Beehive History, Volume 19, 1993

HISTORY

19

Mabel Wahlquist.

Courfiesy ofwhor.

How hRy Career Began in Myton

BY MABEL WAHLQUIST

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Editor's Note: Mabel Wahlquist was born January 7, 1904, in Heber City, a daughter of Elizabeth Campbell and Charles John Wahlquist. She died on February 17, 1991, in Ogden. She had a very successful career in merchandising that began in Myton, Duchesne County, continued with ZCMI in Salt Lake City and Wright's and C. C. Anderson's in Ogden, and culminated with her years as a buyer for the Bon Marche stores. In 1974 she began to record her life history on tapes. These were transcribed by Marcia Terry Andrews Wahlquist and printed for family members in December 1992. S h e and her husband Keith F. Wahlquist, a nephew of Mabel, agreed to the publication in Beehive History of an edited section from Mabel Wclhlquist: Memoirs (Copyright 1992, Marci Andrews).

It covers the time Mabel was employed by R . E. Waugh at his store in Myton in the 1920s. Mabel mentions her brothers Fred (Charles Frederick), Roy (LeRoy), Keith (Keith Campbell), and Jack (John Thomas). Her mother was a semi-invalid at this time.

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The summer after my father died [I9231 was certainly the summer of decision arid probably was the one that shaped what was to be my future so far as career was concerned. There were just Mother and Fred and I at home. Roy was still on his [LDS church] mission, and Keith and Jack were both married and living on the outside."

*In Uinta Basin parlance, Mabel explained in her memoirs, "outside," as in "living on the outside," means outside of the Basin.

Fred was to teach school in Myton that year and I sort of wished that I could teach school.

The School Board offered to let Fred and me teach together in a little school called Antelope, between Myton and Duchesne. We would have had to ride that distance morning and night all through the winter, or else stay up there. We knew we couldn't stay up there because we had to come home and milk cows and of course it would have been impossible to have left Mother home alone at night.

So while we were still debating about this I got an opportunity to work in Waugh's Store for $50 a month, which was as much as I was going to get if I had taught school. And so I went to work in the store. I would guess that this opportunity came largely through Harold Eldredge, who was the clerk at Waugh's Store at that time and who was a very close friend of our family.

It was a typical trading post store. It was the largest store in Myton and pretty much the center of activity. It and the pool hall across the street were the most central places for killing time of anywhere in town. Of course people went to the bank, and they went occasionally to get their hair cut, and they went to the post office, but Waugh's Store always had a lot of Indians in it, because they liked Mr. Waugh so much partly, and partly because he was so good to them.

The one side of the store was dry goods, as we called it then. On this side we had what clothing we carried, loads of overalls, both bib and waistband overalls. The farmers liked the bib overalls, but the Indians preferred the waist overalls, which they wore low on their hips. We had shoes of many kinds, work shoes mostly, and cowboy boots. We had men's hats, mostly cowboy-type hats, a few dress hats, and in the summer loads of straw hats. We had lots of underwear, long johns for winter, and heavy socks for the men. And in the women's department we had black lisle stockings. We had slips and a lot of dresses-that is, the house-type dresses that the Indians boughtthe farm women didn't wear ready-made things.

We had a lot of calico and gingham and dress materials that they would buy to sew their clothes.

We always had a few little trimmings and bias tape and things for their sewing.

We had a long ladder that I don't see in stores any more. It was on a track and went clear to the ceiling. We really had a big stock, particularly in the fall of the year, because in those days, with the bad roads and most everything hauled on wagons, it was hard to get merchandise out there; so a tremendous amount of stock was always bought for the winter.

On the other side of the store were the groceries. We had lots of canned goods, and the

Main Street in Myton, Utah, ca. 1 9 15, courtesy of F d Todd Collection, Regional Room, Vernal. WaughOsStore is on the extreme right. Photograph was token hwn upper window of Myfon State Bank building.

Mabel and Roy Wahlquist, sometime bebre 1 923. Courtesy of author.

shelves in the fall would be four and five cans deep and a couple of cans high. There was a long counter on each side for measuring merchandise, yard goods, and so on. On the grocery side were the cash register and a showcase that had candies in it-horehound candy, old-fashioned white peppermints, taffy, and candies of that sort, a few bars, and an occasional box of candy which usually got given to either Harold or me before it got too old, because no one ever bought them. Under the counter were drawers that contained peanuts, both shelled and unshelled, and rice, beans, tapioca, and things of that sort. And of course there was the sugar bin.

On top of the counter was a big square glass cheese case. The lid came up, and there was always a big round cheese on it. (Nothing was ever packaged in those days as it is now.) If a person wanted a pound or two pounds or whatever, you guessed as closely as you could how much to cut. We soon learned to be pretty good at it.

Right by that was a scale that told you how much you had cut. If it wasn't too far off, why, you just gave it to them for the pound.

One of the most important things on top of the counter was a case that contained a big sheet of chewing tobacco. It was called plug tobacco.

That also had a big knife with it. You learned pretty well what to cut for a pound or whatever amount they wanted of chewing tobacco. That smelled good; I really liked the smell and I was always tempted to try it, but I never did. And of course we had cigarettes of various brands.

Between the two counters there was room for one row of tables, and on these would be assorted items: bright Indian blankets and saddles for their horses, and bridles, and anything you might think of.

We had two little show windows, one on either side of the front door. And in those we would show our new items, such as our new house dresses when they came in, and the occasional shipment of hats for the ladies. On the other side we would have stacks of groceries of various types, and soap. They were not very decorative windows, but at least we always kept something in them, and once in a while we even washed them.

At the very back of the store was Mr. Waugh's desk and a big safe. There was never any money kept in the safe. At some time or other it had been robbed, and so a sign was hung on it that read: "Turn both handles to the left and pull hard.

This safe is not locked." Apparently, the time they had tried to rob it, the [thieves] had hit it so hard with hammers that they had dented the safe.

So rather than have that happen again Mr. Waugh had put this sign on it. The only things in the safe were Mr. Waugh's ledgers, which I'm sure didn't have much [recorded] in them, and perhaps insurance papers, and things that could be burned should the place catch on fire.

The money was kept in various places. At night when it would be time for us to close, it would be my job to stand by the light switch by the front door and Harold's job to stash the money. Or if I was there alone, which I sometimes was in the summertime, I stashed the money. Whoever closed up had to get there first in the morning, because they knew where the money was. One of the ways we entertained ourselves during the day was deciding where we would hide the money that night. Sometimes it would be in the bean barrel, or it could be in a shoebox way up high on a shelf, or it could be in the shirts. Or it could be hid under a loose board in the floor. It was your job to remember where you had hid it the night before. And it was never put in the safe.

Many of the transactions didn't deal with money at all. They [involved barter with] eggs and butter and things of that sort. If you had eggs you counted them out three in each hand, which was a half dozen. If you had twenty double hands full, why then you divided by two and that meant you had ten dozen eggs. At 15 cents a dozen that would be a dollar and a half that the lady would have to spend. You would figure out with her what she could buy up to her dollar and a half.

Occasionally she might have a little money [too] and that would go into the till, but [for] the amount that was dealt with in eggs there was no record kept of any kind. You simply added up what she could spend until she had spent the amount of her eggs, and away she went.

Harold and I, whenever we wanted anything, simply took it and put an IOU in the cash register.

At the end of the month Mr. Waugh would add up the IOUs, and if they came to $40, why, he handed you a $10 bill. Or if you happened to have gone over the $50 [monthly salary] he simply put an IOU in for the difference at the first of the month and started over. In the three or four years that I worked there, I never did receive a paycheck. All I did was take the groceries or anything else that was needed and put in an IOU. I remember one time a cash register salesman com-

Interior of Booth's Store in Midvale, Utah, shows ladder and stocked shelves similar to those in Waugh's. USHS colleaions.

Mabel Wahlquist, right, with friends in Myfon.

Coumy of author.

ing through and wanting to sell Mr. Waugh a [new] cash register. One of his arguments was that a dishonest salesperson could really rob him blind, which of course they could have done. Mr. Waugh became the most angry I ever saw him, and he informed the salesman that if anyone made any mistakes on [the old] cash register it was him and not one of his clerks, and he ushered the salesman out very quickly.

That was a strange old cash register. It didn't add anything up for you. It had just one drawer, which we both used, and you had to figure up what the customer was buying on a piece of paper, and then you cranked the register with a hand crank to put the money in and take the change out. I've seen a lot of cash registers, but I've never seen one quite as ancient as that one.

Of course, at the time, it was the only cash register I had ever seen, so I thought it was all right.

The most important piece of furniture sat more than halfway back in the store. It was a great big potbellied stove. In the wintertime that thing would get red hot. There were several chairs arranged around it, and there the Indians would sit and visit, or road construction men, or whoever happened to be in the store. On Saturday afternoons sometimes things would get quite rowdy and the stories would get rare, and on such occasions Mabel would get sent home by Mr. Waugh.

By morning the ashes would be pretty well around on the floor.

Each morning it was our job to sweep out the store before we opened. We sold a lot of rope to the farmers and to the Indians for their horses. It came in several different sizes-thicknesses-in big rolls, huge things weighing a great deal. The men would tug and pull and get them into the basement. They [had] bored a hole in the [main] floor and would put an end of the rope up and

Looking east on Main Street in Myton, ca. 1915, with Waugh's Store on the right and Myton State Bank on the leh. Courfesy of Fred Todd Co//ection,Rwional Room, Vernal.

through this hole, and tie a knot in it so it wouldn't slide back down into the basement. When people wanted rope they simply pulled along that piece and measured off what they wanted. The first morning that it was my turn to sweep the floor, in order to do a nice, neat job, I untied all of the knots and let the rope slide down so that I could sweep. That created quite a turmoil when Harold got there and had to go down and push all the rope back up, and we had to retie all of the knots. I soon learned that if you had a little dust behind the rope on the floor you just didn't worry about that.

People coming in to shop visited with each other and told what they'had been doing, and discussed their affairs and how their crops were going, and who had visited whom, and who had a new baby, and who was sick, and who had died, and so on. The man who was the reporter for the little newspaper spent many hours in the store. I can see him yet, sitting on the counter by the peanut drawer, reaching behind him every few minutes to get a handful of peanuts and shelling them, letting the shells fall on the floor, and eating them and listening to the visiting that was going on. If he wasn't there, we were instructed to remember what was said. And next week you would read all of these little bits of gossip in the newspaper. I suppose he went across the street and gathered up a few notes from the pool hall too. They probably were even more exciting than the ones he collected in the store.

