Jens Niels Christensen Winter

Uncle Joe Petersen said of my mother’s death, “My sister Mary died suddenly, supposedly of heart failure, January 10, 1901. At six o’clock in the morning, she raised up and asked her husband if the baby was covered, and, on lying down again, gave a couple of gasps and was gone. She died with a smile on her face, and looked very beautiful. The funeral was held the following Tuesday, January 15, in the Huntsville meeting house, but was poorly attended, probably because it was reported that she had been suffering from diphtheria. My cousin, Henry Petersen, gave the funeral sermon, a very excellent one. Brother David McKay dedicated the grave.”

When they thought we were safely well we moved, lock, stock, and barrel, along with beds and washer, to Grandpa Winter’s. I was only seven years old at this time, but I immediately adopted Elmer, age one. He was my little boy. Peter Winter told me in later years how I really took good care of that little boy. Poor Grandma [Anne Petersen Winter], then about 67 years old, now had a third family to care for. She was raising the children of Grandfather’s second wife, Mette, who died giving birth to Mary. Anne and Mary took the disease and were real sick for weeks.

Because one of Grandpa’s children was named Anne, the name I was called was changed to my middle name, Eliza, shortened to Liza or Lize. Grandma Petersen wanted to take two of us, but Dad would not separate the family. The adjustment must have been hard. Although they were not strangers to us, all was different.

Some weeks later, I had a strange dream which I remember very well. I saw the Devil standing in the bedroom door. He was dressed in black and red. He had two horns and a two-tined pitchfork. I must have seen his picture somewhere. I must have cried out in my sleep. Anne said I had had a bad dream, to go back to sleep. So I went to sleep, I guess, and then I saw Mother very plainly standing in the door. She was holding a baby in her arms. I saw these things just as plain as if I had been awake. Seeing Mother was very comforting. I guess a little girl was a bit lonesome.

Things were different, but gradually we got used to things. Mary would not give up her place by Grandma at the table. She would have been eleven years old. She could have been sort of spoiled and jealous of our intrusion. Gradually we all got used to the change. Dad, when he came to see us in the evening, would sometimes bring his violin with him and play for us. Grandma loved to hear him play her Danish songs. He played by ear. As time went on and we grew older, his visits came less often. We became sort of separated, and our relationship to him was never as it should have been.

Life was good, but changes came. Dad, after four years alone, married again. Jens Niels Christensen Winter and Mamie Tribe were married November 18, 1904, when I was eleven years old. We had seen her but once when Dad brought her to look us over. They came for us one Saturday morning, lock, stock, and organ. I wouldn’t go and leave Anne and Mary with all that work. I scrubbed the kitchen floor and the chairs, filled the wood box to the limit, carried water, and bawled all day. When all was done, about four o’clock in the afternoon, I walked down the road and took up a new life. Elmer recently told me that he kept going out to the gate to see if I was coming. He was afraid I wouldn’t. He was then almost five years old.

The furniture was about the same in the kitchen. The cupboard had been moved to the other end, and a new kitchen cabinet had been added. He had fixed the house inside and out, paper on the walls, linoleum on the kitchen floor, carpet in the front room and bedroom, the woodwork painted inside, and shiplap was put over the outside adobe. All was painted white. He built a stairway from the kitchen to the attic to make a room upstairs. The rafters were covered with boards, lacking three boards at the top. Dad was always going to finish it, but never did. A curtain was hung across the middle, making two rooms. It was a lovely place to sleep. We had new beds with no more straw. In the winter, the humming of the cold telephone wires would put us to sleep. The colder the weather, the louder they would hum. The chimney would help keep us warm, and if it was extra cold, Dad would open the stairway door. In summer, we would take out the windows on each end and a lovely breeze would blow through. Robins built a nest in a corner under the edge of the roof just outside the window, and yellow martins were on the other end. These we would watch all summer. The robins came back year after year. Best of all we could hear the rain on the roof and the croaking of the frogs in the spring.

Mamie Tribe (we called her Ma) was a good woman and she did her best, which was good. She had lived with her mother, taking in boarders to help with their income, which added to what her mother got from her husband who went with his second wife. Mamie could play the organ by ear; just hum a tune and she could play it. She was an excellent cook. She never taught us to cook for some reason, but we helped and learned a lot from her that way. I wish I knew how to make pumpkin pie and baked beans the way she did. She always made pumpkin pie for my birthday because I liked it so well.

In the summer, we practically moved out into the grove, between the house and the river. There was a nice flat spot there where we camped. Dad and Ma moved their bed into a big tent; their bedroom was rather small and stuffy in the summer. Sometimes we would get in a hurry and move out too early and have to move back into the house when the June rains came. Oh, what a muddy mess, so many things we needed were down in the grove. Many times the June rains came and the fishing season came together on the fifteenth of June. The poor drenched fishermen; how glad they were just for a cup of hot coffee. Dad and Ma were always the good guys. They loved doing things for people and, of course, got took by some. There was one group of businessmen who, when they came from Ogden to fish, would always bring something with them that was in season – watermelon, cantaloupe, oranges, apples, or candy. We were always glad to see them come.

My father loved to fish. He had done it from the time he was big enough. Now he sold the fish to the Ogden Canyon Hermitage Resort. He had a fish pond, so that made it legal. One game warden was a bit suspicious. He used to watch the river from his dad’s home through his spy glass. He was out to get someone. Ma used to go fishing and could catch them. She would take a bucket along with her. As we did not want to eat them, she put them in the pond. One time the warden caught her. This time she dumped them back in the river and that stopped her fishing for awhile. I think they earned their fishing privileges because, as the snow melted in the spring, the water came almost to the house and flooded part of the farm. One spring it dug a new river bed, and part of Dad’s farm was now on Grandpa’s side of the river.

When we hauled hay, someone would lead the horse on the hayfork. That was one hot job in July. When the man on the hay load said, “Ready,” we would lead the horse forward until the man in the barn yelled, “Trip,” then the one on the load would jerk the rope connected with the hayfork to drop the hay, and that was the signal to back the horse. So back and forth, back and forth we went as the loads of hay came in. These were long, hot days, but how fast the loads came in depended on which field was cut. The timothy hay, Dad said, was too heavy for us girls to lift, so he usually traded work with someone else.

We attended Sunday School. Dad was a teacher of the adult class, also a counselor for awhile. I attended Primary until age twelve, and then went to Mutual. Ma was organist in Primary for awhile. She taught me the words and tune of a song which was very pretty. I was asked to sing in Primary, through Ma’s suggestion I presume, and when she was playing the organ, she looked down and noticed she had her skirt on wrong side-out. Our song almost stopped, but she picked it up again right quick. I would sing at times in church, solos and duets. At sixteen I also helped to teach a Junior Sunday School class, and went to church on Sunday as most everyone did.