Beta Sigma Phi: In Honor of Ethel Hutt
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We are here tonight to honor Beta Sigma Phi’s 1st Lady of 1980 – Ethel Hutt. Ethel is the sixth outstanding Newcastle woman to be honored by Beta Sigma Phi. The nine plus decades of Ethel’s life have been full of work that was well seasoned with love and laughter and we want to share a few episodes of a very interesting person’s life with you. Ethel, we salute you with a fashion show from the Anna Miller Museum.
On a blustery day when it wasn’t winter and it wasn’t spring, a tiny baby girl was born on a farm near Ashland, Nebraska, to Edmond and Dosia Avis. It was just 91 years ago today on March 17, 1889. She was named Ethel. It may have been that Dosia Avis wore clothes such as you see modeled by Naomi Jensen. Perhaps she dressed Ethel in just such a dress for her christening.
When Ethel was almost four years old her parents decided to homestead in central Nebraska. This new rough life would be a real change for Ethel’s mother who had lived a pleasant and relatively luxurious life in Illinois before her marriage. Ethel can remember that she was just recovering from scarlet fever when she, her older brother Arthur and their mother rode the train to Broken Bow to meet her father and the new homestead near Merna. For her fourth birthday she recalls receiving a new calico dress!
After several months Ethel’s father built a 2-room sod house on the 60-acre homestead. Ethel remembers that sod houses could be really nice as they were warm in winter and cool in summer but sometimes there were disadvantages such as when the roof leaked. Ethel’s mother solved that problem by getting out a large umbrella and putting it over the bed so Ethel, Arthur and she could sit under it to stay dry! Another problem was the fact that sometimes bull snakes visited and would crawl up the wall and into the ceiling of building paper.
Water was always a problem as wells were expensive and scarce. The Avis family hauled theirs in a wagon 3 miles from a neighbor’s windmill. If the wind didn’t blow there was no water and droughts were also a problem.
The year 1894 brought serious drought to Nebraska and there was no crop that year. Aid packages were sent from the East with clothing was distributed to people in need. Ethel needed new shoes so her mother went thru the clothing to find her a pair. She found a nice button shoe just the right size but no mate could be found in any of the boxes. Finally, she found a lace-up shoe that would fit but also had no mate so that was Ethel’s new pair of shoes. She wasn’t proud of that pair of shoes and always sat with one hidden behind the other so no one would notice.
Ethel says that even though times were hard, she never went hungry although she has been mightily thirsty a few times.
Ethel also can tell you about the first Christmas tree she remembers at the schoolhouse when she was about 5 or 6 years old. All of the children’s giftware hung on the tree without wrapping paper and among the presents was a beautiful doll. Ethel (and probably all of the other little girls) watched that doll all thru the program thinking perhaps that doll would be for her as she had been “real good.” When Santa Claus passed out the gifts the doll wasn’t for Ethel and she has always believed in wrapping up the presents since that time!
About the time Ethel was a young girl the song Red River Valley was written. Pioneers heading westward changed a Tin Pan Alley song into the simple haunting melody we know today. Perhaps this was one of the songs that was sung at gatherings at the schoolhouse. Joyce Diedtrich and Louis White accompanied by Janice Tanner will share this enchanting love song with you.
When Ethel was six she started school and walked about 1 ½ - 2 miles to the schoolhouse. Perhaps on a Sunday or at the school programs Ethel wore a lovely white dress like this one modeled by Sharon Lange.
Disease was a real problem in those days as many illnesses were very serious or fatal. The children wore “asfiting (?) bags” around their necks that were supposed to keep the germs away. Ethel recalls that the smell of them was so bad that they would keep most anything away. Ethel hid her bag under a bush on the way to school and would put it on again before she got home.
