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BY SARAH LUELLA STOKER BARLOW

I was born in Bountiful, Davis County, Utah, December 27, 1870, the third child of David Stoker and Regena Hogan Stoker, there being one sister and one brother older than I was in a family of eight children.

My childhood was a happy one until my baby sister (Harriet Ann) died with scarlet fever. I also had the same disease and was very sick. The elders were called in and administered to me. I slid off my mother's knees, walked to the table, picked up a glass of buttermilk and drank it, and from then on began to get better. But I still cried for my baby sister, which made it very hard for mother. My next sorrow, as I remember, was a little gray kitten. The east wind was very severe at that time, before the trees and shrubbery began to grow. The east wind was raging one night and the little kitten mewed at the back door and kept us awake, it seemed, for a long time. My mother didn't believe in having cats in the house. She said that they had fur to keep them warm. Finally the mewing stopped. Next morning I couldn't find my little gray kitten. Finally, outside of the south gate I picked up a piece of old carpet, and there lay my little gray kitten dead.

The Indians used to come to Bountiful and camp on the Bench, as we called it, in the south part of Bountiful where not many houses were. They would canvass the ward for peaches to dry to take back to the reservation for their winter food. I was always afraid of them. I had been taught that if we had dirty faces and uncombed hair they would pack us off. When seeing the travelers, I would run home to my mother, telling her to hurry and comb my hair for the Indians were coming.

Once a cousin of mine and I were gathering flowers and really went farther than we had thought of going. Of course the word went out that we were lost and surely the Indians had got us. The whole ward turned out hunting for us. We couldn't imagine what was wrong when we saw so many people gathered. My mother was so angry at me that she gave me a whipping right before all those people. I never could forget it.

At another time a Buck Indian, as we called them, rode up on his horse, grabbed a little girl playing in the yard and rode off with her. It was about three or four hours before they rounded him up. He promised to bring her back, which he did, demanding a lot of sugar, flour, etc., for his pay.

An Indian woman who lived across the street from mother's had married a white man, and she, although an Indian, was scared to death of the Indians. My little "Pennyfise" dog was over there and the Indians went by with my doggie standing on the horse's back. I knew it and it watched me but I dared not call it. I never saw it again.

My first school teacher was Aunt Hannah Holbrook, as she was called. She lived and taught school in a log house with bare floors, one block east of the highway in Bountiful. When we were bad we had to bend over with our finger on a crack in the floor or stand in a corner. I never had a finger on a crack in the floor but have seen some of the boys being punished in that way. They would get so tired they would try to change hands, but not if she saw them.

I loved school and learned very fast. I would get up at four o'clock in the morning to do the washing rather than stay out of school a day. My older sister had been kept out of school so many times to help when mother was sick that she did not want to go to school.

Everyone was poor in those days and did not have much to wear nor much to eat of a variety. That was where I first saw honey made by bees. My cousin and I were sent down to Brother Waite's with Aunt Hannah's tithing honey in a brass kettle. We carried it between us, each holding to the pail. When we stopped to rest, it looked so good, I remember that we touched the edge of the kettle to taste the delicious honey with our fingers and wished that we could afford such luxury. I remember one family at school always had sandwiches made with stewed dried apples between the bread and often changed with other children as the same thing every day got so tiresome to them. It makes me sick now when I think about it.

I had an uncle, Judson Tolman, who lived across the street from us. He mad married my father's sister, Jane Stoker. He went to Ophir to work and only came home about once a month to see his wife and children but he always brought them a stick of candy each and one for me. I looked forward to that stick of candy as though it were a gold mine. On seeing him walking by one day on his way home I started to run over there but my mother stopped me and would not let me go. But I got my stick of candy just the same, for he saved it for me. Aunt Jane said he would save me one if he only had two sticks, and I believed her. But those were happy days and the stick candy was the first candy I remember.

