Ada Rex Jackson writes of her family. Concluded.

Downtown St. Louis, Missouri, Broadway, 1910. Continued from here: When Mary Mead Rex traveled from St. Louis, Missouri to Randolph, Utah in 1871, her son Thomas John Rex stayed behind in St. Louis. Mary Mead Rex’s granddaughters, Ada Rex, and cousin Julia Rex, wrote to one another. St. Louis, Mo. Dec. 27, 1899 Dear Cousin Ada. I was very glad to here [sic] from you. I am going to be fifteen years old in April. I am in the fifth reader and I have the large Arithmetic. My teachers name is Miss Roby. Our school has 32 rooms in it. There is a park right across from our school and when it snows we have a nice time coasting down the hill. There is about an inch and a half of snow on the ground. We do not have such large snow storms here as you do there. But when we do have a pretty good snow we have good sport while it lasts. Well Ada. I am getting sleepy and tired so I guess I'll close. Your loving cousin, Julia Rex

My earliest school days were in the early spring of 1898. In those days the older boys had to stay out of school to help on the farms. They would take in a beginners class and that was the first year that I went to school. My first teacher was Rhoda B. Cool of Logan. Utah. She was a very lovely woman and a very wonderful teacher. She later taught in the Utah State Agricultural College. She lived in Logan the remainder of her life. We all loved her. To know her was to love her. That six weeks in the spring was all the time that I spent in the first grade and began my second year in the fall of 1898. I had many happy days on the old homestead and on the farm. We always had good ponies to ride and lots of fun. We also had work to do. I had to help my mother in the house. My father said that even though he had a big family of boys, he would never raise a girl that couldn't ride a horse or hitch up a team and milk a cow, for which I was grateful in my later years. I went to school in Randolph until I was 13, then I graduated from the eighth grade. Then the next year I went back and retook the eighth grade after Christmas for about three months. My father was an early day school teacher. Although I never had a chance to go away to college we always studied at home. I think I have him to thank for my love of literature and history. I began my teaching as a Sunday School teacher. I was set apart by my Uncle Benjamin R. Brough in January 1907, just before my 15th birthday. I taught the Book of Mormon for four years. We didn't have any outlined lessons then, and I had to outline my lessons. The children loved the stories and I think we all gained a greater testimony of the origin of the Book of Mormon. I have had several of the class testify that it was through that class that they gained the love of that book and the wonderful mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the early days we didn't have any seminaries, but there was religion class we used to have after school. Everything we did in religion had to be memorized. We taught the children to sing the songs by memory and one winter they had so many first graders that my cousin, who was teaching school took one class in the forenoon and one in the afternoon. All that winter I went at 12:00 noon and taught those who would be dismissed at noon. It was a wonderful work.

Later I was appointed stake secretary. Later I had the opportunity of reading over all those old minutes of all those old meetings (that we had held before I was married). Grace Norris and I were magazine agents for the young ladies magazine. That was years before the Era and the young women's organization were wedded together. We spent the summers with my cousin Leone, whom I have mentioned, and Alta, a girlfriend who lived across the road. When the grain was cut in the fall, we used to herd cows on the grain stubble to keep them from getting into the alfalfa. The three of us made doll cloths and Sister Wilson had us sew a whole lot of carpet rags for her one summer. She wasn't going to let us waste our time. In the fall of 1909 two old maid sisters came to Randolph and started a sewing class which I joined. Mother was in Salt Lake with father who was in the hospital, and I stayed in town and went to this sewing class. There were about twelve girls all our age and one young married woman and we had some great times together, it was while we were taking the sewing class that one of the girls eloped. A few of us knew the secret, but we weren't supposed to let it out until after they were married or until her mother and dad knew about it. In the fall of 1909, I met and began going with Victor Orin Jackson. We were married June 1, 1910, by President William Budge in the Logan Temple, for which I have been dearly grateful many times because of the blessings that followed throughout our married life. History of Ada Rex Jackson from BYU Historical Books Collection. Picture from Wikipedia.