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.

Homes of Isabell Church Cooper

My grandmother, Isabell Church Cooper was born in a house at Three Mile Creek, which is 3 miles north of Panguitch, Utah.  She wrote in her personal history that it was a little Danish style house down by the river.  The day she was born, the roof blew off the house.  She and her family also lived in Spry at "the dear old farm," as Bell referred to it, until most of her brothers and sisters were born.  Spry is located about 15 miles north of Panguitch.  If I remember correctly, their farm was on the west side of the highway.  Bell's father then traded the farm to Mr. Joseph Beckstrom for a ranch in Little Valley and a home in Panguitch at 189 West 200 South.

This is a picture of the Little Valley ranch where the Church family lived during the summer.  The ranch is located about 10 1/2 miles from Panguitch on the road to Panguitch Lake (Hwy 143) on the right side of road. The Church family had cows and made cheese which they sold.  This picture was taken quite a few years ago.

The following pictures of Little Valley were taken in 2011.  The buildings are still standing.  The land looks much the same as I remember it.

The house below is located at 189 West 200 South in Panguitch.  This is the house that the Church family got in the trade for the Spry farm.  At one time it had a porch surrounding the front of the house.  

Church family home at 189 West 200 South.  Later became Than and Bell Cooper's home.

Isabell and Nathaniel Cooper lived in this home (below) when my mother was born (1930).  I believe they lived there for quite a few years before that too.  They lived here until Bell's mother died.  Bell had been caring for her mother in her old age, and when she died Than paid for her burial, so they became the owners the Church house (above).  The Cooper family moved into the house when my mom was 3-4 years old.

House where my mother was born.

Boyhood Home of Nathaniel Cooper - My Grandfather

For quite a while I have wondered where my grandpa, Than Cooper lived in Panguitch when he was a boy.  Recently I found a very good history about the Henrie Family written by descendants of John N. Henrie, who was Mary's brother.  Mary Henrie was Than Cooper's mother.  Click here for the link to this history.  

One thing that this history contains is the location of many of the Henrie Family homes in Panguitch.  The house that Grandpa lived in is no longer standing.  It was located at 152 East 200 South, three blocks east of the house where Than and Bell Cooper lived.    

Mary's mother and father (Christena and James Henrie) lived in a north-facing home about 14 East and 3rd South.  That home is also gone.

Utah Digital Newspapers - Garfield County News

Utah Digital Newspaper has added more issues of The Garfield County News up to 1973.  It now has issues from 1923 to 1973.  I have been waiting for them to update the issues because I wanted to look for the obituary of Mary Henrie Cooper.  I don't know much about her and hoped that there would be more information about her life in the obituary.  She died in 1954, so I never knew her.  I was also hoping that there might be a photo of her.  I'm still trying to get a picture of her from someone. Click here to see the Mary Cooper death announcement.  I find it interesting that Bell Cooper, her daughter in law, sang in almost every funeral in town, but she did not sing in this funeral.  


I also found Grandpa (Than) Cooper's obituary.  I have seen it before, but included it for those of you who have not.  Click here to see his Funeral Article.  One new thing I learned from his obituary is that he began taking care of the Panguitch Cemetery in 1962.  I had wondered what year he started that job.  He would have been about 70 years old!  What a hard working man, to take on a new responsibility at that age after retiring from herding sheep.  It also says that he worked there until 1969, he would have been about 77.  He died in 1970, so he wasn't "retired" for long before he passed away.

Christine Rasmine Schow - Grandmother of Than Cooper, Plural Wife of James Henrie

Christina Rasmine Schow Henrie was born in Aalborg, Denmark, January 19, 1844. She with her parents and brothers accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from Elders Erastus Snow and George P. Dykes who with two others were the first missionaries from Utah to Denmark.

She was baptized April 13, 1851 by Elder Hans Peter Jensen. They left their home for Utah in December 1853, going to Liverpool where they embarked on the sailing vessel, Jessie Munn under the direction of Christian Larsen. For a full account of the voyage and to see the Schow family listed on the passenger list click here.  Arrived in New Orleans, America, February 10, 1854, continued up the river to Kansas City, Missouri. Many passengers had died from small pox.

They crossed the plains with an ox team in Elder Hans Peter Olsen's company. Christina walked all the way to Salt Lake City except two afternoons, one when she was ill, the other when it was a down grade. While crossing the plains many had died of cholera among the number were her Grandmother and her step-grandfather who died within ten days of each other.

She recalls seeing herds of Buffalo, one stampeded going right through their company.

