Anna E. 'Betty' Monson

"I really don't know much about either of my grandparents because it seems like everybody died when I was little. And so I don't really remember much about them. The only thing I really remember about my Daddy's mother and father, my grandparents, was that I thought my grandma was fat (Now isn't that a terrible thing to remember.) Honestly, that's about the only things that I do remember about her, because I was little when she died. The only thing I remember about grandpa was actually after he died. He was lying in the coffin in the living room of the house. That's what they did in those days when someone died in the family. Instead of going to a funeral home to see that person, they would bring that dead person back into the house and you honored them there. You had them there for a day or two. And I remember thinking that grandpa had a big mustache and it looked like a brush to me. But the thing that my mother used to tell me about grandpa was what a really kind person that he was; that he was just SO gentle and kind with everybody. And he was a very honest man. Mama would tell me that if grandpa would be walking along and he'd see a bug that was turned upside down and having a hard time getting back up on its feet, that grandpa would stop and help that bug and turn him over and make sure that it could get going. That was the kind of person he was." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Strickland in 2010

"My Daddy's sister, who's name was Betty, that one that I was named after, died when she was just 6 years old. So my dad was then 8 years old. The two of them were out in the field picking cotton. They had these little sacks over their shoulders that they would put the cotton in. And the idea was that the more cotton that you picked, they would weigh that cotton and see how much it weighed. Then you would get paid for however much you picked. They would weigh it and pay you for what it was worth. So while they were out in the field picking this cotton, my Dad's little sister, kept putting cotton into my Dad's bag. (My dad could never tell this story without the tears rolling down his cheeks.) Betty kept taking her cotton and putting it into my dad's bag. She called him 'Good Brother.' I thought that was interesting that she did that. She always called him that. And she said, "No, Good Brother, you take it." Now this money was going to be their Christmas money. They'd be able to buy their little Christmas gifts with that money. So she kept putting her cotton into my dad's bag and she said, "No Good Brother, you take the cotton because I won't be here at Christmas." My dad said, "Oh, yes you will." But she insisted and she kept doing it. Time passed, I don't know how much, it could have been one day or a few months. My daddy and Betty were again outside together but this time in the field where they were helping to harvest the hay. Also outside was a dog, actually it was their own dog, who was sick with rabies. This dog was running around just in a frenzy from this rabies disease. He kept biting anything he saw. He bit cattle and sheep. Everything that the dog bit died. Now here comes this dog out in the field where my dad and Betty were. He tried to bite my dad but he had hay in his arms. The dog jumped up to get my dad's throat to bite him but the dog couldn't get to him because my dad's face was all covered with hay. So then the dog, in a frenzy, turned around, saw Betty, and went to bite her - and he did. He bit Betty. I don't know how much time went by after this bite until she died. But she did die. She knew she was going to die. That's the thing about it. So, you know, when people call me Betty, so many times I think of this little girl, my daddy's sister. I never met her of course, but I think what a sweet, little angel she must have been. It makes me want to honor her name. All of this happened while they lived in North Carolina." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Strickland in 2010.

"My grandma and grandpa had joined the church through some missionaries. When word got around that they were Mormons, my goodness, it was terrible! Nobody would be their friend. And it was about this same time that Betty died. And mama tells me at about this time they buried Betty on the side of a little hill there in North Carolina. My grandma (Betty's mom) would go and lay herself down across the grave of that little girl Betty. Then she would just sob her heart out. She was so sad she could not get over the death of this little girl. In fact, when Betty died, she died in her mothers arms (my grandma). Her mother was rocking her in the little rocking chair. Betty kept wanting her mother to sing to her. Ivan, my brother, thought that the song that her mom was singing was, "Oh my Father." But I'm not really sure that's right. I'm not sure what song she was singing to Betty. When she died, she died on her mothers lap (my grandma) with her mothers arms around her. My grandparents had joined the church. They were Mormons. They didn't have any friends anywhere. No one would be their friend. How they earned a living at that time was mainly through running what was called the "General Store." It's the kind of store where everybody from everywhere around would come to get their supplies. Their food supplies, farming, equipment supplies, and different things like that. This is how grandma and grandpa earned their living. And now that they were Mormons word got around that Mormons were running that store. And there was not ONE soul that would come into that store and buy anything. So the only thing left that my Grandma and Grandpa could do was move away from there because they had no friends. That was really hard for Grandma to leave little Betty on the side of a hill there in North Carolina. And then they all moved to Norfolk Virigina. That's where I was born, in Norfolk Virigina. If you talk about the pioneers - they didn't have any friends, they were run out of their homes, they made the trek with the handcarts across the desert into Salt Lake Valley. In the same way I think that's kind of how it was with my Grandparents. They didn't come across the valley to Salt Lake, but they were run out of their home and there was not anybody who would be their friend anymore because they were a Mormon." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Strickland in 2010