The next school I attended was at the home of Mrs. Caroline Farnham, another private school. She taught in her own house also. That was where I caught the whooping cough from Emily Willey. The whole school was exposed. I had a habit of running when I started anywhere and many a time I had to stop in the middle of a path to have a coughing spell on my way through the orchard to my Grandmother Stoker's. My Grandmother Stoker walked with a crutch and a chair, and when tired would sit down on the chair to rest. I never remember seeing her walk any other way as she was crippled up with rheumatism.

We dried all our winter fruit at that time, not knowing anything about bottles and jars. We had cutting bees and invited the boys and girls all in for the evening, supplied each one with a knife and pan and made chairs all around the wall with boards. The pile of peaches and plums was in the middle of the room. When all the fruit was cut we served lunch, which everyone enjoyed. We would put the cut fruit out to dry the next day.

We had to make all our own amusements. One of them was sleigh riding with bells on the horses, and how they would jingle until we got cornered! Two or three teamsters would block our way and hold us there, sometimes for hours. They would also run races with the horses.

Finally they started to build schoolhouses, one east of us, one west of us and one south. I went to all three schools, first grades to the west of the highway, then to the east. The one to the south was supposed to be the high school. My Grandfather John Stoker gave them the land to build this school house on and the school there today is still called the Stoker School.

One of his wives lived over by the schoolhouse and there is where we would go at noon to curl our hair if there was a dance on at night, sometimes making us very late for the afternoon. We went in one time at about two o'clock, all trailing in with our hair done up in papers. The school teacher, being Jaron Tolman, looked disgusted at us. He put the question to me, asked what I would do with him if he came trailing in at that time of day, if I were the teacher. I replied, "I would make you stand up all afternoon." The kids all laughed and the teacher said, "Seeing you are so honest about it, I think I'll let you go this time." That saved the day.

We used to sweep and dust the school house to pay our tuition, as it cost us 50 cents per month to go to school and 75 cents for high school. Sweeping the floors would pay the bill. Two girls to a room each night getting about 3 and a half cents between them per night to save our fathers paying our schooling. My father said I didn't have to do it but we wanted to help out, so I did the sweeping and dusting in the high school for a whole winter with another girl.

Jaron Tolman was our teacher at the east school house for a long time, then B.H. Roberts. He would tap the bell for order before dismissing and everybody was suppose to fold arms and sit back in the seat. I remember sitting with my sister, and we folded our arms as always and down came the teacher and gave us a strapping. We never knew what it was for. Somebody had done something, I suppose, and he thought it was us. Lizzie wouldn't ask him what it was for, and I was only a little kid and didn't know enough, I guess. A big creek bed ran back of the school house. It was full of willows. When a boy was mean the teacher would send him to cut a willow and bring in for the teacher to thrash the boy with.

We weren't allowed to draw in school, and I loved to draw very much. I remember one day I was drawing a man on my slate and the teacher came up the aisle behind me and stood watching me. How I jumped when I looked up and saw the teacher and quickly rubbed it out. When they began to draw maps I surely was in my glory.

We use to write love letters on our slates until the teacher caught us. Then we sometimes had to hold out our hands while the teacher cracked us with his ruler.

We finally had a dancing hall in the old Relief Society Building which we enjoyed very much but they wouldn't allow the round dancing, so we did love to sneak off to Hale's Hall where we could enjoy the waltz, polka, and the shottish. Hales didn't belong to the Church and the Mormons weren't supposed to go there. But finally our parents gave in and were a little more lenient with us.

An elocution teacher came on a tour of Bountiful and we were all interested and were given parts to learn. I remember I had a leading part in a play called the "Black Mantle." We played four nights to pay for our tuition. Then we went through the county playing for wages. I thought Kaysville was a long ways off. I received four dollars for three nights playing at Centerville, Farmington and Kaysville. I bought me material for a new dress, a pretty blue, and my mother made it for me. Some of the others only received $3.25, according to their parts. I was very proud of the play and it helped us very much in our reading, etc.

I taught a Sunday School class for years and played the organ for them to sing. I was chosen secretary of the Primary, Sister Dustin being the president, and Sister Evans and Sister Easthope being her counselors.

