Autobiography of Sarah Allice Beach

Here it is August 14, 1968. At various times I have planned on writing a history of myself, but have never finished one. I have found one among my papers that I wrote sometime ago as follows:

I was born 8 March 1900 in Richmond, Cache Co., Utah, the sixth child of Orson David and Mary Ann Andersen Beach. However, they had buried three of the first five and so I only knew the two older than me, Mary Diane (Ana) thirteen years older than me, and Charles Francis, seven years older. Ana always said, "they were so happy to have a little baby sister and thought I was such a smart little thing."

I was named Sarah Alice after mother's youngest sister, Sarah Alice Andersen Harris, and father's mother, Sarah Palmer Beach, and his sister, Sarah Beach Lindsey. I was always called Alice, but I remember as a little girl I would go across the canal over to Grandma Lewis', a dear Welsh neighbor, and she always gave me a slice of her homemade bread and butter with sugar or jam on it, and always scolded, "the idea of calling you Alice when you were named for your grandmother, as good a woman as she was."

Later mother had four other children, William Edgar, Leroy Andersen, Isabell and Alta Caroline, but only raised Leroy and Alta. Willie, as we called him, died on Easter Sunday in April just after my sixth birthday. On my birthday Aunt Alice Harris gave me a gold ring with four opals in it and father brought me some beautiful pink wool challey material and fancy silk embroidered braid trimming from the store in Richmond. The clerk had helped him select it. Mother hired Aunt Libby Palmer to make it for me and it had little fine tucks all across the front for a yoke, and I don't know whether the trimming was ever used for anything or not. I guess she thought it wasn't practical enough and for years it was in the fill of her trunk. I also had a new coat, hat and muff, and she dressed me up and sent me uptown alone to Odell's Studio to have my picture taken. I remember when I received these birthday gifts that Willie put his arms around me and said, "I love you too."

I remember Ana was brushing my hair and braiding it and helping me get ready for Sunday School and saying after Sunday School she would color some eggs for us. Willie had not woke up when we all sat down and were eating breakfast when he cried out, and we said, Oh! There is Willie," and mother went into the bedroom for him and he was in a convulsion. The folks were panic stricken and tried to get a doctor. Our family doctor, Dr. Parkinson was in the east studying and Dr. D. C. Budge was out of town and our family nurse also. They got Dr. T. B. Budge who had just gotten out of school. He said he was poisoned on something, and wondered if he could have gotten a bug or something off some watercress mother had bought from a boy who came to the door selling it on Saturday and the only thing out of the ordinary we had eaten. Anyway, after a nightmare of a day, Willie died that night. The doctor was there and they had him in a tub of warm water on the dining room floor and mother was sitting in a little rocking chair and father and Ana were there. I was in bed, in a little pink flannel nightgown, in the little front bedroom off the dining room and the door was open and I heard the doctor say he was dead and I jumped out of bed and ran out. The doctor pricked him with a needle and he flinched, but the second time he didn't.

Mother wanted him and they lifted him onto her lap. She sat crying and rocking him when Roy woke up and cried out, and someone went and got Roy and placed him in her arms and they took Willie away. It was all imprinted so indelibly on my mind. The folks always felt if Dr. Parkinson had been in town things would have gone different.

Mother grieved so over losing Willie and would walk up to the cemetery often and sometimes push Roy in his baby buggy and it was about three miles each way. Mother said one day while at his grave grieving a voice spoke to her plain and said, "Mary, live for your children." She was sure it was her mother who died when she was only six years old. From that day on she really followed that advice and lived for her children. She was a very devoted mother.

At the time Isabelle was born mother must have been pretty sick and miserable because Ana's friend, Belle Burgess from Idaho Falls, was visiting us and mother said she didn't know what she would have done without her. Ana was working during the day and had to keep her job. The baby was very weak and the doctor didn't expect her to live and I remember Dr. Parkinson blessed her and gave her the name of Isabelle after Belle Burgess. The baby only lived one day and I remember riding up to the cemetery in a big black cab, and Ana and Belle sat opposite me and held the tiny casket on their laps.

My earliest recollection is waiting to receive my patriarchal blessing, and as it is dated April 3, 1903 I was only three years old. I was standing at the foot of the big dining room table waiting my turn to get up on our youth chair and have Uncle Charlie Card bless me. He gave several blessings that day and Ana was sitting at the far end of the table writing them as the words fell from his lips. His name was Charles O. Card.

