I Remember Hiawatha

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 40, 1972, No. 3

I Remember Hiawatha

BY VIRGINIA HANSON

ON A BRIGHT SEPTEMBER DAY in 1936 George Ockey, the Carbon County school clerk, welcomed a couple of slightly dazed Cache County natives to the teaching ranks. He gave us a key to one part of the teachers' dormitory in Hiawatha, the promise of one new mattress, and directions to the site of the King Cole Mine eighteen miles from Price. Berness Rawlins of Lewiston and I, a Cornish girl, had come more than two hundred miles from our little Mormon farm towns near the Idaho border to the center of the state's coal mining region where people of many different nationalities and religions had settled. The hope of new experiences had brought us to Hiawatha, but we were already homesick for the Cache County pupils we had deserted. We chatted cheerily as we rode through the dry, bleak miles of country so strange and new to us. When our driver, Marybelle Pike — the last connection with home — waved goodbye and drove off to visit relatives in Price, an abandoned and subdued pair of tenants inspected their new abode.

Two scantily furnished bedrooms and a bathroom containing the essentials were upstairs. On the ground floor were a living room, kitchen, closet, and two porches. The school board had left some straight chairs, a table, a coal range, an ancient sewing machine, and an oddly generous assortment of plain oak rocking chairs. By standing on chairs we were able to stow away our supplies on shelves which must have been installed by the tallest workman in town. We decided to store our silverware in the oven, vowing to rescue the knives and forks if we made a fire in the kitchen stove.

The third female member of the faculty, Virginia Bush from Riverton, appeared as Berness and I were struggling with curtain material purchased that morning. She proved to be a capable and willing seamstress and was soon involved in our house-brightening project. Surveying our handiwork we were not fully satisfied that our brave gestures could be defined as the gentle touch which makes a house a home.

Hiawatha was literally and figuratively a divided place. The road which had brought us from the outside world ran through String Town. Mine officials lived in the houses on Silk Stocking Row. The Italians, Japanese, Mexicans, and Greeks lived in areas designated by nationality. The Serbs, French, and other minority groups were tucked in here and there. I was told that one of the miners, Julius Winroth, was the only other Swede in town, but we never met due to his sudden death. The school building, the dormitory, the homes in the immediate vicinity, and the nearby hotel were in Flat Town. (We could see a topographical reason for the name but never did know how it rated on the social scale.) Occasional visitors registered at the hotel, but the usual occupants were mine employees. When the day's labors were ended the men sat out on the porch. Boarding houses nearer the mine were also used by miners without families.

Learning to identify townspeople was a gradual process. Dr. Galen O. Belden was the physician, and Angelina Peperakis was the friendly girl at the company store. Her father, Angelo, constituted the police force, assisted by William Steckelman, the night watchman. At the post office we met Ewell C. Bowen who issued money orders, postage, and instructions on opening our box, number 266. The chief executive at the mine office was Clarence M. Orr who lost his life in an automobile accident while we were teaching that year. Bishop Clifford Albrechtsen was the shepherd of the little Mormon flock, and among our nearest neighbors were the Gordons, Thompsons, Crombies, Andersons, and Leamasters. Very few elderly people were to be seen. Miners tended to move away when retirement came. Students of college age had left for their respective schools, and it seemed unlikely that there would be many single people in our approximate age group.

Our groceries came from the only store in this company town. The huge containers of olive oil surprised us and introduced us to a different world of cooking, an introduction that was completed when we sampled minced ham and other cold cuts only a hardened garlic addict could survive. We limited our purchases to rather bland items except for Perrucis's pepperoni which was well worth the long walk to their place of business in the "suburbs." Our milk came from the Millerton Dairy on the outskirts of Hiawatha. In a little hillside bakery in Greek Town, two Italian bakers named Cianfichi and Chiavini complicated an incongruous situation by making incomparable French bread.