Sister Dustin was the mother of B.H. Roberts. She put on plays and we enjoyed them very much. She was a milliner and made and trimmed hats. I remember buying a beautiful hat from her: soft, wide rimmed, Panama straw with streamers. I worked in the Church a good deal, as my father and mother always taught us to do whenever we were asked to do anything in the Church. I held the position of Primary secretary until I was married. I was also an organist for my Primary Sunday School class when they sang on exhibition day. My Sunday School Superintendent was C.R. Jones, with Brother Alfred Burningham and Brother William Kynaston as his counselors. I loved Sunday School and Primary.

Carts and buggies were our traveling way; automobiles weren't thought of in those days.

We continued going to school and Mutual. I remember one night at Mutual my cousin Martha Tolman and I traded clothes to fool the boys. I wore a red hood and a coat, while she wore a white toboggan cap and a gray coat or shawl. The boys could usually tell us in the dark as we came out of the high vestry door. They picked us out as they stood below waiting for us. Down the steps we went and her fellow, Sam Thurgood, came up to me to see who it was, gave a yelp and departed. He didn't come back. Jesse H. Barlow went up to Martha, clapped his hands and ran back. My mother, not knowing what was going on, said "She isn't here tonight. You will have to take her mother home." So he did and as I went in the gate at our home, he came out after taking my mother to the door. We glanced at each other and went on, but the joke was on us as we girls went home alone. But soon everything was all right and going on as before as he (Jesse) had never taken another girl home in his life. We had always been school chums together and we made the match. Martha and Sam made the match just the same.

When we began to think we were old enough to get married, Jesse went out to herd sheep for the Nelson and Moss boys. Finally we were married in the Logan temple, the Salt Lake Temple not being completed.

I was married to Jesse H. Barlow on November 25, 1891. It took us two days to go up to Logan on the train and back. My mother gave a Thanksgiving chicken pie supper November 26, there being about one hundred and fifty that sat at the table.

We lived with my mother and father the first winter, then we moved into my Grandmother Stoker's adobe house. I sewed rags to make my first carpet, the first time my Grandmothers floor had ever been carpeted. She had died several years before. The homemade carpet looked beautiful in the kitchen where I displayed my wedding presents. We lived there two years, then w e bought the Tolman house across the road from my Mother's. Jesse David, our first child, was born in the Tolman place.

I had always been afraid of the Indians and while living here in the Tolman place my brother Will would come running over to tell me the Indians were coming. We would lock all the doors and make them think no one was home. I remember one Indian Buck who surprised us walking in and picking up the butcher knife from the reservoir. I said, "Put it down," and he did, but I was surely scared.

Then finally we decided to move to Syracuse where my father had given us twenty acres of land and where a new log house had been built, my husband hauling the logs from the canyon.

We moved from Bountiful on Friday, May 31, 1895, with two little children, a boy, Jesse, 16 months, and a girl, Rena 4 months old. We came up in a covered wagon with all our belongings, my brother Willie driving the cow and we riding in the covered wagon. It was the day after Decoration Day. It rained all day till Willie got wet, so he got in the wagon and drove and Papa rode the horse to drive our only cow.

The logs of our new house were sawed on three sides and put together with mortar which would dry and fall out, sometimes leaving a peek hole between the logs. We finally got some "factory" and put a ceiling up above us. In the log house there were two gable ends and there was where I would hide my money when I had saved some. Papa couldn't meet his taxes one time and said to me, "My name will be in the paper tomorrow for not paying my taxes." I said, "How much are the taxes?" He said, "Twenty three dollars, I believe." I crawled up on a chair and brought down my small savings which was twenty five dollars. You should have seen his eyes bung out, so thankful to me and to the Lord for my small savings. I was saving it up to get a bedroom set which I waited for a long time, as money was scarce and wages were low.

Papa worked on the Knight farm for a dollar per day and his dinner. This included his team putting up hay.