On another occasion when Uncle Charles came to have dinner with us and he sat at the head of the table. Mother had made salt-rising bread special for him. He had a white beard and stood in the parlor doorway talking and waiting for dinner. Mother was a good cook and we always had lots of company. It seemed there were very few meals we didn't have someone extra there at the head of the table. I always sat at the side next to "Papa" and I ate everything he ate, even if it was shrimp he had brought home and mother cooked them, but cringed as we ate them.

I had typhoid fever I believe three different summers in a row when I was a little girl and was kept in bed in the parlor and had a nurse, Josie Larsen, to take care of me. Also, once Willie had the measles and so we were quarantined in the parlor together as I was certain to get them, but I didn't have them. But several years later when I was twelve years old I had a bad case of measles.

Ana was working in Salt Lake and living with the Hardings (Aunt Jennie we called her, a cousin of father's) and she had me come and spend a week with her in the winter at Christmas time, during school vacation I guess. I had a chance to ride to Salt Lake on the train with Tom and Edna Cole Porter who lived across the street from us, and they took me up to their room several stories up at the Hotel Utah, to wait for Ana to come and get me. My first ride on an elevator I am sure.

The Hardings had a daughter, Emma, my age and we had a good time while Ana was working. I was impressed with the seamstress they had hired by the week. She stayed right there and sewed all day. They didn't have stores with ready-to-wear clothes like we have now. One of their grandchildren had the measles there a few weeks before and the folks thought I must have picked up the germ from her.

Father came to Salt Lake on business and brought me home. I had a fever and was cold on the train and he wrapped me up in his big buffalo overcoat and I slept on the car seat all the way to Logan. I was again quarantined in the parlor and when they did let me out in the other rooms I caught cold and was back in bed and it settled in my ears. I had such a bad earache and pounding in my ears. They tried every remedy known in those days for an earache that they could think of and that the doctor suggested. Mother finally had some Elders come and administer to me and I have always thought it was her faith and prayers and the power of the priesthood that I got better and for which I have always been most grateful. Especially since one of my friends that I grew up with, Leona Eames sister, Edna, just older than us was totally deaf most of her life after having complications following scarlet fever, and although she went through high school and graduated, she never went out with any boys nor married and so has missed the joys I have known.

I used to love to go up to Cove to Aunt Phoebe and Uncle 'Jode' Allen's who lived on a farm. Lucille was my age and was Alice just older. We used to play run sheep run and other games and hide in the high alfalfa. Then when we were older we attended the dances, both in Cove and in Richmond. I believe I had my first date with a boy from Cove (that is a grown-up date). We sometimes went buggy riding in the summer and sleigh riding in the winter.

I waited for Lucille to have her eighth birthday and Aunt Phoebe took Lucille and me to the Logan temple to be baptized on July 28, 1908.

I started school over the tithing office across the street north of the tabernacle. The school was in the upstairs and we lined up when the bell rang and marched up the rear stairs and to our rooms. My teacher was Mary Sorenson and she had the kindergarten and first, second, and third grades. Edith Bowen had the intermediate grades and Charles Lindsey (my cousin) was the principle and taught the seventh and eighth grades. The one playmate I remember was Lucille Ballard. I used to walk home with her and she lived on the corner of first north and third west, and then I had two more blocks to walk. It was a temptation to stay and play awhile and one night when I arrived home late mother sent me to bed without any dinner. I slept in a little bed in the corner of mother's room and my head was against the door leading into the parlor. Charles Lindsey was going with Miss Sorenson at that time and they were invited to our place for dinner. After dinner they were sitting in the parlor talking and she said, "where is Alice," and when someone told her Charles really laughed. His laugh hurt worse than a spanking ever would. I suppose I came right home after that.

The next year when I was seven I started in the first grade at the Woodruff school on the corner of first south and first west. It was a large red brick building and was used many years, but has since been torn down. I always did quite well in school and given a special promotion and skipped one grade. I believe it was fourth. This put me in the same room with Eva England, Horace Cole and others a year older than me, and Eva and I became real good friends.

