Dad has told you some of the important events in our lives. He has missed some of the most important ones, to my way of thinking. But then he wouldn’t know too much about the first three of these because he was away when they happened. These events are the birth of our children. Uncle Sam and World War I took care of him being away when Glenna entered the world. My propensity of hurrying things to a finish and Frant’s being away with the sheep, where he couldn’t get home in less than a day’s time took care of the other two events.

In October 1918, Dad being in Europe, I decided to go to Mt. Carmel and visit my sister Edna Lamb and her family. I was at the time living in Orderville at the Esplin home. Vera was away teaching school. Grandma Esplin was visiting in Idaho and Dad’s sister Hattie and I were keeping the home fires burning in Orderville.

Edna had some ripe cantaloupes in her garden. They were the first I had tasted that year but by Thursday, October 3 I felt that I had eaten too many. Friday at four A.M., when I had to make the long trek to the ‘out house’, I felt different than I had before and began to wonder what was happening. By breakfast time I decided It was labor pains, mingled with the dysentery induced by the cantaloupe. By noon I decided I must get to Orderville where Aunt Harriet Bowers, the mid-wife, and all my clothes and things were.

Verdel was too young to drive a team and take me home. Os lamb had a car but he was at work on the road. Ed wasn’t home, so I waited longer until we could find someone to take me to Orderville. Of course, if there had been a big rush, we surely could have found someone. Finally Ray and Lucy Esplin came through in their car. They stopped up to Os’s place and Curtie told them I needed to get into town. They were very willing to take me. On the way up, they stopped at the Green for Ray to get something. While there I had a bad pain, Lucy immediately called for Ray to come and take me home then come back for what he wanted, which he did.

I asked Hattie when we got home if she would run down to Aunt Harriet. She wanted to milk her cow first so I consented to that but after she brought the milk in, she proceeded to strain it and take care of it and wash up things. She next changed her clothes and proceeded to get us help. Aunt Harriet told her it wasn’t time yet but that she would come down as soon as the folks came from the store to take care of her daughter Maria who was ill. She did ask Hattie to get Aunt Chastie to come and stay with me then she would be there to help her later on. Aunt Chastie had a little delay while she put supper on the table for her family and Loren Covington who was there.

Aunt Harriet had suggested that Aunt Chastie put me in a hot bath. She immediately drew the water but when she saw how bad the pains were decided not to. When we stopped to view the situation, we, or rather they, realized there was no stove in the room and we would need heat with a young baby. Again a messenger was sent to get Loren Covington to come and put up the big heater, which they did and managed to get out of the way just as things were getting complicated. It ended up with the stove pipe being very crooked but we didn’t have time for them to straighten it and Joseph had to play for the dance that night so couldn’t delay any longer.

At 11:30 P.M., without the aid of anesthetics of any kind, our baby girl, Glenna was born. Aunt Harriet had studied obstetrics and had delivered almost 1000 babies (I think she lived long enough to reach the 1000 mark). She was given a blessing from one of the Church authorities and was given the promise that if she would do her best and put her trust in the Lord at all times she would not lose a mother in child-birth and that blessing was literally fulfilled.

Dad and I selected the name of Alfa for our first girl. The name didn’t suit at all when she arrived and I wished I could talk to him and he could see how cute she was, and I was sure he would agree with me. I wrote him but didn’t get a reply until a great deal later. It was customary to name and bless babies at 8 days. The name Glenna was very much in the news because of a girl who had won honors swimming, I believe. It was a new name to our part of the country and we all liked it so she was given the name by her grandfather, John James Esplin, at our home. When I finally heard from Frant, he seemed glad of the name and glad we hadn’t given her the one we had decided on. By November 11, the day she should have been born, she was five weeks old and we took her to the town square where they burned Kaiser Bill in effigy at the close of the War.