My Grandparent's House and The Panguitch of My Youth

When I was growing up I loved to go to my Grandma and Grandpa Cooper's house.  They lived in Panguitch, Utah and so we often went there to visit and would stay for several days since they lived 235 miles away. When I was little, their house seemed like the biggest house on earth, probably because it was a two story home.  It also sat on a huge lot surrounded with large trees and a fence.  It was a great place for a kid to explore and play.

The house was actually very small, but it sat up on a high foundation making it appear bigger than it really was.  The outside of the house was covered with roofing shingles rather than wood or brick.

The swinging gate is still there

The house was on a very big lot with a fence made of cedar posts and wire with a wooden rail top surrounding the yard. I remember trying to walk along the top of the fence.  The boards were warped and cracked in places, and it was difficult to walk very far.  A swinging wooden gate opened to a long concrete walk leading to the steps of the front porch.  At one time, a porch wrapped around the entire house, but it was dismantled long ago and was changed into the smaller simpler porch.

Grandma's parents owned the house at 189 West 2nd South before my grandparents. When Grandma's mother died, no one in their family wanted to pay for her burial. My grandma and grandpa paid for her burial.  In doing so, they got her house for their own.  They moved there when my mom, Faye was about four.

On the main floor of the house was a front room or parlor, as they called it in my grandma's day, a bedroom, the kitchen and a bathroom.  The door to the stairway that led to two upstairs bedrooms was in the parlor. Originally, there was no bathroom in the house.  When it was added, a little corner room was built inside the kitchen area of the house.

The parlor was a simple room.  It contained a couch, two overstuffed chairs and a black upright piano.  Framed faces of cousins, aunts and uncles lined the top of the piano.  Lace curtains hung over the three small rectangular windows in the room.  There was an oil stove between the windows at the end of the room.  At one time there must have been a fireplace there because on the wall above the stove, there was still a mantle.  Grandma had a clock on the mantle that tick-tocked the day away chiming every hour.  Most every afternoon you could usually hear the sound of snoring and the ticking of the clock in the parlor.  In one corner in the front of the room was my grandpa's chair.  On the opposite side of the room in the corner was my grandma's chair.  There was a little telephone table next to her chair.  A handmade afghan draped the back of the couch*.  A pretty mirror hung on the wall over the couch.  There were three doorways in this room, one going upstairs, one going to my grandma's bedroom, and one going into the kitchen.

This picture was taken for Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary by grandson, Warren Young.  It was taken in their
living room on their couch.  You can see the wallpaper and just a small part of the mirror that hangs on the wall.

Faye, Gram and Mae standing to the right of where the oil stove
would be and in front of Gram's chair.  You can see the curtains on the
window and the detail of the wallpaper.  The little black telephone
table is behind Faye.

Gram, in her house, almost 85.  Door on left goes to the kitchen.
The door to the right goes upstairs   The black upright piano is against the wall.
The door to Grandma's bedroom would have been to the right of the piano.

The kitchen was in the back and ran the full width of the house.  A combination wood and coal stove sat in a corner of the room.  This and the oil stove in the parlor was the sole means of heat in the house.  I can hardly imagine how difficult it must have been for my grandma in her elderly years to get up on a cold winter morning and start a fire in the wood stove so she could make breakfast.  She did have an electric stove, but she almost always made a fire in the wood stove.  Panguitch has cool mornings even in the summer.

The kitchen had been updated a bit to make life more convenient for Gram.  There was still the original old wood and coal stove.  There was also electric stove. Grandma sometimes used both of them to prepare a meal.  These stoves took up much of the room. To the right of the electric stove was a freestanding sink. There was a window over both the electric stove and the sink. Next to the sink was the back door and on the other side of the door, a small electric fridge stood in the corner next to the table.  White metal cabinets hung on the wall above the table. There was a small covered porch outside the back door.  

There was room for a double and a single bed in the small bedroom upstairs.  The ceiling was flat in the center and slanted from the center on each side of the room.  The room had once been papered, but had been painted over and in places the paper peeled from the wall.  The larger bed was next to the wall and the single bed sat next to the stair rail. There were two windows in the room, again covered with lace curtains.  A old fashioned dresser was between the windows.  At night in the summer, we would go upstairs and raise the windows to cool the room before bedtime.  The windows looked toward the sawmill.  I liked to look out the window at night and see the embers drifting from the sawdust burner into the dark night sky.

Oh how I wish I had pictures of all those rooms now!  Oh how I wish I had pictures of the house and property!  

I remember on warm summer days that my grandma would say that we should take a milkshake out to my grandpa who was working at the cemetery.  So we would go down to the local drive-in and get him a milkshake and then drive out to the cemetery to take him his treat.  In my memory I see him in his overalls and hat standing out in the cemetery near the little white storage shed leaning on a shovel. He would see us coming and have a big smile on his face.  When he greeted him he would probably tell us some news he's heard and gladly accept his frozen treat.

My grandpa went to work as a sheepherder at the age of 13 and had spent most of his life away from home at the sheep camp for months at a time.  After he retired from that, he often kept a few sheep in their yard.  As a result, there was always sheep droppings on the lawn and the grass was purposely not mowed.  It was left for the sheep to eat.  Every spring when we would go to Grandma's, there would be new baby lambs.  The lambs were cute, but we did not like the big ewes and rams so much. In fact Grandpa told us to stay away from them, so it wasn't so much fun playing in the yard when he had sheep.

