My Father and Paternal Grandparents
My father, was born October 30, 1885 and grew up in Benjamin, Utah, which is situated just south of Utah Lake, near Provo. Dad had four siblings, two of whom, a brother George Edward and a sister Christianna, died in 1890 from diphtheria. They, as well as their parents are buried in the Benjamin City Cemetery, a beautiful spot, situated on a knoll in the center of a broad valley between grand ranges of the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, they seem to call the smallest hamlet a “city,” so it’s really Benjamin City. Benjamin is a small place, easily reached from Interstate 15, some 15 miles south of Provo – and easily missed. The first time I drove to Benjamin, I asked someone for directions; a local person responded to me and concluded, “It’s just a widen’n in the road.” When I arrived at Benjamin in 1999 to visit the cemetery, I was dismayed to see the condition of my grandparents’ headstone, so I had a monument made that I feel is more suitable for the resting place of Marion and George Hand, Mormon pioneers. On the back of the new monument, I had inscribed Ronald George Hand’s poem, “Prayer in the Rockies.”
The poem was written by my half brother Ronald in August, 1936, when he stayed behind at the McLester Hotel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, while my parents went to dinner with some friends. They were on their way to a fair in Texas. The poem was read at my wedding to Janet – and, interestingly, a cousin of Janet who kept the poem in his wallet, gave it as a gift at a wedding he attended by happenstance in the Canadian Rockies as he was skiing in the mountains of Alberta. I understand that the poem was given as a gift at still another wedding, but I do not know the details.
My paternal grandfather was born 18 September 1848. At the age of 16 years, he left his family in Bonnington, Nottinghamshire, England and emigrated to Utah as a Mormon pioneer. I do not know how it came to pass that he enrolled with that faith, but he must have had a strong conviction that it was the right thing for him to do. It took a month for the passage across the Atlantic Ocean and then four months to drive an ox team across the plains, for which George was paid $50 a month (he then contributed the $200 to the Mormons Emigration Fund). He arrived in Salt Lake City at the age of 17 in October, 1865. George intended to bring over his entire family but several of them died or were otherwise unable to come. On December 25, 1877, he married my grandmother, Marion Elizabeth Mitchell, who came to Payson, Utah at the age of 3 years in 1863. Her parents left Johannesburg, South Africa in 1863 for Zion.
My grandparents settled in Benjamin, where they established a farm from the wilderness and raised their five children. The oldest two, George Edward and Christianna died of diphtheria in 1890. The surviving children were David Alexander, born in 1883, my father, born October 30, 1885 and Sarah. Sarah lived into the 1930s, though I never heard a word about her from my father. She had serious medical problems over a long period of time. Uncle David I did know, quite well. He was a barber in Sandy, Utah. I think he gave me a haircut or two, and shortly before going into the Peace Corps, I put in a new lawn for him. He died in 1963. I remember Uncle David always having a hunting dog. I remember his dog – it was not the kind you cuddle up to.
Dad said that when he was a boy he got just one orange a year – on Christmas. I guess it was a pretty tough life in Utah Valley in those days. Dad said they had to take “ol’ Bessie” up to the mountains to get firewood for the winter. One time Dad was thrown from the horse when the horse spied a rattle snake. Another time, Dad went on a deer hunt in the wilderness with some cowboys. They rode all day and into the night trying to find water. Dad was really tuckered out. He fell off his horse and awoke the next morning feeling pretty stiff. Although they were on the hunt for several days, they shot not one deer. Dad worked in a brick yard and made a dollar a day when he was a teenager. He played a horn in a band.
I wish I knew more about my father’s childhood and early life. Dad became a musician and taught music in Castle Dale, Utah. Thanks to Janet’s keen eye, in May, 2004, we found a small photograph of the school, students and faculty, including Dad and Ileene, hanging on the wall of a room in the Castle Dale Historical Society.
The photo shows him on June 1st 1906, at the Emory Stake Academy, Castle Dale, probably at graduation ceremonies. Ileene is next to him. Dad and Ileene went to Castle Dale in 1904. They were married while there (the marriage took place in the Manti Temple in January, 1905). I believe they may have left there after the 1905-1906 academic year. Lorus was born in Castle Dale in 1905, Leola was born in 1907 in Salt Lake City.
Lora Ileene Pratt was the granddaughter of Orson Pratt, a luminary in the early Mormon Church. Ileene was a daughter of Lorus Bishop Pratt, a painter of some renown, and with her, the couple had five children. One of Dad’s letters to his children in 1927 tells a lot about his thinking and the hardship of his separation from the kids after the death of his wife.
One of Lorus Pratt’s paintings hung in our living room and eventually came into my hands. My father loved the painting. I donated it to the Springville Museum of Art, a fine museum situated in the region where both Ileene and my father grew up. Here it is, as restored, framed and displayed by the Museum. Note, the plaque beside the painting mistakenly states that I am a child of John and Ileene.
Ileene died in an automobile accident in late August, 1917 and the kids, Marion, Ronald, Reva, Leola and Lorus, then about 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, respectively, went here and there to live with relatives, eventually coming together with Grandma and Grandfather Hand in Sandy, Utah, where they lived in the “old homestead.”
