I, Marion Hughes was born of goodly parents, Charles Arthur and Orilla Luella Leavitt Hughes on  Wednesday, 22 May 1912, in a one room (16 X 16 foot) house, where all the rest of the children, in our family, before me were born, in Mesquite, Nevada.  I was delivered by Carmelia Hughes, my grandmother, who had delivered more that 600 to 700 babies.  We grew up in that house as children and we had a lot of fun, in that house.  Being reared of these goodly parents, I have had many opportunities both in church activities and in my home life.  Through their teachings and example, I have been enabled to withstand many of the buffetings of Satan.
I was blessed by William E. Abbott, on 1 July 1912, in Mesquite, Nevada.
One time when we were younger, there were four of us in bed together with the measles.  I remember Amanda was one of them.
In the wintertime, we made the beds on the floor with another bed on top.  One Christmas time, they were trying to get us kids to go to sleep.  Dad had hung a sheet up between our beds and the Christmas tree.  We were all keyed up and excited and none of us could go to sleep.  A voice from outside said hey! Arth are your kids asleep.  The voice said, then I’ll go down the street and then if they’re not asleep, I’ll just have to go on and leave them.  Every one of us was soon asleep.
We had a fireplace on the outside of this big room that we lived in.  They had cut a hole in the lumber wall and the adobe fireplace was outside.  Every fall dad would get down on the floor and play marbles with us kids.  This room was on the east of the house that is there now and its front door faced the back door of the present house.  Every fall the folks would get a big rug for the floor of this one big room.  There was a tent out back about three feet away where mother did the cooking and then when the boys got a little older, that’s where they slept.
Dad would put fresh straw on the floor and then they put this woven rug over it each fall.  It covered the whole floor.  I think Aunt Vinne and Uncle John Horsley had one of those weavers and they did the weaving of these rugs.  One rug would last for several years.  The straw gave padding and warmth to the house too.  Every summer, they would take the rug out until fall.  Often dad would hike with us boys.
Dad was in lots of the town plays.  They usually had six or eight plays a year and dad always had parts in them.  Luella use to have parts in them also.  They would go to play practices and mother usually went with them and we kids would stay home.  We had one of those old pump organs so we’d have our own band.  Leonard played the organ, Angie played the drums, the rest of us would pound on old tubs, and we thought we had a wonderful band.  We really opened up that end of town with our noise in the evenings.
Dad and Mother always went to church and took us with them. They didn’t ever say you go to the meeting.  In the church was a big pot bellied stove to heat the church.  It was about in the center of the building.  I don’t remember much about what went on, only that the classes of Sunday School would go to different homes, when they separated for classes.  In the summer, the class would go outside under big cottonwood trees that were around the church.  One of my Sunday School teachers was Aunt Rees Huntsman.  She was a very good teacher.  She could instill into a child the principles of the gospel and a desire to live a good life.  I had other great teachers, such as Selma Leavitt.
Dad used to tell us that when we saw him smoke that would give us the privilege.  I never heard him swear, not even slang.  Mother was one of the best cooks in the country, as far as I’m concerned.  She always had good food prepared and had good gardens.  Up until just before her death, she always had food: cakes, pies, or rolls, in the cupboard or fridge, for us when we came in the house, we could help ourselves.
When I was younger, I had many epilepsy fits, for a year or two.  Luella was telling me about the first one I had.  Mother had gone with dad to play practice.  Luella was at home alone with me.  She sent some of the kids after them.  It nearly scared her to death.  Luella use to take care of me lots for which I’m grateful.  Mother would go to the fields a lot with dad to help irrigate and do other work.
Usually, in the wintertime especially, we’d have all the kids on our end of town from the wash up come to our house.  We had great stacks of hay and we raised some sugar cane, which we made sorghum.  After dad and the boys got through cutting all they needed to make the molasses, we’d put posts in the ground and then put a cottonwood poles between them and stand the cane against the poles.  We put the game can by it.  We’d make trails between the cane and haystacks and we’d play “run sheep run” and “hide and seek” and all those kinds of games at night.  It was usually 10:00 or 11:00 at night before we’d break up and go home. 
We always had our goal by the fireplace on the south side of the one room house of ours because the heat from the fireplace came through the adobes and the wall broke all the cold winds and we could keep warm there while we played. 
Sometimes, we would go up in the ballpark and build a big bonfire.  Both boys and girls would play “wooley”, “run sheep run” and “hide and seek”.  The run sheep run game was where we would choose up sides with a captain for both sides and they would also have a willow-man which were the fastest person on each side and they would get those pomegranate willows and when one side would hide and the captain of the other side would tell them to go out and find them.  If you got within 10 feet of the captain, they could whip you until you’d get back.  We had many welts on our back and seats.  The captain could run either direction or when he would go out and spot someone from the other side, he’d yell, “Run Sheep Run”, and everyone would try to run into the goal without being whipped back.  If you made it then you got a turn at doing the whipping and finding. 
There was another game we played called “Wooley”.  I don’t remember quite what it was but they could grab you by your hair and pull it till your hair came out.
The one we really liked, we called “Town Bell”.  We would choose up sides and about three of one side would have cow bells and they would run to any corner in town and ring the bells and if they didn’t get caught by the other side then it gave their side a point.  Sometimes on the corners where there were four corners, they could sneak real quickly and make four points.  We’d go way out in the fields and all over to hide.  You’d hear a bell on one corner and everyone would run for that bell and then you’d hear another bell on some other corner.  It was a lot of fun.  As we got older, we had to work more and the town grew and the area was cleaned off more so we didn’t play as much.
We trapped muskrats on the river but none of us had any rubber boots and we’d just go in with our regular shoes on.  The river would have ice on much of the time and for years I had trouble with chill blames.  The way they cured that was to put kerosene on it.  I found out about it when the Dixie College came down to put on a play at our high school and some of the people had to stay in our home and they told us about the remedy.  At might I couldn’t even get on my feet because they would be so sore.  Whoever it was told us to warm some kerosene and mix it with salt and rub the bottom of my feet so I did this for years when ever I was bothered with it.
