Nida Susannah Hales Bradley Donaldson Autobiography

Autobiography
Of
Nida Susannah Hales Bradley Donaldson

I must say as Nephi of old that I was born of goodly parents, and I give praise and thanks to my Heavenly Father for this great blessing. I was born early Wednesday morning June 28, 1899 in the new lumber home of my parents, in Mammoth, Juab County, State of Utah.
My father, Hial Bradford Hales, was born October 8, 1869 in Spanish Fork, Utah County, Utah. His father was George Gillett Hales, and he was born March 19, 1844 in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. His mother’s maiden name was Tryphena Bradford. She was born September 30, 1845 in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. Her father was Hial Bradford, born July 25, 1804 in Berkshire, Lower Canada. My father was 6 feet tall and weighed about 190 pounds, had blue eyes and brown hair. He was a man of great faith: he loved the Lord and the gospel.
My mother, Betsy Blackham, was born in Moroni, Sanpete County, Utah on November 4, 1871. She was the daughter of John Blackham Sr. who was born in Heaton Norris, Lancashire, England on November 14, 1827. Betsy’s mother Susannah Lees was born December 11, 1830 in the town of Ashton Under Line, Lancashire, England. My mother was very petite and beautiful. She also had a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I was born several weeks early because my mother was sick from an infection. She had been restless so Hial would take her on frequent buggy rides. He couldn’t get the usual horse so he rented a horse that was a little friskier to pull the buggy. After the ride, when Hial was helping Betsy down, the horse jerked forward and Betsy’s leg was cut on the buggy. Her leg became infected, and they think the infection started her into early labor.
I was the first child of my parents. In fact, I was the only child my mother ever had. After my birth my mother developed Septicemia, also known as blood poisoning. She was a very modest woman and wanted a midwife to take care of her at my birth. My father would not consent to this, but they were able to locate a female doctor and they did engage her service. I understand the patient she had previous to my mother had Septicemia. My mother was never up from her bed from the day of my birth until her death.
My father was a man of great faith, having recently returned from a four-year mission in New Zealand. Many of my immediate relatives have told me it was my father’s great faith that kept mother alive so long.
They had a young Doctor Allen, who had just recently returned from medical school, come to Mammoth to see my mother. Little could be done for her. My Aunt Eliza has told how very much she suffered with no complaining. Everything was for the interest and well being of her lovely baby, Nida.
Someone had suggested they get my mother up each day to help her gain a little strength. Two men, one on each side, would hold her up and help her walk but she would faint away immediately. My father and his brother George did this several times. My uncle George said this was cruel. My father said to his brother, George, if you do not have more faith than that you had better stay on your side of the street because we must have folks here that have great faith. My father and his brother George were very close all their lives.
My uncle George told me he stayed away one day and one night and then he went over and apologized to my father. He could not be away from my parents longer, he loved them so dearly.
On Sunday the 6th of August 1899 my father and his brother, Bishop George Hales, gave me my name and a father’s blessing. I was given the name of Nida Susannah Hales, Susannah after my mother’s mother. This took place in the home, in my mother’s presence, but it was recorded in the Mammoth Ward records.
While my mother was ill, every two weeks different members of her family would come from Moroni with a team and wagon, bring fresh vegetables from their gardens, and a lady to help with the work in the home; then the lady that had been there the past two weeks would return home with the brother. In September, after the children were in school, my Aunt Matilda Blackham, John’s wife (John was Betsy’s brother), discussed with her husband and oldest daughter, Nellie (who was 17 and had finished school), if they did not think they could manage their home and the 5 younger children for a couple of weeks and let her go over to Mammoth and take her turn helping in Betsy’s home; they thought they could. So Matilda came over to Mammoth. When she first saw me, she said to my father, “Hial, this is a very sick baby, she is full of canker.” He said, “Till, (that is what they called her) don’t you do anything but take care of that baby.” She really took me over. My aunt was a very efficient, wonderful mother. She started at once to give me her undivided attention. My father said she saved my life. My Aunt Till, who had left her family for two weeks, was away from them for six weeks.
My Uncle George and Aunt Eliza Hales told me that when my father would come home from his work at the mine (and he had lost many working days when my mother was suffering so much with pain and so very ill he would not leave her) he would have a bath and put on fresh clothes and then go in to see his sweetness.
My mother was very fond of having my father sing to her, they both loved the hymns. My father had a sweet and melodious voice.
This particular day she was asleep. He had found her asleep before, but she would awaken immediately -- or at least if he started to softly sing one of her favorite songs, but this day it was difficult to arouse her, and took some time, even pressure.
When she did respond - she said “Oh, why did you bring me back? I have been in the most beautiful place.” She said she had been with Tryphena, Uncle George and Aunt Eliza’s little girl who had died in March before my birth in June.
After this experience they dedicated her to the Lord. (That was the pattern in those days, if someone was very ill and it seemed they were not to get well.) Shortly after this Betsy left her husband, baby daughter and all her loved ones in life to go to that place she had not wanted to leave.
My mother died October 30, 1899. She was buried in the cemetery of her hometown, Moroni, Utah.
After mother’s burial my father asked Till if she would take care of me. She had taken care of me from the time she came to Mammoth. (I understand it was my mother’s wish.) There were several relatives and even a friend that wanted me for their own child, but my father did not want to give me away. He sent a check each month that I lived there to pay for my keep. He said if money could pay for my care she had been well paid, but he knew that money could not buy the love, care and attention that I received in that home.
So I lived in the home of my Uncle John Blackham and Aunt Matilda who I called Mama and later Mama Blackham, for four wonderful years with their children who seem as close to me as any brothers and sisters could be. They were Nellie, Ray, Lorena, Lewis, Leona, and Vanorma. Doris was born May 27, 1901, when I was almost two.
Mama Blackham always said the good Lord sent her Doris to take my place when my papa took me home. It had been seven and a half years since her last child.
My father, whom I love and always respected, did not just leave me in the home of my uncle and aunt, and forget me. He saw me as often as it was possible to visit me; he would also have Mama Blackham or her oldest daughter, Nellie, bring me over to Mammoth to visit. He would pay the expenses of the trip. My father was living with his brother George and wife Eliza and family.
My life in the home of my Uncle John, Mama Blackham and family is something I shall always remember as sacred and beautiful. Oh, the love and happiness that was there and much music.
I do remember the afternoon before Doris was born. It was Saturday and the house was spic and span. Mama Blackham must not have been feeling well because Aunt Art Anderson, as we called her, or the midwife, came to see her. While she was there, I was lying on the floor crying and Aunt Art said, “Nida, if you will stop crying I will bring you a baby.” Oh, how I loved babies! I was up in a minute and over standing at her knee, and she repeated to me again about bringing me a baby. So right after midnight Sunday (Monday morning) Doris was born, and when I heard her cry I stood up in my little bed with out stretched arms and said “give me my baby.” They wrapped her in a blanket, and put her in my arms before she was even washed.
There are so many little stories I could tell of how I loved and watched over Doris, but I will just tell you one.
Mama Blackham’s brother, James Larson, and wife Susannah and family lived on the adjoining lot to the east with a gate and a walk between the two homes. There was a close and wonderful relationship between these two families. It was early in the month of September. The children were back in school. Mama had gone over to Aunt Susie’s for a few minutes and I was to watch the baby (Doris). Aunt Susie had a little daughter, Pernilla, about my age. I probably wanted to play with her, and thinking mama was staying too long I wrapped the baby in a wool crochet shawl and started for Aunt Susie’s with her. She had not been shortened so she had on long baby clothes (that babies wore in those days). It was a little up hill to Aunt Susie’s house, so it was very dangerous for a child less than two and some half years old to be carrying a baby over three months old. Mama Blackham looked out the window and saw me coming carrying the baby. She did not dare to call to me for fear I might drop Doris but she came running and took her from me. That ended any morning visits with me being the baby sitter!
When I was almost four years old, my father married again, to a wonderful woman who had never been married. She was Mary Emiline Brown of Provo, Utah, born June 26, 1871 in Kanab, Kane County, Utah to Philander Brown and Elizabeth Dobney Short. They were married April 1, 1903 in the Salt Lake Temple.
A wedding supper was given in Provo at her parent’s home. There was also one in Mammoth at the home of Uncle George and Aunt Eliza’s home (my father had lived with them since my mother’s death).
Mama Blackham and I went to Mammoth to attend this wedding supper. I can remember papa and my new mama sitting at the end of the table, and I sat on the right side next to my papa and Mama Blackham next to me. I can remember they served hot chocolate and Mama Blackham was so afraid I was going to spill it. One of my father’s friends, Brother Andrus asked him, “Hial, what about Nida? Is she coming to Mammoth to live with you or Mama Blackham?” His answer, “Oh yes, Nida is coming to Mammoth to live with us.” I can remember all evening Mama Blackham was wiping the tears from her eyes as she talked to different people about papa taking me. Little did I realize the tears I would be shedding in the coming years for this wonderful woman, Mama Blackham, and her family.
Mama Blackham and I went back to Moroni, and it was talked up to me about me going to live with my papa. I loved him very much and all seemed fine. Later when papa and his new bride came to get me, I was excited and telling everyone I was going to live with papa and my new mama; but when the time came to pack my clothes, I wanted them to pack Doris’s, and they said, “No, Doris was not going.” It was then things began to take on a different meaning. Oh how I did cry. I said if Doris was not going then I was not going.
You can see what kind of father I had. He said he would not take me by force. So they hung up my clothes again by the side of Doris’s and I was happy. The older I get the more I admire my father for this.
Plans were made for a later date for Mama Blackham to bring Doris and me to Mammoth for a visit. As the train left at 6:20 A.M. after a few days visit Mama Blackham and Doris returned without me. Oh how I cried when I realized they were gone. To this day I cannot stand to hear a child cry for its mother.
This was truly a big adjustment to be made in a child’s life, to be taken from a home where there were seven members of the family, from adults to a two year old besides the parents, to a home of just a couple, the father at work most of the daylight hours and a new mama quite a stranger to me.
