Question 14 (Series 2 No.4): Aunt Edna

As a child, my world revolved around Southern Alberta, which was where our family lived and where all of my aunts and uncles and cousins lived, except for the ones who lived in Utah. Which was where my ancestors came from, so it was natural that some of the family had gravitated back there.  And then there was the outlier, my Aunt Edna, who lived in that exotic place called Vancouver, which was a place so far removed and dreamlike that I could not even begin to imagine it!

Aunt Edna was born 19 June 1911. She was a cute little girl! Edna May is her name; May of course after her mother, Celia May. You can look at some of the photos of young Edna here(as a baby in 1911) and here (1913 or 1914?).

Back L-R: Royal, Lillis, Earl. Front L-R: Loren, Edna, Alma. Taken in 1917.

Aunt Edna was 17 years older than my mother. She married my Uncle Bill (William Alfred) Mitchell in 1933. Here is the clipping from the Raymond Recorder of May 25, 1933, found in the Peel Archives.

This picture is taken from one that shows more of the yard. It looks like it was a colorized black and white photo. They tried to show the delicate pink that is described in the newspaper article.

I have many pictures of Aunt Edna thanks to her granddaughter Sharon, daughter of Bob, who was kind enough to share a bunch of photos with me. I will try to put them in order by date.

Taken before Ken was born, so probably 1941? Ted was born in 1936, and he looks close to 5 years old. He is on his dad's lap; Bob on his mom's lap.

Bob, Edna, Ted

Mitchell family in probably 1942, the year Ken was born.

Uncle Bill enlisted in the Canadian Forces in 1943, according to the caption that was written by my mother. I recognize her printing. Uncle Bill worked for the Canadian postal service, and thought that enlisting would give him a change, but then he got assigned to postal work as an enlisted man. At least that was pretty safe work!

Here is a picture with Uncle Bill and his sons in 1943, before he went away for a time as an enlisted man. Ted is by his dad, not looking too happy about things, baby Ken (about a year old) on his dad's lap, and Bob looks like he is enjoying the dog.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Edna in 1957.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Edna and their three sons: Ted, Ken and Bob (L-R for the sons)

Because Aunt Edna lived so far away--that is how Vancouver seemed to me!--we did not see her very often. But occasionally, they came to visit us in Alberta. Aunt Edna was more quiet than my mother's other sisters. She was a quilter. She would bring squares that she was working on while on holiday, and happily sit and quilt and applique.  She was not just a hobby quilter--she was a prize-winning quilter. I wonder if her children still have some of her quilts. She made the most lovely Canada themed quilts for competitions. She often made quilts for missionaries who served in British Columbia. I wish that I had some pictures of her quilts. They were beautiful! Aunt Edna was an easy guest, because she was happy to sit and quilt and to tell about and answer questions about her creations.

When Aunt Edna got breast cancer (1972), it was practically a death sentence. I mean, at the time, most of the women who got breast cancer died. So Aunt Edna's illness terrified my mother. Especially because she herself had been getting lumps in her breasts and having biopsies from time to time. She went out to B.C. to see, visit, spend time with Aunt Edna. When Aunt Edna passed away, my mom was so sad to lose another sister. I think it was kind of surreal to me.  Since I did not see Aunt Edna get sick and see her progress toward death, and I did not go to the funeral, she sort of just seemed to be away. Gone but not forgotten.

I wish that she had lived! Since we ended up living in Vancouver for seven years (ish) it would have been really fun to be able to get to know her better. But that was not to be.

As for my three cousins, I really like all of them. Here they are together as grown men:

Ted, Ken and Bob

 Ted married a girl named ALeda. He first knew her as his penpal. Later they met, then they liked each other and dated, and then they married. They have nine children (Rex, Deward, Mark, Karla, Eric, ArLene, Craig, Beverly and Yvette.) Ted died in November 2014. I wrote a long e-mail to my cousins about his funeral, which meant that I took a lot of notes so that I could be the funeral reporter. Here is an excerpt from that email. Chosen because it is about Uncle Bill:

"Matthew (Johnson, son of ArLene) told about the time that Ted was staying out at his grandpa Mitchell's farm in Turin.  Ted got up in the morning and looked outside and there were two rattlesnakes on the steps.  He grabbed the shotgun from behind the door, and was planning to just stick the gun out the door and shoot the rattlers, but that plan didn't work--the way the door worked, he couldn't get a good shot the right way--so he jumped up onto the kitchen sink and opened the kitchen window, stuck the shotgun out the window and BOOOM! BOOM! crash!  His grandfather came running, where he picked Ted up from the floor, where he had been slammed down by the recoil of the gun. Outside, the wooden steps were shot to smithereens, and all that was left of the snakes was some blood and mess.

Uncle Bill was not LDS like Aunt Edna, and Ted was not baptized at age 8. But he really wanted to be baptized. Uncle Bill would always say no. So, just a few weeks prior to age 14, Ted fasted and prayed that his dad would give him permission to be baptized.  He did give permission, so on his birthday, Feb. 5, Ted was baptized. The font was under the floor of the church, and it was so cold that the water in the font had frozen over night. They had to chop through six inches of ice, and that was the water in which Ted was baptized."

Bob married Helene, and they have five children: Brenda, Allen, Janet, Gordon and Sharon. This is the family of Mitchell cousins I know the best, because Bob and Helene and their kids used to come to Alberta every couple of years and stay at our house--Brenda is just a couple of years younger than me. Then, when we lived in B.C., they were our only family of relatives, and they were awesome. We got together with them at least every couple of months. For awhile, Allen's wife Renee babysat Patrick for me when I worked at the Maple Ridge Library.

