Journal, 1914-1915

File — Box: 4, Volume: 6

Identifier: III

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

1914
June
When I came home from Logan after school closed I found at Thorndyke besides Aunt Mayma and her family three other families. The place looked like a tenement district. Tin cans, papers, egg shells, etc., were scattered about the lawn, and dirty- oh! Mother and Ethelyn had returned from Moapa early in May and had just stopped in Salt Lake a few days. Ethelyn was much weaker and thinner than when I left here in the fall. The Monday after I got home I had my tonsils removed with the hope that this would help to cure my catarrh. Dr. Stevenson performed the operation in his office uptown Lucile went with me too and told jokes to keep up my spirits. I rewarded her by a veritable torrent of endearing epithets while I was under the anesthetic. I also gave her some valuable advice about not getting married. At this the doctors became interested and began to ask questions. I could hear them by this time but decided it was too much trouble to answer. They tried to wake me but I wanted to keep on sleeping. It nearly broke my heart to come back to this sordid world. I did try desperately to rouse myself, but in vain. They got tired of waiting and of supporting me between them half carried me down stairs and out to the automobile. I was in my kimona, bare-headed and with my hair all tumbled up. All the businessman of the building were on the elevator as it was noon hour. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't even hold my eyes open, let alone stand up straight. All I could see was hundreds of feet."
When they finally got home she said the torture began:
"Everything I wanted to say I had to write out. This was a great inconvenience as it often happened that a person would be out to the car or at least out of the house by the time it was finished. The next Monday after the operation I started to Summer School at the U. of U."
August
"I simply can't find time to properly record the events of my young life since I have become a school teacher. After the Lehi clean-up our family betook themselves to Pine Cliff ranch. Aunt Emma came too when Helen came on the train. Aunt Mayme and family stayed at the Clark Place which papa insists on calling Pine View though there isn't a pine tree within five miles of it. The children seemed to be having a fine time, especially Richard who spent his time training the pigs and chickens to perform tricks. There was one big pig that he could manage like the circus man does an elephant. He would make it lie down so that he could get on its back and then it would carry him around the yard in great style. He is only a year and a half old and he looked simply fantastic on that big pig."
1914
August
"The Russells and Aunt M. and family had gone to Salt Lake the day that we moved camp from Pine Cliff to Pine View."
During this summer the families shifted around from place to place as usual.
"We had lots of fun while the poor hardworking fellows were toiling in the hay field. Nearly everyday we went bathing in the creek. We all knew how to swim, that is all but Aunt Emma of those who went in the water. Mother and Ethelyn never went in. Ethelyn though gaining a little was still very weak. She couldn't go anyplace unless she went in the auto."
Mary writes about a friend of hers who married a man she was fond of but not in love with:
"She cared for him, in a way, but still he wasn't her ideal. But he simply worships her and it makes me wonder if that isn't more important after all. Love is everything to a woman, and to love and not be loved would kill her. Her home is the center of her little world and here she must be queen. If this is the case and she loves her husband even only a little she has a greater chance of being happy than if she should marry a dashing, efficient briliant man who might sometime compare her unfavorably with other people, or who might neglect her or make her feel inferior."
1915
February
"A little while before Xmas Lucile went down to Salt Lake with her mind fully made up to have a final settling with Conrad, to 'quit' him, as the poet says. I told her to write it, but she ignored my warning and as result she came back engaged. Such is the way of unwary damsels. I cannot say that I wanted Lucile to get married so soon. She has never had much of a chance at the fun most girls of her class have at college and I had hoped fondly, though perhaps foolishly that she would go to the A. C. at least one year. I suggested the matter to father but it seems that we are getting poorer every year and in view of the rapidly increasing family at Thorndyke it looks quite impossible for him ever to send any more children to college. I hardly think Aunt Mayme's children will care to go beyond high school. They are being trained that it is the aim of life to marry young, raise as large a family as nature will allow regardless of the necessary knowledge or money with which to educate the children properly and that one should be satisfied with the mere physical necessities of life. Papa holds the same views with the exception that he loves literature and believes in a liberal education for boys. He thinks a girl should marry the first good man who asks her, and school for her should be of only secondary importance.
I am afraid that father and mother think I do not care for children I would rather make a few happy and useful than to bring misery and handicaps to large number. I cannot help thinking that poor people who have large families are either mistaken as to their duty or are merely thoughtless and selfish. Nearly everyone loves a baby but is that any reason for having so many of them?"
Toward the last of February, Homer Crabb one of my fifth grade boys took sick with acute kidney trouble. I was very busy and I expected to see him soon so I did not call at his home. The next thing I heard was that he was in a state of unconsciousness and was not expected to live through the day. I wanted to see him so much that I decided to go to the house in spite of everything, but when nearly there I changed my mind remembering that his aunt was sick with typhoid fever in the same house and I would probably only be in the way. But oh if I had only known how they really felt about it I should have gone there when I first heard of their trouble. Dona told me the next day that they were trying to get me over the phone at the very moment I decided not to go down there. That was a little after four o'clock. At six he was dead. The next morning when I came into the class room to begin school I found Homer's books in a pile on my desk. I tried to say something to the children who all knew of the tragedy and were looking up at me with sad faces But I couldn't utter a word. Vera told me that the mother [of Homer] had run away with Mr. Carson of Pleasant Grove and the four children had been motherless for about five years. They and the father had made their home with the grandmother. The next day I had Dona take me to the house. Mr. Crabb took us in to see the body. He was calm and dignified with a face as full of sorrow as Abraham Lincoln. Do you know how dear a child can be to its teacher? I never see a little empty desk without feeling a stab of pain."
Mary went to another doctor and went through several days of tests, the conclusion being that she had a severe case of neuritis, and that if she didn't take measures to cure it she would be a nervous wreck. She began a series of treatments at the hospital.
August 20
"Ethelyn came back from the sanitorium in Bountiful where she had been taking the milk treatment. After arriving home she continued to take the milk treatment, drinking six quarts a day. She gained 23 1bs in two months."
September 1
"About the first of September mama came home from the ranch and Aunt Mayme and family moved into three rooms upstairs."
September 14
"Rulon took sick yesterday afternoon and today was operated on for appendicitus. I was in the hydrotherapy department at the hospital taking a treatment when Lucile came in and told me Rulon was on the operating table. I stayed with him during the afternoon. I was surprised when he came out of the ether without making a disturbance. He smiled and asked me to sing to him. When he was fully awake he said, 'My! this is horrible'. But he didn't make a bit of fuss. I screamed for hours when I came to."

Dates

1914-1915

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