written by herself
I was born of goodly parents in a very primitive cottonwood log house with a dirt roof on the 2nd day of October, 1862, in a small pioneer village situated on the banks of the Bear River in the southwestern part of Utah. The place derived its name Minersville on account of there being so many miners in that locality. My parents were James Henry Rollins, born in Lima, New York, on the 27th of May, 1816; and Eveline Walker Rollins, born the 16th of May, 1823, in or near Dayton, Ohio. They were very early pioneers of Utah immigrating from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters in February 1846 --- lived there through the year 1847 and from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake City --- arrived there in October 1848.
I was my mother's tenth and last child, four of them dying while small. I spent my childhood days in Minersville. I attended school there and learned my ABC's there, as it was then called. The first school that I remember attending was taught by my father's sister, Mary E. Lightner. She taught in an old adobe meeting house which was used for church and all kinds of amusements and a school house.
My grandmother Walker lived with my mother's sister, Dionitia Walker Lyman. The night I was born, mother sent my brother Watson up to stay with grandmother. When it was time for him to come back home, grandmother pleaded with mother to let him stay there. So he lived there nine years until grandmother died. I stayed there a great deal of the time as I liked to be with my grandmother. When I was seven years old, my sister Melissa got married to John N. Lee of Panaca, Nevada. After that, mother and I would try and make a trip to see her every year if she did not come to visit us.
My father was the first postmaster in Minersville. He also kept the first stage station and a tavern, as a hotel was called. I first learned to read writing as I was handing out letters in the Post Office when Father wasn't in.
Father installed a molasses mill and the people in town raised sugar cane. They would bring their cane and he would run the cane through a mill and get the juice. They had several large vats which were built over a furnace. They would put the juice in these vats and boil it down to molasses. As it boiled they would have to skim it. We children would have a great time. We would get the skimmings and make candy of it. The women folk would make vinegar of it also. We never knew what it was to buy vinegar. Mother had a 5 gallon keg and she always kept it full.
Mother made candles out of tallow. I remember the first coal oil lamp we ever had. Mother was afraid to light it for fear it would blow up. She had a spinning wheel and loom to weave cloth on. She spun the yarn and dyed it. I remember she made me a plaid woolen dress, and herself and the other children clothes. She made yarn and knit all our stockings. She also gathered saleratus from the ground (we call it alkali now) and would make soap of it to last all winter. Thus the pioneers would work and save everything. To make a living she would also gather straw and braid our hats. We felt very proud of our straw hats.
I attended the schools which were held about three months of the year called a quarter. The teachers would charge three to four dollars apiece for each student, which they would take in produce of all kinds and some would have wood to pay for their tutition. I attended these schools until I was in the 5th reader. That was how the grades were determined in those days.
We had several teachers that came from the B. Y. Academy at Provo. They enthused me so much telling me what a wonderful school it was, that I was so thrilled about it I wanted to go there. At the Christmas holidays in 1880, Apostle F. M. Lyman and his son F. M. Lyman Jr. came to our house on their way back from a holiday vacation to Parowan. F. M. Jr. was a student at the B. Y. A. I asked my parents if I could go back with them and attend the B. Y. A. in Provo. They consented to let me go so I got ready in a hurry. This was my first trip away from home alone. Sometimes I would get very homesick, but that wonderful old man, Karl G. Maeser, was so kind. When he would find a student that was blue and homesick, he would put his arms around you and cheer you up and make you feel alright. I only stayed there in Provo until the April conference. I attended conference and then returned home on account of being short of funds.
While there, I boarded with one of Heber C. Kimball's wives, Lucy Walker Kimball. I assisted in the kitchen mornings and evenings as part pay for my room and board. She allowed me $1.00 per week for my work and I paid $3.00 per week cash. I roomed with four other girls. Part of the time I roomed with J. Golden Kimball's mother who lived in another part of the house. There were several boys boarded there also. Golden was the senior over the house. We all had to be in the dining room at a certain time of the morning for prayers. Several times some of us girls would not get in there in time for prayers and Golden would always report us to Pro. Maeser. We would be called onto the carpet, but he was very kind to us and would say, "Don't let it happen again." Those were very happy days for me.