There was very little water [in the area].

There hadn't been too many canals dug yet, and the little orchards or fruit trees here and there, and the berry bushes and gardens were literally watered by hand. People carried water from the ditches to water their trees and their bushes.

There was practically no fruit to be had, because it was too far for it to be hauled. It would spoil before it could ever arrive, and it would be too expensive for people to buy even if it were brought out.

One day a little lady came in her buggy with her eggs to trade for groceries, and while she was buying things she was telling me that she had raised some raspberries. Her raspberries were finally bearing that year, and she was going to have a few to bottle. She was so pleased and proud. Among the other things that she bought was 50 cents worth of sugar to put up these raspberries. She lived out on North Myton Bench, and it must have taken her two or three hours to make the drive in the buggy. It was a hot day.

She had been gone at least an hour when I saw her come back in, and she had this package of sugar with her, and there were tears in her eyes. She said, "Could you take this sugar back and let me have some tobacco? I forgot to get my husband's tobacco. All of the other things I just have to have, but I can do without the sugar and not put up the fruit. We can eat the berries. My husband will be so cross if I go home without his tobacco."

I put the sugar back and she took the tobacco.

I want to tell you a more amusing incident about tobacco. There were a lot of construction crews digging ditches and making roads and so on, and a lot of our business came from these crews. The whole bunch would come in [to town] on Saturday afternoon and leave their grocery order in the store and then go across to the pool hall and play pool and gamble all afternoon because it would be their payday. Harold and I would put up their order of groceries, and then before they left at night they would pick it up.

Sometimes we'd have t o wait until 9 o r 10 o'clock for them to get through and come and get their order.

This one day I was putting up their order, and on it [was]-I don't remember how many, but several-cartons of "Beechnut." Well, I knew about Beechnut chewing gum, and it never occurred to me to even think about Beechnut chewing or smoking tobacco. So what they got was cartons of Beechnut chewing gum. It was my turn to open the store on Monday morning, and when I got back to the store, here was the whole crew on the front steps waiting to get in. They had been the whole weekend without any tobacco-they'd had chewing gum-and they could scarcely wait for me to get the door open and let them get their tobacco! Then they either lit up if they smoked it, or stuffed it in their mouths if they chewed it, before they could even start back to work. They never did quit teasing me about that.

From then on, whenever they came, the order would always be underscored: "Chewing tobacco" or "Beechnut tobacco," not chewing gum.

Lots of afternoons it used to get pretty slow in the store, and there would be an hour or so that would be rather quiet. Sometimes Harold would go down in the basement and clean up down there, and I would work upstairs. One afternoon-I had been to a dance the night before-I was just so sleepy I didn't know what to do. We kept overalls under the counter toward the back of the store, and I crawled in on top of the overalls and went sound asleep. I don't know how long I may have slept, but I could hear people walking back and forth in the store, and I could hear Harold just bustling about taking care of customers. I crawled out very quietly, and as I raised my head up above the counter [there] stood a big Indian, one that I didn't know. I think he thought I was a ghost or something-it scared him almost more than it scared me! Anyway, I managed to crawl out and waited on the customers, and we laughed and laughed about that afterwards.

Inventory at the store was done almost as carelessly as the bookkeeping; every year we were going to do it better "next year." We had one drawer in which we kept laces and trimming and a little bit of ribbon for the ladies who did their sewing at home. Mr. Waugh would look in that drawer three or four times during the year and say, "Now, when inventory comes again, we're going to measure this. This has got to be measured so we know what we've got here." Each year I'd get it out and I'd start to measure. He'd come along and look for a minute and then he'd say, "Oh hell," and he'd shut the drawer and that was the end of measuring the ribbon.

Many people owed a great deal to Mr. Waugh.

Many of the farmers and the homesteaders could never have made it without Mr. Waugh. He used to carry them all summer until their crop came in the fall. If it came in, why, then they would pay him. But if the storms came and the frosts, or if there was no rain and the crops burned up, he did not get paid. I'm sure he lost thousands of dollars trying to carry farmers, and then there was the money he used to hand out to the Indians. He was a wonderful man. As the Depression started to come on he began to lose money rapidly, and it looked very much like he was going to lose the store. It reached a point where he simply had to say no to people that he had been carrying for so many years, but he just couldn't do it. So finally, they lit on the plan that he would not come in the store. He would stay out on his farm out on South

Mabel Wahlquist and her mother, Elizabeth C. Wahlquist. Courtesy of author.

7

American Community and

BY RONALD G. COLEMAN I

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Much has been written about politics at the k r n of the century in Utah, especially the struggle to achieve statehood. Less well known are the political activities of blacks in that era. Two dynamic and colorful leaders-one a Republican and one a Democrat-emerged within the black community in the 1890s and took active roles in local politics. Their rivalry occurred at a time when African Americans in Utah were developing the institutions and organizations that would help to define them as a community.

Between 1890 and 1 9 1 0 U t a h ' s African American population increased from 588 to 1,144, with the majority living in Salt Lake County. Ogden's black population totaled 204 by 1910, but Salt Lake City continued to be the focal point of social activities and community development for black Utahns.

In Utah, as elsewhere, the first community institution established by African Americans was typically a church. It was often the center of social activities as well as a meeting place for

Calvary Baptist Church when it was located at 679 East Third South, Salt Lake City.

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church-sponsored auxiliaries, literary societies, and other organizations. Ministers often served as community leaders and as spokesmen for the black community. In addition to serving the spiritual and secular needs of local African Americans, the church, along with fraternal organizations and newspapers, provided an important link with the national black community.

The Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church can trace its beginnings to an organizational meeting held in November 1890 in Salt Lake City, and the Calvary Baptist Church dates from the mid-1890s. T h e establishment of churches was followed by fraternal orders and civic and social clubs, including Masonic lodges, women's organizations, and t h e Booker T .

Washington Literary Club.

The existence of these groups provided black Utahns with a base from which their social activities evolved. Observances in honor of the Emancipation Proclamation were held regularly between 1890 and 1910. The 1897 celebration was unusually large as black civilians and soldiers of the 24th Infantry combined to stage a parade with floats and the regimental band, followed by a musical program, speeches, and a grand ball.

African Americans also joined the larger community celebration of the Pioneer Jubilee, with Green Flake, Jane Elizabeth James, and Sylvester James-three black pioneers of 1847-receiving special recognition.

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Black newspapers were first published in Utah during the 1890s, another sign that the African American community was developing along national lines. Two newspapers and the men who published them are of special interest in helping to define the political objectives of blacks in Utah at the turn of the century.

T h e Utah Plain Dealer was published by William W. Taylor from about 1895 to 1909. Its chief competitor was the Broad Ax, published by Julius Taylor (no relation) from 1895 to 1899.

Black newspapers reflected the ideas and political affiliations of their owners; however, like black newspapers throughout the nation the black press in Utah defended the rights of African Americans and constantly reported injustices at both lthe local and national levels.

In the pages of their newspapers William Taylor and Julius Taylor continually argued over which publication truly represented the interests of African Americans. William Taylor supported the Republican party, and Julius Taylor supported the Democratic party.

The two Taylors did not have the journalistic field to themselves. Other black newspapers published in Utah between 1890 and 1910 include the Western Recorder owned by S . P. Chambers, the Headlight published by J . Gordon McPherson, Town Talk with W . P. Hough as editor, and the Tri-City Oracle published by R e v . J. W. Washington.

The editors of Utah's black newspapers participated in professional journalistic organizations.

Both Taylors were members of the Utah Press Association, and Julius served as historian of the organization before moving to Chicago in 1899.

Utah's black publishers took an active part in the Western Negro Press Association. They presented papers at meetings, served as officers, and hosted the WNPA's fifth annual meeting in Salt Lake City in 1900.

Julius Taylor presented a paper on lynching at the 1898 WNPA meeting. He claimed that a resolution condemning lynching was made part of the 1896 Republican Platform only to give the appearance of Republican support for black rights and to overshadow the discrimination against black delegates to the GOP convention at St. Louis hotels. Furthermore, he asserted, since Republicans were not willing to act beyond their public utterances they should not use lynching as a political issue.

In 1899 William Taylor was elected president of the WNPA, and when the organization's 1900 convention was held in Salt Lake City black residents hosted receptions for the participants and took their guests on tours of the city.

Black Utahns took an interest in politics and, like the majority of African Americans, tended to

be Republicans. Many of the political activities of black Utahns were orchestrated by the Abraham Lincoln Colored Club, a black Regublican organization. In 1895 a challenge to Republican dominance among blacks emerged under the leadership of Julius F. Taylor. Taylor, who had lived in Fargo, North Dakota, and Chicago, moved to Salt Lake City with his wife in the spring of 1895 because of her health. That fall Julius began publishing the Broad Ax and espousing the Democratic party's cause. An active Democrat for more than 10 years, Taylor called upon blacks to no longer follow the GOP because of past prejudices or emotions. He reasoned that African American voters would see that on the issues of the day the Democrats were entitled to as much, if not more, support from black voters.

His involvement in Democratic politics led him to visit various towns throughout the state where he ingratiated himself with party leaders. His actions alarmed black Republican leaders, and an effort was made to discredit him as a carpetbagger.

The emergence of support among blacks for the Democratic party, although light in actual numbers, set into motion a political feud that continued into the 20th century. Julius and William Taylor used their rival newspapers to trade insults-all in the name of politics-that would

Black cavalry troops parading on Main Street in Salt Lake Ciy, 1890s. USHS collections.

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Masthead of the Utah Plain Dealer. Courtesy o f the IDS Church Historical Department.

be labeled libelous today.

William Taylor came from St. Louis and had settled in Utah in 1890. A major influence in Utah's early black community, he led the A.M.E. church when it was without a minister, served as exalted ruler of the Masonic lodge, and was an active leader among black Republicans. His prominence within the black community presumably led to his appointment as city dog tax collector during 1894-96, the only political patronage post secured by an African American in this period. Surprisingly, he was appointed by a Democrat. The general lack of political patronage for blacks who supported the Republican cause brought criticism not only from black Democrats but from black Republicans as well.

