Anna Rozella Forsgren
Palmer
4 August 1888 – 8
December 1967
Anna, the second child of Eli Forsgren and Francis Mary
Smith was born on August 4, 1888. She had beautiful brown eyes and black
hair. She was taught to work and
do it well. Also, to build for the
future. Eli, with others, worked long years to bring water to the higher land
and when Anna was thirteen years old, on her birthday, they all went up to the
banks of the canal to see the precious contents—water. This was to quench the thirsty dry
farms. The farms yielded too, in response to the people’s untiring efforts, and
Riverdale Idaho began to blossom as a rose. How they worked to care for their produce. They would keep
the milk in pans until the cream came to the top, then to skim the cream and store
it until it was ready to churn into butter, then to mould it into pound rolls, wrap
it in paper with their name written on the wrapper. This name on the butter meant the same as the name or brand
on food today, and was just as important in selling the product. Then with their eggs and butter they
would travel to Preston in a buggy or wagon, some seven miles distance. At the grocery store they would
exchange their produce for items they needed. Anna and her siblings always looked forward to the sack of
candy the grocer would place in their groceries. For weeks before Christmas
they would save this candy so as to have enough for the holidays.
Notwithstanding the hard work, they were a happy family enjoying
the association with neighbors, friends and relatives. Many a winter evening
the grown-ups played card games such as “Hi Five” and “Rook”, while the
children went sleigh riding, played house and “raised the devil.”
Eli and Francis were strict with their children, they
weren’t allowed to associate with anyone with a questionable character.
Drinking and smoking placed people in this class. If a girl was to make a
mistake of losing her virtue, she was ostracized from society. The other girls weren’t
even allowed to speak to her. Thus,
Anna was raised to look on those things as real sin, and served as a background
for standards by which she taught her own family.
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