Games, Games, Games

 

If you have ever played Rummikub with Grandma you know that you can not dawdle. Saying “Pass” is mandatory, and it is better to say it quickly. After reading this post you will learn why. She is used to playing for pretty high stakes.

The house was cold in the winter. We didn’t have enough bedding so Mom slept with Marva and I and Dad slept with Max and Tom. When Dad’s unmarried brothers lived with us many odd arrangements were made. Every night we would put the kerosene lamp in the center of the round front room table and play games. Our favorite game was Anagrams. It consisted of alphabet letters on tiles. You had to make words and you could take someone elses word, by adding a letter of your own. The winner was the first one to use all their tiles.

We didn’t have money for prizes so we did odd things. Right before bed, one man would check the sheep, during lambing season. The loser had to get in bed and warm it up and then move over to the cold area, when the winner was ready to come to bed. That worked and Uncle Morris would always slide over to the cold side of the bed, when Dad came to bed. When Dad lost, and he had to slide over to the cold area, Dad wouldn’t slide over. They never bet that again.

Another bet was who would wash the supper dishes. After the game, the loser couldn’t wash the dishes because the water was cold. Uncle Deak’s wife Vivian was well educated and very religious. One night someone took her word just as she was ready to win and she stood up and swore and stomped out of the room, to the two rooms they were living in, at the back of the house.

The wonderful thing about the evening games was that everyone played, it didn’t matter how old you were you were in the game. The adults would help us form words, until the competition got intense and then we were on our own.

More School Days

 

Picture taken in 1936  The teacher is “The”  Verl Allen  Can you spot Gwen?

 

Usually we would walk the mile and a half to school but when the weather turned cold we didn’t have any we did not have any winter clothes. Max wore Uncle Deak’s old suit jacket, which was too large. I wore a red unlined jacket my mother had bought on a trip to Mexico. Mom wrapped us in blankets and Dad took us back and forth to school, in a sleigh pulled by a team of horses. I wasn’t embarrassed at the coat. I thought it was neat that my Dad would bring me to school. None of the other parents did that. All the kids along the way would come and ride with us. Later I had the nicest coat in school. I had hand me down’s from Aunt Lila and Aunt Ortella.

When we were able to buy winter clothes, I got two pairs of long legged underwear and long legged stockings. I was at a fast growing stage and it wasn’t long before my underwear were too short in the crotch. I felt they were cutting me. I never told my mother because I knew she had no way to replace them. When the weather warmed in the spring, we would roll the underwear up and the long stocking down. Can you imagine how our room smelled, with all the kids in that underwear that we only changed once a week, when we took a bath.

The only “F” ever received on a report card was in penmanship. Anyone that didn’t have their book by report card time would receive an F. AT the end of the school year the kids would buy their books for the following year from the kids in the grade ahead. We didn’t go to school that spring so we didn’t have any books. And we couldn’t buy any used books. My folks couldn’t afford school supplies. I was furious to think a teacher would do that. My work was the best in the class. It wasn’t fair

School Days



 

 



School was different in Idaho.  In California we had modern buildings with libraries indoor plumbing and play ground equipment and only one grade to a room, excellent well trained teachers with supplies and everything was free.

    In Idaho the building was old and there was a long hall with coat hooks on both sides to separate the two classrooms.  Grades one through four were in one room and grades five through eight in the other.  At the end of the hall was a vacant room, with a bucket full of water and two dippers that hung on the wall.  The students stood in line waiting for their turn to get a dipper of water.  Everyone used the same two dippers day after day.  The other side of the vacant room was a two room apartment for the teacher and his family. The only heat came from a pot bellied stove at the front of the room.  The students at the back wore their coats and the students in the front cooked.

     Verl  Allen was my teacher for the 6th, 7th, 8th grades.  I was scared of him.  He demanded discipline.    At the slightest infraction Mr.  Allen would grab a kid shake them or hit them.  It was only after I was older, did I really appreciate Mr. Allen was a great teacher.  His

His lessons were well prepared and he was interesting.  I was near sighted and couldn’t read anything on the blackboard so I faked it.  It didn’t take me long to do my assignments so I spent many hours listening and enjoying the other  grades discussions.
     Every morning the class would sing the song, "And here we have Idaho."  I didn’t want to sing that song so I sang  "California here I come."   One day Mr Allen caught me singing this and ordered me to the front of the room and I was to stand there and sing.  I only stood there a minute and everything started to swirl and I started to faint.  Mr. Allen saw me turn white and told me to take my seat.  I don’t’ remember getting back to my seat and I was humiliated and wet with perspiration.  The only good thing about that experience was that Mr. Allen never did punish me again in any way .

Treasures of the Old House

     Two great treasures were found in the old house. Uncle Enzley had been well educated and had a book case full of the classics. I read every book in there except the Book of Mormon. It was there but I didn't understand it and no one ever told me it was important to read it. I didn't read it until I was 26 and since have read it almost every year and it is my favorite book. I listen to it on my I Pod to go to sleep at night.

