City of Rocks, near Almo, Idaho

The second time I got lost was at the City of Rocks. I was 10 years old and grandma Eames took my brother Freddie and I on a picnic there. Freddie and I used to chase lizards there - not that we ever caught any (at least I never did catch one) they were fast little buggers.   We also chased lizards on May 30, which is Memorial Day in the United States, at the Almo Cemetery. Grandma took us to the cemetery to put flowers on the graves. There is no grass at this cemetery, just rocks and a few plants here and there. About 75% of the people buried there are related to me.  

Emma Beecroft Eames is buried there and is one of my pioneers - my 3rd great grandmother.  She was born in Kingston Upon Hull, Yorkshire, England in 1836.  She came to America with her mother in 1852 having survived the cholera epidemic of 1849.  Night and day there were bodies being taken to the grave diggers.  There were over 2,000 people who died within 3 months.  Emma was 18 when she crossed the plains by ox train to Utah with her family.  She met her first husband in Utah. They had seven children.  After her first husband died prematurely, she married a second husband who was a doctor and he died too.  With her third husband, she had two more children.  They moved to Almo, Idaho and it was at this time that her last husband married another wife who was only 14 years old.  He left Emma and took his 14-year-old wife to another part of Idaho. Emma had a hard life but  four of her nine children lived.  She had dozens of grandchildren.


Back to the City of Rocks - I had climbed downward into the very deep canyon in the City of Rocks.  I only went 1/3 of the way down but on my way back up, I found a rock that I could not climb up.  I cried, I screamed but no one heard me.  After feeling utterly despondent, I finally gave it the old heave hoe and was able to just barely get up the rock.  I never wandered off again.