Ken married Marion, and they have a bunch of kids. Like eleven or something? I am not sure. Sadly, Ken also passed away last year, in 2014, several months before Ted's death.

Question 14 (Series 2 No.3): Uncle Royal

 I know that you are not supposed to have favorites among your relations. You need to love each one on their own merits. But if I DID have any favorites, Uncle Roy would be one of them.  He was different from his four brothers. They were each, in their way, movers and shakers. They tended to be louder and spotlight-loving. Uncle Roy, who I think I can safely say was my mother's favorite brother, was different. He was small in stature, quiet and mild-mannered, always wearing a smile, and seemed to find happiness despite a life that was, in many ways, quite difficult.

Royal Charles Hancock was born 11 January 1909. The three boys were pretty much 2.5 years apart from each other, so Alma was about 2.5 and Loren was pushing 5. Here is a close-up of him at age two-ish, in 1911, when Edna was the baby of the family.

Edna, Alma, Royal, Loren.

Uncle Royal was nineteen years old when my mother was born. I don't know anything at all about his life as a young boy or man. But I do know that on 31 March 1934, he married Melba Phipps. He was 25 and she was 21. What I have heard is that this marriage caused a bit of trial for Uncle Roy because his father-in-law was not that easy to get along with. Melba was not the baby of the large family she came from; she was the second youngest of twelve children, nine of whom were girls.  Her little sister died when Aunt Melba was ten, so that made her the youngest living child, and the one who Daddy liked to have control over.

Years later, when my own little family lived in Port Coquitlam, B.C., we got to know the Mike Swan family well. Mike Swan was the son of Aunt Melba's older sister Ethel (AKA Etta). I don't remember how Mike and I discovered that we shared an aunt and uncle and family of cousins, but we did. Mike said that his grandfather was quite the tyrant. In fact, one reason his parents pulled up stakes and moved to British Columbia was to live far away from Grandpa Phipps. Aunt Melba, though, LIKED to live near her father, so that was not an option for them. Uncle Roy, being very quiet and shy, was therefore in a position to be a bit bullied by his father-in-law. My mother felt that his f-i-l was about as unsupportive as could be, and that Uncle Roy, no matter what he did, could never measure up to what Grandpa Phipps expected. That would be hard.

As a girl, my mom enjoyed going to spend weekends at her brother's house. Aunt Melba's nieces, one of whom was Monica Swan, Mike's older sister, would go at the same time, and the older girls had a lovely time playing with each other and with Aunt Melba's babies.There was LeRoy, Janeane (who was adopted), Brent and Pamela, who was called Penny as a young girl. In this picture, however, they are all grown up!

Back: Brent, LeRoy and Uncle Royal; Front: Janeane, Aunt Melba and Penny/Pamela

Uncle Roy was a good fit for friendship with Mom and Dad because they shared similar interests. Mom and Dad liked to garden. They liked flowers and vegetables and grafting fruit trees. Uncle Roy was a gardener and had a small greenhouse business. Even though Penny was older than any of us kids (and she was the only child that I can remember living at home with her parents) so there were no cousins to play with at their home in Mountain View, there was the beautiful garden to run around and play in. I was interested in plants, too, I think we all were, because we helped with starting seedlings and planting and weeding, etc., so the greenhouse and the rows of this or that plant were interesting to me. Sometimes we took new varieties home with us to add to our garden. At least once, we also took a kitten home!

In front of Uncle Roy's house about 1962ish. Back row : Mom, Bruce, Penny, Colleen. Front: Dad, me, Arlene, Uncle Roy.

Also, Uncle Roy loved music. In his living room, there was no piano, but there was an organ, and not just a little electronic organ, but a big one.  He loved playing the organ, and my dad loved listening to organ music, so they made a great team.  In fact, that made my dad want to buy an organ, and eventually he did buy one, but just a small electronic one.

When Uncle Roy came to visit us, he usually came alone, and often stayed over night. When we only had a piano, he would play the piano and Mom would play the accordion, and they would create duets that way. Once we had the organ, then they did organ and piano duets. They had so much fun doing that together.

I remember one time that Aunt Melba came with him. Now, usually, even at their house, we didn't see Aunt Melba. She would be in their bedroom in bed because she always thought she was dying. She thought and thought that. But once, she came with Uncle Roy, and she brought some rhubarb lemonade that she had made, and it was very tasty. And she went for a walk with us kids, along the field road, as we called it--the road that was just our farm's road. We walked along and she told stories and we laughed and I was just AMAZED. Because I had formerly thought that she was just no fun at all. But I could see, I could glimpse for just a moment, that she had been a really fun person.

Mike Swan said to me once that he had learned one thing from Aunt Melba, and that was that if you think you want to die, or you hope you are going to die...well, you aren't. So get up out of bed and live life. Of course, she finally did die, but not until 4 February 1997, age 84.  I was 39 when she died. Except for that one time at our house when Aunt Melba showed her fun side, and maybe one or two other times at her house when she got out of bed long enough to make sandwiches or something, I had never seen Aunt Melba out of bed. I am guessing that she spent the better part of about 35 years laying in bed waiting to die. And watching TV and reading a bit.

I am not sure what happened to her--I know that they had a big house fire and lost everything in about 1958. That was hard. And of course, just life is hard, right? So maybe she just didn't know how to cope, so she just quit trying. I don't know.

