Person:Elva Lamb (1)

Elva Mae Lamb I was born October 18, 1889, in Lehi, Utah. I was born in a two room dobby home, with two rooms upstairs and I lived there until I was six years old. We rented after that in many homes in Lehi. I was baptized in the LDS church when I was 8 years old in the old Mill Pond, by the Lehi Sugar Factory. When I was about 5 years old on the 4th of July, I spilled something on my dress. We took it off and washed. It was very pretty and covered with lace. It was made of pink sateen. So while it dried I decided to go to town with a nickel. I took my mother’s parasol. When mother discovered I had gone, my oldest cousins started to hunt for me. They found me in my petticoat prancing around town.

I remember going with the folks to fields and swamps after cat tails for our beds.  We put the fuzz in the ticking to make the mattresses.  The cat tails were thickest by the Mill Pond.

I remember one year we heard the world was coming to an end, so I took all my play things and put them in the grainery. I had a cupboard and a table, dishes and a doll. I went to a little school house behind the old 1st Ward Chapel . It had two rooms. I went to the first grade under Miss Baker and then I went to the second grade in the second room. I remember we used to roll in the snow and have such a good time. We used to make snowmen too. We never had very much for Christmas of anything. But one Christmas I got some little dishes. They were painted. I put them on the stove and the paint burned. I’ll never forget the smell of that paint. I usually got a little doll. We didn’t always have a tree, when we did it was a cedar, and we decorated it with popcorn and apples. I mixed my first batch of bread when I was seven years old. My mother was sick. Later my dad had to put water with it and mix it over. From then on I mixed the bread. My mother was sick from then on and I had to learn to do a lot of things. My father was a cripple, he fell on the ice when he was 14 years old, and bruised his hip. The bone decayed and every year his hip would gather and break after that. He could only work part of the time. For three years my mother could not stand on her feet and had to stay in the house all the time to help. She had sinking spells. I remember standing by the window watching the other kids playing outside. But I was always well and healthy. One year my father bought us a little pig and said we could have it if we would feed it. So one day we would treat it awfully well and the next day we would forget it until it got black tooth and my dad had to kill it. My father died when he was forty-one. The leg injury turned to T.B. of the bone. I was thirteen years old. He was sick one month. When he died, mother had a baby one month old. The night the baby was born he was so sick he couldn’t sit up. I never had a colorful or happy life. My father was poor and we had to get by the best we could. I used to walk 1½ miles to school each day after I was in third grade. I finished my sixth grade. After that I had to go to work for a living. There was no welfare in those days. We used to make hollyhock dolls and put a current on top for its head. We never had much to play with. We had to make our own fun. In the winter I went to school more than once with holes in the bottom of my shoes. I would put a piece of cardboard in the bottom of my shoe in the morning and when I got to school, I would have to put another piece of cardboard in my shoe. I even went to dances with a cardboard in the bottom of my shoes. I was always scared and quiet in school. I had so many freckles. They and my red hair were the plague of my life. The kids used to say, ‘Red head – wet the bed’. And, “Do you know why you have freckles? Your mother washed you and forgot to dry you and you rusted.” My mother said if she send me on an errand and I didn’t come back soon, I would be helping someone. If anyone was in trouble or sick or a funeral, I was always there helping someone. Once my mother sent me somewhere and I ended up in another part of town in a home where there was a funeral. A boy had been shot and the mother asked me if I would stay at her home and fix dinner. I started to school in the 7th grade, but I had to stop because I didn’t have any clothes. I started to work out for people and house cleaned for three weeks first for one person and then for another. I worked for women who had new babies, most of the other girls wouldn’t work like that but I did it. There used to be a midwife, Mrs. Long, to take care of new babies and the mothers. And more than once she would