Autobiography of Clarissa Wilhelm

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==Autobiography of [[Clarissa Harden|Clarissa Wilhelm]]== 


*Born: February 26, 1820 in Perrysburg, Cattaraugus County, New York 
*Died: February 17, 1901 in Orderville, Kane County, Utah 
*Buried in the Orderville Town Cemetery 


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==February 12, 1888== 

From my recollections I will pen a few incidents of my life.
 
I was the daughter of Miller Harden and Elizabeth Tabor; the granddaughter of James and Mary Harden, and Amiziah and Silence (Wilcox) Tabor. 

My father had three brothers and three sisters.  His brothers’ names were James, Daniel, and Archibald.  The names of his sisters were Amy, Mahitable, and Mary.

My mother had four brothers and three sisters. The names of the brothers were Wing, Return, George, and William.  The names of her sisters were Clarissa, Mary, and Silence. 

My grandfather died somewhere in the state of [[New York]].  My Grandmother Harden died in [[Cattaraugus County, New York|Cattaraugus County]], the town of [[Perrysburg, New York|Perrysburg]]. 

My Grandfather and Grandmother Tabor died in the county of [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga]] in the town of [[Scipio, New York|Sipes]].  My Uncle Archibald Harden died in the state of [[Ohio]], and so did my uncles Daniel and James Harden.  My Aunt Amy Bowken and her husband died in the county of [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga]] in the town of [[Locke, New York|Loch]].  My Aunt Mahitable and Aunt Mary moved to Canada and I do not know what became of them.  My Uncle Wing and his wife died in the town of [[Moravia, New York|Moriva]], [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga County]], [[New York]].  My Aunt Clarissa died in the town of [[Ledyard, New York|Ledge]], [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga County]].  My Aunt Silence died at G_____, [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga County]].  My Uncle George died in the town of [[Scipio, New York|Sipes]].  My mother and father died in [[Indiana]].
 

I was born in the town of [[Perrysburg, New York|Perrysburg]], [[Cattaraugus County, New York|Cattaraugus County]], [[New York]], in the year [[1820]], [[February 26]].  The first seven years of my life were spent where I was born which is more familiar than what took place yesterday.  The Cattaraugus Indian village was seven miles from my father's.  There were ten children of us.  (14 all together)  Henry, Silence, Mary, Clarissa, William, Abram, Philura, Sarah, Lucretia, and Lovina.  In [[1827]] my father moved to the county of [[Chautauqua County, New York|Cataugua]], the town of [[Ellery, New York|Elery]].  My mother had two children born there, Lucretia and Lovina.  My mother lost four children in the town of [[Perrysburg, New York|Perrysburg]] making her number fourteen. 

My oldest brother Henry, left home about the year 1830 and went to the state of Ohio and married a girl by the name of Lovinia Harding.  He never came back.  My mother and father and oldest sister went to the state of Ohio once to visit our friends there. 

The country was very new in those days.  It was very primitive.  There was a path through the forest from one neighbor to the other.  If we did not look sharp we would get lost. We used to have lots of fun gathering beechnuts and making maple sugar.  We knew no trouble then, rambling through the woods, climbing trees, tearing our clothes and making mud pies.  We had to go about a mile to school.  The country was not very thickly settled then.  We grew up children of nature.  We knew nothing of corsets and bustles.  The children these days are different. 

We lived in [[Ellery, New York|Elery]] about seven years.  Then we moved to the eastern part of the state of [[New York]] in 1834.  We stopped in the town of [[Locke, New York|Loch]] for about one year.  I commenced then to work from home to earn my own clothes.  We moved from [[Locke, New York|Loch]] to [[Summerhill, New York|Summerhill]], a town about four miles from [[Locke, New York|Loch]].  We did not live in [[Summerhill, New York|Summerhill]] or Summerville more than two years.  While in Summerville I joined the Methodists.  It was there my two sisters Mary and Silence left to go to the state of [[Ohio]].  The next place we moved was to the town of [[Venice, New York|Venice]]. 

