Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
OUR TREES ~ by David Gunderson
Introduction to Our Trees
One fall, when my Mom got her copy of a little magazine called "Saga of the Sanpitch", She decided to write her memories of the trees that had grown along the south side of their yard or lot, as they used to say, during her childhood. “Saga” contained stories of life in Sanpete Co. Utah from pioneer days forward and Mom had plans to submit her little article to "Saga" for publication but just didn't get around to it. I recently found a copy of it and I decided to get it into electronic format so that all could have a copy.
I made a few editorial changes, added some explanatory notes, found the words of the two childhood songs she referred to on the internet, and added them in an appendix. I also found the music for the song “Come Little Leaves” on the internet and I added a hyperlink to the website which contains the music so that you can hear it. I hope that you enjoy “Out Trees”.
Some have asked if I have submitted “Our Trees” to “Saga”. I would have done so, but Saga is no longer being published. I think that the demise of Saga is a great loss.
~David Gunderson~
By Leoan Gunderson
1910 - 1998
Fall Circa 1986
It’s October again, when the fall season comes upon us, with its beautiful trees all dressed up in their finest clothing of gold, red, green, and brown and sometimes even a bit of purple shows up as a background for the beautiful fall scene, When I see it again each fall, I always think of the trees we had at our home when I was a child.
I guess the real thing that is spurring me along to write my feelings today is the little song that I learned as a young student at the Hamilton School in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. The words to the song went something like this ….
Come little leaves said the wind one day.
Come o’er the meadows with me to play.
Put on your bonnets of red and gold,
For the summer is gone and the days grow cold.
Or perhaps it was the song that goes…
October gave a party.
The leaves by the thousands came.
Oh I do wish I could remember the rest of these beautiful little songs . But today, my memories of them have inspired me to write of the trees that grew along our sidewalk in Mt. Pleasant.
Our trees stretched for the full length of the sidewalk
on the south side or our lot, which was one half of
a city block long,
on 3rd North going west from State Street.
I do believe that our trees were pretty during each of their phases of live most all year long. In the spring they were adorned in that striking and welcome color of spring green. It was a delicate green and so easy to enjoy.
Of course, most everything does have one or two little distasteful things about them which we all have to endure. Our trees were cottonwood trees and each spring after the pretty new green leaves appeared they had a habit of bearing cotton. The cotton would catch a little breeze that was passing by and soon would be flying everywhere. Here I must add that at this point in the life of our Cottonwood trees, they became a real problem to my Mother and to my sister Evelyn. They both suffered from hay fever. I remember how they both wore silk masks over their noses to strain out the cotton. But this would pass – until the next cotton season arrived.
[1] See the Appendix for the word to both of these songs
Then came the summer, and our cottonwoods would stretch their strong leaf covered arms out to form an arch over our sidewalk so that we might walk up and down our sidewalk in comfort, protected from the strong glare of a very penetrating sun. Oh yes, I did enjoy this phase in the life of our trees.
But, as one season follows another, soon it would be fall again and our cottonwoods would supply me with another thrill in my young life. Our trees would begin to turn that beautiful golden color that only cottonwood trees do and I would imagine how rich I was with all of that “Gold that did grow on our trees”. One could not believe all of the wonderful imaginary things that I purchased with that easy to acquire gold from our trees.
Of course this beauty came and then gave way to the next phase in the life of our trees. This is when the wind came and sang the little song to the leaves –
Come little leaves said the wind one day
And the leaves fell but they didn’t all go with the wind. Those that stayed on our sidewalk and in our yard became a shear delight to me, my sister Evelyn, and her friend Helen Jones. Oh we made the most beautiful houses one could ever imagine from those mounds of leaves. I doubt that any contractor could ever build or create for us a more beautiful house than the ones we fashioned for our selves with our imaginations from these leaves.
We had many rooms – they were really mansions, believe me. We had bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, and of course, what else but a lovely parlor. And people that were allowed to go into the parlor had to be pretty special. We had furniture also, and it had more beauty than anyone else’s. It’s too bad that we were the only ones that could see all of this beauty.
I am so truly glad that I had a childhood full of fantasy and imagination. I am so glad that I was allowed to create, arrange, and imagine rather than to have everything created for me. As you can see, we were never bored, and no one had to do our planning for us.
But, our trees were not through yet. One day, depending on the weather and usually a short time before Halloween, Mother would tell us, “Tonight after school you can begin to gather the leaves together and soon we will have our big bonfire.”
After we had gathered all of the leavers, which would take us two or three days, we would have a big mound of leaves that would be about like of a small haystack. Then we would go over to the Orchard of my Aunt Hilda (on the south east corner of 3rd East and State Street)
and each of us would get the prettiest big red potato apple that we could find. (I think they are now called Baldwin apples.) Each of us would also get a potato from the garden and put them both into the leaves to be roasted. Kids from all over the neighborhood would join in this fantastic event and bring their own apples and potatoes to go into the big bonfire.
Of course when the fire was out or nearly out, the apples and potatoes would be blackened or burned from the fire and smoke but would only be half done. But how could an apple or potato ever taste so good. Each boy or girl would bring their own salt shaker to shake salt on their potato each time they took another bite. The apples usually didn’t need salt.
