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

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Papa’s Last Year

About a year before his death in September, 1914, my father, Chris Hansen, developed a bad cough. He had suffered an injury about two years earlier, while chopping a tree, that had required an operation. But he had recovered fully.

  The Delamar Gang. Richfield boys off to work in the Delamar gold mine in Nevada. Many died young from breathing the dust in the mine. Papa is second from right front row; Mama's brother Chris Larsen is second from left front row; her brother Joe is second from left in back row. Click for full image

   I remember that during this time, Papa used to break his own horses for work on the farm. Once in a while, he would drive us kids to school in a wagon pulled by horses that he was breaking in. The horses wanted to run, and sometimes would rear up. This would frighten me, and I would rather have walked all the way to school. Papa seemed strong and healthy at that time.
    Then he began to cough a lot. We didn’t know whether it was a bad cold or what, but he just could not get over it. Finally he went to Richfield to see doctors there, and they told him they couldn’t do anything for him, and so they sent him home.
    Then he went to Salt Lake to see more doctors. They told him he had consumption. That is what my mother wrote in her little history book. Franklin called it "miner’s consumption." It was later believed to be silicosis, brought on by breathing the dust in the Delamar gold mine in Nevada, where he had worked as a young man.

Papa, along with several other young men from Richfield, had gone to work in the Delamar Gold mine. Several of these young men later died at an early age from the same illness that Papa suffered from. In later years, the Delamar Gold Mine was called the "widow-maker." Visitors to the old mine site today will see a sign proclaiming this to be the former "widow-maker" mine.

    But the doctors told Papa he had consumption, which is another word for tuberculosis, and it was contagious. They told him to go home and live in a tent, and to stay far away from his children. Of course, we now believe that he wasn’t contagious at all.

Paul Christian Hansen Family. Standing, Paul. Seated l-r: Kirstine Marie Christensen, Hansena (Aunt Sena), Christian Andreas (my father), Martha (Aunt Martha). Click for full image.

    And so Papa lived in a tent for the last several months of his life, with no physical contact with his family.
    It was as early as March when we fixed up the tent. My father had just been building a living room addition to our cabin, and there was lumber left over that we kids had been using to build a fort to play in. We took some two by fours and made a floor for the tent. My mother was so concerned, and she tried to make his living arrangement as comfortable as possible. I don’t know what he used for a table. He must have had a cot to sleep on.
    Mama also put a little "mother’s rocker" in the tent for him to sit on. This was my mother’s favorite rocking chair. We put a little red chair next to the tent that I would sit in as I talked with him.
    I wanted so badly to go in and sit on his lap. And he wanted so badly for me to do it. But he didn’t dare, and I didn’t dare.

It was my responsibility–let me backtrack and say my "opportunity"–to carry his food tray to him. The tray was one of those big black drippers that we used to make six or eight loaves of bread in. I would take his food outside, and set the tray down. He would pick up this meal without touching the tray, and eat. Then he would set the dishes back on the tray, and I would carry it back inside.

Papa's boyhood home in Hjorring, Denmark, 1905. Click for full image.

 Inside, we would pour boiling water over the dishes. We had a wood-burning stove, and we always had two teakettles full of hot water on the stove. We would pour boiling water over the dishes when washing them.
    One day, when I was walking from the stove to the table, where we had the dish pans, the bottom fell out of the teakettle I was carrying (it was getting too old). The boiling water ran all down my leg, causing just great big burn blisters. One blister, that I rubbed and broke, had a scab on it for so long, just as big and as thick as a silver dollar. The ones I didn’t break healed quickly.
    I loved to sit and talk with my Papa. I was seven years old at this time, but I didn’t want to go to play. He’d say, "Well, maybe you’d better go in and help Mama now." I’d go in for a little while and then I’d come back out again.

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My father hired Ralph Baker, who had grown up in Boulder, and his wife, Grace. They were newlyweds. They needed a place to live, and they needed a job. So my dad hired them to work at the farm. Ralph was not overly ambitious, and he wasn’t that much of a farmer. Grace helped in the house. I remember that I would help her with the washing, and she would always say, "Now Vera, you have to dip it up and down–up and down– to make sure you rinse all the soap out." You see these little things that kids remember? To get all the soap out "rinse it up and down and up and down!" And so I would help her with the washing. And then I would go out and sit with my father.
    The doctors told my Papa to eat lots of cream, but he got so thin–so thin. He also had these big blue bottles of medication. I had no idea what they were–just medicine. Thinking back on it, it seems now like it must have been milk of magnesia.
    We would sit and visit. He talked about his time in Norway as a missionary. I was fascinated hearing about the land of the midnight sun. He described how the sun never set in mid-summer, and how it stayed dark all day in mid-winter. He remembered seeing children carrying lanterns on their way to school in the dark, and how they skipped and danced and sang as they went. He told me what a happy and cheerful people the Norwegians were.
    I remember odd little details of this time. For example, I hate to say this, but we had lots of flies. We had cattle and that. Papa would sit with his fly swatter, and as we talked, when flies came around, he would swat ‘em.