Twas there I got acquainted with a young man by the name of [[John Benjamin Williams|John B. Williams]].  He was the son of [[John Andrew Williams (Johann Andreas Wilhelm)|John Francis Williams]] and [[Mercy Farrington|Mercy Williams]].  He had two sisters and three brothers.  The names of his sisters were Betsy and Sarah.  The names of his brothers were [[Silvester Williams|Silvester]], [[Daniel Williams|Daniel]], and [[Martin Williams|Martin]].  I was married in the year [[1838]] to John and we settled in [[Venice, New York|Venice]] about a mile from his brothers and about the same distance from my brothers.  I had a son born in [[1840]] and we named him [[James Return Williams|James Return]]. 

In 1841 my father moved to the state of Indiana.   My brother William got married about that time to Ellen Heath.  She lived to have one child and died in child bed.  The baby was still born.  My brother lived single about a year then married his wife’s cousin. 

In 1842 I had a [[Susan Clarissa Williams|daughter]] born April 20th.  About this time my husband’s father died.  He had been sick about seven years.  He had the asthma.  About this time Mormonism cane along.  An elder by the name of Paltine Brown preached on the other side of Wasco Lake.  It was about eleven miles from where we lived.  We went around the lake to visit some friends one Sunday and went to meeting to hear the Mormon preach.  It was when my second child was six weeks old.  We went to meeting and believed the gospel but did not obey it as my husband’s sister, Sarah did.  We went home but did not feel that we had done right.  Our baby took sick and lay thus until we made up our minds to obey the Gospel, then she got better.  Then we went again to meeting and was baptized by Brother Shearron and his son, Norman [[July 4]], [[1842]].  We went home feeling that the spirit of the Lord went with us.  Then we began to have the spirit of gathering.  Before the Gospel came we felt that we would live and die on the little place we had, when we went to keeping house.  If anybody had told me that I should leave that place I would have felt bad.  But now we began to lay our plans to go to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]].  We had to spin and weave all our own clothes for the summer and winter including table linen, towels, and grain sacks.  We dried our own fruit and had enough surplus butter from our cow to buy some store goods.  In those days children went barefoot from the time they were born until they were grown.  I remember going places, carrying my shoes.  When I would get almost there I would put my shoes on. We lived on coarse foods and lots of sunshine.  I do not remember any epidemic of whooping cough or measles when I was a young woman. 

Well we still kept making preparations to go to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]].  My husband and his brother Martin, were in partnership with two farms and there was no sale for land then, so we had to stay awhile longer.  In [[1843]] we had another [[Bateman Haight Williams|son]], [[November 14|Nov, 14]]; we named him after Bateman Haight.  Still we couldn’t sell our farm so we gathered up what money we could to take us to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]], and left our farm, horses, cattle, and sheep, and hogs.  We went leaving all behind.  Daniel and Martin took the freight and Aunt Sarah to the canal.  We followed in a buggy to Gettysburg, to the Erie Canal.  From Buffalo we went to Cleveland, Ohio, thence to Portsmouth, where we took a steamer on the Ohio River.  The river was so low we were on the sandbar half the time.  My daughter Susan took sick with a bowel complaint and come near dying.  We came to St. Louis and took a steamer out to the Mississippi River getting to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]] the first of October, after Joseph's and Hiram’s deaths.  On the road before we got into town we were often stopped and ask why we wanted to go to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]] -- that Joseph Smith was dead.  When we got to [[Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo]] we stayed first at Isaac Haight’s.  The next morning we went to Bateman Haight’s.  My little girl was no better.  I did not know what to do.  She wanted to drink all the time.  I took some cottonwood coals and put them in a bowl of water for her to drink during the night.  On the morning I tasted it and it tasted like lye.  I thought I had killed her, but she began to get better. 

