Beehive History, Volume 24, 1998

BEEHIVE 9 HISTaRY

-4

creators

T

A

B

L

E

C

O

Grandma's Quilt Old-Time Dancing in Joseph Fiddle and Durbukee: Making Music and Community The Deutsches Theater Edges of Time: Alice Morrey Bailey Woven Willow: Goshute Baskets Eyes That Could See Beauty: Samuel Jepperson The Man Behind the Scenes: Alfred Lambourne

N

T

E

N

T

3 6 7 I0 14 18 22 28

On the cover: Crazy quilt, date unknown. Photo by Kristen Rogers

Beehive History is produced annually by the Utah State Historical Society Max J. Evans, Director Stanford J. Layton, Coordinator of Publications Kristen S. Rogers, Beehive History Editor @ Copyright 1998 Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the National Park Service. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior. Regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, or handicap. Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of federal assistance should write to: Equal Opportunity Program, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, PO Box 37127, Washington, D.C. 20012-7127.

q

TOd a ~

is December

a Clary has been

18, 1995. Gran my fairly constant companion for

caped me had I only looked at the

of faille, she has embroidered in

quilt and thought, o w ! a t a lot of work! How colorful! How and

blue 'Remember Me." O n a piece of maroon velveteen she has written

why did she do it?" But I awakened

her name in gold script: "Clara E."

least I have been spending a lot of

one morning with the distinct impression that I should restore the

Above that, a daisy grows, created with quill pen and thick paint. The

time with her, although she died in

quilt for my daughter as a Christmas

quilt is, in fact, a veritable garden of

1954, at age ninety-two. She was

gift, which is why I have been living

flowers, with forgetAme-nots, pan-

the past two and a half months. At

born January 9, 1862.

About a year ago, my oldest sister, then ninety-five her-

r @ n dma 's QUi (t

self, gave my daughter a crazy

sies, daisies, bell flowers, rose buds, wild roses, sun* flowers, and more about. No wonder my daddy

Clary. How long ago did she

loved flowers so much!

The embroidered initials

make it? It's hard to say. The

"D C" prominently appear

quilt crafted by Grandma

crazy quilt craze exploded in

on one small pink piece, the

the late 1800s, but people were still making them at least

letters outlined in maroon

into the 1920s. Twenty 18 by 18-inch squares make up the

letter has a green branch winding through. I like to

quilt, which is formed from

think that Grandma worked

some 825 pieces (counting

on that particular bit about the time I was born, since my

and filled in with gold. Each

the exact number is impossible) of various

own initials are D. C. I've been thinking a lot

materials,

shapes, sizes, and colors:

la in, vivid, dark, ~ l a i d s ,

about Grandma Clary.

Grandma liked to talk,

polka dot, striped. Most of the pieces appear to be silk,

but I wasn't too interested.

with a few pieces of taffeta,

All she really told me about

some of velveteen, one or two

herself was that she was born

of cotton.

Grandma attached each

in Mexico, Oxford County, Maine. I wondered how

6y Donna I.Smart

piece to a block of flour-sack-

Mexico could be in Maine, when Mexico was south of

ing and to the other pieces with an embroidered featherstitch.

with Grandma day in and day out.

California. But I never asked her

They're not ordinary stitches, though. As nearly as I can tell, each

any questions.

stitch adorning each little individual

After closely examining each piece, after mending the shredded ones and sewing tulle over those

angle of each individual patch is

that might soon disintegrate, after

California, a place that

unique in color and design. In the

replacing areas that had rotted out

she doted on. She had

center of every square, on the mid-

completely, I now know precisely

spent time there with

She told me about

dle scrap of material, a flower blos.

how she made her quilt. She began

her sister Phene, and she talked

soms. Some flowers are painted on,

with a flower, then with odd shapes

about the sea and hearing its sounds

others embroidered. Each is differ-

and rainbow hues built her pattern

in shells, and she urged me to listen

ent from every other. Here and there a lazydaisy stitch adds a touch

into a square, which she then attached to other squares in order to make a full-size quilt.

to the shells she had brought back from that magical place she called "Californy." I still have one of those

of its own.

These details would have es-

O n one little pink parallelogram

shells she picked up so long ago.

Grandma

was

ally had a pan of dirty dishes in her

the first one to give me a bath, the night

oven, neatly covered with a dish

subsequently gave birth to another

towel. That bothered my mother,

little boy. But the bride and groom

I was born, she told

since she herself never left her

were both young, and by 1883 her

me, as she cuddled

kitchen with a dirty dish anywhere.

husband had left her and married

me near the open oven door of the coal stove that my mother cooked on

Lately I have realized that Grandma didn't have running water and that

another very young girl. Worse still,

and that heated our kitchen. She

covering her dishes was a practical

brother away from Grandma.

also told me that she wanted to live

with "Uncle Henry" in the eterni-

solution-until she had enough to justify carrying and heating the

ties. That was all there was to it-no

water to wash them.

I

explanation. I never asked her any

Grandma married another man and

his parents took my father's half-

She married again.

When I was into gem

My father never talked about his

ealogy, I found the

questions.

mother. He just took good care of

But I observed. I noted that she had lived in very small houses, never

her-financially

About once or twice a week, he

more than three rooms. I noticed

would say, "We're going over to help

wonder, according to my mother,

that she had very pretty dishes and glassware-she owned many cranber-

Ma today." And we did, Mama

that this was the only real father my

bustling around cleaning up the

dad ever knew. She also said that he

ry glass dishes-in

dishes and the house, Daddy clean-

legally adopted Daddy and gave him

ing up the yard and cutting wood.

his name. I am grateful for that.

her carved cup-

board with the glass front. One c u p

and

otherwise.

marriage

license,

dated January 14, 1888. Daddy was ten years old. No

read in Grandma's guilt

+

+

+

+

board held a set of beautiful silver

It was not until I was married

An article by Amy and Leon R.

spoons. Although she lived in rough

that my mother told me a few things

Kass in the November 1995 issue of

conditions, she had the need to sur-

about Grandma Clary. Up until

First Things says, "Fathers who will

round herself with beauty-and

to

then, my mother had told me only

not own up to their paternity, who

create beauty. I own eight handpainted dessert dishes that she gave

the name of my father's father,

will not 'legitimize' their offspring,

adding that she didn't know any-

and who will not name themselves

my mother and father when they were married.

thing else, that he had mysterious$

responsible for childerearing by giv-

disappeared while working on the

When my sister Estella died,

railroad, and that was all she knew.

ing their children their name are, paradoxically, not real fathers at all,

among items that she had labeled for family members to receive was a painted pitcher and three tumblers

But she did know more. After I was

children suffer."

I believe my dad did suffer

bearing my name. I asked my niece

married, Mama told

because, for whatever reason, his

me that as a teenager

blood father did not take responsi-

my grandma and her

bility for him, and I am glad his

and their wives and especially their

about them. "Your grandmother painted them," she said, "and we

I

didn't really want to give them to

boyfriend had decided to have a

adoptive father gave him a name

you, but we thought we'd better."

baby in order to convince the young man's parents to let them get mar-

that I also am proud to bear. But this new father disappeared some-

velveteen chaise-lounge, a glass-ballholding, claw-footed table. I espe-

ried. And we think young people do crazy things today! It didn't work.

time somewhere somehow. The rumor was that he got into trouble

Grandma was only sixteen. How ter-

on the railroad where he worked,

The few pieces of furniture in her small house were very nice-a

cially noticed that she always had a

ribly hard it must have been for her

that maybe he was killed. But who

dish of hardtack candy for us.

to become a single mother in her

can know for sure?

"Donner," she would say, "Have

parents' tiny log cabin in Woodruff,

At some point in their lives,

some candy." I noticed that she usu-

Utah. A year or so later, in 1879,

according to my sister's recollection,

31 I

,,

Grandma and her son, my father, moved for a time to Oregon, where

riage lasted. Uncle Henry was a

knew how to create beauty. But

blacksmith. I remember his shop well. He was an unbelievably hand-

Grandma Glary didn't like confor*

enough money to buy the potatoes

some man-so

good to me-but he

mity-else why did she embroider with so many different colors and

Daddy

delivered

ice

to

make

that they managed to survive on.

was, I think, a heavy drinker, creat-

unique shapes? She lived with aban-

Why did they go there? To look for the lost stepfather? Or what' How I

ing another cross for Grandma to

don-else how could she figure out how to make such a variety of

wish I knew.

shapes and colors fit into a square?

Recently, my nephew discovered

Working on her quilt, I have come to know my Grandma. And I

yet another marriage for Grandma,

have learned that, as Helen Frost

She was able to

bear.

a man she had married on January

and Pam Stevenson write in the

create a work of art

5, 1884, at the home of her parents.

book Grand Endeauors, "through

out of leftover scraps,

What in the world happened to this

choice of patterns, color, or symbol-

and though her heart

husband? There is such pathos here,

must have been sore-

because Grandma's mother died on

ism, women recorded their thoughts or feelings" in quilts.

January 28, 1884. At age twenty.

What I read in Grandma's quilt

versity and depriva-

two, my Grandma had endured a

is her life. It's like her life, like all our lives, really: at the center of each

tion, though she undoubtedly felt self-recriminations as well as suf+

And, ~ r o b a b l ~a , mountain of

section a flower, surrounded by

fered the judgments of others, she

criticism and isolation. My mother

crazy shapes and patterns and col-

still

parcel of trouble.

+

+

+

+

is her Lij-e-Liike

herself resented the fact that Grandma didn't ever have my father b a p

ly tried through ad-

embroidered

a l l o u r (iues, real4

the

+

ors, some persisting and resisting

words, "Remember Me."

outside influences and the ravages of

I do remember-with

plaintive

+

+

+

gratitude,

love, compassion, and a bit of sad-

also felt that Grandma was lazy. But

time, others shredding or crumbling away, leaving exposed only the

the crazy quilt denies that she was

basic background. We are responsi-

ness that I did not inherit some of Grandma's gifts: her musical ability,

lazy. Their priorities were simply dif-

ble for the pieces and the pattern

creativity and artistic ability, her

ferent.

and whether the whole will be a

sense of abandon. In her declining

thing of beauty or a shambles.

years she fully accepted her life and

tized into the Mormon church; she

My eldest sister, Carrie, remembers that Grandma used to play the organ and "stepdance," and that she played piano while Uncle

I

own

a

quilt

sntched by my other grandmother. It is very

its dealings. She acknowledged, after all, that what she really wanted was to live with the husband of her

different. The pattern

maturity throughout eternity. Every time I saw her she told me that. I

Carrie assures me that Grandma

is carefully crafted in

knew what she meant and took her

was a wonderful seamstress. Her pic-

red on white with tiny red polka

tures show her dressed elegantly;

dots. The design is specific and orga.

After my dad died and Mother

she was a beautiful young woman.

nized, put together completely by

could not take care of Grandma, we

Reminiscing about how talented

hand and quilted in tiny, precise

brought her to Salt Lake City. She

Grandma was, what pretty things

stitches. Grandma Mary's quilt

was cared for by a wonderful woman

she owned, Carrie will say, "I loved

shows a tidy, organized, strictly dis-

who lived next door to our little

ciplined nature as well as a different lifestyle; Grandma Mary had eleven

basement apartment at 80 South Ninth East, a place that later felt the

Grandma married Uncle Henry on June

children to raise.

wrecking ball to make room for an

1, 1899. This mar-

Both grandmas loved beauty and

Henry, her last husband, fiddled for the dances all over the valley. And

my grandmother."

