Everyday Love Letter

While searching through the binders Grandma Margaret O'Neil Johnson assembled, I found photos, applications for Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, and letters collected by Margaret's mother, my Great-Grandma Auretta Empey O'Neil. She was definitely the genealogist of the family. What can now be sent in an email or a message on Ancestry.com or familysearch.org used to require full hand-written letters to ascertain basic facts. Among those letters, I found one sent to Auretta from her fiancé-at-the-time, John Edgar O'Neil, whom everyone called "Ed." 

During his second marriage, Ed worked as Motorman and Conductor for Grand River Valley Railway Locomotive Engineer, and then with Union Pacific Railroad as Steam Engineer and Fireman. He and Verla lived in Grand Junction, Colorado; Vallejo, California; and Provo, Utah. He left Verla around 1934. She filed for divorce in 1936, and it was finalized on April 7th of 1937. 

Uncle Laurence, Auretta, Margaret, Ed,

and Bob in the mid-1950s

Eleven days later, he and Auretta married in Las Vegas. They had Margaret one year later, and Bob arrived five years after her. Ed and Auretta were married for thirty years before he passed away in 1967.

In January 1937 while they were engaged to be married, Ed wrote Auretta from Helper, Utah.

                                                        

                                                           Helper Utah.

                                                           Jan. 10, 1937

Dearest Auretta.-

Your fine letter received last night and was surly glad to get it. Was so tired last night that I just went to bed instead of writing.

We worked 16 hours and that is about 8 more than I like to work. However it is good money as the time over 8 hours pays time and a half. This is Sunday but had to work. Made 9 hour (?) 55 minutes. Am on what they call the National mine run and expect to hold it four or five days yet.

We usally get out about 5 a.m. It is too bad "dear," that your side bothers you. Hope soon that you get over that.

It does not look as if I could get off very soon as business is holding up fine. I may have more time off than I want after Feb. Would surly like to have a few days off now as I am getting tired of working long hours and what worries me more than that I want to see you.

Yes dear, the car is snowed in again. Maybe I can have it out by the 4th of July. May try to dig it out the first day I have off.

It has been so cold here that I have to wear two suits of underwear and two pair of socks to keep warm. Was a little warmer today.

I will be glad to meet your friends from Helper that you wrote about.

Am sorry that Mother has not been feeling so good and also Dale. He is young and in a few days he will be going strong and will not know he ever was sick.

Am enclosing a letter to Mother so you can deliver it to her.

Hope she feels better now. She has too much to do but don't suppose she would be content unless she has things to do for all her boys. Wonder if she wants one more?

Dear I am anxious to see you and find out what all you have to tell me. I am wondering what I have done now that you want an understanding. Hope that it is nothing serious.

Well Sweetheart I am going to have to get to bed. I don't seem to have any news to write about. Will try to write more next time when I am not so sleepy.

                                                                    Love + kisses to my Little Auretta

                                                                    As ever your Ed.

Auretta in 1962 [colorized]

Mom was pretty young when her grandpa died, so she doesn't remember them together as a couple, just seeing pictures. Aunt Brenda is Mom's senior, so I asked her how they were together. Brenda remembered Grandpa O'Neil's repeated line to his wife.

"I love you with all my heart and all your farts!"

Calvin and Ammon

A few years ago when I saw Grandpa Hooper's pictures as a young man, I thought about how much he looked like my youngest brother, Ammon. I tried to take a picture of Ammon in the right angle to compare, but it didn't really work. I decided to try again with a more recent picture.

Because I like to play with Photoshop, I put both of their faces at 50% opacity and overlapped  the pictures. I realized then how incredibly alike they do look. I think some of my male cousins take after Grandpa as well. I'd like to get some of them at the same angle. I'm talking about you, Jared and Tanner.

Photo of Calvin M. Hooper overlapping a photo of Ammon J. Hooper

Ammon didn't actually know Grandpa Hooper, because he died three months before Ammon was born. After a quarter of a century, my memories of Grandpa are starting to fade. What I really need to do is ask Dad and his siblings to tell us the stories again. I believe he was a machinist at Hill Air Force Base for most of his career. He was kind and loving. He loved to use tools, and had a big workshop in the basement. I didn't even know it was there until after he passed away, though. Could be because the grandkids didn't like to go near the basement laundry room because of the evil dog, Waddles. I don't think Grandpa was ever in his workshop when we came, though, because he wanted to visit with his kids.

One of my favorite memories was when a bunch of the grandkids were at their house, and we started messing with the garage door opener to see if we could figure out the code. Grandpa was inside, and could hear us pushing the buttons, but he never thought we'd guess it. Well, persistence was on our side, because some of the random numbers we chose ended up raising the door. Grandpa hurried out to rush us away, and he changed the code right then.

Grandma (Ruth) Hooper never learned to drive, so he would take her everywhere she needed to go until he got sick. Their youngest, Fred, also had major health problems with his kidneys, so for a few years, they had to drive him to the hospital for blood tests and treatments regularly. Grandpa kept a journal for part of that time.

