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Memories of George and Irene Gardner
By their grandchildren

Kathleen Gardner Day – I remember when Grandpa Gardner came to our house after his cancer surgery. Mom fixed up their bedroom and put some nice ruffly yellow curtains up to make it cheerful for Grandpa. I remember standing at the foot of the bed with Dennis and our cousin David, watching Grandma feed Grandpa a bowl of soup. Since he couldn’t speak, he had to push her hand away. I was 6 years old.

Once when I was about 9 or 10 years old there were a lot of us cousins up by the pigpen at Grandma’s. She had a big pigpen and all of us were sitting on the fence with our feet hanging inside the pen. I was real scared and Jim told me he had a pocketknife and if I fell in, he would stab the pig and save me. I thought of Jim as my “hero” for a lot of years after that. I remember the crab apple tree, the willow tree, the picket fence and gate, the bench under the tree, the bed spring under the crab apple tree, the outhouse, bread and milk with jam, the fried eggs for breakfast, the raw milk, the camp quilt, the grainary, the animal pens, feeding the chickens and Grandma calling them “old biddies”, Grandma telling us not to waste the water because she had to pay for every drop that went down the drain. I was sure there was a man under the sink counting each drop.

Doyle Jones – I remember Grandpa always had peppermint candies in his pockets to give us, and he would always get you down on the floor, grab your knees and then say “there’s a bone in your knee”.

Carol Gardner Rassmussen – I only very vaguely remember Grandpa Gardner when he was sick and in our front room sofa bed. He would play little hide and seek games with Harry and I.

I remember going to Primary with Grandma Gardner one time when she was teaching and I must have been very small because I remember following her around the church and being very proud of her. A few things about her stand out in my mind, like her standing in the doorway between her kitchen and living room and shaking her finger at her boys and scolding them, usually because she wanted them to sing and they always would but not before they gave her a bad time. I remember watching her comb her long hair and putting it up on top of her head. It was fascinating. I remember her standing outside her front door on the porch when we would arrive or leave from a weekend visit. I have a few memories of her staying with our family in later years and she would just sleep a lot in the chair. It seems she always had a few words of advice for us kids, like doing dishes should be a pleasure for us because she used to have to do millions of dishes all day long when she was a young girl. I remember Grandma’s wonderful old-fashioned Christmas trees with the little candlelights on it. Grandma used to always have something for all her grandkids at Christmas. She would make homemade candy canes that I can taste now just thinking about them. I wish I had learned how to make them. I also remember the cousins drawing names for Christmas gifts when were together during pheasant season when we would have a Thanksgiving dinner. I remember Grandma’s house quite well. I couldn’t believe the old fashioned beds or the outhouse and grainary but they were all so fun. I loved the big tree out in front and the old buggy in the grainary. I remember when Uncle Sharon added the bedroom and bathroom onto the back of the house. I especially remember the old- fashioned spoon bowl that was always on the table full of spoons. In fact, it meant so much to me that that is the one thing I still have of hers. I remember the wood box by the kitchen stove and she would have to feed the fire in the stove to cook and that was really fascinating. The stove in the living room was almost as fun to watch her feed. The house seemed very small to me even as a child so it must have been really tiny and I never could figure out how she had enough room for her big family.

Wilene Jones Erickson – I remember when I was a young girl Grandma came to visit. While she was there I got really sick. I got the mumps on my right side. Two other times while I was still quite young Grandma came, and each time I got the mumps. I got them twice on the right side. What a way to remember Grandma! Grandma couldn’t stand to see her boys run around without a shirt on. While she was visiting us one time, Max came in from working on the farm. He didn’t have his shirt on. Grandma slapped him on the back. She left her mark for quite a while. She also couldn’t bear to hear a person called by a nickname. We would all get together for a Thanksgiving dinner during the annual pheasant hunt. We would have dinner at Grandma’s in Huntington. The men would hunt during the day while the women prepared the feast. The kids would play, fight, or get into trouble etc. After dinner we would sit around and tell stories (some of which were hard to swallow) and listen the Aunts and Uncles sing their favorite songs. I remember how proud I was to be related to people that could sing that well. I still enjoy listening to them whenever I get the chance. Grandma didn’t believe in being idle. If we were being tended by Grandma, we were put to work. We weren’t allowed to play until there was no more work to do. She always had those drinking glasses she collected with peanut butter in them. The glasses had a couple of lines of music of old familiar tunes on them. There was always fresh homemade bread.

