One Lump or Two

Heating stove similar to one in our ranch house

Now that fall is upon us, it's time to get the central heat checked.  This is a far cry from the heating in our ranch home when I was growing up.  The main house was heated by a Franklin stove in the living room that burned wood or coal, and a kitchen stove that my Mom could make hearty stews or delicate angel food cakes.  







She would regulate the oven temperature with either one log or two or just the right amount of coal. Her hot water was warmed in a tank behind the stove.   We did have cold running water piped directly from a spring, captured just as it emerged from the ground and before it fed into the upper pond. Sometimes when I take our modern conveniences for granted I take a moment to remember my roots.

Not just a garage

Our ranch house had an unusual feature--a garage under the house. This was practical because the house was built on the side of a mountain
The garage was the home of a lot of interesting things.  In the front, the car was parked in the winter, when the heat of the house would enable Mom or Daddy to start it.  In the back was the canning store room, pine shelves filled with rows of mason jars--green beans, peas, beets, corn, tomatoes and fruits.  Potatoes, onions and other root vegetables were stored in bins of sand.  The coal bin was just beside the stairs coming down from the summer kitchen.  

Daddy in front of garage

But there was also room for other things–unused furniture, spare parts for various equipment, and a secret stash of magazines–National Geographic.  We would steal away and look at the pictures of exotic birds and wildlife and of course the people from various countries, including the almost naked folk from Africa.  We were sure these were forbidden magazines, because of those photographs.  We would read the stories of how these people lived and then memorize the exotic names of the countries.  Only later did I find out that Mom had already read them, and thought them just too nice to throw away, and was planning to donate them to the school library.

Fall and Hunting

Getting ready to go hunting

Pack horse string

Fall brought hunting season, one of Daddy’s busiest times, as he outfitted and acted as guide to hunting trips into Yellowstone and its surrounding forests. He would round up horses, those that were to pack supplies were carefully loaded, the supplies balanced, then covered and tied with diamond hitches. The riding horses were checked for shoes, and ridden enough to work the friskiness out of them. Then off the string would go.  On good trips, he would bring back an elk, but always stories of the antics of the dudes.  If there was an elk and since the weather was already cold, he would store it outside, hanging it high in a cleft between a huge rock back of our house by the upper pond.  Mom would can some of the meat to make sure we would have enough supply to last until the next hunting season. 

Monkey Wards Catalog

Fall  meant the start of school and the end of play. Mom would spend afternoons going through the latest Monkey Wards studying the styles and then giving hand-me-downs new life.  Olive Fell, an artist friend who lived a secluded life on a hilltop up the river sometimes gave us boxes of once stylish dresses from her days of living in the East.  These would be refashioned into dresses that looked like they came right from the catalog.  Mom would also turn flour sacks into dresses on an old treadle Singer sewing machine that Daddy had rescued from the neighbor’s scrap pile.  We each got a new pair of shoes, sometimes from town, sometimes from Monkey Wards catalog.  The catalog not only served as a store, but also a window into the fashion world.  Although, everything we wore was hand made, it was current with the latest trend. We were always the best dressed kids at school.

After the catalog’s days as a fashion guide, it was relegated to the outhouse where is continued to be useful.

Paupers? No--Kings

Fall in Wyoming is a riot of colors, a last dance of vibrancy before the snows of winter lay a quiet blanket over the mountains.  Growing up we loved the fall because it was a time of harvest.  Fresh vegetables would grace our table and we would savor the taste of squash and pumpkin.

At summers end, it was time to put up the bounty from the garden in her pressure cooker, maybe 100 quarts of beans which became a family project to clean, carefully pinching off each end, a few done up whole for company–straight as soldiers marching around the jar, 30 pints of peas, 20 quarts of beets, 30 quarts of corn, many quarts of tomatoes–then lots of potatoes, onions turnips and carrots, covered in sand in the cellar.  On the years that we had visited Grandma in Utah, then there would be applesauce, peaches, pears, and apricots all grown in her orchard, picked, and canned for the coming year’s desserts.

