Interview with Effie Corine (Henderson) Bates

Effie Corine (Henderson) Bates was interviewed on May 16, 1969 in Saint George, County, by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. She related her personal history of living in various parts of Florida, Canada and Utah.

FH:What is your full name?

EB:My name is Effie Corine (Henderson) Bates.

FH:When were you born?

EB:[I was born] January 15, 1890.

FH:Where [were you born]?

EB:[I was born] at Lake Bird, Taylor County, Florida.

FH:What was your father’s name?

EB:[My father’s name was] Robert James Henderson.

FH:What was your mother’s [full] name?

EB:[My mother’s name was] Annie Helena (Cox) [Henderson].

FH:Can you tell something from your early childhood before you went to school? Do you remember anything [from] when you were a [young] girl?

EB:I remember the pretty place [where] we lived. 00:01:00There were oak trees and all kinds of pretty flowers. It was a very beautiful place. We lived in a modern little home. We lived near our grandfather [Robert] ’s place. We visited there often and enjoyed [it] very much.

FH:[Do] you actually remember seeing and talking with your grandparents?

EB:Yes.

FH:They were familiar to you. Many times, children do not have that blessing to be close to their grandparents.

EB:They were good people.

FH:Can you tell about your [education] or are there other [events that] perhaps you would rather talk about first?

EB:Just whatever you want first.

FH:[Do] you have other experiences before at school? Can you [tell about] them?

EB:I think I will start with school. I started to school when I was eight years old in a little log house sitting in a beautiful place 00:02:00with many beautiful vine-covered trees. A great many of the trees there were covered with vines.

FH:Was this a damp climate?

EB:It was a swampy climate. My teacher was my aunt, my father’s sister, Loretta Henderson. She was a very good teacher. I remember the first day that I went to school and how lovely it was to have my aunt for a teacher. I did love the association of the children [who] came together in a group.

FH:Can you tell us how the school was carried on? Were there several grades together? 00:03:00EB:There was just one room [and] we were all together.

FH:[Did the] teacher have to teach all the classes? Do you think this was a hindrance to your learning?

EB:I do not think so. I think that the methods they used then were [very] fine. I remember one of the first things they taught me were the names of the presidents of the United States. It was so much memory work we did [and] it helped me all through my life.

FH:Was this perhaps because of the lack of books that you had to do a lot of memorizing?

EB:I remember that we used a slate and pencil to do little things like first graders do.

FH:How far in school were you able to go?

EB:I guess just to the fifth grade. 00:04:00I started when I was eight years old. I had the measles when I was thirteen [years old] and I could not go [to school]. My eyes were [very] bad after I had the measles. When I was fourteen [years old], our folks began to prepare to move to Canada.

FH:[Was this] soon after you were out of school?

EB:When we went to Canada, I did not go to school anymore due to my eyes. We were very poor people and we needed to work. [We] girls [had] to help out all we could. We all had to work.

FH:Was that trip to frightening to you?

EB:We went on the train. We did not go like the original pioneers did. It was a [very] long trip. We [were] pretty tired before we [arrived] there. We had our friends, who used to be our neighbors, meet us at Sterling [Canada]. We drove over to Raymond [Canada] from there. 00:05:00That seemed to be the end of the railroad in those days. Of course, you don’t know those towns.

FH:I have heard of them both.

EB:Those neighbors also had a homestead down where we did. They were very lovely people. I still love them and always will.

FH:What was their name?

EB:[Their name was] Chances. Another family was the Lees. They were a large family.

FH:What was the purpose of your move to Canada?

EB:We [had] joined the Mormon Church [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. The elders came down [to ] and we were all converted and baptized. This seemed to make a lot of enemies for us. Our father had a beautiful big barn with a driveway 00:06:00[down] the center [of the property]. We raised cotton, corn and we had lots of cattle. Somebody lit our barn [on fire] and burned it. That was quite discouraging. There were some cattle in a large corral over by the barn and they [were] burned quite [badly]. My older brother [Oswald Clayton], he lives in Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah] right now, went out and discovered [the fire]. It had been lit in both partitions.

FH:This was no accident.

EB:Not [an] accident. Dad was [very] discouraged. He built [it all] back once more, a nice big barn. He always had a beautiful barn. Lo and behold, it was lit [on fire] again. The second time our big barn was burned and we had no place [to] store what we raised. The people who had moved to Canada from our [neighborhood] 00:07:00kept urging us to come there. They were good friends of ours. They were all good LDS people. Our father decided to sell his place. He did not seem to have any trouble selling it. He got rid of it. We had 160 acres.