In a few days we got to the house of Daniel Spencer.  We lived there till spring when we moved out to the Spencer farm seven miles out on the Lahamp road.

We stayed on the farm one year and then the mob began to howl around.  The Temple was finished so that the Saints began to go in and get their endowments.  We could see the mob fires every night.  They fired houses and haystacks.  My health was very poor all the time I was in Hancock County.  I had chills till I gave up that I would ever get better, but I over powered this feeling and got well.  We moved back to town in the winter of ‘46.  We went to the Temple and got our endowments.  We had left the corn in the fields and potatoes in the pit out on the farm.  The mob kept prowling around all the time.  It finally got so we couldn't stay any longer.  Hiram and Claudius Spencer went back to Massachusetts to settle business.  When they came back they stopped with us until we got ready to cross the plains. 

There was a great deal of confusion with the brethren crossing the river to the Mormon Camp on the other side.  I had a daughter born that spring May 25th.  A month later we crossed the river and camped at Jack Oak Grove.  Our company consisted of Hiram and Claudius Spencer, James Bullock, Brother Bevins, Brother Edgeston, Bateman Haight, John Carlen, and Brother Richmond.  We camped a few days, then moved on.  There was a great deal of stock to drive.  My children all had whooping cough.  There was not one of them could sit up in the wagon.  We traveled on, stopping sometimes to build bridges, then going on.  Hiram Spencer took sick and died.  We took him to Pisgy and buried him there.  We traveled on to the [[Council Bluffs, Iowa|Bluffs]] to find Sister Henderson dead; also Mary Spencer.  They both died in child bed.  We moved to what was called the big camp and stopped there a few weeks.  The men went to hunt a place for winter quarters.  They found a place on the Mosuna River and we commenced to move.  There were five wagons to go first.  Ours was one of them.  The men all went up the river to get logs to build houses.  They made rafts and rafted the logs down the river.  We built quite a town.  Some lived there a year and then went on to Salt Lake.  Others stayed two years, then broke up the place.  Most of them went to Salt Lake.  Others left to go to different places.  We went to Missouri.  There was a man by the name of Parley came up the river to find me to go down to Western Missouri to work, so we went as we did not have a team to take us to the Valley.  We went to Mosquito Creek, and then to Missouri.  I had a son born at Mosquito Creek.  We named him [[John Benjamin Williams, Jr.|John]].  In the fall, we were in St. Joseph.  We visited my husband’s [[Sarah Williams|sister]].  While living in Winter Quarters, I took the Black Scurvy and was a cripple for nine months.  I sometimes have to go back and write things I forgot. 

After making a visit at St. Joseph, we went to [[Weston, Missouri|Weston]], a little town on the River.  We went to keep boarding house for Ben Halliday to board men to cut cord wood for the steam boats. My husband’s health had always been bad.  Now he grew more feeble.  After a time I took in sewing for the stores and anyone who wanted work done.  My husband still grew worse.  He was just able to sit up.  We then moved to a little house about a mile from Riatto.  There my boy John, took sick and died of dropsy.  He was sixteen months old.  On [[June 12]], I had a daughter.  We called her [[Elizabeth Mercy Williams|Elizabeth Murcy]].  She only lived seven months.  We took her to the same place to bury her.  My husband' s cough still grew worse.  I began to feel that I did not have any friends.  I was hundreds of miles from my relatives, children dying, and my husband likely to die and me in a strange land among Gentiles, but I must say they were very kind to me.  I never saw people more kind.  They got it into their heads that he was a Mason.  In the month of [[March 8|March, (the 8th)]] [[1851]], my husband died.  The people were kind; they got the coffin made and everything done and never said pay to me.  Then they brought in donations from every house.  They even hauled wood and chopped it.  My husband and two children were buried in [[Weston, Missouri|Weston]]. 

