The History Blazer, April 1996 by Utah Historical Society

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April 1996 Blazer Contents A Bicyclist Challenges the Great Salt Lake Desert The Colonel Orders a Grand Review Salt M e City Had Its Typhoid Mary A Kentucky Presbyterian in Vernal

Tabby-To-Kwanah, Man of Peace Salt Lake City's Zany Streetcar Transfers A Moses for the Printing Industry

She Promoted SLC's Convention Business "Aunt P'lina" Studied Medicine in Her 60s Boyhood Memories of Josiah F. Gibbs Culture and Young Adults in Dixie

Brigham Young's Personal Finances Gemt de Jong, Jr., Influenced the Arts and Education Clean Clothes Blowing in the Breeze Rhymes Filled Children's Autograph Books

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A Bicyclist Challenges the Great Salt Lake Desert

A FORMIDABLE WASTELAND OF SALT OVERLMNG

A SEA OF MUD, the

Great Salt Lake Desert challenged travelers in Utah in the 19th century. Native Americans skirted the salty wilderness. Early immigrants usually chose the California Trail through Idaho to avoid it, at least until Lansford W. Hastings suggested a shorter way. After all, John C. Fremont had made it across in 1845. In 1846 some immigrants followed Hastings across the salt desert and experienced thirst and hardship none wished ever to repeat. For the Donner-Reed party it was another of the monstrous difficulties that plagued them. Gold seekers by the hundreds, looking for the quickest way to California in 1849 and 50, used the cutoff across the wasteland. More cautious travelers chose Hensley's Salt Lake Cutoff on the east side of the lake up to the California Trail. Only a relatively few wagons, freight or family, dared try the salt desert after 1850. Still, just looking a map, the 75-mile straight run seems the shortest way from Salt Lake City to Nevada, perhaps worth the risk if one is really in a hurry, young, and somewhat reckless. Those who thought they could cross the Great Salt Lake Desert on a bicycle had to be more than adventurous. Such a young man was William D. Rishel. In the mid- 1890s bicycles were all the craze. Bill Rishel, who had recently moved to Salt lake City from Wyoming, loved the sport of bicycle racing. When William Randolph Hearst masterminded a transcontinental bicycle relay to promote his newspapers, he chose Rishel as the manager for the western division of the race. To Rishel, unfamiliar with the characteristics and history of the salt desert, the shortest route was obviously around the southern end of the Great Salt Lake. When he announced the route, the wheelmen (as bicyclists called themselves) of Ogden were upset that their city was bypassed in favor of Salt Lake City. They blasted Rishel in the newspapers, stating that the southern route would end up taking more time. They challenged him to prove that it was faster. Perhaps this challenge is what prompted Rishel to see for himself. Possibly he felt it his duty to personally scout the course in the summer of 1896. Rishel was not the first to cross the salt desert by bicycle, however. In 1884 Thomas Stevens, 29, on a transcontinental ride pedaled around the northern end of the lake. His bicycle had a 50-inch front wheel. Crossing the deserts of Nevada and northwestern Utah using only wagon roads, luckily dry, and alkali flats had been a chore. He ended up walking about a third of the distance. Persistence and endurance brought him around the northern shore of the lake and into Mormon farming lands, a Garden of Eden with good meals and a pretty Mormon girl. Stevens had demonstrated that a northern route was feasible. No one before Rishel had dared to cross by the southern route. He had scouted and planned the relay route using established (more)

trails and the railroad line as much as possible, but it looked too slow to go around the northern end of the lake and then down to Salt Lake City. He had already promised promoters there and the governor that the route would swing through the capital, and he felt he could not back out. The southern route would have to do; speed, directness, and principle were essential. Wiser minds advised Rishel not to try the desert, but a strong, energetic, determined young man is hard to convince. Water was the big problem, but from an old prospector he got a crude map showing the only available source, Cook's Spring in the Lakeside Mountains. Rishel's route would be somewhat north of Hastings Cutoff and then down the east side of the Lakeside Range. It was probably mid-July when Rishel and his friend Charlie Emise and their bikes started by train from Salt Lake City to Terrace, a railroad town 28 miles southwest of Park Valley. Their only supplies were two army canteens of water each and some sandwiches. They began their ride at 2:00 A.M. Their way over the glistening salt was lighted by a full moon. Initially, the going was easy and fast on the salt crust in the cool predawn. Before long, however, they hit the mud flats where their wheels became so mired they could barely move them, even by pulling the bikes along. They were forced to carry them for long periods until they reached sandy areas where they wuld ride-sometimes. The sun was soon blazing down on the two young men. Water ran out with half the distance still to go. Their only hope was to find the spring. When Emise sighted a faint trail into the mountains they followed it and found a dribble of water dripping into a tiny half-filled rock depression. They drank and then spent hours trying to get enough water into the canteens to complete the journey . After dark they started again, only to find more mud and slow going. As they neared the lake's south end, sand and marshes grabbed their wheels and feet. Hordes of mosquitoes and other insects attacked them, but at least it was cooler. Finally, they made it through the quagmire and rode into Grantsville about midnight, tired, thirsty, and hungry after a 22-hour and 100-mile ordeal. But with the optimism of youth, Rishel remained convinced that the southern route was faster if the riders were properly equipped and if water were cached at the relay points. Therefore, these preparations for the relay race were made. Fortunately for the riders, a desert rainstorm forced Rishel to announce a change of route to go around the north end of the lake. With time to mellow him and no relay race to distort wisdom, Rishel was to proclaim Iater in life that he would not repeat his feat again for a million dollars! Sources: Virginia Rishel, Weels to Adventure: Bill Rishel's Western Routes (Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1983); Charles Kelly, Salt Desen Trails (Salt Lake City, 1930); Irving A. Leonard, When Bikhood Was in Flower (South Tamworth, N . H. : Bearcamp Press, 1969); Ogden Standard-Examiner and Salt Lake Tribune, July-September 1896; Peter H. DeLaFosse, ed., Trailing the Pioneers: A Guide to Utah's Emigrant Trails, 1829-1869 (Logan: Utah State University Press and Utah Crossroads, Oregon-California Trails Association, 1994).

THEHISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533 -3500.