FH:Maybe [inaudible] wanted it EB:We sold it and moved to Canada. It was a long hard journey and, I tell you, we were tired. The change of the climate was hard on my parents. My father only lived to be fifty-two or fifty-three [years old] and my mother died [when she was] forty-seven [years old].

FH:They died young. Did you feel the trip to was a factor in [their deaths]? 00:08:00EB:I would not be surprised if the change of climate was [the cause]. My mother died of pneumonia, [so] it sounds like it could have been.

FH:Was this a real adventure for you?

EB:Oh, it was.

FH:[After] you [arrived] in Canada, did you go immediately to a farm? What did you do?

EB:We lived in Raymond [and] stayed with a lot of our friends who [had] met us. They furnished us a home until we could build a home on the homestead. So many people went down on this homestead. We were not there very long before they organized a branch [church] there. There were a lot of Latter-day Saints [who] also got land like we did. My husband was the presiding elder of the branch.

FH:Can you tell about the conditions there? Was it a farming area?

EB:In Canada, 00:09:00[it] definitely [was farming]; that is what we went there for.

FH:[Did] you [have] a large tract of land?

EB:We [had] a homestead and a pre-emption [of] 160 acres in each one, but it did not prove up. Do you want that story now? It did not prove to be very possible. It was dry land, no irrigation and the rains were not sufficient to raise crops in those days. We only stayed there, I believe, about four years and then moved several places after that. [Pre-emption was a method of acquiring provincial Crown land by claiming it for settlement and agricultural purposes. Although it was possible to pre-empt land and not live on it, all pre-emptions were intended solely for cultivation. The pre-emption process existed from as early as 1859 until 1970 when the Land Act was amended to eliminate this method of acquiring Crown land. Individuals, as well as companies and partnerships, could apply to settle and work, “improve”, the land.] FH: [Did] you have some sickness in your early life?

EB:Yes, I [did]. 00:10:00I had some [very] bad spells with my stomach.

FH:Do you have any idea what it was or why you had this sickness?

EB:I do not like to say it, but I do believe the Southern people eat too much pork. They should not eat pork at all down there. They usually kill pigs, cure [the meat] and it is all so nice. I do not know; the swampy climate is not a very healthy climate FH:[Did] this affect you quite a bit?

EB:It must have. In later years, I think [with] the liver trouble I had kind of proves what I thought about it.

FH:Were you were active in church?

EB:[I was] after I was married and we moved to different places in Canada.

FH:There was one thing you mentioned 00:11:00from your [education] in Florida. Tell more about your school teachers. Do you know their names? What was the amusing [event that] happened with one of them?

EB:Yes, he taught several years at our school.

FH:What was his name?

EB:[His name was] William T. Cash [and] he was a very fine man, just a little bit wrong on religion.

FH:Did he believe in Mormonism?

EB:He was a good clean-living man and a most excellent teacher. My children say now that I have as much education as they have. I used to tell my children how to spell words when they were going to high school. They taught us some things. I guess I got the [education] I needed most. That is what my daughter told me [one] time when I went to Provo [Utah County, Utah]. She said, “Why, mother, you [received] a good education. You are a beautiful writer 00:12:00and you have a good understanding of the gospel.” But I did not get it in school — not too much of it.

FH:Maybe it was self-made. Maybe you pursued your own learning this way.

EB:I have a good understanding of the gospel. I was [very] grateful for that, but anything I learned my husband [inaudible].

FH:What did you want to tell about William Cash?

EB:In later years, he asked me to be his wife. He took a fancy to me all the time I was a pupil. I could always see that, but he wanted to come to and take me back.

FH:Did he correspond with you in Canada?

EB:Yes. 00:13:00He was the state superintendent of schools in the state of for eleven years before he died. He is dead now. He was [also] a state librarian.

FH:Was he several years older than you?

EB:Yes, he was. That was another thing, but he married my cousin two years younger than I am. [Laughter] FH:He did like the young girls, didn’t he?

EB:Yes, he did.

FH:Tell about your father. What kind of person was he and how [do] you remember him?

EB:I remember him as a [very] honest-to-goodness man. He was honest as the days are — that is what he taught his children to be. He was a hard worker, just a common farmer.

FH:Was he was a good farmer?

EB:Yes, he was. He had about the nicest home 00:14:00on the homestead where we all settled. It was called Purple Springs District. Hugh B. Brown was the one who got that tract from the [Canadian] government for the Mormon people to settle on.

FH:Yes, I have heard him talk about this.

EB:My father had about the nicest home. It took a little while to get that, but he finally he did have about the nicest house that was ever built in that district where we lived.

FH:Was your father kind to you?

EB:[He was a] very kind man.

FH:Do you feel he was strict with you?

