GETTING TOGETHER WITH YESTERDAY ~~~ Wilma Morley Despain~~~Third Place Anecdote ~~Saga of the Sanpitch 1985

 Papa's blacksmith shop was not under a spreading chestnut tree, but it was under a huge, very old poplar that shaded most of our backyard on hot afternoons. The limbs were perfect for climbing and for treehouses and for men to gather under while Papa shoed their horses. 

It was a popular place because Papa knew all about horses, repairing machinery, harnesses or even knowing what to do for sick horses and other animals. Most children now think horseshoes are to hang over doors, to bring good luck, and that horseshoe nails are for making rings for their fingers. 

There was no electricity then. It was always hot in Papa's shop, with a fire blazing, white hot, on the sturdy rock and cement hearth. 

A large hood was supposed to take all smoke and heat outside, but it still hung heavy as I stood pumping the big bellows that blew the fire and kept it from burning low or lazy. Papa heated the shoes in the fire and lifted them out when ready with a big pair of tongs. They would spit and protest when he dunked them into a bucket of cold water after shaping them to fit, just so, on each horse. He used a big sledgehammer to do this. Sometimes he had to trim the hooves of each horse for a perfect fit. He did this with a huge, flat knife with a curved handle. I was afraid to watch him pound the long horseshoe nails into the horses' feet, and a few times (but very few) a tiny bit of the nail would hit the quick of a foot, Then the horses would whinny and squeal and try to get their foot away from Papa, but he knew how to hold them between his knees and on his leather apron so they could not get away.

 Papa has been gone many years and so has his shop, but, oh, Papa, I remember the lessons taught there by you and of feeling so secure because you were so strong.

TOUCHES ON TIME ~~~ Wilma Morley Despain ~~~ Centerfield, Utah ~~~ First Place Essay ~~~ Saga of the Sanpitch

 Like a mill dam opened, some of my prized memories of early childhood flood the beaches of my valley home today. Here in this, one of few, quiet places where the whine of freeway has not reached suburbia, I look into my valley and see simulated cowboys and Indians playing at pioneering. They do this one day a year to commemorate the day our brave settlers of so long ago reached this oasis, this haven from the persecution of mobs, of being driven from county to county and from state to state. 

The day Brigham Young, a second Moses, looked down upon another valley and said, “This Is The Place! This is the place at last, where the devil cannot dig us out!”  These loved ones, who have never really left us, needed more room, more land, and more products that could be supplied from new areas, new land, to complete the economy and provide jobs for all. This ‘second place’ for many of my own, this valley was not founded or settled by men, or Mormons, who felt they were “Holier than thou,” but by those who were ‘thriftier.’ There was no ‘placed domesticity’ waiting for them here, they had to build it and dig it out of a vast sage plain that had giant steps that fell from the mountains.

 Then, as now, the compensations of just seeing ‘this place’ of wild beauty, of unbroken silence, of lilac mountain guards, with white shawls upon their big shoulders, paid enough then to those who endured until they found it. Like all pioneers, they had heard the clock of history strokes and they had counted the strokes, everyone! 

There were told to ‘go,’ and they did just that, with little else but willing hearts and their newfound faith. Though the time of year was premature and in the dead of winter, they started their new homes at a sacrifice of lives and equipment and finances. They were cold, hungry, and in despair many times. Yes, some even dared to doubt, but they beat their doubts into plow shares and plowed them under the desert earth. They used dung of cattle and buffalo for fuel when snows were so deep that they could not log from nearby hills. Their adobes, made of prairie mud and sod of valley were called ‘desert marble,’ their hard-packed dirt floors were swept with corn husk brooms. Their floors, like their adobes, were concrete hard because they were baked by desert wind and sun. 

