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 MY SCRIBBLINGS   
 FROM THE SUNNY SIDE 
        OF THE ROCK (1905)

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By Vera Hansen Johnson. Editor Joseph Naylor
ISBN 1888106212 August 1997
     1900s Southern Utah
Click Cover for full image               
Soft Cover 8.5 x 11 100p            See Pages for Google, Yahoo, MSN 1   2   3   4 

Introduction  Moving To Boulder   We Were Pioneers
 Page 2:  Shoo Fly!  Summer In Salt Lake City  Page 3  Papa’s Last Year   Christmas, 1914 

  Hansen Children shortly after their father died in 1914.
Back l-r: Omer, George, Franklin. Front l-r: Vera, Esther, Christella, Reed, Vern. Click for full image 

 In early 1900s, Vera Hansen was but an eight-year-old girl, yet she was the oldest female child in the family. When her father died of miner's lung, her mother told Vera she would have to assume great responsibility for her many young brothers and sisters. Times were hard. Her sensitive and thoughtful mother told Vera to take some time each day and write stories about her life. These are those stories. Nephew Joe Naylor, living in Connecticut, found his long-lost, ninety-year-old aunt Vera in Utah in 1994 and they began a telephone correspondence in which she told him story after story of her childhood and growing up in one of the most geographically inaccessible areas of the United States-Boulder, Utah. During extensive long distance calls between Joe Naylor and Vera, these stories were recorded by Joe. Many photos are included, both from the early 1900s and the mid-1990s.

Introduction

Christian Andreas Hansen. May 24, 1877-Sep. 19, 1914. Click for full image.   

Because my father died young and left my mother a widow with eight small children, I, as the oldest girl, had to assume a great deal of responsibility at a very early age. My mother understood that this was not always easy for me, and so she gave me a notebook and pencil, and encouraged me to seek privacy when I needed to, and to write down what I felt and observed. I did as my mother encouraged me to do, and I have continued writing my feelings and observations in notebooks throughout the years. Because I felt that my handwriting was not the best, I have called these notebooks, my Scribblings.  Vera Hansen Johnson

Moving To Boulder

Mama, I’m scared!" cried Franklin and Omer, as they watched their Papa ahead of them in the little red wagon. Papa was desperately trying to control the horses, as they careened down the steep, slick rock descent of the Claude V. Baker cut-off toward our new home in Boulder.
    "That’s all right," cried Mama back to them, "I’m scared, too!"

Vera Hansen. Click for full image.
    It was in the early spring of 1908. My parents, Chris and Annie Hansen, were moving our family from Richfield to Boulder, Utah. I was only a year and a half old, as was my twin brother, Vern. My older brothers, Franklin and Omer, were six and four.
    Both my parents had grown up in Richfield. Chris was born in Denmark, and came to America with his family when he was five years old. Annie was a Larsen, and she was also of Danish ancestry.
    Chris had worked in the gold mines as a younger man, and had decided he would rather have his children grow up on a cattle ranch in Boulder than face the prospect of going to work in the gold mines. Annie had also worked in the mines as a young woman, baking for the miners.
    They owned a house and yard in town, and Chris had been working as the water master in Richfield, which was a thankless job, because people were always fighting over water.
    Walter Baker, who owned a ranch with a log cabin in Boulder wanted to move back to Richfield. He described what a beautiful spot Boulder was, and what lush grazing there was for cattle on the Boulder Mountain.
    After a trip to Boulder, Chris arranged to trade his home in Richfield for the Ranch in Boulder. Annie had not made the trip to Boulder. The household furniture was sent ahead with a large wagon, and the family followed later in what was always called "The Little Red Wagon" by our family.
    Although our family was poor, Annie was a naturally elegant young woman. She was a trained dress maker, and she made beautiful clothes. She was tall and walked with a proud bearing.
    We traveled by way of Escalante, as there was no passable wagon road over the Boulder Mountain at that time. The trip took about two weeks and was relatively uneventful until we reached Escalante.
    The 35 miles from Escalante to Boulder is some of the wildest, most spectacular wilderness anywhere in the world.
    Chris and Annie traveled with four small children, and Annie was pregnant with a fifth. When we began our journey across the last 35 miles of slick rock and deep canyons, she was badly frightened. Much of the way she refused to ride in the wagon, but preferred to walk with the children. The two older boys, Franklin and Omer, walked beside her, holding her long skirt on either side. She carried the young twins, Vern and myself, in her arms.

