alyce (mostly grandma dunn memories)

Today’s date: Sunday, July 17, 2011

Rosemary’s reflections on the lives of Emma and Alyce

July 24, 2011 One hundred years after the birth of our Mother, Alyce Dunn, we celebrate her life and wish to make our children and grandchildren familiar with her character and her accomplishments. We wish to tie together the generations of our Dunn/Olsen family, that there might not be even one “weak link”.

Alyce was born on July 24, 1911 (Utah’s Pioneer Day) in Mercur, Utah. Her Mom, Emma Crookston, had moved to Mercur from Logan in approximately 1909 and was working as a cook/nanny. It was a mining camp and Alyce’s Father, John William Dunn, had also moved there with his father, who was a master carpenter. They had come from American Fork, Utah. They worked together in the building business. Emma and John were married on September 21, 1910.

A little background on Emma and John: (some of the information is not authenticated)

In about 1911 Mercur, a silver mining town in Tooele, Utah, burned down. It was partially rebuilt but soon the value of silver decreased. The percentage of valuable ore in the rock there was low so that it did not prove worthwhile to continue to mine the area.

John and Emma returned to the Logan area and John went to work at the sugar factories which dotted the northern Utah, Idaho and eastern Oregon area. Alyce (1911), Bill, (1916) and Jack (1919) were born along the way. It is not certain just how long they worked at the seasonal sugar factories but two things about this time stand out to Rosemary:

1. They visited Jensen cousins in Ontario Oregon who also worked at a sugar factory there. During that visit there were some great pictures taken along the Snake River of both families. It is meaningful to Rosemary because her family lived there for two years and she is very familiar with the area.

2. Grandma Dunn related to me that while they were living in Paul, Idaho (during the sugar factory days) one morning little Alyce came up missing. Grandma later found her. She had crawled up a very tall tower in the area and was stranded at the top. That story caught my young imagination.

The railroad, army and mining brought a lot of gentile influence into the Utah area. Evidently this caused some of that generation to either stray from the LDS church or to take it less seriously. This seemed to be the case with John and Emma. I never knew John (he died when I was four in l950) but I understand that he was a smoker. (Dixie relates that he died of congestive heart failure). I am not aware that Emma ever went to church. We see into her heart, however, when we read her poetry. Clearly she believed in God and loved animals and the world. She was kind to every one and served others with great energy. Grandma Dunn died in 1963, when I was 17.

After Mother’s death, in 1957, ( I was age 11), Grandma did all that she could to help my Dad and I. She would drive to Paradise each week to do some cleaning and to cook us a “real meal”. Dad got tired of the hotdogs and fish stick meals that I had learned to make in 4H.

I never felt like I was really mature enough to know Grandma the way Dixie did. When I was growing up she was older and really struggled with health issues and with her troubled son, Bill. He was an alcoholic who had served with great courage and sacrifice during World War II. He was never the same after he returned from the war. (Grandma’s other son, Jack, actually died as a consequence of World War II. He contracted malaria while in the Pacific Islands.) Grandma basically took care of Bill’s needs and was patient with his problems until she died. I know, however, that he caused her great worry and concern. When staying with her, I would hear Uncle Bill stumble into the house in the middle of the night. Sometimes he would fall. It really frightened me. I know that he didn’t always make it home and had issues with frozen feet because he had passed out (my guess) in the snow.

I did like to go to Grandma’s however. She was the only Grandparent that I ever knew. I know she loved me. In the past few years I have called her my “Gingersnap” Grandma. This was because she had so little money to live on. (She worked in the cafeteria at Utah State for a number of years. During the war, the land grant colleges were often turned into military training camps for the army. It was during this time that she worked. John, her husband, seemed to struggle to find work. It may have been partly due to his health.) So after she quit her job, Grandma lived on a small pension and social security. Grandma was paid once a month. At the beginning of the month Grandma would go to the bakery and buy raisin oatmeal cookies…delicious! I would find those in the cookie jar on her table. At the end of the month, the money was gone. Then I would find gingersnaps in her cookie jar. I use to get a big glass of milk and take a pile of gingersnaps into her modest TV room. (It was usually cold in there as she shut the door to conserve energy.) After the cookies were gone, I would find myself, stomach down, on her round, circle ottoman. I would turn it on it’s side and roll back and forth, back and forth while I watched TV.