After I returned home, Wallace Hamblin, my boy friend or beau, as we then called them, returned home from a trip to Wyoming where he had been assisting in driving some cattle to the market in Cheyenne. My brother Watson and Harriet Eyre were preparing to get married in December so we decided to accompany them and make it a double affair. My brother obtained a white top buggy and Wallace a light spring wagon and we set off for St. George one Sunday morning. It took us three days to get there. We were married in the St. George Temple, Wednesday the 14th of December 1881. We stayed over on Thursday and took in the sights of the city.
A very strange thing happened to us while in St. George. The man where we stopped, a Bro. Hall, wanted us to take a 60 gallon barrel of wine to Milford to ship North to his son. It was decided that we take it as we had a wagon. We had not traveled very far until a boy came riding up and said something was spilling out of our wagon. On investigating, we found some of the hoops had broken off the barrel so we tipped it on the other end and we went on and pretty soon the hoops broke off that end. Then we turned the barrel on its side thinking we could save some that way, but the staves broke in the center and it all leaked out, and all our bedding was soaked with wine. We tried in all the settlements to obtain a barrel or keg, but could not get one. Bro. Hall was very angry about it and wanted us to pay for it. We could not help it, and of course we did not pay for it.
We arrived home on Sunday just as church was dismissed and they gave us cheers of welcome as we passed by them. Our parents had a fine reception for us after our return. We had very gay times in our early wedded life. It being the winter holidays, there was a dance or some kind of amusements going on every night, and in those days they would last until the wee small hours of the morning.
My brother Watson, his wife, Wallace and I all lived at home with my parents. The men folk spent the winter freighting and hauling ore from the Lincoln Mines to Milford. In the spring and summer the men spent their time farming.
Our first child was born December 12, 1882. We were made happy parents of a fine son, Wallace Eugene. Naturally he was the nicest baby ever born. My brother and his wife had a son born in September of the same year. The two boys grew up together and as far as affection goes I think two brothers could not have loved one another more than they did. After our babies came, my brother and his wife moved to a place of their own and Wallace and I remained with my parents.
In May after we were married, I accompanied my parents to the St. George Temple and assisted them in doing work for their kindred dead. While there, Sister Lucy B. Young had my Aunt Mary Lightner, my mother and I accompany her to a room several stories up which had an altar in it. She then gave each one of us a blessing in tongues and then she interpreted them. One thing she said in my blessing was that I should have a son and that he would go to the nations of the earth and preach the gospel. When Eugene was 21 years old, he and his cousin, Watson Loraine both, went on missions in the same year--both fulfilling honorable missions.
The years went on and we were struggling to make a living and trying at the same time to build us a home. During the summer of 1884, Wallace and Henry Hall of Minersville made a kiln of brick to burn them. While he was thus employed, we were again presented with another fine son. On the 3rd of December 1884, Claudious Lee was born. We were trying to keep one of the first commandments to multiply and replenish the earth. I thought that was our mission here. There was no race suicide in those days especially with the Mormon people.
Summer of 1885, we began building a two-room brick home on a lot, with an apple and pear orchard, in the center of town. However, the house was not finished until Jan 1887 and we moved into it just after our third son was born on the 19th. We named him Edwin Rollin.
We enjoyed being to ourselves very much, although it was hard for me to leave father and mother to do for themselves. They were getting along in years. We were only two short blocks away, and we would help them with the hardest work.
Wallace's mother, Mary Ann Corbridge Hamblin, moved to Salt Lake with her two daughters, Effie and Essie, and took up obstetrics and became a very efficient doctor and nurse. This was during a building boom in Salt Lake, and as work around home in Minersville was very scarce, she sent for Wallace and his brother William to come to Salt Lake with their teams to work. They took their families with them. They obtained work hauling rock and building material.
Both families lived together until the fall of 1890. We wanted to find a house of our own, but every time we asked about a house to rent, they would not rent to us with children. When my parents came to Salt Lake to attend October conference, I returned home with them, and Wallace stayed in Salt Lake to work. We were expecting the stork to again visit us.
One day early in February, I was returnind home from mother's with little Rollin a hold of my hand. As we were passing our corral, a cow that had just been brought up off the range with a young calf took after us. We just escaped her horns by crawling through some bars close by.
