Recollections of My Grandma - Blanche Ruby Worthen

Blanche Ruby Worthen was born in 1901 in the Marmalade District (located just north of Temple Square) of Salt Lake City, Utah.  The house she was born in and grew up in is no longer there, having been demolished for the building of the Conference Center.  She was the loving mother of my Dad and Aunt Janet.

My earliest recollections of Grandma Blanche (that's what we always called her) involve he house she lived in on Harvard Ave. in Salt Lake City.  At this time she was married to Grandpa Russ (Russell Brewer Bean.)  She and Grandfather Cash had divorced when my Dad was in his early teens.  It's interesting that no one in the family ever talked about what happened there and apparently they both made every effort to avoid each other thereafter.  My wedding reception in 1981 at Grandma Ethel's house was a good example:  Grandma Blanche had to leave out the back door when Grandfather Cash and Virginia came in the front.  When our family would visit Salt Lake City every summer this is where we stayed because of all the room - two story house with a finished basement, which is where Richard and I always slept. I remember sleeping on a bed next to a cabinet with all the bridge trophies the Grandma Blanche and Grandpa Russ won.  The backyard was a well manicured lawn and garden.  When we were there in the summer Grandma would always have me go out in the garden a pick ripe red tomatoes, large ones and the cherry kind.  I have another strange memory of her house:  I was playing with the dial telephone one day and for some reason dialed the "O" for operator.  I quickly hung up but for the next several days felt the police were going to come and arrest me. 

Grandma Blanche seldom called me Charles or Charlie.  It was always Charlie Dear, even when I was in my twenties and thirties.

When I was in the 4th or 5th grade Grandma Blanche took me on my first airplane ride.  She and Grandpa Russ had driven to Las Vegas from Salt Lake City and while there flew to Los Angeles.  She took Richard and I back with her.  We flew out of the original LAX on Aviation Blvd.  Grandpa Russ was the owner of Mountain States Fire Sprinkler Company and he had a contract to put fire sprinklers in many of the new hotels, including the Flamingo and Stardust.  It was rumored that he and Bugsy Siegel (the gangster who built the Flamingo Hotel and brought the mob to Las Vegas) were well acquainted.  I don't recall how many days we stayed in Las Vegas.  I do remember being told to get out of the casino area of the Flamingo while Grandma Blanche played bingo.  I also remember being allowed to put a dime in a slot machine at a drug store .  I won.  The drive back to Salt Lake City was interesting, no I-15 and Grandpa Russ was a speed demon.  Had I known then what I know now about Grandpas Russ I would have been really scared.  You see, Grandpa Russ was a really good man, but he was also and alcoholic.  By this time Grandma Blanche and Grandpa Russ had moved to a house on Harrison Ave. in Salt Lake City.  My birthday happened while I was there and Grandma made me a chocolate cake decorated with lollipops and candy canes.  Breakfast at Grandma's was always special with cantaloupe, honey dew melons and orange juice, things we didn't get at home.  Grandma also gave me my first experience to prime rib and Yorkshire pudding.

It was also during this summer that Grandma Blanche took all her grandchildren to see the movie, "Music Man," starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.  This is still my favorite movie of all time.  My Dad later bought the soundtrack and we played the record over and over again, to the point where I had almost all of the songs memorized.  At family parties my Mom made me do the number "Trouble with a capital T and the rhymes with P and that stands for pool."

During my high school years, after Grandpa Russ had passed away, Grandma Blanche would drive her Chevrolet Impala down to the Grand Canyon and work as a desk clerk at the Grand Canyon Hotel.  She did that for several summers and was always very proud of the fact she was able to make that drive and remain independent.

It was also during this time that she moved from her house on Harrison to the Carriage Lane condominiums on 45th South.  It was a very nice place.  I remember she always paid the gardener extra to plant petunias outside her residence. 

In 1971 I received my mission call to Japan.  I did not know of this at the time but later found out that she insisted on paying half the cost of my mission.  When asked why she did this she answered that she wanted the blessings that came from supporting a missionary in the field.  She faithfully wrote me a letter every month.  At the end of my mission I bought an elegant Japanese doll wearing a silk kimono in a large glass case and had it shipped back to her.  She said it was too much and I said it was not enough.  She proudly displayed it in her living room.

During my college years I would frequently drive up to Salt Lake City on the weekends and go out to lunch or dinner with her.  After the first few times I made sure that I did the driving when we went out.  She would drive 45 mph in the fast lane of the freeway, bless her heart.