We were crowded for room and finally purchased an old frame house, moved it and rebuilt it, making two rooms added on to our log house. We also built a back shanty for a stove house, to be used in the summer time, moving the stove back in the log house for cold weather. We now had a front room with an organ in it and a bedroom and clothes closet. We felt that we were rich then.

I took music lessons from Myrtle Jones, as she came around on horseback giving music lessons. For the organ I had traded my mother a black horse for her to drive when she came up alone from Bountiful to visit us. She enjoyed the horse and I enjoyed the organ which was finally traded to Glen Brothers for a piano which most of our children took lessons on, especially my last two boys, Eldon and Gardner.

Soon after we moved up in the log house I heard them give out in meeting that the Primary would be organized on Wednesday. And on Wednesday (August 25, 1898) I was thinking about it and something said to me, "They are going to choose you in the Primary." Then on second thought I said, "No, I haven't been up here long enough for that."

In a few minutes a black fringed topped buggy drew up to our house. I looked out and it was James G. Wood, a counselor to David Cook, Bishop. He came in and said, "You have been chosen in the Primary. I have come to take you over." So I went with him. Minnie B. Walker had been chosen president and she chose me as first counselor, which office I occupied for five years. Then I was put in president, which office I held for four years. The ward was divided then and I was cut off in the new ward and my counselors left in the Syracuse Ward.

I was chosen president of the Clearfield Ward Primary (November 23, 1907) James G. Wood, the Bishop, put his arm around me and said "This is the only officer I brought with me." I held the two positions, counselor and president, for fourteen years in the two wards. While my husband was on a mission I had to ask to be released as our water turn came on Saturday, the same day as Primary. They held people much longer then than they do now. I remember my father Bishop David Stoker, was in the bishopric for 27 years.

While we lived in Syracuse, Ora Haven, our third child, was born in the log cabin, his the humblest birth of them all. Luella Iona, Ivan Ianthus, and Vinal Stoker were all born in the frame building that we added on to the log house.

We lived there in Syracuse until we purchased some land where the Clearfield Navy Base now stands (1956). There we built a large brick house where we reared the most of our family.

In 1910 my husband was called on a mission to the Central States, leaving me the farm to run. We had eight children, Jesse being the oldest. He quit school and worked in the Clearfield Mercantile Company store for Herbert E. Smith. Jesse's wages helped us out considerable. I hired a boy in the fall, Jeddie Thomas, as two orchards, one in Syracuse and one in Clearfield, had begun to bear apples. We picked fourteen hundred bushels of apples the first year my husband was away. Talk about work! There was no end to the labor. My brother John came up from Bountiful to visit me. He said, "It's too much work for you." I said, "The Lord has blessed us with a big crop of apples." "Yes," he said, "He has blessed you with a lot of d-- hard work."

Well, I wanted my husband to fill a mission, I knew it would make him a better husband and better father as he was very backward in taking part in the wards. But the Lord loosened his tongue.

Jeddie Thomas was a very good boy and hauled some of the apples to Salt Lake City to sell on the market. Other peddlers came for apples and we sold all fourteen hundred bushels. When we wrote my husband in the mission field that we were going to have seven hundred bushels he was very much worried how we would ever sell them, but we doubled that amount. People turned out and helped us and took their pay in apples. Fruit trees in the north part of the county were rare and the women would come from Layton, Kaysville and surrounding towns and pick for their own apples. They could get four bushels of culls for their dollar for a day's work or one bushel of the best ones. So they chose the culls.

Jeddie picked with heavy kid gloves on. I picked with my bare hands, therefore I doubled him right along. He told some of the neighbors that he "never worked so hard in his life as he did to keep up with a woman." Many a day I picked a hundred bushels, too tired at night to undress myself before going to bed. But still I was thankful that my husband was filling a mission.

The apples turned out fine, not many worms to worry about, as we had our own power sprayer with two barrels of water and two sprayer nozzles. Arsenic of lead was used in the water. Ivan, a small boy, drove the team, Ora and I doing the spraying. The team ran away once as Ivan had dropped a line. Down between the tree rows they ran, spray water splashing all over, till we finally got them stopped.