There was a train of goods going to Salt Lake.  Daniel Spencer wrote to Ben Halliday to bring us to Salt Lake so we began to get ready.  We left on the [[April 18|18th day of April]].  We crossed the Missouri River with John Brown, a Gentile.  While we were crossing the river, I felt very bad, I almost wished the boat would sink.  There was one other woman besides me in the train.  She and her husband, Largas Wilson, traveled with us.  There were five Mormon boys, the rest were Gentiles.  We camped at Fort Leavenworth a week and then went on.  I was put to cook for three men and my children, the captain, wagon master, and a servant boy.  I could have not been treated better if I had been the Queen of England.  The company was divided up in groups of twelve to cook for. 

We had heavy storms on the road, rain and hail.  When we got to Lavina the provisions began to get short.  We had started with 30 hundred sacks of flour and we had but four left.  We got six more sacks of flour and a barrel of hard bread so we went on rations, the same as government soldiers.  Mine held out so I had enough all the time but some went hungry for the cooks wasted so much.  We traveled with mules so we made good headway.  We did not stop for noon the last day.  I still felt bad.  I did not know where to go when I got to Salt Lake.  Just before we got to the city Ben Halliday said he wanted me to go on cooking for him and his men.  He would hire Wilson and his wife to help me. 

We got to the [[Salt Lake City, Utah|City]] before sundown the [[June 27|27th of June]] [[1851]].  After a few days Brother Spencer stopped and asked Mr. Halliday how much the bill was for bringing me to Utah.  Mr. Halliday said, “Nothing, because she worked hard and helped me save provisions.”  After awhile Wilson and his wife left and they hired Isaac Haight’s second wife to help me.  She stayed awhile and ran away with a Gentile.  About this time Halliday was leaving for California.  He rented me a house and I moved into the 12th Ward.  He told me to go to the store for what I wanted.  I did washing for the clerks of the store so I got along fine.  I bought me a cow and paid $28 on a step-stove.  My brother-in-law, William Nelson, lived in Provo.  He married my husband's sister.  My oldest son went to live with them for awhile. 

Because I found it hard to get wood and a few other things I thought to better myself by marrying a man whose name was David Lewis.  He promised me to be a good father to my children but he was not.  My oldest daughter went to live with Sanford Bingham’s family, and my son, Bateman, and daughter Ellen went to live at Hector Haight’s.  I had a baby born October 12th.  We named her Francis Lovina.  I went on washing for the store hands.  My other children were kicked from pillar to post.  Finally I decided to get them home and run my own shebang. 

I bought a lot in the 8th Ward and got lumber to build a house.  I paid for my lot in quilts, blankets, and store goods.  While brother Boggs was building my house my cow died.  She got at a beet pile and foundered.  My son James came home and made adobes to line my new house to make it more comfortable.  I had a fine house, and garden.  After it was done Bateman hired out to Shelton Cutters and James went to Anderson's in Cottonwood.  Hector Haight gave me a cow. 

When the soldiers came to Echo Canyon we moved to Provo.  My daughter Susan was married to Samuel Snyder May 6, 1856.  I had not moved from Provo when the rest did.  My son James went to Goshen to his Uncle William Nelson.  I heard about this time of the death of Mr. Lewis in Parowan.  I kept house for Jacob Terry.  His wife had died and left him with a family.  After awhile I married him, was sold out in Provo, and moved to Spanish Fork.

My son James made up his mind to go to the States-East.  That was a hard trial to me.  We moved to Springville about this time.  I was very miserable with rheumatism.  From Springville we were called to Dixie.  The Drapers, Terrys, and Greens were called.  We started the 1st of December.  We had a pretty cold time of it on the road.  We got to Toquerville in February.  We camped on the Laverkin Creek.  We had quite a time deciding where to build our settlement.  We considered St. George and Grafton.  We finally chose a site near William Crawford's on the Virgin River.  We marked out lots and started to build log cabins, plant trees, cotton, and grapes.  Bateman, Ellen, and Francis were with me.  I had several letters from James back East.  He said he was coming home but first he was going to stop and work on a place caned Springhill Station for about six weeks or two months.  That was the last I ever heard from him.  There was a story that he was murdered but I could never find head nor tail of the story. 