I went to grade school down on Main Street where Don Lee’s Mobil Station is now.  I don’t remember too much about my first grade in school, only that I went in the east wing of the old school building.  It was a lumber building with wings out each way, North, South, East and West. There was a cistern out next to the street, on the South, with a large cottonwood tree standing by it.  There was a ditch up along the West side, along the street.  There were six large cottonwood trees along it.  A merry-go-round swing was in the back or North side of the building.  There was not much playground equipment or room to play.  We played in the streets and across the street to the West, on the old tithing office grounds.  Aunt Ann Barnum lived on the north end of the block just up from it.  The second and third grades were in the back room, or the North Wing.  Our teacher in those grades was Keppbis.  She and her sister came from the Eastern United States.  It was a great novelty to see ditches, of water, running down along the streets, and every time the bell would ring all the kids would run and lay down by the ditch to get a drink, before going in to school.  The Keppbis sisters weren’t used to such things, it was weird to them.  It was not long before they could lie down and drink out of the ditch with the kids.  The water was very bad, a lot of alkali.  There was not any water system, in town and we didn’t have indoor toilets, it was the old outhouses and they would stink.  Out in the back Northeast corner, of the school grounds was the woodpile, which supplied the old pot bellied stove, for heat.  Many times when we would do things, in school, that was not right, out teacher would send us to the principal, who was Aunt Emma Abbott, and she would make us carry wood in for the janitor, who would feed the stove.  There was a lot of Malaria or chills and fever.  I had it several times, in my younger days.  I remember when it would come on, while in school.  The teacher would send me home.  I would start for home, which was three blocks to the east.  There were two big cottonwood trees, at the bottom of Uncle Charlie Hardy’s lot. (We called all the older people uncle and aunt)  When I would get that far I would be chilling, so much, I would lay down with my head in the shade, of the trees, and the rest of my body in the sun, until the was over, then I would get up, go on home, with the high fever.  It would be a few days before I would go back to school. 
The fourth grade was started in the old lumber church across the street, where the wagon wheel motel now stands.  Aunt Emma Abbott was our teacher.  We kids thought she had eyes in the back of her head.  She could be writing on the blackboard and if someone would make a noise, she didn’t have to look around to see whom it was, she would call out the name of the person.  She was also the principal of the school and a very good teacher.  The old school building was sold, that is why we were having school in the church.  Some of the classes were held in different homes, that year.  The new school was being built to the east of the present old gym.  It was torn down later, when the new school was built.
My fifth and sixth grades were in this building, which was made out of cement blocks and adobe.  I had some part in the building of the school building.  Dad and Uncle Jeremy Leavitt had the contract to haul the gravel for the building.  It was hauled across the river by teams and wagons.  They were loaded, by hand, with a number 2 shovel.  Part of it had to be screened by hand.  We boys would screen the gravel while dad and Uncle Jeremy would be over unloading.  I was smaller, at that time, so I didn’t have to help as much as Esmond, Dee, and Leonard plus Irving and Lee Leavitt.  It was at this time that I got in trouble and received by only whipping from dad.  (Story told in history)
I had a lot of friends.  Grant Bowler that is now the St. George Temple president was one of my closest friends until they moved to Idaho.  They were gone five years and then they came back and moved into the old Abbott Hotel.  We were champions at robbing the birds nest and climbing trees and things like that.  There was another boy by the name of Jack Waymire that lived up where Omer Jensen now lives and I spent a lot of time playing with him.  He was out of California.  They had a little more money than the rest of us and he had a bicycle.  Jack would hold it until he’d get me going down the lane and then he’d turn me loose.  Many times I’d end up in a heap.  The Waymires moved down to Overton and I didn’t get to see Jack much after that but Grant and I were still good pals.
I was baptized by Robert Barnum, 6 June 1920, but the ward record doesn’t have who confirmed me into the church.
When I was in school, scarlet fever was going around and the school nurse, Miss Withers who was a big fat woman, she came over to the valley to check us out.  Francis’s face was real flushed so she sent him home and she also sent all the rest of us home and put up the quarantine sign “scarlet fever” on our front door.  We were out of school for six weeks and there wasn’t a one of us sick a day.  We really had a lot of fun.  We couldn’t go down into town but we set out our quail traps in our fields east of town and played there.  Aunt Emma Abbott was the school principal and she had told Miss Withers that none of us was sick a day and if she didn’t go take that sign down, that she was going to.  So then, our fun was over and we all had to go back to school.  We had the usual kid diseases as we were growing up, Mother and Father would stay close by and tend to us.  Many times, there were five or six of us sick at a time.  Mother would hardly lie down at night.  She had big washings, she would start early in the morning and still be washing after dark, at night.  I remember the first gasoline motor washer Dad got her; he bought it from Lewis Pulsipher. 
I went to school in the old church building that was where the Wagon Wheel Motel now stands, when I was in 3rd or 4th grades.  They had sold our school across the street and were in the process of building a new block one up in the block.  It was the one that our family was hauling the gravel for.  It’s been torn down since.  It’s where the asphalt is now, east of the school.  They didn’t have it completed so we were scattered all over, even in homes.  Aunt Emma Abbott was teaching 4th and 5th grades in the old church building so I went there under her.  I went to the new school one year for the 6th grade and then went over to Bunkerville for the 7th grade on.  The six lower grades came to Mesquite for school so they had what they called the six, six plan.
We had a teacher by the name of Snell.  One day she was over study hall and I was there studying when I got clobbered over the head and my ears rang for several days.  I looked up at her and asked what that was for.  She told me I was making a disturbance and I wasn’t supposed to come in there and do that.  I said, “Please, madam, I didn’t, I was innocent this time.”  I’d been guilty so often that I got the cuff anyway.
I got the nickname of “Tex” from Cy Granger when we were in the 8th grade.  Nile Washburn was out teacher and he read us a story about a great Texan and Cy gave me that name and I’ve been called that ever since.  Dee gave me the nickname of “Thun”, for no reason that I know of, other than it was just Dee’s way to nick name everyone.