They heard the fluting of the frogs and the whine of desert insects that rose from belly-high, lush grasses in summer. They heard the lonely howl of wolves and coyotes, and other animal predators, who also hunted to seek out a living in winter. The barbed wire did not ring their portioned-out land then, like protective moats. Fences were not used until land grabbers and homesteaders killed off most of the cowboys and turned them into ranches. Herds roamed at will and everything was shared. 

Against the odds of nature they planted, they reaped and they succeeded. They learned to hold the water, after high places had released it from winter storage, then turned it into ditches and furrows to relieve the blistered earth, all this they did at a given time and given day for their water turns. They built on firm foundations from nearby logs and from stone from ‘soon to be’ holy, oolite hill. They built schools, Temple, churches, and homes until it became the most beautiful city in the world, to them, and not in just the West. 

The courage of ordinary people built an extraordinary city in spite of all these hostile elements! Like Samson, in his blindness, they were of the blind who will not see any fault in what they love, and they forged ahead in spite of all the obstacles that they should have seen, and given into. This “second place”, this unbearably picturesque valley, came to me, not on a silver platter, but on hard-won land made livable to tools used by my own. The land was preordained to be kept hidden and saved for those who would pay the price.

 I do have not many landmarks in my great-grandparent's world, they take me too far back and many have been lost to us through neglect. Such lovely homes and businesses, Temples built in Nauvoo and Kirtland. Land and homes in Far West and Quincy and many more things that had been theirs  Wealthy, they left it all behind or had given it to the cause of freedom to worship as they chose. They left it to carry this newfound, precious gift of life and light to me and mine. 

We say we are grateful for it. But can our gratitude for all the aforementioned be portrayed in one day a year, in parades where bands play, where marchers march with proud steps and stances and chests out like proud, strutting, pewter pigeons? It is well to honor them publicity, it is only proper that we do, and to sing and dramatize their brave deeds, but what of the writing of these stories, tributes, and eulogies to their fair names? What about the research required for their history and genealogy? It can be lost if told only by word and action. Can the precious rooms of my dear, little grandmother, Anna Maria, be staged, with proper props, in the pageant? These rooms she flavored as her rose-petaled sachet bags flavored her handkerchiefs and under things. Could it ever portray her poetry of lace, quilting, rug-making, beaded gloves, and expert seamstress sewing and tailoring? No, it must be written down, for those who come after, to cherish and remember.

 Can the spotlight show her leaning figure as it bent above the flame to make food sweet for loved ones, even in later years with her fine old hand and pain-disabled knees? Can beauty queens on floats show their gentility, inherited and incurable, and given freely to others? She walked like a queen in her hand-sewn calico gowns, her crown was of ebony-streaked silver when I first remember her. She was wrinkled even then, like a folded bulb, but her dark eyes and gentle laughter kept one from noticing that she was not as young as she sounded. Can simulated trials and hard labor portray her fashioning buckskin gloves from deerskins tanned by her own hand? By her working salt and the animal’s brains into the bloody hides and then twisting and chewing until it was soft? 

Can I, one of the keepers of the keys, one of the beneficiaries of this unique legacy, ever write enough or light an eternal flame that is worthy of their love, their sacrifices, that the years cannot consume? These treasured memories that hearts and minds should not jettison, were given to us by love’s largess. Neither time nor rust can destroy them if we will keep them alive by writing and telling about them.

 Sometimes, in the placid sweetness of my life, and of the writing of and reading the dear pages about my forebears I wonder if they came west to join their newfound religion or to endure it? They smoothed the way and our duty and way are clear. We should celebrate, yes, but also teach reverence, respect, and humility for the ones who have gone before. I try again to establish the present and the present moves on because before I can say, “I am,” “I was!” The wind has magic in it, and the air is full of birdsong because I hear the sweet shower of notes from them as they rise, to greater heights. Magpies fly about and return, like ranging dogs, to check on me, for they are sure that I am lost too! The sky is so hurtfully blue, with the sun at the summer solstice, and the days still roll across from canyon to canyon. Being a woman of all seasons I should not cling to each one and dread seeing them creep back and forth and watch the sun slowly creep southward again with the fear of a cold blast. Why? Because even in winter months my valley can keep gulping sunsets that are literally fired on high.

