Just kidding - the poem featured here is NOT a haiku,
I just liked the alliteration ;)
Hannah and Sylvanus when they were married, and their home in Fairview.
All seven children were born and raised in this house.
Print/Word version at the bottom of the post for easier reading/cut&paste options.
Hannah (Margie's mom's Zada's mom) wrote this poem and had this frame made up for each of her children, so they would remember the house they grew up in. "Up the creek" in Fairview---it was one of the last houses as you head up Fairview Canyon.
Mom/Margie said "I remember I was a young girl when the house finally got a real bathroom and you didn't have to use the outhouse out back!
You can read more about Hannah HERE. In addition to this poem, she wrote a complete autobiography telling all about her life, the birth of all the babies, the house, the bees. A few excerpts are included below. The wedding was June 4, 1913. After a short honeymoon trip ...
We went up the creek to our new home. Sylvanus had bought this place three years before and had it mostly paid for. The house just consisted of two rooms. They had just been wall papered and painted. We bought a new stove and cupboard and put new linoleum in both rooms. Everything was new and looked neat and I kept things shining. Everything was beautiful up the creek. He had planed a nice garden and radishes, green onions, etc. were ready. He had garden sage, rhubarb and asparagus. He also had a large strawberry patch and several raspberry bushes. The whole place (or the better half of it) was in a young orchard. almost every kind of fruit you would want was on the place. He had a large bee yard which consisted of over one hundred stands of bees. It was truly a garden of Eden. I got all the water I used out of a well, or carried it across the highway from the ditch. The following summer we bought our first cow.
From the history of Sylvanus Howell, two excerpts ...
After Sylvanus finished high school, he attended Snow College. He then went on to serve a 27-month mission in Colorado from (June 1901 to Jan 1904). After his return, he lived in Salt Lake City, where he worked on the trolly system for several years. He saved his money and was able to purchase his own farm "up the creek" East of Fairview. There was a two-room house with acres of land where he planted and cultivated all kinds of fruit trees, livestock and bees.
Before they knew it, the couple had four little girls with hardly any place to put them. One slept in a trunk, one in a drawer, and one at the foot of the bed. Sylvanus purchased another house and moved it with a team of horses to attach to the original house with a stairway in between. This more than doubled the space they had, and after that, the children slept upstairs in the addition. Three boys were added to the four girls and the family was complete.
Mom/Margie added some additional memories: I remember there was an addition being built on. I vaguely remember the stairs, but I must have hardly ever gone up there. I remember the kitchen, with a kitchen table and a coal stove, and taking baths in a round metal tub as a child----everyone taking turns in the same water. Seems like you'd end up dirtier than you started, if you were the last to bathe! I remember a pendulum wall clock in the kitchen, and the sound it made-----funny how certain sounds and smells bring back certain memories. I remember the living room and the player piano that was there and we would like to pump the foot peddles to make it play. I vaguely remember a creek out back and greenish yellow apples (seems like they were called "transparent apples." I was scared of the bees and afraid I would get stung. There was a little ditch out in front of the house, by the road. We would pick the yellow dandelions with long stems. We would take a bobby pin with a sharp end and make slices down the long stem. Then we would dunk the the stem in the cold ditch and the 3 or stem slits would curl up to the yellow flower. In my other grandma's house in Mt. Pleasant, they had an upstairs too, with a bedroom. I went up there more. When I went back to that house as an adult and went up the homemade stairs, the staircase seemed so tight, I thought a really large person would maybe not even fit to go up and the ceiling of the stairs was so close. Upstairs, the roof of the bedroom was very slanted on the side (from the roof) and if you would sit up in bed and forgot to be careful, you would bump your head. They raised their 5 children in that house. I remember one bedroom on the main floor, and kitchen, living room, and bathroom. There must have been at least one more bedroom, but I don't remember it. They had a little ditch to the side of their house and we used to play there.
The Home Where I Was Born
By Hannah Howell
Feb. 10, 1892 - Dec. 13, 1986
I remember, I remember
This home where I was born,
The attic window where the sun
Came Peeping through each morn.
The never ending lesson was
To live the golden rule,
And we heard the call each morning
“Come now, it’s time for school.”
I remember, I remember
The groves along the creek
Where we had our childhood parties
Roasting wieners on a stick.
How I loved the joy of freedom
With the pals I’d always known.
And the bright light in the window
Guided me so safely home.
Oh, yes, I do remember
The bee yard in the spring
Where we’d watch for new-formed swarms
And we’d hear the robins sing.
We loved the golden honey
As it rolled from out the comb;
And the blossoms in the orchard
Made a much more “home sweet home”.
Oh well I do remember
(Now I’m bowed with family cares)
Of this humble home of childhood
And my parents' fervent prayers.
They gave us gentle words of counsel.
(Now they rest beneath the sod)
But they strived to make impressions
That would turn our hearts to God.
Check out more POETRY by family members too!
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