Personality Profiles

Letter from Mina to Margie Do you know anything about the personality of Grandma Ward? This should give you some insight into her caring and concern for Margie right after the collapse of the Teton Dam. The first photo is of Grandma Ward, most likely taken years before, but is much like the Grandma I remember from that time. The second photo shows Mom and Janet slopping through the mud, most likely about the same time the followig letter was written. I tried to keep the writing just as she wrote it as not to detract from her genuine persona. June 8, 1976 Dear Margie and Ross, I am taking a chance that you may be getting your mail. My thoughts are with you all the time since I heard of the awful flood. The pictures on the T.V. nearly makes a person sick and I guess to see the real things are still worse. I sure hope you can reach your home and find some things that you can redeem. It is tragic but I am so grateful that your family are all safe. The life of one member would be worse than it is now. I hope you are not making yourselves sick worying just plan on coming out OK. I sure hope you are accepting aid from the church and red cross and in the end get some money from the government who seem to be to blame. They are such liars there. No telling what they will do. We have had a real hot day to day. It keeps me busy running the hose on my garden and flowers. I haven’t heard from any of the kids for a day or two and I am sure they are all thinking about you. If there is any thing I can do or any thing that I have that you may need please tell me. I forgot to give you your plum preserve also a bottle of dill pickles and Rheubarb. I don’t know how to spell it but you will know what I mean. Tuesday. I got this far last evening then decided to go to bed. I have been out this morning looking to see if my vegetables had grown another leaf. It is cloudy so we may get some rain to-day. Max Andersons wife called me Sunday to hear what I knew about you and the flood. I ask her if she was the lady that ask about you when she saw me in Tremonton and she said no, so I don’t know who it was that talked to me and ask about you when I was in Tremonton so that shows that you have friends around our valley. I am fine. I don’t know just what I will do today but it will be some thing. By the looks of the T.V. pictures there is a lot of mud for some one to shovel out. I hope your house still stands and that I could help you clean up. I imagine some one will come to your aid. The other day when Bev called she said she was coming up one day this week & take me to a show then stay here over night. Well I hope I hear from you before she comes and besides I am not interested in night life. I would rather go to bed. It is real good of her to do it but young folks don’t realize that old people have lost interest in such things. Maby not all old folks but I sure am past enjoying such things especially a picture show. I never did care of them. I would rather lay on the bed & watch T.V. Well I guess this is all for now. I hope you two are taking care of yourselves. I need all my kids. Thanks for all the nice things you do for me. Love to all. Mom Please excuse mistakes and read this as it should be. Wish I could help you. The following was written February 3, 1977. Color TV’s were a new thing, especially to Grandma Ward. They did not automatically adjust like the ones we have today. You could adjust the green, red, and blue knobs and hopefully get acceptable results. Here is Grandma’s take on technology: I got my new colored T.V. and love it but I am half afraid to use it because it has snow looking dots on it. I am waiting until Paul comes up some time & takes care of it. I daresent mess with it & I wouldn’t let any one else. I put it on for one show & then use my radio. Note from Scott: I wish all of you could have known Grandma Wards dry and witty humor. I don’t think she ever knew how hilarious she was. Grandma Shirley inherited the same quality and I think she took it to another level. Genuine humor is a gift.

Ross, the Warrior

Dad served in World War II as an officer. He loved to box and would frequently have boxing matches with the enlisted men. One day some of the "higher-ups" cornered him and questioned the way he would associate with the enlisted men. They couldn't believe he would "lower" himself to box with them. One guy said he would never put on gloves with the enlisted men. Dad said, "Well, if you don't know how to box, you better not." He then commented that his men would follow him anywhere. The other officers just shook their heads. Just what was his leadership style? While serving as chief engineer on ship he was working on an engine down below. Somehow a tool got dropped and Dad bent down to pick it up. The enlisted man with him said, "I could have gotten that for you, Chief." Dad just laughed and said, "Well, I was down there anyway." It was not uncommon for officers to make sure enlisted men knew the respect they were to give the officers. Dad often told the enlisted men to forget "all that saluting crap, there was just too much work to be done to mess with all that." One day there was a boxing match going on and there was a rather large enlisted man that seemed to dominate everyone. Someone suggested that he put on the gloves with Dad. The man was a little reluctant at first to go "full bore" with an officer but all too soon the officer-enlisted man wall went down and the fight was on. After some time there was no clear winner, but the larger man said to Dad with great respect, "I'll ship out with anywhere, anytime." Everyone seemed to smoke but Dad, who kept his ration of cigarettes stashed away. As time went on, a good smoke was hard to come by. Dad ran a rather lucrative business, stashing the money away to either send home or to use in some of the many all-night poker games with the enlisted men. One day a group was talking about Mormons and one enlisted man seemed to know all about them and was telling the rest things that weren't true. Dad laughed and said, "You wouldn't know a Mormon if he were standing right here talking to you." There was an awkward silence. The man said, "You mean to tell me you are a Mormon? I thought you were a regular guy!" He went away shaking his head in disbelief. Dad mentioned to me that up until that moment he wondered if he had a testimony. He said he thought to himself, "I guess I do have a testimony."

