I was born 17th of July, 1873 at Carneck, Fifeshire, Scotland, daughter of Robert Hogg Jr. and Mary ann Norman. Carneck is a town of average size in the maritime Co. of Fifeshire, located in the East of Scotland. It is bounded on the north by Firth of Tay, on the east by the North Sea, on the west by the counties of Perth, Kinross and Clackmanand and on the South by the Firth of Forth; across which is Eninborough. Dunfirmlin, a town where the family lived when some of the family were born.
The family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and came to Utah in 1875. "I was a sickly child only two years old." She was stricken by an epidemic which was raging on the boat and was the cause of much worry to the parents on the entire trip across the water. The parents had all of their possessions in a large box and some bundles. As the train on which they were riding passes through the little valley of the Weber River, father recognized it as the place Grandfather Hogg lived, and had described to him as Morgon Co. As the train stopped only a few minutes in the Weber canyon, he hurried his little family from the train onto a freight train flat car which was going back to Morgan. The strain of lifting the big box and family, overcame him and nearly caused his death.
My health improved and I took my share of family tasks as I grew older. We children gathered bright pebbles which father cast into the white plaster on the outside of our new house. Father was a mason doing brick and adobe work as well as plastering and painting. I attended the public schools last of which was the Morgan Stake Academy. Some of my schoolmates were: the Welches, Amelia Francis, the Grover girls, Hannah, Evelyn and Della, the Turners, Rawls, Gibbies, and Frys. The teachers were Albert N. Tollestrup, Dr. Karl G. Maeser and Dr. Joseph M. Tanner. One of the first teachers was James Mason.
When I was 15 years old, I left school and found employment to provide for myself and help with the expenses of the family. I did housework and one of my employers whom I loved was Mrs. Driver in Ogden, Utah. I also worked as a milliner there.
At an early age I was taught to have faith in God and learned to call on him when in sickness and danger and always received help.
In the early days in Morgan, the young people had very few places for entertainment, but one such was the times we would gather at the Union Pacific Railroad Station to see the train come in, then go to the post office for the mail. On one occasion a young North Morgan boy, Thomas Grover, who had met with an accident some time previous, was having trouble getting his horse untied. I assisted him and he took me to my home, which was in South Morgan across the river. A friendship sprang up which developed into love and we were married in the Logan Temple on June 29, 1892, by Brother Merril. We lived at Stottard, West of North Morgan on a farm which was in his mother's inheritance.
His mother had died when he was 15 years old, leaving five children: Thomas, Evelyn, Hannah, Adelgunda, Daniel Wells, and an infant daughter who only lived a short time.
Our children: Merle, Elizabeth, Leo and Mary were born here. Evelyn and Della were married; Hannah was attending school at Provo, Utah.
Here at Stottard, my husband was Presiding Elder or our Branch of the Church. also Superintendent of the Sunday School, a trustee of the School, and I was counselor in the Relief Society, and teacher in Sunday School and Primary.
In 1900, many familie sought their fortune in Idaho and Wyoming. Some of Thomas' relatives had taken up land in the Upper Snake River Valley. After investigating the possibilities, Thomas bought a farm of 160 acres in Salem, a small community north of Rexburg, Idaho. He and my brother Robert moved our 27 animals (cows and horses) the machinery, seed grain, some hay and oats and the household furniture by covered wagon, whitetop buggy and on foot from Morgan west through Weber Canyon to Corrine to Malad and North to Salem, Idaho. The trip took them two weeks and they arrived the last of March 1900. I, together with my four children, our clothing, bedding, came by train.
It was an exceedingly hard trip. I was weak from a severe case of diphtheria the previous winter, Merie and Lizzie had also been very sick. There were several overnight delays at Ogden, Pocatello, and Idaho Falls. We arrived at Rexburg in a drizzling snow storm on the 1st of April. Thomas was not there to meet us. We went inside the old depot where there were several trappers with their furs (stinking). Around the room were several spittoons, trunks, valices and traps. It was a dreary, smoky outlook, but the children thought it exciting and blamed my tears to the bad weather, thinking they were caused by my pretty new spring hat getting wet. I got a Mr. Ricks from the livery stable to take us to Salem in his whitetop buggy. When we arrived, Thomas and Bob were trying to fix the tongue of the whitetop. They had started to meet the train, but one of the horses had bolted and broken the tongue.
