Until the time Mother died, Edmund had been on his second mission to the Indians where he had gone right after proposing marriage to me in Heber, Arizona. I had answered that I did not care to tie myself to him, but had since repented of this answer. Some way Aunt Sade had detected my true feelings and had written him that she thought I had changed my mind.

When he came home most of our courting was done right in Aunt Sade’s home.  We never were together later than nine o’clock, but Aunt Sade often pleaded that she was tired and went to bed early in order to give us a few minutes alone. We were married in Juarez on my seventeenth birthday, January 19, 1889 by President A.F. McDonald. Aunt Sade helped make my trousseau, and let me wear her dress and hat for the ceremony. As we left, she sweetly kissed me goodbye. I was the happiest woman in the world to be sealed to Edmund for time and eternity. He was so handsome, such a fine fellow, and I learned that he could be relied upon no matter what came in the way. I fairly worshipped him then, but grew to love him more and more until the day of his death.

When I returned from being married, I found Aunt Sade had fixed my room so nicely. She had made a shuck tick for the bedstead and had given me the lovely quilt she pieced when she was seven years old. It was lined with white. She also lent me a chest that Grandfather Richardson had made.

Edmund was teaching school in Diaz the year we were married, and I lived for the time he spent at home. Each day was begun with prayer. We all three knelt together with his arm around each of us, and he kissed us both at the close of the prayer. We played together and tried to keep him home as long as we could, until sometimes he was forced to run all the way to get to school on time. We girls often played pranks on him, but even though we worked together, he usually got the better of us in a playful bout.

One morning after Sadie had called me into their room she and I decided we would not get up. As often as Edmund pulled one of us out of bed, the other climbed back in. Finally he gathered one of us under each arm and kicking the front screen door open, he pushed first one and then the other out into the yard and closed the door.

We were laughing and enjoying the scuffle until we looked up and saw Salt-River Wilson standing there looking astonished. In mortification, Sadie and I scooted around to the back door, leaving Edmund to do the explaining.

I thought as much of Aunt Sade as any sister I had and my own mother couldn’t have been better to me. When I was sick she cooked extra dainties for me and always helped me with my sewing.

My first child, Annie, and Sade’s fourth child, Walter, were born just six weeks apart— Walter being the eldest. We made our layettes together. When Annie was born, I was very ill for twenty-four hours. About eight o’clock Arthusa Elmer and John Hoopes came to our house for breakfast. They were on their way to Juarez to be married. Aunt Sade hurriedly prepared a meal for them, meanwhile doing what she could for me. Annie was born about an hour after they left. Because she was a seven months baby, she was very small and as a child, was always dainty. Walter was a great fat boy, and so Aunt Sade always made up any ribbon or lace into something lovely for Annie. Walter died when he was sixteen months old, and Aunt Sade nursed Annie and loved her like her own.

Mannon, my second child, was such a beautiful boy, and so well-built, with large hands, arms and shoulders. His hair looked so dark against his bluish-white forehead. His back was so broad and he weighed about ten or eleven pounds. But, because he was a “blue” baby, he lived only a few hours. He seemed to pass away once before he was named, but Edmund revived him and named him Mannon. Poor little fellow! My baby’s every breath was a groan. In view of his suffering, I couldn’t feel like holding him, and resigned myself to his passing. I buried him in the clothes I had made to bless him in. He looked so sweet.

Not long after Mannon’s death, Edmund built me a house on the northwest corner of the block, just through the orchard from Aunt Sade’s.  Here, Estella (November 30, 1892), Edna (May 5, 1894) and Lenore (October 6, 1895) were born. I had thoroughly enjoyed living with Aunt Sade, but it was nice now to begin fixing up a little home of my own. We hadn’t much elaborate furniture, but with hammer and saw, bits of newspapers and calico, boxes could be transformed into useful and attractive things. Here I raised such lovely gardens. At one time my brother Jimmy picked a melon which he could scarcely lift. For several years I carried house water from Aunt Sade’s, but then Edmund drove a pump for me.