Another favorite story is about the time she and Arthur found wild black raspberries in the canyons near their home. They picked and picked enough for a pie and prevailed on Mother to bake it for them even though it was a hot day and the oven would heat the sod shanty even more. A fruit pie was a rare treat and the children lay down on the floor anticipating the juicy treat as Mother set it on the deep window ledge of the sod house to cool. The windows had mosquito netting instead of wire screens to keep out the flies. They were roused from their daydreams of succulent raspberry pie by the yelping of their hound pup. With what horror they discovered that the pup had jumped thru the mosquito netting and grabbed the hot pie. Two disappointed kids chased after the house with sticks but he got away with the pie and that was the end of the black raspberries.
When Ethel was 8 or 10 years old the family sold the first homestead and rented another farm of 160 acres nearby. Here there was a well so they planted a large garden and a big patch of seed onions. It was Ethel’s job to weed so many rows of onions each day during the summer. As a result, Ethel is fond of saying that she grew up in an onion patch. Her father would sell enough onions in the fall to pay the $100 rent for the whole farm! Imagine any 10-year-old girl paying the rent on family farm today!
Joyce, Louise, and Janice have selected another all time favorite “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” to sing for you. This song was written in 1905 – the year that Ethel was sweet sixteen.
Ethel’s career as a schoolteacher began when she was only 16 years old! Perhaps she began her first day of school with a suit like this one modeled by Patti Anderson. Her first salary was $30/month and she had to pay $11/month for board. However, she saved enough money to attend normal school at Broken Bow in the summer. Her first school had 12-15 students. Most of them were boys but she had no trouble as she kept them busy during school hours and played with them on the school grounds during recesses. These were always her secrets for good discipline – busy and play with the children. Ethel says if there was trouble, it brewed on the playground. You know that she had excellent rapport with the students when you discover that she has received invitations to some of these same students’ 60th Wedding Anniversaries.
Occasionally the students were older than herself but in the 15 years she taught school only 1 time did she resort to spanking.
When she walked along the edge of the canyon on the way to and from school each day, Ethel encountered and killed many rattlesnakes. One or two of those snakes would be enough for most of us but Ethel seemed to think it was best to dispense of them by the dozens.
Ruth Floretta tells us that Ethel could understand how the kids nowadays liked driving too fast with their cars because she thought it high fun to see how fast her old horse and buggy could go!
Ethel has always been a seamstress. That was just one of the many jobs to be done as all the clothing, quilts, etc. for a family had to be made at home. When she was in her 20’s she did quite a lot of sewing for others as well as her own family. One of the major sewing jobs was to make black dresses for families when there was going to be a funeral. One time a German family called her to do some sewing for a funeral but this time it was to make the shroud. Measuring the dead body was a new experience but Ethel met this challenge too and finished it on time. Today at 91 Ethel makes her own clothes!
Ethel had cousins living in Georgia so she went there to live with them and teach school for 2 years and what years! She had 60 pupils and 3 grades to begin the year but when the truant officer got thru working her classes had about 25 more pupils. Some were as old as 14 or 15 and just starting in the first grade but they could spit tobacco across the room. Georgia at that time was the most illiterate state in the Union.
When on vacation (and I’ll bet she needed a vacation from that school!) she went to St. Augustine, Florida sightseeing. One of the sights was the Fountain of Youth. You could get a glass of the water for 10 cents. Ethel bought one but drank only about half of the glass. What if she would have drunk all if it!!
1922 was a year of change in Ethel’s life. After teaching for 14 years Ethel filed on a homestead 30 miles SW of Newcastle. She came to Newcastle with her fiancé, Albert Hutt whom she had known for many years at Broken Bow. Ethel spent her first night in Newcastle at the Antler’s Hotel. As you might imagine it was quite different than it is today. Numerous cowboys lingered in the lobby but the food was good. Ethel and Bert returned to Nebraska and were married the next day December 5, 1922 in Hyannis, Nebraska on the way home to Broken Bow. This outfit modeled by Myrna Nealis (sp?) would have been the style Ethel might have worn on the train.
