Grandma Currier

Grandma Currier (Chastine Elizabeth Harris Currier) (1897-1986)

Our paternal grandma, Grandma Currier, wife of our paternal grandfather, Tom Currier, was Tom's partner in homesteading the Tom Currier ranch now known as the X Bar X ( X-X).  I'm not certain where her first name "Chastine" came from.  It may have been a combination of Charles and Stein as her family had a friend by that name.

She grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado and attended school there. The story goes that, as a young woman living in Grand Junction, she spotted Tom Currier as he rode into town on a good looking horse.  As the tall handsome cowboy tied his horse up near the water trough, she was said to have exclaimed "I'm going to marry that man!"  And she did.  I'm not sure what their courtship involved, but I suppose that they were married in the First Baptist Church in Grand Junction.

Grandma, a town girl, then began the arduous task of learning to live in the remote mountain valley East of Collbran, Colorado in a tent to help "prove" the homestead.  It is my understanding that both Carol's Dad, Franklin, and my Dad, Carleton, were babies when they lived in a tent in the summer.  Shortly, their first homestead cabin was built from logs harvested on the property.  It was a two room cabin with one square window in each of the four sides.  Of course, there was no running water or plumbing in the cabin.  An outhouse (also know as a "privy") was the norm and, initially, water was carried to the cabin from a spring.  (All of the water for the current five houses still comes from mountain springs, though through various pipelines with water pressure delivered via gravity flow.)  Heating and cooking were done with a big iron wood cookstove and lighting was provided by candles and/kerosene lanterns.

I'm not sure how long the little family lived in the cabin, but it stood, for many years after, quite near the house my parents built in 1950.  It was inhabited over the years by a variety of hired men and finally gave way to old age and decay in the 1990s and was torn down and the pieces hauled away.

From pictures that I have seen, the life was hard and Grandma often looked as if she was a bit worn out by what she had jumped into marrying a homestead rancher.  She may have also suffered from some hormonal imbalances, since she had a hysterectomy in the late 1920's, which in those days, was a pretty unpleasant surgery.  In addition to the rigors or surgery and recovery, there would have been no knowledge of hormone replacement and, most likely, menopause set in with a vengeance adding to her general misery.

She was, notwithstanding, a hard working pioneer woman who learned quickly how to ride a horse, herd cattle, grow a large garden, wash clothes and babies in a tin tub and cook for a variety of working men.



One saving grace, I'm sure, was the fact that when feed for the cattle ran low in the winter at the mountain ranch, the cattle were  moved to lower elevations until the next spring.  This meant that the family lived in Grand Junction for the winter and rejoined "civilized" society which Grandma loved.

She was a managerial woman who wanted things done her way and could be very direct and tended to run "rough shod" over anyone who had different ideas.  Our moms were often the subject of her heavy handedness and found comfort and humor in having each other to turn to in the early years of their marriages.  Our Granddad, Tom, was know to be the butt of her occasional tirades and frequently exclaimed in frustration "Great Scot, Chass!"

All of us grandchildren have many memories of Grandma Currier, most of them good, and some not so much.....  She had RULES and ideas and woe be the child that bucked those!  Some of the memories follow.

 

Smashing the "twin berries"
 

One day Carol and I decided to squish some black colored berries (called twin berries), that grew in profusion in back of Grandma's house, onto the screen door of her house.  She had ears that could hear a pin drop and we were caught in the act!  She ran out scolded us and 'shook' us both.  Here I have to relate the dreaded Grandma Currier punishment, which was to grab the errant child by the shoulders and shake him/her violently.   Of course, today, that would be unthinkable, but we all lived through the experience of various shakings.  Perhaps some of the oddities in a couple of our siblings are due to these shakings????    We thenhad to clean all evidence of our berry squishing off that back screen door with soap, water and brushes.

Play and games...

Even with the fright of occasional shakings, we all loved going to Grandma Currier's house.  She had many games to play, a huge box of old crayons and plenty of things to color, and decks of playing cards.  Other than the time during which she took her afternoon nap (woe be the child that woke her from her nap!) or just before noon when she was cooking lunch (called "dinner" in the old West), she was happy to have her house full of grandchildren.  She always had Chiclet gum and we usually could score a piece.

Grandma's toys were such fun....Lincoln logs, wind-up type toys, a cigarette smoking dog, a Howdy Doody puppet, and a wooden box that was designed so that you put in small wooden pieces into the top and hammered them into the box compartment followed by a few more wooden pellet looking pieces and they would come out of the bottom.  Then there were her many wooden puzzles that we enjoyed playing with and putting back together.  I still have a number of these puzzles.
 

Grandma's RULES were that we always had to put all the toys back into the toy cupboard and put the puzzles away.  One time, we were very naughty little girls and dumped all the puzzle pieces of ALL the many puzzles into a big pile...we couldn't figure out how to put them all back together correctly, and we ran out of her house as fast as we could.  I believe Grandma demanded that our mothers come over and help us put them together again! Don't think we ever did that again... We were in double trouble with Grandma and our mothers!

