My Garden of Eden

My Garden of Eden

BY LAMAR PETERSEN

I KNEW EARLY ON THAT EDEN, UTAH, WAS THE HUB of the universe. How else could you describe a town nestled in a lush green valley surrounded by hills, a town that looked like a garden. A town that had a store, a schoolhouse, a steepled church, a blacksmith shop, a haunted house. Of course the town doesn't look the same today. The schoolhouse is gone, the blacksmith shop is a garage, and the church is a mortuary. The store and the haunted house are still there though.

Most people would call it a house, but I knew it was a castle. Our Eden house didn't have a moat around it, but it had something much better—a picket fence. You could take a stick and go clickety-clack as you walked along the path in front of the great red brick structure, and in the fall you could shuffle your feet through the big oak leaves. What else but a castle could boast twelve rooms on three floors—four counting the cellar, a cool, calcimined, fresh smelling place with a pan of sour milk turning to clabber on the table. We kids would pull faces and make "ugh" sounds when Papa and Mama would eat it with nutmeg or cinnamon topping.

The third floor attic was my favorite retreat. It was light and airy, with a high ceiling at the center tapering off into three alcoves with windows on the east, west, and south. I had my mercantile and medical store in the south alcove and sold vials of grain, hand-mixed potions, seeds, unwanted junk, and swatches of cloth from the big sample book taken from my father's store. No one ever bought anything—it was too hard to climb the two sets of stairs—except my sisters Ruth and Eva who would buy anything. It could be rubbish, but if I said "five cents" they would buy it. My chairmanship of the attic began when I was about four, but I remember some things before that.

There was an old dance hall on top of Papa's store with an open wooden stairway going up on the east side. Eva said I couldn't possibly remember it because it was demolished for safety reasons when I was three. She was wrong. I remember the big hall with its awesome music box and the great metal records that turned like wheels and gave out slinky, heavenly sounds. And I remember the public dances and how pretty my sisters looked as they waltzed with the Eden swains. The orchestra usually consisted of my sister Vivian and Fred Jones on piano and fiddle, sometimes with one or two other players. My brothers Gene and Golden would mock the dancers and make silly faces to make me laugh. But I learned that fun-loving Golden was afraid of the dance hall. After he and Gene had gone to bed next door, they would listen to the old hall creaking in the wind. Golden was not a prayerful boy, but he would make Gene who was two years younger get down by the bed and pray that the dance hall wouldn't blow off the store and bury them in the night.

If the dance hall memories have grown dim with the years, the memory of the store beneath remains bright and clear. It was a general mercantile store that stocked everything from beans and flour to buggy whips and hip boots. The post office was on the east side. Mama was the official postmistress of Eden, but Papa too was often in charge.

My sister Ruth was the anchor of the family and often ran the store and post office alone for long periods while the folks were politicking. She once sold a case of beans that had an American flag prominently displayed on the side of the box to Fourth of July celebrants thinking it was fireworks. She never lived that one down.

Along part of the east side of the store were showcases and drawers with bolts of cloth, buttons, and spools of thread. The other side had the canned goods, round cheese cutter, salted meats, brooms, and bins of rice and sugar and flour.

But the pride of the establishment was the long glass candy case up front with its treasures of penny candy, gum, jelly beans, opera bars, and nut loaves. When Ruth was in charge I could wheedle a sweet or two, but Papa was a little less gullible. One day when he was busy sorting mail I skipped behind the candy counter and in my best five-yearold reading voice recited the names of the delectable Shupe-Williams candy bars: Utahna Opera Bar, Utahna Nut Loaf, Utahna Fruit Bar. At the appropriate moment, assured that Papa was intent on his sorting, I grabbed the irresistible Utahna Nut Loaf and skipped nonchalantly toward the back door. When I was almost home free, Papa called, "LaMar, have you got a nail?" I trembled. "No sir, I don't have a nail." "Well, come up here and let me feel in your pocket." With lead feet I moved forward while he checked my pockets. He withdrew the stolen nut loaf and asked sternly, "Where did you get this?"

I then did what most criminals do—I compounded the felony. "Ruth gave it to me."

"Well, let's go to the house and check with her." Whereupon he reached up to the circular rack and selected a buggy whip. With the whip in his left hand and my hand in his right we marched solemnly to the house. "Ruth, did you give LaMar this nut loaf?" With sinking heart I knew I was facing life in the penitentiary, but

Ruth, seeing my pallor, said hesitantly, "Well, I may have done."

For all his feigned ferocity. Papa was a softie. He said to me, "Well, keep it. But next time, ask." The buggy whip went back to the rack and my career in crime came to a screeching halt.

