Where’s the Beef

Uncle David would sometimes bring gifts from the Bagley Ranch in Callao, Utah. Mom dutifully would cook every piece and part. She came from good pioneer stock and had a Bachelor's degree in Home Economics from Utah State University, so she never thought twice about cooking anything. We would have liver and onions on Tuesdays and sometimes on special occasions we would get the heart. My favorite was the tongue. I remember mom boiling and the skinning that tough sandpaper like cow tongue and making a tasty supper out of it. Sometimes she would make cow tongue sandwiches for my lunches. I didn't know it then, but the Mexicans consider it a delicacy. They call it Lingua.

Sometimes my siblings and I would complain about it. We wondered, “Where is the real beef –you know, the steaks”. Then Dad had a wonderful idea. He would purchase half a beef from David fresh from the ranch and put it in our freezer. Soon we were in heaven. No more liver and onions or other organs, we were heading to freezer for steaks. When Mom and Dad got wind of it, they put the kibosh on our freezer raids pretty quick. "This meat has to last us all year", Dad said.

Disclosure: To be truthful, I had some fun with this post. Uncle David's bovine organ donations to our family were probably not all that frequent. After all he didn't come into town very often. Mom never once complained about his gifts though or thought we should be getting something better. I don't think it ever occurred to her to say no, and she certainly wouldn't let it go to waste, so she cooked it and we ate it.

-Darell

Birds of Feather Cook Together

Mom was a great cook and there wasn't anything Mom wouldn't cook if it came her way. I mean that literally. We grew up on Pheasant Way in Cottonwood,Utah. I believe my great Aunt Cathleen named it Pheasant Way, but that is another story. She could have named it Quail Way. Although we had pheasants, they were not as numerous as the quail. Every so often we would hear a thud on the window on the north side of the house as one of the poor birds, thinking it was flying for cover, would hit the window. I can remember on at least one occasion, Mom going outside, and scooping up the stunned quail, plucking it and cooking it for supper.

One time, some of Dad’s pheasant hunting friends brought us some pheasant. Mom made pheasant under glass –well at least she made pheasant. I still remember it being one of the tastiest dishes I have ever eaten.

Another time our dachshund, Lucky, killed one of my pet ducks. Soon we kids were enlisted in plucking the duck and you guessed it, Mom cooked it for supper. I remember it tasted like mud. I guess that ended our “duck Dynasty”.

-Darell

My Brother's Teacher

When I was dating Darell, my brother Fred came up to him and asked if he had a relative named  Gloria Bagley who taught school in Brigham City, Utah.  Darell said," that's my mom". Fred pull out the picture of his 5th grade class and sure enough it was Gloria Bagley, Darell's mom.  It turns out the only year Gloria had taught besides her student teaching in Hurricane, Utah, was in Brigham City at Central School.

Mrs. Gloria Bagley and my brothers class

The Brigham City Temple stands on then Central School site

Gloria went on to better and bigger things like having babies and raising a family. She must have been a great teacher because Fred turned out to be and awesome brother.  Wow what a small world after all.  

Love, Donna

Poetry winners from Gloria's 5th grade class. Get a laugh out of my brother Fred's 2nd place poem.

Fort Worth, Texas

Mom and Dad came to visit us in Texas back in 03. We took them to Joe T. Garcia's in Fort Worth and had a good Mexican dinner. Next we went out to walk around the Stockyards. There was a man out there who had a Long Horn steer with a saddle on it and he was selling the opportunity to get a picture taken on the bovine. I don't remember buying the photo opp, but the man was kind enough to let grandma take a picture of the kids with the long horn. Suddenly mom's face lit up a with surprised look of delight and amazement and she said, "We're in Fort Worth, Texas. I can't believe we're in Fort Worth, Texas". There was laughter in her voice as she realized how funny she must be sounding.

Fort Worth was a place she had read about in books about the old west and about cattle drives and now here we were all together in Forth Worth and mom could hardly contain her excitement.
-Darell

Watts towers

I remember a trip when we were in California and mom had read about watts towers.  She was very interested in it and was determined that we all see it. It turned out watts towers was in a very bad part of town and not a very safe place for a very Mormon, large family from Utah.  I remember being in the old, blue station wagon and for some reason it had a BYU sticker on the back of it. Mom was still very determined and we ended up getting very lost trying to find it.  We finally pulled over and mom asked a group of scary looking guys hanging out on the corner. I remember hearing them giving the directions and saying "you go over the train tracks" repeating themselves a couple of times.  We all made it to the towers and had a good and interesting time exploring and then left breathing a sigh of relief.
-Joann

Peach Picking and Getting Skunked

Mom and dad had six of us kids, so mom was always looking for ways to stretch the budget and provide a little adventure in the process. On one occasion mom found out about this orchard where folks could pick their own peaches. It was quite the bargain, so we all piled into the ford station wagon, including our dachshund named Lucky, and headed off to orchard. Soon we were picking peaches and piling them into boxes and bushel baskets.

