Daughter of Robert Sweeten & Amanda Hagle

Married Melvin Atkinson, 23 Aug 1899, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

History - A daughter’s personal reflections by Selina Fern Atkinson Willie

My mother was the fourth child in a family of eleven, the daughter of Robert Sweeten and Amanda Hagle. She was born 18 December 1873 at Mendon, Cache County, Utah, and blessed 2 April 1874 by Ralph Foster. On 16 July 1882 she was baptized by Walter Paul and confirmed the same day by John Donaldson. She graduated from district school at Mendon. She went to a rock school house with one teacher for all eight grades.

She and her sister, Martha, did all the milking of the cows even though their mother disapproved. But her father thought neither he nor his sons should milk after working in the field. One day she and her cousin, Maggie Murphy, were given the day off for a holiday. They decided they would go visit friends of theirs, the Gunnells, who had moved about four miles out of Mendon.

Maggie had no shoes and she persuaded Mother to take hers off too. They started out bare foot on this hot summer day, and after they had gone some distance they discovered that there were large green bugs on all the weeds. They were too scared to just walk, so they would run a ways so they could not see the bugs, and then stand still and rest. When they got to their friends there was no one home, and so they had to walk back again. Another time her mother bought her a hat at Wellsville. But when she got it home it wouldn't do, so mother got a friend, Ervin Gardner, to go with her and they walked to Wellsville and exchanged the hat.

The girls of her crowd knit their own stockings and their aim was to see who could get the most stripes and color in them. She remembers when the first tomatoes were grown in Mendon. No one would eat them as they were considered very poisonous.

An old tradition of the Mendon Ward and one of the big events in Mother's life was the Sunday School Christmas tree. All year a careful attendance record was kept of each child. At Christmas a small gift for each child was placed on the tree and all were given an opportunity to study the gifts. Then the child with the highest attendance record was allowed to take her first pick off the tree, next highest second pick, etc. The excitement ran high as they kept their eye on the gift of their choice, hoping no one would choose it before their turn came.

They spent their Sunday evenings gathering at each others homes, playing the organ and singing, and making honey and molasses candy.

She went two years at the A.C. (Agricultural College) in Logan. (Now the Utah State College) The one year they rented a small two-room house unfurnished. They brought with them a cook stove and the few things that were necessary, which did not include floor coverings. Their folks brought them supplies from time to time, which included wood to burn. They had no coal. Grandpa [Sweeten] took wheat to the bakery and received coupons which they turned in for bread. They used coal oil lamps.

That year Maggie, Hanna Baker, Mother, and her brother Gill
stayed together. They would have to build a fire in the mornings, and it was awfully cold walking to school in the wind which nearly always blew, and cold when they would get home until they could get the fire built.

Later she went to Logan to a dress making school run by a Mrs. Smythe. The main thing she learned was to put whale bones in the seams and put the bias velvet binding around the bottom of the long dresses.

After her sister Martha married and lived in Bountiful. Mother took her place as organist of the Sunday School. This was about 1893. Her brother, Rob, was chorister.

When the great Jubilee was held at Salt Lake City [1897], Grandpa Sweeten was one of the guests of honor and was sent a free ticket on the train. There was not enough money for the rest to go on the train, so he took Chloe (who was young enough to ride free) and went.

Grandma Sweeten borrowed a light spring wagon from William Willie, and because she was afraid of the high spirited horses, they drove the slow tame ones, and started for Salt Lake City. Mother, Alberta, and some of their girl friends went along and perhaps Gill was with them. It took two days to drive to Bountiful. They stopped in Ogden and bought a whip because the horses were so slow. They stayed with Martha in Bountiful, and would ride down each morning to Salt Lake City to the celebration which lasted a week. Duma was already in Bountiful working for Martha.

The thing Mother remembered best was the fireworks, and a large search light there was on a building, because it was the first she had seen. It was while attending this Jubilee that she met my father, Melvin Atkinson. Rob and his friends rode down from Mendon on bicycles. Roads then were plenty rough.

During the courtship of my parents, dances, house parties, and buggy rides were the main source of entertainment. At that time the men carried their dancing pumps in their pockets, putting them on at the dance. The orchestras were composed of clarinets, flutes, violins, cornets, and piano or organ.

They were married 23 August 1899 in the Salt Lake Temple. Her sister, Iduma, and Wallace Cragun were married the same time. That evening in Bountiful my Dad's mother, Selina Knighton Atkinson, had a dinner and party for them.

Two weeks later they loaded all their belongings into a lumber wagon and went to Curlew Valley where they pioneered with other members of her family. Two weeks earlier Dad and Martha Sweeten's husband, Heber Holbrook, went together and
filed for 160 acres of land in Curlew Valley under the Homestead Act. All of Mother's family homesteaded in the Curlew Valley in the very beginning. Later, two of Dad's brothers also homesteaded there.

The first two summers Melvin and Mame lived in their wagon box and tent. The fall of 1900 they built a two-room log house. When winter came on, Dad took Mother in to Mendon where on 12 December 1900 their first child was born, a daughter, Amanda Arlene.

Grandpa Sweeten had stayed in Holbrook to shingle the log house Melvin had just built, and celebrated his 60th birthday there on 14 December. The next spring, before Dad brought Mother out, Janus Nielsen chinked it for them.

In the fall of 1902 the first school was held with 13 pupils, and Mary Sweeten Atkinson was the first teacher.

On 19 July 1903 the first Relief Society was organized and Mother was a counselor. She served in the presidency of all the organizations through the years. She was in the stake primary presidency. Dad and Mother, together with Aunt Duma and Uncle Wallace, rendered a lot of service with their quartet. She also played the organ for meetings. In her young days she played the cornet.

All the Sweetens were very musical as were the Atkinsons.