Memories of my father, James Palmer Calkins, and mother Alice Allsop
By Mary Ellen Calkins Allen
My father, James Palmer Calkins, was born at Payson, Utah, 7 August 1862; first son and second child of Horatio Palmer and Mary Elizabeth Manwill Calkins.
His young years were spent in Payson. Times were hard, especially for his parents. Indians were numerous and dangerous. His father was what they called a “minute man” and spent much of his time helping fight them. The Indian Chief was called Black Hawk and was a cruel, dangerous man.
Father’s schooling was brief by the measuring stick of today. He never had the chance to go beyond the fifth grade, but his fifth grade reader was harder to read than my eighth grade one. He liked to read and always enjoyed his evenings in that way. After supper and all the chores were done, while we girls did the supper dishes, he liked to sit at one end of the kitchen table with his chair tilted back on its back legs and read aloud; the newspaper, farm papers, the Book of Mormon, sometimes interesting stories. If we chatted among ourselves while we worked and became noisy, he would tell us quietly to tend to our work and be quiet.
He was about 12 years old when his father moved his family to MoundValley, or Gentile Valley, Idaho, as it was called most of the time. It is a lovely, peaceful valley along the Bear River. Low rolling hills with chokecherries along the fence rows, interspersed with hawthorns and lovely wild roses. Every little ways, a creek of clear mountain water ran down from the hills above and joined the Bear River; Spring Creek, Twin Creeks, etc.
Grandfather’s sister, Caroline, and their large family moved from Payson also. They lived nearby and from stories told at home, I am sure they enjoyed each other’s company.
Many close friends were made while living here; the Williams family, the Perrys, the Schvaneveldts and McGreagors. Also, not very many miles away was Thatcher with the Harris’, Pond’s, Hale’s and Toone’s.
Grandfather Calkins later moved to Gray’s lake where the grazing would accommodate larger herds of cattle and sheep.
About his and mother’s courtship, I know nothing. He told me once when he first proposed to Mother, she turned him down. Now, it seems to me he met her brothers, John and Charles Allsop, and through them, he later met mother.
My mother, Alice Allsop, was born at Richmond, Cache Co., Utah, on 1 March 1867; the third daughter and seventh child of John Allsop and Mary Ellen Wood.
Richmond is located near the northern boundary of Utah about ten or twelve miles south of the IdahoState line and nestled against the beautiful rolling hills at the foot of the Wasatch Mountain Range.
Her parents joined the L.D.SChurch over in old England and came to Utah with a company of Mormon Emigrants in 1854. Her father was a carpenter and cabinet builder by trade. He died when Mother was a little girl nine years old. Her mother never remarried.
About her childhood days, we know very little now. The bits of information I put here are gleaned from my memory of little things she told me off and on while I was a child myself. Grandmother was a fussy housekeeper and taught her girls that cleanliness is next to godliness, and while Mother wasn’t fussy about her home, she was spotlessly clean. What I mean by this, she couldn’t tolerate dirt or messy ways of doing things, but didn’t take the joy out of life by insisting every little thing be put in place as soon as it was used. What we did, we did well.
She often talked of a Mrs. Paul she worked for when she was a young lady. She must have liked this Mrs. Paul very well from some of the things she told us. While here, she bought herself a sewing machine called and Eldredge. She still used this after I was married.
Father and Mother were married at Grandma Allsop’s home in Richmond, Utah on 10 December 1888; Brother W. K. Burnham performing the ceremony.
Father’s people lived at Gray’s Lake near CaribouMountain. It was in BinghamCounty. The post office was at Herman, north of the lake. Our homestead was in Bannock Co., now Caribou Co., just south of Grace at a little place called Niter.
At Herman, in Gray’s Lake, my oldest brother, James Elmo, was born on 11 December 1889, just one day after their first wedding anniversary. On 1 March 1891, a little premature brother, Albert, was born and died a few hours later. Then, I came along on 17 March 1892, their first girl. From the locations, they had moved around. Albert was born and buried in MoundValley and I was born at Trout Creek, or Lago, as it is now called.