Grandma had a small back porch. She had a wide shelf that was attached to the north east wall. She’d planted a cactus garden on that shelf with rocks that she had collected from her many travels. It was pokey but interesting. There were also statues of a donkey and the three monkeys “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

She also had two little Pomeranian dogs…man and wife, Timmy and Toodles. (real dogs) Timmy was a “palomino” color and Toodles a “sorrel”. They were cute but I didn’t like cleaning up their “do” from the newspapers she placed around her toilet in the bathroom. They were with us when we had our accident on April 13, 1956. (Grandma had asked if I would like to drive by the temple that evening on our way home from her cousin’s home. “yes” I had answered.) She ran into a bridge abutment. She and I were taken to the hospital in an ambulance. (Years later a siren from an ambulance would still give me the shutters.) My face had gone through the windshield. I had over 60 stitches in my face. It took over 4 hours in the operating room.) Later I would pay Grandma $50 for her little Ford Coupe that she was driving the night of our accident. She called the car “Blondie” and the name stuck. I remember that she had thought that if I paid her she would be able to tell Bill that I had actually purchased the car. That way it would not hurt his feelings so much that she didn’t give it to him. He wanted it of course, but because of his drinking, it was not a good idea. Grandma was not a very good driver. She would drive right down the middle of the road. She would say “when people see me coming, they should have enough sense to get out of the way.” Jerry Welch told me later that one time he had seen her driving towards him and had done that very thing…. Gotten out of her way.

I remember New Years celebrations at Grandma’s. She had certain superstitions. One was about the first person that you met on New Year’s Day. Also, she would never give anything “sharp” as a wedding gift… knife, scissors, etc. Another interesting thing about Grandma was that she liked to read tea leaves. I am not certain just how it worked, just that it was fortune telling in some form. She would serve a wonderful dessert every New Year’s. It was a pudding with rum sauce. (Hmmm never thought much about the “rum” part until now.)

One of the things that I am most proud of about my Grandma was that she was a poet. She published a book of her poetry not long before she died. It is titled Life Begins at Sixty Five. (That is good news for me, as I turned 65 in April. Is my life truly just beginning?) There are just a few of those books around and each of us that has one, holds it dear. I have been reading from it this morning and it is so tender. It expresses her feelings about her family, friends, religion, animals, the war and more. I realize that I can glean from it’s pages, portraits of my ancestors, as seen through Emma’s eyes. Most history that is passed down is interpreted by the author, so I count these caricatures as valued if somewhat biased. When I was in grade school my teacher gave us an assignment to write a poem. Well, I felt like Grandma should help me with that project. She did and it is included in her book. It is called “Gold Fish” on page 12.

I went on a couple of trips with Grandma. The major trip was to Ohio soon after my mother died. We took the train. She sat and looked out at the world for the whole trip. She would get after me for reading a comic book and missing the interesting world she was viewing. I accompanied her on a reunion trip to Mercur, Utah as well. I did not sense what she was feeling on that trip until I read her poems about Mercur just this morning. She had a deep love for the place. It appears that even though it was a mining town with lots of men, she was held in respect and did not drink liquor.

When my mother, Alyce, died in l957, it brought her great sadness. She writes about it in her poetry.

“Since Allie Went Away”

1957

The skies are not as bright

I cannot sleep at night;

Her cheery smile I really miss,

And her loving tender kiss;

Life has lost its joy and bliss

Since Allie went away.

She gave us much of happiness,

We loved her far too well, I guess;

I’d like to know the reason why,

The ones I love all have to die;

Leave me dejected and alone,

With just the memories I own.

It shocked me when I realized this morning that I knew my Grandma longer than I did my own Mother. I knew Grandma for 17 years and my Mom for just barely 11 years. It makes me feel cheated. (However, my Grandma only had her Mom for 2 or 3 years… her Grandma raised her. I guess that I shouldn’t feel so badly.) So, when I try to rehearse my memories of my Mom, it won’t take nearly so many words as it did to relate my experiences with my Grandma.

Many of my memories of momma are shadowy. I have thought through the years that I might have blocked some of those memories because of the pain involved. After mother’s death I remember getting on my horse Dixie and riding up into the mountains. Our dog, Bobbie, would tag along. There, in those mountains, I would cry and sing. I felt so much emptiness.

What do I remember about my Mom? She played the piano for me and wanted me to succeed as a singer. She helped me learn songs, particularly “Che Sara, Sara” for the County Farm Bureau competition. (Interestingly, this was my first Italian song. I would sing scores of Italian songs throughout my life.) I have blurry memories of going to 4H Camp with mom (when I was about five) where her 4H club members helped me learn to braid boondoggle. I remember that she played the organ at church and that she accompanied many of the local singers. In first grade, I was determined at the end of the year, not to go home. My mom had to come and get me. Mom loved the color blue. She loved blue bells, the wild flowers; and one of her favorite songs was “In My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown”. She also loved the song “My Wonderful One”. I loved the layered frozen dessert that she used to make.