I loved my papa so very much I would not cry for Mama Blackham and Doris in front of him. I always made an excuse for my tears, something was hurting me or something was in my eye. At first I called my new mama Aunt Mayme, as that is the name she went by, but they paid me each time I would call her Mama, so I learned to call her Mama.
Many times in the afternoon they would find me in the outside toilet, I had cried myself to sleep. Sometimes the neighbors would hear me crying and go tell Mama Hales. The afternoons were so long. There were several times in my life, those first few months, when I lived in Mammoth as I was lying on the floor in the living room that I know my own mother was there teaching me about my Heavenly Father and I was asking many questions about him.
I did so watch for papa to come home from work. After dinner he always told me Bible stories, or read to me from the Bible Story Books that were my mother’s. There were three of them. He also taught me Sunday School songs such as “Welcome, Welcome Sabbath Morning,” “In Our Lovely Deseret,” “Never Be Late to the Sunday School.” He also sang and taught me Maori songs that he learned on his mission in New Zealand. It was Home Evening every night!
When I first went to Mammoth to live, I would have real nightmares, always dreaming I was back in Moroni at Mama Blackham’s home. Nellie would be playing the organ or guitar and singing, Lewis playing the cornet and sometimes all the family would be singing. It was so real that I would get out of bed to go to them and bump into the wall or the doors, then I would truly cry for my Mama Blackham. My father always came to put me to bed. He would get in bed and stay until I was asleep. He was a wonderful father, kind and understanding.
My stepmother was a wonderful woman. I soon learned to love her and called her Mama Hales.
Mammoth was a mining town that started in 1850. I do not know what the population was in 1903, but it was rather a busy place. There were two U.S. Post Offices, one in the upper part of town to the east known as Mammoth, the lower part where we lived (a couple blocks from the R.R. Depot) was called Robinson, Utah and the mail was addressed that way. Two trains came daily from Salt Lake City and intermediate points and returned.
My father always said a mining town was an undesirable place to raise a family. The purpose for us living there was to pay for a farm my father was buying at Lakeshore, Utah, just west of Spanish Fork. We lived on a pretty close budget. My parents were always full tithe payers and taught and lived the commandments of the Lord to the letter.
It was an exciting day for me when I learned that I could go to Moroni for Christmas. Ray and Lorena (Mama Blackham’s children) were attending the BYU at Provo. Nellie was married to Thomas Jefferson Morley and he was serving an L.D.S. Mission in the Southern States. Nellie was at her parents’ home in his absence. It was decided Nellie should go to Provo to keep house for the students.
It must have been the day before Christmas when Papa, Mama Hales and I went on the train to Provo. Nellie met us at the train and picked me up. I think Grandpa Brown, Mama Hales’s father, took us over to the Oregon Short Line Depot in his buggy. Lorena was waiting with the tickets and luggage. Ray had gone home a day or two earlier. We would take the train to Nephi then change trains for the little Sanpete Valley to Moroni. No child ever received so much loving! My special gift in Moroni was a large two-story dollhouse. It was a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season.
Time went by so fast and we were soon on our way back to Provo. Mama Hales and Grandpa Brown met us at the train and took me with them. I had an orange I had brought from Moroni (that was a great treat in those days) that I had dropped when I was getting into the buggy. Nellie ran and picked it up and brought it back to me but I would not take it. I whispered to her for her to keep it for me and then they would have to bring me back to get it. Of course they never did. Nellie said it rolled around and she cried every time she saw it. It finally spoiled and she had to throw it out.
This was a sad time for me again to get adjusted, and it put Mama Blackham right to bed.
I also had a lovely Christmas waiting for me in Mammoth. There was a beautiful doll with dark hair on a china head (breakable), eyes that could sleep, a kid jointed body. Mama Hales made an extra special silk dress for it. There was also a cupboard with two doors with glass in them and two drawers at the bottom, and a set of dishes large enough to eat out of; plates almost as large as a saucer with a pattern like Blue Willowware but these were pinkish red color. I always liked the color pink.
Uncle George and Aunt Eliza Hales and family had moved on a farm west of Spanish Fork, right after papa and Mama Hales were married. So we were living in their home just across the street from where I was born. We were just one block north of the business district of Robinson (Mammoth).
In the early spring of 1904 about 2:00 A.M. in the morning one of our neighbors came pounding on our back door crying and sobbing, “FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!” My mother opened the door and I stood by her side. The whole south of the block was on fire. The flames were leaping in the air as high as you could see. Sister Whitlock the neighbor had her little daughter in her arms. She also had a drawer with their important papers in it. She was in her nightclothes. She left the baby and valuables at our house then ran back to see if she could save some clothes for them.
Mammoth did not have a fire department, but the men were running with hoses. They were putting wet blankets and quilts on our house. Papa was not at home; he was working the night shift. The wind was really blowing to the north and some of the men ware starting to carry out our furniture. Just then papa came and he said not to take the furniture out that it would be all right. Then we went in the bedroom to have prayer and my father truly did talk to our Heavenly Father. When we came outside the wind had changed completely. As I said before the south side of the block we lived on was a business district and it burned to the ground: drug store, a pool hall, the Whitlock barbers shop, a meat market and grocery store, a saloon, the blacksmith shop and delivery stable. Some of these businesses the owners had their living quarters in the back; these were all burned.
The house we were living in and another older house, both belonging to my Uncle George, were all that was left on the block. Many of the people that knew my father said it was Hial’s faith that had saved these two homes, and I would say faith and answer to prayer.
I was thrilled when we had a baby at our home, a boy born May 18, 1904. He was given the name of Hial Brown Hales but went by the name Brown. In sixteen months we had another baby brother born September 13, 1905. He was named Reed Brown Hales.
Our home and public buildings were lighted by lamps. A lamp was a vessel in which oil was burned through a wick to produce light. It had a glass chimney or flue to conduct gases and smoke from the fire to the outer air and also kept the flame from going out when the wind blew. The lamps burned coal oil, also known as kerosene. The glass chimney was washed each morning, and more oil was added and the wick was trimmed ready for the lighting in the evening. One morning, when I was about five, the glass chimney broke during cleaning and my parents were expecting company that evening so I was sent to the corner store to buy one. Mama Hales gave me a quarter for the glass chimney and a nickel for candy. On the way to the store I realized that the coin she gave me for candy wasn’t a nickel but a $5.00 gold piece. I went to the store and bought the chimney but didn’t buy any candy. When I got home, I asked if I could keep the money Mama gave me. They thought that was strange so they asked to see the coin and it was taken back.
There were no bathrooms or plumbing in those days. Everyone had their own little outhouse called toilets. No white toilet tissue either, you were real lucky if you had last years Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog to use for this purpose. It kept you interested as well as took care of the needed toilet tissue! Each week on washday we would take the used soapy wash water and clean the toilet.
My school days began in the Mammoth Public School about a week before Reed was born. Mama Hales was not well enough to take me to school and papa was working the day shift. I went the first day with two neighbor girls older than me, Mae and Zelma Larson. I was six years old and they called the first year students “beginners.” They did not have kindergarten in those days. The next year was 1st grade, the following 2nd grade and so on. My teacher in the beginner’s grade was Mrs. Wristine, a widow lady. She had a son who was away to school. Other teachers were Miss Gosford, Lydia Jolly, Laura Bradley (both from Moroni), Miss Andrus and Miss Heifer an Eastern lady. Some school friends were Eliza Steedman, Jessie Hassell, Lile Stewart and Evelyn Porter. Boys in our room were Ernest Andrus, Leland Freckleton, Golden Gee and Dick Gosford.
My father and Uncle George bought a farm together on the outskirts of Spanish Fork, the old Babcock place. It was important that someone live in the home, so two weeks before school was out Mama Hales, my two brothers and I moved to Spanish Fork. Papa stayed in Mammoth to work. He came down to spend the day on Sunday with us about every two weeks. The train came early in the morning and then left Spanish Fork for Mammoth about 6:30 P.M. The farm had an old adobe house, but it was sure cool and nice. On hot days we did not use the upstairs. The yard had been neglected but had a beautiful rose garden, grape bowery, strawberry patch, many fruit trees and a garden spot, so it was necessary for someone to be in the home.
There was a big canal just east of our place that ran down the side of the road. There was not a fence between our lot and the canal all the way. This worried mama because of the little boys. There was a narrow footbridge that went across the canal down by our back yard. A neighbor girl and I were down by the bridge talking. My little brother Brown was standing on the side of the bank throwing little rocks in the canal and he would laugh when the water would splash. I had warned him about getting too close to the water. As I turned around, I saw him floating down the stream. I screamed and jumped in the canal with all my clothes on. The water was swift and deep, up past my waist. I had to run some distance to catch up with him. My friend had run to the house to tell mama. She had to work with him, put him on his stomach and then turning him upside down to get the water out of him. Then he was all right. This made mama very nervous with two little boys and such a swift stream of water.
Well papa and Uncle George had decided that the farm was not large enough for the two of them and it would spoil it to try and divide it, so we moved back to Mammoth and Uncle George and family moved from their farm home to the Babcock house. Later they built a big brick home in front of the old house, as it was back in the lot quite a distance, and then they tore down the old adobe house.
So I was back in school at Mammoth and enjoyed being with my friends again. We had lots of snow in the winter in Mammoth. Sleigh riding was an important sport, and many enjoyed it.
Our home was heated by a range in the kitchen. You had to start a fire with kindling and then coal was added as it made a much more even heat and lasted longer. We would cook on top of the stove and bake bread and cakes in its oven. We had a “Majestic” range with a water reservoir that fit right into the firebox about 2 inches. We would always keep it full of water and if we had a fire in the range we would have hot water to do the dishes, wash and take baths. Majestic was a popular range Mama Blackham had one too. Heaters were used in other parts of the home as needed. They were mostly round with chrome; some were small and some a little bigger depending on the area that had to heated. Each heater burned wood and coal. The range and the heaters would have to be blackened with stove blacking every week. You would brush it on and then brush until you could see yourself. Then you would wipe it with a cloth until there was no residue that would get on your clothes. The chrome was cleaned with Bon Ami and then wiped with a cloth after it was dry. This was part of Saturday cleaning.
