1926-2014 Georgean Olcott Warby

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Calvin Warby
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THE SAGA OF THE WISH BOOK

-- Georgean Olcott Warby, 1926-2014

I grew up in the era and hey-day of the Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery Ward Catalogues. Those were magical books and the day one of them arrived in the mail was an exciting, red-letter day. No time was wasted before we were pouring through the thick book, as with a fine-toothed comb, beginning with the beautiful, slick, colorful cover; completely through all those hundreds of fantastic pages. Those books came to be lovingly called, “The Wish Books.”

To us in Clear Creek Canyon, where electricity hadn’t reached us yet, most of the appliances and other articles were as fanciful and futuristic as what we see on “Star Wars” today. Imagine! Washers that washed the clothes, and even wrung the water out of them; refrigerators that you didn’t have to put ice in, but would make ice all by themselves; toasters that would pop up the toast when it was done just right and at the same time turn the toaster off; lamps that burned without kerosene, and bathrooms located right inside the house! And all of those scandalous pictures of girdles and panties and bras that we hardly dared look at!

They were full of beautiful dishes, furniture and linens for bedrooms and bathrooms, wonderful dresses with ruffles and lace; all kinds of toys, especially dolls, dolls, dolls. You name it, it was there! I wanted everything.

The Christmas season began for us the day the fall and winter catalogue arrived. We made long lists of all the wonderful things we would ask Santa to bring. We wrote letters and sent them, hoping to be the first to ask for said article, and then we would change our minds about what was most appealing to us. And so, a revised letter would be written and sent.

It’s a good thing we didn’t have to buy stamps for all of those letters because the only sure method of sending them all the way to the North Pole was to put them in the stove and let the smoke deliver them almost immediately----directly to Santa.
In August we would order the clothes we would need to start the new school year in. Most of the time they had to be the drab, substantial kind. Although we felt a twinge---or more--- of disappointment that we couldn’t order the pretty, flimsy, ribbon-bedecked dresses, still the anticipation and waiting for the order to come was almost unbearable.

When it finally did come we were so excited, even with the long- legged, long John underwear and the ugly brown long stockings and garters. We could hardly wait for school to start and winter to come so we could wear our new clothes. But how anxious we were to shed them in the spring.

By the time a new catalogue arrived we had just about worn the old one out. We were happy about the fact that now we could cut the pictures out of the old book to our hearts content. We made paper dolls and dressed them in our dream clothes. We cut out our dream furniture, carpets, appliances, and accessories and pasted them in shoeboxes to build houses for our paper dolls. Now we could be the princesses we hoped to be.

After we had cut out all we wanted, or if the a necessity became too great, the catalogue still had another job to do. It was relegated to the old outhouse. Still it hadn’t completely lost its magic. We spent many hours thumbing through all that remained of its pages, making sure we hadn’t missed a thing.

When we were sure a page didn’t contain anything of value, it was torn from the book, ruffled and manipulated in our hands to make it a little softer, and then, finally, it completed its task.

When we learned that Sears was going to discontinue sending out catalogues, we couldn’t imagine what life would be like without them. And so I saved one of the last issues, which I still have. At times I miss the dreaming and anticipation, but very happy we can now go to the mall to select almost anything we want or can afford. Just a little bit of nostalgia from the past!

[1dave]

Calvin Warby -

UN-FRIENDLY PERSUASION

Georgean Olcott Warby (my mother) tells of her memories of her mother, Amy Sarah Green, who died when Mom was five years old.

October 24, 2005
“Often I have wondered if I was born obstinate---maybe obstinate clear back in my pre-earth life. My earliest memories are of me rebelling about one thing or another. I don’t believe I ever won my case, but I certainly tried.
One case in point is that I never remember being very lovable. I suppose that is because I never was. Or could it be a quirk in my memory that makes me forget a good me and remember only my wicked side.

The reason for all this self-analyzing is that Ruby asked me to write down anything I remember about Mama. Now, you have to remember that I was only five years old when Mama died and you know how it is with children that young. Sometimes fact gets tangled up with fiction and the older you get the harder it is to sort out or, for that matter, to remember at all. After all, seventy-four years is a L_O_N_G time. And I don’t dare to stretch my memory, or facts too much. However, the few episodes I am going to tell about Really happened.