@

Grandma Clary was different.

charge seriously.

expanded

Bryant

Junior

High

School. We used to carry Grandma

to the car and take her for rides throughout the city. Later, we had to move her to a care facility out farther. She died in the county hospital and is buried next to her Henry, who died in 1949.

First Things quotes a poem entitled "Butterfly" by Jeanne Murray Walker: Remember how they told us a butterfly is proof all that matters is a glorious end?

The time will come, we won't even recall these changes, our essential selves working

to shed their clumsy clothes, first the egg, then larva, then the pupa, they say, and we'll crawl out radiant, to bat our wings, more stunning, even, than Lie Taylor's bright blue eyelids. But I watch the butterfly sitting on the trumpet vine pumping his wings to dry them, waving his feelers experimentally, his lips moving as if to murmur to his past selves.

I can almost see the old egg answering, his own grandmother

OLD-TIME. DA N C I N G IN J 0SEPH

who remembers him the longest.

She might be saying tenderly that he should take his time, she will someday tell him who he is, where he came from.

Donna T Smart is the editor of Mormon Midwife: The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions.

From the time of the settle~t was well after dark when they started home. ment of Joseph in 1872 ubtil a public building was erected, "In the meantime everyone had taken the other dancing was enjoyed in private homes large enough to accomroad, and had tied up their modate a set, a caller, and a rigs down by the river behind fiddler. A crowd would go to the house. All were in the Contributed by house. some home, walk in, and move all the furniture into the ,R "They arrived and unM~~~~~young dooryard before the family was hitched the horse. Mrs. hardly aware of what was up. Then a jolly Harmon was grumbling and complaining time would be enjoyed. about her sore feet as she came toward the Oliver Jackman gave an account of one house. She stepped up, drew the latch and such party: "Old Lady Harmon, who lived opened the door. All yelled, 'SURPRISE!' across the river, boasted that no one could "She took hold of the door frame, kicked surprise her, so a party was made up for her. as hard as she could and shouted, 'Hell to Her boys brought her to town and left her at thunder!' Then she turned around and beat our home. They said they would come for it out to the granary and we had quite a time getting her to come in again. her later.

"When it was near sundown and they "But she came and took it all in good hadn't come she began to worry about getting part. We cleared out the house and danced home. Mother told her that if she would wait until about ten o'clock, ate our picnic, then awhile she would take her home and stay danced again until two o'clock. We had a with her. Mrs. Harmon got so restless that jolly time."

Mother had to hitch up the horse and start Mrs. Young, who lives i n Richfield, home with her. But she pretended that she had to go to Sister Nelson's on an errand, so has compiled a history of Sevier County.

.'

*

IN

THE

WINTER

chain-into a wagon. With Weltha driving the team and LeRoy riding O 1 9 1 3 a young Lebanese woman stepped the family's saddlehorse, the off the train at the D&RG station Thacker family headed for the in Salt Lake City. Martha Sharouk Uinta Basin and "greener pashad come to Utah to join her hus- tures," traveling on a miserable band. Instead of being joyful, road that was sometimes covered however, she had cried almost all with six inches of dust. When they the way from Darbelseem; when got to Duchesne, the river was too she had been about to board the ship, emigration officials had discovered that her baby had an eye infection, and they had made her leave him behind with his grandmother. During the voyage, "banana" was the only English word Martha knew, and so she ate almost nothing but bananas. Through that long and lonely journey, however, she carried in her mind and body the music of her country, where she had learned to sing and to play the darbukee, a Lebanese drum.

So now she stood in a snowstorm on the train platform, looking for her husband. He never came.

Finally, a stranger took her

by Kristen Rogers in his buggy to Fourth South then pointed the way nlgh to cross, so they walted. toward the Arabic community. She Eventually they made it across and walked through the snow, freezing, came to what is now known as lost, until she happened upon an Altamont. There they pitched a old friend from Lebanon. tent and lived through a winter Martha's husband, the friend told until they could get lumber from her, had gone to find work in the mountains to build a house.

Portland.

F

I

was music that made them rich.

Music connected their new lives with the old, knit them into warm communities, and gave them solace when sorrow enveloped them.

To the closeknit Lebanese community, music was an essential part of maintaining the traditional culture. After Martha was reunited with her husband, Bolos, and they opened a grocery store on Second South, she sang and played the darbukee drum at all the community gatherings, and there were many. Whenever one family decided to go to the canyon, word would get out, and everyone would come, bringing stuffed

a

grape leaves, instruments, and their voices. Whatever the occasion, music and dancing were indispensable; everyone got caught up in the energy of the music.

A 1915 Salt Lake Tribune article describes the wedding of Gibran Katter and Mary Elizabeth Hussoun Boyer. At the beginning of the celebration, which lasted from alter the service on Sunday until daylight Monday morning, the mother of the bride made a call of greeting to the guests.

It was the lure of new opportu-

It began not unlike the liquid notes of the Swiss yodel and continued to a finish that was akin to the

I N 1 9 1 6 nities that induced the Sharouk in Millburn, Wyoming, a man and and Thacker families to leave the woman loaded everything they familiar and venture into the had-the baby they laid in a shoe- unknown. And it was pluck and box and the family fiddle they put hard work that enabled them to on top of a spare wheel and survive in their new lands. But it

tremolo call of a Comanche Indian exultantly going into combat, then trailed into a pathetic tone of one desolated. n e r e wen similar chants of greeting by guests, by the bridegroom and members of the family.

Then To the high notes of a reed instrument, the beating of a contrivance that appeared half kettledrum and half horn

[a darbukee], and the incessant clapping of hands, dancing was begun.... A woman grown stout and growing gray...pirouetted down the center of the hall amid wild applause and challenged the bridegroom to take her place before the audience.

With courtly grace he was on his feet and was indeed a goodly figure as he swung around the hall in wild, graceful gyrations.

Now, Martha Sharouk's daughter, Helen Anton, carries on the tradition, playing the darbukee and

needed it; as they joined hands to form dancing lines, they were symbolically joining as neighbors and as fellow-countrymen. They were dancing their community, dancing who they were, dancing their joy at a life that wasn't easy but that was full.

-

!*

time that the Lebanese community In Salt Lake were comlng together through muslc, settlers in Altamont were doing the Newcomers LeRoy Thacker played fiddle the only "band" for

same thlng. and Weltha and piano; as mlles around,

ness it created," says Helen. "Mother

they were In demand. To get to the~r many jobs, they drove a buggy or, In wlnter, a sleigh.

Weltha and LeRoy played at farewell parties for mlsslonarles and servicemen, always for free. One year, durlng the war, they played at

sang when I was a baby. I remember lying on her chest; her singing gave me peace. I sang for my children,

farewell parties for more &an 150 young men. They played at dancing paraes In homes and at ward dances

singing for celebrations in the throaty Middle-eastern style she learned from her mother. "We grew to love music because of the close-

in

grandchildren."

Her husband John taught himself

Altonah, Boneta, Talmage, Bluebell, Upalco, Mt. Emmons, and

to play guitar and mandolin when he was a teenager, secretly practicing on his brother's instruments whenever the older boy left the house. Now, with John and Helen as the anchors joined by other family members, the family band is in great demand among the Lebanese community.

Mountain Home.

For the ward parties, they charged

Like Helen, John inherited a love of music from his family. John's father, Louis, was nineteen when he immigrated to the U.S. in 1904 in order to

Weltha also played beautiful mandolin-guitar duets, and on Sundays

avoid being drafted by the army of the Ottoman Empire. In the early years in Salt Lake, Louis Anton drummed on a dishpan; he had no real darbukee. But even though he had to improvise, the music couldn't be restrained. The whole community

all

the

neighboring towns-

and now I make up songs for my

a little (two to five dollars), unless the bishop had no money-which was often the case. But the Thackers played enough and made enough money from the dances to buy windows for their house. LeRoy and

they would ride around to neighboring farms to play for shut-ins.

During the nineteenth century, some regarded the fiddle as the devil's instrument, but from the first, Mormons cherished both fiddle music and dancing. LeRoy Thacker had learned to play from an "old gentleman fiddler who showed me a cou-

ple of things," and from then on he taught himself through trial and

gone crazy, but it wasn't long before

error. Weltha played the piano by

everyone was sing ing.

"Music often

ear, having picked it up, she said, "from here or there."

Lorna Merkeley, the Thackers' daughter, says that "the Lord knew how much the neighbors needed music," so he helped her parents learn. She remembers going to the ward dances as a child and watching how people would tie their horses up and then literally run into the church to dance a quadrille, schottish, finger polka, or the Chicago glide. "After a hard day's work cutting sod or plowing, they would lift their feet lightly when they heard the fiddle. You'd see them come in toilworn and tired-looking, but they kind of slid out of it," she says.

the hard I~feturned worse. Lorna remembers a hailstorm that came one time, the great black clouds and the water leaking through the family's dlrt roof. After the storm, LeRoy went out to see what the six inches of hail had done to the grain in the fields. When he came back, he told the family, "We haven't got anything left." He and Weltha held each other and cried for a whilethen they got out their instruments and began to play. Some of the children thought their parents had

pulled us out of depression," Lorna says. In fact, music seemed to be part of everything the fami$ did. The Thackers taught their children to play by ear,

,i

Page 7.John and Helen Anton, who have won a Governor4 Award in the Arts for their muslc /photo by Crag M~ller.courtesy of Utah Arts Council). Left Louis Anton. John4 father, Boulos and Martha Sharouk, Helen5 parents, about 1950; John [rn~ddlerow, far left) and cousins. This page Thacker famrly at their first Utah home, 19 16; Weltha and LeRoy with his sister Sarah and the~rchildren Howard and Wesley. Thacker children Stella, Pattie. LaRue. and Model T Ford, 1 9 1 7. Photos courtesy of Anton and Thacker fam~l~es.

and as they grew, the children joined the band. In the evenings and on car rides, the family sang the "old songsn-those passed down from grandparents and great-grandparents. During the sad songs-and many of them were sad, probably because heartache was so common then-Lorna's little brother would duck his head under a quilt. There, listening to a song about a pioneer mother buried on the plains or about some other sorrow, he would weep.

But even if it made a little boy cry, that's what music was about, both for Mormon settlers and for Lebanese immigrants. Music was a way of sharing emotions, both joyful and sorrowful. It was a way of sharing life's experiences, a means by which people could carry their cultural history forward. Music drew people together into communities that grew stronger with each special celebration-and, no less, with each ordinary Friday night dance.

Kristen

Rogers

Beehive History.

Left, LeRoy and Weltha.

edits

1

SALT LAKE CIY

he pursued his interest in drama by taking classes from various actors. Siegfried acted in German theaters until World War 11, when all the theaters were closed, then worked on a farm. When the theaters reopened after the war, he began to act again-and he met Lotte.

From the beginning, Lotte and Siegfried took different approaches to acting and to life, but their talents and enthusiasm were complementary. Lotte thought of herself as the cerebral Hellenistic or "priestess" type of actress, the same type as actress Maria Schell. Siegfried, she says now, was the Dionysic type of actor. His more emotional acting style was "very down to earth. He played with his feelings and guts, like Spencer Tracy."