Mom canned enough produce to last us till the next harvest.  Even on the coldest winter days we would have vegetables and fruit.  We may have been poor in finances, but we kids never thought about it because we ate like kings.

Fulcrum--1951 The Rest of the Story

This story has four parts that I want to share with you.  It was a story that changed all our families lives not only at the time that it happened, but for the rest of our lives.

We often are so overcome with the tragedy and sorrow of an event that we cannot see anything good.  So it was with the story of Ruthie in 1951 and for the next twelve years.  But her story didn't end in a hospital in Casper, Wyoming in an iron lung, or in a halo apparatus at the Shriner's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

At the Shriner's Hospital she was a special patient.  When she was eleven they arranged for her to see fireworks for the first time in her life.  Through all her pain and suffering she never complained, but was a ray of sunshine to those around her.

When she finally was able to come home, my parents sold the ranch and moved to Cody so that she could go to school as her health was too fragile for living in the mountains.  She attend high school, sometimes when plagued with recurrent pneumonia by remote connection, and home tutoring from her teachers.
French studies were her favorite classes.  She went on to attend college in Minnesota with a dream to be a French translator for the United Nations.  She was an accomplished pianist.

Then, in 1968 she accepted a job as an angel in the heavenly choir, singing praises to her Heavenly Father.

Part one of this series was published May 21st.

Fulcrum 1951--Part 3

This story has four parts that I want to share with you.  It was a story that changed all our families lives not only at the time that it happened, but for the rest of our lives.

 Life was never really the same after that fall.  Ruthie was in the Casper hospital for a year and a half spending much time in an iron lung.  Her left leg and right arm were paralyzed, and because of her lung problems, she couldn't sit up without a back brace. 

When Ruthie finally came home she needed extensive therapy.  In those days there was no way to have a physical therapist come to our ranch so in the nature of the frontier spirit my mother learned the exercises.  Mom performed the physical therapy that Sister Kenny had developed for polio patients.  

After being home for a few months, my little sister was accepted into the Shiners Hospital in Salt Lake City where she spent most of the next six years, undergoing several spinal surgeries, and extensive therapy.  Mom would visit several times a year while Daddy took care of the rest of us kids.  And during the summer we would visit Grandma in Tooele and she was able to spend time with Ruthie

About the time she left for Salt Lake City, I had left home to go to high school in Cody, having to work as a nanny, as there was no way I could make the daily 50 mile trip is the snowy Wyoming winter weather.

When Ruthie finally came home, she had to continue water therapy.  Daddy had a small stock water tank made that would fit in our dining room.  We would fill it with warm water heated on our coal stove and carried in buckets, and Mom would exercise her atrophied muscles, then after her therapy we would take the buckets again and empty it.  Day after day,  every day, this continued, and slowly Ruthie improved until with the aid of a brace on her back and left leg she could walk.

That fall of 1951 will always bring back memories of the terror of that horrible disease, the pain and suffering that took away much of the innocence of youth and the need to face adult responsibilities, ending the carefree days of childhood.  

The rest of the story will be published June 11th.  (For Part one see May 21)

Fulcrum 1952--Part 2

This story has four parts that I want to share with you.  It was a story that changed all our families lives not only at the time that it happened, but for the rest of our lives.

Then one after another my two brothers and other sister became sick and day by day all were hospitalized with that terrible disease. My folks trying to protect me, kept me isolated from others.  Alone at home, I had no way of knowing what was happening.  At only ten and a half years old, I was responsible but scared of this strange scourge surrounding me.  My dad came home each night and told me how my siblings were doing.  Then one day a week later he promised that my older brothers and sister were slowly recovering, but would be in the hospital for a couple more weeks.  However, little Ruthie was still in critical condition and had been transferred by ambulance to Casper, a little over 200 miles away.  It was the closest hospital that had an iron lung that she needed in order to breathe.  Mom would stay with her until her conditioned stabilized.

