Vilo Williams Pratt
Compiled by her daughter, Vilo Pratt Gill. Editors additions are in italics.
Since it has always been a family joke, you already know I was born in Colonia Chuichupa, Chihuahua, Mexico. (Your father said disdainfully down his nose once, Well, I never thought Id ever marry anyone from Chupe!) Chupe was one of the mountain colonies. Those living in the valley colonies, Juarez and Dublan, felt definitely superior.
February 23, 1907, was my birthday. John Calvin Williams and Louisa Susanna Davis were my parents.
We left Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1912 when I was five years old, but I remember vividly some things about the little town in a clearing in the pine trees, such as the delicate smell of Mexican white stars, the startling brilliance of tiger lilies, picking and picking bottle stopper. I dont know what bottle stoppers are except hollow straight stems that we dipped in sugar and ate.
Perhaps the longest Chupe story I remember is the day Clarence, Martha and I rode down to Ralph Browns house with Daddy in a wagon. Ralphs family was mostly boys and older than we, so they owned the wonder of the towntwo big cans of glass marbles. When Daddy was ready to go, he was ready to go, so when he called, I ran and climbed into the wagon with three or so marbles still in my hand. When we got home, Mama was shocked that I would steal and started me right back on foot and alone to return the marbles and apologize. The thing had become built up into such an enormous thing that I couldnt go back. I could not. For days Id hide the marbles anywhere, and accidentally theyd turn up when Mama picked up a board in the corral or some such thing. I really dont remember the end of the story, but in my mind Mama finally went back with me so that we could start life anew.
Then there was a crisp morning after Daddy had killed a beef. Mama tried to get me to say that I was the one who had taken a bite from a piece of tallow left in a pan on the kitchen table all night. Stubbornly, I wouldnt confess. To this day I can see that pan of tallow on Mamas lap and me standing there looking, thinking that anyone could see that the teeth marks had been made by very tiny, slender teeth. I hadnt done it.
This I cant remember, but Mama told me; and it has helped me when some of you have seemed quite determined. Apples were a luxury from the valley. Once we had a box, and of course Mama and Daddy were trying to raise us right. We were to say please when we would ask for an apple. Mama says I would go away while Clarence and Martha enjoyed their apples, but I would not say please to get me one.
Uncle Howd and Aunt Medie Veater lived next to us, and Mamas sister, Aunt Ettie (Esther), lived away on up town somewhere. Uncle Howd was my private property in my opinion. Mama says anyone else would have gotten skinned for it, but when I was little I sat on the edge of the vat and ate curd while he raked the curd and prepared it for cheese. The vat, the feel, smell and taste of the fresh curd I remember. Also I remember, with about the same pleasure, a little girl washing dishes, and the long process of scrubbing the skin off new potatoes when Mama and we little ones would go to Aunt Etties for dinner.
If the modern two-pistol two-year-old could have been with us at Aunt Etties one particular day, all the toy gun manufacturers would now be making pink elephants instead. We loved Aunt Ettie and love to go to her little house, and Martha was a real favorite of hers. But one day, jokingly, Martha pointed her finger at Aunt Ettie and said, Im going to shoot you. Aunt Ettie keeled over on the bed. I dont think one of us moved one twitch until Mama had revived her sister. Then for sure we couldnt move. We were nailed to the spot with Mamas accusing finger and torrent of words. Well. We dont like guns. And when I think of my own tirades upon the heads of my little tots, and bigger ones, I think, yes, history repeats itself. I sound just like Mama.
Visiting saddle horses and light wagons were common at our house. People loved to gather there for good times. I dont remember anything about the Christmas itself of this particular Christmas season, but the kitchen one night stands out clearly. Mama and a group of young people were finishing making popcorn balls. Ira Pratt put the last of the candy on the last of the corn, and gather it into his hands, he said, Im going to make one so hard it would knock a bull down! From that night to modern times and family ties, the name Ira Pratt stayed in my mind. Ira is the father of Barton and Parley, Parker, Emron, Percy, Gerald and Ira. He is also the brother of Joseph Pratt, whom Vilo Williams later married.
Then in 1912 came more Mexican Revolution. From hot, things got hotter with Pancho Villa, his men, his enemies, and bandits in general coming and going. Finally the United States government ordered all U.S. citizens out of the colonies. We were U.S. citizens.
I dont remember leaving home nor the trip from Chuichupa to The Chico on the railroad, but I can still see the camp as we had breakfast while we waited for our trainthe last train to come out then over the Mexican Northwestern. (The tracks were blown up along behind us.) Wagons, teams, little family groups, women and children hurrying, waiting, satisfying hunger, satisfying curiosity there as far as child-eyes could see. Then the one clear incident to remain in my memory: a man in bib-overalls alighted from the cab of the newly arrived train engine and came to ask the men, Would you like some hot water from the engine to make your coffee? Mormons? Latter-day Saints? Yes! Coffee? Yes! Odd thing to remember out of a life-changing move? Yes! Do I remember the coaches on that train, or does the first-hand knowledge of that railroad line in 1933-37 mingle in my mind with things Mama told us until it seems like a picture of the ride to El Paso in 1912? But Im sure it was Mamas telling that gave us knowledge of the train being stopped en route frequently to be searched. Once Uncle Bob Vance (husband of Daddys sister Mary) was taken off and sentenced to be shot because a few bullets were discovered in his pocket. However, the bandits were persuaded to bring him back to his seat unharmed. And Mama told us, too, of helping Aunt Medie hide her paper money in her high, loose hairdo before they left Chupe that morning.
The journey must really have been slow and long, for I remember Mama telling how the searching parties would strike matches and hold them in passengers faces along the way. Only the aged men were with us. All the able-bodied men had decided to stay behind and try to protect the homes and other property.
Having been ordered out of Mexico by the U.S. government, we were also taken care of by them until we could arrange to go elsewhere. Tent City by El Paso, Texas. Rows and rows and rows of white tents. Vaguely I remember trips to the commissary for groceries, but what, I dont know except Karo.
How long we were there I dont know. It seemed a long time to me. Anyway, it was long enough that Mama made me two new dresses, a pink and a black sateen. Dont ask why, but the black seems to have been the preferred one. I can remember begging to wear it and Mama telling me to wear the pink. Whether the incident carried on into days or merely recurrences I know not, but I can see me wending my way to the wash house to ask once more, and I can hear the final, weary verdict from above the wash tub, Well, since you already have it on under the pink one, I guess you may as well wear it. How in the world can mothers find out these things?
Then there was our weekly recreation provided by the camp, free perhaps? Yet there seems to be something attached to it about a dime for a ride. A little old man with a little old buggy and a scraggly, older horse. Urchins on every inch from ears of beast to wagons rearmost splinter went to see the sights on Sunday afternoons. I dont remember the sightsonly Aunt Stenas girls in white dresses with huge ribbon rosette bows on their heads.
Jack (John Howd) was born in Tent City and named after his father and his fathers friend, Simeon Howd Veater, better known to his business associates as S.H. Veater and to us as Uncle Howd. (It was a bitter blow for a nine-year-old when I found out that Uncle Howd was not Uncle at all.)
As soon as Papa could, he sent us to Pleasanton, New Mexico, to live with his relatives. Daddy was at home occasionally then. The room had board walls and a tent top. It was near a low hill overgrown with scrub cedar or juniper. The names of the relatives I dont recall, but the sight and smell of many kinds of apples in the apple cellar of one of them is still strong. And its a wonder Jack and Louisa ever got relief from their infant ailments; I suppose at least every other time Mama would send me borrowing a spoon of Castoria for one of them, Id taste it practically all up before I ever got home. Poor Mama!
