:Family Matters

October 28, 2007

Thursday was one of those perfect autumn days where the sun, tempered by the tilt of the earth caresses one like a lover as it promises the pleasure of basking in its warmth, reward enough for this one perfect day as summer lingers for an encore. It was one of those days that beckon with its siren call, which if heeded leads to hours of delight as other duties, no matter how pressing are ignored. I mean, how can such a day be resisted? So I found my stiff, green leather gloves with their blackened tips, my knife, ‘borrrowed’ from the motley kitchen collection earlier in the summer, a sacrifice to my need for a way to ‘cut’ out weeds, and headed outdoors. One of the things I did was pull the volunteer tomatoes from amongst the gooseberry bushes where they had survived my absence and thrived under MGH’s benign encouragement until they managed to fulfill the reason for their existence and provide our table with a handful or two of almost ripe cherry tomatoes, another two weeks and we would have had more than enough to satisfy our hunger—but it didn’t happen. The growing season is so short here that in order for tomatoes to grow they have to be started inside and then transplanted as the weather moderates. Based on this summers experience I would have to conclude that volunteer seeds don’t stand a chance which is probably why really good gardens are grown in places like Iowa or Wisconsin, both states which I have lived in and watched as MGH has grown marvelous gardens—the kind where you actually raise enough produce to enjoy on the table with enough left over to ‘put up’ which is how my mother used to refer to the process of preserving fruit and vegetables.

We have already had several frosts strong enough to kill most of the plants and flowers still bravely attempting to continue their growth in the rapidly shortening days that come, whether we will or not as the season turns. Our neighbor up the street from us, who has taken such good care of our yard this summer, came last week with his weed whacker and cut down all the upright ‘remains’ of the summer reducing the once abundant growth to the level of the lawn. That he took off one of the sprinkler heads in the process is another story for another time, perhaps. . . . Thank goodness MGH can still manage the required repairs although each time he does brings up the distinct possibility that it will be the last—but so far he keeps surprising himself even if he does pay for it with extra hours of confinement to his chair for the next few days.

I hope the Austrian pine growing in our back yard survives the pruning I gave it while in the process of tidying things up while I still can get outside. I hated to do it but simply got tired of trying to pull weeds and grass while getting poked in the eye for my effort. The branches kept reaching further out every year and as my arms have remained the same length something had to give and I was afraid it would be me if I continued to have to get down on my stomach in order to wiggle my way underneath the limbs which was actually the easy part of the maneuver as it was downhill. The hard part came when I needed to retrace my path only to discover to my horror that every rock in the neighborhood had decided to congregate under me which meant that exiting became an extremely painful experience. I must have presented quite a picture to all the neighbors in the upstairs apartments behind our house as I wiggled and waggled my way out of my predicament. Looking on the bright side I figured if I didn’t make it out eventually someone would look my way and seeing that I was not making any appreciable progress, call 911. I knew I could never yell loud enough to make myself heard, loud yells not being one of my strong points as my children very well know.

Mother never bothered yelling for us when we were playing with our friends in the neighborhood. She solved that problem by honking the car horn in short bursts of three which meant we were to stop what we were doing and come home now. If we had permission to go further a field she would get in our pale green Studebaker and drive around honking, beep, beep, beep until we heard her and came running which we did as rapidly as possible because we knew she wouldn’t stop until we complied. We found it extremely embarrassing to be summonsed in such a manner, I mean none of the other kids were called home by this method. Oh how I used to long to be called home the same way the others were—a loud voice yelling, “Cora Lee, Stanley (our next door neighbors) dinners ready” in a voice that could be heard clear down the block. One thing I will have to give mother credit for and dad too, for that matter, they didn’t give a whit about how anybody else did things. They knew what they expected from their girls and proceeded to do it ‘their way’.

