A Story by Henry Bawden

"The Good Old Days"...

How was it in the Good Old Days you ask?

To us innocent people, it was great.  We didn't know anything different. Our yardstick was relative.

My parents were two humble people dedicated to their children and the principles of the gospel. Their education was meager, 6th or 7th grade. ...Fear of the water was not passed on to our children, so my parents also let us know that an education was a worthy prize.

Despite the work that could be done on the farm in spring and fall. I never ever missed a day at Old Monroe or Cyprus High School because of the need to do work on the farm.

Father never asked me to stay home, and I was never tempted. I thought schools were magical place sent from heaven. And that the teachers were dedicated to the altar of learning. Learning to read in 1st grade was a fascinating adventure. We had a letter and word punctuation "Spell Downs". What a challenge it was to see who could stay to the end to pronounce that very last word.

When 4th grade came along and we had learned to read. We had won all of the pins for completing all of the sections in the Spencer Writing Book. We had mastered the multiplication tables up to twelve. We were then  offered group lessons in piano. My mother persuaded father that we could buy a piano along with the car that had replaced the horse and buggy.

So the piano replaced the old Reed Organ in our parlor. Clara, my older sister, and I got to take lessons on that magical instrument. This continued as long as we could be persuaded, but it opened up to me a whole new dimension in life.  Radio had not invaded our privacy or loneliness, and many hours I spent playing on the piano to relieve any emotion. We also played duets with each other and trios with a cousin, Verena. 

We learned partner dancing at an early age. In fact, I danced the Minuet with Miriam Latimer, and we learned every step to perfection. We performed it unafraid, dressed in our white cotton George Washington head wig, our three-pointed hat and knee-length britches. We had our long white stockings and buckled shoes too. We pointed that buckled toe just as gracefully as George and Martha Washington would have done! Dancing at young people’s ward reunions had begun earlier, at least  I got to dance with my mother and my aunts and sisters. We thought the music played by Mannassa Smith Bawden and Arva Smith was fit for a King's ballroom. This same Smith Bawden was to be our dance director when I was 12 through 20 and beyond. 

At 13 or 14, my sister Clara and I danced in the MIA contest activity. I have a faint recollection of the finals in the old Oquirrah Stake at Magna. We had learned a special Waltz sequence, and our ears pounded as we started to dance with the hall filled with dancers. The lovely floor rested on springs. The competition went on and we survived the 1st cut, then the 2nd and 3rd and to our amazement and ecstasy found ourselves dancing for the last time with our group of three couples in the finals. We were along  with Keith Hill, a year older that myself and Jean Packard (Petersen) form our ward. An older couple from Magna or Pleasant Green went to the finals at Salt Air, but from that moment I had a challenge. Dancing was the "in" thing. It was the Big Band Era, and huge dance halls were all over the United States. Radio was whispering the latest melodies and rhythms and our ward was sending missionaries all over the world and bringing them back with farewell and welcome home testimonials. After a formal program with speeches and musical number and readings were climaxed by a DANCE.

We danced and danced, winter, summer, spring, and fall, to match wits and strategy and convolutions to the provocative songs of the day. No two rhythms or melodies alike. Each new song and partner was a challenge, and we rose to the occasion. The church abandoned the church-wide contests, but under the direction of William O Robinson (102-year-old dancing genius -1978), it sparked the demonstrations at Salt Air at the June Conference every spring. It went from Salt Air to the University football stadium and flourished with thousands of participants until its abandonment in the 70's. 

Not to be outdone by dancing, the drama also was a challenge. The first silent movies were shown in the old school house-exciting Tom Mix movies with captions to explain the action. I was just learning to read at this time and not knowing how to read silently. I shouted them out gleefully for the whole audience. On the old school wagon the following morning the older students would threaten my very life if I didn't quit reading the captions aloud.

 Sister Bell-Hunter, Asher, the grand old aunt of Bishop Raymond Coats came to the rescue of the little 1st grader. "You leave him alone. I can't see the lettering and he makes the movie so enjoyable if I know what's going on". So prompted by the urge to be of service, I shouted them all the louder lest some person that could not see or hear very well could enjoy the newest and latest silent movie without missing a second of the action. Of course, we all wanted to be movie stars. The hours I spent dreaming of the challenge was rewarded when Linnea Robinson as PTA President of the old Monroe, and the local schools sponsored a summer drama activity in the depression of the 1930's.