In 1912 I received a letter from President Samuel O. Bennion of the Central States Mission telling me that my husband was in the hospital with typhoid fever. He wanted me to come to Kansas City to bring him home as soon as he was able to travel. I prepared and started out with two suit cases and a hat box.

When I got to Kansas City, at the big brown station, the Union Depot, there was no one there to meet me. Every little chunky man I saw had a cigar in his mouth, so I knew none of them was President Bennion. I waited a long time, then finally I remembered on my letter the post mark was Kansas. I inquired the distance to Kansas and the distance to Independence and found it was nearer to Kansas, so I took a bus and went right to the hospital. When they found I had not arrived at Independence they telephoned the hospital and found that I was there.

They had quite a laugh about it, said I didn't need any address, just a post mark. They asked me to go down to Kansas city and stay with the missionary girls. I prayed about it for fear of getting lost, but I arrived all OK. The next night I depended upon myself and got lost. A man, seeing my situation, asked to help me to a telephone and offered to carry my suit cases. On handing them to him I could smell liquor on him and refused to let him carry my suit cases. But still he led me to a house where I could telephone and get my right address. I was all right from then on, went to the hospital every day and back. Finally one of the missionary girls was called home on business in Salt Lake City and President Bennion asked me if I would take her place as long as I remained in the mission field. I gladly accepted the call and enjoyed every minute.

We went out tracting days and to cottage meetings at night. We were supposed to memorize a verse from the Bible every day. We did the missionaries' wash about every three weeks. We went to Independence every Sunday to dinner and to meetings. It did me the world of good and Pa said that if I could put in two years in the mission field I would know the Bible by heart.

I gave quite a sermon when we got home. We had our first Sunday in Syracuse, the day Albert Smith and his wife Ellen had to give their experiences as she had gone to meet him in England.

Pa had hauled apples from Hooper to Salt Lake City market for several years before he went on his mission and after we moved up to Clearfield. He paid the people the same as they could get in Ogden and made his money by going to Salt Lake City. We used to say if you have anything to buy go to Ogden, but if you have anything to sell go to Salt Lake.

My father had helped us, me my brother David Stoker, my sister Eva Holt and my sister Elizabeh Thurgood, to secure in Clearfield a 40-acre farm apiece, a quarter section in all of the old Knight farm, now (1956) the south part of the Clearfield Navy Base.

There in the large brick house we had built was where we lost our child, Willis, a twenty month old little boy (April, 1907). This loss brought us much sorrow. But soon there came to cheer us, first, a daughter, Velma, born October 26, 1907, then a pair of twins, Wilmer and Wilburn, born November 12, 1909. But Wilburn only lived about 24 hours. We reared Wilmer and it was when he was eleven months old, 1910, that the call came for his father to go on his first mission.

I had prayed to the Lord to have him fill a mission and felt, when the call came, that it was an answer to my prayer, Pa had always been real backward in being called to the stand or in getting up before the public. He was scared to death if he was called to dismiss a meeting. On his mission, however, he studied hard under President Bennion and made a good missionary.

Soon after our return from Kansas city and the mission, we were called to do temple work in Salt Lake City. I also worked in the Relief Society, being counselor to Susan Wood. I also worked in Sunday School. I had one class 21 years when Horace Clark was superintendent.

In the fall of 1940 I went back and drove my third car from Detroit, Michigan. My son, Ora Haven, and his wife, Melvira, also went and drove one home. I had the car but a few months when we were called to go on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to the North Western States. As Sunday School let out one Sunday, Bishop Melvin G. Wood asked me to remain a few minutes, as he wanted to talk to me. I waited till nearly everyone was gone. Finally I said, "Bishop, do you want to give me a lecture?" He replied, "No, we want you to go on a mission."

Such a surprise! I could hardly speak as I had always thought that I would like to fulfill a mission. But as long as my boys were going one at a time I was satisfied. Papa had gone for two years and returned. Jesse had hone to England for 27 months. Ora Haven had been in the Islands three and one half years. Ivan had filled a mission in the Central States. But what a thrill I got out of that call! I felt like I was walking on air.

