Home Sweet Home...The Streets Where We Lived!

Home Sweet Home by Mary Engelbreit.

Mary Engelbreit has drawn so many sweet little cottages.  Each one seems to beckon, saying "Come home!  Sit a spell."  I want to walk up the path and open the front door of this dear little house.  What nooks and crannies will I find to explore?  My Grandma Patta's house was filled with nooks and crannies...and those nooks and crannies contained boxes filled with unknown wonders.  Grandma would "let" me help her sort through those boxes.  So many little treasures found their way home with me.  That house was dear to my heart because my grandparents were there and they loved me!  I visit them often in my dreams.  Home is more than a sweet embroidered sentiment on a pillow...home is where our families are and where our stories begin.  This blog post will probably not be of interest to anyone but members of my family...but that's okay.  This will be a record of all the places this family has called home.

Shirley's Homes...

 

First Home as a baby...Alpine, Utah
April 7, 1955
We lived upstairs.

100 East American Fork, Utah

Lived Upstairs here as a toddler.

We also lived in a brick duplex on West Main...demolished to build Target.

Alpine, Utah

Lived here Kindergarten through Second Grade

280 North 300 West American Fork, Utah

Third Grade to Junior High.

There was no porch or carport at that time.

Lived in upstairs part of the house.

352 Washington Avenue American Fork, Utah

Junior High until Marriage in 1975

We own this home now...it's been completely remodeled.

George's Homes...

175 North 500 East Spanish Fork, Utah.

George lived here from 1955 to 1971 when he moved to American Fork, Utah

The home was pink when he lived there.

670 East 300 North American Fork, Utah

George moved here in 1971 when his mother married Joseph Ovard.

Our Hatfield Family Homes...

Our First Home!

About 50 South 400 East American Fork

1975-1977

About 1978 the trailer was replaced with a house.

1977 El Paso Apartment on the west side of town.

It was near a Piggly Wiggly...which I thought was hilarious!

Moved here when George was stationed at Fort Bliss as an Army 2nd Lieutenant.

11 Helgolandstrasse 5 Delmenhorst, Germany

1978-1980

We lived on the top floor.

Edewecht, Germany

1980-1981

American housing on Haupt Strasse.

Our apartment was on the ground floor, far left.

Cielo Vista Apartments in El Paso, Texas.

1101 Avalon Drive #C

Lived there in 1981 while our house was being built.

That's me holding Geoff with Missy and Amber nearby.

10708 Georgetown, El Paso, Texas.

Located on the west side of town...near Transmountain Road.

1981-1982

Our first brand-new house.  We didn't live there very long.

Amber's school was right across the street...Omar Bradley Elementary.

10161 North 5890 West Highland, Utah

1982-1996

It's only a few blocks from here, but too lazy to drive by.

Stole picture off Google Street View...lol!

Our Dream House

George built it pretty much by himself.

9802 North 5740 West Highland Utah

Just across the old canal from our old neighborhood.

1996 to Present

This was our yard in the 90's

Our Home Away From Home.

Condo, Big Horn at Black Mountain in Henderson, Nevada.

We have owned it for 6 years...and still can't get people to stop parking in our space.

Our Home May 23, 2015

Be it ever so humble... 

Moments in Time...Memories of the Old Alpine School!

Gone, but not forgotten...
In the misty landscapes of my dreams, the old Alpine School still waits at the top of crumbling steps.  Rough grass has sprung up through the cracks in the surface of the deserted tennis court and the merry-go-round has rusted in place. On the old flag pole, where we lined up at the bell, a tattered flag flutters like fingers waving goodbye.

A wild October breeze whistles and dances through the bones of the rickety fire escape as if laughing spirts have flown down from Cemetery Hill to play hide-and-go-seek.


Hide and Seek...
My friends, Kim and Cathy Pam, are inside the school somewhere, but I cannot find them.  I search for them through dark and dusty hallways.  Maybe they are hiding in Miss Greenwood's cloak room.  No...I must have just missed them.  The kindergarten room looks the way I remember it...as if the children have only just gone out to recess.

The playhouse still sits in the corner near the Story Time Rug.  Empty milk bottles line up like little glass soldiers on Miss Greenwood's desk, next to the Magic Wand used to waken us from nap time.  I so wanted to wave that wand over the other children, but I was too noisy to be the Naptime Fairy.


The Stairs...and Mr. Nicholes...

Echoed giggles drift down the stairs.  How I hate those stairs when I dream.  No matter how badly I need to reach the top...they keep growing steeper and STEEPER.  I am so afraid I am going to fall that I crawl up them on my hands and knees.