So Daddy and I continued the business of life.  We ate, did our chores and listened to the radio.  Every afternoon he would go to town to check on his other children, and call Mom from the hospital to get an update on Ruthie.  After what seemed like forever,  the kids in the Cody hospital were released, and by that time Ruthie was stable so Mom also came home, but made the long trek to Casper to visit Ruthie every few weeks.

Part Three will be published Tuesday June 3rd.  (Part One was published May 28th.)

Fulcrum 1951-Part One

This story has four parts that I want to share with you.  It was a story that changed all our families lives not only at the time that it happened, but for the rest of our lives.

The summer of 1951 was so much fun.  All five of us kids--me the oldest at 10, clear down to Ruthie just about two years old--had played at Grandma's house in Tooele, Utah.  We would chase the chickens, run through the orchard sneaking a fresh peach or apricot, and listen for the train that lumbered down the tracks just a quarter of a mile from the house.  Sometimes we would put a penny on the rails and then after the train had clattered away till we could no longer hear it, would hurry down to the rails and try to find the flattened treasure.

But September brought the end of play and time for school, so just before Labor Day we packed up our old Buick and took the long trip back to our ranch in the mountains near Yellowstone Park.  The few days at home before school started were filled with getting school clothes ready, and maybe a trip into Cody--twenty five miles east through the treacherous Shoshone River Canyon.  Since the school supplied all the essential paper and pencils, we would beg for a box of Crayolas, the kind that had 48 different colors.  The box of eight that the school furnished just wasn't that exciting. Then the day after Labor Day, with little Ruthie waving bye, we took our lunch pails and hurried down the mountain to catch the school bus (Actually Willard Rhoads' nice large station wagon--his ranch was at the eastern end of the bus route), and soon we were immersed in a new year of learning.

Little did we know that in just two weeks we would face a turning point in all our lives.  We would change from being carefree children to ones who faced pain and heartache.  Our Mom and Dad, once so carefree suddenly turned sad and look years older.  That was the year of the Cody polio epidemic.  The middle of September, Ruthie started getting sick--just the flu, my Mom thought.  But her conditions worsened, and finally my folks made the 25 mile trip through the rugged canyon to the hospital in Cody where she was diagnosed with polio.  Her health rapidly deteriorated and the doctors gave my folks little hope that this small child would survive the night.  Mom sat watch at her bedside holding her hand and looking for the telltale blue in her tiny fingernail, and praying for mercy for her young sweet daughter.  And somehow Ruthie made it through those dark hours, hanging on to life by a thread.  

Part Two will be published next Tuesday, May 28th.

Where I would Rather Be

Today in Phoenix it was 76o, and right now at 8:30 p.m. it is 65o I had my doors open, with just the screen door closed to keep out the bugs and keep in the dogs.

The high today in Yellowstone Park, near where I grew up, was 30o, and right now it is 22o.

This was a typical scene from my youth.  We loved the snow.  Back then I thought it was fun to make snow angels and my brothers made snow forts.

But somewhere along the line, I became less enamored.  Maybe it was when living in northern Michigan, I had to hang diapers outside and they froze before I could get the clothespins on them.  Or maybe it was when it was having to dig out of drifted snow after a blizzard in Minnesota.  But for whatever reason I wouldn't trade living in Phoenix in the winter.  A visit to snow country is all that I need to remind me of those cold days of long ago.

School Lunch

When I was going to school at the one room school house in the mountains of northern Wyoming, we all had to bring our lunches from home.  A couple of my brothers and sisters would share a lunch box. Even though our lunch box wasn't as fancy as some of the kids new boxes with cool pictures, our lunches were the best.  

Mom would have made us sandwiches with fresh homemade bread--maybe peanut butter and jam, or thin sliced meat left over from last nights supper.  There would be some fruit that she had canned, and probably a crisp oatmeal cookie.  We thought that we were special when we found a leftover pancake from breakfast, sprinkled with powdered sugar and rolled tightly (today's crepes); And always fresh milk from last night's milking.

Some kids would only have a fried egg sandwich on store bread in their fancy pails.  We pitied them.  So maybe our lunch containers weren't as nice as theirs, but nobody had food that could compare to ours. We thought we were rich.

