April 19, 1992 Sunday By Wayne Tippets while on mission in South Dakota
This is my biography of what I remember about my sister, Maurine Tippets Harrison.
I guess Maurine either was married or I was too young to remember her at home in Georgetown.
I think she was my favorite sister not that I did not love them all but it seems like in every family there is one that seems to be the catalyst that holds the family together and this was Maurine.
There could not have been a more loving and caring person on earth than was Maurine. She was more like my Mom than any other was as far as I remember. Well, maybe I might be wrong there for all of my sisters were the kind of women that had sincere love for all folks. But Maurine seemed like she loved her enemies along with her friends and relations. Although I really do not think she had any enemies for who could not have loved her with her smiles and hugs.
We in our younger days did not get to stay at her house for Leslie did not like to have any of us around, I don’t think, and I do not know why, although we were probably teasing his kids some too much and he was a more serious person and I am not so sure that they even let the kids’ friends stay overnight there. Never did hear one way or the other.
I really think they did have a happy marriage for she was the un-dominating one and let Leslie have his way all the time, but that is a Tippets trait to let their companion be the first in command and that is the way it should be for we were just a bunch of kids from the farm that never had any bringing-ups. But Maurine did not care about that, she still loved us.
Most of my memories of Maurine are after we were married and this must have made the difference with Leslie, for he did treat us pretty good after that.
Our kids used to love to go to her house and have pancakes and her special syrup that she made out of cream, brown sugar and nothing else in equal parts, but boy they loved it and we still have to make it for the kids whenever we have pancakes. Even today while Barbara and myself are on our mission in Rose Bud Indian reservation South Dakota, she made some of it for us the other night to go on our pancakes and it is still good.
Just as soon as we would pull in her yard she would pop out of her house and meet us out to the car and you felt like you had not seen her for years and it still touches me every time I think of her doing this. In rain, snow, sunshine or whatever, she would come out. Leslie would too, well just about. He would usually make it to the porch by the time we got there.
We slept there once in a while, inside before we had kids then afterward we slept outside.
One time we went up there and Terry was just little and he wanted to go out and watch them stack hay and we did but he paid for it later for he had hay fever. He must have been about three years old and it was so bad I had to walk up and down the road with him for a couple of hours so I would not wake Maurine or Leslie up and she was upset because I did that. She said you would not have bothered us a bit. But we would have.
She used to, before breakfast, turn the chairs backwards to the table and we would kneel down to pray behind them and then we would sit down and have blessing on food. I am not complaining about this, just stating a fact and I think it was a swell idea although we never did practice it in our family, nor did Mom or Pop. We would have bacon and eggs first then last would be hot mush with real cream out of their cows, mighty good with homemade bread.
About twenty five years ago in about 1967, Barbara suggested that we have a family reunion up to Star Valley and so we did and boy it was the highlight of the year for all of us. We would usually go up Friday night and stay then we would have Saturday and Sunday as reunion.
Saturday night we would either have it at the park or if it was storming we would have it at her house or Lucile’s and we would sit around the bonfire and talk and sing and just plain have fun as a family.
Our kids used to always get in a water fight, well I should say they always started a water fight, but that was okay. Some of my family thought it was not necessary to have water fights but none of them dissolved from getting wet and neither did our kids or myself, and they still talk about them and how upset my brothers John and Joe got when they got poor Timmy and Jeffry wet, but they lived through it too. I think they even got water on Pappy once by accident and he didn’t get upset either. These went on for many years there. On the first weekend in August is when we would have them.
Although it would be fast Sunday, Maurine would fix everyone that wanted to eat on fast Sunday breakfast but she would never eat herself.
What she really enjoyed was when we would all get ready and go to church with her and I cannot ever remember her not standing up and bearing her testimony while we were there and telling the crowd how happy she was to belong to such a good family as she has and some of us would bear ours also. It was neat but them days are gone forever, well on the earth anyway. Maybe up yonder if I make it which right now is very doubtful.
I recall her teaching a Sunday school class one year that we were there and she is as good at that as Barbara is. Two of a kind and they were both married to kind of ornery husbands.
After church we would usually have a picnic in Maurine’s yard and have everything to eat as usual. This would usually last until about five and then we would all get packed up and head for home and look forward for the next one the next year. I really think it tickled her most of all for Pappy to have so much enjoyment out of them and I am sure she like the rest of us wished that Ma was there to enjoy it with him, and maybe she was.
One time after I had started to working at second street, we had made arrangements myself and Cluck to go up and get her and Lucile and bring them down to do some shopping and we had got up there and Les would not let her come down with us and I really think that is the only time I have seen Maurine upset. She did not say much but we knew without a doubt that she was, for she said, “I have everything taken care of. I have some money and we will be back tomorrow,” but he still said no, so we came down without her.
Just a couple of years ago when my brothers and sister went to Hawaii, NaDee told us that she was sorry for the way her Dad treated her Mom’s family, but that was the kind of person he was but he was not as bad as she thought he was, I don’t think.
Although after Maurine passed away we would stop over to see Leslie and he really treated us good. Maybe he felt like we were not so bad a fellers as he thought, as a matter of fact he even invited us to stay there a couple of times and even missed church once to come to the park with us when it was being held in the afternoon when we did not go to church. He missed and even took Barbara and myself up to show us where Maurine was buried.
About six or seven years ago we stopped to see him on the way back from Yellowstone and Cody and we stayed with him and we asked him if he would like to ride up to see Ammon and Lucile with us and he did and enjoyed it a lot, and the next morning we asked him if he would like to ride down to Utah with us and visit with his kids and he did that too. He was a lonely man and did not know how to cope without Maurine for she was his life and he did not realize it until it was too late and that is what will happen to my wife’s husband if he does not straighten out and fly right.
