Life Story of Ruth Elizabeth Proctor-Part One

Written by 

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

 

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Ccook

Elizabeth Sarah Williams

Franklin DH Proctor

On 16 November 1918 a daughter was born to Franklin D.H. Proctor and Sarah Elizabeth Proctor in their home in Leland, Utah.  Annie and Atha, my sisters, told me that I had brown eyes and brown hair.  I was born during the serious flu season that year.  My mother nursed me for awhile then she was called to her Heavenly Home on 3 December 1918.  My mother's services were held in our front yard.  People stood on boards.  The yard was full of people as my mother was a very well loved woman.  Her services couldn't be held in the church.  My mother got to see me blessed and named as they did this in our home 1 December 1918.  I was given the name of Ruth Elizabeth Proctor.  There was a lady who lived across the street from my parents whose name was Ruth Issac.  She had a daughter born the same day as me.  She would come over and nurse me.  So my first name came from her and Elizabeth from my mother.  I have met this lady, and she is a super neat person.

Annie Ludlow and George Kidd Proctor

My sister, Bessie, tried to take care of me.  She was 18 and did the best she could.  Annie and Atha also helped.  Atha was 8.  When I was 9 months old, my father's brother George K. Proctor and his wife Annie L. Proctor came and took me to live in their home to raise me.  At my father's home were 5 other children and he said he could keep them with him.  I found out later in my life and my mother and the mother who raised me had made a pack with each other that if anything happened to either of them the other would take all the children and raise them.

Annie holding Ruth

Ruth and her mother, Annie are on the left

Rozella and Ruth

Ethel, Rozella, Max, and Ruth

Max and Ruth

George and Annie lived in Leland, Utah, at that time.  From Leland, we moved to Blackfoot, Idaho, where my dad was going to farm.  While living in Blackfoot, I was riding on the foot board of my sister Rozella's wheelchair (she had fallen from a tree and had broken her back).  The wheelchair hit a bump on the sidewalk, and I fell off and broke my collar bone.  My mom said she had quite a time keeping my arm in the sling.  She said I told her my tummy needed to be scratched.  I can remember while in Blackfoot my sister Rozella had a large all-day sucker.  I kept coaxing her for a lick.  She would give them to me but I wanted to hold the sucker in my hand.  Finally she gave it to me and I ran down the sidewalk with it so she couldn't catch me.  One of the brother's named Woody (a nickname for Elwood) had his camera and took my picture.  I still have that picture in my photo album.

I started school in Aberdeen, Idaho.  I can remember they had a drinking fountain outside in front of the school.  I would get permission from my teacher to go get a drink, and then I would go home and sit in my tire swing in the orchard.  Mom would come out there and see me in the swing and back to school I would go.  This went on until finally someone got wise and turned off the water out there.  I finally began to realize I was to stay in school until my teacher said I could go home, though I did like school and my teacher.

Ruth holding Inez

Max, Ruth, Ethel and Rozella

We had super celebrations on the 4th and 24th of July.  They would run races.  My dad was a good runner.  When they would start the races, I would run after him crying, "Please, Daddy, come back. Don't run away from us."  Daddy would come in first and I was a close second in those races.  One day my mom got me all cleaned up to go to a celebration and while everyone else was getting ready, I got sleepy and crawled under a bed and went to sleep.  They hunted all morning and most of the afternoon for me.  I came out from under the bed and asked when we were going to go.  Mom put her arms around me and hugged and kissed me and started to cry.  When I asked why she was crying, she said "Because I love you and I'm glad you are alright.  I don't think the other kids thought kind thoughts about me, though they were also happy.

Ruth. Ethel, Inez, and Rozella

I was sort of a twerp.  The older sisters, Rozella and Ethel would play with their paper dolls and the furniture they cut out of catalogs.  They would fix up rooms for their houses.  We had a large table they would put leaves in it so each could have a good size to fix things up like they wanted to.  I would stand by the table and rest my chin on it.  Then I would fill up my cheeks full of air and blow their furniture and dolls all over the floor.  Then I would run outside in the summertime and into another room in the winter time.  My mom would tell me that wasn't nice and I would tell them I was sorry, though I don't think they believed me, cause I would do it again.  But they still seemed to love me.

Ruth is the girl on the left

We left Aberdeen and moved to Malta, Montana.  My father became a field man for the Utah Idaho Sugar Company.  He would inspect the beet fields.  While we were living in Malta it was a long time, for the neighbors wouldn't let us play with their kids because we were Mormons.  They kept asking me where my horns were and where my father's other wives were.  One morning my dad spoke to a neighbor lady and her husband came over to our home and told my dad to leave his wife alone.  When we had lived there a short time we found some more Mormon families and we began to hold cottage meetings on Sunday.  We would go to a different home each Sunday.  When they passed the Sacrament, they just had a glass and you took just a sip.  That was when I sat in the front row and could get an early sip.  I was to be baptized by the missionaries who had come to that part of Montana. The afternoon before I was to be baptized, I disobeyed my mother.  I had a girl friend by the name of Lorraine Smith.  Her father owned the livery stable and he took care of people's horses when they came into town.  Mom had told me not to ride any of the horses that day; anyway I was quite timid around horses.  Lorraine said, "Oh, come on.  I'll ride behind you and she won't know."  So I got on.  Things were going quite well for us until something frightened the horse.  Lorraine was smart enough to slide off the back when the horse put his head down and bucked.  We were near a four strand barb wire fence.  I went over his head and down the fence.  I cut my right arm and leg and had to be taken to the doctor and have stitches in both.  Mom was happy I wasn't hurt bad, but she cried and I felt terrible that I had made her cry and that I had disobeyed her.  I didn't get to be baptized at that time either.