The first six grades of Hiawatha School were to be taught by the Misses Rawlins, Bush, and Hanson. The principal, H. A. Dahlsrud, whose family lived in Ephraim, was already established in his part of the dormitory. Two men would instruct the junior high school classes: Ruel Halverson, temporarily a "bachelor" while he awaited the arrival of his wife from Salt Lake City, and Joseph Demman who was married to a Hiawatha girl.

While preparing for the Grand Opening we unearthed rollbooks from previous years and found such names as Oppermann, Budo, Edwards, Radakovich, Orfanakis, Valdez, Christensen, Veillard, Mitani, Clavel, Kolovich, and Patterakis. It was evident that tliere would be variety in the enrollment, and it was a difference that made Cornish seem far, far away. On Monday morning Rosie Petroni announced, with admiration and respect, "You're the first new teacher who could pronounce our names right!" This lifted the morale of a homesick stranger considerably. School had begun, and we were off to a good start.

As the year progressed we noted a distressing lack of interest in the PTA. This was one organization which should have flourished, as there was very little activity which could unite a citizenry made up of unrelated groups. Many of the parents were reticent about attending gatherings because of their faulty English. This handicap, plus a tendency to associate mainly with their own nationalities, prevented the desired fellowship. But we all went to the movies!

Early in the term Berness produced a play called Rescued by Radio, and friends and relatives of the cast came to see the performance. Events of this kind rather than the more formal PTA drew parents and others to the school. For Columbus Day the fifth and sixdi grades presented a dramatization of the illustrious Christopher's life. In costumes more ingenious than accurate little Steve Hillas was appealing as the child Christopher, John Maragakis was stalwart and idealistic as the adult explorer, and pretty Mary Davis made such a queenly Isabella that the large audience was very responsive. Our hopes were raised for future participation in school affairs.

The annual band concert in Price kept Mr. Halverson busy. His musicians practiced marching down the street, past the store, the memorial for dead war heroes, the hotel, and the school. Day after day the familiar marches dinned in our ears. Miss Rawlins was enlisted to play accompaniments for competing soloists, and the hills in Carbon County must still be reverberating from the tones of Jack Crombie's clarinet playing "The Bluebells of Scotland."

My students were very willing, always polite, and sometimes surprising. We had a contortionist in the fifth grade. Leeon was capable of normal locomotion, but when he read — which was constantly — he usually had his feet higher than his head. Classmates compared him with Willis Willet, a comic strip character, and we all learned to walk over or around his dangling appendages. We were expected to follow the Utah Course of Study faithfully, and the students tried hard to master the subject matter. One day we labored over the importance of the marvelous human circulatory system, emphasizing the elasticity of blood vessels and their functions. A favorite report came from Polly, who wrote, "Veins are little rubber pipes full of dirty blood." Another time, when we were defining the word pantomime with visual demonstrations, one little group acted out the process of getting ready for school. In another quickly-planned scene, Mello began chasing two boys around the room in what seemed an endless pursuit. After they had allowed themselves to be caught, Mello made peculiar snatching motions in their direction. The charade was too difficult for us: Mello had planned to catch two chickens, pluck tiieir feathers, and boil the victims for dinner.

The diverse backgrounds of our children made for some unscheduled learning experiences. One rainy day Helen Nucich had carefully wrapped her books in a newspaper. It was obviously not the Sun-Advocate, so I asked if we could see the paper. She shyly retrieved it from the wastebasket as if she were fearful of being ridiculed for bringing in alien literature. The Cyrillic symbols — new to many of us — were fascinating, and our discussion prompted others to bring books and papers from home. Many of the pupils were bilingual, and they developed a pride in their accomplishments and their precious heritage. The remarkable youngsters in that Hiawatha school could have gone on a world tour and produced their own interpreters in Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, Hamburg, Athens, Naples, Dubrovnik, or Warsaw.