Then suddenly, Lucky, who was tethered to a rather long rope, lit up like he had been plugged into an electrical outlet. He went into full hound dog mode, tearing off full steam into a patch of scrub oak, in hot pursuit of some critter. We all ran after him only to find that he had cornered the ugliest old skunk we had ever laid eyes on.  At first I thought he was a porcupine but it soon became obvious that I was mistaken. The rope connected to Lucky had wound around the oak brush so tight that he couldn't escape from the full vengeance of the skunk.  I remember seeing him straining at the rope and barking for all he was worth. And that old skunk did just what skunks do. We gagged as we put paper cups over our noses and somehow managed to unravel the rope and get Lucky out of there. 

That ended our peach picking adventure, but what could be done about one unbearably smelly hound. It seems mom may have suggested the tomato juice bath. I don’t think we actually tried it. I do remember us digging a hole –I think at dad’s suggestion –and piling dirt on top of Lucky. It worked pretty well except when it rained, and then he would smell like a skunk again.

-Darell

Grandma's dating life

One of my favorite things is watching Grandpa tell a story, particularly the story of how he met Grandma, and later proposed to her.  Little known to me prior to a couple of years ago, was Grandma's side of the story, or an aspect of their courtship that I found inspiring and humorous. Once when they were dating she said she got tired of Grandpa coming over to her apartment without first making a date with her (I know I can relate) and what she did next was surprising to me.  The next time he came over, she said, "I was sitting on another guy's lap! That sure showed him!" So apparently even then guys needed a little push to make plans with a girl now and then :)

-Amanda

Whole Wheat Bread

Every week the aroma of fresh baked bread would waft through air around our home in Cottonwood, Utah. Mom baked eight loaves a week and it was the best whole wheat bread you ever tasted. All of the neighborhood kids would come from miles around to get a piece of that bread hot out of the oven. We would slather it with butter and honey or homemade jam. I remember mom baked that bread in juice cans so it would bake standing up in the oven and she could bake more bread that way.

Mom and Dad were very much into the home storage movement that was happening in the church back then. There was a commercial on TV back then about Wonder Bread. It said, "Wonder Bread builds bodies 12 ways." Dad would say, "Wonder Bread was mattress stuffing and whole wheat builds bodies 24 ways". "Wheat for man", dad would say, quoting the Word of Wisdom. Mom and dad even sold grain mills. The All Grain mill was the brand they sold. Dad was proud that the mill had real stones, made better flour and was quieter than the other brands that were out there. I remember one evening mom and dad had a couple in our home that they were selling a grain mill to. It was a little dusty, so mom moistened a paper towel with her mouth and wiped it down. dad fussed with mom a little about that.

On Saturdays mom would send me down in the basement to had grind some cracked wheat for cracked wheat mush. I felt proud to use my muscles as I swung the handle of the grinder around and around. I loved cracked wheat mush with honey.

-Darell

How the Cub Scouts met the Blind Miner

When I was young, my mom was a Cub Scout den mother -not my Den Mother because I was a little older, but mom was always up for adventure. She always wanted to do things out of the ordinary, so she got this idea of taking the cubs scouts on a hike to meet the blind miner. Back then there was this old blind miner who lived up a steep mountain in a cabin in Big Cottonwood Canyon and sometimes you could see him pushing his mine cart along the tracks. Well I know for a fact I saw the tracks. I don't know how mom knew how to find his cabin, but she took those energetic cubs on the hike up the steep forested mountain slopes and they found the blind miner's cabin and knocked on his door. He was surprised to have guests. He welcomed mom and the boys in to his abode. Although, he was a little embarrassed because his eyes weren't covered with patches, and I guess he looked a little hideous because of some mining accident where he lost his eye sight, he was friendly.  Mom and the cubs scouts all had good time visiting with the friendly old blind miner, who wasn't such a hermit after all. I am sure it brightened his day just a bit.


Actual sign in Big Cottonwood Canyon

-Darell

Lighthouse Keeping

Mom (Gloria Randall) grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. When she was a young woman, she often worked in her Dad's grocery store on North Main Street. One day a woman, new to the area, came into the store and asked, "Do you know where I can find any light house keeping work?" Somewhat surprised, Gloria thought about it for moment and said, "there aren't any lighthouses around here".

I think I first heard that story from Grandpa and he loved telling it. I asked Mom about it recently and she said she guesses she had a blonde moment. She said, "I had a fascination with light houses, but the only thing I could thing of that resembled a light house near my town was the grain elevator south of town.

Mom didn't know it then, but she would become a lighthouse keeper. She and Dad met at Utah State University and Dad was smitten. They went on the Marry and be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple and they raised six children in the light and truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you Mom for filling our home with light and love.

-Darell

Foreword

The purpose of this blog is to post favorite stories and memories about Grandma Gloria Randall Bagley (Mom) and to honor her on her 80th birthday. We all have many fun memories of Mom and Grandma and I hope this will be fun for everyone to share them. As they accumulate here, they will no doubt trigger other memories and stories and we each may remember things a little differently. I know Mom will enjoy reading them when we celebrate her 80th birthday, so let's get started. By the way on my next post you will see why the blog is called Lighthouse Keeping.

-Darell