Franklin Stewart HARRIS

                   HISTORY: Frankie Estella Spilsbury Patriarchal Blessing

HISTORY: A Patriarchal blessing given upon the head of Frankie Estella Spilsbury, daughter of George Moroni Spilsbury and Roselia Jocosia Haight, born at Toquerville, February 17, 1884, by George Spilsbury.

HISTORY: Sister Frankie Estella in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of the Holy Priesthood I lay my hands upon your head and seal upon you a fathers blessing.  You are of the lineage of Jacob, through the loins of Levi and you have a claim upon God according to the covenants and promises made to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Nevertheless your blessings and your inheritance will be in the inheritance of your husband, that all things may be had in common with him.  The labor that you have performed with the young and rising generation has been accepted of the Lord.  And the Lord has a work for you to perform inasmuch as you are humble and obedient to the whisperings of the holy spirit of the Lord.  You shall be blessed to perform a good work amongst the young and rising generation.  God will bless you abundantly and you shall receive a blessing in the House of the Lord, and become a wife and mother in the holy order of marriage.  Your name shall be held in honorable remembrance in your posterity.  You shall come forth in the resurrection of the just, and you shall have an inheritance in Zion.  You shall be blessed with the spirit of the Lord to direct you in all matters of importance.  Go forth and labor faithfully to establish the work of the Lord.  Inasmuch as you have been born in the new and everlasting covenant go forth and seek to establish in the hearts of the young, faith and obedience to the Lord.  Be steadfast in the truth and I seal these blessings upon your head.  Evenso, Amen.

HISTORY: (L.D.S. Church Historians Office, Patriarchal Blessings, Vol. 263, Page 197)

Frankie Estella Spilsbury Patriarchal Blessing

A Patriarchal blessing given upon the head of Frankie Estella Spilsbury, daughter of George Moroni Spilsbury and Roselia Jocosia Haight, born at Toquerville, February 17, 1884, by George Spilsbury.

Sister Frankie Estella in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of the Holy Priesthood I lay my hands upon your head and seal upon you a fathers blessing.  You are of the lineage of Jacob, through the loins of Levi and you have a claim upon God according to the covenants and promises made to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Nevertheless your blessings and your inheritance will be in the inheritance of your husband, that all things may be had in common with him.  The labor that you have performed with the young and rising generation has been accepted of the Lord.  And the Lord has a work for you to perform inasmuch as you are humble and obedient to the whisperings of the holy spirit of the Lord.  You shall be blessed to perform a good work amongst the young and rising generation.  God will bless you abundantly and you shall receive a blessing in the House of the Lord, and become a wife and mother in the holy order of marriage.  Your name shall be held in honorable remembrance in your posterity.  You shall come forth in the resurrection of the just, and you shall have an inheritance in Zion.  You shall be blessed with the spirit of the Lord to direct you in all matters of importance.  Go forth and labor faithfully to establish the work of the Lord.  Inasmuch as you have been born in the new and everlasting covenant go forth and seek to establish in the hearts of the young, faith and obedience to the Lord.  Be steadfast in the truth and I seal these blessings upon your head.  Evenso, Amen.

(L.D.S. Church Historians Office, Patriarchal Blessings, Vol. 263, Page 197)

Through Fifty Years
By:
Estelle S. Harris

October 12, 1931

So many things have happened in the short lifetime that I have lived that it is difficult to select what might be interesting to a reader.

If one looked ahead fifty years it would seem impossible for as many changes to take place as in the last fifty years.  Kerosene lamps have been displaced by electric lights.  Horse-drawn vehicles have given place for automobiles-I had never ridden in an auto until after I was married.  I had never seen or ridden on a train until I was in my teens or had I seen or talked over a telephone.  Radium and x-rays have come into use.

During my girlhood days antitoxin was discovered.  Later came the vitamin theory of food.  Today we are able to clothe ourselves in artificial silk, and to use numerous synthetic products.

The first successful airplane flights have been made, and we were in Paris when Charles A. Lindbergh made his non-stop flight from New York to Paris.  The Graf Zepplin has flown around the world.

All of these things show the wonderful advancement made in a comparatively few years.