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The Colonel Orders a Grand Review

THE 1858-60 DIARY OF CAPTAINALBERTTRACY,an officer in Johnston's Army, contains many enlightening glimpses of life in an army camp. The author's vivid descriptions and understated humor make it a delight to read. Born in Buffalo, New York, on April 28, 1818, he spent some of his boyhood in Canada. He enlisted in the army in Maine and in February 1847 was commissioned a 1st lieutenant in the infantry. Following "gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec," he achieved the rank of captain, but he resigned his commission in 1848. He resumed it in 1855 with help from President Franklin Pierce, a close acquaintance. When the Utah Expedition was organized in 1857 Tracy was put in command of Company H. Despite the ominous clouds looming over the peaks north and west of Camp Floyd, Utah County, on February 28, 1858, Lieutenant Colonel Charles F. Smith ordered a grand review. Any other officer, Tracy wrote, would have settled for "muster and inspection in quarters." But Smith was obdurate and resolved that the pageant should proceed. The men formed into battalions or separate batteries and marched across a stream and past the small town of Fairfield, called Frog or Frogtown by the troops, to a large area where the review was to take place. It took some time for the formation, nearly an eighth of a mile long, to position itself, for sagebrush-studded ground, Tracy observed, "never yields upon mere occasions of military display. " Meanwhile, the storm hit, sweeping "down so bitterly upon us.. .that it was with difficulty the most resolute could refrain from turning in his place, to avoid its cutting cold. Some suffered slight freezing at the ear-tips, or extremity of nose, and many were so chilled as for the time almost to lose the use of hands and arms. " By the time Smith and his aides were positioned to review the troops, the snow was advancing toward them like "a thick white wall ....and word of command, sound of bugle, or bray of band were, with the uproar of the storm soon muffled well nigh from hearing.. ...only the habit of the men kept them in line or step." The companies' flags and even the line of march in front could scarcely be seen, and the men 'only guessed at the points of wheeling, following...in the track" of those before. Tracy continued, "Coming round at the point of the reviewing officer-we distinguished through the cloud, dim objects, gray and ghost-like, believed to be Smith and his staff, and at these we saluted, agreeable to the regulation, with our sabres-doing the best we might." When the storm lessened a bit Tracy could see snow piled up like ice cream on band instruments and epaulets. As for the men's broad-brimmed felt hats with ostrich pIumes, "they were simply a mess, and shocking to behold." The crestfallen troops finally filed off the field (more)

toward their company grounds. Colonel Smith relented somewhat at the end and ordered one gill (4 ounces) of whiskey per man which 'did much to salve over the wounded dignity and morale of the morning. " The 5th Infantry was quite demoralized, Tracy said, over the ruin of their brand new hats and plumes, and his own company felt quite put out by it all as well. Tracy concluded that 'There is no other man in the army who could have done all this with impunity. Yet knowing the brave record, and the generally just character of Smith-it is likely he will be forgiven even the vagary of this review in a February snow-storm." See me Utah War Journal of Captain Albert Tracy, 1258-1860, published as vol. 13 of Utah Historical Quarterly

(1945).

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Salt Lake City Had Its Typhoid Mary

SALTLAKECITYWAS

TYPHOID, as were many other U.S. cities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People would hunt, camp, picnic, and pollute near the seven mountains streams that provided the city with most of its water. Sheep and cattle would graze near the watershed, barnyards were built near water sources, and flies had easy access to the open privies and manure piles. Typhoid was also easily passed by finger contamination when an ill person or even a recovered victim handled food and did not wash his or her hands carefully after using the restroom. In 1923 a Salt Lake City woman working in a delicatessen was ill with what was later diagnosed as 'walking typhoid." She had diarrhea and was getting weaker but did not want to leave her boss shorthanded; besides, she needed the money. So she stayed on the job, serving food in between her frequent trips to the lavatory and her less frequent or thorough handwashings. One day four adults and two young people came into town from their westside farm to see a double feature at a movie theater. Afterwards they visited the delicatessen and bought some food to take home for their evening meal. The young people left on dates, while the adults shared the deli food. The four adults came down with typhoid and two died. Some 188 cases of typhoid (13 deaths) were traced to the woman carrier, but no one knows for sure how many people contracted the disease, took it home, possibly to another state, and spread it even farther. The problem was compounded by the fact that a drugstore near Salt Lake's tourist section bought food from the delicatessen and served it to uncounted numbers of people. Eventually the deli was tracked down as the source of the outbreak and quarantined. The number of reported cases of typhoid soon subsided. Prior to 1900 doctors saw more typhoid fever than any other disease. They treated it in various ways. Some felt it was best to starve the patient; others felt hot water was the cure. Salt Lake City Cemetery records from 1850 to 1894 record 924 deaths due to typhoid, but the actual number was probably higher. Many deaths among typhoid-prone adolescents and young adults, who died in the summer and fall when typhoid is most common, were attributed to "diarrhea" or "fever." Many people realized the connection between typhoid and contaminated food and drink, but little action was taken until health boards were established. Even then, it was difficult to educate the public to take a few simple precautions. When the housefly was implicated as a typhoid carrier in the late 19th century, Dr. Theodore B. Beatty, state health commissioner, began a crusade against the pest. He distributed literature, gave talks and demonstrations at schools, and helped make "Swat the Fly" a common (more) A HOTBED FOR

greeting. A contest offered prizes to whoever killed the most flies. The winner brought in 707 quarts of dead flies, an estimated 9.5 million, and received the $1,000 prize donated by a Salt Lake City businessman. In one year Utahns captured 3,715 quarts of flies. The fly menace was lessened, but real progress was made when attention gradually turned to the eradication of breeding places. Following the example of some eastern cities, Salt Lake City instituted a water chlorination program in 1915 and gradually added to it until 1927 when daily testing of chlorinated water was done at all city water intake points. Reactions to chlorination varied. Mathers worried when they could not taste the chlorine that the water they gave their children was not safe. Others said that chlorine made the water unpalatable and that it killed their goldfish. During the prohibition era some complained that it ruined the taste of their home brew and bathtub gin. Gradually, with increasing use of sanitary methods-improved sewer systems, purer water, and laws regulating the handling and dispensing of foods-plus use of a vaccine discovered by Almoth Wright of London in 1906-7, typhoid was controlled. Source: Ward B. Studt, Jerold G. Sorensen, and Beverly Burge, Medicine in the Intermountain West (Salt Lake City: Ofympus Publishing Co., 1976).

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A Kentucky Presbyterian in Vernal

AMONG VERNAL'SFOUNDERS AND MOST INFLUENTIAL CITIZENS was a transplanted Kentucky Presbyterian, Lewis Curry. In 1880 his brother Oran saw a government notice that parts of the Uintah Indian Resewation in eastern Utah had been opened to white settlement. Oran came, saw, and established a trading post in the Vernal area seven years before any real settlement existed. In 1887 Lewis, a banker in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, followed Oran to Utah to become his partner. Through additional involvement in a mill and furniture store they helped to make Vernal the regional commercial center and by 1893 the county seat. In 1909 local Mormon leaders, frustrated with the lending policies of the Bank of Vernal, came to Lewis to ask if he would head an alternative bank they were founding. This signalled a new era in Lewis Curry's business, civic, and cultural life. The C u q s celebrated their new prominence by acquiring a new house. In 1910 Lewis and his wife Sallie commissioned a carpenter named Mr. Cook and brickmason David Manwaring to build them a simple but spacious two-story home on Vernal Avenue. The house still stands-the only one from Vernal's early history that retains its original character. Locally fued brick and pine from the Uinta Mountains were used as construction materials. But the ornamental oak staircase came from Chicago. It is said that the carpenter, unauthorized, trimmed two feet from the staircase's width while the Currys were in Chicago on one of their annual opera tours. Out of his love for opera Lewis became one of the powers behind the establishment of Vernal's theater and opera company. He was also a great lover of poetry, exchanging favorite volumes with LDS President Heber J. Grant, whom he came to know, along with Governor Simon Bamberger, while serving as chairman of the county's War Finance Committee. Curry remained an ecumenical force in eastern Utah throughout his life. He was elected by a large majority to the state legislature. He had been nominated to be the Utah Elks' next grand master, but poor health prevented his actually serving. Few stories exist revealing the particulars of Curry's influence, but the large Ute delegation that came to view the body after his death in 1922 is evidence of how well he was loved. They filled the entire downstairs and staircase of the Curry home, standing on sofas and chairs to make room for more mourners. Sallie married her brother-in-law, Matt Curry, after Lewis's death, and voters then made Matt their state representative. Sallie outlived Lewis by 40 years and Matt by 23 years. In her later (more)

years she would sit in her rocker and "grandmother" neighborhood children from a second-story

window. She willed the family home to her son, who lived in it with his wife until 1979. Source: National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Preservation Office, Utah Division of State History. Information on the form is based on 1979 and 1981 interviews with descendants and issues of the Vernal Express from 1910 to 1939.

