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.