The Lowell School on first east and Federal Avenue was completed in time for us to attend seventh and eighth grade. George Harding was the principle and Virginia Maughan was my main room teacher. Lavinia Maughan was another teacher, Ira Cole another, and Laura Cowley was the music teacher. They came to our main room and taught the different subjects. We used to have lots of spelling matches and I used to be among the first ones chosen so I guess I was a good speller. Darrel Kid and Leona Eames were among the best.

When we graduated from the eighth grade in 1915 we had big graduation exercises in the tabernacle and the girls were all dressed in uniforms with navy blue skirts and white middy over blouses with navy collars with white braid trim. The picture has 138 graduates.

I then started school in1916 at the Brigham Young College as a freshman. I majored in business and also took dressmaking and learned to make my own clothes. At our Mid Year Ball, which was the main event of the season, I was told that George Preston, the student body president, said the little Beach girl had on the prettiest dress at the ball. It was a soft rose pink, chiffon with bands of taffeta that formed the yoke and they were beaded with tiny beads in a rose design that I spent hours in making and straps over the shoulders.

The first time I met Elzira and Ed Kemp was on a Sunday afternoon. Reuel called me from Lewiston and asked me to come up to Lewiston and he would take me back home later that night. I caught the Interurban (electric line that ran between Ogden and Preston for many years) and he met me at the station and we walked down to his sisters. She lived a block south of town and about two blocks west in their old home. I liked them both very much and told Reuel so, and also my mother when I returned home. Elzira said several times she thought I had on the prettiest dress she had ever seen. It was short waisted with a slightly gathered skirt with two side panels that hung loose and were embroidered in shades of soft orange that blended with the deep plum shade and was made of satin. Mrs. Fryer, my sewing teacher at the old BYC, had helped me select the colors from a colored picture of a sunset in a magazine. I had lots of compliments on it and always enjoyed wearing it.

Later when Reuel and I were married and living at Kimball, I had a brown wool dress that was embroidered all around the bottom of the skirt with a design that went up into points. Mabel had a hired girl and she asked where I got the pattern (she didn't ask to borrow mine). She went and got the pattern and made her one and embroidered it and also her two sisters, but they did them all in one shade as I remember; one was dark green embroidered in a shade of yellow. Anyway, after that it sort of spoiled my dress for me.

I loved going to Aunt Alice Harris' in Richmond. She had such a lovely big home and I considered the bedroom on the northeast corner upstairs as mine. It had beautiful striped wallpaper on the walls with flowers twining around the light blue stripes.

One night when I had taken a cold and didn't feel very good, Aunt Alice called papa up and he came over and had dinner with us that evening. I cried and didn't want him to leave me so he stayed all night and slept with me.

Aunt Alice was so good to me and taught me how to embroider and to do cross stitch, etc. One time after I was married many years I went to see her and she gave me a little red and white checked pillow with white spider webs and cross stitch work all over the top and she said I worked it when I was four years old at her place.

When I was a little older I remember her giving me money to go to the store and get material for some embroidery work and I bought material for a white apron and she stamped a design on it and I embroidered it in blue while I visited her. It was all scalloped in solid embroidery and an eyelet embroidery design. I kept it for my trousseau and had it for many years.

Uncle Charles owned the 'People Store' in Richmond during those years which was on the corner in town and the main store. It had groceries on the one side and dry goods on the other.

One time when I was older and visiting Aunt Alice she was quizzing me about the fellows I was going with, and Reuel was one of them. Anyway, I said another fellow had more money than Reuel but I liked Reuel best. She looked at me and said, "When you get married you will find you cannot live on love. It takes a lot of good break and butter to go with it." Well I eventually married Reuel and had both bread and butter but not much money, but he was always a hard worker.

Another night when I was visiting her she woke me up in the night and told me that grandfather Andersen's barn was on fire and to get up and get dressed. We went down there and saw the great big barn go up in flames full of hay and harnessed and all kinds of things I guess. I believe they got the livestock out but there was no fire department to fight it and they couldn't do much with their water supply. They remarked it was a good thing it happened after grandfather's death as it would have broken his heart. It was a new barn and burned not very long after grandfather's death so it was probably in 1912.

We belonged to the Logan 2nd Ward and some of my life long friends were Leona Eames and Eva England.

