Grandma Denny's Family Stories: 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

A Mother's Sorrow

Eunice Abigail Seavy, my second great grandmother, was born March 1st, 1811 in Cornish, Maine. As far as I know, she did not leave any journal of her life, but the birth and death records about her family show me that, as a mother, she lived a long life of sorrow and sacrifice. She gave birth to fourteen children, but only three lived to adulthood. As a mother, I can’t imagine such sorrow.

In 1832, when Eunice was 21, she married Zimri Harfford Baxter and they began their life together in Milton, Maine. She must have been excited when their first son, Benson, was born a year later. In 1834 William joined the family. In February, 1836, when Benson was four and William was two, their third son, Henry, was born. Later that year the family moved all the way to Maumee, Ohio. In December baby Henry and William got very sick and both of them died; and in January Benson followed his brothers. Eunice lost all three of her sons within one month. She was pregnant with her fourth child at the time and perhaps looking forward to the birth of a new baby gave her some hope, but when little John was born in July, he died the same day.

Two years later she began her family again with the birth of Laure St Claire in May, 1839. The family soon moved again. This time to Dayton, Illinois, where, in 1841, Eunice gave birth to her first daughter, Emily. In December 1842, Alma, was born. She had three children again. But eight months after Alma’s birth he was gone. Eunice had lost another son.

The same month that Alma was born his father was baptized a member of the Church of Jusus Christ of Latter-day Saints so they moved the family to Nauvoo, Illinois. Zimri Seavy was born in Nauvoo in August, 1844. But more sorrow came when both Emily, four, and Zimri Seavy, eight months, died in April, 1845. Six year old Laure was the only child left.

In December, 1845, Eunice was baptized and she and her husband, Zimri were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple. In the spring they were blessed with the birth of another daughter, Eunice, named after her mother, and in 1847, another son, named Joseph. But illness struck again and Laure died that year–followed by little Joseph in 1848. Joseph died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where the family had fled from Nauvoo with the LDS Saints.

In June of 1849, The family left Council Bluffs with their only surviving daughter in a wagon train aimed for the Salt Lake Valley. Eunice made this long, hard journey while pregnant with twins. The twins, Charles and Clarissa were born at Independence Rock, Wyoming in August. Clarissa thrived, but Charles died in December in Salt Lake City.

The Baxters settled in Salt Lake City, but were soon called to move south with the original group of families that settled Nephi, Utah. In 1854, another daughter was born in Nephi, but died the same year. In 1857, when Eunice was 46 years old and her husband, Zimri was 50, she had her final son. They named him Zimri Harfford after his father.

Eunice lived for eighty-nine years. She experienced great blessing and difficult trials. During her lifetime she was uprooted a number of times as the family moved to far-away places to make a better life. She saw her husband take two plural wives and raise children with those wives. She was a widow for twelve years. But her greatest trial must have been losing her children. She delivered 14 children, but only three survived to adulthood – Eunice, born in Nauvoo and at three years old crossed the plains with her parents; Clarissa, born in a wagon on the way to the West; and Zimri, her blessing at the end of her child baring years. Zimri was our ancestor. Aren’t we glad she didn’t give up with 13.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Grease cakes and comic strips

My grandmother (called "Mom"by all her friends and family) had no money at all, yet she created traditions and memories that my brother and I always remember with fondness. Every summer our family went to Salt Lake to visit her. While we were there our local cousins would also gather at her house for several days of playing and catching up--and having treats we didn't get at home.

One special treat was sugar cubes. Mom kept a box of sugar cubes in the middle of her large, round kitchen table where they were handy for Uncle Francis to put in his coffee. We never had cubes of sugar at our house, so we were allowed to eat one or two when we visited. Each one tasted delicious as we placed it on our tongues and let it melt away.

Another treat was "grease cakes." Mom tore little pieces off her bread dough and pulled them into a thin, flat pancakes. She fried them in deep, hot grease in her big cast-iron frying pan until they were bubbly and golden brown. While they were cooling on a paper towel, she sprinkled them with sugar. With sugar all over our faces, all the cousins gobbled up another treat that we didn’t get at home. Later, I learned that "grease cakes" were also called scones.

I often marvel that, although Mom was in a wheelchair and cooked on a coal stove, once or twice a year she took the time and effort to make several dozen almond-flavored sugar cookies and mail them to us in McGill. She also cut out and saved the comics section of her newspaper every day and mailed them to us in bundles with the sugar cookies. She did it because we loved the comics in her Deseret News which were different from those in the Salt Lake Tribune we had delivered to our house. When the unexpected package arrived, we were thrilled. Everybody in the family spent the next few days eating cookies and reading comics.

Without realizing it, my grandmother taught me that traditions don't have to cost a lot of money. It's the thought that counts.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A Swiss bride

Nana (Dorina Matilda Cislini) was raised in Personico, Switzerland, in a beautiful green valley with several tall waterfalls cascading from the steep mountainsides to the river below. In 1902, when she was 19, she married 36 year old Paulo Giudici from the neighboring town of Giornico. The wedding was a big celebration. Accompanied by the Giudici family band, the whole wedding party marched in procession from Personico to the Catholic church in Gionico.

