Notes on the life of Ezra Grover Carter

By: Pearl J. Carter (his wife) Page 2 of 9

George Carter came as a hired man to break up the land for her. He had a young son who was dragged to death in an accident while trying to help his father with the harrowing.

Sympathy aroused by this death was most likely a factor leading to the marriage of Kate and George, but the marriage was never a happy one.

After a short time George took his two young daughters to the Johnson family where the girls lived until they married.

While Vera was still young Kate & George separated and George went up to a small farm in Cub River Canyon where he lived with a brother Warren who was an alcoholic.

Ezra never knew much about his father. He was in fact made to believe he was not a good man and felt this way about him until after his father died. Then a number of men in Preston told him good things about his father. Ezra ‘s father only visited our home once when he happened to be in Logan and we were not as friendly to him in that short visit as we should have been.

Ezra & I went to Preston and attended his funeral. We left Grover & Mark with their grandmother, Ezra's mother in Logan. We had to go to catch the interurban train in a terrific rain storm. As we were hurrying down one street the lightning splintered a tree just in head of us. We went another way and saw another tree struck along that street. I was really frightened and wondered if I would get back to my little boys but we made it to the station barely in time to catch our train.

Now back to the time of Ezra's boyhood and some of the things he told me about it.

I know he learned to fish while he was a boy and he could walk from home to the Bear River. If they went to Cub River or Mink Creek of course that would generally be an overnight trip. He said that a number of times Joe would promise to take them fishing when a certain amount of work was completed and then disappoint the younger boys at the last minute. Such a disappointment would be very hard for Ezra to take.

Ezra was good about doing his chores but one time on a stormy night when Myrin had neglected to feed his share of the animals and was not made to go back out to feed them, Ezra was so mad about that he went back out to the barn and took the hay away from the animals that he had fed.

When the new house was being built Ezra was his mothers main kitchen helper and served the men at the tables at meal times. He would also get water for them to drink while they worked. The men liked him and appreciated these services and made a nice little table for him. It is now in Jonathan's room. I used it as a bedside table for years.

I have been told by many people that Ezra was always a very good student. There was a small school on the road close by his home that he first attended. He said it was customary for the whole group to sluff school on April fools day.

Later he walked the three miles into town to attend the L.D.S. Academe.