While she was laying in bed, Uncle Roy was working in the garden and greenhouse, and also he worked as the caretaker of the school and church in Mountain View. Sometimes he took us kids to the school with him on a Saturday, and we could fool around in the school and play at the playground while he did some of his work.

Uncle Roy and Aunt Melba

The other thing that Uncle Roy really liked to do was go hiking. He lived close to Waterton Lakes National Park and made the most of that proximity.  When we did our annual trek to Waterton, often either we would pick him up and take him with us or we would meet him there and we would hike together. I wish we had been better about taking pictures! All the hikes I remember, like going to Blackiston Falls, and Twin Lakes, and Crandall Lake, I can't even remember them all, but he was right there with us, speaking softly in his quiet drawly voice and wearing that little, barely perceptible smile that was almost always on his face. One time we hiked a mountain peak that Uncle Roy was not able to name. We stopped at the park office and he checked on the map, and that peak did not have a name, so he was going to apply to name it Mount Hanrad. I wonder if he ever really did that?

Uncle Roy was just as treasured by our Navratil cousins. They were fortunate to live a bit closer, in Raymond. (We children would sometimes argue good-naturedly about who he liked better.) Music and plants and mountaineering dominated his relationship with their family, too, and they loved him as much as we did. He was actually a pretty awesome uncle.

Uncle Frank and Uncle Roy. That slight smile: an Uncle Roy trademark. In 1993.

 I wish that I knew more about Uncle Roy's children. I don't know much. LeRoy married a girl named Peggy, and later, when I lived in Port Coquitlam, I got to know Laura Vezeau, and she is Peggy's aunt. I totally loved Laura, and that made me wish to know Peggy better. They have children not too much younger than me, but I never really got to be around them much.

Then Janeane: she married Ron Meroniuk, and they had these two gorgeous little blonde daughters named Barbara and Donna. I can't remember which was older. They were a couple of 8-10 years younger than Arlene and I, and sometimes if they were at Uncle Roy's house, we would play with them. When Ron was working in Thunder Bay, Ontario, they had the opportunity to adopt a pair of little blonde twin boys, which they did. Those darling little boys were Wayne and Wade. I know that one of the girls died as a young mother, but I can't remember which one.(Some internet sleuthing leads me to believe they BOTH died young, in 2007 and 2008. I need to look in Hummers. That made me sad because I had forgotten that.)

Brent lived at our house some time in his younger days. I have a picture in my photo album....I may have to scan it and add it here. Brent worked for my dad for a time to earn money for his mission. He went to the southwestern states--so places like Arizona.  I have been trying to catch up with Brent to see if he is the elder who baptized Jerry Jaccard. When Patrick worked for Dr. Jaccard, one day he wore his 1989 Hancock Reunion T-shirt, and Dr. Jaccard remarked on the name, and about the Elder Charles Hancock from Alberta who had baptized him....and Brent's name is Charles Brent. Brent married LaPreal Hepworth, who he met while they both attended Ricks College as it was called then. LaPreal turns out to be a first cousin to my friend Shannon Gowans and to Zina Larson, the mother of a friend of Nancy and Andrew. So it was a small world after all, even when we did not realize it!

Penny married LaDell Atwood. We met him at Uncle Roy's house when we were very young, when he would come to take her on a date or just hang out. Their first child, Joseph, died of crib death (SIDS) and though that was heart-breaking, they went on to have about four more children. I unfortunately only remember the names of Lynette and Bonnie. And maybe Greg and Jason? Lynette ended up living next door to my mother, and they loved being neighbors to each other in Raymond. One day, Lynette's house went up in smoke, history repeating itself since that had happened to her grandparents.

LaDell and Pamela/Penny and their preemie-born great-grandson Jack (Lynette is the grandmother; Nicole is the mom)

Question 14 (Series 2 No.2): Uncle Alma

I am a fan of British television comedies, and I have noticed in shows like "Good Neighbours" and "To the Manor Born" a recurring theme of the ordinary folk living in their wee cottages, and the fine people next door living in their manors.

Well, that was how I perceived my Uncle Alma when I was a child. We, and most of our relatives, no ALL of our other relatives, were the ordinary folk. And then there was Uncle Alma and Aunt Ella who were the fine people, the elegant people. Their manor was white, with pillars, sitting among tall trees on a large estate a block or so away from Raymond's Main Street and City Hall. Uncle Alma was the mayor of the town of Raymond, and his wife was the essence of a politician's wife. Gracious, polite, supportive of her husband, always the kind hostess.

Alma Elisha Hancock was born 3 September 1906. His first name, I am guessing, comes from the Book of Mormon prophets; his middle name was that of his grandfather, Elisha Burns Keyes, Grandma May's father. You can look back at the Uncle Loren post to see what a beautiful child Alma was! He had really nice hair! Although he was the second son, he had a very dominant personality. He was often the child that Grandpa relied upon to get things done because he had a good solid business head on his shoulders. 

From the Peel Archives, I learned that "Alma Hancock left last Monday for Salt Lake City where he will take the two week missionary course before leaving on a mission to Eastern Canada." (Raymond Recorder 6 February 1926) Two week missionary course! Then, two years later-ish, the 9 March 1928 Raymond Recorder newspaper reported that "Alma Hancock returned last week from a two years mission spent in Eastern Canada." Less than two months later (!!!) at still 21 years old, he married Mary Ella Christensen, who was 19. They married on 2 May 1928, when my little baby mommy was not yet a month old. Okay, those of us who married rather rapidly can see that a precedent had been set! He was barely home for two months! I think that even beats out Nancy and Andrew... It is funny thinking about these events with the dates added!

