Star Valley Memories

On 5 November 1908, Grant and Myrtle Stephens were married and settled into their first home near the town of Alpine, Wyoming, the following spring. It was a homestead on the banks of the Snake River. The homestead included land on each side of the river. The nearest post office was about 14 miles and the nearest store about 20 miles either way, at Freedom, Wyoming, or at Irwin, Idaho.

Grant says, "Before summer was through we had moved into our new house which we thought pretty nice. We lined it with lumber and covered with shingles. I got the logs out and took them to the mill and had them sawed for $9 a thousand for the lumber and $5 for the shingles. We put in about 20 acres of oats. On our place there was many springs and several acres of high quaking aspens and of course along the springs were willows and the ground along the bottom was a heavy dark soil covered with big thick brush and was very fertile."

By 1910 enough people had moved nearby that the Alpine area got a post office. Grant got the contract for carrying the mail for the first 5 years. He got $20.22 per month for making the 16 mile trip twice a week. In summer he rode a horse and buggy and sleigh or skis in winter. Grants says, "I had a lot of tough times while carrying the mail. Nearly every winter I would have to carry it on skis for several months. I remember one time I started out on the 2nd of January with a team and bob-sleigh. The snow was over 4 feet deep and snowing and blowing until I could hardly see the team so they could hardly follow the road at all." He eventually had to leave behind his sleigh and start off with just the horses. "I tied one horse to the other one's tail and started them for home. I was holding to the last horse's tail. It took me all that day to get home."

Many years later, when Grant was in his 70s, he took an interest in painting. They came to visit our family for a few weeks. My mother, after watching him paint on art paper, cardboard, or whatever he could find, purchased some canvas boards for him to paint on. One day, my father asked him what the old homestead had looked like. Grant's response was this painting which now hangs in my parents' house.

It will be the only visual memory we have of the setting for their early married life as the site of the homestead is now covered by the waters of the Palisades Reservoir.

We like pie! We wish we had more of it!

Today was Thanksgiving, which we spent with some of our family. Family, of course, is one of the things we are most thankful for, but pie is certainly up there on the list. Our family has never really liked cake, even for birthdays, but pie,. well, that is another story! Many years ago I went through a period of time when I could not eat pie. If I couldn't eat it, I really didn't want to make it, but the children begged for pie. I finally told them I would teach them and then they could make pie whenever they wanted. At that time, their ages ranged from 8-14, so I grouped them around the kitchen table to learn to make pie crust. Once the lesson was over, I believe we must have had pie every day for at least 3 weeks straight. Now the pie makers are grown, but they still make pies. Thanksgiving is another opportunity for pie. Today we had key lime, pumpkin, banana cream, rhubarb custard, blueberry and pecan.









Don't let the solemn face fool you. That piece of key lime pie is following pieces of pumpkin, key lime and rhubarb custard pie.



It is sad when your pie is gone, but boy was that banana cream good!



Some people weren't allowed pie, and thus, were forced to subsist on fingers. No Fair!

I Am Thankful For Pie!!

Some years ago when we moved to our present home, we were surprised to receive a pie from a local bakery a few days before Thanksgiving. The card with it said it was given to us courtesy of the real estate agent who helped us find the house. We thought it a lovely gesture and greatly enjoyed the pie. Much to our surprise, it happened again the next year.....and the next.....and the next! Every year a pie arrives on our doorstep. We have gotten pumpkin, lemon meringue and blueberry among others. We never know what flavor it will be or which local bakery or restaurant it will come from. Tonight the doorbell rang, but when I opened the door, a car was just pulling out of the driveway, and there on the porch was our pie.


It has a crumb topping.



It appears to be an apple pie! Yum!



If anyone plans on moving to this area ever, be sure to let us hook you up with an annual Thanksgiving pie!

Sgt. Provow

There is nothing quite like finding new costumes in the dress up box!

