Beginning last Friday night, Roger and I had a special visit of his mother. I have written a sketch of her girlhood. I thought all of the things she shared with me should be written down.
I’m feeling a little let-down and nostalgic. The light in our house seems a little dimmer. For three days and four nights, my eighty-six year-old mother-in-law, Lois, has graced our home, and, this morning, she left to go back home to Ogden.
She is an enigma of optimism, a whirlwind of energy, an ambassador of friendliness and charm; she is a strong and veritable force.
For forty-five years, I have marveled at her abilities, her likeability, and her just plain goodness. So, I decided that this was a grand chance to try to crack her code; what in the world could produce such an amazing woman?
At times on this little visit, I had her all to myself, so I peppered her with questions about her girlhood. Many things that she told me, I already knew. Many, I did not. What a delight it was to see her light blue eyes sparkle as she plunged into the past!
The three David Crowther (who was Lois’s grandfather) sons had lots where their homes sat, right in a row, next to each other in Harrisville, Utah. Uncle Walt first lived in his dad, David’s, old adobe house, which was located on the right of the house Lois grew up in.
Later, he built a home that was two doors down. Her parents, Laura Laverne (Taylor), and William Leslie Crowther, lived in the middle, with her three brothers and one sister. Uncle Albert’s house was on the left. Lois’s dad also had six sisters. He was the youngest child. It seems to me that Harrisville was and is Crowtherville. Most all the Crowthers have stayed in Harrisville, which is now up to seven generations. And that is true of many other families who Lois grew up with.
She said, while she was growing up, “no one ever moved.”
Her best chums were Eleanor and Eva Crowther (Uncle Albert’s girls), Shirley Harris, Lucille and Lugene Chugg, Mary Ann Carr and her sister, Florence. With Laura Lois, her full name, these make up the original Club Girls (except Eva, who married and moved away).
Ever since they married, they have gotten together every two weeks, every other Thursday, for Club! I’m talkin’, that is sixty-six years of these close friends getting together!
Others have been invited to join them through the years, partly so they could have someone to drive with at night. Florence, Mary Ann and Lugene are now gone, but Club is still getting together, on Thursdays, every. two. weeks! Wow! With some of the added members, she said there are seven of them left. They meet in each other’s homes, and for years, they each hosted dinner. Now they go out to lunch because some can’t drive at night anymore, and they then carpool to the host’s home for dessert. They all did, and some still do, various handwork after they eat. Lois’s greatly skilled talent and ability in the handwork department is known far and wide!
Countless members of our family and many, many friends have been recipients of her beautiful handwork!
I can only imagine what an amazing bond these ladies weaved as they sat knitting and crocheting together! Each of them have dear, dear friends to share the joys and sorrows in each other’s lives.
These girls have always done everything together. In childhood, they played familiar childhood games – Kick-the-Can, Run Sheepie Run, Mother May I, Red Light Green Light. The little girls traded their chickens’ eggs for penny candy at Garfield’s store (Rulon Garfield was later one of Lois’s boyfriends). They banged pots and pans on New Year’s Eve at midnight, marching down the street, singing, “Here are the little New Years, Ho ho ho; Here we come . . .” (that’s all she could remember of their made-up song!).
They played pranks. They stole apples. (After publishing this, I found out indirectly that Lois wants this stealing apples thing explained, so the grandkids won't think she was a thief! A neighbor had apple trees, and the kind man said the neighbor kids could have all of the ones that had fallen to the ground that they wanted, so sometimes they would just kind of help them fall!)
Their big brothers, Lorin, Carl and Leslie, taught them how to play, Parcel. A wrapped package was placed in the middle of the road, with a string attached. When a passing motorist would stop to pick up the package, the hidden prankster would jerk the string and the package would fly out of the startled motorist’s hands. One night, her brothers placed a dummy smeared with catsup, face down in the road, and when a car stopped, the woman screamed when she saw it and called the cops. The
sheriff who answered the call was a Taylor relative, and Lois remembers she and her chums watching him run all over, looking for the mischief-makers. They had climbed up to the top of Carr‘s silo, and he never found them!
Once, her brother, Lorin, who was ten years older, got her out of school to take her with him and his girlfriend, Hazel (who he later married), to Mirror Lake in the Uintas. Florence was mad because Lorin didn’t get her out of school to go with them, too.
Her brothers’ nickname for Lois was, Pinsie, and for Florence, Nutsy Faeg. She said she has no idea why.
