Third Grade in Snowflake

New Housekeeping Arrangements

We move from Heber back to Snowflake.   Now, my father has to tend us and we only see our mother on the weekends.    Mary Alleen, who turned  five in October, doesn't get to attend school, anymore, and Wendell, who is now two, are both home during the day.  They will need someone to take care of them while my Dad is at work in Holbrook.  We get a housekeeper, Sarah Decker, the wife of the upper grade teacher in Heber.  She brings her daughter, Eva, with her everyday.  Since she and Mary Alleen are the same age, they have a great time playing together.


I am assuming my father fixed breakfast for us, which would have been cooked oatmeal.  Sister Decker fixed us lunch and supper.  I remember tasting dishes that we had never eaten before. 

 Raisins Raise a Few Problems

 In our food storage room, my parents kept cases of dried prunes, figs, and raisins that they would buy wholesale in Phoenix.  Sister Decker discovered this dried fruit bonanza and began putting raisins in everything.  She would cook prunes and add raisins to "sweeten" the prunes.  She even made raisin  pies.  This was unheard of in our house.  We didn't have our own grape vines and raisins had to be purchased.  They were a special treat.  My mother used raisins, sparingly, in oatmeal cookies, cakes,  rice pudding, and once a year in fruit cake.  My father was upset because the year's supply of raisins was disappearing fast.  Each raisin pie took an entire box of raisins.  Besides that, we all got sick on the pies and vomited them up.   As I was writing this paragraph, I have to smile because it  reminds me of  a current television reality show  called "Wife Swap," where some one else's mother comes to your house for a period of time.


I don't know if it had anything to do with the raisins, but eventually another housekeeping  solution was found.  (Footnote to this story) Thirty years later at a church picnic in Vienna, Virginia, I discovered that little Eva Decker was now a grown up woman with a family.   I asked her if she remembers coming with her mother to our house.  She described some of the things she remembered.   One of them was,  " I remember your older sister being mean to us."   It was then that I realized that she thought I was Mary Alleen.   I told her  "I am the older sister."    I honestly have no memory or guilt of  being mean to my younger sister and her friend.


The next housekeeping solution was to hire a high school girl, Norma Brimhall, who lived in Taylor but attended school in Snowflake because Taylor didn't have it's own high school.  She would come to our house after school and prepare supper.  Then she caught a ride home to Taylor with someone returning from work in Snowflake or Holbrook.  I don't remember what Wendell and Mary Alleen did during the day.  Perhaps Aunt Lydia stepped in again to look after them until Norma Brimhall got out of high school. 

Miss Flake

Third Grade Teacher

My third grade teacher was Melba Flake which was a common last name in Snowflake.  The town was named for her grandfather, William Flake and for Erastus Snow.   My fourth grade teacher was also a Flake.  Her name was  Augusta Flake, but no one called her Miss Flake.  She was known as Miss Augusta, while my third grade teacher was known as "Miss Flake."  Frankly, I think Miss Melba has a wonderful ring to it.

Multiplication is New 

but

 Reading is the Same

Third grade is the year students were supposed to learn their  "times tables" which is how we referred to the multiplication tables.  Flash cards became very important.  I don't remember having much homework to do during most of elementary school.  However,  my mother, since she was a teacher herself, would always help me with flash cards or memorizing poems or scripts.  I probably missed her a lot that year, when she was only home on weekends.  I don't remember much about reading instruction, as such, but I continued to read the Bobbsey Twins, Wizard of Oz  and Raggedy Ann series.  Santa Claus usually brought us some books for Christmas and I got several Bobbsey Twins books and so did some of my friends.  We traded books among ourselves, since there was no other source of reading material.

Third Grade Social Studies

 Another thing I remember studying in Miss Flake's class was American Indians.  We learned that men were called  "braves" and women were called "squaws" and that babies were called "papooses" and they lived in "teepees." I was totally taken by surprise when, recently, some of these words became politically unacceptable. I had learned this information as a child from a very nice teacher in a regular school setting.  How could it be wrong?