I am quite sure that life was hard and the folks never had much to do with. I remember hearing them say that Father had worked at times for fifty cents a day. With a growing family, that wouldn’t have gone very far. My memory is that they always raised a garden and I can recall going with Mother in the wagon to take fresh produce to Grace to both her brother’s families and her sisters also. We had the water from the little spring in “The Hollow” to run on the garden and water in Grace was hard to get. I can remember going with the cousins in Grace to the River after water to use around their homes. It was a little over a mile to the Bear River from Grace. At that time, there wasn’t a bridge there. It is hard to believe these days as we fly along in cars. I recall going to Uncle Tom Allsop’s in Thatcher with Father in the wagon and we forded the river. Water came high enough on the wagon box to lift it up. A little more and it would have floated off from the running gears. The horses were starting to swim as we reached shallow enough water they could get their footing again. Father looked at me and grinned as it became apparent that all was okay; I guess he was getting nervous himself.
Father raised wheat and took it to the grist mill, (wheat ground into flour). They’d speak of it as taking a grist to be ground.
Mother was a wonderful cook and everything always tasted so good. I can’t remember them being short of things to cook. I suppose there must have been such times, but I can’t recall ever being hungry. I mean, “hungry with nothing to eat kind of hungry”. True, we ate bread and milk with honey or fruit for our suppers instead of hot meals. To this day, I prefer a light supper. In the seasons of gardens, we always had fresh vegetables; lettuce, radishes, cabbage, etc. to make salads, etc. Apples stored away for winter, also potatoes, squash, onions and such foods as could be stored away. Father would dig pits to put carrots and potatoes away from the frost, etc.
They raised their own meat, pork (cured the hams and bacon, even smoked the hams) [We] had our own chickens and eggs. Mother always made their own butter. We didn’t buy those things at the store. No ready mixes in those days. Mother made her own wash soap most of the time. Washed on a board or later, an old machine that had to be turned by hand, (it was wonderful when we got that).
I remember when the art of canning fruits and vegetables were a problem and jellies or jams, “preserves” they were called, was the main method used to take care of the fruit, then. As they learned how to can in glass jars without breaking them, Mother would do a lot. I remember some of the first attempts to can peas and beans, and some of the recipes in the farm magazines telling how it could be done with safety and success.
Mother was a good nurse; she just seemed to have the knack of doing the right things when we were ill. So far to Doctors, and money so scarce the mothers had to learn the right way, or else. No serums or inoculations around us in those days. Some handy grandmother would come to assist with the deliveries of the babies and help to lay away the dead when they were called away. I can remember my parents going to “sit up” with some ill neighbor. No undertakers, either. When death visited some home, some neighbor would go to sit up through the night to watch and see that all was taken care of. If ice could be had, they kept it packed around the bodies and had cold, wet cloths around on the body. This was necessary because there were no mortuaries or funeral homes. Even Drs. were many miles away and would be brought many miles by someone riding on horseback or buckboards, (sort of light wagon), maybe in a rush case they would borrow extra horses to relieve an over-jaded team or saddle pony.
On 15 December 1894, Alice was born at Trout Creek, and on 22 November 1896, a little sister, Mildred was born at Thatcher, a little town near the Bear River, close to where Uncle Tom Allsop lived.
In the spring of 1898 the folks made the necessary arrangements to go to Logan, Utah to the temple. I can recall Mother being busy sewing white dresses for we three girls and a white shirt with knee pants for Elmo. We rode in the covered wagon with a spring-seat on t and I suppose there was a place in the bottom of the wagon-bed for tired children to take naps, as that was the usual procedure. I remember it rained on us the first day and we stopped in MoundValley at the home of Joe Schvaneveldt’s. Father figured we should go back and wait for the weather to clear. After discussing it, however, they decided it may be a long time before they would get started again. So, on we went. Roads were poor and not even graveled. Mud rolled up on the wheels until the horses had to struggle to drag it along. Father cut a little paddle and would stop every little while to dig the heavy blobs of clay mud from the wheels. Grandma Allsop still lived at Richmond. She went on with us to Logan. We stopped with Father’s cousin who was staying in Logan going to school. The next morning, Father and Mother went to the Temple. Grandma dressed us children later and took us over to be sealed to them. I recall, she dressed Alice and Mildred in their white dresses, but put a colored dress on me. I asked if I could wear mine also, but she said, “Ah, my no, Mary, you are too big a girl to be on the street in a white dress.” I was just a month or so past six years old. I don’t seem to remember anything about our return trip back home again.
On 1 January 1899, a little brother, Charles Wood, was born. Grandmother Calkins was with Mother and stayed until she was up and around again. This little brother died 11 May 1899, just a little over four months old. Alice and Mildred both had whooping cough at this time. Alice coughed especially hard and invariably would hold her breath, sometimes we despaired of her catching it again, and this would frighten Mother terribly.