"My mother's mother died when I was two days old. And I think sometimes how hard that must have been for my mother because in those days when you had a baby you had to stay in bed for ten days. So my mother was in bed with me because I had just been born. Incidentally I was born in the same house I lived in all my life. And I was born in the same bed I used to sleep in a lot. In the bedroom that's kinda next to a kitchen there." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Strickland in 2010

"I had a pet chicken that only had one eye. I love that chicken. That chicken used to follow me around everywhere I went in the backyard. I was quite a tree climber when I was little. And we had two or three mole-berry trees. And what I'd do is I'd climb up the mole-berry tree and I was a good climber I'd get right up that tree and pick as many mole-berries as I could stuff in my mouth. As many as my mouth could hold. And that chicken with the one eye knew exactly what I was doing when I was picking those mole-berries. And she was waiting for me down at the foot of the tree. When I couldn't hold anymore mole-berries in my mouth then I'd climb down the tree. The one-by-one I'd take the mole-berries out of mouth and give them to my chicken and she loved those mole-berries. That was one of the things I used to do a lot." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Monson in 2010

"It was a good thing I knew how to climb trees, and I loved to do that a lot, because this one day I was 4 or 5 possibly I was just little and I was down at the bottom of a tree, at the base of the tree and it was just dirt there and I was drawing things there in the dirt with my finger just sitting on the ground just drawing away there. And all of a sudden I looked up, at the very last possible minute that I could have looked up and I saw her. We had two cows, the older cow we'd call big girl, and her baby (which was really a big cow) we'd call little girl. But this little girl was mean, and she had horns that stuck just straight, right out like two swords. And I was always scared of little girl. Actually my mama was kind of scared of her too. Because she's frisky and you never knew what she was going to do. And anyways I'm just sitting here on the ground drawing in the dirt with my finger, and I looked up just in time, as I saw little girl (the cow) running full speed with her head down to the ground like a bull; her head was going back and forth just in a fury as she's racing toward me with those horns sticking straight out. And as I saw that cow coming at me I scurried up the tree as fast as I could. And that's one of those times I believe, and always have believed, that Heavenly Father was looking out for me. and he had me look up just in the nick of time to save my life from that cow. The cow ran as hard as she could towards me and by the time that she got to the tree, I mean I was up the tree by now, and the cow was so mad that she hadn't gotten to me with those horns of hers and she was just butting the tree with her head. And those horns, "Bang, Bang, Bang." She would have killed me, I knew she would of. And that's one of those times I feel that Heavenly Father was right there all the time and he had me look up at just the right moment and save my life because I did. And all my life I felt so grateful for that experience that I had about the cow and knowing that Heavenly Father was right there with me all the time." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Monson in 2010

"My brother Ivan had bought a goat and one time when I was back home in Virginia I asked him if he remembered about that goat that he had bought. And he said “oohhh yeah,” and he also remembered excatly how much he apid for it. He paid fifty cents for that goat. Well anyways he had this goat and then he made some-sort of little wagon that he could hitch on to the goal. Like a horse and budgie, but this was a goat with a little wagon. And the wagon was big enough that I could sit in. And I remember that very well, sitting in that little wagon thing and letting that goat pull me around. And I don’t remmeber where I went with this goat but I don remember going for rides behind that little goat. I don’t think I ever told many people about this, I’d almost forgotten about it myself. That was one of the fun times going for rides on this little goat." -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Monson in 2010

