Mother died before she was 52. She died as she lived - at work. Records state she was born in Santa Clara, February 8, 1862, the third of six daughters born to Samuel and Caroline Beck Knight. At what place in Santa Clara I do not know, as the home of her parents had been at the Fort since they were married until December of 1861, when the flood washed the fort away, and the new town-site was located and dedicated on the 22 of December. Settlers were given their building lots. Grandfather's home was at the west end of the town, about one or two blocks east of the Jacob Hamblin home. Perhaps a temporary dwelling had been made at that place.
A recent sketch of Grandfather is available to all of the members of the family, so little more of his life need be said here.
Grandmother Knight is the daughter of Herman and Kirstine Due Beck. She was born May 12, 1831 in Orter Larkster, Bornholm, Denmark. In 1853, she heard Mormon missionaries preach, and, as a result, was later baptized. In November, she started for Utah with her brother, his wife, and daughter, and the wife's cousin. They left Liverpool, England, January 3, 1854 and reached New Orleans, February 10th. Joining the Peter Olsen Company in Kansas City, they started for Salt Lake City the latter part of June and arrived October 5, 1854. She worked on the Church Farm on the Jordan River and there became acquainted with Samuel Knight. They were married May 23, 1856 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.
The children and their families, and the children of Grandfather's second family and their marriages are listed in the sketch of Grandfather's life.
Grandmother, evidently, endured many hardships. To adjust to frontier life among strangers and the warm climate, and the prevalence of malaria with little medical help and lack of nutritive foods, required faith and courage. Aunt Mary, her daughter, writes: "it was a great journey for this Danish woman to leave her home and go to a new country where she had to learn a new language, then to go down among the Indians. When her first child was born, she took cold from the lack of care and help. She was sick the rest of her life, thirteen years. All that time she was not able to sit up a day at a time. Notwithstanding her sickness, she was cheerful and pleasant. It would have been difficult to find a woman with better management in the home than she. For the first few years she had no help but an Indian girl whom she had raised. She died in Santa Clara in 1870, leaving six little girls, the oldest thirteen."
The struggle of the settlers in Santa Clara is a long and interesting story. In 1861, a Swiss Colony, who had been called by President Brigham Young to raise cotton and grapes in Dixie, settled in Santa Clara. By previous arrangement the original settlers who had lived at the fort, called Fort Clara, west of the present town-site, agreed to sell their land to the new colony. Grandfather and Lemuel Leavitt of the early missionary group remained. Marius Ensign, called to serve as bishop of the ward, and later the Alexander Findlay family, foined the community and lied among the Swiss families. The Bunkers lived there for a time, but in 1877 some of the Leavitts and the Bunkers moved to Nevada and established the town of Bunkerville. The Bunkers remained devoted friends of the Knight family, and often visited with them as occasion required them to make trips to St. George
Grandfather married about two years after the death of Grandmother. He married Laura Melvina Leavitt March 4, 1872. Their children are Carlos, Edward, Melvina, Edith, Wilford, Thomas, Delmay, and Inez. Others died in infancy.
For a year or two after Grandmother's death, Grandfather and the girls, though young, carried on the household tasks. Caroline, being the oldest, assumed the greatest responsibility. As grandmother had been an invalid, Caroline had already learned to carry responsibility. The work was organized and each of the girls helped as she could. As the second family increased in numbers, and as the girls grew older, adjustments had to be made. The home was now under management of the new mother, and , naturally, some friction would result. Grandmother was cultured, but she never complained about the crude life of the frontier she was forced to meet. She was cheerful about it all, and her daughters met the new situations without too much complaint. I never heard Mother speak of "Aunt Laurie", as we called her, or of her children, in any way but respectful. I remember as a child going to their home for family dinners and gatherings, and of the pleasant associations we had with the children, some of whom were about our age.
Aunt Laurie served as a midwife in the town and spent much of her time away from home giving aid which today is given in hospitals and by doctors. Mother and the girls worked for other families to earn a few sorely -needed dollars. They were given the elementary education the day afforded, and were also taught at home by their mother.