I got in trouble a few times but I only remember getting one whipping from Dad.  Uncle Jeremy Leavitt and Dad had the contract to haul all the gravel for the new block school house that is torn down now.  We’d go down the old Woodbury Lane where Oscar Abbott lives now, cross the river to a wash where the gravel was.  We had to screen the gravel and help fill the wagon beds up.  The wagons were pulled by four horses.  One day a high water came down the river so Dad told me to stay home and help Mother.  As soon as Dad got down around the corner with the team and wagon, I got Wesley and Francis and down to the river we went to ride the waves, in the river.  Wesley and Francis were real small then.  We went down the Woodbury Lane down where they came out with the gravel.  We got undressed and were about across the river when Dad and Uncle Jeremy came out with a load of gravel.  He told me to get back across the river.  It was dangerous especially for the younger ones.  It was our big sport to ride those waves.  We’d lay out flat on our stomach and ride up on one wave.  Some of them were 25 feet high and then we’d hit another wave down near the bottom on the sand.  It was like a stick would float up and down in rapid water.  By the time we got back across the river and dressed, Dad was there too, and he had a pretty good willow waiting for me.  He said, “I thought I told you to stay home and help your mother this afternoon.”  I said, “Yes you did.”  He asked what we were doing there then and I said we just wanted to ride the waves.  Well, he waved me!!  I had several welts on my back for a few days.  He didn’t whip the other kids because they were younger and I was the leader.  That’s the only whipping I ever got other than I might have been booted a few times by the side of his boot when I didn’t mind right away.  However, I’d have much sooner got a whipping any day from Dad than have a talking with my Dad.  He wasn’t mean but a kind gracious father.  I tried to do what he told me to do after that, I learned a lesson.
Mother would whip us occasionally if we got out of line like all mothers have to do, but I think it was the example and teachings that they taught us is why we are all together now.  Dad always said, “Come now; let’s go do this of that.”  He was the leader and never said, “You go do this or that,” to any of us kids.
When Len and I were in school, I caught him in the 7th grade.  He had been out of school a lot and that was why I was able to catch him.  When we were in the 8th grade together, over at the high school in Bunkerville, they were going to have a class party, that night, so Len and I decided we wouldn’t go home.  Esmond and Dee were home, so they could milk our cows and other chores.  It was in the winter time and real cold.  We got home around midnight and when we went in the house, Mother said, “You boys, the milk buckets are on the table and the cows are in the corral.”  It was cold and there was a lot of slushy manure to walk through.  We had a bull that would stay out in the fields in the spring and summer but come winter, he would go in the corral with the cows.  We had no lights to milk by, only a little coal oil lamp, so we were feeling our way down the fence looking for the cows to milk.  Len fell, and the bull raised up and he went right off the fence, face first into the deep manure.  We learned our lesson always to do our chores before going off to any dances or parties after that.
I remember as a boy going to church in the old lumber church that stood South across the street from the schoolhouse.  It had a large assembly room and a stage.  Outside in front, was a belfry that stood high above the building, with a large bell in it.  The bell would ring one half hour before each meeting, was to start.  It had a clear tone, and a clear morning it could be heard over in the Bunkerville fields, which were four miles away.  As young people we would climb up into the belfry, as they rung the bell and it would almost deafen us.  The bell would also ring one half hour before school was to start.  The bell would remind us if we were to be in church or school.    
When I was eight years old, I was baptized in the canal, the first Sunday in June, June 6, 1920 by Robert Barnum.  While at the canal, before most of the people and the bishopric arrived, Mark Hardy, a young man, picked me up and through me into the pool.  I had to swim back to the bank.  There was a large crowd at the baptism, almost all the people at the church came to the baptism.  I do not remember who confirmed me; it is not on my church record
I was ordained a deacon by David A. Abbott, when I was 12 years old, on 15 June 1924.  David A. Abbott was a big man and he was my mother’s uncle.  He was also our deacon’s teacher and scoutmaster.  He was a boy’s man and we done many things, such as cutting wood for the older people.  Help clean the church and grounds.  Run errands for the Bishop, pass the Sacrament,   I was ordained a teacher when I was 15, by my Uncle Walter W. Hughes, 6 Feb. 1927.  I was 17 years old when I was ordained a Priest by Howard Pulsipher, 24 Sep. 1929.  I was 19 when I became an Elder in the Church, by Warren H. Lyons, 20 Sep 1931.
The year that I was a junior in high school, there were Lloyd Lowe, Leon Frehner, Von Leavitt, Evan Leavitt and others that were seniors that year.  We had a teacher that was a little shriveled up man that we called the “Professor”.  He went by the name of Professor Hand and was over study hall.  One day a bunch of us Juniors and Seniors were congregated over in the corner, planning what we’d do.  The older ones decided that Leon would count, one, two and when he said three, we were all going to scream as loud as we could.  He started counting, one-two-three.  Lavon Jensen was the only one that yelled out!  Of course we were all studying and nearly died laughing.  Professor Hand just kept working his way up and down the aisles and when he came to Lavon, he cuffed him to the side of the head.  Lavon jumped up with doubled up fists.  “What do you call this?  I’ll beat the D---- H---- out of you.”  The teacher backed up and said; “Now Lavon, Professor is not scared of Lavon.”  And he kept repeating this.  Lavon never did touch the professor but it sure was comical.
In music one day, Moroni Waite was disturbing the class and Professor Hand ordered him out of class.  Anna Leavitt Tobler was the pianist.  Professor Hand said, “I’ll have Anna play a march.”  Moroni said, “I’ll march you.”  They went back and forth, up and down the rows until he got out the door.
I had a teacher when I was a senior, by the name of Bearnson and I had him in four solid subjects, and we didn’t get along very good.  There were about four of us seniors in geometry class with freshman and sophomores, so we older guys were the kings.  We gave the teacher a lot of static and trouble.  One day he made a statement about a triangle being 22 inches long and 8 inches by 12 inches.  I called him on it and he didn’t want to argue in class about it.  It was our way to get him to argue a point with us and then we didn’t get much work to do.  He told me to stay after class and he’d show it to me.  Nearly the whole class just stayed in their seats as they wanted to see this.  He got his ruler out and started marking a line 22 inches, came down 12 inches and started up 8 inches to close the line.  12 inches and 8 inches were only 20 inches so I had him.  I was never very smart but I was smart enough to catch that one.  Well, it went on and one day he caught me out in the hall and he said, say do you realize I can fail you and you can’t graduate?  I said, I never though about that Mr. Bearnson.  He said that was just what was going to happen if I didn’t change my attitude so I told him I appreciated that and after we were the best of friends and really got along fine.  Our class was the largest class to graduate at that time.  There were 24 of us, 12 boys and 12 girls.  There had been 35 of us when we left Junior High so there were 11 that had dropped out or moved away. 
