SMITH PEARLINE MILLS ESTELLA SMITH

MEMORIES

of

PEARLINE & ESTELLA SMITH

By her daughters

GOLDA MILLS BALCH &

EUELLA MILLS MERCHANT

Pearline Smith (Mills) was their oldest child and her daughter Euella Mills ( Merchant) remembered that “Grandma Smith” (Estella Holt) would come and stay with them. Mother (Pearline) was the eldest of 15 children.  Grandpa (Joseph Smith) rode for the Indians a lot, so he wasn’t home a lot of the time. 

Marla, called Aunt Wade and asked her to clarify some of the things Mom had written such as names.  I put them in Parentheses.  Aunt Wade also told me of Grandma’s brother, Doyle (Holt).  The Indians took him as a youth.  Grandma and Grandpa searched everywhere for him, in vain.  Several years passed and when the Indians were forced to send him to school, Grandma was able to trace him, getting him back. 

In looking over the family group sheet, Grandma Smith lost George, Enoch Alvin, Edna May, Alfred, Ferdenand, Clayton, Leo and Sara (she left 2 grandchildren for Grandma to raise).

THE MEMORIES 

Mother and her brother was herding cows one day.  They didn’t have shoes.  The sand was hot and the kaulkle burrs were thick, so they waded in the edge of the canal.  Mothers little brother (George) stepped in a hole and went under.  Mother ran all the way home which was a mile or more to get Grandma, she ran down there and dove in three times before she could find him.  He was caught.  She had to carry him all the way back home.

Mother said when she was able to go to school, her one teacher was really mean, if they didn’t do exactly what they were suppose to the teacher would hold there hands out and take a ruler and hit them until they were black and blue.  They had to wrap burlap sacks around there feet to keep them from freezing when they walked to school.

Mothers one brother (Clayton} was killed in a car wreck.  He was pinned under the car.  Grandma got there before he died, but they couldn’t get him out, so she had to watch him die.

They had to haul all of their water.  They had some boards nailed on two poles with a 50 gallon barrell tied on.  They hooked a horse to it and pulled it up the hill to town for water.

Mothers one brother {Leo} came and stayed with us.  He had heart trouble.  He had his tonsiles out the same day I did.  He loved to watch bull fights, mother would set him in a chair out in back of the house with a quilt around him and he would watch the neighbors bulls fight.  They would go threw fences and all over the road.  He wanted to go home so bad so one of mothers other brothers came and took him home on the train.  Grandma was there to meet him.  He died in her arms at the train station.

Mothers sister, Aunt Sara had two children, Irene & little George.  She stayed with us when I was born.  Shortly after that Grandma got word she had died.  They never were able to find where she was buried.  Grandpa went and checked where she was suppose to be, but there was never any record of her death.  They never found out what happened to her.  Grandma & Grandpa raised her children.  Irene did however find out when she was old enough to investigate it.  Sarah died in Idaho from complications in child birth and is buied  in Bosie with her son, sho died also, in her arms.

Mothers brother, Alvin got a fish bone caught in his throat. (It killed him).  He rode the tail of an airplane strapped in a saddle at a rodeo.  (Aunt Wade said that he was the dare devil type and was always doing those type of things.)  Irene told me that he died in Wyoming and althought  Cliff told Grandma that Alvin died from a fish bone they always felt that he was killed doing something with a rodeo.

Pearline top left

I remember Grandma had some kind of sinking spells.  She would just black out where ever she was.  She fell in some glass one day, when we lived on the farm.  She came to the house, her face was all cut and bleeding.  She fell on the hot stove and burned her really bad a lot of times.  I guess it was caused from the hard life she had had. Euella Mills Merchant remembered that “Grandma Smith” would come and stay with them.  She had what they called ‘sinking spells’, where she would just pass out without any warning.  Grandma Mills and the kids would watch her every move.  She remembered one time when Grandma Smith was looking for eggs {she loved to watch the chickens and gather eggs}.  She found a nest next to the grannery and when she began stooping over to get them, she passed out, fell face first into the nest of eggs.

When mother was very small she had a bad ear ache one winter.  An old Indian came to the house and told Grandpa to find a red ant bed and get some ants.  He said, pound them up and put the juice in mothers ear.  Grandpa had to dig down thew the snow to find an ant bed.  He found one and did what the Indian said to do.  Mother never had any more ear ache all her life.  Grandma & Grandpa had a very hard life.  They lived in a log cabin with dirt floors.  (Aunt Wade said that the two rooms didn’t had an inside entry.  The doors were on the outside only)