The following written by Maud B. Jorgensen, sister to Jesse:

"Bea gave me a copy of the sketch she had written about her parents.


I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated it. Of course it started me to
thinking about their early married life, and that perhaps I could
tell a few things that would be interesting to their family. Bear
with me, as for my own record, I will perhaps include a few things
that I am sure you have in other family records."

Jesse B and Archa B. Cannon Barker

Archa Beatrice Cannon was born in Elkton, Todd County, KIentucky on 9


September 1893. Her parents were David Allen and Eliza Jane Harris
Cannon. They had a family of Six children - four girls: Ida, Archa,


Birdie and Dixie Lee; and two sons: Allen and Howell, who were born
in Utah.
I often asked Archa about her memories of Kentucky, and a couple of
things she repeated many times were: They had a play area across
from their home in a wooded area. They were cautioned that as they
played to be aware of anyone coming, or if they heard voices, to run
for the house - pronto. Atrocities were commited from time to time
by negroes, even some trusted ones. She told me of one incident I
will not relate, hence the warning. As they were running toward the
house one time, on hearing voices, they saw a negro couple coming and


the lady called out "Why are you running? It's only Aunt Dinah and
Uncle Joe." There were the negro couple that at times worked for her


parents.
Another memory was of a severe storm, which must have been sort of a
hurricane. Houses were small and room at a premium, and many folks
had what was called a "trundle bed". We had one and I remember
sleeping in it - it was a little bed on casters, whith about a six
inch railing. In the daytime, it was rolled under the parent's bed,
and at night pulled out for the children to sleep in. When this storm


hit, the little girls were put in the trundle bed and it was rolled
under the big bed. She remembered how fiercely the wind blew, and
how the rain beat on the house - the parents trying to hold the door
shut, bracing it as best they could with their bodies and whatever
they could use to help brace it. She remembered them both soaked
with the rain and her mother's hair wet and stringing down over her
eface and shoulders, as they peeded out of their safe place. I wish
I could describe the experience as vividly as she did.
Archa's mother had joined the church and they came to Utah in April,
the year Archa was eight in September. As a young woman, Archa told
me her mother was frail and suffered from "consumption" as it was
called then, now it is called tuberculosis. Through her faith and
clean dry air here in the west, she fully recovered, and I remember
her as a healthy robust, beautiful woman. Archa's father never
joined the church, but he was a wonderful man - deeply hurt by
actions and deeds of some Mormon men. One of her mother's sisters
joined the church and came to Utah too, so the children had cousins
here. She said their home was about a mile out of town, and that
they used to walk home for lunch. They must have been good walkers to


make it there and back during the noon hour. In later years, they
had a home in town.
In her day, I guess she was quite a horsewoman. She told me of her
girl friend, Tot Bowen, and the fun they had riding and keeping up
with the boys and some of their escapades. At one time, she worked
at the hotel, or boarding house, in Bear River Canyon.
It was a long drive over the mountain to Fielding, so Jesse would get


on the train at Cache Junction and ride to Collingston - he would be
met there and spend the weekend in Fielding. On one of the visits
they decided to get married, so went on the train to Logan and were
married 26 May 1915, and came to our home in Newton to live. There
was only mother, Waldo and I at home. We loved her from teh first.
she became a real sister to me, and never in all the years do I
remember a disagreement or corss word between us.
Honeymoon? They were not the usual thing as they are now. My father
had done quite a bit of work on the mine, and periodically through
the years, Jesse and his cousin, Orvil Jacobsen, would spend some
time up there. One winter they did a lot of re-timbering the tunnel.


That was the best time to work there - no farm work and they could
melt snow for water. There was a track and small ore cart. A little


way below it, father had a small cabin built, its back against the
hillside. It was snug, heated with a little four-hole camp stove
with an oven that had a door on each side. Across one end of the
room, bins were covered as a table top, and a few shelves above. The


table was hung on the door - when the door was shut the table was
unhooked and let down in place. The summer they were married, Jesse
decided to spend a week up there, so he and Archa, Orvil and I had an


interesting time up there, at least Archa and I did - the men worked.


Someone tok us up in a white top buggy with our 'grub', bedding and
water. We went through Clarkston and over an unimproved road to the
othere side of the Clarkston mountain. The claim was in Box Elder
county,
the road uneven and 'tippy', and some places I wanted to walk instead


of ride. We could not drive all the way to the cabin. We had to walk


and carry things up. The little town of Plymouth lay below and a bit


north of where we were - we had a lovely view of the valley, and cold


see the Malad River and the train as it went to Malad. After a rest
for the horses, our teamster returned to Newton with instructions to
come for us on a certain day. We made our beds on the ground, and
oh, it was good, cool sleeping. We were young, and didn't mind the
hard bed. There was not a drop of water to waste, so we would just
clean off our plates and put them in a paper sack till the next meal.


Archa made delicious biscuits. There was a tiny spring down the
mountain a ways, so after supper one evening, before it got dark, we
took the five gallon milk can down there and early the next morning
when the men went down for it, it was full and overflowing. They
carried it up to the cabin and we had a fresh supply of water. Archa


and I did the cooking. The men worked - they would set off a charge
of dynamite at the end of the day, so it would be settled by morning.