            

They arrived in Salt Lake City, Thursday October 5, 1854. They settled in Bountiful where she lived with her parents until 15 years of age when the family moved to Brigham City. During this time they suffered great hardships and the Indian troubles kept them in constant fear. Then came the grasshoppers which caused famine and their family  of six persons lived for ten weeks on pig weeds, sour milk and ten pints of flour a week. When the wheat and grain that missed destruction was harvested the family gleaned wheat and barley from the field of Brother William Brown and carried it two miles to the Burr Mill to be ground. She says "We have never since been without flour."

After the parents moved to Brigham City, Christina lived with Myra Mayall Henrie until she was married to Sister Henrie's son James, December 6, 1861. She was 17 years old.  She was a "Plural Wife", Rhoana Hatch being his first wife and she the second.

During the colonization of the southern part of the state and Nevada, they were called Utah to Panaca, Nevada.  Here they lived until the spring of 1871.  At the time of the resettlement of Panguitch, they moved there where she resided until her death.  In all the places where they lived it was a pioneer life fraught with many dangers, hardships and privations, but like all other pioneers, it was born by them without a murmur.       

While in Panaca, Nevada she acted as Relief Society Teacher, besides the work of home making. She did weaving, spinning, knitting, hat making, glove making, sewing and dairying.

She wove 450 yards of cloth in one season, flannels, hudsuns, geans, twills for blankets, shawls, also the household linens from flax, and wove rag carpets.

Pictures Courtesy of Ron & Juana Englestead

The straw hats she made for men and for women sold for $1.50 to $2.00 each. She sold some of them in Salt Lake City. She made and sold both buckskin and crocheted woolen gloves, prices $2.00 and $1.50.

When spinning she usually did five skins (4 1/2 lbs.) a day, and earned  $50.00 one winter for sewing for the Coop store in Panguitch. She and Rhoana worked together. ( She spun both cotton and linen thread).

Christina's schooling consisted of 17 weeks while at Bountiful.

She is the mother of ten children, four boys and six girls. They all lived to have families of their own except one that died in infancy. She has spent her life in home-making and reared her own family and part of her two children's families, two children dying leaving families of children.  Her second child, Mary Henrie Cooper, is our ancestor.  At the time of her death, she had sixty-six grandchildren and forty-seven great grand children.

            

Christina died 5 October 1927 at Panguitch, Utah and was buried 7 October 1927 at the Panguitch cemetery.  She was a very noble and worthy woman, full of faith and devotion; she died as she had lived, in full faith of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I found a copy of the newspaper announcement of her death and funeral program.  See it here.  One note of interest is that our grandmother, Bell Cooper, sang in Christena Henrie's funeral.  In the article it says, "By special request, Bell Cooper, Ellice Cooper, and Illeta Reid sang "There's No One Like Mother to Me," accompanied by Dora Clove."   Bell and Ellice were married to her grandsons, Than and Trav.  I don't know the connection to Illeta Reid, and Dora Clove was Grandma's good friend.  Grandma was married to Grandpa at this time, was 34 years old, and had given birth to seven children.  Mae was about 1-1/2, my mom, Fae Ann was not born yet.

I have posted this picture before, but wanted to include it again of James Henrie and his three wives.  Rhoana Hatch Henrie on the left, standing is Gedske Schow who is also a half sister to Christena Schow Henrie (so they really are "sister wives" ha ha), and on the right is Christena Schow Henrie.  

Christena's headstone is far right. Picture by A. Bell - Findagrave.com

  

James Michael Cooper - Father of Nathaniel Cooper

James Michael Cooper was born on July 4, 1861 at Fort Herriman, Utah located at the southeast end of the Salt Lake Valley.  His parents were Seguine Cooper and Christiana E. Goheen.  In 1863, his father was called to go east to help a wagon train of Saints move to Utah.  This left his wife with three children ages five, three and James, who was one at the time.  His mother was also expecting a fourth child in October.  James' grandmother, Hannah Cornog Cooper, also lived with them since her husband had died in 1860.  Going east to help the converts meant leaving the farm and the home to be run by his wife, children and aging mother.

In 1866, James' family were called to settle the St. George area.  Many families who had come from the Southern States were called south to the "Cotton Mission" because they knew how to raise cotton.  The Cooper family was originally called to settle the "Muddy Mission" beyond St. George, near present day Las Vegas, Nevada.  James' sister Mary was eight, Seguine Jr., age six, James was four, and Dorinda age 2.

They left their home in Fort Herriman taking only their family and what supplies they could haul in two wagons.  The wagons pulled by six oxen, were loaded with their belongings, seed for planting, and enough food to last a whole year.

The Coopers traveled with several other families who were also called south.  Seguine, James' father, drove a covered wagon pulled by four oxen while James' big sister Mary, drove the lighter wagon pulled by two oxen.  Mary drove this second wagon because her mother was expecting their fifth child any day.

When they reached the settlement of Beaver in November 1866, James' mother delivered the baby.  They waited a few days before continuing their journey.

