My father, Axel Edward Matson was born in Sweden.  He came to America with his father and mother and his younger brothers and sisters when he was a small boy.  His older brother and sisters came to America before Grandfather and Grandmother.  They settled in Ogden, Utah, where Grandfather Matson worked in 6 blacksmith shop for a number of years.  They moved to LaBelle where they lived until Grandfather and Grandmother both passed away.

My mother was born in Utah.  At least one of her ancesters came over the ocean with the Mayflower.  Her father Lorenzo Snow Crapo died when she was a small girl.  My Grandmother Crapo later married Jim Slater who raised the family until they were grown up.

I was born September 7, 1899, at LaBelle, Fremont County, Idaho in a log house.  The logs were hand hewn, the corners were dove tailed, and the roof was dirt.  Later we moved to Annis, Idaho where we lived until my mother passed away.  My baby sister Ida Belle was only 10 months old.  I was almost 3 years old when mother passed away.  I remember after the funeral everyone was gone except my dad and me, he picked me up and said, "we haven't got a mother any more."  The summer before Mother passed away my father worked in Yellowstone Park and Aunt Rose stayed with my mother and us kids.  I remember some of the things that happened that year.  When I rode with Grandpa Slater he would let me hold the lines, the horses would follow the road.  Aunt Rose would milk the cow and give me a cup of milk fresh from the cow.  We had a dog named Jinks; I would try to hitch him up to my little wagon but the string would always come loose.  They gave the dog to Grandfather Slater; he was living in the hills at the time.  The second night Jinks found us at Grandfather's home at LaBelle.  He lived until after we went to live with Uncle John.

When my mother was ill with diptheria Dr. Rich would drive a team and buggy from Rexburg to see her and when he came, he would inject something in my back.  I would always try to hide when he came, but they always found me.  One thing I remember about the funeral was a quite a number of teams hitched to wagons tied in front of the house.

After Mother passed away my father let Grandfather and Grandmother Matson care for us; Aunt Yerda was living at home at the time and she helped care for us.  The following summer Aunt Yerda and Grandmother and we kids drove to Idaho Falls in a buggy.  They drove old Dick and Florie.  It was a long drive, just dirt roads and a few bridges.  They drove down by the river and tied the horses to the back of the buggy to feed them where Memorial Drive is now.  I don't remember what they did except they had our pictures taken.  It was quite late in the night when we got back.  At the end of the first year I stayed with my grandparents, Grandfather and I each got a  prize for perfect attendance at Sunday School.  In the spring of the year when I was 4 years old Father married Jennie Sanders and I went to live with them.  I lived with them about 1-2 years.  Then they left me with Grandpa and Grandma Matson where I lived until Grandpa and Grandma both passed away.  I was 12 years old at the time.  When I was about 8 or 9 years old, the Annis bishop which was Uncle George Browning and the Annis choir were asked to go to Swan Valley to hald a conference.  They let Glenn Browning and me go with them.  We started at noon Friday, arrived at Swan Valley in mid-afternoon on Saturday.  They camped out each night.  There was no bridge across the river at Swan Valley.  They stayed on the south side of the river up to about where Irwin is.  They crossed the river on a cable car.  Glenn and I didn't go to conference.  We stayed at camp.  The road was very rough and steep in places.  We got home quite late Monday night.

My Grandfather Matson lived on a farm of 15 acres.  He kept a team of horses, two cows and some chickens.  He raised a good garden and he kept 5 or 6 stands of bees.  He had a few fruit trees, some raspberries, gooseberries and currants, which he traded for food.  They raised about 2 acres of potatoes each year and some wheat.  He would take some of the wheat to the mill and he would get flour and bran in exchange for the wheat.  Somehow or other he had enough to pay his taxes and water assessment.  He paid an honest tithing on every thing in kind, wheat, potatoes, apples, butter and eggs.  He would get two weiner pigs in the spring and feed them during the summer and fatten them up in the winter.  They would kill them, put them in brine to cure.

When I was thirteen, I was living with Uncle John at the time, I Graduated from the eighth grade.  There were 6 of us in the class; Bert Clinger and I were 13 years old, two of them were about 16 or 17 years old and two of them were past 21 years old.

