Journal, 1910-1906

File — Box: 4, Volume: 1

Identifier: III

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This journal begins when Mary is eleven years old. On the first blank page in the front of the book Mary has written this dated January 1949:
"First I will say that the journal or diary writing habit was inculcated in the lives of his children by Utah pioneer John E. Bennion. His son Heber passed it on to his children. When we were given little black bound note books one Christmas, our father instructed us in their use. He said we should write in them every day, all the work we did. As we had been trained from babyhood to blind obedience to his every word, we automatically and mechanically carried out his instructions. Thus our diaries were reasonable facsimiles of his and his father's. All the most important incidents of our lives thus, live on in our memories. Our journals might be those of any of thousands of orthodox members of the Mormon Church. We didn't even record the fact that our father was a polygamist, with three wives, - our mother the first one; or that we had, throughout the years acquired eight half brothers and sisters; even though these facts conditioned our lives more than anything else that has ever happened to any of us. Births, deaths, marriages, riches, poverty, sickness, war, depression, all these things put together do not count at all, on our struggle for happiness, when compared to the fact that father was a polygamist."
Mary's bitterness and resentment in later years is totally absent from her early journals, the first of which begins:
1901
"Papa has a large farm with a lot of trees. We have 14 cows to milk. I have three pet lambs. One is blind in one eye. Heber [her older brother] has three lambs too... I have three brothers and three sisters. I am eleven years old and am in the fourth grade...Papa is the bishop of this ward."
On the following page she lists the birth dates of her siblings and in a different ink, some time later, she has added their marriage dates plus the birth dates of her half brothers and sisters, the children of her father and Mayme Bringhurst.
April 19
"Did chores and went to school... when I came home I milked. President George Cannon died last Monday at one o'clock in the morning. Lucile and I went to town the day he was buried which was Wednesday. We did not have any school that day. There was about sixty carrages. President Cannon had thirty-two children and fourty one grandchildren"
In the margin she has added:
"Mother said Susie [first child of Heber and his third wife Mayme] was born ten months after father married Mayme Bringhurst, so the wedding must have been on April 19, 1901 or near that date."
Mary along with the rest of the family, worked hard to keep the farm going--the animals taken care of and the household chores done.
June 13
"I got up at five o'clock this morning and made a fire. Then I milked four cows and fed the chickens before Heber got up. After breakfast I herded the cows and horses. I fed the lambs and tended Rulon [Mary's infant brother] Charly Morris said he would give me a little duck that he had. Lucile and I did the dinner dishes. We herded the stock till choretime. Then did the chores. Heber killed a wild rabit."
June 24
"I milked one cow. A man came buying old rubber. We sold fifteen cents worth. My share was a nickel. I made a rice pudding. Herd cows and horses. Then I mowed a little while. Heber found a birds nest and a nest of mice in the lucern. The mice got killed with the mower. Then I did my chores.
1902
February 1
"I thought it would be of little use to write my journal for the last two months because I did the same thing nearly everyday"
September 29
"I pealed pears for preserves and stayed with Mama. She has been sick for about a week. Emma Jane Webster [Heber's second wife] called in to see how she was. Emma Jane is teaching school here in West Taylorsville. I do not go to school this year."
November 29
"Cleaned up the kitchen, went upstairs and made Christmas presents and then came down and had a row with Ethel & Heber"
Mary has inserted much later in the margin--
"Here Heber takes over to tell the whole, the awful truth MBP" This is most likely about their father's polygamy.
December 18
"Papa sent for a horse doctor from town to see what was the matter with Washakee, but he said the best thing we could do would be to shoot him."
Later Mary has added in the margin:
"I was too tender-hearted to record that Heber was made Washakee's executioner MBP 1950"
August 30
"In the evening we were sitting around the fire and George, Lester and Tom came running up and said they saw a bear down the creek. In the night a mouse ran across Ad's pillow and woke her up and Ethel screamed and woke the rest of us up. In a little while one of the horses put its head in the window and some of us thought it was a bear. At last I heard a noise just like a bear growling, and Ellen was awake too, and we were so scared we didn't know what to do but a last we found out it was a mouse running around in the banjo. But anyway we got a quilt and slept in the wagon the rest of the night."
1903
September 3
"Papa has gone to Mexico for his health. He has had the rhuematism so bad that he has had to use a crutch."
She has underlined and checked the world "health" as if to imply that perhaps he went to Mexico for other reasons.
1904
September
"About conference time we had a Bennion Reunion at the meeting house. There was a large crowd."
1905
March 8
"Went to school and on the way heard of the terrible explosion in the Granger Meeting House...Nellie Mackay was killed while singing a song. About fifteen or twenty others were injured. The pulpit was blown up thro the ceiling, and the roof was lifted from its fastenings. Mama and Papa went to see the place today."
1906
March
"Now that the small pox is somewhat subsiding diptheria is beginning to spread around the ward. On Friday 16th we had an elders and seventies reunion. It consisted of a program, picnic and a dance. We had a very nice time."

Dates

1910-1906

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