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Tabby-To-Kwanah, Man of Peace

h THE QUIET SOLEMNlTY OF THE HEBERCITYCEMETERY stands a simple sandstone marker bearing the initials T. T. A huge pine tree towers over the grave, shadowing the burial place of Tom Tabby, son of Tabby-To-Kwanah, a chief of the Ute Indians who lived at the resewation in the Uinta Basin in 1867. Chief Tabby, as the white settlers called him, wanted his son buried in the way of the Mormons; therefore Tom Tabby's remains were laid to rest among the graves of the Murdock family rather than on the reservation land. It was during the Black Hawk War of the mid-1860s that Tom Tabby died accidentally while hunting. Chief Tabby, whose people had once freely roamed the Provo River Valley in which Heber City is located, carried his dead son in his arms to the town hoping that the boy could be buried there. Joseph Stacy Murdock consented to conduct a Christian burial service. According to a plaque at the cemetery, following the funeral Tabby said, "My son has been buried in the white man's custom, now he will be honored in the Indian fashion." The Indians laid cedar logs on the grave, led the boy's favorite pony to the logs were it was killed, then ignited the funeral pyre. When the blaze had died to embers, the saddened chief mounted his horse and with his companions rode east to the reservation. Chief Tabby-to-Kwanah, the seeker of peace between the Native Americans and the settlers, had demonstrated his commitment to seek the best of both worlds rather than fight. When the white settlers first arrived in Utah, Tabby was a young man but already a leader of one of the many bands of Utes in central and eastern Utah. Despite early conflicts in Utah Valley and more serious outbreaks in the 1850s led by Chiefs Wakara (Walker) and Tintic, the settlers and the Native Americans under Chiefs Sowiette and Tabby lived in relative peace. Tabby-To-Kwanah, whose name means Child of the Sun, and his people interacted peaceably with the whites for several years. However, by the early 1860s white-Indian conflicts intensified and the federal government decided that the Native Americans should be placed on reservations for mutual safety and so the settlers could occupy more land. The treaty of 1865 relegated the Uintah Utes to the Uinta Basin. If the Indians would move there they would receive payment for their land-including the Indian farms at Spanish Fork and Sanpete they were giving up-and services and supplies from the government. Sixteen chiefs signed the treaty, but Congress did not ratify it. The treaty goods and money were never delivered, and the Indians continued to roam in search of food. For Chief Tabby and his people, who traditionally located seasonally in the Uinta Mountains and Basin, the transition was not as difficult as for some bands, but all were distressed when the government did not deliver their "presents" and they faced constant hunger. Many Indians, angry about being forced off their native lands, rebelled under Chief Black Hawk. The more peaceful ones went with Tabby to the reserva(more)

tion and avoided bloodshed, although greatly disappointed in the word of the white man. During 1865-68 followers of Black Hawk terrorized the settlers, stealing livestock and occasionally killing isolated whites. Because there had been little problem with Tabby's Utes, one of the first acts of the Wasatch Militia was to make peace. According to Joseph S. McDonald, a member of the militia, Captain Wall and 24 men from Heber City took three wagonloads of supplies, plus 100 head of cattle as a gift from Brigham Young, to the reservation as a peace offering. The goods were taken to the Indian Agency on the west fork of the Duchesne River, where the Indians were gathered. Many males had gone to fight with Black Hawk, but tensions remained high. Even Tabby was angry, feeling betrayed by the white man, and he warned of possible trouble. The militia prepared defenses at the agency and waited three days for an attack. About 275 warriors surrounded the area. Tabby was inside the agent's cabin when Captain Wall decided that it was time to talk. For three hours Tabby and Wall negotiated and then met again the next day. At last Tabby agreed to peace and accepted the cattle and supplies. The wamors, still hot for battle, were quieted by Tabby. Some young men were difficult to restrain, though, and incidents of raiding livestock continued. Heber City remained on guard, but for the most part Tabby's followers avoided warfare. In August 1867, according to John Crook, Chief Tabby and his whole band came to Heber City for a peace feast. Large tables were set up in the bowery, and townswomen made a 'good picnic" for Tabby and his people. An ox was roasted barbeque style, and everyone filled up on food. The Indians stayed a few days and then went home with presents of food. This picnic created good will, and there were few raids in Wasatch County afterwards. By 1868 the Black Hawk War was basically over, and by 1869 most Utes were located on reservation lands. Tabby's good judgment, pragmatism, and ability to compromise won him respect from both sides. However, Tabby-To-Kwanah was not one to sit idly by and watch his people starve when the agents failed to provide necessities. In the spring of 1872, when provisions were inadequate and his people were hungry and frustrated, Tabby, as a sign of protest, led them off the reservation into Thistle Valley in Sanpete County on a hunting trip and to hold their ritual dances. The large group of Utes made the settlers uneasy, but the move got the attention Tabby wanted to make his grievances known. Dan Jones and Dimick Huntington, who were sympathetic with the Utes, convinced Agent Critchlow, Colonel Morrow from Camp Douglas, and local community leaders to meet with the Indians. Tabby explained his people's dissatisfaction with conditions and lack of supplies on the reservation. He said that they would 'as soon die fighting as starve." Federal officials assured the Utes that supplies would be sent, and the Utes returned to the reservation. Luckily, for once the promised supplies did arrive. For many years, Tabby continued as an effective leader, serving his people, working for their rights, and maintaining peace. Sources: Fred A. Conetah, ed. Kathryn L. MacKay and Floyd A. O'Neil, A History of the Northern Ute People (Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1982); Peter Gottfredson, History of Indian Depredations in Utah (Salt Lake City, 1919); William James Mortimer, ed., How Beautiiful U p n the Mountains, A Centennial History of Wasatch Counry (Wasatch County: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1963).