Most of the homesteads were already files on when Ethel came to Newcastle but she was able to file on a piece of land adjoining Bert’s. In order to “prove-up” on a homestead the person had to live there at least 8 mo. of the year. Bert had already proved up on his land and had business and work in Broken Bow so Ethel spent many months alone on her homestead. Generally they lived in Wyoming during the winters and Nebraska during the summers. Ethel proved up on her homestead by 1925 and round homestead days challenging and fun despite the hard work, dry country and loneliness. Actually the countryside was much less lonely then than now as there were shacks and people on every 640 acres (that is on every square mile)
Fern Bowden Hegg (now of Custer) has written a letter about some of the things that happened in homestead days and I want to share excerpts from her letter:
“Do you remember when going to town was an event? Much of the time we brought back feed and groceries for the neighbors as a car wasn’t big enough. We would start out about daylight and take a grub box and horse feed along. Also we had a syrup pail with water in it and we could set it on the fire and make “Cowboy” coffee. We didn’t have canned or cold sandwich meat so would have potatoes to fry in a long handled frying pan. Short handled things weren’t good to use over a campfire. We had whatever else that we had handy to eat. When we went in the wagon we stayed in town overnight, as it was about 30 miles from town.
We got our mail from Newcastle and each neighbor would bring back the Sheep Creek mail and leave it along the way home at different neighbors for us to pick up. I don’t know how many times (half a sentence unreadable)…but as far as I know we always got all of it. Later we got our mail from Dewey delivered to the Morrisey post office. This came out once a week and the post office was a busy place then.
I remember starting to town one day in our Model T Ford – no top. My mother and I made butter to sell. My father didn’t feel well on butter delivery day so my mother didn’t go along but one of the neighbors did. I had 65 pounds of butter to deliver to customers. It had rained and there were some gumbo spots so a tire decided to go down in one of them. We had to take off the tire, as we didn’t have tires mounted and ready to put on. Sometimes we even had to patch the tubes, put them in casings, mount them and pump them up by hand. In the mud that wasn’t a nice job. How could we get to town looking like anything but a “hayseed?” We took such things in our stride and didn’t feel that it was a hardship.
When we went to dances we often took the team and wagon or a sled, as it was usually nearer across the prairie than taking the car around the main road. We all took lanterns to use for lights when we got there. Also to put under the blankets to keep us warm. Since we didn’t care to drive home in the darkness we sometimes stayed until daylight. One place that we went we played cards until midnight and danced until daylight.
Once when I was going to the Swaim Moyer school I ran into a gof (sic) in the rough breaks. I couldn’t tell my directions so I got lost. But the horse knew the way out so I arrived safely. My father, George Bowden, didn’t want that to happen again so he took a team and walking plow and plowed a furrow from home to the school house. People wondered for years what the furrow across the prairie was for.”
Such were the stories of homestead days: rattlers, dust, and drought. Dances, card games, literary evenings helped add laughter to it all. For most of the year’s of Ethel’s life you had to make your own entertainment not be entertained by some one. Ethel was always good at making fun for herself and others and has continued to write skits and entertainments for others to this day.
After proving up on the homestead in 1925 Ethel and Bert returned to Broken Bow for a few years. They moved back to Wyoming in 1929. They drove a truck with some of their belongings and shipped the others on the train to Dewey, S. Dak. It was a 2-day drive from Broken Bow as the first real highway was just being constructed. They often had to open gates along the road as they went from farm to farm. They arrived at the ranch in Morrisey in the spring of 1929 and by fall a niece Ruth and 2 nephews Robert and Ralph Humes had come to live with them. They ranged in age from 5-9. Their own son Glen was born in May of 1930 so Ethel gained 4 children in less than a year.
The 1930’s we all know as the depression years so times were always hard for the people who settled Weston County. This housedress modeled by Janelle James (?) may have been the kind of dress Ethel wore as she raised her family.
