I was born in Hamburg, Germany, November 29, 1892. I'm sure my birth made my father and mother very happy because my sister, Louise, had died of Cholera just a short time before. We lived on Hyden Comsway, a short distance from the L.D.S. Mission home. My mother took care of the mission home and Rulon S. Wells was Mission President. One day when mother was cleaning, I remember running around the desk and spilled ink on Pres. Well's grey suit. I remember how angry Mother was! My Father was a telegrapher for the railroad, where eight trains entered Hamburg daily.
Before we came to America, Mother took Fred, John, Mary and myself to Berlin to bid Kaiser Wilhem 'goodbye' and he shook hands with us and wished us success and hoped we wouldn't be disappointed with our new land.
On the boat trip I got to see three whales. There were missionaries on the boat and a sea burial. Father and the missionaries held me up and over the side so I could see. As they lowered the plank, with the body strapped to it, over the side, I heard the minister say, "Amen!". Then I heard the 'kerplunk; and it went down fast.
One day on the boat we got into a storm at sea and as my brother Fred and walked around I became 'sea sick' and fell into a bucket of nuts and bolts and vomited.
When we landed on the ground we got on a train and went across the U.S.A. We stayed for a while in the John Zevahlen home in Ferron, Utah. He was one of the missionaries who had taught us the Gospel in Hamburg. Later we moved on a piece of property with a log cabin. My father labored for different farmers and mother grew a garden and watched her children. Father worked for Andrew Nelson for our first cow. Now we had our own cow and our own milk.
I was baptized in Ferron Creek 8 Sept 1901. I had to walk from our home to school, usually in shoes that were "hand-me-downs' and didn't fit. I had a hard time in school because of the language. My first teacher was Desi Allred, who I called 'Ma'. She was a kind, patient lady who helped me a lot. My second teacher was Lily Allred. I had a hard time learning to pronounce words in the English language. A friend in a higher grade helped me. We stayed in during recess and noon sitting in the same desk. The kids teased me because Blanch Hitchcock helped me. She is still my friend and lives just two blocks west of my home in Castle Dale and is married to Clive Kilpack.
I didn't have much schooling, receiving a certificate after just going through the sixth grade. I tried to go farther but got sick - I couldn't stand to be homed up in-doors. Mr. Geo. Weglan, the principal asked the school trustees to release me and they did. Mr. Weglan told my father that I could manage, I picked up things fast. He also told my father that there were "too many educated fools in the world now a days anyway."
I then started helping father haul manure from our corrals to four acres of land that we leased. On the we would pass the school and the boys would hold their noses and look the other way. We planted barley and set the record for Emery County by getting 109 bushels to the acre. Father, then started renting farms and became a 'sharecropper'. Soon Fred and myself were renting farms besides helping father. Fred was two years younger than I and John was two years younger than Fred. Father was a good manager and taught us good farming practices. We now had cows and chickens, therefore we could sell butter and eggs to our neighbors.
One day father came out to the farm we were working and when he saw me riding on the plow instead of walking behind it he was disgusted and went to see what Fred was doing. Fred had a gang of plows behind four horses. Father decided we were lazy but when he went to see John, who had three horses on a harrow and was riding his saddle horse behind, he became so angry that he left. That night at home, Father wouldn't eat with us. He said, "I didn't think my sons would be like the American Indians wanting everything they got for nothing."
Next we purchased the house and land across the street from the log cabin from Will and Hannah King. We had a few dairy cows at the home lot and a bull. It was John's and my job to take the bull down to the river to drink and if he wouldn't we'd hold his head down under the water until he'd blow bubbles. Father felt sorry for the bull so he took over the task. One day the bull pulled loose and turned on father, goring him in the stomach and forcing him into the river. Martha and Annie, my sisters, came running to tell us and Fred and I took off for the house. Dr. Graham was called and said father also had broken his collar bone, and eight of his ribs and his jaw-bone, which he wired together. Mother sent Fred up to Christensen's to get a gun to shoot the bull but Dr. Graham told them not to, but to sell him to help pay the bills. He was a ferocious beast and gave us many a chase. We fattened him up and sold him. Father went to the L.D.S. hospital in Salt Lake City, but couldn't work much after that. He later died of cancer 27 August 1925.
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