We lived in a small, well loved red brick pioneer home, built in the 1800's by the Christensen pioneers. Our parents, your Grandpa and Grandma Chris, moved into the home when they were married. It was across the dirt lane, now called Christensen Lane, from the home where Grandpa grew up, in Salem, Utah.
Most children’s drawings of houses look like the home we first lived in. The square front had a center door with one window centered on either side. The red bricks were worn; the yard was fenced in with posts and square wire fencing. The gate opened to a thirty foot sidewalk. The center door entered into a large room with a coal burning stove, a cupboard which had been Grandma’s mother’s, a table and chairs, and maybe a couch. This was our main living area. There was also one bedroom with beds for all of us, including a cradle for my dolls and an oil heater. Behind the two rooms was an area I remember as having a dirt floor and steps down to a cellar. Grandma never let us go into those parts of the house because she had seen mice and rats. Off the backroom was an outdoor wooden porch with a pump, a milk separator and a wringer washer.
Notice I never said anything about a sink in the kitchen, a bathroom, or a laundry room. That is because there were none. This was a pioneer house. The water came from a pump on the back porch. Grandma would make a fire in the coal burning stove, go to the pump on the back porch to fill a large pot, carry it back into the house and heat the water on the stove so she could use it to wash dishes. Or she would fill a large tin tub with water and we would all take turns taking our baths in that one tub. The first person got clean water……the very last to use the water was my doll, Cinderella.
Grandma would then put my hair up in rollers, my doll’s hair up in rollers and comb Casey’s hair with a very special style she called a pomp. She would mix sugar and water together and use it to make Casey’s hair stay in place—kind of like a sugar glue. She combed every hair down so it looked neat and smooth, then carefully combed the front section so that it stood up about 1 ½ -2 inches above the place where his hair met his forehead. She would then take the side of her hand and push on the raised section to make a wave. After the wave was just right she would smooth the top of the pomp down towards the back of his head and make the hairs join with the rest of his hair. Every hair was in place, it didn’t matter how hard Casey played, the sugar concoction held his hair so he always had the perfect pomp.
I sometimes wonder it the sugar water hairdos for my brothers had anything to do with the hairdos they both wear now.
I do not have a photo of Casey at this age, but this is a perfect picture of the pomp on Vern when he was about two-probably in 1958 or 1959. I am holding Vern, Casey is on the left. In the background you can see Grandpa Chris (Lynn Christensen), who would have been about 29. My Aunt Ardy is the lady on the right, my step- Grandmother Reva is left of Grandpa Chris.
This picture includes Grandma Chris (Aylene Christensen), also about 29, sitting next to my Great Grandmother Lettie Hickman.