When a predominantly Democratic legislature took office in January 1897 Julius Taylor offered himself as a candidate f o r the position of sergeant-at-arms for the State Senate on the basis of his work in the party's behalf and as recognition of "the colored race." He had some reason to believe he might win the post. During the first state legislative session in 1896 the Democrats, then a minority, had voted for Taylor to be messenger of the Senate and endorsed Henry Durham, also an African American, for sergeant-at-arms, aware, of course, that the Republican majority would actually fill those posts. A year later the

Democratic majority rejected Taylor. He reported in the Broad A x that the legislators "have informed the world that they do not entertain a very high regard for any member of the negro race."

At election t i m e black Democrats and Republicans staged political debates to appeal for the votes of African Americans. In October 1895 Henry Durham, the former vice-president of the Abraham Lincoln Colored Club, now a Democrat, challenged Cyrus Lindell, a Republican, to a debate. The event received coverage in the white as well as the black press. The subject of the debate was "that it is more beneficial to the negroes of t h e United S t a t e s t o vote t h e Democratic ticket than the Republican ticket."

Durham took the affirmative and Lindell the negative. White leaders from the respective partiesGeorge M. C a n n o n , Republican, and Judge Orlando W. Powers, Democrat, served as seconds. The debate quickly digressed into a discussion of which party had done the most for African Americans during the Civil War. In a further effort to attract voters black leaders sponsored social events. On November 1, 1895, the Broad Ax offered an evening of music and dancing. An address by Julius Taylor entitled "The New Democracy" preceded the festivities.

The Republican city committee aided black

Republicans in sponsoring an evening of entertainment. William Taylor introduced white GOP leaders who spoke on the benefits of voting for the Republican ticket. The speeches were followed by dancing.

The solid support the Republican party had once received from African Americans was weakening. This may have influenced the Salt Lake County COP organization to nominate William Taylor as the Republican candidate for the Eighth District seat in the Utah House of Representatives. His nomination was the first for an African American in Utah. Taylor supported the platform adopted at t h e S a l t L a k e C o u n t y Republican convention.

Underscoring the black community's political diversity, the Broad Ax opposed William Taylor's candidacy. The Democratic newspaper claimed that he was unqualified to serve and that he did not represent the blacks of Utah. He retaliated by using his position as exalted ruler of the High Marine Masonic Lodge in Salt Lake City to purge men who had abandoned the Republican party.

The purged Masons respondcd by requesting, through the military lodge at Fort Duchesne, a special dispensation to open a lodge affiliating with the Missouri Grand Lodge. Their request was granted, and the Saint Mark's Lodge was established on August 20, 1897.

Although William Taylor received fewer votes than any other candidate in the Eighth District, his 6,542 total was nevertheless impressive. It shows that several thousand whites were willing to cast their ballots for an African American.

By 1910 a black community centered in Salt Lake City had emerged in Utah. In response to their general exclusion from full participation in Utah's social and cultural activities, they established their own churches, fraternal organizations, newspapers, and political and social groups. Like African Americans elsewhere they created and supported those institutions that gave greater meaning to their lives. In this manner black Utahns embraced the spirit of race consciousness and self-help commonly associated with the national black community during the "Age o Booker T. Washington."

Dr. Coleman 1 9 an aqsociate profeqsor in the Histor Department and the Ethnlc Studies Program and assistant v president f o r d l v e r s ~ t yand faculty development a t University of Utah T h ~ article s was extracted from hls doc a1 d~ssertation,"A History of Blacks in Utah, 1825-19 (University of Utah, 1980)

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Della B. Horsley and William C. Horsley, ca. 1950. Courtesy of author.

Stories My Father

BY A. BURT HORSLEY

For more than 50 years William Clement "Clem" Horsley kept physically fit by walking briskly back and forth to work and to other appointments. He stood erect as he walked until in his late 70s age bent him slightly. He maintained his weight at 160 pounds to match his five feet eleven inches proportionately. He sometimes carried an umbrella but never a cane. Without dressing expensively or pretentiously, he was always neatly and impeccably turned out. His black derby hat and black great coat, which he wore on Sunday and special occasions, marked him as a familiar figure on the streets of Brigham City for some time after such things were no longer the "in" style.

I was a young man before I could keep pace with him. As a child, whenever I held his hand and accompanied him, it was necessary to move along at a half-running trot to stay beside him.

Sometimes he would pause for a few minutes and say, "Would you like to catch a breath?Or he would pick me up and carry me, maintaining his usual pace, thinking it undignified to dawdle, as he called it.

If the distance to our destination was long enough, he usually had a story to tell along the way. It was easy to get him to reminisce about the early days with a simple question such as, "Do you remember when you were a little b o y ? O r , after I had grown older with a more sophisticated air, "Did you have a girl friend when you were my age?"

He had a favorite way of beginning the outloud reminiscing. After a short thoughtful pause he would usually say, "Sometime back I remember," and then continue on with a most delightful account of some particular event or experience, giving me a glimpse through one of the thousand windows of his rich past.

One of the first recollections Clem had of Brigham City was when his folks took him into town for a visit from their place in Three Mile Creek (Perry). "Father drove us in the old Co-op peddler's wagon and I rode in the back with the pots and pans and produce. He put me down to play while they visited at a house and I soon wandered off. I was unable to find my way back and went from comer to corner, house to house. I had

started to cry when the postman came along and asked me what the matter was. He said he knew where I belonged and he'd take me there. I noticed that he didn't seem to look where he was going, but he got there all right anyway. My folks thanked him for bringing me back and he went on his way again. I remember father saying, 'Of all people to help him find his way, it would be Blind Jones. "' Yes, they had a blind postman in Brigham City for years. Owen Jones emigrated from Wales when he was about 34. Mormon missionaries had converted him in his native land, and he had answered the call to come to Zion in spite of his blindness. He had been blinded in one eye while yet a boy. Later, as a young adult, he followed the occupation of a quarryman in a Welsh rock mine. His handicap was compounded when he lost the sight of the other eye as the result of an accident while cleaving slate in the quarry.

At first despondent and despairing of ever again finding any meaning in life, he later rallied under the cheering influence and message of hope brought by the missionaries. With renewed faith and a determination to make the best of his condition, he developed and trained his remaining faculties to a high degree of sensitivity, especially his hearing and sense of direction. He trained his memory along with the power of association and

thus compensated in many ways for his tragic loss.

In Brigham City, with the help of others, he walked every street and pathway and memorized the layout of the whole town, remembering the location of every house and place of business.

Postmaster Eli Harvey Pierce and in later years Oliver G. Snow sorted the mail for him in proper order so that each piece could be memorized, associated with its owner, and delivered to its destination along the route. Before he died in the early 1890s he had been Brigham's postman for nearly 25 years.

The Unexpected Shipment During the years his father was manager of the Co-op store, Clem assisted in the store after school and on Saturdays. The store, located on the ground floor of the opera house, did a lively business in general merchandising. Saturday was the big day, and the store stayed open later to accommodate custo&s who came in to town from the outlying settlements to purchase supplies and to enjoy some reprieve from the drudgery and isolation of farm life.

On just such a busy Saturday afternoon a very unexpected thing happened and caught the settlers unprepared. It was the custom for one large barrel of whiskey to be shipped each year from Salt Brigham City Co-op, 189 1. A. W. Compton

Lake City to the Co-op store to be "dispensed prudently and with discretion in small portions for medicinal purposes." The Saints knew well the long-standing position of the Mormon church as to the use of strong drink of any kind, and it was assumed that it would not be used as a beverage.

Nevertheless, it was still considered an appropriate, if not officially sanctioned, frontier safeguard to have some on hand in the household for emergencies.

And so it was on that particular Saturday afternoon, a month before anyone expected it, that the drayman unloaded the annual barrel. Ordinarily word was sent out in advance so that the settlers could be there with a container to purchase their portion before it was all gone.

Clem signed the draybill and he and Tom Blackburn helped the drayman get it into the cellar. The whole operation had been observed by some of the customers in the store. The curiosity of one man from the North String settlement could not be restrained and a few questions soon drew out an admission from the clerks that there were "spirits in the barrel."

The news spread quickly, to the confusion and frustration of many who were in town for the day without suitable containers. The man from North String, confronted with the alternative of going all the way home and back or purchasing another Special Collections, Utah State Univemiv.

container on the spot, suddenly came up with an ingenious idea. One glass kerosene lamp at home had a perfectly good chimney but a cracked well.

He had been intending to buy a new glass well base for some time but had put it off. Now he could kill two birds with one stone, purchase the needed lamp well and have a suitable container to take his share of the "medicine" home.

The idea caught on, and before evening there had been a run on glass lamp wells, with a resulting shelf full of unsold matching chimneys. The traffic up and down the cellar steps had been heavy, and the barrel was almost empty an hour before closing time.

"I ran the spigot and Tom Blackburn handed me the empty lamp wells and gave the filled ones back to the customers. I paused for a moment to look up when there was some commotion on the stairs. There were several men in a line coming down the steps with empty lamps and a number in line going up with full lamps. At the top of the stairs, looking down on the whole business, was President Lorenzo Snow. He raised his cane and pointed to the men coming up the steps, counting them out loud. There were five. Recalling the biblical parable, he said, 'Aha, the five wise virgins all with their lamps filled, but with no chimneys. And you brethren with empty lamps will have to hustle or the bridegroom, at his coming, will find you like the five foolish virgins. Behold, the bridgroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.' He kind of smiled and went away chuckling to himself. I don't know whether or not he knew what was in the lamps, but I've been much obliged to him all my life that he never mentioned the matter again. We closed up for the night right after that."

Tablecloth Underwear "Sometime back, I guess it was the year after the woolen mill burned down, I remember there was a short supply of cloth and clothing," my father began another tale.

Under normal circumstances the home industries program recommended by the church would have provided for the clothing needs of each family. In earlier times, yarn would have been carded, spun, and made into cloth. For some time, however, many had come to depend on the Co-op for such commodities. In addition to the wool provided by the Co-op's herds of sheep, cotton was raised on a farm established by the United Order near St. George. After some processing it was brought to the woolen mill in Brigham City.

That particular season many of the ginned cot-

Wlliam C. (VCIm" Honky.