They continued on traveling south from Beaver to St. George.  James' mother looked forward to seeing her mother who lived in Washington, Utah.  She hadn't seen her mother for eight years.  James and his brothers and sister had never met their grandmother, Dorinda Moody Goheen Slade.  The family stayed there for a few days before moving on.

The Cooper family traveled to St. George and found out that their call to the "Muddy Mission" was changed.  They were now to travel about a week's journey to the north until they reached a new Mormon settlement of Panaca which was located about 90 miles west of Cedar City, Utah.

Panaca was originally settled by Mormon families six months before Nevada became a state.  Soon there were miners in the area.  There were some problems between the miners and the Mormons.  There was also trouble with the Indians.  After living in the Panaca area for five years, the Cooper family left to settle one of the communities in Southern Utah.

In 1871, Seguine Cooper left his family in Panaca and drove his wagon to the Panguitch Valley arriving in April.  He made preparations for his family to move there.  He then returned to Panaca to move his family, his livestock and what possessions he could fit into a wagon.  It took about a week to go from Panaca to Panguitch.

When the family arrived in Panguitch on August 10, 1871, there had been a hard frost the previous day.  James' mother and grandmother saw everything frozen and expressed their doubts about living at that high elevation.  They also thought that since Panguitch was on the north side of the mountains, it would be colder.  The women were concerned about the area being too cold to raise good crops, but James' father told them to look at the range available for livestock.  There were lakes and streams for fishing and much wildlife in the area.  He convinced them to settle in Panguitch.  The elevation of Panguitch is 6,700 feet.

At this time, the Cooper family consisted of Seguine and Christiana, and seven children.  James was ten years old.

The first year they lived in Panguitch, they lived in the Panguitch Fort on the corner where the high school now stands.  The fort and stockade were made of long posts set closely together.  The houses built inside the fort faced the center, and each house had holes, large enough to shoot a rifle through, cut in the back walls.

In the spring of 1872, the Cooper family, now totaling ten people, moved out of the fort and into a little log house several blocks away.  The house had only one large room, a board floor, no rugs, and no ceiling.  It was cold in the winter, so the fire was kept burning day and night for months.  Apples and potatoes not taken back to the cellar at night were frozen so hard the next morning that they couldn't be used until they were thawed by the fire.

Their meals consisted mainly of meat, potatoes, molasses, dried peaches, and milk.  In the summertime they often at wild dandelion greens and pig weed greens with their meals.  During the winter of 1877-78, the people in Panguitch had a hard time feeding their families.  They lived on such foods as wild wheat, barley, potatoes, squash, onions, corn, and beans.  Dried corn, ground and boiled before serving, was called hominy.

Clothes were also scarce during the winter.  Most of their clothing was worn out, so pants for the children were made from flour sacks and other sacks.  The lack of food and clothing made life tough.

In 1873, some Panguitch people began to homestead land at Panguitch Lake.  James' father built a cabin on his homestead at the lake.  The Seguine Cooper cabin was near the east shore of the lake at the foot of what is now known as "Cooper Peak," although it is labeled as "Cooper Knoll" on today's Forest Service map.  The cabin stood in a more level area, now usually covered with water, which is south of where the Lake View Resort now stands.  In the early days, very few people tried to live at the lake year round.  It was extremely cold at night with temperatures often reaching about 35 degrees below zero.  Snow drifts could reach up to eight feet deep.  It would have been interesting to know if the family all slept in that little one room cabin at the same time.  There was Seguine Cooper, his mother, his wife, and ten children.  Sleeping outside on the ground or in the wagon was then very common, even in town.  This wasn't sleeping out for recreation as much as it was a lack of room indoors, and it wasn't limited to the summer season.

Not much is known about James' personal life.  The 1880 Census shows that he was 18 years old, lived at home and was employed as a laborer.  He married Mary Henrie, daughter of polygamist James Henrie and Christena Rasmine Schow Henrie, on September 4, 1889 in Panguitch.  He was 28 at the time.  Their first baby boy, James Ephraim Cooper was born on June 2, 1890 and died on June 14, 1891.  Their second child, Nathaniel, was born on July 2, 1892.  Three more children were born to James and Mary:  Joseph Traverse on June 1, 1895, Christina (Ena) on February 21, 1899, and Jed E. Cooper on April 18, 1903.

The 1900 Census shows that James was a farmer on shares and that they rented their home.  James died of pneumonia on December 21, 1905.  His death certificate shows that he had been sick for 3 days.  James was buried in the Panguitch Cemetery.  Until 1936, pneumonia was the #1 cause of death in the United States.  What a sad Christmas that must have been that year for the Cooper family.  Than was 13, Trav was 10, Christina was 6, and Jed was 2 1/2.  Mary was left with four small children.  She herself had very poor eyesight since childhood, and was sickly.

