Why Farmers Sleep Good at Night

Here is part of a life story given by my Mom's mother, Annie Margaret Hansen Miller.  Annie Margaret is the woman on the far right in the picture above.


"I was born in Rush Valley, Tooele County, Utah on September 14, 1877. I am the daughter of Hans Christian Hansen. My mother was Eliza Otilla Scow. They were in Rush Valley taking care of sheep for a man named Strasbury when I was born on September 14, 1877. Moved to Lincoln or Lakeview when I was six weeks old with an ox team. On the way, the ox gave out. Mother walked and carried me in her arms as far as Stockton. They stopped for dinner, milked the cow, put her in the ox's place and went on to Lakeview. Moved in with the man he was going to farm for. Lived with him until he got another house. We lived there until father took up a homestead - the benchland the smelter stands on now. Mother was afraid to live there on account of Indians and the wind. She said it came down both canyons and whirled. It felt like it was taking the roof off the house sometimes. So father moved down to Lakeview again. That was where I was raised and went to school.


In the summer I used to herd cows and help father with work on the farm. I helped clear off the ground to plant the alfalfa and wheat, corn, sugar cane. I stripped it, cut and chopped the top or tassel and loaded it on the hayrack, took it to the mill in Tooele where they made molasses out of it. I liked to make candy out of it. We used to get a barrel full. I helped to pile and haul the hay, cut the corn and load it. I was too small to throw it on the wagon, so he tied a board in the back, made a chicken ladder that was nailed boards across so I could walk up the board with my bare feet with an arm full of corn and help load it.


I took the cows up to the farm every morning to pasture, drove them home at night, walked two miles and milked them, fed the pigs, skimmed the milk to feed the calves, gathered the eggs, fed the chicks, all before supper. One day a week I did the family washing on the board. Mother was not able to wash.

When I was 15, I went to work out, do the work for a family of eight, all the work from September until January. Then went to Salt Lake City to work for Clairicy Williams, a family of eight. Did all the washing for two dollars a week, ironed her husband's white shirts, cuffs and collars were starched stiff."

I'm stopping now to feel sorry for myself  because I can't use my washing machine tomorrow and the vacuum  suction isn't what I would like it to be.