Grandma wrote two personal histories that I am aware of, and she wasn’t completely happy with either.  I have a lot of notes on which parts of the two she liked best and have been working on putting them together. One of her dear friends told her she needed to add in more of her feelings and testimony, but she didn’t much like that idea.  The first paragraph of this personal history seemed to make her a little uncomfortable, but in the end she thought she might keep it…or not.  This is a rough draft, and has holes,  little reminders of stories she wanted to come back to, and ends rather early in her life.  I have a lot of these other stories on hard-to-understand audio and am working on adding them in as well.

True Roundy Feild

Personal History

Writing my personal history seems to be a difficult task, and sometimes it hasn’t been easy to live it, but on the whole I know I have loved life and have had many many blessings come my way.   I will always be grateful for this beautiful world.  As far back as my memories go, I have known that Heavenly Father was real and that he loved me and was my friend about the things and always there to help me.   I knew that he was at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I have felt of his inspiration and help especially when sorrow and heartache have come within our family circle.

I was born of goodly parents who loved life.  They were truly an example of a loving couple.

I am truly a native of Peoa (“Peoahn”), as were my parents, Hannah Agnes Marchant and George Spencer Roundy.     I was their first child and the first grandchild on the Marchant side.  So, if I’m spoiled that is the reason.  I was born September 19, 1921 in our log house.  My pre-school days were happy.

Mama was a good seamstress.  She took great pride in dressing her two little girls.  Verna was three years younger than I.  Verna was born August 2, 1924.  Usually Verna’s new dress was blue and mine was read or pink.   Mama taught me to embroider which I still love to do.

Mama’s cooking skills produced delicious cream pies, fried chicken and cake made from real cream.  She loved to have company come for dinner.  Relatives would come often to visit and have a meal. Our only playmates were our dolls and other toys and our cousins Elved and Don Wright, Ruth F. and Ona Stevens.

We called the property across the road from my home, ‘The Campground.”  Families would come from Salt Lake to camp there over night for fifty cents.  It was a special treat to play with the Laxman children, the Folkers’ and others.  I ran and hid when the kids came to my first birthday party, probably it was my sixth birthday.  My pursuers found me under the buggy shed.   Thelda Crandall brought me a toothbrush. That is the only gift I can recall.

School was a new and scarey experience.  Mama told my first grade teacher, Mary Hull, to have me use my right hand to write. I obediently did that, even though I was naturally left-handed (south-paw).  Uncle Leland, my father’s 29 year old brother, lived with us at this time.  He was very crippled with arthritis.   He would give me a sugar cube every time I got a hundred in spelling.  I loved to read and do my schoolwork.  My first grade classmates were Louisa Barnum, Fern Walker and Jack Neel.  I attended school in Peoa the first eight grades.  Some of my teachers were Eva Hortin, Veda Wright, Afton Walker, Harper Marchant and Ray Mickelson.  We had great fun playing ‘Run-sheepy-run” at recess.  Sometimes we would hide under the old Amusement Hall.  It was spookey, but when kids get together they do all sorts of strange things.  My dislike of milk originated probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade. When Mr. Art Caseman came to teach music one day, I was laying on a bed made of chairs.  He made a big fuss over that and that was the end of drinking milk for me. My sickness was due to my little bottle of milk going sour. I was mortified and never really liked milk since.  My mother was concerned that without milk I would not be healthy.  The school nurse advised her to give me lots of cocoa to drink.  To this day, I love cocoa and chocolate milk.

Mama’s sister, Elizabeth would frequently come to spend an afternoon.  They were very close friends.  We walked to and visited Grandma Marchant two or three times each week.  She was crippled from arthritis.   Grandma died when I was in the first grade.  Daddy always told me that Grandma had more influence over her family from her chair than most women did who could move about.  She was the only grandparent that I was privileged to know.

