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Laura Clark Cook

"We'll go up to your farm and harvest your hay," I went up too. I told them, "Take my furniture, I'll live in my little house up there", so they took my furniture back up there, and I lived there until Christmas. I wouldn't go out at night, I would stay inside, and go to bed with my three little girls. I'd have to carry my drinking water in all the time. I had a horse and buggy. One day in the spring I went down in the field. I got my little girls ready to go to Farmington, and I went down to the field to get the horse. I knew it would be a little skittish because it had been there in the field quite a few days, so I went up and got the horse and talked to it, and put a rope around its neck, and pushed the bit up in its mouth, then I went up to my house again. It was a quarter of a mile up in the field, it was way down in the bottom of the field. When I got back I found one little child down on the ground, she wasn't hurt. Then I turned my horse loose, I mastered quite a thing, so I could always do that from now on. I could always hitch up my own horse. It was little Maurine that had gotten on the buggy.

Keith Where did you go after that?

Laura I went to Farmington and built a little home on my sister Annie Tanners lot. My brothers and sisters were all so very good to me.

I took my money out of the bank and the store, where I had stock, and Annie Tanner had a lot by her house. It was big enough so she said to me, "If you want to build a little home do it". So I build a little home there, a three room home. It didn't have any lights or anything like that, so we would go out and get coal and water. Amasa Clark, across the street, was the first one that had water in the house.

Keith What was it like getting water from a creek?

Laura Oh I remember in front of my mother's house there was a creek, and in the winter time I had to go out and break the ice and dip up the water and bring it in. Then also I would pull water up out of the well; the rope would often be covered with ice during the winter. I enjoyed living in this little house built on Annie's lot. I enjoyed participating in the organizations of the ward and meeting all my dear friends again.

One day my sister Sarah was visiting with me, and she said to me, "Laura, do you think you'll ever get married again?" "Yes I think I will, because my patriarch blessing