EB:I tell you the one thing that he stressed more than anything else was that he wanted his children to keep good company. 00:15:00He did not want us to even mingle with trashy company or have anything to do with them at all. I think maybe he was a bit too much that way FH:Maybe, but then it helped you have the proper associations.

EB:This is a little incident that happened. One day, I looked out from our place and I saw somebody coming across the prairie right towards our place. I thought: that looks like Mr. Cash. Would he be coming after all what I have written and told him? It turned out to be [the person who later became] my husband. It was “Frank” [Franklin Richard] Bates. He came to our place, visited and had supper. After that we began to —.

FH:[Did] you get acquainted with him?

EB:Yes, have association [with each other]. I thought it was strange that I would think it was him [Cash] coming. Was not that a strange thing? He was taking the place of him. 00:16:00FH:This was your replacement — the right kind.

EB:My husband had filled a [LDS] mission. That is why I wanted somebody [who] had been a missionary. I thought that would be the nicest kind of husband you could get.

FH:Can you tell me your father’s parents’ names?

EB:Yes. His father was named Robert [Henderson] also.

FH:[What was] his mother’s name?

EB:Her name was Sarah [Minton] (McMullen) [Henderson].

FH:Did you know them personally?

EB:Oh, definitely! We lived right near them; [there was] probably a half-mile between us. There was a creek [and] we had to walk across the foot [bridge] to get to their place.

FH:Were your visits with your grandfather and grandmother [very] enjoyable?

EB:We really enjoyed it. They were known in the neighborhood as “Uncle Bob” and “Aunt Sarah.” Neighbors, friends, everybody spoke of them as “Uncle Bob” and “Aunt Sarah.” 00:17:00They were good people.

FH:Was he a farmer also?

EB:He was when I knew him, but before that he was a county judge for eleven years. He was in the Seminole Indian War. Maybe you have heard of that? He used to sit in the evenings and tell us children stories. I [will] never forget how amusing [it] was to hear him tell stories. He was a smart man.

FH:It would be wonderful if we had a recording of him telling those stories.

EB: I have his history here.

FH:Good.

EB:He tells about [how] he lived in the days before there were any railroads in the United States. He lived to see airplanes flying in the air.

FH:A real time of transitions.

EB:He was faithful to the church. He belonged to the church [the] eleven years before he passed away. He fell and broke his hip or he would probably [have] lived to be 100 [years old]. He was [very] old when 00:18:00he died.

FH:What can you remember about your mother?

EB:Her father [Eli Cox] died when she was a [young] child and I do not believe she even remembered him. Her mother had four children: two girls and two boys. She took these children and moved back to her parents’ home. That is where the children grew up. [It] showed they were good cooperating people. When my mother [was] married to my father, she moved in with them and lived with us until we moved to Canada. When she went to visit her children, it would be just for a visit, our place was her home. My father never objected 00:19:00at the time. He considered her one of the family just as much as any of the rest of us.

FH:Did she go to with you?

EB:No, we wouldn’t take her. We thought she was getting along in years. The other children might as well [take care of her]. I do not think she would have wanted to move that far away. I do not remember all the details about that.

FH:Do you know the names of your mother’s parents?

EB:[Their] name were Eli and Nancy Lucinda [Luraine] (Poppell) Cox.

FH:How many children did your mother and father have?

EB:They had eleven 00:20:00 children.

FH:Can you name them?

EB:Leona [Gertrude Henderson] was the oldest. Oswald [Clayton Henderson], my brother who lives in Salt Lake [City] now, was the second [child]. I was the third, [then] Lucias [Bernard], Nancy [Minton], Eunice [Valentine]. Lorenzo [Guy], Euphemia [Belle], Loretta [June] and Laura [Florida Henderson]. There was one boy [Robert Buren Henderson] born in Raymond who died [September 5, 1904].

FH:Is there anything special that you would like to say about those brothers and sisters? Anything particular 00:21:00that is of interest?

EB:My older sister and I always seemed closer to each other than I ever [was] to the others. I guess because we were [near] the same age and had the same attributes.

She married well and I married well. She married Francis Bingham from Vernal [ Uintah County] . He also went up to Canada. About all the Mormon people in Canada came from Utah and Idaho. There are several stakes of them up there now. 00:22:00FH:Do you feel [that] your life was governed a great deal by prayer and by faith?

EB:I certainly do; when I was just a young girl I used to pray. In those days, people were not taught to pray like they do in the church now, but I kind of felt like I needed to pray.

FH:Was family prayer a part of your life?

EB:Our folks did not have family prayer. They had not been taught that way. I guess like the prophet Joseph Smith, that was the first prayer he uttered when he went out in the grove, but they were still religious.

FH:Did they have a lot of faith?