And I thought, "Oh, no, no, no!" I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to sit and talk to him. I felt he was dying. I felt he was going to die. I can’t remember him once being pessimistic or letting us know. He was always so cheerful. But this was the thing he always said, "I want you to always remember and be good to Mama. Be good to Mama." I’ll always remember that. "Mama needs you. Be good to Mama." And that was pretty much what he talked about. I felt he was dying, and I thought, "He knows he’s dying, but he doesn’t want us to be sad." I can’t ever remember him being pessimistic about it.
    Then he’d say, "You better go in and help Mama now."

I remember, one day, Mama was sewing this pretty dress. Usually, in those days she wore a skirt and a blouse. And here she was, making this pretty dress, and navy blue was not her color. But it was navy blue, sheer wool, with a pretty little lace collar, and a yoke, and two pleats, with a belt on it that she could leave off to make it fuller. She said to me, "I’ll tell you a secret, if you won’t tell anybody. We’re going to have a baby. Don’t tell anybody." And I said, "I won’t Mama, I won’t. I won’t tell a soul." And I didn’t tell a soul.
    Then the next time I talked to my best friend, Ruth Baker, she said, "Your Mother is having a baby, isn’t she?" I said "Who told you?" I went to Mama and I said, "I didn’t tell her. Ruth knows. I didn’t tell her." Mama said "I think her mother told her. It’s all right. It’s all right. Don’t worry."
    Then I knew how hard it was for Mama. Then I knew that she really did need me. She really needed me. She made this pretty dress. I think that she was making it for more than one reason. I think she knew that there would be a funeral, too. I think she knew. My Papa knew that Mama was going to have a baby. And that’s why he always said "Be good to Mama–be good to Mama."

Papa got progressively worse and worse, and was just in bed most of the time. He would sit up to eat, and he would sit in the little "mother’s rocker" to talk.
    As he got progressively worse, and fall was coming, we moved to Richfield. We went by wagon. The trip took about a week, and we went around the eastern end of the Boulder Mountain.
    When we got to Richfield, my mother hired someone to build up a wooden floor and walls for the tent, so that Papa could stand up in it. And we put a stove in it for warmth.
    Mama’s own mother, Grandma Larsen, died two months before my Papa died. And Christella, the youngest child in our family, was born a month after his death. So this was a very hard time for Mama.

My Papa, Chris Hansen, was only 37 years old when he died. He left a wife and eight small children behind. He only lived for six years after our family moved to Boulder, and yet he accomplished a great deal in that time. In life, he was an outgoing, friendly man, who loved books, and loved to sing. He loved to gather his family around him, with as many children as possible seated on his lap and knees. It seemed he never had enough knees. He was greatly missed.

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Christmas 1914

Christmas, 1914, stands out in my mind even yet for things which had happened that year as well as for what I always regarded at the "miracle" Christmas. After a long illness, my father died in September of 1914. About a month later, our youngest sister, Christella, was born. Earlier, in July, my Grandmother Larsen had passed away. It has been a long, hard year for Mother.
    We had moved from Boulder to Richfield in late summer to be nearer the doctor even though we all realized that our father had little or no chance of getting better. Expenses had been high, and no preparations had been made for Christmas.
    Moving had not been an adventure. The nine of us had to ride in a wagon pulled by a team over rough mountains. Father was dying. Mother was about seven months pregnant. We had room for necessities only. It had been hard to face leaving our home expecting never to return. I had given some of my choicest treasures to my best friend since I couldn't take them with me. The trip was only 100 miles, but by wagon that took about a week. It was bumpy, hot, cold, dusty, and miserable...

Uncle Joe died a few years after this Christmas and left his sister, my mother, enough money to build this house. Click for full image.   

 

 It must have been especially difficult for Mother to watch him waste away little by little. I never heard her complain. With the loneliness one feels from the loss of a life's mate, no money, Christmas so near, and a big family of little children, all of whom needed shoes and clothing, my mother was about as low in spirit as one could be. Gathering us all together in family council, Mother explained why there would be no Christmas at our house that year...
    Besides being rich and having a big house, Uncle Joe had an even better attraction. He and his wife had time for us. They both loved children, but had never been able to have any, so we spent lots of time going back and forth and they soon became like another set of parents. Their closeness helped to fill the gap left in the family by my father's passing.
    Unknown to us kids, Uncle Joe came to Mother and suggested that she allow them to make Christmas for us. They also asked if they might sleep at our house on Christmas Eve. Mother was overwhelmingly touched by their offer.
    When we awoke on Christmas morning, we could hardly believe our eyes... All we could see were new shoes for each of us, socks, under things, shirts, dresses, coats-and toys.
    I couldn't quite understand when Uncle Joe said, "You aren't half as happy as we are. This is the best Christmas we have ever had."

I look back on that time so many years ago and remember it as a Christmas miracle, and now I understand why. Christmas is serving, giving, and loving.

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