We returned to El Paso to a house in Highland Park section in Fannin School District. Daddy still wasnt at home, but Uncle Howd stayed with us sometimes, and at least for one prolonged time Aunt Medie and Glenn and Verl Veater were with us.
Memories by the year crowd into this period. But outstanding perhaps was the ruckus because I wasnt old enough to be in first grade. Mama in exasperation sent me back with, Tell them your birthday is in September. To the teacher I chant, I want to be in school. Mama says tell you my birthday is in September, but its not; its in February. So home I stumble bawling to Mama, You dont love me or youda borned me a little sooner. Uncle Howd finally went to Fannin School, and I became a pupil in Miss Andersons first grade. (I think the story is that the honorable idolshall we saystretched the truth a few months in some forceful manner?) Anyway before that year was over, I chewed both collars off my dress learning to spell beautiful after school one day.
It was in this house, too, that Jack swallowed a pickle when he was about nine months old. What amused the childish mind was that Mama hurried to consult her doctor, whose name was Dr. Pickle. (By telephone? I cant remember, but I cant remember her leaving the house at that mealtime, either.)
And it was here that Glenn Veater spied the motto above the bedroom door, Home Sweet Home, and inquired of Aunt Medie, who had him turned over her knee belaboring him because his report card grades werent as good as ours, Maw, what does that spell up there?
In those days Louisa was a bewitching little girl as shed sit rocking on that front porch, singing Red Wing, flowers embroidered at the neck of her dress.
By this time our home had been burned, our crops destroyed, and our cattle and horses driven off by the rebels; and Papa could do no good by staying in Mexico longer, so he returned to the United States. Here he found employment on the ranch of Judge A.B. Fall, the late Secretary of the Interior, who had been many times at our home while on hunting parties in Mexico.
It seemed so good to be settled again in the free and open of country life. The house at Three Rivers, New Mexico was small, flat-roofed, three rooms. Behind the house were a fruit house, milk house, and granary, with an old pole corral behind them and a pond at the side. In front of the house was the gardena cleared spot in the center of a small oak ticket. The mesa stretched out like a long table on this side of the house. On another side beyond the Indian cap, White Mountain could be seen. Through the walnut trees not far from the front door ran the ditch; by the place where we filled our buckets was a little mint bed. Water lilies and other flowers grew along both sides of the ditch bank.
We children had two Shetland ponies to ride, and sometimes three.
Clarence, Martha and I rode in a one-horse, four-wheel buggy to a little country school. This school, which we attended for four years, had only one room and one teacher. This was sufficient, as there were so few pupils; besides our family, there were between one and twelve students.
Having no boys and girls to associate with except on rare occasions, my brothers and sisters and I learned to love nature and to accept the things of nature for our companions, books and teachers.
Three Rivers was always home to us three older children. I have fond memories such as the Christmases Mama planned and prepared and our jaunts into the groves to bring home black walnuts or wild grapes.
We were just beginning to accumulate a few cattle and horses and to get a little money saved up again when that roaming spirit of my fathers people seized him, and we moved up to Thoreau in the northern part of New Mexico, with a young rancher from a ranch adjoining that of Senator Fall, Alva Dee Brownfield, known to us as A.D. or Dee. We drove our own Ford from Three Rivers to Thoreau, near Gallup and on the Continental Divide. The winters, I guess, were our private ice age. Mamas breath would freeze on her hair at night. We hung clothes on the line in lumps; each piece froze solid as we lifted it from pan to line. There were cold, cutting winds. The summers were hot and dry. Our trips into the pine-covered hills in summer helped make up for this.
My father and Mr. Brownfield did not like the country as well as they had expected, so they did not carry out their plans exactly. That left our family at the little Navajo Indian trading post instead of the ranch with the sighing pinyon trees and actual living life. This spelling of pinyon that Mama used is in the dictionary.
I was only nine years old when we went to Thoreau, but a great longing to go back to Three Rivers filled my heart until I could think of few other things at first. (Three Rivers was always home to me.) I often walked along the sand hills brooding over good old times that I had had and writing poems to my pet horse and favorite haunts among the rocks and trees.
Now there were seven of us childrensix of school age. Again we were in a little one-room school house, but the teacher was different. She realized that country children were greatly handicapped from the standpoint of education and helped us in every way she could. This was Lorraine Smith, one of the outstanding teachers of all our school life. We formed what we called the Zenith Literary Society and gave a program every month, inviting everyone in town to attend. Mama left a note about Daddy John, her father, reading the classics to the children during the long winter evenings, such books as Uncle Toms Cabin and Robinson Crusoe. This must have been one of her very pleasant memories.
During the summer months I held a summer school for Louisa, Jack and Billie, J.M. being too young to attend. Here we had our own literary society and gave programs for the family. I continued to write poems on different subjects, but my family accused me of being sentimental and teased me a great deal so I began to write secretly and finally quit altogether.
We lived in Thoreau two years. In 1919 Mr. Brownfield went back to his Three Rivers ranch, and Daddy worked another year for Mr. Fall. We lived in the old Barber house, which had the two biggest rooms Ive ever seen, where fancy balls had been held. From the south upstairs window we could watch the train in the valley 12 miles away. A huge orchard and vineyard went with the place but no well for domestic water!
Clarence and Martha were now ready for a high school education. We spent the summer very pleasantly. After much consideration, it was decided to send Clarence and Martha to Alamogordo to school, and we younger ones would continue in the little country school, which was not going to open until later. Martha and Clarence found it very disagreeable to board out, so along the last of October Mama moved down, and we all went to school there. On weekends wed go back to Papa on the ranch. Wed take back to Alamogordo fresh meat, fruit and beansmostly beans and baked quince.
There were two full rooms of nothing but 7th graders! Quite something after our little country schools. I was a month late starting school, and everything seemed Greek to me. I had make up work to do. The music teacher was constantly embarrassing me by asking me some question or by stopping in the middle of the song to look at me and remark that someone was out of tune. Recess was a horror. Everyone made remarks about the country hick who was slow as a snail and couldnt even catch a ball. Even the natural color in my cheeks caused me grief because the girls took me for a cheap painted flirt and would have nothing to do with me at first. When I received my report card for the first time and the averages for the month were placed on the blackboard, much to my disgrace I found myself number 10 in a class of 35. Everyone watched every move I made, it seemed to me, but by constant endeavor I soon began to make friends, and at the end of the year I had tied with a boy for second place in the class.
This was our first year to be in a town or city for about eight years. On the ranch none of us had ever been sick, but now it seemed that we took almost everything that was anywhere in town. Of all those that were sick, Billie grieved me most. He got as thin as thin could be, but the doctor declared there was nothing wrong with him and paid more attention to the three cases of measles and the pneumonia. We learned that Billie had diabetes-mellitus, then untreatable, which finally took him away on Dec. 28, 1920. It seemed almost unbearable to me because I had cared for him even more than Mother had since he was a tiny baby, though I was just a child. He was buried in the Fall family plot. Doctors in Canada were just experimenting with insulin to treat diabetes in those days.
Next we moved to El Paso because there were three of us ready for high school. Daddy worked a short time on a rock crusher for Uncle Howd, who was a road contractor then. This was a noisy, greasy job that Daddy didnt like. He went to Mexico and worked for the Babicora Development Co. on a huge ranch near Madera, Chihuahua. This was a time of trial for all of us: six children to educate, three of them in high school. Mama just couldnt see the wisdom in moving away from schools. From this time on Daddy was home only for short visits.
