MY MOTHER, MABLE WAITE: Rodney Waite

As I think of Mother, it seems so long ago that she left us, but then in another way, it seems only yesterday that she was here with us.

I nearly always called her Mother and she was that, in every sense of the word. She was truly the heart of our home and family and she meant everything to me. If Mother wasn't home things just didn't seem right until she returned. Mother was also the driving force and business head that ran our family and kept things going while Dad was away so much of the time driving the U.S. mail.

To some others in the family she was "Ma" and to the people of the town she was "Aunt Mame" and my father sometimes called her "Mable", her right name. My father was called "Dad" by his family and "Uncle Herb" by friends and relatives.

I remember hearing my Mother tell many times about her growing up years and her pioneering family and how proud she was of them for joining the church and coming west with the pioneers to help build up God's Kingdom out here in the west. She would tell of the trials and sacrifices they endured because of their faith and how they helped to make friends with the Indians, helped to settle and clear the land, and tame the wilderness to make it a good place to live for their family and those to come after. Yes, she was proud of her father Dudley Leavitt and her mother Mary Huntsman Leavitt. My Mother did her share of pioneering, also.

I remember her telling many times of the blessings of belonging to a large polygamist family and of how close she was to her half brothers and sisters who were about her same age and the fun times they had together.

Her father Dudley had five wives and it was like she had five mothers and homes instead of just one. She always felt loved and welcome in any of them at any time. It was wonderful for her to belong to such a large and loving family.

In later years when she came to visit us in Idaho, I remember us sitting around in the evenings and she would tell us of things that happened during her growing up years. About her father Dudley and mother Mary and things they did and how she was the first child born in Gunlock. (I believe that is what she said.)

She also told things about her brothers and sisters, especially those about her same age like Aunt Mary Jane, Aunt Doe and Uncle Dan who she was especially close to.

Mother was a good friend to everyone and her home was a place where travelers (friend and stranger) would stop as they came and went and know they would be welcome and find food and rest. Even the hobo's were fed when they came knocking on her door.

Her home was a regular meeting place for family and friends to gather and visit, especially on Sunday afternoons. How I remember even after I was married and we lived in Bunkerville, that Sunday just wasn't complete until we walked up to Mother's and Dad's.

I remember Mother as being a very tenderhearted person and she cared deeply for her family and friends. The tears would come very easily when she heard of someone in distress or trouble and she was also moved to tears by good news. I can see her yet as she welcomed us home, when we came to visit in later years, with tears of happiness and her goodbye tears, as we had to leave.

I don't remember Mother being overly demonstrative with her affection, except with babies and little children. She loved her grandchildren and liked to hold them and talk to them. If they did something cute or clever, she would laugh and say, "Oh, you cute little s _ t!" The way she said it, it didn't seem offensive at all, but was a compliment.

I was the baby of her large family of twelve children and others in the family have told me I was spoiled. I can remember Mother holding me and loving me some, but she was always so busy that she didn't have time to do it much. But I do remember my Aunt Nello, (Uncle Dan's wife) picking me up and cuddling and rocking me a lot when she came to our place. I think they stayed with us some during the winters because it was warmer than in Central, Utah, where they lived. Anyway, Aunt Nello was my favorite aunt because she did pay a lot of attention to me.

Mother was always a very energetic lady and kept busy. I can still see her walking in her special fast way, down the trail toward the barnyard. (She always walked fast.) The barnyard was slightly downhill, so it did slow her down a little as she came back to the house, but not much.

Some of my very earliest memories is of my Mother in our kitchen busy doing the many countless tasks she had to do, especially cooking meals. I remember the good smells of the bacon, eggs, and potatoes she usually cooked for our breakfast. I remember the warmth and comfort of our large, black Monarch range and of the great service it was to our family, as it provided warmth on cold days, it cooked our food, provided warm water in the reservoir, baked our bread and gave us a cozy place to take a bath, along with many other things. We took our baths near it in a galvanized tub with some chairs turned to give us a little privacy.

Our family life sort of centered around that stove and the large oval table in our kitchen. How I remember the smell and feel of the oil cloth that covered our table and the crackling of the fire in the stove.

Once when I was small, Mother took me to town with her to choose and buy a new piece of oil cloth to cover the table. I was so thrilled to see the different colors and designs and enjoyed the good strong new smell of it in the store and after we put it on the table.

Around that table so many things were done and so much of our lives was spent.