 In this desert Eden of mine where these same indescribable unmatched anywhere, western sunsets will be mirrored like fire in the same tumbling streams that mirror deer that gather to drink from the banks. My little Grandma, my Maternal Love, used to say, “The latch string is always out, but for times when we need to pull it inside for safety and for solitude and rest.”  On a day like today, she left her valley, her mountains, a tired little lady, but very well content. She just pulled in the “latch string” and went to sleep. So let it be here in our valleys, that is where peace begins, at home, and may we, in all our grasping and getting remember what we have got, by preserving it, preparing for those to still come, with welcome on the mat and “latch string never pulled in!” 

Wilma Morley Despain, 77, died March 9, 1992 in Bountiful, Utah.

~~~ History and Importance of the "Saga Of The Sanpitch"

 

THE STORY OF THE SAGA OF SANPITCH 

Ruth D. Scow Senior First Place Short Story The theme for his twenty-fifth volume of The Saga of the Sanpitch. "Silver Sunsets," seems aptly chosen. During these 24 years, this little annual magazine has accomplished much in telling many personal histories that have been written by Sanpete residents and former residents. Its winning entries have recorded over 2600 pages of our history that would never have been written—poems, essays, anecdotes and stories (all documented)~had it not been for the Saga. 

Also, it has recorded over 800 winning entries and reproduced over 550 precious, one-of-a-kind pictures of Sanpete County's past. In 1969, when Richard and Nadine Nibley formed the Sanpete Development Corporation to preserve the old Ephraim Coop building, it seemed logical that if citizens of Sanpete County generally were remembering their pioneer heritage, the possibilities of restoring the old pioneer building might be greater. So at the conclusion of a visit to the home of Ross and Linnie Findlay by Stake President Vernon L. Kunz and his counselor, R. Clair Anderson, Linnie asked if it might be a good idea to have a writing contest about the early settlement of these valleys. As he walked out and closed the door, President Anderson replied, "Fine, you be chairman." 

It was a challenge, and Linnie enlisted the help of Eleanor Madsen. President Kunz was often called on for guidance as Linnie and Eleanor visited each Stake Presidency and High Council in the county. Some suggested that the writing of this type of history should be left to the Daughters of the Pioneers, but the majority thought that contributions by the men might also add a good dimension. 

Ross Findlay printed the first issues of The Saga at Snow College, with full support and encouragement of the late President, Floyd Holm. Sanpete South Stake loaned the first money for prizes and to pay the typist, and everything else was volunteered. Dr. H.B. McQuarrie provided the first cover picture.  

When the contest was announced, there were just two or three weeks before the deadline for submitting entries for that first volume. Still, eleven entries were submitted, and judges were selected from former residents of Sanpete County. Nine entries were chosen for publication. 

With the sale of that first volume at cents per copy, the money was repaid to the Stake, and a small scholarship was presented to Snow College. There was a little money left for another year, thus the Saga of the Sanpitch was born. 

This volume is also a rare listing of 126 nicknames that were used to identify the people of Ephraim. Linnie and her husband Ross, with help from others, were the stabilizing leaders of the next four volumes (1969-1973). She said: When my husband and I came to Sanpete, we discovered here a quality that seemed to be unique in this area . . . a local pride mixed with a goodly concern for all people. A humility that can accomplish many things that would lie dormant in other places. It is a quality we have been trying to define because Utah and the west are full of pioneers, their descendants, and many stories, but there is something that makes anyone who has ever lived here proud of his heritage. 

Called by the Stake Presidency, Ruth C. Scow became the chairman of the next three volumes (1974- 1977). 

Volume 6 (1974) showed pictures taken from glass-plate negatives photographed by George Edward Anderson. Rell Francis, Springville photographer, and collector, donated copies made from these negatives. These copies showed the construction of the Manti Temple (1877-1888). Thirty-one winning entries were included in this volume. 