Three years after high school, I went to Dixie College for one year.  I had to go home and help dad so I never got to finish the last six weeks of that year.  Dad had a lot of work that needed doing and all the other boys were gone at that time.  I had many opportunities while in school, I have taken part in many plays and operas and athletic programs. 
When I was in school, we dated a lot but it was always in large groups.  My sister Amanda and I were real close growing up so we always dated in the same group. 
Dad went on his short mission.  Mother was very sick and Dr. Reichman finally had to tell mother that if she wanted to see dad again when he came home, she’d have to go home and go to bed for six weeks, so she did.  Amanda was married and gone by now so I did nearly all the cooking in our home then.  I only went to the fields to help Leonard two days while mother was down.  I got so I could bake bread, make pies and cakes and it was real good training for me. 
I was the one in our family with the bad temper.  It’s something I’ve fought all my life.  One time Dee was teasing me and I took a fork and threw it at him but he dodged and it stuck up in a chair. 
I was 23 years old when I got my mission call.  I had a close friend Carl Woodbury.  He was younger that I was but he was why I went to Dixie College.  He was going so I went along and we roomed together.  Even after I came home, we would go up to St. George for the week ends and take dates out together.  They didn’t stress about not going to movies on Sundays like they do now days so we had some girls to movies on Sundays like they do now days se we had some girls out to a show Sunday evening and after we went into the Wadsworth Fountain for soda drinks after.  We knew Lawrence Wadsworth the owner, because he had been a school principal down at Overton and now he was running this soda fountain.  We knew we were getting low on money and when the check came, we knew we didn’t have enough to pay the check.  We excused ourselves from the girls and went to talk to Mr. Wadsworth and told him about not having quite enough money and that we’d send the money up on the mail the next day.  He was quite a joker as a person so when we started to leave with the girls, we handed him what money we had.  He said boys, you’re sure you don’t need this money before you go home?  You can send it all to me by mail.  He let the secret out to the girls and we could have dropped through a knothole. 
We did go up on Cedar Mountain and worked a month for Johnny Bauers who sawed lumber down on the old woods ranch.  We never did get paid for it so it was a month of experience.  After leaving school, I also worked one year helping Uncle Walt build homes and dairy barns. 
After this, I went over to Glendale and worked for Doughty in the service station.  Early one Sunday morning in September, Bishop Howard Pulsipher came by.  I was out trying to start the power plant.  He came over and greeted me and told me he had been up to see my folks and that my name had come up for me to go on a church mission.  I really wanted to go on one but I just didn’t think my folks could afford it.  Esmond had been out in 1930/31 and it had been a real struggle for the family to keep him out.  I had been engaged to Laura Bowler from Gunlock but we had our outs and now with the bishop saying I could go on a mission I was so excited and nothing seemed to work right for me all day.  I had a little Chevy and after work, I drove home to visit.  I worked all of September and then in October I quit my job and went home.  I had worked there all summer and sent my money home to help out.  I still had a little money so I started to buy my clothes to get ready for my mission.  I was to be in the mission home November 15, 1935.  I was there 10 days in the mission home in Salt Lake City.  I was ordained to be a Seventy, November 25, 1935, by John H. Taylor.  There were four Elders to go to the Southern States Mission.  Carl Burningham from Salt Lake, Harold Casper from Arizona, another Elder and myself.  Atlanta, Georgia was the mission headquarters and Elder LeGrande Richards was our mission president.  Carl’s Dad worked for the Denver-Rio Grande Railroad.  He got Carl passes, so when we got in Denver, Colorado, Carl had to go another route, so the rest of us went on without him.  The Burninghams invited me to their place for Thanksgiving Dinner and then we left that night on the Denver Rio Grande.  We rode all night to Denver.  Carl only had to wait one hour and then his pass took him into St. Louis.  The rest of us had to wait until morning for our train.  I spent the night in a hotel with Carl’s Dad.  We took the Sante Fe all the next day and got into Kansas City that evening.  We had a three hour wait and transferred to the Frisco and went to Birmingham, Alabama.  We transferred to the Southern Railroad and arrived Sunday Night at 9:30 P.M.  Apostle Melvin J. Ballard had been there for conference, so we got there in time for the last 20 minutes of his talk there in Atlanta.  We spent the next day there and then I was sent to Mobile, Alabama.  I met the Elders there and then I went with Elder Francis Urie from Atlanta, who was on his way to Columbia, Mississippi to organize a choir there for the dedication of a new chapel there by Apostle Ballard.
He is the same Francis Urie that took the part in the “Windows of Heaven.”  The Elders down there were going to have some fun with me but when we got there, Elder Urie knew them, so their fun was short lived.  They had a meeting schedule at 7:30 and that is when we arrived, so we went straight out to a members place at Pritchard.  These people were named Wimpy.  I have never forgotten that name because of the Wimpy Hamburger Places.  We had something to eat and then we had our meeting.  I was the first one to talk and I tell you I was scared.  There were two other Elders, Elder Bercher and Elder Don Ricks, that I stayed with two weeks in Mobile.  Elder Bercher could sit down and explain the gospel better than any other Elder there, but he stuttered when he had to get up and speak.
December 13, 1935, I was transferred to Montgomery, Alabama. I labored here and traveled, round about the country.   Elder Rex was my companion.  He is a cousin to Don Rex.  I was there until the 17 of December 1936, so I spent most of a year there.  December 22, 1935 was Sunday and we went to church.  It snowed that day and in church were Gean and Grace Hawkins.  They lived out 17 miles in the country, so they came in to attend church.  This was the first time that I saw my future wife.
There was an Army Captain by the name of Maughn and we were invited to their home.  We held services in the old empire theater.  Seth A. Robins was Branch President and the missionaries would go down early and clean up the cigarette butts and whiskey bottles, to get ready for church.  Every Saturday night, the town people held a hoedown dance, so we had quite a job to get it cleaned up.  The day I met Gean was when she came to dinner.  Sister Maughn invited all of us out to dinner at her house and from then on, I was in the Hawkins home a great deal. 
