Others of the children have mentioned how carefully she supervised our reading. I want to emphasize the extent to which she carried this ideal. While she was a girl the Salt Lake Tribune became one of Salt Lake City's daily newspapers and it rended to be slightly, or more than slightly, anti-Mormon. She associated it with Johnston's army and Camp Floyd, both of which symbolized a period of trouble and hardship for the people generally, and her family particularly. At the time of the Johnston Army "Invasion" her family moved south, as far as Provo, taking their livestock. 

I remember mother and her brother, Uncle Melvin, talking about the trek. My recollection is that mother helped her brother Melvin (or it may have just been her brother Melvin) drive the livestock. Uncle Melvin recalled wrapping his feet in burlap against the cold and had remembered it as on this occasion to which he referred. But now I think these two facts were not related.

At any rate the Tribune, like playing cards, were off limits in mother's home. I was not aware of her antipathy and would, on Sunday morning, pick up the paper and spread the funnies out on the floor and read them as a pass-time. As a result of mother's explanation of her attitude, I brought myself to forego this weekly ritual. There was no argument; she expressed her point of view and while I lived at home, I respected it.

Although I don't remember her supervision of our book reading (perhaps there were too many books by my time) I do remember very vividly her efforts to supervise our selection of our friends and the homes into which we were wont to visit. Mostly we associated with all the families in our town of possibly eighty or about and most, but not all, were L.D.S. However, there were preferences in mother's mind.

I remember there was one family with a girl about Maurine's age and a boy my age along with other children. The father was an invalid as the result of an accident. The family was quite poor, partly, at least, because the father was an invalid. This matter of financial status presented mother with a real problem one of the last and unlikely attitudes she would ever take would be to discriminate against a family or person because of lack of affluence. However, she did not relish the fact that Maurine and I liked very much to go to this home, as did many more of the children of the town. She may have felt the father or his ideals were not conducive to the highest standards. May I hasten to say that actually the influence was quite positive. The family loyalty and love was noticeable and the atmosphere extremely pleasant. If there were other influences there, they went over my head. But I remember that I was acutely aware that mother was looking after us and I respected this attitude.

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