The two began to dream of creating their own dramatic productions, using their complementary talents.

At the same time, they pursued another dream, that of coming to the United States. Siegfried had been raised a Mormon, and he always envisioned himself living in America. His family had initially made plans to emigrate before the First World War, and then again before the Great Depression, but continually had to postpone their goal. Then World War I1 came, and all the men were needed for the army.

Siegfried's brother, Hans, was the first of the Guertlers to reach Utah. He had previously served a mission in Germany for the LDS church and was later given a free ticket to travel to Salt Lake City. After he settled in Ogden, he found a sponsor to assist Siegfried and Lotte, who emigrated in 1952. Leaving Germany wasn't easy, Lotte says. "My parents were in Germany, and it was hard to leave my family, but that is what you do when you get married."

Hans had told his brother that Salt Lake had a close-knit, active German community that could sus. tain a small theater. The Guertlers knew that they "couldn't live without the theater" and began to prepare for their first production en route by shi to the United States.

The couple arrived in Utah with 29 sui cases-two filled wit I clothes and the othc 27 filled with book: drama books and others that Siegfried especially liked and that had survived the wa 5.. when many book, were burned. Three by Carolyn Camp be weeks after their arrival, Siegfried an

I

S VTPJ-I*VSqA6

From the outside, the modest little house looked like a typical Avenues residence. But on certain nights, it became, something else entirely: a theater like no other in the United States. The Deutsches Theater was the love-project of Siegfried and Lotte Guertler, who for more than 30 years brought the art and culture of their native Germany to Salt Lake City by presenting plays with dialogue spoken in German. The couple's threedecade engagement began with performances in LDS meetinghouses and continued on their home-made stage, which became the only German-language theater in the country.

The two actors met in Hamburg, Germany, shortly after World War 11, when both were under contract at the North Friesland theater. Lotte was 22; Siegfried was 30. For Lotte, theater had been a lifelong dream that took her to drama school after she finished high school.

Siegfried took a different path: at age 15 he entered a trade school to learn house-painting. After graduation,

How

L o t t e Guertlp-acted on their jea rn .

Lotte staged their first U.S. production, a selection of readings.

Adjusting to life in their new country would take time. Both Guertlers had studied English in school, and Lotte anticipated being able to converse fluently. "We thought we spoke English. But when we landed in New York, we couldn't understand a word they said. We talked with our hands, feet, everything. I always appreciated the tolerance people expressed at our efforts to speak English, especially in Utah."

Along with learning the English language as spoken in the United States, the Guertlers also discovered the differences in American culture. They liked being able to buy a house, and they loved the national parks. But they disliked the American medical and legal systems. "We felt that it is not good that if someone sues you, you can lose your house," Lotte explains. "We were also used to socialized medicine. Here in the United States, it seems like you always have to have big hospital rooms. In Germany, although you often shared a room with eight or ten people, you got all the medicine you needed. And there was a two-tiered system, where if you made enough money, you could be privately insured. But I know it isn't considered good to praise socialized medicine here in the United States."

The couple knew that their life in theater would be different, too. The two held no illusions about being able to support themselves as actors here. They were familiar with the typical Hollywood scenario of waiting by the phone for an agent to call, and they sensed that this lifestjle was not for them.

"We always had an accent; what could we play? I don't think my husband would agree to play a bad Nazi," says Lottt.

Being German also created a certain stigma at times.

When people in her new homeland heard she was German, their first comment was often that Hitler was "a bad man." Lotte and Siegfried would be the first to say, "I know. I think so, too."

The Guertlers felt that presenting plays could both celebrate their native culture and educate people about its positive aspects. Besides, "we wanted to play theater!"

So they set about making their dreams a reality.

"If you want the freedom to do it your own way, you have to make a lot of sacrifices. Luckily for us, money was never a goal, only a necessity. Our financial needs were minimal-only that we had enough money for a roof over our heads and food to eat." To pay the bills, Siegfried kept his trade as a house painter.

For ten years the Guertlers staged productions in

LDS meetinghouses. While the wards welcomed the pro. ductions, transporting the scenery and other equipment posed a constant challenge. Rehearsal time at the churches was limited, so the cast often held rehearsals in the Guertlers' small apartment. To accommodate the schedule at the church, plays were frequently required to share the stage with other church activities-which often meant that the stage set had to be taken down and set up several times during a run.

In 1962 Siegfried and Lotte bought a house in the Avenues district. Here, they decided to create a theater within their home to avoid "having to bring the whole shebang" with them for traveling performances. They also hoped that performing in a fulldedged theater away from a church would broaden their audience.

As they created the 45-seat theater, their complementary talents continued to serve them well. They began by removing two walls in their front room, then they built a stage out of discarded 2x4s and twelve used wooden tabletops bought from their LDS ward. When the ward needed to buy a new stage curtain, the Guertlers bought the old one. Lotte washed it, and the gray velvet drape turned a warm golden color that harmonized well with the varnished wood paneling Siegfried had created from wood scraps. Finally, the couple bought old-fashioned wooden church chairs for 25 cents each.

''We couldn't live M h o u t the theater.''

Siegfried, skilled in both art and construction, built all of the sets; he also designed an original linocut for each play's program. Lotte was a talented seamstress who designed and sewed all the costumes, often remaking past costumes for current productions.

"Everything we had was always 'make it do.' Money was very limited, and it was a challenge, but we would rather sit on boxes and be our own masters," says Lotte.

For 33 years, beginning in 1952 and ending in 1985, the year of Siegfried's death, the Guertlers staged five plays each season between October and May. "Along with German classics, we tried to bring out works that were among the staples of literature, such as Shakespeare and Shaw," Lotte says. "The specialty of the house and favorite of the audience were 'folk plays,' which featured simple surroundings such as a farm and included people who have a lot of sense and who survive life.

We tried to bring out one of those each year."

The wide range in the Guertlers' repertoire-from Brecht to Hausman to Schiller-reflected their theatrical knowledge and expertise.Their productions also includ-

"For immigrants, there is always the culture shock," Lotte explains. "When you don't know the language, the first years are rough. Yet when immigrants came to attend our plays, they could completely forget the hardships of immigration and become, for those few moments, fulLfledged members f At of the human race."

Unsettled conditions in Germany after the war had brought many European immigrants to Utah. Davis Bitton and Gordon Irving, writing in The Peoples ed a range of plays such as Damien, Clarence Darrow, The of Utah, state that during the 1950s the German pon~lFourJ'oster, Anna Christie, and an original drama by lation of Utah Utah playwright Ken Jenks; if no German translation grew by 2,251 for a particular play was available, Lotte wrote her own. most of the immiThe Deutsches Theater was also the setting for the grants settled in world premiere of Requiem, an epic play about the Salt Lake County.

Holocaust written by Heinrich Liebrecht. A former Many of these imGerman consul-general, Liebricht had met the Guertlers migrants faced in San Francisco. language barriers, Along with their regular season, during the the necessity of Christmas advent season the Guertlers embellished accepting menial their stage with a manger and other holiday decora- work, and also tions. Their Christmas performance included musical times when the-' numbers, group singing, and poems. "People say they were poorly ur miss the Christmas celebration the most," says Lotte. derstood and poor.

While creating their productions, the Guertlers 1y accepted by the slullfully adapted the play-and the cast-to their needs. majority popul: The first play after Christmas was the most com~licat- tion. ed, because Siegfried's work as a house painter was slower then and allowed more tlme to stage the production. The Guertlers chose plays wlth an eye for the actors they knew would be avadable, many of them longtlme friends, assoaates, and family members. Thelr daughter Margaret enjoyed a long career wlth her parents, which she continued at the University of Utah. Lotte often dlrected the plays, unless there was a female role she herself wanted.

O n the nlght of a performance, audlence members could gather early and talk and relax on the Guertlers' enclosed porch or in the small foyer lobby. Refreshments, intermission, and the original linocut programs Siegfried created were all a part of the Deutsches Theater experience. In the beginning, a fiity-cent donation was suggested, and donations continued to be the price of admission Siegfried and Lotte knew from their own experience throughout the theater's existence. that becoming assimilated into a new country takes LDS missionaries and students studying German time. "There are aspects of adapting to a new country comprised part of the audience. But many who attend- that you don't like-like when some people would men* ed performances were German immigrants, and the the* tion Hitler when they heard we were German," Lotte ater became an important source of support for them. says. "But the things that make you really happy are

the theater, immi rants could for a moment feel like "fullpedged members of the human race."

?

-

-

beyond that. You have to have a higher outlook and better perspective while you give yourself time to adjust." A friend of the Guertlers who felt disenchanted with her new country began to save money to return to Germany. But when she had finally saved enough, she decided to stay here.

"The things you don't like at first, you just get used to." Lotte is grateful that her work in theater may have assisted some immigrants in their assimilation process.

The work the Guertlers did in rexreating German culture was more than adequate. "Their performances were so professional and entertaining that when I went back to Germany to the theater there, I didn't like it," says Deli Marcelis, who was a season ticketholder for the

1 1

lay programs {originallinocuts by Siegfn'ed Guertier): upper left: The Jeaver Pelt-1 954; below: Der Mann im Buffelgras (The Man in the Aeadw) by Utahn Kenneth Jenks)-1973; Dw Haupmann wn hepenick -1 976. Above: Siegfried and Lotte Guertler; 1960s. Lefc: Cast bf Die Gute Sieben by Adelbert:A. Zinn-1956. Seated, I. to r.: Brigitte Aercke, Traute Krowas, SiegFried Guertler; Lotte Guertler, Klaus Rathke. tanding: Gaby Elling, Eva-Maria Markwort, Walli Fiedd, Annelie Ilietrrh~u.A1 photos ~ o c * ~ of yLotte Guertlw

plays at BYU, where they received the David 0. McKay Humanity Award for excellence in the fine arts.

A program sponsored through the German consulate allowed the players to tour productions to colleges in the Northwest on three occasions. They also toured in Germany and Iceland. Through membership in the German Actors' Union, the Guertlers sustained artistic connections with Germany that enabled Siegfried to act with dramatists from the Mark Taper Forum, the Cleveland Playhouse, and the Brandeis Theater.

Throughout their endeavors, the bond between the Guertlers served to enhance their talents, enthusiasm, and zest for both life and the theater. Actresses Traute Dehm and Ruth Berndt, who performed with the Deutsches Theater for many years, say that the Geurtlers offered "an enormous sacrifice of their time and devotion. They were very much at peace with themselves and very talented."

Adds Klaus Rathke, an actor who performed with the Guertlers for 30 years, "The Deutsches Theater was truly a work of love. They needed very little for their own personal lives; everything they had went into the theater."

After Siegfried's death in 1985, a theater patron wrote, "We both felt admiration for Siegfned as a theater man, as a political being, and as half of a splene did marriage partnership."

Lotte comments that "It's so nice if a marriage is so fulfilling within itself, but also with working together. We were kind of made for each other. My mother sent me a card once that said, 'Only two nutty people could do this.'"

Today, the stage remains in the house on Second Avenue, but it goes unused.

Yet drama is s d l a part of Lotte's life. She prefers both drama and films that are classics. "I don't go for action films, with all the thrills," she says. "When the bombs fell in Germany, that was thrill enough for me."

