Journal, 1924

File — Box: 5, Volume: 18

Identifier: III

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

April 18
"We are out of money and don't know where to go to borrow. Charles could not go to work because he couldn't buy a gallon of gasoline to take him there. He took the few pennies I had in my purse and went up town to seek counsel of the bishop. I am so weak & have so much pain that I find it hard just to sit up and write these few words. Well they say the darkest hour is just before dawn, so I guess we must be going to get some relief soon."
April 19
"Not long after I wrote the above I bro't the mail in and there was a fifty dollar check in one of the letters. A loan to Charles from a friend of his. Today he succeeded in getting another fifty dollars from a company that is willing to trust him."
April 30
"If I could have a genuine rest from all vexations for a few weeks or months it would amount to a cure I am sure. But that is harder to get than medicines, hospital treatment or an operation simply because it is 'agin nature' to believe that curative measures can be anything but painful. However if I don't get a good rest and a little fun mixed in very soon I will be able to satisfy the skeptical by becoming sick enough to require a disagreeable and costly remedy. But in spite of the defects of my nature I can still be glad it isn't any worse and as long as I do my best to improve it I feel that the great law of compensation will make my life a happy one after all. Even now my blessings far out weigh my miseries."
May 3
"I just felt desperate this morning. About 10:45 we decided to go up and see Dr. Gill Richards. We left the children at Lucile's and went. The doctor was as kind and sensible as I remember him the year I had neuritis (1915-16). He advised us to spend the summer on the ranch because of the more easy and pleasant life possible there. He said that having four babies within four and a half years and being so poor as we have been, not being able to hire help would have broken down the health of a strong woman, and that I had been in no condition to undertake even the usual amount of work in a well to do home with one or two babies."
Seeing her unhappiness as being outwardly caused Mary says that those people who owe Charles money are spending it on themselves for luxury items but she will do her best and "try to forget and even forgive the unrepentent ones who have caused our misery." Another cause of frustration and anger is her utter dependence upon her husband, as the patriarch of the household, that leaves her feeling powerless and frustrated.
May 11 was Mother's Day and Mary went to see her parents, getting into a discussion with her father about 'dear Aunt Mayme'. Her father told her that Mayme had a ham and some groceries for them. Mary says:
"After we got home and to bed I lay awake till nearly morning trying to decide just what we should do about that. I know Aunt Mayme never had a kind thought toward me in all her life and never will have and I just can't figure out what her motive is this time. I don't look forward to the visit with anything but dread, but perhaps, I should go for the sake of the children, just making sure as we can that they won't have to go hungry this summer. I have worked for Aunt Mayme without any pay when her family was small, I was her nurse when John was a baby, but I didn't do it because I wanted to but because father made me, and I don't want return favors from her. Father certainly owes me help because it was thru his coercion that I overworked and broke down before I was married. He said he would give us some groceries and now he makes it appear that we are accepting charity from Aunt Mayme, the worst enemy we have in the world. Oh how horribly sordid life can be at times."
About Charles ability as a breadwinner Mary says:
"We have to be so careful in choosing a place, to get one where we can be sure of making a living. Charles has had so little training along money making lines that it is hard to find just what he can handle successfully."
"Well father and Aunt Mayme have a debt to pay which will be a heavier one than any that can be paid with money. They have not only broken mother's heart and darkened her whole life but robbed her of her oldest and noblest most promising daughter, [Ethelyn who died June 7, 1919] and made invalids or almost invalids of the other children by requiring that we work harder than we were able to. They are responsible for Rulon's misfortune, more I think than he himself, because father neglected him in order to be with the other family."
May 19
"We made our annual trip to the ranch."
May 29
"Snow bound. Storming heavily all day. About 8 inches of snow on the ground. Can't keep warm in the house without wearing our coats."
Desperately in need of money Mary told Charles to ask his mother if she would return the money that he had given her before their marriage. Reluctantly Charles goes and instead asks his mother if she has made out a will. Mary writes:
"She [his mother] was very indignant and said she was determined not to leave a cent when she should die. She said she was going to spend all she could for her own pleasure and she thought it very greedy of us to ask her to leave any of it for us."
It seems that Mary and Charles have difficulties with Charles's relatives as well as her own. Mary writes about a time when Charles and her father were commiserating about the fact that Mary's invalidism was aggravating their condition of poverty and that she alone should suffer and not expect any help from anyone. Mary reacted rather strongly to this, needless to say, and as she put it:
"I was frantic with pent up emotions and I displayed it by telling them how mean and unjust they are and of course said a number of insane things that I knew I didn't mean."
Charles provides a complete rest of nine days for Mary sans children to recoupe. How does she spend her time? She is frightened of sleeping in the house alone so invites a ten year old girl to stay with her who cried from fright. Mary comforts her by telling stories to her "till nearly morning".
July 14
"Spent most of the day cleaning up the house. Stayed alone at night but was too nervous to sleep."
July 16
"After having remained awake last night until four A.M. I dressed and got to work bottling fruit. This finished I went to Sugar House."
1924
On the 20th of July Mary returns to Pine Cliff Ranch with Charles and the children. In August she writes:
"Charles thinks I am dippy for keeping a diary. I know this one is punk. But sometimes it furnishes some wanted information and may contain a lesson or two for me. I don't know. If I get real sick I will order it burned."

Dates

1924

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