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History of Clara Leona Schramm
Metcalf
by her own hand
I was born at my parent's home in Payson, Utah Co.,
I was the seventh in a family of eight children August Schramm and my
mother's maiden name is Pauline Caroline Schwab. When I was a little over two years of age
another sister, Pauline, was born to our family, making a total of eight
children.
I have three brothers and four sisters. Their names and birth dates are:
Martin Ferdinand, 9 August 1895, Carl Herbert, 22 July 1897, Ruby Lily, 15
March 1900, Reed Anthon, 14 Nov 1901, Martha, 27 August 1903, Elsie, 25 December 1905, and Pauline, 9
August ,1911.
I was blessed by my father, Ferdinand August Schramm 2 May 1909, in the
Payson First Ward, Nebo Stake,
Some of my early childhood memories are of the family seated around the
large kitchen table enjoying mother's
delicious meals. There was a bench
behind the table where four or five of us younger ones sat. I remember Pauline sitting in her high chair
by father, and her reaching over and snitching goodies out of father’s plate in
preference to the baby food her mother had prepared for her. I also remember having to leave that friendly
table once along with my sister Martha because no one would sit by us. Martha had watched the geese eating the tops
of the garlic plants. She thought if the
geese ate them they must be good, so she indulged and feed some to me.
I recall following the older children to the work. My brother Reed
finally marked off a short distance on the ends of the beet row and taught me
how to thin beets. Sometimes he would
carry me back to the house astride his shoulders when I became to tired to
walk. I also recall going with the
family to what we called “The Poor Field” where we also had beets to thin. A train track ran along the side of the
field. I had a great time watching the
trains go by. There was a flowing well in
the far corner of the field, and since I couldn’t thin as many beets as the
older children I was sent to carry water for them. It was a long way to go after water, and the
bucket didn’t have a lid. When I got to
the thirsty workers, there was more water on me than there was in the bucket and
I had to go again to fetch more water.
Christmas was an exciting time in my young life. The preparation began
weeks in advance with the making of Christmas cookies that has to mellow with
age. As Christmas neared we younger
children were whisked off to bed early. Then we lay awake listening to the
whirr of the sewing machine and the sound of hammer and saw.
Money was very scarce so our parents had to make most of our gifts. For
things they couldn’t make they shopped for late to take advantage of reduced
prices. Often they pieced together a
couple of broken dolls and made one lovely doll out of the two. Mother and father stayed up late on Christmas
Eve getting everything put together. Mother used to say they had scarcely
gotten to sleep when we children came creeping down the stairs to see what
Santa had brought.
We lived on a farm about a mile and a half from town. We had no electricity, our lights were
kerosene lamps. Later father got us a hanging lamp called an Aladdin Lamp. It gave a very good light. We pumped water from a well outside the
kitchen door. We pumped water for all
the household uses, washing, bathing, etc. as well as for the cows, horses,
pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese.
Saturday night baths were taken in a screened off area by the kitchen
stove in a round tin tub. The water was
first pumped from the well, carried in the house and heated on the stove.
We burned wood along with a little coal.
I remember father and the boys going to the canyon for wood, the huge
woodpiles we use to have, and the never ending task of keeping the wood box by
the stove filled.
One thing I disliked very much as a child was wash day. All the water had to be pumped and heated on
the stove. The .washing machine had to
be turned by hand. Part of the clothes
had to be scrubbed by hand on the washboard, and the white clothes had to be
boiled in the boiler. All of the clothes
had to be rinsed a couple of times and hung on the line to dry. Then all of the wash water had to be carried
out doors again,
and the kitchen scrubbed. To wash
for the ten of us was a day long job.
Ironing day on the other hand seemed pleasant to me as a child. (Of
course I wasn’t doing it then). Mother
heated the irons over a hot fire in the kitchen stove and as the ironed, going
back and forth from the ironing board to the stove to replace cold irons with
hot ones, I sat by the ironing board and listened to her tell me stories. This was a very special time to me.
Our farm was small, so to make it provide a living for us we had to
raise crops that required a lot of work.
We raised fruit, berries, sugar beets, potatoes, grain, and
alfalfa. For the cannery we raised
string beans, lima beans, peas, and tomatoes.
We all had to help with the work.
When the boys married and left home we younger girls became our father's
farm hands.
We raised nearly all of our food. The cows furnished us with milk and
butter, extra butter was exchanged at the store for groceries. Father raised and cured our meat. I recall the smoke house with the hams and
bacon being cured, and then the hams and bacon being hung from beams in the
cellar ceiling. Father took the wheat to
the mill and had it ground into flour.