2

Deutsches Theater. Besides generating a loyal following in Salt Lake City, the theater received national and international recognition. The Guertlers presented

Carolyn Campbell has published more than 300 articles in national magazines. Her articles have also been published internationally. She lives with her husband and four children in Salt Luke City.

the job. What I learned of her early life during my treatments sparked my own creative mind.

Whenever I :red the familiar to Alice Morrey Bailey's home on Edison Street in Salt Lake City, her multiple creative talents surrounded me. I often stopped to check on Alice and to review our writing efforts, and on one particular day in 1996, 93-year-old Alice sat at her typewriter in the living room. Out of the side of her

P

eye she was studying inch-high words appearing, one at a time, on the large screen beside her typewriter. Be. cause of severe macular degeneration, Alice could see very little, but she suddenly exclaimed, "It's a check for

$75 for a poem! And I just received another order for my Rain Shadows book." She smiled, holding back tears. "I'm glad my creative candle keeps burning."

P

oems formed continually in Alice's bright mind, but with her severe handicap it was a miracle that

she could ever get them written in acceptable form. "Never say die" was her constant motto, though, and a glance around her living and dining rooms revealed that she truly would die before completing all of her writing, music, and sculpture projects.

A manuscript composition sat on the piano where, although she was unable to see the notes, she still played, to "let off steam." O n the dining room table sat unfinished white plasters of her sculpture Sappho, orders yet to be completed. All across the wide mantel and on flat surfaces in the room stood copies of her sculptures and several writing-award plaques.

I first met Alice in 1941, when she was struggling to support her family. As a young office secretary suffering with back pain, I had been told that Alice Morrey Bailey performed massage treatments and could perhaps help me. Her name was familiar. I had often

Alice was born August 21, 1903, in Joseph, Utah, the daughter of John Ferney and Laura Rawlinson Morrey. The summer she was five, her family lived in a tent at their Three Creek Ranch, the summer grazing meadow for their livestock, and there her father built a log cabin. While he cut poles, notching the ends for fitting, a flame of creativity flickered in Alice's young mind. Why couldn't she mold tiny logs from mud, notch the ends, and build her own mud cabin?

The sense of accomplishment pushed her hands and mind further into creating furniture. The finished home needed residents, so she sculpted mud dolls.

And the dolls needed fun, so she created stories and plays for them.

Later, her home duties included chipping chunks of her mother's homemade lye laundry soap. Immediately soap carving became more fascinating than mud molding. A friend told her she was sculpting! Her creative candle burned more brightly.

Then, when Alice was only eight, her mother won a piano in a dot-counting contest, and piano lessons opened the world of music. Practicing was pleasure, never dull. If she played well, she knew she could serve others in many ways. Alice accompanied for church organizations and wondered if she could become a concert pianist.

A few years earlier, her storytelling to mud dolls had prompted her to begin writing, especially poetry.

One day her sister Revo was puzzled to receive in the mail a book of poetry as a prize for the luwenile Instructor children's poetry contest. She discovered that Alice had entered several poems in the contest, using a different name-Revo's was one of them-on each entry.

Success in the contest provided incentive for Alice to write more. And she never stopped entering contests.

D

read her intriguing poetry and stories in my mother's Relief Society Magazine-and I had longed to be a published writer like her.

As Alice massaged with strong hands, we chatted about her background and writing and how often she burned the midnight oil after her family was in bed.

uring her teens Alice earned money-although not enough for college-by accompanying a popular four-man combo dance band in the South Sevier area. Eager for learning and adventure, Alice hadn't yet finished high school when she learned of a one-year nursing course at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. Sponsored by the Relief Society as part of its efforts to further health and public welfare and to pre-

Her drive to create was constant, demanding that she jot notes during her ceaseless work, both on and off

pare young women for careers, the course required no tuition; in fact, students received a small monthly

wage. As a final requirement for their degrees, stu-

trum; another learning experience was the opportunity

dents agreed to donate one month of nursing services

to work with Torlief Knaphus on his handcart bronze

to their communities.

now standing on Temple Square. Alice also enrolled,

Alice moved to Salt Lake to take the course, gradu-

with beginning medical students, in an anatomy class

ated as an LPN in 1922, hurried home to complete

at the university. At this time, she created her life-size

her senior year at South Sevier High School, then

statue titled Family: The Eternal Unit, using DeWitt as

returned to Salt Lake City to study nursing at the Uni-

a model for the father.

versity of Utah. But sculpture was still her first love,

Fascinated with sculpture as she was, her word ven-

and she also enrolled in a "life class" taught by the

tures also multiplied. And living in Salt Lake City

well-known painter J. T. Harwood.

brought her expanded opportunities. In 1937 the pres-

Meanwhile, Alice's brother Eldon was working at

tigious National League of American Pen Women orga-

the Bingha~nMine and discovered an available nurs-

nized a Utah chapter, and Alice joined in both the

ing spot for her at the hospital in Bingham. When the

Letters and Sculpture (Arts) categories. This member-

school term ended, she went there to work, taking a

ship nurtured both her sculpture and writing, bringing

room in a boardinghouse run by the mother of Ivy

many prizes through the years.

Baker Priest, who later served as the U.S. Treasurer under President Eisenhower.

Also in 1937 Alice helped to organize the League of Utah Writers, which added productive writers to her friendship circle. Years later, in 1984, she was named

lice returned to the university in the fall, but

A

Utah Writer of the Year by the League. She associated

while in Bingham she had met Eldon's friend

with other writing friends through the Utah Sonne-

Just before Christmas, DeWitt said, "Alice, I want to

Lund Coles, Beatrice Knowlton Eckman, Vesta Pierce

give you a Christmas gift: my name." She accepted,

Crawford, and Clare Stewart Boyer. I n 1948 this group

and the couple were married on January 4, 1925, the

expanded to include ten members, including Alice

DeWitt Bailey, and their friendship blossomed.

anniversary date of both DeWitt's and Alice's parents.

When she returned to her classes at the university, Professor Harwood was shocked by news of Alice's

teers, which had been organized in 1933 by Christie

Bailey, and published a book entitled Of Stone and Stars, which included poetry by the ten members.

Alice also joined another group of poets, both male

marriage. He stormed, "You could have become an

and female, that met at the Art Barn in Salt Lake City.

internationally famed sculptor. Now you're finished!"

C. Cameron Johns was the chief force for expanding

Later, Alice would acknowledge that, indeed, she

and organizing this group into the Utah State Poetry

had never become internationally or even nationally

Society on May 6, 1950. With Johns as the first presi-

famous. But she wasn't finished; she was only begin-

dent, this was one of the first poetry societies in the

ning, even though lack of money prevented her from

nation. Today, chapters all over Utah serve approxi-

continuing her studies. Her inner drive compelled her

mately 250 members. In 1971, the Utah State

to continue sculpting in her "edges of time" as three

Poetry Society

children were born into the family-Elise, Donald, and

named Alice Utah

Judith. And she kept writing. While she worked at

Poet of the Year

home tasks, both poetry and prose surfaced in her

for her book Eden

mind, and publication brought muchaeeded checks.

from an Apple Seed.

During this time, DeWitt's work took the family to

Alice also

several different places: Colorado, Richfield, Los

joined poetry

Angeles, Kimberly (now a mining ghost town) and, in

groups all over the

1937, to Salt Lake City, where they remained perma-

country, bringing

nently.

her significant

As the country struggled to emerge from the depression, the Works Progress Administration was

recognition. In

instituted. Now Alice could study sculpture again,

York Poetry

under a WPA Arts project. Classes taught by Millard

Forum

Fillmore Malin and Avard Fairbanks enlarged her spec-

1979 the New

A

A

named her Poet of the Year. Then in 1995 she won the Grand Prize Founders Award of $1,500 from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

She had achieved all of this in very slim "edges of time," because in 1941 tragedy had struck: DeWitt had been drawn into the crusher at the Magna copper concentrating mill. Doctors amputatI ed his leg up to the hip; he spent

he rest of his years on crutches and

I

also endured other ailments.

Workmen's Compensation did not then exist, and for a time Alice became the sole support of her family, which was when I first met her working as a massage therapist. But her creative compulsions still burned-and a nervous breakdown threatened.

Her doctor assured I

her, "You can take it, Alice." She did, by exercising

utmost faith and determination.

DeWitt learned to repair shoes, bur the family still needed additional dependable income. Neither writing nor sculpting provided that, so Alice became a secretary at the University of Utah School of Mines, where she remained until retiring in 1968. The job paid more than nursing had, and it led her into several rewarding projects, such as drawing aerial maps during World War II. At the same time, she kept creating. After hours, she used the office copying machine to reproduce pages of the genealogical book she was writing. The book expanded into a fine family history volume.

At home, she kept up/with her sculpting. Her daughter Elise posed on ';he dining room table for the nude Sappho and Lorelei. One day, several of Judith's young friends ran through the house as Elise posed.

The girl was mortified, although the friends did not even notice. These two sculptures are now on permanent display at the Springville Museum of Art. Vern Swanson, the museum's director, has said, "There are 174 known women sculptors who have lived and worked in Utah. Among the earliest three or

four women sculptors is Alice Morrey Bailey. She has to be considered a pioneer for women artists working three-dimensionally."

In 1954 she sculpted the bust of Lawrence T. Epperson, first international president of the Sons of Utah Pioneers. The bust, cast in bronze, is now in the SUP headquarters in Salt Lake City. Among Alice's other works on display are Of Such is the Kingdom, in the permanent collection at Brigham Young University, and The Golden Leatherneck, which was placed in the U.S. Marine Corps Museum in Washington, D.C.-a real honor.

As Alice sought to fund some of her more ambitious creations, miracles sometimes occurred. When she needed money to have Sappho copied in marble in Italy, her cousin Joseph Rawlinson was administrator of a fund that gave grants for such projects; he saw that she received the funds. Richard Arms provided money for the casting of Family: The Eternal Unit, and the LDS church bought O f Such Is the Kingdom for the Primary Children's Hospital, paying the exact amount Alice needed for house payments that were six months in arrears-and for exact tithing too. ollowing her retirement as a secretary, Alice's edges of time increased. The dining room table was usually full of her sculptures. She had her bronzes poured at foundries, and her marble pieces were carved in Italy by the same masters who worked for Avard Fairbanks. But she always did her plaster copies at home, usually in the kitchen, with molds stored in her basement.

Life changed when in 1972 DeWitt died from multiple health problems. The house was empty and lone-

ly, and Alice was more grateful than ever for her burn. ing creative candles. In 1984 BYU revived the Welsh Eisteddfod, a prestigious celebration of poetry that had originated centuries before in Wales. That first year she received the "Poet's Crown." Three years later she achieved the top honor, "The Chair of the Bard," for her poem "From Winds of Sinai." She is the only person in America to have received both honors.

Amazingly, as Alice pursued her genealogy, she discovered that her great-grandfather William Lewis had repeatedly won both of those honors in Wales. Also, she learned that her eighth great-grandfather, Edward Taylor, had also been a poet-the "first great colonial poet," according to Princeton University Press, publisher of Taylor's 250-yea~oldmanuscript after its dis-

covery in 1937 by Thomas H. Johnson.

During various periods of her life, health problems raised barriers to Alice's artistic pursuits, but she always found ways to scale the walls. In the mid-1970s, during a demonstration lecture, Alice's hand stopped

with Alice during her last few years, acting as her secretary/typist and finishing plasters for many sculpture orders. Judith also typed and laid out Alice's last book of poems, Rain Shadows.