When I was sixteen and attending the old Brigham Young College in Logan I was invited by my dear friend, Vera Greaves, to spend the weekend with her in Preston, Idaho. Vera lived on a farm just north and west of Preston and we went to the dance by horse and buggy that night I remember. We went with some Preston boys. As we entered the old Opera House the girls went to the right through the dressing room and as we went in there was a nice looking black haired girl sitting at the dressing table fixing her hair. She and Vera greeted each other and Vera introduced me to Gretta Rawlinson.

We went on into the dance and met our partners and in the course of a few minutes our dance programs were filled up for the evening. There was no exchanging of dances in those days and there always seemed to be a large stag line of young men and if you were a good dancer, in about ten minutes or less you were surrounded and your card was filled up, passed from one to another, your partner usually taking the first and last dances and one in between. They always had good orchestras and good dances. I loved to dance and had lots of compliments on being a good dancer.

During the course of the evening Gretta came up and asked me if I would meet a young man who wanted to meet me. Perhaps it was my pretty blue dress with a big white collar that attracted him. I told her I would but my card was filled up. She brought Reuel Rawlins up and introduced us. He erased a name on my dance card and wrote his own in and shortly we had our first dance together. He asked where I lived and where I went to school I remember, and told me he was living in Logan and attending the Utah State Agriculture College as it was called then. After that first dance he erased another name on one of the extras and wrote his in, and I remember griping on the way home because the dance didn't last long enough, but I doubt if I explained why.

And so the old Opera House in Preston, Idaho always held a special meaning for me, "the place I met my Beloved," and now it too has gone its way. My lovely young friend, Elaine Mansius' mother, composed this recently and Elaine gave me a copy of it.

REQUIEM

by Mildred Clark Anderson

The wrecking crew has come to town.
It has a job to do.
It seems the Opera House will be torn down,
Replaced with something new.

For many years it was elite -
The center of Preston's life,
With dances, dramas-meetings too
With charm and culture rife.

But lately it's been shunned.
It could not keep the pace
Its attire got shabby, faded, worn
And Hurt showed in a weary face.

But, dear one, as you bow to time
Think not you lived in vain,
In reverence we shall bow our heads
When ere we hear your name.

In Logan they always had big dances on Wednesday and Saturday nights in the big old auditorium on first west, a half block south from Center Street, and we walked to the dances. When the dance was at the AC (Agricultural College) we rode the street car for a nickel each. The street car ran on tracks from the train depot on sixth west up Center Street to Main Street, then north to fifth north, then east to the college, then north to the end of the college, and then make the return trip. It was over two miles and it made the run every half hour on, on the hour and the half hour. Living on Center Street, it passed our house and we could catch it right there on the corner of fourth west. I remember when I was real young of spending our nickels and riding to the end of the line and then back, just for the thrill of it, but I don't remember who I was with now.

The following Wednesday, election week in November, Don Dunford asked me to go to the dance that night at the auditorium, and I turned him down as I had a little cold. Then I met Rose Rogers on my way to typing class and she asked me if I was going and urged me to go. She had a date with Ollie Wilkinson, one of Don's pals. I said no and besides I had already turned Don down. I ws almost home from school and Don caught up with me on his bicycle and said Rose had told him I had changed my mind and I would go to the dance with him. So I went, and as usual, had a good time.

Reuel was at the dance and so we met and danced again, and while dancing he invited me to go to the Ag Club ball up at the AC the following Monday night. Then he said he would have to find out where I lived so asked if I would go to the show on Friday night.

Don came up just as the arrangements were about finished and looked at Reuel and back at me but didn't say anything then or on the way home, but he didn't ask me for any more dates for a while, but Christmas day the Blue Bird delivered a nice two pound box of Blue Bird chocolates and Don's card was in it. In the afternoon I was over to Eva Englands to see her Christmas presents and she had a date that night with Sterling Dunford, Don's cousin. Anyway I called Don up and thanked him for the candy and he asked me for a date for that night, so the four of us did something that night, but I can't remember what.

In November 1916 I had my first date with Reuel Rawlins. We went to a show at the old Lyric theater. It was a stage play that night but I don't remember the name of it, only that for me it was a "big evening." Then on the next Monday evening we went to the Ag Club ball and had a wonderful time. I believe it was my first dance up at the AC.

