Providing for the Family

Ellen had been providing for the family with William sick. Now she would continue to do so. She could go out to work instead of staying in the house all the time however. She did sewing for 50 cents a day.
Unbleached muslin was a dollar a yard and calico also expensive. She found it hard to buy clothing for the children as well as their food.
In October of 1865, Harriet came down with scarlet fever. She wrote, ” It was in October that year, I was working in the potato field with other children for William Bench and I took sick. He told me to go to the wagon and lie down. I don't remember how I got home, but I was very ill with scarlet fever for several weeks.” (Allen).
An Indian war had broken out in the spring of 1865 and would continue for seven years. Now it was October 1865 and Harriet was now down with scarlet fever. The family was isolated in their home. Harriet wrote,” As our house was outside of the limits of where the guard was stationed, we did not dare have a light show at night, and no one came to help Mother that I know of, as it was a bad disease. Indeed, I was much worse and suffered more than when I had diphtheria. I was then 9, and would be 10 the following February.”
Before and after Harriet's illness the family may have gone into town at nights and sleep at the home of a friend in case of Indian attack. Florence Cheney reports that they did so many times, but when and for how long was not clear.
Harriet said, “I distinctly remember hearing their war dance. Their camp was about a mile and a half south and east of our house, as we were on the extreme east street of town, near the mouth of the canyon where City Creek comes down. They danced and yelled all night long, but when morning came, they were gone, and there was the last we saw of Indians for several years,” But at this time they still had Indian trouble.” They drove off cattle and horses, and in a few cases killed the express-men. The people suffered a lot in those years. Some settlements were broken up that were never rebuilt where they were not strong enough to defend themselves.” (Allen)
“Some way Mother had a cow, but among others, she was stolen by the
Indians”(Allen).
Harriet was nearly 10 now and “had not yet been baptized. As soon as I was well enough to be out. I wanted to have it done, and as my brother was nearly eight, only a few weeks off, we were both baptized in November, 1865. 1 do not remember the day.”
About this time they “were advised to move closer into town. . . The Indians were at war for seven years. We did not see a peaceable Indian in town for that long only some prisoners once in the jail.” (Allen).
Harriet wrote that following advice to move into town they moved into their 4th house in Manti. “We moved to a house on the extreme south. There was a large log room and an adobe room on the side. Always there was fireplace in the houses in those days. It was on the southeast corner of the block. We had the south half of the block. There was brush all over it. The snow fell very deeply in the winter, remaining on all through till April. We did not have overshoes. I do not recall anyone having them. Sometimes when the creek was frozen up we had to haul water from the City Creek, which ran through the center of town, four blocks from our home, on a hand sleigh with the churn and the bucket tied on, for our food and drink, but we could use snow for other purposes.” (Allen)
Harriet wrote, “Sometimes Mother could afford to hire someone to haul wood when the snow was deep, but often we had to take a rope and go on the foothill about a mile off, and drag the tops the men had trimmed off their loads for our firewood.” (Allen).
“Mother could not get enough to buy clothes, and we must have food, so she went with scant clothing to work those cold winter days, and made over some of her clothes for we girls. Sometimes people were very kind and gave her something extra, over the 50 cents a day, then once in a while some thoughtless ones would even let her come home and wait for her pay. Some days when she left us, we only had some potatoes to roast in the fire until she returned at night. She had no overshoes either, and I had thought since I became a mother that she worked so hard and suffered so much that she wore out sooner.” (Allen)
Despite their struggles, Ellen still sent her children to school. Having her children educated was obviously very important to her. Not only did she have to pay something to send them to school, but they could not go out to work to help out the family. Harriet wrote, " When I was 10 I went to school to Emeret Cox in an upstairs room of her father's large house.” (Allen).
Florence reports that “Ellen was a very neat housekeeper; Her pots and pans were scoured and polished till they shone. One of her neighbors had a habit of borrowing her big brass bucket -especially on Saturday. One day she had need of it, and sent Harriet to get it. The woman was unwilling to let it go. She was bathing her small children in it. Harriet came home and shocked her mother with the news.” What! Bathe her children in my clean bucket. The idea! She won't get it again.”
As the winter came on and it got cold Ellen could not make enough to buy cloth for the girls’ underclothing. So, she took her own off and made them down for the girls .
