Sarah Jane Ryset Carson was the sixth child of Frank and Priscilla Ryset

Sarah Jane Ryset Carson. Born 1901, married William Eugene Carson in 1917. Died 1982.

Sarah and William Carson

MEMORIES

By Sara Ryset Carson

My eyes were blinded with tears as I ran around the corner of an old farm house of Jose and Harold Freeman's on Antelope. I was sick, plain homesick. I was working for Josie and Harold helping Josie cook for harvesters. I hadn't been up there only a few weeks, but it seemed like years. I ran out to a shanty where I slept at night, threw myself on the bed and cried for an hour. I felt I just had to go home. Home to a beautiful Mother and a kind Father that had all my life been the answer to my problems.

Well, anyway I guess the Lord heard my prayers; as that afternoon late Harold came in and said, "The harvester has broken down, and I'll have to make a trip to Idaho Falls for parts." That was my chance so I ask if I could ride down and stay there while he went on to town.

We left Antelope late in the evening, by the time we got down home the house was dark and the folks in bed. I ran in the house and straight for the bedroom. I sat on the side of the bed pouring out my tale of woe to four eager ears that were forever willing to listen to our troubles. After an hour of talking, Mother got up and said, "Come, I will heat you a glass of milk, that is good for nerves." We went into the kitchen and proceeded to heat the milk. Daddy got up and dressed and we were up until two o'clock in the morning when Harold came after me to go back to the dry-farm. The folks told me, "If you get homesick up there don't go back." But I did and managed to stay until the harvest was completed. I write this just to bring out one small illustration of the sleepless hours and night that our Mother and Father gave for their family.

One of the most vivid memories I have of these times is as we gathered around the big table for breakfast it was my job to set the table and put the chairs around. Everyone had to be present and then the chairs were turned around and each one kneeled at their chair for the family prayer and blessing on the food. It seemed to take this prayer and blessing to get us enthusiastic and ready for the hard days. We could have found bitterness, resentment, and self pity for what was happening, but instead we found there is dignity in hard work and there is nobility in simple living, and experience can be a great character builder.

My Dad was a tall raw boned man, firm in his convictions. He had practically no education other than what he gathered for himself. But believe me he was far from being dumb and uninteresting. He read a lot and studied what he read. He was an authority on the Book of Mormon. Bishop Sperry has often told how many men have started an argument with Dad and he could open the book almost to the page and prove his point. I can well remember him giving readings, long serious types of readings, to most of the entertainments that we had out to Shelton Ward. He was a serious man, not a comedian. Sometimes I wonder if he was too good as a financial manager as we were always as poor as church mice. But who could be rich money wise with eleven mouths to feed and a little old eighty acres of land. Most of the time some of our relatives or friends were fed, housed and welcomed in that humble home. My pretty little Mother planned and schemed to know what to cook for the next meal. Our father died at an early age of 54 years. But to me, in fact to most of us I think, he seemed like an old man. The years of worry and hard work had taken its toll. Mother's worries and hard work weren't lessoned by his death. Right after his funeral she was stricken with shingles and from then it didn't seem to me her health was ever very good, but she continued on milking cows feeding pigs and whatever there was to do on the farm. It must have been at least ten years after Dad died that Mother, Clarence and Jennie struggled on trying to pay off the mortgage. They were years of worry and trial. Then finally they sold the farm and cattle and moved into Idaho Falls, but Mother's heart was still in the old home where she had known so much joy and also sorrow. We never really got her transplanted. She would walk around from place to place and if we weren't mighty careful we would find her in the far corner of a bedroom sobbing and crying. I know some of the tears were tears of sorrow for having to leave the old home, but maybe too, some of them were tears of happy memories which she had there.

Some of most priceless memories I have of my mother were when we went on a trip to California. We left here in Feb. 1950. Mother's health was very poor, but we made her a bed of blankets and pillows in the back seat, and she would take turns sitting in the front seat with us or lying or sitting in the back seat. We stopped in Kaysville on our way down the first day and she visited with Uncle Joe and Aunt Lis (Joseph Charles Morgan and his wife Melissa Mariam Bassett), which she surely enjoyed. That night we stayed in Spanish Fork. What amazed us was her alertness and memory. Now she hadn't been back to Utah since she was a girl. As we neared the Sevier River Reservoir we were wondering what large body of water that was. She sat up and looked around and across to the west and north mountain range then back to the south, studied the lay of the land and mountains and finally said. "Bill that has to be the Sevier River. Over this range of mountains would be Leamington and Oak Creek. This way through here would be Gunnison. That has to be the Sevier River." Sure enough, when we got there the sign said, "Sevier River Reservoir." She told us so many stories of their pioneering days through Utah, how they had moved from Leamington to Gunnison in wagons, and she and Uncle Ted (Edward Morgan), her brother, rode horse back all the way and drove the horses and cattle. On our return from California we took her over through Oak Creek and Leamington. It was there she had met, been courted and married her sweetheart, and our Father. We also took her to see Emma Nielson, an old girl friend of her's when she lived there. They both shed many tears over their memories. I believe I heard more of Mother's girl hood than I ever heard before on this trip.

Mother was a pretty black eyed beauty, a wide attractive smile which she gave freely. Dad was rightly proud of her and jealous too. Many time Ike Chase and other men around Dad's age would tell me. "Dibbie (Mother's nickname) was the belle of the ball." How proud I would be when they talked about her beauty and personality. Up until the time of her death at the age of 81 our kind friends and neighbors made a big fuss over her and gave her a lot of attention. Which she really loved.

Now Mother and Dad were only human as the rest of us, they had their mixed emotions and their oddities which means many times in our home we had our differences, our quarrels, and our difficulties. With a family of seven girls and two boys there were tears of sorrow as well as tears of joy and happiness and I know there was a lot of loyalty and love among us which pleased both Mother and Dad.

So my memories dwell-----In a humble little cottage, the home of noble parents. This family began the long trek down the road of life. The door of the cottage stood wide open,---all were welcome who came within the gate. The widows, the jobless, the orphans, the sad, and the lonely, or the little hurt child. My parents didn't only walk the first but the second, third and fourth. It is with this wealth of memories that I look ahead and see their struggling on full of sparkle and vigor, reaching back a helping hand to each of us and saying. "We have reached the end of life's journey, and now, I know that the end is better than the beginning for our children can walk alone and their children after them."

Parents like ours are more than a memory.

THEY ARE LIVING PRESENTS.

Gravestone for Bill and Sarah Jane Ryset Carson

Click on the link above to see a picture of the gravestone for Sarah Jane Ryset Carson and her husband William Eugene Carson.