The following winter, Grandma Calkins suffered a stroke which left her partially paralyzed. Father took Mother and us four children to Gray’s Lake to help care for her. How long we were there, I can’t rightly remember, but in March 1900, Grandma suffered another stroke and passed away in a few days. Mother was expecting a new baby that spring. She did the necessary part of preparing the frail little body for burial and Father, Grandfather, and some of the Uncles left for Grace with the remains of our sweet little Grandmother. Mother waked me (I was eight years old) to see her once more before they took here away. Grandfather’s sister lived at Grace and they took her there, stopping at Soda Springs to buy the burial clothes and casket on the way. Their final preparations for burial were completed at Grace.
The men folks, or their friends, in those days would help each other dig the graves and sometimes would also make the caskets, etc. What flowers, if any, were home grown and in the summer or fall they had many, while in the winter months, they would consist mostly of treasured blooms from someone’s house plants. She was laid to rest in the little cemetery where her youngest son, Albert, was buried in January 1898.
After Grandma’s passing, Grandfather felt so alone and he persuaded Father to stay there. So, Father took up a desert claim and we lived near by. Three years later, Grandfather passed away in an Ogden hospital with cancer of the stomach. The folks stayed on a few years more, but Mother worried about us children being so far from church activities, so they returned to our homestead in GentileValley.
In the spring after Grandmother passed away, Mother had a new little son born to her. They named him Palmer. Then, a few weeks before Grandfather passed away, another son, Seth Reuben, was born. He was just a month old when the folks were called to go to Grandfather’s funeral. Grandfather was buried in the LagoCemetery by little Grandma and Uncle Albert. Soon after we moved back to Niter, another little premature brother came to us, but only stayed a few hours and went back again; making thee Mother had lost. Sister Gibbs, our only neighbor, helped Mother with the baby. Not many months after this, Sister Gibbs became very ill and Mother about ruined her own health trying to keep both places going at once. Sister Gibbs passed away in June after a long drawn out siege.
The next year, father built us a home with three rooms up on the east end of the home on the highway. What a lot of hard work to get the timber from the mountains and build it up. We hauled drinking water form the spring where we had lived before. A ditch east in the field now supplied water for culinary purposes and for awhile we also hauled water from the ditch to pour on the trees he planted around the house and corrals. Planted grass and the flowers and trees flourished, but we still hauled the drinking water. This would have been about the year 1906, because in April of 1907 our sweet little sister, Loretta, was born. How we loved her, a little sister after so many little brothers.
In the wintertime following, Mother’s brother, Charles, came to see us on a visit. When he returned to his home in West Jordan, Utah, he invited me to go home with him for awhile. The folks consented and in the latter part of January 1908, Father drove the team on the sleigh and took me to Uncle Tom’s in Richmond where I joined Uncle Charles and we rode the train to Salt Lake City and took the interurban streetcar to Midvale (East of West Jordan) and some of the family came for us there. It was my first ride on a train.
Uncle Reuben and family lived next door to Uncle Charles an Uncle Joseph not far away. I was there two months, but Mother Father were having their troubles at home. Whooping cough broke out in the little community and our little people hadn’t had it; Palmer, Seth, and baby Loretta. Palmer was nearly eight years old, but hadn’t been very strong and it was hard on him. Mother said the other two were doing fairly well. Then, Elmo was exposed to measles at school and was really quite ill with them, and of course, exposed them all. Mother wouldn’t send for me because I’d never had them, either. So, now, with Elmo, Alice, and Mildred and the three little people all down with measles at once. Elmo Contracted pneumonia and so did Palmer and Loretta. Grandma Allsop was with them also and wasn’t well. How our dear parents weathered that siege, I’ll never know. Little sister passed away on the Monday morning of 23 March 1908, and Mother wrote a letter telling me and they buried her Tuesday. Palmer also died on Wednesday, 25 March 1908. They sent me a message to come home. Uncle Charles accompanied me home. Johnny Gibbs, a neighbor, met us in Preston. Roads were terribly muddy and made travel slow and tiresome. He had driven down in a little one-seated buggy. I didn’t know until I got home that baby was buried. I can’t write about it even now without tears blinding my eyes. They held the funeral for palmer that afternoon. No mortuaries or any place to take care of such things; our home small and so much sickness.
For fear of me getting measles, Mother had washed and dried enough bedding to make me a single bed in the kitchen and tried to keep the others from getting too close. It was useless, because Seth wouldn’t leave me a minute, but I never took them anyway, so it was okay then.