Lula Irene Haderlie was born in the family home up Tin Cup canyon, near Freedom, Wyoming on November 27,1893 to Charles Henry Haderlie and Annie Barbara Schiess. She was the eighth child in a family of thirteen children. The following history was written by herself --
When a few months old I was very near choking
to death with croup. My dad was away working. My Uncle Lue Frank was staying
with us. He was out milking the cows. Mother called to him to come and
administer to me, as I was choking. He said he would come when he got the
cows milked; he wasn't in any hurry. Well, I got well of that. When I was
four years old, I got whooping cough real bad. My brother, Edward, who
was three years younger than I died from it. When I was eight or ten I
was very sick with a high fever. There were no doctors in the valley so
we didn't know what I had. When I started getting well, my hair nearly
all came out. Mother sent for one of the Nelson boys to come up and cut
my hair off. When he got there I was long gone. I wasn't about to have
my hair cut off. My hair came back in and I had beautiful long dark brown
hair.
I grew up on a farm, helping inside and out.
As soon as my two sisters and I were big enough to sit on a milk stool,
our brothers turned the milking over to us. They said it was a girl's job.
We would milk the cows and separate the milk and make butter to sell. Mother
had a big barrel churn and we would have to turn it until the butter came.
One day the lid came loose and all the cream spilled on the floor which
was quite a loss. Snakes would come right into the house. We used to have
a cellar pit to put milk in. One day Mother went down and there was a snake
in the milk pail.
I went to school in a one room school house
with one teacher for all eight grades. I got to the eighth grade and quit.
We couldn't go to school all of the time as we were needed at home. We
would walk to school part of the time, which was 2 ½ miles away,
where the Ed Croft house is.
I had one dress. I would wear it to school.
Saturday mother would wash it out so it would be clean to wear to Sunday
School. We would go to Sunday School in a big three-seated buggy. In the
summer time we would walk. There was a one-room building where we had Sunday
School and meetings, on the lot where Lyle Jenkins lives. My two older
sisters and I walked down to town several days to learn a song to sing
in Primary. After spending a lot of time learning it, we decided we wouldn't
go to the meeting to sing it. So we stayed home. I was baptized May 31,
1902 and confirmed June 9, 1902.
When I was older, I worked for Eddie Jenkins
in the summer in the hayfield and milked cows for $2.50 a week. I also
worked for May Jenkins in the summer. We didn't have much in the line of
recreation. Once in a great while, a traveling show would come to town,
or there would be a dance. Once in a while on Sunday afternoons, we would
walk to town to visit the Luthi girls or they would come up to our place.
To celebrate the 24th or the 4th of July, we had rodeos, races for the
kids, and a program in the morning. We always had a program on Christmas
Eve, too. For Easter, the kids started hiding eggs before Easter. Then
the night before Easter we'd bring them down and boil them in water with
onion skins. That colored them brown.
The Indians had a trail over Dad's place right
close to the house. One day mother asked me to do something and I didn't
mind her, so she said she would give me to the Indians. Along came some
Indians so Mother told the chief to come and take me. I ran and hid until
they left. Mother wouldn't have given me away. She just wanted to scare
me so I would mind her. Mother was left alone so much when we were small,
and we were all frightened of the Indians. We had an Indian scare. They
were coming to kill us. Everybody took off in wagons for days, and went
up in the narrows. The Indians didn't do anything so we came home. The
Indian squaws would walk through Dad's fields, tromping down the crops
and then they would help themselves to what they wanted from our garden.
Dad had a little shack with a grinder in it. The Indians use to come down
to sharpen their hatchets and knives. The shed had a dirt roof and my brothers
would sit up there and sift dirt down the Indians' necks. It's a wonder
they didn't scalp them.
We did all kinds of things to earn money.
We killed turkeys and hung them upstairs during the winter to keep them
from freezing before we could take them to Montpelier to sell. We boiled
buckets and buckets of water to scald pigs so that their hair could be
scrubbed off. Then the pigs were sold as meat with their skin still on.
We would have to ride all over the hills for the cows at night, as there
were no families living farther up. The hills were not fenced, and the
cows could roam all over.
We never had fresh fruit. We had to eat dried
fruit or service berries. I never tasted an orange until I was grown.
When I was twelve years old, my parents' home
burned down on Christmas morning. We didn't save very much. I was barefoot
when we found out the house was on fire. We had just come in from milking
and our feet were cold so we had taken off our shoes. We had to live at
Uncle Jake's [Jacob Schiess] until they could fix a place for us to live.
Dad fixed up an old wood shed which was very cold. The boys slept in a
sheep camp until they could build a house. We would have to go and do the
milking night and morning.
My dad was a polygamist. He married the only
two sisters in the Schiess family. They lived in Providence, Utah. My dad
was called on a mission to Europe and when he came home the law officers
were waiting to get him for polygamy, so he disguised himself as a tramp.