I was thinking about animals and I thought about my dad, who was especially an animal lover. He was more of an animal lover than my mother. But my mother liked animals okay, but she didn’t really long to have them like my dad did. I need to tell you about our little dog Pooch. Pocchie we called him. There was one time when we went to the beach and while there at the bach, apparently somebody had dumped off this dog at the beach not wanting the dog anymore. My dad realized that the dog didnt have an owner and we/he didnt have a dog at that time. SO anyway he talked my mother into letting us take this doggie home. She agreed and said okay so we took Poochie home. One of the first things that Poochie did had to do with our chickens. We had chickens you know, and the chickens would run loose a lot. My mother would let them out of the pen and they’d be all around. Well the first thing Poochie did was he chased one of these chickens and he killed it. My mother was so upset at Poochie for killing her chicken that she said, “That dog had got to go. He cannot be here, I will not let him be here another day. As soon as Daddy get’s home from work he had got to take the dog somewhere. But he cannot be here.” Ivan, being the animal lover that he is, started crying. The tears were just rolling down his cheeks and he sat on the steps with Mama and he said, “Please, just give him one more chance.” She could see Ivan’s face and how much the little dog meant to him too so she said, “Okay, I’ll give him once more chance but that’s it. And if he does it again he has got to go.” And do you know that dog never, ever, ever chased another chicken again. I guess after he killed that first chicken my mother got a stick and really got after him. I’m not sure what she did, but she really made an impression on him that chasing the chickens was something he should not do . And you know even at times when a chicken would get out and my mother would try to get them all back into the coop at night there might have been one or two that were out and as she tried to shoo them back in she would ry to get Poochie to help her get the chickens back in the coop. Be he would not do it. He wouldn’t get near that chicken. He was a very obedient dog. The relationship of love grew between Poochie and my daddy. I don’t know who loved the other one the most. But Poochie learned that if he’d be walking down the raod with my dad and there would be a big dog coming from a distance that was much bigger than Poochie, (Poochie was a little dog, just like the ones I have now) my dad would protect him. He was just a little dog and here comes this great big dog coming down the road. Poochie would bark and bark and carry on like he was gonna eat that dog right up but he knew that when they started to get close to the big dog, that my dad would pick him up and kinda hide him inside of his coat where he was safe until they had passed the big dog. Then my dad would take him out of the coat and put him back down again. There were lots of times when Poochie did that. There was one time that we had gone to Church. It was in hot summer time and we had all got to the church we lo’ and behold we realized that Poochie had got into the car and we did’t know he was in there. Church was about ready to start and my dad was branch president which meant he had to sit up on the stand. There wasn’t anything we could do really, except we had to leave Poochie in the car. It was too far from home to take the dog back home and still manage to get back to church on time. We couldn’t do that, we were already there at church. It was in the hot summer time and it was very hot and humid. We didn’t want the dog to die from the hear so the only things my daddy could do was to kinda roll the windows down halfway all around the car so there was air in the car and then we went on into the church. Well the meeting started and it had been going when all of a sudden here comes, going down the long aisle of the church, Poochie. Well he walked down the aisle all the way up to the front, up the two or three steps, up on the stand and he sat right there at my daddy’s feet. Of course everybody was just laughing. Here was this little dog and we always said, “Poochie wanted to go to church!” My dad had to pick him up and take him back out into the car and we’ve laughed about that a lot of times. Of how the dog wasn’t embarrassed to go down the aisle of the church, to go right up on the stand and course, my dad was kinda tickled about the whole thing too. As I'm thinking of Poochie, I'm thinking of the year 1938. Doesn't that seem like a long time ago to you? That's the year I got my Patriarchal Blessing, I was 11 years old. We, meaning my mother and dad and my brother Don Ray and I'm trying to remember if my brother Ivan was in the car or not because some of my brothers were at BYU during this time. Anyway, my dad was on his way driving to Salt Lake to go to the Salt Lake Temple to have his family sealed to him. You know in Virigina where I grew up there was no Temple to do anything like that. So my mommy and daddy made all the preperations to make this big journey to go to Salt Lake. We didn't sleep in motels, I think maybe we did twice so my daddy could get a good rest but we were poor, we really were, and we never had extra money for anything. What we would do at night was Mama had quilts and blankets and things that we would spread out on the ground. We didn't even have a tent like you do, we were just out in the open lying on a blanket. We would try to go under a tree or something like that so we felt like we had a little bit of protection. That's how we made our trip to Salt Lake. Well during this time we had Poochie. I remember Mama and Daddy asking, "What are we going to do with Poochie?" We loved the dog and we wanted him to be taken care of so it was decided that Poochie would go with us to Salt Lake. So Poochie was in the car with us as we traveled to Salt Lake to go to the Temple. We were in Kentucky, I remember that and we had stopped there to get something to eat or rest, and then we all got back in the car. Daddy had assigned different ones of us to watch Poochie. He would say, "You be in charge of Poochie. Now you take care of Poochie. You watch him, you make sure he get's back in the car." Everybody had a responsibilty. I don't remember whose responsibility it was to look after Poochie that day but we were in Kentucky and we had all gotten back into the car and were now rolling along the highway headed for Salt Lake when all of a sudden we realized, "Poochie is not in the car!" We had left him in Kentucky where we had stopped. Talk about a heart-broken family. Of course you know what my dad did, he turned the car around, I have no idea how many miles we had gone, but anway he turned around and went back to Kentucky, to the place where we had previously stopped. I remember being in the car and Daddy going out to see if he could find Pooch. The next thing I remember is he had Pooch in his arms walking back to the car. He told us the story of how as he was looking for Poochie, he met a man somehwere while he was searching. This man said to my dad, "Did you loose a little dog?" The man said that he had found one (and of course it was Pooch.) My dad said yes he was looking for a dog. Don't you think that is unusual? Or do you think it's a little bit more than unusual that here we were, trying to go to Salt Lake, to go to the Temple, and we lost that little dog that we all loved so much. Then here comes a man that none of us knew, I didn't know where he came from or how long we had stopped in Kentucky until the time that my dad found our dog, I'm vague on the details of that. I only know that we had lost our dog, went back to get him and don't you think that prayers were answered by Heavenly Father? Our family was wanting so badly to find this little dog that we all loved so much, and it's just too much of a coincidence to me for that to just happen. I feel it was a direct answer to a prayer. --Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Strickland in 2010

