“I, Sarah Elizabeth Darton, was born to James Brace Darton and Alice Cherrington in Salt Lake City, Utah, on May 2 1879. I had one brother, James Brace Darton Jr., born February 19, 1872, in Salt Lake City.

        My childhood was spent like most young people of my day. I had to help Mother a lot as she didn't have too good of health. I am grateful I had to learn to work, as it helped me a great deal in my later life.

        The church has always played a big role in my life. In fact, it was my life. As a young lady I went to church, school, and other dances, which was the entertainment of those days. We had to make our own entertainment as, like I said, dancing was about the only thing we could do after we became old enough. Our entertainment before dancing, dating, etc., was playing hide and seek, kick the can, tag, and many games like that. I also learned to sew, knit crochet and cook, as these things was the things we girls was expected to learn. I was especially gifted at knitting lace. In my later life, I knit lace for pillow slips, sheets, edges around handkerchiefs, etc. in fact, the last several years of my life I knit lace for pillow slips and sheets to make money to do genealogy . I make around a thousand dollars a year this way, and it was very satisfying to me to be able to spend my time this way.

        I married Nicholas Vance Sheffer on January 20, 1997 in the Logan Temple. My parents wasn't very happy about my marriage for quite sometime as Nicholas had a wife, but she couldn't have children, so the church sanctioned our marriage, and when I met Nicholas, I knew he was the man for me. I never regretted our marriage, and gradually my parents was happy with it too.

        I might say at the time in the church it was a necessity to have children, and the Lord blessed me greatly with a lovely family. It was also a big decision for my husband to decide to take another wife, but do to the pressure put on at that time, he decided we should get married.

        It was in the fall of 1886 that Nicholas asked my parents for my hand in marriage, and like I said, they didn't really want me to marry him, but knew what the church asked was the right thing to do, so like I said, we was married in the Logan Temple on January 20, 1997. My husband had a great deal of trouble with his eyes and sometimes the pain would be terrific , and I could always stand by his side and do as the doctors asked, and was a great help to him. Aunt Wealthy didn't have very good health, so that is why I could be so much help to him.

        It was about the time that the U.S. Marshals was starting to watch very closely for a home with more than one wife, so I didn't go to Nicholas' home in Loa very often. It was hard for both of us to be separated so much, but it soon worked out. Nicholas had to be away to get work and to take care of me and Aunt Wealthy, so with all the talk about a man not being able to live with more than one wife, my husband talked things over with his folks and it was decided that he should go elsewhere for a short time to get employment. He went to Bluff City, Utah and stayed the winter. The mail service was very poor, and that made things even worse.

        Finally he reached our home, which by then was in Freemont, Utah, only to find our little girl had measles and whooping cough. She passed away and was buried in the Freemont cemetery on May 31, 1888. In the meantime, Aunt Wealthy had made arrangements to get rid of our property in Freemont, so there was nothing for us to do but load up what we could and put it in our wagon and just rest for a while and live with relatives.

        We then decided to go to Old Mexico. We traveled by way of Emery County and had to be ferried across the Colorado River. We reached Moab the 4^th of July, 1888, and drove a few miles south to a small village called Summerville where I could rest for a while. We then started our trek to Old Mexico. It was long and hard, but proved to be a good thing in our lives. We went to what they called the Colonies. We lived in Garcia, we had a large house with two master bedrooms in it. One in one end, and the other in the other end, and one week my husband would spend with me in our room and in the next week was spent with Wealthy in her room. We got along fine and things worked out great.

        The children born to this union was: Sarah Alice Sheffer May 30, 1888, died November 7, 1888; Wealthy Sheffer September 12, 1889, died 7, 1889; Almina Sheffer January 15, 1892, died 25 September, 1906; Clara Sheffer March 13, 1894; Vance Darton Sheffer March 17, 1896, died April 12,1896; Rulon Sheffer August 15,1897; Vernee Sheffer December 12, 1899; Prudence Sheffer November 3, 1902.

        My parents, James Darton and Alice Cherrington Darton, moved to Old Mexico to be near me and my family, and shortly after they moved there, my brother and his wife and family also moved to Old Mexico so the family could all be close together.

        My husband was called on a mission a few months before Clara was born. It was ha hardship for me, but with Aunt Wealthy's help, all went well. Shortly after Clara's birth, they released my husband from his mission, as his eyes was giving him so much trouble, and we was blessed with four more children. Then in the winter and spring of 1903, his eyes got so bad he finally passed away and is buried in Garcia, Old Mexico]

        I saw a lot of happiness in Old Mexico, and I saw a lot of sadness. My husband is buried there, my father and three of my children, also my dad and grandfather Cherrington.

        Then, in 1912, we were driven out of our homes. We got to El Paso, Texas and rested there for a while until we could get things together enough to travel on to Utah, and Aunt Wealthy had brothers and sisters in the area of Neola, so we moved there. With the Lord's help and my sons, we was able to make enough to live on.

        Rulon and Vernee built me a home in Cedarview, and I lived there for several years. Rulon lived in Vernal, and he would come home to Cedarview almost every week to do whatever I needed done, and in the summer times, he and Fern and Pansy would come and live by me and milk my cow and take care of whatever. They also built a small home on my lot for my mother to live in, which she did for several years. Aunt Wealthy would live with me at times, but she loved to walk and if she was staying to her brother's, she would walk the three and a half miles every day to visit. We got along greet and loved each other very much.

        Then it was getting hard for me to care for myself and mother, so we moved in with Rulon and his family and most of Pansy's high school years, we (my mother and me) lived with them. Finally, after Pansy graduated from high school, Rulon built him and his family a small house next to the one he had bought, and they moved into a smaller home and let me and Mother live in their home, as it had inside plumbing.

        After a few years living with me, my mother moved down into Hurricane with my brother James, and lived with him until her death.”