Life Story of Ruth Elizabeth Proctor-Part Six

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Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

To our family we added another son, Theron Earl Cook, 24 May 1941.  He was born in Rigby, Idaho.  I was going over to Rigby to stay at Mrs. Lee Hansen's home.  When it came time for Theron to come into this world, Cleo was out on the canal banks fighting the crickets that were coming into Roberts.  Theola and Melba had stopped to see me.  It was the last day of school and they decided they would walk out to where they lived North of Roberts.  I had them go find Cleo for me.  We picked up my sister Atha and to Rigby we did go.  Theron was a good baby and his brother Franklin just loved him and wanted to hold him all the time.

Theron Earl Cook

Frank and Theron

Theron and Frank

Theron and Frank

Theron and Frank

Theron and Frank

Theron and Frank

In 1942 we moved back to the farm as Grandpa Cook decided to quit farming.  Cleo bought out his dad's share of the machinery.  We lived in the rooms on the south side of the house, and Fay and Lila Christensen lived in the rooms on the north.  They had their bedroom upstairs.  We also had a room up there to put our fruit in and to store things in.  Fay was going to farm with Cleo.  This didn't last too long.  Most likely a year or two, then we moved to Rigby and lived on Orrin Jeppson's farm.  Fay and Lila had a son named Arvin and he, Franklin, and Theron played pretty good together.  Lila had a daughter born to them about the time we had Theron.  I think she was born the last of April 1941.  She was called to her Heavenly home when still just a baby.  This was very hard for Fay and Lila.  Her name was Una Dee.  When Fay and Lila moved to Rigby, we had the whole house to ourselves which sure seemed nice.

Cleo and Ruth

     

Cleo, Ruth, Theron, and Franklin

Joyce

We decided to have another member in our family.  6 November 1943, we had a beautiful daughter.  It was the coldest night when she made her appearance to this world.  She had a fine thin skin over her little face.  The lady who took care of me, Mrs. Warren Hall, said she was a holy child.  Dr. Tall told me it was just like a veil.  He just clipped it off.  She was as beautiful then as she is today.  We named her Joyce.  Franklin and Theron thought she was pretty special.  As she was growing up, they didn't always relish the idea of watching her when she was outside playing.  One day they got tired of watching her and locked her in the outhouse.  I went outside to see where the kids were.  I found the boys but no Joyce.  I asked them where she was, and they said they didn't know.  They had forgotten where they had put her.  We all started to hunt for Joyce.  I became quite frightened for we had water running through the barnyard and some places it was quite deep.  We kept calling her name.  I went around the outside toilet and I could hear someone sobbing.  The door was locked so I didn't think she would be in there.   But I opened the door and there lay Joyce near the door.  She had cried herself to sleep.  Her face was dirty from the dirt on the floor and her tears.  I went and found Franklin and Theron and showed them what they had done to their little sister.  Theron said they had put her in there because she was pestering them.  When I picked her up, she woke up and started to cry.  I loved her and took her into the house and cleaned her up.  Then my two sons were feeling bad, but their bottoms felt worse when I got through with them.  They were very careful to watch her from then on.  I asked what would have happened to Joyce if she had fallen down into the toilet.  Both of them said she sure would of been a mess.  That is when they got their bottoms warmed very well. 

