Grandma's November 1916 letters

Can it really be that I haven’t posted anything since August? Well, sorry about that, although I didn’t get many messages asking where I was or begging for more. That ought to tell me something, I guess.

Still, I’m determined to finish off this letters project, and then maybe move on to other items that a couple of people besides me might be interested in.

So, let’s pick up where we left off, in November 1916.

In her Nov. 1 letter, Mary reveals that she won’t go to visit a married friend because her husband is “too precise. I’m always afraid of doing something he wouldn’t consider proper.”

Then she writes of the fun she had at the Democratic Party rally, and talks about dancing with “Judge Metz.” If I’m not mistaken, that would be the judge who lived in Basin, where I grew up. I was acquainted with his widow, and I think Neil Lamont’s late father-in-law, Metz Smith (a really good man), was named after Judge Metz. I hope someone will set me straight if I have that all mixed up.

Here next letter isn’t until Nov. 13. She notes that it was 18 below zero (Fahrenheit, no doubt) in mid-November. That’s one of those details that makes me not miss Wyoming so much.

She also notes that she’s been stiffed so far on payment from the Democratic Party for music she provided – apparently for money – at the rally mentioned in the Nov. 1 letter.

As I’ve mentioned before, some of Grandma’s letters are maddeningly cryptic, and this one’s no different. In the Nov. 1 letter, she says she’ll need to tell him something in person the next time she sees him. Apparently she did, because in this letter she writes,

“I need you, ’cause when I’m with you, I never think of doing some of the foolish things I do when you are gone. I don’t want to disappoint you anymore, sweetheart. I’d much rather have you disappoint me. It wouldn’t hurt me as badly as it does when I’m the cause of it, and I don’t enjoy disappointments, either. I’m afraid I’m a failure in some respects, and I try so hard to be good, too. You’ll have to help me, dear, to be stronger. I can’t do without you; I love you too much to think of it.”

So, any guesses? It does make the mind race, doesn’t it?

Next up is Nov. 18, and it starts right off with a continuation of the previous letter. She has received a letter from him since her last letter to him:

“You haven’t anything, dear, to be forgiven for. I didn’t blame you one bit for being disappointed. I did do something bad, and it makes me furious to think I’m so foolish at times. I think that must be the trait that you dislike, and I dislike it, too. I couldn’t help telling you about it. I was afraid someone else might before I had the chance. I could never even try to keep you from knowing things like that, Dave. I want you to know my faults, dear, and help me to be better.”

This letter also marks, I think, the first time she actually mentions marriage.

“Carol is busy planning things for me when I get married. I believe she is almost as interested in it as I am.”

Then she writes about things that are certainly familiar to members of our church. It’s kind of interesting to hear it from her perspective, though:

“After the dance last night, Mother and I had a long talk, and she advises me to do just what I told you I was going to do. She would rather have me married in the Temple, of course, but I can’t give you up, dear, because of that. I could never be happy without you, sweetheart. I love you too well. I don’t think you want to get along without me, either. I don’t want you to, anyway.”

If I’m understanding this correctly, her mother wants her to be married in the temple, but since Grandpa wasn’t yet ready for that step, her mother is OK with a civil marriage. The temple sealing, of course, would come years later, just before Grandma passed away – although nobody even knew she might be ill at the time.

In the Nov. 26 letter, Grandma writes of being thoroughly disagreeable – with everyone, all the time. She claims to have a real problem with her bad moods. I wonder: Was she?

Next week: December 1916.

Mary's letters, October 1916

If I’ve ever had a busier summer, I don’t remember it. An unrelenting string of little things, mostly, that have foiled all sorts of plans, from travel to projects like this one, the Henderson Reunion blog. But now I’m back on track, for at least this week. So we’ll pick up where we left off, in October 1916.

In her letter of Oct. 9, she expresses the same sorts of frustrations I think most of us feel when it comes to church service – or any type of service, really. She’s in the Primary presidency, but says the president doesn’t get much support from Mary and the other counselor. “I don’t blame her either,” Mary writes. “I think I’ll resign” because all she does is “neglect” Primary anyway.

As I mention frequently, I love the slang she uses. In this letter, she asks if Dave has caught the cold that’s going around, saying her mother and Uncle Ira have colds, and that “Almost everyone you see is barking.” That’s funny.

With the Oct. 11 letter, we’re reminded, too, of the mundane tasks they had before more modern conveniences like vacuum cleaners became widely available. She speaks of washing and cleaning, and wishes Dave was there to “beat the carpet. That’s fine for exercise. It’s great for building muscles.” And I find myself complaining about having to run the vacuum once in a while.