In the back of the lot was a chicken coop, a barn and a pig pen.  I remember one time that Grandpa had a big pig and it was fun to throw things in the pen and watch the pig eat them.  Once, my big brother threw stink bombs in the pen and the pig ate them.  No wonder my grandpa didn't like us messing with the animals.  I also remember a time when they had chickens in the chicken coop.  Each day it was fun to go out and gather the eggs from the nests, but not fun to have the hens peck at you while you tried to take the eggs from beneath them.

There was an irrigation ditch that ran across the yard dividing the barn area from the house area.  There was a little bridge that went over the ditch because water was running through the ditch most of the time.  This was a place that we really liked to play.  We would float all kinds of boats down the length of the ditch and would build houses along the edge pretending it was a lake.  We could pass a lot of the day away playing in the ditch.

Once a week or so, my grandpa would put a board in the ditch to stop the flow of water in the ditch and make it flood into his yard.  This was the way that he watered his lot.  He paid to have a share of the water which allowed him to have the water for a certain number of hours once or twice a week. After the water had flowed into his yard for that amount of hours, he would go back out and pull the board from the ditch and make the water go back into the main irrigation ditch.

In back of the house there was an old fashioned water spigot.  I remember that I thought it was funny because it had a pump on the side that you had to pump up and down to bring the water out of the spout.  It also had a big crank handle on top where you could turn the water on and off but you had to pump it to make it come out.  This was one of my favorite things in their yard.  Right in back of the house was a clothesline.  Between the clothesline and the fence was an area that we were forbidden to tread.  It was where the septic tank was buried and we were told to never walk there in case it caved in.  Also near there on that side of the house was a tank for the oil stove that was in the parlor.

Panguitch is a beautiful little place, in fact we always said that the birds sang, "Panguitch is a pretty little place."  In the distance you can see the red cliffs leading to the scenic areas of Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon.  The little town is surrounded by small farms, meadows with meandering creeks, and the town is situated in a cove of foothills.  The sky is such a beautiful shade of blue.  In the summer the thunderstorms roll in and drench the valley, sending the sweet smell of sagebrush and fresh-cut hay in the breeze.  

  

This is the view of Panguitch coming down from Panguitch Lake.

There is a large billboard outside town showing a big fish saying:  "Meet me in Panguitch!"  Panguitch means "big fish," and Panguitch Lake is just up the road from town.  

These are the things we liked to see and the places we wanted to visit when we went to Grandma's.  We always loved to go to Red Canyon and take a picnic.  There we would hike and play among the red rock spires in the picnic grounds.  Gram would make a lunch and pack it in a tin bucket.  A stop at the Indian Curio Store was a requirement. It still is.

(L to R) Lynn Rosenberg, Bell Cooper, Grace Cooper Young, JoAnn Liston,
Karen Rosenberg (in front of JoAnn) Than Cooperc Jean Cooper, Faye Rosenberg Cooper

There was a little store in town named "Foy's Variety Store."  I think we kept that store in business. Every day my brother and I would take a walk to town and go to that store leaving with a new treasure.  Next door to Foy's was the Panguitch Rexall Drug Store that had a soda fountain.  We'd have a drink there and maybe buy a candy bar.  We also had to make a daily visit in the car to the local fast food drive-through, "The Eatables," and that is where we would buy Grandpa's milkshake.

Foy's Variety Store

Rexall Drug

Eatables Drive-In

Across the street from Grandma's house was Panguitch Elementary.  It had a playground, so usually every day we went there to play on the playground equipment.  We put in plenty of hours on the merry-go-round and monkey bars at Panguitch Elementary School.

It was always fun when other family members came to visit Grandma when we were there.  I loved it when Uncle Grant, Uncle Jim and Aunt Jean got together and began to reminisce about their childhood. One story called for another and there were some pretty tall tales. Then my mom and Aunt Mae would join in with some antics of their own.  The stories were so funny and we all laughed so much.  This was often the only time we would see some of our relatives.  Everyone was so happy, especially my grandma.  She loved visitors as she was alone so much of the time.  "Come again soon."  She would say.

(front)Alan Cooper, Mae Cooper Charles, Jan Charles, Bell Cooper, Faye Cooper Rosenberg,
Karen Rosenberg, Jean Cooper, (Back) Grant Cooper, Craig Rosenberg
24th of July in Panguitch in front of Grandma's House

Going to stay with my grandparent's might not seem like an exciting time for kids today. There really wasn't much to do, but we had fun.  I remember the drive there was awfully long for a child, but as we drove the last few miles approaching the town, we watched in anticipation for the sawmill smoke which let us know that we were almost there. It's funny that today if I travel toward Panguitch, I still feel the same excitement.  I loved going there.  I loved to spend time with my dear grandparents, to sleep upstairs in the little bedroom and look outside at the glowing embers drift in the night sky.  I loved the little valley of meadows and creeks but mostly the red hills in the distance. My mother always had a special place in her heart for her hometown, and now I do too.

The Panguitch Sawmill and smoke could be seen from Grandma's house
 and from the highway as we were approaching Panguitch. 

*My brother has the afghan now and proudly drapes it over his own couch.