We built us a small log cabin and I went to work to spin and weave our clothes.  The factory was not yet built.  The grapes came on, the fruit trees matured and the years passed on.  My daughter Francis grew to be a fine young lady.  William Crawford fell in love with her and she was promised to him on a Sunday.  The following Wednesday William made a trip to Salt Lake.  Soon after he left Francis took sick with Scarlet Fever.  She was sick nine days and died.  William returned and was heart broken over her death.  I felt beside myself.  I was like Rachel who mourned for her child and could not be comforted. 

While Francis lay dead awaiting the funeral, Bateman and his wife Lydia Draper had a son (June 27, 1865), They named him Bateman. 

Mr. Terry's son Jacob was married that summer to a girl by the name of Mary Ann Jace (Grace).  Soon after we got to Dixie my daughter Ellen had married to William L. Draper. 

In the fall after my daughter died we went up to the City.  I went to see my daughter Susan.  She had just lost her little son.  She was in great trouble.  He was such a smart little fellow.  His name was Joseph.  She had a little girl left whose name was Susan Amelia. When I made my visit in Salt Lake I rented a room of old Brother L (D) ayton and moved into it.  I had rheumatism so bad I was on crutches.  I got some medicine from a man that cured me for awhile.  In the meantime my daughter Susan's husband died and she came to live with me in 1867.  We went back to Dixie.  I was heartsick for everything came back to me as fresh as ever.  I could not see a thing about the house but what it made me think of my darling child.  My daughter and her sweet child Amelia helped to fill the vacancy. 

About this time Mr. Terry was called on a mission to the States.  Before he left he took another wife by the name of Ellen Read.  She wasn’t very bright but she helped me a lot with a great deal of weaving we had to do. 

At this time Mariah Terry married Daniel Funck.  I was on my way to the City when I received the news of William’s death.  He and Nathan were working for a James Manwell and a falling tree had instantly killed William. 

I lived in Dixie about twelve years.  During this time Bateman had two children (Bateman and Isora).  He wanted us to move to Long Valley.  At this time my daughter Susan married Nathan Terry.  He left her and she had a daughter we named her Clarissa Amy. 

When we moved to Mt. Carmel I took my cows out of the canyon herd and moved them too.  Lydia was at Rockville where she gave birth to her third child, George.  Then she moved to Long Valley.  The first Summer I went to the Meadows to make butter and cheese.  We moved our ranch over a mountain, to another ranch Bateman had given up.  When winter set in we moved to town.  We had no home so we hired an Indian to help us and we fixed a dugout.  Soon all the brethren turned in and helped and the result seemed a palace to us.  Some of our most pleasant days were spent here. 

The next spring Susan and I went to Cattle Ranch and took cows and made butter and cheese.  The men stayed long enough to make a corral then they went back to put in the crops.  We had a boy to herd the cows.  He was about fourteen.  It turned real cold.  Susan and the chore boy decided to make a dugout.  All they took was a broken spade and a fire shovel.  They fixed a fire place and went to the mountainside to cut timber to cover it with.  We got all the willows we could find, then gathered pine bows to finish it with.  By this time they were very tired.  I was feeling quite fresh so I went to work to help cover it.  I took cheese whey and made mortar and plastered it all over the top.  Then we put on dry dirt so it would not leak.  The next thing to do was to build a chimney.  I told them I could make one if they would help me roll stones down the mountain.  I built one that I think must stand to this day. 
	
