Verla May Cook-Life Sketch Part Two

Life Sketch of Verla May Cook 

Written by Herself - 1961
Thanks to her son, Veldon Hix for sharing this.

1915-1999

My younger brother, Virgil and I were great pals.  When we were quite young we had a few marbles.  They were so pretty that we wanted to have more.  So we planted them and watered them and watched, but they never grew.  So we thought if we prayed, Heavenly Father would make them grow.  But, He didn=t and we were very disappointed and asked mother why, and she explained to us.  But my dad brought us some more marbles home the next time he went to town.  That was a real treat for us because with such a large family there wasn=t much money for luxuries.

Virgil Nelson Cook

I was baptized while we were living at Ucon, Idaho 30 June 1923 by Howard Andrus and confirmed 1 July 1923 by Robert Andrus.  I attended my second year of school and part of the third and then we moved to Coltman, Idaho.  My 3rd grade teacher there was an old maid (Miss Helena Therneau).  My girl friend (Alaire Young) and I would get our lessons finished and didn=t know what to do, so the teacher would sometimes let us out at noon.  But it would usually take us till night to get home.  We would play along the way picking flowers and gathering pretty rocks or catching skippers in the ditch that ran along the road. 

Alaire Young Hart

1915-2014

Coltman, Idaho

My fourth and fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Robbins and for my sixth and part of seventh, her husband, Mr. Robbins.  They were really good teachers and I really liked them too.  From there we moved to Grant, Idaho and I graduated from the eighth grade there in April, 1930 with a grade average of 89-8/9%.   This was our 7th and 8th grade state exam average.

I began high school at Midway High the next fall after potato harvest.  I had to earn money for clothes and books before I could start.  In the winter, we all had small pox and were quarantined for about three weeks and in the spring, just before the end of school, I was in a school bus wreck and couldn't walk for about 2 months.  I went to school at Midway my sophomore year also, starting after potato harvest.

My third year, when it was time to begin school, I had an ulcerated tooth, so became discouraged and quit.  I had my patriarchal blessing given my 2nd year of high school by Patriarch John Webster.  During the time we lived at Grant, I was Assistant Secretary of the Sunday School for four years, a teacher in the Primary 2 years, and Secretary of the Primary one summer.

We moved to Roberts in January 1935 and I was put in as Secretary of the Sunday School in March 1935 and served until I was married in 1938.  One of the things I liked to do best was sewing so I did most of the sewing for myself and my sisters from the time I was old enough.  In my younger years my brother and I herded cows and rode horsed which I also liked to do.  I also liked to play ball.  The books I remember reading most as a child are: Elsie Dinsmore, The Bird=s Christmas Carol and Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates. 

[I thought it might be fun and interesting to put a little synopsis of the books Aunt Verla remembered from her youth.]

"In this first volume in The Original Elsie Dinsmore Series, sweet, motherless eight-year-old Elsie struggles with several bewildering problems. She has never known her mother, and her relationship with her father is filled with misunderstanding and tears. The young girl learns to depend wholly upon her faith in her heavenly father."

[I read this book for our book club and found it delightful.  No wonder Aunt Verla remembered it.] 

"The Birds' Christmas Carol is a novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin written and published in 1887 and illustrated by Katharine R. Wireman. The story is about Carol Bird, a Christmas-born child, who as a young girl is unusually loving and generous, having a positive effect on everyone with whom she comes into contact. She is the youngest member of her family and has devoted older brothers. At about the age of 5, Carol contracts an unspecified illness (possibly tuberculosis), and, by the time she is 10, she is bedridden; physicians say that she does not have long to live. The novel primarily involves Carol making plans for a Christmas celebration for the nine Ruggles children, a poor, working-class family living near the Birds. The book is a wistful moral tale about a saintly child, but is enlivened by many humorous scenes, particularly those concerning the home life of the Ruggles family."

"Gretel looked at her mother in troubled silence, wondering whether it were very wicked to care more for one parent than for the other-and sure, yes, quite sure, that she dreaded her father, while she clung to her mother with a love that was almost idolatry." from Hans Brinker 

A beloved childhood favorite for a century and a half-and a book that readers continue to enjoy and appreciate long into adulthood. Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates went through more than 100 editions during the author's lifetime alone. "