Ann's Wool

In case you wonder if any of us DO anything with all of the fabric we accumulate, here is proof and someone (Ann) did something with some of her's.  Her piece is lovely.  She sent me the pattern about the same time she started her's.  All I can say, is that I still have the pattern and I still have the pile of wool.  But look at what she has done.

We also get a peak at the "White Box" that Ann has referred to when she is taking photos of the marquetry. 

Both are too good not to get on the blog!

Posted earlier but this has a clue

I posted this photo much earlier in the blog, but we were missing a clue as to who they are. Here is another photo with a clue. The handwriting is Aunt Eva's, so will this be grandparents on the Hawkins side?? Or the Blood side?? Or????

Louise and Dwight's kids at back yard picnic in Layton

Where we Attended LDS Church in Powell WY

The Penrose Church no longer was used for LDS church meetings after sometime in the 1930s.  I remember going to Sunday School and sitting on little chairs out in the front yard during the summer months during our class time.  Grandpa Wasden was branch president, and bishop, of the Penrose Branch and Ward for, I think, 13 years or so.  For awhile, we attended Church sporadically in Byron, about five miles away.  Then we began attending church in Powell, 12 miles the other way. I don't remember if this has been posted.  It is a scan of a page from the Powell LDS Ward history booklet.  The top photo is a home where LDS members first met in Powell.  The next move was to the Boy Scout Cabin, the tiny log building on the left.  The Boy Scout cabin remained in this location until a couple of years ago or so (this year is 2010) when it was moved and a new Chamber of Commerce building built on this location.  The bottom photo of the IOOF hall shows the "church" that I most remember, because the LDS Powell congregation met here until the summer after I graduated from high school.  In 1949, the congregation was able to purchase two or more surplus barracks from the Heart Mountain "Relocation" Center where Japanese were incarcerated during WWII and used the materials to build the first chapel that the Powell LDS people could call home, complete with a classroom wing.  This building still stands today and is in continual use as an Elk's lodge building and for other community events.  Last summer (2009), our Powell High School Class  of 1949 held its 60th reunion banquet in this hall.  It was only slightly amusing to note that the bar for the lodge is located where the LDS Bishop's office was originally located.  I have attended and visited many modern and extravagant LDS, by comparison, to the IOOF Hall, LDS church buildings as we moved around the country.  But my memories of Church and what it has always meant to me throughout my life took root and were nourished by a group of humble farmers here in this building, in what we called the "Eye-Oof" hall.  I never really needed much else.

The Penrose Church

Judy pointed out that when I took the Penrose Church picture off the blog header, no other copy of the photo existed on the blog.  So Judy, here it is.

Another View of the Little Brown House

This may have been posted before, but while we're on the subject, here it is again.  The house had been long abandoned and we always hated the brick siding someone else had covered our familiar brown walls with.

The Value of the Blog

The year is missing on this letter Uncle Brooks wrote to Mother and Dad, but in it there is a discussion of what to do with the treasures that were in the trunk from Grandma and Grandpa, so that may put this in a time frame for some. For me this became even more applicable as I read Dwight's post today of something I had no idea even existed. As the discussion about the trunk's contents is going on, Uncle Brooks is talking about the value in the treasures and the following quote really captures, metaphorically, what the blog, everyone's writing contributions, etc. continue to do for me, and I would like to think for all of us and for those to come.

The quote is from John Ruskin: "When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, 'See! This our Father did for us'."

From the Archives of the Powell Tribune

Dolores Bovee Bleekman sent me a copy of this clipping she found in the Tribune.
January 1,1931
Another Powell Teacher Married, According to Lovell Newspaper Item
If the Lovell Chronicle speaks the truth, and that newspaper has developed a good reputation for the dependability of its news items, then the following story clipped from its last week's front page must be true.
"Bishop H. C. Carlton spoke the necessary words that joined another young couple in matrimony on Tuesday evening, December 23. Those taking the vows were Minnie A. Wasden of Penrose and Mr. Russell Marion Blood of Cody. Mrs. Blood has been teaching school in the Powell district previous to her marriage, and is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Wasden. Mr. Blood is a stranger in these parts. The newlyweds will go to Denver, Colorado, where they plan on making their home."

Something else that belongs in the record.

It Really Was a Critical Job

I have often teased about the experiences some of us had in the beet field. For some of us (Judy and me) it was short lived - shorter for me than Judy. For others (Dwight and Elizabeth) there were days or weeks spent doing that tedious work. Tucked in a journal Dad had started at one time, copies of which are in the works, there was this card regarding the sugar beet crop. All of a sudden (ok, so I am a slow learner) the time spent in the fields took on a whole new meaning. I thought you might enjoy the science behind the field work.

Thoughts of Home

Here are a few lines from a poem by Thomas Hood I included in my book "Echoes of My Wyoming Boyhood."  I hope I am not infringing copyrights.  I thought the poem fit in nicely with the photo below of the little brown house where I spent the first nine years of my life.

I Remember, I Remember

I remember, I remember,

The house where I was born,

The little window where the sun

Came peeping in at morn:

He never came a wink too soon,

Nor brought too long a day;

But now, I often wish the night

Had borne my breath away.

. . .

I remember, I remember,

Where I used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh

To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow!

. . .

The Little Brown House in Penrose

Posted by request of Judy.  This photo shows the house after it had been abandoned for years. The siding was applied after our family left it.  Our parents bought this house and the small orchard covered lot on which it stands by trading for it.  I lived in this house for the first nine years of my life.  I have the happiest memories of living here.  Two rooms, uninsulated, coal stoves for heating, no running water or inside bathroom, no electricity until 1939 when I was seven years old, no refrigerator, no bedroom for our parents.  Dad was often gone during these lean Depression years looking for a days' work here and there while Mom coped with raising two, then three, then four children.  No car while Dad was gone.  No telephone.  The yellow roses speak volumes.  This was home. 

What About This Photo

I came across a series of portrait like pictures of Dad, the one posted yesterday at 3 months, the one posted previously at 3 1/2 years (if I remember correctly) and then this one, with no age indicated, but was taken in Fort Collins. Again, I don't remember this being posted before. The style of clothing is the same in this photo as the one taken at 3 1/2 years. Is it any wonder Dad loved his "cowboy clothes"?

Russell Blood

With the many posts we have on the blog, I suspect there is the possibility of repeating a photo, but I don't recall this one being posted previously. If it has been, oh well.

February 3, Dad's Birthday

I took this picture with Dwight's Baby Brownie that he gave me. Note that the gate is still useable, to keep out the neighbors' cows. I always loved this jaunty pose of Dad's. We could remember his birthday because it comes the day after Ground Hog's Day. The birthday routine seemed to be the same. When Dad came in from milking in the evening, he would look at the carefully-set table, and comment that it must be someone's birthday.

The rest of the meal might be the usual fare, but there was usually a frosted cake with candles.

D & V visit Penrose

This may have been posted before.  Look at the sweet innocence?