My Childhood

My father seemed especially proud of me, the sixth child, when I was born with curly hair.  He loved to make little curls and call attention to them.  You can imagine his disappointment when one cold wintry morning my uncle made a fire in the grate and, as usual, took me out of bed and placed me in a rocking chair by the fire, while he went out to milk the cows.  My parents were soon startled by my cries and ran to the room where I had been taken, to find I had rocked the chair over and was in the fire.  Of course, I was badly burned, especially my head, and as father picked me up he cried, She has lost her curls.

I well remember when five of us children were ill with the measles and the baby would bring us some things to eat.  As soon as we were better she took the measles and in a short time died.  So death came into my life early.  Then the friends made the clothes and good Brother Anderson made the coffin and lined it with white outing flannel, using brass tacks to hold it in place- - quite a contrast to the soft restful-looking caskets of today.

For many years we had an Indian boy live with us.  You may wonder why, so I shall explain.

Early in the settlement of Dixie there were more Indians than now, and one tribe of Piutes were leaving that vicinity.  The father and mother of this Indian boy, Lorum by name, were dead.  They were going to bury Lorum with his mother so they would not be bothered with him.  My grandmother heard of this and it was more than she could bear, so she sent word that she would give them a donkey if they would leave Lorum with her.  This they did, and my grandmother made my father promise to always find him a home.

Lorums life was always very pathetic to me, because he left school before he could read or write, as the other children made fun of him.  No white girl ever felt like going out with him so he grew up to be the chum of those who would associate with him.  His friends consisted of boys who liked to drink, and they stayed with him as long as his money lasted.

Naturally he could not go back to the Indians and live as they did, so he was always a lonely creature.

My father had cattle, and in the summer we went to a ranch on Kolob mountains where mother made cheese and butter.  How well I remember the big vat used to warm the milk, and the cheese presses, and the shelves in the milk house with its pans of milk, waiting for the cream to rise so it could be skimmed off in a jar and soured for making butter, and the old-fashioned churn with a dasher that we would pull up and down counting so many hundred then watching to see if the butter had come.  And on cold mornings churn, churn, churn, until we felt we couldnt lift the dasher once more, but we would and after what seemed an eternity mother would say, I think we had better add a little warm water.  That was usually the magic charm that brought the butter.

The spring was some distance from the house and we had large brass buckets to carry the water.  The water ran thru a wooden trough and emptied into a barrel, which made it easier to get a bucketful.

We enjoyed riding horses out in the pasture.  Along one of the streams in the mountain valley willows grew.  Their tops frequently came together to make room-like places.  The children of all ages gathered here from all around to play polygamy.  They had all heard of the officers trying to find some of the men; these stories made very exciting dramas.

One day we all thought the world was coming to an end.  This came about, because of a spectacular storm with heavy clouds traveling close to the earth with terrible reverberating thunder and lightning, then a downpour of rain.  I think my sister had dreamed the night before of such an event, and she was terrified when the storm began.  As I remember, our bed was in a wagon box with a wagon cover over the bows.  It was near the house, but that night we all stayed in the main log house.

One summer I stayed in town and helped my older sister dry the fruit.  She had a beaux who would come and help us cut the fruit.  He would sit cutting peaches and sing Where Did You Get That Hat?  My job was to spread the cut fruit out on long boards, which were placed on saw horses in the sun.  How we envied the ones who could sit in the shade and cut while we had to stand out in the hot sun and spread.

There were twelve children in our family.  Five died, one older than I and four younger.  Three were babies, while the other two were ten and fourteen.

My first school was the vestry of our meeting house.  The teacher was a man of very little training and no experience in teaching.  There were only two teachers for all the children in the town.  We were not graded until I was in the eighth grade, when we had a real teacher.  I learned to read from a large chart, the first page of which had rat, cat, fat, sat and some other members of the at family, along with the a, b, cs.  The teacher had a long pointer and it was his custom to have us hold out our hand for him to rap if we did anything wrong.

The year I was in the seventh grade, I attended school in Sandy, where I lived with my sister.  This happened to be the Pioneer Jubilee Year, 1897.  Here I saw my first train and rode on one to Salt Lake City, which appeared as a fairy land to me as there were so many new and interesting things.

When we reached Milford, the terminus of the railroad, and the train was coming in, they told us to get out of the way so the train could turn around.

The next year I finished the eighth grade at home, the first class in our little town to be graduated and I was the valedictorian.  How proud we were  We felt we had accomplished something out of the ordinary.

One winter in our hometown there was a contest in singing for all types of voices.  I won the contest for soprano voice and some said it was because a young man who went with my sister was one of the judges.  His sister was one of the contestants.

