Autobiography of Clara Pearl Astle Carling

More Options   Print/Save More Documents View Pedigree View Photographs

It was a cold wintery day in March when my father had to hitch up a team on the sleigh and go about four miles to get a midwife for help. I arrived as the fifth child of the family on the 12th of March 1901, at Grover, Uinta (now Lincoln), Wyoming.

The house in which I was born was made of logs and had two rooms on the floor and two upstairs. I lived there until I was about six years old, when we moved into a bigger house in town. We attended grade school and church at Grover and high school at Afton.

I was in about the fourth grade when I had my first automobile ride, for we as children would run for blocks in order to see one. It was surely something to see a vehicle going without being pulled by horses.

Our parents were proud as all parents are of their family, which consisted of four boys and nine girls. We supplied the comforts of life by working as a unit, farming and milking cows, which we all did our share of until 1920. Then we sold the farm after the death of Mother and one brother and moved to Providence, Cache Valley, Utah. I finished my high school at the old Brigham Young College in Logan.

After my older sister was married, I had to take over the chore of housekeeping and helping to care for my younger sisters. Then I worked at the Union Knitting Mills for a year. Through the friends I gained there, I met their brother and fell in love, courted for about four months. Most of the places we went we walked, as he didn't have a car, for then they were not as numerous as they are now.

We were married in the Logan Temple on September 23, 1925. We made our home in the Logan Eighth Ward for a little over five years. There our first three children, Dean, Lola, and Ivan were born.

In the spring of 1930, we decided it was time to buy a home instead of paying rent any longer. We had a few cows and pigs which we sold to help make the payment on the home which we now live in. This was during the depression, and we surely had a struggle to make ends meet.

In March of 1931, we had the misfortune of losing our oldest child (a boy) in an accident which happened at the neighbor's when he was driving the horses on a manure spreader. In June of 1931, we welcomed another son, Darold.

Work was very scarce, so we had a hard time making ends meet for a few years. Our family increased one by one until the children numbered ten by 1941. They were: Ray, Blaine, Lee, Eva, Grant, and Linda (who was the last baby recorded as being born in Providence). Everyone went to the hospital after that time.

In the spring of 1942, we dug a basement and added two rooms and a bath to our home. We also went in debt to purchase a ten-acre piece of land and a pasture which we paid off as fast as we could, then went in debt once more for another six acres and soon had that paid.

We have supported four missionaries, and at the present time two of them are still out. I feel we have been greatly blessed spiritually as well as financially.

(This was written about 1957)