The Petersen Mercantile Wagon was a royal conveyor of goods to keep the store well stocked. It was a handsome covered van with the company name printed in an arc on either side:

PETERSEN MERCANTILE COMPANY ADAM L. PETERSEN, PROPRIETOR

Two horses. Old Doley and Liz, were needed for the Ogden Canyon trip. It was always an exciting journey. When I was chosen to accompany Papa I became a gladiator on the way to Rome.

Ogden was a beckoning carnival, surely a progenitor of Disneyland: bright lights and markets, the Nickelodeon Theatre, the Orpheum, and the Alhambra. It was roast veal with brown gravy at Kennedy's Cafeteria. It was hotcakes and bacon at Jack & Ross. Sometimes there would be a circus, and most likely we would get in free for having posted the colorful, ferocious circus ads on the side of our barn. At Scowcroft's I would help load the grocery boxes.

In the summer a visit to Sam Onello's farm in South Ogden was a happy ritual. With beaming face and much Italian sputter Sam would proclaim the superiority of his watermelons, vegetables, stalks of bananas, and other fruits. A little homemade wine was usually a proffered bonus for good customers.

The winter trips to Ogden were not so pleasant. The canyon road was often snowpacked or a rutted, muddy mess. Mama always saw to it that several hot irons wrapped in cloths were placed in the wagon floor to warm our feet. It took a full day to make the twenty-five-mile trip from Eden to the city and back, with the horses snorting and straining at some of the steep climbs.

One of Ogden's jewels was the Howell Building. Here Eva, oldest of my four sisters, presided as housemother to boys^from Ogden Valley who attended Weber Academy. The Howell was on the west side of Washington Boulevard near Twenty-fifth Street, right in the heart of the city. Doctors' offices occupied the second floor, and a magnificent curving staircase led to the rooms on the third. Papa rented the third floor by the year from Mr. Howell for a low figure.

I found the place quite as attractive as my Eden attic—both were havens with secret nooks and crannies. Before entering first grade I spent months with Eva enjoying the college hi-jinks of my brothers Dewey and Bryan, Oscar Ferrin, Milt Graham, and other students from the valley.

I learned to read sitting in the big bay window overlooking Washington Boulevard. I would spell out the letters on the signs to Eva and soon learned to read Broom Hotel, Cozy Theater, Lewis Jewelry, Ogden State Bank, Fred Nye Clothiers, and other signs of the great emporiums.

Ogden's attractions were many, but the charms of pastoral Eden were even more compelling: the town ditch with its gurgling waters, the town square with its imposing grandstand and buildings facing the square—the store on the corner, the schoolhouse, the amusement hall, the rustic church, the magic blacksmith shop—each beckoning a young boy with particular enticements.

I could stand in the glow of the reddening forge and watch Jess Wilbur shoe the horses. I could stand in front of Virge Stallings's house where the water was caught between dams and gawk at the baptisms performed by the elders of the church. In winter I could stand on the steps of the store and thrill at the sight of my daring brothers and their pals as they whirled horse-drawn sleds and flattops in the snow-laden streets. Gaining momentum in a two-block charge, they would crackthe-whip in sharp turns, sometimes spilling the riders or tipping over. Snowballs would fly and joyous yells ring out against the white hills of the enclosed valley.

Everything about our Eden house was memorable too. Two beautiful porches graced the front and left side. They were L-shaped, the lower one extending from the dining room door on the west to the front entrance on the south and the one above from the boys' bedroom to my parents' bedroom in the front. Sometimes we posed for photographs on the porch steps. One prized picture showed several of the family with my dog Gyp, a splendid collie, the center of attention. Gyp was accidently shot and killed by one of the Eden boys mishandling his gun. My grief was deep and long, not to be assuaged.

We ate nearly all our meals in the kitchen. A large rectangular table filled a good portion of the room and the big black cook stove another. Meals included not only the staples of meat, potatoes, and gravy, but lots of home-grown vegetables, fruits, and homemade bread.

In the winter the kitchen was usually the only warm room in the house, and it had the best oil lamp to carry into darker rooms. It also served as a bathroom on Saturday nights when a portable tin tub was brought in.

We felt safe and comfortable gathered around the kitchen stove on cold winter evenings when Ruth read to us. Treasure Island was the favorite. The next day we would go around the house muttering "pieces of eight, pieces of eight." Ben Gunn and Long John Silver became like members of the family. Stories by Zane Grey, Harold Bell Wright, and Gene Stratton Porter received our rapt attention, as though they were literary classics instead of just tall tales of the West.

