This Morning I walked five blocks from my apartment to the home of my brother, Joseph Jenkins; later, I returned to my home by the same process. Although I am sevety five years of age, a grandmother and a great-grandmother, I am still very active. Although my once very dark hair is snowy-white, my brown eyes and cheery smile belie my age. Folks think I am about sixty.

My life began at Goshen, Utah, a town situated beween Santaquin on the East, and Eureka on the West. In 1879, August 28, I was born to John Laird and Emma Louisa Taylor Jenkins, the fifth child in a family of fourteen children. This was only part of my father's family, however. It didn't seem strange to me that my father had another wife -- Aunt Annie we called her -- because in our town, and throughout Utah, at that time polygamy was not uncommon. So besides my mother's family, I had half brothers and half sisters, too. Let me say right now that the two families were very close. We played and worked together, and grew up together in brotherly and sisterly fashion. It was natural, especially to the young children, to know there were two Jenkins failies belonging to my father. My mother was the first wife, and it wasn't until nine years after her marriage to my father that he married a second time, and I understand, with my mother's full consent.

I was more fortunate than many in that I had both sets of grand-parents living in our town -- Grandpa and Grandma Jenkins, and Grandma and Grandpa Taylor, -- the first from Scotland, the second from England. They were widely different. Grandpa Jenkins was a stern Scotchman; his wife was a large woman, -- that is, his first wife, my grandmother. He, too, was a polygamist, having married at quite a late age a young woman, whom we called Aunt Mariam. My Grandfather Taylor was mild-mannered, and my Grandmother Taylor was a small woman, very refined, beloved by all, and to me she was the epitome of all that I wanted to be. She kept a little store in her front room, and it was my delight to visit her. I admired her dainty ways, her house-keeping, and I shall always remember the ribbons which she gave me for my hair, and once a lovely blue sash for my white dress on the Fourth of July. Grandma Taylor was also the Postmistress in Goshen for many years.

I understand that my parents, in their early married life, lived in the home my father built for Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins. My father was a carpenter. Soon he built a home for my mother just a block away from his parents' home. My first recollection of our home is the long front room with a porch the length of the house. The house faced the north. At one end of the room was a cozy fire-place, and at the other end a door leading into a nice bedroom, which belonged to my parents. There was a home-made carpet on the front room floor, exepting near the fire-place, where the floor was bare, but the boards were always scrubbed very clean. Back of this room was a long kitchen, with a small bedroom at the back. Later on another room was built, together with a large cellar; and over the cellar was another large room which was never finished. We used it as a storage room.
As the family grew, we utilized the entire house. We had what we called a "lounge" in the kitchen -- sort of a "pull out" bed where the boys slept. The girls had the back bedroom, and a curtain stretched across the corner of the room was our "clothes closet" -- and of course there was no plumbing in any of the country homes those days, so we had what everyone else had -- an "out house" -- with the usual Sears & Roebuck catalog, or Montgomery Ward --ha! ha! In the summer, the boys slept outside.

Among my early recollections is the birthday party held annually at our house in the month of January, celebrating my father's birthday and that of his father, and one of my grandmothers. We children looked forward to this day; it meant a certain kind of cake which we liked very much - a cake baked in a large dripping pan, and cut in squares. We looked forward to that occasion, not only because of the cake, but because it meant a real celebration.

From earliest childhood I was considered to be quite a "tomboy". I liked to climb trees, and especially to run, and I could out run any boy or girl near my age in the town. On the 4th of July, when there were races for the entertainment of the children, I was always sure to get a prize. I remember with pride our flower garden, our lawn, our rose bushes, especially the yellow and red roses, and the grape arbor. I remember our garden spot, our strawberry patch, the fruit trees, and we had fruit all through the season from strawberries to pearmain apples. We always had two or three cows to be milked, and I was the "pasture girl", driving the cows to the pasture located about halfway between town and the Goshen Dam. I rode a horse we called John. I didn't have a saddle, but a rope tied around the horse's middle was something I could hold to. Later we had a surcingle.

I don't believe children could get along better than we did. Whatever father got for us, the same amount went to Aunt Annie's family; and if he got something for Aunt Annie, the same thing went to our mother.

A diphtheria epidemic came our way when I was very small. My sister, Louie, and my brother Johnny, both died during this epidemec; also my half-brothers, David and Henry. This was a blow to both families. No such thing as anti-toxin those days. The quarantine flag hung for weeks when folks had contagious diseases.

At this point, I will name my mother's family according to age: Emma, Janet, James Hardy, a stillborn baby boy, myself, Lucy, Louie, George, Johnny, Joseph and Hyrum (twins), Junius, Hattie, and May. As I write this, I have four living brothers, and three living sisters.

No doctors were ever in attendance when a baby was born. I well remember the occasion of my twin brothers' birth, with a midwife, Mrs. Rousch, and Mother's sister, Aunt Lucy Taylor in attendance. I was but thirteen years old, and I ran to convey the news to my father that Mother had twin boys! In those days we didn't say "father" and "mother" -- or "Mom" and "Pop" or "my old lady" and "my old man" as young folks of today are taught to say, some children even calling their parents, and even grand-parents by their given name -- we always said "Ma and "Pa". It was only after we became grown-up that we began saying "Mother" and "Father". Well, what does it matter? "Pa" and "Ma" were repected, believe you me!