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Salt Lake City's Zany Streetcar Transfers IN COMMON WlTH THE BEGINNINGS OF STREET CAR SERVICE throughout the world, Salt

Lake City's first streetcars depended on animal traction. From 1872 to 1889 the lowly mule sewed as "horsepower" to operate a system that included some 14 miles of track and a total of 21 cars. The first streetcar line charged a lOcent fare. Electrification of the system began in 1889, one year after the first successful operation of an electric car line in the United States at Richmond, Virginia. Local service was then in the hands of two companies, the Salt Lake Rapid Transit and the Salt Lake City Railroad Company. Competitors for eleven years, the two lines finally merged into the Consolidated Railway and Power Company. A third line, the Fort Douglas Rapid Transit, was organized in 1890 but was taken over by the SLRT before operating. The trolley cars of this era marked a definite advance over the slow-moving mule car. Yet, they, too, left much to be desired in service and comfort. Open cars were the rule rather than the exception, and no provision was made for heating them in winkr. Because of the danger of frostbitten feet in very wld weather, straw was spread deeply over the car floors. Thus, in a few short blocks, a passenger's clothing might acquire the appearance to be gained from a day's visit to the Ogden Livestock Show. Roadbeds and trackage were not engineered to present-day standards of smoothness. The single-track cars then in use had a habit of centering themselves on the many humps in the tracks. Once stopped, the vehicles would refuse to move until passengers and crew unloaded and rocked the balky car over the hump. This appears to have been Iisted among the stock excuses to which wives had to listen when husbands arrived late for dinner. Despite these shortcomings, the trolley cars met a definite need and were widely used. New lines and extensions were built to keep pace with the city's growth. With the development of new routes came a need for transfer privileges. In keeping with the nationwide practice of streetcar companies, these transfer slips bore a notice that they were 'Not Transferable* to another person. Just how such a rule might be enforced has ever been a mystery to streetcar riders. It is doubtful that many riders ever gave their transfers to other patrons or that the streetcar companies lost much money from the practice. Nevertheless, local officials tried to put teeth into the "Not Transferable" rule. Salt Lake City transfer slips sported a gallery of seven faces, five men and two women. When a rider asked for a transfer, the conductor punched out the usual time and place information. In addition, he also punched the face that looked most like the patron's. Foolproof! Only an identical twin could beat that game. Let us see! (more)

The five men pictured displayed the typical male facial hair styles of that era: clean-shaven, moustache, muttonchops, beard, and full facial hair. Passing on to the ladies, we find the emphasis turning to hats. The younger miss sported a sailor hat and the older woman a bonnet. Imagine allotting the men of today five faces while the women rate only two! And what modem bus driver would want to distinguish younger from older women! Transfers would need to assume the size of an around-the-world travel ticket to classify the range of zany hair and hat styles seen on any bus today. Rumor has it that neither the company nor the riders liked these transfers. Some of the more mature ladies of that time had young ideas and resented being thought of as oldsters. And there were complications with the males too. Mr. Muttonchops thought he was pulling a fast one when he dashed into the barbershop and reappeared clean-shaven to match his bogus transfer. Then again, there was the case of a rider who boarded a streetcar and presented a transfer punched to provide free transportation to a smooth-shaven individual. The conductor noted this and, in turn, the ample growth of stubble on the man's face. When confronted with this, the passenger insisted that he had waited so long for the car that his whiskers had grown! Whether this latter incident is true, it appears that after a reasonable trial Salt Lake City's "keep 'em honest" transfers were abandoned. Source: C. W. McCullough, "The Passing of the Streetcar," Utah Historical Quarterly 24 (1956).

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A Moses for the Printing Industry

PRINTING EVOLVED SLOWLY FROM THE TIME OF Johann Gutenberg's invention of movable type near the middle of the 15th century to the next giant steps-the invention of typesetting machines and the web press near the end of the 19th century and of the automatic press in the early 20th century. New engraving processes simplified illustration, and the result was a continually expanding market for all types of printed matter. The demand for printing, especially commercial printing and job printing, opened up a new field, according to Edward M. Lovendale: "the scientific marketing of the printed product-a field that had been shamefully neglected throughout the entire history of the printing industry. A Moses was needed to lead the bewildered followers of Gutenberg out of the wilderness of profitless 'guesstimating' into the land of profitable promise. Such a leader was discovered in the year 1917 in the person of R. T. Porte. " Born on May 8, 1876, in Canada, Roy Tenvin Porte and his widowed mother moved to North Dakota when he was five. At age 14 he began his lifelong association with printing and publishing by working in a print shop. His career later took him to Cincinnati and eventually to Salt Lake City in April 1916 to become the executive secretary of a local printers organization called the Franklin Club. Virtually every print shop in the city had joined the club and paid dues to wver the expense of an office, telephone, utilities, supplies, and the executive secretary's salary. For a time, Lovendale said, things went smoothly enough, but then the members got to quibbling over the dues, which were based on the size of each printing plant. More important, though, "dissatisfaction arose over the way some of the shops seemed to keep busy-apparently at the expense of others.. ..A few were accused of resorting to sharp practices in securing an undue proportion of the local business. At that point Jay T. Harris, president of Arrow Press, one of the largest printers at that time, "proposed that a price list be compiled and printed, and that Secretary Porte devote his time almost exclusively to the production of a list comprehensive enough to become a real price index for the tradem-a reliable guide as to what various printing jobs ought to cost, based on paper, typesetting, press work, etc. In April 1917 the first six-page list compiled by Porte for the Franklin Club appeared. By December 1919 the Western Newspaper Union (WNU) house organ was calling it "unquestionably the most important modem invention in the printing industry." In fact, John E. Jones, manager of the Salt Lake branch of the WNU, had suggested, when he first heard of the new Franklin Printing Price List, that if it had value locally to printers it should be equally valuable to printers in other towns and cities. The idea appealed to Porte, but he knew it would be complicated. For one thing, the price of paper in different parts of the country varied greatly. Porte proved equal to the task, though. He (more)

enlisted the support of the WNU and its salesmen to convince printers and small town publishers to buy the price list. Porte also sought cooperation from the other companies that served the needs of printers. And he traveled to Denver to explain to printers there how the pricing system worked. They were enthusiastic about adopting it. Major companies like the American Type Founders and Bamhardt Bros. & Spindler helped Porte find markets for the list with printers throughout the United States and Canada. By 1919 the Franklin Printing Price List had 2,000 subscribers. In December of that year Porte acquired enough stock to gain control of the list as well as me Business Printer, a trade publication, as president of Porte Publishing Company. In 1924 Porte established his business in Sugar House at 952 East 2100 South. Over the years the original six-page price list issued in 1917 evolved into a large catalog that became the bible of the printing industry. Its numerous tables-constantly updated to reflect changing costs and technology-became indispensable to printers in providing them with the information they needed to estimate the cost of jobs for their customers and to ensure themselves a profit. It was translated into several foreign languages and widely used in Europe and elsewhere. Porte died in Salt Lake City on July 21, 1936, at age 60, survived by his wife Rhoda, who took an active part in the business, and a son and daughter. The Franklin Printing Catalog (printers often referred to it simply as Porte) was so useful that was destined to survive his death. Porte Publishing Company was eventually superseded by the present Franklin Estimating Systems. See Edward M. Lovendale, A_Fer Fifieen Years...Ihe History of the Franklin Printing Catalog (Salt Lake City, 1932), a pamphlet in the Utah State Historical Society Library; Salr Lake Tribune, July 21, 1936.