Not all my memories of the kitchen are entirely pleasant though. At least once a year we could count on an extended visit from Dr. Charles L. Olsen and his wife Pauline of Salt Lake City. The doctor had been a missionary companion of my father in Denmark. He would look down my throat and check my temperature, but one time in my fifth year he seemed interested in more than my tonsils. After the exam I was sent to play in my sandpile back of the store. Though this was a place of refuge, I felt apprehensive. I knew from whispered conversations and strange looks that something was brewing. Soon Papa came out and taking me by the hand led me to the kitchen. There in the presence of my four sisters I was placed on the table and pinioned with firm hands while Dr. Olsen wielded his efficient scalpel. My screaming bloody murder did not dissuade him from performing the ancient rite of circumcision. I was plenty mad for two good reasons: it hurt like hell, and my sisters were not welcome at ringside.

Visitors to our home were received in a spacious entrance hall that had a splendid banistered stairway leading up to the bedrooms and a stained-glass window above the landing that threw varicolored lights over the hall. Next to the hall were the front and back parlors and then the dining room with its many doors and large windows. It was used only for special company such as relatives, friends, and church officials. LDS church historian Andrew Jenson and his two wives were frequent visitors.

The Eden streams afforded wonderful skating in winter. I received a pair of skates for my sixth birthday and worked to become as proficient as my brother Gene who was an expert. My joy knew no bounds when my feet began to obey me and I could scoot ahead without a stick.

Along with my skates, my brother Bryan made me a pair of skis in shop at Weber Academy. I was fascinated with the way they turned up on the ends. He had labored to shape them properly. The hills to the north of the cemetery provided a mile-long ski run that was just right for beginners—a gradual slope that was easily negotiated. The trek to get back to the top was tiring but well worth the effort.

Bryan was also responsible for my green sled of which I was very proud. A heavy affair, it was not easy to pull but would fly like the wind downhill. Eden's two cemeteries afforded good sledding hills. The Stallings hill was favored due to its steepness, but one had to be careful not to hit the barbed-wire fence after leveling out. My first encounter with the hill was traumatic. I must have stood at the top for half an hour screwing up my courage. It looked impossible. But after some taunts from the older kids I moved. The speed was breathtaking and the feeling of accomplishment great.

Another event of winter remains memorable. It was my parents' firm custom to have each of their nine children baptized on their eighth birthday regardless of the weather. Mine came two days before Christmas on December 23, 1918. With a couple of feet of snow on the ground the baptismal party proceeded by horse and carriage to Eden's north slope—Mama, me, some of the Fullers, and some of the Stallingses. It was not as perilous as it sounds. No ice was broken, no shoveling needed to get to the pond. It was a nice little warm spring that one day would become Patio Springs, a popular resort. I think it was V. B. Stallings who put me under. Actually, it was kind of fun. What I had feared became a pleasant, warm feeling as I held my nose and felt my sins slip off into the water. The only embarrassment came when back in the carriage Mama removed my wet clothes to wrap me in a blanket—all under the gaze of Nora Fuller, a freckle-faced girl of about ten who seemed quite interested. I wanted to whop her.

Every town should have a haunted house, and we were fortunate to have one right on our property line. It wasn't really a house—only a clapboard-sided shed. It stood just over the barbed-wire fence at the north end of our lot, beyond the barn.

It was said to have been a tool shed for the Clarks. I once screwed up my five-year-old courage and peeked into the window which was dirty and full of cobwebs. I saw rakes and hand tools and strange-looking junk.

I knew it was haunted because it was always padlocked, and no one ever went in or out, except maybe Old Dad Clark. But mainly it was the blue lights that Eden folks had seen coming from the dirty window that proved the haunting.

There was an air of mystery about Old Dad Clark too, for he never spoke to anyone nor went anywhere except to our store. He would smile at Ruth and indicate what he wanted. She would remove the lid from the cheese cutter and slice a generous portion of cheese, and he would take it and a few other purchases and amble back home just a block away and across the street from the shed.

I wasn't afraid of him but wondered why he would never look at me. I remember the day he died and the funeral cortege up the north slope to the cemetery. I know they buried him for I was there. But a week or two later, when I had almost forgotten about him, I saw him.

I had been playing on the bridge over by the Farrells, across from the store, when I happened to look northward toward Clarks. Old Dad was ambling at his usual slow pace, and he was wearing a round cheese box that completely covered his head down to his shoulders. He crossed the street and entered the shed. I ran and told the folks, but they laughed and didn't believe me. Nobody believed me, unless maybe Ruth did a little bit.

Strangely enough, that old shed, ramshackle though it be, is still standing right where it has always stood next to our property and still haunting just as it is supposed to. I know before I die I'll look once again into that dirty window and I expect I'll see Old Dad take off the cheese box and look at me.

Eden had its share of characters. Ed and Ess Fuller, brother and sister, lived in a shanty just east of the church. No one knew their ages, but they were obviously old. Ed was a bushy-faced handyman, and Ess was a tall, spare woman of few words. Some folks assumed they were a married couple, but we knew different. They were thought to be odd because, among other things, they kept their chickens in the house and would shoo them off the table just before they sat down to eat.

