Mother Mine

A word about mother not said before?

She’s been praised, berated, celebrated

And sometimes ushered out of the back door.

It’s true that If she weren’t always related

She would certainly be less of a boar.

Somehow, most days, we find that we love her.

Though she cries at church when her children speak

About her and would most often prefer

If the talk given was not a critique 

And had left some of her worst traits a blur.

Pity mother, we can’t live without her,

(To who else falls the mundane and diapers?)

And even though she is an amateur,

We wonder, if she were left to vipers,

Who would chauffeur, confer, or just concur?

Who’d pay the piper and be the dish wiper

If mother were missing, gone from our lives?

Who’d be the baker, the cookie maker,

Who’d keep the archives and give the high fives,

Buy ice cream and be birthday cake writer? 

We honor mom for prizing age thirteen,

That time when each new teen is always right.
Dear mom, who treats each burst with insight keen
And gently leads us 'til we see the light
While helping us to learn to be serene.

As we grow older we soon discover,
That she will leave soiled dishes in the sink
To babysit and to rediscover
That precious, intelligent, missing link
Who made her an angelic grandmother.

So one more praise for mother, this day’s queen,

Who loves her gifted children and their dad.

Who works to keep things clean and intervene

When all the world is sad and dark and bad
And never, no never, causes a scene.

Copyright by Myrna Trauntvein

A Family That Sings Together

We have quite a musical family. That is true today and it was true in the past.

When I went to the funeral for my cousin (first cousin, once removed), Eva Jane, her children spoke about how much she loved singing and dancing. She loved it so much, in fact, that even though her memories were fading away, she could remember the hymns and sing them word for word, on pitch and in tune. Her father, Tom Smith, my grandfather Raymond's brother, sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The Smith brothers, of which my grandfather was one, often sang together for events in Springville, Utah, where they lived. Another brother, Claude, also sang with the Tabernacle Choir.

My grandfather, Raymond (or Ray to his family) loved singing as he worked in the house, or in the garden, or at his work,  just as Eva Jane did. Grandmother Vivian told how he loved to sing to her: "I Dream of Vivian with the Light Brown Hair." That was his version of "I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," a song written by Stephen Foster (c. 1854). She played the song for me on the piano and I learned to sing it as a girl. Grandma was always a bit concerned that the case of pneumonia (not his first) he developed after walking her home from a dance they had attended where he sang might have lead to the lung cancer he developed which took his life. "I was cold and he gave me his suit jacket so that I would be warm and then he got sick," she said. "He was overheated from the dance and the singing he had done."

Grandfather Ray also liked to sing "Winter Wonderland" to his Vivian. That song was not published until 1934 and my grandfather died in 1936 so he would not have had long to sing it to her. He was an Irish tenor and was in many musicals in Utah County. We have a photo of him with the cast from "HMS Pinafore" written by Gilbert and Sullivan as it was presented in Springville. We also have a photo of him posing with other members of the lyric choir of Huntington in Emery County. By then, he and my grandmother were living there.

Grandmother Smith was an accomplished pianist. In her teen-aged years she got a job playing piano for the silent movies. The pianists had to come up with their own script of music; it didn't travel around with the movie. If the scene was sad, she would have to play sad music and, if was happy, she would need to play upbeat music. She said she loved the job because she got to see all of the new movies. She also accompanied her sister Jessie, who loved to sing. Grandmother always said Jessie had such a beautiful voice that everyone wanted her to sing.

Grandma's father, John Pritchett, was a pharmacist who built his business in Huntington. But he could also play the violin though much of the music he played was fiddle music. "I loved to hear him play "Turkey in the Straw,'" said Grandma. She said that he often played for dances and could play many types of music including waltzes. In that day, the dance to do in public was the waltz. In fact, the two-step was considered a bit risqué.

My Aunt Renee, my mother's sister, played the trumpet. She was very good. However, the thing I remember most about her musical talent was her ability to whistle. She could do many different bird calls and sounded, at times, like a flute and at others like a horn. It was truly remarkable. I tried to learn from her but I couldn't, and still can't, whistle at all. Aunt Renee could also play the harmonica. She tried to teach me to do that as well and, once again, I failed to learn

On the other side of the family, my grandfather also had a beautiful singing voice. In his early days he sang with and lead choirs. My father and mother were both singers. In fact, the night that my father met my mother, she sang in a quartet for the floor show. They sang, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." My father saw her at that dance, and told one of his friends, "That is the girl I am going to marry." He asked her to dance, swept her off her feet and, later, did marry her. I didn't ever hear them sing together, that I remember, but I can only imagine that it was beautiful. Even in his later years, Dad sounded like Bing Crosby. My mother was a second soprano and could also sing alto. Dad could also play the harmonica and loved to do so at camp outs. I know, first hand, that my father was a wonderful dancer.

I am not much of a singer. I was always terrified to sing in front of people unless I was singing with a choir or chorus. I did a fair amount of singing for others when I was a child and even took singing lessons. When I was little, I was not afraid but, when I became a teenager, I was horrified. When you try to sing when you are so frightened, your voice will not respond. It shakes and squeaks and you cannot, for all your trying, reach any of the high notes. I decided to write instead of sing.