EB:They read the [Holy] Bible a lot and they believed. They were religious, but they just did not understand, I guess, that they were to pray vocally. I guess they always did go with a prayer. 00:23:00FH:[They] had a prayer in their heart. Very good. [Did] you ask the Lord for things and get your answer through your life?

EB:Oh, I should say [so]!

FH:Now when you were growing up, did you have fun? [Do] you remember having good times?

EB:Yes!

FH:Tell about some of the things you did?

EB:As I told you, we lived in the back woods and there was not much [to do] other than [what] we scared up ourselves [for] recreation.

FH:What did you do?

EB:We used to have school debates for one thing [and] I enjoyed going to [these].

FH:Did you participate in the debating?

EB:Yes, I think I did some. I enjoyed visiting with my neighbor girlfriends. People in the south are great visitors. I do not know if you know that.

FH:Yes.

EB:People 00:24:00in the church lived closer to each other there than they do here. I am sorry to say it.

FH:Yes, this is true.

EB:I guess there are reasons for it. They are so busy. They go to the temple and do not have time to visit. Do you have any visitors in your home?

FH:Not too many. I guess this is [why], they are all busy. Mormons are a busy people.

EB:They sure are. They are always so friendly when you do meet them.

FH:[Did] your social life consist of what you did together in your neighborhood?

EB:[That is] just about right.

FH:Did you have parties?

EB:We used to gather at Grandfather Henderson’s place on Sunday afternoon and sing. My Aunt Loretta played the organ and we would all get together and sing. We enjoyed that. [There were] neighbors and all — a lot of them. They always had lots of company [at] 00:25:00my grandfather’s place.

FH:What about music in your life? Did you like music?

EB: I loved it, but I never had the opportunity to learn to play an instrument.

FH:[Do] you feel, though, that it has been effective in your life?

EB:I saw [to it] that my children [had] the opportunity to play [an instrument]. I have two girls who have been stake organists and ward organists. They are music teachers today with a high rating. Our youngest son is [very] good in music.

FH:Good. Then music has had a definite effect on your life.

EB: Sure!

FH:What about reading? Have you enjoyed reading?

EB:I love to read, especially the church books. That is what I read because we get the true picture of life and a study for right living [from] them.. 00:26:00FH:This is [a] real education. Would you tell about your courtship and marriage? What can you tell about that? You mentioned how you happened to meet him.

EB:Do you want me to tell the same story [again]?

FH:You already told how he came across the field [to your house].

EB:Yes. He had some neighbors who had built a beautiful barn. They had moved there from [the] Dakotas. It was quite a gathering place there like St. George is here now. These 00:27:00people were not LDS, but they had a nice barn and a beautiful nice floor in it. One night they announced that they were going to give a dance for the people [who] lived around there. My husband lived right across the road from them. My oldest brother, he is a [very] fine fellow, decided we would go to [the dance] for the fun.

FH:What is this brother’s name?

EB:[His name is] Oswald Henderson [and] he lives in Salt Lake [City] right now. We went to the dance in the barn. I believe this was really the first time I met my husband. He had his eye on me right away and he made up his mind that night if he could get that girl, [she] was going to be his wife.

FH:[It] didn’t take him long.

EB:We ate supper together. I guess his coming across the prairie maybe was a little later date than that because we still talk about [how] we met at the barn dance. 00:28:00We started running [around] together [to] different dances around [the small] towns close around where we lived. It was not long before he asked me to be his wife.

FH:Did you decide that was alright right away?

EB:Yes, because I was of age to marry then. I was nineteen [years old] and not happy out there where our folks lived. In fact, I worked away most of the time [and] just went back and forth out there. This was about the time I met him. Of course, we kept writing. I was living with a nice Mormon family up near Raymond. Their name was Riri. Maybe you have heard of the Riris.

FH:Yes, I have heard the Riri name.

EB: They liked me and I liked them. It was a good place for me because they were 00:29:00LDS people and she took quite a fancy to me. She had me do her letter writing to her sisters because she thought I wrote and composed beautifully. I stayed there for several years. I would go back and forth [to] home.

FH:This was almost a second home for you?

EB:Yes, it was for the time being. We decided to get married. My husband said the temple was the only place we would be married. I was young and believed he was right. I didn’t understand to the fullest, as he did, because he had been on a [LDS] mission. He was [very] active in the church.

FH:Was he just what you wanted?

EB:Exactly. So we went from Canada to Salt Lake [City] to be married in the temple. I had a patriarchal blessing that told me 00:30:00— I [received] it when I was about seventeen [years old] from Patriarch Kirkham in Raymond. I bet you know the Kirkhams? [Franklin Richard and Effie Corine (Henderson) Bates were married April 1, 1909 in the Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake County, Utah.] FH:Yes, I know the name.