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Iltah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. I T 84101 (801) 533-3500

FAX (801) 333-3503

She Promoted SLC's Convention Business

FROM19 SMALL CONVENTIONS THAT BROUGHT Salt Lake City businesses $4,000 in trade in 1929,Winifred Preston Ralls had by 1951 boosted those figures to 270 conventions worth an estimated $18 million. A native of Kansas, she served as a secretary in the Oklahoma attorney general's office before taking up the study of law. For five years she worked as a court reporter for the U.S.District Court in Ardmore, Oklahoma. During World War I she was secretary and then manager of the Oklahoma State War Savings Commission. Widowed early in her marriage, Ralls moved to Pueblo, Colorado, in search of a higher, drier climate for her daughter's health. There she embarked on a new weer in promotion with the Pueblo Chamber of Commerce. Her success in that post came to the attention of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce which, in the words of Salt Lake Tn'bune reporter Grace Grether, "lured her here as assistant to its newly organized convention bureau. Five months after her arrival, Mrs. Ralls became its chief-the only woman to hold such a position in the United States." She worked for the Chamber from 1930 to 1952. Ralls quickly came to know and love her adopted state. She told Grether that "Salt Lake City and Utah, and all the rest of the scenic intermountain west, soon will become the travel mecca of the world.. .that they would have been that long ago if only someone had done a better job of press-agenting our attractions abroad." Ralls worked tirelessly at promoting Utah, and it must have been a hard sell during the depression years to convince convention organizers to come to Utah. At the time of the Grether interview in 1938, still a depression year, Ralls had by the end of July booked 106 conventions, 16 of them national, in Salt Lake City. Some 63,885 people had visited the city and spent close to $3.2 million. That had to be good news for the city's hotels, restaurants, and retailers. Persistence was one of the factors leading to her success. In November 1947 Ralls announced that more than 200 conventions were headed toward Salt Lake City the following year. 'Some of these big national conventions we've been working on for years, " she said. "Once I decide to get an organization to meet in Salt Lake City, I never give up." One of her triumphs was booking the American Institute of Architects' 1948 convention; she had been wooing the AIA for 15 years. Other highlights of the 1948 convention business were the 900 to 1,000 delegates expected to attend the National Wool Growers' Association meeting in January, the Pacific Coast Dental Conference in June with over 2,000 expected, and the National Association of State Highway Officials with some 1,500 to 2,000 people meeting in September. Other groups included the National Federation of Bee Keepers Associations, Boy Scout leaders from the western states, (more)

the Association of Dairy, Food, and Drug Officials, the American Naturopathic Association, and the Japanese-American Citizens' League. As demanding as her work for the Chamber of Commerce was, Ralls was also an active participant in various organizations. She served as president of the Business and Professional Women's Club, governor for Utah of the Women's National Aeronautical Association, board member for the proposed Civic Center (Salt Palace), and organizer of the Salt Lake Women's Safety Council. She was listed in Leading Women of America in 1938 and in national and international editions of Who's Who publications. Ralls retired from the Chamber of Commerce in June 1952, but by October she was evidently feeling restless and accepted the position of convention consultant for the Hotel Utah, working there until the end of 1956. In addition to persistence, Ralls had other qualities that led her to success in the competitive arena of vying for conventions. Reporter Melba Fersuson described her in 1948 as "friendly, tolerant, warmly human, and sparkling with a vital, intense interest in life." These personality traits surely helped Ralls earn the title "Mrs. Convention" and, more important, helped stimulate Utah's sagging economy during the depression years. Source: Biographical clipping file, Utah State Historical Society Library.

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THE HISTORY BLAZER ,YEIIrS OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio G r a d e Salt Lake Citl7. I'T 84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3303

"Aunt P'lina" Studied Medicine in Her 60s

PAULINA PIIELPs WAS BORN

ON MARCH20, 1827, in Lawrence, Illinois. Her mother died

when she was 14, leaving her with the responsibility of her father's large family and home until he remarried. In January 1846 at age 19 she married LDS Apostle Arnasa M. Lyman. She drove a four-horse team across Iowa to pay her way in the Mormon exodus. Her first child was born in Winter Quarters. Meanwhile, she nursed the ailing wife of the man whose team she was driving. When the wife died, Paulina cared for the couple's children for a time. She arrived in Salt Lake City in 1848, living in the old fort for one year. In the late 1850s she moved to Parowan, Iron County. There she cared for her sister wife Cornelia, nursing her through her last illness and then taking her two boys to raise. Paulina was left a widow with eight sons and a daughter of her own to care for. She toiled early and late to support them. Elizabeth S. Wilcox described Paulina's visit to her mother's home in Salt Lake City while she was studying medicine: "'Aunt P'lina,'" said Mrs. Wilcox, giving the popular pronunciation of the name with the long I, 'was tall, straight, and slender. She had light blue eyes, graying hair, and an aquiline nose. Her manner was quiet; she was soft spoken, and yet very positive in knowing what she wished to do. She was also very friendly, carrying always a warm, hospitable air. She wore dark, inconspicuous clothing, white knitted stockings, wool or cotton, according to the season." Wilcox remembered her saying, "Why, I've driven my horse belly-deep in mud with the wheels of the buggy sunk to the hub to get to some of my patients." In Parowan, Paulina had handled emergency cases, but in her 60s she became determined to get proper medical training from one of pioneer Utah's most prominent physicians, Dr. Ellis Reynolds Shipp, who trained many women in obstetrics and other medical skills. Upon Paulina's return to Parowan she gave two local women a thorough course in obstetrics. She assisted at the birth of some 500 children during her practice in southern Utah. Her son, William H. Lyman, noted that 'outside of her professional work as a midwife, she practiced medicine in a general way, and was busy most of the time, taking care of the sick with various ailments.. ..One very remarkable incident was the case of a young girl who, in playing with a powder can, ignited it. The explosion burned her face until all the skin on it hung in blisters and rags. Mother applied linseed oil all over her face and then put a mask on, covering her entire face, and then varnished it ....Her face healed up under that treatment. When the mask was taken off there was not a scar to be seen. She had many patients afflicted with typhoid fever, and scarlet fever, and was extremely successful in her practice. " (more)

On another occasion Indian women in a camp eight miles from Parowan became alarmed about the condition of a young woman about to give birth. They sent one of their number to the little town of Summit for help. There a man hitched his team to a lumber wagon and drove to Parowan to fetch Paulina. Fortunately, she was able to save both mother and baby. Her practice took her to Paragonah as well as Summit. Usually the father of a family came for her with a wagon or sleigh. At home in Parowan she usually walked, carrying her own satchel. Paulina Lyman was unusual and remarkable in seeking medical training in her 60s. It seems likely, given a large family to raise, that she would not have been free of responsibility at home until later in life. She was one of many women, each remarkable in her own way, who assisted at the birth of most of Utah's children until the early 20th century. Source: Claire Noall, "Mormon Midwives, " Utah Historical Quarterly 10 (1942).