Fall at the Ranch

Pack horses behind our ranch house about 1945

Fall at the ranch brought hunting season, one of Daddy’s busiest times, as he outfitted and acted as guide to hunting trips into Yellowstone and its surrounding forests. He would round up horses, those that were to pack supplies were carefully loaded, the supplies balanced, then covered and tied with diamond hitches.  The riding horses were checked for shoes, and ridden enough to work the friskiness out of them.  Then off the string would go.  On good trips, he would bring back an elk, but always stories of the antics of the dudes.  If there was an elk and since the weather was already cold, he would store it outside, hanging it high in a cleft between a huge rock back of our house by the upper pond.  Mom would can some of the meat to make sure we would have enough supply to last until the next hunting season.  At mealtime, Mom would order up a roast or steaks, and Daddy would carve off just what was needed.  Rabbit, deer and chukker would add variety to the meal, and of course fish.  

Middle pond late fall about 1956

When that was on the menu, us kids would take our poles and some cheese or fat earthworms for bait and go to the middle pond (50 feet from the front door) and catch a mess of trout for dinner.

Pogey Bait

As a kid growing up on a ranch in the wild mountains of Wyoming, we had all the things necessary for living, but few of the luxuries.  A family with seven kids, we were poor, but didn't know it, and were generally satisfied with life.  But at Halloween a difference was noticeable. 

Student body 1954-55 (I'm back row, 2nd from left; brother Bob
middle row 1st on left; sister Barbara 3rd from left middle row; brother David--
pogey bait lover--last on right front row)

Our little one room country school always had dress-up day on Halloween, and we invariably went as pirates, gypsies, or country bumpkins.  (That is so funny looking back, as we were the poster kids for country bumpkins.)  All the kids brought treats to share, and mom would make some cookies for us to take.  But we were so envious of the kids who brought lollipops, Tootsie Rolls, or candy bars, sigh!!
When we took our loot home, I remember showing it to *Daddy, and he scoffed and said in a disgusted voice, "Well, look at that, they gave you pogey bait."  We knew from his tone that he wasn't impressed, so I was glad we had yummy cookies from our mom's oven, however one of my brothers dreamed of the forbidden candy, and when we went to town he would spend his nickel on hard candy from the dime store.

*My dad was era World War I, and the military gave the soldiers candy which they used to barter for local items (some not so respectable) 

Snow Time

About this time of year our valley back in Wyoming gets its first snow.  Their local weather forecast 

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
in effect until Saturday, Oct 6, 4:00am.

...SNOW SHOWERS EXPECTED TONIGHT FROM THE CODY FOOTHILLS AND BIGHORN BASIN SOUTH TO THE WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS...

We always looked forward to the first snow and the challenge of trying to build a snowman or make snowballs. Although only an inch or two, and it melted quickly, we knew that winter fun was just around the corner.  It was still warm enough that we didn't have to get bundled up in all our snow gear; just a hat and mittens would keep us warm.

Hunting Season

Hunting season--that time of year that makes grown men act like juveniles.  Reminds me of that truck commercial where the guy is packing everything including his favorite pj's for a weekend with the boys.  Growing up there were three rules during hunting season.  Wear bright clothing, stay on the roads and come straight home from school.  Every year stories were told of the crazy hunters that descended on our country.  The road to Cody had its game check station at the Rattle Snake Creek bend just a few miles from our house.  One year a group of dude hunters came through as proud as can be with their prize trophy.  

As they were bragging about their catch--a huge deer, the game wardens just shook their heads, and said to each other, "Never did like that old mule of DeMoriac's, anyway" and waved the hunters through.  Upon thought, bet that was one tough bunch of meat.

Wyoming Autumn

Fall was a special season during my childhood years.  It was that moment in time between the buzz of the bees with lazy calls of the western meadowlarks and the first dusting of snow that quietly put all the larkspur and Indian paint brushes to sleep for the winter.  When Jack Frost blew his chilly breath down our valley, the cottonwoods and aspen burst forth in a riot of color, the final crescendo before the coming of the winter whites.  Days would be warm encouraging a final burst of energy from man and animal before the dormant time to come.  