As you read her Oct. 15 letter, it reminds you of how much time the extended family and friends spent together. She writes of a popular game called “Whist.” And while she’s writing, she says there’s an intense game of it being played by Roah and Gert against Carol and Fon – and, she notes, Carol and Fon are losing.

The same letter also mentions what seems to be the most unromantic of marital proposals. She says a man, Joe Christopherson, has married his housekeeper and that Roah is disappointed because she had been approached by him the year before to move to where he was living, teach school and take care of his children. My guess is Mary’s being ironic, but I can’t be sure.

Also in the letter, she talks of a horrible “infection” plaguing a Mr. Bryant:

“The infection is going down his spine. Wherever it breaks out, the flesh all rots and the nurse says it is going all thru his system.”

Yeesh.

Speaking of irony and sarcasm and that sense of humor she so often displays, there are a couple of fine examples in the Oct. 20 letter. After a litany of piano-playing and singing assignments and rehearsals, she deadpans: “So, this week has been a continual round of pleasure.”

Then, the first sentence of the next paragraph: “I’m compiling (notice the big word) a book of cooking recipes for future use.” Funny.

Next week (I hope), we’ll head into November 1916.

Mary's photo postcards

Dear family,

OK, I've posted the photo postcards on the Henderson Reunion Web site. Click here to go directly to the page. Please let me know if you recognize anyone else in the photos, and I'll add and/or update the captions.

There are many more photos -- I'm sure they include other family members. I'll try to post them in the coming weeks.

Please send along your comments, too.

Don(nie) Porter
Helen's son

No letters this week, but there's other good news

It's been another one of those weeks, and I didn't make time for reading through more of Grandma's letters. Sorry about that.

But here's what I dd do: My brother, Tony, and I have been helping my dad, Don, sort through long-packed items in a storage shed. Lots of these things we haven't sorted through since before we moved to Utah from Wyoming in 1973.

On Saturday, we found a box with a weathered old photo album containing postcards -- page after page of them from about, oh, 1905 to 1920 (roughly). This adds to the number I already have, about 150, that we located in a shoebox last year and that I've begun to feature on this Web page. They're all really great, with lots and lots from Grandma's McIntosh siblings, cousins and friends.

While that's cool enough, among the postcards in the book are a number of photo postcards -- apparently it was popular during that era to take photos, then have them made into postcards you could mail to friends and family. Among these picture postcards are several of Grandma that I'd never seen before. So, as soon as I can get around to it, I'll scan them and post them on the Web site -- I'll announce the postings here.

I sort of skimmed the writing on the backs of the cards as I was removing them from the haggard old book, and was hoping for our version of the Holy Grail: Maybe one from Grandpa to Grandma. I didn't see one, but that doesn't mean one isn't there. I'll look more closely in the weeks and/or months to come.

I'll let you know if we uncover any more treasures as we dig through the storage shed in the weeks to come. This one was completely unexpected.

I should also add that my mother, Helen, let me borrow her copy of "Sagebrush and Roses," the thorough history of Otto and Burlington, Wyo., written by Carla Neves Loveland. I'm about 200 pages into it, and it's a lot of fun to read. There is at least one photo of mother and her siblings that I've never seen before -- I'll post it here sometime soon -- and plenty of Old West intrigue: Like the time Ira McIntosh -- brother of Mary and Roah -- watched a man get shot in the back and killed outside the Garland Hotel over some dispute; our Great-Grandmother Nancy Lena Guhl McIntosh forbade him from testifying after the killer(s) threatened his life.

And this was in 1910!

The September 1916 letters

After weeks of letting everything get in the way, I’m back to Grandma’s letters. Let’s pick up where we left off, In September 1916.

In the Sept. 3 letter, she writes of her sister, Roah, bringing her a gift – a signet ring. But, she notes that while she’s “quite proud of” this ring, “I don’t like it like I do my other one.”

I’m wondering: Is she referring to an engagement ring? Had Dave, by this time, given her a ring? Are they engaged? I ask because none of the previous letters ever mentions it. Do any of you know?

Her Sept. 7 letter is a gentle scolding to Grandpa for not writing letters often enough.

I have to admit I get a special kick out of her Sept. 10 letter, since she might as well be writing about her grandson Don:

“I’m getting disgusted with myself when I go to church. I can’t stay awake any more. I nearly bobbed my head off this morning.”

Later in the letter, she makes reference to someone who may be a rival – or not, maybe she’s not worried, but simply teasing:

“And I’m not much afraid of those Alabama school marms, either. I don’t believe she’ll look as good to you as some other people do. I hope not, anyway.”