When mealtime came, the table was set with the plates turned upside down and the chair backs were turned to the table. Around this table our family knelt in prayer, night and morning. After prayers were said, the chairs were turned around and everyone sat down. The blessing was then said on the food before the plates were turned over. How well I remember mother making sure this was done.

Around this table we would do all kinds of things, like canning (the whole family would set and peel peaches or pit apricots). The bread would be mixed on it, pies were rolled out and made on it, butter was churned in a bottle or churn and then it would be put in a wooden bowl and a wooden paddle used to work out the buttermilk. This too was done on the table. There were so many countless chores done on the table. Remember the noodles she would roll out and cut?

We also gathered around it to visit and talk and of course at night we lit a coal oil lamp and sat in the center of the table to give us light to eat our usual bread and milk supper by. I still love bread and milk and remember us eating together. Usually there was also a little jam, honey, or molasses. Sometimes raw onion and we loved to put seedless grapes or bright red pomegranate kernels in our bread and milk to give a special sweet crunch to every spoonful.

After supper was cleared away, we sat around doing homework and Mother would mend or sew on something. I remember Mother sometimes reading aloud to us from the scriptures or something else. I especially remember her sitting there by the table in the soft glow of the lamp, reading aloud when Dad was home. That was real special.

On special occasions, when we were going to have company, Mother would dress up that dear old table in a white table cloth and I knew something special was going to happen.

I guess my very earliest recollection when I was tiny is of being in the kitchen watching Mother making a picnic lunch and putting it in a large shiny milk bucket. She made scrambled eggs sandwiches along with a two quart jar of peaches and whatever else we might have had and put them all in the bucket and covered it with a white cloth. (She packed many a lunch in a bucket, but they were always covered with a white cloth.)

Anyway, this first day I remember after she packed the lunch, she took me out and put me in the wagon on a quilt. The bed of the wagon was filled with straw and some of the older boys had the team harnessed and hooked up. We then all went over across the river to the Mesquite side to work in the grape vineyard.

Mother put a quilt in the shade of a cottonwood tree and put me on it and told me to play there while they picked grapes. But you know how babies are, I was soon off the quilt and out in those awful sandburs. When anyone of them came along, they would put me back on the quilt and pick out the burs and when they left, I would try to follow and be back out in the burs. I remember how glad I was when Mother picked me up and put me back in the wagon. She picked out the sandburs again and I was so glad to lay down on that soft straw and sleep while we went home. I was so tired.

Mother worked hard all her life, many times doing the work of a man, as she went with her boys to the field and worked with them teaching them how things should be done. This she did for years until they were old enough to take over. She helped plow, plant and harvest, like cutting and hauling hay, cutting grain and shocking it and the many other things that had to be done.

She went with her :joys to haul wood from the mountains too. I've heard her tell about doing this once when she was far along in a pregnancy. `they got back home in the evening, she got down off the large wagon load of wood, went in the house '_:o bed and had her baby teat night.

I1,9other never went to a hospital to have any of her babies, but had them at home with the help of a mid wife. I think I remember being told that Aunt Lene (her half sister) was her mid wife when I was born.

Besides field work, ":other had many other things to do that we don't have to do now, such as making her own soap out in a black tub over a fire. (Seems it took hours as she kept stirring it and fixing the fire and adding this and that.) It also took hours to do the wash, for first the water had to be drawn up from the cistern with a bucket and rope, then put in a black tub that was set over a fire outside. After the water was hot enough, some was put into another tub and the clothes would be scrubbed on a washboard, using a bar of her homemade soap. Later they acquired a half moon washer that the clothes could be put in and then some of the boys could help by turning it back and forth, for hours, it seemed. She also used a clothes puncher to help punch the clothes clean. Wash day was an all day, back breaking job.

What a miracle it was for Mother in later years when electricity finally came into the valley and she could have an electric washer and instead of having to wrap wet clothes around butter and milk or lower them into the cistern in a bucket to cool them, she had a refrigerator. How thrilled she was with it, as we all were.

Mother helped with the chores at home, also. I can still see her down in the chicken run with a bucket in her hand.

She also helped when we butchered an animal and I remember when I was quite small of seeing her scraping a pig. They then cured or canned the meat. The hams and bacon, especially the hams, were cured, the sausage was ground, seasoned and made into patties, then fried and put in jars while hot. The jar was then filled with hot melted lard and sealed. She made head cheese also.

She bottled lots of beef and chickens in the pressure cooker. We ate many a good meal with that kind of meat and it made the best gravy I ever tasted.

I remember watching Mother make butter to sell. She had her own special mold and parchment wrapping paper with her name printed on it. Dina used to take a lot of her butter to Las Vegas to customers down there.