If I fall and hurt myself, will someone take me to Mr. Nicholes' office and bandage my knee?  Little kids were taught (by the big kids) to be afraid of the principal.  But he was the nicest man in the world, I thought.  He always had a kind word for shy little girls.

In the picture on the left, Mr. Nicholes and some of his students bid the old school goodbye.  Alpine was growing and there were only four classrooms...for grades K through 3.  The older grades took a bus to school in American Fork.

An old photo of children playing Maypole.

The dream shifts...and I find myself in the old gymnasium, where the corners are hidden in shadows.  My imagination is working overtime because I see little boys in dungarees and little girls in shirtwaist dresses holding the tattered ribbons of a long-faded Maypole.  They skip gracefully in and out to silent music...never getting tangled in the ribbons like I used to.

The children disappear and I'm all alone in the gymnasium...where it's been festively decorated for my Aunt Jane's wedding reception.  It's a western theme...with wagon wheels and driftwood as part of the decor.  I'm wearing my flower girl dress, twirling around and around in the middle of the floor singing "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah" at the top of my lungs.  I only know one verse...but it's repeated ad nauseum.  It's a good dream.  I dread waking...because when I do the school will be gone.

A trip down Memory Lane...

The building was of red brick with a granite foundation.  The sign over the arched entry read "Public School 1899."  More than 100 years have passed since it was built with such high hopes for the children who would grace its halls.  A school may be only boards and bricks and mortar, but it is the caretaker of our childhood.  We spent more hours within its walls than any place other than home...and it's forever gone!  It breaks my heart every time one more landmark of my life is reduced to rubble.

The Monument...

One day, feeling nostalgic...I drove slowly down the street where the school used to stand and pulled into the parking lot at Kencraft...a candy factory that used to make candy canes and fancy suckers.  In a park-like setting stands a sandstone and bronze monument created by sculptor Dennis Smith to commemorate the old school and the children who attended it.

Running my finger down the list of names on the plaque, I'm pleased to find my Father's name and well as my own and my brother Mike's.  It feels rather strange, because people who have their names on monuments are usually dead historical figures...not middle-aged housewives.  Still...it's comforting to know that there is a little piece of Alpine history with my name on it.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip through the past.

Where do your treasured memories lie?

Note:  Before I start on my Father's school days stories I wanted to repost my story on the old Alpine School that both my father and I attended. The first four photos were taken from the book "Alpine Yestedays" by Jennie Adams Wilde, one of Grandma Zetta's oldest and dearest friends.



Tad's Tales...Whoa, Nelly!

Horse Tales For Father's Day

Tag I made to illustrate one of my dad's stories.

I hope to make a card or tag for each story as I edit it.

From time to time the leaders of my church admonish us to keep a journal and write our personal histories so our descendants will know who we were and what we believed in. When I was a little girl I liked to sit on the porch with my Grandpa Devey and ask him to tell me stories.  I learned a lot about him. Grandpa owned a small fruit farm up Fort Canyon in Alpine, Utah. One of his hobbies was to do a bit of mining in the mountains of American Fork Canyon.  And he was first to discover the wreckage of a plane that crashed on Lone Peak.  I loved to hear his tales...and because I listened, I know a bit more about his life than some of my family members.  My granddaughter Alena has taken an interest in family stories and I have been able to share a few of her great-great-grandfather's stories with her.  This had me thinking...what will our grandchildren know about us if we don't share our stories?

The house in Alpine.

Grandpa and I sat on that front porch.

He would whittle while we talked.

I write a lot of stories about my life and family history in my blog, "Zetta's Aprons."  This has been a fun way to write my life story because it's not in chronological order, but memories prompted by holidays, vacations and other special events.  I would be bored to tears if I had to start my story from the "I was born..." and write it all in order.  I think this is what keeps many of us from even getting started.

Since Father's Day is fast approaching, I want to share a story about my dad, Thomas A.(Tad) Devey. I feel so fortunate that my father sat himself down and wrote stories about his life.  He wrote about cars he drove, mischief he made, deer hunts and his school years...all sorts of topics.  He has an amazing memory for detail and I hope when I am 80 years old I will be as sharp as he is!  I shared this story last week on my other blog Dear Sisters.

Tad's Tales..." Whoa, Nelly!"

Tad at 5...just a little boy.

Grandpa Melvin Devey worked on a WPA project called the Draper Tunnel during the winter of 1938-39.  He worked with another man from Alpine who had to move when the project ended.  The man owned a small mare named Nelly.  She was almost as small as a pony and had been fitted with a child-size saddle and bridle.  Grandpa bought the mare and gave her to my father in the summer of 1939 when he was five years old.