The first Easter I was out, the Montgomery Branch met the Selma Branch 50 miles west, so we all met half way where the Hawkins lived for Easter Service and dinner. 
December 7, 1936, I was sent to Elkmont, Alabama, right on the Tennessee line.  I had quite a few experiences up there.  Christmas afternoon, it started to rain and in the next six weeks, I saw the sun only twice.  The roads were just gravel and many wagons so they would be buried down to their hubs in mud.  I was there six weeks.  I had a companion who was a local older man by the name of Don Thomas Kutchin from Dothan, Alabama.  We got acquainted with some of the younger people there.  One of the members was a young boy named Charles.  He played on the local high school basketball team.  There was a Methodist Preacher there that did all the refereeing for them.  He had gone to Birmingham and didn’t get back.  We had gone to the game with Charles because we wanted very much to make friends and get acquainted with the people.  When the Methodist Preacher didn’t show up, I volunteered to do the best I could for them.  I told Charles that I had done a little refereeing at home so he told his coach and they asked me to do what I could.  I did the best I knew how for them, being the only one they had.  After the game was over, the coach and players all came over and said it was the best officiating they had.  They had a tournament coming up in three weeks and asked if I’d take time out and come and be a referee for them.  I figured this was a chance we really needed to get acquainted with all the influential people in that area, so I accepted.  The day before the tournament, I got transferred to Marietta, Georgia (a big battlefield of the Civil War), to be laboring with Elder Mitchell Lilywhite, so I had to go to the coach and tell him I couldn’t be there.
I got to Marietta on Saturday night after dark.  Monday morning we got up early on the highway to make a trip to the northwest part of Georgia.  Mariette is just 20 miles outside of Atlanta where the mission home was.  We spent two weeks up in that country.  We had many marvelous experiences there.  I had to spend two days and one night in the railroad depot in Decatur, Georgia, just trying to get there.  I finally arrived Saturday night.  It had rained for six weeks and then turned freezing cold.  It pulled the moisture out of the ground and had icicles hanging out of the ground everywhere.
We went to a member’s home by the name of Harmon; they hadn’t been visited by the missionaries for a number of years.  They had a boy age 12, and girl age 8, that they wanted us to baptize.  We told them we would when they got home from school that afternoon.  Brother Harmon had a sister that lived about eight miles from there.  She had been married for eight years and her husband had never heard of the Mormon missionaries so we told them we would go up and visit them.  Brother Harmon put us on a short cut through the piney woods to cut down on some of our walking.  When we came out of the woods, we were out in an open cotton field.  It was February and real cold and across the field, we could see a group of men there building a home.  When we came out in our suits, the men started asking us what we were doing there.  There were lots of moonshine stills and revenuer men coming to check up on them.  We explained we were looking for the family Emmet.  It was all right now so they took us by their fire so we could get warm and we were able to talk to them for sometime and tell them about the church.  Many of the revenuers would be shot and never heard from again so we were glad that they would listen to us.
We got to Emmet’s about noon so they asked us to stay and eat with them.  We had corn bread and gravy.  Mr. Emmet pleaded with us to stay and spend the night with them.  He said when his boys got out of school; he’d send them around on the mule and invite people to come to a meeting.  We explained that we had left all our books down at the Harmon’s and we were supposed to go back and baptize their children.  He still insisted on taking us back in his old car to get our books.  It was about sundown before their children came home so it was real late by the time we got back to the Emmet’s that night.  During the afternoon while we were waiting for the Harmon kids to come home from school, we went about half a mile out in the fields and found where the rain water had been running and damned it off so it would back up enough water to baptize them.  It was cold, the wind was blowing and there was ice on the water.  My companion said when his feet hit the water that they went numb.  The kids both took deep breaths, we baptized them, and then we all had to walk back to the house in our wet clothes.  The kids were just one sheet of ice by the time they got to the house.  They got their clothes changed and we confirmed them members of the church before going back with Mr. Emmet.  About one mile from the Emmet house, we were met by his boys on their mules.  They were coming out looking for us as they thought the car had broken down.  In that cold north wind, we held our meeting.  The boys had been out after school inviting people to it and there were three people that showed up to it.  There was Holiness, a Baptist Preacher, retired, age 73 years old and one more man.  After the meeting was over, the Baptist Preacher told us that one of the last Mormon missionaries that had been in that area had been killed about 15 miles from there.  They were Rudgar Clawson and Joseph Standing.  They shot down Joseph Standing in cold blood.  Elder Clawson opened up the buttons on his shirt and they got scared and left.  The Church owns that property now and they have a big monument and information center there now.  The Preacher had tears in his eyes and he said, “I haven’t got the truth I want.  You notify Brother Emmet, who is a Deacon in my church, and I’ll guarantee you a big crowd when you come again.  You can preach over at the church.”  I never did get to go back as I was transferred after a month, to Atlanta, where I helped prepare for the “Mission Jubilee”.  President Richards had invited President Grant and President Challis to visit the mission. I then went on to Savannah, Georgia for the last eight months of my mission.  I did meet some of our missionaries that did get to preach in that church and they had 75 people in attendance.
That night, we all had corn bread and gravy for supper.  The next morning, we had corn bread and gravy again, and we appreciated it, as it was all they had and we were hungry.  This man said to me, “You show me any other preacher that would baptize people like I saw you baptize those children last night, and then eat corn bread and gravy three times a day and eat it like you enjoyed it like you did, then I’ll give them my best span of mules and the mules are the best in the country.”
During my mission, I had eighteen companions, five District Presidents, and two Mission Presidents, President Richards and President Merrill D. Clayson, who came in July just before I was released. 