Speaking of cars, several years after I had graduated from college and moved back to Inglewood, I decided to buy a new car.  I had my heart set on a black and silver  Datsun 200SX that I has seen at the car show.   There were no in Los Angeles, but there was on in Orem, Utah.  I made arrangements to drive up and buy it.  When Grandma Blanche found out about it she let me know she wanted to buy my Impala  and she insisted on a price that was well above what the dealership would have given me.  She drove that car the rest of her life.

At the end of her life, when her health began to dwindle, she went to live with my Aunt Janet and Uncle Judd.  It was with some sadness and yet with some rejoicing that we go word on December 9, 1986 that Grandma Blanche had passed away peacefully in her sleep.  I was honored to be asked to speak at her funeral.  My most distinct memory of that funeral was a Christmas tree.  Someone, and to this day we do not know who, instead of sending flowers to her funeral, sent a fully decorated Christmas tree.  And so, every Christmas season when Charlie Dear puts up his Christmas tree, he thinks of all the good times with Grandma Blanche.

Recollections of my Grandfather, Charles Cash Rampton

  

My Grandfather (we never called him Grandpa, it was always Grandfather) was extremely proud of his names: Rampton from his father, Charles Hyrum Rampton, and Cash from his mother, Wilda Cash.  He was born in Bountiful, Utah in1901 but lived all his adult life in Salt Lake City.  And that is where my earliest recollections of him begin.  My family lived there until I was five years old when we moved to Southern California.  I have vivid memories of Sunday dinners at his house on Virginia Ave.  There was a big dining room with a long table which I could not reach if I sat on a chair.  But, a large unabridged dictionary placed on the seat of the chair boosted me high enough so I could access the plate. 

After we moved to California we would come back to Salt Lake City every year for vacation;  and I do mean every year from when I was five until I went on my mission to Japan.  One of the things I looked forward to the most was visiting him at his office at Walker Bank where he was a vice-president.  He always had great bank souvenirs that he would give us each time we visited.  I still have one of them today, a small bank in the shape of a book.  There is something inside, but I have no idea where the key is today. 

I always thought is was great that he worked in a bank and had the name, Cash.  That is the name he went by his adult life.  He began working for Walker Bank in his early twenties and retired as Senior Vice-president after 41 years of service. 

Grandfather, and my step-grandmother, Virginia loved to travel, many times going on world cruises that departed from the Port of Los Angeles.  Our family would always go visit them on the ship before they departed.  For some reason, my younger brother, Richard, and I always had to dress up in Sunday clothes for the visits.  In my pre-teen and teen years I collected stamps and always enjoyed the ones they sent me back from their many destinations.

In 1970 I entered Brigham Young University in Provo.  Once a month he would drive down from Salt Lake City and take me to dinner. The first time was at the restaurant of a local hotel not to far off of campus.  I don't know the reason why, but at the end of dinner he left a larger than usual tip for the waitress which she did not forget.  Sometime later, I took a date there and was given the royal treatment by the same waitress, free dessert.  That was a big deal for a college freshman, trying to impress his date.

One Sunday he stopped in on campus at the house of the President of the University, Ernest Wilkinson and introduced him to me.  They had been friends for many years.

 Grandfather Cash (that's what we called him) was never very active in the church, especially after he and my Grandma Blanch divorced when my Dad was in his early teens.  But he was still supportive of me going on a mission.  I enjoyed the few letters he sent me in Japan. They were always encouraging.  So it was with some interest that just a few years ago I found the letters he sent my Dad on his mission in Canada.  The content is precious.  He never handwrote the letters, rather he would dictate them to his secretary.  She would type them on Walk Bank stationary; he would sign them; enclose the monthly check and put them in the mail.  It was in these letters that I learned that he did not approve of my mother-to-be, Lois Fae Linnebach.  He felt my Dad should finish his education before getting married.  (My Mom, apparently, had their wedding all planned out before my Dad finished his two years in Eastern Canada.  They were married two months after he got home.)