The part of this social studies curriculum that fascinated me most was Indian sign language and, especially,  picture writing.  Miss Flake didn't just mention it in passing one day.  We learned to write it.  The teacher would write a message in  Indian picture  writing on the board and we were expected to translate it and write the English version of the message.   It seemed really exciting to me, like a secret code.   I don't know whether I thought I would meet an Indian walking across our ranch and he would scrawl messages in the sand with his fingers or what.  I certainly have never had occasion to use this skill and maybe that's why third grade doesn't have it in the curriculum anymore.  

The Dangerous Last Two Minutes of the School Day

Another third grade memory, that is stuck in my head forever, happened very near the end of the school day.  Everyone was getting ready to go home from school and I walked up to Miss Flake's desk.  There were several children crowded around her and I could see that she was very busy.  I asked her if I could be excused to go the restroom, which was down on the first floor of the school.   Her answer was, "No!  Go sit back down!  The bell is going to ring at any moment."  So I did go sit back down at my desk and immediately wet my pants.  Sanford Flake was sitting behind me and had his feet stretched out under my desk chair.  It took a couple of seconds, but then he let out a yell.  The urine had dribbled off my desk chair and down into his socks and shoes.  Many years later Sanford grew up to be the Sheriff of Snowflake and I laughingly told my sister this incident, wondering that, if  I should ever be stopped for speeding while passing through Snowflake, would he remember it.   I should have kept this story to myself,  because sixty-five years  after it happened, my sister saw Sanford  at some cultural function in Phoenix and actually related the whole story to him.  She didn't tell me if he remembered it or not, but he certainly remembers it now.

"Remember Pearl Harbor" 

On Dec. 7, 1941 the news about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor came over the radio and our family had heard it and talked about it that night.    The next day I was late walking the two blocks to school.  All the children were already in their classrooms.   As I was hurrying  up the semi-circle sidewalk toward the front door of the school, I heard the radio in the eighth grade classroom. This was very unusual since radios or films were not a normal part of the classroom in those days.  I recognized the distinctive voice of  President Roosevelt.  I walked over closer and stood under the window of the eighth grade classroom  and  listened as  President Roosevelt declared war.  I somehow knew that this was an historic moment and so, even though I was late,  I stayed to listen. 

 Shortly thereafter,  slogans on pins and posters popped up everywhere, saying, " Remember Pearl Harbor."  I do remember it  more than seventy years later.

I Loan Money to The United States of America

                                                

The war mobilization effort must have proceeded very fast.  Pearl Harbor only happened in December, but I can remember that even before the end of third grade I was taking ten cents  or more to school to buy a "war stamp."   You licked the stamp with your tongue and then stuck it in a little rectangle space on one of the pages stapled together into a book.   

Miss Flake, our teacher, gave little prizes after you got so many stamps.  I think I got a  coloring book after I filled the entire book with stamps. Of course, this was just a way to get parents to contribute to the war effort since, as a child I had no money or even an allowance. You needed $18.50 worth of stamps to complete the book. 

The book was turned in for a $25 War Bond, which I remember as being very fancy and official looking compared to the wrinkly messy stamp book I had been carrying around all year. You couldn't cash the bond for a whole ten years, but you felt really good about "helping win the war."  The difference between the $18.50 and the $25 was the amount of interest the government paid your for loaning them your money.  This was my introduction to high finance at age seven.

Two Dresses

The buttons are just right, but think
blue  flowered calico and even skinnier..

Not quite the same, but imagine this in peach
silk and you get the image. 

 

I don't remember having a third grade school program.  Perhaps they had already done one before I came back from Heber or maybe I didn't have a part with some drama or trauma attached to it to make it memorable. 


 I do remember another  program that year.  It was a Stake Relief Society program and I was to have a part in it.  My mother had been a member of the Stake board the year before and might still have been a member that year, too.  My mother helped me memorize my part, but she wouldn't be able to attend because it was to take place on a week night when she was still in Heber.  She told me to wear my blue dress.  It was a skinny princess style dress with buttons all the way from the neck to the hem that my mother had made for me.  It was a rather plain, calico school dress, but sort-of new, so I guessed that is why she told me to wear it.  

