History of My Life By Vera Kroksh
The first I can remember of my life is living on Uncle Seamon Beck’s farm two miles out of town. The town of Spring City, Utah. It was here that my brother Owel died. He was around four or five years old. Later we moved into town so us children could go to school. There were four boys and three girls where we lived till I was eleven years old. Then we moved to Bear river Valley. Here we lived right on the bank of the Bear River. There were no neighbors for miles but the Indians that father had working for him to help him clean the sage brush off the ground. Their was a big camp of them and I use to go and take are of the babies while their mother worked in the field.
The next year I carried water to the men that worked in the field. I would go down to the spring by the river and get two buckets of water and take it to the men wherever they worked. In the field I made two trips a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
And for this the Utah Sugar Company gave me a check wrote out with my name on it, six dollars a month. With my first check I sent to Sears and Roebuck and sent me a doll that opened and shut its eyes with long curly hair. I was the only read doll I ever had.
I had about three miles to go to school. I would get up early and ride on a load of frozen beats to school. I had to walk home on the way home I would pick up beats that had fallen off the wagons or if there was anything green growing along the side of road. I would get it for one of our cows that always came to me every night.
One night she came to meet me and I gave her a beet. And then I tied my new dinner bucket to a rope she had round her neck. When we started for home the bucket fell off her back and she started to run. She got her foot in the dinner pail kicked it all to pieces fell down and I thought I had killed her. She never came to meet me again.
While living here my sister Zina and her three children Venice, Clara, Ray came to live with us. Her husband had died a year before.
When I was fourteen we moved to the central farm five miles out of Tremonton. It was here I learned to cook. There were as many as thirty-five men to cook for three times a day, in the summertime. In these days we had coal oil lamps for lights, had to carry all our water from a pump house get ice from an ice house, carry the wood and coal in from the back yard to burn get our vegetable from the garden. Bread had to bake morning and night, pies, and cakes had to be baked.
If we wanted to go to town we would have to go to the stable, get a horse and hitch it to the buggy.
I took my turn along with my sisters, Zina and Eva as mother was sick the first two years we were there. We were up at five and worked till nine and ten at night. Zina had married Fred Barkle and gave birth to a baby boy that was named Lowell.
The second year we were here we had five miles to go to church and dances at Elwood. It was at this time I met Arthur Kroksh. He played in the orchestra that played for the dances. I worked in Sunday School teaching a class of little children.
When I was seventeen Father build a home at East Tremonton and Father Mother and I moved there. My other brother and sisters had got married, all but my brother Laver. He was in South Africa on a mission. That summer my; sister Zina and family and other neighbors, mother and I went down to the Bear River to fish. Venice fell in the river, I went in after her.
When we left Brigham City for Bancroft Idaho the primary gave me a book called the Daughter of the Land, Bancroft was a little town in Idaho about four blocks square where the trains stopped to get water. There were dry farms all around and the winters were very cold. We got us a little two-room house. We had to carry our water from the neighbors. One winter the snow was so high we could not see our neighbor’s house. We went for a sleigh ride right over the top of fences. The water pipes all froze. We had a hard time to keep a path to the coalhouse and the outhouse open for three days. It was 45 below zero.
I worked in the primary and enjoyed the work very much.
Glen and I went to Majo Brother in Des Moines Iowa.
To see what they could do for him. But they sent us home after six weeks saying they could do nothing for him. Glen and Beth were both baptized while we were at Bancroft.
The next September we thought it best that the children and I go to Mothers at Tremonton, Utah. As it was about time for my baby to be born.
Father came in his car to the station at Deweyville to get the children and I. Going over the Bear River we found we had left one of the suitcases at the station so father went to turn around and drove us into the river. It took a team of horses to get us out. Two hours later I had my baby that we named George A.
In 1921 we left for California, lived in Uncle Guy Rose’s house for two years, then came to East Los Angeles where I got me a job cooking in schools and working in homes. I was a personal maid for a movie Star. I worked for ten years at different things.
I did not like working as it took me away from home so much of the time. Sometimes it was late at night before I got home and I had to leave so early in the morning.
A movie Star let me borrow one hundred dollars to buy a lot in west Los Angeles. It was only a bean field. We had to wait three years before we could build a house on the lot.
I was still working, Beth came home with her two baby boys for us to help care for. George A went into the Air Force. Glen got married. My health broke so I had to quit work.
While working in relief Society brother and sister Osxer Burger took four of us women with them in their car to conference in Salt Lake City.
In June 2952 our son George A who had been in Japan flying for Uncle Sam for 13 months came home to Portland Oregon. But he had to go to South Carolina for Uncle Sam. So he and his wife Eleanor came in their car and took me along with them part way. We went around through Zion National Park and up through Yellowstone Park. Then I came home on the bus. I stopped off at Tremonton for a week to see my folk. Then came on home.
In September of the same year, 1952 my son Glen and his wife Audrey took a trip and took me along. We went up through Yosemite, Tahoe, Reno Craters of the moon, Twin Falls and Yellowstone and came home around through Utah.
In 1953 I began to work in Genealogy and Mutual, in Mutual as a Gleaner Teacher.
In Genealogy I got some papers from my Sister Zina and had them all written up as the should be. And then I began to get my family together for making a family tree.
15 November 1953 our son George A called from Portland Oregon that they had a baby boy. That they were going to adopt, he was six weeks old when they got him. His name was go be jay Rosson Kroksh.
On 11 December 1953 I saw the cornerstone laid for the Los Angeles Temple. David O. McKay 80 years old was there; also his counselors and members of the council of the twelve Apostles. And a score of the top leaders.
In February 1954 we got us a new car. It was a new Plymouth. Art gave it to me as my car.
And I’m seeing how much good I can do by taking other ladies to Relief Society and going to see the poor and sick and doing what little I can for them.
Written by Vera Brough Kroksh.
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| Uncle Bill Hart. Aunt Beth, Uncle George,Steve Hart, Vera Kroksh, Jon Hart (glasses) Gerry,Jeff Hart and Craig Hart |
Vera's last name was Brough before she got married and this is some of the Brough relatives,,,,,,,, left to right Lee Sr., the next one is either Julie or Jolee, then vera then the wife of Lee Sr., I cannot remember her name off hand, and then behind her is Lee Jr., then my mother then, next to her is Pat-or Patricia, and behind her is me then Jeff and on the front next to Jeff is brent, and behind him os either Julie or Jolee,, I got the two mixed up then and I still do, I am not sure which is which,,,,,,,,, I have not heard from them since 1975 either by mail, snail mail or in person, and neither did my mother before she died....G