He always had a barrel of sour kraut in the cellar. We had our own potatoes, carrots squash,
dried beans, and apples put away for winter.
Mother usually had a crock of eggs in some kind of brine saved for
winter's cooking when the hens didn't lay.
Sometimes mother even made cheese.
She and the older girls made most of clothing.
Our nearest neighbors were the James Francom families. There was Mr. and Mrs. Francom and their
daughter
On summer evenings the older children of both families used to play
games together out in the street.
Sometimes they let me play with them, but I was smaller and always got
caught. Our families were very close,
more like kin folk than neighbors. We
exchanged work on the farm and were always on hand when either needed help.
I remember the first money I ever earned. Mr. Francom hired us to help thin his sugar
beets. I was young but I had learned to
thin beets at an early age. I earned two
big round silver dollars. They
represented a lot of work. We were paid
five cents a row for thinning the beets.
I thought I was rich. I kept
telling everybody over and over what I was going to do with my two
dollars. Finally my mother said, "But you don’t have two dollars to spend
Leona” I said, "Oh yes I do",
and I showed her my big shinny dollars.
Again she said, “But you don’t have two dollars to spend. You owe ten cents out of each of those
dollars to the Lord for tithing.” That
was my first introduction to tithing.
Each summer when we got the beets all thinned father would take us to a
picture show. That was a real
treat. During the summer we would go to
We were the second ones in our neighborhood to have a car when father
bought his used Model T Ford. My, how proud we children were of it. It had a set of kerosene head lights on
either side of the windshield in case the other lights didn’t work. Mother was very nervous about riding in
it. It would go so FAST. That didn't bother us kids. The faster they went the better we liked it.
My schooling began at the age of six.
I attended the
First grade was just a half day session at that time. I wasn’t sorry when the teacher changed me to
the afternoon session although it meant walking the mile alone.
When I was in about the third
grade I remember a salesman coming to the school to demonstrate a new piano
that the school was getting. All the
children in the school were sent out for afternoon recess and the doors were
locked. The recess lasted the rest of
the afternoon. I wasn't feeling well and
shivered in the cold as I huddled by the side of the building. I could feel something coming up in my hair
and out on my back. I wanted to go home,
but didn't dare to leave without permission. Finally when we were dismissed I
walked the mile home in cold. When I I
got home they found that I was breaking out with chicken pox.
It wasn't an easy matter getting to school in our day. The roads were just plain dirt roads, no
gravel, no hard surfacing. In the summer
they were deep with dust, in the fall slick and muddy, in the winter covered
with snow drifts, and in the spring so deep with mud and ruts that they were
almost impassable.
After father got his Model T Ford he would take us to school in it
sometimes. On cold mornings he had
terrible time starting it. On stormy
days we often got stuck and had to get out and push. The back wheels of the car would spin around
and splash mud allover us. I guess we
were a sight when we finally reached school.
We always walked to school in good weather and soon learned that walking
was the surest way of getting there in any weather. In winter when the snowdrifts were frozen
hard we cut across the fields and walked right over the fence tops.
I was still in the Primary grades when World War I broke out, and my
oldest brother, Martin went to
I remember when Martin returned from the army. We didn’t know just when he was coming. He arrived in town in the night and walked
home hoping to surprise us. In the
meantime our Uncle Martin, Aunt Melvine and four children had come to stay with
us. We had beds all over the place. Martin opened the door and walked in, in the
dark, as he used to do, but he was the one who got surprised as he stumbled
over the unexpected beds. With Martin’s
return there were sixteen of us. We kids
had a ball, but I have often wondered how my poor mother ever prepared the
meals and took care of all of us.
I was baptized when 1 was eight years old on April 1,1917. l was
baptized by Nahum T. Curtis and confirmed the same day by my father. I attended Primary in the Payson First Ward
. I also attended Religion Class until
it was discontinued. I graduated from
Primary when I was fourteen, and then started M.I.A.
I attended the
When I was about eleven or twelve years old I had an experience that I
remember quite vividly. It was a
Saturday in the fall. Father had gone to Genola to help the boys. He told Elsie and me to pick the grapes and
pears. We had been picking fruit all
morning; and carrying it back to the house.