What I went through at first in Alamogordo could in no way compare with what came to me my freshman year in El Paso High School. I had all the difficulties of any freshman with an additional thousand; and had it not been for Miss Lucille Smith and Miss Nell Taylor, I am sure I would have wept myself to death before I became a sophomore. In my sophomore year I carried six subjects and found almost as many things to grieve over as before. Her sister Louisa was later to say that Vilo bawled for nothing and got it, and Louisa bawled for everything and got it. I was quite pleased to see the summer vacation start though I knew that it only meant more grief and embarrassment to my over-self-conscious soul.
From the time Clarence was thirteen years old, he had worked summers, but now he had been working summer and winter and going to school. He worked for Uncle Howd, helping care for the horses and mules for the road contract work, and slept there as night watchman. We were afraid to let him quit school for fear he would not start again because he was so old, so Martha and I took turns working. She worked the first year as a switchboard operator at the telephone company, the 1921-22 school year, and I was to work the next year, so before I had completed my sophomore year, I had my application in at the Telephone Office.
I was too young to work. The supervisor at the telephone company tested my eyes and thought she had a good excuse though she knew I needed the work. Child, go home and tell your mother youre blind, she said. With her first pair of glasses and my long arms I got the job; an operator had to make long reaches.
I was only fifteen, but being large I automatically became 16 when someone told me that no one under that age could work there. I felt that now in spite of what might happen, I would have to act old. I could not change the fact that I was timid, self-conscious and babyish as suddenly as I could change my age, but I did what I could. The matrons, supervisors and all treated me so nicely that it caused the older girls to dislike me to a certain degree. Nothing that I had ever done before in all my life did me as much good as working that year and taking one subject in school. I developed a strong will power and found that I could do things for myself that I had never done before.
About this same time another great change came into my life. I had been going to the different churches in town for two years and could not seem to be satisfied. Though my mother and father had been Mormons, they had been driven to church by radical parents and had early in their lives decided that we children would have the privilege of choosing for ourselves. So during all the time that we were on the ranch away from any church, they did not preach Mormonism to us. The missionaries finally found us. They held two or more meetings with us every month for about two years. They gave us questions to study on, endless Biblical references to look up, and so on, until we had thoroughly decided that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was what we had been looking for. May 6, 1923, was a wonderful day for usthe day we were baptized: Martha, I, Louisa and Jack. Clarence had been baptized before we left Mexico, and J.M. was baptized later when he became eight years old. Always we will be grateful to Elder Thomas M. Rees, who baptized us, and his missionary companions who taught us, including Sisters Clara Huber and Alissa Manning. We were baptized in the Rio Grande River above El Paso.
My friends, of course, could not quite understand it all, and many of them considered it best to discontinue our friendship. I had worked hard to win my friends and was very troubled to have to lose them, but I considered it best to stand by what I knew to be right in the way of religion at any cost.
I quit work in June of 1923 to go with the family to spend the summer in Mexico with my father, who had been there for some three years. My employer spoke crossly to me for the first time the day that I put in my resignation. He seemed to resent the fact that I was to continue my education. The matrons and all the girls, however, were still my friends and were glad to see me whenever I went back to visit them.
We all enjoyed being on a ranch again. The country there is so extremely beautiful, and it was good to go horseback riding again. Babicora, Las Varas and Nahuerachic were the names of the three main ranches of Babicora Devlopment Co. Babicora was the general headquarters; Daddy John managed it and also had charge of cow work over the entire range. Santa Ana was the fourth division of the company and was 25 miles or so across the continental divide southeast of the other parts of the ranch.
June 23, 1923, we left El Paso; we came through on the pay car that stopped at every little place. From El Paso to Guzman it was hot and dry. The train stopped twenty minutes for dinner at Guzman. At Pearson we saw friends, and again at Rio Chico. It was surely beautiful from Pearson on up. Martha and I stood out between the cars until the conductor asked us to come inside. A small stream ran along the track for miles. We arrived about 10:30 p.m. Daddy and Mr. Fox met us.
We spent time at all three ranches, visited some camps, explored canyons. We went fishing (Mama caught one fish) and wading. In one canyon we saw some cliff-dwellers caves, and on the way home we saw an old turkey and all her little ones. There were cars and a truck, but we kids went mostly on horseback.
Climbed up Sierra Diablo. Went to Ojos Mormon and other water holes. Went to the dam beyond El Wuaje (sic). For the 4th of July we went into Madera to see the sports. Daddy went in the roping and tying contest and did well. We all went to the dance in the evening and had a fine time.
We went to Mexican dances and had a splendid time, we danced at home whenever friends stopped in. We played cards and games. It rained on us while we were out riding; the cars got stuck in the mud. There were always people around to talk to; we played the victrola and sometimes sang. Hunted wild flowers in the pines. Studied Spanish books, read, crocheted, bathed in the river.
On August 25, we bid Las Varas goodbye and came home. Clarence and Uncle Howd met us at the station. It surely was raining.
When fall came, I was very glad to start in school again. I was a different person from the little sophomore who had started to work the year before, but I still had many traits that I wished very much to get rid of. I enrolled in a salesmanship class and found the teacher delightful. She soon recognized the fact that I was timid and self-conscious to backwardness, and after a whole term finally persuaded me to take public speaking. I knew it was the best thing for me, and since I had enrolled, I determined to speak whenever it came my time and to act bold rather than shy. I soon found that it was delightful instead of horrible and found that it afforded me the opportunity to develop my will power still further.
I successfully finished my junior year and went to summer school just to see what it was like. It lightened my course load immensely for my senior year, during which I enjoyed everything I took. I was sick at time to register, so it fell my lot to take Miss Goldstein for algebra. Up to this time I had been frightened to death at the thought of her, but now that I had to take her, I decided to add her to my list of friends. I soon learned how she wanted things and gave them to her that way. Consequently, much to my pleasure, I was exempt from the final examinationthe only one in a class of 32.
On May 28, 1925, I graduated from the El Paso High School, a very different person from what I was when I entered it five years before.
After going to school for two winters and a summer, I was very anxious to get back to the ranch again, so we (all except Clarence) left on June 3. We didnt visit around the different ranches as we did in 1923, but had our own house and did our own cooking. Two missionaries walked from Temosachic to Babicora to visit with us! We visited many of the Mexican towns around the ranch and had a lovely time.
Back in El Paso, I joined Martha at the El Paso Junior College. I took a kindergarten teaching course that year and the next summer.
I was El Paso Ward Sunday School secretary. We all enjoyed mutual activities, including hikes on Mt. Franklin. We also enjoyed the friendship of church members and the missionaries.
The 1926-1927 school year both Martha and I taught in Ft. Hancock, TexasMartha in high school and I the youngest children in the Mexican elementary school. One friend they made there remained a lifelong friend; this was Jewel Walton.
The following year Vilo wanted to go back to school, but Martha decided to go on a mission, so Vilo taught to help support her and the family. Jewel wrote, Vilo, it takes real courage to go ahead and work for your sis when you would like to go ahead and go to school.