After awhile Bateman came out and found us in our new home.  We had two beds, a table, chairs, stove, and cupboard and the rest of our dunnage.  We made a door with a quilt and some poles.  Bateman and I went to Panguitch and got a load of lumber for a cheese house and milk house.  I stayed at the dairy till it was late fall and so cold we couldn’t stand it no longer.  The teams came after us.  We left a colt and most of the stock.  The snow fell so deep that winter that most of the stock died.  I never saw the colt again and but two horses.
 
By this time the United Order was being talked about.  The next spring they began to join.  I believe I was the first woman to put my name to it. That spring there were preparations to go to the ranch again to make butter and cheese.  Briant Jolly was put in as president of the dairy.  I think we started for the dairy the first of April, but the snow was so deep we had to turn back for awhile.  Then we started again with the cows and all the utensils for business.  Terry Allen and A. Jolly went along to help.  I went back a bit later for some more pans.  I started with a boy and a band of horses.  I had no saddle on my horse and it shied at the rattling pans.  I jumped off and the horse stepped on my leg.  It hurt very much and the accident held me up a day or two.  When I got to the dairy things went on for awhile, then there came a split and Briant Jolly went to himself.  Brother Robert Brown was president of the ranch.  A bishop by the name of Howard Spencer was sent down for the Order.  They began to talk of settling three miles up the valley.  I stayed at the ranch that summer with my grand-daughter and Tena Allen.  My daughter Susan came up in June and stayed the rest of the summer.  In the fall we went down to the City with butter to sell for goods.  I took butter to Sister Snyder's and made it into rolls.  With it I bought the first goods ever bought for the Order. 

On the way home a wheel broke in Provo.  We stayed at William Nelson's until it was mended.  We had to leave the corn sheller and the strawcutter.  When we got home we took the goods to Brother Heaton's to sell to the Order Folks. 

In 1874 my son Bateman and his wife Grace, and my daughter Susan moved up the river to a new settlement named Orderville.  Brother Brown went with them but did not take his family.  I moved in with Sister Gillespie till it came time for me to go to the dairy.  My daughter Susan, Amy Haight, Lottie Claridge, and Terry Allen went too and Tarry didn't stay long.  Tom Stalworthy and Jess Dillingby looked after the stock.  My grand-daughter Amelia was there for she was always with me where ever I went.  Brother and Sister Harmon stopped with us that summer and Sister Claridge came for a time too.  We had a good time that summer. 

I was called to go down and look after the sick.  Sister Fackerel was very sick.  Willy Heston came to the dairy for me.  We started back about dark on two mules.  We had a time of it.  We had to trust to the mules to keep on the trail.  My saddle turned and I went over my head.  Then my mule went off aways.  Willy finally got my mule and traveled on.  We found Sister Fackerel very sick.  I stayed with her for awhile then I went back to the ranch.  That summer Sister Heaton stopped at the ranch for her health.  She was so ailing we had to take her to the Valley.  The morning we left to take her I took with the [[collerymorbus]].  I fainted and felt very sick.  During the summer, we had quite a bit of company.  Joseph A. Young and John R. Young, also Brother Spencer.  They were pleased with the dairy. 

We moved down in the fall and Lottie went to live at Joseph Young's place.  We moved into Sister Gillespie's house.  I did a great deal of weaving that winter for the Order.  Sister Heaton died in Salt Lake that winter.  The next spring, we went to our meadow dairy and stayed about a month.  Susan, Tena, and Tom Stalworthy and I made a good deal of cheese (out under the trees).  There were Chris Heaton, and Maggy, my daughter Susan and her two girls, Tena and Tom Stalworthy and me.  We stayed till about the last of June. 

About this time, my daughter Susan consented to marry Brother Heaton.  We all went to the City.  We visited his two sisters and brother on the way.  We were in the City on the 24th of July.  Susan was married and they went back to the Order.  I stayed in the City because the President said he wanted to see me.  He wanted me to keep house for his daughter Alice's children.  Sister Mary Ann Young boarded with us.  She was Brigham Young's first wife.  I stayed there three months, then went to take care of Franklin Richard’s wife Laura Snyder. 

