M. and at one o'clock he started to recover, and he did recover very rapidly from that time and grew to be a very healthy, robust child. In 1921 we moved to Cleveland, Emery Co. on an 80 acre farm and there we lived until the year 1953 during which time our other 9 children were born and we raised the two families there and had may happy and exciting experiences. We also endure many hardships and sad occasions. I had many church assignments during the 32 years that we lived there and the greater part of the time I had to walk 3 miles to town to attend to my assignments, many times carrying a baby in my arms and one or two clinging to my skirts. We made many trips to the temple to do temple work for the dead. In about the year 1935 I was sustained as Relief Society Chorister which position I held until 1942 when I was chosen, sustained and set apart as Relief Society President. I was sustained in 1936 as Sunday School Chorister and teacher. These two positions I held until 1953 when we moved to Price where at one time for a period of about 3 years I was chorister of Sunday school, of Relief Society, primary, assistant ward chorister, and the rose camp of the Daughters of Pioneers and genealogical society. I was a primary teacher for many years and Relief Society visiting teacher for many years also, after moving to Price. For 7 years I was head teacher in the 4th and 5th wards in Price. I was released when my husband, Erick and I went South to spend the winter in warmer climates for his health.(Six weeks in New Mexico with our two sons, Ronald in Albuquerque and Erick Jr. in Grants. Then on to SanDiego Calif. for three and a half months with our daughter, Isabell. We had hoped Erick's health would improve. It did not. As I said before, we moved from Castle Gate to Cleveland in the spring of 1921 where our second child was born, a girl, on 5 March, 1922. When she was about 5 years old I was washing one day ( on the scrubbing board). I had a large dish pan full of water on the stove to heat to warm my wash water with. I let it get almost to the boiling point and as it was in the heat of the summer, I was washing outside in the shade of the large oak trees and before starting out with the hot water I looked around to see where all the children were, Isabell and LeVon were sitting in the bedroom on the floor playing. The other children were all outside, so deciding the coast was clear and no one in the way I started through the kitchen with the pan of hot water. I had to set it down on the floor while I opened the screen door and just as I stopped to set it down, Isabell came darting out of the bedroom and started for me in refuge from her angered brother. She had done something to make him mad and she made a mad dash for me. She got over balanced and set down in the pan of hot water and as I was still stooped from setting the pan down she had barely hit the water when I pulled her out of it. I quickly put her on the bed striped her clothes off and ran for my doctor book. I knew it told how to treat scald, I mixed some lard and flour to a soft paste and by the time I got back to her she had just one huge blister from her hips almost to her knee. She was screaming to the top of her voice, with all the force her lungs could give. I patted the lard and flour all over the burn and wrapped it with a soft material and in 20 minutes she had quieted down. We had the Elders come and administer to her and she suffered very little pain after that. I left the poultice on for a week without removing or changing it as the book directed. When I took it off the top skin all came off with the bandage but underneath it had started healing very nicely. I put a fresh one back on and it healed without leaving a scar. She was married July, 1940 to Paul Alton Wing at the age of 18. Carl, my third child, was born 7 May, 1924, Cleveland, Emery Co., Utah. Blessed, 7 June 1924 by Einar Erickson, Baptized 3 July, 1932 by Samual C. Bryson. Confirmed 3 July, 1932 by Gomer Arnold, Married to Barbara Lee Stevanson 7 Dec. 1946. The day before Carl was born I sat outside and cut 8 sacks of potato eyes for planting the next day. The children were all in school but my two youngest ones. I had them bundled up sitting by my side. The potato cellar was to far from the house and I was unable to carry them that far so I had to set out by the grainry to cut them. It was a cold day and wind was blowing fiercely. The juice from the potatoes kept my hands damp and cold all day. By the time I got through and got into the house I was chilled through and nearly wild with a tooth ache and my jaw considerably swollen. I walked the floor all night. By morning my whole head was swollen. Carl was born about 5 o'clock the afternoon. Them days mothers did not go to the hospital to get their babies. They were taken care of at home and had to stay in bed 10 to 14 days and very few babies were bottle fed. (None of my ten babies were raised on the bottle). My neck was so swollen from the abscessed tooth that I was unable to swallow water much less food. If I could have just got up and walked the floor I think I could have endured the pain much easier. My feather pillow seemed like a rock under my head. I was so thankful to have Leona with me. She was the oldest girl of the first family and she was always so good and sweet and helped me in every possible way she could. My mother had died just 2 years before and Leona came as near to taking her place as any 16 year old girl could possibly have done. I've always loved and cherished her for the kind understanding and generous help and service she gave me. May heaven reward her for it. I endured the pain until the night my baby was 7 days old, when Leona fixed pillows and cushions in the big rocking chair for me so I could at least set up and rock and she fixed a bed for the baby beside my chair on the table, I did not go back to the bed until the 14th day. On the 11th day my Dr. (Dr. Hill) came to our home to lance my jaw. He lanced it in three different places but could not find the head. He didn't dare give me any kind of anesthetic because of my heart being to bad and he didn't dare make a fourth lancing, for I was completely exhausted from the pain of the three, and I had not had any nourishment for more than a week, so, he said he would come again in a couple of days and try again if it didn't break before then, but it did break just before he came and never in my life have I ever experienced such great relief from anything. |