As a case in point, all of the kids around us were allowed to read comic books. We weren’t. Oh how I longed to have that boon in my own life. Tarzan, Superman, Wonder Woman all had such amazing adventures which I knew because I would guiltily read about them while visiting at a friend’s house. This is probably where I learned to speed read as I never had the time to sit and peruse a comic book at my leisure and I must admit that on many occasions I had to leave off reading just as the hero found him/herself in a position that would mean the demise of a normal human and I never got to find out what happened to save them but I am supposing they must have survived in some miraculous manner as a new comic book came out every month. Mother would have been horrified if she had known what I was doing. The only comics she approved of were the ones with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The grocery store where she shopped in Mesa had a small area set aside for children to amuse themselves in while their mothers shopped. The only thing I remember about it was that the sun came in hot through the large glass window right over the area and that it had a rack holding some of the comics Mother considered harmless which kept me entertained the whole time, often begging to be allowed to finish the rest of the story.

Were they right in being so strict in controlling our reading material and movies? I know at the time I didn’t think so but I realize now it was their way of trying to see that our childhood remained innocent for which, in retrospect I am now grateful.

No Comments

October 14, 2007

Dad was a hard taskmaster. He had absolutely zero tolerance for his daughters failure to do as they were told and would show the rough side of his tongue to us when his instructions were not fulfilled exactly as he requested. This made life particularly difficult for us on the farm as so much of what we had to do dealt with working with livestock, said livestock being notorious for failure to cooperate with desperate daughters eager to comply with biblical instruction to honor and obey parents so that they might live long upon the earth . . . .
The cows were always getting out of where they were supposed to be. Sometimes it was because a clever one had learned how to open the small gate between the barnyard and the garden, which was behind the house. One of the culprits in this was a Jersey-Holstein mix who Dad had named Blackie. She was a favorite because of the good rich milk she produced. Later in her career she would suffer from a knocked down hip caused by flying debris when the mini tornado which roared over us on a summer’s night tore off pieces of the loafing shed, which was located in the pasture next to the milking parlor, some of which struck her. Dad decided to keep her as long as she could continue to have a calf every year which she did in spite of her injury. (Calving on a regular basis keeps a cow producing milk—which on a dairy farm is the commodity that pays the bills.) She was a smart old thing and had some how discovered that by using her nose she could lift the latch up and off its closed position which would allow the gate to swing open and allow egress out into the big world beyond the confines of the usual fences not to mention mother’s garden with it’s wealth of sweet corn amongst other goodies—what they didn’t eat they trampled which led to total disaster of a lot of hard work on mother’s part. This, of course, infuriated mother who would immediately issue a call to arms to her daughters which meant they stopped whatever it was they were doing at the moment to answer her summons. There was no doubt as to where our duty lay; we were to “get those cows back where they belonged, NOW”. This was much easier said than done as said cows were having much too much fun right where they were to want to pay heed to the swarm of humans who descended on them waving their sticks and shouting unkind things at the top of their lungs.
Trying to get a cow to go where you want her to and she doesn’t can be extremely trying. Being raised in the city, albeit a small one, when we arrived on the farm we didn’t have a clue as to what it took to ‘relocate’ a large often unwilling bovine from one spot to another. This could become particularly challenging when the whole herd was involved. The learning curve was steep and of necessity quick as Dad undertook to teach us the skills we needed if we were to be of any use to him as the solitary man trying to succeed in farming in a family whose ‘help’ was made up of those of the female persuasion. It would take the death of my mother and his subsequent remarriage before any boys arrived on the scene in the shape of his second wife’s sons but by then I was married and gone and no longer privy to the happenings taking place on the farm. All I can report are the frustrations that occurred as we struggled to master the skills that are learned from babyhood by those fortunate children BOTF(born on the farm).
One of the first bits of knowledge was this; one does not approach the enemy, I am referring here to the usually sedate ladies that made up our dairy herd, too closely if one wants to introduce/force a change of course as this will result in said ladies first eying one in wide eyed innocence before deciding that they really must run off some of the fat they have acquired since last calving and this looked like a pretty good time. Since they had just come from the barnyard, which at the moment held no attraction for them, they always headed any place but there. With the acquisition of this piece of knowledge, one learns to casually stroll away from ones’ desired goal in a rather large circling motion that will eventually lead one back to the front of the herd which then, being properly intimidated by loud shouts and arm motions will ‘spook’ and head back the way they came. That’s the intention. It works most of the time. I can’t say that we were never unsuccessful in our efforts but very rarely was it quick.
Just so you can get a better picture of what we were dealing with; on cattle ranches they train quarter horses which are quick on their feet and for a quarter of a mile can beat any thorough bred. When properly trained they can ‘cut’ a cow from a herd and keep her from going back, many times without any guidance from their rider who is mainly interested in staying in the saddle but who gets all the credit. This task was often ours only we were on foot which put us at a distinct disadvantage.
Living as we did right next to Highway 2 in southern Iowa which crossed the state from east to west, we were often greeted with horn blasts from the semi’s that passed us on their way to somewhere else. You might wonder why but it was their way of letting us know that we had livestock in harms way. Again the call to arms brought us running out of the house to see just how many and where they were this time. I think that one of the most challenging times occurred during the middle of the night when we were all wakened by a blast of sound. I know I got up and ran to a window located by the stair well where I was in time to see the last one heading around the house towards the road. This time we had Dad to help and under his guidance we got them rounded up in short order and back where they belonged. It wasn’t long after this adventure that a new method of fastening the small gate, afore to mentioned, was found.
To a cow the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence which meant that they were always leaning against said fence as they stuck their heads through the space left by the barb wire strands meant to keep them in. Sooner or later a gap would occur and one or the whole herd would discover this and out they would go. Dad spent the time between ‘laying the crops by’ and harvest time checking fences and repairing them. Never the less it was a continual challenge to keep them in and if they were out to get them back where they belonged.

