My grandparents all came to Zion for the gospel's sake so they could mingle with the saints and worship as they please. My great grandfather on my father's mother's side of the family came to Utah the same year President Brigham Young came out west through all the hardships they had in 1845. My paternal and maternal parents histories are written elsewhere, so will I continue with my life history stating that I have always tried in my weak way to live up to my heritage for I do appreciate it.

My mother tells me that in the little red house under the hill on 13th East and 33rd South, Salt Lake City, Utah, on a cold winter morning Dec. 8, 1906, a midwife deliverd of her a puny light haired and brown-eyed baby girl, costing father a load of hay to pay the midwife. (Many a time have my brothers teased me saying I only cost a load of hay and mother would come to my rescue and tell them one of them just cost a dollar and another cost a sack of potatoes and my next sister ten dollars.)

After four boys my mother and father wanted a girl badly and so did my brother want a sister. They have always treated me grand. I was quite a bit of care during my first years of life, having measles three times and black canker twice during my first year. Mother says she used to look at me and wish I was a health boy. Often she wondered if she would raise this puny girl to womanhood. I now weigh two hundred pounds and am five feet eleven inches. I had many childish habits and pranks, some of them I'll mention as told to me by mother.

When learning to talk I used to say "No" to everything and when I wouldn't get what I wanted I would go quickly and say, "no means Yes". I liked butter very much my father would delight in moving it around the table to see how many times I would go around to get it. Also when I got my fill of food upside down on my head I would put my plate no matter what was on it. Many a paddling I got for that stunt.

I remember my Uncle Jesse Stay ( Now dead). calling me Fuzz top as my hair was white and stuck out all over my head. I was always playing with the boys, quite a tomboy. I bawled for an iron train which I got for Christmas, my most treasured toy. Never could play with dolls. I was more interested in pulling the hair off to see what made the eyes tick, and pulling the squeak box out of them to see how it made them cry and joint apart to see how they were put together.

Much to my mother's horror and grief her little girl used to run always, Which was awful bad, and often, I would not go short distances either. She asked me one day what made me run away. "Why didn't I ask Her, and I said, "Manna, you would only say No! She punished me in every way she could, but to no avail. Finally conquered me by tying me out to an apricot tree, (We had one in our back yard.) like you do horses and leaving me after dark. I'll never forget how I bawled being frightened of the dark. My brothers stood it as long as they could, then they coaxed mother to let them come out and untie me. I never ram away again.

In the summer times of my High School year's I worked at Fitz Geralds, a diabetic, and Rasmussens tending kids and doing house work to earn a little to help out, also worked for Huffs while she was in the hospital caring for a family of five and her husband for $5. a week.

I wanted to got to college, but the folks couldn't afford to send me so I took the next best thing. I decided to go into training to be a nurse. I could earn enough money with what I had saved up from peeling tomatoes in a canning factory to go in Jan. So I took a job up at Stringhams at Keetly, Utah, and worked until Dec. Then worked at Aunt Mary Alice Woodbury's until Jan, having worked there the preceding summer.

I had $75 saved and went in training Jan. 2, again crying because my brothers said if I did I would be a hard-boiled old maid. I vowed I wouldn't be hard-boiled, but the old maid part I couldn't do much about. I was going with Johnnie Klassen at that time. Canned him on April Fool's day for fear I would be sorry but wasn't. My training filled my life completely except for socials to which I took my favorite cousin, Duke, Arnold White, and Dr. Harding Simons.

I enjoy every min. of my training. Was only called on the mat once and then not punished. I had eleven months L.D.S. training, eight months O.B. and tree months pediatrics, and the rest of my training I cannot remember just how long. I cried again when I was finished because I felt so all alone.

While on the farm we sent two boys on missions. Aden came home and married Alice White, her boy time sweetheart. They had a daughter, Claire. Ivan and Hobart were in California. We moved to Draper and Aden ran the farm. Father worked at the Fair Business. We used to go and pick berries up to Granite. My sister Lorna met Henry Vandenbery, converted him to the Church and married him in 1920.

My folks had moved into Salt Lake City. Father's health was not so good. We bought the Woodbury home, Uncle Tom's, on 4th East and 18^th south. I used to go out there on weekends. My sisters all in School and my brother Carroll on a mission in California.

In Jan. 1925 I graduated from training and did special duty at various hospitals and homes. Earned my graduating outfit and two of my sisters's outfits, Doris and Nina. They were graduating form High School and Junior High. Then sent Doris to Business College. The girls were good. They helped what they could. We had exercises in Jun of that year. The first money I earned was the biggest money I ever earned, and I worked until Aug of that year 1929. Then I took my sister Nina and my grandmother Stay down to California, as all my brothers except Carroll were living there at this time and it didn't seem like home without them. My brother Hobert had married a missionary girl Velva Jensen, in the Cardston Temple, and they had gone back to California to live and in due time Hobart Lee was born. He was just a baby when we got down there to visit grandma. I liked it so well that I looked around for work and for a job on nights at the Mission Hospital. She went back to Salt Lake as Uncle Cal was sick. The my father and mother decided to follow their children and they came down and bought our home on Flower street. I taught Beehive girls for eight years in Hunting Pork Ward and won my queen bee pin and award.