Dad wrote, "Now when a child turns five years old, he starts Kindergarten in the fall.  This was true, then as well as now; but it had only been true for a couple of years.  Kindergarten started in Alpine about 1937.   Not only was it a new program, but it only operated during a six week period each spring and fall."



The house in Fort Canyon

Dad and his family lived on a fruit farm at the top of Fort Canyon in Alpine. During the winter, Tad's family would often move into town because bad weather and snow on bad roads made travel down the canyon difficult.  He wrote, "The next winter, Dad was not employed off the farm so we did not plan to move from the canyon.  Nelly would be an ideal mode of transportation when I started school. I was not too excited about going to Kindergarten, let alone riding a cantankerous horse."

"Nelly, because of her size, had always been a kid’s horse and she had learned how to have her way with kids.   To get her to go where you wanted to go required a forceful hand on the reins and a small switch to be applied to her behind when she balked.   My five year old hand on the reins was none too forceful; however, I could wield a switch with the best of them." 

Dad spent the summer learning Nelly's quirks.  She wouldn't let him near her if he was carrying a switch...so he learned to stash a switch on top of the fence where she couldn't see it.  Nelly had also learned that she could get rid of unwanted passengers by simply sideswiping a tree or a pole.  Once free, she would head on home...except her idea of home was not "Fort Canyon," but the horse pasture in Alpine where she used to live.

School Starts...

The old Alpine Elementary School.

The rest of the summer Tad worked with Nelly and with the help of an "older and wiser" cousin (he was 7), was able to train her well enough so he would be able to ride her to school.

Kindergarten

Tad wrote, "A few days before classes started, Dad and Mother took me to the school to meet my teacher and become familiar with the building.  While Mother and I were in the school, Dad was talking to Mrs. Booth, an older widowed lady who lived in the house on the corner across the street from the school.  In her back yard, directly south of the school, was an orchard with high grass.  A ditch of water also flowed by.  Dad arranged with Mrs. Booth to let me stake Nelly in her orchard while I was in school.  Not only was the school year limited to six weeks each, in the Spring and Fall, but it was also limited to about three hours each afternoon.  Nelly would be able to put up with three hours."

"Surprisingly, the six weeks were uneventful as far as my mode of transportation was concerned. Dad would saddle up Nelly and I would leave the house about 11 am.  It took about 45 minutes for Nelly to walk to the school.  I was still a little nervous about letting her go any faster. I would tie her up in the orchard with a rope attached to her halter."

"When I came out after school, I would check the cinch, untie the rope and start for home.  Sometimes she became a little difficult when we started the turn up toward the canyon.  She wanted to go "home” by going straight west.   After we got around the corner, she would usually behave and after a few trips she seemed to look forward to getting back to the barn.  I began to let her go at her own pace which seemed to be faster each time.   Dad finally told me to slow her down.  She was coming home in a lather every night."

The barn...not Nelly's idea of "home."

"The six weeks in the fall went by in a flash.  I decided that school wasn’t so bad.  The kids were fun and Miss King was very nice.   Miss King was a brand new teacher from Escalante in Southern Utah. To her, my riding a horse to school each day did not seem to be all that odd."

Family stories can be fun!

Until my dad gave me the disk of stories, I did not know about Dad's horse Nelly or his first days of school.  When I see one of my little granddaughters climb onto the school bus heading off to kindergarten for the first time, it is hard to believe my grandma sent her little boy off to school each day riding a horse.  These days we don't let our children out of our sight! 

I had a lot of fun putting this story together for the blog.  Father's Day is June 15...you still have time to write or share a story about your fathers with your families.  Every child should know their grandparents...I still remember mine and I want my grandchildren to know more about them.  We spend a lot of time with family during the holidays...the perfect time to share stories and family holiday traditions.  How did your family spend the summer...parades, picnics, Fourth of July fireworks? Your kids want to know!

Happy Father's Day, Tad!



Happy Birthday, Daddy...His First Five Years!

1934...the year he was born!

Today is not only Memorial Day, it is my father's 80th birthday.  Thomas Albert Devey...also known as "Tad"...was born  May 26, 1934 in Alpine, Utah.  I am not the best at scrapbooking pages, but I made this page to go with a book of stories about his life that I am editing.  I will add pictures and have it printed as gifts for my extended family.  I have two stories completed and I have been having so much fun learning things about my father that I never knew!  The page is a "Year That You Were Born" page.  Each little tan ticket has events and other things pertaining to the year 1934.  I saw a layout on Pinterest that inspired me to start creating pages for my family history.
 