So the door closed on the life of a truly great sculp-

working. She couldn't hold clay or even a pencil.

tor, writer, and musician-although after her death,

Carpal tunnel syndrome and the resulting surgery crip-

contest award checks still arrived in the mail.

pled her hand for months.

In retrospect, Judith recaps her mother's life: "She worked full-time, five days a week. She was a full-time

erious macular degeneration developed in her

homemaker who cooked, shopped, painted the house,

eyes in 1979. But she kept moving at a slower

bottled food, sewed clothes, curtains, and even carpet

pace with a handheld flashlighdmagnifying glass.

A huge Visual Tech above her typewriter magnified

strips, did laundry, and ironed, usually Saturdays and evenings. She entertained friends in the evening and

written words, but she could read only one word at a

relatives for longer. She was a mother who taught her

time through the edges of her vision.

children manners and encouraged education. She

In spite of legal blindness, Alice had trained herself

sculpted and wrote and produced thousands of poems

to recall the hymns, and she continued to play the

and stories and handled all the necessary correspon-

piano for her LDS ward Relief Society meetings. Some

dence. She kept the Sabbath-at least most of it; some-

of her prelude music was composed as she played it; in fact, her best musical compositions were created after

times the art crept in, a salute to the Creator."

Alice's poem, "The Lumined Rod," expresses the

she was eighty.

tremendous force behind Alice's life.

Three serious cancer surgeries stole time from her creativity, but she refused to stop.

In 1986 her delightful novel Stellarian (meaning "star people") was published by Horizon. The book, which is still available, is a masterful portrayal of the

Too long we likened faith to candle strength, Whose fickle flame will not outlast a breath., A flick of light to end the stern day's length, A guttering taper at the gates of death.

fight between good and evil. Immediately upon reading

Stellarian, I wanted to add it to my repertoire of drama. tized book reviews, which I have performed for forty years.

"Alice, I must review your book," I said. "But where

Faith is a blaze within a Van Gogh's breast, The flash of vision planted within a seed, The fire beneath a fervent prayer's request Which moves the force of heaven with its need.

will I find songs to sing with it?"

She replied without hesitation, "I hoped you'd want to do it. I'll write the music." And she did. Audiences are still delighted with that review. But they especially loved meeting the author, as I often took Alice with me for the performances.

u

p to the time of her death, Alice's creativity con-

And faith, with work, can be a furnace blast,

A welder's torch, where works of man arise, The fiery pen dipped in the molten cast, Which writes a burning message on the skies.

And faith, with love, can be the lumined rod To lead men to the shining face of A God.

tinued to burn brightly. Her sister Revo once exclaimed, "Alice, I believe you think in poetry."

She replied, "Yes, I do. I'm always forming my

ideas in rhyme-by habit, I suppose."

Dora Flack is a writer and performer living in Bountiful.

Ill health took its final toll on February 20, 1997, when Alice died at the age of 93. She left her son, two daughters, and many descendants, down to seven

Illustratloni-paqe I5 A c e Morrey ~ a ~ late the i plan@ her chrldhood home. Page 16:

great-great-grandchildren,to bask in the aura of her challenging, rewarding life.

Her devoted daughter Judith McAffee had lived

Lawrence Epperson.

Before the whites came and changed almost everything, willow baskets were a mainstay of Goshute life. The baskets, exquisitely woven, were also highly utilitarian. Families used them as dishes, water jugs, harvesting and winnowing trays, backpacks, sieves, cradleboard shades, and even cooking pots-using hot rocks to cook the food.

Now, with the actual need for them largely gone, the art of creating these fine-woven baskets is disappearing. Two Goshute women living on the reservation that straddles the Nevada-Utah border speak of their effort. to continue this historical skill, of their grandmother-teachers,and of "how it used to be." Genevieve Fields is a secretary for the Goshute tribe. Darlene Openshaw is a teacher's aide at the Ibapah Middle School.

Woven Goshute Baskets, Grandmothers, and "How i t Used To Be"

Genevieve Fields When I was a kid I was always at my grandma's house; she lived in a log cabin. I liked to be around her, I guess, so I could pester her with questions. Her name was Lizzie Steele. She didn't speak English. It's funny-her mother was full-blooded Spanish, but she didn't speak the Spanish language; she spoke Shoshone. I guess she had a lot of patience because she taught me things. She tanned deer hides, and I learned that from her. She did a lot of things. She'd go pick chokecherries and lay them out to dry; that was her winter food, besides pinenuts. She also dried deer meat. I was always with her; sometimes I slept at her house.

Grandma was from Nevada, the Ruby Valley. She married a Shoshone, and they moved here when my mother was a little girl. She was born in the 1800s; she was 72 when she died in about 1960. She was funny. You know flannel cloth? That was her underclothing, even in the hot summer. She wore three or four of them under her dress.

Grandma used to make all kinds of baskets. When she went after her willows I went with her. We'd go in winter because in summer, when the leaves are coming, they'll leave a hole. We got on horseback and went after the willows up the creek, wherever they were growing. The horse was old; Winnowing basket and lidded basket he kind of limped, but she used him for willow gathering. She photos by was always having to fight me for her knife1 was always takEla~neBarton ing it because 1 wanted to cut some, too. But she did the cutting. I would just pack them for her. She'd put the willows into a bundle and tie them on the side of the horse.

Grandma used to talk to everything; she would talk to the willows before she cut them. Pinenut time was the same way. They said prayers before they harvested-prayers of appreciation, I guess.

Nobody picked pinenuts till after that. Now when my kids and I go out and get cedar, we , say our prayer first, then we get what we need and come home.

Back at the house, we'd find some shade and that's where we would sit. she'd take a knife and scrape the skin off the willow.

'Sometimes she'd boil it and the skin would peel right off. Then I watched her splitting her willows. That takes a lot of practice. You

years, but when she retired she had a lot of free time separate each branch three ways; you split it down the on her hands. So when my mother made baskets, I middle. [The weaver uses her teeth to start the split did them too. It was frustrating trying to split the wile and to hold one of the three parts while splitting the lows; you'd just get frustrated. But if you keep at it, other two]. I watched her splitting her willows. Then you eventually learn. I made my first basket when I she'd roll them up and tie them. was in my twenties. It's a bowl shape. A long time ago She did a lot of winnowing baskets. I didn't go you would go up and gather pine pitch and seal it with her to gather seeds and use it for eating out of. I just use it for decbecause of school; my oration. grandpa was a firm I have a water basket made by my great-great believer in sending grandmother. It's really old. Now, the pine kids to school. But I pitch has worn off it. remember when we But I don't have much time to make baswent out to gather kets, that's the problem. They're time-consumpinenuts. My mother ing. The thing that takes the longest is gatherhad a cone-shaped ing the willows and splitting them, but making basket she wore on them, it's not as bad. I do cradleboards, more her back to gather the of those than baskets; they're not as tedious. cones in. She would When LaMont, my grandson, was born, I pick the green cones made my first cradleboard. I knew how to before they were open make cradleboards before that, but why make and toss them in her them? My mother had made cradleboards for basket. Then she my own children. Cradleboards would throw them make kids feel secure. into the fire.

When you put kids in To prepare the them, they get used pinenuts you dig a big pit, build a big f i ~ mix , the to them; they chamal with dirt, and mast the cones underground. actually cry for After that, it takes hours to get the nuts out of the nem. When cones. It's hard on your hands. But those are good you put pinenuts! Then you take the nuts and pound the them in shells with a rock, then use the basket to separate the they fall shells and nuts [by tossing the nuts into the air and right letting the shells blow away]. Not many people gather asleep. pinenuts anymore. I think it's just the older people.

But After I finished smth grade here [at Ibapah, Utah], making I went to Carson City, and after that I separated from my grandma, I guess. cradleboards is hard on the hands. You When I was over have to heat the willow there she branch for the frame passed on. and bend it. My hands That's when I would just swell up; that's got away from why I have arthritis. it [traditional I've been having my ways]; once you granddaughter work with get away from tradime on baskets, but she's tion, it's kind of hard still little. She'll work a to go back to it, especially Left: Winflowing basket. Top to little, then she's off playbottom: Mary Pete splits ywiiIo\ws; with my grandmother passing on. I chcllcechery gatheping basket; ing. Someday when I just got away from it. lidded baskets (See next page for retire I can spend all the My mother was making baskets one year; the weavers).Top two ph~lms@ Carol Edison, courtesy d UBh time I want making basshe was a cook at the school for twenty-five

\

Arts Ceunrjl.

kets. I'd like to make baskets so when I pass on, my kids will have something.

Darlene Openshaw I learned to make baskets from my stepdad's moth. er, Mollie Bonamont. She died about three years ago; I learned a lot from her. We lived in a two-room shack house, and my grandmother lived next door to us. My parents drank an awful lot. My grandmother didn't want me to be like them, so she had me move into her extra room so she could teach me things.

She used to talk about the way it used to be, and how it has changed. She spoke just a real little English. She told me that somebody had come This page: Molley and built the cabins they ~c~urd~ y .e xpage: t Motlie Bonamont; ~ary lived in. A long time ago, Pete weaving. Photos by she said, some people Carol Edison, courtesy of lived underground in celUtah AI-ISCouncil. B ~ O W : Looking into a gathering lar homes w i t . peaked basket. Photo by Elaine roofs and bushE3arron. es on top. Later they gradually came up, and some covered their homes with sagebrush.

She said that this reservation is made up of several "lost tribes" who came together and formed the Goshute tribe.

My grandhther, who was born in 1906 a long way away from here, told the same story.

I saw some cellar homes when I was growing up, and some of the old dishes they used. The cloth they had hung over the doors would just rip in half when you touched it. Sometimes we used to see old beads spilled around. Grandma told us never to play with them, that they mean death is there.

She made baskets. She had trays for harvesting pinenuts and a horn-shaped one for picking wild onions and stuff, but some lady came in and bought it. I saw her slowly changing after that; she'd take plastic bags along to gather in.

I used to watch her make cradleboards, just sit and watch how she'd work weaving the shades of the

cradleboards. One day I moved over next to her and said, "You should make me one of those." She said, "No, you should learn to make them yourself." She said she'd take me "willow-shopping."

We went to get willows in the middle of spring.

She told me to respect the things you cut down and respect the things you kill.

She used to tell me that a long time ago when you cut willows, you would take tobacco. You would sprinkle the tobacco around the willow and say a small prayer to give thanks for the use of the willows. Then she kind of laughed and said people

I

1 1

don't do it anymore.

She told me that if I ever took things, I shouldn't flaunt it around. She told me God didn't put things on this earth for us to destroy. Then she would laugh [ruefully]. "Things like that are dying," she said. "Nobody does it any-

more."

I don't know if she herself prayed. I just saw her standing still before she cut willows. Maybe she was praying. I never paid attention to her till she died, then I realized what she'd been saying all along. I miss her.

She would have me try to make things. But when I used to try things, they never turned out right. She told me it takes a lot of practice. There were other times when I would sit by her and she would make gloves out of deerhide. She again told me that if I wanted something in life I should do it myself. She said she could tell me a million times, but until I did it on my own I'd never learn.

I helped her cut the willows, but I never did any of

my own baskets. She did them, and I'd just sit and talk to her and watch her do it. As the years passed I never did anything, I guess. I became an alcoholic myself; I first started getting bombed when I was nine years old. I'm not embarrassed to say that anymoreit's just the way I was brought up. Now I've overcome a lot of it.