EB:He was from Lehi [Utah County, Utah] and moved up there. He told me when “the day and hour that the Lord saw fit” that I could be given a companion in the temple.

FH:Isn’t that wonderful!

EB: “And the day and the hour.” I wondered about that and I still wonder about that. Is our time set?

FH:I think many times this is, yes.

EB:And we were married, I guess, “the day and the time.” We have worked hard together and have had hardships. We have not been rich, I am telling you. We have worked hard and I have always stood faithful by him. He loves me more than anything. I think he thinks more of me [now] than he ever did before.

FH:This is the way it should be.

EB:That is the way it should be. We moved down here in 1950 and were here just a short time [when] we were called to be, Brother Bennett, the stake president at the time, called us to be officiators. I had had quite a lot of trouble with my health up 00:31:00there. I had four gallstone operations and wondered if I could take it. We accepted and worked [inaudible] then we were called to be Adam and Eve. We took that part for eight years. I was an officiator for twelve years and never missed any days.

FH:That is wonderful.

EB:President [Harold Stafford] Snow was the one I worked [with] and he told me he knew that my health could be [inaudible] ever since we moved here. He said, “Don’t do more than you should do in the temple. Think of your health [and] take care of yourself. Just do what you feel like doing.” That was the way I was called, but I worked right along with the rest and I [inaudible]. 00:32:00This is a testimony to me that I have been blessed. I do not think I look as old as most women [who] are coming [to the temple who are] about eighty years old.

FH:You certainly do not. You look very young for your age.

EB:I credit it all to the good Lord. He blesses me every day. I believe He really loves me.

FH:I am sure of it.

EB:I was telling the neighbors, just a few minutes ago, before you came. There are two ladies over there [who] are twin sisters. They both [have] gray [hair]. You can see I have not many gray hairs.

FH:You do not have as many as I do!

EB:I will be eighty [years old] on my next birthday. My husband is eighty-five [years old]. He is quite gray though. He has had some failing health [problems] over the last year or so.

FH:Has your life here has been beautiful?

EB:A beautiful [life]. 00:33:00I told you about the other positions I held in the church.

FH:Let’s go back now for a minute, when you started having your family. How many children did you have?

EB:I had thirteen [children], but I raised eleven [children].

FH:Will you name the children? Start with the oldest and tell just a little bit about [them]. [END OF RECORDING ONE.] 00:34:00EB:— beautiful daughters and they grew up and married beautiful men. One lives in Firth, Idaho and the one in Brigham City [Box Elder County, Utah] at the present time. She [my daughter] [Flora] is still a widow. They had a farm out there and he [was] killed instantly. There was a coal mine on their farm and the neighbors gathered there [one] afternoon to get their coal [for the] winter. It was good coal and cheap coal, cost nothing, only getting it. It was a mine that had been there for years. A big rock came down and broke his neck. So she has been a widow. 00:35:00FH:That is a hard thing to have to go through.

EB:Their oldest daughter married a boy [from] Provo. His name was Kenneth Flygame. He was a graduate chemist and that is how they happened to be up there. The other [girl] married Jack Johnson from Provo and they live in Brigham City.

FH:What was the [surname] of these two girls?

EB:[It was] Kesler.

FH:Are these your daughter’s children [who] you are talking about?

EB:Yes. [Is] that added up for her now?

FH:Where is this daughter living now?

EB:She lives around different places. I think she is going to live here for now. She is an insurance lady. Maybe you have heard of her, Flora (Bates) Kesler. She works 00:36:00for the undertaker [for] Sentinel [Security Life Insurance].

FH:I haven’t [heard of her].

EB:She had a little spell with her health here a while back so she has not been here for awhile. She bought a trailer and [is] moving here. She likes to [visit] her daughters for weekends. Somehow, she kind of likes to be rolling, I guess. She will probably be down here any time now. I think she has pretty well moved out.

Margaret [Gertrude Bates], the second girl, married a man by the name of Eric Ward. He did not belong to the church when she married him, but he joined later. She has four lovely children. all living, and they write to me.

FH:Were both [of] these daughters married in the temple eventually?

EB:Yes. Flora was the first. She was married in the Cardston Temple [in Canada]. We had three girls before we had any boys. 00:37:00Lois [Bates], our third girl, married a man by the name of Melvin Sillitoe. [The] i, t and o [are] silent. They have thirteen children and they are all living. She has about half of [her children at] BYU [Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County, Utah] right now. [Laughter] FH:[Her husband] would have to make a pretty good living.

EB:She married [very] well. Her husband [belongs to] the ATA [Alberta Teachers Association in] Alberta [Canada]. Do you know what that is?

FH:I don’t know what this means.