Courtesy of aufhor.

ton bales had been left in storage at the cotton farm four hundred miles south of Brigham. The quantities of spun thread hauled to headquarters could not be finished into cloth in time to meet the seasonal demand, in spite of the united effort of the Saints to rebuild their precious mill in less than a year.

Clem and his brother John had undershirts, but their drawers were worn out beyond reasonable patching. Their mother, Elizabeth, considered every way possible to keep her boys warm and modest for the winter months. When there was no more time left for planning and devising, enterprising imagination came to the rescue. Her parents had given her as a wedding present a fine linen tablecloth brought from the old country.

She had tried for several years to keep it for special occasions, but somehow it had sustained a bad tear in the middle. It would have to be sacrificed for the sake of two backsides. She skillfully cut from the material the makings of two pairs of drawers, oblivious to the decorative prints in the middle and at each end of the precious linen.

When they were finally sewn together into the finished product she presented each boy with his own linen drawers and assured them that any English gentleman would be proud to wear such quality linen underwear.

Both boys expressed some concern over the decorative print on the cloth but thanked their mother for her ingenuity and effort to provide for

their dire need. Not until they were alone in the bedroom putting on their new drawers did they discover the strange working of coincidence.

Precisely located on the engate, the backside flap of Clem's underwear, was a rose of exquisite design and detail. John, who was bent over laughing at his brother, exposed a derriere covered with a lovely cluster of grapes.

"Pshaw, what a humiliating thing. We were careful not to undress in front of the other boys the whole winter. We named mine 'the rose butt' and John's 'the grape buster.' Nobody in town looked forward to the rebuilding of the confounded woolen mills with better reason than ours."

Salt Lake Theatre. USHS collections.

Salt Lake Theatre Clem's fascination with the stage shows put on by the Dramatic Association of Brigham City increased with each visit to the opera house.

Actually, he was only an occasional attender at the theatricals since there was not always extra Co-op scrip available for the price of admission.

The local thespians put on a good show for amateurs, but an appetite for something better was gradually being whetted in the boy.

The fulfillment of his dream lay not so far in the future as he might have assumed. One Saturday afternoon his Uncle Harry, who ushered at the Salt Lake Theatre, came in on the train from the big city and stayed for two days, filling his ears with wonderful reports of the great classic plays and the renowned players who made them live on the Salt Lake stage.

Among America's stage greats of that day was the tragedian Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin. After his brother's _tragic involvement, Edwin had abandoned his career for a short time and had lived in temporary retirement from the stage. According to Uncle Harry, he was back again by popular demand, touring extensively and thrilling theater audiences all over the country, especially with his portrayal of Richard 111.

The 60-mile ride to Salt Lake on the train in response to Uncle Harry's invitation to "come stay overnight and attend the theater" was more exciting and rewarding than any journey of much greater distance in subsequent years. Clem, who had been to Salt Lake only once before in his life, had never seen the inside of the theater. It was one of the most imposing buildings of the city, and the posters and pictures on its great doors and front pillars stirred the onlooker with an inquisitive urge to discover what was concealed behind those doors. Actually, it was no secret that Brigham Young had spared nothing to provide theater at its best.

Uncle Harry's duties called him to the theater two hours before curtain time, and his young guest was ushered in without ticket or front door formalities through the stage door. Once inside, with two hours to wait before starting time, Clem had the run of the place. He wandered about, exploring first one area and then another. "What would it be like to sit in the president's box?' he said to himself. "What aboui the rooms where the actors get ready, and where do they store all the stuff?" Before it was time to take his place in the balcony, where Uncle Harry had found an unclaimed seat for him, he had satisfied his curiosity about such things and was anxious for the play to begin.

The fascination and wonder of it all was even more than he had anticipated, and it ended all too soon. Still, there was yet another surprise in store for him. After the last curtain call the final phase of the evening's theater labor really began. Stage crew and building personnel were all hustling to get the work done as soon as possible, and Clem had to jump spritely two or three times to keep out of the way.

After about an hour he felt a tap on the shoulder and Uncle Harry led him off stage to the star's dressing room. The door was slightly ajar and Edwin Booth, who was waiting for his carriage, asked them to come in. The actor seemed to be such a gentle and warm person, but after the formalities of introduction the young admirer was

still so overwhelmed by what was happening to him that he was at a loss to know what to say.

The best he could do was to ask the actor if he liked the Salt Lake Theatre.

Booth winked at Harry while he was pondering his answer. "Several years ago I told my friends that I liked to play the Salt Lake Theatre best of all because I could always be sure of a full house even if Brigham Young and his family were the only ones there."

Clem wasn't sure that he caught all the humor, but the amusement of the other two was contagious and he thought to himself, "I'll remember what he said," and he did so that he could tell the story time and again in the years to come.

Seltzer Salts Saints "I remember sometime back, in the late nineties, I guess it was, the brethren sent Brother J. Golden Kimball up to help us get the Mutual Improvement Association better organized in some of the smaller wards clear out in the valley.

He had been assigned for some time as one of the

general authorities working with the young people. He was about the best liked man in the church, but he had some shortcomings and was sometimes chided by the brethren when he wasn't too particular in his language. He was tall and lanky and spoke with a high-pitched, squeaky voice. If he'd had a wart on his face he'd have been about as handsome as Abraham Lincoln.

But there was nothing uppity or highfalutin about J. Golden, and he was a plain talker."

Just prior to the arrival of the visitor from headquarters there had been some concern throughout the church over the widespread and increasing use of seltzer salts as a remedy for stomach upset. Since it could be purchased in small bottles, many people had become accustomed to carrying it in purse or pocket for convenience. The fact that it contained a bromide qualified it as a sedative and as treatment for headaches.

Some were admittedly becoming addicted to its use, and it was at this point that instruction from Salt Lake had been received concerning the matter. It was strongly recommended that the people cease this pernicious habit and keep their bottles on the shelf of the cupboard, the contents "to be used sparingly and with judgement and skill."

Clem had had his bout with the seltzer bottle but had given up carrying it around with him in keeping with the admonition. Still, there were times when, for his stomach's sake, he wished he had a dose handy. In anticipation of just such a possibility, he decided to make an exception to his new rule and take the seltzer along on the overnight journey with Brother Kimball out to Snowville. The trip had to be made with horses and carriage and was a tiresome, all-day journey through desolate country.

The two men were accompanied by two ladies representing the women's branch of the MIA organization. In keeping with custom, the menfolks furnished the transportation and the ladies brought the food for a noon lunch. At about the halfway point in the journey Clem pulled off to the side of the road where they could take advantage of the shade of a lonely tree.

The meal was finished and they were preparing to resume their journey when one of the horses suddenly began to convulse. Very soon the animal was lying on the ground in the harness, writhing and groaning. In all his experience with horses, Clem had never before seen a case of colic to equal this one. In a matter of minutes it had bloated almost beyond belief.

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"That's the damndest thing I've ever seen," said Brother Kimball, remembering too late the presence of the ladies. He apologized immediately and the sisters nodded as though they assumed that such a predicament called for strong language.

After about an hour of waiting, with no apparent help coming on the road from either direction, Brother Kimball observed that the horse seemed to be in the last throes. One of the sisters suggested a word of prayer, and Clem agreed. He prayed not for a miracle but for the Almighty to give them the good sense to know what to do for the tormented beast.

In a few minutes it was clear that there was no change in the horse's condition, and the other horse was getting spooky in the harness with all the goings on. Clem said, "We can't dilly-dally another minute, we've got to do something."

With that he proceeded to unhitch the other horse and lead it away from its distressed teammate. As

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he brushed against the leg of the horse, he felt the seltzer bottle in his pocket and suddenly had an idea. Without attempting to justify it in the least, he took the bottle from his pocket and showed it to his companions. It might not be enough to do any good, but if, perchance, any of the others had a bottle too, that might do the trick. Brother Kimball happened to have one in his valise, and by strange coincidence each of the ladies was able to produce a bottle from her purse.

Using his leg for leverage, and by sheer exertion, Clem was able to hold up the horse's head and keep its mouth open while Brother Kimball poured the contents of the four seltzer bottles as far into the throat as possible and added all the water that was left to wash it down. Then they waited for a few minutes in anticipation of the combined results of meditation and medication.

"All at once there was a powerful eruption like the collapse of a big balloon, and the wind and the noise that went out of that horse was more than a fellow can talk about. He was up on his legs in no time. I hitched up the other horse, and we were on our way before he changed his mind again. He was stepping lively and we were already a good piece down the road before I realized I'd have to hold him in for the sake of the other horse.

"Everybody was quiet for a spell and then I remember Brother Kimball saying 'Hell, after what it did to that horse I'll never buy another damned bottle of seltzer again as long as I live.'

And come to think of it, I haven't either."

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I. Goden Kimball.

USHS coIIections.

This article was extracted from Oh Pshaw and Confound: Reminiscences of a Mormon Patriarch, a memoir of William Clements Horsley written by his son Dr. A. Burt Horsley of Provo.

Origna/ M d e k i lodge, a.1 900, in Big Coibnrmod b n y o n . Leh b right: his, kher R i d w d D.,h i e , Kenneih, mother Mary Hunt, and Julia Irene MmfieM; Alice Phelps; and Jennie hrstesen. Copy in USHS coIEgcti*ons.

Growing Up in Big Cottonwood Canyon

BY JOSlE M. REENDERS AND LOIS M. RECORE Our grandfather, R. D. Maxfield, migrated with his parents to Salt Lake Valley from Prince Edward Island. They were timber and sawmill men, so it was the natural thing for them, along with others, to turn to the canyons and set up mills. Every time a new mill was set up in Big Cottonwood Canyon it was named with a letter of the alphabet, starting with A and ending with G. Our father, R. D. Jr., fell in love with the site at Mill C. He homesteaded what became known as Maxfield Lodge.

We grew up in the canyon, and as children we named several canyon landmarks such as Storm Mountain. Whenever the peak became clouded over it always meant a storm, and all the cloudbursts came out of Storm Mountain Gulch. We gave Santa Claus Mountain its name, and we also named Hidden Falls in Mill B North Fork. Years ago very few people knew about this waterfall, as the road was far below and it required a climb to reach it. Gradually the names we gave these places became common usage in the canyon, and,

later, others worked to have them accepted officially.