To honor my father on his special day I am reposting something I wrote two years ago.  It all started with a baby book.



The Baby Book...

After my mother passed away, my father married again...a lovely lady named Gerry.  Her health is not good, so they are preparing to move to her home town of Chicago to be closer to her children and doctors.  Dad is trying to de-clutter his life, so he brought me several tubs of books, pictures and papers to go through.  I found a lot of photos and keepsakes that I hadn't known existed.  In one of the tubs...a disk with Dad's personal history files was something I was very glad to find.  Now I can edit them into a book for my siblings.  But the sweetest and most precious discovery...the gold at the end of the rainbow...was Dad's Baby Book.  The book was a gift from one of Grandma Zetta's oldest and dearest friends and in its sweet pages I caught a glimpse of my father's life when he was very small.

Tad's Story Begins...

In  June of 1932, newlyweds Melvin and Zetta Devey moved to Fort Canyon, above Alpine, Utah, so Mel could work in William Andrew's apple orchards.  They stayed in a few rooms of Mr. Andrew's old home.  Zetta was expecting her first child in August.  But though her mother traveled from Ferron, Utah to be with her, the baby was stillborn.  Zetta was heartbroken.

The Old Wingenfield House

Two years later, in March of 1934, the couple moved further up the canyon to the Wingenfield Farm and later purchased it.  Two months later, on Saturday, the 26th of May, at 10:40 p.m., Thomas Albert (Tad) Devey was born in the Wingenfield house.  His nickname...Tad...is from his initials, T.A.D.  He weighed 10 pounds! 

Gifts and Visitors...

I don't think Grandma Zetta had a baby shower...most likely folks brought a gift when they came to pay their respects to the new arrival.  The gifts were quite modest...this was during the Depression. Dorothy Elliot, who gave Zetta the book, was an R.N who became one of the highest ranking nurses in the U.S. Army during the Second World War.  Dorothy and Zetta met at Yellowstone where Zetta was working at the Old Faithful swimming pool. Dorothy's family spent the entire summer at the Park.  The two became lifelong friends.

It's so much fun to see the names of my great-aunts and old Alpine neighbors written in his book.

Milestones...

First Outing...

"June 16, 1934...Aunt Fern, Gale, and Mother took me for a walk to the creek and back.  I really didn't enjoy it much because they had me bundled up too much."

First Tooth...

"Nov. 2, 1934...Tad was discovered to have cut his first tooth, the left front on the bottom."

First Steps...

"June 1, 1935...took three steps for his Daddy, when he came home at noon."

"June 13...Walked all over, at times sitting down very hard...Can get up in middle of floor by himself."

First Words...

"Yes"

"What is it Mama?"

"Kitty"

"Nov. 17, 1935, Tad says his full name...'Thomas Albert Devey'. He isn't quite 18 months yet."

Favorite Toys...

"Rattle...with rabbit face...with bells.

Brown Bottle

Mickey Mouse

Pasteboard Boxes"

Pets...

"Kitty...Tom

Dog...Coalie"

Christmas card from "Aunt" Dorothy...December 1934

One Year Old...

At 78...Dad still wears this expression when he's irked about something.

First Birthday...

"May 26, 1935...Thomas Albert celebrated his birthday by going to Provo.  Stopped at Training School to see Stanley.  However he was asleep, so Stanley just got a peek at him for first time.  No cake.  Presents...Green sun suit from Gale and Ina. And blue material for suits from Blanche P. 30 cents from Daddy...overalls from Mamma."

Two Years Old...

Card from "Lola."

Second Birthday...

"May 26, 1936.  While asleep, I made his cake.  Got white icing, candies, blue holders and yellow candles.  Rode down to store.  Mrs. Marsh gave him ice cream cone.  Health fine.  Cutting double teeth.  Will soon have full set."

Tad's baby shoes.

When Grandpa Mel got the reward for finding the Lost Plane...he was asked what he would do with the money.  One of the things on his list was new shoes for Tad.  These little shoes were in one of the boxes Dad brought...the toes have been cut out to accomodate growing feet.  The Depression made it hard for parents to be able to buy shoes for their children.  More than one little boy went barefoot for most of the summer.

Another cute picture from the book.

And on to Five...

Fifth Birthday...

1939 was the year when Tad finally became a big brother.  On June 6, his baby sister Elizabeth Jane (to be known as Jane) was born at 1:30 a.m. in American Fork Hospital.  On September 5, he started Kindergarten at the old Alpine School.  His teacher was Miss King.