EB:[It is like] the UEA [Utah Education Association] [in Utah], but up there it is ATA [in] Alberta. [He is] one of the head ones of their educational system. He lives on a great big wage. Canadian teachers all have a lot more.

FH:[That] makes it possible for him to send these children to school.

EB:Some of [the children] are married. Quite a few are married now. All [are] striving to get an education 00:38:00just like their father. [My] next [child] would be [Franklin] “Frank” [Richard Bates], Jr. He has a big ranch up there. We are a little disappointed, in some ways, in him. On account [of] he has never been as active in the church as he should have been, because he loves this farming business. He had a big farm up near Calgary [Canada]. He sold it and bought another one down [in the] Lethbridge District [in Canada]. [It is] near where the church ranch is up there. I believe [the ranch is] 4,000 acres [and] that is [where] he is working now. He has some boys. He is a [very] good man, alright. There is nothing wrong with his character or anything like that. We are just a little disappointed he has not been a little more active in the church. 00:39:00It is like he thinks he has not [the] time.

FH:He may get over that.

EB:He might. As long as he is a good man, that is worth a lot. Lloyd [James Bates] would be [the] next [child]. He was in the [military] service and lost his leg just below the knee. He came back home and was all cut with shrapnel.

FH:Was this in World War II?

EB:Yes. He had a job working for the Imperial Oil company. Perhaps you have heard of it. [It is] one of the largest [petroleum companies] in the world. All he had was a high school education before he went in the service. The head man, [who] owns the 00:40:00[company and] runs it said, “Lloyd, if you will go to night school I have a better job than the little tinky job you are doing around here.” And that was just what he did. He told him what [classes] to take. [Lloyd] went to night school for quite a long time [and] now he has run the personnel department [for] that company for many years. He visited us just recently. [It was the] first time he ever [had] been to St. George. He never could get the company to let him come only in the hot weather and they did not want to come then. This time he [was] off at Easter time and some of his children came with him. 00:41:00[He is] a lovely boy, Lloyd is. [When] David [Henderson Bates] was a little boy — there is his picture up there. He was in World War II and became a pilot. Lloyd was in the engineers [corps] in the Army. This boy [David] had just graduated from college [and was] a teacher. [He] investigated a little bit and [said], “There is all the difference in being in the Army [and being] in the Air Force. I am going to join the Air Force.” He became a pilot and lost his life and never came back. You remember the raid over Hamburg [Germany] in '43? Well, his airplane was shot down. [Most of] the crew was in the airplane except one and he was a Canadian boy. He told the story. He said, “I gave orders to abandon the plane.” 00:42:00When they found the airplane they wondered where David was [because] he was not there. They found him in a thickly wooded [area] somewhere in the vicinity [of the airplane], I suppose. He must have [been] ready to bail out. They found him, though, but he [had been] in [area] for some time. Anyway, [the body] would just be a skeleton. [His dog] tag was still around his neck [with] his [service] number [so] they knew who it was. He was buried in the English Cemetery in Germany. They didn’t bring them back like the people [do] here.

FH:I was over there too.

EB:In World War II? But you would have been in a different place.

FH:I was in in [one of the] general hospitals.

EB:You were? 00:43:00Well, Lloyd was in England quite a bit. He went to England before he went to Germany.

FH:Yes, I know. I watched lots of [airplanes] go and come [back].

EB:David was a very fine boy. He was an elder but he had not been to the temple. I do not think the church wanted the boys to go. They did not encourage them anyway.

FH:No, not until they were married.

EB:No, I do not think so.

FH:Unless they were going on a [LDS] mission or something.

EB:Daddy [my husband] did his temple work and we feel happy about it because he was a very nice boy. A good-looking boy, too. I am looking forward to —.

FH:He will be alright.

EB:Next would be Venna, V-E-N-N-A [Henderson Bates]. She married a man by the name of [Robert] Vawdry. She has two sons. That was her family. She and [her husband] separated. He was not being number one. 00:44:00She lives in Edmonton [Canada] and her daughter, Lois, lives there. They visit a lot [so] they are not too lonely. One of her sons lives in Edmonton and the other one lives in Calgary. Sterling, her oldest boy, was also in the war. He was a tele-typist in the Air Force. He has followed up [with] that trade ever since. The other boy married a [very] nice lady. She was the one who saved his soul. I do not mean he was a bad boy. He worked for the telephone company there in [and] became one of the head men in that region. Somehow or another, he [became] suspicious 00:45:00that they were going to lay off the ones with the best education. Now-a-days, they are the ones to get the jobs. Anyway, I think he was forced to choose [so] he went back to school and finished up. His wife is a schoolteacher. I think she even financed him [through school]. He is studying to be a dentist. That is [Venna’s] story.