The 1928-1929 school year I taught high first grade at Crockett. In February 1929 another letter from Jewel said, I kept going to El Paso to see you. Almost every time either Joe or that other guy was there. Joe was Joseph W. Pratt, who was living with his brother Rey L. Pratt, president of the Mexican Mission, and his family. Joe was testing cows for butterfat content in dairy herds around El Paso, Texas. Rey L. Pratt had 12 children and a monkey that Joe thought was more bother than all the children put together. Once when Joe had completed the reports of the butterfat content of the milk of each cow in a large herd, the monkey spilled ink all over the reports and ruined them so that Joe had to do them all over again.
Later Joe became herdsman at Gilletes Dairy. In January he went to the Mesa, Arizona, area to farm with his brothers; while he was there, he and Vilo wrote to each other. He also went to El Paso several times to see her. After a six-month separation, they decided to get married, which they did June 5, 1929, in the Temple in Mesa, Arizona. Daddy wrote, we went to Phoenix and got our marriage license, then stopped at a field where a man was taking people for a short ride in his aircraft. It was a two-cockpit open-air plane. We were jammed into the rear cockpit, which was all right with us. It was the first time in the air for both of us and we enjoyed the ride. That evening we were married in the Mesa Temple by David K. Udall. Daddys brother, Harold and his wife, Anna, were afraid Daddy and Mama would be late for their own wedding.
Joe was again working at Gillettes Dairy, so we moved into a remodeled harness house nearer the dairy barns. May 21, 1930, our first child, Carl Dee Pratt, was born. The Gillettes little boy was disgusted when he saw Carl. He said, Joes baby couldnt even walk.
They moved often: to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Joe worked for a while as herdsman at Hicks Dairy and we lived in an apartment in town; back to El Paso and lived in an adorable, little new rock house out toward Ft. Bliss. In 1932 we moved into the basement apartment of the former Mexican Mission Home, which was now the home of the widow and children of Rey L. Pratt, Joes brother, who had been the president of the Mexican Mission, to help them out financially; then to a little house long vacant down near the old high school. Here Vilo was born June 19, 1932. Both Mama and Mother Pratt were with us for the birth. At this time Joe was alternating 24-hour shifts at No. 11 Fire Station and 24-hour shifts at cow testing in the valley again. Later that year we moved to Mother Pratts attractive little house on Emersons farm in Mesa, Arizona. Joe worked with a hay baling crew all around the country. We tried to grow up a flock of baby chicks; these were the years of the bad depression.
We moved to Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico, in October 1933 and lived with the Harold Pratt family in the old Pratt home. Joe worked on the farm and helped with the dairy herd. The milk was sold to the cheese factory. Mother Pratt was school principal and taught 8th grade. I taught the LDS Mexican children who were just that year being brought into the Juarez Stake school system. I taught that nine months for 400 dollars.
The summer of 1934 the children of both Harolds and Joes families had whooping cough and measles simultaneously. Also that year Harold and Anna were called to preside over the Mexican Mission so they moved to El Paso. Joe continued with the farming and the dairy herd. Mother Pratt kept on as teacher of the eighth grade and principal of the school in Dublan until she was past 72 years old. Then she went to live with Harold and Anna in the Mission home. I taught English to the LDS Mexican children half the day and to older students from Casas Grandes (Old Town) the other half day. Most of the older students wanted to learn English so they could go to the Juarez Stake Academy. Joe moved the family into our own housethe old Merrill place.
September 4, 1935, Amy Louisa was born in El Paso. Dr. Varner insisted that I be in El Paso three months for this event. Bad business! In response to an inquiry about a note Mama left on a scrap of paper about stolen baby clothes, Amy wrote, They were mine. The whole suitcase with all the baby clothes Mama and Dad had for me were stolen the night Mother and I arrived back in Dublan. All that was left was the clothes and baby locket that I had on at the time. I think the story goes that the suitcase was put in the house when we arrived in Dublan and then we went somewhere else. When we got back that suitcase was gone. I also have gotten the idea from somewhere that either Daddy or Mom knew who took it but the other one thought it would be better not to do anything about it. I still have the locket that I was wearing that day; of course the chain has been replaced many times, but the locket is still being worn and is my favorite.
Soon after Amys birth, Joe took typhoid fever. He was very sick for a long time and very weak afterward. While he was sick, Joes brother Ira came every day. He went to Old Town for oranges, etc. on horseback. Iras wife Mary came in and boosted morale and did some cooking. Before he grained his strength enough to go back to work, Joe took care of the baby Amy and Carl and Vilo, and I went into the schools as supervisor to finish out the year that Lorna Call had to leave due to ill health. I supervised in Dublan and Juarez; I spent many weeks in Juarez, going to Dublan on the weekends. A sad year of miseries. Amy was described as, Que nina tan gloriosa!
The Pratt brothers had felt they could get the Pratt land back. They kept paying taxes on it, but squatters had moved onto it and the Pratts couldnt get them off. After several years of trying and getting no satisfaction, they finally gave up and quit paying taxes.
In 1936 we moved to Tula, Hidalgodown by Mexico City. Joe took the dairy herd and the children, and I went alone on the train. Joe was fortunate in finding us a very new house in Tula near the dairy herd in San Marcos. From Daddys story: There was a cobbled foot-path down, but it was too steep for cars or wagons. There was a room on the path side of the house and it had casement windows reaching to the floor. The floor was about three and a half feet higher than the path. There was a low steel grill. It made an idea place for dispensing milk. We set and enamel-topped table with a liter and a half liter measure and started to sell milk we brought in from the farm on an old Ford pickup. Lots of women of the poorer class came to buy milk. They would buy up to 10 liters each and had cash to pay for it. We wondered what they would do with that much milk. Come train time we found out. They came running down the cobbled path with cups of hot milk, coffee, chocolate, etc. to sell at the train which stopped about 15 or 20 minutes. We went to church in San Marcos; all the lessons and talks were in Spanish. Raquel Helu lived with us. Raquel was the daughter of members of the church who lived in the San Marcos Tula area. One or both of her parents had died earlier. She was related to Rafael Monroy or the man killed with him because they would not renounce the Church during the Mexican revolution; she may have been related to both. The Mexican Mission headquarters were now in Mexico City, and Harold and family lived there. Perhaps Tula was about 55 miles from them.
In December of 1938, we moved to Clint, Texas; we brought the household effects in a truck made from a wrecked passenger car. We got to Clarence and Babes just before Christmas. The owner of the house we were going to live in had gone away for Christmas, so we couldnt get into the house; Daddy made beds on the screen porch, and we spent Christmas Eve night there. We spent Christmas Day with Uncle Clarences family. We children were delighted Christmas morning to discover that Santa Claus could find us even on the screen porch of a house many miles from where wed been living.
Carl was baptized June 4, 1938, in El Paso. Joe farmed one year there. Carl and Vilo both were in 1st grade that spring. While we were in Tula, Mexico, Carl was old enough to go to school, so Mama taught him. Since I did everything Carl did, she taught me, too. When we moved to Clint, Texas, I insisted I was going to school along with Carl, even though I was a year too young. Finally, Mama decided she would let the school tell me I was too young; however, since the first grade class was very small, and I could read, I was allowed to go to school. In the fall Carl went into 3rd and Vilo into 2nd. Harolds family moved in with us. All the children went to Clint school that fall. After Christmas the families moved to Barstow, Texas. They left me at Clarences until after the baby came. January 9, 1939, the day before Joes birthday, Joseph Wilcken Pratt Jr. was bornLittle Joe. One morning when I was bathing him at Babes, Little Clarence stood watching. He said, Aunt Vilo, isnt he a wise-looking little guy! Thats what everyone thought. Joe came for us later.