Soon after, Paulo (Paul) and his bride emigrated to the United States – to the dry desert valley of Elko, Nevada. Nana said she cried for months. She spent the remainder of her 90 years on their ranch by the Humboldt River. She raised two children and helped raise five grandchildren on that ranch, but her family also came to Nevada, so she never went back to Switzerland.

It is ironic that Nana was not born in Switzerland. She was born in Eureka, Nevada where her parents lived for just a few years. They returned to Switzerland when she was a little girl and before she had any memory of living in the desert.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The untimely death of a Sheepherder

The newspaper headline read, "Dog Guards Body of Sheepherder." The story continued: "With a dog guarding the body, a sheepherder by the name of Louis Barainca was found dead last week with a bullet wound near his heart, forty miles northwest of Pioche [Nevada]. . . . A revolver was found containing one discharged cartridge. . . . The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that the ‘wound was in all probability self-inflicted and accidental’ and that the deceased came to his death on or about December 25, 1919."

Luis Barainca was Grandpa’s uncle. He and his brothers, Juan (Grandpa’s father) and Benito, had come as teenagers to The United States with their father, Jose, to take advantage of "the American dream." Their plan was to work herding sheep for several years, save their money, then return to their family in Spain and buy a couple of fishing boats. Jose returned and bought his boats, but none of his sons ever saw their home in Lequetio again. Juan stayed in America, married and raised his family in Nevada. Benito went to Argentina. Sadly, Luis died alone on a mountain top with only his sheep dog as witness to what had happened.

Monday, March 30, 2009

A fork in the road

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost

December 1963. Grandpa was 28, I was 26. Wendy and Jacqui were in elementary school and Janet was 31/2. Grandpa had been working at good paying jobs on road construction for several years, but he worked away from home most of the time. We decided it was time to go to college and make a better life for the family. We made plans to go the next September. We were considering two choices at the time. We could go west to the University of Nevada where we had been told it was easy to get jobs while going to school, but we thought the atmosphere in Reno wasn’t the best place to raise a family. Or we could go east to BYU where we had heard it was hard to get good jobs, but we felt it would be a better place for our girls to grow up.

It happened that my brother, Alan, had just returned from his mission and had to go to Provo to get settled to return to BYU in January. John decided to go with him to see the school first hand. They were there on a Tuesday so they went to the devotional. The speaker, Paul Royal, talked about having faith. He told a story about a man who was blown over a cliff but was saved from falling by catching hold of a protruding branch. As the man hung there, he heard a voice from heaven asking him if he believed that the Lord had caused the wind that blew him over the cliff and also provided the branch that saved his life. When he said "yes", the voice asked him if he believed he could be saved by the same power. He said "yes" again. The voice said, "Then let go of the branch!"

Grandpa came home and told me we were going to BYU, not next September, but in January. We let go of the branch!! We burned our bridges and were in Provo within a month. We gave our landlord notice. We told the bishop (I was primary president at the time.) We actually got our acceptance letter in the mail when we checked the post office as we drove out of town.

"And that has made all the difference."

Monday, March 16, 2009

Dy-na-mite!

When I was a little girl, my father and our neighbor, Joe, dug a basement under our house. They dug it with picks and shovels and carried the dirt out one wheelbarrow full at a time. Part of the ground was soft, and they had no trouble, but when they struck "hard pan" -- solid rock -- they had to use a different approach. Because of his work as a prospector and miner, Joe was an experienced "powder man", so they used dynamite to break up the rock enough to get it out.

My mother said that every morning Joe would drill holes to put the "charge" in. When it was ready, they would call her. She would take me and my baby brother, Alan, outside, and Joe would ignite the dynamite. She said there was never more than a muffled boom, and nothing in the house was damaged, but it really broke up the rocks. We all had to stay out of the house and the cellar until the smoke had cleared completely. Joe warned her that we would get a terrific headache if we went in too soon. But as soon as possible, we all went back inside and continued our usual activities. They certainly wouldn’t be allowed to do that these days.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Vigilante Justice

Grandpa's stepfather, Bill O'Neil, came from a family of real-life cattle barrons. Bill's father, with his three brothers and two sisters, owned thousands of acres of ranch land in northern Elko County, Nevada and raised thousands of cattle and sheep for market every year. And, like the powerful cattlemen in western movies, they carried guns and were often in trouble with the law for stealing cattle and horses from other ranchers. Many tales are written about the exploits of the wild O'Neil clan. An Elko newspaper report said, "Their phenomenal increase of worldly possessions on the ranges of the county has been marked by a corresponding loss from the herds of neighboring cattlemen."

Before they made their fortune in Elko County, however, they owned a ranch in White Pine County; and it was there that their father met the fate of an ordinary horse thief. On May 13, 1883, a neighboring rancher, while taking his horses to pasture, was shot and badly wounded by three men. The neighbor claimed that R. C. O'Neil and his sons Dick and William were the shooters. He said he had caught them putting some of his horses in their corral on the previous Friday and, when he confronted them, had been threatened with a gun.