Mother was frugal and neat. She must have enjoyed her girlhood days, as none of her friends had much more than she. They provided their own amusements in groups and in community gatherings. Self-respect and honor were emphasized in all their teachings. In school very strict discipline was used. Some of Mother's girlhood friends have told me how neat she was in her dress and in her work. I know how she worked to make a pleasant home for us and keep us dressed properly.
Julia Roulet, who married Emil Graf, was one of Mother's closest and dearest friends. "Aunt Julia" told me of their life in Santa Clara and dictated some memoirs to her son, Grant, from which some thoughts were gathered. Children, as soon as they were able, had to work thinning cotton, picking cotton, watering fields, cutting grain (by hand), stripping cane, gleaning grain, herding cattle, and doing all kinds of work there was to be done.
Food was scarce, and children were always hungry. Their bread was made from bran and shorts, or cane seed, or corn. They ate wild cabbage stalks, sour dock stalks, sego bulbs, tender young willows, squawbush (sumac) berries, and pout berries.
Education was limited. The teacher would board round with families as pay for teaching, according to the number of pupils he taught - one day per pupil. sometimes the parents couldn't afford to have all the children go at the same time, so those who could't go one winter were allowed to go the next. There were no grades, and often one book had to do for the whole family. Discipline was rigid. Willow after willow was worn out on unruly pupils - usually boys. Some of the teachers were: Josh Crosby, (Sam?), Miles, Mr. Peck, Mrs. McClellan, Mr. Church, Mr. Berger (?Bergen), and Kate Granger. Mr. Berger was the cruel one. When Mother and "Aunt Julia" were grown girls Levi Harmon was their teacher. He often told me of his teaching in Santa Clara and of the regard he had for Mother. "Aunt Julia" said he went with Mother some, as his b est girl-friend, but as she didn't pay too much attention to him, he would often be critical of her school work.
Amusements were provided at home by the group. They would often go caroling on a wagon with several spring seats. Sometimes the girls would sit on the cows while herding or on the fence and sing. She lists the group of sigers: Mother, Julia, Selena Gubler, Sopranos; Mr. Nieder, Traug Graf, George Staheli, and Mr. Frehner, bass; John Staheli, tenor; Emma Graf and Barbara Staheli, alto. They would often ride calves in the field. Mother went with Julia's brother, William, to Silver Reef to get Julia, as she had been working there for some time. They stayed in Washington on returning for a dance and danced all night. The dance closed just at daylight, and they went to the home of one of their friends there for breakfast. Mother at that time was nineteen; Julia was eighteen.
Cousin Caroline F. Roundy tolls of an incident Grandfather told her of Grandmother. When she came to Santa Clara she had two pairs of shoes. The women in Santa Clara were moccasins, so Grandmother bought some moccasins, too. The shoes were kept for special occasions, such as dances, and then they were worn by each of the women as needed and as they could be made to fit their feet.
Some of the customs of our home life might be interesting. The home was lighted at night by kerosene lamp. Around it we would gather to tell stories or to listen to Mother read such books as "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "Black Beauty", and others. To have light in any of the other rooms we would carry the lighted lamp. Cooking was done on a stove with wood for fuel, polished by hand and moved outdoors in the summer where it would be cooler to do the cooking, then back into the kitchen for winter, where it also furnished the heat. Small heaters were used in the other rooms at times, but the open fireplace was usually preferred. Irons to do the laundering were heated on the stove. The soot underneath the stove lids furnished the polish for our shoes. Saturday night, rows of shining shoes were made ready for Sunday. Mother usually did this for all of us.
Another interesting feature was the Saturday night bath. Most homes had no bath tubs except the regular wash tub. Our home had a built-in bathtub, so we ciykdm at keastm get ubti ut, The water for bathing was heated outside in a large kettle hung, or set over, a wood fire. Water was carried to the tub in buckets where it could be tempered with cold water carried from the ditch. Mother usually saw to all of this for each one of us, so we could have our weekly bath without any effort on our part. Perhaps it was easier for Mother to do all these menial tasks that it was to see that we did them for ourselves.