No Comments

October 7, 2007

It was my privilege to spend three months with our youngest daughter Joy in the hopes that I could be of some comfort and support to her as she underwent a difficult divorce and the birth of her third child. This came about because her father and I were deeply concerned about her welfare based on her desperate phone calls to us seeking comfort and guidance. I will admit that I felt very helpless in the situation and could think of nothing to offer her but a listening ear which her use of a cell phone and my failing hearing often compromised. After one particularly disturbing call MGH(MyGoodHusband) told me that during a mostly sleepless night as he pondered her situation he kept receiving strong impressions that I should go immediately to New Orleans where she is stationed as a member of the Marine Corps Reserve Band.

This immediately raised a conflict of interest on my part as I longed to be with her but knew that it would mean leaving MGH to fend for himself. As a full grown adult male one would think that this really shouldn’t be a problem for him. Except it is now that he is 79 and finds it difficult to move with any great momentum (‘shuffle faster’ is the mantra croaked by millions of seniors as they concentrate on not tripping over painted lines on the sidewalk.) “Who will cook for you?” I wailed. “Or buy groceries/wash dishes/wash clothes/water plants inside and out/vacuum/dust (well maybe not dust) etc, etc?” Patiently, he set about allaying my fears one by one reassuring me over and over that he would survive as the words of the old song go, “ ‘till a hundred and five”, so what else could I do in the face of such determination to get along without me. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the situation so I did both and then bought my plane ticket.

I finally reached the conclusion that he would be fine and that it might actually be a good thing if I wasn’t there to hover over him all the time. Still I couldn’t resist sending out an SOS to all family members to ask for their help in seeing that he was well cared for. It was absolutely amazing to me to see how quickly they responded with offers of aid and comfort for the both of us. Dawn came in May and cleaned. Sylvia was here in June with her family who were making the ‘grand rounds’ of family visits for their summer vacation. Marie and Dan along with Mark and Rob came in July where they managed to, among everything else that needed to be done, put the molding in where needed downstairs. Sherman continued working at Cerro Copper in order to keep an eye on his dad thoroughly spoiling him in the process. Brooks paid for a plane ticket so that MGH could visit him in Michigan the last two weeks of July which he greatly enjoyed. Brooks also made it possible for me to visit there as well. This was an unexpected bonus, from a caring son, that I also enjoyed as well.

