Ethel Lewis (1919-2004)
From Blattman genealogy
| Ethel Lewis (1919-2004) | |
|---|---|
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| Born | August 20, 1919 Taylor, Navajo County, AZ |
| Died | 2004 Salt Lake City, UT |
| Father | James Lewis |
| Mother | Lillis Irene Gardner |
| Husband | William Sterling Blattman |
| Children | Daughter Daughter Daughter Son Daughter Daughter |
Ethel Lewis was born in Arizona in 1919. She grew up with two brothers, James and Ermon as well as her half-sister Irene. She married William Sterling Blattman in 1940. She lived in various places with Bill while raising 6 children. Ethel passed away in 2004.
Contents |
Biography
Birth and Childhood
Ethel Lewis was born August 20, 1919, at Taylor, Navajo County, AZ in the little house where Afton Kay now lives (this house has since been razed). Her mother was Lillis Irene Gardner Lewis, daughter of Quince Rogers Gardner and Mary Amelia Owens. Her father was James Lewis, son of James Harding Lewis and Hilda Drew Solomon.
Ethel had two brothers, James Chester Lewis, born Oct 3, 1915 and Ermon Gardner Lewis, born Dec 31, 1917. She also had a half sister, Irene Bates Lewis. She is the daughter of Wilford Woodruff Bates who married her mother Dec.14, 1926. (Ethel's father died on Nov 8, 1921 after an illness).
Her dad died when Ethel was seventeen months old from Typhoid Fever. Chester got it first and everyone took the shots except her dad and he got the fever and died. Grandma Lewis died that same year. Ethel didn't remember her father, but everyone who did knew him tells of what a good man he was.
Ethel spent her early childhood in Taylor. She and her family were quite poor while growing up, but her mother and brothers working some to manage.
Ethel recalls her step-father, Wilford:
Mother married Wilford Bates when I was six or seven. I can remember we didn't like him much. He was taking our mother from us. But he was good to us even if we were brats. Wilford Bates was a hard worker and could tell some good stories around the fire in the evenings, mostly about his life as a cowboy. Wilford had a way with horses and we always had a good team.
We always had a garden and weeds to hoe, but after hoeing up the beans one time I wasn't trusted with the hoe again, which didn't hurt my feelings at all.
I can remember being quite small and standing at one end of the kitchen and throwing hard biscuits at the door. To eat them we soaked them in vinegar water. Maybe that is why I like vinegar to drink now.
We had a dog-named Ring. All I remember about him is having to stay in the house with Ermon and Chester because someone came to get Ring as a skunk had bit him. Anyway, we were crying and trying to get out side.
We were rather poor and at Christmas an orange in our stockings was highly prized. Uncle Taylor, Mother's brother lived at McNary and every year he would bring us a beautiful blue spruce for a Christmas tree. Our house was just two rooms, a kitchen and living room with a fireplace. A light cord hung from the center of the rooms and you would have to reach up to turn on the light. It took some doing in the middle of the night waving your arms trying to find the light. The plumbing was out doors, so you just hoped no emergency came during the night.
We had a few apple trees and an early one that had the largest green apples. I can remember being so sick from eating too many green apples one year. We called it "callery marbles" whatever that is, but was a right good stomachache!
A ditch ran right in front of the house with trees all along it. We used the water to irrigate the field. Sometimes some salamanders would come up on the porch. How I hated the slick things!
Mother used to make our Easter baskets out of crepe paper. She would make a wire frame, twist the paper and weave the baskets. They were really nice. We would go up the canyons and she would hide them in the trees for us to find. She made all the goodies in them and they were extra special.
A room was built onto our house for Great Grandma Owens to live with us. Mother took care of her. Us kids knew she hid her raisins in her trunk and how we loved those raisins. So one day we got into her trunk and stole some. I don't think she ever forgave us.
We would go up the canyon in the fall when the black walnuts were ripe and gather gunnysacks full of them. During the winter months we each would crack us a pan full of nuts and sit around the fire and Brother Bates, (as we called him) would tell us stories.
During the summers we would have electrical storms and lightning would flash all around the ceiling of our house. Mother would gather us all on the bed in a tight group. The bed was so soft as it had a feather mattress.
