From Gary Tietjen, Ernst Albert Tietjen: Missionary and Colonizer (Bountiful, Utah: Family History Publishers, 1992), 413–20
“Doris Emma was the last child of Ernest A. Tietjen and understood she was the first white child born in the Bluewater, New Mexico area, January 4, 1899. The miracle of her being born alive was a comfort to her mother who sorrowed from seeing her sons and daughter die.
“Much of Doris Emma’s young life was spent alone with her mother and adored sister, Augusta, who was five years older. Augusta, called ‘Gusty’, permitted Doris Emma to go everywhere with her: to parties, riding, and courtships. Emma C. taught that they were as precious as the princesses of her homeland, Norway, and so Doris Emma was also invited as a chaperone. She often felt lonely.
“Doris Emma grew up in the shelter of her brothers’ and sisters’ families. She was nearer the ages of nephews and nieces. Her temper was quick, her ability to discern just as clear. While young, she jumped into any fight involving her nephews, passionately defending anyone she thought was right, but family came first. As a mother, she continued to defend children against established injustices. She was never, never cautious about upsettimg unrighteousness. As her daughter expressed it, ‘One look in Mama’s angry eyes scared you to death if you weren’t right.’
“Doris Emma was a slender girl, just under six feet tall. Black hair glistened down her back. In those days, the girls seldom cut their hair, and hers was beautiful and thick. She curled it in ringlets and flowing styles.
“One of her pleasures was arising earlier than a neighbor boy and whistling to let him know she was up, heading for the milking corral first. It was a contest she often won by arising at four a.m. With her parents, she cared for the fields, orchards, and cows. She eventually bought for herself a pony and little sheep dog to help with the work.
“The purchase of a piano made a tremendous difference all her life. She took lessons from Mrs. Henry Elkins and practiced hours each morning. It became the center of her own home. She began playing for the Primary when she was thirteen, and played for the silent movies, many organizations, dances, and other affairs throughout her life. She also played the guitar and liked to sing Spanish and cowboy songs. She had a nice contralto voice. After her marriage, she sang a lot with her husband.
“Doris Emma attended high school in St. Johns, Arizona, and at Cowley, Wyoming, where she stayed with her sister, Olga, for two years. During this time, she came to make many nice friends whom she never forgot. Her favorites were Joe Simpson and Nettie Branyon. When she became homesick, her friends commented on how her music sounded sad, unusual because she was a cheerful person. She missed her mother and worshipped her father.
“She accepted an engagement ring from a young man she liked very much, but agreed to listen to her father’s decision. He did not say ‘No’, but neither did he agree, so Doris Emma, always obedient, returned the ring at her brother-in-law’s insistence.
“She taught school for awhile after she returned to Bluewater. She also rode, sometimes with her nephew, Wilford Young, across the Zuni Mountains to fill his father’s mail contract.
“Doris Emma’s father was impressed by a young man he met on a train ride, a man who had lost his wife. Ernst invited Doris Emma to write to this man, William W. Child. From their correspondence, Doris Emma learned that William was an above-average athlete; his two favorite activities were music and teaching the gospel of Christ, although he enjoyed participating in drama, dancing and baseball. Crowds adored his pitching in the baseball minor leagues, and he was often carried off the field on the shoulders of his teammates.
“He was a rancher highly regarded in his home area of Star Valley, Wyoming. He was gentle with all his animals, especially his fancy horses, but also with his pigs and cattle.
“William had worked on the railroad when he was thirteen, long enough to buy a small organ. He loved to sing, and had a superb baritone voice. A cheerful, generous man, he liked to play the trumpet at dances. Mostly, people asked him to sing. He was spoken of as a man without guile.
“Doris Emma accepted William’s creative proposal of marriage, and rode to Salt Lake with a wedding party from Blanding, Utah, which included her niece, Amy Stevens and fiance, Clarence Black. Doris Emma was married to William Oct. 24, 1924, and went to live in Wyoming, and began to care for and learn to love his three young children, whose mother, Minnie Ann Nelson, had died. William’s mother, Amanda Taylor, lived with them at times.
“A daughter, Marian Amy, was born Nov. 18, 1925, and when she was three months old, they moved to Bluewater, New Mexico. They homesteaded 340 acres six miles from the Bluewater Village, at the north end of the small valley. They built a nice home of malpais rock and stuccoed it. Later they moved into the village and into Doris Emma’s mother’s home.
“Children Doris Ida and Warren were born there, Dec. 3, 1926, and May 1, 1928. William’s two sons, Kenneth and Howard, and his daughter Grace had left New Mexico to find work in San Francisco.
“William taught school. He taught and organized a band which received honors for being the best in the state of New Mexico. He sang from the fields, his children harmonizing as Doris Emma strummed the guitar on the lawn, or sang from the garden, or he had everyone gather around the piano.
“Memory of a favorite afternoon, characteristic of Doris Emma, was of her starting a water fight among her married nephews and her family and then turning into the house to attend the bathing of Indian babies in her bathtub. Then everyone, including families of Indians and young people, gathered in her living room where William encouraged his family and everyone to sing, listening to a scripture he had been pondering. Perhaps at times he would ask someone directly, holding the Book of Mormon aloft, ‘Have you read this wonderful book?’ and then he and Doris Emma would proceed to explain the gospel with fun and laughter.
“Doris Emma and William both liked poetry. She often wrote it and William would memorize it as he did scripture, quoting it often as he taught. They were both excellent speakers.