January 31, 1907 they called my father on the phone to tell him his father, George Gillette Hales had died. I do so remember that morning.
March 13, 1907 our home was blessed with a baby sister. She was named Iona Mae Hales. She was a beautiful baby with dark hair. I can remember that she was such a good baby.
This summer mama and papa had started leaving me with the little boys while they went to Sacrament meeting in the evening. Before this they had always had someone stay with us. Meetings did not start until 7:30 P.M. so it was about 9:30 when they got home. I was always afraid when I was left at night. One night when they came home I was crying and told them someone had been trying to get in the house and swore when I would not open the door. Papa boo-hoo-ed me and said it was all in my mind. But the next morning about 7:00 A.M. when papa was leaving for work, right on our front door step he picked up a $5.00 bill, he knew that a drunk had been at our door the night before. Papa came in and awakened me saying he wanted to apologize for he was sure there had been a drunken man at our door Sunday night. He wanted to give me the $5.00 but I didn’t want the money so we gave it to tithing.
Our amusements were either school or church affairs and not very many of either. My parents were active members of the Mammoth Ward. I attended Sunday School, Primary and Religious class regularly. I enjoyed the auxiliary organizations of the church and took part in them.
My Sunday School teacher, Sister Susie Elton, offered a prize to the member of our class who would learn all the Articles of Faith first and repeat them before the big Sunday School. I learned all 13 of them in two weeks. I went to Sister Elton’s home on Saturday afternoon and repeated them to her, then the next morning in Sunday School I repeated them and I did not have to be prompted once. She gave me a little gold ring with three blue sets in it. She was a wonderful teacher.
The 2nd of July 1907 I went to Moroni. The next night before the 4th of July I was sick all night, out of my mind with a high temperature. They had Doctor Linebaugh come out to the house. The next morning I was getting the measles. Boy, was I sick! We had heard of some cases in Mammoth and I got everything that went around. I was in bed for a week.
When I went home to Mammoth, Leona went with me and I was very happy about that.
Then the day before the 24th of July I was having chills. I laid out on our cellar door (the south side of the house) most of the day in the hot sun and slept. That night I had a high fever and was out of my head. They had the doctor at 3:00 A.M. we just lived one block from the hospital. Well it turned out I had the measles again, twice in a month. They were having measles in Moroni when I was there too. I was truly sick this time too, and in about ten days Leona had them too. So Mama Blackham came over to take care of her. When she got well enough, she took her home. It sure was a measley summer!
I had just turned eight years old and was baptized July 29, 1907 by Elder William T. Ewell Jr. Then I was confirmed the same day by Elder Albert Hagen. I was baptized in the baptismal font in the Mammoth ward chapel. They partly heated the water for me.
Our home was one where the Priesthood did reign. We always said grace on the food, had family prayers morning and evening, and we were taught to have individual prayers. We often sang hymns in the evening. The Word of Wisdom was observed strictly in our home. My parents watched very closely the language we used as children.
When I was eight, we got electric lights in our home. We were all very excited to have this new luxury.
I now want to tell you how they brought the ore out of the mines to the railroad yard. There were three different ways. First the south mountains were not so high so they ran smaller railroad tracks that went up to some of the mines. A small engine called “Little Alice” ran daily to bring the ore down to be shipped out. Next on the north side of the canyon were large metal poles that carried huge iron buckets that would bring ore from the Grand Central Mine (where my father worked) down to a building called the “Tramway.” This building was at least two and a half stories high. The buckets would run in the building and be emptied into railroad cars that were under the tramway to be filled. After buckets were emptied, they went back for refilling. This was not more than two blocks north of where we lived. The last means of transportation was by large ore wagons, which were very heavy. With two teams of horses on each wagon they would bring the ore from the mines down to what was called the ore dump. A place built of heavy lumber with just a very gradual incline where they drove up on this sort of trussing where there were two or three openings, one for each wagon unloading, for the ore to go down into the railroad cars. The boards in the bottom of the wagon were pulled loose some way. I do not remember exactly how this was done. Children were not allowed on there in the working hours.
Some of these men used swear words-even taking the name of deity in vain and other vulgar talk. So you can see how important it was to watch your children’s vocabulary.
Each summer I went to Moroni for my vacation where I was showered with affection and attention from my Blackham family. Papa always said it took a month or so to get me back in shape so they could live with me. I’m sure he was right.
We were living in Uncle George’s old house. My parents were not happy about several things so they decided to build a large family room and kitchen combination in the house just west of where I was born. Papa owned this house too. He had bought it from his brother, Stephen Hales, when he left Mammoth.
At this time Papa was President of Y.M.I.A. and Mama held two jobs for the Y.W.M.I.A. I know one was the treasurer because the top drawer on the left side of Mama’s chiffonier was always locked because it had the mutual money in it.
In the following spring plans were being made for Papa and Mama to go to June Conference in Salt Lake City. Lorena Blackham was going too as she was President of the Y.W.M.I.A. in Moroni. So I was to go to Salt Lake with my parents and then on a Sunday afternoon I could go with Lorena and Monday we went to Moroni. It was always a great time for me when I could visit my beloved ones in Moroni.
Back in Mammoth things were busy in our little home. Papa had received a letter from Box “B,” Salt Lake City, Utah. Do you know what a letter from Box “B” in Salt Lake City meant in those days? Well, anyone that was called on a mission for the L.D.S. Church at that time the letter return was marked Box “B.” Papa had not received a direct call, but they wanted to know about his conditions to return to New Zealand on a mission. He discussed this with his Stake President, Bishop, his brother George, and Grandpa Brown. It seems they all advised him his responsibilities at home were more important. He wrote and told them his involvements. They advised him to let them know when his affairs were in better conditions. He always had this in mind.
Our new addition on our house was finished. Also we had a little stable built for our cow, and a place to store the bailed hay and sacks of bran we fed her. So we moved across the street. We had a much nicer cellar, for the storage we had. My parents bought supplies in the fall by the case, like peas, string beans, tomatoes and corn, 5 gallons honey, 1 gallon molasses, one case crystal white laundry soap, potatoes by the bushel to last the winter, five or six bushels of apples. These came up from Spanish Fork, Uncle George’s boys brought them up.
Saturday night was bath night. We brought in the round galvanized washtub for this event. We tried to get the younger children bathed before suppertime. We always had to heat extra water on the top of the range. Two or three of the smaller children bathed in the same water, just adding more hot water. After the children were done then it was my turn, then Mama Hales and then Papa.
My parents had a very large swing built between the two houses, the one where we lived and the one to the east where I was born. We enjoyed this very much as did the neighbor children for blocks around.
November 30, 1908 brought a new baby to our home. He was named Leo Philander Hales. Leo, after one of papa’s missionary companions, Leo Bird and Philander, after Grandpa Brown (Mama’s father). He was a big baby weighing 11 pounds.
I always enjoyed each new baby and took motherly interest and care of the other brothers and children. When my oldest brother Brown went to school, I was so nervous and afraid something would happen to him I would spend most of my recess finding him. Then I wanted him to come and sit on my lap or at my side on the schoolhouse steps. He stood it so long then came home and rebelled against me. So I was told to leave him alone and let him play with the other little boys.
In the early part of December 1908 the Grand Central Mine, where my father worked, closed down very suddenly. It was not a strike or any problem with the workers or management. They just had too many train cars loaded at the smelter in Murray and they were waiting until the smelter caught up.
My father was a very ambitious man and hard working, so he set off immediately to seek employment at the other mines in the Mammoth area but there were no jobs available. After a week he went over two different mountain ranges to the Knightville area and got a job at the Iron Blossom Mine. It was the graveyard shift. He started to work at 11:00 P.M., an eight-hour shift with one-half hour for lunch. It took more than two hours to walk there and the same to walk home. Oh how times have changed.
It seemed we all felt depressed with this job, it really intruded on our family life. Papa would not be home from work in the mornings when I left for school, and he left early in the evenings, as there was always new snow to make his path through.
Time went on, and it was New Year’s morning, 1909. We had our breakfast and the work was all done. Mama was getting very nervous. She said to me several times, “Papa is always home before this time,” but we waited and waited. About 11:00 A.M. a man came to our back door and was holding papa up. Papa’s head was bandaged and his face was scratched and bruised. He was very white. Papa introduced the Superintendent of the Mine to mama and he just caught papa as he fainted. After they had put papa to bed, the superintendent told mama there had been an accident at the mine. Some of the overhead timbers had broken, and papa was hit by them. The doctor had taken care of him. He also told mama that they wanted to carry papa into the house but papa wouldn’t let them. He said his wife was not too well, she just had a young baby and he did not want to upset her more than necessary.
Papa was always very kind and considerate of mama, and she was having her children rather close, most of them less than two years between them. This is the way mama wanted it because she was in her thirties when she was married and she wanted a family.
Papa was not able to go to work any more in the month of January. He had some bad gashes on his head and neck, and his shoulders were affected too. He had much pain especially when he tried to stand up straight. By the time papa was able to go to work the Grand Central Mine was opened and there Papa did not work underground.
In the school year 1909-1910 Lorena Blackham, one of Mama Blackham’s girls, came to Mammoth to teach school. She came for two reasons, one to be near me and the other reason was they paid the teachers more money than in Moroni or Sanpete County. She lived at our house and we all enjoyed her so very much. She was truly a real member of the family. She took over all the main cleaning of the house, which was wonderful for me because that used to be my responsibility because Mama Hales was a dressmaker and always busy sewing. My new assignment on Saturday was just the kitchen. Lorena would clean all the other rooms and was still finished long before I was. Each morning before school she had the rest of the house cleaned up. I was to get the dishes washed and the kitchen floor swept before school and deliver the milk to the neighbors that took milk from us. We sold five quarts at night but only two or three quarts in the morning, as we needed more for our family use in the daytime.
