"I was born January 20, 1864 in the Salt Lake Valley. My father was Samuel Corbett and my mother was Camilla Jacobsen Corbett. I was the oldest of eight children, who are as follows: Myself, Millie, Francis, Sophia, Stella, May, Florence, and Thaddius.

The valley had been settled but a short time, and the people were in a poor condition. Often times without enough to eat, I remember this particulary well because of an old Indian woman we knew who would give me something now and then when I had come in from playing or herding cows. Sometimes it was a slice of bread and other times a cold potato.

We lived by a creek and I remember going out and dunking my head. After doing so mother would scold and scold. One day after a good scolding, I was dunking my head again, when the first thing I knew I was being held under then suddenly jerked out. I didn't try dunking my head for a long time after that. Another time I was playing by the creek when I slipped and fell in, I had my dog which I called Ring with me. I began to call for help. At once the dog dived in and pulled me out.

About this time Cache Valley was opened for settlement and the family moved to Smithfield, Cache Valley.

Shortly after our settlement in Smithfield I had an accident which I will remember all my life because of the effect it had on my hearing. I was about 12 or 13 at the time. I wanted to go hunting one Sunday and Mother objected. She said I wasn't to go but I thought I knew best so I took my gun and started out. As I was climbing through a fence I fell and stuck my gun in the ground This filled the gun with dirt. Shortly afterwards the gun went off by accident. When I came to, I was laying on the ground holding the remains of a gun in my hands. The barrel was torn to pieces. My head was aroar, and pieces of iron were embedded in my face. I got up and managed to get home. For days I couldn't hear anything. My head ached and roared After several days I was able to hear a little. From this time on my hearing slowly came back to what it is now but it has never been very good after this acceding.

Later we moved back to Salt Lake.

When I was sixteen, I went into Montana to work on the railroad. We were in the part of the country known as M___Canyon. I drove the pack mules and cooked for the crew for nearly a year.

When the work there was through we decided to return home to Salt Lake. We started out but were caught in a very bad snow storm. As I had inflammatory rheumatism and was quite ill I was forced to ride all the way home. I froze my feet in so doing, while if I had been able to move about and walk F might have been able to prevent this.

Shortly after my return to the Salt Lake Valley the Kamas Valley, then known as Rhode's Valley, was opened for homesteading. When I was seventeen, or in 1881, my father took up one of these homesteads and moved the family to the Kamas Valley, Then we moved into the valley we only had twenty-five cents, of which we spent fifteen cents for kerosene for our lamps. We had to go to work at once. We received all kinds of vegetables from the neighbors for our pay.

Mother was the only doctor in the valley and I remembered her leaving anytime of day or night in all kinds of weather to care for the sick. She rode horseback, in buggies, and almost anyway and over all kinds of roads.

There were no stores in the valley and I remember on winter father walking fifty miles to the nearest town, which was Salt Lake, and carrying a bag of flour back. As he entered the valley from the west, he went into on a log cabin and planned to spend the night there. One of the neighbors saw him and taking his oxen waded through snow Two and a half feet deep across the valley and brought him home.

Directly after father took up the homestead I helped clear it and worked at the sawmill but I later I went to Wyoming to drive logs on the Bear River. While I was there, I had a strange experience. We were breaking a jam in the river and 1 went up around to see what could be done As I stopped on a clump of bushes growing out over the bank a large bear raised up out of the bushes and snarled at me. 1 stood there a minute and then staring the bear in the eyes 1 slowly backed away.

I returned to Kamas Valley and took up trapping beaver in the different canyons.

When I was 21, T took up another homestead. I cleared and put it under cultivation.

When 1 was 26,1 married Martha Ellen Woolstenhulme January 15, 1890.

We had ten children who are as follows; Ethel (Mrs, O.A. Richardson)., Marion LeRoy, Martha Ellen (Mrs. J.L. Atkinson), Otis Ray_? Freda Bell( Mrs. E.G. Bradshaw), Thora( Mrs. C. G. Page), Linford, Robert S.₇ twin girls who are Reva (Mrs, C,D. Anderson), Rada (Mrs. E.R. Atkinson). Three of these are deceased, namely Ethel, Otis Ray, and Linford.

From March 31, 1891, to February 15, 1893,1 went on a mission to the northern states.

When the Francis Ward was organized November 11 1898, I served as first councilor to Bishop Daniel Mitchell, After this I was made the bishop of the Francis Ward October 7, 1908. I served in the position for twenty years. In 1927 my family and I moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah where we lived until 1932 when we moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.

On January 15, 1940, we observed our Golden Wedding Anniversary."

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His wife died the following spring May 26, 1944, at the home of her daughter, Martha Ellen, and was buried at Francis Cemetery, Francis, Summit County, Utah.

Written December 9,1962 (Copy made by Helen Bradshaw Morris)