An Indian Chief, a Campfire, Two Girls, and a Dance

Edna and Theresa Martha

Edna speaking:

My cousin, Francis Jo and I, spent hours writing plays and performing them with our younger brothers and sisters and others we recruited to help us. In retrospect, I realize we always had an audience because we produced wonderful comedies. Even our tragedeies were comedies. One, I remember very vividly. It started out with "Pandora" sitting fanning herself and suddenly a pig walked in. This was a talking pig that turned into Prince Charming, shades of today's books, Charlotte's Web and Babe In The City, and this was about 70 years ago.

We had one play where the hero was a Superman type. Across from my home was a lot where the house had burned down and the place had reseeded itself into a jungle. In our play, the hero chased the bad guys all the way through the jungle and the capture ended in the barn at the bottom of the lot.

During the chase, the audience followed the actors all of the way at a fast run, with the little ones yelling. "Wait!" We hadn't yet mastered the moving or the changing of the stage and props. Of course, our largest audience was made up of our little siblings. and their friends.

Another time, Jo and I made up an Indian dance. The dance was ceremonial and supposedly was performed around a camp fire. We made mock suede or leather costumes from gunny sacks and spent hours cutting all of the edges into strips two inches long to stimulate fringe. We performed the dance at a school program. Word got around about this "great dance" and we were invited to dance at a high school assembly. They clapped, stomped, whistled, and encored us. We were convinced that our dance was fantastic, and so came to the conclusion that our most appreciative audience would be the Indians themselves.

They had come to town a short time earlier to harvest pine nuts, as they did each year. We sneaked out after dark and went to their camp above town. We crept from one sagebrush to another, whispering to each other as we found our next concealment. Bear in mind that there were people in town who had experienced hostile Indians, and we were frightened by tales we had heard.

The Indians saw us, of course, and beckoned us in. We did our dance for them and they yelled and stomped. We were simply flabbergasted! I can still see the big fat chief (there really was one). He rolled back and forth on the ground, laughing so hard that big tears were running down his dark, fat cheeks. Then we really were petrified, but they just gave us some pine nuts and escorted us part of the way home. "Old Charlie" couldn't wait for Dad to go to the corral the next morning so he could tell him about it. Dad explained to us later that if the dance had not been "so good", we could have insulted them because they were so proud and so brave. I learned a great lesson. Of course, all experiences are a part of the learning process, good and bad, but what an adventure it was!

Theresa speaking:

Jo's older sister Bea, and I, always wished we could be as brave and forward as our younger sisters, so when we heard Edna and Jo planning this caper, we decided we would follow them. It wasn't until we were almost there that I discovered we were also being followed. Yep, our little "tag-a-long" was my little sister, Martha. We were afraid that if we took her home, we would miss "the show", so we told her that she would be in "big trouble" if she made any noise. We were amazed at how brave Edna and Jo were. We were scared to death and couldn't wait to be home, snuggled into our warm pajamas and comfortable beds.

A bit of trivia to go with this story:

Edna and Jo attended BYU. While there, they tried out, and were accepted, as part of BYU's dance team. Hmmm, I wonder if when they had to perform an original dance in competition, did they do their Indian Dance?

Jo married Sherman Hinkley, President Gordon B. Hinkley's brother. Jo"s brother Don, married President Hinkley's sister, Sylvia.

Words From Martha, A "Tag-A-Long" Little Sister. . .

The other day, I was thinking of some things we used to do for entertainment as children growing up in Panaca. There was no such thing as television and many people did not even have a radio. We made our own fun, and there was plenty for all.

Play acting and story telling - what fun we had with that! Some of our plays were really great. My sister Edna, and cousin Jo, were something else. They would pull back the curtains to the stage and away we would all go - the audience running to keep up with the actors. This could envolve several town blocks . These were very original stories that no one wanted to miss. I remember one "swell" one. It went like this - Pandora sat fanning herself and all of a sudden a pig walked in! Now is that a good opener, or what?

A favorite time was when the Indians came through twice a year. The tribe spent weeks gathering pine nuts. Few people realized that the chief had attended the BYU Academy and was an educated person. He had been sent to school so he would be ready to lead his people.

We all, the children anyway, thought he was a fierce person. He thought we were one "crazy" tribe. My father always made sure there was work for the young chief so he could furnish sugar, flour, and other necessary items for his people. A couple of my siblings, a cousin and I, used to creep away and hide in the shoulder high "rabbit" brush so we could entertain them. We felt very brave and smart and I remember the great laughs we received. My cousin and sister spent hours on "gunny sack" dresses that were frayed and decorated with beads. The whole purpose of this operation was to dance "Indian" around their fire. How the chief would laugh and I would burrow deeper into the brush and hide "plenty".

When the chief came to weed and thin the new plants for dad, it became my duty to talk "Indian" so he would know how to communicate with us. How he would laugh at my weird utterings, grunts, and so on. I could lay him in the aisle everytime. Because he was Dad's good friend, he put up with our nonsense.