Time Travel Tuesdays~

~The Old Violin~

There was great excitement in the little house on the dairy. Aunt Dora was coming for a visit! Mom had put Marianne to work getting everything ready for company. The end tables were dusted with way too much Pledge. (But didn't you need that much so you could write your name in it like the lady on T.V.?) The carpets had been vacuumed and the toys were put away. One item, however, had been left out conspicuously; the old violin. Aunt Dora had given a precious gift earlier that year. When she heard that Marianne wanted to learn to play the violin she most generously offered her own instrument to her young niece. Now she was coming to pay a visit and maybe she would want to hear Marianne play a song for her!

It was always fun when Aunt Dora came. She had such a jolly laugh and the bluest eyes. She was so kind and always seemed interested in everyone. Marianne was fascinated by her large silver and turquoise bracelets and baubles, and she always wore the prettiest dresses and skirts. At last she arrived and everyone settled in for a good visit. There was laughter and exclamations of astonishment at how much Dora's nephews and nieces had grown since the last time she had come. There were stories of adventures and travels, and reminiscence about the good old days when Dora and Marianne's father George were young children. After what seemed like forever to a little girl, Aunt Dora turned to Marianne and asked if she liked playing the violin.

"Oh yes!" she proclaimed, "Do you want to hear me play a song?"

Of course I do! That would be lovely!" Aunt Dora replied.

Feeling strangely nervous, something she had not felt ever before in music class, Marianne took the old violin out of it's black case with the deep purple velvet lining, tightened up the bow hairs, and stood before her audience. All present were entertained by a squeaky version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Aunt Dora clapped her hands and then raised them in the air proclaiming,

"Oh! That was just beautiful! You are doing so well!"

Then Mom suggested that Dora play a song for Marianne. Dora offered up protests of being rusty and out of practice but Mom wouldn't take no for and answer.

"You play beautifully Dora. Everyone knows it. Please?!" Mom pleaded.

Aunt Dora put out her hands and took the precious instrument from her niece, put in under her chin, raised the bow and began to play a lovely melody. Marianne was so thrilled with the sound that came out of her violin. It was rich, vibrating, and floating across all of the strings. It made her heart swell!

"I want I to play like that someday" she wished.

After Auut Dora had left, Mom reminded Marianne what a great gift had been given to her. Aunt Dora loved that instrument but had sacrificed it to allow someone she loved the chance to learn. Marianne promised she would always take care of it and practice every day.

Many years later, Dad told Marianne the very interesting story of how the old violin became part of the family. It goes something like this...

~Aunt Dora's Violin ~

It was during the Great Depression, in Mesa, Arizona and Frank & Annie Ellsworth felt grateful. They didn't want for food although sometimes it was scarce and very basic. They were blessed to have a large lot on which they grew their own vegetables and fruit. They also had chickens and cattle so there were milk and eggs. What they didn't have a lot of was money and that was the stuff that bought the extras in life. People became great barterers and traders during those days. A clean fresh egg could be traded at a store in town for a piece of penny candy, the Ellsworth children had discovered. So it was with grown-ups too. They learned to trade. My Grandpa Ellsworth was no exception. It was decided that the Ellsworth children needed music in their lives but with no instruments, and no money to buy them how was this to be accomplished?

In downtown Mesa there was a pawn shop full of goods that desperate people had come to trade. Frank visited it one day to see what was available and to his great delight he found a beautiful piano. Annie would be thrilled to have her girls learn to play. The owner of the shop showed him other instruments that had been part of the same trade, a clarinet, and a violin. A conversation followed and a deal was made. Frank went home and told Annie of his find. There was great excitement in the house! In time, he returned to the pawn shop with several year-old heifer calves to trade for the instruments. In those hard times, having milk in your house was a luxury to some. Did the broker need those cows himself or would he trade them to others who were in need? It is quite certain that many people benefited from this trade. The pawn broker told my grandfather the story of the instruments.