In Barstow, Harold and Joe farmed and had a small dairy business: milk, cream and cottage cheese. In 1940 Harolds family, with Iras boy Barton, moved to Hot Creek, Nevada, to farm. We moved into the bigger King house where Harolds family and Mother Pratt had lived. Joe continued farming and became water boss. There were some anxious moments connected with the water boss job. One year when there was very little water, a meeting was called to discuss the situation. At home, Mama spent all day praying for Daddys safety. One man pulled a knife on Daddy; fortunately his wrestling training helped Daddy get out of a very tricky situation. Mama didnt know until he got home about the knife incident. Details are on page 26 of Daddys story.
Vilo was baptized in El Paso June 29, 1940. We made a special trip up for that.
Jewel Ann Pratt was born October 11, 1941, in Pecos, Texas. While Mama was in the hospital after Anns birth , Daddy went on a trip with three of his brothers. As soon as he got home, he was called to jury duty for a murder trial; we were very grateful for the help of kind friends and neighbors. Mama had to decide on Anns name without Daddys help; the cook at the hospital suggested Chrysanthemum Pearl. We are very glad Mama had a better idea; the Jewel part of Anns name was for Mamas long-time friend, Jewel Walton. For years Daddy called Ann Nantucket.
September 12, 1943, Amy Louisa was baptized in Monahans in the public swimming pool, which wasnt open right then, is how Vilo remembers it; Amy thinks it was in a Baptist church font by missionary Stuart C. Whiting.
These were the war years of World War II. There was an army air base. Many young army couples lived in Pecos. Our home was open to them. They came often,. Joe was the serviceman coordinator for that area. Daddy adds, under Hugh B. Brown (who was one of the general authorities of the church). Daddy acted as an advisor to the LDS servicemen at the base by Pecos; he helped with the church meetings at the base, learned who was LDS, invited them to church meetingsand invited them to our house.
In August 1945 Joe couldnt go, but Lucille Williams went with Carl, the girls, Little Joe and me up to Hurricane, UtahMamas hometo get a load of canned fruit Mama had put up for us. While there we discovered that Little Joe had diabetes. I had to make decisions without Joe. When we got back to El Paso, Little Joe and I went into the hospital to put Little Joe under observation and get his insulin regulated. Carl was just ready to start his junior year in high school. After he left Lucille at Ft. Hancock, he took the car and the girls on back to Pecos. Little Joe and I stayed a week. Little Joe had been so eagerly awaiting the day when he could go to school. But of school he got just two weeks. On Sunday in Monahans at Sunday School he got sick. On Monday, September 24, 1945, in the Monahans Hospital he died. It wasnt from the diabetes. Dr. Kunstadt said, The coma (from which he never regained consciousness) was most likely caused by bleeding in the brain. The spinal fluid had blood. The diabetes was not bad when he came to the hospital. He developed pneumonia, too. The funeral was held September 26, 1945. We left him there in Pecos, beloved by everyone who knew him.
Dr. Kunstadt was a refugee from Hitlers Germany, head of the School of Medicine in a university where doctors from around the world studied advanced courses. His signature on a diploma was a distinctiona coveted and highly prized thing. We dont know any other details about him.
In 1947 Carl was valedictorian of his graduating class. September 21, 1947, Kathy was born in the Pecos Hospital. Kathya short name so we wouldnt use a nickname. So Carl came back from Rice Institute in Houston to hear Joe calling her Kate. Asthma and climate caused Carl to change to USAC in Logan for the second semester. There he played violin in Il Trovatore. Carl said he sold his violin when he graduated from high school; it was flute he played at USAC. In the high school band Carl played both flute and piccolo. When the band was marching, Carl had both instruments with him; the one he was not playing rode in his pocket. It was a D piccolo. Too bad; Janice Gill (Bunker) would love to have it if it were a C piccolo.
Joe sold the farm in 1949 and went to work for Les Williams. We had an excellent garden. Wonderful springs, summers and falls in Idaho. That winter was a cold one but beautiful. Joe planned to teach math in Blackfoot High and Vilo teach elementary in the fall. The two Vilos went to school in Pokey that summer. Mama needed to renew her teaching certificate. She and I took a Spanish class together, as well as each taking other classes. We were roommates in the dorm. Idaho State College didnt seem to have a problem keeping Mamas and my records straight. Later when I went to BYU I got the credits Mama had earned from BYU through extension classes., in addition to my own creditsand I was on BYUs records as Vilo Williams Pratt Gill. Amy tended Ann and Kathy while Mama and I were in summer school; much of the summer Daddy and Carl were working away from home, so Amy was alone with Kathy and Ann. Looking back now, I think Amy deserved a great deal of praise and commendationmuch more than I think she got at the time. The Church in Blackfoot and Riverside seemed wonderful to us. Amy Louisa went to MIA girls camp. In August Jack Williams, her brother, asked Joe to run his farm in Willcox, Arizona.
In October the change was made. Joe brought the furniture on the truck. Amy and I drove the car: Amy at the roadmap and I at the wheel. October 16, 1949, Jewel Ann was baptized in Jacks irrigation pond by Dean Bennettas were Ronald and Charlene Crismon, ages 12 and 10 or so. Ann hadnt had her birthday as we came through Mesa, or she could have been baptized in the Temple font. That Christmas Carl and Vilo came home from Pocatello. Joe took us all to see the Lloyd Whites in Fort Stockton, Texas, and to church at the Monahans Branch. Wonderful reunion!
Amy Louisa started her freshman year of high school at Moreland High in Idaho and finished it in Willcox. Mr. Coleman granted permission, Rosa Robertson made tests and observed, allowing Jewel Ann to finish 3rd grade with her age group. In the spring we moved from temporary quarters in the mouse houseAmy said Mama called it that because the mice had been the sole occupants for a period of time and when we moved in they did not like it and let us know they were not going to have their squatters rights infringed upon without putting up a fight. And fight, chew, walk on and run over and through they did till we moved out, leaving them the satisfaction that they won the battle. Ann said the mice were definitely not shy. They were highly visible frequently.to the Mellor place, which we later leased and farmed on our own. Florence wrote about the Mellor house, The bath water watered the grape arbor where I liked to play, and of course, I liked to eat the grapes. J.M. and his family were living in Willcox and working with Jack, too. J.M.s sons loved Amy Louisa and loved the cookies she baked. Willcox church was Sunday School and Relief Society, a dependent branch of Pomerene Ward, Southern Arizona Stake.
In December 1949 a home primary was organized and met in the home of Dorothy Bennett, wife of the branch president. In 1950 Willcox became an independent branch. Vilo Williams Pratt was the Primary president.
Carl and Vilo wrecked Carls car coming home for Christmas 1950. Carl was sore and bruised, but no serious injuries. Carl was wonderfulhe didnt scold Vilo, who was driving.
Mama, my Grandma Williams, Doyne and Louisa Townsend came to Willcox for Christmas. Clarence and Babe Williams and Martha and Alvin Englestead came, too; Vilo and Jack and their families lived there; it was really a good family reunion. Grandma Williams died May 3, 1951less than six months later. Mama couldnt go to her mothers funeral because she had just had a miscarriageone of many. Daddy did go.
Joe was made branch president June 18, 1951, set apart by President Jared J. Trejo. November 4th Amy Louisa was set apart as branch pianist. The branch started holding Sunday School and Sacrament Meetings in the Willcox Womens Club and all auxiliary meetings in the old Stuart School building.