I do not know the details of Ileene’s death, except that a car in which she was a passenger went off the road in City Canyon and she was critically injured. The funeral service for Ileene gives some information about my father and Ileene’s life together. (See, Funeral service September 1, 1917 in photo/document collection for the full funeral service documents). Below is a photo of Dad’s parents and his children which must have been taken soon after Ileene's death. Leola is holding Dad’s right arm, Reva, his left, Lorus and Marion and Ronald below. Marion looks to be about 7 years old here, which would be 1920.
Lora Ileene Pratt was born on 15 Dec. 1885 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She died on 27 Aug. 1917 in Salt Lake City. She was buried on 1 Sept. 1917 in Wasatch Lawn Cemetery, Salt Lake City. Ileene married John Taylor Hand on 4 Jan. 1905 in Manti, Sanpete, Utah. Lorus Taylor Hand was born on 21 Sept. 1905 in Salt Lake City. He died on 1 Dec. 1976. Ronald George Hand was born on 10 Jun 1911 in Salt Lake City.
I guess John and Ileene were not cut out for the remote villages of central Utah. They returned to Salt Lake City in mid-1906. Dad taught music and directed a chorus. They lived up near the Capitol building, north of Temple Square. Here is a picture of the John Hand Chorus, taken in 1915.
Dad went to New York to study music and diction. He studied diction at Columbia with Herbert Witherspoon. At some point around 1909-1910, Dad also studied in Berlin. He said he roller skated all over Berlin. While in Berlin, Dad was briefly jailed by the Kaiser. Dad told me of being in a crowded cell where there was so little ventilation that the inmates went around in a circle to breathe fresh air at a small window. He was also briefly detained when he roller skated through the Triumphal Arch of the Brandenburg Gate, through which only the Kaiser could pass. My father embarked on a program of voice training, and he financed his singing studies and early concert work by incorporating himself as the American Operatic Corporation. The 1913 Salt Lake City Directory lists Dad as follows: “Tenor, Italian School of Vocal Art, Certificated from the World’s Greatest Teacher, George Ferguson, Berlin, Germany. 48 E. South Temple, Tel WAS 3494, r. 148 W. 2nd North, Tel WAS 4839.”
He raised money for his music company by subscription of shares, and the investors hoped that he would become a famous tenor. One letter shows that Dad already had an established address in New York City at least by early 1917. He apparently returned to Salt Lake from New York City in July, 1917 to teach a summer course. I do not understand the nature of his relationship with Ileene at this time. After their mother’s untimely death, the children must have suffered greatly, especially with their father mostly absent and establishing a life across the country. From what little I know, it seems that Ronald and Marion had especially difficult times of it, being so young and then being handed out to relatives. At least they came together finally with Grandma.
The hopes of the principals and stockholders of the American Operatic Corporation were high. Unfortunately, it did not work out to be a financial success, though Dad did sing all over the country, and he received excellent reviews of his concerts. It just never became a high paying enterprise. I think Dad was quite unhappy about his financial and professional situation around 1921, the only year for which I have his diary. In it, he expresses a lot of doubt and difficulties and speaks much of the stoic philosophy of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Despite his financial difficulties, Dad regularly sent money back to his family in Sandy and visited his children and parents each summer.
I have read many pages from his 1921 diary which reveal a man bedeviled with self doubts, but firmly resolved to be a great singer. The fact that he kept this diary is a pretty good indication that it was a critical time for him. Dad sang a great many concerts between 1917 and 1925, but he never reached a point where he was satisfied with his voice. It is clear that he had a lot of self-doubt, which is succinctly stated on one page of his 1921 diary. He had organized his operatic corporation to fund his studies and to get started on the concert stage. He had to sing a lot of concerts to pay his bills and so could not put all the time into his studies that he needed. But the stockholders wanted to see their big monetary rewards in a hurry. As he says in this page of his diary, “The American hurry, the American pressure for results, the impatience…..”
The 1921 diary reveals much but leaves many details agonizingly missing. Nevertheless, the many pages of the diary which I have scanned are revealing and fascinating. Dad’s papers demonstrate that he worked mighty hard at his singing and that he had a flair for business and organizational detail as well. I think the major problems may have been under-capitalization, which is the cause of so many small business failures, a lack of sufficient persistence on the part of the Utah investors and maybe dad’s insistence on perfection. He has so many good reviews that I cannot believe he couldn’t have made a decent living from singing if he had allowed himself to go on performing. Many entries show the bind he was in. He said he was singing in the wrong way and every time he appeared in concert, he was strengthening the bad habit, the wrong way to sing. He could only correct this through long and sustained practice in his studio. Yet, money problems and the impatience of the investors required that he perform often. What a difficulty! He also was conflicted about having left his kids alone all that time after Ileene died. Marion was then only 4 years 5 months old, Ronald, 6 years old, etc. The children loved their father but did not, understandably, really accept his absence and distant fathering. It is lucky he and they had Grandma. Without her, the affair would not have been feasible without great harm to the children.
