Flint, Mary (Aug 21, 1868 – Jul 18, 1966) by Herself

SKETCH OF MY LIFE -MARY FLINT HOUSE

Written in this year of 1958. By Mary Flint House

I was born the 21st of August 1868 at Calls Fort, Utah, a daughter of
William and Georgiana Knighton Flint. I was born in a DUGOUT, and
father said it was an awful hard, cold winter. There was a family by
the name of Graham who were living in a wagon box and the snow nearly
covered it up, so father invited them to come and stay with us, that
made 10 of us living in the DUGOUT.

The first home I remember was a one room log cabin with a fire place,
we used this fire place to cook our meals on. There was a grain bin in
the south end of this cabin and we children slept upon the grain, with
a tick filled with straw.

Our next home was a two room log cabin with a slope on the back, it had
a dirt roof and a fire place, we also had a cook stove in this home.
About the time we got this new home, my mother left my father with four
of us children to care for. My older sister Elizabeth was about 9 years
old, I being nearly 6 years old and my brother John who was born in
England before they came to America was around 18 or a little older.
With the help of the neighbors we got along fine. They would come every
spring and fall to clean our house, and when my sister and I were old
enough they taught us hot to make our clothes and knit our stockings.

As I grew older I went out and took care of children, all I ever
received were a few clothes. We used to have lots of snow in those
days, which would make the deer come down out of the hills and hollows
looking for feed, they would walk right over the fences and got into
the hay stacks.

I remember one winter I did not have any shoes, and no money to buy any
with, so father told me if I would shuck out some corn he would take it
to Corinne and get me some shoes. I had to clean the snow away and put
some straw on the ground, so I could shuck the corn, after I had it all
shucked, father took it to Corinne and got me some shoes.

We had to walk one mile to school, and not having any coats to wear, we
pinned a little shawl around our shoulders and a scarf on out heads, we
also did not have any overshoes and our feet would be wet all day long.
We had a good teacher, his name was Joseph Standing. After school was
out he went on a mission and while on this mission, he was shot to
death. I can still remember seeing his mother with her gray hair
sitting beside his coffin in a black calico dress, it was a sad sight.

 
I saw Brigham Young the last time he was in Brigham City, I was just a
young girl at the time, we all came down from Calls Fort to see him, he
looked so grand. We had all lined up on Forrest Street so we could
watch him as he drove by in his buggy pulled by a span of white horses.

They had a bowery with willows on the top for shade and planks to sit
on while he spoke to the people. That day we all went home very happy,
because we had seen our President of the Church.

I remember the first sugar I ever saw, father got about a pound and he
hung it up in the top of the house, my little brother was about four
years old, we thought we would like to see what it tasted like so got
it down and tasted it. All we had ever had for sweetening was honey and
molasses and all the fruit we had was dried, we even dried pumpkin,
even though we didn't have every thing we were happy, and I will never
forget my wonderful father and mother even though our mother left us
when we were small, she brought us to this world and gave us life for
which I am very grateful, because if she had not born us into this
world we would not be here now. Even after my mother left my father, he
never did say an unkind word about her and he taught us children to not
do it either, even after she remarried and just lived across the road
from us.

As I grew older I used to go and do washings all day for the neighbors,
scrubbing it all on a board and for this work I received fifty cents a
day. I also worked for women around the neighborhood after they had
their babies.

When I was 18 years old I went out to Promontory with a Mrs Hunsaker to
help cook for a crew of men that were working in the hay fields, they
were working for a man by the name of H. C. House. I worked for Mrs
Hunsaker until all the hay was put up, then I went to work for the
House family. I worked all winter for them, going home in the summer.
In the fall I went back to work for them and they then moved to
Corinne, where Mr House took a job with a Mr Tarpey to help build a
fence, they also built a five room house, it was built where Tremonton
now stands.

There was also another family by the name of Bill Johnson living there.
[T]his was in November, then on New Years day January 1889, Mr House's
oldest son George and I were married. That year the Bear River Canal
was started and my husband worked on it. It was just a sage brush
valley and after he was through working there, we went out to Raft
River where my husband worked for the Promontory Live Stock Company.
From there we moved back to Corinne and my husband again worked on the
canal. While we were in Corinne our first child and daughter Gladys
Elizabeth was born on October 25., 1889. My husband had gone out to
work for the Promontory Company again, then in the spring I went out to
live and we worked for this company for nineteen years. My brother
William Flint also worked for this company.