Vilo graduated from Idaho State College with many honors in June 1952. Joe, I, Amy, Ann, Kathy, Carl and Dolores went up for it. That summer Vilo was home. All the girls sewed. Vilo and Amy made adorable dresses for Kathys kindergarten year. October 7, 1952, Carls oldest child, Gayle, was born in Casa Grande, Arizona. October 15, 1952, Florence was born in the Willcox Hospital. Joe built Willcox Branch a little chapel; Elder Mark E. Peterson dedicated it and the branch moved into it in April 1953.
The 1952-1953 school year Amy was in the senior play. She worked at the bank part time during the school year, and after her graduation, she worked there full time for the summer. Vilo taught in San Simon: 3rd and 4th grades and music and girls PE in the high school. Ann made many bead necklacesand herself a dress. In June 1953, Vilo went into the Mexican Mission. She stayed a while in Chihuahua, Mexico with her Uncle Harold and was called from there by the mission president, Lucien Mecham. Claudius Bowman soon became her mission president.
Joe was ordained a high priest by President Trejo October 12, 1953. In September 1953, Amy Louisa went to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, to begin her nurses training. She then went into the LDS Nurses Home between the Idaho Falls Temple and the LDS Hospital, where she finished her training. In December 1953 Ann played all the piano accompaniments for the 7th grade Christmas program.
Carl was now living in Mesa, Arizona. Eileen Pratt was born June 13, 1954, in Phoenix. May 1955 Ann was 8th grade valedictorian; she made her own white graduation dress. She was an Honor Bee, Primary pianist, Primary teacher, Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School pianist. In June Vilo came home from her mission. Carl and Dolores took Ann and Amy and went to Mexico City to bring Vilo home.
Amy Louisa married L. Vern Christensen August 20, 1955, in the Mesa Temple. The reception that night was in the Willcox Church. Lucille Williams, Jacks wife, attended to the flowers and all reception details while Joe and I were at the temple. For the flowers to decorate the cultural hall, Lucille picked wild yucca blossoms. They were truly beautiful!
On February 3, 1955, Jack and I met Daddy, Martha and Alvin at the Mesa Temple. Jack and I were sealed to our parents. September 29, 1955, Alan Reid Pratt was born in Tucson, Arizona. That year Vilo taught in Tucson. Dolores spent the summer of 1956 with her mother in Idaho. Our family stayed with Carl while Joe built Carls house at 5931 E. Oak St. in Tucson. We went to Willcox every Sunday to attend to Joes branch presidency duties. Nephi Hardy rented our farm. Joe had been carpentering around a long time before this, not farming except for hay.
September 10, 1956, Amy Louisa graduated from nurses training. September 19, nine days later, Mitch Christensen was born in the Idaho Falls Hospital.
The family was living in the Atwood House in Stuart District when Florence was 5: she didnt go to kindergarten because it had been discontinued. November 26, 1957, Karen and Carol Pratt were born. Ann and her friend Kathy played a two-piano duet concert. A Catholic and a Mormon did most of their practicing in the Methodist Church. We canned too, too many peaches and pears! Florence wrote, When she wrote about canning too, too many peaches and pears, I remember those hot summer days in the house in Willcox, the one we lived in between the Mellor house and the one that Daddy built. It was so hot, and we had only a fan on the floor to help cool things a little. I remember hating to get up early to drive the hour to the orchard to pick those fuzzy peaches that made you itch.
Frank J Christensen was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, August 5, 1958. That fall Vilo taught in Salt Lake City, Utah, while Gill went to the University of Utah. Jewel Ann got to go to seminary one year. LaVern Pratt (wife of Daddys nephew , Barton) was the teacher. One morning Ann turned the car over as she turned in to pick up the Harris boys; she was not hurt. January 1959 we moved into the Dunlap house in town; we couldnt find a rent house sooner. Ann was in the junior play that spring.
Vilo Kay Gill was born in Salt Lake City, July 25, 1959. All year Ann had a piano class of 19 to 25 pupils. Jewel Ann graduated as valedictorian, won many honors and scholarships, played in a clarinet quartet, was band librarian, was FHA glee club secretary, sang in a quartet and a sextet and was accompanist, also yearbook co-editor. She was Primary Blazer leader, MIA chorister, played for Sunday School, and was ward pianist. The 1959-1960 school year Ann went to the University of Arizona on a Baird Scholarship; she also worked at the U on a special U.S. government project at $1.35 an hour. Paula Christensen was born November 4, 1959, in Idaho Falls.
Kathy went to Salt Lake with me when I went to June Conference in 1960; I was on the Stake MIA board. She stayed all summer with Amy and Vilo. She helped Vilo use the microfilm machines in genealogy research; she wasnt old enough to use the machines alone, but she was very good at spotting the information needed. Vilo and Gill brought her home in August, and we helped them can 400 pounds of peaches from Grizzle Orchard.
In August 1960 Joe started working for Agricultural Commodities of Phoenix in the Willcox office. He had to check and care for all Mexican Nationals working in the Willcox area. Amy Louisa and Vilo brought the children and came alone to visit us on Joes birthday, January 10, 1961. It was a surprise to us. Joe was in Pomerene working on their new chapel. It was a hard trip for them, but we appreciated it very much. May 1961 Kathy graduated from 8th grade, 3rd highest in the class, so she gave the Class History. She also had the third highest grade in Arizona Constitution. That summer Ann lived at Carls and worked at the fountain in Broadway Village Drug Store. Carl was ward clerk in the Tucson 4th Ward.
August 12, 1961, Shauna Christensen was born in Idaho Falls. January 13, 1962, Sheila Gill was born in Provo. Carl was second counselor to Bishop Merrill in the Tucson 7th Ward. Served as clerk or in a bishopric nearly six years, said a letter of January 18, 1962. Spring and summer of 1961 Joe built our home on 239 S. Cochise on the lot he had bought some years before. In September of 1961, we moved into the house and continued to build on it.
Janet Pratt was born in Tucson, July 8, 1962. This same July Vilo, Gill, Vilo Kay and Sheila came to visit us. Ann worked as cashier all summer at Wilmot Drug Store. September 4, 1962, J.M. Williams died in Tucson. Jack, his oldest son, was in the mission field in Germany. So like Carl to take the body and Lorraine and Gerald to Hurricane, Utah, for the funeral and burial.
May 29, 1963, Ann graduated from the University of Arizona with high distinction. In typical Ann fashion, she walked in the procession guiding a blind boy from a different school.
1963-1964 Jewel Ann taught junior high school music in Long Beach, California. April 5 and 6, 1963, Joe took me up to see my father, Daddy John. Florence went with us. He was in good spirits, and we had a good visit. Beautiful weather. Martha and Alvin came; later Marian and Lee came, so we saw all four of them, also. April 14 Martha called to say Daddy was in the hospital in Cedar City. In a few minutes she called back and said that Daddy John had died. April 15, 1963, Joe took me up again. From Phoenix we went with Clarence, Babe and Johnnie Lee in Babes car. Louisa and Jack flew in from England, Arkansas. Buster and Marian Neagle flew up from Phoenix. The funeral service was in St. George with burial in Hurricane, Utah, beside Mama and J.M. Jack and Louisa rode back with us as far as Tucson, taking the plane from there to Arkansas. At the Tucson airport Tyler, Virginia and Billy met Louisa, so we got to see them before they left for Lima, Peru.
