Soon after we moved to Springville [Utah] in the fall of 1861 or the spring of 1862, the Indian interpreter, Amos Warren, went down into the "Clay Beds" to an Indian Camp. A squaw had died in the night and the Indians were going to bury her and leave. But she had a baby girl about eighteen months old. None of them wanted to care for her and besides she was the only remaining heir of a chief who was dead. With the child out of the way, quite a lot of property would be divided among the tribe.

Just before Warren came they had set the child on the mother's breast and stood off to shoot at her with their bows and arrows. As he rode up one shot an arrow at the baby sitting quietly looking at them in wonderment. The arrow went through its neck so near the jugular vein, it was a miracle it was not severed. The baby screamed and caught hold of the arrow. Another shot her through the leg near the body before Warren could interfere. Another Indian stepped out with a laugh to take his turn. Warren called him to stop, but the arrow was fitted and the bow raised before Warren caught his hand and argued for the baby, until they agreed to sell the child for an old buffalo robe and other stuff of the value of seven or eight dollars. But he had to give his faithful promise that she would never come back to the tribe to claim the ponies and property that would have been hers.

Carefully he took the arrow from her neck and brought her home and at last chose my mother as the one who would be nearest a mother to her. He was a poor man so mother paid him in cloth she wove for his price to the Indians. But it was so long before the wounds healed that I still remember the wound in her neck.

Kate Aldura had the care of a mother as we did. Had her home-woven dresses, went to school with us, and shared our home. She tried to be a good true girl and all that was worthy until long after mother's death, when she was betrayed by a scoundrel white man, who had promised to marry her. But he ran away and left her to care for her daughter. Kate worked in a hospital in Durango, Colorado, and later became the matron of the principal Indian Schools in the Middle West.

In Sanpete, Ma had taken a little Indian boy to save its life, and after months of care, a woman sent to see if she could take him to nurse her breasts. Being assured there was no disease or fever he would nurse, Ma consented. The assurances were false, and the little fellow who had been robust, died of convulsions.

When my brother Sullie and I were small tots, my mother had a very serious illness. When it seemed to her that she could not live any longer, she turned her face to the wall and almost frantically prayed the Father to let her live only until her two boys could take care of themselves, promising that then she would be resigned to His call. 

In telling it afterwards, she testified that she immediately began to recover; saying that she expected another call just as soon as her boys should barely get old enough to care for themselves. The call she expected did come when we were barely old enough, for when she died I was twelve and Sullie was ten.

Almost as early as I can remember, my father went to Nevada to the mines. He did carpenter work and put the greater part of his earnings into claims. He always expected to make a fortune for his family. Mother wove, and farmed and kept things going at home. So many robbers infested the road, it was almost impossible to sent money home, but once Mother wrote that she must have money to pay taxes and other necessities. Father sent several cans of honey, one of which mother sold; and a number of small chests of tea in boxes made in China, about six inches wide and seven or eight inches deep. Mother was a bout to sell a box of the tea, also, when on opening one she found a roll of bills buried in it. He had not dared mention it or he knew it would not get to her.

During the year just previous to the last call, I often heard her say that it doubtless would come soon, and with this feeling impelling her she begged all hands to hurry to get what work could be done for their dead completed so that she could go in peace.

...Arrangements were made to go to the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in order to do it. But as my older brother did not take any interest in religious matters, she was fearful that my tender age would prevent my doing as she told me that it should be an heir, to work for her dead.

When we arrived in Salt Lake City, she visited the presiding officer of the Endowment House to ask him if a boy of twelve could be allowed to have his endowments so he could work for the dead as an heir. Daniel H. Wells was then in charge of the House, and he replied that if they would bring me to him, he would decide if I could be admitted. When we went to see him the next morning, he asked me some questions as to my belief in the Gospel, and, on hearing my answers, he emphatically told my mother that I could be trusted to have my endowments.

When he gave his decision favorably, so that it made it possible to do her work in [the temple], the satisfaction that shone in my mother's face was supreme. When the work was done, she remarked that she was not long going to stay with us, though at the time, she seemed to be in good health. Soon she was stricken with pneumonia and died January 13, 1872. She always thought she did not have any friends, but more people came to her funeral than I had ever seen to any funeral in town.