They were going to put Dad in jail if he didn't get rid of one of his wives,
so he had to get out of Utah. He brought my mother to Freedom and Aunt
Bertha lived in Providence, Utah. We lived up Tin Cup, where my brother
Gilbert Haderlie now lives, until we had to leave the county because of
polygamy. We moved to Star Valley and several years later Aunt Bertha and
her family moved here.
Dad had 26 children: 16 boys and 10 girls.
Austin drowned at the age of two years. Eddie died of whooping cough. Fred
died of a hip disease when a young man.
I met Raymond Jenkins
one summer. He lived in Newton, Utah but he would come to work for his
brother in Star Valley during the summer. I married Raymond on September
15, 1915 in the Salt Lake Temple. We went as far as Newton, Utah with a
team and wagon and then went by train to Salt Lake City. Two days before
we left Raymond got word that one of his brothers [Seymour] had died. In
order for him to get to the funeral, he had to take the train from Soda
Springs to Newton. My brother Luther and his bride-to-be, Joan Lindholm,
were also going with us, driving their team and wagon. We were married
the same day. We spent a week in Newton and then started on our way home.
We came around by the dairies owned by Kunz. It was snowing and very cold.
We stopped and Raymond went into the house to get something warm for us
to drink. When he got in the house he passed out. So I was in the wagon,
holding the horses and freezing. He finally came out bringing me some Postum
and a roll.
We came home and moved into a one room log
house that belonged to Raymond's father, where Gary Hokanson now lives.
There our first baby, Leona, was born on July 11, 1916. Then we bought
a one room house from my brother John and moved it up on our farm where
Earl Haderlie now lives. We lived there for four years. Two children were
born there: Elva on Nov. 27, 1917, and Darrel on Jan. 18, 1920.
During the flu epidemic, there was a quack
doctor who came to Freedom that winter to stay and that is who brought
Darrel into the world. Many people died from the flu. I was sick two days
with the flu, then Darrel was born and I was over the flu. Raymond was
sick in bed. He nearly had pneumonia. The children were sick in bed. Mabel
Jenkins carne to stay and help out and she and her children got the flu.
So we had a house full of sick people, all in one room. Any man in town,
who was well, would come and milk the cows and do the chores. The flu hadn't
reached Afton yet, so they sent down girls to help in the homes. We had
a different one every day. Albert Ralph had just come home from his mission
and brought the flu with him and exposed everyone in Freedom.
Uncle Jacob Schiess, Delores Ralph, Guy Robinson, Ida Clark and two
boys, a Draney boy and a Warren boy, all died from the flu. They were all
buried without funerals.
On April 28, 1920 we decided to move our house
back to town. We bought five acres of land from Ada Robinson, and added
on another room and a shanty to our house. There was still a foot of snow
or more and we had to move it on sleds.
September 21, 1921 another baby, Wilda Marie,
was born, who only lived six months. I found her dead in bed one morning
which was an awful shock. We think she had quick pneumonia. The snow was
so deep on March 10, 1922 that they didn't think we could get up to the
cemetery. The bishop wanted us to bury her in our yard until spring. We
didn't want to do that so they made a road up through Weber's so we were
able to get to the cemetery.
On November 14, 1924 LaVor was born; August
15, 1928 Lera was born. In the spring of 1929 we bought the farm where
Darrel now lives from Clarence Chadwick. We had no neighbors. Maxine was
born on December 17,1930 and Theron was born on January 22, 1933.
In 1930 Glen Jenkins built a house, where
Alice now lives, so we had some neighbors.
1936 was a bad summer. We didn't raise enough
hay to feed all of the animals. So that winter Raymond took the sheep to
Iona where he bought hay and stayed there all winter to feed them. We had
moved to town for the winter; I milked the cows and did the chores and
in April, Raymond moved the sheep back. We would've been better off if
we had sold the sheep instead of taking them to Iona.
In the spring we moved back on the farm. In
October 1940 Darrel went on a mission. When he came home, LaVor was drafted
into the Marines in March 19, 1944. He was killed March 5, 1945 on Iwo
Jima. That was a very sad time for us. His body was returned for burial
on December 11, 1948. The snow was so deep there was only a one lane road
to Montpelier where we went to meet the rain with LaVor's body.
When LaVor was a baby, I became ill and was
taken to Soda Springs in January, where I had my appendix out. We had only
one doctor here at the time and he was a drunkard. After my operation,
I got rheumatism so bad I couldn't come home. So I stayed with Carl and
Lizzie Haderlie for a week in Soda Springs. After I had been home for some
time, I had my tonsils removed and my rheumatism left me for years. Then
it came back. We had gone to Soda Springs in a car but when I came home
the snow was too deep so Raymond had Charley Nelson came for me with a
team and sleigh. May 1945 we went to Ogden for major surgery [hysterectomy]
as Dr. Treloar was the only doctor here at the time. He sent me to Ogden
where I stayed with Leona and Elva who were living there at the time.
