I Remember Mama
When I was very young I read a book with an intriguing title. When I had finished it, I thought to myself "that Mama could't hold a candle to mine." The name of the book was "I Remember Mama". So with apologies to that author, I will recall how "I Remember Mama".
My first recollection of Mama was when she no longer had the radiant beauty of youth for the advent of my birth took place in her 45th year. But I was to know a more radiant beauty . . . a beauty that came from her soul.
Long before my introduction into the family, way back in the summer of 1889, her handsome husband who she married in the Logan Temple on July 22, 1885, departed for a Mission to the Southern States leaving her the responsibility of caring for their three children and to assist with financial aid and spiritual encouragement for two years.
Then in 1893 she and her four children accompanied her husband to Montpelier to officiate in the many duties of a Bishop's wife. It was in this capacity that she distinguished herself, not only in caring for her fast increasing family, but inmaintaining an open house for the accomodation and entertainment of Church officials, friends and strangers. My brothers tell the story of how they ight be put to bed in one bad only to find themselves in quite another upon awaking, becuase their bed had been relinquished to someone who came along in the meantie. In this calling Mama served with dignity for nineteen long years. In addition, she did her part as Counselor to President of Relief Society and as a member of the Stake Board and, years later, as Counselor iin the Stake Relief Society i the newly organized Montpelier Stake. Mama's table was a banquet table more often that not near the weekends when the General Authorities traveled to Montpelier where they were put up in great style, then escorted to Star Valley for conferences, thence back to Mama's bounteous table for more good meals before departing for Salt Lake.
I remember Mama's basket of food covered with snow-while napkins, that were distributed each Sunday morning to the needy, delivered by the boys on their way to Sunday assignments.
I remember Mama best from about 1913 when the family moved back to the big farm land in Georgetown where the eight boys could find constructive occupation and be kept busy for idleness had no place in their lives. It was here that the real test of hard work began for the farm life was not easy and they had left a beautiful home with comparative comfort which boasted conveniences, not know to many, one luxury being a real honest-to-goodness bathtub, claimed to be the first in Bear Lake.
Mama was up to the challenge for she had come to Bear Lake with pioneer parents and settled first in Bloomington, then Bennington, and later in Three Mile Creek where the family secured a large acreage of land. I remember well, Mama's childhood home constructed of logs and it had a cold, cold cellar with funny little steps leading down below where the ilk, cheese and butter were stored. I remember Grandmother and Grandfather Dunn and their industrious way of life; a quality passed on to their great family. Grandmother taught me to darn socks and I could understand then how Mama had been taught to make the knitting needles fly, for the holes in the socks must be filled with precision-like stitches, not merey filled with wad of yarn.
I remember Mama's hands! Hands so strong and yet so gentle . . . I was fascinated by those hands as they literally flew through their many tasks. hands that were as adept at smoothing the brow of a feverish child as manipulating the great blocks of ice in her ice cream factory. hands that could delicately pluck the finest down feathers from a goose as proficiently as they could hoist the heavy goose. The down feathers to be fashioned into soft, downy pillows for the comfort of many. hands that softly cradled a tiny, sickly chicken, or duck, or turkey until it was gently wrapped in a warm flannel cloth and tucked in the warming oven where we were as apt to find these little creatures as were to find food. hands that could form perfect molds of butter. I never could figure out how Mama could get butter into the extreme corners of the mold when my childish had was so incompetent at the feat. Those mods of butter grew into small yellow mountains on the kitchen table as she readied them for market for behind those sparkling dark eyes and steady brow was a keen, alert mind and an eye for business and thus the family income was supplemented. It always bothered me that she gave all the buttermilk away, free of charge, when it tasted as good as the butter! It was her business ability that led to the formation of an ice cream factory from which hundreds of gallons of a variety of flavors were shipped to market each year. Sometimes, right in the middle of the busiest day, there would be three rings, which was our signal on the old fashioned telephone, indicating a call of distress from a worried mother of a sick child, or other needy person, and then as likely as not, Mama would accompany the heavy tubs of ice cream on the 4:30 Ping Pong to answer the call.
