--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Musser, Gertrude collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 33 number: 4 published: 1930-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Gertrude Musser, “From Ox Cart to Airplane,” *Improvement Era* 33, no. 4 (February 1930): 266–267." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3304unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3304unse start_page: 266 end_page: 267 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1930-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3304unse publication_year: 1930 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1930, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # From Ox Cart to Airplane From Ox Cart to Airplane By GERTRUDE MUSSER FROM Garden Grove, Iowa, in 1848, Mary Elizabeth White started across the plains with her family, by ox team and cart. Garden Grove was only a little village of log huts and dugouts — not at all like a garden — and yet to a group of outcast Latter- day Saints it offered a wel- come protection from the persecutions of their ene- mies and from the cold of the Iowa winter. Here, on the 7th of Nov., 1846, Mary Elizabeth White was born, the third child of Samuel Dennis White and Mary Hannah Burton, both of whom had joined the Church in 1837. The prospects for the little girl were not bright; there was sickness — in each corner of the room which shel- tered her mother was a bed on which some afflicted person lay; there was poverty— the Saints had left their homes in such haste they were poorly fitted for the long journey ahead, and food was hard to obtain; there was misery — the log houses had been crudely built and did not succeed in shutting out the winter. It was a case of the survival of the fittest, and Mary, being one of the fittest, survived and was happy in the prairie home. "D EFORE the family moved -*-* across the plains another child, William Henry, was born, and Mary was in her fourth year. The journey was one long to be remem- bered by even such a little girl. The huge mountains, threatening in the distance, were terrifying at first, but after they became commonplace it was hard to keep her in the wagon home. Every time they halted, stones had to be placed un- der the wheels to keep the wagon from rolling down hill, and it was the worry of her mother's life that Mary would pinch her fingers un- der the big wheels or that she would get too close to the feet of the oxen, but Father White would say, "Don't worry, Mother. She'll be all right." -REACHING Salt Lake Valley -^ they camped there for a short time, but soon after were sent to settle at Lehi. Mary was sent to the school, such as it was, where she learned the mysteries of the printed page. It was a proud time for her when she finally succeeded in mastering the difference between "d" and "b" and could read. After about four years in Lehi they were sent to colonize farther south, at Cedar City. They worked hard, but the desert refused to blossom like a rose, and after several years the majority of the settlers moved to a new location near the old, hoping to have better success, but the Whites went north to Beaver and made this their permanent home. rT,HE family by this time had in- creased to nine members, and upon Mary devolved a good part of the responsibility in the home. This meant a great deal in those days, for besides the cooking, clean- ing, sewing, washing and churn- ing, there were spinning, carding, candlemaking and a hun- dred other things to be done. Twice her father was called to pilot com- panies of immigrants to the valley from the point where the railroad ended, and once her brother Or- son went. Returning from these trips they brought with them such luxuries as factory-made cloth and spools of cotton thread, to the delight of the women folks. HTHERE was always ■*• work to be done, but as they had done while crossing the plains, the pio- neers supplemented their toil with dancing and games, and even more elab- orate amusements. Then Mary had been simply an onlooker, or more prob- ably, had been fast asleep during the revelry, but now she was in the center of the fun. She danced with Brigham Young several times, but more often with the young traveling bishop, Amos Milton Musser, who had recently returned from a round-the-world mission- ary tour, a man full of enthusiasm and vigor and possessed of the quality of making people like him. In 1864 he and Mary were mar- ried. Six children of her hus- band's, in addition to ten of their own, Mary cared for and they loved her as their mother. This re- sponsibility was the more keenly felt since her husband was away so much of the time. After his release in 1876 as Traveling Bishop of the Church, he was appointed Gen- eral Superintendent of the Deseret Telegraph Company, which posi- tion also required his absence from home a good part of the time. '"THE "underground" days were ■*- very trying for everyone. Mr. Musser was convicted under the Edmunds-Tucker Law and sen- tenced to serve six months in the State