Another date I remember with Reuel was to see the show, "The Birth of a Nation," which was a big production then. Eunice Hyer had a date with Otis Van Orden, but Bishop Hyer, her father, came to Logan to see his children there and he took all of them that didn't have dates to the show. For some reason he had ordered Eunice not to go out with Otis. She told her father my sister had given me two tickets and asked permission to go with me and it was granted. Reuel and Otis came to my place for us, and when we got to the show they saw the Bishop in front of the crowd, so they handed us two tickets and we went in and found two seats in the balcony. Then they came in and book two seats just behind us. The picture was silent and Otis and his big mouth kept reading the lines out loud until he got bawled out by some fellow behind us which sure tickled Reuel. When the show was over Eunice and I went downstairs and out the front door and waited on the corner below for Reuel and Otis. They went from the balcony stairs and stopped and shook hands with Bishop Hyer and talked to him and the kids a minute and then hurried to meet us and we walked home. She got home before her father and all was well. She eventually married Otis after he returned from his mission and they have lived in Bountiful most of their married life. He was a mail clerk on the railroad until he retired.

Another date my sister, Ana, has mentioned through the years was when Reuel came to Logan for me and he had Horace Cole with him. We drove to Preston and out to the farm for Vera and then back to Preston to a dance in the Opera House. Then we had to take Vera home and we came back through Lewiston as Horace had to get home, and we laughed as he took his shoes off to sneak into the house quietly. Then we drove on to Logan to my home. Well, Ana's story was that she woke up and no Alice in bed with her and it was 2:00 a.m. so she went in and woke mother and told her it was 2:00 o'clock and I wasn't home yet. Mother answered, "Oh, she is all right, she is with Reuel." And he was always worthy of her confidence. I doubt if we could ever drive over 30 miles an hour in those days and it was at least 40 miles to Preston and to Vera's farm home. That was the latest we were ever out on a date I am sure.

In 1918 World War I was on and Reuel was registered for the draft as were all 21 year old fellows. Since he was farming with Alpheus in Idaho he was deferred until they could get their crops out. He was scheduled to Leave November 11, so he came to Utah to tell me goodbye, as well as his folks.

He wanted me to go back to Kimball with him so I didn't ask my boss if I could go, but told him I was going. The morning of the 11th Alpheus and Mabel took us to Blackfoot to the railroad station. There was a train due shortly before Reuel's that would take me to Cache Junction so I told him goodbye and took it and when I got to Cache Junction it was dark and I called my father and asked him to come and get me. He wanted me to stay all night and come on over on the train in the morning but I didn't want to so he told me to go across the tracks and about a block or so to a Grandma Crockstons and tell her who I was and stay until he could get there which I did. She was very nice and friendly to me and I found out years later she was Bessie Thompson's grandmother. (Bessie was the wife of our Stake President in Richland, Washington.) Papa's little old Model T was in the garage and up on blocks, but he got it down and finally arrived for me. He drove about 10 miles per hour or less. We had a nice visit all the way back.

I got up and went to work the next morning and supposed Reuel was on his way to Fort Lewis. As soon as possible I got a letter from him telling me the sheriff came to the train station and said the war was over and dismissed them all at the station.

He wanted to get married right away so we could eat Thanksgiving dinner as husband and wife he said. I had to write back and tell him I would have to give two weeks notice at work, so I told them I was going to quit work December 1st and Pres. Skidmore tried to talk me out of it as it was their busy season. Reuel came down before Christmas but the temple was closed on account of the flu and we did want to get married in the temple.

Father went uptown to Hyde's Clothing store and bought me a trunk to pack my trousseau and belongings in. I did have lots of beautiful hand work, solid white and eyelet pieces, etc. that I had won blue ribbons on at the county fair.

I don't remember when I started to sew, crochet, and embroider, but I know I was very young. We used to sew for tiny little 5 cent china dolls and they had lots of changes of clothing. We also made hollyhock dolls and played theater. We rigged up our own costumes and made up our plays and charged so many pins for the tickets. We also had little pin stores, so many for a little doll dress, etc.

The winter of 1918-19 was the winter of the terrible flue epidemic raging and so many people were dying all around us, but we never worried or gave it a thought that we might get it. Everyone on the streets or in offices were required to wear flu masks made of cheese cloth tied over the mouth. When we went to the courthouse in Logan to get our marriage license we had to wear our masks. It so happened George Skidmore, my boss, was standing there talking to the clerk and so after greeting us he turned to the clerk and said, "This is one of my girls, make it as easy as possible for them"

Reuel's sister, Elzira Kemp, came down from Lewiston on the U.I.C. railroad early that morning and then she caught the street car in town that she knew we would be on at 7:30 a.m. and we went to the temple.