It was a long way to carry the fruit and we were tired. In mid afternoon we were wearily returning to
the orchard. As we passed the corral Old
Dan whinnied at Elsie. (Dan was my
brother Martin's, horse. He was a hambeltonian, a beautiful, high-strung,
spirited, creature, dark red in color with a long black mane and tail.
He was trained for racing in the buggy and was among the best.) I was afraid of him. Elsie loved him and he followed her around
like a lamb. Elsie stopped to feed him a
handful of alfalfa and stroke his beautiful mane. Suddenly an idea popped into her mind. She said, "Why should we carry all this
fruit while he stands here in the corral doing nothing. Let's hitch him to the
buggy and haul the fruit to the house."
We soon had him hitched to the buggy and some empty boxes and buckets
loaded in too. Elsie said she would not
try to drive him. She would just leave his halter on him and lead him
along. I said, "I think I'll ride
too", and stepped into the buggy, not realizing that that was the signal
for him to go. He was off like a shot. Elsie ran by his side pulling on the halter
rope with all her might to stop him, but he wouldn't be stopped. Soon he was dragging her along. I kept calling to her to let go or she would
be killed. Finally she stumbled and
fell. Now Dan was running free like the
wind. Every time we went over a bump and
the buckets rattled he jumped ahead faster.
I started heaving the buckets out of the buggy. Every time one hit the ground he bounded
ahead faster. I recall what a beautiful
sight he was running so free and graceful.
His head was held high, his neck arched, his nostrils flaring, and his
tail and mane flying in the breeze. He
made a wide curve as we neared the top of the field and headed back to ward the
barn. We passed Elsie half sitting and
half lying. I thought she had been run
over and hurt.
About this time I started to think about myself and became afraid for
me. When would we stop? How was I going to get out? As we approached the barnyard I saw the
stacks of grain ready to be threshed.
Dan turned short between two stacks.
Two wheels of the buggy went way up the side of one stack. I knew I was heading for a landing and I
wondered where. Close by was the beet
cultivator with all of its attachments stacked in front of it. I hoped I wouldn't land on it. Suddenly from my place on the ground I
thought I saw Dan, through a cloud of dust on his back with his feet in the
air. Before I reached my feet, he was on
his again. The shaft of the buggy had
caught in the wire fence and thrown him.
The buggy was turned upside down.
I ran quickly and tied Dan to the fence.
Then I ran to see what had happened to Elsie. I ran around the grain stacks and saw her
running down through the field. As soon
as she got near enough she called, "How did you get out of that
buggy?"
Together we went back to right the damage. We unhitched Dan. We had to get the buggy shaft out of the
fence. 'The shaft was broken. Then we
had to turn the buggy right side up again and move it out of the way. Neither of us had any serious injuries. We couldn't help thinking how fortunate we
were. I narrowly missed landing on the
cultivator. I was thrown clear of the
overturning buggy and landed just in front of the cultivator in a pile of
burs. It took about a half hour to get all
the burs out of my long brown hair.
After that, two humble repentant girls patiently carried the remainder
of the fruit themselves from the orchard to the house.
In the eighth grade I was to go to the High School. I was looking forward to that. A few weeks before school was to start I went
with my father early in the morning to milk the cows at the Co-op pasture, I
recall that I had a very sore throat. We
milked the cows and went home for breakfast.
Then Elsie, Pauline, and I went with father to Genola to help our older
brothers hoe beets. I remember how hard I we I worked, yet I couldn't keep up
with the other girls hoeing. Then it
started to rain and we had to run for shelter.
Again I couldn't move very fast.
Elsie and Pauline realizing that something was wrong took me by the arms
and helped me get to shelter. When we
got home that night I was very ill and my neck was all swollen. Mother thought I had mumps. The next day I was no better. In the
afternoon something broke in my throat and my parents sent for the Doctor. On examination the Doctor said I had a severe
case of diphtheria. He phoned to
Needless to say I didn't start to high school that fall. When I recovered sufficiently I had a
tonsillectomy because a growth had come on one of my tonsils almost closing the
throat. When I got over that the Doctor still wouldn't release me to go to
school. Finally as spring and summer
came my speech returned to normal, my health improved, and by fall I was able
to walk the two miles to high school.
In the summer of 1924, on .June 22, I received my patriarchal blessing
from my Uncle Joseph Hatten Carpenter.
It has been a source a source of inspiration and guidance to me through
out my life.
During these years there was quite a change in our family circle. My sister Ruby had previously married Eugene
Braithwaite on the 28 of January 1920.