When I returned to BYU after my mission he would frequently invite me to lunch at the Alta Club in Salt Lake City, of which he was a member.  I always wondered why all the women went in a different door than the men; but apparently that was the custom.  The women congregated in one part of the club and the men in the other.  This is where I had my first "Shirley Temple."  Later we all met in the dining room.   It was a great lunch.  At the end Virginia got up to go to the ladies room and Grandfather went to speak to Senator Jake Garn.  While I was sitting at the table by myself, the waiter brought a small silver goblet filled with water to each seat.  I had no idea what I was suppose to do with it, so I drank it.  Grandfather saw me do it and started to laugh.  He later told me that was a fingerbowl in which I was suppose to rinse my hands off.  I was indeed embarrassed. 

In the early 1970's Grandfather moved from his house on Virginia Ave to a fancy apartment/condominium building on North Temple in Salt Lake City.  My Dad loves to tell the story of how he and Grandfather were riding in the elevator down to the parking area when President Ezra Taft Benson got on with them.  Per my Dad, President Benson said, "Cash, you could have been a great mission president."

But instead, Grandfather Cash chose to devote much of his time to public service.  His list of public positions included President of the Salt Lake Chapter of the American Institute of Banking, Chairman of the Salt Lake County American Red Cross, President of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of the Utah Commission for the Hoover Report, Member of the Board of Trustees to Administer the Utah Public Employees Retirement System, Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, Member of the Salt Lake City Planning and Zoning Commission, Member of the City Board of Adjustments, Member of the Federal Jury Commission (appointed by Judge Willis Ritter),and Co-Chairman of the Citizens Advisory Commission on Airport Improvements at Salt Lake City International Airport. My Dad would always tell us that the expansion of Salt Lake International Airport to its current status was in part due to Grandfather's vision of the future.  We always considered him the second most famous Rampton politician in the family, behind Governor Calvin Rampton.  That is before we learned that the husband of his half-sister, Amanda, was Charles Rendell Mabey, also a governor of the State of Utah.  So maybe he moved down the list one notch.

In 1952 he was a candidate for the United States Senate seat from Utah.  That was the same year that as President of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce he spoke at the Golden Jubilee dinner at the Hotel Utah along with President David O. McKay and Irving S. Olds, Chairman of the Board of United States Steel Corporation.  When my Dad graduated from the University of Utah in 1957 with a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering, his first job was with United States Steel.  I wonder if Grandfathers connections had anything to do with it?

After retirement, Grandfather and Virginia would spend many of their winters here in Southern California, either in Palm Springs or San Diego.  I always questioned the safety of two seventy year olds making the 700 mile drive from Utah to California in their Chevrolet Caprice Classic (which my Dad inherited, was stolen after several years and used in several bank robberies before being recovered.)  It was always fun to go visit them in their resort-like surroundings.  By this time Grandfather's opinion of my Mother had changed 180 degrees.  He would always tell her that my Dad could not have done any better than her for a wife.  But she still was always a little intimidated by him.

In December of 1991 I was saddened to learn that Grandfather had passed away, just before his 90th birthday.  I was honored to be asked by my Dad and Aunt Janet to deliver the eulogy at his funeral.  Governor Calvin Rampton was the other speaker.  He was later buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in a family plot he had purchased years earlier.  Today, my baby sister and mother are buried there along with Virginia and my Uncle Judd.  The two remaining plots are for my Dad and Aunt Janet.  It was important to Grandfather for the family to be close in life and death.

Grandfather especially loved my oldest son David, born in 1983, probably because David's middle name is Cash.  When David was an infant Grandfather would send him letters and David would reply (via his mother.)  In one of the letters Grandfather included this poem that way very dear to him:

YOUR NAME

You got it from your father

It was all he had to give.

So it’s yours to use and cherish

For as long as you may live.

If you lose the watch he gave you

It can always be replaced.

But a black mark on your name,

Son can never be erased.

It was clean the day you took it

And a worthy name to bear.

When he got it from his father

There was no dishonor there.

So make sure you guard it wisely

After all is said and done.

You’ll be glad the name is spotless

When you give it to your son.