During our many years in Big Cottonwood we met many people from all over the United States and foreign countries-from gracious Helen Hayes to stuffed shirt Gov. Thomas E. Dewey.

The people we remember the most, though, are the men who lived in the canyon or visited our home and who left in some small way their mark on our lives and the canyon.

Back in the days of the stagecoach, when they drove four-horse teams, ours was the stopping place to feed, water, and rest the horses and to let the passengers litter up our front yard with box lunches, paper, and string. According to the newspaper, these people were "The Upper Crust of Salt Lake Society." They were on their way to spend the summer in the "Cake Box, the Brook, or the Eagle's Nest" as the gossip columns pointed out.

It was, as noted, a natural thing for the Maxfields to be interested in sawmills and also in

mines. Grandfather and his brother found the float that later became the Maxfield Mine. His daughter Mary Ann ran the boarding house in South Fork where some 1,500 people lived at one time. They told us a story about the Chinese man who ran the laundry there. It seems he was a target for all the miners' jokes and teasing. In order to get even with them he would starch their LDS garments so stiff they could stand alone.

Argenta or the Maxfield Mine became the focal spot and was where most of the people in Big Cottonwood lived, other than Brighton. We found old newspapers bearing dates from 1858 to 1861 that had been used to paper a cabin at Argenta. The last cabin was torn down around 1940. We remember the elections when Father would serve as a judge. After the polls closed he would ride pel1 me11 to the Tribune with the results as if the entire outcome of the election rested on the Argenta voters.

Then came the building of the Stairs powerhouse, and with it a very colorful southern gentleman became a part of our lives. He was Thomas Morgan, the living image of an old Kentucky colonel. He walked with a slight limp from a wound he claimed to have received in fighting the Indians with Custer's army. He lived in a tent house at the lower end of our lot for several years.

He tended the weir for the power company. We have him to thank for giving us a love of good books. He loaned us such books as the Leatherstocking Tales, stories and histories of England, Kipling, Dickens, and many others.

After supper, when the dishes were washed and the cow milked, we would gather around Mother while she read these books to us.

Sometimes the only stopping was because the oil had burned low in our only lamp. We never knew anything about Mr. Morgan, his family, or his past. When he passed away no will was found, but a local law firm did find someone to share a sizable amount of money he had left.

A man that we have never forgotten was old Pete Neese. He came to live with us and on the side, in his spare time, to work a mining claim up Stair Gulch. We children would sit and listen to his stories of our mother, father, and grandfather Marshall Hunt, and great grandfather Capt.

Jefferson Hunt of Company A, Mormon Battalion. Pete and his sister were left orphans and came under the protection of Captain Hunt.

Many years later Jefferson Hunt married Pete's sister, so we looked upon him as a relative. He loved to drink a little, and as his money was always in short supply he looked to Father to more or less provide his whiskey. Whenever Mother and Father went to town it meant being gone for several days, and enough supplies were brought back to last weeks or months. The fivegallon demijohn was empty, and Pete had seen it go into the wagon. Mother, however, had insisted on vinegar instead of whiskey. When the folks drove into the yard, Pete was willing and eager to help unload the wagon. He saw to it that the demijohn would go in the house on the first trip.

He was dry and had anticipated a drink for so long! He uncorked the demijohn, lifted it up, and let 100 proof vinegar run down his throat. It almost killed him, and the look of utter amazement was a never-to-be forgotten sight. Father laughed, but Pete took it as downright treason that Father hadn't brought whiskey.

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Santa Ckrus Mountain near Maxfield Lodge, Big Cottonwood Canyon. USHS colledions.

Sam McNutt' in doorway, and Bilk Schaaf at the former's homestead beiween the Maxfield place and the S turn in Big Coifonwood Canyon.

USHS collections.

Tom Elsey was a quaint old character. He would come to our place and Mother would invite him to stay and eat with us. All he would do was complain about women-how he couldn't abide them. He lived in a part cave and dugout in the lower part of the canyon. Before eating he would always wipe his plate with his shirt sleeve, which was so caked with dirt it had gone slick; and then he would tell Mother all women were dirty, that's why he never married.

A neighbor who had homesteaded east of our place was Sam McNutt. It fell to our lot to take fresh-baked bread, a quart of milk, or a glass of jelly to him. He had built a part dirt and part tent house. Whenever father missed a tool he would go up to Sam's to find it, no hard feelings. Samwould come to our house with his fiddle; it was never called a violin. After a few drinks he would start to play "Pop Goes the Weasel," which was one of our favorites. Father would step-dance to an Irish jig. Sam proved up on his homestead, but in his late years he was committed to the State Mental Hospital where he passed away. Years later we learned that he had deserted his family and had two sons somewhere in the West.

Dean Byron Cummings and the Judd boys* were mining up Mill B South Fork. They had a cabin at Lake Blanche. It was through Dean Cummings we met several Smithsonian men who "Probably Neil M. Judd and Dell B. Judd, both University of Utah students in the early 1900s. In his reminiscence, Men Met along the Trail: Adventures in Archaeology (1968), the distinguished archaeologist Neil Judd called Cumminrrs "one of the most influential men in my life." See the article on Dean Cunlmings elsewhere in this issue of Beehive History. Cummings and the Judds may have been more interested in the geology of this area than in mining per se.

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came to Utah to study the glacial age which is so well defined in Mill B South Fork. We remember how Dean Cummings would start out on the run from our place and how quickly he could make it to the lake.

Regulator Johnson was another man always on the run. When we children first met him, we were frightened. His face had been disfigured, and parts of his hands had been blown off by an explosion. He always wore kid gloves, dressed in black, and wore a gold watch chain. Some say he gained the name of Regulator because he was always on time. He was mining up Mineral Fork.

When fall came we had to move either to Salt Lake or into the countryside south of the city so we could go to school. Father hired a little Englishman who had cooked at various mines to stay and take care of our place. The following summer he was still with us. His name was Archie Gray. Mother wouldn't let him cook after she had the kitchen cleaned up, so he did odd jobs for his board and room. We had an old gray horse that at one time had been a racehorse. Mother was planning to drive to Murray and call on some of her friends. One of them wanted wood ashes [probably for making soap]. She was taking another one fresh eggs and someone else chokecherry jelly. Father was leaving for several days, and Mother questioned Archie's ability to hitch up the old gray mare. Father said, "Sure he knows how." So the day came. Mother dressed in her best. All her gifts were packed, and Archie brought the buggy and horse across the bridge.

We all waved her out of the yard and watched her until she was out of sight. About thirty minutes later here came Mother, furious! The old gray mare had run away. Archie hadn't put the holdback straps on properly and instead of keeping the

buggy away from the horse, the buggy kept running into the animal. She had gotten through the cut in the mountain (it was much higher than it is now), and as she started down the steep Stairs grade, the old gray mare heard another horse back of her. A light buggy, it was driven by Willie Green, the bad boy of the canyon. He carried the mail and drove as if the devil were tied to his coattails. The sound of another horse was all the old gray needed. She was back on the racetrack.

Seconds later, because of the way the buggy had been hitched up, horse, buggy, and Mother lay on the road. Mother had only her dignity hurt, but both she and the horse were one mess of eggs, jelly, and ashes.

Father also hired Arnold Bollinger who had lost his arm above the elbow in a gun accident at the old paper mill. He was a young chap and could outwork the average man with two arms.

He loved to fish. Never a day went by that he didn't catch over his limit. We couldn't use all of them, and Father told him to stop taking so many as the stream would soon be fished out. He still fished and gave away his catches to anyone that wanted trout. He was a well-known canyon character.

In those days herds of sheep and cattle were still driven up the canyon to find summer forage.

We had to stand out along the road to keep the sheep from eating and running over the garden Father had planted. After five thousand sheep had

losie M. Reenders, lefi, and her sister Lois M. Recore on h e bridge by h e original Maxfield lodge.

USHS collections.

gone by we looked like gray ghosts. The teamsters with just the running gears of their wagons plodded through at least three feet of dust. These were the men who logged out of the canyon.

No place is immune from tragedy, sickness, supernatural experiences, or even death. Before we children were born, a slide in Mill D South Fork killed a man, his wife, and their five children. Grandfather Maxfield had warned Mr. Taggart to get his family out of South Fork. He didn't take the warning seriously. There had never been a slide there, and he wasn't afraid. The slide happened at night when all were in bed. When the cabin was reached by rescuers the clock was still ticking. The seven bodies were moved to the South Cottonwood Ward, and several men were asked to sit up all night with them. In order to fortify themselves, liquid refreshments were brought in. Poor Mr. Taggart's knees would not stay down, so the story goes. It was suggested that someone sit on them. When Mr. Taggart's knees were thus depressed, his body flew up and hit the man in the back. You can imagine the results: in the dim light of the candles some very scared men huddled together.

Another sad event took place in our early days. We remember Father remarking what a pitch black night it was. He decided to leave a lantern lit and hung it on the back of a wagon just in case someone were lost or needed help. About 1:00 a.m., when all were sleeping soundly, Mother heard someone calling. Upon opening the door, Mother and Father found a young couple with a baby. The baby was ill, and on the advice of their doctor they had taken it to Brighton. The baby had gotten so much worse that they decided to go home. They had been hours getting to our place. When they saw the lantern they came to see if they could stay until daylight. Mother took the baby and discovered it had passed away.

Mother washed and dressed the infant, and then they placed it in a box. Father and two other men took the infant outside where it was cooler and spent the rest of the night fending off mountain rats.

There were no boys in our family until most of the girls were grown. So we took the place of boys whenever Father was short of men. On one such occasion coal was needed, so Father sent Lois to Murray with a team and wagon for coal and oil. By the time the return trip came it was late afternoon. In that time of year the road became very icy around the curve where the huge icicles form. When the spot was reached, with the first step on the ice the horses started to slip and

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slide and would go no further. A prayer w heavenward for help to get those horses and load over the ice. Upon openin saw a man standing by the inside horse's with gentle coaxing and guiding he led t the ice. He was gone again befo thank him. She saw no other wagon or horses an never saw the man again.

Picnics were the great and outst in our young lives. People would city in buggies or surries and spre on the ground. When it came home, no attempt would be made take back the huge amount of foo prepared. So after they left we raid the spot to see what remained. W e have lugged home on a Sunday afternoon enough clean, unused food to last our family a week. In some cases, not even the silverware or dishes would be picked up. We have picked up as many as seven loaves of bread, a ten-pound roast of beef or pork, whole watermelons and hosts of other good things-like manna from heaven.

