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.

When I was ten (1894-1895) my teacher was Thomas E. McKay, brother to President McKay. He was a wonderful teacher…The last teacher we had in Huntsville before we moved to Old Mexico was David O. McKay, now President of the Church (1949). He was the most wonderful teacher of all! So kind and gentle. He was never once cross and all of his pupils loved him. One day I had finished my lesson. We sat in double seats and I turned around and was talking to one of the girls in the seat behind me. I was very busy whispering and didn’t know anyone was around until a hand was laid on my head and it turned me right around in my seat, the way I should be. I looked up and there was my teacher! Brother McKay was looking at me in such a way I could never forget -- an understanding sparkle in his eyes. That’s the way he was, so sweet and kind and patient. He made us want to do what was right.

They had a farewell party in our schoolroom for my sister, May, and I just before we left with our parents to go to Mexico to live. It was rather a sad parting with our friends and schoolmates and our dear teacher. Our parents had known the McKay family for many, many years -- they grew up together and my grandmother did the dressmaking for Sister McKay and her daughters (mother and sisters of President McKay).

We lived in Huntsville until sometime in 1896. Father went to Mexico on a trip in late 1895 looking for a milder climate. He suffered a great deal with rheumatism, which was the result of working so long in the snow and cold of Wyoming and Montana. In May 1896 we left our home and moved to Mexico. We moved to a little town in the mountains, Colonia Chuichupa. There were no more than twenty families when we moved there. During the next few years we had some very hard times, hard work, and not much to eat. Real pioneering!

I had to help my farther with all the chores and outside work that a boy my age would have done. There’s nothing on a pioneer farm that I didn’t have to learn to do. I worked very hard for a child. I spent many, many days working the team of horses doing the fieldwork. My father was a hard, fast worker, wanting things done well, and now! -- no dilly-dallying. I also had to help mother with our big washings, scrubbing on the board. My older sister, May, had bad/weak wrists and couldn’t do things like that. If she did she’d cry all night with the pain in her wrists. [After several years, her condition improved.] She did most of the ironing.

One summer when I was about twelve years old, mother went to Juarez and was gone several weeks. I had to look after the house and keep the weeds out of the garden, milk five cows, take care of the milk and make butter and put it down in a big crock for use later. I had to take care of four younger children, too, cook meals and keep the house clean. It was quite an experience for me.

Another time my father went to help set-up a sawmill in another town and he wanted me to go with him to help the old lady with whom he was boarding, while he was working. Well, she was the hardest taskmaster I ever saw in my life. I tried my best to do something that she’d think was good, but not one thing I ever did was enough. I pulled weeds in her garden till I was so tired I couldn’t do any more. I washed dishes and dishes but never did them right. I had to gather the calves before time for the cows to come. I had to walk two miles to take father’s lunch to him every day. "Mustn’t stay at all to rest or play." One day I thought I’d surely do something she’d like. Well, the water was getting quite low in the barrel, so I took two buckets and carried water from the creek, up a hill. I brought about twelve buckets of water and put in the barrel, but I didn’t get a word of commendation. I was surely glad when father said I could go home.

Year after year we grew and became young women and found many new friends and we loved them. We made our own amusements. In January 1899, I met George F. Sevey. He had come to our little town with his father on their way to the mines some 25 miles or more down in the hot country. In February of that year, I left for Colonial Juarez to go to the Juarez Stake Academy. I stayed with some friends from our town who were going to school. Their mother, Aunt Belle Johnson, was there, of course, keeping house for them. That was a wonderful experience. (Their children were the twins, Frank and Ben, and their sister, Belle.) Once that spring, George Sevey came to see me. He was very nice.

The next school year, I stayed with Sister Ketura Baker who lived four miles up the river above town. We had plenty of exercise those days walking to and from school. That year I was secretary of the Sunday School and also of the Primary. During that school year, I became engaged to George Sevey. I also became well acquainted with the Sevey family who lived about a quarter of a mile below Sister Baker. They were so wonderful to me.