Both my grandmothers told similar stories. My other grandmother, Molley McCurdy, when she was making a pinecone [gathering] basket, said something about the spirit in the pinecones, and that they used to sing to the pinecones when they harvested them.

Whenever she sat and did baskets, she remembered the old times, and it gave her peace.

She used to reminisce with herself when she did baskets, how the ladies used to talk and gossip for hours when they were making them.

Molley McCurdy told me that when she was a little girl they lived on the other side of the mountains, in the valley over there. Then one time the soldiers came and killed the families, so they came over here and formed new homes. The army found them again. They called them the bluecoats. They watched the bluecoats take young boys away and make them into soldiers. Those that didn't go got beaten to death. Women were crying and screaming and running every whichway.

My grandmothers would always end their st@ ries, "That's how it used to be." Then they would laugh. Sometimes when I'm shaping my cradleboards I think of them.

In my late twenties I watched my mother making cradleboards, and it finally dawned on me that I should try it myself. I asked my mom, and she said if I wanted to learn, I'd have to do it myself-the same thing my grandma had said.

Finally my mom showed me how to shape it. First you have to get a frame. She showed me what to pick and what not to pick, and I asked her about the tobac-

co. She said that nobody does that anymore. But she did tell me to use willows wisely, and not to waste them. I made the frame, then I went to cut more willows for the backing. By the time I got done scraping them, my hands were just raw.

I tried using a modern basket with my first baby, but it was clumsy; I just couldn't handle it. So I put the babies in the cradleboard and threw them on my back, and I could do anything. My third child stayed in it until he was two. He'd cry and cry for it. Now I make a lot of cradleboards. I made 19 frames the other day. Afterward, I couldn't move my hands.

I used to ask my grandmother why things aren't the same anymore. She said, "Indians nowdays are trying to be white people."

She told me not to turn out that way.

She said, "Your actions and anything you do can be white, but the color of your skin and your feelings will always be Indian."

Me, I'd like to be myself. I've started teaching a Goshute language class to children here just on my own. I want to show my kids a different life. We're losing our language and cule ture, and I'm trying to bring it back. Right now I'm intm ducing cradleboards. I showed the children one and asked if anybody had ever seen one before, and they said, "No." I don't make baskets; I don't know how to split willows. My aunt, Evelyn Pete, tried to show me, but I'd try for hours, and I got so frustrated when my willows would break off short. Before, Mollie Bonamont told me the reason why I couldn't do it was because I didn't have the spirit with me. There was no spirit in the willow. 1 asked her what she meant, and she said, "Someday you'll know what I mean."

She said when the time was right I'd do it.

EYES THAT COULD SEE BEAUTY ioneer Provo was a primitive little town.

Its citizens were mostly rough and rugged frontiersmen; in fact, George A. Smith ,, lamented that "there were numbered in Provo some hard cases, which gave the place something of an unpleasant name." And because the people worked so hard, anything cultured-education, music, and art-took a back seat to sheer survival.

As a remedy, in 1868 Brigham Young sent Abraham 0 . Smoot to Provo as mayor, instructing him to smooth out the rough edges. Smoot tried, but he alonc could not accomplish this goal; it took a small but dedicated group of residents to refine the community. One of these citizens, Samuel Hans Jepperson, in his humble, unassuming way, advanced the cause of music and art in Provo for more than fifty years.

Samuel was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 2, 1854. When he was two and a half years old, his family immigrated to Utah by sailing ship and handcart. In 1858 the family made Provo their home, and Sam lived the rest of his life within several blocks of the family's first house there.

Life in early Provo was difficult, and young Samuel spent much of his time doing chores and helping his father earn a scanty living. But early on he developed a yearning to express his inner self through art and music. His father was not cooperative. A very practical man, Sarrluel's father thought the arts were nothing but a worthless waste of time.

The budding artist was not completely discouraged, however. During classes at the old Second Ward School, he filled every margin of his arithmetic book with drawings, and he drew on any scrap of paper he could find.

The urge to paint burned within the young boy, but he had no money to buy supplies. This did not stop him. He made his first brush by tying small chicken feathers to a smooth stick, then he concocted paints from berries, mustard, leaves, and roots. Next he found he could mix dried house paints. Samuel obtained his first real paints from a lady he called "old Mrs. Savoryn;

he had hung around her until she had to give him some paints. After that, he lay awake nights thinking about all the things he could do with those colors.

Sam also longed to make music. His first instrument was a Jew's harp, which contented him for a while, but eventually he yearned for something more sophisticated. He wanted a violin so he made one himself: he got an old cigar box, carved "f' holes in it, and attached a neck he had fashioned from a piece of wood. He then stretched four strings over this crude frame and played his aromatic instrument with a homemade bow.

At age thirteen, luck came his way. I n 1868 his father went to Echo Canyon to help build the transcontinental railroad. It became Samuel's responsibility to provide his mother with firewood for the winter and to cut enough wild hay from the lowland near the lake to feed the animals. He had finished these chores when a neighbor, George Evans, approached him with a business proposition. Since Samuel had access to the family wagon and oxen, Evans offered to trade his violin for four loads of building logs from Slate Canyon, which was a few miles southeast of Provo.

Samuel hurried to ask his mother for permission.

She reminded him in her practical way that he had no shoes. How could he go to the canyon for wood without shoes? To Samuel the answer was simple: he would go harefoot.

After four days of hard labor, the boy returned from his last trip to the canyon with sore feet but a happy

I

Samuel Jepperson, Early Pioneer Artist

by D. Robert Carter heart. He delivered the logs and was awarded his prizeone violin of rather poor quality. Its condition didn't stop him from learning to play, but his father almost did. To Mr. Jepperson, Samuel's playing branded him as lazy, and

made by Jepperson the bass guitar /held by h~sson), and the harp gultar /held by h~s daughter Above Jepperson's wooden cawn g Photos courtesy of Thomas B. Jepperson

formed a quadrille

band, which

played for larger groups. One year, Sam and Stephen Bee, his musical buddy, even joined a circus band that toured the state. The two grew attached to the bright uniforms they wore, though they yearned to be less firmly attached to the lice that shared their uniforms.

Sam also developed his skills as an artist. At the age of seventeen he went to work for Oxford-educated Henry J. Maiben, a skilled Provo painter and decorator.

In England Maiben had learned the craft of heraldic artistry from his father and had eventually become a master painter. Besides teaching Sam how to paint houses, Maiben gave him lessons in drawing and fine art.

In 1874 a call came for volunteers to work on the St. George Temple. Sam offered to help with the painting.

He reached St. George before the temple was ready for

decorating, so church leaders assigned him to do paint jobs throughout the town as a temple donation. To earn money for himself, Sam organized a band that played at dances and the theater. He also painted and sold landscapes and portraits. Salvaging a small piece of wood that had been thrown away by temple carpenters, he painted on it a portrait of Brigham Young. Though he never did get to paint in the temple, he returned to Provo a more experienced artist.

Back home, Jepperson found fulfillment by making instruments. During the course of his lifetime he eventually made 180 guitars, a few of which featured a unique harp accompaniment apparatus. Sam also made 50 violins and several cellos, violas, and double bass viols.

His skill at making both instruments and music helped him find a wife. Johane Petrene Rasmine (Minnie) Johnson, the musical daughter of J.P.R. Johnson, Danish bishop of the Provo First Ward, took guitar lessons from Sam. After he made her a guitar, they spent many hours playing the violin and guitar together. (Perhaps this is why Sam always considered the guitar his favorite instrument!) Over a period of time Minnie and Sam came to the conclusion that their interests extended beyond music, and they drove to Salt Lake City, where they were married July 11, 1879. O n returning to Provo they moved into a two-room adobe house that Sam had built, complete with furniture he helped construct. am's marriage must have inspired his art.

Just two months after his nuptial vows, an intricate wooden carving of Sam's received in Provo's newspaper, the Territorial cnqurrrr. The seventeen-inch+high carving was of a small boy in Greek clothing, flanked by two intricately carved birds. The paper reported, "Nothing in its construction is bungling, but on the contrary, every feature, feather, flower, angle, curve, cord, knot, ribbon, sash-is perfect." Jepperson planned to take it to the fair in Salt Lake City later that fall. In the early 1880s the local paper referred to Sam as a rising artist. His paintings were displayed in George Taylor's furniture store and in various other businesses around town. The Enquirer also mentioned some of Sam's frequent musical engagements,

like the Calico Ball at Cluffs Hall, one of the town's early theaters and dance halls.

- 1882 leaders of the Provo Stake encour-:d Sam to establish a city brass band.

They promised to pay him for playing at local and Sam rapidly organized the twenty-member Provo City Silver Band. He conducted this organization for thirty years before turning his duties over to his son Samuel, Jr. While painting houses for Henry Maiben, Jepperson met another Maiben employee, John Selck, who was a fine artist from Germany. Selck instructed Sam in scenery painting and fine art. The two may have worked together to paint scenery for Cluffs Hall; then, as the Provo Opera House neared completion in 1885, Selck received the contract to paint the scenery and hired Samuel to assist him. The Salt Lake Daily Herald complimented Sam's art: "Samuel Jepperson is engaged in painting the scenes, and those which he has finished reflect great credit on the gentleman, as an amst of the highest order." Samuel was also a member of the band that played for the opening performance at the theater.

In 1886 lead poisoning-from paint-impaired Sam's health. His physician suggested that he give up house painting and work outdoors instead. To scratch out a living, he began to deliver ice in the summer and to sell fresh fish and wild ducks from Utah Lake during the cold weather. His wife Minnie used the down from the ducks he shot to make pillows, which she sold around town.

Sam also bought a pasture in southwest Provo, about a mile from his house. The land was low, damp, and subject to damaging frosts; neighboring farmers called it "Jepperson's Folly." Nevertheless, through hard work he converted his "folly" into an apple orchard that eventually paid off; one year Sam raised 10,000 bushels of prize-winning apples.

Music, fishing, hunting, and farming continued to provide a living, but increasingly Samuel yearned to spend more time painting. He advertised in the paper as a landscape and picturesque sign painter. In a loft above his paint shop, he stored framing material and made many of his own frames., Sam would sometimes display his paintings in store windows and sell them to the highest bidder. One of his popular paintings, The Indian's Dream of the Happy Hunting Ground, was sold this way. The Enquirer esti. mated its worth as fifty dollars.

Sam was probably very happy to paint on commis-

sion, even if the contract came from a saloon. In 1891 he painted two bar nudes. His painting for the Knight Brothers Saloon, run by Jesse Knight and his brother Frank, was rather unusual-perhaps only in Provo could you find Adam and Eve featured as bar nudes. The painting measured nine by twelve feet and depicted two nearly life-sized figures partaking of the forbidden fruit.

The newspaper commented that the color was fine and the perspective was good, but that the expression on Eve's face was unsatisfactory. The artist received $150 for his work.

For the competing saloon of Wilson & Brown, he painted Psyche and Cupid. Some Provo people may have smiled when the two lovers were consumed by the fires of eternal damnation; the saloon burned down a little less than a year after the picture was hung. ut luck continued to smile on the artist himself through the early and midnineties. Jepperson's band kept busy, a -regressed. In 1892 J. Frank Pickering of Payson commissioned him to paint a panorama of twenty Utah scenes, which were taken to New York City and exhibited. That same year he was commissioned to paint patriotic scenes on Provo's Republican drum corps bandwagon; George Washington appeared on one side of the wagon and Abraham Lincoln on the other.