The Day I Ditched School - Elijah Made Me Do It (part 3 of 3)

After my day in the library, I put the story of the John Hartshorn, Jr. family in my file along with the other information I gathered. And there it sat....  Several years then passed. During this time, I graduated from BYU and moved back to Los Angeles to embark on my career in personnel management at Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City, California.  In those years when I made a concerted effort to keep the Sabbath Day holy, not that I still don't today, one of the Sunday activities I would undertake might seem very strange to you.  I would take family group sheets from my Book of Remembrance, interweave the dates and places with my knowledge of history, and then try to conceptualize what actually happened to the people on the family group sheet. On one sheet I saw an 1840 birth date of a child which took place on the Atlantic Ocean. I empathized with the mother who probably suffered great hardship during her pregnancy and childbirth at sea. Morning sickness is bad enough by itself. But, when combined with sea sickness, it must have been almost intolerable. On another sheet I were saddened to see the death date of a small baby girl in Winter Quarters, Iowa only six days after her birth in 1847. The joy the family felt at the birth contrasted with the pain of the death made me appreciate even more the two children, David and Travis, with which the Lord had blessed me.  Kevin's birth was still two years away.

One Sunday evening in 1987 Judy and I were looking at the family group sheet of the John Hartshorn Jr. family I had copied from the Archive Records of the Salt Lake Genealogical Library while I was still in college.  Seeing three death dates on the same day, Judy asked me if I knew what had happened to the family?  I thumbed through my files and found the account of the massacre at Haverhill. After discussing the tragedy that beset the Hartshorn family, trying to imagine how we would have reacted in a similar situation or how we would have dealt with such misfortune, I returned the history to my files and retired to bed for the evening.  About three o’clock in the morning I suddenly awoke.  Like lightening from a summer thunder storm, an overpowering realization flashed through my mind that something was wrong on the John Hartshorn Jr. family group sheet. So profound was the thought, that I had to get up right then and go look. I took out the family group sheet and immediately noticed that the year of death of the first-born son, John III, was 1699, making him two years old when he died. Hence, no temple work had ever been done on his behalf except sealing him to his parents. He had never been baptized or endowed. I rushed to open my history of Haverhill, Massachusetts to compare dates and, sure enough, there was a discrepancy. The history of the massacre said that John III was eleven years old when he died. This meant that temple work should have been performed for him.  I was now faced with the problem of determining which date was correct. The only way I could do this was to again go to the Genealogical Library and review the materials that contained the early vital records of Haverhill, Massachusetts.  I was excited to check the records and see which date was correct. Here was the potential for an opportunity I had been working toward for years - to finally be able to do the temple work for a deceased ancestor. I was fortunate in that there was a Family History Library situated on the grounds of the Los Angeles Temple. If the library had been open at that hour, I would have rushed straight there. But it wasn’t and so reluctantly I had to wait.

Inasmuch as my discovery had taken place in the wee hours of Monday morning, I was once again faced with a perplexing dilemma. The library did not open until 9:00 a.m.  But, I had to be at work at 8:00 a.m. Again, the temptation to take a day off was literally tearing at the very fiber of my being. What should I do? An overwhelming desire to verify the correct date was burning within me. On the other hand, I held a position of some responsibility at my place of employment and had a family to support.  I went to work; but, as soon as I could, I raced to the Family History Library. At least I wanted to race there. But rush hour traffic on the Los Angeles freeways makes speeding anywhere next to impossible. Sitting on the freeway was frustrating and only heightened my craving desire to get to the library. After what seemed like an eternity on the freeway, I arrived on the Temple grounds. I hurried inside the library and began my search. Finally I found it, the documentation that confirmed that John Hartshorn III was killed with his father and brothers in 1708. I almost shouted for joy.  Before the night was through, I completed all the necessary papers to have the temple work done and sent them off to the Genealogical Department of the Church in Salt Lake City.

Several weeks later I received a letter back stating that the name of John Hartshorn III had been cleared to have all the necessary temple work done. The letter added that his name had been sent to the Los Angeles Temple where I could go and perform the work on his behalf. What a thrill! And yet at the same time a quiet peace came over me and caused me to reflect back on all of the circumstances that resulted in this letter and the ultimate performance of these eternal ordinances. I am convinced, and no one can make me believe otherwise, that the immortal spirit of John Hartshorn III had reached a certain point in the spirit world where it could no longer progress. The ordinances of baptism, confirmation, bestowal of the Priesthood, and the endowment, all of which can be performed in the temple for deceased individuals who did not have that opportunity during their mortal existence, needed to be performed on his behalf so that he could continue on in his pursuit of Eternal Life. The time had come for this to happen and I was blessed to be a part of it.

