Honesty
submitted by: H. Roice Nelson, Jr.
37.751092, -113.058690 1960
I loved Grandma Nelson and she loved me. I saw Grandma Nelson almost every day. There were cattle to feed every night, and I often saw her in the evenings. A couple of examples.
Big Roice (Roice Nelson Krueger - Aunt Marie and Uncle Bill's second son) and I stole some Lime Jello from Grandma's cupboard. Grandma was poor. Her cupboard was bare. Grandma recognized the jello was gone and came out to find us. She asked us about the lime jello, and we both denied knowing anything about it. Grandma had us look at each other and stick out our tongues at each other. Big Roice had to explain to me we had been caught. I didn't even know I had fallen down. This certainly was not the only time I have fallen down and not known it.
I remember when I had my pet owl in Grandma Nelson's chicken coop, and was having a hard time keeping it fed. My baby barn owl could not eat raw meat from the meat packing plant because there was no fur and bones to keep it down. I got very good at catching mice in the hay stacks. Wasn't enough. So I started shooting birds in Grandma's trees. I remember she questioned the validity of me killing the little birds, and so I let the owl loose. Memory is a funny thing. I was at the High School when I had the owl, and Grandma died on March 11th of 1965, when I was in 9th grade. Yet I remember her asking me about killing the little birds. I believe she has been one of my guardian angels. Maybe this is just mixed-up memories.
Grandma Nelson's death was hard for me. It was the first time I was a pall bearer. All of the pall bearers were grandsons. It was harder for some than others. It was easier for me because when Grandpa Hafen died two years earlier, Grandma Nelson had comforted me, explaining I would see him again. I knew she knew what she told me was true.
To Me, My Farm Is (a poem by Emma Lambson Nelson)
1. My farm to me is not just land
Where bare, unpainted buildings stand
To me my farm is nothing less
Than all created loveliness
2. My farm is not where I must soil
My hands in endless, dreary toil,
But where, through seed and swelling pod
I've learned to walk and talk with God
3. My farm to me is not a place
Outmoded by a modern race,
I like to think I just see less
Of evil, greed, and selfishness.
4. My farm's not lonely, for all day
I hear my children shout and play,
And here, when age comes, free from fears
I'll live again, long joyous years.
5. My farm's a heaven - here dwells rest,
Security and happiness,
Whate'er befalls the world outside
Here faith and hope and love abide.
6. And so my farm is not just land
Where bare, unpainted buildings stand,
To me my farm is nothing less
Than all God's hoarded loveliness.
Grandma Nelson was born on December 7th, 1890, about 7 months before Grandpa Nelson. She did not like it known she was older than Grandpa, and she lied about her birth year to hide the fact. It is hard to realize even a person I thought was perfect, and who taught me the importance of being honest, had fallen down. I knew she did not like to be teased about Leroy Parker (i.e. Butch Cassidy), whom she knew from her youth in Circleville, Utah. Her father was Almon Marion Lambson and her mother was Anna Maria Stohl. She was a first cousin once removed from Julina Lambson Smith one off two sisters who married Joseph F. Smith and Julina was the mother of Joseph Fielding Smith. Joseph Fielding Smith was the prophet who called me to serve as a missionary in The British Mission.
For song of this poem as music see http://www.psalmscountdown.net/?p=4607