I’m not sure just how old I was but it is the first time I remember getting my hair washed. I’m quite sure it wasn’t actually the first time, though.
You will recall that in “them thar’ days” we didn’t have a nice bathroom with hot and cold running water. No siree! Nothing was easy then.
I was sitting in a #3 tub with my hair all lathered up with soap (good old homemade lye soap) and Mama was pouring fresh water from a pan over my head to rinse it. I was smothering from the water in my face and soap stinging my eyes and I was throwing a Royal Fit. Mama was calmly saying, “Keep your eyes closed and hold your breath.” Well, close my eyes--- that I could do. But hold my breath---what in blazes did she mean by that? Was that my nose? My ears? My tongue? I wasn’t obedient enough to try to figure that one out for very long. I heard Mama say “Are you ready? Here it comes.” And it did. Another pan full of water!
I gasped and sputtered and threw another King-sized fit. I heard my Mother laugh. Can you believe! You can bet that at that particular moment I didn’t really love her very much.
Then Mama said, “That’s enough for today,” as she lovingly took me out of the tub, dried me off, dressed me and sent me off to play.

I hope no one’s delicate senses will be offended by this next episode, but it is one of my few memories of Mama. It is the time she decided I needed an enema. I don’t recall being sick, so why? It must have happened before, though, because when I saw her hanging that dreaded hot water bottle on the top of the old iron bedstead and saw her preparing the syringe, I knew what was coming. I started kicking and screaming, “No, no, no!” It didn’t do any good. I was expertly flipped onto my tummy, my little muscles tightening to the breaking point. The battle began. It didn’t do any good!
Soon it was all over with. That’s another time I didn’t love her, one whit. I’m sure she wasn’t sure I was any special prize either.
Never-the- less, I’d give a mint to see her now.

In my personal history I told about going to the spring with her to get some good, cold, drinking water. I guess I will retell it here.
The spring was located about 1 ½ to 2 blocks from the house. There wasn’t a real trail there so we just walked over weeds and plowed ground, wherever it was convenient and over whatever was necessary. I can remember Mama stopping to rest a time or two, setting down her buckets of water momentarily to get a second breath.
One day as we were walking across the deep rows of the potato patch my little legs just couldn’t negotiate what seemed like hills to me and I tripped and fell. I didn’t hurt myself at all. Mama stopped just long enough to say, “Oops, pick yourself up and try it over again.” I wondered why in the world she would want me to fall down again. It wasn’t until years later that I finally got the picture. She wanted me to try getting over the furrows and do it right this time.

We had a fruit cellar that was beneath the rock granary. It was cool, damp, spidery and very dark. I was frightened of the place but I must have wanted to be with my Mama. She took my hand and tried to reassure me. Then she set a bottle under the spigot of the vinegar barrel. Out flowed the pungent smelling home made vinegar, including a bit of “mother” which she retrieved and disposed of. She got a bowl of apples from the apple bin for the family to munch on in the long evenings. She noticed a rotten apple or two that would spoil the whole bin if they were left there. She picked them out and threw them away. Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, she was ready to get out of that scary place. I ran up those rock steps as fast as I possibly could. I’ll bet I could have outrun Mama in the longest footrace anywhere.

Mama loved raising chickens. She would follow a clucking hen all over the yard to find her nest so she could watch for the eggs to hatch. She had some A-frame pens she kept up in the top of the pasture. As soon as the eggs hatched she would take the soft little baby chicks and their mother hen and put them in one of the pens for their safety. Then she watched over them like the proverbial hawk. She had to watch over them from the very real hawks. She couldn’t bear to lose one. One of us kids, who were all trained to watch for hawks, would ‘holler’ “chicken hawk!” Mama would come on the run, shouting and waving her apron to scare it away. She was a better Mother Hen than Mother Hen herself.

She would boil eggs and mash them, including the shells, to feed to the chickens that were in the pens. It was a treat for me to get to shove the dish of eggs through the slats in to the chickens.
Mama would get such a kick out of the teen-age roosters trying to learn to crow. Just like adolescent boys whose voices are changing, they would squeak and squawk, never giving up until they learned to do it right. The chickens were never embarrassed by the funny noise they made. In fact, they practiced no matter who heard.