And yes, the Peel Archives includes the Recorder coverage of this event, too, although the publication date listed is June 15, so it should say "last month" instead of "last week."

Their oldest child, Doreen Ella, was born a year later. So my mother was one year old when her first niece was born. She and Doreen were always very close, but their relationship was a bit odd because of the whole aunt/niece thing.

I used the book "Raymond Remembered" to better understand Uncle Alma's career trajectory. Before his mission, he worked at the Bank of Montreal while continuing to live and work at home on the dairy farm. At some point in time, he attended Garbutt Business College in Lethbridge, distinguishing himself by "completing an accounting course in less than a month with a 100% standing, the only person to do so." Then, during the dirty thirties, as a married man, he worked at the Raymond Sugar Factory. Getting involved in community politics, he served on the Raymond Board of Trade and the Raymond Ratepayers Association. "Alma became convinced that the Social Credit monetary proposals held the solution to the problems of the Hungry Thirties." (Incidentally, the same book also notes that Uncle Loren also was way into the Social Credit party.) He worked hard on the Social Credit campaign for the 1935 election.

In 1938, he submitted a brief to the government that was used as a basis for Alberta Treasury Branch. This was the year that he and Aunt Ella moved to Edmonton and Uncle Alma worked in the Pensions department of the government. I began searching in the Peel Archives for information about his work, but that is a long task. I have decided to be happy with this one little blurb from the Raymond Recorder of 20 May 1938:

When my mom was about 12, in 1940(ish), she was sent to live for one school year with Uncle Alma in Edmonton. I think her mother was going through a hard time, but I am not sure why. I don't think my mom was ever sure why herself. But that meant that she was going to and from school with Doreen, who begged her to please tell all the friends that she was Doreen's cousin. How embarrassing to have an aunt just a year older than you!

I am not sure when this picture was taken, but I think that my aunt and uncle look like they were maybe important people in Edmonton politics, and also their clothes look pretty forties-ish to me. So I will put it here:

In 1942, Uncle Alma moved back to Raymond to take care of the dairy, which he purchased from my grandfather. But that was not all he did: he was the bookkeeper and manager of the Raymond Cheese factory. He bought the Ray Knight (founder of Raymond) home, which is the manor that I remember from my youth. He began a successful real estate and insurance business. He was involved in setting up the first Raymond Chamber of Commerce in 1954, was its president for three terms and director for 16 years. In 1959, he was elected mayor of Raymond and filled two terms, the first native-born Raymond man to be the mayor. He was Chairman of the Raymond Centennial Committee in 1967 and was president of the Rotary Club for two terms.

Oh my goodness! That is not all. He wrote another brief for the government of Alberta in 1961, authored two books, was the financial editor of a Toronto-based monthly newspaper called Speak Up, worked on campaigns in provincial and national government, served as president of the Warner Constituency Social Credit Association, etc. So. People knew who he was, that is for sure. He was a mover and a shaker.

His two books, as listed by the National Library of Canada, are:

Hancock, Al E. Social Credit : a plan for Alberta / [compiled] by A. E. Hancock. -- Lethbridge : Insight Pub. Co., c1973.
Hancock, Al E. The road to monetary reform / by A. E. Hancock. -- Raymond, Alta. : Insight Pub. Co., c1978.

Here is a picture of Uncle Alma and Aunt Ella and their children, supplied to me by Theresa, my cousin Bert's (Gilbert) daughter. She texted that picture and the one above of Alma and Ella to me, so thank you to Theresa!

When our family would go to Raymond, we visited Uncle Alma and Aunt Ella in their elegant home. I remember that when I was really young, Chari was still living at home as an older teen. (She was named Sharon but legally changed the spelling to Charonne later in life.) We would go in and sit quietly in the living room while the adults visited, and even though there was not much to do, there were so many things to look at. Sometimes Keith and Connie and their kids would come over from across the street, or Lynne (Cal's wife) would stop in with some of her children. I was a bit in awe of my uncle and aunt but especially I was in awe of their house. There were fireplaces in each bedroom!

My memories of their children, my cousins: Doreen was married and had her first child, Karen, at age 16. So my little teenage mom was 17 when she became a great aunt. (The same age at which Josie became a great aunt. So history repeats itself!) This makes family dynamics odd for me, because my first cousin's daughter is 13 years older than I am, and she had her first baby at age 16 as well, so by the time I was three, Uncle Alma's family was two generations ahead of me! It starts to boggle the mind! Doreen has three children total, Karen, Dennis, and Shelley, who was close to my age.

When Doreen's daughter Karen's little Eric was about three years old, he grabbed an iron and badly burned his hand.  Apparently, my Uncle Alma had the gift to be able to heal burns, even over the phone. When this happened to Eric, Karen called her grandfather and had him heal the burn. We were shown before and after pictures of the burned hand. It was cool yet weird and mind-boggling. My mother said that her grandmother Hancock, her father, Uncle Alma and Aunt Zilpha could all do this. I will tell the Zilpha story on her page. My mother was weirded out by this family thing, though, and she did not like to talk about it, though later in life, after all the people who could do it had died, she wished she had been courageous enough to ask about it, and find out more about it.

Calvin and Keith both have sons (Bruce and Ric) who are exactly the same age as me--well, both are older because I was born in December--though they are the sons of my first cousins. When my husband Bruce and I and our children lived in Raymond from 1983 to 1986, we got to know these cousins of mine much better.  Cal was in the bishopric and Bruce was a ward clerk, so we sometimes did things with Cal and Lynne, and that was fun. Cal and Lynne had four children, I think, but I can only think of Bruce and Robin at the moment.