When I was 13 years old we went to Yellowstone Park with teams and wagons.  We had 3 teams and wagons and it took us 2 weeks driving some every day.  Our diet was flap jacks and fish; we had tents to sleep in.  The tourists rode in coaches with 4 and 6 horse teams  They were the most beautiful horses I had ever seen.

When I was 14 years old I started high school.  We had 6 teachers, one of them was the principal.  I walked on the railroad track the first 2 years from Uncle John's to Rigby.

My third year Ida and I and Dora Martin drove a horse and buggy to school and my 4th year I rode a horse to school.  Ida worked for her board and room that year.  She lived with the Abe Smith family.  I graduated the spring of 1917, the year the U.S. entered World War I.

Edith and I grew up in the same school.  She was just another girl until I was almost 19 years old and then she became something special.  We went together about 21/2 years and then were married in the Salt Lake temple.  We lived in Annis and Labelle for 5 years and then we moved to Mud Lake where I had a job with a 4 horse team and a fresno leveling ground and harvesting, hay.  I worked for Mr. Sweet the first year.  The second year I rented some farm ground from them.  It was at this time I was asked to be president of the Mud Lake Branch.  I had in mind to refuse but as I was about to say "no" I remembered something Uncle Fred Mason had said.  He said his brother was asked to be a counselor in the bishopric and he refused.  Uncle Fred told him he should never refuse to accept a position in the church.  I accepted the position.

There were only six or seven families that were active and none of us knew what to do, so things were not easy as I look back.  Those were the hardest days of our life, but they were the happiest years of our life.  A great many things happened to strengthen my testimony.  One of them happened at a funeral of a baby belonging to Virgil and Verna Johnson. The baby passed away in the LDS Hospital at Idaho Falls. We arranged the program for a funeral. We asked the sisters to select the songs, there were only 3 sisters to sing.  When we were at the funeral home before the funeral Tom Williams came there.  We asked him if he would help with the singing. He said he would, but he wanted us to change the last song for  something else.  I told him that we had asked the sisters to select the songs and I thought we should sing them.  Then he consented to sing.  There were only 14 or 17 people there.  We sat in a circle around the casket.  Brother Hegstead was the closing speaker and then they sang the closing song.  As they were singing this song I knew that the song was written especially for that talk by Brother Hegstead and as I thought that this was given to me as a testimony, I received an electric shock right in the back of my neck and it went down my backbone.  That was about 45 years ago and it is just as clear today as it was then, I had worked with electricity enough to know what a shock felt like.

There was a number of times that my life has been spared and I could not understand why.  One time I was either 4 or 5 years old I fell into a canal.  I moved around in the water to suit myself.  I didn't think about drowning -- I only thought that I would float around the canal and the slough that it emptied into the rest of my life.  I went down stream a ways and pulled myself out with a rosebush.  Another time I was in the stockyards at Spencer, Idaho.  There was a wild cow in the corral.  She started after me and she was real mad.  I don't remember of falling but I went down flat on the ground and she passed over me.  She hit the fence so hard that it stunned her for a minute; it gave me time to reach the fence.

Another time I was working in the sugar factory.  I was up near the ceiling about 35 feet high.  The conveyor was shorted as I reached for the conveyor with one hand on the rod in the ceiling I received a hard shock and it was shaking me quite hard.  The men on the floor didn't know what to do.  They knew that if the electricity was turned off I would have dropped 35 feet head first on the cement.  Bert Davis, the boss, and Earl Hudleson were up on the stack of sugar at the time.  Earl came over to where I was and he got hold of my wrist with one hand and braced himself by putting his other hand on a conveyor, then.the current went through him the same as I.  Then Bert Davis got a hold of my overalls and pulled me loose.

We moved from Mud Lake in March of 1935 to Labelle on Edith's father's homestead and we have lived there ever since.  A short time after we moved to Labelle I was asked to be Supt. of the Sunday School.  I held that position for one year.  When they reorganized the ward I was asked to be the counselor to Bishop Rulon Anglesey.  Later when Bishop Vern Olsen was sustained as bishop I was asked to be counselor to him along with Leo Cherry.  When Bishop Olsen moved away Bishop Kenneth Simmons was sustained and I was asked to be one of his counselors.