I have a son named Nephi [Bates].

FH:That is a good name.

EB:This is going to be recorded and I do not know if I should tell all this.

FH:You tell what you feel you want to.

EB:He was a very smart boy is school. He is the one I told you about [who] had such great promise. He was [very] clever in school. 00:46:00Clever, but he never quite finished school. He did not have to work hard enough.

FH:Was [school] too easy [for him]?

EB:Yes, too easy. He is around Salt Lake [City] now. Joseph [Bates], our other boy [who] teaches up there, is working with him a lot. He is hoping everything will turn out fine for him. [Nephi] married, [but] he and his wife separated. You know what follows all that.

FH:Perhaps that will all be corrected.

EB:[Emotional] I certainly hope so for him. After such great promise as that. It makes me feel so bad; I do not know what to do.

FH:I think you will find that there will come a time when his heart will be touched.

EB:Then Joseph [Bates], our youngest boy that is living. I did have one younger than him, but he is the one [Keith Henderson Bates] that I told you was premature and did not live long. If you have lived in St. George very long, you must have heard [of] Joseph. He taught school here for six years. 00:47:00FH:I have been here a year and a half.

EB:Oh, you have not lived here long. He taught school three years here [but] their home was over on this side of town so he decided to switch and taught over here. They liked him [very] well. They hated [to] see him leave St. George. The lady teachers told me they surely felt bad when they knew he was leaving because he was a marvelous teacher. So did [Victor] Frei over here. [He] was the principal. They telephoned after he went up there, back to Frei, for a little recommendation. He said, “You can not have him. We want him back here.” He was liked just as well at one place as the other.

FH:That is wonderful. 00:48:00EB:They liked him just as well up there.

FH:Where is he teaching now?

EB:I can not tell you the name of the school, but it is a new school. It is in the Salt Lake [School] District [but] I do not remember the name of the school]. He drives from his place to that school. He has a lovely home in Sandy [Salt Lake County, Utah]. A nice beautiful big home and they have five children, no, four, three girls and a boy. His wife works as a nurse and he teaches school. She does not [work] all the time. [Inaudible] back and forth. She makes a little more money.

FH:[That is a] good job.

EB:Their children all go to school. They are that age.

FH:That tells about [your] children. Now let’s go back and tell about you a little more. 00:49:00After you were married and living there in Canada, were you active in the church organizations there?

EB:Yes.

FH:Tell a little bit about what you did in the organizations of the church.

EB:We had moved from Purple Spring District to [the] Diamond [City] District, the district President Hugh B. Brown sort of got from the [Canadian] government in some way for the Mormon people to settle on. We had a nice branch there. In fact, we had a ward a little bit later.

FH:It grew then.

EB:Yes. I was the secretary of the Relief Society for several different years. And then I was chosen as a counselor. 00:50:00At our March Seventeenth celebration, the last one I attended there, I wrote a history of our Relief Society. I was there from the time of its inception. I knew the officers and knew the circumstances a lot. I told them about the Relief Society. Up there they have clinics. The government sends clinics around and the people [who] are too poor to look after their children, they do it free. [Those who] can, pay. They charge them just real reasonable. The Relief Society got the schoolhouse. They had a big fine schoolhouse at Diamond City. It needed fumigating, cleaning and getting ready. The Relief Society applied [for] them to come there and look after that community. There were a lot of people, we figured, who would be glad to get in on 00:51:00it. That was one of the biggest things they [the Relief Society] sponsored while I was there.

FH:This was a [very] good community project.

EB:Yes, I had several of my children [who had] their tonsils out. We lived out there on the farm and [problems] like that do not have to be brought to the doctor. You try to get along. We had so many things adjusted and people came there by the hundreds. The clinic was there several days. [They] took out tonsils and did other little corrections that young children need. It proved to be a very successful and profitable [event]. The Relief Society sponsored [the clinic].

FH:Were you also president of the Primary for awhile?

EB:I was counselor of the Relief Society as the next office I held. I was president of the Primary for awhile.

FH:Have you always been regular in your church attendance?

EB:Yes. I would not miss Sacrament meeting, not even now. 00:52:00If I am not able to go to anything else now, I get there for that.

FH:[Has] your big job in life has been raising all those children?

EB:Yes. And I did it under such obscure circumstances. We were poor and we lived at . We had a cistern outside that had [very] good water in it. [It was] irrigated water filtered through a channel. It made it [very] nice. We used to draw water out of that for washing [clothes] and the housework. My husband was always so busy with [the] farm trying to make money and we never did make too much out of it. Just the same, we got by. [The] children grew up in poverty and maybe they learned lessons. I hope they did.

FH:It was probably been good for them in a way.