My first touch with sadness came when my baby brother, Shadrach John, went back to heaven at the age of six days. My mother was in poor health from then until she passed away the morning of July 27, 1933 at the age of 34, almost 35.  I still remember the horror-stricken voice of my father as he called her name when he returned from irrigating that morning.  Verna and I rose up from a sound sleep and rain in out night gowns to get Aunt Jessie.  Daddy kept Verna and I by his side until the funeral was over the following Sunday.  I can still feel how heart-broken he was.  My sister and I had had a taste of keeping the house because Mama had stayed in Salt Lake that summer so she could go to capable doctors.  She wanted to get well very badly.

My sister and I had a taste of housekeeping because Mama had stayed in Salt Lake that summer so she could go to special doctors at the Salt Lake Clinic.  They were Dr. George Cochran and Dr. Pyott.  They diagnosed her illness as heart trouble caused by childhood rheumatic fever.

I must tell you about my favorite toys.  My doll, a Vanta baby, was affectionately named Donna Rose.  She had three or four outfits which were sewn by Mama. I remember my Flexible Flyer sled, a pair of skis, a red swimming suit and a straw hat with tassels all around the brim.  But, most of all, I loved to play with my little hay poles and nets.  I usually had a black and blue thumb which I received from another of my favorite toys, a small hammer. I would spend hours pounding shingle nails into a board.

Now life was different.  Daddy would mix the bread, shampoo our hair and encourage us to do the cooking.  He hired the washing and ironing done.  After a year of bread mixing, he turned it over to me.  I shudder to think how it must have tasted.  There were no yeast cakes, you just had a start of yeast.  I could have four print school dresses each year and a nice skirt and blouse.   Usually, they were ordered out of the catalog.  Going to ZCMI – blue wool slacks and me a suede jacket (ROTESSERI) Fate of jacket.  We were expected to get dinner and then go in the hay field.  My job was to rake and push the hay to the stack with a bull rake drawn by a team.   The bridges were hardly any wider than the rake.  If Daddy said I could do it, I knew that I must try.  Usually, I succeeded.

High school days were busy.  Mr. Daniels and trombone.  Debate – won a $25 scholarship.

Horses have always played a part in my life.  In the early grades, I would often ride “Old Pet” to school, because the bus turned around at the Neel corner.  Old Pet would return home after I put the reins up over her head.  I’m sure that I was taught to set on a horse as soon as I was old enough to sit up.   My father loved his horses and installed that same love into all of us. He bought some quarter horses down at the Livingston Ranch, which was located where the Echo Reservoir is now.  Old Don and Tony were among that purchase.  Old Don was very balky and he would turn around and around at the big trees, at Aunt Jessie’s hawthorn bush and at the Neel corner as we came down the lane to the main road.  If we got past there, he would go right along to town.

We often rode to the store and post office or an errand.  We would carry the things home in a bag with a shoulder strap.  One day we became impatient because of Don’s slow gait. Verna kicked him in the flank, while I beat him with a stick. He went too fast for us and we fell off.  I lit on top of Verna.  We cried all the way home as we accused each other of causing the fall.  It happened in front of Gord Stembridges’ home.

Another horse-related project was to lead “Old Stub” a big work horse.  She was hooked onto a cable that would pull a harpoon fork full of hay up into the barn.  She was so big and I was so small.  It took a lot of trips up and back, up and back to unload a wagon of hay.  Then the real danger was in keeping my feet out of the way of hers.  I couldn’t always do that. I did not like that job very well.

My piano playing began when Daddy brought home a used piano that he had bought from Steve Marchant.  He brought it home on a wagon.  Mama was so pleased.  She could play some.  She could hardly wait for my cousin, Lyle Peck to come home from school, so he could play for her.  Lyle lived with us at that time.  He had a special touch with the keys.   Soon I started to take lessons from Jean Crandall.  To teach correct hand position, you were to keep a penny or dime on your hand, as you practiced.  I lost lots of pennies, I advanced through the 1st 3 Williams piano books under Jean.