One day a tired, worn looking man came into the shop. He was an immigrant from Germany and a musician. He had a family to feed and was making a heart-breaking decision. He wanted to trade his beloved instruments for some cash so he could buy food . He had brought them over from the old country perhaps hoping to make a living teaching lessons. They were certainly part of his soul and a dear reminder of home. His family was hungry though, and thses instruments were the only things of real worth he had to trade. The deal was made and he surely left the shop with a heavy heart.

~

My Aunts Ruth and Lora learned to play the piano beautifully. Lora blessed the lives of many by being the organist in the Alma Ward in Mesa for many years. What ever became of that piano? I wish I knew. My father learned to play the clarinet and was a member of the Mesa High School marching band. He even branched out and played the tuba as well! My mother still has his old MHS band hat. The clarinet disappeared in the mid 1970's during one of our moves. Believe me, it was a very old and well-used instrument! I wish we still had it. My Aunt Dora learned the violin. She was a natural and played so beautifully. My father remember evenings around the piano with Lora and Dora playing and the family singing along. The girls would also play solos and duets. "Claire de Lune" was one of his sister's specialties. He would have tears in his eyes as he told me of those sweet family times.

 I found out a little more about the instrument a few years ago when I took it in for servicing. The technician took it apart to clean it and put the sound peg back in place. On the underside of the tail piece was a tag the said Czechoslovakia. He told me that while the label inside had disintegrated he believed the instrument was European and probably late 19th to early 20th century in origin. That matched up with the story from the pawn broker.

I think of that sad man in the pawn shop now and then. I wonder how long the money lasted. I think of the years and years of joy those instruments have given my family. I hope he was blessed with all that his family needed. I think of Aunt Dora and how she gave up a prized possession for me and I wished I had practiced harder. I have passed the violin on to my daughter Sarah who plays it very well. She loves it too. Now she can tell the story to her own family someday!

Time Travel Tuesdays~ My Childhood Home

An interesting thing happens when you travel back through time. You find that not much ever stays the same. Back in July I wrote this post about my visit to Arizona and the old neighborhood where I grew up. I wrote about the first house my parents ever bought brand new, a place where I never lived, but years later would live just north of on the same street. I wrote about that house's amazing pink kitchen here. Well...when we drove past that house in July, we noticed that it was up for sale. It was so fun to go back to my brother's house, get on the Internet, and take a peek inside of the house we grew up in, Gena and I.

323 North Hunt Drive was the first house I ever lived in that had a sidewalk out front. Dairies don't have sidewalks, do they? Ours didn't! There was a driveway that in combination with those sidewalks introduced a whole new world of play to us such as roller skating, and bike riding without flat tires! It is a 4 bedroom 1 3/4 bath home with a living room and a family room. It was huge compared to the Little House on the Dairy! There are so many memories there! Among these are Christmas mornings, Thanksgiving dinners, happy family times around the table playing games, little nieces and nephews coming over for visits, learning to sew on Mom's old Singer, practicing my violin in the family room and making Juan the chihuahua howl like he was in some kind of pain! (poor doggie!)

So if you ever get to go back and look inside of the home you grew up in do you expect it to look the same? I didn't. I knew a lot had changed because the family who bought it from my parents made some changes immediately, like even before the final papers had been signed and closing was complete! They were in our ward and requested that they get the key early so they could go in and get their painting done before they moved in. I recall this giving my mother all kinds of heartache and worry. What if their loan wasn't approved? The worries became more intense when Mom checked in on the house one day (we had already moved out) and found her beautiful wood cabinets in the pink kitchen had been stripped down and painted fire engine red! Not only that! "Painting" included letting her children put multi-colored hand prints all over the bedroom walls. They had ripped out the carpet and replaced it with white carpet covered in what looked like paint splotches. What IF the loan hadn't been approved? The nerve! Really. Thankfully the house closed without a hitch and the other family moved into their new and colorful home! One thing they did do that I was jealous of was to install a swimming pool in the backyard. They also knocked out the back splash wall between the kitchen and the family room so that there was a pass-through. they took away the storage room next to the dining room and opened up that whole area to make one big room. Cool. I never got to see it until nearly 40 years later on www.zillow.com .