On the night of the big performance I can remember being back stage with some of the other participants and in comes Nella Rogers, who also had a part in the program.  She had on the most beautiful peach colored, silky dress that I had ever seen.   Nella whirled around in it and it billowed out on every side.  Then, to further demonstrate how really full her skirt was she grasped both sides of the skirt and put her arms straight up over her head, forming a full circle with  more fullness to spare.  I looked down at my skinny calico school dress and wondered, whatever could my mother have been thinking to tell me to wear this dress.  I have no memories of my performance except looking out at an audience that consisted only of women, many of whom were from the other six or seven nearby towns that were in our stake.  


That next weekend when my mother returned from Heber and asked about how the program went, I must have told her about the dress, because she was very upset that I had embarrassed her in front of her friends by wearing "that" dress.  What does she mean,  she was embarrassed?  How did she think I felt?  It turns out that I had worn the wrong blue dress.  She had meant for me to wear another blue dress-- a Sunday dress, that still wouldn't have been as beautiful as Nella's peach silk dress,  but it would have passed as appropriate for the occasion. 

Wire Rimmed Glasses

Of course, Snowflake doesn't have an eye doctor, but once a year a traveling optometrist would come to town and test people's eyes.  

Although I had  no vision complaints, my parents took me to be tested.  He said that I was near-sighted and needed eyeglasses.  My father had excellent vision his whole  life and my mother was far-sighted, so it couldn't be heredity.  I thought it was because I read, too much.  Although I had been told not to do it, I even read while walking home from school.  

I had to laugh a few weeks ago, when I was driving to babysit my great grandson, whose parents are students at BYU and live near campus.  Here comes this college student, totally engrossed, reading a book, while walking down the sidewalk.  I actually paused  my car to see what he would do when he came to the corner.  He did look up, but began reading again before he was completely across the street.

A few weeks after my eye test, my new glasses were mailed to me in a nice little sturdy cardboard box with a lid that lifted off.  Inside was a  hard case and glasses, very much like the ones in the above photo.   Nothing went to waste in our  house and the little sturdy box was saved.  It turned out to be just the right size to hold the prize ribbons that I won in 4-H club over the next four summers.  The box lasted many years longer than the glasses.

 Although I hated them, the glasses must have helped me see better, because I continued to wear glasses for almost 70 years.  After I had cataract surgery on my eyes, I was able to drive and read without glasses and, most importantly, I could read the alarm clock without having to fish around on the nightstand to find my glasses.  I do use reading glasses sometimes now, but only, if the print is too small, or if  I am doing some fine hand sewing.

Sunday Morning Tragedy

Snowflake Chapel

One Sunday morning we were already dressed in our church clothes and were waiting around for my father to come home from Priesthood meeting to give us a ride to Sunday School.  For some reason I walked out into our back yard and when I looked toward my Aunt Lydia's house, I could see smoke billowing high in the sky  above her house and trees.  I ran into the house to tell my mother. 


 About that same time my father came through the front door and said that the church house was on fire. He went into my parent's bedroom to get the movie camera.  It was the same camera that he had used to take pictures of us when we lived in Safford, but hadn't used again in the almost three years we had been living in Snowflake.  


We drove down toward the church house and I remember standing and holding onto the white picket fence and watching as men moved fast and shouted at each other.  I saw  some men dragging benches from the chapel. Others were bringing out folding chairs  Stacks of songbooks came out. I saw someone throw books out of an upstairs classroom window. The fire had started sometime after 9:00 a.m.  Our family arrived to watch at a little after 10:00 a.m. and the building was, still,  mostly intact, with people running in and out.  Snowflake had no fire department and the nearest one was in Holbrook, 30 miles away.  They would not arrive until it was too late and the church was almost a total loss.  


The Sunday before this happened, I was waiting with my father inside the south entrance of the church for the rest of the family, so we could all go home together.  He told me, "Put your hand on the wall."  I put my hand against the white plaster and it was so hot that I  couldn't keep it there, but for just a second.  I assume the hot air ducts for the upstairs went behind this wall, right next to where the stairs led up to the second floor classrooms.   Something was wrong with the insulation around those ducts or for some reason the furnace was too hot.  One week later, it was too late.