I had read COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO three times by the time I was 13. I smiled as I read it last year, on my Kindle, how much I didn't understand, when I was 13. I wish I had written down the titles of those books, Most I read more than once since there was nothing else to read.

     My mother's sister, Velma Lake Cordon, died of stomach cancer, leaving three older children and baby Marcy. After her death, her husband couldn't take care of Marcy so Mother took her and cared for her for several years, until her father remarried. When Marcy was only two or three Marva and I had a choice. One could watch Marcy all day or one could work in the morning and have the afternoon off. I always choose the afternoon off so I could read. I would take a book and go to the old sheep camp and read all afternoon. That was my idea of heaven. Even today I find TV boring, I would rather read a book.

The other great treasure was a pump organ that worked perfectly. I only wish I had ask Uncle Enzley its history. The organ consisted of two foot petals that you pumped regularly to give the air needed to make the sound.  We only had the hymn book and I wanted to learn to play the songs. When Uncle Deak married Vivian Ricks, who was a school teacher and musician, she taught me how to play. Aunt Vivian was ward organist but was sick a lot and so I was the only other one in the ward who could play. I only knew a few songs so we sang them over and over, when I had to play. I was Primary organist before I was 13.

Remedy for Children who want to come into your room at night!

 

 When we moved from California, Marva had trouble sleeping at night.  She would wake up in the middle of the night and head for the folk's bed.  Finally Dad told her he was going to put a mouse trap in on the kitchen floor and if she came to their bedroom at night, she would get her toe in the trap.

She never moved beds again, after that.  The reason she believed Dad was because a few days before someone had walked across the kitchen floor, at night and stepped on a mouse and killed it.  Mice weren't too big of a problem because we had cats and mice were the least of our problems.

Life in the Old Home

  The teakettle on the stove was always froze solid in the mornings.
Every morning Dad would get up early to build a fire in the kitchen
stove and the pot bellied stove in the living room.  We would grab our
clothes and run to the stove to dress where it was warm.

    We also took our bath every Saturday in the living room.  Mom would put a towel over the window in the door for privacy, but none of the other windows.  Nobody could walk past them.  The water was pumped outside, carried to the kitchen stove and heated.  A round tub was placed near the stove and the girls bathed first, Marva and then me.  In the same water, with a little hot water added,  Tom, and Max would bathe.  We all used the same towel.   In the summer we took a bar of soap and bathed in the Texas Slough, west of our house.

  

The walls were covered with wall paper, which was faded and which
you couldn’t  really wash.  Finally the folks got enough money to put
oil cloth on the kitchen walls and ceilings.  We were excited.  Dad and the Uncles worked all day to get the oil cloth hung, since  none of the walls were square. That night, as we all sat eating supper, we heard cracking sounds.  Looking up we saw the ceiling sinking on top of us.  Under the new oil cloth
covereing all there was was layer upon layer of wall paper and the weight of the oil cloth pulled the ceiling down.

     At night, if you needed to go to another room, you lit a candle and took with you. Marva and my bedroom,which was just off the kitchen and only big enough for a regular bed.  No closet or place to stack anything.  We hung our clothes on nails, driven into the door.  One night Marva lit a candle and went to our bedroom.  She accidently set my dress on fire.  The dress was hanging on a nail,  This was a real tragedy, since we had such few clothes.  We got a new dress for Easter and one for Christmas, other than that they were hand me downs.  I was pitcher for the eighth grade baseball team and my dress was snug across the shoulders.  Mom would patch it and I would wear if for a few days and it was torn again.  Girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, we wore dresses.  The boys couldn't wear levis they had to wear dress pants, which were wool..  Can you imagine the odor.  The pants couldn't be washed they needed to be dry cleaned.

This Is Home?

Gwen’s family were so happy in California, and had a very nice house.  Grandma Millie loved it.   They had a wonderful school close, swimming pool, tennis courts, and the beach.  The children loved life.  When they moved to Idaho they came to this house.  It’s description  will make your heart hurt for all of them.  Can you imagine how they felt when they saw if for the first time?

In Mom’s words:

Thomas Atkinson homesteaded in Lyman about 1864.  The house was located down a dirt road, lined with huge cotton wood trees.  At the end of the lane there was a large half circle of green grass.  In the middle was an enormous, old, unpainted, weather beaten house.  The day we moved in it was raining hard and the roof leaked.  The old house had a history of its own.

    It was originally a 4 bedroom house built on 360 acres of land.  As each of the three sons (Enzley 4th son never married)  would marry, two rooms were added to the original structure and another chimney added.  By the time we moved into the house it had 12 rooms, part of which had a dirt roof, six sagging chimneys, eight bulging outside doors, ten foot ceilings. and the floor all rotted on the back porch,  and so many hodge podge rooms that three rooms in the middle were without windows.  In all its years of giving shelter to four generations of Atkinson's, the old house had never had a coat of paint and never had indoor plumbing.  Wooden stoves were the only source of heat, while coal oil lamps provided the light.