I’ve said before that I really like these little tidbits of information about daily life that she drops into her letters. In the Sept. 17 letter, for example, she mentions she doesn’t want to travel to Lovell to a church conference because the car in which she’ll be riding is unreliable – it gets stuck and the headlights don’t always work. (Sounds like some of the automobiles I’ve owned over the years.) Also, and this is probably just because I grew up in Basin, Wyo., I like this paragraph:

“Ira and Uncle are going to Basin in the morning to get some coal and take in part of the fair.”

I like the detail that reminds us they had to use coal for heat – if you haven’t read Rip’s recollection of his youth, you should – and appreciate mention of the county fair, since that was always the high point of our year as children in Basin, with rides, exhibitions, a rodeo, games and many, many more opportunities for mischief.

Grandma also makes another mention of the “school marm” she referred to in the previous letter:

“I’m awfully glad that school marm didn’t come. I was a little bit afraid she’d beat my time but now I can rest easy. I don’t believe anyone is going to take my place, tho. They’d better not, anyway.”

It must have been another woman who was supposed to teach school there, but who never showed up. That’s just a guess, anyway. Still, it was enough to give Grandma the jitters.

The Sept. 21 letter offers quite a few more details about attractions at the fair and life in Basin during the celebration.

I got a bit of a surprise reading the Sept. 25 letter. Grandma writes of seeing a famous political figure:

“Saturday afternoon we left convention [in Lovell, I think] and went down to the
train and listened for five minutes to William Jennings Bryan. He is sure a homely old scout. Bro. Kirkham said what he admired about Bryan was that after every defeat, he came up smiling.”

That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll wade into October, at least, and maybe beyond.

Apologies, etc.

Hey, family members,

Sorry I haven't posted since a couple of weeks ago. Been a hectic life the past little while. Things are settling down, a little, but since I'll be out of town most of next week, too, I may not resume posting for another week or so.

Meantime, Happy Fourth of July!

Don(nie)

Grandma's 1916 letters, part 3

Another week, another batch of letters.

As we've seen in the weeks leading up to this one, Grandma's letters are becoming more and more romantically overt -- she's expressing love and longing out in the open.

Her Aug. 9 letter is a good example. She writes of going to town -- Burlington, I guess -- to visit the post office and get a letter from Grandpa. Someone named Inez was kidding her about his letters, and wondering if they contained any kisses.

"I said you never sent any, that you always delivered them in person an I wouldn't have them any other way."

I also love her descriptions of lazy afternoons in the age before TV and, I guess, radio. She writes of "Bro. Preator" taking her and a bunch of her friends -- Mandy, Margaret, Susie, May, Sylvia and Gert -- to the river (probably the Greybull River?) for swimming and a picnic.

"May and Sylvia took a freezer of ice cream, Susie a cake and Gert and I some sandwiches. We were sure hungry after our swim. The water was fine, but I nearly froze for half an hour after we got out."

As we've seen in earlier letters, Grandma gets downright melancholy when she can't see her beau as often as she'd like. Her Aug. 13 letter is typical of this. She writes of severe disappointment that he couldn't travel to see her over the previous weekend.

"I wish I could be with you. There's no place I'd rather be than where you are. I believe we could get along alright. We'd try to mighty hard, wouldn't we?"

There are other bits and pieces that might be interesting to some of you, too, besides the lovey-dovey content. In the Aug. 13 letter she talks about politics a little -- specifically, the school superintendent race. She even escorts a candidate she favors around town to do some shoe-leather campaigning.

In her Aug. 17 letter, she mentions that they've begun Sunday closings of the stores and pool hall. I'm sort of surprised that wasn't the norm to begin with. Burlington was a Mormon town, always has been, but views of the Sabbath and commerce have definitely morphed over time. We've become a bit more sanctimonious about its observance in recent decades here in Utah, I know.

Speaking of religion, Grandma makes continuous references to attending church, or not, but I think her Aug. 27 letter may be the first of the whole bunch to note that nobody bothered to go one week. She also refers to a dance at which many of the men were drinking, so much so that one, Chauncey, was "hardly able to mount the stepladder to put out the lights." That also reminds us that they didn't have electricity in that part of the Big Horn Basin then; if memory serves, it wasn't until the 1930s and the Rural Electric Association that power lines were strung through the area -- at least that's what they told us in grade school.

Well, it's been a busier-than-usual week for me, so I'll end there. Didn't review many letters, but maybe I'll get to more next week.

Take care, all.