How I enjoyed the church meetings, dances and ward parties, though I was naturally shy and dreaded going anyplace alone.

When Edna was the baby I moved up to Edmund’s gristmill, about three miles west of town. This was my home intermittently for several years and we lived upstairs.

About this time Edmund received a call from the church authorities to go to Mexico City to study law in order to protect the civil rights of the Mormon colonists in northern Chihuahua." He moved me back to Diaz before he left and hired William Black to run the mill. Edmund took Aunt Sade and her two daughters, Hazel and Alta, with him to Mexico City. He learned the law so rapidly that in six month’s time they gave him cases to handle in the city courts.

My seventh child, Madge, was born on April 28, 1898 while Edmund was in Mexico City. She was one of the prettiest babies I ever had. Her hair was so long and black. I took such delight in her, and it was hard to leave her, at the age of five months, when Edmund and I went back to the Salt Lake Temple to have my endowments. But I felt that I was leaving her in good hands with Aunt Fan Merrill to care for her.

We left in September, and the weather was so warm that I wore only a little voile dress and took no wraps. At Grand Junction, Colorado, we had a snowstorm, and I was so humiliated without a wrap, and was so cold. At one of the [train] stops Edmund hurried into a shop and bought me a nice cape. I was glad for the cape, but how I worried for fear he would not be back in time. What would I have done if he had been left!

For some time Edmund had considered buying a ranch and now purchased a large tract of land we called “Dusty Dale” three miles northeast of town, on which he built a little two-room lumber house for Aunt Sade. On August 24, 1900, when my sweet, little Flossie was exactly three months old, I also moved to the ranch and lived in the granary.

Lola was born on the ranch at the lumber house on March 11, 1902, but after Aunt Sade moved to Colonia Juarez (about 1902) as Edmund was often away, I felt timid about being alone on the ranch to welcome my next child. Uncle Sullie and Aunt Irene were in Sonora teaching school, so I moved into their home in Diaz. Here, on April 14, 1904, we greeted my tenth child and second son, Ervil. I had been happy for each of my wonderful daughters, but how thrilled I was to now have a son, having lost Mannon the day he was born. My feeling of pride and joy was shared by the entire family. Annie commented that he was in a kingdom of love and worshipped by seven adoring females.

I was back at Dusty Dale living in the big house on July 16, 1907 when a lovely daughter was born. Being the eleventh child, we appropriately named her Elva (Danish for eleven).

Five months later, just seven days after Christmas, my beautiful three and one-half year old son with golden curls was taken in death as a result of blood poisoning from a thorn wound. I was shattered! Edmund, who was away on a law case, said that the morning Ervil died, the song came distinctly to his mind, “Your sweet little rose bud has left you,” so that when he arrived home he was not surprised at what had taken place. He gave a lovely talk at the graveside service.

I had no way of knowing then that in giving up my son during the Christmas season, I would be rewarded the following Christmas by the birth of another son. Vernon was born December 25, 1908. I again had a son and seven adoring sisters had a brother to love.

In the year of 1910, Annie was going to teach school, so we moved into Diaz again. There, on November 21, 1911, Lamar was born.

It had always seemed to me that my children would never grow up and so it was a shock when Annie began going out with Elmer Johnson as a “steady,” then declared she wanted to be married. But since Elmer was one of the nicest young men I had ever known, I could not object. However, I didn’t see how I could ever get a long without my girl, for she had taken the sole responsibility of the family sewing. Sewing for eight girls was, in itself, no small job, as we never bought a single thing ready-made and she also helped with the milking and cheese making on the ranch. She brought so much sunshine into the home with her music and interest in the smaller children. Each morning we sang hymns before breakfast while Annie played the organ. This was such a good beginning for the day and how we did enjoy it. She and Elmer were married in the Salt Lake Temple in April of 1912.