Effa Genett Cook was born 15 October, 1885 at Garden City, Rich, Utah, in a little four room house on the East side of the highway from Grandma Cook's home (Ann Eliza Cook - at Swan Creek). She was the second child and first girl born to Henry Howland and Genett Calder Cook.
In 1892 her family moved to Woodruff, Rich, Utah when Effa was six and half years old. They moved with teams and wagons. She said she would never forget the move because she loved Garden City and didn't want to leave.. Her father had gone into the store business with Uncle Dave Cook and was to take over the old red store.
When she was seven years old she started school in the old adobe school house. Later the new school house was built and she went there until she finished the eighth grade. That was as far as they could go.
Effa was always homesick to go back to her home town. The first visit was one she would never forget. In August her Mother Genett took the three girls and went to Garden City to visit her relatives. While there Rowena, Lillie and Effa came down with diphtheria. Effa had it very bad and the membrane in her nose dropped down hanging out of her nostrils. The Doctor said she could not live. Genett sent word to her husband, Henry who was in Woodruff, that Effa was very ill He immediately went to Garden City to help care for her. Her Mother was so very tired that Henry finally coaxed her to lay down. Effa motioned for a drink of milk. They had been using carbolic acid which goes white in water and looks like milk. Henry, thinking he was picking up milk gave her a swallow of the carbolic acid.
Immediately she started coughing and strangling. Henry made ash poultices and put on her and also gave her a blessing. During the blessing her, her Mother saw the membranes loosen and move back up in her nose. Her Mother said that the blessing was what saved her life. She began to get better immediately and was healed. Effa was only seven years old at the time, but she remembered it all of her life and often bore testimony to the power of administration many times in her life. Her brother Willie also caught the diphtheria from a Fisher boy. Willie was just about over it when he got membranes croup and passed away at twelve years old. Then their mother Genett got diphtheria. After she got better they had to burn everything they had, even the family bible. They moved in a little lean-too on the South side of the Red Store.
Her parents had a lot of difficulties so Effa, being the oldest now, had to go to work in the store. She was very small so her Father made her a stool she stood on as she waited on the people and wrote the bills as every one was trusted and given credit. At this time they moved into the Peter Cornia home next to the school house. Then her father bought the home of John Smith who moved to Randolph. It was just east across the street from the old red store. This was their home for the rest of their lives.
Her Mother was a very good homemaker and cook and taught these skills ot Effa. She also learned to wash clothes on the board, boiling them until they become white and then ironing them beautifully.
Her father's health was not very good. The Doctor suggested he go down south for a while. He went to Mexico and stayed with his sister Phoebe Allred. This left Effa and her mother to care for the business. Effa would go to the store each morning, make fires, sweep floors and dust before she could go to school. She had a bicycle which she enjoyed riding from her home to the store and school. One day there were three strangers hanging around town, coming into the store off and on all day looking at boots. That night someone broke into the store and took money and supplies. It was a clear cold night and someone heard the horses traveling through town. When the break in was discovered the news traveled fast. The sheriff formed a posse and started following their trail until they caught them in Cumberland, Wyoming. They brought them back to Woodruff to be identified. Effa being real observing of people, their shoes and clothing identified them by their boot size and the kind they wore. They were the men who had been in the store earlier.
Effa loved to dance and would go to dances even after working hard all day in the store. She came from a family that loved music and each one played the piano or violin. Effa played the piano and organ. She also had a beautiful alto voice and sang in the choir most of her life. She still loved to go to Garden City and swim in Bear Lake with her cousins in the summer and ice skate in the winter when the lake was frozen. At night they would go to dances.
When their grandmother, Flora Ann Simmons Calder, died, she and her cousin Edith Pope helped do the dishes. They wanted a keep-sake of their grandmother's so they each took a small plate out of the house and hid them in the raspberry bushes until they went home. She always cherished and protected that dish.
Effa had five brothers, William, Lorin, Thomas, Irwin and Veraun and four sisters Ann Aurelia (Lilly), Rowena, Phoebe Irene, Amanda Laveda. The Cook family were well thought of and Henry was known to have the gift of healing power and was often called upon for blessing the sick and to help others in need.
Effa was married to Albert Longhurst Wednesday, 14 November, 1906 in the Logan Temple by Thomas Morgan. They had planned to stay a few days in Logan but heavy snow clouds came up so they started home on November 15. They were coming up the canyon when they discovered Effa had lost her hat and fur neck piece which had been hanging in a sack in the top of the buggy. Albert unhitched the horses, got on old Deck, and went back. He looked every where but could not find them. It was snowing so hard before they got on top of the mountain that the snow was pushing in front of the axle. By this time it was already dark, cold, and still snowing. They could not see anything, so they just let the horses take them to the Cook ranch. They were so thankful when they saw the lights at Uncle Daves. They stayed there until Sunday and arrived in Woodruff Sunday evening.