EB:I hope so.

FH:Do you feel 00:53:00you have learned any lessons from [your] life?

EB:I certainly do. I have learned the principle of saving. Being careful with your finances is one of the best things [you can do] in life. That is how we got along as well as we have. We had to learn to be careful in handling our finances. These people [who] go around, these spendthrifts, they do not usually have very much, do they?

FH:That is right. They spend it all and more sometimes.

EB:We have always enjoyed our neighbors and people of our caliber.

FH:[Have] you associated with good Latter-day Saint people?

EB:Yes, 00:54:00here we have a lot of good Latter-day Saint friends.

FH:Are you working in the [St. George] Temple when you are able? [Do] you enjoy that work?

EB:I an released as a worker because I felt that my years and things [that] I have been through. I have been running high blood pressure the last several years so I thought it was wise as President Snow used to say, “Take care of yourself.” FH:And your husband?

EB:I think I do pretty good to keep him going.

FH:Would you give counsel and advice to your descendants? Keep in mind that this is not just [your] immediate family, but [for] those who are yet to come.

EB: Even [my] grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

FH: Yes.

EB:I did not tell you how many we have. We have fifty grandchildren and forty-four great-grandchildren.

FH:That is a marvelous posterity.

EB:It is. We were up [in] Provo this 00:55:00last Sunday for Mother’s Day. We had thirty [folks] get together in one place and that did not include all of them, just the ones [who are] in Provo. There are so many there going to school. Married ones with their wives and some of them have a few children. All of us together we had thirty.

FH:Do you have a lot of joy in this?

EB:Yes, we really enjoy it.

FH:How would you like to counsel those descendants?

EB:To live near to the Lord. Let Him be their guide and protection. This is done through sincere prayer. I think the gospel is the greatest thing in life [for] people [who] understand it. I do not think it is any good to people who do not live it, either. 00:56:00We have some neighbors [who] do not even send their children to Sunday school. Is the church helping them any?

FH:[It] can not very well, can it?

EB:Some of my children remember and talk about it yet. I sent them to Sunday school when we lived at Diamond City. They were [a] young age, but coming along pretty good. They would usually play sometimes. I know the right way would have been to strip them up Saturday evening. When they would play late and come in late, I would see that they were put in a tub of water, scrubbed, cleaned up and sent to Sunday school. You sometimes wonder, although we took so much pain to do all that, why some of them are not as active as you would like them [to be]. Are your [children] that way?

FH:I think 00:57:00in most families, there are part of the families [who] do not seem to want it so much as the rest of them. This is always peculiar.

EB:A lot of mine are [very] active in the church. The girls more so than the boys. My boy, Joseph, has been on a [LDS] mission to [and] spent three years over there. When he came home, we wanted to send him up to BYU to get two more years of university [education]. He graduated from BYU. He was a teacher up there. He graduated so he could teach up there. It seems like it is a peculiar day and age in which we live. Unless you live close to the church, you can just 00:58:00easily, so easily, be led off.

FH:Yes.

EB:Like President [David O.] McKay said, “Let the gospel be your bomb shelter.” I guess you have heard him say that.

FH:Yes.

EB:We have always had family prayer in our home. We taught the children to pray and they can pray too.

FH:Is your testimony of the gospel strong?

EB:I have a strong testimony of the gospel. I know it is true; I do not doubt it at all. I know it. In fact, I have a patriarchal blessing that tells me I am blessed with an undying testimony of the gospel.

FH:Wonderful!.

EB:I got up in church last fast day and bore my testimony, but I had not been doing it very regularly because we live in a very large ward. I do not feel that I should. Other people need 00:59:00privileges as well as me. I found out when you do not do it for a long time, it is just a little harder to get [the] words to say just what you want to say.

FH:That is right. It is a little harder to do it.

EB:When I was a young girl, the elders came around. We [had] this book [about] the life of the prophet Joseph Smith [that was] written by [his] mother. I sat under an oak tree and I read that book. It was so interesting that I could not quit reading it. I said that is a true story. There are no lies in that. That is a true story and if that is a true story, that makes the gospel true.

FH:Yes.

EB:I have known it all, even when I was a young girl. I am sure thankful 01:00:00I was baptized when I was. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] EB:I would like to say in conclusion that I have a good husband. One [who] is full of faith. One [who] honors me and all our family and they all honor him. I love my children. Some of them have lived more like I taught them than others, but I still have the same interest in each and every one of them. [I] love them and feel sure in the hereafter that we will be together. Some of them need to change their ways some and begin to think on the serious things of life. Ponder upon the meaning of all of life and let the gospel be the answer. 01:01:00How would that be? [END OF RECORDING TWO. END OF INTERVIEW.]