I was born in Huntsville, Weber County, Utah, on October 19, 1885. My parents had lived there ever since they were children. They grew up there. My father in his growing up years went to Montana and to Wyoming to work at different times. Times were hard and wages were low. When he was about twenty-two years old he came home to stay and in a few months he and mother were married in the Endowment House. He was eight years older than mother was, but her mother had taught her to be frugal and neat and efficient at keeping house.

In the summer they lived in the mountains for one or two years (maybe more) milking cows and making butter. One summer their house burned down.

Huntsville is a little town east of Ogden twelve miles through Ogden canyon. It is a beautiful little valley through which flows the Ogden River. Very cold in winter -- the snows fall very deep.

I started school in September 1891. We could walk to school on the crusted snow over the fence tops, it was so deep. My first teacher was Miss Mary Huron. She was kind and sweet. She seemed to like me, too. One winter, I remember, I left my mittens in the schoolhouse one Friday afternoon when I went home from school, so the next Monday morning I had none to wear and oh! how cold it was! Before long my hands were stiff with cold. My teacher got a pan of snow and thawed them out. My, how they did ache! I couldn’t write for a week or so. The skin fell off in big pieces. My teacher excused me from trying to use a pencil. I was quite the envy of the other children.

Another incident I remember from when I was a child in school -- one day when I was standing on the steps of the schoolhouse just barely outside the door, someone looking out of the window in the hall above, broke the glass. A little piece of glass hit me on the head. I didn’t feel it at all until other students began asking why my head was bleeding, then it seemed to hurt terribly!

One of my teachers was a man, Mr. Mumford, whom we children didn’t like at all. Another was a Mr. James Smith whom we thought was awful! He used to whip some of the boys. We all felt like doing the same to him. The year Mr. Smith was our teacher, our schoolhouse burned down so we held school in an old rock building. It was there that I remember seeing Mr. Smith whip a boy for coming in late. He had about four miles to walk to school every morning. Another teacher was Mosiah Hall. He was a very good teacher, but very strict.

I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on September 4, 1894, when I was nine years old, by my Uncle Mauius Madsen, in the Ogden River that ran across the bottom of our land. I remember the day quite clearly. I remember going to Fast meeting to be confirmed. Those days, Fast meeting was held on Thursdays. I was confirmed September 5, 1894 by our bishop, David McKay, father of President David O. McKay. I remember him well -- he was a grand man, our bishop.

My sister, May, and I used to herd our milk cows in the meadows between our house and the river. I remember one day we were forgetful and let the cows get across. Mother had to go with us to find them. They had gone through a dense growth of willows into a man’s grain field. My goodness! We surely watched them closer after that.

In the wintertime we used to slide down the slope to the meadow in dishpans, as we didn’t have any sleds.