Darlene Gardner Robbins – I remember keeping the feathers after the big pheasant hunt. I remember Grandma darning socks with a light bulb inside the toe as she sang Primary songs. She always sang louder when we were fighting (or quarreling), as she would say. I remember her hair combs and knick-knacks. I remember getting pretty little handkerchiefs for Christmas and bubble bath and those hard tack suckers. I still see them in stores at Christmas time, seeing them always reminds me of Grandma. I remember the candle style lights she had for her tree, they had bubbles in them. I ways liked drawing names for Christmas, but I don’t remember anything I ever gave or received, I do remember what Beckie got one year from Wayne in California. She got a necklace. He spelled her name with a Y. But the package came in the mail and I thought that was neat. I have memories of visiting cousins and singing Uncles and their arguments too. We would always get into trouble for swinging on the fence or from the willow tree. I even remember the outhouse! And the long path to it. I remember an old buggy being in the old shed, the bridge over the ditch, and walking to the store. I remember Grandma shaking her finger at us, but she was always smiling the whole time. I remember the big old stove, I was always afraid of it, the white tin plates with red trim and a brown cup she kept spoons in, all her knick knacks to look at and the big kitchen table and high back wooden kitchen chairs. I’d love to have them now.

Pattie Gardner Hansen – I remember our family taking Grandma to and from the train station in Helper, and sometimes we would take her to Salt Lake to Aunt Shannah’s house. I remember making Christmas candy canes and not being able to wait for them to get hard so we could eat them. They smelled so good. I remember all of us playing games in the night outside with everybody running everywhere. The grownups were in the house singing, visiting, talking and laughing. And I remember my darling boy cousins chasing me with pheasant feet. I am scared of pheasants to this very day. It was the best time of my life. I wish my boys could experience one fun night at Grandma Gardner’s.

Charlene Lewis Oviatt – It seemed like no matter what we did whether it was dishes or vacuuming or dusting it was never good enough for Grandma. She was always telling us we could do a better job. When I was younger, I resented this but now I know Grandma was just trying to get us to do the best that we could. She told us the story of washing dishes for the coal miners. She had 100 plates, 100 cups, 100 knives and forks and spoons each time they ate. This story always was told when I complained about having to do dishes for 8 or 9 of us. She was always trying to teach me to sew and darn socks. I wish I could have appreciated Grandma while I had her here to talk to, but I was too young to realize how much I needed her; how much she had to teach me and how much love she had for her family. I really miss her. Right after Claudia was born in 1959 we spent Christmas in Huntington with Grandma. I was 5 years old at that time. I was very upset about being in Huntington because I knew Santa would never find us. But Grandma convinced me that Santa knew where every boy and girl was at Christmas because of his little brownies (That’s what Grandma called elves). Reported these things to him. They also told weather you were good or bad. She was so convincing that that night I saw a little elf sitting on the window ledge. He smiled and waved to me. After that I made Larraine sleep by the window. But she sure made me believe in brownies. I remember we couldn’t climb the willow tree or swing on the gate or eat the crabapples or play on the buggy out in the back. But there were always lots of cousins to get in trouble with you when you did any of these things. We would play “colored Easter eggs” way past bedtime or hide and seek. Grandma had a coal stove for cooking and heating so it was always cold in the mornings when we got up. She always made us eat mush. She said this would warm us up faster than anything. I can remember Grandma’s house before the bathroom was built on. I hated going to the “outhouse”. I was so afraid I would fall in. She never had black crayons because she didn’t want anything colored black in her books. She thought black was a color for the devil so nothing was black.

Janet Gardner Anderson – One of my fondest memories of Grandma happened one time when were living with Grandma in her house in Huntington when we first moved from Salt Lake. I was about 11 years old. Uncle Sharon was there too and I think some others but I can’t remember whom. We had all got up that morning and the kitchen was full of people fixing and eating breakfast. Grandma didn’t come to breakfast. After several pleadings from the family, Grandma would not come out of her bedroom. Finally, Uncle Sharon went to the door and demanded that she come and eat breakfast. She promptly opened the door and went to the kitchen where she never said a word but we all knew she was furious for having been forced to eat breakfast, especially by her children! She proceeded to make herself breakfast ignoring everyone. Finally she sat down to eat and Uncle Sharon took one look at her breakfast and replied “Apricots and buttermilk! No wonder you didn’t want to eat breakfast!” The entire household went hysterical with laughter, including Grandma, who tried, but couldn’t resist laughing. Another time while we were still living with Grandma, I brought some friends home with me from school. We were all wearing dresses and Grandma proceeded to scold us for wearing our dresses above our knees (as was the style). She said “Any proper girl would not show her knees, why, I’d rather show my behind than my knees”. This seemed to us a stunning statement.