Keith and Connie Hancock in 2014

Keith and Connie were always friendly and helpful. Connie was known for her singing and her painting; a very talented lady. Because they lived across the street from Uncle Alma during my growing up years, I probably saw their children the most. They had Ric, Kris, John and Lisa Jill, called Lisa when she was younger and then later known as Jill. When there was a tornado in High River in about 1995 or 1996, there was a semi-truck on the highway that was blown over, and it was Jill's husband Don who was that driver. (They later divorced.) Jill was also a singer, as was Ric. Kris is the one that I know the best as an adult, because we keep in touch on Facebook.

Myrna and Ross and their daughters, but one is cut off! That is Tricia in the blue.

Myrna and her husband Ross Clark had three daughters for many years. Beth, the oldest, is pretty close to my age. Then later, they had two more children. I taught piano lessons to the younger ones, Brad and Tricia.Those two were great kids! I loved them so much. Brad was so quirky and funny and such a nice guy. Sadly, he died not long after in an accident on Cal and Lynne's farm, riding three wheelers or dune buggies or something. So sad.

When I was a young teen, Gilbert (always known as Bert) and his wife Vonda moved to Taber where Bert was the shop teacher at St. Mary's High School. I used to babysit little cute Theresa, and baby Stacey was born in Taber, and I babysat both the girls. Then they moved to Raymond to purchase and run the newspaper. But by the time our family lived in Raymond, they had split up and Bert moved away. But Theresa and Stacey still lived there with their mother, and were good friends with my nieces Heather, Melinda and Carlie. Now Theresa and her children live nearby, and it is nice to have a friendship with her.

My cousin Chari, who reminds me a great deal of my Aunt Ella!

I remember going to Chari's wedding and reception when she married Dennis Lavesque. After some trouble with that last name in French-Canadian politics, Dennis changed his last name to Laveck. And that was when Sharon changed the spelling of her name to Charonne.

Question 14 (Series 2 No.1): Uncle Loren

Note to my readers: if you have already read this, read it again! I just looked things up in the Raymond History Book. So I am adding a few things!

I did not mean to let so much time go by without posting. I was waiting for some Uncle Loren pictures, which my cousin (in-law) Sally, Loren's daughter-in-law, was going to have her daughter Erin scan and send to me. However, Erin had a small family emergency on the day that was supposed to happen. So...I am still waiting. I guess that I will just go with the pictures I have, and add more pictures later if Erin and her mom can find another time for the scanning party.

My mother's oldest brother was born 14 March 1904, 24 years and one month before my mother would be born. He was named Loren Edward Hancock. I do not know if there is any story behind his first name, but Edward was after his father, my Grandpa Ed Hancock. Clearly, I did not know Uncle Loren back then, and neither did my mother! He was soon joined by two little brothers, as we can see in this picture. And yes, the other two are indeed brothers.

1909: Loren (age 5), Alma (age 3) and baby Royal Hancock

I do know that Uncle Loren served a mission to New Zealand after Mom was born, because she had vague memories of him coming home and opening his luggage to reveal New Zealand treasures. I believe that he was age 26 when he left on that mission, and was gone about three years. [Wouldn't it be nice to go back to a time when people could go on missions just any time and not all the expectations about when people are doing that? Just saying.] Note: he was actually 25, leaving for his mission in 1929.

Uncle Loren went off to work in Stavely, of all places, and there he met Phyllis Stanford. He married her in the Cardston Temple 14 November 1940, and thus she became my Aunt Phyllis.  He was 36 years old, and she was 32 (well technically, she was 31 because her birthday was 16 November!)  Every time I drive past Stavely, I think of Aunt Phyllis. And when we lived in High River, we drove past Stavely every time we drove to Raymond and back again. Just this May, when I drove to Edmonton with the BYU group, we drove past Stavely and so of course I thought about Aunt Phyllis. And I also thought, holy cow, this is such a small place to move to and work in and actually meet someone! (The population hovers around 500.)

Why Stavely? The answer is in "Raymond Remembered": A man named Asael Palmer asked him "to go to Stavely to supervise the remodeling of the chapel. This was donation work so he had to make a living on the side by doing construction."

The day after their wedding, 15 November 1940, the Raymond Recorder published this little blurb, which of course I found using the Peel Archives. (Love the Peel Archives!)

How many errors do you spot in this article?  I can spot three instances of two errors. Which proves once again that you can't believe everything you read! For one, Uncle Loren does not spell his name Loran, and it is spelled incorrectly twice. For another, he was the first son, not the second son. However, I suppose that people could be confused about that, because Uncle Alma had quite the presence (and power and position) and also he was married with quite a few children by 1940, so that would make him seem older to people not in the know. But that is a story for another post (Series 2 No.2).

Here is a picture of the young couple:

Uncle Loren and Aunt Phyllis had three living children: Philip, Frances (who was adopted) and Martha. They also had a son, Thomas, who was born and died in 1946. I believe that Uncle Loren's family lived in Cardston and also Rosemary for a time before they moved to Salt Lake City.  I don't know when they moved, but I remember them only in SLC.

From "Raymond Remembered" an explanation of Loren's life in Rosemary, where he and Aunt Phyllis moved after their marriage: "Here he continued his construction business and with the aid of a couple of friends, organized the Rosemary Construction Company. They built a store and a lumber yard. He also organized the first credit union in the area."