I had tasted of the mission field while my husband was on his first mission and had gone back there to bring him home when he had taken typhoid fever after he had been in the field for two years.

We were in the mercantile business at the time, having bought out the Clearfield Mercantile Company in 1920. Eldon and his family moved into our house and took charge of the store while we were gone.

The Sunday School have us a party, as did some of the other organizations. The Sunday School would not release me as a teacher nor would they release my husband who had also been a teacher of the Parents Class for several years.

We left on the 22nd of March, 1941, and returned in December, 1941, making about nine months. We took our new car with us as we were advised to do. I drove a thousand miles and we finally reached Portland, Oregon. At the mission headquarters we were met by President Nicholas G. Smith and his wife, who gave us a good dinner at the mission home.

We called our son in law, Kneland C. Tanner, at Arllington Heights, and he came down and got us. We stayed with my daughter, Iona, and Kneland for two or three days. Then President Smith told us that we were assigned to go down to Marshfield, Oregon, close to the coast. We had attended two or three missionary meetings where we met several of the missionaries.

President Smith sent two Elders with us and I turned the wheel over to them. We traveled about 250 miles down the coast but were unable to find a suitable place to rent that night so we were taken to the home of Brother and Sister Wilburns. He was the District President. The two Elders stayed at a motel. The next morning we up to town and called for the two Elders, and proceeded to find a place to rent. We had offered up a short prayer in a circle and it was answered soon, as we found a good place in a short time. We took an upstairs with two rooms. The lady of the house was in bed with a broken hip. She had attempted to help her husband clean a dance hall and had fallen. Her hip hadn't seemed to heal. We had several talks with her later on the gospel.

The Elders started back on the journey to Portland on foot, depending on the Lord to help them get a ride of 250 miles. They hadn't been on the road 15 minutes before they were picked up and then rode right into Portland.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform." We found that it was true. We received many blessings. We were asked to go to the public library and ask them if they would put out the Improvement Era for people to read if it were sent to them for a year free of charge. The library was closed, a sign saying that it would be opened at two o'clock, so we decided to do a little tracting while we were waiting.

The hills were high. We climbed up steps part way, crossed over and up steps again. It was Pa's turn to talk. The man came to the door and was offered a tract which he refused. We told him who we were and what we were doing. He said, "I don't have any time for such foolishness." A hired man was cleaning the yards and beautifying the place. We took the owner the gospel and he turned us down. I had a notion to wipe my feet against him as I went down the steps. I counted them going down and there were 52 steps we had climbed. Did it discourage us? No. We worked all the harder.

It was the third of April that we did this first tracting. We had taken our car up on the hillside and parked it. We tracted for two hours and distributed 55 tracts and pamphlets. We then went to town, had lunch bought some groceries, returned to our living quarters and rested awhile. We then went out tracting again from 3 to 5:30, distributing 40 more tracts.

At night I wrote two letters. Pa studied while I wrote. Next day it was raining but we succeeded in putting out 64 tracts by noon. Still raining we finally had to go b ack to our apartment. Saturday, April 5, it was still raining. But on going out to the District President's office we found that we were not supposed to go tracting on Saturday.

Sunday we went to Sunday School and how we enjoyed the meeting, the Saints and the superintendency of the Sunday School. We were invited out to dinner. We returned to our quarters feeling fine.

Monday morning we called on the landlady again. She was still in bed with the broken hip. We gave her some literature to read. We then proceeded to the post office where we received a paper with our pictures in it and an article about the three parties held in our honor. We also received a picture of our family of seven sons and two daughters, one being absent. The picture brought tears to our eyes, tears of joy, so proud we were to see them all looking right at us.

At one house where we went tracting a woman came to the door. Her father, she said, was a minister. I asked her if she would like to see the picture of our seven sons. She replied that she would. I could see her husband sitting on the couch. I said, "maybe your husband would like to see it too." She replied, "come on in".