After school was out in the spring of 1900, I went home. Later, I came back to Juarez to see if I could get some fruit to dry for my folks. It was then that George received word of the passing of his maternal grandmother. She was a widow and her property was to be divided among her children. George’s mother was dead so he had to go back to see about her share. So he got the bright idea that it would be a fine thing to take me back with him and be married. What an idea! I was only a little green schoolgirl, but he talked to my folks about it and they agreed. So, with all my greenness, I went with him, leaving September 2, 1900. His sister, Mahala, went with us.

We went to Huntsville first, and Mahala and I stayed with my relatives for a month. George went on down to Panguitch, Utah where all his people lived. My people were grand to us. My grandmother made me a lovely wedding dress and other clothes. We had a very good time there with my cousins. They were lovely girls and their brother was very sweet, and dear Aunt Sophia was wonderful! George came and got us in time to be in Salt Lake City for October Conference. We were married Tuesday, October 9, 1900, in the Salt Lake Temple. The next day we took the train for Panguitch. We went as far as Marysvale, Utah on the train and from there on, in a two-seated buggy. We stayed in Panguitch with George’s folks until December 11, 1900.

(Editor’s note: George says that while they were there, Anna became so ill they all thought she would surely die.)

We left on December 11th for our home in Mexico and arrived there January 27, 1901. The reason for not leaving for Mexico sooner was because George’s Uncle, Reese Evans, was taking some horses and machinery to Mexico, and it was not until December that we were able to get started on our way.

The folks gave us a grand reception and we were so happy! I had much to learn about housekeeping, but little by little I learned the art of homemaking. I made silly mistakes, but George was always sweet and patient.

Our first child, a little girl -- Maude, was born March 30, 1902. She was a beautiful baby and we adored her. Francis came just two years afterward. My folks had moved to Colonia Dublan in 1903 and I was staying with them. Francis was born on April 24, 1904, while George was out in Bisbee, Arizona, working. When the baby was just six weeks old, I went out to be with George, taking my two babies, Maude and Francis, and we stayed there about a year. Then we went back home to Colonia Chuichupa, Mexico.

On our way home from Bisbee we picked up Leon, George’s little brother. He was about ten years old. His parents were both dead. He wanted to live with us and we were happy to have him. He was such a sweet little fellow. He wasn’t well when he came, but he felt better for a while after we got home. One day after he’d been after the cows and brought them home, he complained of feeling sick. He said he’d eaten some kind of berry while he was looking for the cows. Whether it was this or a relapse of his old ailment, he kept getting worse and in spite of all we could do for him, he passed away on August 28, 1905. He loved living with us and he was looking forward to the time when he would be old enough to be a deacon.

We enjoyed the activities in our little ward in Colonia Chuichupa. We took part in all of the different functions in the Church, and also socially. I was set apart as second counselor to President Josie Johnson in the YLMIA, and in 1907 was set apart as President. In 1908 I was also set apart as secretary of the Relief Society. In 1906, George was ordained a High Priest by Anthony W. Ivins and set apart as counselor to Bishop Benjamin L. Johnson -- and later as a first counselor.

In the spring of 1907, Apostle Heber J. Grant came to Colonia Chuichupa to visit and stayed at our home. We often had the stake authorities there, too. Anthony W. Ivins was our stake president then and a close friend of ours. He liked to come and go fishing with George and have dinner with us. He later became an apostle, and still later, one of the counselors to President Heber J. Grant.

Millard was born August 4, 1906. We had no doctor nearer than 100 miles and the mid-wife in our little town had gone to another town to be with a niece of hers, and when I needed her, she was not there. One of our friends took a buggy and horse and went after her, but when they got there she couldn’t come so they got a lady from another town. After a day, a second man took a fresh team and met him so he could make better time. What a to-do! But what wonderful friends to help us in our need.

Life was very sweet and satisfying in our simple country town, where we knew everyone.

Lucille came to us December 13, 1908. We had to send to another town for help, then, too. Just before she was born, Patriarch Martineau gave me a blessing. I had always had such a difficult time at the birth of my babies that I almost died each time and in this blessing, I was promised greater strength and less suffering during childbirth. From that time on I did get along much better.

