Review
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Title: “The Skeleton In Grandpa’s Barn” And Other Stories Of Growing Up In Utah
Author: Edited by Stanford J. Layton
Publisher: Signature Books
Genre: Non Fiction/Historical
Year Published: 2008
Number of Pages: 271
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 978–1–56085–160 –8
Price: $23.95

Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton

As something of an amateur wanna-be historian I have eagerly waited the release of "The Skeleton in Grandpa’s Barn And Other Stories Of Growing Up In Utah.” The series of which it is a part, “Favorite Readings from the Utah Historical Quarterly,” has become a favorite of mine. As I read it I was not disappointed.

As is implied in the title the theme of this volume is youth and the experience of growing up in Utah. There are eighteen articles, nine are first person memoirs and nine are third person narrative histories. (see the “Editors introduction, p ix).

With a title like “The Skeleton in Grandpa’s Barn,” one would expect many of life’s lighter moments to be highlighted in this collection. In the title story you will learn of how the skeleton of a convicted (and executed) murderer ended up in the barn of a member of the LDS First Presidency.

Other favorite moments for me include Fae Decker Dix’s “Never Change a Song,” in which she tells of her adolescent humiliation when her father refused to get on board with the Church Hymn committee and loudly sang the old militant lyrics to the LDS hymn, “O Ye Mountains High” during a choir performance at a ward sacrament meeting.

In “My Garden of Eden,” LaMar Petersen recalls the time in his fifth year when he was lead by his father into the family kitchen where, “in the presence of my four sisters I was placed on the table and pinioned with firm hands while Dr. Olsen wielded his efficient scalpel. My screaming bloody murder did not dissuade him from performing the ancient rite of circumcision. I was plenty mad for two good reasons: it hurt like hell and my sisters were not welcome at ringside.”(p 7

In “Growing Up Railroad: Remembering Echo City,” Robert S Mikkelsen includes a description of the town’s “crack wine gang,” who, under the cover of night “armed with braces, half-inch bits, pre-shaped hardwood plugs, hammers shovels, and gallon lard cans,” could rob an east-bound train of several gallons of “California red,” from its wooden wine-tank car as it stopped in preparation to enter Echo Canyon. (p 90) He also remembered a time when he watched an attractive, young, Hollywood bound actress get off of a train. He watched her for some time and felt duty bound to watch over her until her connecting train came in. He was very attracted to her but recalled his disappointment at her reaction to the Train Depot’s outdoor toilet. He stated, “it was the nicest one in town, a big, roomy four-holer, two in the women’s side and two in the men’s. The women’s side had a strong latch, and it got scrubbed clean once a week. But when she saw it she said, ‘Good gawwd.’”

My review of the book's fun moments would not be complete without mentioning “Glimpses of Ice Skating and Coasting,” by Miriam B. Murphy and Craig Fuller. It includes descriptions of games my wife absolutely refused to let me read to our children. One is the game of “pomp,” which is a game of tag played on a frozen lake with burning tires for goals, the other was “hooky bobber,” which was a form of skating behind automobiles by holding on to the bumper while wearing smooth soled shoes.

There were also a number of serious, somber, and even heart-wrenching recollections. It is hard not to weep with Saline Hardee Fraser in “One Long Day That Went On Forever,” as you read her memoirs of what happened in Castle Gate, Utah when “Castle Gate Mine No. 2” exploded on 8 March 1924. This article is especially timely because of the recent coal mine accidents that have occurred in Utah and else where.

“‘Hide and Seek’: Children on the Underground” is an unintentionally timely inclusion, considering what has happened over the last few months in Texas with the FLDS children. It recounts the painful experiences children and families were put through when LDS polygamists went “underground” to evade US Marshalls in the 1870’s and 80’s as they attempted to follow God’s command to live “the principle.” It puts a human face on so many pioneer stories as well as the stories currently on the news. It also raises many interesting questions such as, how do you simultaneously try to teach your children to obey the commandments and be honest, and at the same time teach them to deceive strangers and even friends about their family relationships? How much should parents let children suffer for their religious convictions? One idea I especially pondered after reading the article was, given the similarities between present polygamists and past polygamists, how can modern Latter-day Saints celebrate the willingness of the nineteenth century saints to suffer for their convictions, while so quickly dismissing the FLDS for their determination to do the same?

Two other serious articles caused me much contemplation. In Yoshiko Uchida’s “Topaz, City of Dust,” he describes living in the Topaz concentration camp and tells of the vain attempts he and his fellow prisoners made to keep up a normal life during their imprisonment in the “land of the free.” In Sandra Jones’ “‘Redeeming the Indian’: Enslavement of Children in New Mexico and Utah,” she tells of the attempts by Catholics and Mormons to Christianize the American Indians of the Southwest and the lasting impact this had on the native culture.

The only problem I had with this book was Layton’s inclusion of Gary Bergera’s article “‘The Murderous Pain of Living’: Thoughts on the Life and Death of Everett Russ.” I felt that it was out of place in this book. The theme of the book was “growing up in Utah,” and all of the other articles followed the theme except this one. The other articles were either recollections of people who spent some portion of their childhood or growing up years in Utah, or third hand accounts of what growing up in Utah was like during different periods of its history. I must admit, I had never heard of Everett Russ before I read this book. Maybe he is more significant than I realize. As I read the article it seemed to me that he didn’t do much “growing up” in Utah. He did spend some time in Utah’s wilderness and found great solace there. He even disappeared and probably died there, but that is not what this article was about. It was about how Everett may or may not have had medical problems, may or may not have had depression, may or may not have been bisexual, and may or may not have committed suicide in Utah. It is an intriguing article, it has merit in its own right, and deserves to be in some collection of stories, it just didn’t seem to me to fit in to this book.

As I read “The Skeleton In Grandpa’s Barn,” I laughed, I cried, I learned some great lessons, and I gained a greater appreciation for my home state and all of its idiosyncrasies. The articles in this book are the kind that make history fun and cause you to care about all of those names you read in books or hear about in church and school classes. I recommend this book to all. It is a worthy entry into its series, a great complement to the Utah Historical Quarterly magazine, and a wonderful accomplishment by Stanford Layton and Signature Books.