I remember all the cars lined up in front of Grandma’s house when we were all there, the ditch and the bridge over it, the picket fence and the slamming gate, playing at night on the lawn and being chased by little boys with frogs and pheasant feet, the house being so full that we seemed to spill out onto the lawn, of course the laughing and the singing. And we all knew how Grandma hated a nick-name, but her boys had given each other nick-names probably done in fun to tease Grandma but some of them stayed with them especially Uncle Sharon’s, whose nick name is “Shag”. The uncles tried not to call each other by these names in front of Grandma but occasionally they would slip and boy would they get a tongue lashing from her. This scene, of us being together as a family and the love we shared, happened so often and are my most cherished memories. I sometimes wish we could go back for just one of the pheasant hunting days and do it all again.

Beckie Gardner Dragon – I remember coming around the hall corner at Grandma’s house one morning and was shocked to see Grandma standing in front of the mirror – shocked because I didn’t know Grandma had hair – I mean hair past her behind. I had never seen anything like it – I stood there and watched her fix it on top of her head. I heard that this was a treat for you rarely saw Grandma with her hair down.

I can’t remember for sure what occasion we were together but it seems like it was a funeral, it seems like it was Grandma’s, anyway we were at Uncle Burke’s and everyone was packed into the living room and Uncle Rollan was there leading us in Christmas songs. Mom explained to me why Uncle Rollan knew so much about music and I was impressed.

I remember the table in Grandma’s living room that was full of trinkets as well as every nook and cranny. The stuffed beds, coal stove, the outhouse, piles of coal, the fields and of course, the white picket fence – we loved to swing on the gate when we could get away with it. The big tree out front and Grandma standing on the porch saying “ you kids get down out of that tree” as she shook her finger. The black pot bellied stove used to intrigue me.

Blake Gardner - I remember me and a bunch of others, can’t remember exactly who, were climbing in Grandma’s apple tree. She came outside madder than heck and cussed us a good one. She made a believer out of me and I never climbed in the apple tree again. The only other thing I can remember is lots and lots of people at Grandma’s on holidays but I can’t really remember what happened. I remember Grandma lived with us sometimes and Dad had to give her shots and she was always real good to me.

Claudia Lewis – I remember it was Grandma’s birthday (she was in the rest home then) and some of us cousins were to sing the song “My Grandmother Dear had a Garden” for her but some of us didn’t make it on time and we missed singing to her. I felt really bad but she knew we loved her anyway. I don’t remember much but I do remember drawing the name of a cousin to give a Christmas present to. And one time we played some games on the stage before the dinner. The favorite that year was Pit. We always laughed so hard our laugh muscles would hurt. I remember playing in the front yard under the weeping willow tree with my brothers, sisters and some cousins. It was a warm summer night. We had taken off our shoes and socks. I forgot to take mine inside with me when we went into bed. The next morning when I went out and found them I tried to put them on and inside one of them was a big green tomato worm. I remember we had a good laugh and we played with it for a long time. I also remember playing with Grandma’s dolls; a teddy bear and a small wicker rocker and pick up sticks. I remember Grandma always had crackers in the yellow cookie jar and an empty can of whip cream in the fridge; having to walk through the weeds and grasshoppers to get to the outhouse. If you needed to go bad enough and even if you did brave it out there someone usually locked you in somehow. We used to pass the time by playing colored Easter eggs. (It didn’t matter what time of year it was), running from the long porch full of the cousins around the tree and back, the long line of familiar cars in front of Grandma’s when everyone would get together there, and the uncles singing almost every time we would get together.

Dorothy Gardner Rigby (a great-granddaughter)- I remember great Grandma Gardner visiting my grandparents. (Rollan and June ) in California. My Grandpa was very proud to have her there. She was a very sweet Grandma and I remember she gave me a pretty handkerchief. That is my only memory of her. My memories are mostly with Aunt Shannah’s family. Our first Christmas even in Utah was at their house. It was fun to see all their traditions that were different than ours. I remember making homemade candy canes with them. It was a lot of fun.

