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Show Volume XVI Issue V The Ogden Valley news Page 9 March 1, 2009 Century Echoes – Part VII By Miriam Renstrom Whiteside Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles by the same author that will appear in following issues of “The Ogden Valley news.” The history was submitted by Jane Renstrom, wife of the late Darrell Renstrom who is the son of Arnold Renstrom and grandson of Andrew P. Renstrom. Also note, the following information has been condensed from the original transcript of “Century Echoes,” a history that combines world, U.S., Utah, LDS, and Ogden Valley history. Circuses came to Ogden and were much like today’s but to us it meant hitching up the horses and traveling through the canyon. There were open spaces on Washington Avenue where horses could be unhitched and left tied up with hay and water, waiting for the trip home. What today would be plain horrifying, were tubs of lemonade outside the tent for the thirsty people and only one cup for the entire crowd to drink from. It was dipped between drinks in another tub of water. It didn’t hurt us. 1906 Miss Shurtliff was the teacher in the fourth grade and again we were in a room with no control; however, this teacher was kind, just too easy and we took advantage of her constantly. After Christmas, she was replaced by Miss Cook, another fair-minded, efficient instructor. Living with a father who was stern and a bishop was difficult, but our mother smoothed the way, even though her health was failing. Our holiday parties continued on in the usual way; all the families coming to our home. Moiselle was now seventeen, popular, singing in public, and an organist. My beautiful, talented sister had been told she could become a great coloratura singer if she would go to Europe to study. It was her dream. From my first memories, we had an organ in our home and now a piano was purchased—an old-fashioned square one with a lamp standing beside it. Also, we had in our living room a six-foot book case filled with books. This year our house was renovated, the kitchen moved form the east side of the house to the west side; easily done since no running water was involved. The first and only telephone in the valley was installed in the Petersen store. On January 11, Gladys was born and from that birth my mother never recovered. Our second cousin Mary Berlin Johnson took the baby soon after her birth. Mary was a kind, loving woman but married to a nogood widower with a small boy. They lived in a poor home and now had a baby girl, Edna. She was older than Gladys but still required much care. We took milk to their home daily and Gladys was given our milk mixed with a preparation called mellon’s food. Medical knowledge was sketchy so not much was done for Mama and the diagnosis was mostly guess work. She was given steam baths at a mineral resort in Ogden Canyon but how much value she received was negligible. In Salt Lake lived the Dahlquists, our friends but no relation. Brother Dahlquist and my father had been missionary companions in their native country Sweden and since then this friendship continued. The Dahlquists had a doctor friend, Dr. Olsen, who must have visited Mama in Huntsville as he thought her swelling was a tumor and needed surgery. She was taken to the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake and before the operation all of us visited her there. My father decided Carol could take Arnold and me there, visit, and return safely. Later, he, Moiselle, and the two younger ones—Erma and George—would go down, which we all did and this is what I remember about that journey. As usual, it meant the two-hour ride to Ogden. I suppose my father took us there, then on the train to Salt Lake where we would stay with the Dahlquists. We got off at the Union Station and walked up to Main Street. On the way, we met two men by Temple Square. Carol exuberantly rushed up to them (she never walked sedately) and called out, “President Smith, do you remember us? We are Bishop Renstrom’s children and on our way.” I am sure she poured out the whole story. He was indeed President Joseph F. Smith, and had stayed at our home on a visit to Huntsville. We then continued on our way and walked all the hills up to Ninth Avenue. Salt Lake was still countryish and from one of the avenues, probably sixth, there were no curbs, gutters, or paved roads. Children were playing in the streets and stared at us as we passed. After the visit with Mama, we walked down the hills and up again to North Main and to the Dahlquists for the night, and came home the next day. All of this is vague to me but the last day she lived became indelible. Years later I wrote that day’s memories into a story and sent it to