This was a tragedy for the whole community.  The church was the center of all activities.  School pageants took place there, patriotic  celebrations were held there,  plays were held there, concerts were held there, dances were held there, wedding receptions were held there, funerals were held there, little kids went to primary there, and Boy Scout troops met there.  


In those days, each ward had the responsibility to build their own church house.  There was a building fund that everyone had to contribute to, as well as tithing, fast offerings, and ward budget. After the fire, church had to be held in the elementary school auditorium which could barely hold all the children, much less the entire congregation.  Since Snowflake was the center of the stake, stake conference had to be held in the high school gymnasium. 

 The church sent someone to supervise the reconstruction of the church house and he brought his family with him. So in fourth grade we got a new boy, whose first name I have forgotten, but whose last name was Hansen.   We also lost a classmate, Carlee Flammer, whose family moved away because her father had been the custodian at the church and now, with the church gone, his job was gone, too.


 Besides donating to the building fund, church members were ask to, literally, build the church.  They had work days several times a week.  Many of the people were farmers or ranchers and so could donate time to work during the day.  Others came and worked after their regular job was finished or on Saturdays.  The Relief Society sisters would bring food to the church for supper and work continued into the evenings.  It took several years for the church to be rebuilt.

It was a personal tragedy for me as well, because I was almost eight years old and had been looking forward to getting baptized in the beautifully decorated baptismal font that was part of the Junior Sunday School room.  If I remember correctly, the font was  surrounded on two sides with a painted scene probably of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.  


Records show that I didn't get baptized until the fall after my eighth birthday in April.  My father baptized me on a Saturday in Silver Creek somewhere between Snowflake and our ranch.  In those days you were confirmed on a  Sunday during church services, usually the day after your baptism.  My father asked Samuel Smith, the stake patriarch to confirm me.  We knew him as "Uncle Sammy" because he was married to my great grandmother's sister, Lulu.  I had visited in their home a few times, with my parents.  


When the bishop called out my name, I walked up to the front the auditorium and sat down on the designated chair.  Patriarch Smith, evidently didn't know me very well or had  forgotten who I was, because he bent over and asked me my name. I told him, "Rayna Gay."  He then proceeded to confirm me using the name, "Laraine Day" who was a popular movie star at the time.  No one else seemed to hear it or ask for a repeat in the way they have when there are errors in the sacrament prayer.  After this day and throughout the rest of my life, I had an affinity for Lorraine Day who continued to make movie and television shows up into my adult life.  Curiously, I learned later, that she was also a Mormon.

A Sunday Morning Chocolate Miracle

I have two other stories that are connected with holding church in the school house.  One, I consider a minor miracle.  Sunday School was dismissed to go to classes and as everyone stood up from the folding chairs, I saw a brown wrapped Hershey candy bar fall and hit the floor.  I quickly picked it up and held it up asking who dropped it.  No one claimed it and some man said, "I guess you get to keep it," and so I did.  I think I smiled all the way through Sunday School.  I know that I didn't eat it until I got home.  I doubt that it was fast Sunday, either, or I would have remembered how hard it was to wait until after Sacrament meeting was over, before I could eat it.

A Faith Promoting Lesson

(Derailed?)

Primary was held on Wednesday after school.  I remember exactly where I was sitting and in which classroom, so this must be one of those "memorable moments"  The teacher was giving a lesson,  apparently about faith.  I raised my hand in response to some question and told the teacher that my father had told me to "never believe anything other people tell you and only half of what you see with your own eyes"  I didn't say this to be sassy, and it seemed to fit into the discussion.  My teacher did not think so.  Looking back, I would have to agree.  It was not the appropriate time to share my father's little tidbit, even if this tidbit carried its own valuable lesson.

Some of this blog has gone beyond third grade, but since most of the extra stuff was connected with the church burning down and having to go to church in the school building, I left it in.