Their mom, Laverne, contracted rheumatic fever when she was in her thirties and suffered with a damaged heart and rheumatoid arthritis. Lois is the youngest in the family, and she mostly remembers her mom as being sick, lying down and resting a great deal of the time. From her sick bed, she would instruct her little girls how to do household chores. When Lois was just ten years old, and Florence was twelve, her mother was hospitalized, and then she died at age thirty-nine. Lois has haunting memories of her mother’s coffin being placed in hers and Florence’s bedroom, after moving their bed out. After the funeral, when they moved her bed back in, she couldn’t sleep.
Then, it was time for these little kids to take care of themselves! Lois and Florence did all of the cooking, laundry, sewing, canning and cleaning, with a little help from their oldest brother, Lorin. Lois said Aunt Ellen, Uncle Albert’s wife, would give them good instructions in cooking, such as how to put up fruit. This went on for over four years, until their dad married Irene, a woman who worked at the dairy wrapping butter. She then took over most of the cooking and household duties, though the sisters still had many chores because Irene continued to work.
Irene had a daughter, Donna, who then moved in the bedroom with Florence and Lois. Her job was to do the breakfast dishes and Lois and Florence’s job was to do the dinner dishes. If Donna didn’t do her breakfast dishes, Irene would do them for her, but if Lois and Florence didn’t do theirs, they would be waiting for them when they came home from their dates. They were all to make their beds, and if Donna didn’t make hers, her mom would make it, but if Lois and Florence didn’t make theirs, the bed would be left unmade, waiting for them. Such are typical examples of some of the blended family issues they had. Lois said that her relationship with Irene was, "more formal;" Irene took care of her dad and the kids’ physical needs, but she was never mother to her. She said she never felt close to her, but she strongly contends that she has no complaints, because Irene took good care of her dad. Irene and William had a child together, Boyd. Later, her dad got sick because another job he had was working in the Ogden Armory with the gun powder and it caused him to contract a lung disease which eventually killed him. Irene took very good care of him, even laundering and ironing his sheets.
My heart goes out to this spunky little girl who had to take on so much responsibility when she was so very young. And it aches for her, knowing she had to grow up without the tender love of a mother.
One of their dad’s jobs was to pick up milk from the farmers and deliver it to the Weber Central Dairy. Lois and Florence would take turns riding on the milk truck when he would go to Salt Lake to deliver powdered milk, and that was a big deal, to get to go with him!
She entered Weber High School in the seventh grade. She said the older kids didn’t really like having “those little kids in their school.” As time went on, she had lots of boyfriends, including two Harrisville boys, Melvin Rogers and Rulon Garfield. Another was Jay Reece from North Ogden and she decorated for the Junior Prom with Ivan Bambrough, and they “kind of liked each other.” She was a candidate for Junior Prom Queen.
She and Florence made all of their own dresses. She remembers that the school would have Print Dress Day and then choose the Print Dress Queen. She won a waltz contest with Donald Medell.
Keith was one of a group of boys who ran around together. It included Roland Brown, who married Aunt Florence. They “chased the Harrisville girls.” He played the saxophone in the school band, and he played in an instrumental trio at graduation. Lois used to sit by him while he played in the band at the school ball games. Once he got mad at Lois and took Florence out to make her mad. He had access to his dad’s car and truck, which was a definite asset for dating. Keith and Lois married when she was just seventeen.
Lois’s cooking skills are legendary. She also shared with me -"who taught me how to do what"- of some of her yummiest stuff. Roland’s mom, Eva, “such a cute little lady,” taught Florence and Lois how to make mustard pickles, pie shells and banana cream pie. Mother Stratford, Keith’s mom, taught her how to make apple pie, “you grind up the apples instead of leaving them in chunks.” Irene taught her how to “put down” sweet pickles.
She also talked about trips she and Keith took with her brother, Leslie and his wife, Eilene– she liked to fish with Leslie. They also took many great trips with Frank, Keith’s brother, and his wife, Vera. She said they didn’t travel with Florence and Roland because they just wanted to park their motor home somewhere and play cards. "Keith didn’t have time for cards." Also, Roland didn’t like to spend money to travel.
As you can see, I had some marvelous chit-chat with my beloved mother-in-law, who is a second mother to me.
She taught me so many of these same homemaking skills, when Roger and I were first married and throughout our marriage.
She was cheerful when giving instructions and patient explanations of how to cook a roast, make a pie crust, home can just about everything, make peanut brittle, launder clothes to be white, clean a house, nurse a baby, how to get my temple clothes on in the session properly, tried to teach me how to crochet by her learning to do it left-handed so she could show me (!), how to go through hard things with grace, and many, many more.
There is not a more generous giver - of her time, of sharing her talents, of her entire self.
Although she didn’t get nurtured by a mother for so much of her childhood,
there is not a more nurturing and loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother - anywhere!
