Description of our Home:

I would like to describe as clearly as I can the home as I remember it as a child. Large cement porches skirted the west and north sides of the house with wooden pillars supporting the roof. The nine rooms on the main floor were large and spacious, tied together with a small square hall in the center of the home. Nearly every room has at least two doors in it leading into another room. On the north the large living room had a brick fireplace on the west wall. The fire place was faced with tiny Spanish tile, the den, also on the north connected the living room by a colonnade and book cases with leaded glass doors. The north window wall in the den had a built in window seat. It was built of oak. I remember, as a child, the beautiful large Navajo rugs mother had covering the hardwood floors. The old Edison phonograph occupied a very prominent spot in that den. Also mother had a lovely oak rocking chair and a leather chair which were part of the furnishings. Her beautiful mahogany upright piano, which she had earned by working for her father in the bank, graced the south wall of the living room. Double French doors with tiny glass panes, separated the living room and the dining room. During the cold part of the winter mother closed off the living room and den because it was too cold to heat. About the only time we used those rooms was at Christmas when dad piled the pitchy pine logs on the fireplace and kept the fire roaring until those cold rooms took on the warmth and coziness of the rest of the house. I must mention the lace curtains in the living room and den, made by my Grandmother Smith. They had large lace medallions up and down the sides and across the bottoms of the curtains. I thought they were beautiful. For years afterward there were remnants of those curtains around the house.

The dining room on the west was our family room. Mother had a large wood heater in the corner by the window seat. Grandma Smith’s old oak round table always graced the middle of the dining room. It has 12 or 14 leaves to it and is still in use for family gatherings. It was spread to its full length for the Smith clan’s Thanksgiving dinners. On the south end of the room was a built in buffet made of oak with leaded glass doors. We only used the good dishes and glasses and silverware for company. Goodness only knows we had plenty of company, many of the great people, both men and women, of the church have sat at that table: President Heber J. Grant spent several days at our home, as did Joseph Fielding Smith, George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Harold B. Lee, Ezra Taft Benson, Mark E. Peterson and many of the Twelve Apostles and their wives. Also many General Relief Society Board Members have stayed there. Our home was used to house the dignitaries when they came for conference. Dad was their gracious host and chauffer and mother, the Stake Relief Society President, was warm and understanding. She made many lasting friendships.

The kitchen in the home was large and roomy with the sink and drain board on the west underneath the windows. I remember the “cooler”, as mother called it, a cupboard with ventilation holes to the outside. The cooler was always loaded with good home grown produce. The bottom shelves were the coldest part so the big pans of milk were put there. I remember the heavy cream mother skimmed off those pans of milk everyday. We had all the milk we could drink then the livestock around the place, pigs, chickens, and baby calves got the rest. Mother always kept chickens and was very careful that they had the right diet. A big monarch black stove stood on the north wall of the kitchen with a wood box nearby, and a hot water tank was located in the corner near the stove because the pipes had to run through the cook stove to warm the water. Also mother kept water hot in her big tea kettle and the old reservoir at the side of the stove. There was hot water to take our Saturday’s baths besides for dishwashing. On wash day she pulled out the big copper boiler, filled it with water, added lye to soften the water, homemade soap, then fired the stove to red hot to heat the water. I remember how she would “boil” the white clothes to get them clean. The only washer I remember when a child was the old Maytag which sat in the laundry room. Two laundry trays, as we called them, were deep sinks, enduring the washing process these sinks were filled with clean water. The white clothes were always rinsed twice, once in warm water to get the soap suds out and one rinse with “bluing” water to make them look white. The soap was homemade (see page 35 for description of this). The laundry room adjoined the kitchen. Besides the laundry equipment this was the room in which the milk was cared for. Dad brought in huge buckets of milk night and morning, and the milk would be put through the “separator” to separate the milk and cream. Large buckets of cream and pans of milk were then put in the cooler to cool off. I remember the chore of washing all the separator parts and putting them in the sunny south window to be sterilized by the hot sun.

On the east side of the house were the bedrooms. The “pink” bedroom or guest room was just off the den. The little square hall followed with the bathroom, mother’s bedroom and the “sleeping porch”. This sleeping porch—not a true porch but part of the house, was on the south with 6 windows on the south and 2 on the east. It was always a sun-filled room. Mother had our beds in this big spacious room—it was just off her bedroom separated by French doors.

The upstairs was only finished with composition walls and since I’ve lived in the house, have been changed to two nice bedrooms. The basement also has been paneled—it has a large furnace room, food room, and bedroom. We used these rooms as playrooms and the upstairs was used for Mayola’s rag dolls.