I have some special things that belonged to my Mother. We have her piano and her Aunt Virginia’s old organ. A red and white pieced quilt top that was made by my Mom (that Arlynn had quilted when I married) currently hangs in our kitchen. I have her cedar chest and an end table that was purchased in about 1954.

I have some very special, even spiritual, memories of my momma in the last two years of her life. They show some of her cardinal virtues that I have kept in mind at difficult moments in my life.

Shoe polish story: Forgiveness

In about 1954, Dad and Mom purchased new carpet for our home. It was a rose color and had a kidney shape design in it. Mom had bought me some new red shoes. She cautioned me never to polish those shoes in the living room on the carpet. One day, while she was in Logan, I needed to polish my shoes and there was one of my favorite programs on TV. I thought that I could be careful enough not to spill, but I was wrong. Sitting on the floor in front of the heat vent (a spot I regularly took during the winter to stay warm) I knocked over the liquid RED POLISH and it spilled a huge red puddle of polish on my Mom’s new carpet. I felt absolutely awful. I found rags and rubbed and rubbed trying so hard to get the stain out. Of course, the stain was still there. I remember standing at the kitchen window watching for my Mom to come home. I could see the traffic as it entered Paradise from Logan. The moment I saw her driving into town I began running down the road to meet her. I stopped her in the middle of the highway. She rolled down the window and I told her what had happened. I apologized with all of my heart. She could tell how sorry I was. She continued on into town to drop off a friend who was with her. I never remember her ever saying anything about the carpet. She seemed to simply forgive me.

Prayer:

My Mom became ill with cancer in the fall of l956. Her health deteriorated quickly and she was very sick. She never went to the hospital but stayed at home and spent her time in her bedroom in Paradise. Fluid collected in the cavities of her body and Daddy would occasionally take her to the doctor in Hyrum who would drain the fluid with large needles. The pressure from the collected fluids was painful. I knew that she was very ill. The adults in our home were quiet about her exact condition but I sensed a sorrow about it all. I would on occasion go to her bedroom and crawl under a large overstuffed chair that had tall wooden legs. It was an excellent vantage point for me to quietly observe my momma from a distance. One evening, just before she settled in for the night, I saw my mom painfully pull her legs from under the covers and carefully slip onto her knees on the floor. There I saw her pray to our Father in Heaven. I am sure that she had much to talk about. Certainly she was looking for relief and for courage to face her future. Maybe she was talking with him about her dear family and a little 11 year old girl that she knew she would be leaving behind for someone else to raise. At any rate, I have never forgotten that example. When ever I feel too tired to pray I remember her devotion and commitment to prayer at that difficult time in her life.

Just before my Mom’s death in May of 1957, Marvin J. Ashton, who then worked in the Young Mens and Young Womens General Church organization, paid a visit to our home to present Alyce with an Honorary Golden Gleaner Award. We, as a family, came to know how much our Mom was respected not only by church members but by many others in Cache County and in the state of Utah.

Grandma Dunn wrote a poem about me in 1957. It was the same year that my mother had died.

Rosemary

1957

Rosemary was a beautiful baby

A perfect little lady;

Her childhood was happy, free from care

Her loving parents were always there;

Ready to grant her every wish

From clothes and toys to a favorite dish.

At the age of eleven she lost her mother

A place hard to fill by another;

Leaving her lonely all the day

To learn to work the hard way;

But watching over her from above

Will always be her mother’s love;

Guiding her onward spiritually

To reach her rightful destiny.

As I reread this poem this morning, I am struck at the wisdom and perception of my Grandmother. It is the truth that I have felt my Mother watching over and guiding me. In 1982 I was pregnant with our 6^th child and was very low. I felt little support from those around me. One summer evening in darkness I sought refuge on a curb in a protected area in Brigham City, Utah. There I sat weeping. I began to think about my Mother and a sweet peace came over me. I sensed her approval of my life’s choices and with that approval came a feeling of well being. It was a tender experience that I still treasure and know that, in a spiritual sense, she visited me that night and brought me comfort.

These are my memories of my mother, Mary Alyce Dunn Olsen and her mother, Emma Crookston Dunn. I wish to be linked with them for eternity. They will make my departure from this life easier. I believe they will be there in the spirit world to greet me.

I have made a copy of Emma’s book of poetry. I wish to give it to her great grandchildren. (There are twelve of you.) Some day, it would be nice to have more bound copies prepared to share with her posterity. In them you will learn of her family, her beliefs and her spirit.

I love you all and am very proud of you.

Rosemary Olsen Mathews