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THE HISTORY BLAZER LYEI1'S OF [TTAH'S PAST FROM T H E

Utah State Historical Society 300 Kio Grande

(801) 333-3300

Salt Lake Cit17. 'I'T 84101 FAX (801) 533-3503

Boyhood Memories of Josiah F. Gibbs

JOSIAHFRANCISGIBBSWAS BORN IN NAWOO, ILLINOIS,on August 26, 1845, to William and Eliza Dana Gibbs. He received his early schooling in Alden, Illinois. In 1857 his family traveled to Salt Lake City where his father, one of the chief carpenters for the Nauvoo Temple, found employment with Brigham Young. Josiah further4 his schooling with the help of Zina Young, one of Brigham's wives. In 1862 the family moved to Fillmore where Josiah learned bronco busting, smithing, and eventually began his career as a newspaperman and writer. He died in 1932. In 1970 the Utah State Press Association voted him into the Utah Newspaper Hall of Fame. In 1929 Josiah Gibbs penned a brief memoir that captures the flavor of boyhood on the Utah frontier: "During the months of November and December, 1857, the year of our arrival in Utah, quite a large number of boys, whose homes were in North Salt Lake, were in the habit of daily bathing in the Warm Springs, to which I was an unfortunate addict. Frequently, the bath continued during several hours, when from the delicious temperature of the water we sprang to the edge of the pool, and urged by the generally ice-cold northwest winds donned our cotton shirts and pants, and shoes if sufficiently fortunate to have them, then raced to our respective homes, warmed by scrub cedar or sagebrush.. ..It was a miracle.. .that pneumonia so rarely resulted from those sudden exits from nearly boiling water to zero atmosphere. However, along about Christmas, an acute attack of inflammatory rheumatism forced me to bed, and held me there until the early spring." During the Utah War the Gibbs family joined the move south, ending up at Summit Creek, later called Santaquin. Because "every house and nearly every habitable barn in central Utah was overflowing with refugees," Josiah's father built a woven willow and clay shelter for the family south of the village. They lived there for about five months. On the first sunny morning of spring, Josiah wrote, "father moved me out for my first sun-bath. Fully clad, propped up with pillows and covered with quilts, free from pain, but still weak in my lower limbs I looked out on my rediscovered world of majestic mountains, greening valley, with Utah Lake, a few miles distant to the north, glinting in the early morning sunlight." Then began what he called "one of the most cherished memories of my life. " "Presently there came to my super-sensitive ear drums the faint pit-pat of human feet. With easy, swinging strides a slender Indian boy was approaching from the south. He paused at the foot of my cot and keenly looked at the rheumatic invalid.. .." The Indian boy asked if he was very sick, and Josiah explained as best he could that only his legs were affected. (more)

"After setting a target at a distance of about 25 feet, he returned to the side of my cot and gave me my first lesson in. ..bow and arrow shooting. During an hour or two the Indian boy chased arrows for his pupil, manifesting as keen delight when, by accident, I made a close or center shot, as if made by himself. "At about the same hour next morning my Indian friend was at my cot-side. Again he chased arrows for me, and shared my boyish pleasure at evidences of rapid improvement. "A few days of penetrating sun-rays, exercise of my arms and body, and mild perspiration-thanks to the ingenious method of the Indian boy, figuratively, 'put me on my feet.' With his aid I was soon able to walk, and then began our hunting trips for rabbits and other small game. One morning my companion surprised me with a gift of a beautiful bow, made from mountain sheep horn, backed by sinew, and a dozen or so cane arrows, tipped with greasewood spikes. It was a priceless token of friendship that in memory has never dimmed." Sources: Josiah F. Gibbs, "Moshoquop, the Avenger, as a Loyal Friend," Utah Historical Quarterly 2 (1929); Ihe Utah Newspaper Hall of Fame (Salt Lake City: Utah State Press Association, 1970).

THE HISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and b d e d in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande

Salt Lake Cit17. I'T 84101

(801) 533-3300 FAX (801) 533-3303

Culture and Young Adults in Dixie

SETTLERS IN UTAH'SDIXIE FACED MANY DIFFICULTIES in establishing their villages in a beautiful but harsh desert environment. Even when food was scarce, though, the people "yearned for schools, for libraries, for concerts, drama debating societies, clubs, lyceums, and lectures," Lorraine T. Washbum wrote. The young adults of Dixie satisfied that need in somewhat surprising ways, according to Washburn: 'In 1873 a Young Men's Historical Club was organized. Under the solemn labels 'United We Stand. Divided, We Fall' and 'We study the past, to judge of the future,' the young men met, organized, drew up a constitution and bylaws, wrote two poetical mottos and assigned topics for discussion. Although the minutes of the meetings are brief, they show besides the expected religious topics for discussion such subjects as 'The Heroes and Patriots of the South,' 'Matrimony, Marriage and Murder, ' 'Navy Architecture, ' 'History of Shorthand,' 'Catacombs of Paris,' 'Chivalry, Where it Originated.' The secretary noted that one lecture by Robert McQuarrie on William the Conqueror's Courtship was 'very comical,' although he 'spoke for one hour. ' The club continued until July of 1875. 'The young ladies, no less anxious to improve themselves than their gentleman friends, painstakingly copied or wrote little essays which they assembled into elegant papers titled nte Little Girls Magazine, Young Ladies ' Magazine and me Beehive. The most ambitious of these undertakings, The Beehive, was beautifully illustrated and copied in a meticulous script that noted, among other things, that 'a girl with bangs is like a cow with a board over half of its face.... And be she ever so meek and lovely with her hair combed back off her face.. ., when she hacks it off and peeks out of bangs the very devil is in her eyes and actions.' The moral of the story, as no proper young miss would fail to observe, was that no man would take to wife a 'bang-haired' girl. "Again the girls were exhorted not to let themselves become 'mere ornaments of society'; for, they were warned, there is nothing so despicable as the young lady who flirts and fidgets and fusses with nothing in her head from morning until night but fancy clothes and dancing and games of cards. This warning of the evils of a life sedentary must have seemed just a bit superfluous to girls who rose at daylight to milk cows, tend to household chores, and work in the fields until darkness and fatigue forced them into early beds. 'Whatever the tenor of the articles, the magazines must have proved popular because they continued over a period of five years." Of course, Dixie's young men and women also participated in the St. George Drama Association. Theater was "by all odds the favorite expression of culture and the only serious rival of the dances and balls. " They also attended art classes, lectures, and lyceums. And the (more)

community as a whole worked hard to establish a free public library in St. George, the first such in Utah. Source: Lorraine T. Washburn, "Culture in Dixie, " Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (1961).

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THE HISTORY BLAZER WM'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio G r a ~ ~ d eSalt Lake City. ['T 8410 1 (801) 533-3500

