Sarah Rebecca Guthrie Bingham was a mother of 9 children who lived in Utah in the late 1800s. She was an excellent homemaker who preserved large quantities of homegrown food to last through the long winters. She was skilled at sewing, cooking, gardening and caring for her family. Sarah struggled with poor health for most of her life but was devoted to making her home a happy place for her family. She passed away at age 53 from cancer, leaving her children when they still needed her care and guidance.

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The story of SARAH REBECCA ,- . BINGHAM as told by her daughter, Blanche Rebecca Bingham Smith.
" ~ mother was the daughter of Thomas Burton and Emma Sarah White Guthrie of Harrisville, Utah. My mother was the second
t!P~~ child. Her name was Sarah Rebecca. Her height was a~out 5 ft. Her average weight was 95 to 98 1bs. My mother married
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at the ~ge of 2Q. She was a seamstress at her mothers home. She did the sewing for 9 children and grandma, so when
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her own children came along we all had lovely clothes that Mother had made. Sometimes they were made over from clothes
that my young aunts gave her but no one could beat her in living within a budget. She planned the meals, preparing her
own cabbage for sour krout and dried corn and hominy. The fresh cabbage, beets, potatoes, turnips, carrots, apples, etc.,
were all bought in the fall to last the ~long winters they hai in Utah. Then they would butcher a couple pigs and buy
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a quarter of beef twice in the winter. At that time just freezing weather was the only way they had of keeping the meat
and only by smoking the hams and bacon and also salt bacon. Or they could dry the beef. There was plenty of peaches,
pears, plums, apricots, apples and berries and currents. Mother always kept her peaches in the pantry on the two top shelves so she and
eve~one else couls see the lovely peach bottles--halves and whole. That always seemed to be in my thoughts--how proud of her work~in
her home she was. Yes, she also made chili sauce, pickles, picile lilly, chow chow, and dills and catusp and chilisauce. She put these
in large crock jars in the fruit cellar and the apples and potatoes were in bins and in pits for later in the spring. Then there were
jellies and jams, preserves of all kinds. Her jams preserves were all kept in large crocks. All her fresh tomatoe bottles for winter
were kept in the dark. I don't mean a few bottles, but dozens of bottles of each kind. The women had to do this bacause there wasn't
things in the stores like there is now and there wasn't very much work in the winter. Just a little ice cutting on a man-made pond.
That ice was stored and sold in the summer for ice boxes. The kind you wO·lld set a pan under to catch the melted icewater and then
empty the pan. She was a real mother and wife for my father. She was extra good neighbor and always fed the tramps that came to the
door. In keeping up her house there was never a cleaner mother and also with her children and herself. When Mother first got up
she would put on the dress that she wore the night before and she always braided her long hair every night before she went to bed.
Then the next day when she had her morning work finished she wO.lld put on a clean house dress and undo her long, thin braids and do
her hair up in a large bob on the back of her head and she would have beautiful crimpy hair. She had large, dark blue eyes, black
hair that, when it was undone from the bob, she corId sit on. She was about 5 feet tall and weighted an average of 15 to 9'7 pounds.

2. page 2 of the story of Sarah Rebecca Guthrie Bingham.
She always wore her dresses to her ankles. She was happy in her home. She had poor health. She was the mother of 9 children. Six
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girls and 3 boys. My mother could never hold her children on her lap so she taught them all, and the grandchildren, to stand very close
to her. She would put her arms around us all and kiss us and we knew she loved us. Mother had to punish us if we were real bad. We
would have to go to bed without kissing her. That hurt worse that if we had had the strap. We would go to kiss her goodnight and she
would say, "You have been a naught girl and so you cannot, kiss me till you are sorry and wont do that again." Of cour-se we would say
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we were sorry but she would say, "Go to bed and think about it and tell me in the morning."
Once a friend she was always a friend. Anyone who was sick on the blocks around her when she fixed her meals she would put on a clean
apron, take something good and tasty to the sick person before she had her meal. I could go on and on about ~ mother. My undle said
that he would rather e~t off mothers floor than eat at some peoples tables. Every one that knew Mother loved to go to her home. Everyone
was welcome. Her table and meals were always set pretty and we always couldn't get home soon enough it was such a happy place. We
couldn't have had all those good things he had if it hadn't been for the planning for the home that was the very best. She did all the
sewing for her family and made 1 quilt a year that kept plenty of warm bedding. Mother never had a house that wasn't in order. I can
remember coming home from school in the fall and smelling catsup and chili sauce or pickles of different kinds. How we would run to
the pantry to get a dish and ask Mother to give us some before it was finished. She did sewing for anyone that wanted a dress made.
Mother made lovely home made bread and also her own yeast. We could have bread. We were all healthy and I remember mother saying . ~t
that she only gave up once to get a doctor. That was for my little brother next to me and he died. Mother couldn't go out visiting
her health was so bad. She couldn't stand her dress up close on her. Her work and family was all the pleasure she had. She was al-
ways home. She died at the age of 53 of cancer. She left Rhea, Verna and Lorin Flavel(and an older son
Sam~ just school age just when they neede a Mother. My Father worked hard to keep the family going until
they was married. Sam went to Westwood Calif. to work and after he was settled he came and took Flavel to
finish b~inging him up and school him.
Mother was loving and never complained, but always made our home the best and pretty with her work.
Church people visited her because she was a shutin. She was loved by her neighbors and she was charitable.
She was a shining star.
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