While in my last year of training Lorna's husband , Henry, got his back broken. I took care of him at the hospital and when we could do no more for him we took him home. We was paralyzed. After Lorna had her baby girl, Joyce, mother and she could care for Henry with my help when I got off duty. Henry died eighteen months after he got hurt.He was in Michigan and I was in California . I sent for Lorna and babies to come and keep house for Ivan and me as we wanted to live together, and it would help her out as well as us, so we had the little house on Mission Street. Soon Doris had graduated from business college and had earned enough for a vacation, so she came down and Ivan got her a job. That left mother and father and the three little kids in Utah. That is why they came to California.

The depression was on in 1931. Father had a hard time getting work, so we paid the board, Ivan and I. Lorna worked and helped, too. Mother tended her kiddies and Doris was getting ready to marry Leon Pilkington. She married and Nina finished school. Lorna, in the mean time had met Frank Sly and got married. And Carroll had fallen in love with Erma Ford, one of my nurse friends, and was serious. And Ivan was going steady with Leck, and me with Jim and Bud, at intervals, but they were not Mormons and for various reasons I would not marry them. In a year's time all the others were married, leaving Myla, Lois, Jess and I at home. Lois finished her High School. I helped her with her expenses and then she took up Beauty work. I was charge nurse on Maternity at that time and had a few raises.

Lois met Harry Robb over at Esther Genoshy's and in due time married him and had little Jack. When Jack was six months old Harry died in 1938. On Jan 1, 1937, my Uncle Ed and Kenneth White and Marie, my cousins, came down on a visit and I was happy to see them. Little did I think I would go back with them. They brought Ed with them because he was lonely, as Aunt Zittie had died the Oct. before.

I went to a New Years Nurses' party on the third of Jan. and I told several of the nurses, who weren't married and older than I, about my mice Uncle and arranged for some of them to meet him. At that time I was just getting rid of Bud and went with Ray Lechtenberg that night, and had just the night before told one of the nurses I was farther away from marriage than I had ever been.

That night, after the party, Ed, Kenneth had been out and come in late, and Ed proposed to me. I thought it as a joke, but as the evening wore on I knew he was serious and needed someone badly to help on the farm. I had previously promised in a letter to them that for their kindness to my sisters I would be glad to help in any way I could. I held high regard for him, but did not know if I could be sure I loved him. He was sure he could take care of that, so the more I thought and prayed about it, the surer I was it was my mission . The Stake Pres. said " He was sure my mission is in Idaho . Little did I know that the Stake Pres. hadn't send in my mission papers to Salt Lake.

In Feb. of the year 1937 my sister Lorna, bore Frank a baby boy Lewell, and five weeks after his birth she died leaving Joyce and Harry orphans, and LaRae and Lewell with their father. Mother raised Lewell and LaRae and Lorna made the request for Ed and I to take Joyce and Harry, which we did, and did the best we could with them. We went down to her funeral and brought them back with us and her body to bring her back from California to bury her beside Henry in Salt Lake City. I have loved those two kiddies as my own.

When I married, I became wife, cousin, aunt, grandmother, stepmother, mother-in-law, and mother, though I could never if I tried forever, be the wife and mother that Aunt Rosetta was, for she was a truly wonderful woman and it has been quite a task to try and follow in her footsteps.

My greatest desire in marriage was to have babies and raise a family, but for some reason, this part of my patriarchal Blessing has been with held. I has a son that died before birth, but I thank my Heavenly Father for that much of motherhood that I enjoyed while carrying him. I buried him with his father in 1977. We lived on a farm and I have helped all I can to care for Ed's children and grandchildren, loving them as I would my own, I do believe, though I am not sure, the feeling is mutual.

I have tried to keep active in my church duties, keeping the commandments the best I can and prayed earnestly that I may do better in any position I might hold. I was First Councilor to Annie Shippen 1938 in the M.I.A., on the Old Folks committee which I served with my good husband, and now Relief Society Pres. Taught some Beehive. Have mostly tried to be a housewife, but have dabbled a little in this and that.

And doing Public Health nursing for a year, and helping out what I can in my small way in this war crises, and shortage of Doctors.

In Aug of 1943 Joyce went to California to live breaking my heart, because she had to go, as I miss her every day of my life and it has been one of the biggest disappointments I have had to over come thus far, barring none. It has come near to tearing my husband and me apart and then pulling us together closer again than anything ever could. I will always stay by him.

Ed's son, Vern, was married to Erma Olsen when I came here and had two children, Alvin and Neil. I have helped her to have Kay and Paul. Leona was married to Jim Purcell and had Marie. I helped her with Lois and Dick, She has truly been a daughter to me. Aden married Afton Chapman in June after we were married and they have two children.

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