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Utah Historical Quarterly

Matilda Hales, left, with her mother Sarah Jane, center, and sisters Elizabeth Hales Crafts, Lillie Hales Bennett, and Mary Ann Hales.

One maxim I ever sought to impress. When called to maternal duty, pray unto God of His blessing. . . . I hastened through inclement storm, through blinding rain, deep snows and muddy trails, speeding up and down the steepest hills, my inmost being pulsating with fervent prayer. I sought my Father and my God! He it was who inspired me with the higher intelligence, helped me to know my duty and all of its details, enabled me to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. And with these same principles I tutored all who sought usefulness, enabling them to usher a new life into this world—that life so precious to the suffering mother and most sublime in the sight of God.^^

Aunt Till had the reputation of being "the most prayerful woman around," Myrle Bennett remembered: I don't think she ever got into her buggy without having a prayer. Sometimes when she was delivering a baby and it was a really rough labor she would disappear for a while and have a prayer and come back to carry on. She bore her testimony many times and gave the Lord credit for helping her with the mothers and babies. ^^

21 Ellis Shipp Musser, ed., 77?^ Early Autobiography and Diary of Ellis Reynolds Shipp (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1962), p. 283. 22Interview with Myrle Western Bennett, Deseret, Utah, June 1986.