Teton Dam Flood Victim Found

It was Monday, June 7, 1976. I (Scott) had walked into Sugar City from the Sugar Cemetery to my apartment where I had just moved four days earlier and after seeing that I had nothing left to salvage, hiked west to Mom & Dad’s house. All along the way I had seen people standing out in front of their houses with their arms around each other sobbing. When I got close to our house I saw carpets hanging in the trees and furniture out on the lawn. They had already begun cleaning out the house. I went into the kitchen and found Mom looking down into the tipped-over refrigerator making sandwiches out of what was left inside. The mood was the usual Shirley style of joking around, making the best of the situation and finding positive things to note here and there. Stretch said that when they first got there he had noticed something out in the water in the garden straight west of the garage. There were several inches of gooey silt still covered with water about knee-high. He started out to investigate what this strange thing was but being so difficult to navigate in the mud decided not to. It looked like the bottom of a sink. They had seen so many strange things in the debris that it could have been anything. I left to go investigate the remains of Nephi’s trailer that had sailed southwest to Mack Summer’s house. I wish I had been there for the remainder of this story. I got the rest from Stretch and Dad. Stretch’s curiosity got the best of him and he finally slopped out to see what this thing was. He approached from the south and as he got closer he could see a pair of shoes close together. He thought to himself that if that was a coincidence, it was just too strange to be anything else. He then noticed the color of skin below the water and realized that it was a victim. He told Nephi about it and they went inside the house to get Dad. He went right to the guy and moved him so that he could clean his face and they could perhaps identify him. Dad commented to me that the guy was older and that he was very heavy and difficult to move in the muddy water. They decided not to tell Mom, Cathie and Janene about what they had found. About this time Mom had lunch ready and they had set chairs out on what was left of the lawn, but facing the direction where the victim remained. A sheriff’s helicopter was flying around and Dad waved him down. The copter was too light to carry out a body, so they radioed for a military ambulance that was able to make it on what was left of the roads. Stretch said that that it was difficult getting the man into the body bag and carrying him was almost impossible. There was no footing in the muddy silt and the knee-high water. They had to do as much dragging as carrying. Finally there was some footing when they got near the road. As they were carrying the body across the front of the house a news helicopter flew overhead and took the photo pictured above. Stretch thought the photographer had rather bad taste and was morbid to be taking such a picture at that time. Stretch’s in-laws had been to our house only once before, but when they saw this photo in the Provo Daily Herald, they saved several copies for us. You can see Grandma, Cathie and Janene watching as the men carry the body bag towards the ambulance. It appeared that they had been warned by Jim Cutler’s father to get out, but went in anyway, trying to save some things. Stretch said that he had heard there were three individuals who were hit by the water while in their truck, because the key in the ignition was still on when they found it. Another body was found several days later a half mile to the west under the canal bridge by the home where Grandpa Shirley grew up.

Margie's Growing Up Years

Life in the house during the depression days, food and work were scarce, but mtoher was resourceful. She would do sewing for other people. We had a cow and used to make butter and sell it. Wherever we could get any income is where we got it. We never went hungry, but we had some skinny meals. I always thought it would be great to have a tuna fish sandwich to take with me to school but mostly I had jelly sandwiches or else a hard fried egg sandwich wrapped in newspaper. We didn’t have waxed paper. I would open my little lunch wrapped in newspaper and there was some of the print on my sandwich. So I digested the news.

My Mom would pull me aside whenever we had chicken or whatever we had, and would say, now you just take one piece and leave the rest for the little boys. They were always called the little boys. They came first. She would always tell me to be the peacemaker and not make a fuss. Take one and leave the rest for the little boys, but Mother did the best she could. She had a hard row to hoe.

We had no indoor plumbing. My Dad had a tobacco problem and he would go out and sit in the outside john and smoke, but he would never smoke in front of us kids. You could smell the fumes coming out of the "john.". We bathed in one of the old round tin tubs on Saturday night. Water was heated, and because I was a girl I got to bathe first before the dirty boys. We had to get chairs and hang blankets over them to have any privacy while bathing. We bathed once a week, and we needed to, believe me.

*Note from Editor: The photo above (not the outhouse, duh) is of Margie when she was a teenager. The inscription on the lower right-hand side says, "Love to the best mother in the world, Margie." Which of all her kids and grandkids do you think looks the most like her?

