Mom's Story Part 13

Snowflake Academy Building

School Days and Teachers – Baptism: 

            Mrs. Laverne Crandall was my first-grade teacher.  She also taught two of my children, Christine and Jim.  I don’t recall much about my school year with her, but I’m sure she was strict.  I tolerated school, but didn’t love it as some of my children and grandchildren have done.  Van Smith, my cousin and Max Butler were always the top of the class, as was Guida, and Annella Morris Hall.  They skipped the grades as I recall.  They were smart.  Mother helped us with our lessons each night and was a continual support when we did poorly.  I didn’t have too much trouble with my lessons.  I remember getting a silver dollar in the 5th grade from Mr. Daniel Schnebly for improving the most in my penmanship.  How I treasured that dollar.  I finally spent it for a Chautauqua ticket.  Miss Thalia Kartchner was my third grade teacher and my own Aunt Thora, Dad’s sister, was my second grade teacher.  Mother had a hard time with sewing, so we didn’t ever take any prizes for being the best-dressed children in school.  One thing that was forbidden was to wear your Sunday shoes to school.  Many days I would sneak out with them on my feet, only to be confronted by Mother half way up the sidewalk or at recess with my play shoes. 

            I remember my baptism, performed by my grandfather, Joseph W. Smith.  I believe I was baptized on my birthday, Oct 8th, there was a large group of family members present and Grandpa had to immerse me several times in that murky hole under the Creek bridge to get the job done right.  Dad was the witness and confirmed me the first Sunday in November at Sacrament Meeting.  

Teen Years: 

            My High School days revolved around my friends.  We were a close-knit group comprising of the following girls:  Maria Smith, Guida Smith, Zelda Cook, Louise Willis, Varena Fish and Thelma Rogers.  Luella Ballard often came with us too, but I don’t remember her too often in our foolish capers.  We were a talkative, giddy bunch of girls – our Mothers called us the “Magpies”.  Boys were important, but the peer-pressure of the girls occupied most of our thoughts.  Rex Gibson, Fost Flake, Marion Smith,  Flake Rogers, Van Smith, Lorenzo Smith, Max Butler (the “dream boy”), and France Willis were the boys who comprised our crowd.  Most of them were typical farm boys with hardened calloused hands and manure sticking to their boots.  For entertainment we had hayrack parties to the creek, games on our lawn, and candy making at one of our homes.  Always our mothers made big drippers full of molasses cake for our Sunday evening raids.  I recall the huge pieces of cake Maria cut off for us, but don’t ever remember any complaint from Aunt Pauline.  The “naughty” game we played up on the Seminary lawn, was called “Pleased or Displeased” – anyone was displeased which they usually were; they required you to “paint the barn” or “pull you out of so many feet of water” with so and so.  This meant a kiss or as many kisses as it took to please the subject.  We knew if our Mothers ever caught us we’d be out of circulation for a while.  Lorenzo Smith and Marion Smith were my best friends, and we all went to the University of Arizona together when we graduated, and they remained some of my dearest friends.  Lorenzo, like most of the kids in Snowflake, had a nickname of “Chick”, but he became a very wonderful person, served as Stake President and Regional Representative for the Church.  Marion, also has become a very fine individual, is now a Veterinarian in Scottsdale and served in several Bishoprics and High Councils.  I don’t remember ever having a “date” in High School.  The kids didn’t pair off like they do now, however, there were a few girls who went steady and most of them married after they graduated.  I wasn’t the popular girl of the crowd by any means, in fact, more often that not I was the “wallflower”, but as I recall I had a lot of company.  The boys were reluctant dancers. 

            Our dress was typical of the times, bobby socks and saddle oxfords, full dirndl skirts and blouses or sweaters.  We all belonged to the “Pepperettes”, our cheering group for the High School.  Our coach was a little short, stocky teacher, Mr. Roswell Willard, who lived at our house.  We liked him, but as I look back, he was like a cocky little bantam rooster strutting his self around campus.  However, he was enthusiastic and energetic, and was demanding of our best efforts.  Faithfully we drilled after school to get our precision kicks and bows just right.  There were probably about twenty-four of us in the group, and was the first such group the school had ever had so I imagine it was looked on by the more stately, dignified teachers as sacrilege to the academic climate the school had prided itself on for so long. 

            Sports were secondary in the school.  I remember we had basketball and track, but football was not important.  The girls played basketball, but a modified version of the game, as we know it today.  If you played Center, which I usually played, you were confined to the center court only.  It was not the rough and tumble game it is today. 

Dad's Story Part 9

Dressed for a "Tom Thumb Wedding"

                                                 Lewiston Years (continued)

One of my closest friends and schoolmate in Lewiston was Bob Bollinger.  His father was dead.  He had a younger sister named Betty.  His mother was a fine pianist and taught her children to love music.Betty Bollinger eventually became an opera singer, and Bob sang with the Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians before the Second World War.  Bob was killed in an airplane crash during the war. 

          Bob’s mother ran the Bollinger Hotel that had been left to her by her husband.  Bob occasionally took me into the hotel restaurant for a caramel sundae.  They made the best caramel sundaes I have ever tasted. Bob also taught me how to play the ukulele.  We sang together a lot at his house.  Two of the pieces I remember learning at his house were “Always” and “In a Little Spanish Town”.  

           It was popular in the early 1920s for people who were music teachers to travel from town to town spending two or three weeks in each town putting on a musical called “Tom Thumb’s Wedding”, using the local kids as the participants.  These traveling companies had the costumes, props, music, and all that was needed.  Bob and Betty Bollingers, my brother Frank and I were some of the performers.  We wore black dress suits with swallowtail coats.  One of the songs I sang was “When You and I Were Young, Maggie”. 

            As I mentioned before, the summers in Lewiston were very warm so we took advantage of the rivers and did a lot of swimming.  The Snake River was much larger than the Clearwater and also warmer so we did our swimming in the Snake.  On the Clarkston side of the river was a large sandy beach.  This was the most popular place to swim.  We occasionally swam on the Lewiston side where a dock and a high diving platform provided a good place to swim from.  I well remember my first attempt at diving from the high platform.  It was probably only ten to twelve feet high, but to me it seemed like twenty-five feet.  I stood up there for about ten minutes before mustering up enough courage to dive off.  The Snake River was about two hundred yards wide and had a rather swift current in the middle.  Some of the older, stronger swimmers used to swim across the river, but not many tried it, as it was very dangerous.