My father, as my mother described it, was "a guest in our home". He was always neat and clean. He adored wearing white shirts. It seemed to me, as a young girl, that he always managed to have his bath at "our" house -- not at Aunt Annie's -- on a Saturday night. It seemed to me, too, that we ironed a lot of white shirts for him. You see, we didn't have electric irons then -- we heated flat-irons on the stove. We didn't burn coal, either. Always there was plenty of wood, stacked high, for our use: lengths for the fire-place, stove-lengths for the range. We heated water in the "reservoir" which was attached to our kitchen range, and we bathed every Saturday for certain, and put on our clean clothes. No men ever helped tend the children -- that was a job for the mothers. There may have been some method in this. If a man had paid more attention to the children of one wife than he did to the children of another, it might not have been so good. So better for the mothers to carry the baby each had than for a father to show favoritism.

My father was quite a tower of strength in our town. In those days there were no undertakers, no funeral homes, and stern necessity had to be met. Father, being an excellent carpenter, was called upon to make coffins for those who died. I well remember how he soaked the boards and dried them before the fireplace so that they would be the correct shape for a coffin, and I remember, too, helping make the inside of the coffin beautiful with what material was at hand for decorating and arranging this last resting place. Father assisted many a family in their hour of sorrow. Once he was obliged to make a coffin for one of his own children. He was in the Bishopric in our Ward, too; had been on a mission to Scotland, and durring that period both of his families lived together. When one "mother" went off to work, the other cared for the families.

I went to school at the same site where the Goshen Schoolhouse now stands. Among my teachers were a Mrs. Stewart from Benjamin, Utah; a man named Nick Wilson, another named George Powelson, and a Mr. Robinson. I liked school, and especially music. I recall that durring my early school days, I was instructed by my parents that if ever I should see while at school, a small rig, or buggy, drawn by one horse, coming toward town, with a man driving, that I must immediately raise my hand for permission to leave the room -- that I must then leave the school-ground, and run as fast as I could home, stopping at the homes of polygamous families and informing them of the approach of this vehicle. It meant that deputies were out rounding up polygamists and arresting them and carting them off to jail for trial. I have done this more than once, thereby helping to keep from prison our friends and neighbors, and in fact our own father. At this point let me say that my Grandfather Jenkins didn't escape the deputies, and he spent several months in jail because of practicing polygamy. In fact, he was released from jail to return home because he was very ill, and he died enroute to Goshen. It was a sad occasion.

We always made preparation for Sundays at our house. Among other things, besides the Saturday bath, was seeing to it that our shoes were clean and black, ready for Sunday. How often have I assisted Mother with blacking the shoes for my father, and the entire family, on Saturday night. There was precious little soot left on the inside of our stove-lids by Sunday morning! It had all been used up in the process of blacking our shoes. We didn't have any shoe polish to use then. We all attended Sunday School; We all attended meeting. We had a fast day once a month on a Thursday. The men worked half of the day. We fasted all day, and attended testimony meetings in the afternoon. This meeting was discontinued after a while, and fast observed on the first Sunday of each month, and this custom is still in force. I have heard people speak "in tongues" on such occasions.

My father would have been willing for my older sister, Nettie to marry into polygamy. A certain man was brought to the house on more than one occasion with this in view, but we were always on guard -- Mother cooperated, and Nettie was never anywhere to be found when this guest called at our home.

Lucy, a little younger than I, was a lovely sister -- brown-eyed, dark-haired, and maybe a trifle spoiled. At any rate, she appeared to me to "get out" of some of the situations I had to cope with. For instance, she didn't know how to milk. (I often had to milk the cows on a Sunday evening, or my mother would have to). Father never milked. Lucy didn't like to work in the bees, either. Father had a lot of bees, and we had a sizeable honey crop. I had to help with the extracting of honey, etc., but Lucy always managed to slip out of this job. To her it was unpleasant to get "sticky" with honey. She had cunning ways too. She would deliberately make a nuisance of herself until "pa" would say: "If that's the best you can do, better go to the house." I was older, a little more aware, perhaps, of the work which had to be done. Lucy and I have always resembled each other -- in our youth, dark complexioned, brown-eyed, about 5'3" tall, and I don't think either of us has ever weighed more that an average of 115 to 125 pounds. We still resemble each other, and are often mistaken one for the other by our friends.

I have neglected to say that my father's second family didn't always live in Goshen. He moved Aunt Annie and her children to Meadow -- a small town in Southern Utah, where he farmed. As he spent his time between Meadow and Goshen, he needed help at Meadow, and my oldest brother, James Hardy, spent much of his youth with Aunt Annie's family in Meadow doing farm work. Aunt Annie's oldest children were girls. My mother patiently endured this separation from her oldest son, but it was a "tender spot" in her memory as she grew older. When Father moved Aunt Annie's family back to Goshen, they lived in the house which had belonged to my paternal grandparents, just one half block away from our house.