During these years I saw the power of the priesthood made manifest several times.  One time sister Bonnie Bazil who was only about 2 weeks old was very ill.  The doctor had been to their home during the day and he had little hope for her recovery and that night she was having convulsions when they asked us to administer to her.  I believe she was healed by the power of the priesthood.  Another time Eldon Morgan's son, Clive, was ill.  He had been ill for several months and had been administered to several times.  We administered to him and promised him health according to our faith and by the power of the priesthood he was quite well for about two weeks and then got much worse.  President Hyrum T. Moss came by and he said the boy has been appointed unto death and somebody is holding him.  It might be his father or it might be his mother or it might be one of his friends.  Tell them to give him up for he is appointed unto death.

That night I prayed for him and I asked the Lord if he could not get well for him to take him home.  I went over to their home and Eldon had done the same -- he had asked the Lord to take him.  We went in the house and sat by his bed.  There were 3 of us, Eldon and his sister Ora and me.  This was about 9:30 PM.  About 11 o'clock someone came and took him, we didn't see the person but Clive talked to someone we couldn't see 2 or 3 minutes before he passed away.

When I was a counselor to Bishop Simmons, Evelyn got a call to fill a mission.  We were trying to get things ready for her and Edith started to worry about it and she became sick.  She had a nervous breakdown.  So we did not send Evelyn on a mission.  It made a great deal of difference in our lives from then on.  From about 1935 to 1942 it was a problem to get enough money to get the children started to school.  The last 4 or 5 years of the time, we raised sweet corn and sold that.  We sold most in Teton Basin country.  In 1942 I received a temporary appointment as a rural mail carrier.  I delivered mail for 8 years.  Then they made a permanent appointment, giving veterans preference.  So I farmed and worked in a spud house for a number of years.  About 1957 I got the job of night fireman that was mostly answering sheriff and police calls as well as fire calls.  I had this job until about 1966 when I retired and just worked the farm.

We had been married just one year to the day when Phyllis was born.  Edith was staying with her sister Vin Ball who was living in town (Rigby).  She was staying there because the snow was deep and the doctor could get there quite easily.  After we brought her home in Annis, Phyllis got bronchitis.  We took her and Edith to stay with Mother Morgan.  They got the doctor out to see her.  He said afterward that when he first saw her he did not think she could live.  It was because the elders administered to her by the power of the priesthood she was saved.  It was just l 1/2 years later on August 5, 1933, that Clara Jane was born, we were living in Labelle (the place they call the Heck place).  We were still living there on Feb. 8, 1926, when Lois was born.  It was in the mouth of March that I went to Mud Lake to work, then in June, Orian Smout brought our household furnishings in a wagon and lead our cow behind the wagon, and Edith's father brought Edith and the children in a car.  We lived in Miud Lake 9 years.  In March 1929 Evelyn was born.  The doctor from Roberts came out to Mud Lake and he stayed all night.  The next morning Edith's pains left her, the doctor decided to take her into Roberts and keep her there.  The frost was going out of the ground and the doctor had trouble with his car.  They were near Tom William's place.  He (Tom Williams) hitched up a team on a two-wheel trailer and took the doctor and Edith to Roberts.  Edith's father came and got her and took her to his home.  It was about a week later that Evelyn was born.

The last 3 years we were in Mud Lake the girls, Phyllis, Clara Jane and Lois, road to school on horse back.  They went in any and all kinds of weather.  The last winter we had steady cold all during January and up to the middle of February.  It was 30 below a lot of the time and it went to 37 below at one time.  When I look back I wonder how they ever stood the cold.  In November of 1939 Jerry was born, our only boy.  We, his parents, as well as the older girls were all happy and they all tried to spoil him.  About this time we let Bish and Ruth Hansen, our school teachers, live in part of our house for $3.50 a month.  On June 11, 1942 Judy was born.  She was our baby and I hated to see her grow up.  When Judy was born Edith had a very hard time.  Judy was a breach birth, that is she came backwards.  Either as she was born or shortly afterward she broke her collar bone.