Her oldest son, Than, quit school at age 13.  He had some uncles who herded sheep and so he went to work with them to provide for the family.  Soon Than's brother Trav joined him.  Than continued to provide for his mother, brothers and sister until they graduated from school and married.  Mary then lived with her son Jed.  She died in 1954, in Panguitch and is buried in the Panguitch Cemetery next to her husband.

Picture by Sherril Henrie - Findagrave.com

Much of the information for this history was taken from the book: From Texas to Utah - The Pioneer Story of James Cooper and Hannah Cornog by J. Daniel Marshall

Pictures Please!

Do you have pictures of our grandparents, Isabell and/or Than Cooper? If you do, I would love to see them.  I could post your pictures on the blog.   If you can send a pdf of the pictures, that would be best.  My email address is krm.fisher@hotmail.com.  You could also send the original, I could scan it, then send it back to you.  Also, does anyone have a picture of Grandpa's mother, Mary Henrie Cooper?  I have a picture with James Michael Cooper and a woman which is labeled, "My grandparents, Christena and James Cooper."  It was either labeled wrong and the woman in the picture is Mary Cooper, or it is indeed Christena Cooper and her husband Seguine (not James Michael Cooper).  

Also I would love to have comments from you of your memories about the family.  This adds to a more complete picture of who they were.  So please add comments.  

If there is anyone you would like to know about, please let me know.  Thanks for reading!

My Grandparent's House

When I was young I loved to go to my grandma and grandpa's house.  They lived in Panguitch, Utah and so we often went there to visit and stayed 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 sat on a huge lot with large trees and a fence.  It was a great place for a kid to explore and  play.

Faye and Bell.  Shows fence around yard

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 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 circled 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 the chair.  A handmade afghan draped the back of the couch.  A pretty mirror hung on the wall over the couch.  There were four doorways in this room, one going upstairs, one going to my grandma's bedroom, one going into the kitchen, and the front door.

The kitchen was in the back and ran the full width of the house.  A 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.

The kitchen was a combination of an old house that over the years had been updated in an attempt to make it more modern.  Necessary wiring and changes had been made to accommodate, but it was neither a modern or a pioneer kitchen.  Besides the coal stove, there was an electric stove in the room.  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 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.

I remember that Gram threw the grease and the leftovers out the back door for the chickens and the stray cats.  I always thought that this was strange, yet convenient.  It was fun to just throw your food out the door with no worry about it at all which was contrary to the way things were done at my house.  I remember that the dirt outside the back door smelled rancid and was oily.

The kitchen was a wonderful place, full of warmth, full of delicious aromas and full of laughter.  Whenever we would go to Grammy's house, we would be greeted by the scents of homemade bread and chicken and noodles, or homemade soup.  She always made us something good to eat for our arrival.  The kitchen was also a place where I played the card game, "Spoons" with Gram.  She would laugh and laugh when I stole the spoon and took her pile of cards.  She seemed almost pleased that I had stolen her pile.  She was always such a happy, loving, good person.  I had a lot of fun with her.  She always made me feel like I was the smartest and most talented girl in the world.

There were two bedrooms upstairs,  the one where we slept directly at the top of the stairs, and a bedroom that was not used  The other room was latched shut and looked as if it hadn't been used in a long time.  I was always scared of that room, and was glad that my mom had to sleep upstairs with me so that I didn't have to be up there alone.  Sometimes we would open the door and look inside just to scare ourselves.  We were told to not go in there.  I don't know why.  I think that at one time there had been a fire in that room. Grandma said that the floor boards were brittle and we might break through the ceiling into the parlor.  But it was dark in there, with no lights, and we were afraid to go in there for more reasons than breaking through the floor.  At night, we were glad that the door latched on our side.

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 floor was covered with vinyl flooring.  The bigger 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.

My grandparent's bedroom was the room next to the parlor.  It was a small room with two windows, one in the front of the house and one on the side.  A small closet was beneath the stairwell.  Grandma had a cedar chest under the window in the front of the room.  A dresser with a big round mirror sat diagonally in the corner between the windows.  The head of the bed was against the wall directly across from the door.  I don't remember the colors of the room as I didn't go in there often, but I remember a picture that hung over her bed.  It was an oval face of a cherub.  I have that picture today on my night stand.  It was the one thing that I wanted that was Gram's.

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.

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 shores 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.  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.

Lynn Rosenberg, Bell Cooper, Aunt Grace, Me in front, Joann Liston, Than Cooper, Aunt Jean and Mom (Faye Rosenberg) at Red Canyon

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."

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 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.  

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 to 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 sawmill embers.  I loved to explore the yard, walk on the fence, swing on the gate, and float boats down the ditch.  I loved spending the 24th of July there with my relatives, watching the Panguitch parade, and going to the rodeo.  These are all treasured memories!