Lydia was a bright, cheery spirit, and I was proud of her. But in some respects she was the very opposite of Albina. I soon found that it required more wisdom and patience to direct the activities of two wives than it did to direct one. Lydia was strong and firm in her spiritual convictions and impressions, active and persistent in character. She became an earnest Church worker in the Relief Society and Primary Association.
For seven years we lived and worked in the Orderville United Order. Lydia had charge of the millinery department, and she put whole souled effort into the work entrusted to her. The members of the Orderville Ward entered into that communal association, believing it to be a sacred duty to do so. We came together as strangers, each handicapped with individual weaknesses, but all imbued with an earnest desire to overcome them. The very fact that 'we had all things common" tended to banish selfishness, and helped us to "love our neighbor as ourselves;" and it is a fact we became deeply attached to one another.
At the commencement of this social experiment, President Young said to us: 'If, at any time, you run up against a problem you don't know how to handle, come to me, and I will give you counsel;" and while he lived, we looked to him, and he never failed us.
Soon after his death, however, a question arose which we were divided upon. The Board of Directors sent me to Salt Lake City to lay the matter before President Taylor, and solicit his counsel. There were several brethren in the office when I stated the case to him. He listened patiently, then arose from his chair, shrugged his shoulders in a way peculiar to himself, and said:
"Brethren, I must tell you a little story. A few years ago, Horace S. Eldredge, while acting as our emigration agent, was down in Missouri buying cattle for our emigrants. Happening toward the close of the day to be in a part of the country that was once owned by the Saints—and from which they were driven by mobs—he was curious to know if any of our people were still living there. Seeing a young man chopping wood, he asked him if there were any Mormons living in the neighborhood. The boy replied, 'Well, dad used to be one of those kind of fellows, but he ain't doing much at it now days.'"
I returned to Orderville, and withdrew from the association, giving as a reason, "If the President of the Church does not approve of our labors, I am not willing to continue the experiment."
My withdrawal gave pain to some of my dearest friends, and was a source of deep sorrow to Lydia. She felt that we were under obligation by the sacred covenant of baptism (for we were all baptized into the Order) to consecrate our lives to help bring about, and establish a social system in which there should be "no rich and no poor;" that we could, and should give our hearts to God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
However, the later dissolution of the Order by the counsel of Apostle Erastus Snow, brought Lydia back to us, and made unity once more in my family, for which I was truly thankful.
During the period of which I am writing, a wave of brutal terrorism flowing from the evils of the civil war, had inundated the southern states, "compelling the best blood of the south" to organize the "Ku Klux Klan" for self preservation. A ripple of a similar official tyranny later reached and enveloped the Mormon people. In order to enforce the laws enacted for the suppression of polygamy, our fair land was filled with "spotters, spies and deputy marshals" and it is not strange that the government in clothing with new powers so many men of low order of morals, for only characters of that class could be induced to trail honorable men and women for hire, should have some officials who were cruel and unscrupulous. A case in point was enacted when Edward Dalton of Parowan was cowardly and maliciously shot and killed, because he was a polygamist. That act stirred up bitter feeling in my heart. Going to Salt Lake City I consulted with my father who advised me to go to Mexico. I next consulted with my wives. Albina dreaded moving, and begged me to let her remain in the home at Loa, not however through unkind feeling toward me, or the other families. On the contrary, she urged me to take them, and go where I could live in peace with them.
Accordingly I sold my farm, arranging so that Albina could purchase it, and thus secure the home to herself. I then took Lydia and Tamar, with their families, and departed for Mexico. I had one four-horse team, two two-horse teams, and fifteen head of cows. Bishop Joseph H. Wright, and my son-in-law, H. T. Stolworthy, each with a team, and a plural family, accompanied me.