Kathy took journalism in her junior year and worked on the Willcox yearbook staff before moving to Marana. Florence hadnt liked band in Willcox, but she liked it and did very well in Marana. Joe went to the Tucson Stake Welfare farm to build a three-bedroom house for us to live in while he ran the farm. Florence and I and the furniture moved over January 31, 1964. We stayed a week at Carls in Tucson before going out to the farm. Kathy had always wanted to be in the junior play. Joe told her to try out and if she got a part she could stay in Willcox until the play was over. She got a good part and stayed with Barton and LaVarn Pratt until March 6. Both girls liked Marana very much. Church in Marana was a branch with about half of its members living 25 miles away in Silverbell (a mine) and at the gas plant. Kathy had a year and a half of seminary in Willcox. She finished her 3rd year in Marana. Avez Goodman, wife of the branch president Roulon Goodman, was the seminary teacher.
May 5, 1964, we discovered that Kathy had diabetes. On May 8, 1964, Joe got new teeth.
May 19, 1964, Carl took Jack Williams, a son of Mamas youngest brother, J.M., and Charlotte Huber, his fiancée, and me to the Arizona Temple in Mesa for Charlotte to get her endowments. We met Charlottes mother and grandparents there. Carl and I were asked to speak in the temple chapel. I was frightened. What should be said in chapel? It pleased me very much to be able to be with Jack, Charlotte and Carl that day. Joe had to stay with the stake farm work.
June 2, 1964, Jack and Charlotte were married in the temple. Joe and I did not go to the wedding because Amy Louisa, Chris, Mitch, Frank, aula and Shauna had just come June 1st from Idaho for a weeks visit. It was good to visit with them. Poor Ann; she wanted badly to come but felt she couldnt because of new equipment arriving for school, the MIA one act play, and the end of school activities. Then she got a severe sunburn and was out of school anyway. She was able to come in August; it was wonderful to have her with us.
September 13, 1964, Todd L. Christensen was born. On the 26th of the same month Jewel Ann got her endowments in the Los Angeles temple.
Joe was sustained as counselor to branch president Roulon Goodman and was set apart October 25, 1964, by President Richard Martin.
I was sustained as YW/MIA president in Marana Branch September 6, 1964. There were 8 girls, 2 of whom couldnt come. Florence was now primary pianist. Kathy was chorister and secretary in MIA.
Susan Basant Gill was born November 4, 1964, on the day Paula Christensen was 5 years old. The women in Vilos ward were very good to help her when she went home from the hospital.
Clarence died in an auto accident on his 62nd birthday, November 10, 1964. The funeral was in Mesa. Joe, Carl, Kathy and I went over. Martha and Alvin came from Ephraim, Utah. Jack flew in from England, Arkansas. Everyone met at the home of Clarences son Tony and his wife Carolyn in Chandler, Arizona.
Kathy was in two one-act plays in Marana High School in December. In May 1965, she was in the three-act play; she did very well. May 26, Kathy graduated as valedictorian of Marana High School; after her talk she sang with the senior octet. May 29, Ann came for a visit and took Kathy back to Long Beach, California, with her. While Ann and Kathy were living in Long Beach, Daddy and Mama went to see them. It was very late at night when they arrived, and the girls were a bit concerned about opening the door without knowing who was there. Ann asked, Whos there? A voice responded, It is I. Kathy said, Its Mama! Nobody but Mama says, It is I.
The above was compiled by Vilo Pratt Gill from several short writings Mama left about herself and her family. These I have tried to organize chronologically, using her working. She also left many letters she had received through the years. I have added the writings of others to and about her, and also, memories of her children and grandchildren about her.
In the spring of 1967 Daddy, Mama and Florence moved into Tucson, where Florence went to high school and graduated in May 1970. November 4, 1967, Jewel Ann married Bayard Taylor Stevenson. July 2, 1971, Kathy married Alan James Burger. More grandchildren arrived: Paul Singh Gill, May 21, 1966; Janice Gill, September 27, 1967; and Stephen Matthew Gill, January14, 1969. Joseph Lee Stevenson was born January 23, 1971, and David Michael Gill was born March 4, 1971. Mama tended Joseph so Ann could continue teaching. Later she and Daddy moved to San Manuel to be closer to Ann and Steve, making it easier to take Joseph from one home to the other. Diane Pratt was born January 2, 1973.
In Mamas patriarchal blessing, she was told that she would see your children grow up in righteousness before the Lord. Florence had grown up and met her eternal companion before Mama died. Florence and Eric Ashby were married in the Provo Temple June 25, 1974. Their children are Margaret Ruth, born December 20, 1976; Bonnie Marie, July 21, 1978; Anna Elizabeth, February 6, 1980; William Joseph, October 7, 1981; Nancy Lynn, December 3, 1983, Carol Alberta, December 16, 1985; Robert Helaman, October 28, 1987; Daniel Lee, September 24, 1989; Stephen Eric, October 1, 1992; and Carl Thomas, May 28, 1994.
Daddy and Mama both loved music; although there was little extra money, all their children had music lessons. Good literature was also part of life in their home; that included frequent trips to the public library while the children were growing up. Mama read to her children, and scripture stories were part of that reading. She also encouraged her children to read the scriptures and memorize words of the hymnsand first verses didnt count. There was often some small reward offered to encourage us. For many years Mama and Daddy gave subscriptions to magazines as gifts to their children and grandchildren. Education was very important to our parents. They didnt talk about if you go to college; they spoke in terms of when you go to college.
Mama made many quilts for family members. In March 1968 Vilo wrote her, Christensens came down last weekend. Amy and I talked quilts. She took the first one you sent, the one with the pink lining and was very happy to have it. We are very happy to have the one with the cutie lining. Gill really likes your quilts, Mama. He said, They sure are a lot better than those blankets you can buy. While Florence was at BYU, Daddy and Mama came up for Christmas one year instead of Florence going to their house. Mama put on a quilt for Florence; we three and Daddy quilted it. In 1971 Mama gave a quilt block to each granddaughter old enough to embroider it. She put the squares together and made a darling crib quilt for David.
She enjoyed having her family visit her. Vilo Kay remembers how simple the house in Arizona washow simply furnished and modest. In June 1968 both the Christensens and the Gills went down for a visit and came back by way of Grand Canyon. Sheila and Susan Gill wrote Mama that they liked the taffy she made best of all the things on the trip. The taffy Mama made was delicious. She pulled it until it was long, thin straws, hollow inside so you could sip milk through it and get a wonderful minty milk taste. Sheila said we should include the recipe; I hope this is right: 2 cups sugar, one fourth cup each of vinegar and water. Heat slowly until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil and cook to the light-crack stage. Turn out onto a large shallow, buttered pan. For even cooling, use a spatula to turn edges to the center. Pull taffy as soon as you can handle it, using finger tips only. Add flavoring soon after beginning to pull it.
Vilo Kay also remembers her frying bread dough to make scones for us. They were hot, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Grandpa Joe called them toads. After I heard that I couldnt eat any for a long time.
Even though Mama didnt like guns, she was a good shot. See pages 18 and 19 of Daddys story.
Sheila also said she enjoyed helping with the washing; Mama still had an old wringer washer and two round metal tubs to rinse the clothes in. The children loved to help rinse. They also loved to swim in those tubs. Daddy had parked an old cotton trailer by the house in Tucson, and the grandchildren loved to run from one end to the other, making a great noise; the trailer went bump at each end as the children ran back and forth. They also enjoyed sitting or lying on their tummies on the piano stool and making it go around and around. Vilo Kay adds, When we were older we made valiant attempts to play music from Kathys and Florences collections. Im sure it was a terrible racket, but Grandmas patience, interest and encouragement helped me stay with piano.