Volume 7 (1975) contained photos of all the early schoolhouses in Sanpete, with a great variety of winning entries (including a report card, handwritten, dated February 27, 1857). That year there were so many entries that in order to get the winning ones published the print of the Saga was reduced.

 The theme for Volume 8 (1976) was "Sanpete Celebrations." This year the format was enlarged to accommodate a Senior Division. Most every Sanpete town was represented. Included was a beautiful "Certificate of Marriage," which hung on a wall of a house in Chester. The lady of the house agreed to lend it. She lifted it off the wall; Max Call of Manti, took its picture, and it was returned it to its owner that night. Lillian H. Fox became the chairman of the Saga committee for the next five volumes, 9 to 13,(1977 to 1981). 

The pages of the Saga have always been held together by staples; thus several of these volumes had reduced-size print, but the stories they told of sacrifice, humility, dedication, caring, and sharing with neighbors, and their love of God were greatly shown. Among the photos reproduced were Sanpete's old church buildings. 

Volume 13 contains the story of Isaac Morley (Father Morley) who led the first settlers to this Sanpete Valley. This entry was written by his great-granddaughter Wilma M. Despain. Another entry, "Fairview Fort," was by Betty Ramsey. There were other exciting, worthwhile, and well-written entries. The volumes of the Saga now began to gain national recognition as an example of volunteer work that records a history of an area year after year. All entries cannot be published; however, a copy of all unused entries is filed and hopefully someday will appear in print. The knowledge they contain is priceless. 

The cover of Volume 14 (1982) has a line drawing of Sterling's first schoolhouse. The artist chairman was Pamela Jensen, Sterling Utah. She says, "This year's entries have been staggering, more than could be hoped for or expected . . . even the pictures were popping out of nowhere, much to my delight . . . I have   always enjoyed a good picture section." She then thanked all who had entered the writing contest and had taken the time to find pictures. 

Pamela continued as chairman for 1983, Volume 15. "It isn't often a person gets the opportunity to say thank you in print, but I can and do thank the Saga committee for hours of tireless work, the printers for keeping expenses down, the stores who give us donated space, and especially the writers who search through old documents, histories, and remember to put those stories down on paper in such a way as to make us live, see and feel the past." 

Volume 16, (1984) was copyrighted by Eleanor P. Madsen. Pamela had gone with her husband and family to live in Nevada. Eleanor wrote that now they were at a loss as to whether the Saga was to continue. Then they remembered the old saying, "Three heads are better than one," so the three previous chairmen, Eleanor, Lillian, and Ruth decided that the Saga must continue. By dividing 1983 responsibilities they felt they could do it. And again they did. 1983 was Sanpete's disastrous water year. Albert Antrei wrote an essay, "The Neverlasting Hills," published but not entered in the contest. 

In 1985 the Manti Temple was rededicated. Besides the winning entries of that year, the Saga also had a section telling the history of the Manti Temple plus many Temple pictures. Inside the cover was a picture of C.C.A. Christensen's famous painting that hangs in the Temple. This painting, done in the latter 1850s was of the Indian campground in the forefront and the bare gray hill that juts down into the valley in the background. 

Eleanor and her co-chairmen again divided their responsibilities. "We feel that the Saga is continuing to grow in popularity. We hope others will develop the love we have for this book so that it may continue to serve its purpose!" 

Volume 18 (1986) had for its cover a collection of varied dance programs and entertainments from Sanpete County. It included some 115 pages. Mardene Thayne was the designer. This year it was noted that "each additional volume of the Saga brings new writers and new readers." 