Mama and Lorena did many things together like sleigh riding, swinging, and planning all sorts of things. Lorena was to be married the following summer. She was so jolly and such good company and such a great organizer.
Summer came all too soon. Lorena left Mammoth the last of May and was married in the Manti Temple June 10, 1910, to Isaac M. Draper. He was a good man, very quiet. He made her a fine husband and father to her children.
When Doris and I went to visit her in her first home, she had cushions on the front porch, which we were to sit on, and in front of us was a washtub full of gooseberries. We were to pick off the two ends and then put them in other containers. Have you ever picked over gooseberries?
Well, boy it is a tedious job, though she paid us five cents a quart for our labor. She always put some play in her work projects. We didn’t finish the job.
In the fall of the year 1910 we were expecting a new baby at our home. This event took place October 14, 1910 a beautiful baby girl. We were all so thrilled. My parents decided to name her Betsy Lorena. I said “Oh, don’t name her Betsy, if you do she will die.” My father said, “Tut-tut” (that was one of his expressions). The baby was named Betsy after my mother and Lorena for the great love we all had for her in our family.
This darling baby blessed our home with her presence just five weeks and three days. She was sick about one week with pneumonia. My father was on night shifts again and Mama got little rest. Thursday night our neighbor and friend the Relief Society President, Sister Mary Larson, was in bed or getting ready for bed when she was told by the Spirit to come over to our home. We had sickness and needed help and she came over immediately. She knocked on our back door. When mama answered the door she said, “Sister Hales, you have sickness.” Mama said “Yes, our baby is very ill.” She said “I came to help” After she had been there a few minutes she said “Now tell me all that needs to be done for the care of the baby, then you must go to bed and get some rest.” This Mama did. When Papa came home about 2:30 A.M., Sister Larson said, “Hial, I don’t think this baby is going to get well.” Papa said “What makes you think that?” “Well, there has been a lady here tonight for her.” As she described her, papa said that was Nida’s mother. He told her there was an enlarged picture of my mother Betsy and her sister on the wall in the room where mama was asleep. When Mama Hales came out of the room Sister Larson looked at the picture and told papa it was the lady on the right. Papa said “that is Nida’s mother.”
Early in the morning I was awakened by mama crying, and as I came out of my bedroom she came over to me, put her arms around me and said “She has my baby and I have hers” meaning me.
Do you think my mother Betsy would be in our home and not come in my room to see me???
The baby was buried in Spanish Fork Cemetery. My parents bought two cemetery lots there and that is where they are buried.
We always had a lot of snow in Mammoth. So my parents bought me a new green winter coat when we were in Spanish Fork. Mama hemmed it up a good four inches when we were home again. We always bought clothing, like coats, to last three years, but this green coat faded so badly that I just wore it two years.
In the fall of 1910 papa had an accident at the Grand Central Mine. He completely tore off one of his big toe nails. That was truly a painful thing to have happen to one, remember there were no pain pills in those days. My parents got the message immediately that the time had come for them to move from Mammoth. They were very busy discussing things, writing many letters to Uncle George and mama’s parents. They had a buyer for the farm they had bought and paid for at Lake Point as papa wanted a larger farm.
There was to be a land sale by the U.S. Government down in Sevier County, Utah. They called the place Vermillion because the soil is red. It is located a few miles north of Richfield. Papa sent his brother George Hales down to this sale as he thought he knew more about land than papa did. The land sale was over when Uncle George got there by train about noon. It had started early in the morning.
Papa and Uncle George had a cousin that lived in Richfield. She was Eliza Ann Ogilive Coon, and her mother was Eliza Ann Hales. The Coons were a prominent family in Richfield and well thought of. Sister Coon’s son, William, was bishop of the Third Ward in Richfield. He worked in one of the stores, another son was a schoolteacher. So Uncle George went to Richfield and found a 40-acre farm three miles south of Richfield on the west side of the highway that he purchased for us. Unfortunately, it was covered with snow so he didn’t get a good look at the soil. It turned out that they had not been farming it right and the soil was becoming too alkali which made farming there very difficult.
We moved to our new farm after school was out. My father had gone a couple months earlier as he needed to get a house built on the farm and the spring crops put in. Papa owned a team of horses in Spanish Fork. He bought a new wagon and started for Richfield.
Mama and the family stayed in Mammoth until the later part of May. Papa had made arrangements for half space in a railroad boxcar to take our furniture and belongings to Richfield. I remember the cost was $85.00. That was a big price to me in those days but my parents had checked with different teamsters and decided this was the best.
Mama and I truly did work getting things packed. Papa had gotten barrels for the dishes and things, also different size boxes for them to figure out what went in them. I can remember how Mama and I worked getting the linoleum up from the floor: the two rooms were inlaid and they had been glued down to the floor. Inlaid linoleum has to be rolled with the right side out and they are very heavy. The linoleum in my bedroom was just regular and that was not bad. We had no problem with the carpet.
The day before we left Mammoth, mama had a terrible sick headache. She had to go over to the hospital to see Dr. Steele. He gave her some white pills she took every two hours, and they looked like aspirin tablets. I think she was just under too much pressure.
We stayed a few days in Provo, also a few days in Moroni. We arrived in Richfield in the first part of June 1911. I was almost 12 years old when we moved. Farming in Richfield was anything but easy for the Hales family. There were no buildings on the farm, and everything had to be done from scratch. No electric lights. No culinary water was near this place, and water had to be hauled one and a half miles from Central, a little town south of us, for drinking and cooking. The irrigation canal that ran by the house furnished water for washing clothes and other tasks. It was a much more difficult life for us compared to how we lived in Mammoth. The soil on this farm was heavy red clay. It really took work to raise a garden at first, but with adding sand and manure it was more workable.
At first we did not own a buggy or carriage to ride in. Wherever we went, we had to go in our wagon, even though it was a new one. We used it going to Sunday School or meetings or shopping.
The first year in Sevier County we went to Central to school. Central was a little town of about two hundred people about two miles south on the main highway between Richfield and Monroe, Utah. There were the three of us to go to school, my brothers Brown and Reed and myself. We walked two miles each way. There were no school buses in those days.
. I was not happy with the school at Central. They had three grades in each room and I was in the sixth grade. There was no central heating but a big pot bellied stove stood in each room. We were either too hot or too cold. The next year I went to Richfield School and had to walk three miles to and from school, but I enjoyed school. The small children continued to go to Central School for several more years.
My father had warned me about riding with men I did not know. One morning a surrey with four men in it stopped and asked my brother Reed and me if we would like a ride. I looked the men over and as I did not know any of them I said no. But Reed said he would like to ride. The gentleman questioned him as to why I would not ride with them. Reed told them that Papa had told me not to ride with “tough looking characters.” I did not know the men were Brother Robert Young, President of the Sevier Stake, his brother and two men from the High Council. Brother Young was later President of the Salt Lake Temple. He told my father the story and I never did live it down.
While we lived in Richfield our home was blessed with two more children. Thora Tryphena Hales was born November 8, 1912. Then Don Gillette came two years later July 21, 1914.
We had a couple of neighbors living about one mile from us on their farms. Their names were Heber Ogden and family, and they had children about the same age as we had. We enjoyed them so much. Also his brother Leonard Ogden and his wife and two small children. They were good L.D.S. families and belonged to the same ward. In those days they were talking about home evenings, and in the summertime we would get together about once a month for our home evening program. We did not always have a lesson hour, but we sang hymns, played games, had refreshments and had fun together.
As we lived on the farm, we had home evening almost every night. The smaller children were put to bed and my parents would take turns reading to us from good books like the lives of the leaders of the church, church history, etc. I was very impressed with the life of Wilford Woodruff. We took church magazines such as The Era, Young Women’s Journal, and the Instructor for Sunday School. We also took the Deseret News but it just came twice a week. We had to go three miles to get our paper and mail, because there were no deliveries.
We were members of the Richfield First Ward and went there regularly each Sunday. Saturday we would do our cooking for Sunday. Sunday morning we would go to Sunday School as a family. Then we would go eat our boxed lunch in our new two-seated Spalding buggy. We would go back to Sacrament meeting at 2:00 P.M., which lasted until 4:00 P.M.
I taught Sunday School from the time I was fourteen years old. I did not get to attend M.I.A. meetings very often as they were held on Tuesday evening and that was too far for a girl to go alone in a horse and buggy. Once in a while, if there was something special at Mutual, I would go with the neighbor girl, Velien Ogden. Her mother would go too. Then when we would get to their house, I would have to walk about a mile and a half through the fields to our house, climbing through fences. I did not dare walk on the highway. Sometimes I would get in the mud and it would be 11:00 P.M. when I got home, then I would change my clothes and mix bread before I could go to bed. It would be almost midnight by the time I got to bed. I would be very tired the next morning when I left the house at 7:30 A.M. to walk to school. I had class at 8:15 A.M.
Washday in most organized homes was done on Monday or Tuesday. It is so different from the washday of today I must tell you about it. You arose extra early on washday. You put the wash boiler filled with cold water on the front part of the range, covering the two front stove hobs. The boiler had a lid put on the top of it. As the water began to warm in the boiler “lye” was added to break the hard water so it would gather to the top of the boiler in a thick white substance, which you must skim off before it, boiled. After the water was skimmed, you put some of the water in your washtub that sat on a bench. You would always start with the whites. You put them on a washboard and rub your clothes up and down on the corrugated surface. While you were washing them you rub homemade soap on them.