Cardston was next, as the book continues: "About 1948, he moved to Cardston where he continued his construction business working from Waterton Park to Taber. He built numerous homes, a couple of schools, and helped remodel the temple. Loren decided to move to Salt Lake City in 1959 where he continued the building trade until he retired in the 1980s." 

The family lived in a cute older home near Liberty Park in Salt Lake. When I first visited them at their home, age 5, I remember that both the girls were there, but I do not remember Phil. The bathroom in their house was between two bedrooms, so I remember feeling a bit intimidated about using the facilities, since someone might open one of the two doors! The house had an upstairs, but I did not go up there until many years later--after many visits to their home.  They had a kind of parlor, then a living room, then a big kitchen. In the parlor was the piano, which was a little spinet piano with only maybe four octaves. I had never seen a piano like that before, nor have I seen one like it since!

Uncle Loren just always seemed old to me--like, that it was weird to me that he was my mom's brother. Aunt Phyllis was a very, very short lady.  My favorite thing about her was that she could bend right over at the waist and put her palms flat on the floor. That is what me and my sisters would ask her to do over and over again! It was free entertainment, ours for the asking!

Once, Uncle Loren and his family came to Alberta. I remember that the older girls (Uncle Loren's daughters) seemed quite bossy to us younger girls (me and my sisters). At the time of their visit, Frances had just gotten engaged to Garry, and she was very dreamy and he was about the only thing on her mind. Which makes sense now, but as a little girl, I just wanted her to play with me! Because I thought that Frances was so pretty and nice!

When I was about eleven, that is when I remember Phil for the first time. I mean, I might have seen him before, but I don't remember it at all. Phil took my siblings and I and his sister Martha to watch "2001: A Space Odyssey" in the theatre in Salt Lake that supposedly had the biggest, curved screen. It was for the time, and I am guessing 1969, State of the Art. (I did not enjoy that movie at all. But still. I had bragging rights, because none of the kids in Taber had seen it! Our theatre was always a couple of years behind.) Phil also took us driving up onto the mountainside somewhere to look out over the lights of the city. 

A couple of years later, when Phil was engaged to Sally, I remember going over to his house a couple of blocks from Uncle Loren's house to help paint and clean to get things ready for Sally and her two children, Scott and Sheila, to move in. We were all, as a family, so happy when Phil found Sally. We loved her. She was fun and awesome, and her kids were cute. And Phil had been following the family tradition of being an old bachelor. So, YAY for Sally, we all thought! And here is a photo of Phil and Sally and their kids, minus Sheila. (Sheila may have already been married and away from home when this picture was taken. I know that her husband was in the US Armed Forces, sometimes stationed abroad.)

Scott and Jenifer in the back, Nathan, Phil and Sally in the middle. Amy, Jared and Erin in the front. All left to right.

I remember staying overnight at my cousin Frances's house. She and her husband Garry had a couple of darling little boys, Shane and Lance, at the time. Later, they had at least two more children, daughters, one named Cimberlee; I can't remember how many children Frances has, honestly.

Garry and Frances Rhodes

Martha, after serving a mission, was also unmarried for awhile as Phil had been, but my cousin Mary the Matchmaker set her up with a young man who had served a mission in Mary's area, Elder Rasmussen as he was, and Martha married Rod and they have three children.Here is a picture of Martha and Rod with me and other cousins, including Frances.

Me, Rod and Martha Rasmussen, Mary Phillips, ALeda Mitchell, David and Pat Garrett, Frances Rhodes. Photo taken at Ted Mitchell's funeral in November 2014

I remember being at Uncle Loren's house when Aunt Phyllis was dying. She was in bed, and the house was very quiet, and there was an odd feeling and an interesting and not pleasant smell which was, I think, the smell of death. Soon after we got home from that visit to Utah came the phone call telling Mom that she had died (24 August 1973).

I remember that during the time after Aunt Phyllis died, Uncle Loren came up to Canada alone and visited his siblings. He was at our house for the weekend, and it happened to be stake conference.  One of the stake presidency saw him, shook his hand and said, "Hello, Brother Hancock! How nice that you could be here visiting your daughter!"  And then he went on his way, not giving the time so that someone could correct him. And Mom, Dad, Uncle Loren and I all just smiled, probably grinned, at each other. Because clearly...Uncle Loren is not my mother's father! But he does LOOK like his dad, and he was certainly old enough to BE my mother's father!

1991: back L-R, Aunt Celia (67), Mom (63), Aunt Lillis (76); front row L-R, Uncle Alma (85), Uncle Leo (71), Uncle Loren (87), Uncle Royal (82).

 Uncle Loren, as I mentioned, had been 36 years old when he married for the first time. He was 69 years old when he was widowed. And he was not about to go back to being single and lonely. No he was not. He became quite involved in the older singles scene in Salt Lake City, much to the consternation of his children, Martha in particular, who was still single herself and quite happy with the idea of herself and her dad sharing a happy home together. But Uncle Loren met Joyce. She was a childless widow. She was about Uncle Loren's height, beautiful,vivacious and fun. That was my opinion of her. My mom really liked her because with her, Uncle Loren bloomed. He had been musically talented, and she remembered as a young girl that he loved to play the violin  cello (thanks, "Raymond Remembered) and sing solos or in choruses and choirs. But when he married, which was when my mom was 12 years old, she noticed that he did less of those things that he had loved doing. Maybe just caught up in the cares of being a husband and father. But still. He had not started doing those things again when his children grew up, but with Joyce, he was back to making music and actively participating in so many enjoyable activities again. Mom really liked seeing that. I don't have a picture of Aunt Joyce, who married Uncle Loren on 23 May 1975, with him or as an older woman, but here is a picture of her as a young woman.