One little episode I wrote about in my history I will just copy here. (Word for word.) So, if you’ve “heard that one before,” well, here it is again.
“Not long ago I was watching the “Worlds Funniest Videos” on TV. There was a little boy who was just discovering his shadow. He was trying desperately to escape from it. The poor little guy was terrified and that mean old shadow stuck right to him. I wondered if that is how Robert Louis Stevenson got his idea for his poem, “My Shadow.” Probably.
He reminded me of when I first discovered I was breathing. I was just as terrified. No such thing had happened to me before.
I must have been between four and five years old, because Mama was still alive. I had been running, trying to keep up with my older siblings and I was really out of breath. My chest hurt badly and felt like it was going to explode. I couldn’t stop GASPING for each breath, and thought surely I was dying. I started to cry and asked Mama what was happening to me. She laughed and explained that I was just breathing hard and soon I would be okay and breathing quietly. I asked what made me do that and even after a long time I was still breathing. She told me I had been breathing ever since I was born, that I had to continue breathing or I would die.
But I insisted, “I’ve never done this before.” She laughed some more and explained that I had; but it was so automatic I had never noticed it.
I was certain she was wrong, that never before had I done such a thing. After all, I should know. It was me; it was my body, and something was wrong.
I sat very still for a long time watching my chest rise and fall, very conscious of each breath I took. Each breath came easier and more quietly. My chest stopped hurting. Then, the strangest thing happened. Mama was right! I did continue breathing! And I have done for over seventy (nine) years.
And I’ll bet Mama was right about another thing. I’ll bet if I ever stop, I’ll die.

We went to church in the old school house in Sevier---or the Cove, as it was called. Sunday School always started at 10:00 a.m. After Sunday School we would drive the seven miles home, then at seven p.m. we would return to the school house for Sacrament meeting.
My earliest memory of Sacrament Meeting is of sitting on the chairs, Ruby on Mama’s lap and me by Mama’s side with her arm around me holding me close. Suddenly meeting was over and I was awakened. I was so embarrassed that a big girl like myself had fallen asleep in church. The adults stood around laughing at my embarrassment and grogginess. That only made matters worse. I don’t have any idea who it was but I can still hear some old lady crooning, “Oh, look! She is embarrassed.” Silly adults! Sometimes they can be so intimidating!

In my mind’s eye I can still see Mama standing in front of a mirror trying on a hat. She disgustingly said, “I look like a laughing hyena.”’
One of the little habits Mama had was: as she stood in the sun talking to people she would stand with one hand on her hip and with the other hand she shaded her eyes.
The night Dad and Mama got home from Salt Lake after she had her breast removed (because of cancer) I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do. She had been gone so long and we had been warned that we had to be very careful when we loved her because she was still sick and very sore. I stood back trying to decide. But Ruby knew just what to do. She ran and got a little stool, set it down by Mama’s chair and climbed up on her lap. Everyone marveled that she was perceptive enough to do that.

My final memory of my mother is when I was taken home from Aunt Ina’s place where I had been sent the last few days of her life. I imagine I had been told that she had died but I didn’t understand. I saw my older siblings standing out in the dooryard, crying. I was totally baffled. I don’t know when understanding finally set in.
Things were quite different then from now. There were no mortuaries. Instead, Mama was lying in a casket on a bench in one of the dark upstairs rooms. I thought she looked like an angel. I especially remember her beautiful shoes.

I had been terribly frightened because of some weird stories I had heard the adults telling as they were watching around her bed as she was dying. They told about a person who had committed suicide by taking poison. When someone kissed them goodbye they were poisoned and died, also. Consequently, no amount of persuasion could get me to kiss my dead mother goodbye. I couldn’t explain why, but later I felt somehow guilty and it preyed on my conscience for many, many years. For a child those feelings are so poignant and they last a lifetime.
The only thing I remember about her funeral is that they sang the song, “Oh, My Father.” I was so puzzled. Why were they singing about my father when it was my mother in the casket?
These episodes are probably more about me than Mama but it is all I have. I hope it gives a little insight to what she was like.

I can hardly wait to meet her again. I hope she won’t be too disappointed in me and the way I have lived my life. I have always felt her near and that she is my guardian angel. I hope that is so.