Old Mexico History of
Olive Myrtle Black
Palmer
Daughter of William
Morley Black
And Anna Maria Hansen
Black
Born July 20, 1865 at
Circleville, Piute
County, Utah
Written as a History
for
The Daughters of Utah
Pioneers
July 24, 1953 at
Tucson, Pima County,
Arizona
By Chloe Amelia
Palmer Nelson
Daughter of Olive
Myrtle Black Palmer
Mother kept no diary of written
account of her life therefore, this history or story is based on experiences
and incidences I remember of hearing mother relate and also on childhood and
teenage memories of my own.
Mother left Snowflake, Navajo
County, Arizona the 1st of February 1885 for Colonia Diaz, Sonora,
Mexico arriving there the 31st of March 1885 and after staying about
a year moved to San jose, a little Mexican town near the Casas Grande River.
This was her first introduction to the Mexican people and their way of living.
From San Jose she went to
Stringtown where a group of pioneers had camped. Stringtown was located about a
mile south of Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
At this camp they built forts or
stockades in which to live. Each stockade had to accommodate eight or nine
families. Mother had just moved in her part of a stockade when her third son
was born October 14, 1886.
In March or April of 1887 a minor
part of the Mexico earthquake gave the little Stockade Village a good sound
shaking and scared a year’s growth out of its inhabitants.
During the latter part of April
1887 mother and family pioneered their way up the steep, rugged San Diego Dugway
and to Corrales, a picturesque little valley located near Colonia Pacheco,
Chihuahua, Mexico.
Corrales was only forty miles
from Stringtown but it took ten days to make the trip because the earthquake
had torn the road up so badly they had to rebuild it as they went along.
At Corrales mother lived in a
wagon and the shelter of pine trees while the little log cabin was being built.
And regardless of the fact that she was expecting her fourth child, she helped
build the house, clear land, dig an irrigation ditch, plant and care for a
garden, raise chickens with an old setting hen and eggs she borrowed from a
neighbor, dig post holes, build fences and build shelter for the mule team.
Yes, she done all of this besides taking care of her family, and yet she was never
too busy to do a daily kind deed or to help a neighbor in need.
Mother was as proud as a queen
on a throne the day she took possession of the new home which to her seemed a
palace even though the roof and the floors were mother’s contribution. But, believe
me, those dirt floors were kept as clean and smooth as possible.
How Mother longed to make rugs
for the floors, but could not afford rags for rugs. She made and re-made
clothes and handed them down with patch upon patch until when they had gone
through the family complete, there wasn’t even a patch left for Pete.
Mother was the family carpenter
and with hammer, saw and butcher knife made furniture for the home with old
boards, logs or anything she could get hold of. But regardless of how rough and
crude the furniture it was scoured to a gleaming cleanliness with white sand
and clear, pure water from one of the two rivers near the house.
Each day they tried to add
attraction to the home with a finishing touch here and there. But the most
beautiful attraction, the one that really added the finishing touch was the
love, understanding and co-operation among the inmates of the humble, little
home where both of father’s families lived until it was as crowded as sardines
in a can. The families’ average increase was two babies every two years.
One by one, I should say two by
two the children celebrated their sixth birthday and must go to school. So
mother moved to Pacheco. They all stayed with her and attended school at the
little one-room log school house where all eight grades were taught.
Father bought a little general
merchandise store and moved it near mother’s Pacheco home because she was to be
president, manager, sales lady and all the personnel needed for the upkeep of a
store.
Besides caring for the store,
her family and home, mother had the opportunity nearly every day to give some
Mexican or American mother a remedy for her baby’s stomachache or earache,
John’s stubbed toe, sister’s sore eyes, Grandma’s or Grandpa’s headache, or
what to do for the measles, whooping cough or chickenpox. And if these remedies
failed to ease the pain she would take time out to go to the home and give
assistance.
Mother’s natural instinct was to
be of service to others, especially in time of sorrow, sickness and accident.
She often wished she would take a course in nursing so her services would be
more valuable.
In 1888 after helping a Mexican woman in confinement, her desire to
become a nurse was strengthened and literally fulfilled about ten years later
when mother completed a nurse’s course in 1899 and immediately started the
career of nurse and midwife. She faithfully followed this career until ill
health forced her to retire in 1937.
In order to assist the sick and help bring babies into this world, mother
would go anytime of the night or day in all kinds of weather, on horseback, by
slow team and wagon or on foot; mostly on foot
Besides giving birth to and raising twelve children of her own, mother
helped bring five hundred other babies into the world. Out of the five hundred
she lost only two babies and no mothers. The first baby was delivered in 1888
and the last in 1937.
The success of mother’s career can be attributed to her humble, prayerful
spirit, miraculous power of endurance and her great love for people.
While living in Mexico mother suffered all the hardships of pioneer life.
No one except brave, God-fearing pioneers who felt that no sacrifice was too
great for the sake of their religion, could have endured such trials.
Mother experienced the heart-ache of burying two sons, the terrible
ordeal of seeing her children suffer from hunger and cold, the strain of fear
and uneasiness caused by the unfriendly Mexicans and the wild Apache Indians,
wild animals and the terrifying electrical storms.
Several people were brutally murdered by the Indians and Mother narrowly
escaped death from the sharp dagger of a young Mexican man father hired with
the farm work.
Mother also had happy memories of her Mexico life such as the good old
friendly quilting and corn husking bees, the molasses candy pulls and
celebrating Pioneer Day with a big community feast of wild onions, corn bread
and buttermilk and sheep sorrel pie. Dancing bare-footed on the dirt floor of
the little log school house which was also the Church house and recreational
center.
After twenty-seven years of sacrifice and hard work mother had just
started to enjoy the necessities of life when the 1910 Mexican Revolution
started and by 1912 the rebels became so dangerous that President Woodrow
Wilson advised all Americans to leave for a while.
The Corrales and Pacheco people left early Tuesday morning July 30, 1912
taking with them only what would be needed on a camping trip, thinking they
would soon return to their homes and property. But they never did return.
Although mother had lost all the financial gains of twenty-seven years,
she was much richer spiritually and morally because she had laid up for herself
“treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth consume and where thieves
cannot break through and steal.”
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