The temple was closed for several weeks due to the flu epidemic so we were not sure when we could set our date but it was rumored that it was going to be opened the 7th of January, so we went ahead and had our announcements made for the 8th, and hoped. It opened on the 7th for baptisms and 14 couples were married on the 8th and then the flu was so bad it was again closed for some time, so we always said it opened just for our benefit. Reuel and I were married January 8, 1919 in the Logan Temple by President Joseph R. Shephard. It was a beautiful winter day with the sun shining on the snow.

We were married at 1:30 in the afternoon by President Shephard. When we left the temple the sun was shining bright on the snow and it was a beautiful day and we walked from the temple down the hill and on down to my parents home.

That night mother had a lovely dinner for our family, Reuel's father and Aunt Caroline, Elzira and Ed, George and Nellie, and Melvin and Beatrice Harris and a few other I don't remember just now.

After two or three days we left for Kimball, Idaho which was about 8 miles north of Blackfoot. Our first home together ws two rooms in an old farm house and Alpheus and Mable lived in the rest of it

Reuel's father gave him $200 and we went to town to Firth and bought a big Majestic range for $100 with a reservoir on the front for heating water and two warming ovens across the top as well as a large oven. We paid $50 for a kitchen cabinet and it had a bin that held a 50 lb. Sack of flour and had a sieve at the bottom to get it out. There was a section for dishes and a large bread board that pulled out. There were some drawers for silver etc. and the lower part had shelves for our pans. It was a nice compact cabinet. Then we bought a round table and chairs and a small rocking chair with the other $50.

Reuel had a bed and dresser that was his parents first bedroom set and he had taken it with him to Idaho with Alpheus. We still have the dresser. Reuel took all the old finish off and did a nice job of refinishing it years later in Richland. We got rid of the bed in Pocatello as I remember and got us a dark metal bed.

Reuel was secretary of the Sunday School and they asked me to be the organist as they had no one in the Kimball Ward who could play the piano. So as long as we lived in Kimball I was the organist for every meeting held, Sunday School, Sacrament Meeting, MIA, etc. I was also a Bee Hive leader in the MIA and Reuel was first counselor in the MIA to Joseph Wright.

About the first of September 1920 I went by train from Firth, Idaho to Logan, Utah to my parents home to await the arrival of our first child. On Friday I was so restless all day and I wished so hard for Reuel that I am sure he knew that I wanted hi8m. At the farm in Idaho it started to storm so hard that they couldn't continue the work they were doing so he decided to come to Logan and went in the house to shave and get ready to catch the train. Mabel went in and tried to stop him and told him that he would probably have to wait around two weeks and there was too much to do there. He paid no attention and kept on getting ready and started up the lane on foot to catch the train where it stopped at Kimball. He was too late to catch it there as it was coming so he started on the run for Wapello, the next stop two miles south, and as the train passed him the conductor waved to him and motioned him on. Anyway he made it and bought his ticket to Cornish. When the train got into Cornish there was a car there with two men in it and they asked him where he was going and he told them Lewiston and they offered him a ride. When they got into Lewiston, which was five miles, he could see the lights of the Interurban coming from Preston so he ran and caught it for Logan without stopping in Lewiston.

Mother and I were home alone. She was ironing in the kitchen and I was in the front room (parlor) playing the piano as hard as I could play it when the dining room door opened and someone came in the door and then the parlor door opened and it was Reuel and I was in his arms. I thought I was the happiest I had ever been. That was about 8 or 8:30 in the evening.

About 1:00 a.m. I began my labor and about 2:00 a.m. I woke Mother. Dr. Ira Hayward was the attending physician. Mary was born in Logan at my mother's home on September 7, 1920. After it was all over Reuel called his folks in Lewiston and told them about the new baby girl. They were so surprised to find out that he was there with me

Grandpa Rawlins and Elzira came down to see us when Mary was 8 days old and I remember that Grandpa said that she was his tenth grandchild so he would have to give her for tithing. He gave her a blessing and named her Mary after her grandmother. Reuel had said, "What shall we name her, can we find a name good enough?" After naming off a few different names it was he who said "Mary."