The next morning I was quite sick. I continued being ill for three days. On the 6th of February 1891, I gave birth to twin girls. They were very tiny and no one had any idea they would live. We put them both on the scales together and they just weighed 7 lbs. My husband was still in Salt Lake. My brother Watson and his wife were all with me when I was in trouble. He went for the Elders and brought them to bless and name the babies. We all thought they would die because they groaned every breath they drew. We gave them the names of Ida Melissa and Addie Minerva.
They were so small and delicate and quite a care for a long time. My husband being away made it quite hard for me to care for them in my weakened condition. But my dear old mother would come up every day and do all she could to help me and would stay with me until the babies would quiet down for the night. Mother would help me with them until they got so they were better and easier to take care of. After the babies were five months old, they seemed to thrive and grow from then on. By the way, when they were born I did not have anything to put on them as they were too small to dress. So they were just wrapped in cotton and a shawl until we were able to get some clothes made for them.
Their father did not see them until they were three months old. When he returned home from Salt Lake he had been working for a furniture man and brought home two high chairs and a baby buggy and a nice rocking chair for me.
After the twins, came our 4th son, William Clark, born on the 20th of September 1893. In three more years our 5th son, Henry Marcene, was born on the 18th of November 1896. These children, seven of them, were all born in Minersville, Utah.
In September 1897, we left Minersville with 9 families - a total of 52 souls. We were heading north to find more land for our growing families to make a living from. We had heard Lucerne Valley in northern Utah had all that we wanted. The little band struggled along for five weeks. Much of that time there was sickness in the company. In the evening, at the bedside of the sick, prayers were offered up for the afflicted and the sincere supplications were heard and answered.
Our family had 9 souls, 3 wagons, 7 horses, 2 cows, and a dozen chickens. Lee, 12 and Rollin, 10, drove two of the wagons, and Eugene, riding a saddle horse, helped to drive the cattle and loose horses. At night these three sons slept on the ground under the wagon.
When our company finally arrived in mid-October, we were all very much disappointed with the surroundings. I think we women folk were more disappointed than the men. The men folk decided to leave the women and families there and go and see if they could find a more suitable place to locate.
One week later, they returned and told us they had staked out 160 acres, filed on it, and bought the Carter Canal for $1500 in Bridger Valley. Wallace had filed on a place three and a half miles northeast of Lyman located on the Blacks Fork River. We soon packed up and moved right over. We were just a week coming over from Lucerne Valley to Bridger Valley. There was a big snow storm that came on us enroute. We arrived on the 9th of November in a terrible blizzard. We stopped at the first place we came to which was Steven's ranch. We never forgot the kind hospitality of the Steven's family.
The next day we all found houses to live in at Mt. View. My brother Watson and our family rented a small two-room house and each family had a room a piece with no door between us. We put our sewing machines against the door for a partition but the children would climb over them. We managed fairly well with our sheep wagons for the boys to sleep in.
On the 9th of March, 1898, we moved into our two-room log house before it was shinked or daubed with a dirt roof and dirt floor. There was a terrible blizzard on. We had quite a hard struggle clearing our land of sage brush and getting it fenced. All hands would have to work making ditches and plowing the land. They got a few acres of wheat and oats in and some potatoes. They also put in several acres of lucerne. They bought the lucerne seed on the road out here.
Whenever the men could get a job working out, they would do so to get money to buy feed for their teams. Rollin, who was 11 years old after we came, hired out for 8 dollars per month. He obtained enough money to get him a suit of clothes and other things to attend school with. Lee hired out as a sheep camp tender. Eugene worked for a Mr. Marchasault. They all managed to attend school in the winter. We had been married 15 years when we moved to Wyoming.
After my brothers and myself moved from Minersville and left our parents, they were not contented. They sold their home and came to cast their lot with their children. They arrived on the 8th of July 1898 and made their home with me. Father's health had been very poor for several years and this climate was very severe on him. He was suffering with Brights Disease and he passed away on the 7th of February 1899 -- just living seven months after he came. He was the first man buried in the Lyman Cemetery. Father would have been 83 years old the following May.
My husband's mother came to Wyoming that same winter. She came as Doctor and Nurse. She filed on 160 acres of land just below our place.
Wallace and Lee were away working on the railroaod at Spring Valley in November 1899. Before he left, he brought his mother to stay with me as we were expecting the stork that afternoon. On the 22nd of November, I had a terrible hemorrage and gave birth to a fine baby boy, but it never lived. My life was dispared of and only through faith and prayer and power of the priesthood through the Elders was my life spared. I was a long time gaining my strength.