In the spring of 1867 Ellen went to seek work at Salt Lake City. She put little Harriet out to work. Harriet was then eleven. She wrote, " The winter I was 11, I lived with a Mrs. James Edwards 8 months, and all the wages I received was a pair of course shoes and a made over woolen dress” (Allen). Harriet got sore eyes so she could scarcely see out in the sunlight. She walked along the fence and clung to the rails to find her way to feed the pigs. She did, all kinds of hard jobs. She scrubbed wood floors and helped out in general. When there was nothing else to do the woman had her cut the v stems from all the feathers in the pillows. Harriet wrote, ”Mother went to Salt Lake City to work, but as soon as she returned I went home, then we all went to Salt Lake City to remain nearly a year.”
Florence says, “Ellen seems to have been in Salt Lake in 1868 for her blessing indicates such.” Florence must have got a copy of Ellen's patriarchal blessing which indicated that it was given in Salt Lake in 1868. Ellen also visited the endowment house and received her endowments on 13 June 1868.
Harriet wrote, “My mother was a good singer, and quite a bit of that year she belonged to the Tabernacle Choir. She had a rich contralto voice, and could sing either soprano or alto. She could learn the music from the notes. A few times I accompanied her to the rehearsals. The huge organ was a marvel to me. The wind was furnished by a man turning a huge fan.
“We stayed in Salt Lake nearly a year. During that time my mother sewed and made lace and did all kinds of work to make a living. My uncle Henry C. Fowler lived in Salt Lake. He worked in the tithing office as clerk, and at night he was doorkeeper at the Salt Lake Theater. Accordingly he let Mother in, and sometimes one of we children as he might always let in one. That year I remember seeing '"Ten Nights in a Bar Room”, “The Sea Of Ice”, “The Lady of Lyons.” (Allen). Florence Cheney says that Ellen “appreciated being able to enjoy high class entertainment.”
Harriet wrote, “I lived with Mrs. Wells the winter I was 12, and got a dollar and a quarter a week, which helped Mother to get clothes for Sister Florence and me. That was in the 12th ward, and Mother lived in the 14th ward that winter ” (Allen). So we know that Ellen and Harriet were living in separate homes, but would still see each other often.
Harriet said, “I remember Mother sewing for Mrs. Godhe a lot. They seemed to have a large family, and Mr. Godhe was in partnership with Mr. Mitchell, and they owned a store. I remember my mother speaking of an ouiga board that the folks would sit around a table and put their hands touching the board, and then curious things would happen. My mother was there to sew not to be entertained, She never took part in anything like that.” Later President Grant gave a discourse in which he mentioned that his mother worked for these same people. Harriet remarked, ” As President Grant has told in one of his discourses that it was an evil spirit that acted upon them, as his mother also sometimes worked for the same people. He is about 10 months younger than I am, so these things happened along the same time. Godhe eventually apostatized; also Mr. Mitchell. It was never safe or wise to tamper with such things ” (Allen).
After staying in Salt Lake for about a year they returned to Manti. From then on Harriet says that she worked in different homes.
Back in Manti, Ellen taught school one year. Harriet wrote, ”Mother taught school the year I was 12, and I had always been a fairly good reader, so I helped her with the younger children.” . . . “In the next summer I learned to spin wool yarn. I was so small I had to stand on a stool to put the band on, when it came off the big wheel.” After that year Ellen went back to sewing for a living.
Ellen continued to send her children to school when she could. Harriet wrote, "Sometimes I went to school for a few months in a year. But I dearly loved to read, and eagerly read everything I could find. We took the first volume of the “Juvenile Instructor”, a small sheet about 12”X10”, eight pages. I was so eager to read it I sometimes read by moonlight, as candles were scarce. We took no other papers. I learned to read the letters from England before I could write. It cost 25 cents to bring or send a letter, and money was very scarce.”
Harriet told how things went on. They still struggled to have enough to live on. Harriet says, “I used to go with other children to glean in the wheat fields. We would gather the heads and tie them in bunches, all we could hold in the hand. Then when we carried it home, put it on the roof of the house to dry; then beat it out and fan it in the wind. A bucketful thus earned seemed a lot. Then I would carry it to the mill and ask the miller to put in all the bran so we could have more flour. I am sure now the miller often put in more than I had brought. . .” (Allen)
“Some way we had a cow, and as others did, we had to let her go out to find food. One day she got in a swamp and mired so deep she could not get out. A kind friend took some hay and a rope, He put the rope around her head and pulled her out. We tried to get her to eat, but she had been in too long and she soon died, and Mother and I both had to cry. We did not get another cow until later, when my mother married William Bench.”