As the school year drew to a close, parents were invited to a final program. The children presented readings and musical selections and demonstrated dances learned during the year. A disinterested observer would have thought their behavior stilted and unspontaneous as the stiffly polite boys requested specified young ladies to join them in the dances, but the display of gallantry impressed their proud parents. The girls, who had practiced well, served refreshments with unprecedented grace. Finally, all the boys and girls stepped forward to receive wellearned reading certificates. There were no wallflowers on this happy occasion.

While school duties absorbed a large share of our time, we enjoyed a pleasant variety of extracurricular activities. Shortly after our arrival in town, a Sunday school officer called. When he learned that Berness and I were Mormons he divulged the ulterior motive for his visit. A vacancy in the teaching corps needed to be filled. Berness was quick to relate her innumerable responsibilities, and I found myself assigned to take over a class before I realized what had happened.

Following on the heels of the Sunday school officer were three young men who introduced themselves as Alden Burdick, Sam Martino, and Fred Perkowski. Sitting erect in a rocking chair, "Brother" Burdick announced that they were our ward teachers. Berness asked if the message for the month might be on the evils of deception. With a burst of laughter Alden confessed that he hadn't been very thorough in explaining to his colleagues the custom of sending two brethren to visit Latter-day Saint families periodically, and he had been a little uncertain about our thinking that three made a crowd. They had thought it a good way to become acquainted. It was. The three of them became our good friends.

Once a week the entire faculty drove into Price for a Brigham Young University extension class in physics. However, the stores were closed by the time class ended, so we rarely had an opportunity to shop for items not available in Hiawatha. Adopting the local custom, we each requested mail order catalogs. When six big, thick books arrived they served us well. The long radiator in the living room, sometimes too warm to be used as a lounging spot, was "upholstered" with volumes contributed by Montgomery Ward and Sears. Thanks to these firms We had entertainment, reading material, a resource for the necessities of life, and insulation.

Potato roasts were new to us, but when the neighborhood children invited us to join them on Bakers' Hill we appreciated the honor. These spontaneous events required little preparation and were accompanied by storytelling. The darker the evening, the more eerie the tales related. Julius, a lonely Scandinavian who had been killed on the tram, was a favorite subject for conjecture. Most of the townspeople had decided that his death was suicidal. Consequently, the little house in which he had lived was haunted. AH of the children admitted to feeling nervous when they darted past it, and not one had ever stepped inside to see if it were true that the calendar still hung on the wall with all the working days crossed off methodically up to the day of the gruesome accident. While we salted and peppered the smoky, hot potatoes, the older girls told of carrying hat pins as insurance against overly friendly males when walking down to Flat Town on dusky evenings. There were no accounts of these lethal weapons having been used, however. The word must have been spread around.

Friday nights were gala occasions in Hiawatha. The mining company provided free movies at the amusement hall for employees and their families. We didn't notice the Bowens from the post office at these affairs, and we were the only other outsiders — technically ineligible for fringe benefits. Since no one appeared to demand payment, we teachers trailed in with the authorized attenders. When lights went out the audience was silenced until Shirley Temple's curls and dimples flashed on the screen, accompanied by wild cheers from the front rows.

In addition to these activities, there were pleasant visits with the other teachers and their families and with the hospitable Garbers, Mechams, Albrechtsens, and others. And our frequently used ice cream freezer made our house a popular gathering place. We often had callers drop in to listen to radio broadcasts of baseball games, and we staged parties for various age groups. Treasure hunts and picnics were lots of fun, and, of course, we saw all the basketball games — a major source of entertainment in many small towns.

We found good friends among these people who once were strangers. One day Yemiko came to school with a note her father had written. "My wife will make dinner with Japanese food and please to honor with your presence and bring Fled and San and Alden." Alden had gone away to school, but Fred and Sam were delighted to accept the invitation. Mrs. Sugihara, with her slight knowledge of English, proved to be a charming hostess and a superb cook.