Ed was always on hand when we unloaded the Petersen Mercantile wagon. He never missed and often declared to all who would listen that my father was the best man on earth. Most people put Ed down as a loser because he never worked at a regular job and never had much of anything to call his own, but Papa treated him with respect, paid him well for his work, and always threw in a good-sized plug of tobacco.

Ess always looked clean, always sat on the back row at church meetings, and, I thought, possessed considerable dignity. She almost never spoke to anyone.

My brother Golden and Ray Ferrin used to tease Ed and Ess. One time they called to ask about some chickens. They giggled and tried to hide under Ed's bed. Ess went after them with a broom, overturning a chamber pot and chasing the rascals out of her house. Eva, Ruth, and I called later to make amends and found Ess grumpy but forgiving. She offered us something—perhaps it was some yeast bread. We were reluctant to accept because of the chickens perched on the stove and the bed and everywhere else, all clucking happily.

Ed and Ess always minded their own business and were no trouble to anyone. Looking back, I believe they were probably no odder than the rest of us.

Another memorable figure was Jess Wilbur, the village blacksmith and one of the few gentiles in town. He smoked cigars and was known to cuss once in awhile. But no one seemed to mind that he never went to church or showed any interest in the gospel.

Everybody liked Jess Wilbur. He was friendly and obliging. When he shod the horses his shop became a haven for idlers and bugeyed kids. His smelly leather apron, the red-hot embers in the forge, the sweat of the horses all made a pleasant atmosphere worth standing around for an hour at a time enjoying. I loved to watch him at work, smoking his stogie, intent on gentling the horse as he applied the shoe, his swarthy, perspiring face showing both concentration and kindness. He was also a fixer. He mended plows and harvesters, an occasional wheel from a wagon, or a flivver that refused to start.

But most impressive to all the villagers was the fact that he was a good friend of David O. McKay from nearby Huntsville. He used to drop in at the shop and chat with Jess about local events and politics— but never about religion. That great one, destined to become president of the Mormon church, loved the people of Ogden Valley, and high on his list was Jess, and also my parents, Adam and Anna, his boyhood chums.

Adam and Anna had been childhood sweethearts, both born in Huntsville six days apart. Both were Petersens, one with an o and one with an e. Together they attended the one-room schoolhouse under the discipline of Charles Wright, graduating from the eighth grade in 1884. They were married at eighteen in the Logan Temple. Nine children were born to them between the years 1889 and 1910, I being the caboose. I never heard Mama complain about those child-bearing years, but they must have been rough. Papa was in Denmark from 1892 to 1894 and again from 1902 to 1904. He loved missionary life. Pictures reveal him in black cutaway coat and high silk hat, sporting a cane and with a Book of Mormon in hand.

Mama's role was less glamorous. She worked in the fields, took in washing, and ran a store. In addition to her work as postmistress, she was a Relief Society president and active in the Scandinavian organization, frequently hosting its members.

My father always called her his Queen. It was more than a term of respect and honor, it was one of endearment. Other than the times he was away on his missions he would go no place without her. She and Papa would play four-handed pieces on the piano and sometimes sing and dance together.

Papa was proud to be Adam L. Petersen. He was proud of his wife and family, proud of his ability as a public speaker and mover of men, happy in the good will and association of hundreds of friends. He loved people, loved his church, loved public service. At different times in his life he was merchant, butcher, sheriff, justice of the peace, legislator, high councilman, missionary, guitarist, singer, and public reader in Congress in Washington, D.C.

One time during a session of the legislature Mama and I lived with him in the Hotel Utah. I felt very important as I played in the lobby of the hotel and in the rotunda of the great State Capitol. Once I even sat on Governor Simon Bamberger's knee as he and Papa thrashed out some political problem.

When Papa was in Washington I missed him terribly. The day he came back Mama and I were waiting at the little train station at the foot of the hill (now under water, a part of Pine View Reservoir). He was a conquering hero coming home laden with glory, and I was the proudest, happiest boy in Eden as the horse and buggy took us home.

The evenings at home when he sang and played his guitar were times of rapture. While he was tuning I would take his shoes off and loosen his socks in the toes. He sang fun songs and sad songs, love songs and ballads: "The Baggage Coach Ahead," "The Fatal Wedding," "Everybody Works But Father," "Ben Bolt," and "The Flying Trapeze." He sang at Danish parties, at weddings, and at funerals.

Papa and Mama sometimes received mail addressed simply, Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, Zion. Mama's name was really Anna, of course, and her oldest daughter was Eva, but the Adam and Eve appellation seemed to stick. And Garden of Eden was as apt a place name as any in Zion.

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