 
I have had a lot of experiences during my early life on Promontory and
during the many years that I lived here, they have been a great reward
in my life. One time there was a sick lady living with her family in a
little shack on the side of a hill, there was no floor in this shack,
just a dirt floor. It was two days before Christmas and the weather was
awfully cold, so I said to my husband, "Let's take some of our
children's toys up to their children" they had three small children. We
got the team and hooked them to the sleigh. When we got there her
husband was out hunting rabbits so they would have some meat to eat.
This lady was sitting by the stove trying to keep warm, she was very
sick, and she thought she was going to have a baby, I asked her if she
wouldn't like to come down to my place and stay as there was a mid-wife
that lived about two miles from my place, She said she would like to
come, so I went home and cleaned up a room that stood just a few steps
from our door.

They brought her down the day before Christmas and we got her settled
in this room, then she made the request that no one come to see her
except her brother as she said she didn't feel too good and could
hardly breath[e.]

Our house being the largest one out there at the time, was a gathering
place for all the neighbors to come, so this Christmas day they had all
met at our place to celebrate Christmas. There were seven families out
there at that time. After our Christmas dinner was over, the dishes
done, and the families had all gone home, this sick lady's husband came
after me and said he thought his wife Viola was dying, so I went back
with him and I had just stepped in the room as she passed away. She had
what they called dropsey. It was a sad thing for a young mother to pass
away and leave three small children. In those days it was the custom
for people to sit with the dead, so the men took turns sitting, they
had to let the fire go out so as to keep the body cold. [S]ome of the
women there had laid her out and covered her with a sheet, so when it
came time for the next fellow to go sit, as he opened the door the
breeze from the door moved the sheet and he shot out of the room and
came to us and said that the woman was still alive, so my husband and
my brother William went in to see and found out it was just the breeze
from the door that had made the sheet move.

My brother William took this woman in her casket to Brigham in our
wagon across the flats and when he returned, he said he was sure scared
all the way over as he was just sure she would raise up any minute and
get out, and he was sure glad when he got the casket delivered. We laid
her away Nice.

It was cold at this time that it froze the small calves feet, and some of them Bad their feet fall off at the ankle[.]

Our second child and another daughter Verlie Ione was born on July 26, 1891.

A few years later during a cold winter, I got a call about 2 o'clock in
the morning that one of our neighbor women was very sick, it was
snowing and blowing so hard you could hardly see, but my husband got
the team and wagon and took me up to the place and soon after we got
there a baby arrived, so I had to do the best I could. His lady was Mrs
Ray Smith from Brigham City. We got along fine, but
I had to go home to my two small children, so they got a Mrs Stokes to
come and stay. I had a lot of trying times and I met them to the back
[best?] of my ability, and did the best I could at all times. My
sister-in-laws husband passed away and she had to go to work to make a
living, so we took her boy and kept with us for seven summers. He is
surely a fine boy, his name is Arthur Neeley.

Our oldest girl was a year and a half old when we went to work for this
cattle company and we had from five to twenty men to cook for, and we
baked as many as sixteen loaves of bread a day. We received 15 cents a
meal for each of the men that we cooked for and thought we were doing
fine.

When we first went to Promontory there were only two families living
there, but more families kept moving in until there were over thirty
families living there at one time.

The Stokes family that lived farther south had to move up to where we
were living in the winter time so they could send their children to
school. I also boarded some children that lived see f[a]r away from the
school, so they would have to chance to go to school. My brother
William married one of the Stokes girls, she was Nellie Stokes. I have
many times made dresses and shirts for some of their children.
 
Our third child and only son was born on October 7, 1896. Before we
left the cattle company our eldest daughter got married and had a boy
of her own. After we left the cattle company, we bought a small farm of
our own and we make our living on it by raising turkeys, chickens,
cows, pigs and wheat. We also raised some vegetables. We lived on this
farm until my husband passed away on June 2, 1935 from a stroke.

A few years before my husband passed away, we got word that another
lady was sick about 2 o'clock in the morning and wanted to know if we
could take her to Penrose to where her sister lived, she was going to
have a baby and we had just got to her sisters and got her sister out
of bed and this woman in, when her baby was born, we didn't even have
time to take her clothes off.

After my husband passed away I moved to Brigham City to live in the
home we had purchased a few years before. I think the Lord must have
sent me here for I have had the best neighbors, they have all been so
good to me and are always doing some thing to help me out. I will name
a few of them, they being Mrs Frank Jensen, Mrs Mildred Snow, who had
passed away.