Remember the perfectly pink kitchen? To the right in the photo just past the dishwasher was a door leading to a laundry room. You could also go outside from there. This was a narrow galley style kitchen. Also to the right would be the wall with the fridge and wall oven. Behind it was a pantry with a door that opened up in the hallway just around the corner.

Well...it's pink no more! It is blatantly blue! Really? Pink would not be my thing either, but this? Hmm...
Here's how they made the room much larger. The laundry room was where the fridge is now. The pantry was where the water cooler is with the door in the hall. The wall oven was right there in front of the water cooler. Pull that fridge forward about four feet and put the little counter space between it and the oven on the other side. It really was a narrow kitchen and this was a pretty smart way to make it larger.  The granite is very nice and I love the island work space. (So glad the bright red cabinets are gone!) They did replace the pantry space with those cupboards near the back door. That's good!

 The laundry is now out on the back porch. Not too bad in Mesa! there's a work sink but no room for Moms' pink freezer!

Here's the hall bathroom. These cupboards used to be pink too! It's fun to see the cabinets are still the very same ones only painted black. The counter top was tiled in white and pink, as was the shower surround. Really though, as long as you were updating could you at least have gotten rid of

 the Hollywood vanity lights from the 80's?

This bathroom is where I first learned to clean a toilet. I'll never forget that lesson. We didn't have a bowl brush and my big sister made me put my hand in the toilet with a rag and clean it. Yucky!

Here's the family about to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, look who's digging into the turkey with her fork! That's right, me! Couldn't wait to pose for the picture, nope...

That's Dad at the head and clockwise, sis-in-law Renda with 1st baby Tyler on the way, lovely Mom, cutie sister Gena, and Porky, er, Me.

Imagine someone standing behind Gena and I in the above photo. That is where this next photo was taken. They took out the storage room which was in the corner where the dinning set is. There was a wall just behind the sofa there. The above photo was taken from the spot by the end of that sofa below.Overall it makes the house much larger. They just had to add a shed in the backyard. The kitchen is just out of the photo on the right.

This is the living room in 1968. Here is my handsome brother Richard and his date to Senior Formal at Westwood High. They didn't call it Prom for some reason. That's the front door behind them. All of the doors and trim in the house were a blond whitewashed look. 

You can just barely see the gold carpet.

 Here is the living room today. No carpet, new door, The spot where this picture was shot used to be closed in. It was the corner of the living room where it met the dinning area. I guess someone got tired of walking all of the way down the long hall and around the corner to the front door! The closest path between two objects is a straight line after all! See where those coat hooks are on the right? That's where Mom hung a bulletin board. We put all of our favorite "Cathy" and Ziggy" comics cut from the Mesa Tribune there. That door that you can barley see on the right leads out to a garage. We just had a covered carport. It was a lovely country door with a window and white curtains.

This is another view of the living room looking into the kitchen. Yep. They just chopped off that corner! See whee that couch is above? That is exactly where ours was. In the photo below you see "Santa" Richard has come to visit the Ellsworth children. Tom (who is now a city planner for Mesa) was none too pleased with the visit! Love my Mom's sea green walls and orange retro lamp?

 Of course, it wasn't retro then! Somebody, straighten that lampshade!

Here's the garage as it is today.

 Here it is on October 30, 1970. Blurry, I know. The door you see was to Dad's storage room. This was a birthday party Mom threw for my niece Eileen on her second birthday. My sister and her husband were sick with hepatitis at Mesa General Hospital.  That nice board and batten siding on the house got marked up by my bike as I would glide in to a stop and bump the wall. black marks all across the nice creamy yellow paint. I got my bike taken away for a few days. Dad was not happy.

Next we have Mom and Dad standing in front of the house. These window are their bedroom and bathroom. Mom collected Avon cologne bottles in her bathroom window. Dad always smelled so good..."Wild Country"!