In February about 1970 I fell from the hay stack and landed on the edge of the hay rack on my back.  It broke 3 ribs and a bone that one of the ribs was attached to.  I was in the hospital at Rexburg for a little over 3 weeks.  Jerry would drive down from Sugar City and feed the cattle in the morning and Golden would go over and care for them in the evening.  Edith saw that they got water during the day.  I had been having trouble with swallowing for a number of years.  It gradually got worse and in October 1975 I went to Doctor Higgs and he told me I had no choice -- I had to have an operation or starve to death.  So we had him operate, he operated on my esophagus.  They fed me with a tube for about 3 weeks until I was able to swallow again.  I stayed with Jerry until January 1976.  Then I went home and lived there until March 8, 1976, when I fell and broke my hip.  Danny came along and found me after about 3 hours.  They got an ambulance and took me to the hospital at Idaho Falls.  I had pneumonia before they could repair my hips so I had quite a long stay at the hospital.  During that time the prayers of my family and the prayers of the membership of our ward was answered many times.  There was a time when they did not expect me to live.  But I am still alive.  Thanks to the blessings of my Heavenly Father.  On October 29, 1976, I had surgery again.  I had a hernia operation.  I am staying with Jerry and his family at this time (November 26, 1976) and I am about well again.  In December 1975 I went to visit Judy on a plane.  I stayed there until January 1, 1976, and I came back and stayed with Jerry a few days before I went to live at home.  Then in December 1976 I went to see Judy again by plane and stayed about 2 weeks.  I enjoyed my visits with Judy and family.  Both visits I got a little better acquainted with the children.  I also enjoyed my ride on the plane.  On March 10, 1977 Phyllis and Von, Golden and Lois, Jerry and Barbara and I met together at our home and we discussed family organization.  Jerry called Bruce and Judy and Evelyn and Clara and we arranged to have a meeting at Bruce and Judy's place on March 26, 1977.  We had a very good visit and at the meeting we decided to have Jerry Matson, DeVirl Davenport and Herb Hammons look into the legal questions.  Some of the others to look in and decide what to do about the farm and someone else to make arrangements for the reunion July first.  I had asked the family to incorporate and buy the farm from me.  My reason for wanting a family organization: when we were young and all together we worked together; everything we had to do we did it together and we had a spirit of unity.

When Phyllis was 1 year old I would take her out and let her ride in a hammock fastened between the handles of a hand plow after just a few rounds she would go to sleep.  When Phyllis was about 3 years old Edith and I would cultivate beets with a 2 row cultivator.  She rode the horse with Phyllis on behind and Clara Jane in front and I walked behind and guided the cultivator.

When Phyllis was about 13 years old Lois was nine and Clara in between, those 3 children and myself picked up Uncle John's potatoes.  Uncle John had Bill Barker and his boy helping.  In the morning while Bill plowed enough potatoes for the forenoon.  Uncle John and Bill's son picked up one row each and we would pick enough to keep the 3 of them hauling until noon.  In the afternoon Uncle John and the boy would pick one row each.  While Bill plowed enough for the rest of the day we four picked enough to keep them hauling the rest of the day until quite late.

After we moved back to Labelle (1935) we would haul hay loose on a wagon.  One of the girls, sometimes two of them would ride on the hay and tramp it down so we could get more hay on the wagon.  Then when we came into the haystack one of the girls would ride or lead the derrick horse to unload the hay.  It was hard work and usually quite hot weather.

At this time we got a 4 row cultivator for cultivating beets.  I could ride the cultivator, steer it, and drive the horses.  Edith and the girls would thin and hoe the beets by hand.  At one time Phyllis wanted to trade with me.  I agreed and she only cultivated a short ways and decided to trade back.  When we were living in Mud Lake one time when the girls, Phyllis and Clara Jane were quite young, Lois was not much more than a baby.  We had threshers, Edith had gone to Idaho Falls with some of the other sisters for some kind of a stake meeting and we were going to have the threshers for supper.  Before the threshers arrived I killed two young roosters and skinned them, the girls got supper for the crew.  They were as busy and as happy as they could be.  They did not have an electric oven.  They had to stuff the stove with sage brush.  But they had a good meal for us.  When the depression was at the worst Phyllis sold papers -- The Grit.  She would ride a little white pony for miles once a week sometimes it would be very cold and she would come home almost frozen.  She would get 50 or 60 cents a week and this she gave to her mother for groceries.

I used to go to the mountains for wood when we lived in Mud Lake.  The year before we moved to Labelle Phyllis went with me a number of times.  It was a three day trip -- one day to go to the mountains, one day to get our load and one day to return home.  We had to haul our water from home for the horses and ourselves.  I would cut down the trees and trim them.  Phyllis would ride old Ladd and snake the wood down to our wagon and we would load it up.