Annie, Ethel, Max, George, Inez, Ruth, and Rozella

We moved from Malta to Chinook, Montana, as dad was transferred there.  We still held cottage meetings in various member’s homes, but they got more glasses for the Sacrament and that ended my sitting on the front rows at the meetings.

Inez, Ruth, Rozella, Max, and Ethel

Ethel, Inez, Rozella, Ruth, Annie, and George

I was baptized 4 August 1928, in the Milk River in Chinook by Elder Wallace B. Peterson.  While living in Chinook, I found out about my own parents.  We had a large beautiful Bible on a stand in our front room.  It had a beautiful green velvet top with red roses on it.  Us kids were told not to play with it or touch it.  For some reason I can't remember I was home alone.  I went over to the stand where it was and run my fingers around it.  Something just seemed to tell me to open it and I did.  On page one was George Kidd Proctor and Annie Ludlow Proctor and all their children: Ezra, Elwood, Rozella, Ethel, Max, and Inez.  But my name wasn't there.  I turned the next page over and written there was Franklin D. Proctor and Sarah Elizabeth Williams Proctor and their children: Bessie, Bill, Annie Caroline, George, Atha, Jim, Allan and Ruth.  I just kept turning the pages back and forth.  I thought that someone had made a horrible mistake and put me on the wrong page, for I knew nothing about any of these names I had read.  When the folks came home later that afternoon, I just couldn't eat supper.  I had been crying and I went into the bedroom and was crying when Inez came in to see what was wrong.  She went and got mother and she came in and asked me what was wrong.  I asked her if they didn't love me anymore and why was my name written on the other page?  Dad and mom sat down with me and told me all about my own mother and father and brothers and sisters.  Mom told me they loved me as their own.  Dad said, "You will always be my daughter."  I cried again and they cried with me.  I remember that everyone called my own father Uncle Frank, but from that time on he was my Daddy Frank.  I also remember that when he came to visit us he would bring 100# sack of sugar, 100# sack of flour, 1/2 beef and also gave money to buy clothes for me and Inez.  I came into the room one time and heard them say "Frank, this is just too much."  He always replied, "You deserve more than this for taking and raising Ruth."  I thought at the time this was an odd thing for them to be talking about at this time now I know why.  I was very lucky I had two daddies, the one who raised me and my own Daddy Frank.  I was eleven years old when I found out all of this.  They were wonderful parents to me and supported me in all I did.  I never stopped loving them.  They did so much for me.

Maxine Sly, Ruth, and Inez

We moved from Chinook to Conrad, Montana, as dad was transferred again.  We had a radio with ear phones.  Gee, it was neat to take turns listening to the radio like that.  The winter weather was very cold.  There would be times when the temperature dropped to a minus 50.  There wouldn't be any school held.  They would wait till it warmed up.  They figured the kids would be better off in their homes than trying to hold school.

Ruth standing, Inez on the left seating on swing

Ruth and Inez

Daddy Frank and Aunt Belle (that is what we all called her; she had married my Daddy Frank) came to visit us in Conrad from Spanish Fork, Utah.  Daddy Frank wanted me to come and meet my own brothers and sisters and to get to know them.  He said it would be only for a visit unless I decided that I wanted to live with them in Spanish Fork.  He made it should like so much fun, and I had all my suit cases packed ready to go.  Daddy Frank was putting their suit cases in their car and arranging a place for me to ride when Aunt Belle turned to me and said "When you get to Spanish Fork you can and I mean that you can never come back to see or live with George and Annie Proctor again."  As I remember Aunt Belle had her hair put in a bob and pulled straight back, her eyes were steel blue, so cold looking, a long pointed finger she would shake when she was talking to you.  She scared me.  I went over to the mother who had raised me and asked her, "Do I have to go?  Can I please stay with you?"  She answered me, "You don't have to leave.  We love you and I would love to have you stay and be my little girl.  If we ever get back to Utah you can go and visit your brothers and sisters.  You will always have a home with us."  Daddy Frank came back into the house after my things.  I told him I didn't want to go with them.  He just didn't seem to understand why I had changed my mind and why I didn't want to see my brothers and sisters as he had told them when they left Utah I would most likely go back to Utah.  I felt bad but I knew that I just couldn't go and have to live with Aunt Belle and start to call her mother.  I told my mom not to say anything to my Daddy Frank about what Aunt Belle had said to me.  I didn't want to come between them.  I found out years later that when they got back to Utah, Aunt Belle told my brothers and sisters that I was a spoiled brat and that she didn't want me to come and live in her home and that my Daddy Frank agreed with her.  When I told my brothers and sisters what happened when I saw them, Daddy Frank told them he thought I was better off to live with the family I was living with.  I'm so sorry he had to be hurt, but I'm sure had I gone to live where Aunt Belle was, I wouldn't be where I am today.  She made Atha's life very miserable and most of the older ones left home or were driven away.

George, Ruth, Annie, Ethel, Rozella, and Inez