Ellen Morris Marriott
Autobiography dictated 1959

I was born on December 14, 1868 in Marriott, Weber County, Utah, in a four-room adobe house. In those days, most houses were one-room log cabins. People in our community said they thought William Morris, my father, was going to have another wife, because he built such a large house. My mother was Elizabeth Russell Hamblin. Mother was married first to Duane Hamblin, son of Jacob Hamblin the Indian Missionary, who was killed in Dixie shortly after their marriage. Mother and Duane Hamblin had one daughter, Duane Hamblin, who was named after her father. When my mother married my father, he had just previously lost his wife, Harriet Evans, and five children with diphtheria. There were two small children whom my mother raised. My father never married again after this.

I had two sisters and three brothers, Elizabeth, Catherine, William Jr., John and James. Elizabeth, my oldest sister, whom we always called "Liz", died at the age of fifteen. She was a beautiful girl with long golden hair. When we discovered that Liz had black small pox, the family moved to a vacant house where all of us had to sleep on the floor. Liz was taken care of by a man who previously had the small pox. No one was allowed to see Liz after she died. My mother worried about how Liz's hair was fixed and if everything was done perfectly. For nights she was unable to sleep.

One night, she had a dream and two personages appeared to her - one was Liz and the other a tall woman. The tall woman said that she was President Farr's twin daughter. President Farr's daughter spoke to mother and said, "All is well with Liz, I am taking care of her, she is with me". After that, we all felt relieved and mother could sleep. Mother went to President Farr and asked him if he had a twin daughter. President Farr told mother that he had a twin daughter who died when she was a baby.

William Jr., my oldest brother, died at the age of 23 with typhoid fever. No one else in the family caught it from him. "Will" as everyone called him, was a very brilliant boy. He graduated from the University of Utah and taught school.

When I was very young, I walked to school. It was a mile and one-half to the Marriott School. The snow was so deep and packed so solid, that I could walk right over the top of the fences. I was a very ardent student. In order to stay at the head of my class, I would stay up late at night to study my spelling. We would have spelling matches, and I could spell them all down. I was very good at reading and my penmanship was excellent. I won a contest in reading and was promoted to the next grade where all the children were older and larger than I was. Most of the children resented having me in their grade, because I was so young, but the teacher kept me there anyway.

When I came home from school there was a lot of work to be done. I would chop all the wood needed for cooking purposes as well as that which was needed for keeping the house warm. I helped to feed the sheep and cattle. We had a big ram that would try to knock me down so when I saw him coming, I would lie flat on my stomach to avoid having him knock me down.

When I was thirteen years old, my grandmother had an attack of arthritis, and I went to Riverdale where they lived, to take care of her. I worked very hard for them. I milked the cows and did all the housework. When I left for home, they bought me a beautiful leghorn hat. My mother said that I looked very beautiful in it.

While I was still very young, I had a dream one night. A bright light came into the room, and I was very frightened. A personage said, "This is the light that will guide you through your life." I was so frightened that I got into bed with my mother.

Before my mother took ill, the young folks would always come down to our house, and we all had a good time. The boys and girls would all get together and go to the mountains in covered wagons. "Will" Marriott, who later became my husband, would always catch more fish than anyone else. He was a great fisherman. We would cook the fish and we had all that we could eat while we were there. One night there was a bear near the camp. I became so frightened and tried to leave the wagon in my sleep, but I was rescued by other girls who pulled me back.

I was always careful of the company I was keeping. I would never associate with anyone who I felt was beneath me. I always looked for and associated with people of higher caliber and went only with Mormon boys. The boys and girls went to dances at Huntsville and Plain City and afterwards we went to the Marriott house for strawberries and cream. The Marriott house was always the meeting place for all the boys and girls.

When I was a girl we had a large orchard. I would pick most of the apples and mother would haul them to Ogden and Brigham City in a wagon where she sold them to an apple dealer.

