Grandma's leters, December 1916-February 1917

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks, I know, but I’m back on track (again), and we’ll finish Grandma’s letters today. Then it’ll be on to something else from the Henderson Reunion Web site. (If you have any suggestions for topics of discussion, please let me know.)

The Dec. 4, 1916, letter, she mentions a little business I don’t recall her ever referring to before: People like her being paid to play music at the dances. I suppose it stands to reason she would have been paid; I just never thought about it. Indeed, if she was paid each time she played at a dance over the years, it must have provided some extra money for her.

She mentions, too, all the imbibing going on at the post-Thanksgiving dance, and names names.

In her Dec. 8 letter, she makes a statement that was still hitting home to me in the early 1970s when I was a boy going to school in Big Horn County: “I wish you were going to be here for the basket ball game tonight. I expect Cody will beat the boys pretty badly.” In Basin, we were a class B-sized school, and Cody was either class A or AA, and we’d play them every year in the role of sacrificial lambs. The worst beating was a football game; we showed up one cold, cold Saturday morning to find about 12-14 inches of powdery snow on the football field, and the officials took snow shovels to clear the five-yard lines up and down the field. It was a cold day, made miserable by the snow and having our opponents double our score. There’s nothing quite like playing sports for such a tiny, rural school.

She also mentions she doesn’t like teaching school much.

In her Dec. 10 letter, there’s a bit of a surprise – arguably her most blunt expression of love for Grandpa that I recall seeing in any of these letters:

“Dave, if you just knew how much I really do love you, you’d never doubt me again. I know that no one could love you more than I do, sweetheart. You are dearer to me than anyone else in the world. If I could just please you always, dear, I’d be perfectly happy.” But then she expresses regret: “But I disappoint you so many times, dear, and I try so hard to please you. I’d give most anything if I could see you tonight.”

And that’s the last letter of any consequence that she wrote to him – that we have in our possession, anyway. There’s a letter from Feb. 13, 1917, but it just details travel plans. They were married April 11, 1917, and their first child, Uncle Rip (David Ira), was born a year later, April 30, 1918.

It’s been really interesting to read through these letters. I’ve learned a lot about my grandparents that I would not otherwise have known. If you want to do more reading about them, Rip makes mention of them in his entertaining, detail-rich memoir, as does Mark in his. (I’ll post an edited version of my own mother’s memories soon.)

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.

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.

Looking back through Mark's eyes

I don't know about you, but I love discovering what a writing coach once described as "little gold coins" sprinkled throughout whatever I'm reading. He described them as little surprises that reward, and maybe even enlighten, the reader.

As you read through Mark Henderson's memories of his youth, which I've excerpted on the the family Web site, you'll find lots of valuable, entertaining and informative items. For example, did you know Grandpa and Grandma moved the family around Burlington a little bit during the first few years of their marriage?

"While I was still very young, we moved to A.E. Schlaef's ranch two miles southwest of Burlington, where we raised some very good crops. At the end of three years we moved back to our own farm."

Or:

"In 1924 we moved to Orson Johnson's home in Burlington so my brother would not have so far to walk to school. We lived there only one year before returning to our own farm, which, at that time, consisted of 80 acres."

Mark also remembers details that soak the narrative with information about life's conveniences -- or lack thereof -- and customs of the time. Like this:

"In the fall of 1925 I started to elementary school. My brother and I had to walk a mile and a half to get to the school wagon every morning and back at night. It was a covered wagon with a pot-bellied stove for keeping us warm in the winter when it got quite cold. My aunt, Roah Dunsworth, was my teacher in the first and second grades ... . The only spanking I ever got in school occurred when I refused to act the part of the pig in the story of the Little Red Hen, in the first grade, when my aunt spanked me with an axe handle which had been fashioned into a paddle."

And here's another one of those gold coins, when Mark talks about the family's looming trip to Salt Lake City in 1928 to go through the LDS Church temple there:

"My older brother and I were old enough at the time to really get excited about such a trip and lay awake many a night planning and talking about that exciting trip."

Maybe it's just me, but that sentence creates a terrific little scene of two boys so excited for a journey they can't sleep. It takes me back to my childhood, and anticipation of various road trips we took as a family.

But this was no ordinary road trip. As Mark recalls, it was crowded and eventful. All the kids -- eight of them -- plus Grandma and Grandpa -- made the trip, via Yellowstone National Park, in a 1927 Chevy. It's a great story.



Also, Mark talks in some detail about farm life, school and religion during his youth. He captures -- as I said, with lots and lots of great, revealing detail -- what it was like to grow up during hard times. When I read his story, and our late Uncle Rip's, which I featured in January, it puts into perspective the current financial situation in our country and the world: troublesome, yes, but we're all watching it unravel on television or while listening to it via podcasts on our iPods.

