VISITS WITH EUNICE McKENZIE

Carol Back and Steve Richardson

    INTRODUCTORY NOTE: The reader should be aware that Eunice's

    references to "your father" and to "Milt" can be referring to either

    Shadrack Milton Richardson, Carol's father, or to his son, Milton E

    Richardson, Steve's father.

        

    <<March 29, 1987>>

         Richard lived around Eureka at Silver City, and then he came home

    to Benjamin.  He was there I don't know how many years--all my

    life!  it seemed like he was there at our place.  [Was he retired or

    working?]  No, he was tired.  No, he worked throughout the house, you

    know, there was always things he could do.  And he was good to pick up

    work, and cut kindling, and bring this in, and bring that in, and

    gather the food that she wanted.  Now, he worked around, he busied

    himself.  He wasn't a [sounds like bound], he wasn't that at all--he

    earned his keep.  But he was always there, I can't remember when he

    wasn't there, always at our house.  He stayed in the bedroom with the

    boys, in the boys' bedroom.  Sometimes it was [sounds like chest upon

    chest], but they were all in the boys' bedroom.  He had all the kids in

    the neighborhood that he kept in whistles, y'know they'd cut these soft

    woods, and he could make a whistle giving three or four tones.  He was

    just capital at making whistles.  So from the time that the sap started

    he was making whistles all summer....

         I was the youngest, I was born into a family--I was the nineth

    child.  So I was born into a family, so I always was the big girl.  I

    was, I think, normal in size, until I was about five years old, then I

    started growing.  And by the time I was eight years old I had the

    height that I've had for the rest of my life.  I went up to five foot

    two.  That's as high as I ever got, then I started shrinking down

    again, to four foot eleven.  That's what it was the last time I was

    able to stand up enough to be measured.  I decided I just didn't want

    to get any shorter than that, I just couldn't be [sounds like taken],

    so I just kept on to that.  I had to grow up fast, my brain grew fast,

    y'ever heard tell of that big brain of mine, but I didn't have a body

    big enough to handle it.  But it was a good brain.  I wish I had of

    been born strong enough physically to of carried that brain on, and see

    where it could of gone.  Because it was wonderful.

         About Eunice Lettie Hickman Richardson:

         She was a jewel.

         Carol: I'm sure she was.  I just wish I could of known her better.

         Eunice: I wish you could of done.  I wish you all could of done.

    You missed a lot....

         Carol: You've got to see Mildred.  You know, we met Clio

    Richardson in Las Vegas one time, and Mildred was with her, and Clio

    started crying, and she said, "What's the matter?"  And she said, "You

    look just like Grandma Richardson, you are the image of Grandma

    Richardson."  Isn't that something?  And I think Mildred has the

    characteristics of Grandma, too--what I have know of her, what I have

    heard of her, because she's very very intelligent.  Very very capable

    of doing anything, whether it's teaching a lesson--she is a tour guide

    at the Lion House, and she gives a beautiful tour.  Everything she goes

    to do--she can cook, she can sew, she can do everything.  She has nine

    children, too.  So I guess she just followed in the footsteps of

    Grandma.

         Eunice: I hope she did.  But I wish you could of been with her

    more.  She was a jewel.

         Carol: But when we went to live with Hickmans, Les Hickman's

    wife--what was her name? (Olive)   Eunice called up and she said "This

    is Eunice Richardson", and she just about dropped the phone....  We

    went to live with her, you know, when we first came to Salt Lake, and

    she told us so much about Grandma, and we didn't know Grandma, and she

    thinks she was the most wonderful woman that ever lived!  She liked

    her, in fact, she thought Eunice had a golden name.  And do you know

    that Rose and Milt were big friends, and Rose is still a big friend of

    Olive's daughter.  And Josiah Hickman's daughter, they were to Milt's

    funeral, they were sitting right in back of us.  She just told me, she

    says "I'm Josiah Hickman's daughter," and I knew a lot about Josiah,

    because he wrote a book.

         Eunice: Uncle J.E.

         Carol: It was just as the funeral was breaking up, so I just

    talked to her a minute and she asked about Aunt Lucy, and we told her

    that she was paralyzed and in a rest home, and that's about all I got

    to say to her.

         Eunice: She was a wonderful character.  I liked her!  She gave the

    best account of those boys.  She just kept track of them and how they

    went to church, and how they worked, and all--how they were making a

    home, and how they were having a family.  Just what Richardsons should

    be!  Then, she had the best data on them.  I was glad to hear it,

    because I didn't hear very much about them....

oooOooo

         

<<31 May 1987>>

          ...When you're down, like I am now, you're looking at the world

    with a different picture, all the way around, and you're judging it

    opposite to what you had done before.

         Milton was my brother, the second one in line.  I was the ninth

    one.