My mother always bought me lovely clothes. Our neighbors would day, "Fine feathers make fine birds." I was very shy and would blush at any compliment. I was extremely fond of my father, and he called me his "Pet". One day, I stepped on a little tree which he was planting, and he gave me a little tap. This almost broke my heart.

When mother was 51 years of age, her health failed her. My sister, Catherine, whom we called Kate, was seven years younger than I. She would wash the dishes and help around the house. When Kate was seventeen years old, she got married. I was then left alone to care for my sick parents, and my brothers were kept very busy doing the farming. Once in a while, the Relief Society would send someone to our home to help me out. One particular occasion, when a Relief Society lady came, I was so tired that I went to sleep while standing on my feet. I was so exhausted that, no one could arouse me to find out when my mother should be given her next medicine.

I nursed my mother who was bedridden for seven long years. My father broke his hip, and it was also my responsibility to care for him. When Duane Hamblin, my half sister became ill I nursed her until her death. On her deathbed, she asked me to care for her children, Dan four years old, and Thad one year old. Not long after Duane's death, my mother died at the age of 59. I was met with quite a responsibility. I had Duane's two sons, and I was unmarried. I did not have any money, nor was there any way for me to earn any. I lived with my brother Jim. When he got married, he asked me to live elsewhere.

I was Secretary of the Sunday School at Marriott. Each Sunday morning, I would walk to Sunday School with Thad and Danny, and on the way I would stop at each home and invite them to attend Sunday School with me. I would walk to Church three times each Sunday. After the evening service, the young folks would get together at my house. I was counselor of the Mutual Association and Relief Society Teacher.

One day, when I was especially discouraged, Will Marriott stopped in to see me. He had been hunting for his horse "Nollie". He saw how unhappy I was, and that day he asked me to marry him. We were married on December 1, 1897. Jim Morris, my brother offered to take Dan and I took Thad with me.

We lived with the Marriott's for one year after our marriage. After the birth of our first child, Doris, we moved to Ogden, and lived there one month. We purchased a house consisting of four rooms at Five Points, the cost of which was $400.00. We moved this house down to Marriott and we were very happy there. It was close to the Church, and we did not feel isolated from everyone. Willard was born in this house. We then moved to the James' home and lived there for several years. While living in the James' home, Dad caught the dreaded small pox. We all were frightened, and immediately became vaccinated which prevented a further outbreak in the family.

I had all the housework and outside work to do which was quite a responsibility. One day I went over to the Morris home to pick some apples. I was pregnant with Helen, but I climbed to the top of the tree and fell. I broke my leg and had to remain in bed for a long time while it knitted. I had no one to do the work but friends would drop by and help with the housework and care for Doris and Willard. Helen was born shortly after this. Willard was two years old at the time, and was a little man. He would come to my bed and ask me what I wanted. A year later, Eva was born, on April Fools Day. That very same day, our cow had a calf and our cat had kittens.

Dad was away a lot of the time shearing sheep. Thad, who was still with me, was a real comfort and joy because I was alone so much with four small children. I would get up early in the morning, hoe the garden, and water the alfalfa, while Thad was taking care of the children.

One morning our dog awoke us very early. Thad and I got up and looked outside. We saw a man in our shed that frightened us terribly as our nearest neighbor was a half mile away. However, he did net bother us but just took what he wanted and left. Each morning, we delivered milk and cream to Mrs. Lavender, who was our closest neighbor.

We had not lived in this house too long, before we had an offer to buy a large farm with a large house. Mr. Faye, the owner, gave us a first choice and since it was such a good buy, we decided to take it. I really hated to leave our little house, close to the Church, and move so far away. We moved to the Faye house, and this is where we raised the rest of the family ... Paul, Kaye, Russell and Woodrow.

The farm was very nice. It had high fences and a beautiful pasture. We had a large barn with twenty stalls, and since everyone drove horses in those days, people from Ogden brought them to our pasture. They would come out on weekends and check on their horses. Dad bought the children a basket cart and a beautiful Shetland pony and they surely enjoyed it. Dad also bought the children a billy-goat and a little cart to hitch to the goat which the children would ride for hours. When the goat was turned loose, he would eat all the clothes off the line and anything green in sight. Dad finally had to get rid of him. We always raised a lot of chickens.