Renae Gardner Fillmore – One occasion that stand out in my mind with Grandma Gardner was when I spent the night at her house. I thought Grandma was asleep; I went quietly to the kitchen and was going to get some vanilla wafers. Just as I put my hand in the cookie jar, Grandma put her hand on my shoulder (scared me out of my wits); she said that graham crackers and warm milk would be better for me. Don recalls that Grandma would let you do just about anything, except climb in the crab apple tree or have crab apple fights. She used the apples for pies. Don remembers everybody getting together and having a lot of good times. The thing I remember most about Christmas with Grandma is that she always gave the girls a miniature bottle of Jergen’s hand lotion and a little hanky (I still have two of them). I remember that we always had Thanksgiving during the pheasant hunt, because that we when all the uncles got together to hunt.

What Don and I remember most about being at Grandma’s house in Huntington, was that when the boys climbed in the crab apple tree Grandma would come outside and tells them to get out of the tree. If they tried to hide in the top, Grandma would stand at the bottom of the tree with a razor strap and tell them that she could out wait them even if it took all night. I also remember swinging on the white gate in front of the house, and watching the boys catch pollywogs out under the wooden bridge that was over the ditch. We also got yelled at a lot for swinging on the branches hanging from the willow tree. We also spent a lot of time with the saltshaker eating the rhubarb that grew behind the house.

Debbie Lewis Martin - I remember Grandma teaching me how to embroider on hankies and dishtowels.

One time, Mom, Grandma, Claudia and I were uptown (Salt Lake City) in J.C. Penney’s. We were going up the escalator. Claudia was about two years old, and didn’t want to stand still. She tripped one of us and all four of us tumbled down the stairs and ended up in a heap at the bottom of the escalator. I was afraid I would disappear under the escalator where the stairs disappear (wherever that is). I can remember being really afraid and wondering how badly Grandma was hurt. Someone stopped the escalator and we had store managers and concerned shoppers crowded around us to see if we were all right. There were a few scrapes, but mostly we were just shaken up. We didn’t ride an escalator for a long time after that. We were too scared. Every time we rode that escalator after that, we remembered that incident. We hold very still when we ride escalators now.

I remember when Grandma Gardner lived with us. She would sing us to sleep and tell us stories. My favorite was, and still is as it is passed on to Brittney, “There’s a lonely little robin”. She taught me many values. I remember she had to have shots everyday because of her diabetes. Mom couldn’t stand to stick her mother with a needle (or anybody else for that matter), so we had the neighbor lady that lived a few houses from us who was a nurse, come and give her the shots everyday. Grandma would let us watch if we wanted to. One day, I wasn’t being very cooperative about doing the dishes, and was disrespectful to Grandma. Dad let me know, in no uncertain terms, that that would not be tolerated. That lesson was not a pleasant one for me to learn, but I’m so grateful I was taught respect for my grandma, and for those who are older and wiser than myself. Since then, I have always appreciated and sought their counsel, opinions, and wisdom. I wish the children of today were taught that kind of respect.

I remember all the cousins were going to sing “My Grandmother’s Old Fashioned Garden” to Grandma in the rest home at what turned out to be her last birthday (on the earth anyway). Some of us were delayed and didn’t get to sing to her. How disappointed I was! I always liked going to see Grandma at the rest home. I enjoyed talking with the other people there too and making them feel loved and happy just for a short while. I know I felt this way about these people because of the love and respect I’d been taught for my elders.

I remember being at Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and everybody wanting the wishbone. The last one I remember when we all got together, I believe we had it at the church in Emery. The cousins played “Pit” and had a really good time.

At Christmas, we always received a card, a hanky with a nursery rhyme depicted on it, and a small bottle of Jergen’s lotion from Grandma Gardner.

Every time we pulled up to Grandma Gardner’s house, that I can remember, she was standing on the porch waiting for us with a big hug and a kiss. We always knew we were welcome at Grandma’s.