Erma and Gladys and will repeat it now. It is all true except I let my imagination portray her anxieties in the form of reminiscences from her confining chair, but women around town in whom my mother had confided her sorrows told us some of what I have repeated here. In the early dawn of Tuesday, July 16, my father called us downstairs to say goodbye to our mother. Standing silently around the bed in the dimly lighted room, we waited, the eastern sky was faintly rosy and its strengthening light fell on her face and her breathing came gaspingly slower. Uneasily leaning against the wall, I wished that Carol and I had not quarreled at bedtime, that she had combed and braided my hair as usual for now hair pins and hair fell over my face and onto the floor. Just yesterday everything had seemed all right. It was true, my mother sat most of the day in an easy chair. Indeed, she had sat in that same chair for many months. We were used to seeing her rest but I didn’t know that she clung to wakefulness lest death should creep in and snatch her away. Breakfast was over as usual, the house work went on in its routine way. Some harvesting and other work continued on the farm. It was midsummer and the grain and alfalfa were ripening. Arnold, 12-years old, worked on the farm with my father and I’m sure did his very best but he was inclined to tease most of the time me. My mother, watching him bouncing in for dinner, cried to herself, “he needs me. I must live to help him! I want to live.” Carol, under Moiselle’s directions, those two did the washing, cooking, cleaning. Restless Carol, hating and just enduring, slopped some of the gravy on the table that day. My mother thought, “Tempestuous Carol, you need me to guide you into safer harbors. I must live, let me live.” My father was in and out of the house lingering by her side. Maturity gave me understanding of the strength he drew from her and the long, lonely, haunting years he endured after her death. My mother and I were alone for awhile that morning. I was reading a favorite book when a despairing sob from her startled me. Sitting by the window she was looking far away to the hills where I couldn’t follow. So deep were her thoughts she was unaware of betraying emotions, tears falling, teeth biting on lip, her hands pressed together in her lap. My book fell to the floor and she roused form her sad reverie and turned her face to me. “Mimi (a nickname), come here to me.” “Do you want me to rub your feet, Mama?” “Yes, rub my feet and rub away the pain and I will tell you what you must do.” How happy I am now to remember that I rubbed her feet so many nights when we were all together, her swollen feet, sitting on the floor and holding them on my lap and rubbing them until a sigh escaped me and she would smile and say, “Now run away and play.” Now, again, she was looking far away not only to the hills but to a future of sorrow and, long afterward, I remembered that day and knew she had been silently praying, “What can I tell her, how can I help her? Let me live dear Lord, let me live.” Moiselle came in with a drink for her. She was usually close by tempting her to eat a little bit. Moiselle, the only one of us who sensed the impending, unhappy tragedy awaiting us. She drank the water then said to me, “Run outside and look for Erma my little elfin. Run away.” Then to herself, “Who will hold her close when she is frightened? Who will care for and love her? Let me live dear Lord, let me live.” The boys came noisily in for dinner. My father followed quietly. Mama made a pretense at eating. It seemed too quiet, somehow sad. Heaviness oppressed us all. We thought it was the hot summer day. Then my father went to the pasture for the horses Dick and Daisy—dappled greys, high spirited—and brought them home. The surrey stood waiting, shiny black and quite new, the only one in town. It is still used to carry the Fourth of July Queen in the yearly parade. The horses were hitched to the surrey and driven around to the front door. Mama was helped out and into the buggy and they HISTORICAL cont. on page 13 Historical Photo Huntsville School – 8th & 9th Grades 1935 – 1936 Front row left to right: Harold Hinkle, Keith Renstrom, Jay Capson, Paul Burrows, Durlan Johansen, Roy Collard. Second row: Ruth Hawkes, Edith Trotter, Loris Felt, Barbara Nelson, Louise Page, Mary Peterson, Douglas Bronson, Mark Spencer. Third row: Teacher, Floyd Barnett, Stanley Wangsgaard, Dean Allen, Beth Jensen, Margaret Grow, Mary Marie Stuart, Moiselle Wangsgard, Sheldon Doman, Kenneth Berlin, Dean Hislop. Back row: Halvor Bailey, Arlene Brunker, Norma Hawkes, Robert Jensen, Bill Rowe, Juanita Allen, Beth Felt, Keith McKay. Photo courtesy of the Huntsville History Department. www.iversondental.com |