Then in quite quick succession four others were married. Reed married Erma Garner, June 6,1923, on Dec
19, 1923 Carl married Neva Passey. On
Feb.20, 1924, Martin married Hattie Shepherd, and on Dec. 3,1924 Martha married
John Zeeman. The house really seemed
empty with just three children left, Elsie, Pauline and I.
I went on to school and in 1925 completed the ninth grade, graduating,
May 20, 1925. I continued my high school
course and graduate, from the
I thought my education would end with high school because I knew we
didn’t have the means for me to go on to college. As fall approached my Aunt Lydia
Carpenter(father's sister) came and offered to loan me the money if I would
stay with her in Manti and attend
When Sunday came Uncle Joe and another man had a speaking engagement for
Sacrament Meeting in a nearby town. Aunt
that the Lord was speaking directly to me through him. He told about how homesick he was on his
mission. He even went to the mission president and told him he was going
home. Then he told how he went to bed and
dreamed that he had gone home. He saw
all the home people making fun of him and saying they knew he wouldn’t be able
to stick it out. He decided that he
didn’t care what the people said, he knew his mother would be glad to see
him. When he saw his mother she was glad
to see him in a way, yet she was very sad.
He knew she was disappointed and hurt because he had let them down. Needless to say, when he awoke in the morning
he went right to the mission President and told him that he was going to stay.
I too, went home that night and prayed for strength to carry on, and
friends to come to my rescue. I found
both. I found some very choice
friends. It was through some of my Manti
friends that I later met the man who became my husband.
During my second year at
I graduated from the Snow College 30 May 1930. In July of the same year I received my
teaching Certificate. Two years of
college were all that were required then for a teaching certificate.
As the summer progressed I haunted the mailbox waiting for a teaching
contract that never came. A depression swept
the country and there were no jobs available.
For three months I did practice teaching with out pay to gain a little
more experience. I finally went to
I worked in
My cousins Mildred and Helen Jordan, and Katie Schwab Garbett were also
working in
During this time the big slump hit, and the banks closed their doors. Everyone was frightened, not knowing what
would happen next. I remember seeing a
little old lady fishing food out of a garbage can, eating it, and shoving some
into a bag. I went to Church in the
Cottonwood Ward the Sunday after the banks closed. The speaker gave a very inspirational and
comforting talk. Among other things he
said that “a true believer in God is not afraid, That he would do the best he could each day
to serve his God and his fellow men and leave the rest to a kind, wise,
Heavenly Father, who CAN and WILL reach out His hand and help.”
I was still working in
I attended summer school that summer at the
I traveled back and forth to
When I carne home to teach school I was also given a position in the
Junior Sunday School, teaching the Kindergarten class. I held that position for thirteen years.
I taught school in the winter and attended summer school at the
The summer of 1939, Elsie and I and a teacher friend, ZelIa Stone, her
sister Beatrice and another friend drove to
In 1940 I was transferred to the
One year later, June 2, 1948 I was privileged to enter the
President Lewis H. Anderson performed our marriage. My two brothers, Carl and Reed, were our witnesses. We were accompanied by my mother, Elsie,
Pauline, Reed and Erma, Carland Neva, and Aunt
After the ceremony we went to Aunt
It was hard for me to leave home.
Mother and Dad were getting older and had come to depend on me quite a
bit. Elsie was not well at the time either.
Clem was very understanding and let me return home often and help them.
Clem had built a little house about a year before we were married. It had a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living
room that was not finished. We decided
to build on the house adding a partial basement, a bathroom, and another
bedroom. We had to dig a well first for
that was the only means of water. By the
tine we got a well dug, and a basement dug and cemented, it was the end of October. We got the blocks laid for the house, the rafters up and most of the shingles on
when it started to storm and the roof leaked.
The winter of 1948 and 1949 was a hard one. It was the winter of blizzards and gigantic
snowdrifts. Our house was only partially
finished and very cold. To make matters
worse there was a strike at the smelter. Then Clem had to go to the hospital
for surgery. I had the cow to milk, the
calves, pigs, and chickens to take care of, besides carrying in coal, shoveling
snow, and battling snowdrifts to get into the hospital to see him. After Clem
returned from the hospital the roads were completely closed for awhile. We got down to our last big lump of coal
before the roads were cleared enough for us to get to the mill to get some
more.