The children and I helped on the farm, thinning the sugar beets, hoeing the weeds from them all summer, and top them in the fall. They also hoed the potatoes and sacked them. We had twenty acres of beets alone, so there was an enormous amount of work to be done. The sheep and cattle business was Dad's main livelihood. We always had a hired man living with us, and I had to cook for him as well as for the eleven of us. We used eight loaves of bread each day for the children's lunches and meals.

I had to outfit a sheep wagon each spring which was taken out on the ranch. I would clean, paint, and make quilts for it. In those days, the winters were very cold, in fact, it would get twenty below zero, and the snow would cover the top of the fences. What wonderful times we would have when we would all go bob-sledding. We would cover ourselves with quilts because it was so bitter cold. We also enjoyed ice skating and ice hockey.

After we had lived at the Faye home about six years, we had an accident. one evening, while Dad was away, I took the children with me to the pasture to milk the cows. I nearly left Kathryn in the house, she was the baby, but in thinking it over, I decided to take all the children with me. We were flooding the pasture at this time, as that was the way we irrigated it. The children got into the water and got quite wet. Eva and Helen decided to go into the house to get themselves some dry clothes. Eva was around four and Helen over six years old. They struck a match to find clothes in the stairway and dropped the-match near a can of kerosene oil, and in a very short time, the house had burned to the ground. It was tragic - we had no place to go, and the only clothing we had were on our backs. The Japanese people that were running our farm said that we could live in their house, and they moved into our blacksmith shop. We lived there while we rebuilt our house. The people in the community donated clothing and shoes for the children, and it was through their kindness, that we were able to get along. It took about a year to rebuild the house, and then we had to refurnish it, which was a real problem. After the house had been completed, lights were strung from Ogden and we had electric lights throughout the house. That was a real thrill for all of us.

Dad was a very good business man but he did not like farming. He bought and sold sheep and cattle and made quite a success of it. Willard was the oldest boy, and took a great responsibility to help his father. I worked outside a lot and raised chickens to help along. I would put up eight hundred quarts of fresh fruit with the help of Doris, my oldest daughter, who helped me do all the hard work. I had to keep her out of school, therefore, she did not get too much education.

We sent the children to Slaterville school which was a mile away. They did not like Slaterville as much as Marriott, which was one and one-half miles away. We always went to Church in Marriott, and eventually the Board of Education allowed the children to go to school at Marriott. We sent the children to Weber Academy, as it was called then. Willard would take them in the horse and buggy, which always embarrassed the girls. Later, we purchased a V-8 Ford. Dad chose between buying a new Buick or a home in the city. I was opposed to moving to the city but all the family wanted to move there because it was so far to travel to get to Ogden. in fact, it was five miles, and that was a long way when they usually had to walk it.

My life was full of hard work so we sacrificed everything for the children's schooling and missions. Willard went to the Eastern States Mission, and later on, Paul went there too. It was a real struggle to keep them on a mission. Russell and Woodrow went to England on a mission. I was always so proud of my boys. When Willard returned from his mission, he married Alice Sheets and they went to Washington, D.C. and started a restaurant business.

It was near the 1929 depression and we lost nearly everything that we had financially. Willard helped us and we were grateful.

This is June 13, 1959, it is a lovely morning; all the flowers are in bloom, the roses are more beautiful than they have been in years. I am ninety-one years old, and I feel as thought I were only fifty, if I could only walk. Doris takes wonderful care of me, and I don't know what I would have done all of these years without her. Last night, I had a dream that the Lord had a place prepared for me, and it was where the Lord and His angels were.

The house has just been redecorated, and it is so ,nice. Doris and I live alone in Ogden, Utah at 2513 Jackson Avenue. Helen married J. L. Dougan, and they live in Salt Lake City, Utah. All the other children live in Washington, D. C.