Anyway, I hope you'll take time to read through Mark's recollections and learn a bit more about a great man in our family.

Grandpa Henderson's birthplace

When I was young, before the age of 5, Mom, Dad, Grandpa and I took a trip to Basin, Idaho, where Grandpa was born. I really have no memory of the trip, but I quizzed Mom about it and she said it was interesting for a couple of reasons:

There were two homes he lived in before he turned 17 and the family herded their livestock over the Continental Divide to Burlington, Wyo. The first, a log cabin where Grandpa was born, had long since been reduced to something akin to a barn for the animals of the area. When he saw that it was filled with manure, he said, "Hell, I wish we'd never have come."

Or, he said that when they went looking for the home he lived in after the cabin. It had burned to the ground sometime between 1900, when they moved to Wyoming, and the early 1960s when we made the trip to Idaho.

Mom says they visited a cemetery in Basin, Idaho, and happened to run into its sexton/caretaker. She explains that Grandpa, then at least 80, remembered very well the people who had lived in the community and where they lived. Though he did not know the caretaker, they had known the same townspeople.

Mom adds: "That's funny, because he could remember all them, but he couldn't remember my name."

Have a look at the photos, taken from faded slides, of the home where Grandpa was born by clicking here.

And, as always, please leave your comments by clicking on the "comments" button below.

First Postcard Page is Up and Running

Finally, after much back and forth between me and my Web hosting service, my ability to send and retrieve files to the family Web site has been restored.

The upshot is: The first page of 10 postcards -- Grandma Henderson's -- is on the site. To see them, click here. I've done things a little differently this time around.

First of all, to see the reverse sides of the postcards, simply click on the images. A lot of them were written in pencil, so they may be difficult to read. I haven't attempted to decipher any of them yet, but I hope some of you will. When you do, and you find something interesting -- to you or that you think might interest others who read this blog -- click on the "comments" link below and let us know what you've found.

Or, if you'd rather, let me know I've done something wrong, or if you have an idea for doing things better on the Web site go ahead and post that, too. It won't hurt my feelings, really.

I've heard back that some of you may be reluctant to participate -- or simply do not understand the whole process or philosophy of blogging. I'm not professing to have any special insights, either, but I think this tool (the blog) will help us connect a little more efficiently as a family outside of our annual reunions. Plus, I think if we all contribute with stories and insights into the events and memories contained on the Web site, it'll will help us all to understand a little more deeply the history of our family and the ongoing value of our relationships to each other.

Please don't limit your comments to the postcards. There are lots of things on the site that should pique your interest. The "Mary's letters" pages contain a wealth of information about her early life, and that of Grandpa Henderson. For example, did you know he drove a stagecoach between Burlington and Meeteetse, Wyoming? You would, if you looked at his eulogy. There's even a short autobiography he wrote for Carole Henderson (Carlos and Marguerite's daughter).

So, please take a few minutes to have a look at the Web site and start connecting with cousins and other family members through this tool.

Interactivity, anyone?

OK, I was getting a little ho-hum over the ancient look of the years-old Henderson Reunion Web site. I keep adding new stuff, but I'm not sure at all if it's useful to anyone in the family. One thing I am pretty sure of: It's not user-friendly, is disorganized and pretty uninviting.

A friend at work suggested adding a blog component. As he pointed out, if family members are interested in keeping tabs on the Web site, and want to be alerted when new items are added, a blog would make sense. Also, he said, it would give everyone an opportunity to chat about what they're seeing: Add historical notes and personal observations about the photos, journals and information available on the site.

Well, he sold me on the notion. The Web site itself will remain as-is for the time being, until I can slowly redesign some elements over time. But, as I add new items, or revise others, I'll make note of it on this blog. If you subscribe to it, you'll be notified of each change -- or, as what I consider a bonus, you'll be alerted when members of our far-flung family chime in about matters, whether related to the Web site of just concerning Henderson news.

For example, I've just finished scanning all of Grandma Mary's postcard collection, and I'll begin posting Web pages devoted to the postcards within the next couple of weeks. I haven't read many of the messages on the backs of the cards, but some are bound to involve Hendersons, McIntoshes and all sorts of people from Big Horn County, Wyoming, as well as Tooele County, Utah. Maybe by reading them, and the already posted 1912 travel journal, etc., we can start discussing some family history -- noticing items from the past that we may not have known about, or that has been forgotten until now.

What do you all think? Good idea? Or not?

Would you find this blog, which will link to all the relevant Web pages, useful and/or interesting?

Please let me know by posting your comments. And if you've got ideas to improve this -- or that would be better in place of this, please don't be shy -- let me know.
(A leather postcard from Grandma's collection; it's true, for a few years, the Postal Service actually permitted leather postcards to be mailed.)