While still reflecting, I vividly remembered that sparkling winter morning some eleven years past and the prompting I had to visit the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City. Suddenly, it became clear just what it was that influenced me that day to cut class and drive to the library where I obtained my first knowledge of what had happened to the John Hartshorn Jr. family: it was the “Spirit of Elijah” that the Prophet Malachi wrote would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers...” (Malachi 4:6)

With this scripture in mind, Joseph Smith taught: “...this is the Spirit of Elijah, that we redeem our dead, and connect ourselves with our fathers which are in heaven, and seal up our dead to come forth in the first resurrection.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 337-338)

Yes, Elijah made me do it.

The Day I Ditched School - Elijah Made Me Do It (part 2 of 3)

One of the stories I collected that day concerned family of John Hatshorn, Jr. who lived in Haverhill, MA in the early 1700's.  (Correct pronunciation in not Haver-hill, but Hay-vrill: I was once corrected by a local.)  The following is my account from several source documents I read that day.

It was a hot summer morning in the small community of Haverhill, Massachusetts.  The John Hartshorn Jr. family was about its daily chores.  But this morning of August 29, 1708 was one that would have dire consequences for the young family.  Little did they know that the Sunday breakfast they had just finished would be their last together as a family in this life.  The entire community of Haverhill was in a state of commotion due to the fighting of the Queen Anne’s War which had spilled over into the Americas from Europe.  John had taken precautions to provide for the defense of his wife and six children by digging a cellar under his two story home that could only be entered by way of a secret trap door.  In case of attack by either the French or Native American tribes, the family was to hide in the cellar until it was safe to come out.  The raid on Haverhill was lead by French commander Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville who had enlisted the services of the Algonquin and Abenaki tribes.

All was calm until shortly after breakfast.  Then, panic struck the young family when John spotted a war party approaching their isolated house ready to attack.  For reasons known only to John or maybe even his wife, Hannah, John bolted from the house.  Why he did not retreat to the cellar with his family is not known.  Perhaps he felt that if the war party entered the house and saw no one there they would become suspicious and find the secret hiding place. Perhaps he felt he needed to buy some time so that his family could gather in the cellar.  Or perhaps he thought he could lead the attackers away from the house altogether.  Nevertheless, as John ran he was followed by his 11 year old son, John III, and 9 year old son, Thomas. All three were shot dead before they could run fifty feet.  Another son, Jonathan, age 5, also tried to run from the house but was quickly caught and killed by the savage blow of an Algonquin tomahawk.

Inside the house, Hannah was horrified at the massacre of her husband and three sons. But, she still had enough presence of mind to gather her other sons and head for the secret cellar. As she began to pick up four month old David she realized that his crying might give away their hiding place and result in the demise of the rest of the family. So reluctantly she set the infant on the bed in the second story bedroom and covered him with blankets, hoping that the attackers would not go upstairs, and then took the other two boys, Jacob, age 7, and Timothy, age 2,into the cellar to hide.

Shortly thereafter, the Algonquins entered the house and began their deeds of plunder.  Little time passed before the intruders discovered baby David in the second story bedroom.  In an act of the utmost cruelty and disdain for human life, the infant was taken by the marauding warriors and thrown out the second story window. 

After what seemed like an eternity, the attackers left the Hartshorn house only to continue pillaging other residences in the area. Once the carnage of Haverhill was completed, they left to return to their French allies in Canada.  Sixteen people had been killed and 14-24 taken captive back to Canada.  As soon as the war party had vacated the vicinity, John Hartshorn’s father, John Sr., raced to his son’s house to see how the young family fared the attack. His own wife had been killed during the raid.  He was devastated at the sight of his slain son and grandsons outside the house.  As he sped to enter the open front door his eyes caught a glimpse of a pile of clapboards along the side of the house.  Lying on top of the pile was the baby, David.  John Sr. hurried to the pile of boards, his heart pounding in foreboding anticipation of what other tragedy he might encounter.  There, he gently picked up the motionless infant. He examined the baby and found, much to his relief, that the child was alive and only stunned by the ordeal.  Little David soon regained consciousness and was otherwise unharmed.  John Sr. then proceeded to enter the cellar and bring out the frightened mother and children, now forced to endure the difficulties of early colonial life in America without a husband and father.

I was deeply touched by this tragic story of hardship and courage which does, by the way, end on a positive note. The young baby, David, grew to be a man of large stature and great strength. He was also the father of seventeen children; one from which we are directly descended via Grandma Blanche (Blanche Ruby Worthen).

Next week, there's more to this story than this!!



Headstone of John Hartshorn, Jr.