Raymond became sick with arthritis. He became
so bad, and after LaVor's death he developed Parkinsons disease so he couldn't
work anymore. So we sold the farm to Darrel and built a house in town,
where I live now. Lera went on a mission in June 1950. Raymond passed away
June 5, 1955.
I cooked at the school for five years and
worked at the cheese factory for twelve years. I never missed a day on
account of sickness.
In early June 1971 I took my first airplane
ride to Nebraska to visit my granddaughter, Mary Lou. I enjoyed the ride
very much. On June 29, 1971 I had my first heart attack and was in the
hospital a month. My family was very good to me and I love them very much
for it.
I was active in the L.D.S. church all my life.
I was put in as a Sunday School teacher before I was married, along with
Abbie Robinson. I taught Sunday School all my married life until about
ten years ago. I was a teacher in the Primary, counselor in the M.I.A.,
secretary in the Relief Society, Visiting Teacher's advisor, Visiting Teacher,
Relief Society Magazine representative, and at the present time I am a
teacher in the Primary and a Relief Society Visiting Teacher. Now I like
to spend my time reading, quilting or doing handwork. I also like to work
in my garden and flowers.
*********
Postscript: Grandma Lula Jenkins passed away September 8, 1978 about
2:00 in the afternoon. She was in Afton, Wyoming with Jean Luthi doing
some business and shopping. One of the things she did that day was to get
her temple recommend signed by President Child. They pulled up to Nields
Market to get some groceries when Grandma complained of feeling a little
sick to her stomach. She told Jean to let her sit there for a minute then
she would come into the store. When she didn't come in after a few minutes,
Jean went back out to check, and Grandma had passed beyond, very peacefully.
At the time of her death, she was still a Visiting Teacher in the Relief
Society. She had been released from the Primary only the year before. On
August 15, 1968 the Star Valley Creamery presented Grandma with a plaque
for her many years of service, but Grandma was so mad at them for making
her quit that she wouldn't even unwrap it. She was 74 years old at the
time. When Grandma and Grandpa's children were nearly grown, they took
one of their grandchildren, Irene, into their home to live, and she became
like another daughter. In May of 1978, just before her death, Grandma flew
to California to accompany this granddaughter and her husband through the
temple. When she was 83 she rode on a snowmobile into Stewart and Lera's
cabin near Alpine Wyoming. At the time of her death, Grandma still drove
her own car. Lula was survived by four daughters and two sons. Also surviving
were 29 grandchildren and 36 great grandchildren. One granddaughter, Betty
Jo Jenkins, and two great grandchildren preceded her in death. She was
also survived by 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 half-sisters and 5 half-brothers,
All grandmother's descendants were to her funeral except for 3 grandchildren:
one of which was expecting a baby [born the next day]. Because Grandma
had wanted her absent grand-daughter to sing "How Great Thou Art" at her
funeral, she taped it, and it sounded very good. The funeral was held September
11, 1978; a bleak, cold rainy day. After the funeral was over, the rain
quit and the sun tried to come out. It was this way up at the cemetery
and lasted until we were back in the church house; then it clouded over
and rained and sleeted really bad.
Among Grandma's possessions was a tribute
written for her on some occasion. This tribute is enclosed. Also enclosed
are the words to the song "These Hands" that her unmarried granddaughters
sang at her funeral. The words fit Grandma as though they had been written
for her alone.
TRIBUTE Written to Lula Jenkins
Lula Jenkins, so hard working, so unselfish, so compassionate. Tenderly through so many years caring for an ailing husband. Almost alone and unaided, kept the "Home Fires" burning. A constant source of strength to her husband, her children, and grandchildren.. Accepting all of her trials with patience and humility. Faithful in, thought and deed. Two of her children completed honorable missions in a foreign field. She has served for many years as a teacher in the auxiliary organizations. Children love her for the lessons she teaches and honor her for the example she has set for them to follow. Cheerful despite her trials.
THESE HANDS (sung at Lula's funeral)
These hands ain't the hands of a lady,
These hands are calloused and old.
These hands raised a family,
These hands raised a home,
Now these hands raise to praise the Lord.
These hands won the heart of my loved one,
And with his they were never alone.
If these hands filled their task,
Then what more could one ask
For these fingers have worked to the bone.
Now, don't try to judge me by what you'd like to be,
For my life ain't been much success.
Some people have power, but still they grieve,
While these hands brought me happiness.
Now, I'm tired and I'm old, and I ain't got much gold,
Maybe things ain't been all that I planned.
God above, hear my plea, when it's time to judge me,
Take a look at these hard working hands.