Maurine and Leslie raised a bunch of really good kids all of them or most got scholarships to Wyoming University. And they are all very friendly still although there are some that we have not seen for some time except at their Dad’s funeral about five years ago.
Maurine is the one that wrote all of the news for her town for the newspaper, the Star Valley Times and she must have done a good job for she did it for many, many years.
It seems like she was always just putting on a quilt for someone or taking one off or doing one all the time. Probably if you could take all of the quilts she has made in that house they would reach from here half way to Utah.
I don’t know how many times she was president of the Relief Society but a few times. I am sure she worked in other organizations in the ward but do not know of them for she could handle any of them without doubt.
On Thanksgiving of ‘70 on their way home from Salt Lake where Maurine and Leslie had spent the holiday with their kids they stopped at our house and picked up Pappy to take him up there with them to stay a couple of months and he was very excited to go with them for he was living alone and although we and other of my brothers and sisters spent time with him, he was lonely for Maurine and Lucile also. And so he went up there with them. Little did we know that that would be the last time we would see Pappy alive in Utah.
On Pappy’s eightieth birthday I tried to get some of them to ride up to Star Valley to see Pappy which is the Ninth of February but none could go and neither did we and we should have done.
On the morning of the twenty second of January, Maurine called and told us that Pappy had a stroke and it looked bad. As many as could hopped in a couple of cars and went up there and as we walked in the house Maurine started to cry. She started to cry and said that she was sorry that it had happened for she did everything she could and had the doctor come out and look at him and she had not called for the ambulance for she wanted us to help her decide for the doctor had told her that there was no chance for him to make it at his age.
She had bathed him and did everything she could for him and so we did call the ambulance to come and get him. Most of us stayed at the hospital that night, well a couple came back to Utah and they were good enough to let us sleep if we wanted to in the waiting room and so we did off and on all night, mostly off.
The next morning all of us but Ray and Edna and I think LaRue or Nellie had went to Maurine’s for breakfast and about nine in the morning which was Saturday, the twenty third , our Mom came and got Pappy and then they were together again after being apart for twenty years, and Maurine is the one that pointed this out to us which made it a lot easier on all of us. I cannot think of a better place for Pappy to go than in a small twelve-bed hospital in a quiet little town like Star Valley Wyoming. For although he did live in a big city he was still just a country boy and this is how Maurine felt too. Even picking out the casket up there some of them wanted a sort of pink one but Maurine said there was nothing pink about Pappy, he was true blue all the way through.
Maurine and Leslie’s kids have all as far as I know have made successes of their lives although the only ones that we have been able to stay in touch with – NaDee, Marilyn, Adele and Karla – are the only ones that we have seen to speak of except for funerals, weddings and such. Some of the others live around close here but we just do not take time to go see them at all which is bad for we should at least let them know who we are for they are good kids and by George we are good kids too. We had Adele as a neighbor for a little while about twenty some odd years ago and she was a sweet one to have around and we liked Noel.
Marilyn – I guess until just recently – we went down to visit with them pretty often with Mildred and Lester and even ran into her at an open house years ago. Now when we get together we have something in common. We both are real estate salesmen. Well she is a saleswoman and so is Barbara now, and she has always treated us so very good and I guess it was taught them by their Mom to respect their relations for they all really do and this is not the case in all families for we do have some nephews and I suppose nieces also that could care less about their uncles but I guess we are a peculiar bunch of boys. But we still love them all. Maybe the big reason is that we have nick names for them and they don’t like it. Oh well, we probably will never change. I like us the way we are.
Then there is that sweet Karla who is always looking for but not finding some man that can walk on water and one of these days she will find him and with her training in warfare she will surround him and capture and torture him until he is willing to pay the ultimate price and marry her and thusly all of her training in the Naval Reserves will not have been in vain. So keep looking Karla. Too bad we are all us brothers related or you may have one, just kidding Karla. You are the one that is close to being able to walk on water.
Then there is NaDee who I don’t know why she lives clear over in Hawaii. Probably to get away from us relations but she is living in the wrong place for her to do that for who don’t want to go to Hawaii. When we went over there two years ago, twelve of us went over there at one time and she treated us well. Her and Jack both treated us like we were kings and queens, priest and priestesses while we were there. It was neat. The thing of it was she actually acted like she loved to have us there and sort of hated to see us go but we realize that relations are like a dead fish after a few days and they sort of get to stinking.
I can see Maurine treating someone just like that whenever she had a chance, regardless of who it was and our Mom was the same though.
NaDee wanted us to come back this year but we told her we were going on a mission and couldn’t come. She said well let’s try for next year so we shall see, but she is just like her Mom would like her to be. I am sure.
When I had my operations on my eyes when I was seventeen years old or so, she would write me a letter all the time and tell me that they were all praying for me every day. Maurine did, I mean, and it seems like NaDee or one of the girls wrote me a letter once and signed it your nice niece which they were. Anyway it cheered me up somewhat.
Anytime anyone can make a living in Star Valley they had to be doing something right for it was tough sledding up there. I used to call it Starve Alley for it was soooo cold in the winter but there was a few days in the summer it got hot. You just had to choose the right day. Just kidding, it really was not that bad, but it was a tough place to farm to any extent. But Maurine and Leslie were not alone for everyone up there had it tough but never had any complaints from any of them and most of them said that they would stay there if they could just find employment but there was none.
I remember Leslie worked for a hardware store for $1.25 an hour when….