In April 1876, I went back to Orderville with Brother Hoyt.  That spring, Brother Heaton, Susan, Alvin, Bateman, Grace, and [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] all went to the City.  Brother Heaton went to the doctor.  His health was failing.  Amelia went to see her half sisters in Panguitch.  While they were gone Clarissa, Francis, and Marion stayed with me.  My health was poor.  I had [[collerymorbus]] all the time.  Brother Spencer asked me to oversee the making of some more butter at the ranch.  Anthony Blackburn, Chris Heaton, Maggy, Tena, and Ann McConnel went.  I returned to Orderville early because Brother Heaton died.  I returned to the dairy after his burial.  We made about six hundred pounds of butter.  That fall Bateman went to Arizona.  He liked it very much. 

The next spring, Brother Fackerel took over the Meadow Dairy, and Brother Hoyt took over the Hoyt Dairy, but I didn't go to either.  I had a chance to go to Panguitch with Heber Clayton.  I visited the Youngs and Littles.  Susan came for awhile, also Amelia.  We were able to get some good flannel for dresses.  From there I went to upper Kanab for ten days to teach some people how to make cheese for the factory.  I returned to Orderville with Sisters Frost, Olliphand, and Ford. 

Brother Snow came through that winter.  I decided to go to Arizona to a farm Bateman was to have.  William Maxfield, Brother Lundquist, and Brother Johnson went.  We started December 11, stopping the first night at Glendale.  Five miles out of Glendale the next day, Brother Maxwell broke down and had to go back to Glendale.  We did not make very good progress.  We spent Christmas Eve on the road in six inches of snow.  One of our horses was stolen.  I did most of the cooking.  We lost part of our cows.  They wandered away or were stolen.  We had to kill one for food.  We camped many times before we reached our destination near Concho.  We arrived on my birthday, 26th of February 1880.  After getting settled, I went to Round Valley to Brother Maxwell's.  His wife was about to be confined.  A Gentile woman was living in part of the house.  She wanted me to take care of her too.  Their confinements were ten days apart.  They both came through fine.  Charlie Riggs’ wife had a baby about this time.  Also Grace.  I helped Bateman put in his garden but I took sick and had to go to bed.  I was administered to and recovered.  I went with Bateman to Snowflake to get a load of lumber, stopping off in Woodruff to take care of Sister Greer.  I stayed about six weeks.  Then Jacob Hamblin came along on his way to Utah.  I went with him and the Everett and Shumway families went along.  We got to Johnson.  It was very cold.  There was a man there going to Glendale so I asked him to take me.  I walked part of the way to get to Orderville.
 
I had a good visit.  I waited on Sister Esplin.  She named the baby after me, Clarissa.  I spent the winter in Orderville.  In the spring I went to Rockville.  Here the sister of Bateman's first wife Lydia took sick and both she and her little girl died.  Soon after, [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] came for his mother, Lydia.  We had to wait till quite late In the summer because of high water.  We got as far as Kanab and I had to leave part of my things with Jacob Hamblin because the load was too heavy.  We stayed for Conference.  Susan came from Orderville to attend Conference.  
It rained on us most of the way to Arizona. We had a hard time finding dry wood.  One morning all we could find were a few weeds.  I lit them under a ledge of rock and got breakfast.  The cattle were uneasy every night, but we did not lose many.
 
We got to a town named Joseph in Arizona and I left my things with a family named Greer and went to Concho to find a house.  I found a house and started back on the mare.  I decided on a short cut and got lost.  I rode into a grove of cedars and got off my horse and tied my pocket handkerchief on the saddle horn.  I tried to send her back to town but she wouldn't go.  It was a good thing she didn’t.  Her real home was in Woodruff and she might have even gone there.  I found a wagon track and tried to follow it.  It got so dark I had to feel my way.  The mare had its colt with it.  When the colt would lie down, I would let it rest awhile, then I would drive it up and lie down where it had been so I could get warm.  I spent a lonely night.  I asked the Lord to direct me.  In the morning I went over the hill and saw a small town.  I stopped and gazed a long time.  I was so bewildered and tired I didn't recognize it.  Finally I realized that it was Concho, the very town I had left the day before.  I went into town and after eating and resting I started again, but didn't take any short cuts.
 
