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Show u Kid Photo courtesy of the Bunnell family The Bunnell Pioneer Home is still standing on the campus of Utah VaUey State College. This photograph of the family was taken in 1896. Bunnell home, farm part of UVSC's heritage By KAREN HOAG Special to The Daily Herald Upon first glance the Bunnell Pioneer Home looks out of place near the Special Events Building at the UVSC campus. However, students nonchalantly stream by on their way to classes. Some even turn into the Bunnell Home for a class in hotel management. The home, was fought for and won a place on campus by the late Carrol Reid, a dean at UVSC and a member of the Utah Heritage Foundation. The campus is set on what used to be a farm where three generations of Bunnells lived. Stephen Ithamer Bunnell. Jr. acquired the land in 1883 and built the home in 1892 in Vineyard. The home is the last of several original structures on the farm which included a packing shed, a pole and cable system barn, a chicken coop, pig pen, root cellar, cow and sheep sheds and an outhouse. Stephen built a standard size private race track north of the house. He took great pride in his thoroughbred race horses and made money on them in the races. Built in the New England Salt Box 60-ac- re style of sandstone colored adobe brick, the home was worthy of being preserved thought Reed who was involved in its restoration. While Stephen and his wife Mary Elizabeth Gammon were building their home, she watched Indian ceremonial dances as they buried their dead a few hundred feet west of the home. Stephen and wife had six children. He taught school in Provo but also cleared the land and planted orchards of many different varieties of fruit; he introduced Red Delicious apples to the area. Berries of every kind hung heavithe vines; vegetables, hay and on ly grain crops plus livestock to fill the above buildings kept the family busy. The Bunnell farm was entirely except sugar and salt that they bought once a year. Joel, one of Stephen's children in bought the home and some acreage 1915 from his mother after his father died in 1911. Joel and wife Zelda Holdaway had eight children of which five are still living: Grace Wilkinson, the oldest at age 83 who lives in Orem; Eva Taylor, Ogden; Margie Burningham, Lehi; Helen Weeks, Orem and Ivi! Bunnell, St. George. Due to the Depression and Joel's deterioiating hcnl'h. he had to sell off the farm piece by piece, thus it passed from the Bunnell family. Joel died in 1953. When the college purchased the property where the Bunnell farm stood, there were so many streams on the property that UVSC has its own water system. Fond childhood memories are shared by the four remaining daughters. They had their own Seven Peaks back in the 1930s a Hume carried water from one hill to another. The Bunnell kids would get in and slide through it clear to the other hill. Eva remembers skis fashioned from barrel stays and strips of rubber from tires. Burrowing for arrowheads in the sandhills made quite a collection, she adds. Grace remembers, at age 14, the incentive she was given by her mother to clean the storage room: "I could have it as my own bedroom! However, mother thought it looked so good after I cleaned it that she said, 'It would be perfect for the boys' bedroom.' The storage room had its own outside door so the four boys could come in with muddy shoes. I never got my own bedroom. I had to stay with my sisters." "Remember the bitter cold winter night: when Mama warmed our beds with rrv.ks or flat irons wrapped in newspapers and snuggling under sheets piled high with her patchwoik quilts'." ;:sks ! Men. Margie recalls being bathed in a round gahunied tub in the kitchen close to the stove. They would put chairs around the bathing area and hang clothes on them to create some privacy. Several children would be bathed in the same water. After their baths they would go to bed on mattresses or ticks filled with straw and feather pillows. They would wash the feathers for the which were saved fron iie chickens after they were behead. j. "Mama's porcelain door knob encouraged hens to nest," Helen says. "Soon, a dozen or more tiny yellow biddies scampered behind their attentive mother, clucking in pride at her entourage." Presently the Bunnell home is used at UVSC for the hotel management course to train chefs. They even serve lunches to the public during the week. oil-lo- 107 |