After I was released from my mission, I went to Washington D. C. and New York, for 3 days with Carl Burningham and his Dad and Mother.  Carl and I had labored together the last month of our missions.  We got our replacements at the same time.  In those days, the Elders stayed in Salt Lake for ten days at the Mission Home and only came out once a month.  Our replacements got there one month before we were released.  Our President didn’t know what to do with us now that he had all the new Elders, so I told him I knew what he could do with us.  We’d been in the cities a long time, so I suggested that he send us out in the country to finish our missions.  That was what we did until Carl’s Dad and Mother came.  His Mother worked for the Hudson Bay Fur Company in Salt Lake and her boss wanted her to visit their plant in New York City.  When I was released, I got my preference of going back to Alabama.  I went to Montgomery and then Mobile, where they were having Apostle Steven L. Richards at a conference there.  He was touring our mission at that time.  I had to get permission from Apostle Richards to go to New York and Washington D. C.  with the Burninghams.
The Burninghams went on ahead of me.  When my clergy Certificate came it was for the Eastern States to go home on, instead of the South Eastern, so they wouldn’t give me the clergy rates and I would have had to pay full rates to Washington.  Carl’s ticket came on Friday, so they left.  My ticket didn’t come until Monday night, so I left then for Washington D. C., and didn’t get there until Tuesday noon.  All I got to see was what I could see out of the Railroad Station down over the town.  We went on to New York and spent 3 days.  I did get to see a few places like Radio City.  Carl and I got to writing to different ones on cards from New York.
I went to Salt Lake to get my official release and then got home to Mesquite 18 December 1937.  I had written to Gean (my future wife) from New York City and by the time I got home, there was a letter there from her.  This started the correspondence.  She came out in July 1938 and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple August 15, 1938, by Nicholes G. Smith. All the courting we had was through letters.  When we went to Salt Lake to be married, a funny thing happened.  We went to the home of the Burninghams and Sister Burningham said to Gean.  “Hello, Dolly.”  Dolly was a girl from Savannah.  In Savannah there had been 18 girls between the ages of 18 and 21 years of age and as far as I knew they were worthy of Temple Marriage and there were no boys.  There were only two boys of that age but they both drank and smoked. 
The year after our marriage, Gean and I had our first child.  She was a breech birth and we about lost Gean.  The little girl, Dorothy Bernice, died that day, May 23, 1939.
The first year back from my mission, I was put in as first counselor in the MIA.  I was then put in as President for several years.  The one enjoyable thing of that, was the yearly Gold and Green Ball, we held.  The Bishop gave us $2.50 to decorate with.  We would have a lot of beautiful decorations because people donated and lent us their potted plants.  We had many compliments from the Stake people over our greenery.  I loved to dance and I had the privilege of dancing in one of the contests in mutual.  I usually danced with Verda Peterson Hunt and Marge Bowler Abbott.  One time Marge and I were chosen to go to Las Vegas to a contest.  They held it in the 1st Ward Chapel and they had the Dance Directors dance as a group and then as individual couples.  We lost by one point of coming in 1st place, as one of the directors from the same ward voted for her own ward dancers.  I hardly ever missed a dance when I was younger, but now I can’t do it as much since I had a back operated on and broke both my heels.  We’d work for days for money to be able to go to the Junior Proms and other dances.
I was put in as first Counselor to Bishop Abbott for four and one half years.  We were released and they put in Bishop Morris Rowley, Phil Abbott and Jim Pulsipher.
Our family went back to Alabama in October 1948, to spend the winter.  Francis and Maureen drove us down.  They kept writing, wanting to know when we’d be back because they wanted to give the out going Bishopric a party to honor us, and was waiting for me to get back.  We bought us an old 1935 Plymouth two-seated sedan and had to drive for 5 days to get home.  There were Gean, Francis? and I plus six of our kids.  We were loaded and crowded.  We drove at 50 miles an hour.  I had to have a friend there work on the car.  He was the head mechanic for the Highway Department of Alabama and he told me if I didn’t push the car, it would last.  However, if I did, it would break down, so we didn’t dare go any faster.  We had written home and told them when we’d be home so they were holding a big party when we got home, Saturday night.  We didn’t get in until 8 P.M. and the party was already on.  They came and asked us if we were coming, but we had to tell them No, because we had to bathe and we were dead tired from traveling five days without rest and all crowded up like that.  They gave me a book by Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
The Bishop is president of the Priest Quorum, but I was in charge.  I only missed two Sundays blessing the Sacrament, the year that I was a Priest.  There were three of us, Steve Abbott, Perry Abbott and myself, which always blessed the sacrament. 
I taught Sunday School class for 19 years.  It was the 14 and 15 year olds. I also served as Ward Clerk.
I was a High Priest Group Leader until 1978, when I was released to go on my second full time mission.  I have filled two stake missions also.  I feel the Lord has been mighty good to me and I thank him for my many blessings.
The only sickness or accidents were when my back had pinched nerves down my legs and I had to have a back operation.  I had my ribs broken by being run over with the hay wagon and tractor.  It broke three of them in two places.  I fell off the ladder and broke three ribs on my left side.  I also fell off the haystack when a bale of hay turned on me and that broke both my heels.  I have had trouble with my throat, could hardly swallow for eight or ten years.  I have had it stretched many times and it seems better now. 
I enjoy life and being retired.  I spent the past week of July 1977 up at the BYU Genealogical Seminar, and was really scared by finding out all that we have to do.  We are to help our dead ancestors.  Gean and I want to go back to the South and find out more about her people.
We had eight children and have 16 grandchildren and four more on the way.  One grandchild is deceased (Eugene’s & Connie’s).  I appreciate my family and the lives they are living and the things they do.
Gean and I have been called on a mission to the Indian Nations.  It has been 43 years since I left for my first mission and spoke over the pulpit on the old block schoolhouse.  Our farewell testimonial was held in Mesquite, March 19, 1978.  The 1st of April, the family gave Gean and me a going away party.  They all baked goodies and Odean Barnum auctioned them off.  There was approximately $350.00 made from it.  They gave it to us to help with our mission.  We entered the mission home on April 8th, then on to South Dakota to work with the Indian Nations for 18 months.
I Weigh 180 lbs, 5’ 10’’ in height, have light brown hair (going gray), with blue eyes and long dark eyelashes.  I wear size 8 ½ shoes.

DAD’S [MARION HUGHES] HISTORY TAKEN OFF A TAPE THAT WAS MADE WHEN MOM AND DAD WERE TRAVELING

When I was about 3 years old, I was laying down on a kind of a head gate.  Some horses were let out of the corral to come to the ditch to drink.  We had a team of horses named “Duck and Brownie”, Duck was gray in color and Brownie was brown.  They were in the group of horses.  Duck came over and stood over me so none of the other horses would step on me.  After all the other horses drank, Duck went and drank. 