“During the Depression, Doris Emma and William moved to Salt Lake City where he found work for a time. They were both in demand much of the time for sharing their music and gospel convictions. Doris Emma played for the church and William sang in humorous ‘blackface’ comedies. Occasionally her mother, Emma C. Tietjen, and a nephew, Horace, son of her sister, Annie Stevens, lived with them.
“In 1936 they returned to Bluewater and bought a nice home by the church wher Gwendolyn was born Oct. 19, 1937. Horace went to live with his cousin, Clara Roberts, and about that time attended college at Las Cruces. Doris Emma’s mother died Dec. 31, 1937.
“William worked at the lime kiln, tended his fields and cows and taught the Indians. He had a good legal mind and was often called upon in the small towns to write legal documents and letters to be given in court. He enjoyed the study of medicine and had a gift of healing. Doris Emma canned food from their fields, gardens, and orchard, sewed, and cared for her family. William’s older children had found employment in San Francisco and coaxed the family to move to the coast.
“Doris Emma, with her strong convictions of right and wrong, her playfulness and love for extended family, was somewhat stifled in the cities, but she accomplished much missionary work there. Missionaries always loved their home.
“Her last child, Augusta Laree, was born in San Mateo on Dec. 16, 1940. Because of their generosity and talents, their enthusiastic enjoyment of the gospel, they convinced many others to join in worship. William started the first Sunday School in Redwood City, and worked with his cousin, Mr. Farnsworth, to create a branch and then a ward, where his cousin was sustained as first bishop. Doris Emma took an active part in building up the Relief Society and Primary.
“They returned to the Rockies during World War II when Roosevelt asked the farmers to return to their farms and produce food for the nation. However, theirs was a developing area with all the poverty, conflicts of strong cultures, crop failures, bad weather, and lack of markets for small farmers. Powerful and big enterprises were beginning to edge out the family farms. Still, they worked, and Doris Emma, sometimes with her hands bleeding from cutting and husking corn, rubbed them with wagon grease at night to heal them. They added to Emma C.’s house and lived there until 1947 when drouth drove them north to Blanding, Utah. About this time Marian and Doris Ida were married and Warren fulfilled a mission. Doris Emma and William opened their home to little children—abandoned—and to others in need, as they always welcomed the needy and cheered them. At Blanding, they built a nice home on two acres, taught Indians, worked at the Indian church, both with music and inspired instruction.
“An incident which demonstrates how she dealt with others is told by her daughter, Gwen, living at the time in Blanding, Utah. Gwen and her friend, Goldie, had met two rough-looking young men who offered them a ride home from town. The boys suggested they ride with them in their shabby car to Colorado. The girls, young and innocent, decided it would be a gay adventure, so they said they would, after taking some things home first. When they came to Gwen’s home, Gwen told her mother about the invitation, and Doris Emma, with enthusiasm, said, ‘Oh yes, let’s go. I just have to make a phone call.’ Soon they all piled into the dilapidated car and were traveling from Blanding to Monticello. As they rode, Gwen took note that her mother was riding in the front seat between the two young men and she and Goldie were in the back. It began to bother her, wondering why her mother would want to sit between two such uncouth fellows. It finally occurred to her that if she were so concerned about her mother riding with rough boys, what would her mother think about Gwen riding there, and she suddenly realized how her mother cared and trusted Gwen to see that.
“Sure enough, when they reached Monticello, Gwen’s brother-in-law was waiting for them at a station. Doris Emma had the boys stop the car. It was Gwen who made the announcement that they weren’t going any further. She and her mother and Goldie climbed into the brother’s car to go go home, knowing what the phone call had been. They laughed all the way home about it.
“Doris and William worked hard to collect family genealogy and encouraged many friends. One day they decided to rent out their home and go the Manti temple to do those names. By that time Warren had married, so they took Gwen and Laree to Manti. Doris Emma worked hard; she helped others who needed her, even went to clean a sick woman’s cupboards when she herself was in pain from cancer.
“Like others in the Tietjen family, Doris Emma always liked to gather her children around her and take them wherever she went. She liked to have the teenagers come in, sit on her bed, and tell her about all the fun they had, and she would laugh with them.. He joking was always in good taste and virtuous. This sharing, one granddaughter said, was always more fun than the dates.
“Wherever Doris Emma lived, she planted beautiful flowers. Roses were her favorites, and William gave her lots of praise and help. Doris Emma received inspiration in unusual measure and often had ‘previous knowledge’ of things. She, like her mother, relied heavily on spiritual dreams and religious inspiration. She was always obedient to that instruction, even when it did not make immediate sense.
“On her last Christmas, Doris Emma received a phonograph with beautiful music records. She threw open the windows in the cold weather so her neighbors in the poor little farming community could share the sound of bells and chimes during that happy season.
“She lived in a time of terrible transition—from wagons to jet airplanes—with all its upheavals. She never had more than sufficient for her needs, and most often less. She shared however, with even less fortunate Indians, neighbors, and homeless.
“One day, on leaving the temple, Doris Emma caught William’s hand and together they ran down the Manti temple hill. At the bottom, Doris Emma kissed him quickly and said, ‘It’s finished, William. Just think, it’s all finished.’ She died within two weeks, 9 April 1958. Her only mentioned regret was that she had not been able to finish writing her books, and yet the ones she worked on were all beautifully put together.”