After I settled in Concho, Bateman wanted me to make cheese in the mountains near Malipies.  We bought the equipment and started for the ranch which he was going to homestead.  We found some Mexicans there.  They made trouble for us and the matter went to court.  We won the suit.  After Bateman got lumber for buildings he moved Lydia up.  We soon went to making cheese but the rainy season set in and the Indians got so bad we decided to move back.  We had an awful time.  It rained solid sheets.  We got stuck and drenched.  I decided to walk to the Malipies.  I was as near dead as alive.  [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] went for help but it was several days before we reached Concho.
 
A new town sprung up near Concho.  They named it Erastus.  I went there and helped Brother Adair make cheese.  Then I went to the molasses mill.  I stopped with Wilson Shumway.  I bought two horses from Mexicans, and resold them to keep a little money.  I took in a Mexican girl and taught her English.  The same fall I was put in President of the Primary with two Sisters Johnson for my counselors.
 
There was talk of a coop store.  I was appointed to sell goods.  Before the store was built I had goods in my house.  One night a flood came and I woke to find one corner of my house lowering and the stream going through.  I ran to the door and screamed.  Some of my neighbors heard me and came to my rescue.  I had to live in the schoolhouse until I could arrange for another house.  Bateman came up and found another house for me.  We fixed it up with more lumber so it would be sturdy.  Brother Adair moved to Long Valley and Bateman moved into Adair's place.  I was helping with the store all the while.  Grace had a little girl, born in April and named her Mary.
 
By this time the officers started to hunt for men with more than one wife.  Bateman and four others were arrested, but Bateman got away.  The four others went to prison.  Bateman and Grace went to old Mexico.  Brother Johnson left for the same place so that left me with the store on my hands. 

The next two years were not eventful.  I was counselor in Relief Society, then I decided to go to the Temple and do some work.  I got [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] to take me.  We started on the 12th of November in company with Joseph Rogers and his wife.  We stopped in Orderville to visit Susan.  She decided to go with us.  Rogers decided to go to Dixie.  We had a stormy time going North.  The divide was not bad but the roads near Ephriam were awful.  We went to the Salt Lake Temple and the St. George Temple that winter.  We spent New Years at James Terry's near Clear Creek, on the way to St. George.
 
Early in February my health was so poor I decided to sell my possessions in Arizona and move to Orderville.  I arrived at my Arizona home the 22nd of February.  The store was getting along fine.  I stayed until [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] harvested his summer crops, then I prepared to leave.  The day before I left the townspeople turned out and gave me a farewell party.  We left for Utah November 6th.  We went to Woodruff, where we stopped with Eddy Webs.  Then we went to Winslow.  Near Winslow we saw several trains go by.  We bought a barrel of water and some nose sacks and proceeded through the San Francisco and Moencopi Washes then to Willow Springs and Bitter Springs.  We had our first storm at Soap Creek.  We slipped off the road at Kanab and broke the wagon.  [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] had to go for help.  Near Mt. Carmel, we met Charley and Amelia with a wagon.  They had Fred Carroll with them.  They turned back with us.  I went to their place.  They had to carry me to the house.  I had a bad night.  Next day Charley and [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] went back to the dugway where the wagon had tipped and gathered up things.  Charley got back about noon.  There wasn't so much broke, just the stove.  I soon got better and went to Conference.  On the 21st day of March [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] went to Arizona.
 
The balance of this good woman's autobiography is a day by day recitation of the weather and other uneventful happenings.

[[Category:Autobiographies|Wilhelm, Clarissa]]