The time passed, our driver came, and our mountain vacation was over.


We also had a beautiful view of Cache Valley with its checker-board
fields, and we could see Newton and our farm just north of town.
That fall they went to Fielding and Jesse worked in the beets in
Garland. With his earnings, they bought enough furniture to set up
housekeeping in the big northwest room of our old home. They bought
a kitchen stove, round table and chairs, a glass-doored cupboard, and


bed. In February Theron was born, no doctor. My mother's sister,
Mary Goodey, was the community mid-wife, and she was there. She
lived just a few blocks away and came every morning to care for the
mother and baby. One morning, while she was still there, Archa asked


me for a drink of cold milk. She drank it and a few minutes later
was having a severe chill. Aunt Mary worked with her til she got
warmed up, but it was a frightening experience - neither she nor I
knew a glass of cold milk could have such severe consequences.
Several summers they lived up on the farm. The big, sunny room
facing south gave a lovely view - there was a smaller room to the
back for a dining room, also a "summer shanty" where the cooking was
done in hot weather. The north room was for grain storage, and there


was a well for water. They were living at the farm hen Beatrice was
born - Sept 1917. She arrived in the night, only Jesse and Aunt Mary


Goodey in attendance, but she was equal to the task of controlling a
bad situation of hemorraging. I was there to help out as soon as we
got the word in the morning. I remembmer at least once when Aunt
Mary walked up to the farm to care for mother and baby. I had fried
chicken dinner for the folks on Sunday when they came over from
Fielding to see the new baby.
Mother died in June 1918 and Jesse and Archa were living at the farm
that summer too. I really do not remember if they lived there a
winter or two, or how many summers they were there. I do know that
summer they sometimes would walk down to Sunday School, Jesse
carrying Theron and Archa carrying Beatrice.
They were living back in the front room when Quentin was born October


1919. I don't remember about that, I was likely away at school.
They were living there the summer Keith was born too. I was home
living in the south part of the old home. Archa had been in misery
for hours and hours, then things quieted down and Jesse decided to go


to the farm and would be back soon. Aunt Mary went home, and she too


would be back soon. As soon as they left, things began to happen.
Archa said "run and get Hildora Petersen". She was the next-door
neighbor. I dashed over, she turned off the washer and we ran back,
then the
next thing was to get Aunt Mary. As I ran out the front door, Joe
Malmberg from Cache Junction stopped at the store. I ran to the car
and asked him if he would go get Aunt Mary. he did, but Keith
arrived before she got there and Jesse came a bit later. Zilpha was
born after I was married so I do not know anything about her arrival.
I taught school one year in Weston Creek and one year in Cove, Utah -


then that sumer Sue, with her little girl Naomi, and I went to Los
Angeles. Irvin and family had moved to Salt Lake. While were were
in California, Irvin 's wife died from diabetes, Sep 1922. We heard
about it later, and so in October I quit my job and came home. I
took Irvin's youngest child, Ray - not quite two and a half years
old, to Laketown to live with my sister Birdie Weston. Then I went
to Newton, and this time Irvin and children - Lee, Faye, Donna, and
Russell,and I lived in the front room, bedrooms upstairs. Jesse and
Archa and family lived in the south part of the home. Irvin was away


working during the winter. In June 1923, I was married and went to
Weston Creek to live - but we made frequent trips to Newton to help
with cleaning, cooking, washing, etc. Faye, the eldest girl, was not


quite 12 when her mother died.
The only real chimneys in the old home were in the two south rooms.
In the north part the stovepipe ran throuogh the upstairs rooms. We
always worried about fire, andmother taught us to check often
whenever we had a fire going. One time we smelled smoke, one of
Jesse's shirts was against the stovepipe - but because it was wool,
it was smouldering and the floor scorched, but it had not burst into
flames. We had a well several rods north of the house that father
had filled in, but a pipe was put in so a pump could be put on it and


used in case we ever had a fire. but the pump was never instaled.
Keith uses it now for irrigating. Always we worried about the house
catching fire - an overheated stovepipe? a spark on the dry shingles?


In the summer of 1929, the north part of the house did catch fire
and it was a great loss to all. Letters father had written while in
England on his mission in 1909 were upstairs in a trunk, and were
burned. We do have a very few that were not there, and we are
thankful for them.
Fire through the years surely took its toll in Newton. The church
house, the white brick school house - both in the Public Square
across from our home - store and the Post office, just north of our
home and still later a neighbor's large barn just south of our home
burned.
Archa was an excelent housekeeper and cook - she mastered the
southern dumplings to the satisfaction of her family. I remember one


Christmas, chicken and dumplings were part of the dinner, a special
request by the children. Also, one Christmas, when Theron was just a
little tyke, he got a small set of carpenter tools, - and what was
the saw for if not to try out on a chair leg? I can see Archa at the
sewing machine sewing for her little family and patching, patching.
I never heart her complain. She was a worker and always busy.