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Youngest and tenth child of James Levi Prescott and Florence May Passey, born 18 oct 1902 at Basalt, Bingham, Idaho...

[Editors note: The original record is 24 pages long, most of the text was too poorly photocopied to be recognizable by OCR software, only the first two pages are included here. Pages 12-24 are a day by day journal from 1956-57. If anyone is interested in reading the rest of the story or typing it neatly, let me know.]

Another event that stands out in my mind very clearly: Mother carried me into a room. In one corner stood a large pot-bellied stove. In another side of the room there was an old lady with a white nightcap on her head lyimg in a bed. Another lady was sitting by the side of the bed. She arose offering mother her chair. Mother then asked me if I wanted to get down, which I did, standing by her side holding onto her skirt. The lady in the bed was Polly Chapman Harmon, my great grandmother, her death date being August 1903. I was about ten months old when she died. This has me puzzled, as newspaper clippings prove she died before I was born at Burton and I saw this before I was born.

We lived at Basalt about three years. We moved to Sharon, Idaho. The house we lived in there was a little two storied house, with the stairs going up the outside. The boys slept upstairs. There was a leanto on the back which we used for a kitchen. We lived there for a year then moved onto a place called the dell.

The house was larger though not so many rooms. There were two farm houses on this place. The house on one of them had been burned to the ground. At this place was a large barn where we kept the horses in one side and the cows in the other. In the center was a large hay mow, which held a large quantity of hay. When the hay was used up in the spring, dad or the boys used the derik ropes to make a swing in which we worked up to great heights. There was a flat roof covering the cow and horse barns, making a space under the sloping roof of the barn. We kids would get on top of this roof and see who could jump the fartherest. All was well unless our chin hit on our knees when we lit giving a good jolt and at times biting our tongues. What fun we had in the old barn.

There was also a chicken coop, granery, a smaller farm and a blacksmith shop. It was a good half mile form the house we lived in and the other farm buildings where. Father had a large herd of milk cows and we had to go back and forth to milk twice a day. this made it bad for us in the winter. Therefore, dad moved us into the blacksmith shop. Part of the family slept in the granery. The cookstove was also there for preparing meals. Mother used to take an iron to warm the bedding so the children could be warm in sleep. In the shop we had a box heater. One morning the folks were all out milking when I spelled smoke. I was standing very close to the stove. I ran out to tell them something was on fire. When my sister Delora got to me my clothes were burning, and I hadn't realized that it was I who was burning. Delora threw me on the ground and rolled me, putting the fire out. They were afraid to leave me alone after that. I was five years old then.

After two winters like that father moved the house down to where the other buildings were and built two more rooms on the back. The roof leaked and snow drifted in so bad that we couldn't use it the first winter. We had rough boards for the floor. When my sister scrubeed the floor, she would scold because she got slivers in her hands. We had homemade carpets on our bedroom floors, there was no lineoleum then.

There was also lots of snow in that country. one morning when we awoke the drifts were up to the eaves of the house. We could see the sky from the tops of the windows. father and the boys shoveled for hours to get a path dug to the barn to take care of the stock. We had seventeen cows to milk. father hooked the team to the sleigh the next day and attempted to take us to school. The horse got off the road and it was hard to get them back on again. We went back home about noon and had only gone out a half a mile.

Father and the boys would get up at four am and go to the canyon to get wood and logs out to sell and burn. There was a sawmill several miles from our place where they sawed the timber.

There were ten of us to feed and clothe. Father often told people that I was his tithing

Christmas Memories

Arising from my warm and comfortable bed at our house in the dell, delight filled my soul. It was christmas morning. What did santa bring? My one armed doll was hanging on the wall with a walnut in her empty sleeve, oranges and nuts were on the table. Gifts for all were varied and not rembered by a small child of seven or so years old, but the spirit of christmas was there.

Although money was scarce in those early 1900's, there was never a time when we didn't have some gift to awake to in the morning; a lovely christmas dinner with the family of ten children all home for the holidays. While we children slept the night before, the adults made adequate preparations and last minute touches for the joyous celebration of the birth of our beloved savior.

There were our ward christmas parties in the church house with the tall, stately christmas tree, covered with gay decorations and a gift for everyone; programs and dance with refreshments. The bobsleigh with the wagon box bottom covered with straw, hot rocks in the center, quilts spread on top for the kids to sit on with our backs to the outside, another quilt on top. With the beautiful horses that dad loved to drive. Father in his huge bearskin coat, mother beside him on the high seat, called a get-up to the team and we were on our way to the party.

The homemade rag doll with yarn for hair and clothes made by mother or my older sisters was my favorite gift, so cuddly.

Delora and Seretta received little trunks one christmas, one red, the other blue, they were so pretty.

In march 1912, we moved from the dell to Emerson district of Heyburn, Idaho. My brother Argyle, bought the three younger children post card albums. In those days, beautiful post cards were in the vogue, which were treasured and put in albums to keep. I still have mine and have willed it to una. I also have mother's which contains many precious cards from many of her grandchildren, children mid friends; a whole series on "Lovers Lane St. Jo" with poetry and pictures.

Grandma prescott used to come over sometimes and she would make a fuss over me. One spring she came to visit us about the time for decoration day. She and I went out on the hill sides to pick wild flowers which grew there in abundance. We came home with our laps full of them. We put them in water to keep to decorate the graves the next day. It pleased me so much, to have someone to make a fuss over me for I was kept to myself so much of the time while the folks were busy. I played with my dolls most of the time and made things for them.

I started school in Liberty, Idaho. I went there until I was in the third grade. once my mother took me to the firth to visit some of her old friends. Grandma Soloma Prescott Hymas lived there. I remember she had lots of flowers on her place. She was a great lover of flowers. I think I inherited the gift from her. three of my aunts lived there. I met their children and played with them.

In the spring of 1912, we moved from Sharon to Heyburn, Idaho. Father sold most of his cows and shipped the rest of his stock and machinery on the train. that sure was a long trip for me. There were so many hours we had to wait at the depots for the trains to come and make conections, at Soda Springs, Pocatello, and Minidoka. I thought we would never get through. My brother-in-law, Issac Jensen, met us at the station at Burley. We had to ride seven miles in a lumber wagon to get to their place. I was sure glad to see them. My neice, Florence Jensen, was just two years younger than I was. After resting, we drove back to Burley, then on to Emerson, where father had rented a farm. It belonged to Jim Claughy. There was a small house on it. I don't know how mother managed to get us all packed in but she did. There were two rooms added on to it while we lived there.

The schools were all strange here for me, methods of teaching were so different. It was awfully hard for me to catch on to their methods. I managed to get through fairly well. Then we moved to another place just two miles east but in another school and strange children .

Source: Autobiography and journal obtained from Lorena Florence Prescott Manning.