Having spent so many years being sheltered and protected by MGH from the vicissitudes of the world I know myself to be a real innocent when it comes to dealing with problems on my own. Panic quickly moved in as I thought of all the things I would be called on to do ‘all by myself’. I mean it is one thing to ask advice and know that help will be there if needed and an entirely different thing to go off and depend entirely on ones self. I was really, really scared of making a mistake. This fear on my part dates back to my growing up years. My father had no tolerance for mistakes. He often said that one was permissible when learning a new skill but after that it was a sign of pure idiocy which I equated then as a fate worse than death, and still do for that matter. This has greatly complicated life for me as I come no where close to leading a mistake free life. I deal with this disastrous, though not always fatal, character flaw by pressing forward with my eyes closed which has allowed me to reach my current age largely unscathed but totally unequipped to handle events outside my ‘comfort zone’.

We have now reached the point of the above comments and that is, ‘how I survived’ while on my own. I really believe in the power of prayer and praying for the ability to cope was what I was doing. Even before I left home a line from one of the hymns, “How Firm a Foundation” kept coming to mind. “Fear not, I am with thee, oh be not dismayed, for I am they God and will still give thee aid. I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand. . . “ So, having received this assurance of heavenly aid what could I do but press forward. Over and over when I found my self perplexed or frightened the words I have just quoted would immediately come to mind and I knew that I would be able to successfully do what was needed at that time.

Let me give you an example. Kendra and I were home with the car for the day. We were to pick Joy up from work sometime that afternoon at the naval base where the band building is located. Not knowing the exact time she would call to say that she needed to be picked up I put Kendra down for her afternoon nap. When Joy called I was faced with the prospect of a sleeping child who didn’t appreciate being wakened before she was ready. Not wanting to traumatize her I decided that it would be best if I carried her to the car while she was still sleeping. The problem with this was that I could barely manage this feat as she was just at the point where a pound or two more would make it impossible for me to do. Being on the small side in stature I have never been able to lift much weight and have coped with this situation by ‘dividing’, where possible, the weight or simply waiting until someone bigger came along, neither of these options being available at the moment. Her bedroom was on the second floor and the car was parked outside the small back yard leaving me with two doors to open—three if you count the car door while juggling a sleeping toddler. I didn’t know how I was going to manage with out help so I said a prayer, explaining my situation and fears. “Fear not, I am with you”, was the thought that came immediately to mind so I took a deep breath and picked her up and to my surprise I found that I could carry her quite easily. I even managed to get her fastened into her car seat without the trauma that usually accompanied this task. I know that my prayer was heard and answered. My burden was made light and I was able to do what I needed.

1 Comment

Dearest Joanne,

Here is my write up of The Saturday Night Bath. DeVon.

THE SATURDAY NIGHT BATH

Convenient, even luxurious, bath room facilities are now so common that modern youth think the Saturday Night Bath is an old timer’s exaggeration, a stale joke left over from vaudeville. It was no joke in our house while I was growing up. The old action song, Doin’ the Hoky Poky, was real.

“You put your right foot in,

You put your right foot out,

You put your right foot in

And shake it all about . . .”

We had a few neighbors with flush toilets and self draining tubs, but most people took their Saturday night bath in a wash tub that was too small to sit in without doubling your knees up. It was standard procedure to kneel on the floor beside the tub and lean over it to wash your head, then treat one limb at a time according to the song. You finally ended up standing in the tub, so the water wouldn’t drain on the floor, as you washed your torso. You might sit down and lean over your knees while a brother or sister, or Mom or Dad, depending on your sex, washed your back. After you were grown, there wasn’t room to do much washing while sitting down.

There was no bath room with a high window and a lock on the door for privacy. You took your bath in the kitchen, close to the hot water. (It was nice just to be close to the stove in winter.) When I was a small boy the hot water supply was often limited to what could be heated in two, four-quart teakettles on top of the coal range. We envied families who had a kitchen range with a hot water reservoir.