Another contest, I enjoyed as a girl, was a waltz contest.  My girl friend and I tied for that prize, but some time later in Huntington my partner and I won first place in a similar waltz contest.

While still in the grades, I was suffering with the toothache and was unable to go to school.  I often saw my hands itch to do things.  This must have been one of those times, for I sewed enough blocks for a quilt cover, although I had a bad toothache and could not use a thimble.

As there was no dentist in any of the small communities, it was quite an event when a traveling dentist came to town.  He certainly did the extracting of teeth in a wholesale manner.  Of course later some teeth were filled.  The bishop of our ward acted for the dentist during these long absences.  His only qualifications were a pair of forceps and a strong arm and these he certainly had.

Away to School

My father had one habit that was very exasperating.  As the members of our family reached the time for them to go away to school, they were very anxious to go.  Mother would get our clothes ready, but when we would ask father if we could go, he would not tell us but would say, Ill see. Perhaps a day or two before school started father would say, Tom (or John) is going to Cedar (or Lund).  You had better get your things together and go to school.  He wanted us to go, but liked to keep us in suspense as long as he could.  Of course sometimes our going depended on selling livestock.

	We had plenty of dried fruit but there was little demand for it, or rather the roads and distances were prohibitive for a cash market, so it was usually traded to peddlers who came to our town for salt, potatoes and flour.  Our ready cash came from the sale of part of our herds.

	All the children went away to school and it was a great sacrifice for my parents.  I think the children are all indeed grateful for the opportunity that was given them.  When compared to the advantages the young folks have now it was very little.  It did take us out of a very small village and gave us many opportunities that the young people who lived at home never received.  Many of them married and settled there and there remain.  After all the children had gone to other places one woman said to mother how terrible it was to have them all away.  Mother was always ready with an answer.  I should very much rather have them all away and doing well than settle down here without anything.

	One year I stayed home from school and made the layette for a new member of the family that was expected.  My mother was miserable, so I did all the sewing and then took care of her and the baby after the midwife stopped coming.  She came ten days to bathe mother and the baby.  How different the care she had and that which I have had.  Mother never had a doctor or a trained nurse with any of her twelve children.

	After I had spent one year at the B.N.S. at Cedar City I planned to study vocal and dressmaking in Salt Lake City.  My aunt was one of the finest dressmakers in the city, and I was to work with her.  I had been there only a few weeks when I took Typhoid Fever and after a long siege, I was able to go home and convalesce.  The year following I went to Cedar City to school.

	When I was running for secretary of the student body, the party I was affiliated with were telling of my qualifications for the position.  Being small in stature they said good things were done up in small parcels.  The opposite side said so was poison.  I was a member of the chorus and often sang solos at school functions as well as in church.

	On a Sunday evening, we went to the Manavu Ward to attend a farewell for Frank Jr. prior to his leaving for the Mission Home.  How my heart was torn to think of him going away to Germany for two or more years and not be able to see him during that time.  I was proud to have him go but my heart ached, too.  I was sorry that I could not be home when he would leave for his mission but we had to leave after his farewell in order that Frank could attend the meetings in Pasadena.  Frank Jr. left Monday morning for a ten-day stay in the Mission Home and sailed July 1, from New York on the S. S. George Washington.

	June 14, 1931 we left for trip to California.  Frank to attend meetings of the Western Division of the Association for the Advancement of Science at Pasadena and the N.E.A. at Los Angeles, and incidentally a vacation.  We had bought a new Ford Sedan to use on this trip.  We took some food and bedding so we could stop at auto camps if we desired thus making us independent of hotels.  As the weather was very warm at this time of year we traveled two nights to Pasadena trying to rest part of the day in Las Vegas.  It was so hot there.  We found an attractive auto camp, the Gypsy Trail at the outskirts of Pasadena and here we made our home while there.  We attended several lectures, some were illustrated.  On June 18 we had dinner at the Maryland Hotel as it was our twenty-third wedding anniversary and we wanted to celebrate in some way.

	We drove to the top of Mt. Wilson where the largest telescope in the world is found, having a one hundred inch reflector.  It was a very interesting trip, giving us a marvelous view of the cities along the coast as we drove up the winding road.  Myriads of lights dotted the landscape, it was like the heaven inverted and we were gazing at it with a telescope.

	We visite