There was a row of oleanders by the side of the house; Mama made sure the grandchildren knew they were poison and to leave them alone. Mama loved the out-of-doors wherever she lived. Often I have wished Id learned from her the names of the many wild plants, both mountain and desert.
She saved all the letters and pictures her children and grandchildren sent her; not only have these been a big help in compiling this history, but my own history as well. Sheila said, I remember being very proud when she wrote and told me that she had used a drawing Id sent as part of her nursery lesson. It was a drawing showing the parts of a plant, both above and below the ground. Vilo Kay recalls, When I was about 12, Grandma found out that I had won a small writing contest. She wrote asking me to send her a copy of the story. She said that she had always wanted to be a writera poetbut her brothers and sisters had made fun of her poems and so she had quit writing.
Mama could make from almost nothing things her grandchildren had a wonderful time playing with: collections of little boxes and bottles that fit into each other; pictures cut from magazines to make a game or tell a story. From scraps of naugahide she made a number of almost flat stuffed animals. One of these, a fish, took the place of a real fish Gills Explorer boys brought to Paul from a camping trip. The real fish had to be thrown out eventually, of course; it was wonderful to have the toy one to replace it. Janet remembers the red corduroy Winnie the Pooh and a brown wool Kanga and Roo she made for me. I kept them for years and passed them down to Diane. Im still using quotes and pictures from the files that Grandma saved, Vilo Kay wrote. Some quotes she had cut out of magazines and other she wrote in her own handwriting.
My children and I also have memories of Mama climbing in the cherry trees in Provo helping us pick cherries: she was in her sixties. She and Daddy came up in July 1970, and helped us semi-finish the basement, as Daddy called it. Florence came up that fall and lived with us while attending BYU. Vilo Kay remembers when I was about 10 or 11 Grandma visited us in the fall. She was helping Mom can peaches. I came home for lunch one day upset because some boys were teasing me at school. Grandma taught me to yell, Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. It made me feel a lot better. I remember Grandmas soft voice. She always seemed interested in us and what we were doing.
Daddys sister, Amy Romney, had broken her hip, was in a nursing home, wanted very much to go back to her own home, but could not be alone. Daddy and Mama went up that summer, 1973, and stayed in her home with her. I took my children up to Salt Lake City once a week all summer so they could get to see their Grandmother Pratt. Mama arranged a dinner for Uncle Dil (S. Dilworth Young, one of the General Authorities), his wife, Chris and Amy and Gill and me with her, Daddy and Aunt Amy. It was very lovely, though Mama had always claimed she was neither a good cook nor hostess.
Mama also said she could never do genealogy, but she collected photographs and made picture pedigree charts, and she gathered family records from as many relatives as she could. One day she, Florence and I went to San Simon, Arizona to visit Mamas uncle, Jesse Williams. She really wanted to talk about family history and genealogy with him, but didnt know how to approach the topic since Uncle Jesse hadnt been active in the church for many years. When he opened the door, Mama saw on the wall opposite the door a beautiful old photograph of Uncle Jess and Daddy Johns family. Mama commented on the picture, and a long talk about the Williams and Easterly families followed. Uncle Jesse gave Mama the addresses of some of his cousins in Tennessee. They were delighted to hear from some of the family out west. Cousin Laura sent 34 hand-written pages of family records: who married whom and what children they had. This information made it possible for genealogy to be done later on those lines. In a letter dated August 1, 1957, Annie Westover, Mamas Uncle Pleasants first wife, wrote her, I see you are like all good genealogistshard to get rid of. Here a little and there a little, and perseverance, is what it takes. I also want to compliment your fine chirography. You write a beautiful hand.
Mama was 5 feet 7 inches tall. She had light green eyes and auburn hair, which began to turn gray when she was in her late twenties. Her hair had a lovely natural wave in it. She wore it long, waving around her face, braided in the back, and pinned up in a bun. Vilo Kay remembers her combing her long hair and winding it up into a bun at the back of her head. All her life she was very slender. She always wore dresses.
At the time of Grandmother Williams death, Mamas sister Martha wrote her, Oh, Vilo, I love us so. Never were there six children more unalike and more lovable. That sounds terrible, really I watched the rest and just consciously and unconsciously included myself. And Joe is as odd and dear as any of the rest; it is hard for me to realize that he is one of us just because of your good judgment and good management. He just belongs. We, Alvin, the kids and I, love him. Her brother Jacks wife Lucille wrote to Mama, Did you know, you are the ONLY, I repeat, the ONLY person of whom Ive never heard Louisa say one mean thing. She thinks you already have your crown. Literally. So that is just about the nicest thing that anyone could think of anyone else. And you rate mighty, mighty high with your brother Jack, too, both of you do.
Jack and Lucilles daughter Cody, Jewel Anns age, wrote, I must tell you something that Ive wanted to tell you for a very long time. Ive done a lot of looking back, and I find I owe so much to you and your family. Its hard to express gratitude to someone for so much that they have done, but Id like to try. I was trying to many people many times Im sure, and probably still am. But every time I see some child misbehaving in a class I can only think back at how I acted, and try to remember your patience. Small things impressed me a lot, maybe ones youve forgotten, and there are many, but for just a few. things that have made my character better. Your family always took such good care of everything. I borrowed a pattern for doll clothing when I was just beginning to sew. Somehow a piece got misplaced, and I returned it. Never do I borrow something to this day that I dont remember that and how carefully others things must be taken care of. When we had just moved to Willcox and Primary was being held in the school building in Stewart district, and I was asked to be secretary, and what a mess I made in losing sheets and never having minutes up to date. How forcefully this comes back to me if there is ever a moment of hesitation or letting down in a calling. Now these are small things and only two of many things you helped me thru and over. I think of you often in many things I do, for your diligence, motherhood, teaching ability, and most of all your patience with people such as me. Youve shown me that the important thing is to never falter and to stay close to the Lord.
Mama had a strong, firm testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a great love for Him and for Heavenly Father. She taught the gospel to her children and expected them to live it. From the time she was baptized at age 16, she served in the church. She compiled the following list of ways in which she served: El Paso, Texas: Sunday School secretary and teacher, Primary Bluebird assistant, counselor in Mutual Presidency, Junior Girl leader. Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico: Counselor in Mutual Presidency. Monahans, Texas: teacher in Sunday School and Relief Society. Pecos, Texas: held Primary at home; helped with Relief Society lessons with Air Base wives. Riverside Ward, Blackfoot, Idaho: Special Interest leader in M.I.A.; teacher trainer in Stake Primary. Willcox, Arizona: Primary President, counselor and teacher; Sunday School teacher; Relief Society Social Science leader; MIA Special Interest teacher; home visitor in genealogy; Social Science leader in the Stake Relief Society; Stake MIA Special Interset, stake Gleaner, then stake Junior Gleaner leader, which changed to Laurels in 1959. All this was in the Southern Arizona Stake. At the same time, she was Primary Guide Patrol leader in the Willcox Ward. Marana Branch: counselor in the Primary Presidency, MIA President, Laurel leader and Relief Society theology lesson leader. San Manuel Ward: Spiritual Living teacher in Relief Society.
She was preparing the lesson she would teach in the Relief Society nursery the following day when she had the massive cerebral hemorrhage from which she died a few hours later. She died February 20, 1974, and was buried on her 67th birthday in the Tucson, Arizona LDS Cemetery.