With only two gallons of hot water available the order of priority in bathing among our family of thirteen children was very important. Even though the one who was first had to get the tub in, put the water in it and refill the teakettles, everyone wanted the job. You not only got to bath in clean water but, if you were careful, the temperature could also suit your desire. Furthermore, boy or girl, the water would not be poisoned because a member of the opposite sex had been in it previously.

Third position was the next most desirable. Though the water was one person dirtier than in the second spot, the refilled teakettles had time to heat up to boiling again and the water in the tub could be re warmed. The second person had to bath in the exact same water as the first person. Further down the line than third was doubly undesirable. The water became increasingly cloudy from suspended soap and dirt and the tub was so full that two teakettles were insufficient to warm it up appreciably.

Sometimes, especially during threshing season, we were treated to real luxury when Mother heated a copper wash tub boiler full of water for baths. The boiler held thirty gallons. So, anyone who wasn’t too lazy to empty the tub could enjoy a clean, hot bath regardless of priority order. Few things were worse than following a thresher in the same bath water. It was impossible to avoid picking up some of the floating chaff, weed seeds or barley beards on your skin or in your hair.

Our family took a giant leap up when Dad hired S. C. Bailey, the local Tin Smith, to build a custom made, sheet metal, bath tub. It was about four and one-half feet long, very narrow at the foot, but tapering out and equipped with a sloping shield at the head. It was about eight inches deep, It took less water than a conventional tub, allowed the bather to sit down with legs extended (even lie down by bending your knees), and prevented drips and spillage, even when washing your hair while sitting down. Perhaps its most important feature was being narrow enough that one person could drag it through the kitchen door. This permitted emptying without help.

(I have often wondered why brother Bailey’s tub wasn’t more popular. He may have built and sold others, but I never saw another one at the homes of any of my friends and I did see a lot of wash tubs that were used for bath tubs.)

The Andrus family bath tub really came into its own when I was about eight years old. Dad built Mother a new set of kitchen cabinets. The crowning glory of the project was running hot water in the kitchen sink, complete with a mixer faucet. A hot water jacket in the fire box of the kitchen range and a fifty gallon galvanized hot water storage tank, hidden in the corner of the new cupboard, brought us a step nearer to godliness if not the realization of heaven on earth.

Now, anyone with the ambition could take a bath in clean, hot water every night. Since meals had to be cooked every day there was always plenty of hot water. The only time priority order was of any consequence was on wash day when first in line in the evening was likely to be worst. Of course, you had to bucket the water into the tub from the sink and often empty the tub after whoever preceded you. It was a small price to pay. Running hot water not only solved the threshing season dilemma, it also banished the seven year itch from our family forever.

We still had to fight for time in the kitchen, already the busiest room in the house. Dad solved that problem by building a screened porch onto the kitchen. He equipped it with glazed window sashes for winter, so, it became a year around bathing room. A blanket hung over a sash cord in front of each door provided a degree of privacy never known before and still allowed full access to and use of the kitchen. The Saturday Night Bath had become a childhood memory.
DeVon F. Andrus

DeForest, Wisconsin

24 June 1980

Written for Jay on his twenty first birthday.

1 Comment

MGH and I recently made the four hour drive to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in order to attend a reunion of his Missionary Chorus which, as you may or may not recall, was organized by his brother Blaine Andrus upon returning home from his mission to the Northern States in 1944. Blaine had a sincere desire to help and encourage the young men in his ward prepare themselves to go on missions, with his brother DeVon, who was 16 at the time being the primary focus of his attention. His interest in these young men led him to organize a singing group which after much practicing at his home, where his wife Esther fed them cake after each rehearsal, which I gather from listening to them as they tell their stories of those times, was the real reason they kept coming back. (It was the music, after we learned it, the excitement of performing, the camaraderie we enjoyed as a group that we came to love and why we kept coming back. The cake—that was just icing! Editor)