A few years before Mother's death, Father, Grandmother Hafen, and others of the family went to California to visit Grandmother's people in Los Angeles. They went by team in the white top bufggy to Moapa and there took the train, leaving the team of mules in a pasture until they returned. Telling of some of the wonders in California, Father told of the home with running water, both hot and cold. For a bath all that they had to do was turn the tap and the water was ready for them. Mother facetiously said, "Well, Johnie, you don't even have to turn a tap at home."
Another thing I remember, with chagrin, is lying in bed early in the mornings and hear Mother get the milk pail and go to the corral to milk the cows and feed the pigs and chickens. She wanted us to rest if we could and thought she would like to wait on us as much as she could. This wasn't always the case, for we felt duty bound to help part of the time.
Mother spent her life in service to her family and to others. She was kind to us. I never remember her whipping one of us, although it was deserved many times. She died suddenly one sunny November afternoon while sweeping the door yard.
She was thoughtful of others. Many times she would go quietly to the back door of her sister or other relative with a small gift which she would bestow with the least demonstration, usually tossing it inside the door or handing it without a word. She thought of those in need. One summer she and Fater lived at the ranch in Bull Valley. When I went out to see them she asked me to take 25 cents with me and buy a package of tea for one of the neighbors, an English woman, used to drinking it while she lived in England, but whose husband couldn't and wouldn't afford it for her. Many neighbors told of little acts of kindness of which no one but she and they knew.
She tried to have some delicacies in the home which she prepared for us. Most of our food we raised and prepared in the home. Purchasing bread was unknown in that day. Each household kept yeast and mixed and and baked bread. It was a common custom to borrow a loaf of bread of get a cup of yeast from a neighbor when the supply at home was exhausted. We always had our own milk, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and pork and beef. Curing ham and preserving other food stuffs was a tedious task. One favorite desert was pickled grapes, kept by placing the grapes in vinegar with certain flavors and preservatives added. Drying fruit was a common method of preserving it.
Mother usually had the boarders, such as the school teachers and workmen who came from outside communities to work in Santa Clara.
There were no labor saving devices. Washing was done largely on a wash board. When a washer was introduced it had to be turned by hand, as there was no electricity at that time. Floors were cleaned in the hard way. I think of one of the annual tasks of being the most boresome. That was house cleaning. The old rag carpets were taken up and cleaned and fresh straw was brought from stacks where the grain had been threshed, then came the stretching and fitting the carpet before it could be fastened with tacks driven with a hammer. Minor items, such as churning the butter, mending the clothes, and all the household tasks called for time, patience, and skill. It seemed there was no time for rest and not much for recreation for Mother. Vacations, as such, were rare. Outing on holidays and socials in the evenings were enjoyed by all members of the town, old and young associating together. It seems now in retrospect that Mother's joys and pleasures came from seeing the rest of us having a good time.
Father went on a mission to Switzerland when three or four of us children were under eleven years of age. He was gone two years, but Mother managed some way as she always did when there were adjustments to be made.
One experience came into our home which affected Mother more than any one else could realize. It was the tragic death of little sister, Carrie. She was about 10 months old, so could not walk, but she could crawl. One evening Mother put her on the floor on the rug in front of the fireplace while she ran to do outside chores. The pig pen and the chicken coop were not far from the house, so she hurried to give the pigs and the chickens their feed. She tought she heard me come in, so she hurried across the lot to the hay stack to get hay leaves for the pigs. When she returned to the house the little girl had crawled into the fireplace where live coals were smoldering and where her little legs were burning. The baby lived a day or two and suffered intensely. Mother blamed herself for the tragedy, and suffered for years as a result. She was naturally one to assume more than her share of responsibility for anything that went wrong.
Her third child had died when she was but two weeks old, and the next baby after Carrie died when he was nearly a year old. Father was in Switzerland at this time.
"The instruction received at the mother's knee, and the paternal lessons, together with the pious and sweet souvenirs of the fireside, are never effaced entirely from the soul.." Lamennais
"A man never sees all that his mother has been to him till it's too late to let her know that he sees it." W.D. Howells
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