Grandma Ricks first came into my life after Sarah and I came to Logan in August, 1907.  We met her about a month later.  We went to their home sometime in October.  Sarah had known the family as neighbors in Salina, Sevier County when the Ricks' lived there.  Brother Ricks was away and Sister Ricks received us and made us feel at home.  The following spring after the birth of Herbert our oldest son, we moved into one of the small houses owned by Brother Ricks, it was at 159 South 2nd East.  In this home I was to become intimately acquainted with Sister Ricks and her family.  We were often in their home, and she and the older girls were often in ours.

Our oldest daughter Sara, was born the following February 1st¹, fourteen months after Herbert was born.  Sister Ricks became a real mother to us and we loved her like our own mother.  Sarah’s mother came when baby Sara was born and Sister Ricks was there to help many times every day.  When death took my dear wife, my mother came to stay with me.  Sister Ricks and Sister Jensen were in our home daily, and I learned to love both very much.  Only under such circumstances could one learn to appreciate the wonderful qualities of two such neighbors as these.

When mother returned to Provo with the baby, my sister came to live with me and care for Herbert during those spring months until school ended.  Zettie, daughter of Sister Ricks had been a close friend of Sarah’s before she died.  She was taken ill along in April and when Brother Cowley came in, she wanted him to administer to her.  They sent me to assist.  They asked me to anoint her and so I did.  A testimony came to me that Zettie would become my wife.  I went home and cried most of the night.  I poured out my heart in prayer to the Lord.  I told him if it was his will he would have to throw us together as I felt incapable of courting another wife.  After the summer which I spent in Provo and Salina, Sister Herbert wanted to take the children till Christmas.  My mother and I left them there, and I returned to Logan.  I met Karl Farnsworth who came to live or batch² with me until Christmas when Zettie and I were married.  We brought the children home and Zettie became a wonderful mother to them and her own six children.

Dr. D. C. Budge paid a tribute to Sister Ricks.  He said to me that she and his own sister, Mrs. Nibley, best exemplified a Christ-like life of any woman he had known.  He added that she was just like her mother, Susannah Cardon.  We were in her house, and she in ours so much of the time we learned to rely on her more and more.  When they moved to River Heights, we became concerned for her welfare.  It was a problem climbing up and down that hill where the house stood above the garden and fields below.  She was worried about Lewis and Paul, her sons, who were both in hospitals in the army.  Grandpa was working in Salt Lake.  She was worried about this also, and then was stricken with flu and Zettie feared for me.  These worries and the problem of keeping the farm work going were too great a strain, and Grandma had to take to her bed.  Her girls were here and Grandpa returned but nothing could save her.  She passed away peacefully.  Public funerals were not permitted as we were all wearing health masks.³

I believe she was as dearly loved by all the community as anyone I have ever known.  She was truly a "Neighbor" to all with whom she came in contact.