Jennie & Mac
by C. D. McBride |
| Claude & Jennie McBride |
Jennie was a talented girl, refined and sensitive. She was a fine pianist and soon I was stopping at her place and singing to her accompaniment. When she brought out "Oh Promise Me!" and played it while I sang, her deep brown eyes glowed with warm emotion as her deft fingers played upon the keys to chime out the immortal melody, and a dream was born in our hearts that was destined to become a reality in its own due time.
I was to learn when I visited her folks in Clarkston later on that her musicianship had not come by accident. She had inherited her artistic tale from her forefathers on both sides of the family. Her grandfather, Michael Clarke, had been a renowned musician on the pipe organ in Helena, Montana, and her grandmother, Susannah Thompson Clarke, had been a brilliant stage dancer, and together they had produced many famous operas there during the gold rush days.
Jennie’s father, John P. Clarke, was a good singer and guitar player, and her mother, Sarah Homer Clarke, had a rich contralto voice. Grandpa Michael Clarke recognized Jennie’s musical talent when she was a young girl, and started her on the piano at an early age. She progressed rapidly, and by the time she entered college she was already an accomplished musician. At college she studied piano under Miss Elizabeth Underwood, and chorus and dance under Professor C.R. Johnson. She accompanied some of his operas and choruses.
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| John Peter Clark |
My first trip to Clarkston to visit Jennie and her folks was in the spring of 1917, I rode the train to Cache Junction and started to walk across the river and up over Newton Bench. Soon it started to rain, and that heavy clay soil that had made that area such a famous dry farming section with its rich harvests of winter wheat stuck to my shoes and spattered my trouser legs until I looked more like a hedgehog than a love struck college student. I was rescued by Clarence, Jennie's younger brother along the road a mile from town as he came up from the pasture with the cows. He gave me a ride in on his horse.
At the old Clarke home I met the family, Jennie's four charming and talented sisters, Addie, Susie, Sarah and. Ilda, and her brothers, Mike, Vern, Clarence and Maynard. Dave and Rollie had married and moved away. Johnny and Sarah, her parents were very pleasant and hospitable. I soon found her father to be a very intellectual man and a great reader. One of his favorite pass times was sitting in his easy chair in the evening, smoking his pipe and reading. He kept up on events of the day, read biographies of famous people, read and talked about politics, and last but not least he read and reread his books on minerals and mines. Often he and his brother, Jim would go out prospecting in the North Hills. They had inherited a yen for gold mines from their boyhood days in Helena, Montana.
Then came the war - the First World War. That ended my college career and that of many others, for a long time. The call came for enlistments and the draft was started.. I passed all my tests for the Air Corps, but postponed my enlistment until I could return home to see my folks in Pima, Arizona after four years away seeking a college education. I said goodbye to Jennie and said I hoped to see her again after the war.
I spent two months on the farm with my folks and then found the Air Corps filled up with no room for me, so I responded to the call for strike breakers in the copper mines. The IWW’s had struck and tied up all the copper mines hoping to cripple our country and help Germany win the war. We had many run-ins with the strikers at the mines, but I stayed on at the Inspiration Copper Company at Miami until fall. Jennie and I had kept up our correspondence and decided to get married and live in Miami where I had been offered promotions and a promising future with the company.
In October I left for Utah to marry my college sweetheart and return to my work at the mine. I had rented a house to be ready for us when we arrived. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on October 10, 1917. But Jennie's parents could not stand to see her go so far away with the war on and the future so uncertain. Mike was preparing to enlist and the folks persuaded us to stay and run the farm and take our chances on the war.
This was a crucial turning point in my life. No more mining career for me. I worked in the beet fields topping beets during; the harvest, and then joined Vern in contracting electric wiring jobs. The power line had come through and the towns around the valley were being wired up for electric lights. We wired the town of Paradise. Then Vern moved away with his wife and I continued the wiring work in Collinston, Benson and some in Clarkston. When I started wiring the Clarke home Jennie's father protested that his eyes could not stand the bright electric lights. He preferred his old coal oil lamp. After a few weeks in is corner under the bright lights the power went off one evening and they had to bring out the old coal oil lamp.
“My hell! Sarah,” said Johnny, “Why don't you clean that chimney?”
Sarah cleaned the chimney as best she could, but Johnny’s reading that evening was strenuous. The power came on again the next night and Johnny enjoyed the new lights to the end of his days.
Then came the flu epidemic during the winter of 1918-19. The whole town was hit. Whole families were bed-ridden. Some were dying, Johnny, Mike and I were able to stay on our feet and feed and care for our folks, and also help some of our neighbors. Mike took over the Hans Jensen family chores, and I helped the Ab Godfrey family. They were all down. Charley Anderson made the rounds from his ranch at Hard Scrabble with a flack of whiskey for each family in the town. With his jolly smile and red nose he was a real Santa Claus on those wintry days in his sleigh.
On May 10, 1919 our first child was born, a “Flu Baby.” We had a difficult time saving him. We named him Claude Eugene. Through constant attention to careful living and diet he finally matured into a healthy and active man. He is now, in 1973, the father of six children and the grandfather of four.
Jennie was the pianist for the Clarke Orchestra, with Uncle Jimmie and his boys--Vernor on the trombone, John on the violin, Harold on the cornet and Uncle Jim on his banjo. For a time Harm Barson was the main violinist. He played by ear. All he had to do was hear a tune once and he could pick it up and play it. Jennie would play it on the piano and Harm would chime in with his violin. Sometimes he would attend a show at the Capitol Theatre and come home with some new tunes on his violin. Jennie would fill in the harmony and the dance was on.