    Mother quickly turned it into a comfortable home.  In 1944 the old house caught fire and burned to the ground, in the  middle of the night, just a few days after electricity was installed

 

 

Millie, Gwen, Marva, Larry

outside the “Old House”

The Trip from California to Idaho

 

This Story reminds me of  “ The Clampetts”…only the Atkinson’s were going from wealth, to poverty… but see if the description of the trip doesn’t sound like  the  Clampetts to you……Jill

 

My Dad’s, 69 year old bachelor uncle, Enzley, was about to lose the
Atkinson homestead.  It was heavily mortgaged and the mortgage company
wouldn’t refinance because of Enzley’s age.  He promised my Dad if he
would move to Idaho to save the farm, he would give him the farm.  My
Mom didn’t want to move.  She knew the heart ache and sacrifice farmers
endured and the depression was hardest on the farmers..

 

 

 

    We couldn’t leave California until the $300.00 we owed at the
grocery store was paid.  Uncle Oren paid the bill and begged my folks
not to move to Idaho.  He didn’t have any family of his own and he
loved us kids.  As we left he was shouting, “You’ll regret it.  You
won’t have anything to eat but potatoes and sour milk.”

    Mom wouldn’t leave unless she could take furniture.  Dad just
wanted to load the car and move.  It was May and he knew it was time to
farm.  We purchased a four wheeled Hoover wagon  to be pulled with a 1929 Dodge.   We crammed everything we could and still couldn’t get everything in.  We had to leave the couch the sewing machine and other things, it was hard to decide what to leave.

     When we started up the hill out of the valley, we wondered if the car could pull the heavily loaded wagon.  The Dodge kept going slower and slower until I felt we were going to slide backward.  I was terrified.  Little did I realize it was only a hill not an Idaho mountain.   One of our biggest concerns was our tires were bad so we had packed 2 extra tires. We only needed to use one of them.

     We stopped in Ogden to pick up Mrs.Bigler to bring her to her home in Rexburg.  There was already 4 kids and a dog in the back seat.  I regretted it at the time but Mom explained, Mrs. Bigler wanted to go back to her home and that was her only way to get there.

    Our biggest scare was coming down the Sardine Pass out of Logan.  No road to Malad at that time.  The wagon was heavy and the only way to slow down its momentum, going down hill was for Max to pull on a rope that went out the back window and was fastened to a lever that put pressure on the back tire.  We were going down that steep mountain and picking up speed.   I started to pull on the rope right back of Max
and the car started to slow down.  We were all shaking when we got down to level ground.  I was praying all the time I was pulling on that rope
and I am sure everyone else in the car was also.

Max

My brother Max was my hero all my life. He was 15 months older than I, but wise beyond his years. At an early age he faced many difficult times. He was also the smartest of all my relatives.

When we were little and living on the dry farm with grand parents, A man came and ask me where Grandpa Lake was. I told him I didn’t know but my brother Max knows. I thought Max knew every thing.

When Max was only 5 Dad was working at the grain elevator and one night just didn’t come home from work. He hitched a ride on a freight train and went looking for work. Mom couldn’t pay the rent on the little house they had rented or make payments on the furniture, so the store came and took it back and we moved in with Grandma and Grandpa Lake.

Months later, when Dad got a job, we moved to California and lived with relatives, for a long time. This was an easier life for Max. When we moved back to Idaho, in 1935, Max, age 12, was expected to work as a man. We all worked hard on the farm but Max also milked the cows. Max was only 12 when he graduated from 8th grade and so little he had to sit on books for graduation picture, to make him even in height. Yet he was 2nd highest in grades and took third in the county Pentathlon. Five events in which you received points by age., 50 yard dash, broad jump, shot put, high jump and basketball throw.

When Max was 16 he and Dad disagreed and Max left home and hitchhiked looking for work. He about starved before he returned home.

Max was attending Ricks, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Max tried to enlist and scored high and they signed him in. Because of his age his parents had to have his parents signature and his Dad wouldn’t sign because he needed Max on the farm. When he was 20, he took a bus to California and was allowed to enlist. He came close to being killed a couple of times but the Lord was watching over him and he was protected.

Max was 40 years old when he started taking classes at Ricks. He knew the farm wouldn’t give his family the advantages he wanted for them. They moved to Provo in 1964 with five kids. He would get up at 4:00 am. And work until 7:00, he carried a full load of classes, spent many hours in the library, and would go back to cleaning buildings at night. In three and a half years he earned his Associate, Bachelor and Master Degrees. With 6 kids, he earned his degree and started his teaching career. First at Reform school and later at Ricks college.

He gave outstanding church service and raised a righteous family constantly serving in church position, and many in leadership callings