Others were equally hospitable. Whenever we approached Greek Town, bright-eyed children would run ahead to announce that we were coming. We soon recognized daskala — the Greek word for teacher. Continuing our education, Nick Maragakis, who had ordered some first readers, patiently listened to our attempts at reading the Hellenic alphabet and some elementary sentences. His wife, Alexandra, showed us how to make what sounded like koulouria, and we loved her baklava and kourambye. As was the custom, she brought out beautifully embroidered napkins when serving these favorite pastries to guests. In April Mrs. Peperakis and Elizabeth Petroulakis introduced us to Easter bread. We also followed with interest the Greek observance of name days. Since almost every family had an Ioannis (John), January 7 was a particularly busy time. Friends went from house to house to celebrate and honor those named John.

Living in a mining town brought us in touch with aspects of economics quite different from those of small agricultural communities. Once, when our supply of coal for the kitchen range ran low, we waited impatiently for a delivery that never came. In desperation we borrowed a burlap bag and a little red wagon and set out for the tipple where we had seen piles of coal which had fallen from the cars. Youngsters who saw us were alarmed. It was against regulations to pick up coal, they informed us. Just then our gallant friend, Sam Martino, came along and risked his job by collecting some fuel for us in need. We were not reported nor arrested, but "carrying coals to Newcastle" took on a new meaning.

Along with the joyful memories are also those of times when a certain gloom and tension hung over the town. Even the little children were affected by the atmosphere at home and around the hotel where bachelor miners lived. The mine would be idle and opening time uncertain. Occasionally some youngster would display worn shoes to a classmate and wonder if he would get new ones in time for the holidays. Parents were grim and worried, and we teachers were told not to expect students to incur expenses for any unusual activities. Some men were considering seeking employment elsewhere. Then, to add to our uncertainty, one day a frightening whistle pierced the eardrums of the populace. Was this a shrill announcement of an accident? We rushed out to the front porch prepared for disaster. Instead we saw happy passersby hurrying home. Children shouted, "They're going back to work! The mine is opening!" Once more men in their hard hats, blackened with coal dust, would be met at the end of the shift by their faithful offspring racing up the hill.

When May came the surrounding hills which had looked so bleak took on a strange new beauty. On our last trip to the post office the men on the hotel steps beamed like members of a benevolent order. Once "Johnny Buckets" and the other bachelor miners had appeared to us as rather sinister black-browed strangers. Smiling back at them, we couldn't foresee then that most of the houses in Hiawatha would disappear and its population dwindle to less than two hundred with most of the miners living in Price and driving to their work. The school would stand vacant and neglected, and buses would transport all students to a larger school. We didn't look that far into the future. There was no reason to assume that Hiawatha would be a place revisited, but it was a sure thing that our successors would not be hanging a homemade Spanish flag from the bathroom window to summon an imaginative, agile boy named Jack to run errands. Teachers sometimes feel dubious about the worth of their efforts, and as we rode northward I wondered if my students had learned anything while their instructor had been getting her education.

JAPS TO CELEBRATE

Tonight at Harmonie hall the fifty-second anniversary of the birth of the Mikado of Japan will be celebrated by the Salt Lake Colon)' of Japanese. The Japanese stores were not open this morning and signs in English hung on the doors announced: "Closed. We celebrate our Holiday." Meanwhile the Japanese of the city were busy at the hall they had engaged for this evening, preparing decorations, and a banquet for the visitors. The colony here expects a large number of Japanese to come in from outlying points to join in the celebration. The arrangements are in charge of E. D. Hashimoto, known locally as Salt Lake's Mikado, as he has general control of the Japanese in L'tah.

Interest in the Mikado's birthday is widespread throughout the west, and in addition to the gathering tonight celebrations will occur in Ogden, Idaho Falls, and Sugar City. An influential Japanese, Mr. Sinnow, who is a guest at the Wilson, left today at 1:30 to preside at the Ogden colony's celebration. (Deseret Evening News. November 3, 1904, p. 1.)

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