In places the trail was so steep that the wagon had to be emptied for the horses to make it up.
    We passed colorful landmarks, such as "Thompson’s Turnover," where an early settler of Boulder, a Mr. Thompson, had lost his wagon, his possessions, and a team of horses. His horses and wagon slid off the trail into a deep gorge. Mr. Thompson managed to jump off the wagon and was lucky not to have lost his life.
    Late on the last day of our journey, with the Boulder valley just coming into view, Papa had to make a difficult decision. We could follow the "home bench," which was the easy approach into Boulder, but would mean another day on the trail, or we could take the treacherous Claude V. Baker cut-off. If we took the steep, more direct cut-off into Boulder, we could reach our new home that evening.
    Papa chose the cut-off. As he descended the steep trail over the slick rock, he crossed-locked the wheels of the wagon to slow it down. Still the wagon’s wheels kept hitting the horses’ heels. It was a wild, dangerous ride down. Mama walked behind the wagon, with Franklin and Omer hanging on to her long skirt. She still carried Vern and me, one baby in each arm. And so it was that all the way down Franklin and Omer were crying "Mama, I’m scared!" And Mama kept crying back, "That’s all right. I’m scared too!"
    We made it to our new home by midnight. Franklin has written a beautiful description of his memory of that night. He tells of the full moon that lit the apricot blossoms that bloomed in the orchard next to our log cabin. He describes how sunburned Vern and I were, and how delighted we were to sleep in our own bed that night, which had been shipped ahead from Richfield.
    Mama often said later that we should have moved to Idaho instead of to Boulder! She told Papa that she would only stay for 10 years, and that after that she never wanted to see Boulder again as long as she lived!
    Providence, however, had planned differently for Mama. Papa lived for only six years after we moved to Boulder. By that time the family had grown to eight children.
    Mama lived the rest of her life in Boulder and was able to keep the ranch and raise her eight children. She served for many years as the Postmaster in Boulder, and ran the Post Office from our home. She could always be counted on to help a neighbor or friend in need, and over the years she developed a deep love for Boulder and its people.
    Her life was hard. She raised a large family by herself. She ran a ranch with the help of her children in a town that was probably the most isolated town in the United States.
    She was a truly remarkable woman.

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We Were Pioneers

Many years ago, when I was just a little girl, I lived with my family in a small country town called Boulder, Utah, in Garfield County. It was named Boulder because there were so many big rocks, little rocks, in fact all sizes of black rocks–the kind called boulders all around–especially on the hills and the mountains there. (Lava rocks, round and mostly smooth.)
    We lived on a farm, so we did not have any close neighbors. So did all the other people, and we did not have any other children to play with because they lived too far away for us to walk to their homes. We only saw them when we went to church on Sunday. As we grew older we could spend some time at their houses playing during the summer. My best friend lived about a half mile away–one of our closest neighbors.
    But we were a happy family. I had three brothers to play with, and there were my mother and father. We were not lonely.
 
  Ruth Baker & Vera Hansen. First day of school picture taken by teacher Mr. Chestnut.
Click for full image.    

    Papa’s name was Christian, Mama called him Chris. His friends called him Brother Hansen. Mama’s name was Annie. In Boulder everybody always called my parents Sister and Brother Hansen–or was it Brother and Sister Hansen? Their friends in Richfield called them Chris and Annie (Mama’s close friends called her Ann. She liked that better than Annie.) She said in all the years she lived in Boulder, nobody had ever called her by her first name. She said she wished some would have felt close enough to use her first name. I suggested people probably sort of looked up to them and it was showing respect. She was too modest to think that. My brothers were Franklin, the oldest; next was Omer (whose twin brother, Owen, died in infancy) and Vern, who was my twin. We hadn’t lived there many months when Mama had a new baby boy. They named him George. My name is Vera.
    Papa had blue eyes and blond hair. Franklin had blue eyes and dark (not black) hair. Omer had dark brown eyes and dark hair, Vern had light brown eyes and light brown hair. George had brown eyes and almost no hair. (When it grew in it was brown.) Mama had real dark brown eyes and long, I thought, black hair. She told me it was not black, but very dark brown. I had, much to my dismay, white hair, straight, always in two long braids, except on Sundays, when Mama put it up with catalog paper. I hated sleeping with papers, but liked the curls. Mama said my hair was not white, but blond like Papa’s. I wished it could have been brown and naturally curly like Ruth’s. Ruth was my best, and only, friend at that time.

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