They treated us fine and she ordered a ready reference like mine with chapter and verse. We accidently left a Book of Mormon there. It had slid down the end of the couch. They sent word to us and we went to see them several times before coming home. She gave me one of her best myrtle wood trays. The myrtle wood only grows there and in the Holy Land. I gave her the Book of Mormon which she gladly accepted.

I receive mail from some of those good people to this day (1956). My missionary life is in my mind at all times and I would love to do the same work again. When we left for our mission there wasn't any other denomination in Clearfield, but now we have several.

My hobby has been giving readings, sometimes ending my sermon with a nice little poem. One new missionary girl out in Oregon asked me what she should say. I told her just learn some nice poems and when she felt she needed to, just say a poem till she got started.

We came home in July, as my only remaining sister, Eva Stoker Holt, had died. I had been sick with a hemorrhage of the kidney. As I was unable to drive, we came home on the train, leaving our car and belongings in Marshfield where we were renting.

We went down to Salt Lake City and were ordered to see a specialist. We called on Dr. Nelson of Ogden and he took us in to see Dr. Fister, who took X rays and found I had a stone in my left kidney. He thought that he could draw it out without an operation. If he could do so I could go back on our mission, but if he had to operate I couldn't go back.

I made several trips to him and finally went to the hospital. I was taken to the basement on a bed and a drawing machine was put on me. Finally he got the stone out. "Now," said he, "you can go back on your mission in ten days." When the ten days were up we returned to the mission field happy to get back to work again. We tried to make up for lost time and stayed till December.

When we got back to Portland, war had been declared the day before by Germany on the United States. We were advised, therefore to leave while the getting out was good, so we returned home. They were having their rainy spell in Oregon. It would rain for days. We were offered the privilege of staying till spring if we wished to do so, but the water was coming in our basement at Clearfield so rapidly that we felt that we were needed home.

The night that we arrived it was so foggy I couldn't see the engine. We followed a truck for miles, when suddenly we discovered, at 11 o'clock at night, that we were in Ogden down by Scowcrofts.

After returning home we were called to do stake missionary work, which we did for four years. As I had pneumonia several times the doctor advised me to go to a warmer climate for the winters. So we started in the fall of 1945 to go south "like the birds." We went to Arizona to do temple work. I have driven down and back nine winters, my boy Gardner helping me once.

We have done over a thousand names for the dead, and Pa has gone over that number as he has done a good many also in the Salt Lake Temple.

We came back from Mesa in April of 1953, making the drive from Mesa to St George in one day, five hundred miles. We did ten more temple names in the St George temple, five apiece, to add on to the 65 and 69 at Mesa. We found, on returning home, that the Clearfield Ward had been divided again and our two sons put in the bishoprics, Eldon as the Bishop of the Third ward and Wilmer as the First Counselor in the First Ward. Ora has been First Counselor in the bishopric of the Douglas Ward in Salt Lake City for five and one half years (April 1953). Our son, Jesse, was put in President of the High Priest Quorum. Now we are enjoying the lovely new ward and we are proud of our sons.

FURTHER NOTES BY HER SON, ORA H. BARLOW

Although I and others had encouraged mother for a number of years to write her story there is much that she did not write. We urged her to fill the gaps, particularly her store experiences. This period covered about twenty years before mother and father went to Portland, Oregon, on a mission and Eldon took over the store. Lack of mother's store experiences is regrettable as we know how many interesting incidents she might have told us: buying at Scowcrofts, Z.C.M.I. and other places, getting rid of salesmen who sometimes tried to oversell her, as well as stories of her many friends made among customers and salesmen.

Her ability to handle difficult credit cases was well known to us. She would "Kid" them into paying their bills on time. She continued to work in the store up to 1951, except for the winters when she and father were at Mesa, Arizona.

She died at 7:40 AM, October 25, 1956, about twenty four hours after the first snow of the season had fallen. She reached, we are sure, a more sunny clime, even than Arizona.