Since Dad did not fill me in on much, I have but few anecdotes from his concertizing days to relate, but he did say that he paid a hundred dollars to learn how to eat spaghetti – when he was invited for dinner by his sponsor, whose check then bounced. On one program, the tenor Tito Schipa also sang, and when Dad received greater applause, the famous fellow was furious. I think the audience must have loved it when Dad sang songs like “My Wild Irish Rose,” “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” and “Gosh, Noah, Didn’t It Rain?” (Interestingly, at Marion’s 90th birthday party, Kira, a granddaughter of Marion (one of Milton Jones’s children) sang “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” knowing that Marion loved the song that was one of her father’s favorites. I videotaped that event. My father founded the New York Light Opera Guild in 1931. It lasted, I guess, as long as he did. Unfortunately, the Guild’s early years coincided with the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Dad received many accolades for his work and musical artistry.
Ronald was a highly talented young man. He had had some health and social difficulties as a teenager but when he came to New York to work with Dad in the Guild about 1932, he really blossomed. He worked for NBC as well and showed his creativity in a number of projects, ranging from writing poetry to sculpture, cabinetry (he designed and built cabinets for Dad’s music). He designed and created a hooked rug, or hatchment, as the American Textile History Museum terms it. I had the tapestry cleaned, stabilized and mounted in a Plexiglas frame by professional textile restorers at that Museum. Below are photos relating to Ronald’s Coat of Arms hatchment. The hatchment, was mounted in archival Plexiglas after its cleaning and stabilization by the Textile Conservation Center of the American Textile History Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts, in December, 2004. Dad always wanted to create a Book of Memory for Ronald. I’ve not done that, but I have taken steps to preserve his memory through two of the things which he created, his poem Prayer in the Rockies and the Hand Coat of Arms.
My Mother and Maternal Grandparents
Two years after Dad’s year of despair, 1921, he met Ruth in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He had moved to New York and wanted to open a studio in Allentown on a part-time basis. I guess Allentown was quite receptive to music and concertizing. They married November 28, 1928 in Allentown. Apparently, John had asked a leading musician in Allentown, Homer Nearing whom might he ask to be his accompanist as he wished to open a part-time voice studio in Allentown. The musician recommended Ruth. Coincidentally, just before that inquiry that my father made, Ruth had informed her teacher Homer Nearing that she would like to do some work as an accompanist. At their first meeting, John asked her how old she was and this was a sensitive subject with Ruth, who was so young a teacher that people were astonished at her age. Ruth responded, “I’ll be 21 years old on my next birthday.” Ruth opened her studio at the age of 14 years. (She taught her last lesson in December, 1999, at the age of 95). Below is Ruth’s letter confirming the terms of their agreement, following the interview.
Grandfather essentially disowned Ruth when she married my father. I think he wanted her to look after him but maybe it was John’s age, eighteen years Ruth’s senior that bothered C. Frank. It should be noted that C Frank lost his first child, a girl, at the age of 5 years and prior to Ruth’s birth. He lost his wife to illness when she was 59. He was very attached to Ruth and could not accept her marriage. Anyway, for years, Grandfather was estranged from his daughter and probably held some animosity for my future dad. In time this did change
Mom said that the “C” in C. Frank had no meaning other than the letter “C.” I know even less about my mother’s side of the family. Her parents had a child whose name I do not recall, who died before my mother was born at the age of 5 years, 5 months 26 days. Mother said her mother often referred to those numbers. She often said she had no living blood relatives, except me. I know nothing of the history of the family other than what I’ve written here. Ruth was born May 10, 1905. Ruth’s closest friends were Martha (Kleckner) and Edna Schatz, my Godmother. Ruth’s father was a builder and contractor. She was proud of her father’s integrity as a businessman and his innovative spirit. She remarked often about her father having been ahead of his time; for example, he owned the first radio in the neighborhood (people would come from all over to listen to it). He had a dark room and loved to take and develop photographs.
Bob Oberly asked Ruth to marry him but she said, I will give you an answer after I’m 21. He went on a mission to Africa. Ruth was afraid of snakes. I think Ruth renewed her acquaintance with Bob sometime in the last 10 years of her life. A few stories are recorded on a CD (Ruth’s stories) concerning her life. Ruth’s father’s parents would not let him play a musical instrument and, contrariwise, Ruth’s father insisted on Ruth taking her music seriously. Despite her wish to attend high school, C. Frank wanted her to open a studio to teach piano, and she did so – at the age of 14 years. She continued to teach privately, continuously until December, 1998, a period of 81 years. She told me of taking long walks with her father, including one across a railroad trestle that scared her because she thought a train might come at any moment. She told me that one day her father was walking along on a street in Philadelphia when a well dressed man stopped him and asked how much he would “take for that dog,” to which C. Frank replied, “Sir, you don’t have enough money to purchase this dog.” My grandfather learned that the man was John Wanamaker, owner of the department stores which bore his name. (Note, Wanamaker established the first department store and also innovated in other areas such as employee benefits).
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