When we had a washer that had a round wheel that turned at the side of the washer, so after we had put the boiler water on the first batch of clothes, we then filled the boiler 3/4 full of water and treated as we did before until the water came to a boiling point, to boil the white clothes in. All white clothes were boiled back then in the same water. After they were boiled about 10 minutes, you removed them from the boiler with a round stick, like a broom handle, about 36 inches long. It was called a clothes stick and never had paint on it. Children were always in the other room when the clothes were removed from the boiler. When they were removed, they were put into a tub of cold water and rinsed very well. Then we put them through the wringer, which was fastened on the galvanized tub. They went into a tub of cold bluing water. After rinsing in this water they were wrung out again and put into the clothesbasket, ready to be hung on the clothesline.
Hanging clothes was an art in itself. We would hang all big items together, as sheets then table cloths, pillow cases, all white shirts, baby towels, hand towels and dish towels. Then light items, then medium colored, then dark work shirts, overalls and last were socks. Even though we washed them in the washer we also had to wash socks in the board and turn them inside out and get clean water to rinse them in. More than once my mother came out and helped me hang the clothes right. We always used some of the wash water to scrub the “toilet” out house.
You could not buy hardly any prepared foods, meats, soups or bakery goods. The first thing we had in the way of prepared food was the soda cracker. If you did not have enough bread for the evening meal, you made baking powder biscuits or Johnny cakes out of corn meal.
There were no ready to wear shops for women of any kind. We did our own dressmaking or had our own special dressmaker. We could buy some items for men like overalls and work shirts, which came in dark blue only. Suits and coats for men were mostly tailor-made.
My father always taught we were never to go to bed with any hard feelings toward each other. I was a good-sized teen-aged girl when my father came and carried me out of my bed in my nightgown. “Susannah,” as he called me, “we need to talk more about this matter, you don’t feel right about it or you would not have gone to bed without a good night kiss.” Everything was soon straightened out. I kissed my parents and went to bed.
My father and all of us worked very hard to make this farm a success. I worked out in the fields with Papa all day, when not in school, and then would come home and helped cook and clean the house and take care of the children. When it was a school day, I worked before I left and again when I got home both in the fields and in the home. Mama Hales was always sewing trying to earn a little money for the family, to make ends meet. Several times when I was out working with Papa and neighbor men would come by, and they would say, “You’re working her too hard Hial, she’s a girl.” But I was the oldest and the biggest, so Papa needed my help. Brown was five years younger than I and when we moved to Richfield he was only seven years old. Reed was a year younger than Brown. So they were too little for any of the heavy work.
Papa hauled manure from all over the valley trying to make it more productive. He rotated different crops like sugar beets, alfalfa, alfalfa seed, wheat, oats, barley, corn and peas. There was never a man that worked more diligently. For five years we all worked ourselves nearly to death and we couldn’t make the farm produce enough. Tests showed our farm had turned alkaline, and the land below our farm grew nothing, just white alkali all over the top of the soil. Our crops were almost a complete failure the fall of 1916. That winter Papa secured work near Marysvale Utah, called Alunite, which was a mining camp. With his team of horses and wagon he hauled ore from the mountain nearby to a mill for making ammunition. This was during World War 1 and the Government needed the Alunite to make powder for the ammunition. Papa had sought this work, as our financial condition had not paid the taxes and interest on money we had borrowed from the bank. This work brought the needed relief. Come spring Papa decided to sell our farm with permission for us to still live in the house and use the out buildings. Papa would stay on and work then and get bills paid. (I don’t think I told you this farm cost more than the other farm we sold and that was the money we owed the bank.)
I was not able to go to high school in 1916-1917, my senior year, because of finances. In those days you paid a tuition to go to high school plus buying books and the fees for different classes. I had been able to go my first two years of high school because of my dear departed mother, Betsy. She had sheep in what they called the Moroni Co-op herd, and the number of sheep couldn’t increase in number so they would sell the extra sheep, plus the wool, and the money was put in the Zions Savings Bank in Salt Lake City, Utah, for me. Over the years since her death, it had accumulated until it was enough to cover two years of high school. She also had shares in the Moroni Co-op store that paid dividends twice a year that took care of my clothes with exception of my shoes and coats all the years I was growing up.
I had tried to get work but was not able to do so. I had a part promise of a job in a store in Richfield as one of the girls was getting married. Then one of the stockholder’s daughters decided she wanted to work. In the spring and early summer I did get work blocking beets for some of our neighbors.
June 28, 1917, Ramona Morley, Nellie and Tom Morley’s oldest daughter, died in a Salt Lake City at the L.D.S. Hospital. She was not quite ten years old. She had an enlarged spleen and they could do nothing for her. I had just finished working for some neighbor blocking beets and my brothers did the thinning. So Mama gave me permission to go to Moroni for the funeral. At this time Moroni was the busiest town in Sanpete County. They were in the process of building a sugar factory. There were many people working there from different parts of the state and some from out of state. This made a great difference in the business conditions of the town.
I had just turned eighteen years old in June 1917. With my father’s condition on the farm, I thought it was really time for me to get to work. While I was in Moroni I asked my Uncle Andrew Anderson, who was the President and Manager of the Moroni Co-op Store, if he would let me know when there was an opening for a sales lady and give me a chance. He said he would. I went back to Richfield with a lighter heart. In a couple of weeks I received a letter from Uncle Andrew saying there would be an opening in the Moroni Co-op Store August 10. If I wanted the Job I was to let him know at once, which I did. Oh I was so thrilled. I was riding in clouds. To think I was going to be back in my Mama Blackham and Uncle John’s home was a dream coming true.
Now I loved my father and Mama Hales and brothers and sisters very dearly, but there had always been this longing in my heart to return to Moroni to live. My father was concerned with me going to Moroni to live with Uncle John and Mama Blackham as he said that made one more person in their family to feed and Uncle John was not well. He was suffering a great deal of pain with rheumatism in his arms and legs. I talked to Mama Blackham about this and told her I would pay board but she said no.
I think I better explain who Uncle Andrew Anderson is. He is no relative of mine, but his wife, Aunt Molley, is Mama Blackham’s sister, also a sister to Uncle Jim Larson. My mother worked in the Moroni Co-op store before her marriage. I was always treated the same as their other nieces by Mama Blackham’s side of the family.
Just the week before I was to leave Richfield I was in the Post Office. The Postmaster’s daughter, who I went to school with, came out from the back of the office and said “Nida, they are giving the Civil Service Examination next week, we think it would be good for you to take it.” I told her that I had a job, and that I was going the 8th of August, but I surely did appreciate their interest in me. Before her father was Postmaster, he used to work in the office of the Sugar Factory in Elsinore, Utah. We would pass each other on the road about 7:30 A.M., me walking north to Richfield, him driving in a buggy south to his work. He always greeted me in a friendly manner.
I left Richfield with a heavy heart August 8, 1917. I was going to stay overnight in Manti with Nellie and Tom Morley and family. I would then take the Sanpete train the next morning to Moroni. Tom Morley was the County Clerk. I was surprised when Tom met me at the train. He said Nellie and the children had gone on the train that morning to Moroni. It was uncle John’s birthday and they were having a family dinner. There was a car bus that would leave about 1:30 P.M. to take us to Moroni so we could be there for the dinner too. It was just a two-seater Ford car and just north of Ephraim we had a flat tire. That was in the days when we just stopped and took the tire off, repaired it, put it back on, pumped it up by hand and went on our way. We had a delicious chicken dinner with all the trimmings.
Deep in my heart I was very sad to leave Papa, Mama Hales and the children, particularly the little ones. Thora was not yet five years old and Don had just turned three. I always made such a fuss over them. All of my brothers and sisters were very dear to me and Mama Hales was a choice spiritual woman and I love her dearly. It is a sad life to have two families that you love so much; it is a hard adjustment to have to make. It seemed in my life I always had something to feel sad about.
I reported to work Friday, August 10, 1917 and enjoyed it very much. It was surprising to me the many people who knew who I was though I did not know them. They would talk to me about my mother, Betsy, and tell me how she was such a sweet, loving and caring women. Two of them told me that my mother was their ideal of a woman. The one was Mary Jensen Symes and I have forgotten the other. This meant so much to me because my father would never talk about my mother. I suppose it was too painful for him but it hurt me very much. Over the years my mother’s side of the family had told me about her, so I knew many things. But hearing strangers tell me how wonderful she was really made me feel good.
Business was good; it kept us running to take care of people so they did not need to wait to be served. All were anxious to see the sugar factory finished, and in use.
I thought of my father often and my family in Richfield. It was such a difficult life there for them. I was very glad when I learned that my father had moved his family from Richfield to Alunite, a mining camp south of Marysville.
Life in Moroni was wonderful for me. I loved the association of family and friends there. Doris was the only child at home and we had a wonderful time together. Of course I attended all my church meetings.
In August of 1918 I was very desirous of having my Patriarchal Blessing. So I wrote to our Patriarch of the North Sanpete Stake in Mount Pleasant telling him of my desires. He wrote back saying he would meet me at the Fountain Green Chapel September 15, 1918 at 8:30 A.M. and give me the blessing before the Stake Conference Meeting. My friend Ira Huggins, who is now a lawyer in Ogden, was the scribe for us.
My Patriarchal Blessing surely did increase my testimony “That Our Heavenly Father truly lives and hears and answers prayers.” I was told that my life was acceptable before the Lord, it said and for this you have prayed, and the Lord has heard and answered your prayers. This truly did open my eyes for I knew that no one knew this and the desires of my heart but me and my Father in Heaven.
We did not have family prayers at Mama Blackham’s home; everyone had their own individual prayers. As I had always been used to them in my father’s home I did truly miss them very much so whenever I was going out on a date I would go upstairs and kneel by my bed and pray for strength to do right and be protected from harm.
As a young girl several times when my father and I were alone while going to Richfield and he talked to me very plainly about the facts of life. He said he would rather have them bring me home dead than to have me lose my virtue. I was to guard that more than my life. This was a very powerful statement to make to one’s daughter.
They had public dances twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday evenings. They were well attended by many young people from all over the county.
I had many nice young men friends that took me out on dates. I went with Otis Bradley rather often. He worked at the Co-op too. By the fall of 1918, a little over a year since I’d come to Moroni, I was going with him steady and we planned to be married the following spring.