Time went on and we kept on improving our farm and every year getting a little more land under cultivation and fenced. But the men folk would have to go away from home and work when they would get a chance. In the year 1901, Cumberland coal mines had just opened up and there was a lot of work over there. Engene and Lee went over and obtained work. Along in the summer I decided I would go over and cook for the boys. I was not very well and would consult the doctor there about myself, as there was no doctor here at that time. When the crops were all gathered and taken care of, my husband came over to Cumberland and obtained work in No. 2 south mine.
October 7, 1901, I gave birth to a premature and very small and delicate boy. We named him James Robert. I was confined to my bed from then on until the middle of December. We still lived in Cumberland until the next spring, when we moved back to the farm.
In April 1903, Eugene was called on a mission for the LDS Church to what was then the Colorado Mission. We only had two weeks to prepare him. Sometimes we did not know where we were going to get money to keep him on but somehow by scheming and working it came. Lee and Rollin worked out most of the time and helped to keep him, and Wallace, would take care of the farm. Then to help out, every week I would take a team and buggy and go around the Valley and gather up butter, eggs, and vegetables and go to Spring Valley and Cumberland and peddle them. So with all of us working, we managed to keep him.
My baby girl Lucille was born on the 29th of August 1906 at our ranch home. Our son Rollin, was called to go to Australia on a mission in October 1908.
In the spring of 1909, Lee leased a hotel in Elko, Wyoming, a coal mining camp near Kemmerer. He wanted the girls to go and run it for him but I would not let them go unless I went with them. We rented our famr and moved over there and kept boarders for the company. We had as high as 60 boarders at a time. Lee was married in the Salt Lake Temple on November 11,1909.
Addie married Levi Blad November 15, 1911 in the Salt Lake Temple, and made their home in Panaca, Nevada. Eugene married Pauline Zabriskie, April 9, 1912. Rollin married Cora Roberts, February 28, 1912. Ida married Eugene Eyre, June 5, 1912, so that left our home kind of desolate. My mother was still living with me. However, my mother passed away September 25, 1912. She was in her 90th year.
In November 1922, my husband obtained work in the Union Pacific shops in Green River. I stayed in Lyman that winter with Robert and Lucille in school, but in May, 1923, we moved to Green River.
While working in Green River, we bought a two-room house and a lot in Lyman. On December 14, 1931, Wallace and I were married 50 years and our children got together and planned a celebration. All of our children and grandchildren and two great grandchildren were present. Our son Eugene and three grandchildren had passed away.
We lived in Green River nearly 10 years. My husband was laid off on his 70th birthday. He received a railroad pass for us and we spent two months travelling around the states of Utah, Idaho, California and Nevada visiting family and friends.
We losted our daughter Addie, mother of eight children, quite suddently in May 1932. It was a great sorrow for us.
We were living in our little home very comfortable when my husband's health began to fail. We did everything we could for him and took him to Salt Lake thinking the change of climate might do him good. But it was too late. We returned home on the 30th of September 1937, and he passed away that evening at 7 p.m. while sitting in his chair. He had enlargement of the heart. I have lived alone since then. This is February 1939. I have five sons and two daughters living, one son and one daughter dead, 38 grandchildren living and 4 dead, 14 great grandchildren.
MY CHURCH ACTIVITIES
When the Primary Association was first organized in Minersville, I was chosen second counselor to Mary Ann Hamblin when I was 18 years old. After I was married and had three children, I was put in President of the Y.L.M.I.A. in Minersville. I acted in that capacity for several years. Then I was Relief Society teacher there. In 1892 was chosen secretary for the Relief Society of the Minersville Ward and held that office for five years. I was Relief Society teacher for several years in Lyman, Wyoming. We moved to Elko and I was put in as Relief Society President. I acted there until we moved home and then was chosen Stake Secretary in 1919 and held that office until Addie Brough the Stake President moved to Salt Lake. I was Ward Secretary of Lyman for five years. When we moved to Green River in 1923 I acted as Ward Relief Society teacher there, then I was chosen as second counselor in the Relief Society to Mrs. Ruth Manwaring. Later I was chosen as her first counselor, and still held that position in 1932 when we moved back to Lyman. At the present time I am Captain of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers of the Bridger Valley Camp.