When Millard was about five years old he contracted typhoid fever, but we had the advice and help of a very good doctor who was in Mexico for his health -- Dr. W.A. Gay. So our little boy got along quite well and was soon strong again. Dr. Gay remained a steadfast, dear friend throughout the rest of his life.

In June of 1911, our lovely little Gay (named for Dr. Gay) was born, but she was not to stay very long. In the fall of that year an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out and many of our friends had their dear little ones taken from them. In November, George and a number of his friends went on a hunt. They were gone several days and just about the time they returned, some of our children came down with the disease. The other children got along pretty well, but our baby Gay was so bad from the first. She passed away the evening of December 23, 1911. We had no funeral, but her daddy and two or three other men, Uncle Ben Johnson and Brother David Brown took her to the cemetery and laid her to rest on Christmas Eve, by the side of her uncle, Leon.

The following spring we moved to Colonia Dublan but were only privileged to live there about two months when we had to come out of Mexico with many of the Saints down in those Colonies. At this time we had four children and little Gay whom we left buried in Chuichupa.

On July 29, 1912, President Junius Romney counseled the people of the Juarez Stake to leave Mexico because of trouble with the Mexican revolutionaries. So the women, children and older men left Dublan by train for El Paso, Texas. George was selected by the presidency to accompany us and look after the saints. We were all placed in boxcars like cattle. Some had a little roll of bedding, some had a trunk full of clothes, and some with nothing at all. All the saints were taken to the lumberyard in El Paso and were fed by the U.S. Government for about three weeks -- all camping together. The men were run out of Mexico a few days later by the Mexican bandits. (About 25 years later we were paid a small fraction of the value of our Mexican properties by the Mexican government.)

We went to Tucson, Arizona, along with quite a number of the Mexico people, to clear land and farm for Tucson Farms Co. Ben Johnson was fatally injured there while pulling stumps at Jaynes, Arizona. It was here, at Jaynes, that our little Minerva was born.

From there we moved to Tanque Verde, Arizona, a ranch belonging to a Mr. Sam Barkley. There were some old Mexican houses on the ranch and we lived in one of those and a couple of tents, while my sister and her husband, John and May Evans, lived in another about a quarter of a mile away. After a year on this ranch we moved to Mesa in the early spring of 1914, the year World War I began.

We settled in Gilbert district, but here was no ward there, so we went to the Mesa 2nd ward until the spring of 1920, when a ward was organized in Gilbert. I was set apart as first counselor in the YLMIA. A year later I was made president. I was released in 1923. George was ward clerk. Four of our children, Charles Junius, Minnie Eileen, Margaret, and Phyllis, were born here in Gilbert, Arizona.

By now, the older children were "young folks." We all enjoyed our new ward. Times were hard and we worked and struggled for a livelihood. In the spring of 1922, George went to Los Angeles to work. Millard went during the summer and Maude went over in the fall. Francis stayed and looked after the family and home. The next May we all moved over there. I contracted hay fever and asthma and we moved to nearby Wilmar for my health.

Ruth was born while we lived there but it was still very bad -- my asthma -- so we went to Bowie, Arizona, then to Salt Lake City, where we lived for ten years. Since then, we have moved about quite a bit seeking for a place where we could enjoy living in not too poor health, and still make ends meet. First back to Los Angeles for about four years, then to Clifton, Arizona, and now when our journey is nearing its end, we have our little home in Mesa, Arizona. The children come to see us as often as they can, but we wish it were oftener, much oftener. We are so grateful for them all and very proud they are ours. The grandchildren come, too, and they are indeed grand children.

Mother and Daddy spent the last ten years of their lives in their lovely little home in Mesa, where they were so very happy and surrounded by hundreds of very dear friends and relatives. Their years together were very full years -- rich with joys and sorrows. In 1950, the whole family gathered together for their 50th wedding anniversary and it was the happiest day of all their lives. Daddy passed away on January 21, 1954, and was honored with a lovely funeral service and a cortege of friends so long that people wondered what great person had passed away to deserve so many mourning friends. Mother followed quickly on February 16, 1954, and was laid to rest beside the dear one who had walked beside her for so many years.