Reuel had to go back to his work on the farm and when Mary was three weeks old we went home on the train on a Saturday to be there for fast day. There she was blessed and named again for the records of the church by her Uncle Alpheus, so she received two blessings

When she was three months old she caught whooping cough (Mabel's children got it at school and they lived in the other part of the house). Mary was so far that some of the old ladies predicted that I would never raise her and somebody was "good enough" to tell me. I cried and cried, and I am sure that I prayed and prayed and although she whooped for literally years we pulled her through. Even after David was born if she took a cold she always had the croup and whooped.

When she was eight months old Lloyd got smallpox from school and after going through all their family, except Mabel who had it when she was a girl, and finally I caught it, but a light case, and then Reuel and Mary got it from me. They both came down with it at the same time and I had them in bed together. However, they both had a very light case. I remember we were all better but when the Ward held their 24th of July celebration we couldn't go, but Alpheus' family all went. So Mary had both whooping cough and smallpox before she was a year old, and either one could have been fatal, and was for many children in those days.

We went to Salt Lake in June 1921 to the MIA Conference with the Wrights and we left Mary in Logan with Grandma Beach.

In 1922 we raised a large crop of potatoes but there was no market for them. They stayed in the potato cellar all winter and had to be hauled out on the ground and dumped in the spring.

Reuel's good friend, Alfred Luis, was working for the railroad in Pocatello and he wrote to Reuel that he could get a job if he would come down so he went. So in November of 1922 Reuel went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad in the Round House as a machinist helper. He soon found us a small place to live and moved us to Pocatello with him. It was another two rooms, half of a little square house about two blocks from the center of town on N. Hayes and that was where David was born with a Dr. Ray in attendance on March 30, 1923. Just cold water in the kitchen was the only convenience

I remember Reuel's wages were $112 for the month and we paid $12 tithing and $20 rent and had the rest to live on.

When David was about a year old we found a nice little apartment in a nice house with a young couple, but we had to share the bath and she was so snoopy I couldn't stand it and we lived there only two months until we could find another place. We found a small duplex and the couple in the other side was really nice and had a little girl Mary's age named Madelyn Mullen.

The church built a new recreation hall just behind the 1st Ward chapel when we first moved to Pocatello. Reuel helped dig the foundation and do all the work he could on it after work and on Saturdays. When it was finished they held dances twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Reuel belonged to the choir and they had choir practice on Wednesday nights. I would get Mary and David in bed and Mrs. Brown would listen for them and I would walk down and meet him and we would go to the dance in the church recreation hall. They always had a good orchestra and there was quite a group of fine young couples we danced with. Then on Saturday night we usually danced there again. Reuel loved to dance and never tired of it and I enjoyed it too.

We finally put a little money down on a small house in North Pocatello (3rd Ward) and so we thought we had a place of our own, but the railroad transferred Reuel and some other young fellows to Salt Lake so we just had to let the house go. We must have stored our furniture somewhere, as the children and I went to Logan to stay with mother until he could find us a place in Salt Lake. We only lived there four months and they were all transferred back to Pocatello.

In Salt Lake we lived in an upstairs apartment on sixth east with a Mrs. Graham and she was just lovely to me and the children while we were there. David was two years old and she had a little boy the same age. David almost got hit with a car one day. One of the older children sent him to get the ball and Mrs. Graham screamed Mrs. Rawlins and I flew downstairs, but the fellow had good brakes I guess and managed to miss him, but it was an awful scare.

THIS IS AS FAR AS ALICE GOT WITH HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY BUT IN 1975 SHE WROTE THE FOLLOWING:

September 16, 1975 - About Reuel Visiting Her in a Dream & Expressions of Appreciation

Two more days, September 18, and it will be eleven years since Reuel left us. I have wondered how I could ever live without him, but the years have flown by and I have kept busy and my wonderful family have all been so good and thoughtful of me that I couldn't ask for more. I just want health and strength to keep going and to be able to take care of myself.

In 1965 Ruth and Ted were living in Las Vegas and Ted took a leave of absence from the company and they sold their home and moved to Tucson, Arizona and he attended the University of Arizona to get his Masters degree.

