Phyllis Pearl Marble Widmann-1912

Phyllis Pearl Marble Widmann

... I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second child in a family of six children.  Five girls and one boy.  My parents were Coral Pearl Cook and Byron Ealum Marble.  My mother wasn't very well after I was born.  She was quite ill for some time and for a time they didn't know if she would live or not, but quite a while later she was doing much better.  I was born the 29 November, Thanksgiving morning in 1912.  Mama said I was her turkey the morning, ha-ha.  When I was anywhere from ten days to two weeks old I almost didn't make it,  as I nearly bled to death.  My folks had hired a nurse to take care of my mother and me, the nurse didn't do a the things she had to do, the way she should have done them, so my mother's parent came to take care of mother and me.  The first time my grandmother went to take my clothes off they were stuck to me,  she had to wet them in order to loosen the clothing so as to take the clothes off.  My blood didn't coagulate (clot).
     The doctor gave me blood six times and it didn't help much, then the bishopric gave me a blessing.  My grandpa was holding me and whistled to get my grandma's attention.  When she came to see what he wanted he told her that he thought I was going to die, but that he wanted to keep me until my father came home from work.  The doctor got their before my father did,  and before they expected him,  he said that their was only a few drops of blood in my body,  but while there is life there is hope, so he gave me blood again.  That was the last time the doctor gave me blood as I didn't need anymore.  I was given a blessing earlier that day.  Next time the doctor came he said, "What did you do, change babies?"  Then he said I was too bright I'd never die, but that he wouldn't give two cents for mama's life.  My mother was ill for sometime but she improved and did make it. 
     It is wonderful what a blessing can do, I didn't need any more blood.  The Lord must have sent the doctor earlier so I was able to live.  If he had come at the time he was expected, I don't think I would have made it.  i am very grateful for what was done for me at that time. 
     When I was a year and a half old I had summer complaint and dropsy and they again thought I wouldn't make it.  Mama said I got so thin my fathers thumb was as large as my wrist, but I got over that also. 
     We moved to Deweyville, Utah when I was two years of age then when I was four years old we moved to Mt. View, Idaho.  There my father and grandfather Marble homesteaded 120 acres of land.  The land was about half farming land and half pasture land, their wasn't enough farming land to make a living from the land so my Father worked away from home some when there was work to do for other farmers.  In Salt Lake City, they paid him a little extra on one job, anyway and in Idaho the nearest neighbor paid him extra.  He said he had padded hands and that he did more work than the other men did.  As I remember the first fall after we moved to Mr. View the spring before, when my sister was school age, my Grandfather moved my mother, my sister, Irene, and me to Malad, Idaho, so my sister could to school at that time.  We went back to Mt. View, the next spring.  She went to the first grade at that time.  I don't believe my parents could afford to move to Malad anymore, because that was the only time we lived in Malad.  Mother said that they had had four wells dug, they were water wells, bu they were not sealed or cased in as they should have been and eventually they all caved in.  I remember the last one I drew water out of it with a bucket.  it was eighty feet deep.  Once when I was home alone I drew the water for the livestock.  We only had a bucket to get the water out of the well, I kept drawing the water until the animals left.  I don't know if they all had water to drink or if they just got tired of waiting for me to draw enough water for them all. 
    My father gave his father thirty five head of cattle to pay or partly pay grandfather for his half of the property.  Grandfather then gave his youngest daughter one cow,  daddy kept on cow for us and I milked that cow when I was nine years old, I also started making bread then.
    On the ranch I worked in the house and outside also.  I hauled water quite a lot also.  On the ranch I did some chores, some of the time,  like milking cows, feeding chickens, horses, pigs, and we herded cattle when we were younger.  I also took care of my younger brother, Quinton and sister, Naomi and Sylvia,  mainly the two middle sisters younger than me. I went to school the first to the eighth grade in Mt. View.  We all had the same teacher each year.  The school was about 2 1/4 miles from our house.  We walked most  of the time, it seems the last year I rode a pony, I think.  The snow got deep in the winter and sometimes it was so cold we had to stop at the neighbors house to get warm.    Some neighbors would have to climb out a window to clean the snow away from the house.  Sometimes the snow would cover up part of the houses.  I was baptized in the Snake River at the age of 16.