After Mutual they were surprised by friends with a "shivaree" party and on November 21 they were given a dinner at the old red store by Effa's Father and Mother. That evening they gave them a dance with music by the Walton boys. Everyone was invited and they received many gifts including two beautiful gold tea sets. Her mother made pies for the dessert for over a hundred people who came to wish them well.
Albert was offered a job on the Ballis Ranch above Evanston, Wyoming. Effa was to do the cooking and was paid 30 cents a meal. This sounded pretty good so they accepted the offer. They bought a White House cook book and Effa learned to be a real good cook. The railroad ran through the property and the bums riding the trains would get off and come to the house wanting something to eat. She would fix them food but made them chop wood before she would give it to them.
In October 1908, Effa's father bought a fish farm in Murray, Utah. They went to work for him. She said the house was so dirty it took her three months to get to the floor. Albert was getting rheumatism in his legs so bad by being in the water so much that they moved back to Woodruff In February 1912.
They leased a place north of town and also bought a meadow from Uncle Charles Dean. Albert also worked with his father helping on his place. In 1914 they bought a piece of land just south of his father's home and built a four room log home with lath and plaster. She was so happy to have a home of her own. By this time they were expecting their fourth child. In 1917 Albert's father formed a company with his boys. They bought the Neville place which was a larger home and closer to town. Effa hated to leave her new little home, but after many tears and disappointments she gave in and they moved to the larger home.
Effa was always interested in keeping records of her family. She did a lot of genealogy and family histories. She was secretary for family reunions, had many secretary callings in the church, played the music and taught classes.
By this time they had five children, the last being born in 1918. They thought they were done with their family but on June 17, 1925 a lovely baby boy was born. Effa got uremia poisoning and became very ill. The Doctor didn't think she could live, but through her faith and administration she was permitted to live. Then she got phlebitis in her legs. She couldn't get around on crutches very well so she would put the bad leg on a little armless rocking chair and would pull it around with her. She wore the rocker completely out.
They named their new baby boy Earl Henry. He had such a special spirit and every time they would look at him he would smile. Then he became ill with kidney trouble. He didn't get any better and developed a high temperature of 107 at one time so the doctor called it spinal meningitis. When they held him the back of his head would burn their arms. At 4:00 a.m. 28 January 1926 he passed away. This was very hard on Effa with her being so ill and at the same time she had received word that her sister Phoebe had passed away the day before.
In the spring of 1926 Albert filed on the homestead up in Home Canyon 47 miles from Woodruff. In 1927 they loaded tents, bedding and supplies in a wagon and Albert and the children lived there in the summer time. Later they built a cabin, where Phoebe's children spent many summers with them at the homestead. Albert bought sheep and would go in the sheep camp and herd them though the summer. By this time they had been blessed with two more girls, eight children in all. They were Leland, Edna, Clyde (Joe), Dora, Betsy, Earl (deceased), Edith, Nilda Mae.
Between 1929 and 1940 there was a terrible depression and drought. The water wells all dried up and they had to haul water from town in ten gallon cans. Effa could always get a good deal with peddlers so they could have fruit for the winter. She always had sugar and flour and never went hungry. In 1940 they had to sell the sheep. They never raised a crop of hay while they had sheep. In 1943 they sold the homestead and forest rights to William Cox and Fred Stacey.
Effa's father passed away in 1933 and her mother was not very well. Effa's mother lived in her home a lot of the time so Effa could care for her until she passed away in 1945.
In 1942 they moved to Provo, Utah where Albert worked at Geneva Steel Plant until the spring when they moved back to Woodruff.
Effa had poor health. She suffered from bad head aches, would even pass out from them. She had high blood pressure and bad legs, gall stones, infection in her body that caused sores to break out on her legs and back. The Doctor could not heal them until they removed her tonsils in later years.
Effa was always so good to every one. On Saturdays she would bake cakes, pies, cinnamon rolls and the most luscious bread and send the children around to the elderly and the sick with the food she had baked.. She loved to cook and had jam and cream to add to these things if you wanted it. The family would always have their friends come and every one would gather around the piano and play the roller piano and sing and sing. You could never go to her house and leave until you had something good to eat.
Effa had a stroke in September 1962 which affected her right side and her speech. She was never well after that and would have little strokes all the time. In January Albert took her to Provo to the hospital where the Doctor said she had a blood clot on the brain. She had diabetes and kept on having small strokes. She developed dropsy and her legs got so big they looked like they would burst. Then she got pneumonia and her lungs filled and she really suffered the last ten days of her life. She passed away 14 March 1963 at 77 years of age. Effa and Albert had been married 56 years. She was buried in the Wodruff City cemetery March 16, 1963.