During homestead days they had one of the first radios in the whole area. Since you could only get programs at night the Hutt homestead was often the scene of a community gathering to listen to the radio and play cars. One Christmas Eve several families and the schoolteachers came to listen to the radio and spend Christmas. Several slept up stairs and the plumbing consisted of a white enamel chamber pot. Some way in the hustle of Christmas morning the pot was forgotten and not emptied. The kids were in the upstairs playing when the pot got tipped over. Ethel had just got the (next sentence unreadable) …cleaning and dinner went on just the same.
Another time a literacy meeting was held at their home. After the business the adults all gathered around the table to play cards. The children went to the attic to play. Attics in homestead shacks were just boards laid on the rafters above the main room and cheesecloth served as the only ceiling. The children got careless and Oh my goodness! The pot! It upset and what was to keep it from running straight down. Nothing! And wouldn’t you know it – the community character was sitting at the vital spot! Such an uproar. The card game ended. How could it continue after such an event?
The smaller schools in the neighborhood were consolidated and the Morrisey schoolhouse was built in 1930. Already there were fewer people living in the community as many people moved away as soon as they had proved up on their homestead.
The school house was the focus of all community activities and held dances, church, Sunday school, and literaries as well as school. Extension Homemakers Clubs were one of the few activities for the women and Ethel joined the Busy Bees in 1929.
Although times were tough and many things had to be done without, Ethel many times had 9 at the table for every meal and her simple home was spotless.
During the 30’s the Hutts moved their homestead shack to a new location high on a hill where the ranch headquarters are today. Here they had a well on a windmill, a large storage tank and water pressure. Ethel thought she was in 2nd heaven then. She raised a big garden every year and Bert did lots of farming. Ethel has always loved to see things grow and now canned and preserved tremendous quantities of food. Sometimes she had 1,000 quarts of produce in her “cave” or cellar.
Ethel and Bert became very interested in fairs during the 1940’s. This suit modeled by Sue Jones may have been the sort of suit Ethel wore when she came to town or went to the state fair. They entered all the exhibits they could haul to town for the county fair and encouraged others in the community to contribute produce and exhibits for the community booths. For many years they went to the State Fair to help set up Weston County’s booth and to help show the exhibits. They would tour the entire county to find exhibits for the State Fair.
Laughter and fun were big parts of Ethel’s life and she always made fun for others. The people who lived in Morrisey during these years can well remember Ethel’s kindness to them. She was always ready to lend a hand to help with sick children or to have Farm Bureau in her home, to baby sit (even twins) or just to provide a place for laughter and fun. Sometimes Ethel would laugh and pretend to be mad over the card games and threaten to spit her false teeth at the neighbors if they beat her. Ethel had fun out of every small incident!
In the early 40’s they lost their home in a fire and had to rebuild. Although Ethel’s homes were always simple and many things had to be “make-do” it was always a home. Maybe the house was not the best but you could never beat the home that was there.
In 1948 the Morrisey schoolteacher became very ill and had to quit her job. No other qualified teacher could be found so Ethel said she would do it even though it had been nearly 30 years since she had last taught. The pupils and parents all enjoyed the 6 ½ mo. Ethel taught and would have loved to have her return the next year but Ethel didn’t want to return to school at age 60 to renew her certificate.
Perhaps in 1950 Ethel wore a lovely suit like this one modeled by Kathy Watson as she received the Quealey Award. Ethel was honored by the Extension Homemakers by being the first Weston County woman to receive the Quealey Award. This award is presented once every 6 years to an outstanding W.C. homemaker who has excelled not only in club work but in other community activities as well. We know that she was a dedicated member because in the first years of her membership she used to leave home on the school bus around 7:30 a.m. with her baby. Before she left she would prepare lunch for the men and lunch for the other 3 school children. She had to go on the school bus in order to be sure of getting to club as roads were nothing more that trails across the prairie and cars were not always available or reliable.