I had a lot of seizures when I was a baby, I had them for several years and then they stopped.  Elwin Barnum “Buck” also had a lot of seizures when he was younger and they didn’t think that he would live.  He also out grew it.
Amanda, Wes, Frances & I had the red measles at the same time.  We were all in the same bed and were so sick for a few days, that we couldn’t raise our heads off the bed.  That was during the time to of the flu epidemic during World War I.  There weren’t too many in Mesquite that got the flu, although 2 or 3 children did die from it.  George Bowler Jr. was one of them that died.  He was George and Nancy Bowler’s son, a brother to Jim Bowler.
Mother was a large woman and had long wavy, kind of auburn color hair.  It was very long and came down to her knees.  The girls had a fine toothed comb that they could comb her hair with.  Her hair was very fine.  She was having a lot of headaches and Dr. Reichman told her that if she wanted the headaches to stop, she would have to cut her hair.  Gean cut her hair for her and her headaches stopped.  She was quite a jealous woman, and got wound up a few times when Dad would go out to change the water and Pearly Potter would come out and talk to him.  Mom would see them talking and she would give Dad a bad time.  One time when he was late coming in for lunch, she told him to go on over to Parley Potter’s to eat.  Mom was a very good cook and there were always pies or cakes, cookies or cinnamon rolls around to eat.  She was good to us.  Dad and Mother really taught us about the Church, how to work, and true principles, things that were right.  Her eyes were blue.  She liked to sing and sang with the choir in the ward.  She made bread 2 or 3 times a week, also dinner rolls.  She liked to cook and loved music and she always had a garden, in back.  I helped Mother in the garden.  We raised melons and everything we ate.  We made our own molasses out of the cane we raised.   She had a talent for making her kids work.  Even after the kids were adults, they would come back and help her. 
As soon as it would get light in the morning she would start washing, fill the tubs with water and start the water heating with fires underneath the tubs.  The water was so hard we had to put a lot of lye in it to make it soft.  Sometimes we would put wood ashes in the water.  We used cottonwood for the ashes as they seemed the best.  Sometimes we would use a piece of yucca wood to put in the water of soften it.  She would use the scrub board.  She would wash every Monday from dawn until after dark.  They had what they called a puncher.  The kids took turns doing the puncher.  The boys would do this until we were 12 or 14 and then we would help in the field.  It was bell shaped with 2 shapes.  The outer bell had holes in it for the water to come through.  It also had a handle and she would plunge this up and down in the boiling water to get the clothes clean.  The clothes were then put in a tub with warm water and then they would scrub the clothes on a scrub board in this tub.  They would wring the clothes out by hand and put in a tub to rinse and then take them out of that and put in a tub with bluing in it, and then they would hang the clothes on the clothesline.
Then we got a washing machine called a dasher.  
We would put the clothes and water in the tub and lock down the lid and then we would rotate the tub back and forth, with the handle.  We used this for several years, and then Dad bought an agitator washing machine that dad a gasoline motor on it.  Dad brought it to her on a Monday and she was able to finish up her laundry and was really thrilled with it.
Amanda got married when she was 16 or 17 years old.  She moved to Montana.  Ollie was working in Montana on the highways.  Ollie was working on the highway in Mesquite and that’s how Amanda met him.  He was from Dillon, Montana.
Mother was left alone with the younger kids and I helped a lot in the kitchen and was able to bake pies, cakes and bread.  When I spent the time in the kitchen, Dad was on a stake mission and was gone a lot to Moapa Valley, Las Vegas and Caliente.  Grandma was sick.  We took her to Dr. Reichman; he said to her “Do you want to see Charles when he comes home?”  She said “yes”, he told her to go home and stay in bed.  She was in bed for 6 weeks and I spent time in the kitchen and the fields.  I don’t know what was wrong with her. 
In the summer time during my growing years we would go up the mountain while he men took salt to the cattle, on the mountain. [We got the rock salt from a mine in St. Thomas].  We took a lot of burros to the mountains to carry the salt up to the cattle.  Sometimes we would go to “middle”  halfway between Line Kilm and Cabin.  Also we would go to Nickel Creek.  All these canyons had water running all year round.  One year we went to Wire Grass.  We had to ride horses up there.  This was a yearly event.  One year we took Uncle Edward Leavitt out with us, Uncle John Leavitt went with us quite often.  Our family, Uncle Charlie Hardy, Uncle Will Hughes, Uncle Walter Hughes and their families would go together.  We would go to Cabin [White Rock] Canyon and camp for 1 week to 10 days.  Uncle Lem Leavitt had a tent up there and he planted fruit trees and a garden there.  He put a wall 6 to 8 feet high up between 2 ledges and backed up the water, which made a nice swimming hole that we used when we would go up there.  As kids we had a lot of fun up on the mountain.  The men always killed a mountain sheep or killed a yearling to divide up among the families that went there.  Dad never killed any more that what we would use.  One time I took the shot gun and went down by the river and killed some birds.  When Dad found out what I had done he told me that if I ever did that again I would never get to use the gun again.  I was not to kill what I didn’t use. 
When we would go deer hunting, some of us would go up a day or two early with a team and wagon, to Beaver Dan and then up the wash to Ed Terry’s ranch.  The others would come with pick ups.  We would go on up to Dutchman’s Reservoir and go as far as the pick ups would go and then take the team and wagon on farther and we would be the only ones in that area.  We would look forward to deer hunt every year.  We would can most of the meat.  We also ground some of it up.  Around the campfire at night we would tell stories and about the days hunt. 
I was the first of my brothers and sisters and cousins to graduate from high school.
The celebration on the 4th of July was very big.   At daybreak to sunup they would set off dynamite, then a parade and program in the school house, exploding dynamite during them.  There would be a man dressed up like Uncle Sam and he would sing and give a talk.  After the grain was cut, us kids would go to the fields and pick up the heads of grain.  We would beat the grain out and chaff it out and then sell it to Vie Hancock.  This was out spending money for the holidays.