When Evelyn was just one year old we went to Yellowstone Park.  Ruth Smout (a niece) who was just a small girl at the time went with us.  We had a 28 model Chev which was almost new.  We had a real good time.  We went to Spencer, then across to Ponds and into Yellowstone.  We had a tent and camped out for 4 or 5 days.

One of the things that stand out in my memories was a father's and son's outing in Swan Valley.  Jerry and I went along just the two of us going over the hills in the early morning.  At the outing we played games and had a picnic.  Shortly after Jerry was ordained a priest he and I were asked to administer the sacrament.  I remember the thrill I had -- we two administering to the sacrament together.

One of our problems about 1936 - 1942 was getting enough money to start the children to school.  We had to buy our books and they needed shoes and other articles of clothing.  We sold sweet corn; most of the time we went to Teton Basin.  We would pick the corn after sun down and if we didn't have enough we would pick a little more before sun up in the morning.  We took the back seat out of the car and filled it to the top and as many of us as could ride in the front seat went along and we sold our corn.  One time Clara and I went clear into Jackson.  From one and one half acres of sweet corn we would get enough to start the children to school.  We sold our corn from 12 to 15 cents a dozen ears.  From 1942 to 1951 I carried the mail.  The family helped especially during Christmas time.

When my mother was just a young girl my Grandfather Crapo died.  Sometime later my Grandmother married Jim Slater.  Grandfather Slater was born May 2, 1849, at Bristol, Mass.  When he was quite a small boy the family came West, Grandfather was lost on the plains and some Commanche Indians found him and took care of him and raised him until he was 12 years old when he found his parents.  Then afterward the Indians would come in the canyon near where he lived to pick berries and he played with the Indian children.  He learned most of the fire signals and smoke signals and much of the Indian habits and some of the Indian language.  He also learned to tan the skins and furs and what hides were best for different uses.  He said that a good calf hide was the best for a riding bridle reign.  He also braided raw hide lariats, etc.  When the war broke out between the army and the Indians he served as a scout for the army.  Later when gold was discovered on the Slamon Riber [Salmon River?] country Grandfather with other men brought a train load of food mostly flour from Cache Valley for the Mormon Church and took it to Salmon and traded it for gold.  The route they took from Cache Valley to Idaho Falls, then to Market Lake (Roberts, Idaho) then to Camas and across to Birch Creek and up Birch creek and down the Lemhi.  They paid for the food in gold.  The men melted the grease out of one of the grease buckets and put the gold in it.  Then poured grease over the gold just in case they were robbed on the way back.  When I was quite small one year the river bridge at Lorenzo washed out and Grandfather Slater ran a ferry boat across the river a short distance up the river from the bridge.  He died February 28, 1942.

I was set apart as President of Mud Lake Branch and ordained a high priest by President George Albert Smith who was an apostle at that time. (Jan., 1927)

I was ordained an elder by Ole Hansen of Menan in January 1921.  Bert Carpenter and I were baptized in the canal on the corner by Uncle Frank Lundquist's home.  Popes now live there.  We were baptized by P. G. Sessions.

When Grandpa Matson was passing away Grandma Matson called to him and said she could not live without him.  He said in Swedish, "There isn't such a little bit left."  About one or two hours afterward he passed away.  She went into a coma for three days.  She came awake for a few minutes and asked about the chores and went to sleep for three more days and then passed away.

When I was living with Grandpa and Grandma, sometimes we would have speakers come to our ward in the evening.  It was a long distance for them to come and they drove a team of horses and they would have to stay all night.  I remember Grandpa would sometimes bring them to our place for the night.  We didn't have a spare bed.  Grandpa and Grandma would let them sleep in their bed and they would sleep on the floor.

Edith passed away February 10, 1975.  She had been ill for some time.  Lois and I tried to care for her at home.  I could feed her and care for her some but Lois had to keep her clean and at last she had to clean all of the bedding three times a day and she was very busy.  She got so that
we could not care for her and we took her to the Community Hospital of Idaho Falls.  They had her in intensive care for about a week after that she passed away.  She suffered a stroke a short time before she passed away.

When we left Mud Lake, times were very hard.  We bought the farm from the Federal Land Bank for $3425.00. We had to pay $325.00 down.  The balance we got a Land Bank loan for $2000.00 and a second mortgage for $1100.00.