Thoughts were of golds and orange, harvest and Thanksgiving. Soon it would be time for snowshoes and mittens but for a few glorious weeks the blaze of autumn made our hearts sing with an anthem worthy of the beauty of the season..

First Day of School

1946-47  I'm front row, third from right

The day after Labor Day was one of the best days of the year for me when I was growing up.  It was the first day of school.
Early in the morning, I would pop out of bed, put on a new dress that Mom had made--probably out of a flour sack.  After a quick breakfast, I grabbed my lunch pail and with my Dad by my side that first year, headed down the mountain to catch the bus to school--actually Willard Rhodes car (he lived on the end of the line).  It was so exciting.  All of the students (between 8 and 15 each year) gathered outside to raise the flag, say the Pledge of Allegiance then  went inside and found our seats. 


We excitedly checked our desks and carefully examined our very own school supplies, bought by the school--a brand new yellow pencil and a tablet of lined paper.  We would share crayons, rulers and other supplies.  I loved to learn and that country school instilled in me the dreams and ideas that would shape my life.

When I was young, the end of August was canning time.  My mom's huge ranch garden was loaded with all kinds of vegetables that she would can to last us through the coming year.  I loved to shell the peas.  I would tear the stem end and pull the string down along the pod, it was just like a pull tab. The pod popped open and I would free those bright green  peas with a zip of my thumb.  Mom always canned the peas in pint jars.

My least favorite vegetable to ready for canning were green beans.  There would be a wash tub full of them, and it seemed to take forever to snap both end off, cut them in nice little lengths to fill the many quart jars.  Mom always kept back some of the nice slender ones to can whole.  They did make a pretty sight all lined up like soldiers marching around the inside of the jars.

She also canned beets, corn and many other vegetables.  Carrots, potatoes, and root vegetables were stored in the sand in the root cellar.

By the end of the season our basement shelves were filled with a myriad of colorful jars to tide us through til the next harvest.

Wapiti School--A Century of Learning

With school starting for another year, I thought back to my grade school--a one room school west of Cody Wyoming.  On March 11, 1911, the little school on the North Fork opened its doors for the first time. Teacher June Hale, her five students and Beans Wagner the dog stand in front of the first Wapiti School in 1911. School was held in the tent March-May. A new schoolhouse was built during the summer near the site of the current school.

Wapiti School 1928

Wapiti School 1950  4th Grade--I am in the back row, fourth from left, notice there still is a dog

1954 8th grade for me--I'm back row, third from left

Wapiti school 1955

The school provided excellent education, rated on of the best in the state of Wyoming.  It had varied program and activities.  With the reopening of Sleeping Giant ski facility in 2010, the ski program began again. It originally started in the mid-1970s.

The school has been teaching the children of the Northfork for over 100 years.  I never will regret the time that I spent there and the quality education that I received.

School Clothes--Flour sacks to Fakes

My little granddaughter loves to shop, just like her mom.  She recently went shopping for school clothes, and being the little fashionista that she is, it was a long day.  She likes certain styles, and colors, and even has an opinion about fabrics.  It sure is different than when I was a kid.  

Flour sack fabric 1940-1950

My mom made all our clothes generally from flour sacks or reworked from other dresses. Occassionally we would get a dress from new fabric she got in town.  Now don't get the wrong idea, my mom was an excellent seamstress, and she copied the styles out of the latest Monkey Wards catalog, but their were no designer labels or high end trims.  We were ignorant of the difference.  We were proud of our wardrobe, and bragged that "Mommy made this!"  

When my girls were growing up, I made all their clothes, but they were label conscious. There was a SAS fabric outlet store not too far from us, and I scored with labels--they were rejects from the manufacturer, but no one ever knew the difference.  My girls were happy--they knew they were fakes, but didn't lose face with the other kids and the money I saved was amazing.  Which brings me to this thought, it is sad that status symbols are often more important the a persons substance.