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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Raising The Victorian #3



"The Old House"was filled with memories from the first, second, third and fourth generation Orson Pratt Thatcher family. Each one of you have your own set of precious memories. I remember sitting at the kitchen table when I was dating Sid and eating Mom's homemade bread with gravy (a real treat if you haven't tried it.) Kimberly, Karen, Brent, David, Mark and Sid and I, lived in the Old House from Jan to April 1976 while we built our house. When we tore it down it was perfectly obvious that there was no insulation in the walls. No wonder it was so cold. When we lived there  we got up at 4:00 a.m., started the fire and jumped back into bed until it was warm enough to get up and get breakfast. Our children slept in bunk beds in the living room. A couple of years later Bob and Lillian installed a furnace and carpet and lived there while they built their house.  Our children used it at Halloween to terrorize each other and their friends by rigging mannequin parts to appear when doors opened.  They watched scary movies, had prom banquets, invented horror stories and took people on "Tours" through her. They swear that there was even a real ghost sighting in the south bedroom window. At one time I planned a complete remodel and wanted to move her across the creek on the hill north east of the deck. When that proved impractical we contacted Utah State University and offered it to them for the the American West Heritage Center since it was the first non-log house built in the valley.  The extended Thatcher family offered to pay to move it; however, red tape and bureaucracy multiplied until we gave up.  The children are gone now and the reason for keeping it has vanished. The porches were caving in, bats enjoyed the peeling wallpaper, and it became a junk collector and a fire hazard.  July 4th, 2008 became Liberation Day for the "Old House." Sid rented a D315 Track Hoe and a Front End Loader. David, Tara and Claire came from California and brought Mark and Shari's children, McK, Luke and Logan. MaRea, Kyle and Kaden, and Lindsey, Riley and Jack came Thursday night. Paul, Nicole, Carson and Brynlee came Saturday. Thursday night David and Sid cleared out the trees and equipment on the west and dug a hole for debris.







Everyone was told that if they wanted anything in the house to get it.  McK, Luke and Kaden found a treasure box of 78 rpm records from the 60's and called them their "Big CD's".  They played with them on the lawn throwing them like frisbees until the sun warped them. 


Sunday, July 13, 2008

"Raising the Victorian" Part 2

A common definition of raise is to put or take to a higher position, elevate, make nobler. Ironically, raise also means to put an end to, to break up and remove. My objective in using the title "Raising the Victorian" is to apply both definitions to "The Old House". We want to pay tribute to this grand old lady and evelate her in the hearts and minds of her posterity at the same time that we put an end to her earthly existance. Sid told Earnie on the phone tonight that after someone has died it is time to bury them and now was her time. She was magnificient in her day. Built in 1884 certainly qualifies her to be designated "Victorian" which is anything associated with the reign or time of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901). Our "Victorian" - The Old House, had three bedrooms upstairs and two on the main floor including my favorite, the beautiful large West bedroom with it's bay windows. If I had been able to do a 'make over' on the house which I always hoped possible, that bedroom would have become a beautiful library. Last fall I removed approximately 8 layers of wallpaper down to the very first richly hued ornate wall covering printed in New York City. The magnificent deep burgandy, gold metalic and green medallions and swirls in coordinating patterns graced the walls of the mainfloor bedroom, and dining room. Both rooms were finished with superbly beautiful 18inch borders and matching ceiling paper. The window in the door of the foyer entrance was etched with a replica of the Salt Lake Temple. Before her "raising" on July 4, 2008 we preserved two of the beautiful newel posts from the stairway, a few of the doorway medallions and the three decorative pieces on the outside of the bay windows. Reese, Steve's son, was wise enough to preserve some of the door medallions in the doorways of the home he built.

It was to this house that the Orson P. Thatcher's moved in 1909. The Thatcher's themselves were often referred to as "Victorian". Grandma Nettie was very proper, straight laced and conventional. She never went anywhere without her hat and gloves. She was very careful and close about what was said and to whom. Thus she would never let Grandpa Orson P. talk about the circumstances surrounding Moses Thatcher being dropped from the Twelve Apostles. Family members would have liked to have known Grandpa's perspective but no one was ever able to hear it from his lips - at least that we know about.

When ORT's twin sister Virgina divorced her husband, their oldest son Gilbert said he chose to live with his father's family, the Olsen's, "because the Thatchers were so straight-laced and the Olsen's were fun loving and easy going." That was before Amelia came on the scene because she had a wonderful sense of humor which her children consciously or subconsciously inherited - thank goodness!

