Autobiography of Martha Timothy Gardner Rudy, Part 2

Because of the “Indian Scare,” a Mr. Stakes, believing the Round Valley settlement would be abandoned, traded Father a 92-acre farm, a lot and two cabins for a yoke of steers. Father, thinking it impossible to move the families there, hauled the cabins to Heber and built their second house. Later, we eleven other families returned and settled for the winter without any further trouble with the Indians.

After the birth of the youngest child, Jedediah, in 1870, my mother was left an invalid with milk leg. I, being the eldest girl, my mother depended on me to do the housework, which deprived me of many childhood pleasures and also an education. Father made a stool for me to stand on to mix bread and to wash. I learned to knit as soon as I was old enough to hold the knitting needles.

Our first light was a rag immersed in grease, which we called a “Grease Bitch.” Later, we obtained a candle mold, and it was my job to make the candles. I also made soap, washed and carded wool, and made tools from which the family stockings, etc. were made.

My four brothers, Dave, Alma, Brig, and Jedediah, were natural musicians and furnished music for the town’s entertainments. Dave made his first violin from a cigar box. Father built a room not far from the house for my brothers to use for a dance hall and other entertainments for their many friends. My brothers taught me to dance very young, and I became a very good dancer and enjoyed it a great deal. Ice skating was another popular sport that I mastered. We had long, hard winters, which provided for many winter sports.

Mother being a cripple, and father thinking an education unnecessary for girls, I never attended school. However, my brothers received what was considered a good education at that time.

On December 5, 1878, at the age of sixteen, I was married in the Salt Lake Endowment House to Charles Alma Gardner. Brother John’s wife was bedfast with milk-leg after confinement and being very poor, we went to live with them the remainder of the winter. They had a one-room house with two beds, stove, table, and four chairs, which made it very crowded. I felt my assistance was needed so much that we just had to live with them. In May, we went to a saw mill in Provo Canyon called North Fork. My husband had two yoke of cattle, and I, being very lonesome, accompanied him and drove one of them. After they felled a tree and trimmed it, I took my cattle and dragged the log to the skidway, ready for loading. He drove his cattle on the loaded cart, and I drove mine to a drag of two or three logs from the mountain to the mill yard, and we made good and I really enjoyed it. In November, we returned to Round Valley, and on December 20^th, my son, John, was born. All winter, I suffered with a gathered breast. It broke thirteen times, which left only one breast for the sixteen children that followed.

The following May, we returned to the canyon and did as before. Al carried the baby while I drove. When winter came on, we returned to Round Valley, and during the winter, we traded our logging outfit for a team of horses, harness, and a wagon, and with our savings, we bought a 62-acre farm with a neat little house where we lived for the following four years, in which LaPrele, Alice, and Rhoda were born. My mother came and persuaded us to move, so in July 1886 we moved to Ashley Valley, which is now known as Vernal. It was an extremely hard trip, for there wasn’t any road most of the way, and it took twenty-one days. I was not well, and many times the ledges and boulders looked as if they would surely break the wheels of the wagon. It was a miracle how we stood it.

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