 Here's a view looking north on Hunt Drive. University Avenue is just up the street. On the left you see some vacant land right before University. We would cut through there to get to our crosswalk in front of the U-Totem store on the way to school. Three houses down on our side was as far as the development went too. Isn't Renda so cute? This is when she was barely expecting Tyler.

Here's the front of the house now. I like the porch swing! We really didn't have a porch

 other than right in front of the door. I'm not sure if Dad planted that tree.

Below there used to be a curving sidewalk from the door to the driveway. In that area below the swing, Dad planted beautiful dutch irises and flowers of all kinds. I hate to tell the owners, but deep beneath that swing lies the remains of our yellow parakeet.

Here's a picture of the front yard with a little tree he did plant. This is my niece Jalyn. Nope, I don't think that's the same tree.

 Here is regrettably, one of the only photos we have of the backyard and Juan the teensy tiny chihuahua. Dad planted fruit trees, orange, I believe.

The trees didn't survive to maturity. The family that bought the house from us were the ones that put in the pool. I would have died to have this thing! But then, there is no grass. It's a trade-off.

 Here's the back porch. They still have the same french doors that were there when we lived there. The laundry must be right behind the photographer.

 To whoever recently purchased 323 North Hunt Drive...This was a very happy home, not a perfect family, but one taught the values of hard work, and love for family above all else. I hope you enjoy the house, and if a random Davy Jones, David Cassidy, or Donny Osmond poster falls out of the closet in the back bedroom...sorry!

Time Travel Tuesdays~

Aunt Dora

I am anxious to introduce you to one of my favorite aunties of all time, my Aunt Dora! I love all of my Aunts, but you must admit that some stand out in your memory and Dora Dean Corbett Ellsworth was one of them. That's quite a long name for a little girl! I'll briefly tell you how it came to be.

Dora Dean Corbett was born November 30, 1916 in Provo Utah to Walter and Annie Dean Corbett. She was a twin to her her sister Lora Dean Corbett. Walter passed away just two months later from cancer. Four years later in Mesa, AZ,  their mother married George Franklin Ellsworth Jr. or Frank, as he was called. She had cared for his ailing wife Caroline, who passed away from  kidney disease.

Here are Lora and Dora at about age two. Aren't they darlings? Those hats they are wearing are completely back in style today! Just look at those kissable cheeks!

Here are the twins with their new sister Ruth Ellsworth (front). Dora is on the left, Lora on the right. The family never used the word "step" in referring to each other. Dora's personality shines through here. She was very out-going!

Dora inherited he mother's full lips and big, beautiful blue eyes. Here are Lora-left, and Dora-right holding their first-born sons Ralph Hunsaker (Lora's) and John Steverson (Dora's) who were born a few weeks apart in 1936.

Here is the whole family, I am guessing about 1939-40 just before my father left on his mission. You can see Aunt Dora's flamboyant style in the turban she is wearing. She was always dressed "to the nines"! 

Left to right: George, Naomi, Dora, Lora, Ruth, Martha, Annie, Joseph, Robert  (front), & Frank Ellsworth. A happy, beautiful family!

Here they are again in 1957. Aunt Dora's hair had turned the gorgeous white that I remember. That seems to be a family trait. Some, like my brother Richard have taken it to the extreme! See her bracelets? That's another thing I remember about her. She was always wearing lots of bracelets and had wonderful turquoise sets she wore too.

Back row L-R: Naomi, Dora, Lora, Martha, Ruth, & Robert.

Front row: Joseph, Frank, Annie, & George.

This is the Aunt Dora embedded in my memory. Stylish, dynamic, fun-loving, full of life, smiling, and generous. I can still hear her great ringing laughter in my mind!

She was a beautiful woman who loved her family. She was dearly loved as well. I would burst with excitement when my mother would tell me she was coming for a visit. She always made me feel so important! I have no doubt she loved me! Her sister Ruth had this to say about her, "One of Dora's greatest attributes was her dynamic personality. She could make friends easily and was a jolly person and could make a person laugh even when she herself had reason to be quite the other way. She was optimistic and faced adversity with courage and hope."