In my opinion, shaped by my mother's opinion, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Loren had a really great time together as a married couple. They traveled, they enjoyed life to the full. Aunt Joyce was a happy, positive, really fun person to have around.  She died in 1980 (22 March), unfortunately, so they only had about five years together, but they made the most of it.  (Incidentally, Bruce and I were engaged at this time, and I went to Aunt Joyce's funeral. My parents had come down from Alberta for the funeral, and quite frankly, we got married when we did in part because my parents were in Utah for Aunt Joyce's funeral. I had forgotten that. I mean, I knew that we just decided to get married and then did it, making some people pretty unhappy, but I had forgotten why exactly my parents happened to be in Utah. It was for this funeral.)

After Aunt Joyce was gone, you might have thought that Uncle Loren, now 74, might sit back and just be a widower. But no. He jumped back into the singles scene, started dating, and eventually found himself a third wife. Hellen Spong was ten years younger, born in 1914, and they married in 1984, when Hellen was 70 and Uncle Loren was 80. This was a second marriage for Hellen, and she had no children. I did not get to know Hellen as well as Joyce, and I actually only think of her as Hellen, not as Aunt Hellen. Aunt Joyce was definitely Aunt Joyce! Hellen was quieter, and not the personality that Joyce was. And also, I was married myself, and not around to spend much time with her. I do not have any pictures of her, though my mother probably had some. Because she and Uncle Loren were together for nearly a decade.

Uncle Loren died first, on 25 April 1993, leaving Hellen a widow for five years. She died 24 April 1998.

Question 14: (Series 2 Prologue) Who were your aunts and uncles (Hancock)?

Alright. I am ready for series 2 of question 14. This series will take awhile because my mother has eleven siblings, so that means eleven posts!

[Confession!!! While working on this post last night (June 9) I wanted to copy and paste a caption from elsewhere (Question 12, to be exact) and I somehow deleted the entire Question 12 post! I have no idea what I did, which is kind of scary because that means I could do it again quite accidentally! So I messaged to Nancy on Facebook "HELP!" and told her what I did. It was so late in North Carolina that they could have been asleep, but I supposed they would still be awake and they were! While Nancy nursed the baby, Andrew found the cached copy of my post of May 25, and sent it to me. It was mostly there--some things that I knew were in the post were missing, but since he was able to find and save most of it, what was there helped me to remember better what was missing. And it took Andrew maybe five minutes to do this--tops, ten minutes. It took me much longer to restore it on the blog, inserting the pictures in the correct spots, etc. So, if you read that original post and you go back to it and your brain whispers to you that something is different about that post, that is probably why! It is not perfectly the same as it was, but at least it is not lost!]

Here is the list of my mother's siblings and their dates of birth and death.

No.1: Loren Edward Hancock -- 14 March 1904 - 25 April 1993 (almost 89)
No.2: Alma Elisha Hancock -- 3 September 1906 - 9 May 1992 (almost 86)
No.3: Royal Charles Hancock -- 11 January 1909 - 17 February 1997 (88)
No.4: Edna May Hancock -- 19 June 1911 - 8 November 1972 (61)
No.5: Earl Keyes Hancock -- 17 July 1913 - 19 August 1989 (76)
No.6: Lillis Hancock -- 3 May 1915 - 14 August 2001 (86)
No.7: Zilpha Hancock -- 5 November 1917 - 6 October 1963 (almost 46)
No.8: Leo Curtis Hancock -- 31 May 1920 - 29 June 2002 (82)
No.9: Mary Beth Hancock -- 19 January 1922 - 27 December 1923 (almost 2)
No.10: Celia Hancock -- 21 May 1924 - 30 June 1994 (70)
(Mom: Zetta Pearl Hancock -- 14 April 1928 - 25 April 2003 (75)
No.11: Ila June Hancock -- 4 June 1930 - 6 December 1990 (60)

Among my mother's siblings, I see that her brothers average as living longer than she and her sisters. Even the one who died as the result of a car accident (Uncle Earl) made it to 76, while only one of the seven girls made it past that age, Aunt Lillis, who died at 86. Mom was the next longest living female, and she only made it to 75. That is not a great track record for the girls!

There are no pictures of Ed and May with all twelve of their children. That would have been impossible because Mary Beth died before the last three girls were born. So the best we can do with the Hancocks is pictures with some of the siblings in, and between them, we hope to see eleven of the the twelve. Sadly, it seems that there were no pictures taken of Mary Beth. Let's face it, at the time, it was not uncommon for several years to pass by between picture-taking episodes. We are lucky to have what we have. But it kind of hurts my heart to think of my Grandma not even having a picture to remember her lost baby with.

Hancock family in about 1921: Front row (L-R) Royal, Lillis, Zilpha, Earl, Edna. Back row: (L-R) Alma, Celia May, Charles Edward holding Leo, Loren,

This is a picture with ten of the siblings plus one s-i-l, but neither of the parents are in the photo. Mary Beth had already died, and Ila June was not yet born at this time.

So...Aunt Lillis, Uncle Roy, Uncle Earl, Uncle Alma with his wife Aunt Ella in front of him, Uncle Loren, Aunt Edna. In front, Uncle Leo is holding onto my baby mommy, Aunt Celia, and Aunt Zilpha. Summer of 1929.