When Blaine felt that they were ready they began singing at Sacrament Meetings, which at that time were held in the evening, at the various wards throughout the area. This continued for several years resulting in even firmer friendships being formed among the members. (As if such a thing was possible when most of them were cousins as well as having grown up in Draper, Utah knowing each other since their earliest years.) This friendship has continued with a gathering every September where they and their wives get together to reminisce and check out who has slipped the most physically. One of their favorite greetings is, “It’s good to see that you are still upright”. Or, “it’s better to be seen than viewed.” Burton Stringfellow, who last year wasn’t in attendance because of poor health—so poor in fact that he had written his obituary—was in charge this year. It was good to see him one more time. This was the first year that they didn’t end by singing some of their favorites. It’s hard to harmonize when one has lost their hearing, which most of them now have.

This is one of the few events that MGH tries to attend as he gets older and it gets harder for him to get around. 60th class reunion, nah. State Fair, nah. State high school basketball playoffs, nah. SUU football games, nah. Rasmussen reunion which he is invited to as a shirt-tail cousin, nah. I cite all this to show you what kind of grip his recliner has on him these days and by extension how much these dear friends mean to him as he/we make the effort to be with them every September.

Usually we stay with our daughter Marie and her husband Dan at their home in West Jordan so we don’t have to drive back in the dark as I don’t see well at night, not that I ever have but it has gotten worse as I have gotten older. MGH continues to have excellent night vision and is the one this task falls on when we do find ourselves traveling then but even though he can and does this on the occasions where it is necessary it is easier to make the trip over two days.
This year, however, I decided that we could make it back before dark. When I put this idea on the table MGH gave me one of his ‘looks’. To which I replied airily, “We’ll be on our way by 3:OO p.m. and that will give us plenty of time to get home without having to drive in the dark”. I was concerned about making more work for Marie who hasn’t been feeling all that well these last few years and still hasn’t learned how to have ‘company’ without nearly killing herself trying to get her house, which doesn’t need it in the first place, all tidied up. I could see that MGH hadn’t changed his original opinion so I raised the ante by betting him a malt (strawberry, of course, for him) that I was right. With that enticement he crumpled which just goes to prove that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach which fact has had much to do with the domestication of the male of the species.

Needless to say, he was right; we didn’t start home until 5 o’clock which meant we were right smack in the middle of the quittin’ time traffic which always adds a bit of spice to one’s life. As if we needed that in our already paranoid condition traveling bumper to bumper going 65 miles an hour. Not to worry, along with the signs that said “fines double for speeding in work zones” we found ourselves warned by additional signs that cautioned us that if needed we were to make room for emergency vehicles so that they could swoop in and cart off the remains of the injured as well as their vehicles. It didn’t take too much to arrive at the conclusion that there was a reason for said signs which fact was born out by slow downs caused by two separate serious accidents before we had gone fifteen of the 230 miles we needed to travel to get home and delayed us by a good hour.

This was in addition to the accident right in front of us as we traveled north that morning that started out with a car that was traveling in the fast lane several cars ahead of us suddenly heading east across three lanes of traffic and then reversing direction and stopping right smack in front of where we were traveling in the middle lane. Fortunately, we as well as the traffic behind us were able to slow down or stop as there could have well been multiple collisions. This allowed us all to continue on our way without further ado except for the ones who pulled over to help. You can’t tell me we didn’t have a guardian angel or two watching over us as we traveled!

We switched drivers at Payson and I drove the rest of the way home even though the last several hours were in the dark. Thank goodness there was a lot of moonlight! We arrived home by ten p.m. heaving a sigh of relief that once more we had successfully run the gauntlet between hither and yon. One of the things MGH and I always say to each other as we pull the car into our garage, no matter where that garage has been located is, “One more time.” One more time to have made it safely home after facing the perils of the road as we ensconce ourselves in the coffins on wheels we call cars and go merrily on our way—talk about faith!

I thought MGH husband would fall asleep at some point because it had been a long day but this didn’t happen. He read until it became too dark and then he sang to me his favorite songs about the moon. I loved it!

1 Comment