Sarah Monson Whitehead Youth to Marriage Part 3

Similar to what Sarah would have experienced.

This is just an idea of what the school would look like. After the death of my father we lived on the home place for a few years and then moved to town.   My brother Ezra was the eldest, he was married at that time, we all put what ever little  there was left from father’s estate, for us, in a lump sum.  Ezra paid the rest and we bought  mother a home with it, in Franklin, it was no palace but to us it was a mansion.  We only  had 2 blocks to walk to school, where as before we had a mile and on the coldest mornings  I remember how my face would feel sometimes with tears frozen on it when I reached the  one roomed school house where four grades were taught and the grades from 5 to 8 were  taught in another small room nearby. Aug 16, 1958-  It has been a long time since I have written anything in this book of my  life’s history and many things have happened to me since then, much sorrow, and  sometimes it is very hard to continue on, when ones heart is so sad but I have always  wanted to write my life’s sketch so will try to add some to the already few pages. My school days were the average kind all children had in those days.  There would  be as I said four grades in each room.  I think I only disliked one of my many teachers. The others were something or someone very “special” to me and I always got on very  nicely with them. We had one school dress each year.  We always wore a print apron  or black sateen to protect our dress.  We had one Sunday dress in the winter (new for Xmas) and one for summer new for the 4th of July.  My new dresses were  usually made from one, one  of the three older sisters had out grown.  But  they were new to me and I was very happy to have them.  My two older sisters  were very good dressmakers so they were always created into a dress like  new, I remember the first Xmas dress I had made from honest to goodness  cloth that was folded in a parcel and my sister Eva would measure it with  her “nose” she said.  It was purple wool with a black figure in it and she  trimmed it with a purple and green changeable taffeta silk. I was always  happy by nature.  I enjoyed my life as it came and never envied the rich,  even tho’ I wished many times I could have some of the things they had  and I couldn’t have but it never made me unhappy.  I was happy with  what I had and with the parents, brothers and sisters I was blessed with , especially my mother as my father died when I was 8 yrs so my mother  was very dear to me up until her death.  She lived to be 78.  Her memory  is still one of my priceless memories, always patient and kind as she always was.