Faith Steed Howarth

[When Mom was blinded as a little girl]

Well, it's a really wonderful thing that I have been grateful for in my life. You see, I felt it very much like I'd done wrong because we had this swing like probably no children these days have ever seen. You see, we had that big wonderful place where the ward always went for all of their things [parties and such??]. The men, all the men not just daddy, had learned to make these big swings for the kids. What they did was put a great big post way up here like a tall man. They took two by fours and made them together into four by fours and put it across the top. From each side, they hung two to three swings. The children would get in the swing and then a man would whirl them around and they loved it. So, daddy made us one - a little bit smaller, but it had two in our yard. Amongst the big trees in there. We loved to swing an it.

As I told you, I was in charge of the two little boys. Eugene and Grant. Father did say to us that spring, - “Don't swing on the swings until I've had a time to check it.” See, this is what makes me guilty. But, you see, we didn't swing. We didn't swing at all. I didn't feel that I was doing wrong. What we did was sit on the swings and jiggled and it broke and from that height fell the board. It didn't touch the boys. Of course, I was a mess. I was totally blind, my nose was fractured and I had Cuts you can still see the scars from. That's why I cover them a little bit. I was very ill for quite a little while.

But, anyhow, as I got better, I Could run around the house, up and down the big stairway. It was one of those without any railing, you know, from the one floor to the next. I could take hold of mother's dress and say, you've got on such and such." While I was still in bed, which was -quite a long while, the children would bring to me to try to amuse me and talk to me. One of them was a little ad that they used to publish that had cute little figures, you know. They read me what he said and I pictured it in my mind. This was, to me, interesting. After I got well and could see it, you'd be surprised how good my pictures were. But, much larger. Now, that's just a thing I remember from it.

But, anyway, I got so I could get around the house. Of course, when I went out, I had to hold onto somebody. The weeks went by. It was in the summer, so, it was better that I didn't miss school. So, it was about late that summer and I'm not sure of the date and time. I didn't know that one of mother's brothers was a patriarch. She had been pleading with him to give me a blessing and he'd just shake his head. I knew nothing of that. But, we'd been to Sunday School with someone just holding my hand,. you know, tripping along. A child that age - I never for once thought that I'd not be able to see, you see. I didn't have that heavy thing hanging over me. But, as we got home from church, and got inside the house, I Went into the kitchen and I heard a man's voice say, "Where is the child?" Mother had gone to the door and let in her brother. She took me in and sit me down on a chair. He put his hands upon my head and gave me a wonderful blessing. Now, I can't remember any of the things much in detail, except that "you shall receive your sight." And that's exactly the words he said, "You shall receive your sight." I was just so thrilled and happy because it wasn't very much fun.

That night I had all kinds of cuts, all through both sides. She kept them wrapped all the time with ?varnica?. That was something they made like we buy medicines. They made a lot of it, you see. She took that off and I said, "Mother, I can see light." From this eye there was just a little stream of very pale light. That night, they just healed. Just healed.