Penitentiary. During this time, through Mary's ingenuity, his prison fare was supplemented with smuggled delicacies. After his release he continued as before — The Improvement Era for February, 1930 267 r-~r— living with his families and going to the office each morning — but they had to be continually on the alert for spying deputies. The mother of Moses could have had no harder time to keep her child from the soldiers of Pharaoh. Of her children, four sons have filled missions, two have served their country in war, and one is a prominent lawyer. There are thir- ty-seven grandchildren and four- teen great-grandchildren scattered from Hawaii to Baltimore, and from Wyoming to St. George, to bear witness of her wonderful life and the integrity of her soul. COME folks are hardened and em- bittered by the experiences of life; others, like Grandmother Musser, grow nobler and sweeter. Her eighty-three years have brought into her life hardships, anxiety and sorrow — five of her children have been taken by death the eldest son in his young man- hood, three in their childhood, and one as the mother of a family — but each year has made her richer in experiences, stronger in service and dearer to the hearts of her children. Some folks stop growing at fifty and spend the rest of their lives looking backwards into the past; others, like Grandmother Musser, enriched by the experiences of the past, are forever learning and growing. She has not, nor will she ever reach the stage when she would be content to sit, her hands folded in her lap, dreaming of that which has gone; nor will she ever be too old to find some way to help others. "CAMILIAR with the changing conditions of life, from perse- cution to safety, from hardship to ease, from poverty and privation to comfort, she had yet one compar- ison to make. Knowing practic- ally all there was to know of older methods of transportation, she was eager to try the latest facilities, and in August, 1928, she added to her experience of ox cart, rail- road and automobile a trip in a Fairchild cabin monoplane. Having donned her best attire, very differ- ent from the rough clothing of 1850, she calmly climbed into the plane and was taken over the val- ley. From the heights she looked down on the trail which had led their weary feet from persecution and hatred to the new promised land of opportunity. "It was a wonderful, experi- ence," she said. "I suppose we will all of us be using airplanes habitually before long." Your Better Self- God's Understudy By John T. Woodbury, Jr. Dixie College Department of Religious Education "VOUNG man, do you want to 1 live to be three-score and ten and still be in your prime? Do you want after all those years to have yet a vigorous mind in a sound body? Do you want the moral fiber, the iron will, the ethical stability, that make men strong for the right? Do you want to be the captain of your own fate, the helmsman of your own world cruise, the har- binger of the better, the greater, the nobler, man to be? Do you yearn for the power to command yourself at all times without equivocation? The Lord of the Universe in- tended that you should have all these things and more. He has done His part and the rest is up to you. He has furnished you a good body and important instruc- tions about the care of it. The essence of those instructions, like the essential of the moral law, is honesty in action. It reads: Thou shall not lie to the body, neither by deadening it with opiates nor narcotics to give it false peace, nor by spurring it on to action by stim- ulants when no basic strength is furnished. Neither the pseudo rest of deadened nerves, nor the hectic flush of stimulants is conducive to health. They sap the energies, stun the will, and destroy the con- science. "Tobacco and strong drink are not good for man;" neither is much meat. Fruits, and grains and green leafy vegetables, in their sea- sons, are good for man. Common sense should temper all man's activities. Nothing in excess should be the rule — modera- tion in all things. The Lord promises you health and strength if you use wisdom in your living. A feeling of mighty manhood and moral power will be the result of such a life. These things are within your reach now. Grasp them before you lose through indulgence, the desire to admire, and the ability to acquire the life of perfect self-control. It's up to you. Be men! ■r -f i XJEALTH is, indeed, so neces- ■*■■*■ sary to all the duties as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly; and he that for a short grati- fication brings weakness and dis- eases upon himself, and for the pleasure of a few years passed in the tumults of diversion and clam- ors of merriment condemns the ma- turer and more experienced part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached, not only as a spendthrift of his happiness, but as a robber of the public; as a wretch that has vol- untarily disqualified himself for the business of his station, and re- fused that part which Providence assigns him in the general task of human nature. — Samuel Johnson.