Perhaps it was the Lord's way of paying Mother back for all the meals she cooked and gave away.

No one ever left our place hungry. Marly a lriirler ate on his way out of the canyon wlth a promise to see that she would be remembered only to have him come back broke and needing another meal, and our hopes for a box of store candy would go glimmering.

For several years after the advent of the automobile we were not in the canyon. When Mother and Father passed away, we returned to see what we could do with our place. We were forced to serve meals, as so many people asked us to.

Before we knew it we were in business. During the years that followed we were too busy to know much about our neighbors except one. He came to our place and made it his source of supplies.

He was mining up Mill C North Fork or Mule Gulch. We hauled groceries and black powder for him from the city. He had only two topics of conversation, rellgion and rocks. We never heard him speak of his family. When he became ill a police officer took over his affairs. After he died we learned that Andy Anderson was an assumed name. For Andy and others Big Cottonwood Canyon was a refuge; for u s it was always "up home."

The late Mrs. Reenders and Mrs. Recore prepared t h i ~reminiscence for family members several decades ago. It has been edlted for publication by their niece, Miriam B. Murphy.

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ron Cummings, ~ S S Scholar ~ C ~ Iand Father of University Athletics

BY WALTER A. KERR

Byron Cummings was born at Westville, New York, September 20, 1860, the youngest of seven children of M o s e s a n d R o x a n a Headley Cummings. His father, a Union soldier, was killed during the Civil War. After graduating from the Oswego Normal School In 1885, Byron entered Rutgers College, one of the most outs t a n d ~ n ginstitutions of that day, receiving his A.B. degree in 1889, and his A.M. degree in 1892. In following years h e studied at t h e University of Chicago (1896) and the University of Berlin (1910-11) and then went on to receive his LL.D. from the University of Arizona in 1921 and his Sc.D. from Rutgers College in 1924.

Cummings leaned the fundamentals of school teaching in the public schools of New York and in the Rutgers Preparatory School. He came to the University of Utah in 1893 as instructor in Latin and Greek. A series of promotions raised him to assistant professor, 1894-95; professor, 18951915; dean, school of arts and sciences, 1905-15; and dean of the medical school, 1910-11.

Fate never did a better service for athletics in Utah than when Byron Cummings came to the university. To many, a professor of Greek would seem far remote from college athletics; however, as an admirer of classical Greek ideals, Cummings combined a love for athletics and a love for culture. He considered the development of one's body as vital as the development of one's intellect. He personified the ancient Greek scholar and citizen. He would have liked to have been a discus thrower or a marathon runner, but his small frame forbade it. Nevertheless, he liked to appear on the athletic field in homemade football togs and running pants. In 1898 students arranged a race between Cummings and a student, Nelson Dickerman. Of course, the professor was no match for his tall, agile opponent, but with true sportsmanship the two participants were able to joke about this interesting race, fifty years after its occurrence, at a reception given by Neil Judd in Washington, D.C.

Cummings organized the Athletic Association of the University of Utah in 1894 and served as its first treasurer. From 1894 until 1910 he was actively engaged in the athletic program. Each year he was among the first to -pay his dues, to make liberal contributions to the athletic fund, and to aid athletes and other students in need of financial help.

When the University of Utah moved to the east bench in 1900 Cummings and Coach Harvey R. Holmes led the movement to plow and level the football field and, later, to enclose it. Prior to this time the townspeople had been able to watch the games free from the sidelines. At the new campus it was not unusual to see the professor walking along the sidelines with a little black leather bag into which the spectators put the admission fee. Ultimately, Cummings dismissed his Latin and Greek classes and led his students to the athletic field where he gave them hammers, nails, and lumber, and joined them in building the fence enclosure.

When the Athletic Association had financial problems Cummings was the first to help solve them. On June 6, 1900, he wrote to the Board of Regents: "The Athletic Association has struggled hard for the past few years to build up healthful athletic sports. They have fenced and prepared the athletic field and have maintained teams against great discouragement. The expense in bringing the Nevada team here was $275. The attendance at the meet was rather small. We find ourselves without means to meet the $275 necessary to pay the expenses for the Nevada team.

We respectfully request that the Board of Regents advance the $275 and wait until our association can reimburse them." The money was advanced and paid back.

Cummings encouraged interclass games, and through him, also, Harvey R. Holmes, the university's first paid coach, was brought to the campus.

In 1901 Cummings awarded the first silver U and crimson sweaters to the football team, and in 1902 a beautiful silver and crimson pennant was hung in the library building, his gift to the team that won the interclass meet. Cummings continued to serve as a member of the Executive Committee of the Athletic Association for many years and as faculty representative to that organization from its inception until 1910. It was especially fitting then, that the University of Utah student newspaper, the Chronicle, should name him "The Father of Athletics."

Like the Greeks, Dean Cummings also was interested in civic and religious affairs and was a

Cummings Field,

devoted and active member of the Presbyterian church. He was a prominent member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, 1902-10; of the Utah State Park Commission, 1909-15; and of the managing board, School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He sponsored a Boy's Home Club in Sugar House, and for this service the boys presented him with a beautiful gold medal. Cummings Field at the U. was named in his honor sometime around 1902-3.

Despite his influence in civic and athletic affairs, Professor Cummings made his mark in the world in other endeavors. After the U. had relocated on the east bench he was given a small office in what was known as the library building.

There, in 1906, he taught his first classes in archaeology. Soon his office became the gathering place for students, who told him of countless prehistoric ruins in southeastern Utah, mounds near Willard, artifacts on the flat land near Plain City, and the great mounds near Paragonah. He learned of the many box canyons in southeastern Utah with their hundreds of cliff dwellings, and he knew that in prehistoric times the valleys of Utah had prospered with Indian communities.

His first venture in Utah archaeology, according to Neil Judd, one of his students, was a brief horse and buggy trip in the summer of 1906 through Nine Mile Canyon on the northern border of Carbon County. That particular holiday may have been prompted by student descriptions of cliff dwellings and petroglyphs, or by Henry Montgomery's paper, "Prehistoric Man in Utah."

In either case, the chance to visit Nine Mile Canyon won a champion for Utah's prehistory.

Thereafter, as long as he remained on the faculty, Cummings dedicated each summer to archaeological work, with the exception of those spent in Europe (1910 and 1911).

The summer vacation of 1907 was an especially fruitful one. Neil Judd, Malcolm Cummingsthe professor's son, and one or two others made up an exploring party to the White Canyon natural bridges in San Juan County, Utah. According to Judd, the trip to the San Juan country was extremely difficult. The party left the train at Thompson Springs and "travelled by a four-horse freight wagon a day and a half to the cable ferry at Moab; thence two more days to Monticello."

There was no auto road from Monticello to Bluff, so the trip was made on horses and mules. The men found cliff dwellings and ruins in great abundance. In early September, when they camped on the site of present-day Blanding on their way back to Monticello, a lone sheepherder's wagon, parked beside a juniper proclaimed the town's beginning. The White Canyon bridges had been known by cattlemen for some time, but they first attracted national attention in 1903 and 1905. The Cummings' party located the bridges and other points of interest and furnished the data to the General Land Office. The report of Cummings and the material sent by him was a deciding factor in President Theodore Roosevelt's proclaiming Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah.

Each summer the Cummings' expeditions returned to the campus with dozens of boxes filled with Indian artifacts. In all the excavations Cummings was very careful not to lose a single bit of broken vase or bowl; everything was collected. Later, in his office, he could be seen putting the hundreds of bits of pottery together.

Many of the beautiful bowls in the University of Utah collection were put together by his skillful hands.

The Cummings' exploratory expeditions were not pleasure trips. They meant hard work, selfsacrifice, often a mile or two walk from camp to

the excavations, and "eight hours or so on the shovel," dragging oneself along sandy Indian trails over the roughest hills, crossing treacherous quicksand, and climbing to almost inaccessible sandstone cliff dwellings.

Money allotted for archaeological work by the state legislature was very limited. Although Cummings received money from friends (Col. E. A. Wall was a most generous contributor), he accepted much of the financial responsibility himself, and, "he shouldered an additional chore."

Although he was an exceptionally competent cook, cooking over an open frre for a dozen men was not an easy undertaking. Then, too, the dean was never one to ask for assistance. If student companions were not sufficiently adult enough to see when water and wood were needed, he fetched them himself. On top of all this, night and morning he had to "suffer the camp jesters," in spite of his perfect dutch oven biscuits and delicious fried potatoes and coffee.

Many have wondered why Dean Cummings and his immediate successor did not write more of the scientific facts of these early expeditions.

When asked once, he replied: "I am anxious to get as much for our museum as I can before the large eastern schools fill their museums with our material. Writing can be done later. I say let's get what we can before it is too late." His later prolific writing justified this attitude. Neil Judd explained it in another way, however: "Only a life too filled with service for others repeatedly postponed the writing of those more detailed papers on special features promised in his first pamphlet, The Great Natural Bridges of Utah."

During his lifetime, Cummings was a member of many scientific and educational societies and fraternities, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Anthropological Association, the American Geographical Association, the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the Arizona

Owachomo Bridge, Natural Bridges National Monument. USHS collections.

Archaeological and Historical Society, Delta Upsilon, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi. His name appeared in scholarly biographical dictionaries. A letter from Neil Judd, dates July 11, 1954, describes other accomplishments of Cummings: "He was leader of the party that discovered Betatakin, Inscription House, and other famous Arizona ruins now administered by the National Park Service. He was leader of the National Geographic Society expedition that laid bare the lava-covered pyramid of Cuicuilco, in the Valley of Mexico, 1924-25. His major archaeological contribution was at Kinishba, a great ruin on the Apache reservation, Arizona . . . ."

Cummings married Isabel McLaury, August 12, 1896. The young, attractive eastern bride adapted herself to the new community life and became an efficient, intelligent, and active Salt Lake City clubwoman. Malcolm, their only child, accompanied his father on many of his archaeological expeditions. Isabel died November 11, 1929. On October 17, 1947, Dean Cummings married Ann Chatham, who had first told him of the extensive pueblo ruins of Kinishba, the excavation and exploration of which he supervised.