Their third son, Scott, was born there on the 15th of April 1966 and I went to Tucson to be with her and help her out. But when the baby was a week or so old I took sick and had to go to a doctor and he put me immediately in the hospital and I was there about ten days or so. When I was released I flew home as soon as I was able and Mary met me in Pendleton. I was living in a little apartment at 5 North Palouse.

I had told Ruth and Ted that I had told Dad that if anything happened to him to hurry back for me, but I didn't want anything to happen to me down in Arizona and to be on their hands with their new baby and Ted in school.

I don't know if I subconsciously worried about it, but on Sunday morning, June 18, 1966 Reuel was right beside me. He leaned my head back over his left arm and gave me a little brief kiss on the mouth and said a date, a day, month, and 1976. I answered and said, "Oh, I can wait that long, forever if I have to," as though I understood it all. Then he was across the room by my little bedroom door and stood for a moment looking at me and then he was gone. But his eyes I shall never forget, they were as though they were lighted up and said more than words could have.

Just then I came to and blinked and wished I could be right back there again. I layed there and thought about it and didn't tell anyone for a week or so, but every time I think about it, even to this day I am thrilled through and through. The day and the month seem to escape me but not the year.

On Sunday evenings I listen to Elder Sill's talk on KSL Radio when I can get it. Awhile back he told of someone asking a V.I.P. what was the most interesting experience he had ever had and he answered that he could not, that he had not yet experienced it. I thought about that, and I thought for me it will be when my beloved Reuel comes for me and takes me by the hand and takes me through the veil to the other side with him as he has taken me through the veil of the temple. And I want my family to rejoice for me, and not to feel bad. They have been all any mother could wish for, and I love them all with all my heart.

I have never written this before, but Marilyn and Bob have both been after me to write some kind of a history of the important things that have happened to me, and to me this is one of them.

Anemia was just a word in the dictionary until last October and after some lab work I was sent to Dr. Kramer and he put me in Lady of Lourdes Hospital for all kind of tests etc. I was there eleven days and the consensus was that my bone marrow was not making any red cells, and thus far it hasn't corrected itself, and I have had to have a blood transfusion every month from January on. I don't know how long this will go on, but I hope to be able to accomplish a few things.

Alta and Mary both called me last night to check on me as they often do, and Roy calls me from California every once in a while. Ruth called two weeks ago. And Rhonda and Orin and David and Dorothy do all they can for me. I am so grateful for all of them. And my good friends also

December 31, 1975 - New Years Eve

As 1975 comes to a close I feel as though my life is slowly ebbing away. How long these transfusions must go on I know not, when or how.

I said my last earthly farewell to my beloved son, David Franklin. He was all I could have desired in a son and my "Rock of Gibralter" ever since his father died. Always anxious to do all he could for me and how I'll miss his little telephone calls, always "Mom?" and a brief visit and always ended with "Love you." If I by chance met him in the church foyer between Wards he always stopped and greeted me with a kiss.

But the Lord answered my prayers when Kathy brought me the sad news that he had a stroke and was paralyzed and could not talk. I felt like I cried all the tears in me, but they still well up at times. But I prayed that He would release his valiant spirit from his poor wreched body, nevertheless His will, not mine be done. And to bless and comfort Dorothy and his family. Her strong testimony and faith will see her through. She has been a real daughter to me.

My dear friend, Pearl Clement, wrote on her card, "A mother must bear many burdens and joys in her lifetime. First bringing our children into the world and then having to part with them again. But what a blessing and privilege that you could be the one to bear such a great son. You will always remember him with righteous pride in your heart. Dave brought you much happiness in his lifetime and memories of him will always be pleasant to you."

As I woke up Christmas day I couldn't help but think what a wonderful reunion for him and his father and Reuel B. and others there.

I thank the Lord for his gospel and the privilege of being a member. Without it I would be desolate, but as it is I know that at the longest it won't be to long before I will join them.

If I could have just one wish it would be the same one my great grandmother added as a postscript to her autobiography, "I am so thankful for my pioneer heritage."

This morning just before y:00 a.m. I had a telephone call from Bob, my oldest grandson, wishing me a Happy New Year and inquiring about me and Dorothy etc. I am so thankful for my 20 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren and the two that are on the other side, and the 6 great great grandchildren that will soon be here. How much I love them all.

And so goes 1976.

Sarah Alice Beach Rawlins passed away July 14, 1976, the exact year Reuel told her in the dream.