I Remember My Grandmother Atta Ashby Murray Part lll

I remember grandmother preparing the meals. In those days there were not deep freezers like there are today. So when grandmother was going to have a chicken dinner she would send one of the boys to get a chicken from the chicken coop where you needed to catch the chicken and prepare it so that grandmother could cook it. (I could go into some detail here but I will save it for some other time.) The number of chicken you would catch depended on how many people there was going to be to dinner.
I remember Grandmother and the other women in the family in the bramble patch picking what ever was in season. It might be raspberries, gooseberries, currents, etc or all of them. I think this was one of the times when the women in the family did their visiting and catching up on what was going on in their lives and the lives of their families.
I remember grandmother drying the apricots. The apricots that were grown on the trees at the farm were not large. Actually they were quite small but yet they were tasty. I remember picking these and grandmother putting them on a sheet and covering them with some netting and then hanging them between the lines on the close line to dry. The netting was to keep the flys off of the cots as well as keep the birds form eating them.
I remember the day I got hurt when banging two hammers together and a piece of the steel from one of the hammers flew off and hit me in the neck. I remember grandmother comforting me while she cared for my wound. Grandmother was a very kind person. As Ella wrote once, Grandmother always referred to the boys as “little men” (or man). It was generally, “her little man”
I remember this one day when she was going to a Relief Society meeting. I recall she was all dressed up, I did not see her dressed up very often, but this day she was. I recall the boys or grandpa had Old Twin saddled and ready for her to ride to her meeting. As I recall the thing that interested me that day was that she rode side saddle.
Grandmother must have always been active in Relief Society and was loved by all of the sisters. I recall an event that Uncle Boyd told me happened when he was a sealer at the Provo Temple. I guess in the sealing sessions, he and probably all of the sealers, tell a little about themselves before the session gets under way. This day, after the sealing session, a sister came up to him and said “Oh you are Sister Murray’s little boy”

Grandmother always took care of the things that went on in the house and I have seen her feeding the chickens but I do not recall her ever being in the stable or caring for any of the morning and evening chores. Yet I recall being with Clyde in the mountains getting out poles for fences on the farm and coming home late at night and when we got there all of the work was done and everyone was in bed. So when it was necessary grandmother also milked cows and fed the life stock.

Grandmother was always so kind to me as I think she was to everyone. To me she was a beautiful lady and I loved to be with her. (By NRM – 5-20-10)