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.

Resemblances

How often have we heard someone say, "She looks like her mother, or he looks like his grandfather?"  Just last week my daughter-in-law, Melissa, stated that my granddaughter, Jude, looks like a certain relative.  With that in mind, I ask each of you, particularly my sons, nieces and nephews:  "Who do you look like?"  Below are some early photos of your ancestors (although it seems a little strange that I am someone's ancestor.....I'm not even 60 years old.)



Charles Cash Rampton at 16 months

 

Blanche Worthen age 1





Lois Fae Linnebach age 1





Charles Cash Rampton Jr. age 3





Charles Cash Rampton III age 1



Richard Arthur Rampton age 1



Roger Lee Rampton age 1



James Glen Rampton age 1



Below is a picture of Travis when he was about 1 year old.  Compare that to Grandma Lois's (Lois Fae Linnebach) baby picture.  I think there is a resemblance.  When I look at a picture of my niece, Angie, I see a striking resemblance to my Grandma Blanche (Blanche Ruby Worthen.)   


Blanche Ruby Worthen early 20's



Is this all just genetics or is it something more?  I don't know.  In addition to passing on those dominant and recessive genes to us, were we acquainted in our pre-mortal existence?  Were we friends?  I am confident we knew each other there.  Some patriarchal blessings state that a person was able to choose their parents there.  Mine does.

In addition to having physical traits passed down to us by our ancestors, I can make a case that behavioral traits can also be inherited.  Here are three examples (not all good):

My Mom's father, Grandpa Joe Bush (I don't know why we called him that.....his real name was Arthur Phillip Linnebach....everyone called him Art) was an avid lover of birds.  Family lore has it that he raised fighting roosters in his early days.  When I was young I remember his many parakeets, parrots and cockatoos.  But later in his life he began to specialize in the breeding and raising of rare pheasants.  Below is a copy of a sheet of his stationary listing his many pheasants.

He was a member of the Avicultural Hall of Fame.  Many of you know that I enjoy photographing birds and have traveled to many places to get a good shot.  Check out my Flickr.com page to see some of them.  Grandpa Joe Bush died in 1969.  Had I only had my present interest then, and a good camera (not my Kodak Instamatic), think of the great photos I could have taken in his back yard in Sandy, Utah.  My brother Richard, seems to have inherited a greater portion of Grandpa Joe Bush's love of birds.  For over 15 years he has bred and raised African Gray Parrots at his home in Phoenix, AZ.  By the way, Richard's middle name is Arthur.  His love of birds..........just a coincidence?   

Example Two:  My Dad, Charles Cash Rampton, Jr. used to tell us a story about our Grandpa Cash, his father (Charles Cash Rampton.)  I've never been able to verify this, but according to Dad, Grandpa Cash was expelled from the University of Utah.  Seems that one day he was leaning out the second story window of the science building holding an eye dropper full of nitro glycerin (liquid TNT).  When a coed would walk by he would squeeze out a drop that would fall to the sidewalk below and explode, scaring the young woman.  Great fun, right, but university officials frowned on such activities and booted him from school.  So, he went to work for Walker Bank and retired a Senior Vice-president.  This love of explosives seems to have passed on to Dad.  To this day, he delights in telling the story of a summer job he had as a teenager in central Utah as a surveyor for the State of Utah.  He and the guys he worked with were responsible for checking out how much ore was brought out of certain mines so proper taxes could be assessed.  One day they were working in a canyon where a road was being built.  That evening the miners and road crew had all gone home, leaving behind their tools, bulldozer and a box of dynamite.  The surveyors were still there since they did much of their work once the miners went home.  Imagine their surprise when they found the unguarded box of dynamite.  And they just happened to have a 22 caliber rifle.  They started out placing single sticks of dynamite on rocks and shooting at them.  The explosion they made was exciting but soon got old.  Then someone, and Dad never said who, had the bright idea to place the whole box of dynamite under the bulldozer, shoot it and see how high up the bulldozer would fly.  Well, that's exactly what they did,  the bulldozer flew about 10 feet in the air and landed upside down and then slid down into the creek.  Needless to say, they didn't go back to that job site the next morning.  Like father,  like son.  But the affinity for explosives does not end there.  My son, David, is as good a young man as there is......Eagle Scout,  4 years of seminary, assistant to the president when serving his mission in Brazil, college graduate, etc.  But,  all that notwithstanding, he has been in trouble with the law twice in his life, both times for illegally discharging fireworks and other related items.  I will spare you the details, you can ask him if you would like, but I hear tell that if you place a quarter stick of dynamite under a trash barrel and light it, the barrel shoots pretty high in the air and makes a noise like a gun shot.  Three generations of  TNT fanatics.  Coincidence or something more?

Last example:  According to the autobiography of my great, great grandfather, John Worthen, he joined the church in England after his mother gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon to read while he was recovering from an ankle injury (seems he was run over by a cannon.)  He and his family immigrated (or emigrated, not sure which is appropriate) to the United States, arrived in Nauvoo, worked on the temple, was driven out by the mob and prepared to move west.  John and his family had no money for an outfit and would probably have to go by handcart.  But, the last sentence of his autobiography states:  "Played a game of Yewker with the Gentiles until I made a fit out."  Yewker is a card game similar to poker and his winnings allowed him to purchase a wagon and oxen. Well, John Worthen is not the only gambler in family.  One of my weaknesses is playing the California Lottery.  Every time the jackpot gets over 50 million dollars, I will buy a ticket.  I am yet to win, but I use the example of John Worthen to justify my indiscretion.  Coincidence, or just two guys hoping to get lucky, one who did and the other who did not.....yet?  Decide for yourself. 

If you know of other similarities, either physical or behavioral, with your ancestors,  feel free to share in the comments box.



Travis Michael Rampton age 1