Joseph Smith Low- excerpts from his autobiography
I was born on Dec. 23, 1891, at Freedom, Wyoming. I was told that there was five feet of snow on the ground, and there wasn’t a white woman within eight miles, or a doctor within sixty miles. I had a sister, Jane, 6 years old, and a brother, Vess, who was 18 months. These two children, father and mother, were the only persons at the place. I was a large baby weighing over 12 pounds. Being born on Dec. 23rd, and mother’s maiden name being Smith, I was named Joseph Smith and they hoped for the best. Mother would tell father what to do and he would do his best to do it; at any rate, I was born and have managed to survive 76 years and am still kicking.
Well, we’d lived there just over two years and the church sent men to look over Canada as a place for settlement, and they had located at Cardston, arriving there in 1887. They had built a burr mill and the church asked father to come up and operate the mill. We came up in a covered wagon, with ten head of milk cows, a pony and some four extra horses. Dad bought a place and got to work at the mill. The wheat we grew in those days was never better than a grade five or worse, and it was impossible to make any kind of flour except a very dark and sticky flour. In 1903, they brought in Turkey Red Fall wheat and we could raise No. 1 hard wheat and a lot of bushels to the acre.
Our first neighbours were the Wights. They nearly matched us for kids. There were plenty of things to fight about and to make it worse, old Mrs. Wight would always take her kids part, and she would complain to Dad, and we would be taken over to their place about every third Sunday for a round-up, and the old lady went on until one day Dad was going down past the shop and he heard their dad giving one of their boys a going-over, and telling him, “If you don’t give that Vess Low a right good whipping, I will give you a real one.” Dad came home and at dinner told us what he had heard. He said, “Now, I don’t want to hear of any of you boys picking a fight, but if they start it, you do your best to take care of yourselves.” That was all that was needed, and inside of an hour, three of the Wights knew that a new era had begun. There were no more Sunday going-over- to-their place, and no more tongue lashes for us. I don’t know what Dad told them, but it worked.
I had a number and an assorted bunch of school teachers. One was a Mr. Noble, who was a fiery little man, and when he wanted to correct you would jerk you out of your desk and shake you until you didn’t know where you were. It was while I was in his room that I was trademarked for life. I came home one night and one side of my nose was stopped up. I didn’t think much of it until the next day the other side was stopped up. There wasn’t a doctor in town at the time but mother decided to do something, so we put a bread and milk poultice on it every day after school for about two weeks. As I remember, one night it broke, and when it did it had eaten away all of the gristle or bone in the bottom half of my nose and left me trademarked for life with a flat nose.. Mother bathed it and I believe I did stay out of school for a couple of days, but in about two weeks it got over being sore and it did away with any trouble I ever had with a nosebleed. You could knock me flat on my back--it didn’t bleed a drop. For a scrap it was super, and it was perfect except for two things--the first, smelling with, and the other breathing through. I couldn’t smell worth a darn and when walking I always breathed through my mouth and puffed, but for beauty it was hard to beat. I still live with it.
(Grandpa has lots of very interesting and funny stories, but space does not permit putting all of them in!)
In 1901, father took a homestead out in Taylorville . To homestead, you paid the government $10 and then had to fence the place, living on it six months of the year for three years, own 3 cows, and when it was inspected, you received the title. Father built a shack about 12x14 feet with a dirt floor. Dad would take Vess and me out there and leave us for the week. We were supposed to dig post holes up the north side. We would dig a hole, find we were out of line, so would just lengthen the hole, and we had some holes three feet long. Father wouldn’t let us have a gun, so we set gopher traps and baited them with wheat, and we caught a lot of ducks. There was a lot of prairie chickens, and we got so we could take a whip made of leather on a wood stick and pop the head of a chicken, stun it and get it.
Sometime in 1906, SS Newton had a daughter come up. This girl, Beth, was a lovely girl and everybody liked her. I used to look at Beth longingly, but without ever expecting to be considered in her class as we always had to work, not only for our own living, but in helping with the younger members of the family. (Persistence paid off, however, and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple on December 23, 1910, on his nineteenth birthday.)
Their first baby was stillborn on January 6, 1912. He goes on with the story--We were expecting another baby in August (1915) and I was worried to death. I went to Dr. Campbell who was rated the best in the south and engaged him to come for it, and engaged Dr. Lynn, who was rated very well here. When the time came it was two weeks late and Dr. Campbell was away. Although it was a real hard birth, they did get the baby finally, but in so doing, hurt it. Beth seemed to be coming along, but in four days she developed blood poisoning, and on August 23, she passed away. Two weeks later the baby also died. We buried them in a vault, and in so doing moved the first baby to the same vault with the others. I thought the world had come to an end.
Joe had a few rough years, but life does go on. He had a great head for business, even as a young man. He was not afraid to work hard and about 1915 he got into the business of selling Ford cars. He did very well. In early 1918, he went down to Utah to visit with relatives. Beth’s sister, Laura introduced him to Margaret who was tall, lovely and looked “pretty young” to Joe. They corresponded all summer, and then she came up for a visit that fall. They set a date to be married on June 25th, 1919.
Their first baby was born 21 April, 1921. Joe says, “I was greatly concerned about the birth of our first child…about noon we had a lovely daughter, perfect in every way, and there was a most happy and thankful fellow. We named her Beth and she has always been a lovely baby, and a lovely girl, and still is a lovely woman.”
On October 17, 1924, our next babies were born. I had always teased Marge by telling her that before we stopped we were going to have a pair of redheaded boys. They did have a start of a hospital in Cardston, but were having trouble with infections, so we decided to stay home. We got Mrs. Harker to come and Dr. Woolf, who was a new doctor here. Everything went along not too badly, and Doc was getting things cleaned up and suddenly said, “By George, there is another one coming!” and sure enough in about forty minutes there was another fine boy. The only thing I missed was that they weren’t redheaded.
Marge was under the anaesthetic, but after the second one came and she became conscious, she asked what it was and if it was all right. When I told her it was twin boys, she asked me not to tease, and when I insisted, she wanted to see them, so I brought in the first one, and then the second. She insisted it was the same one, so I had to bring them both at once before she would believe it. They were a lovely pair of kids. One of them weighed 6 ¼ pounds and the other 5 ¼, and were as nearly identical as you ever get them. They are a wonderful, fine pair of kids, never a headache since they were born.
She was a real healthy, lovely girl. She had a mind of her own but was a capable kid and got along very well.”
The last child to arrive was John Sylvester. “He was more like his dad in build and temperament, only he didn’t have all the natural bad things I always do. He had lots of fun although he never had any trouble and was always a good worker.”
Joe was very civic minded and served as a town councilman, the mayor, and was heavily involved with Rotary from its beginnings in Cardston. He had 3 terms as mayor, a total of ten years. He was instrumental in establishing the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
Through the years he did some ranching and began to buy more and more land. It seemed as though everything he turned his hand to turned out successfully. He was happy in his home life and in his work. His beloved Marge died in 1961 from complications of diabetes. He lived another 11 years, passing away 30 April 1972. He concludes his biography with these words:
“In looking back over my life, I have been greatly blessed and had a lot of luck as well. I couldn’t choose what I wanted to do, but had what turned up and made a living. I was blessed with two of the finest women who ever lived, and who were far too good for a rough-neck like I was, and who carried the big share for the family that I am very proud of.
We were able to do one or two of the things I had planned to do, one was to give them a better education than I had, and secondly, to get four of the five through a mission. Beth did not go because when she could have gone they were not sending missionaries because of the war. All the credit I feel that is due me was that I picked a wonderful mother for the kids.”