We lived in a rented house for a time while Thomas and his brother-in-law William Worlton got our logs and with the help of Hyrum Bell and Wells Cheney built us a large log house adjoining the townsite. This was a nice home and we were comfortable while clearing the sage brush from the land, making ditches, and putting in the crops. Angus, our second son, was born in this house on Aug. 31, 1901. By this time my parents had come to prove up on land. So their sons could have land. Our farm proved successful and we built sheds, a nice barn and planted an orchard, under the expert supervision of my teacher who had been a gardener for aristocracy in the old country.
Norma was born Feb. 14, 1904, the year my brother Norman dies. After this father and mother went back to their home in Morgan.
The family was getting too large for our two room house, so we added three more rooms made of brick, which were laid by Henry and Jared Rock, two old friends who had lived Morgan. Then my brother Bob stuccoed and painted the log part red, then marked it off to resemble brick. Three more children, Roscoe, June 2, 1906, Isabell, May 24, 1909 and Elva was born July 9, 1912.
All three of these children was born in this home. Thomas was 2nd counselor to Bishop Victor Hegsted in the Salem Ward. I worked in the different organizations, especially the Primary.
Although the home at Sugar City was almost ideal, still sugar beed farming was a new and hard task. Thomas had spent a great deal of his life on the large Echo Canyon Cattle Ranch of his Uncle Daniel Heiner; so when he got the opportunity to trade the beet farm for 200 acres of land with a large stock of cattle, a large house (unfinished) and good barn sheds, shop, grainery, etc., we traded and moved to Fox Creek, Chapin Ward in the Teton Basin. Shortly thereafter, Merle's husband Ellis P. Wilding took typhoid fever and with the addition of influenza, passed away on Sept. 22, 1918, leaving her with two small children and not much else. The crops were good for a time and the children big and little had plenty of chance to work at home. Putting up hay, miling the cows, feeding the many animals and tending and selling the milk.
Chapin was a friendly community and all enjoyed the church work, dances and parties, also the school. The young folks stayed with Merle for a time and went to High School in Sugar City. The family was stricken with the flu, and everyone except Merle had it. But all pulled through. We were very fortunate for many passes away. The country was in a depression, and we did not escape that.
In fact, we never quite overcame it's effects. Merle and Mary went to summer school in Pocatello during the summer of 1920 to prepare to teach school. Mary had a school at Jefferson Co., and Merle at Cache, Teton Co. In October, Mary was married to Alma A. Kunz. In Nov. of the the same year Norma was married to Evan B. Floy, and Merle was married to Solomon Fullmer on Dec 22, 1920. We moved to Draper, Utah in 1930 and engaged in farming, chicken raising, dairying and stayed there for two years. This move did not work out and we were glad to return to Teton Basin, where we lived in Driggs in several different houses, down on the Covet, the Timpson place, the Hobbs house, the old Eddington Hotel, the Paul place.
We finally bought the Chestie Henry place and remodeled it, and made us a very comfortable home. We had chickens, some cows still at the place where Grant lived, a nice garden. Morgan was married on June 1, 1937 to Ivy Lorraine Griggs. Grant was married on October 2, 1940 to Leona Josephine Nelson. Angus had married Charlotte Hamblin on June 1, 1924. Roscoe was married to Lucile Vaudrey on April 23, 1931. Isabel had married David Earl Simmons on Feb. 25, 1927. Elva had married Eldon Winger on April 2, 1930. Elizabeth never married, she was a true musician and played the tunes she liked.
Thomas had cancer in his late years and suffered terribly. Finally passing away on Sept. 22, 1948 at home here in Driggs. Lizzie's health began to fail and after an operation she passed away in Feb. 1949.
I have raised eleven children. All of them except one have married and have families, and all of them have had their endowments.
Isabella Hogg Grover passed away Dec. 9, 1950, after a stroke at her home in Driggs. She was buried beside her husband, Thomas M. Grover and her daughter Elizabeth in the Rexburg Cemetery in Madison Co., at Rexburn Idaho, on Dec. 12, 1950.
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