Early in the fall of 1918 we had the influenza epidemic all over the nation. People were dying very soon after getting sick. They closed all public gatherings like school, church meetings, picture shows, and dances. The stores however stayed open. At first we wore masks made of a sterile gaze, they were 3"X 6" with tape strings on all four corners. They tied on top of the head and the back of the neck. Later we stopped wearing the masks and just tried to be careful. We had many of the young people dying in our area.
The ban on gatherings was taken off by the middle of March. The Manti Temple had been closed for months and this was the first week it was open again. So William Otis Bradley and I went to the Manti Temple and were married on March 12, 1919.
The first night we were married, before retiring I got on my knees and said my prayers. Then Otis knelt down and said I didn’t have to pray alone. But I always had to take the lead and be the mouth. Oh how important it is for men who hold the priesthood to realize the important part they should play in their homes.
I know that Otis had not had the spiritual training in his home that I had. His mother had died when he was fairly young so his father and sisters tried to help raise him. He was the only boy in the family and they had spoiled him a little.
In those days they did not have the young men come to Priesthood meetings and the older men, the Elders and Seventies took care of administering and passing the Sacrament.
Otis came from good pioneer stock, his great-grandfather, George Washington Bradley, was the first Bishop of Moroni and the town president for eighteen years.
Our first home was in the front part of the James M Christensen home. He and his wife, Elizabeth Love (who was a Bradley) both died leaving three children. Her sister Mary Ellen came with her daughter Miriam and took care of the children. I called her Aunt Nell Cooley. I loved Aunt Nell dearly. She was wonderful company, a very good homemaker and a real friend to me.
Our first child, Ralph Otis Bradley was born February 24, 1920. When they first put my son in my arms, oh, the feeling of responsibility I felt tingling in every part of my body. I knew much was required of me to teach this little one so recently come from the mansions of our Heavenly Father so that he would be able to return to Him.
I was sick with a bad cold or flu when I began labor. It was a very long and hard labor and I even passed out several times. It started Saturday and Ralph wasn’t born until Tuesday evening at 6:00 P.M. Dr. Linebaugh was my doctor and he had to use instruments to get Ralph out. He had a difficult time getting the afterbirth out also; he said it had grown to my back.
After this I got a bad infection and had a high fever for more than six weeks. They would not let me have anything to eat except a couple of tablespoons of water or fruit juice every two hours. They kept water bags filled with ice on me. Mama Blackham, Doris and Leona took turns taking care of me, my baby and home. For many weeks our relatives and friends stayed up nights with us.
We had a bad time with Ralph, he was a big-framed baby and I was too sick to breast-feed him. We were starving him because no one knew much about feeding babies with bottles. When we tried to give him more food, it did not agree with him. I was so afraid we would lose him.
The latter part of May they took us up to Mama Blackham’s. It had been so much walking for everyone to get out to where we lived. They also thought the change would be good for me. Otis came at night to stay. Leona took complete charge of Ralph, her husband, Elmo Irons, was on a mission in the Eastern States and she was living at her parents home while he was away. We moved back to our home after a couple of months.
I had never bathed Ralph until he was five months old. He was a good baby after we got food to agree with him. I had a bad heart after my sickness and he would lie on the bed with me many hours of the day. At one time the doctor said it was not safe for me to walk across the room.
When I was expecting Betsy, the doctor said I could not be pregnant again. He said that after an infection at childbirth it was very seldom a woman ever had another child. I told him I had one baby and I knew I was going to have another.
On the 5th of May 1921 our kind Heavenly Father blessed our home with a darling baby girl that we named Betsy after my wonderful mother. As sick as I was when Ralph was born I came nearer death’s door with Betsy. Right after she was born, I had a bad hemorrhage, Dr. Dice ran from our home and returned a few minutes later and gave me a shot of some kind. I had blacked out and Otis told Mama Blackham that I was dead. All day they had the foot of my bed raised way up so I was almost standing on my head.
I am so thankful for Betsy. She has been such a joy and comfort through my life. Not more than Ralph, but when I think that few people get a second baby after a severe infection, I feel we have truly been blessed. I was able to nurse Betsy and this made Ralph very jealous.
Otis left the Moroni Co-op and went to work for People’s Sugar Company. There he boiled sugar all day. He liked that kind of work but it was seasonal. We bought a building lot from Aunt Eliza Bradley just one block west of the Moroni Co-op between his father’s home and Eliza Bradley’s lot. Otis then went to see my Uncle Alma Blackham about a two-room lumber house he had on his farm that was not being used. A deal was finally made and Otis had the house moved up on the lot. We moved into our own little home. We were making preparations to build another room on the back. A basement was dug and a foundation with a floor on it was built but that was all that was ever done. We didn’t even have an outhouse of our own but had to use Grandpa Bradley’s next door.
The following spring Otis was laid off at the sugar factory so he came to Salt Lake and got work as a meat cutter. He had learned the trade from Lawrence Larson in the Moroni Co-op. After he found work I came with Ralph and Betsy and we rented a furnished house at 245 Hampton Avenue across the street from Nellie Morley’s family. Late in the summer the sugar factory in Moroni contacted Otis and wanted him to come back to Moroni and boil sugar for them in the fall. He accepted the offer.
I think we were just homesick enough to be glad to be in Moroni. But after Thanksgiving we were out of work again. Otis went back to Salt Lake but could not get work. So he went to McGill, Nevada and was able to get work. We followed by train in January and stayed one night at his Aunt Mayme Bradley’s home. The night we arrived it was very cold so Aunt Mayme made me some hot postum to drink. But when Ralph saw the dark hot drink set in front of me he slid off his chair onto the floor and cried out, “Oh mother please don’t drink the coffee!” We couldn’t convince him it wasn’t coffee so I didn’t take a drop.
We didn’t stay in McGill very long because the fumes from the smelter of the copper ore were very harmful to our little daughter, Betsy. She could not breathe and in the nighttime was worse. So my children and I left their father in McGill, and we returned to our little house in Moroni.
The first part of October 1925 we moved to Sparks Nevada, just three miles north of Reno. Otis had gone in September and had found work with the Safeway Stores. There was a branch of the Church there that the children and I enjoyed. I had not been there a month when they put me in as a counselor in the Primary, even before our records had come. I also taught Sunday School. When Ralph went to school I worked in the PTA. The last year we were there I was the Secretary.
My father died suddenly May 7, 1927. He had appendicitis, the appendix had broken open when they operated. Before they had antibiotics, if your appendix ruptured there was not much they could do for you. My father and Mama Hales and the family had been living in Provo for some time. The children and I went home to Moroni for the funeral.
When we came back to Sparks, my husband was head over the Safeway’s large market in Reno, Nevada. We moved to Reno but did not like it. Ralph would be going to school, and it was too far for him to walk. So we moved back to Sparks where he would be able to walk to school. We did not have a car at the time and the small town was much more convenient. There was a street car that went every 30 minutes to Reno and one that came from there at about the half hour. It stopped just a half block from our house Sparks and one block from the Safeway in Reno and the fare was very reasonable.
Early the following year my oldest brother, Brown, was called on a mission to San Jose, California. In the first part of May I received a telegram from Mama Hales telling me that Brown was very sick and asked if I could go to Garden Grove and take care of him. I talked this over with Otis and he consented. One of our good LDS friends and neighbors offered to take care of Ralph and Betsy. I was gone for two weeks. Brother McMurrin, the Mission President of the California Mission, came to see Brown and he had made such great improvement the last week I was there that he asked if I could take him home with me to recuperate. Sparks and Reno were part of the California Mission then. I told him I would write my husband to get his consent, and he said, “Better still we will send a telegram.” I wrote the telegram and he sent it. Otis replied by telegram giving his approval.
We went by train in the Pullman car so Brown could be lying down in bed all of the trip. I had sent another telegram to Otis as to the day and time our train would arrive in Reno and to meet us there with the car and a wheelchair.
When we arrived with no Otis to meet us, I truly had an arrow stab me in the heart. We waited 30 minutes, then I left Brown and I walked over to the Safeway Store one block away but he was not there. The station agent was getting anxious to leave and lock the waiting room and put their wheelchair away. I did not have money to pay for a cab to take us to Sparks, besides I had no key to get in the house.
After an hour he finally drove up. I was so anxious to see my little children, but it was too late-I did not get to see them that night.
Oh it haunts me yet as I see their pinched little faces. So pale and thin and sad, their daddy had only been to see them once while I was gone. He brought them a sack of candy but what they needed was love and the knowledge that things would yet be all right for them again. Oh it felt so wonderful to hold my children in my arms again. I hoped I would never have to be away from them again, they were so choice.
After two weeks President McMurrin came to our home to see how Brown was doing. He was doing well enough to be moved to the missionary home in the rear of the Sparks Branch Chapel. I was very concerned about Brown but I knew it was much better for our home conditions.
That night Otis informed me that he had asked for a transfer at work from Reno to Santa Barbara, California. He told me that the children and I were to go to Moroni to live. He said that he was not the man I married and he needed one year to straighten himself up in. I cried and told him how much we needed him, and that he needed us too. But he said NO and that he would go ALONE.
So early Thursday morning July 5, 1928 he left for Santa Barbara, even before the children were up. Ralph was seven years old and Betsy was just six.
I had planned that I would stay a month or two in Sparks to see how my brother Brown got along, but Sunday I was advised by the priesthood not to do so. They said he would be taken care of properly and that I should plan to leave as soon as possible.
I did pay my tithing on every penny that Otis had left with me. I was very happy to have my name on the tithing records of the Sparks Nevada Branch before I left, as there were several times in my teaching when I had a very guilty conscience. You cannot teach with the Spirit what you cannot live!
It took a little time to get things packed and crated and shipped to Moroni. We arrived in Salt Lake City on July 21 and stayed at Aunt Nellie’s over the 24th. Then my family from Provo Bench came and picked us up. My mother, brothers and sisters were anxious to know about Brown.