Ruth and Nathan Hale were recruited as directors, and after a few laughs in the production, I was convinced that other than time and place I could have been a stage or screen star. My appetite was whetted and between dancing and the theater, we had just about as much glamour as we could stand. If it wasn't some great character on the stage we were rehearsing for, it was some dance we were learning for a demonstration.

In the early days of the auto we were so busy that the gears of the great depression rolled by and we hadn't suffered a bit for recreation. In fact, it seemed like we were buoyed up by a monstrous fever.

The climax was reached when Ruth and Nathan in the early 1940-41 early war era, wrote the play "I Shall Keep Thee". We built three sets of scenery, hauled it on a four wheel trailer to Springville on the south to Layton on the north and finally to BYU to convince Professor Early that a bunch of amateurs from Granger should go to the finest show house in Salt Lake for June conference.

After the 31 performances in Utah, Ruth and Nathan moved to California, built a new set of scenery, and on a 10-day vacation, I was invited to join the California cast for 10 more performances of the same play. of course. I was older with a mission behind me and I knew that I wasn't good enough for Hollywood. But sometimes in weak moments the thought creeps in that, it was a great run while it lasted.

Ruth and Nathan have waxed old and become great grandparents in the theatre business in Glendale, California and I have waxed old after 20 years as chicken coop (scenery) builder at Granger High.

I have given 6 performances a day, 5 days a week, 36 weeks a year at the school. I have never missed a cue or forgotten a line-if I have I wouldn't admit it! I've ad-libbed my performances for 10,000 graduates on the stage of life at Granger High. Every morning I've awakened with the challenge of a performance, gone to school with a dozen problems to be solved. I've never missed a day. Hasn't the Father in Heaven smiled down intolerance, to this egotistical "Ham"?

An assignment to San Antonio Texas helped me to find my dear wife, Elaine Wheatley, a native of Honeyville, just north of Brigham City.

From my early youth, my father set the example of Church service and I, along with other young men, replaced my father and his brother as President of the 14th Quorum of the Seventy. This was a dynamic experience to emphasize the importance of working and counseling together and to teach the dedication necessary to complete a project. I had served a mission to Texas-Louisiana a terrific testimony builder- and now I was called to a stake mission in the North Jordan Stake for 3 years under Elder Grant Bangerter, then Stake President and then 10 years on the High Council with President Vern Breeze and President Wallace Bawden and Richard Winder of the North Jordan Stake.

Bishop Floyd Bendixsen, a brother-in-law, selected Brother Dell VanOrden and myself to serve with him in the first Bishopric of the Jordan North 11st Ward. What a challenging experience. After 2 1/2 years as a counselor, family, in an interview with President Richard Winder agreed to support me as Bishop. My wife and 6 faithful children in the prime of their young lives., dedicated themselves to serve and support the cause of the restore Gospel in teaching positions, musical leadership, foreign missions, welfare projects, irrigating, picking, weeding, cultivating, harvesting with never a complaint. Since my release as Bishop, I've had a wonderful 2 1/2 yrs. as scoutmaster- camping, cooking, swimming, hauling newspapers and trying to keep up.

Many thanks to Patriarch Flloyd Bendisen, who set the standard and led the way. To President Dell VanOrden and Bishop Clyde Nielsen, and Bishop Rex Taylor who served as counselors and were ever pleading for something to do to lighten the burden of the father of the ward, to the faithful members who followed us from the chapel north of 35th South to the high ceiling chapel on the hill to the North Jordan Stake House and finally to our present home. Thanks to those who financed building funds and ward maintenance, and every improvement we asked for, who sustained missionaries in the field, who gathered arms full of lesson folders, and lesson books, who helped to finance a missionary, an Elders Quorum, or a youth outing. Thanks to the people who fasted and prayed for the sick, the ill at ease, who helped build a chapel. Those who planted the shrubs watered the lawn and removed snow from the sidewalks. The teachers and leaders who week after week prepared to bolster the knowledge, the faith, and the testimony of our children- our hope for tomorrow and the life eternal.”

And that’s why the Good Old Days were Good!