Grandpa Shirley's Early Childhood

My parents were born to Amos Virgin and his wife. When the church was sending settling parties up to Bear Lake, they went with them in the late 1800's, after they were there for awhile, my father met Sarah, got married in the temple and in the early 1900's, a lot of people from that area were moving to the Upper Snake River Valley, being settled by Thomas E. Ricks. My parents moved to the Salem area from Bear Lake at the end of the 1800's, about 1901 or 1902. They moved here in a wagon. My dad was a musician and was very popular around Bear Lake. He could play the organ and was a member of the brass band. This picture shows Rexburg in 1917, when Grandpa was five years old. That was the year they finally paved mainstreet. People had joked that a horse drowned in one of the mudholes. To read more about the early history of Rexburg, click here. My parents and Af Hansen and his wife, who was a sister to my mother, gathered what few belongings they had and moved in a wagon to Rexburg. They looked around and each bought small farms just north of Rexburg. Each bought about 60 acres side by side. Not long after they got to Salem, a new church was built in 1905, and my father was a councilor in one of the first bishoprics. Mother saw to it that all us kids got to church each Sunday, inasmuch as Dad was in the bishopric. The house we lived in was about a good 2-3 miles from the churchhouse. They then decided to buy a small lot up in Salem and built a house so he could be a little closer to the church. That meant that in order to run the farm, during the winter he would move the family closer to the church, then have them help on the farm in the summer. My Dad died when I was about 12. We were down on the farm punching or stacking hay and a neighbor came up and informed us that Dad had died. He was down working in Ogden for Gus Brown and got appendicitis, they ruptured and he had died. So there was a whole bunch of kids and no dad and no income, so we had slim pickings for awhile. We just barely survived. We had a herd of cows and mother saw to it that we had a garden, and that is how we survived. It was either root-hog or die. We had cream, butter, chickens, and Dad had planted a big orchard when they first got there, about a full acre, so at least we had apples.

Grandma Shirley's Early Childhood

Who is the person we call Grandma Shirley? I thought each of you should come to know and love my parents as I do. Jenna asked if I would contribute some of the histories I have in small doses so as not to induce a coma. The first is from Grandma Shirley's childhood. Believe me, it was hard to get her to talk about herself. Here goes: I was born to Eberhart Welton Ward and Wiliminah Catherine Smith, on Sept 14, 1921. This was a second marriage for my mother. She had one daughter by her first marriage. It was the first marriage for my father. My older sister’s name was Rayola. Dad had gone on a mission to Denver Colorado earlier and mother had Rayola, then she and her first husband divorced. (Editor's note: He said he was going to California to get work and that he would send for her. He never did.) She met Dad through her sister Aunt Mable, who was teaching school, who was living in Riverside. Dad was born on a Washakie Indian Reservation. My Grandfather was in charge of Indain affairs and was also a Bishop on the reservation. That is where my dad spent his childhood. They moved from there to the little town of Riverside Ut. To learn more about the Washakie Indian Reservation and see how Brigham Young and the Mormons played a role go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washakie Comments from Scott: Mom had two other siblings named Mary (1919-1920) and Verle (1917-1921). Mary was the apple of her mother's eye and was an exceptionally beautiful child. She contracted diphtheria and suddenly died. The house was quarantined and a funeral was out of the question. Grandma Ward was never able to bring that loss to closure. She often commented how sad it was to have a child "carted away to the cemetery without a funeral." Mary passed away a year before Grandma Shirley was born. People would say, "Well, you see, you got another daughter to replace little Mary." Grandma Ward told Margie that she was not a replacement for Mary, but Margie continued to feel "second fiddle." The first December after Grandma Shirley was born, her brother Verle became ill and passed away. It has always been a wonder to me that Grandma Shirley could always maintain such a positive attitude in spite of the difficult circumstances, poverty and adversity into which she was born. To see the listings of Mary and Verle in the Riverside Cemetery, go to http://www.lofthouse.com/boxelder/cemetery/riverside.htm or just click here. Scroll to the bottom and search the names under "Ward."

We made it a year!

Wow, it seems like only yesterday that I was nearly insane with stress and worry in preparation for the wedding, and I can't believe it's been a year! Ash and I celebrated with the customary cutting of the year old wedding cake, and believe me, I'm not one to turn down cake, but it was just a little dry. I'd like dedicate this post to my adoring wife, who puts up with me like no one ever has, and I look forward to many more great years to come. I couldn't survive without her. I'd also like to thank my adoring fans who have graciously voted me MVP (most valuable post-er) of our blog. I couldn't have done it without you as well. I'd also like to thank Brett and Tara for creating this picture, and if you notice, it's seamless (like Ard's change purse). The picture was taken high atop the hill in Idaho by Mom and Dad's, what you don't see is all the rocks and curse words I threw at Cash to try and get him out of the pictures. Again, I don't know how Brett and Tara did it, but thanks sooo much! However, I have to take some credit, since it was my idea. And finally, I'd like to thank the man upstairs for blessing both of us tremendously throughout the past year (although I'm still waiting for the Jazz prayers to be answered). So, how am I going to celebrate our anniversary on the actual date of July 7th? I'm flying to New Mexico for 2 weeks.