Cute Little Tad...4 Years Old

And So On...

These were the first few years of the life of Thomas Albert Devey.  This is a story not found in Dad's personal history, but on the pages of a little pink book in the careful handwriting of a loving mother.  Zetta lost another baby boy in 1936...his name was Aldwin, after her only brother...who also died young.  Zetta and Mel would have liked a large family, but their two children brought them a lot of happiness and pride.

Happy Birthday, Daddy...

I love you!



Pilgrims and Pioneers...My Family History at Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving in old Alpine, Utah...

Autumn brings with it the desire to put away food, fuel, warm clothing and bedding, along with feed for livestock against the harshness of winter.

The days shorten and feelings of urgency grow stronger.  There are no longer enough hours of daylight to get everything done.  Many hands make for lighter work.  If everyone in the village helps out, there will be plenty for all.  When the work is done, there will be time for fun and celebrations.  A time of Thanksgiving.

The hardy settlers of Alpine and Highland, Utah found ways to mix work and fun during harvest time.  When the fruit trees in Alpine started to produce, those with orchards shared with others.  The ladies came with paring knives and pans and worked for hours preparing fruit to be dried.  It would be placed on clean cloths upon the roofs, slabs on sawhorses, or whatever else was handy.

The men brought their husking pegs and shucked corn while the ladies did fruit.  The children enjoyed these occasions and anxiously waited for the piles of corn shucks to increase, as they had several games they liked to play among them: hide-and-seek, run-my-sheepie-run, and tag.  At the end of the day, a delicious dinner would be served under the apple trees on tables made of boards laid on sawhorses.

Note: Turkeys in Alpine were raised by the Watkins family.  Hertha, left, is admiring that year's fine flock.

Other autumn activities which combined work and recreation were quilting bees and "rug-rag bees."  No materials were wasted.  If the cloth wasn't too worn it was patched into quilt tops.  What wasn't good enough for quilts was torn into rug-rags and the remaining scraps were clipped into small pieces to stuff bed ticks, pillows or cushions.

I remember some old quilts Grandma Zetta had from the time when her family raised fruit in Fort Canyon.  In those days whenever a quilt began to wear out, she simply recovered it in another layer of fabric.  Women like my grandmother definitely followed Brigham Young's counsel to "make it do, or do without."  They were born recyclers!  Those quilts were extremely heavy, though, as well as damp and musty.

When Thanksgiving Day came in Alpine, it was generally celebrated rather quietly.  People spent the day at home with their families.  Later they added an afternoon dance for the children.  An adult dance and ball game was held in the evening.

The Pilgrim...

Going back even further in time, I learned the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, was a traditional English harvest festival to which the colonists invited Massasoit who was the most important sachem (leader) among the Wamapanoag Indians.

The festival was celebrated in response to "God's favorable Providence" in times of plentiful game and bountiful harvest...with no little thanks to the Indians, who had introduced the settlers to native food plants and animals, and deserve much of the credit for keeping the Pilgrims from starving.

Among those gathered at the feast in 1621 was a man named Francis Cooke and his 14-year-old son John.  Francis' wife, Hester, was still in England.  She would follow in 1623 on the Anne with her three other children, Jacob, Jane, and Hester.

There isn't anything particularly remarkable about this family.  If Francis and John had not sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, no one would have remembered them at all, except maybe their descendents.  But this is where it gets interesting.

The Pioneer...

One of Cooke's direct descendents was a Mormon pioneer named John Joshua Tanner who came to Utah in 1851 and settled in South Cottonwood in the Salt Lake Valley.  The family of John Joshua Tanner now numbers in the thousands...hundreds of which live here in northern Utah County.  He is my ancestor as well.

Both men...Tanner and Cooke...were men of conscience and conviction, a remarkable family pattern to hold up over such a long stretch of time.  The Pilgrims were refugees from religious persecution in England, just as the Mormon pioneers traveled west to practice their faith in peace more than two centuries later.

I became a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in 2003.  Since then I have learned many things about my pioneer ancestors.  Because of what I have learned, Thanksgiving has a special meaning for me.  Family history is kind of like an archealogical dig.  Among the dirt and stones a single golden nugget of information could be hiding.  Discovering my  family genealogy is a blessing for which I am eternally grateful. 

At the top of my list of things for which I am grateful this season, I am placing the names of Francis Cooke and John Joshua Tanner...the Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

Blessings to you and your families this Thanksgiving.


Note:  This is a repost from November 2011.