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LINES FROM

COLLINGS HILL

I, Nellie Elida Hunt, was born in Monroe, Utah 4 Mar. 1883, the third child of Emily Casto and Moroni Hunt. At the time of my birth my mother was nearly 20, lacking 19 days, my father was nearly 31.1

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Maggie Warnock was my first teacher. We went to school in a small rock building, I think it is known as the “Town Hall.” It is just south of the present school House. There was an old wooden black board, charts, maps, and a water bucket and dipper in one corner of the room. The seats were made of rough lumber, made to hold two children, but my two brothers and I sat in one seat. We marched up to the front of the room, and read our lessons from a chart all in concert:

Good bye, little rake, Good bye little hoe

Up in the attic you must go.

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I haven’t mentioned that the Spanish American War took place in 1898. I shall never forget when my brother Alvin woke us up in the night to tell us about the destruction of the “Maine”. You can read about that in your history. I was about 15 then.…

Going back to the war again, the night they had a farewell party for the boys, I wanted to go to the dance, but my parents wouldn’t let me. Ed and Alvie went. After they left I wrote the first verse I had ever written, called “The Boys in Blue”. The next morning I read them to Ma, and she had me read them to Pa, I can see him now, with the tears standing in his eyes. Next I wrote a poem called “Remember the Maine,” I wrote one about Amy, only I used the name of Milly in it. I finally got me a notebook to write my poems in, but one winter in school some one “swiped” it or it was lost, I don’t remember which.

Ed, George, Alvin, Howard, and Nellie Hunt, about 1887

1. Nellie was born Nellie Eliza Hunt, according to the Monroe Ward Membership Records and the Marriage License signed in their hands by both Mother and Dad. She didn’t like the name so changed it some time during her adolescence—RWC