Crochet Hooks---Pioneer Style

The woodworker has been busy again. This time he is making crochet hooks for all the pioneer ladies since plastic hooks just won't do. Besides, it is a good excuse to play with his little lathe. He makes the handle on the lathe and then hand carves the hook on the end. They are like snowflakes: no two are alike!



For fun he likes to make them from different types of wood. The woods used, from top to bottom in the picture, are: zebra Wood, beech, mahogany, bloodwood, pear, black walnut and maple. The wood is all modern except for the mahogany. It came from an antique tool, so is probably at least 100 years old!

First Pieced Quilt

Though I've made many quilts over the years, none of them were really genuine pieced quilts, so when a class was offered, I decided to take advantage of it. The idea was that each week, we'd learn to do a type of quilt block, so it is sort of a sampler quilt. Each row of the quilt is made of a particular type of block. Rather than buy new fabric for the quilt, I used mostly scraps left over from dresses and aprons made for work at the living history museum. Thus it has also become a bit of a memory quilt in that when I see certain pieces, they make me think of things I've made and worn in the past. At the end, once it was finished, I had it machine quilted and hung it on my wall.

Yikes!

Last evening I noticed that the pin in my foot was suddenly sticking out about half an inch further than it was before and it was more painful and awkward to walk, mostly because the ball on the top of the pin kept tapping on things. I called the doctor to see what he wanted me to do. Since I was supposed to get the pin taken out next Monday anyhow, he advised me to meet him at his office at 8:40 this morning and he'd just pull the pin. I offered to pull it myself, as I remembered the other four little pins really hadn't hurt when he pulled them out, but he declined and said he'd rather pull it himself. I mean, the thing was already poking out an inch, and I figured it had to be about 2 inches long, so it was already half out, right? By this morning it was uncomfortable to walk, even with the cane, so I had plenty of incentive to get to the clinic bright and early. When he touched the pin, it wiggled just a little and sent a jolt of 'mild discomfort' through my foot, so he backed off and then had me sort of recline in his chair. Then he carefully held the end of the pin with his little pliers and just as I felt somewhat relaxed....he yanked it out! YIKES! Roger came up out of his chair, too, to ask if I was all right. At least it was done and probably better that way than slowly if the truth be told. There is no way I could have pulled out that pin. It was 4 inches long!

Now that it is out and we are back home, I am liking life much better and able to walk around just fine without the cane anymore. Looking forward to being able to wear regular shoes again1

Another Undone Project

Several years ago I was shopping for something and came across a paper pieced quilt block pattern that intrigued me. I have never paper pieced anything in my life, but figured it couldn't be too hard. Right! Well, when I opened the pattern up, my eyes just glazed over. It made no sense to me and seemed to consist of over 100 tiny pieces! Arghhh! Finally I called a friend who said she thought she could help me. I think she was thinking of several pieces...not hundreds. Nonetheless, I finally got it done! Now the question was, "What should I do with it?" Easiest would maybe be a pillow, but eventually I decided on a quilted wall-hanging with other representative blocks. The question then became, "What should be on the other blocks?" While I pondered that, we went away to West Virgina for 18 months while the one block languished in the bottom of my sewing box. On returning from West Virginia, it was time to start making some decisions. Some blocks seemed clear, and others evolved and changed until the very last minute. I went to a class where I learned how to applique things and decided that would be the way the other blocks would be made, along with a bit of embroidery to enhance them. Here is the original block.



The next block was the last one finished. I originally thought it would be some sort of family tree, but after several tries, it just turned into a name block.


Next is Roger's block. He lived many years in a little log house in Alaska, so you see at the top, the Northern Lights above the little cabin and the spindly little jack spruce tree.



Nancy grew up in Indiana where the state bird is the cardinal and the state tree is the tulip tree. Those were the inspirations for this block.



Blaine's block is salmon leaping upstream as they go to spawn, representing his love of fishing. I like their beady little yellow eyes!