In 1954 Ethel and Bert left the ranch and moved to a home in Newcastle but not to a quiet retirement. In 1956, they were actively involved in organizing the Golden Age Club, a Club for fun for older citizens.
Probably most of you have heard of the year Miss America came to Newcastle? Do you know why she came to Newcastle? It was thru the efforts of Ethel and Bert. Miss America Sharon Ritchey was the daughter of a man Ethel had known in Nebraska. Ethel and Bert thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have her at our fair?” Like most other things they wanted, they went to work and Miss America came to the Weston County Fair. I was eight years old and have never forgotten that parade.
Bert passed away in 1959. Ethel’s brother Arthur lived out his remaining years in her home. He always had excellent and loving care from Ethel. The Golden Age Club continued to meet during the 1960’s. (next sentence unreadable)…club as the laughter and sounds of fun emitting even after midnight made a lot of people wonder if they knew something we didn’t. For the last 7 years of its existence the Golden Age Club met weekly in Ethel’s basement. Ethel’s special talent for making people laugh was working its magic on senior citizens.
In 1972, the Weston Co. Sr. Citizens were organized and the Golden Age Club became a leading part of the new group and disbanded as a separate group. Marion Cleworth models a modern dress and carries a pie pan and afghan to symbolize the homemaker skills Ethel used to improve the St. Citizens Center.
There is nothing Ethel didn’t do to get the Sr. Citizen’s center started including scrubbing and painting cement floors and walls. She was always encouraged about every little advancement on the building and then seeing more things to do and starting them herself. She was only 83 years of age at this time.
She talked the Center to everyone and brought in many members, always believing it was one of the greatest things that ever happened for her and Newcastle. She has set tables, washed dishes, defrosted and cleaned refrigerators, cleaned cupboards, polished silverware, swept and scrubbed floors, washed windows, washed tea towels, and everything that is to be done around the Center, but she never stood back to let other fellows do it. She was always active and still is in attending every activity at the Center.
She wrote and directed a play entitled “Womanless Wedding” with all characters being men and she made most of the costumes. The play was given two nights in Newcastle to packed houses, making it one of the best money making projects for the Center. She arranged several other entertainments, which she called old fashioned literaries and used her unique ability to find and use the talents that other persons had. Ethel leads others in piecing and quilting many quilts, which were sold at the Center as another money making ……unreadable….quilts, lap robes, and doll quilts, which are sold at the Center at a commission, but she rarely ever takes a cent for herself, always putting the money back into something else for the Center.
Ethel has become famous for her pie making ability as she has provided hundreds of pies for the soup and salad days at the Center. In 1977, she was selected as Weston County’s outstanding senior citizen.
In 1979, Ethel celebrated her 90th birthday but still she never stopped working. Last spring she planted dozens of marigolds in her apartment and grew lovely plants to transplant size. She gave them to the two garden clubs for the street planters and the beds in Dow Park so some of the town beautification was due to her efforts.
Then she fell and broke her hip! What a disaster! But not for Ethel. She tool that in stride, too and soon was back at the center with her cheery smile and boundless energy.
Ethel, now it is 1980 and the members of Beta Sigma Phi are happy to name you the 1st Lady of Newcastle, a position that you have long held in the hearts of your family and friends. It is with great pleasure that we present you this plate I recognition of the way you have filled your life and the lives of so many others with sunshine and meaning.
Many programs and literaries in Ethel’s day ended with song so we invite all of you to join Joyce in singing several Irish songs to celebrate St. Patrick’s.
I would like to extend special thanks to:
Mary Lou Hutt for her help with invitations and arrangements
Pauline Marchant, Margaret Hutt, Fern Hegg, Ruby Zimmerman, Ruth Floretta, Phyllis ?? unreadable…And a very special thank you to each of you for coming this evening. Please stay and have punch and birthday cake with Ethel and the Betas.