Historical groups and libraries, as well as individuals, look forward to each new addition. Even the elementary and middle schools in South and North Sanpete are using the Saga in their Utah history classes. Eleanor P. Madsen continued as chairman, with Ruth Scow and Lillian Fox as committee members. Linnie was the treasurer with Diana Major Spencer as editor; Rae Ann R. Tibbs was responsible for the typing. This was a happy book of dancing, entertainment, open-air dance halls, and orchestras, all of which brought to the reader memories of the past. This was the year the Saga related to the theme of "Dancing in Sanpete County." The winning entries were published in their various categories in the usual way. A section giving some additional information and pictures on dancing in our County concludes the volume of 138 pages, thus preserving the fast-disappearing stories of this Sanpete Valley. 

Volume 19 (1987) had the theme, "Memories of Snow College" in recognition of Snow's 100th anniversary. "Snow is very dear to the hearts of all who have received learning through its doors. It is basic to the economy of Sanpete County. Its cultural influence is felt near and far. The faculty and staff who have served there through the years, as well as those who now serve, have added great dimensions to the lives of its students." This volume contains 39 entries plus 19 Snow College pictures, including photos of the presidents of Snow. 

In 1988, Volume 20, the chairman found that more help was needed so three chairmen were selected: Lillian H. Fox, Eleanor P. Madsen, and Ruth C Scow. Linnie Findlay continued as treasurer and Diana Major Spencer was the editor. The script committee was Norma S. Barton and Martha Rae Olsen. The judges were from Ephraim. As usual, the entries were written about various Sanpete topics and came from Preston, Idaho;   Tacoma, Washington; Mesa Arizona; Mt. View and Santa Maria, California; and from Salt Lake City, Orem Monroe, West Valley, Sandy, and Richfield, Utah, plus entries from almost all of Sanpete's towns.

 "Campfire Tales" was the theme chosen for Volume 21 (1989). Larry Nielson did the cover, which depicted two Indians in their canoe. He also contributed a line drawing of a runaway on the mountain. Written entries were very interesting and challenging, making for worthwhile reading. That year winning entries numbered 42, with 31 photos, and 137 pages. All this was a great addition to Sanpete history and to the Saga volumes which had gone before. 

Volume 22 (1990) had as its theme "Prelude to Sanpete." Eleanor was again chairman with the same committee members. It told of the folks of many different cultures and countries, and also from the eastern United States, and their efforts to conquer the untamed wilderness. The cover painting was by Sandra Johnson, "First Winter in Manti."

 Volume 23, (1991), with the theme, "Cultural Arts" paid tribute to all the folks who have made our lives better, who have touched our lives with their words, their music, their paintings, their teaching, and their skills. The cover of this volume is a graphic reminder of our Cultural arts and blessings here in Sanpete. There were 41 winning entries and 51 pictures. 

Volume 24 (1992) had as its theme "From Peas to Parachutes and Hats to Harnesses." This volume was about ancestors who found much happiness in their work and learned that their lives were satisfying to them because they were creating industries and building businesses for future generations. They were learning, growing, building, and watching their dreams come true. The cover depicts the diversity of businesses that existed in the early days of Sanpete. The artist is Ned J. Ericksen, Moroni. 

This year, 1993, Volume 25 has the theme "Silver Sunsets," in commemoration of a quarter century of historical writing about Sanpete County. Many of its authors have died, but they have left their remembrances, their thinking, and their style of writing for all of us who love this county and its people. With the publication of this little annual magazine, history has been preserved in stories, anecdotes, historical essays, and rememberings, for those who come after. The pictures are also a kaleidoscope of Sanpete people, their thinking, doing, enjoyment—in fact their lives. 

The Saga of the Sanpitch has come full circle with a quarter century of publications. Linnie Findlay is again the chairman of Volume 25 of the Saga of the Sanpitch. Her work with the Saga spans 23 years. Appreciation is due to all the many contributors who have entered this contest over the years. They have done a great service to future generations. 

Having a complete set of these volumes makes for a collector's item. Long live the Saga of the Sanpitch!