The following year Jepperson decorated the new Opera House curtain with a scene from medieval Venice. The Dally Enquirer commented, "The picture is executed with excellent taste and neatness. It forms an interesting study, and is one the observer will not soon tire of. Mr. Jepperson deserves commendation, both for the selection of his subject and the execution of the design."

Jepperson improved his skills through the years by associating with other artists. New York painter George Henry Taggart and his ailing wife spent two summers in Provo hoping to improve her health. As luck would have it, they camped out on a lot across the street from the Jepperson home, and Taggart helped Sam improve his technique. Jepperson's art also benefitted during these years from his associations with Dan Weggeland, John Hafen, James T. Harwood, John Fairbanks and Alfred Lambourne.

Sam also enjoyed his hunting and fishing friends.

The Provo's Sportsmen's Club built on Jepperson's property on Provo Bay a structure that would accommodate eighteen boats. The site was known as

a

Palntngs by Samuel Jepperson Utah Lake, top, and hs favorlte f~eld,located north of h~sfarm. Photos by the author

Jepperson's Landing, and Sam delighted in entertaining guests there.

One summer a trip to the boathouse gave the Dane a chance to use his mischievous sense of humor. A New York firm had sent an agent to Provo to obtain information on family relationships among the Mormons, and the man had become Sam's house guest. This guest, who was definitely an amateur at fishing, went with Sam and two of his sons to Provo Bay to angle for catfish. en the easterner asked Sam why were called catfish, Sam couldn't resist. Winking at the because of the strange sound that attracted them: meow. Sam then told his gullible guest that he could bring in more fish by meowing.

The sound effects began as soon as the hooks hit the water. It was a very successful fishing trip, and the agent was proud of his contributions. But by the time the group raised the anchor and headed for shore, the easterner had almost lost his voice.

I n 1897 Jepperson's good luck abruptly ended when his life careened headlong into tragedy. O n the evening of June 9, Samuel took three of his children, Florence, Walter, and Annie Marie, for a ride in the family's oneseat buggy. Near a bend in the railroad tracks Jepperson paused to speak with some acquaintances who lived nearby. They had talked a few moments when his friends remarked that a train was coming.

Sam intended to whip up the horse and cross the tracks before the train arrived, but the train was traveling at about thirty miles per hour and was upon him before he could cross. The two oldest children jumped from the wagon and scampered for safety, but six-yearold Annie Marie remained in the buggy. Sam sprang to the ground, seized the horse's reins, and led him around away from the tracks. The horse panicked, reared, and began to back toward the train.

The steps on the last car of the passenger train smashed through the rear of the buggy, demolishing it and strilung little Annie Marie's head. With a deep wound in the right temple and two more near the crown of her head, the child was carried into a nearby house while someone ran for the doctor. When word reached the Jepperson home six blocks away, Minnie rushed to her daughter's side; her son Sam followed with baby Marguerite in his arms. Annie Marie never regained consciousness and died about two hours later.

The whole family grieved, but Minnie suffered a nervous breakdown from the shock of seeing her battered and dying child, and for months she stayed in bed. I n

an effort to buoy her spirits, Samuel built a special platform on which he could lie, then he started to paint a beautiful mural of the four seasons on her bedroom ceiling.

At the north end he created winter, with icebergs and scenes from the North Pole. Toward the east he created spring, represented by Pilgrims building cabins among pines near Plymouth Rock while the Mayflower lay at anchor in the bay. To the south was a scene fiom the Everglades, and to the west the migrating ducks of autumn flew over prairie lowlands. At the center of the ceiling he painted blue sky, and he framed the entire mural with a soft brown and gold border. Sam's labor of love and his physical nearness as he worked on it aided Minnie's recovery.

The Jeppersons had four other children, and Sam and Minnie helped them to develop their own talents.

At one time there were 21 different musical instruments in the Jepperson home. Neighbors routinely gathered to hear the family jam sessions; some learned to play themselves so they could join in. All of the children eventually became prominent artists or musicians and provided much entertainment and enjoyment for others.

While his children followed their own illustrious careers, Sam continued to paint, play his instruments, and farm. More often now, his paintings dealt with historical topics, as Sam seemed ta feel a n obligation to preserve the buildings and events of the past for future generations. Handcart and wagon companies, buffalo stampedes, Blackhawk War battles, logging scenes, Fort Utah, Fort Provo, various Provo town scenes, and other pioneer topics became subjects for his canvases.

1any of the buildings he depicted are now gone, only remembered in his pa~ntings.Sam demanded firsthand i n f o r ~ r a t i d f r o mthe pioneers who had built the few early structures he hadn't seen, and those who viewed his paintings swore to their authenticity. A journalist described him as "belonging to no regular art school but to the pioneers as with his gifted brush he caught the spirit of the brave home seekers."

As the years passed, the artist did less farming and more painting. He liked to take landscape painting and sketching trips with Utah Valley artists Orson Campbell and B.F. Larsen. And when he did farm his land, he would work for a while, then tell his horse he needed a rest. Unpacking his paints and easel, he would sit under the shade of a tree and paint. In the fall of 1925 he sold most of the farm to his son Walter, who then took over the responsibility of tilling the land.

The people of Provo now showed more appreciation for his work. Local art guilds staged exhibitions of his paintings. During December of 1928 the Evening Herald exhibited his pictures in its office and advertised them as good Christmas presents. The paper also ran feature articles about Jepperson. Some citizens started a movement to establish a gallery in the recently built city and county building to exhibit the works of Jepperson and other local artists.

Provo's aging pioneer artist worked with and encouraged younger painters. One of his students, Orpha James, gives us insight into his personality, describing him as having "that dreamy, intangible, high idealism that all geniuses have...to touch the souls of those with whom he came in contact on his sketching trips."

Samuel and MinnieJepp~sanat home. Courtev of Thomas B. Jepemsn.

When hiking on sketching trips he "seemed like a boy instead of a person of seventy years. His physique was remarkable and his thoughtful, congenial and jovial good humors made him a very interesting companion."

His daughter Florence stated that he did his best work at age 74. He eventually completed more than 1,000 paintings.

In 1930 Sam took his optimism and his love for painting into his seventy-fifth year as he made ambitious plans for a panorama of 100 paintings covering history from the pilgrims to the settlement of the West.

One of his last paintings, The Interrupted Emigrant Train, showed an emigrant train delayed by a bison herd. But the depression hit Sam's apple profits hard, and he had a difficult time obtaining paints and materials.

Whenever he got a few nickels and dimes he bought more materials and set to work again.

A peaking of his

paintings, he said, "I no longer set the price. I am always happy to sell one, for that means I can make anoth1 do not sell and find myself short, 1 scrape off an old one or paint it over, for I must paint. My hands are better than they have been and I am eager to keep going while I can." However, Sam was not destined to "keep going" much longer.

One of his fivorite landscape subjects was a wheat field north of his farm. His granddaughter Venice recalled, "He especially loved it because it faced northso Mt. Timpanogos...[w as] in the back-ground and there were various sized clumps of Willow Trees-edging the north end of the field which gave it 'character' he said.

He painted that field in various years and from various angles-all a bit different...." It is fitting that in or very near this field Samuel H. Jepperson met his death one mild June morning in 1931.

That day, Samuel was driving a wagon while helping his son and another farmer spray an apple orchard near this field.

When the front wheels hit a ditch, the horses slackened up momentarily and then lunged forward. The rear wheels struck the ditch hard, and the artist-musician-farmer was thrown to the ground and landed on his head. His two companions rushed to him, picked him up, and tried unsuccessfully to r&ve him, but he died before they could summon medical aid.

Doctors later stated that he had broken his neck.

A Sunday afternoon funeral in the tabernacle honored early Provo's favorite musician and artist. Many fine tributes were offered in Sam's memory that day, but few likely came closer to the mark than the words that Samuel's grandson, octogenarian Thomas B. Jepperson, penned in 1996:

t

When grandad was being put together in Heaven, whosoever handles the talent department was not stingy. The day grandad was born-he was given eyes that could see beauty in all his surroundings and talented hands that could freeze this beauty on canvas. He was given talented ears that could hear beauty in the sound of birds, the rivers, the wind.

The Creator gave him talented hands to make and play instruments to help imitate those sounds.

D. Robert Carter is a former history teacher and historia n who specializes in Utah County topics.

The

h e

M a n Behind Scenes A l f ~ e dLambourne and &he Salt LaLe TLes&rE

by Lymdia Catter

0

ne might say it was love at first sight. From stepped onto a path that would lead to a career as a the minute Alfred Lambourne's eyes first scene artist and landscape painter.

At last, in 1866, the Lambournes headed west. looked upon the Salt Lake Theatre, the destinies of the man and the institution became entwined. Alfred carried a sketchbook in which he drew the landIn September of 1866, when the sixteen-year-old immi- marks they passed. Whatever formal education Lamgrant walked out of the canyon onto the benchland bourne had received during his childhood in St. Louis east of Salt Lake City and gazed across the valley, a set the stage for a lifetime of inquiry and learning and stately white buildself-education; however, though he ing a d his atpossessed a wonderful talent, he had tention; the had no opportunity for art instrucbuilding stood tion. Now, the great American out from the wilderness served as his classroom small wood and as he practiced his artistic skills and adobe structures expressed his artistic nature. that made up the he family arrived in Salt frontier city, Lake City with John dominating the Holladay's wagon train on landscape.

Tuesday, September 25. Not long Although after their arrival, young Alfred Lambourne attended Macbeth at the Salt Alfred Lambourne.

USHS _ -~llections. could not yet Lake Theatre, which had been built know it, the by the Mormon settlers in 1862. grand &ce symThis visit marked the beginning of a bolized art, beauty, culture, creativity, and refinement long relationship. Soon the youth began working as an The Salt Lake Theatre was, as historian Thomas assistant scene painter at the theater. Within two years, Alexander has noted, the heart of the city's artistic he earned the rank of assistant scenic artist, and in community. And it beckoned the budding landscape time he became the chief scenic artist. Lambourne's painter, who had a poet's soul. experiences and friendships there formed the basis for Alfred Lambourne came by stages to Utah. English some of his best reminiscent writing, and there on the by birth, he entered the world February 2, 1850, in scene-painter's gallery he developed his artistic talent.

Chieveley, Berkshire, not fir from London. When he He also helped to support his father's large family. was three his father, William Lambourne, joined the In Lambourne's early days as a scene painter, he was LDS church, an event that led to a major change in the paid in flour, a commodity as precious as gold in early young boy's life: the Lambournes left England for Utah; his wages consisted of part cash, store pay, and America sometime in the mid-1850s. The family first tithing scrip, which he could redeem at the church settled in St. Louis, where they remained for about ten tithing office for flour and other goods. In his book, A years while saving money for their journey to Utah.