We enjoyed good times playing Chinese checkers, dominos & regular checkers...maybe even Monopoly  and some card games like Go Fish or Old Maid.  We all played the games by the rules, no cheating allowed. We grandchildren have many warm memories of playing these games.

Card playing was one of Grandma's favorite pastimes with us and she taught us all a variety of games.  We were all proficient at Pinochle and Cribbage  and some learned Canasta as well.  Grandma never LET anyone win.  She would teach the art of the game and help with decisions, but until you were good enough, you didn't beat Grandma at cards!  My younger sister, Merial, once played Canasta with another cousin's grandmother and great-aunt who were rabid Canasta players.  They were so upset when she beat them that they accused her of being a little cheater and told her she could never come to their house again.  They wouldn't accept the fact that Merial had learned at the hand of a 'master' !!


The allowance...

Grandma also had an 'allowance' program for all the grandchildren.  I believe that it was as follows:

Ages 2-8              5 cents per week
Ages 8-12          10 cents per week
Ages 12 and up  25 cents per week

We would religiously show up once a week to collect our allowance and if we were away, she mailed a check every so often.  I was still receiving a $13 dollar check each year even after I graduated from college!!

The wristwatch...

The majority of the grandchildren also were given a wristwatch for his/her 12th birthday.  Each child was allowed to choose the watch that he/she wanted from the Spiegel catalog.  I still have mine....a Waltham Swiss made watch which still runs!!

The trip...

Another perk of reaching 12 years of age was that a grandchild then was eligible to go on a trip with Grandma.  These were usually driving trips to somewhere in the United States, often lasting two-three weeks.  Carol traveled to California and into Mexico.  My brother Dan traveled up the coast of California to Portland and Seattle for the 1962 Worlds Fair.  I joined them in Portland and got to bring a friend.  We traveled in a camper and had a fine time.  Another blog will relate that adventure!  My brother Tom traveled with her through the South and up the East Coast. 

On Tom's trip, Grandma had decided to economize, and she bought a station wagon.  Her plan was to sleep in the car some of the time with Tom on the front seat and Grandma and her sister, Aunt Merial, on a pad in the back.  She cut newspaper sheets to cover the windows at night.  I'm not sure that it was as much fun as she planned, though Tom had a fine time.  One night he caught a jar full of fireflies and let them loose in the car where they flickered all night much to the distress of the ladies in the back.

One another occasion, Grandma wanted to get across a railroad track to a road on the other side, notwithstanding the fact that there was no road crossing where she wanted to cross.  She crossed anyway and got the station wagon high centered on the tracks.  Apparently, Grandma walked down to a bar on the road and asked the men within to come lift her car off the tracks.  They did (no one refused Grandma) and the trio of travelers was again on their way.

Sadly, I think the younger grandchildren missed out on these trips.

Grandma's shower....

Grandma also had a shower in her house which we grandchildren found delightful.  It was better than taking a bath in a good old tin tub which was the method of bathing until our houses had bathtubs when we got indoor plumbing.  Her shower was a small one, but perfectly adequate, and we loved it.  One day when Carol and I were taking our shower together, (we must have been 4 and 5 years old) my brother, Tom, decided to join us... He was fully dressed, and it must have been cold outside, because he even wore his jacket, boots and hat into the shower.  Carol can to this day, picture him fully clothed just standing in the corner of grandma's shower, to Grandma's irritation!

More naughty girls....

Carol related one more hilarious happening.... one day Carol's mom had gone to town, and she and her cousin Dorinda were outside playing with Carol's sister, Donna, and having fun, when they began to tease Donna a little bit.... (side note Donna had Down's Syndrome and Grandma Currier was very protective of her, which Donna knew all too well!).  When Donna had enough of the teasing, she began to scream like 'bloody murder' was going to happen'!  Grandma Currier came rushing out of her house to protect Donna  (who, by the way, was never hurt), but she had had enough and  knew one sure way to get it stopped...Grandma Currier to the rescue!

Boy were they in trouble! Carol and Dorinda split and ran into Carol's house with Grandma in hot pursuit intent on punishment....perhaps the much dreaded shaking!  (Carol's house was three stories, built in 1952 with only the first floor finished at the time. Upstairs had open wooden 2x4s delineating the future rooms).  The big girls ran upstairs with Grandma close behind.  The stairwell was in the middle which then made it possible to run in a circle around the second floor of the house.  The naughty girls ran in circles a couple of times and then zipped down the stairs, out the back door where they hid under the house in the large crawl space.  For several minutes they could still hear Grandma running around and around upstairs shouting "Carol!  Dorinda! Come here!"  Of course, the girls couldn't control their giggles and laughed until their sides were hurting.  Grandma didn't hear them and did not find them so no 'shaking' happened that day.

Family gatherings...

Over the years, as we grew up, we still usually spent Christmas Eve with Grandma and Granddad Currier and annually Grandma held a Birthday Party to celebrate ALL the birthdays of her two sons, their wives and all the grandchildren.  This was generally in the summer and was always fried chicken (from KFC) and all the fixings.  After everyone had families of their own, the big family dinners happened on fewer and fewer occasions, but the memories are with us always.