September 2, 1993 Today is our catch up day. That is we don’t have any doctor’s appointments or blood draws. I will have to get the patio ready for Saturday along with catch up on some of the jobs around the house. Ruth is wanting to get Fred’s old car fixed up so Marylou can have it. She seems to think getting it to run is all it will take. But that is just a start, it will need tires and work on the front end, probably brakes. I don’t have any idea how much it will cost to get it fixed up so it will pass inspection. I hooked up the battery charger to the battery and it needed to be charged. So while it was being charged I went out and put up the tarp so we will have a little more shade for our picnic Saturday. Fay and Richard stopped by, it was good to see them.  

September 3, 1993 Today is Fred’s day we have to head for the hospital to have blood drawn. Went by pretty good, was back home by 8:17 a.m.. Then we were able to eat our breakfast. I decided to level out the stove. It really needed it too. But before I got it finished Ruth wanted to go to Wonder Bread, so I still have that job to finish up. Got the stove leveled up ok. Fred has a pain where his incision is and that has me worried. It seems like every weekend he has something wrong lately. I sure hope it is nothing serious. With it being Labor Day weekend it will be hard to find anyone to help us.  

September 4, 1993 Today we got up and took care of Fred’s vitals and he was having trouble with pain in his legs, so I spent the morning rubbing his legs to try and get them to stop hurting him. Dennis and Michele got here about 12:30 p.m.. It was good to see them. Susan and Rob and Nathan came next. Then Kent arrived a little later. Dale and his family arrived shortly there after. It was sure nice to have most of the family together again. I had hung a tarp from our back patio and with it it gave us enough shade so we would put out the two tables to eat on and it made it quite nice. I sure wish Fred had of felt better so he could have enjoyed it also. We missed having Don and his family along with Marylou’s family. Other than that we had a really nice time. Later in the day Kent, Dale, and I spent some time on the computer trying to learn how to use my hand scanner. We was finally able to scan a picture of Ruth into the monitor and it looked pretty good. I will have to learn more about it before I can get it to print out a hard copy.

 

I did find some collected memories that I'm sure Uncle Rob and Aunt Susan posted on familysearch.org, in addition to the journal entry. In the memories, I found this one from Grandma Hooper.

He really loved his grandchildren. Just a couple weeks ago he said that he hated to be leaving the grandchildren. He also regretted that he wouldn’t get to see the new grandkids that would be born in August [Ammon]. He loved to hold the grandkids in his lap and play with them. The kids would all love to climb on Grandpa.

Little Lady and Gentleman

I love taking pictures of my kiddos in their adorable Sunday clothes, but most of the time they change out of them before I get home from choir practice. Or she refused to do her hair. The kids looked so cute this week, so I advised them before church to stay in their outfits. Miss V and Mr C were not fighting, no spills on his sweater, and it wasn't thundering outside. Conditions were perfect, apart from Miss V making ridiculous face whenever I asked her to smile.

I'm so glad they have each other, for hugs, playing house, and building forts.  I'm so grateful Miss V finally decided to try the short hair again! We love it so much. And yes, Grandmas and Grandpas, I know I still need to give you printouts.

Miss V's "beach look"

Miss V pictured Mr C and me

Celebrating the Commode

He is potty-trained! Mr C is older than I thought he would be, but I waited to move forward with toilet-training when he showed some interest. Stage one was a little simpler, involving a 20-30 minute timer setting on my phone as a reminder, but stage two eluded us.

Mario and Spiderman underpants helped. The sticker chart motivated. Finally, after a few days of Mommy (me) scrubbing those characters in the toilet with the toilet brush, the young lad came up to me to announce the feeling! I've tried to celebrate with him at every successful experience since. Those moments, and hearing him tell family, "I'm being trained!" were my highlights. Those and every dry underpants moment since.

His long-term eyes-on-the-prize goal was Chuck E. Cheese's. We played together last night in Mr C's honor. Anyone need some size 5 diapers?

Nicole A. H. Porter and Zak Porter, proud parents of a potty-trained son

Christmas Adam with the Hoopers

Before Christmas Eve comes Christmas Adam in my family. Another day to celebrate. It worked for everyone to gather before the main day, and then Zak and I could spend time with our little family at home. My siblings and their spouses are hilarious. Plus, with Grandma and Grandpa being healthy, we got to enjoy all of their treats. Thanks, neighbors! They were delicious!

 I've had Decembers of trying to fit every single tradition into a family gather, but now I've reached a serene point. If we don't go caroling as a family or watch every single Christmas movie, I'm ok. We may or may not perform the nativity with my parents and my little family. I just like being together and talking with them. We did end up doing a super-short-Joy-School version of the Nativity and playing some carols on the pipes. We stayed overnight, and got to enjoy ourselves. Mom goes above and beyond making the house feel like Christmas. It has reached the point where I have vowed to never put that much effort into my own decorations, but I enjoy the feeling as soon as I step into the great room. As their children have traveled around the globe, Mom and Dad have gotten an impressive international collection of ornaments on the tree. Also a leg lamp. Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Miss V as Mary, Mr C as Joseph

Mr C as Joseph

Nate a Sheep #1

Grandpa Hooper as Wise Man #1