During that winter, in Feb 1949, I was asked to be a counselor in the
Relief Society to Irene Bawden. Hilda
Newman was the other counselor and Kathryn Ricks the Secretary. Later Iva Latimer became the other
counselor. The calling was a big
surprise to me. I had never been able to
attend Relief Society before and knew very little about it. We had the privilege of choosing the
furnishings for the new Relief Society room as the Granger Second Ward chapel
was just being completed at that time. I
served in the Relief Society for about five years.
During this time our hearts were saddened by the sudden death of my
father on Oct 25, 1951. He was eighty
one years old, and although he wasn't well he remained active. He died of a heart attack as he returned to
the house-from milking his cows. This
was the first death in our family and it left us all quite shaken. A year and a half later another tragedy
occurred. Our brother Reed, just fifty
one years old was taken with a sudden heart attack on 13 June 1953. Another year and a half passed and on Oct 23,
1954, our dear mother whose health had been quite delicate since father's
death, slipped quietly away as she sat in her chair. She was eighty three years of age.
As we mourned the passing of our loved ones, we realized how blessed we
were in having had them as long as we had.
We were comforted in knowledge that they had not had to suffer unduly
and that the parting would only be for a brief season.
Clem and I were not blessed with a family of our own and so after five
years of marriage I accepted the call to return to teaching. I started teaching at the Kearns Elementary
in Dec. 1953. It was the second year
that there had been a school at
Clem and I worked together completing our home and yards. We did everything we could ourselves. Clem used to say,” Did you ever think it
could be this much fun.?" Now I
didn't always think it was fun.
Sometimes I thought it was down right hard work!
One April day in 1955 I was just finishing my day's teaching when I was
called to the office to the telephone.
It was a doctor from the smelter calling and he told me that my husband
had just been injured in an accident, and that I had better get into the St.
Marks hospital as soon as I could. When
I got to the hospital Clem was in surgery.
I had some anxious hours of lonely waiting, not knowing what had
happened. Finally a foreman from the
smelter came and waited with me. He said
Clem had been in and explosion and there had been some extensive injuries.
Finally they brought him from the recovery room. He was swathed in
bandages and still unconscious. Shortly
after the bishopric came into the room.
One of the teachers I worked with notified them of the accident. I told them how good it was to see them after
waiting there alone. One of them said to
me, "We are never alone". I
have remembered that ever since. They
gave him a wonderful blessing, promising him that he would recover. He did get along better than the Doctors
anticipated and after several months returned to work, but he never regained
his former strength.
In the mean time we purchased a little home and farm in Payson. Clem was very happy about it. We spent all our spare time fixing it
up. This was where we were going to
spend our retirement years. About three
years after Clem's accident his health began to fail. The doctors could find nothing wrong with
him, but his condition continued to worsen.
One Saturday morning, Jan 23, 1959, he passed out from internal
bleeding. I rushed him to the hospital
in an ambulance
After several weeks of testing the doctors gave me the fatal word. He had CANCER. My world tumbled down around me, yet I had to
go on for him. There followed surgery,
months of radiation treatments, return trips to the hospital for blood
transfusions, and more treatments. None
of it did any good. Finally on July 20,
1959,he passed away in the St. Marks Hospital.
We had only had eleven brief years of marriage.
It was hard for me to go on alone.
Clem ,and I had been very close and dependent on each other. Then too, I had grown up in a large family and
had never had to be alone. I spent some
time with Elsie in Payson, and she spent some time here with me. She was a great help and to me as were my
other brothers and sisters. At last it
was time for school to start and me to stand on my own. At school Adeline Wright was a big help to
me. We shared rides, and she gave me a
lot of inspiration. Still in the
loneliness of the night I would often wonder how I could ever go like this
alone for the rest of my life. It was
then that I would tell myself that I didn't have to live the rest of my life
just then, but that I could make it one day at a time. and I did. I kept very busy with my school work, my
home, and garden. I also went back to
teaching Gospel Doctrine Class in Sunday School.
Clem suffered so much during his illness that I used to wonder why there
should be so much suffering in the world.
Again, as I had previous occasions, I received my answer in church. Two different times, in different types of
meetings, the speakers talked on the need of suffering in our lives. They said it was a necessary part of
life. We came here to be tested. Suffering was like the refiner's fire, burning
out the dross in our lives and leaving us more fit for Our Father's Kingdom.
A year after my husband's death, Aug 11, 1960 our lives were saddened
again by the sudden death of our oldest brother Martin, two days after his
sixty fifth birthday.
Life was not all sadness. In the
summer of 1961 I went with my neighbor, Elizabeth Petersen, and some other
friends on a very delightful trip to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant and other
points of Church and historical interest.