I remember Mama's dinner parties . . .not the fancy, frilly kind with sterling silver, expensive linen, china and candles but the bounteous table laden with good, solid nutritious food for she still maintained the open house for which she was famous, and we might have guests anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. I remember particularly the relatives arriving from Utah to spend their vacation at the FARM! It was my cue, upon their arrival, whether it was to be temporary or lengthy stay, to get out the fresh tablecloth and Mama, after cordialities, would dash to the garden, make the rounds of the pea patch, the potato plot and on her return, her nimble fingers would pluck a head of lettuce and a few plump radishes and, if luck were with her, she could even make it to the nearby brook for a whisk of fresh watercress, be back in a flash and have a delicious meal prepared by the time the guests were settled in comfort. The following morning, as all mornings, when friends and family entered the big comfortable kitchen they were greeted by the tantalizing aroma of a delicious breakfast as the light fluffy biscuits, created with the dexterity of a french chef, would almost magically float to the table where they seemed to disappear as if by evaporation only to be replaced from that over accommodating oven.
I remember the service berry and chokecherry picking events when those hands could reach the highest limbs where the choice fruit grew and before anyone else could get a good start, Mama's pail would be overflowing.
I remember Mama's Thanksgiving feasts with not only the traditional turkey, but a plump goose and the usual stuffing . . .then after a plentiful meal along came the rimmings . . . plum pudding, fruit cake (maybe two varieties) and mince pie. Before Thanksgiving had arrived there had been hundreds of pounds of turkeys, butchered, plucked and dressed for the holiday social functions of many clubs and organizations, the task being accomplished with lightning speed by the agility of my Mama's hands. As I watched, spellbound, the dunking of the great birds in scalding water only thing I really didn't like was the smell of turkey feathers and hot water! With the speed of Mama's hands the feathers seemed to practically fall out of those turkeys. With the remuneration Mama received from this difficult task her children were bound to have a joyous Christmas. And so we did!
By this time Mama's hands were becoming calloused, worn and old. I wondered if my Mama had ever had pretty hands like the hands of the beautiful women I saw in my picture books. And then it happened! I was rummaging in a drawer filled with pictures and way down at the bottom, underneath lots of others that I had gazed at many times before, I came across a picture of a handsome couple with the man sitting down in a chair and a beautiful, young, radiant maiden standing by his side. One of her dedicated hands was flung affectionately across his shoulder and the other nestled at her side in the silken folds of her wedding gown and, that dress, though beautiful, was no match for the delicate shapely hand that caressed it. There was my beautiful, young radiant mother with beautiful, young, fragile hands. I remember Mana's modesty as I cried in delight.
So I came to know her true propose in life . . .devotion to humanity with first and foremost, her dedication to husband and children regardless of the nature of the demand. So the power and strength of Mama's hands became a legend to me not only as a measure of the hard work she accomplished but of her spirituality as she clasped them as we knelt around the table each morning in family prayer, as she studied her Relief Society lessons, she read the scripture, as she raised them to sustain the authorities of the Church, as she administered to the needs of the sick, the needy and downtrodden. The memory of those hands of Mama serve to remind me of her abiding faith, her honest coviction and her testimony of the truth. Even as the hands of Christ bore the mark of the nails so my Mana's hands bore the mark of her life-long service to her fellowmen.
And as he lay in final repose and I saw those hands, weatherbeaten, worn and old from her earthly toil, the wonder of the Resurrection was unfolded before me and I knew the magnificent spirit which she had inherited and developed into a wonderful personality, modest, graceful and beautiful, would be reunited with a perfect body and once again she would clasp the hands of her loved ones with those dainty, fragile, dedicated hands.
And this is how "I Remember Mama!"