The publication of his last two books also was greatly due to her help and encouragement.

From 1915 until 1953 he contributed many articles of archaeological value too numerous to mention. His three books, Kinishba, a Prehistoric Pueblo of the Great Period (1940); Indians I Have Known (1952); and First Inhabitants of Arizona and the Southwest (1953), constitute a great scholarly contributl'on to southwestern archaeology. The latter volume, published on the eve of his ninety-third birthday, was a wonderful climax to a richly spent life.

Byron Cummings, director emeritus of the Arizona State Museum, died May 21, 1954, at Tucson at the age of 93. Retired from administrative work at the age of 86, he had served as a teacher for over 50 years, 22 of which he taught at the University of Utah and the remaining years at the University of Arizona.

The late Professor Kerr taught French and German at the University of Utah during 1910-47. As a student he had studied Latin with Cummings, and later the two men became intimate friends. He often helped Cummings sort and reassemble pottery fragments. Kerr served for 21 years as chairman of the U. Athletic Council, which Cummings had organized and led for many years. Kerr's tribute to Cummings was originally published in volume 23 (1955) of Utah Historical Quarterly. The Beehive History version has been edited slightly.

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Peery's Egyptian Theater, washinston ... . Boulevard, ' Ogden. USHS ~r&ervation OKce photograph. ,,

The Egyptian Theater Brought an Exotic Look to Downtown Ogden

BY FRED AEGERTER, PAT COMARELL, AND DAVID HAWS The motion picture palaces of the late 1910s and 1920s were designed to make the place one viewed movies as exciting and memorable as the movie itself. This idea grew out of the City Beautiful Movement. Spawned by the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, it sought to brighten the urban environment by creating parks and open spaces, widening streets, erecting classical edifices, and constructing thoroughfares. The key concept was that magnificent buildings and open spaces should be designed to make the ordinary person feel like John D. Rockefeller.

The main patrons of the movies in the early 20th century were blue collar workers who went to a show two or three times a week. For 25 cents the movie palaces gave working people a chance to see something beautiful. Every aspect of the theater provided an escape from the cares of the day. As you stepped inside you had a sense of something special, of entering another world. In the auditorium the movies did not just begin.

First, the lights dimmed. Neon lights created a colorful sunset, and the stars above began to twin-

kle as music from the Wurlitzer organ set the mood. Then came the newsreel, the cartoon, and finally the movie.

Peery's Egyptian Theater at 2439 Washington Boulevard in Ogden was built at the height of a construction boom in movie palaces nationwide.

Its Egyptian Revival style of architecture--one of many exotic styles employed in movie palaceswas inspired by the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in Egypt in 1922.

Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California, was probably the most famous Egyptian Revival movie palace in the country, but others were constructed in such places as Boise, Idaho; Coos Bay, Oregon; and Park City, Utah, as well as Ogden. The 1920s movie palaces represent the last flowering of these exotic styles.

The desire of Letitia H. Peery and her sons Louis and Harmon, for Ogden to have a movie palace led to much study, work, and travel for the Peerys and their architects-Leslie S. Hodgson and Myrle A. McClenahan. In a 1978 interview Mrs. Harmon Peery reminisced about spending an

entire day in Chicago trying out theater seats to determine which kind to use in the Egyptian. For their part, Hodgson and McClenahan (who had formed a partnership in 1920) made several trips to Hollywood to examine Grauman's Egyptian Theater and also undertook extensive studies of Egyptian architecture and ornamentation. Under the supervision of F. Berne, the general contractor, Peery's Egyptian Theater was completed in less than a year at a cost of $250,000.

The night of the theater's grand opening, July 3, 1924, marked one of downtown Ogden's most memorable events. Tickets for the grand opening and special program cost $1.00 plus a war tax (still in force). Those fortunate enough to obtain a ticket for the gala evening first encountered the ornate facade of the building "which included two sculpted Egyptian deities and nobles, sitting in the lotus position on the roof of the structure. Cradled between their legs were baskets [or bowls] from which wisped lighted steam." Above the marquee statuary, papyrus columns, bundled reed moldings, etched and painted hieroglyphics, and winged serpent and scarab reliefs vied for visual attention. This brilliant, polychromic terra-cotta was produced by N. Clark and Sons of San Francisco.

The flat wall surfaces of the exterior were scored to imitate massive blocks of smooth-faced, coursed ashlar. The entrance, foyer, and lobby areas continued the coursed ashlar theme. The coffered ceilings afforded increased surface area for unique stencil decorations and free-hand hieroglyphic reproductions. Throughout these areas and into the auditorium bright colors and exotic images alluded to the time of the pharaohs, Nile barges, and nubile Egyptian maidens. The allusion was so complete that many at the time of the theater's construction believed the Egyptian was a reproduction of authentic Egyptian architecture. Of course, the theater's management encouraged that belief. The program produced for the grand opening called the theater "one of the few pure Egyptian structures of the western hemisphere ....almost an exact reproduction of the court of an ancient Egyptian temple."

T h e wall paintings and decoration by Claussen-Nehring and Company of Salt Lake City gave the interior of the theater its great dramatic interest. Signage marking exits, restrooms, etc., was done in a fanciful "Egyptian" script.

The ritual of the sun god worshippers inspired the decorative treatment of both inner and outer walls and column surfaces. Kings, queens, and nobles were shown in mural panels and described

by hieroglyphics that told of love, war, adventure, and death. Sculptured panels on the ticket booth represented a sunrise and Egyptian deities such as Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys.

The auditorium-built at "an.incline to allow an excellent view of the proscenium from any seat in the housew-was designed to replicate a temple courtyard of the type constructed by Theban nobles ca. 1350 B.C. On either side of the stage were giant "stone" gods (matching the roof statuary) cradling a bowl in their crossed legs. From these bowls wisped clouds of lighted steam. A cloud machine, mounted in the center of the interior flashed clouds across the sky. These special effects followed the musical mood created by the organ. The proscenium area was flanked by colorful pillars, with an identical set located beyond the orchestra area. Next to the outer pillars, above the exits on the side walls, small balconies had brightly striped canvas canopies stretching out over giant iron spears (one covered an unusual theater instrument, a piano).

Without a doubt, the most memorable aspect of the theater's interior was the atmospheric sky.

Small electric lights on the domed, royal blue ceiling twinkled like stars. Indirect lighting could create the illusion of the daily cycle, beginning with dawn and progressing to darkest night. The Standard-Examiner compared the theater to a treasure chest: "The architect...has studded the interior with jewel lights that gleam and glow red, amber and blue from above, a sunburst cluster spread in opalescent effulgence, their radiant tones punctuated with brilliant primary color blend."

The theater offered two unusual accommodations for patrons, a smoking lounge for men and a soundproof crying room, complete with a bath, where mothers could take noisy children and still view and hear the movie.

The opening night guests entering the movie palace and the ceremonies themselves were filmed. George Glen acted as master of ceremonies, and LDS Bishop George E. Browning gave the principal dedicatory address. Browning praised the Peerys and called the theater a fitting monument to husband and father David H. Peery who had done so much for Ogden. The theater was built on the site of his first Ogden home.

Mayor P. F. Kirkendall expressed hope that the new theater was "the first step toward a city beautiful." James H. Devine, president of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, discussed the beauty of the architecture and explained that it was almost a perfect replica of a temple one might

have seen on the banks of the Nile centuries ago.

The program progressed with a demonstration of the atmospheric sky. This was followed by several solos by the nationally known organist Franz Rath of Denver who had come to Ogden for the grand opening and a two-week engagement at the theater. A quartet of singers and the Lockwood Syncopators also performed. Zane Grey's Wanderer of the Wasteland was the motion picture feature with Rath at the organ.

The organ, which added so much to the entire feeling and enjoyment of moviegoers, was a Wurlitzer Hope-Jones pipe organ. The instrument was housed in special chambers above the proscenium arch, and the music emerged from ornamen-

The Peery brothen Yarmon, leh, and Louis.

From a Peery's Egyptian Theater program in USHS collections.

tal grills. A ten-rank organ with two manuals, it could produce percussion effects, including chimes, xylophone, glockenspiel, bells of all kinds, and drums. The theater management claimed it could create "the music of a full symphony orchestra." An echo organ matching the tonal quality of the large organ was installed in the rear of the theater above the mezzanine.

The large projection booth contained two Simplex projectors (the newest technology of that era), a stereopticon, and an electric spotlight for additional stage lighting. The huge switches that produced the varied electric lighting effects in the theater-particularly the multicolored effects upon the sky dome ceiling-were also located in the projection booth. Electricity for the projection booth was generated on the premises.

Safety was a paramount concern of the Peerys.

Reinforced concrete construction gave strength to the building. On February 19, 1924, some five months before the grand opening, the reinforced

concrete roof was subjected to a test many times more severe than it would ever experience. Some 70,000 pounds of gravel was placed directly over the big trusses, deflecting them only one-quarter of an inch. The building was also fireproof. As a special precaution, if a fire broke out in the projection room (film was still flammable then) metal curtains would instantly slide over the windows of the booth to cut it off from the auditorium.

With the grand opening over, ticket prices were set at 50 cents for general admission and 15 cents for children. Paramount Pictures classified the Egyptian as a demonstration theater, meaning it would be the home of first-run movies and several world premiere attractions. Upcoming feature films included The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Lon Chaney, Men featuring Pola Negri, The Fighting Coward produced by James Cruz, and Manhandled with Gloria Swanson.

In 1928 Movietone equipment was installed to enable the Egyptian to show Fox Films "talkies."

In the 1950s advances in motion picture technology produced Cinemascope, which required a wider screen and the removal of two of the pillars flanking the proscenium.

Following the death on January 25, 1961, of Harmon Peery, the last living child of David H. Peery, the Peery estate sold the theater. In December 1978 the Egyptian was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In April 1982 the Ogden City Landmarks Commission also designated it as a historic resource. It continued as a movie theater until July 1985.

When the theater was threatened with demolition, Ogden residents, particularly the Weber County Heritage Foundation, rallied to save it. It is the only "atmospheric" theater known to exist in the Intermountain West and one of only two in the United States. It is the last of Ogden's five large movie houses still standing and one of no more than 12 remaining Egyptian Revival movie palaces in the U.S. Although the building is not open to the public at the time of this writing, it will be renovated as part of the new Ogden Conference and Performing Arts Center to be built in 1994. The Egyptian will become the home of Weber State University's Utah Musical Theater, and its unique architecture will remain part of the state's cultural heritage.

