Happy Valentine's Day--and a little genealogy

Happy Birthday, Yuna!  Yuna had a little birthday party on Wednesday night.  I guess I was a little off last week when I said, "happy birthday to Yuna tomorrow."  I was thinking she was born on the 8th, but it was really the 10th.  Hopefully that'll be corrected in my memory for the future.  Roy and I went over for a little bit to wish her a happy birthday, and then we left to go to a movie.  Roy had  bought us tickets (before the invitation to go to Dan's) to see, "To Catch a Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.  We both thought we'd seen it enough to know what it was about, but were surprised at how much we had forgotten.  It was fun to see this old movie on the big screen.

 The rest of the week was filled with my routines, family, a temple session, dinner and a play for a Valentine's Celebration, babysitting, etc.  It's interesting when I sit down to write this letter how hard it is to remember just what I did during the week.
As you can see from one of the pictures above, Nick isn't completely clean shaven.  When he came to dinner last night, though, he was.  He told us that he knows it's time to shave when Ori rubs his cheek and says, "shave it off."  I have been looking through some of the stories of my ancestors, and I found some stories written by my great Aunt Clara.  WW Clyde's youngest sister.  She said that her father shaved his mustache off when she was born "because I was a girl."  She says, "I never saw him wearing a mustache."

Hyrum Smith Clyde

She also wrote about my grandfather, WW Clyde.  She says, "Wilford must have been a serious minded and sober individual almost from the moment of his conception.  It shows in his face in both his early and his late photographs."

"And there was a reason for it.  Times were serious and sober.  His parents were serious and sober. He was the third child to be born to Hyrum S. and Elenora Jane.  Each of the first two babies had died before reaching a first birthday anniversary.  The fourth child was a girl named Hazel who died at age eighteen months of what was diagnosed as diphtheria.  I was told by Jennie Thorn, a first cousin on my mother's side, that when she was eight years old, she, with her mother and brother were spending several days at my parents' home, when Hazel, who had awakened apparently well, became ill.  She died and was buried before sunset that same day.  For with a diphtheria death, burial was done as soon as a box could be put together, lined, and the body dressed for burying.  Fumigation and isolation followed.  My mother never did get over the terror and trauma of that day..."
"Responsibilities were put early on his shoulders.  When he was little more than five years, mother often said, he was sometimes left alone at home on the farm doing whatever job he was assigned, while his parents with horses and wagon made necessary trips into town. Three or so hours alone.  No close neighbors.  Indians about who still stopped at farmhouses for help or handouts.  It must have been frightening for one so young."
"During his entire growing up period the simple day by day activities of making a living were serious business.  Only on the Sabbath did the tempo change.  Sundays only the 'couldn't wait' things were done: cooking, caring for the sick, irrigating, feeding the stock, milking the cows.  Social life consisted entirely of Sunday or holiday dinners with relatives, plus an annual family reunion...  On other days everybody worked every daylight hour.  That was what life was all about. To work long and hard and to assume one's share (or more) of responsibility was the ethic of this family and that day.  Only those who did work hard made it.  Some who did work hard failed to make it.  But it was a believed-in truism that if you worked hard and always, if you wished well for those about you, you were bound to arrive at some good end--or at least a better one."
Later he had jobs on campus [University of Utah] as a waiter and a janitor.  Clara says, "I remember saying to Wilford during the depression days of the 1930's that advanced degrees were for opening doors to better jobs and more money.  His response? Not for that alone.  You go to college to improve for yourself the quality of your own life and to increase your value to others--not for money and prestige alone."

I'll share more of her writings in future letters, but I wanted to point out how hardworking your great-grandfather was.  He believed in work and he taught it to his children and many of his grandchildren.  He passed away when I was 16, so I don't remember a lot about him, but I do remember that he was a serious man and that he worked hard and expected this of others as well.  No wonder my mother was always an early riser.  She would get up and wash and iron, long before us children would get out of bed.  She ALWAYS had breakfast ready for us.  And it was always tasty.  I do remember once she tried something new--soup for breakfast.  She got a lot of complaints and I don't remember every having soup for breakfast again.  I can't believe we had the gall to complain.  I don't think many women get up early and make breakfast for their families anymore.