Kristin's favorite color is yellow and she loves flowers, so her block became a yellow daffodil.



It seems like every weekend, Kathleen used to announce that she wanted to bake something. Then she would make us a yummy dessert. In our family, instead of birthday cakes, we all preferred birthday pies. Rhubarb Custard Pie is a great family favorite.



When Bethany was home, it seemed like the piano was always playing. I loved listening to her and the other children playing duets and singing together.



While Kathleen loved to bake, Jana just plain loved to cook and try out new recipes. The candy cane on the cook book represents our family tradition of making candy canes during the holidays.



Now that the blocks are done, I just have to sew them together and get it quilted. Hooray! The end is in sight!

Inlaid Sewing Box

The woodworker has been busy making a special order sewing box. The first picture shows the top of the box with the inlaid portion. The box is made of black walnut. The inlay includes poplar, black walnut, bloodwood and purple heart wood. The edges of the top are rounded to give it a nice finished look.



The person who ordered it wanted to be sure to be able to see the grain of the wood, so the woodworker found this nice piece for the front.



In these two pictures you can see the hand cut dovetail joints.





The inside of the lid has a padded area for pins and needles. Fabric covers the bottom of the box as well.



Here you can see the compartmented tray that sits inside the box for storing sewing notions.

Finally, the box is finished by rubbing in multiple coats of wax. Good job!

Berlin Wall

Today was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They celebrated by arranging a long line of 'dominoes' which they then toppled.

The wall was started in 1961 with fairly simple materials. It was later reinforced and made much stronger. When I was there in 1970, it was clear that building a wall in the middle of a city caused some severe problems. If you can imagine the street where you live, divided by a wall, so you no longer have contact with your neighbors across the road. Businesses on the west side of the wall were closed and the neighborhood seemed rather blighted. On the west side, we were able to walk right up to the wall. There was a wooden stairway next to the wall, leading to a platform at the top of the wall. When we climbed up there, we could see that all of the buildings on the east side had been cleared away. In their place was a large open area with tank traps and fences. Way off in the distance, where the East German buildings began again, a group of people were standing, just looking at the wall. Sometimes they would start to wave to people on the west side of the wall. We learned that families separated by the wall no longer had the possibility to see each other. They would arrange that on a particular day the family from the East would come to that street where they could see the wall. The family from the west would come to the platform where they could see over the wall to the east. There they could wave to each other even though it was probably a distance of several blocks that separated them. Very sad. It was their only contact.

I also visited the museum at Checkpoint Charlie which is the only checkpoint where foreigners were allowed to cross the border in the city of Berlin. The museum was dedicated to telling about the wall and the ways people used to escape from East Berlin.

We crossed into East Berlin for a visit of a few hours. One requirement at the time was that everyone who crossed from west to east must exchange 5 DMs for 5 East German Marks. It was quite a scam since at the time, East German Marks were worth far less than DMs. You could not exchange the money back when leaving the East. The difference in the stores in East and West was eye-0pening. West German grocery stores had a large, colorful variety of goods for sale. East German stores featured just one brand of each product, packaged in bland wrapping. Bread was thrown on the shelf totally without wrapping. Some loaves already had mold growing on them.

When riding the subway between some of the western sectors, the train went under East Berlin. The western trains were not allowed to stop under East Berlin. As we rode through abandoned subway stations, it was rather sobering to see armed guards watching us pass to make sure no one got on or off the subway there.

What a happy day it was when the wall came down.

Good News, Bad News

You wouldn't enjoy a picture if I put it up today anyway, so I won't. The good news is, the stitches are out! I was getting pretty tired of them poking me.

The bad news is, infection has set in, so we are starting to treat that. Hopefully the meds will soon take care of that.

In two weeks, the pin will come out, so it should be out before Thanksgiving. Who knows, by then maybe I can even find some shoes that will fit!

