Humble, Charitable and Sincere in all her doings
The History and Story of My Mother's Life Written and compiled by Ila M. Tanner, Roean M. Bastian, and Golda M. Jensen. Amanda is standing at the far left, front row, shown here with the Johnson family.
Mother was born on September 14, 1876, in the small town of Ovid, Idaho. When she was but six weeks old, her mother died of milk leg at Montpelier, Idaho. This misfortune left her father alone with a family of four small boys and a baby to raise. Being unable to care for her, he was grateful to Neils Johnson and his wife, Margorite (Gretta) Berg Johnson, who took her to raise until she was twelve years old, at which time her father and brothers wanted her to come and live with them.
They had moved from Ovid to Snake River Valley (Iona, Idaho) and mother didn't know until that time that the Johnson's, who had reared and cared for her as one of their own, weren't her own parents. We know not the reason for not having told her before, perhaps because of the other children, but mother felt terrible when she found out. She cried almost the entire three weeks she stayed with her father and brothers in Snake River Valley, She was so homesick she couldn't eat or do much of anything but cry. Finally they gave her up and she went back to the Johnson's to live. One of her jobs was to feed the calves milk, (this was in the summer time) so she sat on the old potato pit out by the barn and called "sock calves" for hours rather that to walk down to the pasture for them. By the time they got their milk it was cold, but she received no scolding
.
She was married to John Myers Jr., a farmer, at the age of 22, on December 23, 1879 and they settled down in a two-room log house in Ovid, They were not married in the Temple, but two years later, at which time they were parents of a baby girl, (Carrie Roean), they took out their endowments at the Salt Lake Temple.
Mother served as President of the Young Ladies Mutual and was a teacher in the Sunday School. She was very popular in all social was well as religious affairs. She was a strong believer in tithing and it worried her when she thought a full tithing hadn't been paid in her family. She couldn't stand any of us to use slang and there never was such to pass her lips. At on time, I, Roean, was angry and said "Oh for Heavens Sakes", and did I get a scolding from her. Anything sacred was not to be used lightly. She was very humble and sincere in all her doings. Having poor health kept her from doing many things she would have liked to have done. Her nerves were her worst trouble caused mostly by a bad stomach. She had to be careful as to what she ate and in later years, she had to go to bed every winter to rest because she couldn't sleep neither night or day. Mother did a lot of needlework which seemed to relax her more that anything she did. She was a hard worker but usually overdid herself when she felt well. She milked cows and did many things to maintain her husband while her served a mission to Germany, long with taking care of herself and baby for the two and a half years her was away. All through her life she milked cows, churned butter, and made cheese.
Her cellar was always full of a variety of canned good. I remember getting up before daylight and picking peas before the sun hit the patch. We always had to get the cows milked before the sun got too hot, and then we would take the peas and shell them in the buggy on the way from the ranch (in Bern) to out home in Ovid, so they would be ready to put in the bottles as
soon as we got there. It always took about seven hours to process them by boiling in a boiler. We had plenty of meat of all kinds. Father would kill rabbits in the winter and Mother would cook them in homemade butter, We never had beef, but usually plenty of pork, headcheese, spareribs, sausage, chicken, and deer meat. Once in a while we'd have beef, but it was a rare treat as we never killed any. Mother was a good manager. I can remember the closet always had a hundred pound sack of sugar stored away, and at fruit time, there were two sacks. She generally had the butter and cream checks to do as she saw fit to spend for family needs. She would never some home from Montpelier, the nearest shopping center, without some yardage of some kind. She had a large box full most of the time from which she made lots of dresses, suits, and quilts.The Relief Society Teachers always managed to make it to her home around dinner time saying they could always figure on something good at Mandy's, as she was called by he friends. When company came she would make chamomile or elderberry tea to serve them with the lunch, or cake, or whatever she had on hand. She was considered a wonderful cook by all who
knew her and had eaten in her home. She loved to give big dinners and to entertain in our two big front rooms where the table was set with all kinds of beautiful dishes. One of Mother's hobbies was collecting pretty dishes. She had a big cupboard with mirrors built in the wall to display them that covered all of the sliding doors.Along with her needle work, Mother was a good seamstress. As was the custom, all the children in town expected a new dress for any celebration, and I have known Mother to be sewing on her children's dresses until one or two in the morning so as to get them ready. She made several beautiful sofa pillows. One she made with pinecones on pale green satin to give to the
ex-president of the mutual, along with a pillow that she had all the members of that organization write their names on. She worked it in yellow thread on a white linen and it made a beautiful pillow also. One of my sisters has a pillow top with a wild rose she worked on black satin. I have a pillow top with an American Beauty Rose worked on a tan background which I have
framed to hang on the wall for others to see and enjoy. She crocheted also and gave away many lovely things to her friends.There was never a more charitable person who was so thoughtful and kind to everybody, especially the poor. She almost kept two elderly couples and a widow in food. On Thanksgiving and Christmas I can remember her loading her dishpans up with good things to eat to take to them. In the summer, we lived out on the ranch where she raised a beautiful garden.
Every time we went to town, she would fill the buggy with vegetables and strawberries and deliver to her friends and to the poor all along the way. The buggy horse, Old Jim, got so used to stopping at so many places, he was hard to keep going down the road. She would do the same with milk, cream, butter and cheese, as we always milked a lot of cows.When her real father, Carl Steen Olsen, died, he was brought to Ovid and buried in the cemetery beside his wife. The brothers gave Mother a large bouquet of ripe wheat tied with a white ribbon that had been given by the Iona Ward and placed on his casket. It was beautiful and Mother prized it very much. After the burial, the bouquet was put on our piano where it stayed for two or three years before the wheat began to shell out and it had to be discarded.
The large home we lived in was planned and built by Father and Mother. Mother prized her home and had many beautiful things in it. The weather was usually around 30 to 40 degrees below zero and in this cold house I can remember many a cold night in which I took a heated flat iron to bed to keep my feet warm.
At the time of her death, she had five girls and one boy. Roean, Golda, Ila, Earl Carlo, Bernice, and Dewean. Earl Carlo died at birth. Mother died when she was only 45 years old, leaving her baby girl a little over three years old. Her foster father, Niels Johnson, mourned her passing as much or more than he did his own children as she had always been so thoughtful of him. In his later days, whenever they went on a trip of any kind, he way always included. Mother died in the Montpelier Hospital from complications of pregnancy on August 20, 1921, and was buried at Ovid. At her funeral, the speakers spoke of her outstanding hospitable and charitable work among all that knew her. She was surely a wonderful Mother, and I, Roean, only hope that I can live worthy of going where she is when my time comes to leave this earth.
"You are a wonderful mother--Dear mother of mine--You hold a spot down deep in my heart--Till the stars no longer shine--Your soul will live on forever--On through the fields of time--But there'll never be--A mother to me--Like that wonderful mother of mine."
Amanda Olsen Family e-mail addresses
mailto:cgarrard@networld.com