“My dad and my grandpa built our house that I grew up in. And there was always one bedroom of the house that we called (and to this day we still call) the missionaries room. We always had missionaries to stay over with us. How the church worked those days with the missionary program was that after you send somebody out on a mission they would stay with whoever would take them in. Wherever they could find a place to stay. And I don’t know what other missionaries did. But in the North of Virginia area the missionaries always stayed at our house Two at a time. As soon as some missionaries would leave others come to replace them. And my mother treated those missionaries just like her own sons. She did their washing, their ironing, made their meals for them, did the darning of their socks, they had a bed to sleep in and you know and I look back at that and think, “Oh my goodness what a service.” Can you imagine anybody today doing that. Just having missionaries move in with you, and live with you, and stay there for months at a time. And as soon as they leave they’ll be other missionaries to take their place. My mother tells me that once when I was about two years old I guess, just a baby - that she had told the missionaries, “Now don’t leave your door open that goes into your room because Betty is just a baby and will get in there and get into your things, so never leave your door open.” Well this one day she said that one of the missionaries forgot and they left the door open and the next thing she knew I had gotten a tube of toothpaste (don’t ask me where I got it from because I don’t know) but I had a tube of toothpaste and my mother said I had smeared toothpaste on just about everything. And that one of these missionaries had left a suitcase down on the floor and there were now clothes all around the room. And I guess I did a pretty good job with my toothpaste and getting it on everything in sight so that’s one thing I have heard about, but I really don’t remember.” -Story told from Anna Elizabeth (Betty) Monson in 2010