Susan Alvira Hoffman
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"Jammy was born on September 13, 1854. She married Jampa on January 27, 1873. She died on May 20, 1936. Her eyes were blue and her hair was auburn and she stood 5' 5" tall.
"Jammy and Jampa liked sauerkraut.. They'd get us kids to take off our shoes and roll up our pant legs. Then they'd put is in a barrel, put cabbage in with us, and we'd have to tromp, and tromp it around. Then they'd put vinegar in with it. That's how they made it. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. I can understand Jammy liking it though because she was Dutch."
Jammy learns what Indians are made of . . .
"She recounted the time in the winter when an Indian came to the door and wanted some food. She wanted him to come in from the cold but he said "No" and stood there in the bitter, bitter cold. Jammy got some food and gave it to him in the doorway. Then she said, "Aren't you cold?". The Indian replied "No". Then the Indian said to Jammy, "You cold?" Jammy answered, "Yes!" The Indian continued, "Cheek cold?" Jammy felt her cheeks and concluded, "No, I guess not". Then the Indian said, "Indian all cheek."
"She had a phobia of English sparrows. For some reason or other she didn't like them and there were lots of them in our area. There were two great big pine trees out in back of her house -- I think they were at least 40 feet tall. Every spring, two or three times, she'd pay us a quarter to shimmy up these trees and get the nests from the sparrows. When we'd come down we'd be covered with pine gum from head to foot. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy to get off either."
Meeting one of the three Nephites.
"She also recounted an experience of feeding a peculiar gray bearded, and gray headed, but fine looking man. She said he didn't look old although his beard and his hair were all gray and that he came to get something to eat. She gave it to him and she wanted him to come in. He said to her that he'd just sit on the porch, so Jammy went into the house to get a sack of food ready for him. She returned, handed him the sack, and he left. Just after he had gone, she started to wonder just who he could be, and noting that it was getting evening she thought she'd better ask him if he would like to stay the night. She said she looked and looked in all directions be she couldn't see the man anywhere. She figured, like so many people in those days, that she'd seen one of the Three Nephites."
How Jammy's father decided to come West ;-)
"Jammy's father had a beautiful farm and was a very wealthy man. He wasn't very religious to begin with and when the Saints started West he was reluctant to leave all that he had. Jammy's mother became more and more frustrated. One day when her father came home he found the wagons hitched and all their goods in the wagons. He asked her mother where she was going and she told him she was going West with the Saints and if he wanted to come too he could. He said "Now wait a minute! Let's hold on here". So they worked it out and came West together. They brought a coal oven in the wagon with them. Jammy said that for years they cooked all the bread for all of Coalville in that old stove."
(Note: She arrived in the Salt Lake Valley when she was seven years old. She came with the Milo Andrus Company of 1861
My father (Parley M. Neeley) often lamented the fact that he had known Jammy but had failed to ask her what it was like to be a pioneer coming across the plains. He remembers visiting her in the hospital and attempting to climb up in her bed (he might have been 5 or 6). Grandma and Grandpa shooed him off, but Jammy said 'Oh, it's alright. Let him climb up here so that I can love him". Then my father climbed up on the hospital bed and they had a good talk together. "But," as my father said, "when you are young you just don't think about the important questions to ask -- I had the chance but just didn't know to take advantage of it." (Note: this section added here after a March 23, 2002 trip to Topaz Mtn. on which Dad told this story again and I recorded it here.)