If you could see the small stream in the Silver Creek now it would be hard to imagine the big floods that would come tearing down which ran at the bottom of our lot and each summer after a heavy rain it would really rage with big rolling waves. Big trees would go by, sometime a cow or a pig. It was pretty scary but we loved to watch it. It usually left another swimming hole some place else and water isolated into small ponds. Pollywogs would be all over and they were fun to play with. We always went to school by way of the river bottom, as it was close and more fun. . We could skate to school on it during the winter.
We always managed to go by Uncle Bert Allen's orchard on the way up the stream as he had some mighty tasty apples that just had to be eaten. Uncle Bert was always a good sport and let us have our fill.
My school days started in Taylor Elementary School, with May Webb as my first teacher. We always walked to school and some of the winters were quite severe with snow high as the fences. Sometimes the horses walked right over them. Ice would have to be broken in the creek to get water for the animals. Wilford would take his fresno (sic) and team of horses to make a road to school. But these were happy times as they are to all kids when the snow comes and the sled rides and snowball fights that are always so much fun. Then the stories by the fire and trying to keep feet warm when you had to go to bed. No electric blankets then!
When we lived in the Baldwin home, I had a room of my own, the boys had their own room and so did Mom and Wilford. It had a nice dining room with a fireplace where we had some nice parties and family nights. We always began the day by kneeling at the table before breakfast for prayer, no matter whom was there and the same at night at suppertime. We were really happy there and I always wished we could have kept the place.
Every Sunday night Uncle Lan and Aunt Viva would stop by on their way home to McNary. We would make ice cream in a 1-quart freezer, pack it and freeze another one. If you have ever used a hand crank freezer you'd know it took some time. Also, we would pop corn and grind the old maids (the unpopped corn) and eat it with sugar and cream. It was so good.
We would have friends over and parch corn and make molasses taffy and play games, especially at Halloween time.
We kids used to gather eggs for spending money. We'd try and be the first one home from school and gather the eggs and take them to the store and buy some candy. For Easter, we would save as much money as we could. We never used to have money to spend, but we were happy.
I remember Grandmother Gardner gave me my first "bobby socks". I had always had to wear long socks and how I hated them. I must have been ten or twelve years old then. I would spend time in Woodruff and help Grandma and Grandpa Gardner. I would put on Grandpa's old overalls and boots and help in the garden.
We had our cows, so if mother wasn't home when I came home from school for lunch, I'd skim a pan of milk and whip the cream, put in a little sugar, vanilla and cocoa and eat it. No wonder I'm so fat now!
We always had to wash on the wash board, heat our water in a big tub outside, pack it inside to another tub, scrub the clothes and all the white clothes had to be taken out and boiled and then scrubbed again, rinsed twice and hung on the line. It was an all day job.
I remember the "bathroom" was down by the ditch that ran through the middle of the place and there were a lot of water snakes that shed their skins and I was always afraid of them. I was so glad when Wilford moved the toilet up closer to the house for more ways than one.
The barn was so much fun, it had a loft that I made into a playhouse and also, we could jump off the loft onto the new hay as they filled the barn each summer.
We had two windmills and a big water tank and when we moved to another house I used to have to pack water from those windmills to drink, wash clothes, dishes and for all the water we used. It sure took a lot of water for five people!
We used to play "statue" or "Mother May I" out in front of this Baldwin home as we had quite a bit of room from the highway and the light post was our goal posts, etc. There was a big hedge around the place too. The house itself had so many doors. The back door opened into a small entry with a door into the kitchen and one into the dining room and a swinging door closing kitchen from dining room, making four doors in all right together. We had a pantry off the kitchen that was real neat. Also a bathroom without any fixtures, just a wash tub to bathe in. It could have been fixed for a bath and running water in the house real easy. I never understood why they didn't finish it all.
Mother used to do a lot of quilting there. She got quilts from all over the state of Arizona. She put Ermon through a correspondence radio school by quilting quilts. Ermon was always crazy about any kind of motor, engine, or radio. He made a crystal set that had to use headphones and he got the kidnapping of Lindbergh's baby as his first program. Mother would always have to check under the cars for him if any ever happened to stop at our place. Ermon was always concerned when he came home and Mother wasn't there, so he would climb the windmill, looking all over the town hoping he could see where she might be.
