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Up Ogden Canyon 07.10.2003 | 4:21 pm
Happy Birthday today to Meredith, my second grandchild... She is a big 3 years old! One of the reasons I began writing on-line was that I found it fun. Then, I began to find it cathartic and rewarding in many different ways. I found I enjoyed writing about experiences that had happened to me long ago. It is good, it seems, to write it down in a form that is pleasing to revisit again and again. This summer I have had some time to look through old photo albums and add to my memories. Today I would like to tell you about �Up Ogden Canyon.� Up Ogden Canyon, in a little hamlet know as Huntsville, I can encounter so many pleasant and fond memories. As far back as being but a three year old toddler, my mind recalls so many fun and loving times. Mind you, not everything was rosy, but for the most part, they are the very best of the best times.
Ellen and John Wilson with six of their ten children, circa 1902. My grandmother, Mary Ellen is the little girl seated on the fur cushion. My Great Grandfather, John Wilson, was one of the dredgers of the Ogden river�making it deeper and wider; walling it up to provide a foundation for the dirt and subsequent, paved road that would wind up into the Huntsville valley, providing safe passage for a century . Great Grandfather John and Great Grandmother Ellen Wilson were educators and farmers in Ogden. They bore and raised 10 highly successful children. Their second daughter being my paternal Grandmother, Mary Ellen. During the early part of the 20th century, the Wilson family spent their winters in Ogden and their summers nt up the canyon, camping out in tents for the summer in the coolness of the higher altitudes. I�m sure it was during one of these carefree summers that Mary Ellen met and fell in love with Ernest, my Grandfather. Ernest had always lived up the canyon in Huntsville. He was a rancher, and farmer, educated enough to eventually work for the IRS in Ogden after their marriage. It always astonished me that my grandparent�s engagement was four years in duration. It seems that in those days, a bride did not marry until her entire trousseau was established�bedding, linens, dishes and silver to last the first ten years of marriage. Grandma stuck to her guns on that issue. The newlyweds lived at first, in the old rock house, which was the original home for Angus and Wilhelmina, my grandfather�s parents. When they immigrated from Scotland in the 1860�s, they eventually made their way to Salt lake City, then north toward Ogden and then up the canyon. It seems as though the landscape in the valley, up Ogden canyon, somewhat resembled that of the highlands of Scotland, their original home. The old rock home, built by Angus and Williemena McKay, my other set of Great Grandparents, still stands today as a reminder of their pioneering spirit and perseverance. Later, Ernest, my grandfather, would build a new brick home for Mary Ellen, down the road a piece. In still later years the rock house would be occupied by my favorite family of �second cousins�, but it is the newer home that revives memories this day.
My Granmother and Granfather at my parent's wedding reception, Dec. 21, 1949. As the years have passed, I find myself becoming almost a carbon copy to my paternal grandmother, Mary Ellen Wilson McKay. It seems odd now, for I was never her favorite granddaughter. At times, I think she just seemed to put up with me, but I know she really did love and care for me and all my family. Like my other Grandma, Grandma Gold, Grandma McKay always welcomed us with open arms and a good meal. Her ways were much more fastidious and proper, however. She always liked the beds made a certain way and the dusting done just so. During the summers, when we would travel from Arizona to Utah, to be with our grandparents, early mornings were always full of homemaking and housekeeping lessons. Grandma would arise about 8:00 AM (late for our standards) and fix her melted cheese, toast, and coffee. Since we were not coffee drinkers, my own mother always encouraged us to never be judgmental. We weren�t. Grandma would do up the dishes, dry everything, and insist that the dish drainer be put completely away after every meal. Often she would head for the basement to do the laundry. The stairs were hard for her. I have her identical �bad knees.� My dad and older brother would head out with Grandpa to fix fence and ride the range every morning. After chores and lunch, time was our own. The afternoons were spent in endless hours of make-believe, cousins, games in the attic of the old rock house, down the cow lane, clubs, intrigues and over to the general store for an afternoon popsicle.
The cousins with Grandma about 1960, a year after Grandpa died. Down the hill from the house was a set of huge cottonwood trees. The boy cousins had built a tree fort, three stories high. We, the girls, were always bugging them to let us play. Finally, after two summers of wrangling, the boys (My brother and two other cousins) signed the tree house over to the girls for 25 cents and a contract with everybody�s thumbprints attached. It was very official. From then on the tree house belonged to the girls. For the next few summers, my cousin Sandy, my sister Jeanne and I had full run of the tree house. None of us wanted to be the �President� of our club, so we dubbed ourselves, �The Secretaries of The Tree House.� To this day, Sandy still has all the old paperwork and notes we used to keep when it was an official club. Sandy, Jeanne and I were always snubbed by the two older girl cousins, Susan and Jennifer. Jennifer was the favorite of everyone, but Susan was just plain snotty when it came to sharing the friendship. Susan was Sandy�s older sister, and she was just that�the OLDER sister. I swear, she was born to be a prude and an old maid, all wrapped up into one sour package. We are on speaking terms these days, but it is interesting how all the girls have turned out. Everyone leads a fairly normal family life except for Susan. She never married. She has her doctorate in liguistics, speaks about five languages fluently, and is very lonely. That fact makes me sad, but she has shut herself off from her family in many ways. One thing that used to really bug Grandma McKay was kids running in and out of the front door and letting it slam. She would always say, �Now don�t you kids slam that door!� as she would watch the nightly news while dinner was cooking. One day, two decades later, Jeanne and I were watching our kids swim and play in the pool. Every time one of the kids would come in and then go out, I kept saying, �Now don�t you kids slam that door!� All of a sudden Jeanne said to me, �You sound jut like Grandma McKay.� And I do to this day. Aversions to slamming doors run deep in my gene poor, and I inherited them from Up Ogden Canyon way.
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The last few days have been uneventful, yet painful. I think as I have become more sedentary and �set� in my ways, I have found I don�t deal with personal pain like used to. Personal pain meaning, burning myself with the water from the steam iron and straining some muscles in my hip replacement. I have literally been �laid up� for two days with these minor maladies. In my younger years, possibly when I had kids at home to keep me jumpin�, I would not have let such trifles slow mw down. I guess I could ultimately attribute my laziness to a general let-down and subsequent melt-down from the wedding hoop-law. So�I will, and refuse to feel too guilty or too lazy.
