On May 17, which was a Sunday, Zemira recorded that he was writing a letter for Asa, who dictated it to his brothers and sisters in Panguitch. Asa was George Asahel, age 12, who apparently was staying with his father there in Springdale for a while. Then the last of May, one month after settling in Springdale, Zemira made a trip to Manti for a load of flour. Manti was known as “the granary of Utah.” He left his 12-year-old son George Asahel at Red Creek near Kanarrah with a Bro. Silas Smith “until he could get company home, his mother still living in Panguitch.” Simply put, that means the boy had to find his own way to Panguitch where Sally was still living.
On the way back from Manti, Zemira stopped at Panguitch and moved the rest of his family to Springdale, this being his wife Sally and her children.
Upon reaching home, having been gone nearly a month he wrote: “Went up to my farm, found one stand of bees had ceased to work. Wheat and potatoes full of weeds and suffering for water. Brought the bees home, took one slat out of the working hive with honey and bees on it, and put it in the other to revive them.” He didn’t let these problems bother him, but took care of his bees and got right to work weeding and watering his farm and planting corn.82
A few of Zemira’s tasks there were: mending road, also water ditch; cutting barley; cutting wheat; plowing corn; getting a load of firewood; hauling rock for spring-house; building spring-house; getting some green corn to dry; cutting lucern; drying fruit. They didn’t work on Sundays. August 9, 1874, he recorded: “Sunday went to meeting. This is my birthday, being 43 years old.”
Each of his wives had five children still living at home, and each gave birth to another child while living in Springdale. Pioneer life was always filled with daily tasks, and each was expected to do his or her share according to capability. Caroline’s oldest daughter, Arletta, was 15 and would be a great help, and her two boys, Edwin (8), and Daniel (6), would help at whatever they could. But it would be Sally’s 14- year-old James and his 12-year-old brother Asahel who probably worked alongside their father throughout that summer in Springdale. And it was a busy summer (Sally’s son Joseph, her eleventh child was born there November 20, 1874, and Caroline’s seventh child Laura Lovina, was born 6 May, 1875).
82- Zemira’s Diary, June 23, 26, 30
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