When ORT (Orson Reeder Thatcher) and his new bride Amelia (Emelie) Fuhriman moved into the house following their marriage in January 1936 they were given the main bedroom. It helps to remember that this was during the Great Depression when it would have taken real courage to even get married. Grandma lost her first baby, Reed, during child birth in November of 1936. She said he was a perfect full term baby. No reason was ever given for his death but she felt that his neck was broken during delivery. He was buried under the walnut tree West of the house. Sharon was born the next year in November 1937, Howard March 14, 1939 and the twins in May 1940. Steve in 1942 , another still-born son Grant and Aurelia last. As far as we can determine they lived in the "Old House" until after the twins were born because she often told of hanging over a hundred diapers on the line as she had four children in diapers at the same time. Sharon was three years old but she had contracted meningitis when she was 18 months old and although her life was saved by the "New" sulfa drugs she was left physically and mentally impaired. Thus four babies with mountains of diapers washed in a wringer washer in the basement under the kitchen which was more like a dugout - dark, damp and without heat and hung on the line two and three deep winter (when the clothes pins froze to the frozen diapers), spring, summer and fall. One of the most admirable characteristics of Amelia was that in spite of all her hardship; living in one room with four children, sharing the rest of the house with her austere in-laws, washing and hanging all those diapers in all kinds of weather, her sense of humor squelched and unappreciated, she was never bitter and she never complained then or since. Whenever she talked about it she recited the details as if it were a documentary - without guile or accusation. In fact she always chuckled when she told us how resourceful she was to discover Grandma Nettie's recipe for flaky pie crust which she refused to share, by discreetly watching her and making a mental note of the amount of the ingredients. Amelia's pie crust was amazing.

The photo of Amelia kneeling under the window of "The Victorian" with her new born twins is one of the most touching old photos I have ever seen. Of special interest are her gloves and shoes. The photo of her with her four babies in diapers shows only the peace and satisfaction with which she accepted her 'lot in life'.



















Sid believes ORT must have built the basement house in the early forties as the pictures of Sharon, Howard and the twins were taken in front of it. Ill advised that it wasn't necessary to reinforce the two-bedroom cinder block basement it wasn't long before it split at the corners. The children remember waking up in the morning with snow on their beds which blew in through the cracks in the walls. It was in the basement that Sid innocently aimed a loaded gun at Howard and instead of blowing him away, blew out the window above his head.












Shortly before Amelia delivered the twins, she asked the doctor if he thought she might be having twins. He laughed at her and said, "Why would you think that?"










"Well", she replied, "My sister just had twins."

He laughed again. But the last laugh was on him when five minutes after the first one was born, he said,

"Woops, here comes another one."

Orson P. and Nettie moved to Logan First Ward in the 1950's and ORT and his family moved back into the Victorian. To them it was a mansion after having lived in the deteriorating cinder-block basement.













Monday, July 7, 2008

"Raising" the Victorian Part 1

For 30 years we have wanted to tear down the old house, but it was hard to make the final decision because of all the family memories and history connected to that old house. We tried to interest USU in using it at the American West Center on Highway 89 but it was too political even though the extended Thatcher family offered to pay for the moving. The "Old Victorian" house was purchased by Orson Pratt Thatcher and Nettie Elizabeth Thatcher in 1909 from John C. Dawdle who built the house in 1884 and moved to Canada when they sold the farm.  It is reported to have been the first non-log house in Cache Valley.  Dawdle was also supposed to have been the person who built the first log house in the valley. J.C. Dawdle's descendent, Claudia Findlay, married Ed Prince, the cousin my dad raised. The information concerning Dawdle's building experiences comes from his personal journal in the possession of Claudia Prince. 


Grandpa Orson P. was not a farmer, he had been swindled out of a laundry business by an unscrupulous partner but had enough to make a down payment on 120 acres and house in Young Ward. The purchase price was $3,500.00.  

They raised chickens, eggs, sugar beets and grain crops.  During the depression, Orson 's half brothers at the Thatcher bank threatened to foreclose on the farm until Grandma Nettie went into the bank and read them the 'right act.'  They made him sign the farm over to his wife Nettie.  Grandma Nettie insisted they drill the well down in the West field and it was a real gusher.

Orson Reeder, Orson P's son is in both photos.  Orson P.  was driving a load of sugar beets over the bridge when the load shifted and the valuable work team ended up at the bottom of the creek with the load of sugar beets on top of them. He lost everything - the sugar beets, the team and the wagon.  It was a devastating  financial and emotional blow for grandpa.  

"Summer Snow"



As a child, our basement house was built into the hillside of the treeless Southern Alberta foothills on the verge of flattening into the expansive prairie. The closest trees were a good 1/2 hour by horseback to Kaye Woodard's, a couple of miles up the road. Their little brown house was next to a bridge on a coulee surrounded by TREES. On beautiful summer days, lying on a little cot in the grass we watched the clouds through the leaves and thought heaven couldn't compare. I yearned for my very own stream, bridge, grass and TREES. It was never a conscious goal and I don't think I ever believed that my dream would come true but I dreamed and wished anyway. It makes me reflect upon Alma's statement in Chapter 29, "for, I know that he (God) granteth unto men according to their desire...." for today some 60 years later, two streams meander lazily past our home. The banks are lined with native Cottonwood Trees -gentle giants that grow profusely, their mammoth trunks straining the bridge girders and deforming the deck flooring. Every year they shed forth their froth filling your eyes, nose and lungs, irritating allergies and decorating your car and clothes. Do I love them? Yes I do, passionately! Remembering my childhood desire, I find myself filled with gratitude for my bridges and creeks, the refreshing 40 degree pond with its 52 second feet of water (whatever that means but is very impressive to fact-spouting men like Sid), the hundreds of trees and the full acre of grass surrounding our house. One magical morning I walked out the front door and for the first time saw the flowers buried in 'summer snow" thanks to my beloved Cottonwood Trees.