 
Mrs Tanner, Mrs Korth, the Poulsen girls, Lorna Harper, Mrs Mabel Wilson, Mrs Ernest Hansen and many others, too many to name.

I have three wonderful children, a good daughter-in-law, a good son-in-law and many grandchildren.

I enjoy very much my three children, eleven grandchildren, thirty seven
great grandchildren and fourteen great, great grandchildren.

My son Clay took me up to the Calls Fort Grave Yard last evening,
August 10, 1958. I guess it will be my last trip up there as I am
getting weaker every day, I will be ninety years old in ten days, my
days are getting shorter all the time, but a wonderful life will soon
be mine when I meet my loved ones on the other side, who have gone
before me. My life has been a wonderful one even though I have had to
put up with many hardships during my life time. I feel very thankful
for the life I have had and [i]n being blessed with my children and all
my many grandchildren. I have had to work very hard, but feel that it
has been a great blessing to me.

P.S. I just remembered some things that happened when my son Clay was a
year old and it was awful cold and he was just starting to walk, so I
told my husband to bring in some gunny sacks as we had no covering on
the floor. I cut these sacks into squares and sewed them together and
made a rug. I put some straw on the floor and the rug I had made from
the sacks over the straw which made it much warmer. My son is now sixty
two years old and has been a wonderful son too. I have now passed my
ninetieth year and my wonderful neighbors still keep me going. Sister
Tanner comes in nearly every day and with her encouragement I keep
going, all my neighbors are so good to me. I wish to give my love to
all of them.
Sister Mary House

 
An added post script

On this day Tuesday March 17, 1959 I was taken to Relief Society and
was honored as the oldest member of the ward, which filled my heart
with much joy to think that the people think so much of me, and to give
me such an honor.

On March 21, 1959 the old folks of Brigham City were honored at the
Central School, Brother Nephi J. Valentine, Sister Sarah Josephson and
myself were seated at one table as being the oldest people there.

Sister Josephson being ninety two, brother Valentine and myself being
ninety. We were all given beautiful potted plants, mine was a beautiful
hydrangea. I will soon celebrate my ninety first birthday which is on
August 21st.

My older brother John never did marry and he passed away on February
24, 1923. My younger brother William passed away on March 5, 1951, My
older sister Elizabeth moved to Idaho to live after she was married,
she will celebrate her ninety third birthday, which is on August 8th.
Another happy thing happened to me on the 23rd day of August of this
year 1959. My daughter Gladys, her son George and his wife Caroline
took me up to Idaho to visit with my sister Elizabeth, we had a very
enjoyable visit, as we felt it would be the last time we would see one
another alive as she was surely feeble and has been in poor health.

I have spent most of my time there last few years crocheting doilies to
give to my grandchildren, nieces and to sell to some of my neighbors
who wanted to buy them, I am not able to do many of them of late as my
eye sight is failing me.

 
Another post script

On this day March 11, 1960 I Virginia Flint Kotter spent a very
enjoyable hour and half with my Aunt Mary Flint, and I feel ashamed
that I do not take the time to visit [w]ith her more often. It seems
that we are living in too fast of a world and always going at a fast
rate, that we do not take the time like we should to visit our elderly
relatives and neighbors, then after they have passed on we regret that
we didn't visit them more often.

She ask[ed] me if I would write up some copies of her life history, in
doing so I have added some things that she mentioned while we were
visiting which I thought should be in her history which would add a
greater message of the life she has lived. When I went to see her today
she was busy washing and stretching her doilies, getting ready for
house cleaning day. She claims it is hard for her to see and get around
very easy, but I just hope that when I am nearly as old as she is that
I will be able to get around as easy as she does for a lady her age.

Aunt Mary is the last one of her family of two boys and two girls
living, as her sister and my aunt Elizabeth passed away on January 28,
1960 of this year. [N]inety three is a nice ripe age to live too, and
of the many memories they have acquired as well as the blessings,
hardships and heart aches they have encountered in their life time. In
some way ninety three seems a long time to live and then again it is
just a short ninety three years to gathered all the things they have in
their life time.

May God bless Aunt Mary with every blessing that she will need in her
last years upon this earth and I hope that she has a few more years
here in which she may be able to enjoy her family and friends that have
been so good and kind to her. Not many people live to such a rich ripe
old age and be able to enjoy them and to be spry as Aunt Mary is
despite what she says about it being so hard for her to get around.

Again I say unto you, God bless you Aunt Mary for the good life you
have had and the many blessings which have been yours through out these
many years upon this earth. Amen

From one of your nieces
Virginia Flint Kotter