To raise money to make our down payment and to have some cash to move with we sold good Holstein milk cows, some that were good enough for the California market would bring $25.00 each; other milk cows would bring up to $20.00 each.  Good feeder pigs about 100 pounds would bring $2.00 each, fat hogs were worth about $4.50 a hundred pounds.  We sold our hay, some that was a year old was worth $3.00 a ton.  The new hay was worth $3.50 a ton.  The only thing we had to sell that brought any money was horses.  We sold some for $50.00 each and some for $75.00 each.

When I was quite small we harvested our potatoes by plowing the potatoes with a hand plow.  Then the women and children would crawl down the furrows on our hands and knees and scratch the potatoes out and put them in small piles.  Later the men came along and put the potatoes in burlap sacks and sewed them up.

About 1951 we went to Portland Oregon to see Aunt Vin, Edith's oldest sister and to have a vacation.  We visited the docks and the zoo and we also went out to the sea.  It was Edith and I and Jerry and Judy.  I had not seen my dad for 39 years and I had never seen Wally.  I saw Wally's name in the telephone book and I called him and found that he was my brother and he told us how to go see Dad who was living in Vancouver, Washington.  Later that summer Dad and Florence his wife and Wally came to see us in Labelle.  After that he came to see us each summer until he was not able to come any more.

The first time I remember of seeing them thresh grain, I was about five years old.  They used a horse powered machine.  The horses went around in a circle, this, by the use of heavy rod and heavy gears turned the wheels of the threshing machine.  There was no blower, the machine shook the straw out and the boys had to fork the straw away.  A man held a half bushel measure and measured the grain, then dumpoed it into sacks.

Later Edith's father, Brig Morgan, got a steam engine to turn a threshing machine with a large belt.  This engine could turn the threshing machine but it could not move by its self.  They had to move it with horses when they moved it, it took a four horse team to pull the engine and another four horse team to pull the thresher or separator.

My favorite poem is: It Takes a Heap of Livin' in a House to Make it Home by Edgar A. Guest. (I didn't think much about it until Edith passed away.  Then it really hit me.)

My favorite songs are some of the songs the Ladies Chorus used to sing.- "In the Garden", "Besides Still Waters", "Master of the Garden", and "He That Hath Clean Hands".

I am so thankful for my family, my son Jerry and all of the girls, Phyllis, Clara Jane, Evelyn, Lois and Judy and all of the grand children.  They are all so thoughtful and kind to me.  I often wonder how anyone who is left along with no family can get along.

Shortly after Jerry was married he was living in the Rostan home, Judy had an attack of appendicitis.  We called Dr. Rigby and was going to take her to him.  Judy was in so much pain that she just rolled on the floor and groaned.  We got Jerry to come and help, and he and I administered to her.  A few minutes later we were getting ready to take her in to town, she said there was no need to take her for the pain had left her.  We went into the doctor and he said she had had an attack of appendicitis and if she had another we were to go to the hospital.  To my knowledge she never had another attack.

We had a party on our 25th wedding anniversary.  I don't remember much about the party but I do well remember that the air was fall. of excitement.  Edith and the girls were busy preparing refreshments and Jerry, who was about seven years old, kept singing over and over, "Leave the dishes in the sink Ma.  Leave the dishes in the sink, each dirty plate will have to wait, tonight we are going to celebrate, leave the dishes in the sink."

On February 9, 1971, our 50th wedding anniversary, Lois had an open house at her home for us.  There were many of our friends came , both from our ward and from the surrounding wards.  Many of them gave us cards of good wishes.  Our own family gave us a TV set and we had a real good time.  Lois gave us a very nice and beautiful wedding cake.

About 1946 or 1947 our stake secured a parcel of land on West Pine Creek for a girl's camp.  We went to the dedication service.  It was night and we had a fire and a program.  Lois was a member of the stake MIA and did much to arrange the program.  Evelyn gave a reading.  It was an Indian legend, an Indian love story.  As she finished the story, a brother was up on the hill above the fire and he played "The Indian Love Call" on his violin.   It really was a beautiful story and President Ririe, our stake president, was so thrilled with it that for a number of years afterward whenever we met he would tell me how he liked that story.  It is one of my pleasant memories.