This article was extracted from The Egyptian Theater: A History written by Mr. Aegerter, Ms. Comarell, and Mr. Haus in 1988 for the Ogden City Landmarks Commission.

My Grandmother's Cabinet

BY LAVON B. CARROLL

In every child's life there is an object of special significance; it takes on a life of its own-a mystique that reverberates in memory. Such an object for me was my grandmother's cabinet.

My grandparents, Albert John and Ada Jane Mellor Adams, lived in a small log house purchased for $300 in 1900, the second year of their marriage. When I came to know it, it was one of the oldest and shabbiest dwellings in Alpine, Utah. In the 1940s its shell was hauled to my aunt's barnyard where it served as a stable.

The cabinet stood on the west wall of the main room which had been built of rough, chinked logs in the old pioneer style. The inside walls had been plastered, and in the main room they were covered halfway with a yellow brown oilcloth. Most of the activity of my grandparents' life for nearly 40 years went on in this room-16 feet wide by little more than 18 feet long-about the size of an average living room today.

It was mainly furnished with a stove, table and chairs, cupboard, and bed, all of which had been purchased for $98. (My aunt has the receipt.)

They added a few other things such as my grandmother's New Weed sewing machine and the cabinet grandfather purchased before their marriage.

The cabinet stood much higher than I did when I first became aware of it, so in my memory it remains much more imposing than it now appears in my Aunt Jen's (Jennie Adams Wild) living room. The cabinet had three sections, and the center, proportionately the widest, extended about four and a half feet wide by about five feet tall. The whole of it, including the clock, soared to over six feet! Where it had not been gilded or mirror-paneled, it was painted a smooth dove gray.

My grandfather, the story goes, sold potatoes to a Dutch cabinetmaker in Salt Lake City who, my aunt says, made the cabinet out of the large wooden boxes in which smaller match boxes were shipped. Inspired by castles he remembered in the old country and the Salt Lake Temple, the cabinetmaker showed a rudimentary sense of good design which he embellished with a curious little scroll saw attached to the post-rod from a

a

sewing machine. It s o happened that t h e Dutchman had five daughters and hoped to marry one of them off to Grandpa. He had made five cabinets, one for each daughter, as part of her dowry; but this, by report, was the prettiest, and he let Grandpa have it for about $20 worth of potatoes. He did not succeed in making a match, but I like to think he did not regret parting with his masterpiece.

The main part of the central section was a cupboard with two long doors which, in the beginning, were paneled with mirrors mounted in delicate scrollwork. One of these, broken before my time, was replaced by a calendar showing a pretty, chubby little girl sitting in a wheelbarrow of roses. The other mirror had grown yellow and

Ada Jane Mellor Adams and Albert John Adams.

Courtesy of author.

splotchy, but it still looked elegant with its fringe of wooden curls and gilded tassels.

Atop this cupboard was a long, curlicueencrusted drawer with lacy knobs that were once handles used to turn the wicks in coal oil lamps up and down. At this point the cabinet-maker might have ended his work, producing a good, serviceable chest; but some flight of the imagination possessed him, and what might have been a mere piece of furniture became an allegory.

First, he added a miniature cupboard with the inevitable mirrored doors. These were draped with elegant swags, the inspiration of which, Aunt Jen says, were the curtains in the old Salt Lake Theatre. The whole was crowned with a delicate wooden filigree. This part did not extend quite to the edge of the main cabinet top and thus formed a dim recess beneath it. This, too, was lined with a mirror at the back so that, when I grew tall enough, I could look at myself and imagine that, like Alice in Wonderland, I was in some mysterious realm. The top of this smaller cupboard became a platform upon which the old pendulum clock with its spidery roman numeral face sat in unchallenged supremacy over everything and everybody in the room. My great-grandfather Adams had walked, carrying the clock, from Salt Lake City to Alpine when my grandfather, who later inherited it, was five years old. Like the

clock in the song, it stayed with him all his life.

However it did not stop with his death at the age of 92 but still strikes the hours atop the cabinet.

On either side of the main part of the cabinet the Dutchman had built smaller cupboards, set back from the main facade and plainer in design, perhaps to offset the frivolity of the rest. They, too, had mirrored doors. The alcoves above them resembled miniature baroque ballrooms. They were supported by slender gilt columns, framed in wooden lace and fenced with gilded spearheads.

Inside, against one of the mirrored surfaces, a carved golden angel poised on one of the pickets blew eternally on a thin golden trumpet.

These niches supported small drawers level with, and matching in miniature design, the long center one. Above them two smaller alcoves, echoing the lower one, soared upward beyond the center platform to half the height of the clock.

They had fancy railings and gilded posts.

In this room where all the other pieces of furniture bore the mark of bare necessity, extended poverty, and age, the cabinet presided like an impoverished, eighteenth-century aristocrat.

Classical, yet delicate in design, its fanciful ornamentation defied both its age and situation. Its appearance of well-bred elegance was deceptive, however, for it was an exceedingly versatile piece of furniture with an amazing capacity for storage.

It contained, I believe, something of every part of my grandparents' lives and personalities.

In the main cabinet Grandma kept her scant, but beautifully ironed and mended, linens along with the more intimate items of her meager wardrobe. Behind these, in a secret compartment, was another set of drawers where valuable docu-

The author at her grandparents' home in Alpine, Utah, ca. 1936.

ments were kept. The long drawer above held myriad things but mainly stationery, stamps, pens, ink, and odd pieces of paper salvaged from other letters and advertisements and carefully ironed for future use. Paper, like so many other things in those times, was scarce. My grandmother wrote items for the local newspaper in her fine, spidery handwriting, "vital statisticsw-births, deaths, marriages and community events of significance.

The shelf held many transient objects, but permanent residents there were my grandfather's shaving stand and mug and two ornate kerosene lamps that lighted the room softly at night.

The small cupboard in the center top section was the sacristy. Here were the precious souvenirs of the life of Ada Jane Mellor Adamshair flowers of children and relatives, including a little girl who had died; a tiny purse made of two thin shells brought from England; and the miniature high-buttoned shoes made by my greatgrandfather Mellor who had been a skilled pattern-maker in a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts. Many other objects kept there, intrinsically valuable-like the gold watch on a long chain--or not, could only be viewed or handled on very special occasions. In one small drawer Grandmother kept beautiful handkerchiefs, neatly ironed and smelling faintly of some strange, enchanting scent. It was the age before Kleenex when carrying a pretty handkerchief was a mark of gentility.

In the small cupboards at the lower sides my grandmother stored items of her true vocationher rolls of hand-cut patterns, bundles of cloth, clamps for the quilting frames, and the curious wool carders, small boards with handles full of needles for combing the wool out very fine. The thing I liked best was a box full of embroidery designs perforated on paper. When placed on cloth and rubbed with blue powder, the design was printed onto the cloth. Grandmother patiently printed these time after time on paper for me to color with crayons or on dishtowels for me to labor at with embroidery thread.

The large alcoves held stacks of magazines and papers such as Comfort, the Relief Society Magazine, the Farm Journal, the American Fork Citizen. My grandmother was an avid reader; my dad said she should have been doing her housework instead, but I was glad she understood my love of reading and encouraged me. She did not like to talk about things very much and would be impatient if I asked too many questions, but she always had something for me to read and some sort of paper smoothed out for me to write on.

She praised everything I did.

Sometimes she let me play with my paper dolls in the alcoves, imagining them to be rooms with mirrored walls in a fabulous palace. I had not heard of the Hall of Mirrors in the great palace of Versailles then, but when I saw it years later I felt that somehow I had been there before.

The light was kinder in the alcoves and I would study my face to see if I were going to be beautiful or if my hated freckles might be fading.

The small upper alcoves on the south side, full in the light of the windows, were crowded with pieces of china, figurines, and souvenirs such as the pensive, blue-coated French prince who leaned against a bare pink branch near a hard gumdrop into which a Life Saver and a candle had been stuck to make a favor for some church social or shower. In one corner a little gold and white horse threatened to trample the two pairs of goldrimmed spectacles that my grandmother wore, both at the same time, when she sewed or read.

When I asked her why, she just said sharply that it made her see better.

The matching niches on the right-hand side near the bed were given to more practical purposes. They were crowded with neatly labeled bottles of remedies among which was a very tall, imposingly decorated bottle of horse liniment, a big box of carbolic salve, and a bottle of Lydia Pinkham's remedy that my grandmother would never let me taste, saying it was only for grownup ladies. The item that filled me with terror, however, was the squat can of Raleigh's Mustard Ointment-a cure for all sorts of ills: colds, pneumonia, aches, and pains. Applied in place of the old-fashioned mustard plaster on t'he chest, it burned like all the fires of Hell! I always prayed that I would get over a cold before my mother felt that she had to apply it. There was also a bottle of consecrated olive oil that had been blessed by the elders in the church and was used when they came to administer to you if you were sick. I was intrigued by the idea that there was some magic in that bottle but could never figure out just what.

My grandfather's thick, old razor strop hung from one of the knobs on this side of the cabinet and Grandma's large, soft, good-smelling handbag from the other.

This elegant, but nonetheless functional, piece of furniture was to me very like the woman who used it. My grandmother was an unusual woman, not quite suited to the life of a country farm woman. She seemed a little detached from her surroundings, although I never recall her complaining about what she did not have. She had an

Grandmother's cabinet. Courtesy of author.

invincible style that must have marked her as not quite belonging: always wearing a hat, gloves, and tiny pointed shoes when she went to church or to the one store in town even though she had to walk a considerable distance on dusty country was not a very good housekeeper. This in which she spent her married life was often untidy, dishes undone and floor unswept while she read, sewed, mended, ironed with exquisite care, and cooked as well as she could with what she had. Her fine stitches were always in demand at quiltings, and people came from as far away as Salt Lake City to get her to "do" a quilt. She had the temperament and abilities of a fine artisan and, like the cabinet, was a little too finely wrought for the surroundings in which she had to live. Like the cabinet, she provided reassurance of those dimensions of life not always definable in practical terms but so necessary to the survival of the human spirit--especially mine.

Dr. Carroll is emeritus professor of English, Weber State University.