Mabel was born 31 May 1999 in a two-room log house on her parents' homestead in Salem, Fremont, Idaho. Her parents were Willard Ricks and Emma Emelia Jeppesen. She had six brothers and one sister. She walked l l/2 miles to school and could only attend in the winter months. Sometimes her father would take them to school in their sleigh and put hot bricks by their feet to keep them warm and throw warm quilts over them. Mabel grew up as a farmer’s daughter, cooking for the men who came to help with the harvesting, taking care of the animals (cows, horses, pigs, chickens, ducks) and helping her mother with the washing (on a scrubbing board) and upkeep of the home. They cooked on a coal and wood stove, which also heated their home, and had oil lamps or candles to light their home. They had no bathrooms or running water in their house, just their well outside. At thrashing time they would have to cook for the many men who would come to help. As a young girl, it was Mabel's job to carry water to the men working in the fields. Mabel's sister, Sophronia, was almost ten years older than Mabel, and they were only the two girls in the family. Mabel had one little brother who died at birth in 1997. Mabel became especially close to her younger brother, Elmer, who was born six years after Mabel and was the last child born in the family. Mabel would later name one of her sons, Elmo, in remembrance of Elmer, who was killed on his honeymoon. Sophronia wrote in her history that in 1899, the year Mabel was born, "The first train made its way into this vicinity and you can be sure the farmers were really thrilled. All this summer as children we would get on Father’s shed and watch the men work, building the track each morning as the train came in with supplies. It came a little closer and finally in the late fall the track was laid as far north as St. Anthony, Idaho." Mebel met Melvin first in the second grade, when he went to Sugar City to school. Melvin said he knew when he saw her, he would marry her some day. The next five years Melvin went to the Rexburg Washington grade school. Melvin and Mabel were both very busy helping on their parents' farms, so didn't have much time for courting. Melvin and Mabel both graduated from the eighth grade in 1916, just before Mabel turned seventeen. She started high school but only went for six weeks. She said there was sickness in the family, and she had to stay home to help. Her father said she was needed more at home, and that girls didn't need any more education any way, so that was the end of Mabel's schooling. In 1917, Mabel's two brothers were drafted into the army during World War I. Leo didn't have to go as he was needed on the farm, but Warren went. Then her brother, Theodore, was drafted and was sent overseas to France and Germany and suffered a great deal from this experience. The flu was a concern after the War, so everything was closed down. Mabel wrote that she worked in the fields along with the men at this time, due to the shortage of help. They had 100 head of pigs which had to be fed and cared for, and Mabel's father gave Mabel one pig for her work. She was able to sell the babies from this pig and buy herself a new coat, a dress, and some shoes. They also raised chickens and sold chickens and eggs. The first time Melvin tried to pick Mabel up for a date, his sleigh got stuck in the snow drifts. He had to unhook his horses, tip the box off the sleigh, and pull a part of the sleigh out of the snow at a time. There was no date that night. Finally, when Melvin was 26 and Mabel was 24, after courting for about twelve months, they were engaged on Christmas night 1923. They were endowed and married in the Logan Temple by President Joseph Shephard on 7 Feb 1924. During the first year of their marriage, they lived at Melvin's mother's home in the west room that Melvin had painted and fixed up with a new stove, a table and chairs, some new linoleum. Mabel had a bed, and Margaret gave them a dresser and a cabinet. Melvin worked hard on his mother's farm and also helped his brothers with their farms. In the fall, they moved up on the hill just above the college in Rexburg, in Melvin's brother, George's home. They enjoyed this home, and it was here that their first child, Emelia, was born. In the spring, they moved to Salem and lived in George Harris' old home, and Melvin worked for George's son that summer and also helped his mother. That fall (1925) they moved to Sugar City close to the factory so Melvin could walk to work. In the spring of 1926, they moved to Mabel's Uncle Jeppesen's 240 acre farm, and Melvin worked for him for two years, and Mabel helped do the cooking for sixteen men. They got $75 per month. Their second child, Golden, was born here. That fall they moved into Rexburg, and they rented a house so Melvin and his brothers could build a new home for his mother on her father's lot. The next spring (1927) they moved out to Salem again, by the Church house, and Melvin got his first car. He worked for a Japanese man and helped his mother. The fall of 1928, they moved again out to north Salem on a place they intended to buy (40) acres, but they had to move again in March 1929 because the people decided not to sell. In October they moved again back on to the old farm. They lived there for ten years. During this time five more children were born to them. These were the years during the depression and were extremely difficult. In Feb 1932, Melvin, because he was a seventy, was called on a ten-day mission to Newdale. It snowed and drifted, and Mabel was expecting her fourth child and had to shovel drifts four feet deep to get the stock to the pump for water and also do the milking. Melvin's deep devotion to provide for his family is expressed in his own history as he recorded the next several trying years: "We had to borrow money to buy hay to feed the cows and horses and buy seed to plant because of the weather the year before and because of the depression prices. Then the hot winds came again and burnt up our beets. The canal went dry in July. We didn't raise hardly anything again that summer. That year hay was $40 a ton, and we sold our beets for $3.50 a ton and potatoes for $.25 a hundred. I worked that winter sorting potatoes on my knees in a potato cellar for $.25 an hour to keep our family...The next spring (1934) we lost the farm because we couldn't pay the mortgage...but we were able to live there for a few more years because my brother paid the mortgage. I got a job in Rexburg working for the W.P.A. cutting willows along canal banks and burning them, in snow up to our waists for $40 a month--6 days a week--to keep our family. I had to ride a bicycle from the farm to work in Rexburg every day." In September 1939 Melvin and Mabel built their home in Rexburg with the help of Melvin's brother, George. They dug the basement by hand and hauled rock from the creek. Winter set in before it was finished, and Melvin and Mabel and their eight children lived in a hole in the ground with one thickness of boards and a layer of roofing over them, with pasteboard on the walls and a board floor. Melvin records "But the Lord blessed us and none of us caught cold or were sick." In the spring of 1940 Melvin started work on the Rexburg City Park for $75 a month. He took care of the park, with the help of his sons, for the next 25 years. In the winter he would work on the roads in town, hauling snow and cleaning streets. The City Park flourished under Melvin's care, and people from all over the world have enjoyed the well-cared-for lawns and trees and the beautiful flowers. On January 22, 1943, Rexburg was flooded, and Melvin and Mabel's basement was flooded out, but with the help of good friends like Bishop Peterson, the family soon returned to their home. In 1945 Melvin and Mabel lost their sixteen-year-old son, Robert, in a cave-in in a trench. This was a trying experience for Melvin and Mabel, but they never ceased to talk about the kindness of the many people in Rexburg at this time. This was the year, too, that they built their home on top of the basement with the help of Melvin's brothers. Mabel passed away on March 31, 1969, at the Rexburg hospital. She had a bad cough and couldn't seem to get better, and Melvin had taken her to the hospital to see if they could help. Mabel had suffered from sugar diabetes for many years. Melvin and Mabel had been married for forty-five years, and Mabel had brought eight children into the world.