When we harvested our honey crop, Father would take it to Provo where he disposed of it through the Woolden Mills there. He would return to Goshen with a bolt of cloth for dresses for the girls, another bolt for dresses for Aunt Annie and Mother; some new blankets, and the older blankets were then handed down to the next generation. We had percale, zephyr gingham, and calico. We had a new dress at Christmas time made from the woolen goods; we always had a summer dress for the Fourth of July. This "wholesale" buying -- by the bolt -- was the reason our dresses were alike. It was a fine thing that mother and Aunt Annie were good seamstresses. Some of the honey crop was disposed of at the mining camps -- Mammoth and Eureka.

Father raised quite a lot of hay. He owned a dry farm quite a distance from our home. On Grandfather Taylor's land were wild currant bushes, and we spent many happy hours gathering this fruit which was preserved in various ways for winter -- jams, jellies, and some currant wine. Aunt Lucy Taylor's children sometimes accompanied us when we went to gather this fruit. We didn't know anything about vitamins those days, but my mother was a great hand for "greens" including dandelion greens, and I well remember our strawberries which she would serve in a milk-pan in the center of the table, which, immersed in creamy milk, certainly aided this particular part of our diet. We had dried fruit, too; but always "fruit in season" and plenty of vegatables.

I helped with every kind of work -- we all did. A big family in those days meant that every member did his or her share. My twin brothers, Joseph and Hyrum, were great teases. I well remember one evening when I was milking one of the cows, they stood just outside of the corral fence teasing, not only me, but the cow. I'll never forget how angry I became at them when, the bucket almost filled, the cow kicked it over! There was all that milk wasted, all my work done for nothing! They didn't ever repeat that performance.

About the time I was sixteen, I went to Mammoth, which at that time was a booming mining community, and worked during the summer at the boarding house of a Mrs. Harris. I assisted with the house-work; I didn't do the main cooking, but I helped with it. At this time, I became aware of my husband-to-be, Lars L. Olson of Santaquin. He was "delivery boy" for Hagan's Store, and I saw him at the Harris Boarding House when he delivered groceries. When school opened again in September, I went back to Goshen and attended school there. Lars didn't pay any attention to me, nor I to him, during that period. Later, when he was hauling some hay through Goshen, he saw me as I was on my way to school. He recognized me as the "little girl he thought lived in Provo" -- he waved at me, but I didn't wave back. After all, he was just another freighter passing through. I didn't recognize him at that time.

After school, I again went to Mammoth to work. This time my oldest sister, Nettie, worked in Mammoth, too. We were both at another boardinghouse in uppertown -- Hagan's -- the same people who owned the store. It was there I became well acquainted with Lars Olson, and as my dresses had been lengthened, and as I appeared to be older, he became quite interested in me, and we began having dates.

After finishing the grade school in Goshen, it was decided I should have the opportunity of going to Provo to attend the Brigham Young Academy, as it was then called. Now the college with the greatest enrollment of any college in Utah, it was then a small preparatory and high school only. My oldest brother, Hardy, and Nick Stewart and his sister from Meadow, and I were "batching" together, for the first semester. I liked this adventure very much, and was especially interested in music. I was taking a class in singing under Professor Anthony C. Lund who was then considered "tops" in Utah, as he had spent a great deal of time in Germany studying music. One day I was startled when he asked me to report to a more advanced class, and when I did, I found there his advanced, private students singing in that chorus, -- students who later became celebrities in Utah -- Ed Rowe, Emma Lucy Gates, Emma Ramsey Morris, Oscar Kirkham, and others. Although Ed Rowe and Oscar Kirkham didn't ever attain such distinction as did Emma Lucy Gates and Emma Ransey Morris, at that time they were pretty popular. Professor Lund then asked me to sing -- he needed me to help the soprano section, which I proceeded to do to the best of my ability. Then he said, "What did you get frightened for? I knew you could do it or I wouldn't have asked you." I enjoyed singing with that chorus, and participated in a program.

Father found he couldn't finance us through the whole year, and I returned to Goshen with my brother. The next year I attempted again to attend the B. Y. A. I lived in a little room on what was then Academy Avenue, but could remain only part of a semester. We had "semesters" then instead of "quarters" such as we have now. There were two semesters in a school year. It was a disappointment to me to have to return to Goshen again with my work incompleded. I have often wondered what I might have done musically if given the opportunity. My parents were musical -- my father sang bass, and mother had a strong soprano voice. We had an organ -- a high backed affair, with the usual carvings and a place on each side for a vase. I used to play "by ear", as did some of the other members of the family. Father expressed regret that I couldn't have a musical education. However, up until very recently I have sung. The Relief Society chorus has been a bright spot late of years, and in years gone by I have sung in choirs, choruses, done duets and solos. A few times I substituted for my mother when she was unable to attend certain functions. I remember once going to Santaquin with "Pa" to a Stake Social given by the combined Quorums of Seventy where I sang a song because Mother was unable to fill her part on the program. It was a great occasion for me -- a young girl -- to get so much attention, and so many compliments!