Mother used to do a lot of quilting there. She got quilts from all over the state of Arizona. She put Ermon through a correspondence radio school by quilting quilts. Ermon was always crazy about any kind of motor, engine, or radio. He made a crystal set that had to use headphones and he got the kidnapping of Lindbergh's baby as his first program. Mother would always have to check under the cars for him if any ever happened to stop at our place. Ermon was always concerned when he came home and Mother wasn't there, so he would climb the windmill, looking all over the town hoping he could see where she might be.
I can't remember how many years we lived in this house, but we bought a house from the church that used to be the tithing office, it had eight sides to it, a high ceiling, and made of brick. We moved the added on room from the old house (the one made for Great Grandma Owens) and attached it on to this eight-sided building making two rooms. We used that room as a kitchen.
Our mode of transportation was shanks mare or team and wagon or on Ermon's horse "Bud". He and I were about the only ones who could catch him, as he was a loco. He would shy at anything and if you weren't paying attention he'd shy at a bit of paper and over his head you'd go. Sure used to make us mad. But he was a pretty horse, a buckskin color.
For fifteen years I was the only girl in the family and of course all the house work was my lot while my brothers got all the fun (so I thought) milking cows, chopping wood, etc. I would try bribing them by doing their chores if they would just come in and help me with the dishes, as I didn't like being alone. It worked sometimes but they didn't like to stay in the house either. Ermon had a black "ten gallon" hat that was his pride and joy and if anyone would touch it, look out. Well, that challenge was too much for me and when I thought he wasn't looking I'd make a pass at it and the chase was on. I didn't run very far before he had caught me and I got many a beating. Even mother was no help and when I'd complain to her, she'd say I brought it on myself by doing what he said not to. I got back at him one time when he was up in the loft of the barn and tried to rope me as I went by. He still thinks I pulled him out, but I can't remember. He fell on a hoe and cut his eye just over the temple. He bled like a stuck pig and scared us all half to death. Sometimes I wonder how mother survived.
Marriage and Children
Move to Montana
When Bill came back we moved to Helena, MT. The change of water did the trick and we had our 1st and only boy (James). Helena was a lovely place and we were sure we had found our retirement home, but Bill decided to work in Washington at Hanford building reactors. We lived in Pasco then bought a home across the river in Kennewick. These two places join by the Columbia and Snake rivers. A very beautiful place. ==Taylor, Fredonia, Salt Lake City, and Reno Bill went to Brazil for a year so the kids and I moved back to Taylor for a few months before he was to come home. Then we went to Phoenix, on to Albuquerque, back to Holbrook all in the same year. Our 5th child was born in Holbrook. After a year there, we went to Fredonia for another year and our last child was born a few miles away in Kanab. Bill was working all this time on Glen Canyon Dam. We were waiting for a road and bridge to be built over the Colorado River, so we could move to Page. We lived there four years then off to Salt Lake City for a year.
Bill was in Colorado and Wyoming on detail. When you work for the government they send you most any place. We missed going to Ethopia by an inch. The next year had us moving to Flagstaff, Phoenix, Farmington, Salida, Canyon City and Reno. We only expected to stay in Reno a year or two, but ended up staying thirteen years.
They call Reno "Sin City", but according to what you make of it yourself, we found it a very nice place to live. Although we didn't put roots down for long in any one place, we found it very satisfying and there were lovely people in each location.
Back to Taylor
I guess there is a "homing" instinct in all of us, as Taylor sounded like where we'd like to retire (at least I did). The most interest part of moving from place to place is the people you meet. Seems each place is the best and we hated to leave our friends, but making new ones is exciting too. We enjoyed getting reacquainted with old friends and family back in Taylor. It took thirty-six years to return and there were lots of changes but it was the right place to be. We bought a nice home with an acre of land and a barn. Bill converted the barn into a workshop and made numerous wood items for our children.
Photo Gallery
References
- Transcribed by Edith Powell - June, 2003; PERSONAL HISTORY OF ETHEL LEWIS BLATTMAN