Ralph and Betsy enjoyed our stay in Provo so much, and my brothers and sisters made such a fuss over them, they were still the only grandchildren. They talked me into staying until the latter part of August to help with the preparations for the wedding of my sister Iona to Le Grand Jasmin.
I guess it is good that I can’t describe to you my suffering. I never talked about my problems, I just suffered alone. My brothers and sisters were so good to me, if they were going anywhere in the car they insisted that I go with them. I talked very little, I just prayed that Otis would come back to us.
We were back in Moroni in time for the children to start school. We moved into the home we used to live in next to Grandpa Bradley, just he and Beth there now. Mama Blackham was not too well so she was living at Lorena’s, and they surely treated her like a queen.
I was active in Primary and other church meetings.
The work in California was not satisfactory to my husband. So he left there and went to Portland, Oregon. We received $20.00 per month from Otis, of course my $2.00 tithing came out first. It took real planning to have this reach to all our needs.
The day before Christmas the money from Otis still hadn’t come so I had to go to Grandpa Bradley and ask if he could lend me $5.00 so I could buy some little thing for my children for Christmas. He did and I paid him back.
My next heartbreak came the May 1, 1929. I received a parcel post package from Otis. When I opened it there were his garments and some church books he bought from the missionaries as they had been trying to activate him. I felt as if heaven and earth had fallen on me.
“Press on - if the way be full of sorrow, weary not, weary not.”
The later part of July, Nellie Blackham Morley came to see us. When she saw that our cupboards were empty and we were living on a few onions. She said, “Nida come to Salt Lake and live with me. I will take care of your children while you work.” She said, “Remember the Liberty school is just across the street and half a block away. You will be better off than here.” This really took me off my feet. My decision was rushed because it had been six weeks since I had heard from Otis. I had to go to Grandpa Bradley again and I told him I had not heard from Otis in six weeks. I told him I was out of flour and had nothing to feed my children. He spent two days getting Otis on the phone. Otis wanted to know what I had done with the money in the Sparks Bank. We had $500.00 in the bank, but it was in Otis and my name and I would not touch it.
Before I decided to go to work in Salt Lake, I went to see Otis in Portland, Oregon. I left my children in Moroni with Leona and Mama Blackham. I wanted to see if there was any way we could work things out. As I told him, I did not want to go to work and have him say I had broken up our home. But his heart was someplace else and at this point he didn’t care what I did.
On the way home I stayed one day in Salt Lake making plans for our move with Nellie. We decided to have a furnace put in her home and have a large bedroom made in the basement. That was the room I chose for us. It gave us more privacy not only for me but for Aunt Nellie and her family.
My dear Doris was living in Salt Lake, and she had married Clyde Hiller, a wonderful man. She had not been blessed with any children yet so she was working at Auerbach. When she heard I was coming to live with her sister, Nellie, and that I needed work, she went to the Personal Director at Auerbach. She told them what a hard working, responsible person I was, and that I had two small children to support so they gave me a job. It was not easy to find a good job at that time. I started in the basement selling socks.
Nellie was so good for me, she could laugh and had such a happy cheerful spirit. Yet she suffered much pain with her rheumatoid arthritis. Her hands and feet were so swollen and out of shape. But even with her arthritis she was a very good housekeeper. We all had our work to do and we all did it. We got along very well together. It was a great blessing for us to live there. It was also a blessing for Nellie because her husband had passed away and the rent I paid helped her make ends meet. All her older children had jobs and helped support the family.
There were eleven of us when we had our meals. We had a breakfast alcove that was long and narrow with a bench on each side of the table. The youngest ones went in first. Vic sat on one end and Nellie on the other.
One of the first years we were there Aunt Lorena and Uncle Isaac’s family came to have Thanksgiving with us. John and Zora also came. We had beds all over the house, but it was a great family party.
Not long after we moved in with Nellie I received a letter from Otis saying he wanted a divorce. I had always prayed that he would come back to us. But now I knew that it wasn’t going to happen. My heart was truly broken.
It was good to be in one place for a while, we had moved eight times by the time Betsy was eight years old.
Of course we were active in the Church. We lived in the Liberty Ward, Liberty Stake. I would go to the Temple about twice a month. Then I was called to be a Stake Missionary, this took up two nights a week. I was also called to go to the Temple once a week. After a year they wanted us to go two nights a week. This is when my little daughter Betsy brought me down to earth. She said to Nellie, “Mama will be home tonight.” Nellie said “No she has such and such a meeting.” Betsy began to cry “Oh, isn’t she going to be home with us anymore at night.” When Nellie told me this, it really broke my heart. I went immediately to see Brother A. Mers who was in charge of the Stake missionary work. He tried to talk me out of it but I said nothing is more important than my children. I have to be away from them in the day and I am not going to be away from them at night. I did continue to go to the Temple one night a week, that did keep me on the straight and narrow path.
Twice a year I would take Ralph and Betsy to the Tabernacle to listen to Conference. We went to the Sunday Session as I had to work on Saturday. We would sit about three rows back right in the middle. We had to be there very early to get those seats. Then we would eat our homemade bread and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch right in our seats so we wouldn’t lose our seats for the afternoon session. I would tell them about the Prophet, Heber J. Grant, and Apostles so when they spoke Ralph and Betsy would know them. Of course they loved to hear J. Golden Kimball speak, especially if he slipped and said a swear word.
Vic, Nellie’s oldest boy, got married and moved to California. Then each summer Nellie would take Mary and Melroy down there for a six-week visit. What was I going to do? I could not work and have my children running the streets. It was then my Mama Hales came to our rescue. My children went to Orem to work on the farm and stay with her, and I went down almost every weekend to be with them. This was another heartache for the three of us to be separated. I could scream now when I think of it.
When Ralph got older he didn’t want to go to Mama Hales farm to work for the summer.
He asked if he could stay home if he found a job. I said he could even if they didn’t pay him anything but he must work hard and not be running around. That’s exactly what happened; he worked all summer and they didn’t give him a dime.
We lived at Nellie’s for eight years, her children were marrying and leaving. Nellie’s arthritis was so bad that she was right down in bed before we left. A couple from Moroni moved in to take care of her. That was better, she should not have been alone.
In the spring of 1937, after school was out, we moved into our very own place. It was a furnished apartment at 167 North West Temple in the White Fawn complex. We stayed here about a year. Ralph and Betsy went to West High School and we belonged to the 17th Ward. I continued to work at Auerbach and kept getting promoted to better departments.
Before we moved from Aunt Nellie’s house, they had divided the Ward and we were in the new Ward. They called it the Harvard Ward. They began immediately to make plans to build a chapel and I was assessed $100.00. Aunt Nellie thought this was terrible but I said if the Lord expects me to pay that amount then he would open the way for me to do it. That truly came to pass. After I had made the first payment, Auerbach’s started paying their employees a commission of what they sold. So that’s was how I was able to pay my share on the Harvard Ward Chapel. Now I only had half my assessment paid when we moved, but I went back each month and paid $10.00 until it was paid in full.
My mother, Betsy, had a cousin that lived at 133 North West Temple Duplex Place #3. She wanted us to move into Duplex #4 as it was going to be vacant. Ralph, Betsy and I decided to make the move. We had to buy some furniture but my children were so much happier with our own place. We always kept it very neat and clean and our apartment was always the one they would show when they wanted to fill a vacancy. My children were proud of it and not ashamed to have their friends come there. That is important with young people.
Ralph graduated from West High and went to school at BYU, living at my brother Reed’s home. He had to milk the cows in the morning and then thumb his way into Provo and back each day. He never liked the farm life. Ralph worked getting ads for the school paper and yearbook to pay for his tuition.
Betsy’s senior year at West was very eventful because she was President of the WAG’s (West High Girls Association) and she was Robert Sorbonne’s Hostess for all the military balls. She knit a lot of her dresses so she would have some nice clothes.
The next year both Ralph and Betsy went to BYU. Betsy worked in the faculty cafeteria to pay for her tuition. I found Ralph and Betsy an apartment in the Dean of Women’s house so Ralph didn’t have to stay at the farm again. In the summer’s Betsy would work at ZCMI running one of the elevators. It was a fun job for Betsy because she would model beautiful clothes as well as see everyone in town.
So I was alone again. How I would look at their pictures and cry. I have shed so many tears in my life I am surprised I have not washed myself away.
Ralph went to BYU for three years then he and Mildred Harris were married in the spring of 1941, then they moved to Chicago. He first worked at Sears in the day and in the evenings he sold life insurance. He was the top insurance salesman one year while there. We did so miss Ralph that first summer but oh how we did enjoy each other and Ralph and Betsy’s friends.
Betsy went to BYU for two years then she became engaged to Robert Sorbonne and decided not to go back. She said she wanted to be home with me until she got married. She got a job at Salt Lake Knit in the alteration’s department and she started building her trousseau.
Betsy married Robert Sorbonne on June 25, 1943 in the Salt Lake Temple. They went to Long Beach to live because Bob was going to Dental School at USC. I felt like the world had come to an end for me, but worked on. Betsy and Bob came for Christmas and that revived me for a while.
I began having real problems with my feet and legs. I had to stand all day at work, then after I sat down in the evening I could not get up and get going again.
At conference my closest girlfriend from Richfield High School days called to see me, Vera Chidester Barton and husband Frank Barton. Their oldest son had just left on an LDS mission. They came back the second night wanting me to go with them to North Hollywood, California. They were in the Reality business and wanted me to come live with them and work for them. This way I would be off my feet most of the time. I thought if I was in California I would get to see my Betsy. They came a third night and I guess I was easily influenced and decided to go. Well, I sold my furniture and went to California the early part of May by bus. I thought I would freeze to death with the change in altitude and the dampness in the air. I thought they should give that part of the country back to the Indians. Well the sad part is that when I got down there they wanted me to work Sunday afternoon after I had gone to my church meetings. Then take Wednesday afternoon as my other half day of the Sabbath. That really got to me, I felt I was living a lie, I was going against all that I had lived and taught my children for so many years. I have always believed that you cannot teach what you cannot live. After a several weeks I wrote Doris and told her how unhappy I was. She wrote right back and said to come at once and live with her and Clyde. That night I had the most terrible nightmare. I told Vera the next morning that I had made a bad mistake but I will not live with it. I was on my way to my daughter’s the second of May and then continued home to Salt Lake where I did move in with Doris and Clyde. Thank goodness I got my job back at Auerbach in the drapery department.