Later on Vivian took up the violin and then the organ. They played for dancehalls over the valley and over in the Bear River Valley, and for community programs and celebrations.
The Clarke family liked reunions, and Aunt Sarah would always make a big pan of her delicious doughnuts. She had a secret recipe for them, and nobody ever found out what it was. I have never eaten such delicious doughnuts since she quit the business.
One memorable family reunion was the one held in Dry Canyon in the North Hills by the grove of pines. All the Clarke's and their relatives were there, and a few others joined them too. A big barbecue pit was dug and lined with large stones and a fire was built in it. When the stones were plenty hot a quarter of baby beef was hung in the pit in a wire basket and the pit was covered with a strip of sheet iron and a thick layer of soil. After three hours the pit was opened and the mellow, nut brown quarter of beef was lifted out and carved up and spread around on the table among pies, cakes, vegetables and fruits. In the words of the old story, “Oh! What a dainty dish to set before a king!” Johnny and Jim prospected in the hills for outcroppings of ore, the boys hunted sage hens and grouse, and at night all joined in songs and stories around the campfire under the starry heaven.
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| C.D., Jennie, Pauline & Claude E. McBride |
Jennie played the piano in the orchestra and for the choir, and I sang in the choir and for many funerals, and we performed in some light operas also. In Gypsy Rover Eunice Petersen and I sang the leading roles, and In Cherry Blossom, Grace Fisher and I were the leads.
We had a great baseball team during those years also. We won championships around the valley and became famous for our "Murderer’s Row at bat. One big game was at Malad on the 24th of July for a purse of $100. But I almost got robbed, as manager of the team, before I could get out of town.
On the main team were, Joe Godfrey catcher,- Leo Jardine, pitcher,- Joe Maimberg, first base,- Sammy Thompson, second base,- myself, third base and pitch,- Russ Dahle, short stop,- Gail Thompson, left field,- Lee Thompson, center field,- Paul Clarke, right field. Then there were John Jardine, relief pitcher, - Brig Griffin, first base, relief,- and Dave Archibald, second base relief.
In the Malad game Joe Godfrey was on second base when Paul Clarke knocked a home run. He was a fast runner and Joe was a slow one. When Paul rounded third base he was on the heels of Joe who was running hard but slow.
"Go on Joe! Hurry; Joe,” he shouted. He had to slow down to keep from passing Joe. But they both finally made it in.
While I was in the bishopric with R.O. (Rube) Loosle, and Frank Ravsten, Jr. with Wendell Thompson as ward clerk we had good attendance at meetings. Some, of the hard-working farmers would have a good nap in the afternoon sacrament meetings. In one of the fast and testimony meetings we had just finished the sacrament and begun to have testimony bearing. After a couple of testimonies had been born, Joe Holt was snoring in his seat. Tom Goody poked him and said, “Wake up, Joe,- Wake up, the bishop wants you to dismiss the meeting.” Joe woke up, rubbed his eyes and traipsed up to the stand and raised his rusty hand and offered the benediction. It was short and to the point. The congregation thought he was going to bear his testimony. When he prayed for the Lord to dismiss the meeting, a giggle went through the crowd and they all looked foolish and started moving out. The bishopric was dumfounded. Tom Goody jumped up and made for the door. He didn't want to face Joe when he found out what a trick had been pulled on him.
On another occasion Uncle Jack Thompson went to fast and testimony meeting, for the first tine in many years. He told me about in the blacksmith shop the next day. He said he was getting old and thought he had better start doing something to save his soul from the grave, so he went to church.
“They was a bearin’ their testimonies,” he said, “And old Preachin’ Tom was up there a bearing’ his testimony, and he was wavin’ his arms and poundin’ the pulpit and he said, ‘I know the Lord is with us today. I can feel his spirit. I know he is here with us.’
“And he was right,” said Uncle Jack, “For I was there.”
The farm depression hit the country in 1922. The price of wheat fell from $310 a bushel to 40 cents in a few weeks. I was caught with my wheat in the elevator in Cache Junction. I lost everything I had invested in my farming venture and had to look for something else. I had been invited to teach in the place of a teacher who had left at Christmas time. When school was out I went to work at the Cutler Dam operating a blacksmith shop setting up all the drills for the drilling and blasting, and then truing them up and tempering them after each run. I could have followed the construction job from camp to camp around the country. But that would be a poor life for a young family. Jennie and I talked it over and decided that I should return to teaching, and that has been my life’s profession.
After teaching two years in Clarkston we moved to Logan. There we raised our three children and helped them through college. Eugene is now a dairyman in Syracuse, Utah. His wife is the former Pauline Williams. They have six children and four grandchildren. Theda and her husband, Bill Darley, live in Menlo Park, California. They are both teaching and have one son. Conrad (Dick) completed his Ph.D. at UCLA and is professor of Political Science in the University of Colorado at Boulder. His wife is the former Rosemary Howell of Logan. They have six children.
Jennie continued her music work, playing in church and cantatas, giving music lessons and taking care of the home and family as a devoted mother, homemaker and companion, while I continued with my educational career. After several years in the Logan City Schools, I entered the Utah State University as Professor of Industrial Education. While there I organized and conducted the Evening School, founded the Industrial Management Degree Program and the Management Institute and directed the Student Placement Bureau.
In September 1955, Jennie was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away on September 26. She is now resting by her parents in the cemetery on the hill at Clarkston where she was born.
[CD died 27 November 1992 and is buried in Clarkston next to his sweetheart]
