Mexican Border War Volunteers of 1916

They were Mexican Border War Volunteers of 1916 from Springville. These photos were taken before they went to serve. Claude Smith is 2nd from left on front row and his brother Raymond James Smith (Myrna's grandfather) is 4th from left. The Border War, or the Border Campaign, refers to the military engagements which took place in the Mexican-American border region of North America during the Mexican Revolution. From the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the United States Army was stationed in force along the border and on several occasions fought with Mexican rebels or federals. The height of the conflict came in 1916 when revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the American border town of Columbus, New Mexico. The American army returned to the United States in January 1917. Conflict at the border continued and the United States launched several more smaller operations into Mexican territory until 1919.

Mina Ericksen Pritchett Stories

Great-Grandmother Mina Ericksen Pritchett tended me after my mother's death and my father's entrance into the war. Her daughter, my Grandmother Vivian Christene Pritchett Smith, needed to teach school. She had come to stay with us right away but fell down the school house steps, those inside the building, and broke her hip.

Grandmother Smith was the teacher/principal at the Wattis School in Carbon County. It was located in the mining community and had two stories. Great-Grandmother had been going down those steps with me, I was only a year old at the time. Somehow she slipped and fell. I still remember the event. I know, I know, you think I was too young to remember. However, when I later recalled the events and the fact that the lower wall was painted gray and the upper wall was a different color and that there was a definite line between the two, since it was painted that way on purpose, I convinced my grandmother that I did know that much at least. I never went back to that school after we moved to Price and moved in with Aunt Renee, my mother's only sibling, and Uncle Max for the first while. I was in need of care and my grandmother was in need of a teaching job to pay the bills.

At any rate, that day that she broke her hip, Great-Grandmother lay on the steps and whimpered only a little. She was concerned about me and worried that I might be traumatized by her fall. She had not dropped me and I was not injured. I remember stroking her hand and patting her while a first aid crew was summoned. She ended up staying in Salt Lake City with Great-Aunt Jessie and Great-Uncle Gilbert while she healed. Aunt Renee ended up being my care-giver during the day.

It was Aunt Renee who potty-trained me. She managed to train me in just a day or two. It was an "ah-ha" moment for me. She was a good and loving woman who had  patience but could also be firm. She just explained everything to me as though I could understand. And I did. I still remember the delight that I had in wearing "big" girl underwear. She was the oldest sister of my deceased mother but had married a few months after her. She did not have a child as yet. Still she had all that was necessary to train me--love, patience, firmness. (My mother, married young and died young. My cousin, Garth, oldest of Renee's children, was three years younger than I was.) 

When I was four or five, Great-Grandmother came back to stay with us. At some point, we moved to a tiny house not far from Aunt Renee and Uncle Max and I still spent a great deal of time with my cousin Garth, who was more "little brother" than cousin. (I thought he was the most beautiful baby ever and I thought I should be given the opportunity to "mother" him.) Great-Grandmother never did heal well. She used a cane for the rest of her life and I called her, "Grandma-with-the-Cane." She would drop the cane and say, "Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea. . ." I would pick it up and give it back to her. I later found out that was part of a song that had some popularity when she was young. "Down Went McGinty" was copyrighted in1889, by Spaulding & Kornder.

The cane didn't really slow her down, however. The only weakness I ever noted was that she was not as quick to get to her feet. One time, after the war, when we lived on South Carbon Ave., I invited a hobo (there were a lot of them who road the rails and since we were just a few blocks from the railroad tracks, would stop and ask if there was work to do in exchange for a meal) into the house without giving her a chance to get up. He was a good man and simply stood inside the door, rather uncomfortably, until she was able to talk to him. Of course, there was always wood to chop in exchange for a meal and she was a good cook. All of us had compassion on the once-soldiers who returned to the states to find a glut of other men like themselves all wanting work. I still got the lecture of my life, to that point, and never, ever invited anyone into our home even when she was at the door. Grown-ups could make that decision but children could not.

She did have a sense of humor. She liked jokes and loved to tease. One day before we moved to Carbon Avenue and when I was four or five, I told her that I wanted to catch a bird. "If you can sprinkle salt on a bird's tail, you can catch it," she said. She bundled me up, it was cold, and sent me out into our fenced back yard with a salt shaker. I spent the morning happily trying to sneak up on birds so I could sprinkle salt on their tails and catch them. I never did get either the joke or a bird. When Grandmother came home she said, "Oh, Mother, you didn't!" She then sat me down and explained that, of course, if you could get close enough to a bird to sprinkle salt on its tail, you could, just as easily, catch it without the salt. No one that she knew of had ever caught a bird by just grabbing it with their bare hands. Birds, after all, could fly.

One thing that always impressed me about Great-Grandmother, was that she was the daughter of the second wife in a polygamous marriage. I remember many of the stories she told me about being a young girl who grew up in Sanpete County. Her parents were Danish converts and spoke Danish, along with English which they thought was wise since they now lived in America. The children were encouraged to speak English at home. Great-Grandmother could tell me nursery rhymes in Danish. One of my favorites was the name of the different fingers said in Danish. Years later, when I went with my husband to Denmark for the Danish Temple dedication, I asked our hostess about the little ditty I had learned. Children still hear the same little nursery rhyme. 

The Ephriam Heritage Festival

http://www.scandinavianfestival.org/

The 2013 Scandinavian Heritage Festival is set for Thursday through Saturday, May 23-25th (Memorial Weekend) in Ephraim, Utah.

The festival begins Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Noyes Building at Snow College with the Scandinavian Heritage Conference, a free educational event. The conference continues Friday morning.

The Little Scandinavian Dinner, a gourmet Scandinavian smorgasbord, will be served Friday at 6 p.m. at the Greenwood Student Center at Snow College. The cost is $13 for adults and $8 for children 8 years and younger. No reservations are required.