Sweet Aunt Dora passed away much too young at age 59. It was May 17, 1975, the month I graduated from high school. How we all missed her. My Dad would get tears in his eyes when he spoke of her.

Next week I will tell you the story of Aunt Dora's violin.

Time Travel Tuesday ~ Seventy Years Ago

June 5, 1942 ~ Mesa, Arizona

George Dean Ellsworth married Helen Hamblin in the Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In that historic and beautiful place my parents were sealed together not just "as long as you both shall live" but for Time and all Eternity. This knowledge has been very comforting to all of us since we lost Dad in 2003. I know with all of my heart that my dear father lives on in spirit. I know that he watches over us because I have felt that wonderful presence and spiritual confirmation. I know that we will all be resurrected and that this marriage that was sealed on Earth will continue on into the Eternities. Families are indeed forever and I am so glad to be part of this one!

The above photo has always been very dear to me. Look at the two of them! My father was one month shy of 21 years of age and my mother was not yet twenty. They look happy and Dad looked proud. (Posture! He always emphasized that, you know.) There was a war raging in Europe and the Pacific. Pearl Harbor had rocked their world only six months earlier. Through all of the uncertainty of the future they found each other and fell deeply in love. Their faith and the promise of Forever would carry them both through the next few trying years.

Does Mom look a bit wilted here? It was June in Arizona!

 The temple only had evaporative coolers then. Wow! Bless them all!

In this photo are my parents up front, behind them from left to right are middle row- Lora Ellsworth Hunsaker, Annie Dean Ellworth (Dad's mother), Ida Lee Hamblin (Mom's mother), back row- Naomi Ellsworth Harris, Roy Elmo Harris, George Franklin Ellsworth Jr. (Dad's father), & Alta Ellsworth Standage (Dad's aunt).  This must have been a very tender day for my Granny Hamblin. She had lost her sweetheart only 6 1/2 months earlier. How comforting the Gospel of Jesus Christ must have been to her on that day.

Aren't they a darling couple? Here they are a few months into married life. My mother has shared her memories of that day. This grapefruit tree, the sight of many family pictures, is where they stood that evening to greet their guests at the reception. It was in the front yard of the Ellsworth's home on North Hobson Street in Mesa. The property is still there but sadly the lovely bungalow home is not. For many years the old grapefruit tree stood in front of the apartments that stand there now,  just north of Pioneer Park. Is it still there? Mom recalls that Dad's sisters provided the music that night. She will have to remind me whether it was Ruth or Lora who played the piano. Dora played this violin. They also had a fun punch bowl. It was a block of ice with the "bowl" carved out of the center. It survived the heat of the night and kept that punch cold. The veil Mom wore was given to her by Dad's younger sister Naomi. She wore it on her wedding day one year earlier.

 I wanted to include this picture of Aunt Noni and Uncle Roy because it shows the veil and the Ellsworth home in the background as well. I am sure it was quite similar the night of Mom and Dad's reception; chairs borrowed from the church, flowers on the trellis, family gathered at home. It makes me long for simpler times! Do you notice someone on the front porch in a long dress? I have always wondered who that is and what they are carrying.

 

Later on that June night my parents heard a tapping at their downtown Mesa hotel window. One of Mom's sisters was calling, "Helen! Helen! Come outside! There is something I need to tell you!"

Psssh! Did they really think that the newlyweds were going to fall for the old Shivaree attempt? Not these two! It was customary for the bride and groom's friends to attempt a kidnapping and stage such antics as running the bride up and down Main Street in a wheel barrow and trying to keep the couple apart all  night long. I am glad they had the sense to stay inside that night!

I love these old family stories. I love my parents. How I wish my Dad were here today to celebrate 70 years of marriage with my Mom. I know he is with her though, just as surely as the sun rose this morning I know I will see him again and that our family will have an Eternity of love and togetherness!