I had never been in the east before.
I was fascinated by seeing the corn fields that extended for miles upon
end with hundreds of pumps scattered through out them pumping oil right out of
the corn field.
I continued to teach school until my retirement in June 1974. I taught a total of thirty four years. I taught thirteen years before I was married
and twenty one after. I want to pay
tribute to the wonderful people with whom I was privileged to work all those
years. With retirement facing me I
wondered again how I would face it alone, but I got busy with Genealogy
work. We hired a little Swiss Lady, Anna
Fink, to help me read the Swiss records in the Genealogy Library. This was really a thrill. Sometimes we would search for hours and
hours for a certain name without any luck. Then suddenly she would exclaim, “I've found it!' Here it is.” Then she would show me the name on the
records. We were able to find a wealth
of genealogy on my father’s and mother's line which we had been unable to get
before.
In April 1975 from the twentieth to the thirtieth I went with my
sisters, Elsie and Pauline, on a wonderful tour of the Holy Lands with the
B.Y.U. This was one of the highlights of
my life, starting with my first airplane ride, my first time on foreign soil,
and then traveling the length and breadth of the Holy Land, viewing the scenes
and walking in the sacred spots where Jesus had walked and taught. The scriptures lived for us as we studied in
the sacred settings of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Mount of
Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and by the Garden Tomb, where the Angel
declared the marvelous truth, “He is not dead, but is risen.” We returned home with that testimony ringing
in our ears, and a desire in our hearts to live the gospel more fully than we
had ever before.
On May 20, 1976 our heads were once more bowed in grief at the passing
of our dear sister Martha. Even in death
there is beauty. It was a beautiful
sight to see her family, her husband, six lovely daughters, six handsome sons,
their partners, and all her fine grandchild gathered together to pay her
honor. She was a devoted wife and
wonderful mother.
On April 14 1976 I was called to work in the
In June of 1978 I began to have severe pains in my lower abdomen. I went
to the doctor and had numerous tests, 'but they couldn't find anything
seriously wrong. Finally the first part
of October the Doctor discovered a tumor and said I should have surgery
immediately. The bishop and his
counselors came and administered to me before I went into the hospital. The bishop gave me a wonderful blessing which
gave me peace and assurance to face the operation although I was quite certain
what the outcome would be.
After surgery the Doctor told me that I had a cancer on the ovary . They
removed the ovary, but the cancer had spread to other places where they
couldn't get it. The doctor said they
had had good success in treating that type of tumor with chemotherapy, and that
when I recovered sufficiently from the operation I was to take chemotherapy
treatments. I started taking chemotherapy
in November. They say the treatments usually
last a year. I still don't know what the
outcome will be. If it is the Lord's
will that I should recover, I shall devote my time to His service. If not I pray that I might have the strength
to endure faithfully to the end.
I am very grateful to my sisters for their help, their love, and faith
and prayers. I am grateful to other
members of the family and my many friends for the help and comfort they have
given me.
Life has been good. I have had
many wonderful experiences and blessings.
I have worked in the M.I.A., on the Sunday School Stake Board, have been
a teacher trainer for Sunday School and Primary, Taught Sunday School thirteen
years in Payson and the Gospel Doctrine Class twenty years in Granger. I was a Relief Society counselor five years,
and a Relief Society visiting Teacher for many years. I also had the privilege of being a temple
worker.
I know the Gospel is true. I know
that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that he lives and is the only
means by which we can obtain Salvation.
I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that the Church is
lead by living prophets today. My advise
to family and friends is to stay close to the Church, keep the commandments,
pay your tithes and offerings. It is
only in the service of the Lord that you can find true happiness. I know God hears and answers prayers, not
always in the way we desire but in the way that is best.
I am particularly fond of the following poem:
IN HIS STEPS
(Author unknown to me)
The road is rough, I said. There are stones that hurt me so.
My child, He said, I remember the way, I walked it long ago.
But there is a cool, green path, I said, Let me walk there for a time.
No child, He gently answered me, The green road does not climb.
My burdens, I said are far to great, How can I bear them so?
My child, He said, I remember the weight, I carried my Cross you know.
But, I said, I wish there were friends with me, Who would make my way
their own
Ah, yes, He said,
And so I climbed the stony path, Content at last to. know,
That where my Master had not gone, I would not need to go.
And strangely then, I found my friends, The burdens grew less sore
As I remembered long ago, He walked this way before.
Contributed by jhammond22@cox.net
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