 My husband, sang in the Danish LDS Choir when he was in Denmark. He sang a bit with church and college choirs after he returned home but he, like me, never sang a lot. He did play the trumpet but, over the years, he has not kept that up.

However, fortunately for me, my life has never been devoid of music. My children and grandchildren all have musical gifts. Many of them play the piano, many play other musical instruments and all of them can sing. Most of them, in fact, sing like angels. None of them are afraid to sing in public. They all have inherited the musical gene. So when it comes time for me to stand with a heavenly choir, after this life, I will just be able to keep my mouth shut and listen to my family singing around me.

If they are singing, I will be in Heaven.

A story of hardiness

Our neighbor, Merlene Christensen Collard, who is 95-years old, was supposed to speak in Sacrament meeting today but she did not feel well so our former Relief Society President, Stacy Nielsen, now her visiting teacher, read the talk. At any rate, Sister Collard's talk told a bit of her history.


There is a close connection with those who lived in the same era in Utah. Those hardy stock shared many of the same experiences. The first generation pioneers, so to speak, from any country had many similar circumstances when they arrived. This was especially true of the Danish folk. They came to Utah to live their religion and were, basically a devout people. They learned English because they wanted to. But many of their customs remained intact. My great-grandmother was superstitious to a fault. For example, one did not open an umbrella in the house, for it would bring bad luck. Many of the Danish pioneers were also superstitious.


Sister Collard's parents, like my great-great grandparents, were also first generation Danes who joined the church and came to Utah. She said she always loved it when her mother would pray in the evening for family prayer because she prayed in Danish. The children did not know that language well, but they liked the sound of it when she prayed. Her father was a shoemaker. She was the last of 14 children born to the family and her mother died when she was 57 (Sister Collard was 15). Therefore, Sister Collard cared for her father, and a few of her older siblings, for several years by doing the cooking, cleaning and washing. When she married, she moved to Mills (south of Levan) where her husband was a rancher. They did not have electricity or indoor plumbing. They did not have water. They did have a cistern where they stored water which she had to haul from the railroad tank a few miles away (steam engines used water and so needed a source to refill from). She then would syphon the water into the tank. One time, she sucked on the hose to start the water flowing and a mouse came out. She was certain she was going to get some awful disease but she didn't. However, she did have to empty the cistern and wash the tank and the barrel out with clorox and then start over. She said she knew Heavenly Father loved her or she would never have survived the mice, rats, snakes and spiders that made her home their home, even though she fought them off.


Her story reminded me of my great-grandmother, Mina Ericksen Pritchett, who was also the daughter of immigrant Danes. Both said that their parents wanted their children to be Americans and speak English so they discouraged the use of their native language. The only time the parents spoke Danish was when they did not want the children in the family to know what was being said. That could be convenient. I would have liked to have had another language to use when I discussed something I didn't want my children to know. When I was a child, my grandmother and aunt spelled when they did not want me to know what was being said. That did not work with my children since they were much better spellers than I and at a much earlier age. It also did not work for my cousins who were also good spellers.


Sister Collard said that her father was a strict parent. I don't know if he could have been more strict than my Great-Grandmother Mina's father. When the girls in the home washed and combed their long hair, he had them do so on a piece of paper so that hair would not get all over the floor. When they were done, he would have them roll the paper up and dispose of it. The result was a floor much cleaner than it would have been otherwise. He was a farmer and also believed that things should be tidy about the farm. He would sweep the barnyard and the floor of the barn so that they were clean. Of course, over time, the earth around the barn packed down and it was easy enough to maintain. However, with each winter, I can only imagine that the earth would soften up from the layers of snow which would melt away and the project would begin again.


Of course, being strict was not his only personality trait. He also had a good sense of humor. There were a lot of family jokes that were retold to new gales of laughter. There were new ones added as they happened. The family also delighted in the company of one another. It was a polygamist family. Lars, the father, had two wives which the children called Mommy and Momma. The wives were good friends who had proposed the idea of living in polygamy to Lars when another man wanted Stina or Momma, Mina's mother, to become his wife in a polygamist relationship. She did not want to comply. So the two women persuaded Lars to take Stina as his second wife and the two women were as close, according to my great-grandmother, as any two loving sisters could have been. The children all knew that they were loved by both women and there was no jealousy. In that, I suppose, you could say that the family all learned how to compromise which is, perhaps, what made Mina's brother, Ferdinand Ericksen, such a successful judge when he was an adult.


Great-Grandmother Mina spoke, with great distaste, of two women who lived near them who were always quarreling and contentious. She had a way of twitching her nose slightly from side to side which she did when she did not like something. Her nose twitched when she spoke of those two women. Sometimes, her nose twitched when she was displeased with something I had done. That happened, especially, when I managed to get mud from one end of me to the other without really trying. Honestly, even today, I am surprised that I attract dirt the way I do. But that is another story for another day.