 I know--or think, at least--that my mother had a picture of her siblings taken at Aunt Zilpha's funeral in 1963, with ten siblings all in a row lined up by age. Probably her dad was in that picture, too? But I don't have a copy of it, though Colleen may have one.

And this last picture has nine of the ten siblings in it. The only missing ones were the three sisters who had already died. This was taken at the Hancock reunion in 1989 (held in Alberta.) Unfortunately, I did not attend this reunion, because it was held when Patrick was just a couple of weeks old, and I did not feel up to traveling with a newborn. You can see that Aunt Celia is wearing the reunion T-shirt which Darrell, her son the chiropractor, had made in various colors. Patrick still wears his, which is green, and it fits him now but was much too large in 1989 for his newborn self! (If I am not mistaken, Aunt Lillis and Uncle Loren drove up together from Utah for the 1989 reunion and got stopped at the border and grilled for quite a long time. Kind of hilarious to imagine what trouble they would think that two golden oldies were going to get into in Canada! I think it had to do with not declaring Canadian citizenship or some such thing. I know this happened, I am just not sure if it happened in 1989, but I think it did.)

Back row L-R: Mom (61), Earl (76 and he would die about a month later), Celia (65), Leo (69), Lillis (74). Front L-R: Alma (83), Royal (80), Ila June (59), Loren (85).

So that is my long prologue to Series 2 of Question 14. Be expecting eleven posts.

Young Ambassadors in Nauvoo

Just taking a little break from 52 questions, while I wait for my cousin Helen to send me some Hancock aunt and uncle pictures. So, here are some pictures of Josie's trip with the Young Ambassadors to Nauvoo. She has another week to go, so this is some of the first week.

They had an early call time (4:00 AM) on June 1st. Josie was one of the first to arrive, of course, because our last name may be Layton, but we are rarely late. It is almost like we MUST be early. (Some of us must be earlier than others...)

Ready to fly off as the sun is rising

The big debate had been "What are we going to wear?" Initially, it had been suits and dresses, which most of the people were not too impressed with because hours of flying and layovers and a three hour bus ride. But...since the clothing decision was not finalized until Sunday evening, there was no possibility for packing ahead of time! Still, Josie was happy about not having to wear a dress and heels for the journey.  But it looks like the first thing they did upon arrival was change into their dressy clothes:

Posted on the YA Facebook page with the caption: "Tonight we had a wonderful reception at the Nauvoo mission home. We can't wait for what lies in store for these next two weeks." Where is Josie? Well, if you see the lady in black and white, then Celeste is beside her, and Josie is the second female to that lady's left.

Tuesday morning they did a Nauvoo Temple trip. Josie took this lovely picture.

Then, at some point, they visited Carthage Jail. This is where my childhood/young adulthood friend Melanie Gough Hansen and her husband Robin are presently posted while on their senior mission. (They are pretty young seniors, though, because neither of them are sixty yet.) Melanie sent me this message after meeting Josie: "I met her last night. She's delightful. We will see her again at our next sunset performance. They keep them as busy as we are while they're here it sounds like. Talented girl just like her mom." That was sweet of her to say!

Here they are at Carthage. Josie is furthest right in the front row.

They visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Josie had fun with this museum. She was taking selfies with all the statues--reminded me of the fun she had with all of Auntie Arlene's ghosts and monsters at Halloween in San Diego. Except apparently there were not as many statues in the museum as ghoulies at Arlene's house. I lost count of those, but I only see four from this museum visit. More likely she did not have the museum to herself, so didn't have the time to photograph all of the wax statues.

Abe and Josie out for a stroll

Ulysses S. Grant and Josie

The next two are anonymous. Prizes if you can correctly identify them! (I predict that Nancy, the internet sleuth supreme, will win!)

Any ideas who she is?

Joseph Smith? I have no clue.

They are giving concerts every night and probably some during the day, too. I don't know. I am just the one who is getting pictures delivered via phone, or finding them on the YA Facebook page! Josie is in the band; she is not a singer/dancer. This picture from the YA page is captioned: "Our band members greet audience members after one of our outdoor night concerts in Nauvoo."

You can see from left, the back of the band director, Eric Hansen, the back of Eliza Smith, the back of Josie (who is nicely turning so we can see her profile), and the back of Michael Biancardi. The other people...I don't know.

Looks like they went somewhere beautiful on Saturday, maybe, because Josie sent me this lovely landscape:

Love that sky!

Josie and Eliza proving untrue the saying about not being fence-sitters. They are totally sitting on the fence in their lovely twinner outfits.

Josie likes doing service to others, so she must have been happy to wear a helping hands T-shirt and get to work doing something worthwhile. She sent me a picture of this much of her:

And here are Josie and two of her besties, armed with green bags and gloves and all.  (What they were doing, found on a caption on a picture that Josie was not in: "Joining with another 150 volunteers, the Young Ambassadors cleaned up designated areas in the city of Hannibal.") Josie posted this picture on Facebook with the caption: "These girls. I will never get enough of them!" It is a good thing she feels that way since they are getting to enjoy each other's company 24/7 for two weeks!

Eliza Smith, Josie Layton, and Celeste Knowles Robinson.

This morning, the group went on a one-mile trek. They don't have time for a long trek, but I guess their leaders wanted to give them a small taste, a spoonful, of pioneer life. Josie sent this message to me:
"We had a one-mile trek. Let's just say, A) I would have died in the 1800s and B), my YA family would have died without me. Also. My YA sweats might be permanently stained with mud. And I threw away some socks."

Sounds like fun!