Frank and Joyce

Theron and Joyce

Frank, Joyce, Theron

It wasn't long after this when I was cooking for the men who were helping Cleo.  This day it was just Paul Rottweiler.  He was a farmer who lived just south of us.  The kids were outside playing and Franklin came into the house.  I asked him where Theron was.  He said he couldn't find him.  I told him to go out and look again.  He came back in and no Theron.  So I started to look for him.  I went down by the running water but there weren't any tracks of him being there.  We had a rack built on our porch where Cleo put the milk cans and he had just bought two new cans.  We sold milk to a dairy.  We told the kids they must not play near those milk cans.  I started calling his name.  When I got near the cans, I could hear a feeble reply, "I is here."  I looked and one of the new cans had been taken off the rack and lo and behold there were two large brown eyes looking up at me.  He had been crying.  I asked him how in the world did he ever get into that milk can?  I tried to get him out but I couldn't so I went into the house and put all the dinner I was fixing o the back of my coal stove.  I told Franklin to watch Joyce and started out across the fields to where Cleo and Paul were working with the tractor.  He and Paul saw me running and knew something was wrong at the house, so they came to meet me with the tractor.  They both worked and worked but couldn't seem to get Theron out.  Paul said we would have to take him in the can to the blacksmith in Roberts and have him cut the can.  I said no way.  We would just leave him in there for he was told not to bother those cans and that Cleo could pour the milk over the top of him and we would just send him to the creamery.  Theron begged us not to do that and said he wouldn't bother the cans anymore.  I finally got some lard and they greased him around his shoulders.  Finally they got one shoulder up then the other and we got him out.  Cleo told them their mother had to wash the can out with boiling water and let the sun dry it and for them not to bother the cans again, and they didn't.

Joyce

The house we lived in was two stories with a high pointed roof.  One night Cleo was going out to milk and he could hear someone saying, “Hi, Daddy."  He looked all around and couldn't see anyone.  Then he heard it again.  He looked up and there was Theron waving his arms like he was riding a bucking horse.  He was straddling the roof.  Cleo came back into the house and told me where Theron was.  He wanted me to go out and talk to him while he went upstairs and out through the window that Theron had went through to get to the roof.  I kept him talking and kept sliding forward towards the end of the roof.  Finally Cleo got behind him and got him off the roof.  

Joyce and Theron

Those two boys used to go out in the chicken coop to gather the eggs.  They would put them in their overall pockets.  It seemed like either one of them or both of them would fall down and what a mess we had then.  We didn't have a dull moment in our household, but it was surely a house of love.  

Joyce

I had a cookie jar sitting on my fridge. I still have the same one today.  It didn't have any cookies in it, but Theron would push a chair up to the door.  It had a handle on it that worked quite well for him to put his foot upon the top of the fridge he would go.  I was afraid he would fall so I told Franklin when he did it to come and tell me.  I would no more than get under the clothes line when Franklin would come out and say to me that he was doing it again.  I would go into the house and lift him off the fridge.  How he never fell, I will never know.

Frank, Joyce, and Theron

To top this off, one Sunday we were getting ready to go to church and Theron couldn't find his shoes.  We hunted all over the house.  Cleo had to go to church without us since he was in the Sunday School Superintendency.  So the kids and I stayed home.  I started to get our dinner ready and in the bottom of the refrigerator we had a bin where I kept potatoes and carrots.  I opened it up to get out the potatoes and lo and behold, there were Theron's shoes, both his Sunday ones and the ones he wore for every day.  I asked him why he put them there; he said they needed company for the night.  From then on we always looked for his shoes on Saturday night.

Theron, Joyce, Frank

I got Joyce some new panties with ruffles on them and told her they were for Sunday.  One Sunday morning she wore a pair to church.  We went into the chapel and as we met Cleo who was standing by the door talking with Arthur Jensen, Joyce went running up to her Dad and bent over and puller her dress over her head and told her Dad to look at her new pants with all the ruffles on them.  Cleo just about passed out he was so embarrassed.  He wasn't sure he wanted to claim her as his daughter.  All the men around there and myself just had a good laugh.

Theron, Frank, Joyce

While we were living in that house north of Roberts, we had electricity when the wind blew and charged the wind charger.  Cleo and Carl had bought one for their folks when they lived there.  Other than that we used the coal oil lamps for quite a while until they finally got the electric lines out that far.

Cleo and Joyce

I started going to Relief Society and my visiting teaching companion was my mother-in-law, Lena Cook.  What a beautiful lady she was. We would have to walk most of the time to do our teaching.  She taught me so many things.  I also worked in Primary. These are the sisters who were Primary presidents that I worked under: Stella Dineen, Alice Jefferies, Agnes Levine, Nora Hill and Martha Dalley.  I also taught the Larks, Blazers, and was secretary in Primary and the chorister.

Frank, Joyce and Theron on porch at home in Roberts