The three O'Neils were arrested and jailed in the town of Osceola. On June 8, in the middle of the night, a hooded mob entered the room where the prisoners were sleeping, shot R. C. to death and left his body in the street. Dick and William were both wounded but managed to escape. Although the towns-people expressed shock, no one was ever charged with the murder. Dick was arrested again and tried for shooting the neighbor but he was acquitted. Mrs. O'Neil and her family soon sold their ranch in Spring Valley and moved north to Elko County.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

The Nutcracker

Janet started ballet when she was eight years old. She said, "I fell in love with ballet in 3rd grade when my teacher taught us ballet during our P.E. time. At Christmas time that year I went to see the Nutcracker for the first time. That was it, I was hooked!!!!"

After several years of ballet school, she was ready to try out for "The Nutcracker." The annual presentation of "The Nutcracker" by Ballet West is a BIG DEAL in the ballet world in Utah. It provides students in local ballet schools an opportunity to be part of a real professional production. But the competition is fierce. Hundreds of girls try out. In the process they learn hard lessons about nerve-wracking try outs and how to handle rejection. But they face it eagerly because the elation of getting a part makes it all worth it.

Janet remembers, "In fifth or sixth grade my ballet friends and I went to Salt Lake to try out for a child's part in the Nutcracker. My friends all made the cut. I didn't. This happened several years in a row. Grandma seemed to always be the one to take us. I remember coming back to the car each time with a brave face and very happy for my friends as grandma would drive us all back home. Once they were all dropped off I would cry. I wanted to make it so badly that year after year I put myself, and grandma, through this. In 8th grade I FINALLY made it. Grandma cried when I got to the car and told her.

It was a magical experience! I was a "Blackmoor" and I even got to be the one who stood behind Clara and the Prince as they watched the "court" perform. That meant I was on stage for a long time, just standing, but I got to watch the dances too. I was actually up close to the ballerinas that I worshiped:-)) The whole experience was such a big deal to me that I can still remember the little dance after ALL these years."

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Baptized at The Sacred Grove

Grandma Murphy’s family moved from Salt Lake City to her step father’s farm in New York in 1926 when she was nine. They moved to Rochester, New York, when she was about twelve. She and her family were not active in the Church during the years they lived on the farm. In her personal history she wrote about getting involved in the branch and about two exceptional experiences they had.

"Francis [her older brother] was still going to church, and Mom finally wore down Opal’s and my resistance so we started going. The branch was just a small one which met in a room on the 2nd or 3rd floor of an office building. . . . Once we took the first step, Opal and I quickly became involved in the branch activities and enjoyed ourselves very much. The group was a mixture of different ages, as branches are, and classes had to be adjusted accordingly. . . . Our teachers were lady missionaries. . . . The only Elder I can remember was Elder Stonely. He must have had many special gifts because he wrote the Pageant for the Church Centennial celebration in 1930." [This first pageant became the annual Hill Cumorah Pageant.]

"The Pageant was done on the Whitmore farm across the road from the Sacred Grove, and all the girls in our branch were in it. The audience sat on the hill, with the pageant in the field below. The theme involved the temples that had been built up to that time and replicas of the temples stood covered on a table or platform in the field. As the narrator reached the proper place, we girls, who represented different decades, would walk over and uncover the proper temple. Since we were from Salt Lake City and Opal was the oldest, she was given he Salt Lake Temple. I did the Nauvoo one. I wasn’t especially impressed about it all because I had a hole in my shoe and stickers hurt my foot as I walked."

"None of us kids had been baptized before we left Salt Lake, so the missionaries started working on us. They held cottage meetings in our house and tried as hard as they could to get through to us. Their persistence paid off, however, and we all finally consented - not because we were converted, I’m afraid, but because it seemed the thing to do. So on July 27, 1930, in Palmyra, New York, in a stream that runs through the field between the road and the Sacred Grove, Jule, Francis, Opal and I were baptized. My Uncle Anton told Mom later that he couldn’t understand why we should have had that privilege. It didn’t seem like a privilege to me. The water was cold, and we had to change our clothes in an old barn. It seemed like an awful nuisance. I know now what Uncle Anton meant, and I wonder, too, why we were so privileged."

"Wooo, wooo, wooo, wooo"

When we lived in McGill, Grandma Murphy came to our house every day. The girls were always excited to see her. As soon as they heard her car, they ran to the front door and threw it open to greet her. Wendy and Jacqui were fastest, but Janet, not yet two, toddled right behind---all yelling, "Grandma is here! Grandma is here!" Our dog, Kimmy, followed immediately. With her tail wagging in excited circles and her head pointing toward the sky, she would call, "wooo, wooo, wooo, wooo!" One day Kimmy got ahead of Janet, and, as she called "wooo, wooo, wooo, wooo!", Janet cried---not "Grandma is here!"---but "wooo, wooo, wooo, wooo!"

Grandma Denny's Family Stories