Play-House, published in 1915, Lambourne rememAt an early age Alfred felt the desire to draw and bered, "How proud was the young Scene-Painter when, paint. While in S t Louis, the six-year-old became seri- through his labors on the Scene-Painter's Gallery, there ously ill. When his fither asked him what he would like was a sack of flour stored in his father's cellar! He was more than anythng else, the artist in the boy replied yet more proud when there were two, and prouder yet that he wanted a box of paints. The colors came and, when the number was increased to three. Five, I with the encouragement of his parents, the lad's feet believe, it ultimately became, and his pride knew no

T

b - . . - ~ -" orking in pioneer Utah, even in the refined atmosphere of the theater, presented some unexpected challenges. Mingled with Lambourne's memories of the beautiful actresses, the temperamental actors, and the magnificent plays at the theater were pesky insects. In A Play-House he wrote of the grasshopper invasion of 1867 or 1868:

0 the locusts, the locusts, the locusts! They made dim the sun, the gleaming of their myriad wings, as they circled high in air, was as though some terrible spider's web was thick woven over all the sky.... Yet the Plays in the Play-House went on... .

There were locusts in the lobby, there were locusts in the Green-Room, locusts flew or hopped across the stage, they were in the auditorium, they were in the dressing rooms, they were in the clothing of the actors and the people who comprised the audience.

Certainly my memories of the early drama and 'the Grasshopper War' form a singular combine.

both painted scenery and acted on the stage, was likely the first scene-painter with whom Lambourne worked.

Moreover, he was one of Utah's first professional artists. Alfred treasured their friendship and admired Ottinger's intellect and talent. As he pursued his own landscape painting career, Alfred spent many hours and days hiking, traveling, and sketching with the older, more experienced artist. In a eulogy that appeared in the Deseret News, Lambourne wrote of Ottinger as My first of friends, the friend of my youth, the one who was these, my oasis in a desert of realism, the friend who opened for me the gateway into realms of art, and who shared with me his tubes of paint, his roll of canvas, when such things were, in an isolated land, almost worth their weight in gold ....

F

rom his perch in the loft behind the stage, Lambourne watched and absorbed drama, both tragic and comic; he listened to sermons from LDS leaders and traveling preachers of other denomi* nations; he heard lectures presented by philosophers, travelers, and intellectuals; he contemplated ideas that were debated. He became exposed to a variety of philosophies and personalities as visitors from all over the world lectured or performed at the theater. This exposure opened his mind and expanded and deepened his thinking.

The huge sheets of canvas upon which

O n the scene-painter's gallery he learned his craft by assisting professional scene painters who visited Utah.

At first, he learned from the German artist J. Guido Methua, whose wife, Madame Scheller, acted on the stage; with him, Lambourne helped paint the opening scene for the fairy drama Cinderella. His second master was George Tirrell, from the Globe Theater in Boston.

His last great teacher was, as Lambourne expressed it, "that erratic genius, that Bohemian of the scene-painters Bohemians," Henry C. Tryon. worked hung from the ceiling on rolls in Tryon, from Chicago, painted the the gallery high above famous dropcurtain Return of a the stage at the back Victorious Fleet, which became a of the building. The hallmark of the Salt Lake Theatre for many years. For seven weeks, painters-and the Lambourne and Tryon painted actors and friends who came to chat as scenery together in a town "to the south." and Alfred considered the the artists workedTra~ncanvas n Salt Lake Theatre thought to have been climbed to the gallery man one of his life teachers. painted by Lambourne USHS collectrons Lambourne felt that many by way of long wind"shades of genius" worked on the ing staircases o n either side of the wide scene-painter's gallery during the theater's first three decades. Besides the out-of-town platform. Lambourne worked by light from coal-oil professionals, there were the "home" artists William lamps and the skylights in the roof.

It was usually in the evening, sometimes late into the Morris, De la Harpe, and Rueben Kirkham.

And there was George M. Ottinger. Ottinger, who night, that Lambourne worked. On nights without per-

m

I

formances, especially during the dreary autumn and winter months, the empty theater would seem dark and gloomy, even frightening. The lamplight created spooky shadows, and the mice made strange noises. The makebelieve world of the theater heightened the eeriness that surrounded the young painter as he worked.

Lambourne recalled that it sometimes seemed that ghosts dwelled there. But on play nights, "one worked

the Continent,

or

from Ocean to Ocean, a series of sixt, 111

views of America on enormous canvasses. For the project, Alfred collaborated with fellow scene-painter Rueben Kirkham. The huge paintings of landscapes across America measured 12 feet wide by 8 feet tall; two I scenes, Salt Lake City and San Francisco, were each 25 feet wide. The two young partners opened their panoramic show at the Salt Lake Theatre in 1875, with in a blaze of light, keeping time with his brush-strokes Lambourne reading a narrative he had written; the] 2 the sound of music or dancing feet." they took it on tour. he art of painting scenery-drops, sets, wings, Lambourne treasured his friendships with the pe and flies-was difficult and exacting. The suc. formers and the crew of the Salt Lake Theatre. But cessful artist had to know his craft well. There despite the many beautiful and talented actresses, I' was, as Lambourne put it in a reminiscent singers, and article for the Deseret News on February dancers, it was a costume seam8, 1908, "no room for flippancy or makebelieve in him who would rule the scenic stress who won gallery." He did not consider scene painthis heart. In the ing merely the "play-ground of art," and theater, he met he grappled with problems of light and and wooed Wilshade, color and perspective. He felt that helmina Willianla scenic artist must solve many problems son; in 1877,when to achieve just the right effect, often at the he was 27 years last minute before the opening night. The old, he took her to wife. rtist, Lambourne explained, "is often as it were, in the midst of battle."

As a scenic The production schedule sometimes artist, Lambourne was worthy of nc 11 demanded extraordinary time and effort 11 from the scene-painter. Lambourne Charles Savage and George Ottlnger USHS. . tice and receiveremembered preparing for Edward L. praise in the newsSloan's play Stage and Steam, about the railroad and papers for his impressive work. In 1870 the Deseret News stagecoach. The play opened a week earlier than antici- commended him on his scenes for Peep O'Duy, calling pated, requiring Lambourne to produce two d r o p him a promising young artist. The Salt Lake Herald scenes in one day. "While the audience was looking at made note of his scenes for The Ice Witch. His work th: one scene--a mountain pass-in the second act, he received the most journalistic recognition, however, was [Lambourne] was still working on the other-a western the scenery for Sea of Ice. The Salt Lake Herald i r mining campwhich was to be used in the third act," October 1881 was lavish in its praise: he recalled.

During the theater season of 1872.73, Lambourne To-morrow night the "Sea of Ice" will be prc id not get a single holiday. He worked on Christmas, duced for the first time in a number of years, an' New Year's Day, every Sunday, and during each perforwith a realistic effect such as has never been equale mance. Sunday work was actually against the rules, but before .... The icebergs, when the light is upon them, Lambourne was working for Tirrell, who made his own are beautiful, and have the most cooling effect imay laws that season. As assistant scene painter, Lambourne inahle ... The aurora borealis is as near perfect as was paid by the hour and got double pay for Sundays could be; and would cause Dame nature to wonde and holidays, so he did not complain too loudly. After could she see it, how it is possible to imitate her s that season, the twenty-two-year-old artist took a tenclosely. The painting of the icebergs and of'the aurc I month "vacation." ra is by the young artist Alfred Lambourne, and is 1 The result of that vacation was a panorama, Across unquestionably the most striking piece of sceni

Jl

I /

1

i I

J;

-

I

painting he has ever done, and it is one which reflects credit upon him in an artistic sense....

1y together. Lambourne turned these sketches into beautiful works of art that would establish him as a land* scape artist.

Lambourne had first professionally ventured into landscape painting in 1869, at age nineteen. Through the 1870s to the mid-'80s, he maintained a dual career in scene painting and landscape art; being both industrious and compelled to create, Lambourne somehow found the energy and time to work at the theater while also painting landscapes. In addition, he painted the scenery and drop curtain for Walker's Opera House in 1882-83, and in 1885 he painted scenery that was shipped to a theater in Butte, Montana.

However, scenery art was not lasting. A letter from Methua once warned Lambourne of the ephemeral nature of the scene-painter's fame and urged the young man to abandon stage painting, to go to Germany to study landscape painting, and to follow the great artists who loved and glorified nature.

Although Lambourne was never to receive formal training, he discovered his own deep feelings for art.

Undoubtedly he wanted his art to last, to have a permanent influence, and eventually he turned wholeheartedly to landscape painting. A Deseret New article, one in the series entitled, "Our Home Writers," told of Lambourne's transition from scene painter to fine artist:

ome near-disasters befell the theater while -ambourne worked on the gallery. One night uuring a performance, but while the curtain was down, a fire broke out. The theater manager used one of Lambourne's cans of white "Provo chalk" watercolor paint to help squelch the flames.

Another time, as Lambourne worked on a great drop curtain depicting a tropical island, black powder on Arsenal Hill exploded, catapulting a huge boulder over the theater. The rock landed on a building across the street, shaking the theater, filling the auditorium with a fog of dust, and showering the scene-painter with broken glass from the skylights.

O n at least one occasion, the scenery Lambourne painted had but a brief life. He had painted special scenery-a night scene showing London housetops, and a scene with St. Paul's in the background-for the presentation of C h a r l e s Dickens' Oliver Twist. But the actors' performances were so vivid that the audience was h o r r i b l y shocked, causing the play to be shut down after only one performance.

Then came a period Shortly after in the young man's 'Omin&' to Scene-pa~nters'gallery, by George Ottinger From A Play-House, wrlrren

by Alfred Lambourne. USHS. life when he realized Lambourne had met pioneer phothat scene painting, tographer Charles Roscoe Savage, a member of the artisalthough one of the most difficult of all arts, is of tic crowd that gravitated to the theater and an occasional transient nature; the most excellent canvas was soon performer in theater productions. Savage and "Fred," as worn by rough handling; new scenes were demandthe photographer called him, became splendid friends. ed and were done over the older ones- nothing, As an established photographer, 'Savage taught the however well-done or however beautiful, lasted. younger man about the business of art. he last three scenes Lambourne painted for Even more crucia1,iSavage had the means to take his the stage of the Salt Lake Theatre were the friend places, literally. In many ways, he made Lambourne's ascendancy to fine art possible by giving . -. deck of the H.M.S. Pinafore, and a palace him the opportunity to see the natural wonders and..,' scene and a winter moonlight view of a ruined chateau beauties that Alfred sketched as they traveled extensive- with Paris glowing in the background for the play The

T

,I

.

Banker's Daughter. In his February 1908 Deseret News reminiscence, Lambourne recalled fondly the audience's reception of his final scene:

A pleasant, little thought comes to me (but pardon, o pardon the vanity!) the ruined chateau by moonlight was received by the audience with a round of applause. So the man on the paint-gallery, after having executed miles upon miles of scenery, made his adieu.

Alfred Lambourne may have said farewell to the theater, but he continued to contribute to Utah's art and s. During his career as a landscape artist, he produced some 400 paintings. He was also a fine

.#X,

. descriptive essayist, and by the turn of the century he had focused his attention primarily on writing poetry, descriptive essays, and personal reminiscences. He published many books and frequently contributed articles and poems to the Deseret News and to LDS periodicals before his death in 1926. Though now he is best known for his landscapes and somewhat for his literary works, his association with the Salt Lake Theatre did much to shape his life and his artistic destiny.

Lyndia Carter is a historian who is currently working on a book about the Martin handcart company. Below: Morning in the Uintah Mountains, by Alfred Lambourne. Courtesy of Utah Arts Council.

.f

I.

-*I '

'- .

I

1