THE FARMER'S WIFE

Pauline was pretty certain about one thing.  She didn’t want to marry a farmer.  Especially an Arizona farmer. 

This beautiful, young school teacher had a few other suitors in that rural part of northern Arizona where she lived at the turn of the century…the question was simply one of choice.  She wrote of her life in her early 20's:

"My plan was that the first of September (1908) would see me enroute to Logan, and dreams of schooling coming true.  My secret hope was that I might find a 'white collar' man for a husband.  Farmers were out of my thinking."

The night before leaving Snowflake to take her mother, Ida Hunt Udall, for a two-month stay in California for her health, Asahel Smith--who had known Pauline her whole life--came to her family’s home to propose marriage to her.

“He made a beautiful propasaI by moonlight, and I promised to correspond with him and think it over…but I then had not the least intention of giving up my schooling and becoming an Arizona farmer’s wife.”

While in California, Pauline received her first letter from Asahel.  "His words of sympathy over Mother's illness were comforting,", she wrote.

 {a picture postcard of Pauline while at Ocean Park on her trip to California…June 1908}

They had a nice correspondence during her stay in California, but Pauline still had felt no change of heart.  Then one night, her mother took a turn for the worse.  While feeling fear,  anxiety--and so much uncertainty about the future--she writes:

"I reached out my hands to my Heavenly Father, saying: 'What shall I do?!'  A voice as calm and clear said to my soul:

'Why, you will go back to Arizona and you will mary Asahel Smith.'"

The time then came to return to Snowflake--her father missed them, and sent them tickets for a return home.

Pauline loved and had a great respect for her father--David King Udall.  He was very pleased with her continuing correspondance with Asahel.    She wrote: "Three other very eligible young men had made offers to me since our return from California.  None of them filled the bill to suit Father, as Asahel did."

Showing her father one of Asahel's letters to her--hoping for his thoughts and counsel--David lovingly said, "My daughter, this letter shows his deep affection.  Why, this young man is like the oak; and he will never cease to grow.'"

Back in Arizona and while she and Asahel were courting, his mother--Augusta Maria Outzen Smith--once told Pauline:

“Asahel speaks with a sack of flour, a load of wood, or a job attended to, rather than with fine words.”

Another letter from Asahel arrived.    Of this, Pauline wrote:

"He asked if he might present his case in person...But I had been told the answer.  And so, Asahel came on his 28th birthday--December 2, 1908, and received Father's and Mother's blessing--and plans were made for our marriage at the April Conference in the Salt Lake Temple."

Pauline’s changed heart was content and secure.

Of the months after their engagement, Pauline wrote (much later in her life): 

“Our letters were now exchanged once a week.  I leave them to you for your character appraisal of us.  Our letters have their defects (mine, at least!), but so be it—we did, and still do have, too.”

To Pauline…January 1909

“…I feel now like there is nothing I could not undertake, if you were there to help.  I feel like all will be right with us…I can see so many things in you that I admire, and I shall always find more.

“I am going to write every chance I have—the thoughts that come to me so often lately—for I have (been living) in a paradise of beautiful thoughts.”

To Asahel…February 1909

“My soul is filled with gratitude all the day for you, and the assurance I have that all will be well with us…for a happy home.

“In my mind, home is not a house or furnishings….I love to plan and think of it…I think about how I’ll manage things when I can do everything to suit myself, with only my dear Asahel to please, who I know will be very compassionate with me.”

Upon reflecting on her life--nine children and many decades of marriage to Asahel before he passed away--I do believe that Pauline found that being an Arizona farmer’s wife ended up suiting her very well, after all.

{Asahel and Pauline with young Rudger and Andrew, about 1912}

{Pauline surrounded by 8 of their 9 living children in 1947, next to Asahel's casket}