Years later I met John Donaldson at church. He would ask me out but I wanted nothing to do with men, so I would turn him down. Finally Doris talked me into going out with him and we slowly started dating regularly. Six months later we were married on November 2, 1951.
John was a widower with two children. Beverly, his oldest, was already married to Bob Miller and they lived in south Salt Lake. Jack, his teenage son, still was at home. Jack Donaldson left on his mission to the Eastern States Mission in September, 1955.
We lived in his house at 1324 Roosevelt Avenue just a block away from Doris and Clyde. I took some of my savings and fixed it up until it was a darling home. We did a lot with Doris and Clyde and were very happy.
Around this time Ralph and Mildred moved back with their children and Betsy and Bob also moved back to Salt Lake with their three children. Oh how wonderful it was to have my two sweet children close again. What a thrill to have so many darling grandchildren to love and hold. I always told the one I was holding that they were the cutest one.
We had wonderful family parties at the different homes. Doris and I would always bring a Jell-O salad or something. Doris and Clyde almost loved my grandchildren as much as I did. They would take Tanny and Robert for rides several times a week after work.
John was the perfect husband. He had a wonderful personality and a cheerful spirit. He could always make me feel better. He truly loved me as I loved him. Later, after I was given permission from the First Presidency, John and I were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on February 24, 1956. But we were not to be blessed with a long earthly marriage, because not long after we were sealed John started having much pain in his back. He went to several different doctors and they finally decided he had a tumor in his back. The doctors wanted to operate but had to delay a little while because I was scheduled for a buying trip to the New York City market. I was the head buyer for Auerbach’s Drapery Department by now. John wanted me to be there when they operated. I got home on the 17th of December and they operated on the 19th. They removed the tumor but it was malignant cancer. They gave him every treatment known and he was a very sick man. At this time Jack was on his mission in the Eastern states. John didn’t want Jack to come home off his mission early. John was able to go back to work for about three more years. Then some of the treatments were really hard on him.
We went to Sacrament meeting the first of January 1959 and that was the last John was able to be out. After that the doctors would come to our home to see him. I took my vacation time, three weeks, and after two weeks Dr. Richards talked to John and said “Nida would have to go back to work or she would die first.” Then he talked to me and said I must get someone to stay with John in the daytime and then I could take care of him at night. We got Rose Reynolds to stay with John. I would have everything ready for her before I left for work. I paid her every week and we also fixed it so she got Social Security.
John died April 22, 1959. Oh what a great loss to me and our family. But I was glad to see him relieved from his great suffering.
Jack was married May 8, 1959 to Shirley Kay Graham. It was sad that John couldn’t be there to see the wedding of his only son.
Alone again I was very grateful for my work. I was head over the Drapery Department and the head buyer, so I would go to New York City two times a year for market. At first I would go by train and we would be very tired when we arrived. Later we would go by plane and be there in no time. I even received a plaque from the United Airlines as a member of their 100,000 Mile Club in 1958.
What a wonderful experience to see New York City and go to a Broadway show once in a while, but it is a lot of work and my legs would ache so at the end of the day. They would put us up in the Waldorf Hotel.
Even when I was in New York, I would always go to church on Sunday. While she lived in New York I would meet Rita Robinson at the Manhattan Ward and would often take her and her children to dinner.
In my ward in Salt Lake I had many callings over the years, one of my favorites being the Junior Sunday School Coordinator. I enjoyed working with the children in the ward. Doris helped me and then when she was the Relief Society president I helped her.
Bob and Betsy Sorbonne sent his mother and me to Hawaii October 9, 1963 for ten days. It was very exciting and we had a wonderful time. At the Polynesian Cultural Center I was thrilled to watch the Maoris sing and dance as my father and his brother George both served missions in New Zealand and had often talked about how much they loved the people.
I worked at Auerbach’s for 36 years. It was a choice place to work with some great people. I was the buyer for the Drapery Department for more than 20 years. I should have retired in 1963 when I turned 65, but they asked me to stay on for a few more years until they found someone that could take my place. I went to my last market in January 1965, with the new buyer. My last day at the store was January 30, then on January 31 I went into the hospital and had surgery (female) and stayed there twelve days. I got along well after the operation but had to be careful not to work too much.
Later that summer I started going to the Salt Lake Temple every other week. I later received an appointment with the Matron of the Temple, Sister McDonald. I was called to work as a Receptionist. This was no problem as I was still recovering. I started December 7, 1965. On June 25, 1966, I was called and set apart as an Ordinance Worker and I enjoyed that very much. Then in a year and a half I was called by Sister Stone to be an assistant Supervisor to Sister Ballad of Friday afternoon, with Sister Tanner and Sister Cartwright. That was a choice assignment.
Just before the Temple was closed for summer restoration in 1969 I was called to Sister Stones’ office and given the assignment to be the Supervisor on Wednesday morning. I said “Oh, Sister Stone I cannot get off my hill if it snows, until the snow plows have been there.” She said “The seasons are changing and besides I want you for the Supervisor.” I had never worked the morning shift before. I did not have to take on this job until the first week in August 1969. That was good because I had planned to spend the month of July in Europe with the Sorbonne family Betsy, Bob, Sherie, Robert, and Olga.
It was a great trip. We flew to London, England and got Robert who was just finishing his mission. We met some of the people he converted and visited the mission home and Hyde Park Chapel. We went sight seeing, to the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral etc. We also went to the London Temple and went through a session, it was so beautiful.
Next we went to Paris, France. Some highlights were the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Sorbonne University. Our next stop was Switzerland where we went up to the beautiful Jungfrau Mountain and saw the Ice Palace that was built in 1897. In Rome, Italy we saw the Colosseum, Forum, St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel. We also went to Pompeii, Florence and Venice. Then we took the train to Salzburg, Austria. The Alps were so impressive. We took a train to Copenhagen, Denmark, then a large ferry to Sweden. In Stockholm we went to dinner with Olga’s sister Gerda and her brother Herman. In Gothenburg we met Pontus another brother of Olga. Our last destination was Amsterdam. Then back to Salt Lake City; it was a lovely trip but I was glad to be home again.
Being the Supervisor over the new Brides for the Wednesday morning shift was really something. I loved the work but I had to get up at 2:00 A.M. to be at the Temple by 4:00 A.M. If it was bad weather, I would get up at 1:30 A.M. I was always worried that I would sleep in or the power would go off so I had two wind up alarm clocks besides my electric one. I always had trouble sleeping on Tuesday night and sometimes wondered if I got any sleep at all on those nights.
Sometimes there would be more than fifty marriages in my shift. We would really have to be organized to do it all. Thank goodness I had so many good women helping out. Every three months I was to make the new assignments for the sisters that worked under me. The other Supervisors always typed their reports so I learned how to type so my reports would look good too.
At the Temple they always had the air conditioning going. This was the “thorn in my side” because if I was in the draft for any time I would get sick with a sore throat or cold.
Over the years I have been quite involved in doing my genealogy and have felt very blessed in my efforts. It has been wonderful to learn about my ancestors and to make sure their temple work was done for them. This is such an important work because they need these saving ordinances to continue in their progress.
On June 20, 1982 my son Ralph and his wife Mildred had their farewell. Ralph had been called to serve as the Mission President for Charlotte, North Carolina Mission. I am so proud of him and his devotion to the Lord. He has also been a Bishop and a Stake President and a Regional Representative. So far I have 99 people in my posterity. Oh what a blessing!
Dear Doris died on Wed. June 26, 1985. She went so beautifully, so quiet, not even a heavy breath or sigh. I put my arms around her and said “Oh, dear Doris, I am so happy for you, but I am broken hearted, but we will get by.” She died on her oldest sister’s birthday. So there have been many family parties on that day here on earth. I am sure that there was great rejoicing in the spirit world with her arrival. She was a great lady, a friend to everyone she knew.
I feel so humble and grateful for the many blessings that have been mine, for my wonderful heritage, my goodly parents, and as my kind Heavenly Father in his wisdom did call my mother, Betsy, home to his mansions on high, I do thank him for my other mothers and their children that have been such an important part in my life.
I am so grateful for my wonderful children, Ralph and Betsy, who have blessed my life through the years and for their children and the joy they have brought to all our lives. Oh, my cup runneth over with many blessings!
I thank my dear Heavenly Father for holding my hand through perilous times and for blessing me with the desire to walk in the paths of righteousness. Amen.


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Nida was blessed by her father on 6 August 1899.
Nida was 4 months old when her mother died. Her Aunt Matilda and Uncle John Blackham took care of her until she was 4 years old and her father remarried.
Nida was baptized by William T Ewell Jr and confirmed by Albert Hagen. She receive her Patriarchal blessing from C.N. Lund on the 15 September 1918.
Nida married Otis Bradley in 12 March 1919 in the Manti Temple by Lewis Anderson. They had two children, Ralph and Betsy. She and Otis later divorced 24 April 1930. Cancellation of the Temple sealing was granted 21 January 1956 by President David O. McKay.
She married John Donaldson 2 November 1951 in the Salt Lake Temple by Harold B. Lee, they were sealed 24 February 1956 in the Salt Lake Temple.
She worked at Auerbach's for many years, she was the buyer for the drapery department.
Nida was a very spiritual women who loved the Lord and tried to live the Gospel with exactness. She was a great example to everyone who knew her. She loved working in the Salt Lake Temple.