         Every little while I get nausiated, start vomiting again.  I've

    just kind of lost all the wind out of my sails.  And I'm not proud of

    myself.  I'm a Richardson, and I was supposed to hold out til the last.

    I have been here years, so it's home to me.

         [While reading Charles Kelly's memo on Bill Hickman, Mrs. Shaw]

                       [click here to read the "Mrs. Shaw" document.]

         I will give you a little information on my grandfather, he always

    called him "brother Billy." But he always said that the stories that

    they printed about him, says "it wasn't my brother." Said "That was the

    youngest one of the family and I've never found a better boy in all my

    life than he was.  That wasn't my brother that they wrote about." And

    Momma said that all his life he was bragging about it.

         I was married, lived in Springville, and got acquainted with a

    woman there who was a Hickman, and she was Billy Hickman's daughter.

    And she had the history of Billy Hickman on his life, and all those

    Indian girls that he was supposed to have adopted.  He did adopt them,

    he took them into his care, two of those Indian girls that were

    pregnant that he was saving their [sounds like line] for, and they had

    children by him afterward, they all went to the temple, they had taken

    an active part in the Church.  And they were all [sounds like athighed

    to their over] Church.  So that is a little testimony on the side, but

    it'd be from my grandfather, but it'd be from your grandfather back

    aways too.

          ...I'm so thrilled I could be a Richardson.  I got married and I

    gave up my name temporarily, but I still held on to it, deep down in I

    was Richardson, my very soul is Richardson.  'Course it's had several

    others that it's had to work with.  I'd like to see you get the thrill

    that I have had, as I've laid here in this bed.  The fact that I was a

    Mormon and it was my ancestors that brought the religion up to where it

    is now and can be taken on by all of you folks.  Please take it on.

         And during part of his reading, she taught him why he must learn

    to read right, and pronounce every letter in that word, as he said it.

    She said "If you find it's time to keep it in your mind more, then you

    should work the problem into yourself, to let those words come out,

    you'll remember them so much longer." But all those good things that

    she taught him (he was five years old when she died) she taught him all

    that in those five years!

         You'd be surprised how many things have gone over in my mind.

    Over, and over--and I've criticized the first time, at least, so that's

    what you do while you're counting your sheep--you count your blessings.

    You think what you did wrong, what you should of done right, if I had

    to do over again, I'd do differently.  But you can do those things in

    your sleep.  It takes care of a lot of hour, and hours, and hours that

    I lie in this bed.  Oof!  I used to lie and count all the flowers on

    all the [wall]paper.  I don't do that any more.  But it's my mind that

    I'm reliving, that I'm counting out the same way as I did those

    flowers.  I always had an uh an [sounds like 'off dollerks'] that I

    could fall back on to.  And thank goodness, I needed it, now for fifty

    years, 'cause I only had forty good years.  But, oh, they were

    wonderful years.  I had a lot of things during those forty years, but I

    had forty years that I was enjoying--I was living above it.  I was

    living a normal life...as far as working in the church, public work,

    and all--I did that, I worked all the time in the church and around,

    and it was in a small town, [sounds like 'a grerr firm'], as

    Springville was going to be, merely a move back to Benjamin.  And I

    said "Why?" "As young as you are, stay out where the world is, and

    enjoy it." She said "Well, I would much rather be a big toad in a

    little pond than a little toad in a big pond."  And as long as I live

    in Springville I'll be little.  But I could go to Benjamin and I could

    grow as tall as any of them there." And I've thought of that so many

    times.  And her husband, who I used to teach in Sunday School, I

    watched him grow up from the time he was in his crib, but he was a

    perfectly normal kid, grew up normally, by the way, they were our

    relatives, partly Richardsons, but he had just been made bishop of the

    Fifth Ward.  [Dr. Lynn Stewart was his uncle.] I forget too many names.

    That's the part I don't like about getting old.  They slip your mind,

    but they slip in just as easy at the end.  I'll be thinking of

    something else and that name'll pop into my mind.  From where--I don't

    have any idea, it's the same memory that made me remember it in the

    first place.  It's hidden in a back pocket somewhere.  But I connect up

    most of those names.  Whether it be a first name or a last name.  I

    have to go back three, four, or five generations before before I get to

    a [sounds like 'man o mutton'].  But that's another thing that it's

    done--it gives the idea of going back.  Now that goes that far, now

    where does it go from there?  After that, then what do you do?  You go

    over this part, that adds to that part to make all of the story.  When

    you get through with that, you've got a pretty good night's sleep ahead

    of you.  It's true you can do it if you're applying yourself that way,

    and I did!  I knew what I wanted, and I went for it.  I gained what I

    wanted, thanks to the Lord.

To read the final recorded interview, dated 13 July 1991, click here.

To return to Eunice's index page, click here.

To return to the Richardson Family index page, click here.

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