Part 41 (1/2)

to $30. per 100 lbs. To the best of my recollection some 20,000 to 30,000 lbs. of flour were thus distributed in various amounts, varying from five to fifty lbs., according to the size of the family.

”This act of generosity and fatherly care on the part of the late Heber C. Kimball was only in keeping with his general character as a man of sterling integrity and a faithful steward before the Lord to his fellow-men, and thus his memory is justly enshrined in the hearts of the Saints, who fondly cherish the hope to enjoy his society after a glorious resurrection.

”Yours Very Truly, ”J. B. MAIBEN.”

Many are the acts of mercy and charity related of President Kimball and his family, especially his n.o.ble and unselfish partner, Vilate, during this time of sore distress. They kept an open house, and fed from twenty-five to one hundred poor people at their table, daily, besides making presents innumerable of bread, flour and other necessaries, which were then literally worth their weight in gold.[A]

[Footnote A: While thus feeding the poor on the best that her larder afforded, Vilate would send her own children into the fields to dig roots (artichokes) which she would cook for them. This, with coa.r.s.e corn bread, while her guests were served with wheaten bread, potatoes and boiled beef, was the frequent diet of the Kimball family during the famine of ”fifty-six.”]

It was Vilate's chief delight to sally forth with a basket on her arm, filled with nicely cooked edibles and little domestic comforts, and seek out some poor, obscure person, in need of help, though perhaps too proud or timid to make it known. She would often go to the houses of such persons, on finding that they were away from home, and provide for their needs in their absence, in order that they might meet a glad surprise on their return, without knowing the good angel who had visited them.

It is related that, during this famine, a brother, sorely in need of bread, came to President Kimball for counsel how to procure it.

”Go and marry a wife,” was Heber's terse reply, after relieving the immediate wants of the applicant.

Thunderstruck at receiving such an answer at such a time, when he could hardly provide food for himself, the man went his way, dazed and bewildered, thinking that President Kimball must be out of his mind.

But the more he thought of the prophetic character and calling of the one who had given him this strange advice, the less he felt like ignoring it. Finally he resolved to obey counsel, let the consequences be what they might. But where was the woman who would marry him? was the next problem. Bethinking himself of a widow with several children, who he thought might be induced to share her lot with him, he mustered up courage, proposed and was accepted.

In that widow's house was laid up a six months' store of provisions!

Meeting President Kimball shortly afterwards, the now prosperous man of family exclaimed:

”Well, Brother Heber, I followed your advice--”

”Yes,” said the man of G.o.d, ”and you found bread.”

President Kimball's letters to his son William, who was then in England, will fully tell the story of the famine, and also many of the current events of that period:

”GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, ”February 29, 1856.

”TO MY DEAR SON WILLIAM, AND TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

”My family, with yours, are all in good health and spirits. I have been under the necessity of rationing my family, and also yours, to two-thirds of a pound of breadstuff per day each; as the last week is up to-day, we shall commence on half a pound each--at the same time they all begin to look better and fatter, and more ruddy, like the English. This I am under the necessity of doing.

Brother Brigham told me to-day that he had put his family on half a pound each, for there is scarcely any grain in the country, and there are thousands that have none at all scarcely. We do this for the purpose of feeding hundreds that have none.

”My family at this time consists of about one hundred souls, and I suppose that I feed about as many as one hundred besides.

”My mill has not brought me in, for the last seven months, over one bushel of toll per day, in consequence of the dry weather, and the water being frozen up--which would not pay my miller. When this drought came on, I had about seven hundred bushels of wheat, and it is now reduced to about one hundred and twenty-five bushels, and I have only about twenty-five bushels of corn, which will not provide for my own family until harvest. Heber has been to the mill to-day, and has brought down some unbolted flour, and we shall be under the necessity of eating the bran along with the flour, and shall think ourselves doing well with half a pound a day at that. * * * We have some meat and perhaps about seventy bushels of potatoes, also a very few beets and carrots; so you can judge whether or not we can get through until harvest without digging roots; still we are altogether better off than the most of the people in these valleys of the mountains. There are several wards in this city who have not over two weeks' provisions on hand.

”I went into the t.i.thing office with Brother Hill and examined it from top to bottom, and, taking all the wheat, corn, buckwheat and oats, there were not to exceed five hundred bushels, which is all the public works have, or expect to have, and the works are pretty much abandoned, the men having been all turned off, except about fifteen who are at work on Brother Brigham's house and making some seed drills for grain, as we will be obliged to put in our grain by drilling, on account of the scarcity, which probably will not take over one-third of the grain it would to sow broadcast.

”We shall probably not do anything on the public works until another harvest. The mechanics of every cla.s.s have all been counseled to abandon their pursuits and go to raising grain. This we are literally compelled to do, out of necessity. Moreover, there is not a settlement in the Territory but is also in the same fix that we are. Some settlements can go two months, some three, some can, probably, at the rate of half a pound per day, till harvest. Hon. A. W. Babbitt even went to Brother Hyde's provision store the other day, and begged to get twenty or twenty-five pounds of flour, but could not. This I was told by William Price who is the salesman of the store. Money will not buy flour or meal, only at a few places, and but very little at that. I can a.s.sure you that I am harra.s.sed constantly; I sell none for money but let it go where people are truly dest.i.tute. Dollars and cents do not count now, in these times, for they are the tightest that I have ever seen in the Territory of Utah. You and your brethren can judge a little by this. As one of the old Prophets said, anciently, 'as with the people so with the Priest,' we all take it together.

”Some of the people drop many big tears, but if they cannot learn wisdom by precept, nor by example, they must learn it by what they suffer.

”Now is the time for us to be like unto Joseph of old--lay up stores for ourselves, and our children; and thousands, and hundreds of thousands from the old world, the United States, and North and South America will flee to this place to get down by the side of Joseph's cribs, and granaries, and storehouses, to get that which will sustain life from ”these poor deluded creatures”

that they drove from the United States, and were not willing that they should have shelter in the land of their birth, and the privilege of wors.h.i.+ping our G.o.d and our Father who organized and prepared this earth for His children, and those who would keep His commandments; and killed our Prophet, our Patriarch, and Apostles, and hundreds of others and thousands of men, women, and children, the widows and fatherless, who died on the plains in consequence of their oppression. Will they receive the rod in consequence of this? Yes, I can say in truth, in the name of Israel's G.o.d, they shall receive fourfold pressed down. I can say in my heart, I wish to G.o.d this people would all listen to counsel, and do at the start as they are told, and move as one man, and be one. If this were the case, our enemies would never have any more power over us, our granaries never would be empty, nor would we see sorrow.

There is not a good, wise, humble Saint that is filled with the elements of eternal lives, but what knows that this is true as well as myself. * * * * * *