FAX (801) 333-3503

Brigham Young's Personal Finances

IT TOOK YEARS TO SETTLE BRIGHAMYOUNG'SESTATE because of the difficulty of sorting his personal financial records (454 books altogether) from his church books (45 shelf feet of them). Although strict differentiation between his two roles was not always made on the books, the clerks did make a general distinction. For instance, separate books were kept for three "Brigham Young" mercantiles. One was the Tithing House, wholly a church operation. The second, called both "Brigham Young's store* and "the Church Store," was churched only in that Young used it occasionally to pay public works employees but primarily to supply his private homes and business ventures. Edwin D. Woolley, as general manager of Young's private business affairs, ran this store. Finally, a small family storeroom was kept by Hiram B. Clawson, Young's personal secretary, next to Young's office. Woolley's store stocked staples such as flour and meat, while Clawson ordered niceties such as yam, lace, and medicines. Among Brigham Young's private endeavors was his part ownership of the Globe Bakery. The Globe was both a public bakery and a supplier of the Young household. Employees of his other companies had accounts there, and Young (through Woolley) provisioned the bakery with butter, flour, and wood. A periodic total was taken of charges and credits. Usually, Young came out owing. Rather than paying the balance in cash, he settled by exchanging property or relinquishing owner shares. Another Brigham Young company was the Young & Little Lumber Mill up City Creek Canyon. Feramorz Little was part owner and operator with Young the controlling owner. Employee Samuel Woolley's diary reveals the extent and style of Young's involvement in the company. Samuel Woolley returned in August 1856 from a mission to India. He spent his first day home with his family. The second day he visited his brother Edwin D. Woolley and other relatives. The third day he went uptown to settle his debts, and the fourth day he called on 'Prest." Young, who was not in. After lunch Samuel tried again. He and Young spent the rest of the day together and had dinner that night in the Beehive House. Presumably Brigham had discussed with Edwin and "Ferrymore" Little the matter of Samuel's working at the mill. Samuel's diary mentions a job Brigham had for him to do when he got his health back "in a month or so." Two days later, meeting Samuel uptown, Young told him more about the work, which was to be done "as soon as Samuel was ready to do anything." Two weeks later Young sent for Samuel, who went to "the office* but could not see Young. The next day he tried again but was able to see Young for only a few minutes. The third (more)

THE HISTORY BLAZER WM'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio G r a ~ ~ d eSalt Lake City. ['T 8410 1 (801) 533-3500

FAX (801) 333-3503

Brigham Young's Personal Finances

day, Young called at Samuel's house to explain the work, which was to commense either this afternoon or tomorrow." Finally, Feramorz Little drove Samuel to the mill and showed him around. The work consisted of bringing the mill books up to date while Little went to the States on church business. Samuel rented a mill room from Little's wife and immediately began "posting up books. " That is, he brought the daybook (or journal of daily transactions) up to date, making entries from order slips that had been lying around the mill office for four months. Then he posted daybook entries to the mill ledger, balancing debits and credits account by account. Finally he made out bills and on the weekend delivered them to the post office on Tithing Square. When customers came in for orders of lumber, Samuel took them into the office, showed them their accounts, and made arrangements for payment. He was so efficient that by the end of three weeks there was little left for him to do. He obtained his wages in the form of an order on Livingston and Kinkead's store for $5.00 and another order on the Church Store for flour and meat. Thus, for fifteen days' work, he was paid $26.25 (or $1.75 per day) plus room and board. A subsistence wage for that time was considered to be $2.50 per day. Ten percent tithing was automatically deducted from workers' pay by church clerks. Samuel Woolley's employment by Brigham Young, added to the evidence of the financial records, shows several things. Young's management style was hands-on but complicated by his many pressing duties. He used his private resources to help returned missionaries and other church volunteers, often paying minimum wage so that they no doubt felt eager to become independent. And this marriage of resources furthered both Young's and the church's interests. Sources: Rebecca Cornwall, "Of Frogs and Fishes: Edwin Woolley and the Managing of Brigham Young's Business Affairs," paper given at the Mormon History Association meeting in Logan, Utah, 1978; and Brigham Young Salt Lake Merchandising Records, vols. 1-3, Globe Bakery Account, folio 647 of Ledger B, Brigham Young Main Ledger, Provisions Book, 1856-1859, Brigham Young Salt Lake Merchandising Series, Tithing Office Account, Ledger B, Brigham Young Main Ledgers, folio 552, and Diary of Samuel Amos Woolley, all in LDS Church Archives.

THEHISTORY BLAZER is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

960412 (BB)

THE HISTORY BLAZER IYEII'S OF ZITAH'S PAST FRO1I.i THE

Utah State IIistoriral Societ17 300 Rio Grailde Salt Lake dit!: VT 84101 (801) 533-3500

FAX (801) 333-3303

Gerrit de Jong, Jr., Influenced the Arts and Education

BORNIN AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND,ON MARCH 20, 1892, GERRITDE JONG, JR., demonstrated his musical talent early. At age 12 he was chosen as the one representative from his school to sing in a children's choir for a performance of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony with the composer conducting. He came to the United States at age 15 and studied at LDS College in Salt Lake City. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Utah.He also studied at the University of Mexico and the University of Munich in Germany. His doctoral work at Stanford University centered on Germanic and Romantic languages and literature. During a career that spanned some 55 years he exerted a strong influence on the arts and education in Utah. De Jong began teaching music to private students soon after his arrival in Utah. During 1916-18 he was an instructor at Murdock Academy in Beaver and from 1919 to 1925 taught at the LDS College in Salt Lake City. In 1925 Franklin S. Harris, president of Brigham Young University, asked de Jong to establish BYU's College of Fine Arts; he served as its dean for 34 years. He was professor of modem languages from 1925 until his retirement in 1972, but he taught a wide range of subjects, including German, Portuguese, German and Portuguese literature, aesthetics, phonetics, and religion, and gave private piano and organ lessons to advanced students. He lectured extensively and wrote books and articles on aesthetics, modernity in art, ethics, modem languages and literature, religious philosophy, and the doctrine and tenets of the LDS church. He wrote at least 15 church study manuals that were translated into many languages and served on the General Board of the Sunday School for 34 years. He was an active member of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters and served a term as its president. A prolific composer, de Jong wrote music for single voice to oratorio choir and for woodwind quintet to symphony orchestra. His favorite form, though, was the string quartet. The de Jong Concert Hall in the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU was named for him in 1965. During the years that Harold R. Clark managed the BYU music festivals and lyceum series, many of the world's great artists performed in Provo to a mixed audience of community and university patrons. In the early days, before many BYU buildings had been built, private faculty homes, including the de Jong residence, were used for entertaining visiting artists such as Artur Rubinstein, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Ezio Pinza, Helen Traubel, Bela Bartock, the Paganini Quartet, and others. The de Jong home at 640 North University Avenue in Provo, the scene of many musical evenings, is a one and one-half story Dutch Colonial Revival house built during 1934-35 by the (more)

Talbot Construction Company. Its gambrel roof, one-story sun porch, and mix of materials -brick on the first floor and clapboard on the upper story-are typical of this style. It was designed by architect Joseph Nelson who was responsible for many significant public and private buildings in Provo and on the BYU campus, including the former Provo post office, Dixon Junior High School, and the Amanda Knight Hall. De Jong married Rosabelle Winegar in 1911, and they had three daughters. Rosabelle died in 1940. In 1951 de Jong married Thelma Bonharn. He died in 1979. Sources: Ralph B. Simmons, comp., Utah 's Distinguished Personalities (Salt Lake City, 1933); National Register of Historic Places hventory/Nomination Form, Gemt de Jong, Jr., House, prepared by Roselle Anderson Hamblin, Utah State Historical Society Library. Note: the home is not listed in the National Register.

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THE HISTORY BLAZER ,\'E1trS OF CTTAH'S PAST FROIM THE

Utah State IIistorical Society 300 Rio Grande

(801) 533-3300

Salt Lake C i t ~ VT . 84101 FAX (801) 333-3303

Clean Clothes Blowing in the Breeze

MOREUTAHNS SEEM TO BE WRlTING OR COMPILING FAMILY HISTORIES nowadays. Many are full of details usually not found in other kinds of historical publications. The story of the Lewis Leo and Hortense Cope Munson family is one such book. Born in the year of Utah's statehood, 1896, LBO Munson spent much of his adult life as a storekeeper in Escalante, Garfield County.