After the 4th program we would have contests, racing, sports etc..  There was always a dance at night.
During the Christmas holidays there was something going on every night for 2 weeks, dances, plays, programs, sports etc..
On the 24th of July they would always have a parade.  The celebration was always between where the school is now and the highway.  The street was lined with big cottonwoods.  They would have covered wagons that would start by our corrals and come down the street  where they would circle the wagons.  Some of the guys were dressed as Indians and they would steal a girl and the cowboys would go after them.  After a mock battle they would all come back and we would have a feast.  There was always a greased up, peeled cottonwood pole, if anyone could climb to the top, they received a new pair of overalls, or if it was a girl, she would receive a dress.  I don’t ever remember anyone but old Uncle Charles M. Hardy being able to climb that pole.  He would go up it just like a monkey.  There were prizes given for the races that we had.  At night we would have either a play or a dance.  Our family used to always be the pioneers
Grandpa and Grandma Leavitt lived in Bunkerville.  Dad would have to take Mother over at least once a week or every two weeks.  We would spend the day visiting with relatives, and eating with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandma Leavitt was a very good cook.  Grandma Leavitt once had one of the apostles [I think it was Lorenzo Snow] up in the attic of her home, while the Feds were hunting him, for polygamy.  She fed him and took care of him.  Grandma never turned anyone away that was hungry.  One day she was going to the store, as she got to the gate, she met a man that wanted something to eat.  She told him to go on in the house and wait that she would go to the store and then come back and fix him something to eat.  She told him that “Dad” was in the house.  He went in the house and sat down to wait.  He saw Grandpa and told him that the lady had told him to come in and wait.  Grandpa didn’t say anything.   The guy said “Oh you’re deaf.”  He still kept talking to him and Grandpa pointed to his eyes, “Oh, you’re blind too.”  He still kept talking and finally Grandpa just kind of jumped at him and hollered “Boo.”  Grandma came home and asked where the man was that she was going to feed.  Grandpa said, “Lordy Ellie, if he is still going as fast as he was when he left here, he is probably down to St. Thomas by now.”
People would say about Grandpa Leavitt, they had the telephone, telegraph and Tom Leavitt Gram.  This was because his voice would carry so far.  He would go down to the field about a half mile from the house to work, and if he needed something he would just call up to the house to have one of the boys bring it down.
Grandma always treated us good.  Sometimes we would be late getting our chores done and we wouldn’t get breakfast, before we had to catch the bus.  We would also not have time to get our lunches made.  At lunch time we would go up to Grandma’s, she always had plenty of bread and jam or molasses.  She came to live with us after Grandpa died.  She would tell us about things that happened when she was younger.  She couldn’t remember much of what happened the day before, but could remember things that had happened when she was younger.
I remember we used to raise cane, we would make sharp sticks and go through the field and knock the leaves off the stocks of cane while it was still standing.  Then they would go through the fields and cut the cane and bundle it in little piles.  After they were in the piles, we would put a piece of wood under the heads and cut the heads off with a hatchet.  This we would feed to the pigs and fowls.  The cane would be piled into wagons and brought to the molasses mill.
Grandpa Leavitt had a molasses mill and we kids would help him after school.  One day I was suppose to be keeping the horses going around in the circle, so that the cane could be juiced out.  Some of the boys came up and we were chewing the cane and not paying attention to the horses.  Grandpa yelled at us and I got busy.  We weren’t keeping the horses going fast enough to make the juice.

We used to raise alfalfa and we would have to get up early in the morning to cut it while the dew was still on it.
When I got our of high school, Es came home from his mission in May 1931, the same month I graduated from high school.  After I had been out of high school for 2 years, Carl Woodbury and I went to Cedar Mountain to work for Johnny Bowers, cutting timber and hauling logs.  We were supposed to get $3.00 a day plus board and room.   All we ever got from it was our board and room.  We were there all summer.  After I got home from there, I went to Glendale and worked in the service station for Guy Doty.  I was there about 3 or 4 months.  The first of Oct. 1935 I was out at the gasoline motor that we had to start every morning.  It was a Sunday morning and we were having Stake Conference in Las Vegas.  Bishop Howard Pulsipher stopped and came to see me.  He said that he had talked to Dad and Mother the night before about sending me on a mission.  That was a long day, as soon as I got off work, I went home, in my old Chevy car.  We filled out the papers that night.  The next morning I went back to work.  The latter part of Oct. was when I got my call.  I was called to the Southern States Mission [Ga., S.C., Al., Fl., & Miss.]  LeGrande Richards was the mission President.  I had to report to Salt Lake City around the 15 of November.  Our group in the Mission Home was the largest group the church had ever called [75].  We ate at the Lion House.  President Grant and some of the apostles taught us.  While there I was ordained a Seventy, because I was 24 years old.  John Taylor ordained me, he was a Seventy.
We left Salt Lake City Thanksgiving night, there were 4 of us going, to the Southern States Mission.  Carl Burningham’s father worked for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and got Carl’s ticket.  There were also Harold Casper, James Bundy, from Mt. Trumbull, and Joy Deming.  We were all put in different states after we got down there.  We rode 4 different railroads.  Denver & Rio Grande from Salt Lake to Denver.  Santa Fe from Denver to Kansas City, Frisco Lines from Kansas City to Birmingham and Southern Railroad from Birmingham to Atlanta.  We spent the night in Denver.  I spent it with Carl’s Dad.  We arrived about 10 O’clock Sunday night.  A couple of Elders from the office met us and we went to the mission home.  Elder Melvin J. Ballard was there and we got to listen to the last 20 minutes of his talk.  There were 24 Elders there for the conference.  We spent Monday there because they were having a big party for Elder Ballard Monday night. 
I left Tuesday morning on the train form Atlanta, Georgia.  Francis Urry was going to organize a choir in Columbia, Mississippi  and we together to Mobile, Alabama, where I met Elder Don Rex and Elder Forest Bircher who were laboring in Mobile, at the time.  I labored in Mobile with them for about 2 weeks, until they had the conference with Elder Ballard.  After the conference I was transferred to Montgomery, Alabama to labor with Elder Fred Rex [Don’s cousin], I arrived there December 13, 1935.