ANNIE
ELIZABETH CRYSTAL
As I remember my
life,
Annie E. Crystal
Greenwood Ayers born March 26, 1882, in American Fork Utah, daughter of Sarah
Jane Barrett Crystal and James Andrew Crystal, baptized by Isack Wagstaff in
the old meeting house now used for a school house.
When I was old
enough to go to school, I went to the West Side school house, cross the road
from then Wagstaff home, now owned by this son, Len. Lid Buckwater was my teacher and had to read
of a chart she would teach us the words later.
Celate Green Clark was another teacher use to teach us.
My life them days
was quite a busy time, we always had to hurry home from school to help Dad in
the field or Mother put up fruit or pick wonder berries or plums for jelly,
sometimes we would have to go to town for groceries. We didn’t have cash them
days as we have today. I remember taking
chickens and eggs down for the groceries I was getting, a big girl then. Thought I was getting to big for that kind of
work but that made no difference with my parents. I had to go any way, so this one time I put
on mother’s old gray shawl to cover up the chickens. I went with the eggs and chickens. When I got to the store they asked me why the
shawl. I said just to cover up the
chickens. How they did laugh. Jed Murcur and Uncle Jake Greenwood own the
store then on the corner crossed the road east of Elisha Boley’s home. After that Mrs. Wagstaff used to take our
eggs down. This one time I went down
with her, got my groceries and went out, set in the cart. The train came and the horse got frightened
and ran away. I was in it, I just got
down the bottom and hung on. It run into
them trees by Burnes place and stopped it .
I can see Mrs. Wagstaff calling the horses to stop, lucky it did. My life was saved.
One other thing I
remember, dad and mother use to go every summer to Alpine to Uncle Thomas and
Aunt Emma Whipple’s place for strawberries and ice cream. That was a big day for us kids them
days. I remember going around that hill
into Alpine. So I asked dad are we out
of Utah now. Dad said yes, we are going into Alpine.
Later on I had
grown up and got married to Will Greenwood, we had three children then and
moved to Idaho, went by wagon, took us nine days to make the trip. When I got to Mother’s place I thought what a
wide open country and raining. I didn’t say anything but I wished I was back in
Utah. We rested a day to mother’s and
went on our journey to Sterling. There
were one room lumber house and we lived in that three years. We had bad luck on the farm so we decided to
move back to Utah and landed back to West Jordan on a farm owned by Jimmie
Cartar. Stay there two years and came
back to American Fork. So happy we never wanted to move again. Later Mr Greenwood’s health failed and
I went to the training school to work and the help of my boys and my daughter,
we saved our home and I feel that God was good to us even in our worst
hours. I have many things I am thankful
for and love my good friends and neighbors. Everywhere I went am happy I have a
home here in these mountains and my children lives close around me.
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