Motivational Speaking

When the children were young it sometimes seemed like nothing happened unless I made it happen. Eat your dinner. Pick up your socks. Brush your teeth. I'm sure they thought I was the world's biggest nag. Now they are adults and no longer need such 'encouragement'. In fact, I suspect some of them are now engaged in 'motivational speaking' of their own. I'm rather glad to be done with that.

The Meeting of the Rails 2009

Since the woodworker was looking for subjects to carve on his planes, we decided to make a trip to Promontory, Utah, to see where the meeting of the rails took place. This is the event portrayed on the Utah quarter, which took place in 1869. On Saturdays during the summer, volunteers do a reenactment twice a day. We weren't quite sure what to expect when we got there. We found the place, but no trains were in sight. At the time for the reenactment, a whistle blew, and in the distance we could see a train coming into our view. Minutes later, another whistle blew and another train came into sight. They met right in front of us.




This is Jupiter.



Here is Engine 119.



The re-enactors gave speeches and portrayed events of the driving of the golden spike, connecting the eastern and western parts of the United States. Those re-enactors are dedicated folks. Promontory is rather out in the middle of nowhere, so some came every Saturday from as far away as Ogden, Utah, just to play their parts. Sometimes some of the reenactors can't make it. For those occasions, they have a big box of various costumes so they can draft people from the audience. If you look carefully at the fellow in the brown coat, you might see that it is the woodworker!

In 1969 it was the 100th anniversary of the driving of the golden spike, so appropriate ceremonies were held to commemorate that event. A plaque telling about it is at the site. Much to my surprise, there were 2 familiar names on the plaque! The manager of the project was Lawrence D. Wilde Sr. whose son was a friend of ours in Alaska. Alf L. Freeman, who portrayed one of the original participants is my great-uncle.

Chicken Scratch Embroidery

This is my grandmother, Ruby, who was born back in 1895. I don't remember her when she was young, obviously, but as a grandmother, she loved all kinds of needlework. I think her talent for sewing started when she was very young. She was the 2nd oldest of 9 children. She also had some older half-siblings, 2 of whom were also raised by her mother. Every person in the family had a particular job to do to help out. Ruby's task was to sew all the clothing for the family, including making the patterns!

By the time she was my grandma, she didn't have as many people to sew for, so she turned to more creative ways to use her talent. One thing she loved to do is called Chicken Scratch Embroidery. This type of embroidery is done on gingham fabric. Other names for Chicken Scratch include: Snowflake Embroidery, Depression Lace or Gingham Lace.

Grandma most often placed her designs on gingham aprons that she made. Here are a few examples of her work.

The first few examples are really just variations of a normal cross-stitch. The circular shapes are made by careful placement of the cross just inside or outside of a particular square.

Star of Wonder...a project no longer half finished

When we were in Sissonville, West Virginia, back in 2007, the ladies there started a Christmas project intended to show how to do simple machine quilting. To do this, we were each given a panel called 'Star of Wonder' by Nancy Halvorsen. We were instructed on how to quilt it by following the straight lines around each section of the panel. I did not have my sewing machine with me there, so at first I just watched. Then one of the ladies said she thought it would be pretty if it was embroidered first. Well...that I could do! Not only could I do it, but I thought it would be a great project for some of the long trips we had to make to various other parts of West Virginia and Virginia. The first 2 pictures show a bit of the detail of the embroidery work, although it is hard to make out I think. Every word is stitched, every feature is outlined, and many features such as hair, beards, rooftops and blankets on the camels are filled in.













When we returned home in November 2008, the embroidery work was all complete. Sadly my sewing machine, after many years of use, refused to go on any longer. Shortly after Christmas, for my birthday, I got a new sewing machine. My first project was to 'quilt' it by sewing around each picture in the panel. Then I bound the edges. That is as far as I got. Now since I am forced to sit in the recliner while my foot heals, I used the opportunity to fix the back of the panel so I can slide it onto a dowel to hang for Christmas this year.