From Friday noon through Saturday at dusk, the festival grounds on the north side of the Snow College campus and at Pioneer Park, 50 N 100 W, will buzz with costumes, dancing, storytelling, entertainment, historical tours, craft and food booths and more. 

Elder Russell M. Nelson - The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nelson will speak on the importance of family heritage and will share some of his heritage in the Sanpete Valley. He has a deep-rooted Scandinavian heritage, and some of his direct line ancestors helped settle and lived their lives in Ephraim

BYU International Folk Dancers

Come partake of music and dance in a stunning, 90-minute performance. The showcase incorporates dance and music into a showcase unlike anything audiences have ever seen. The ensemble's authentic costumes and precise performance leave every audience member breathless and anxious for more

There are new postings but some are from the past.

At the Trauntvein Home website, I have decided to go back and add, according to date stamp, all the past history I have accumulated in files on the computer. At one point, when the old beast downstairs failed, I thought I had lost it all. Alan repaired it and it has better memory and a new CD burner. It was approximately $300 (I have the order form) for all of the parts. When that happened, I decided that I would add all of the past stuff, with a few exceptions, to the site.

Dear Toni, Help Me Out Regarding Another Question

Myrna wrote: Did Uncle Frank have something to do with the early Disneyland? I remember, through the haze of years, that he took us there when they were just building the original park and I think that he may have been a founder or contributor of some sort. True or not?

Toni wrote: Gee, I don't know..... I never heard anything about that and he never took me there or anywhere else for that matter. T.

Myrna wrote: I was with his big sister and he loved to show her around. He had enjoyed being her baby brother for many years and liked to have a chance to be with her.

Toni wrote: Whose big sister?  Gilbert's??  I'm confused.

Myrna wrote: Uncle Frank's (my grandmother, Vivian). That is why I got to go places with him. It was the fact that he liked to shown Vivian around. He was really, really good to me. I remember that your Dad and Mom also took us all to the beach. I still love the ocean.

 

LHT's degree

Melanie wrote: Wasn't Dad's Master's Degree a MPA...Master's of Public Administration with the emphasis of education?

Myrna wrote: His degree was Masters Degree in Education Administration, K-12, from Brigham Young University. He then received his Educational Specialist Degree, also from BYU,  which was a new program they were just starting. It was a step up from a Masters but was about 16 hours (four or five classes) and a dissertation away from a doctorate. One of those classes was one on how to prepare for a doctorate.

Educational Specialist, or Ed.S., is a degree in the U.S. that is designed for those who wish to develop advanced knowledge and theory beyond the master's degree level, but may not wish to pursue a degree at the doctoral level. Since the course work in an Education Specialist degree is at the doctoral level universities will transfer the credits earned directly into a doctoral degree (Ed.D, Doctor of Education).

Melanie wrote: I remember all his schooling. I would often meet him after the classes he was taking for his Ed Specialist degree. I remember telling him he should get his Doctorate's degree as he was so close. He told me he was done with all the time away from home and that Kirk had told him that the degree wouldn't give him an edge or more money.


Myrna wrote: That is exactly what he said then and just repeated now. He also added that he would have had to rely on my reading and re-reading that dissertation and was not sure he wanted to put me through that. I would not have minded and still would not. However, I am not certain my English grammar skills are up to that level of inspection.

Braden in Peru

ESTUDIANTES RECIBEN CLASES DE INGLÉS CON ESPECIALISTA EN LINGÜÍSTICA DE LA BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY.

www.ceplainmaculada.edu.pe

Honeymoon Myrna

Leonard and I went to Bryce and Zions Canyons for our honeymoon. He snapped this on slide film. I have been going through the slides and converting them to digital photos. I can't believe I ever was this young. We were married on September 9, 1961.

That is a long time ago, is it not?

Bake the Ultimate (Healthy) Brownie

Trust me, I know there will be times when you are going to crave some of that ooey, gooey chocolately stuff. So, instead of getting personal with the office vending machine, whip up a batch of these amazing, indulgent, moist fudge brownies. Not only will they be the perfect answer to that cocoa craving, you won't be left with that bitter aftertaste of guilt for derailing your daily calorie limit. So, go ahead and treat yourself. You deserve it!

Fudge Brownies

Ingredients

• olive oil cooking spray
• 2/3 cup mild honey, such as clover or orange blossom
• 1/3 cups natural, unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup white whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray an 8-inch square pan with olive oil. Set aside.

Place the honey in a large glass measuring cup. Microwave on high power until the honey is runny and just bubbling, 45 to 60 seconds. Add the cocoa and stir with a fork until well combined. Let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk until well combined.

In a large bowl, combine the applesauce, oil, egg, and vanilla. Whisk together until well blended. Add the honey-cocoa mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and stir until no traces of flour remain. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until the surface looks dry around the edges of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, about 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Place the pan on a cooling rack and let cool completely before slicing into 16 squares. (Store the brownies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Makes 16 (2-inch) brownies

Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 25 mins
Total Time: 30 mins

Contains Wheat/Gluten
Contains Egg
Vegetarian
Good for Leftovers

Nutrition Facts 
Number of Servings: 16
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 86.2
Total Fat: 2.2 g
Sodium: 63.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 16 g
Protein: 1.3 g

First Aid Teams Compete on Kenilworth Day

Jens Henry Trauntvein is competing with his mine team. He is the man standing in the foreground who is facing right with his profile showing. He is left of the man with his back to the camera. The competition was an annual event during Kenilworth Day and Henry usually was on the winning team. He was very smart about mine rescue and safety. That was one of the talents that helped him when he became the mine superintendent.