ask me to wash a new baby and dress it so she could hurry on. The Relief Society wanted me to go take a course in nursing and I thought I would but I got married instead. Allen’s built a big barn and paid for it by holding dances in it before they turned it into a barn. When we didn’t have a date Dad Mecham – Ephriam Mecham, would take us in a bobsleigh. He would take all of the young girls, and we would have a lot of fun. We used to go to the Hot Pots in Heber often in the summer. We would go into the water for a little while, then we would have a picnic. Neither Will or I liked to swim very much. We, a big group of girls, would go to the corner block in Wallsburg and sing. My aunt said, “My, I surely missed you young girls singing on the corner after you were married.” I went to the Hot Pots on my first date with Will. We went in a white top buggy. It belonged to his dad and we thought we mighty special, to use it. I worked at the Sugar Factory Boarding house. I would get up at 4:00 AM and then I wouldn’t get to bed until 10 or 11 PM. The trainmen would come in for supper late. I had to walk about two miles to the boarding house from my house. I worked so hard there that I got blisters all over the bottoms of my feet. I had to lay off work for a week until the blisters healed. I used to do a lot of roller skating. I was able to skate really good. I won a prize roller skating at the old Garff building in Lehi. The prize was one dollar. We used to go to Saratoga Springs. It used to be called Beck’s Hot Springs. The name was later changed to Saratoga. I was never home longer than a week at a time between jobs. I used to go out and wash for people too. My last Christmas, I got a glass basket with a little bottle of perfume on each side. Will usually sent me some money. I bought me an old trunk once, then I started buying things to put in it. Once I bought a pretty platter, sheets, tablecloths, etc. Mother had to take in washings after my father died. She had a little baby that was sickly and she had to feed him on Horrlicks Malted Milk. Whenever my brother or I any extra money we would give it to her for some milk for the baby. Will came and got me, and we went over to Provo and were married by a Justice of the Peace. Will hired the hall and we had a wedding dance. We had to furnish a wedding dance for everyone to enjoy. I had a beautiful white dress, it had tiny tucks all around the full skirt – four tiers of flounces. The top had a high collar and insertions. There were tucks and narrow lace insertions in each flounce. My cousin made it for me. The wedding presents I got were, a pair of pillows from Will’s mother, a quilt from my mother, a platter, a set of dessert dishes. An uncle gave me a hen and a rooster. My great grandfather, William Clark, gave me a set of towels. We called him grandfather even though he was my father’s step father. He was one of the original pioneers of Lehi. He helped start the bank and the coop. We lived in Wallsburg after we were married. I spent the first summer in Lehi and Wallsburg while Will was at the herd. In the Fall, we got a big one-roomed house. I had 3 strips of carpet sewed together. It filled half the room and that part was the bedroom. The other part was my kitchen. I had to scrub the kitchen floor. The year Leo was born Will played on the basketball team in M.I.A. We used to bundle Leo up and go in a bob sleigh to the games in Center Creek, Charleston, Midway, an Heber. Everyone took their babies in those days. We used to have married peoples parties in those days and take pot luck about once a week. We used to go to dances. Will didn’t dance, but I liked to dance. We would go to the Meeting House in Wallsburg. I worked in the Primary and was a Relief society Teacher. I’ve been a Relief society Teacher for 55 years. The first home we bougth was a big doby room with a shanty on the back. We were so proud of it. After we paid for it, we bought a better one. Then we bought a farm in Charleston. It was a brick home, with six rooms and a shanty. I worked in the Primary for 15 years in Charleston. I used to sing in the ladies chorus. I used to be in most of the pageants there. We used to have parties in Charleston too. A big bunch of us, Ray & Hazel Boren, Lillian & Ferris Hoover, Hi & Mae Carlson, and Ralph & Zella Thacker. We used to play rook a lot there as well in Wallsburg. Will used to ski in Wallsburg. He used to coax me to go but I wouldn’t. One day he came in all white. I had dinner already. He was so sick he couldn’t eat. He had hurt his leg. He had to go to the Doctor with it.