She canned and dried lots of fruit each year. I especially liked her bottled white cline peaches and seedless grapes. She made real good grape pie. She made fig jam and green and ripe tomato preserves, along with peach preserves.

Mac seemed to be Mother's big helper in the house, because I remember him always trying to keep us younger boys helping. He would say, "Rodney, you do the dishes and Dan, you sweep this floor, then I will mop it." Seems he was always helping Mother with the canning, etc.

Of course, Mother always baked our bread and I'll never forget how good that hot bread tasted covered with some of her good melted butter. Sometimes I added some jam or preserves. I could always tell when bread was a baking because of the heavenly smell that drifted outside to tempt me. Years later after my Dad retired, he would do the bread sometimes. I remember he made the biggest biscuits you ever saw.

When Mother baked bread or made something else good, she usually sent some over to her sister, "Aunt Lene". Before Uncle Wire died, she would send bread and other food down to him, too. Mother always worried about "Aunt Lene" who lived nearby. She was always sending me over there to chop her wood and carry it in or do other things she needed to have done. She went to visit Aunt Lene often to make sure she was all right.

I never saw my Mother in pants or slacks, but she wore her dresses long enough for complete modesty and she nearly always wore an apron that came up over her shoulders. I never remember seeing her wear a half apron. Seems like she usually wore a hat of some kind when she went to work in the fields.

Mother usually always wore her hair short and straight, just below her ears. She didn't have time to have it curled or fuss with it.

But I remember once in later years when she came to Idaho to visit us, and we decided we would like to have her picture taken at a studio in Caldwell. She said, "Oh, no, I would break the camera." But Marie said she would curl Mother's hair and make her beautiful, which she did. Mother looked beautiful in her pretty blue dress, white pearls, and silver hair. Mother was very pleased with the way she looked. This was the picture that so many of the family had copied. We've always been so thankful we had it done.

As we boys were growing up and going out to ball games and dances, Mother never sat up waiting for us, but she always seemed to be awake when we stepped in the door. She always knew just who it was by the sounds we made. When I came in she would always say, "Rodney, is that you?" I would then go to her bedroom door and say, "Yes, Mother," then we would sometimes talk briefly.

Then I usually got me something to eat. I would get a pan of milk out and pour off about a pint~ of cream off the top, then get a jar of peaches and put the cream on them, then make some toast and eat. Man was that good! Now I have to be satisfied with l% milk.

Speaking of food again reminds me of how Mother enjoyed root beer floats in later years. After Dad retired and was home a lot, I remember that he liked to tease Mother (and everyone else), but I especially remember Mother wouldn't hesitate to tell him how she felt. about it. She would spout back at him with a few choice words and then he would say, "Now, now, Mable." I don't think she cared too much for her real name because she sometimes came back at him with, "Oh, damn it Dad," then he would laugh.

Dad also loved to tease his grandkids. Many times he would pull a face at the tiny ones and they would pucker. up and cry, and Mother would come to

Mother enjoyed playing simple card games with some of us when we got together, Rummy was her favorite. When someone like me laid their cards down early and Mother sat there with her hand full of cards, she would laugh and say, "Oh, damn it Rodney." My Dad enjoyed playing solitaire a lot and it helped pass the time for him.

We have so much to thank our dear Mother for. She taught us by example. She taught us how to work and the value of work and accepting responsibility and of being honest, truthful, helpful and dependable and the many other lessons of life. She taught us the great value of living the gospel and its teachings and doing our duty in the church. I'm sure it was very hard for Mother to take care of everything at home like she did, while Dad was gone. A lot of less valiant women would have given up, but not our Mother.

And I've often thought how hard it must have been for Dad being on the road and away from family and the comforts of home so much. I'm sure it was a hard, lonely life for him! But they both worked so hard and sacrificed so much for us, their children. I never did thank them enough for all the struggle, worries, and heartaches they went through for me.

Now that I've went through the experience of raising a family, I appreciate what they did more than ever. I hope they now know my feelings, wherever they are. I hope they knew I love them deeply and treasure their dear memory.

Marie Waite speaking:

Thinking of Mom Waite, which I do often, I couldn't have chosen a better or nicer Mother in law than she was. I loved her as my own Mother and enjoyed her company. I enjoyed visiting and discussing things with her.

I thank her for being my friend and for the many things she taught me and all the good counsel she gave me.

I always appreciated all the nice little things she did for us, to show she cared and loved us. To us she was a great lady and we treasure her memory and call her name blessed.