The Munsons, like most families in the early 20th century, worked together at many different chores, one of which was wash day: "Fortunately for those doing the laundry, during the 1930s people didn't have as many changes of clothing as they do now. The boys had one pair of 'good' overalls or 'Levis' which they wore to school every day. When wash day came, usually on Saturday, they put on the 'old' pair used for work and chores while the new ones were washed. Nor did they wear a different shirt every day. ...And you used fewer changes of underwear when you bathed only on Saturday night. "Although the girls undoubtedly had more variety, and may have changed oftener, still they had limited wardrobes. As the thirties began, chances are that most of their dresses were homesewn. They usually had a new dress for Christmas...and perhaps for their birthday. "The point is that nobody.. .required the large volume of clothes that each person feeds to the washer in [the 1990~1.If that were not so, no one could have stayed even with the laundry. "Preparations for the laundry began when Mother made soap. One of the boys, or girls,...built a fire in the circle of the three rocks arranged southwest of the home. One of the black tubs was set on the rocks. Mother then emptied, scraped, or dumped the pork rinds, the waste grease, the old beef fat, or any other fat product into the tub, and heated it until the fat was all melted. Then she dipped out the rinds ...and added the required amount of lye.. ..The tub was then removed from the fire and allowed to cool. Then the cooled mass was dumped onto boards. ... The next day, it was cut into chunks about four inches by six inches and allowed to dry even longer, then stored in a gunny sack.. .. "Wash day required two tubs of water on a fire out by the rocks. ...A spoonful of lye, sprinkled into each tub, caused a scum of hard water to rise to the top as the water heated. This scum was skimmed off before the water was used. 'One tubful provided water for the washing machine. Sometimes the hard brownish colored soap was grated and dissolved into the wash water.. .[or] agitated with the clothes, if the washer wuld be started. The gasoline engine powering the washer Fadl a cranking mechanism protruding from the motor. Foot power, applied by placing the foot on the cleverly designed end of the (more)

mechanism and pushing down, spun the flywheel and, in theory, started the motor. Fortunately, Mr. Hainey or Uncle Forest quickly answered calls for help when the motor wouldn't start, which seemed often. But it beat a scrubbing board.. .. "The white clothes, including the sheets, pillow cases, towels, dish towels, and tablecloths were boiled in the other tub of water.. .to loosen the dirt and to keep them white. After the proper time elapsed they were carried to the washing machine and agitated. "...Someone knowledgeable prepared a tub of cold bluing water by sousing a few balls of bluing, tid in a cloth, around in the water, until the water was blue. White clothes taken from the washer were sent through the wringer into the bluing tub. They were dipped up and down a few times and then sent through the wringer into a tub filled with cold rinse water. They went through the wringer again and were carried to the clothes line. Colored clothing went through the wringer directly into the rinse water. "...At one time our clothes line ran through two pulleys. One pulley was fastened to the top end of the barn, the other to a post near the house. The clothes were spread out and pinned to the line. After the clothes were spread as high as one could reach, a pull on the line moved the clothes toward the top of the barn, thus exposing some empty line that could be filled. It brought a sense of satisfaction, and some elation, to see a line full of clean clothes gently blowing in the breeze. "...Fingers and hands soon numbed when one hung cold clothes out on a windy spring or wintry cold day. LoRee and Evelyn once reasoned that if they could hang the clothes out while they were still warm, their hands would stay much warmer. So they skipped the rinse water cycle with a batch of diapers. Fortunately for the baby wearing diapers, Jenny Spencer, who was working for us, discovered the omission. Unfortunately for the girls, they had to take the diapers from the line and give them the proper treatment. Speaking of diapers, it was not a pleasant process to prepare them to be washed. "Orpha says, 'It seemed we washed and hung clothes for hours, then gathered them in from the clothes line, folded them and put them away, sprinkled the ones to be ironed and put them in the big straw basket. We ironed for hours, each taking her turn.'" By 1936 Escalante's water system was complete and the Munsons enjoyed the use of indoor plumbing. In 1939, with a new electric system in operation, they put away their kerosene lamps and the gas lights in the kitchen and living room. Then, an electric washing machine lightened the burden of wash day. Source: Munson Memories: History of Lewis Leo and Horteme Cope Munson Family (Bountiful: The Leo Munson Family Organization, 1993), excerpted by permission of Voy le Munson.

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THE HISTORY BLAZER A'EHrS OF IrTrlH'S PAST FR0.M T H E

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande (801) 533-3500

Salt Lake City. I'T 84101 FAX (801) 533-3503

Rhymes Filled Children's Autograph Books

FIFTY YEARS AGO A SALT LAKECITYSCHOOLTEACHER, Marguerite I v ~ Wilson, ~s studied the rhymes Utah children wrote in their classmates' autograph books. She concluded that the rhymes reflected "both the spirit of the age in which they have been produced and the attitudes of the children" who wrote them. The material she studied came primarily from students in the fifth through eighth grades in schools from Weber to Wayne counties. It represented both rural and urban areas and in the Salt Lake City and Eureka, Juab County, samples a mix of ethnic backgrounds, including Mexican, Italian, Greek, Japanese, African American, Irish, Scandinavian, and Cornish. Despite this variety, Wilson found that "In general, the same types of rhymes were reported by all the children, and it seems that the variations in them are due more to individual attempts at originality than to anything else. " Most of the rhymes were submitted by girls, Wilson said, but that was expected. "Boys do write in the autograph books, although not as much as the girls, but for a twelve-year old boy to own a book and carry it around to be signed would mark him as a 'sissy' in most groups.. ..Most of the verses which they do write are flippant and not particularly flattering," such as: Roses are red, Violets are blue, You like Miss So phooey to you.

Variations on the familiar Roses are red verse came from every school. Usually the first two lines were as above and the final lines anything from a compliment (You are my best friend,/And I do mean you) to the unflattering (I know a donkey,lThat looks like you) to the unexpected @bin on the roof,/Reminds me of you,/Drip, drip, drip). An amusing category of verses provided advice on maniage, husbands, and children. A two-liner popular among all children was: When you are married and have some twins, Call on me for some safety pins (or, alternatively, Don't call on me for safety pins). Social historians might wonder at the home life that produced the following advice for a future wife: (more)

When you get married, And your husband gets cross, Take up a poker, And show him who's boss. Humor shines forth in another verse sample: When you get old, And think you're sweet, Take off your shoes, And smell your feet. Sometimes the writer describes herself: I'm not a Southern beauty, I'm not an Eastern rose, I'm just a little Western girl, With freckles on her nose. The popularity of the autograph books in the mid-1940s when the verses were collected indicated to Wilson that "the children who own and treasure them are not without sentiment, but what they write shows clearly the natural unwillingness of the modem adolescent to show it." She hoped the collection would be preserved and studied by folklorists and that further collection might reveal regional variations and changing patterns in different generations. Source: Marguerite Ivins Wilson, "Yours Till-A Study of Children's Autograph Rhymes in Utah, " Utah Humanities Review 1 (1947).

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