When you were done playing with Grandma’s dolls, they had to be dressed. There were no naked dolls around Grandma’s house! (Even though they made the dolls with underwear and shoes that couldn’t come off, they had to have a dress on). She taught us modesty. Grandma taught us how to make doll clothes. Claudia always got the teddy bear with only one eye. I remember hours of playing Chinese Checkers, tiddly winks, pickup sticks, colored Easter eggs, no bears are out tonight, red rover, red light – green light, mother may I and tag. We were taught to get along with each other; we had to take our turn; no whining or tattling; catching skeeters in the ditch. We would climb the tree and jump out of it, swing on the gate, eat green apples, and play in the barn on the old buggy (not all at the same time), until Grandma caught us at it, and scolded us. We were threatened with Grandpa’s razor strap, or a “willow with a bug on the end of it” several times, but I’ve never seen anybody actually disciplined with those (although I hear the aunts and uncles experienced both more than once). I remember the red steppingstones from the front porch to the back door. The hand and feet prints of the aunts and uncles in the cement in the front sidewalk. Looking at her scarves from different states that her boys had sent her from the service, that she had on the arms and back of the couch. I remember watching Dad put coal in her stove in the living room and watching the flames through the slats in the door as we tried to go to sleep on the floor. Sometimes Claudia and I would get to sleep in the extra bedroom. We would look at Grandpa’s ties that Grandma had kept. I remember seeing the picture of Grandma and Grandpa hanging on the wall in Grandma’s room. We weren’t allowed to go in there, but if you were out in the hall when she went in, you could see it.

Our family was camping up Hunting Canyon one time. I remember how peaceful all the Quaking Aspens made it seem. I’ve like Quakies ever since. That night it was raining and we were in a tent. I got really sick and we had to come out of the canyon and go to Grandma Gardner’s house. The lady doctor had to come to the house in the middle of the night to take care of me.

We would go to Walt’s Drug store for a hamburger, an ice cream, or some candy, and we would spin on the bar stools until we were sick with dizziness. We always went up front to look at the clothes and the toys. I remember cutting through the corner where there used to be a some kind of shop to get there.

I remember Grandma had a yellow plastic cookie jar with a white lid that she always kept soda crackers in, on the counter. She always had an empty whipping cream can in the fridge. We always knew it was empty, but we checked it out every time, just in case. She had tin cups to drink out of, and white tin plates with a red or blue stripe around the outside. There would always be a big plate of tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. We always blessed the food, and the men couldn’t come to the table if they didn’t have a shirt on. If they did, she would slap their back and put a red hand print on it, and send them to get a shirt on. Grandma didn’t like nicknames.

Grandma had a profound influence on my life for good, and I look forward to the day when I’ll be able to see her again. I miss her very much.

Gary Gardner – My memories of Grandma are so vague. She stayed with us for a time. Whether it was months or years I don’t know. It seems like each of her children took turns caring for her in their homes before she got so bad that she was admitted in a nursing home. So, I’m sure we had her in our home several times for short periods.

My clearest memory is of her sitting in her wheelchair in our (Mom and Dad’s) kitchen. Each of us kids, myself, Beckie and perhaps Darlene, were ushered out of the room while Grandma got her insulin shot. As we left the room Grandma would insist that w got our shoes and socks on before we caught pneumonia. It must have been near Christmas, because I seem to recall the tree and all the trimmings being in the living room. I don’t know but perhaps it could have been on Christmas Eve when as tradition had it, we opened the gifts that we had exchanged as cousins. It seems that gifts were only exchanged between cousins for a few years. I recall that my gift one year (perhaps this same year) was a mind game called “Drive Ya Nuts”. I don’t recall who gave it to me but I still have it to this day.

Another year I recall getting an ammo belt from Blake. That fall was my first year of pheasant hunting. I had a 20 gauge shot gun and was using Dad’s ammo vest that was well broke in with 12 gauge shells. Needless to say, every time I bent over to crawl under a fence all of the shells would fall out. I guess Blake remembered that when he drew my name that year.

Another Christmas I remember, I have no idea if Grandma was there or not, was a family gathering at Uncle Burke’s. It seems like it must have been shortly after they moved in to their current home in Huntington. The living room was packed so full that we had even filled the stairway up to the ceiling. I remember singing Christmas carols for what seemed like hours. Of course Janet played the piano. Alan and I were at the top of the stairs seeing who could sing the loudest. It seems like Uncle Van must have been recording on his reel-to-reel and playing it back.

What I recall about Grandma’s house was the house over flowing with aunts, uncles and cousins. Knick Knacks everywhere. I remember the day we all went there to divide up her belongings after her death. Her gathering her “boys” around to sing. The old odd sized and very thick records. Mom and Dad got the record holder after her death. Playing with the cousins on the front porch, all around the house, the corrals and out back. The ancient stove. The anthills out in the field. The picket fence and spring loaded gate. The wooden bridges over the ditch. The outhouse. Cutting branches from the shrubs to make slingshots. Everyone goosing Uncle Dee, who always had a toothpick in his mouth.

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