That was truly a wonderful day for all of us. We would go to bed that night with visions and memories of the joys that had come this year and the anticipation of the joys that would come next year from our beautiful cottonwood trees.
For the rest of the fall and winter our trees would stand there like sleeping gray sentinels, sometimes beautifully festooned with ice and snow, as if gaining strength to produce more beautiful leaves and useless cotton for the next great cycle of their life. We looked forward to the coming of the leaves in the spring, to enjoying the shade they would produce in the summer, to seeing the leaves turn to that special gold in the fall, to building our dream houses when the leaves dropped, and to having another beautiful bonfire on a late October evening when the moon was there to see it all take place.
This was truly the beautiful life of our cottonwood trees.
Appendix
Come, little leaves, Said the wind one d
Come down to the meadows With me and play.
Put on your dresses Of red and gold;
For summer is past, And the days grow cold.
Soon as the leaves, Heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering, One and all.
Over the meadows, They danced and flew,
All singing the soft, Little songs they knew.
Dancing and flying, The leaves went along,
Till Winter called them, To end their sweet song.
Soon, fast asleep, In their earthy beds,
The snow lay a coverlet, O'er their heads.
October’s Party
The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples, And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow, The Oaks in crimson dressed
All balanced to their partners, And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow, New fallen from the sky.
To hear the music to Come, Little Leaves, do a CTRL+CLICK on: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/comelittleleaves.htm
One fall, when my Mom got her copy of a little magazine called "Saga of the Sanpitch", She decided to write her memories of the trees that had grown along the south side of their yard or lot, as they used to say, during her childhood. “Saga” contained stories of life in Sanpete Co. Utah from pioneer days forward and Mom had plans to submit her little article to "Saga" for publication but just didn't get around to it. I recently found a copy of it and I decided to get it into electronic format so that all could have a copy.
I made a few editorial changes, added some explanatory notes, found the words of the two childhood songs she referred to on the internet, and added them in an appendix. I also found the music for the song “Come Little Leaves” on the internet and I added a hyperlink to the website which contains the music so that you can hear it. I hope that you enjoy “Out Trees”.
Some have asked if I have submitted “Our Trees” to “Saga”. I would have done so, but Saga is no longer being published. I think that the demise of Saga is a great loss.
~David Gunderson~
Cottonwood Trees
Our Trees
By Leoan Gunderson
1910 - 1998
Fall Circa 1986
It’s October again, when the fall season comes upon us, with its beautiful trees all dressed up in their finest clothing of gold, red, green, and brown and sometimes even a bit of purple shows up as a background for the beautiful fall scene, When I see it again each fall, I always think of the trees we had at our home when I was a child.
I guess the real thing that is spurring me along to write my feelings today is the little song that I learned as a young student at the Hamilton School in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. The words to the song went something like this ….
Come little leaves said the wind one day.
Come o’er the meadows with me to play.
Put on your bonnets of red and gold,
For the summer is gone and the days grow cold.
Or perhaps it was the song that goes…
October gave a party.
The leaves by the thousands came.
Oh I do wish I could remember the rest of these beautiful little songs . But today, my memories of them have inspired me to write of the trees that grew along our sidewalk in Mt. Pleasant.
Our trees stretched for the full length of the sidewalk
on the south side or our lot, which was one half of
a city block long,
on 3rd North going west from State Street.
I do believe that our trees were pretty during each of their phases of live most all year long. In the spring they were adorned in that striking and welcome color of spring green. It was a delicate green and so easy to enjoy.
Of course, most everything does have one or two little distasteful things about them which we all have to endure. Our trees were cottonwood trees and each spring after the pretty new green leaves appeared they had a habit of bearing cotton. The cotton would catch a little breeze that was passing by and soon would be flying everywhere. Here I must add that at this point in the life of our Cottonwood trees, they became a real problem to my Mother and to my sister Evelyn. They both suffered from hay fever. I remember how they both wore silk masks over their noses to strain out the cotton. But this would pass – until the next cotton season arrived.
[1] See the Appendix for the word to both of these songs
Then came the summer, and our cottonwoods would stretch their strong leaf covered arms out to form an arch over our sidewalk so that we might walk up and down our sidewalk in comfort, protected from the strong glare of a very penetrating sun. Oh yes, I did enjoy this phase in the life of our trees.
But, as one season follows another, soon it would be fall again and our cottonwoods would supply me with another thrill in my young life. Our trees would begin to turn that beautiful golden color that only cottonwood trees do and I would imagine how rich I was with all of that “Gold that did grow on our trees”. One could not believe all of the wonderful imaginary things that I purchased with that easy to acquire gold from our trees.
Of course this beauty came and then gave way to the next phase in the life of our trees. This is when the wind came and sang the little song to the leaves –
Come little leaves said the wind one day
And the leaves fell but they didn’t all go with the wind. Those that stayed on our sidewalk and in our yard became a shear delight to me, my sister Evelyn, and her friend Helen Jones. Oh we made the most beautiful houses one could ever imagine from those mounds of leaves. I doubt that any contractor could ever build or create for us a more beautiful house than the ones we fashioned for our selves with our imaginations from these leaves.
We had many rooms – they were really mansions, believe me. We had bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, and of course, what else but a lovely parlor. And people that were allowed to go into the parlor had to be pretty special. We had furniture also, and it had more beauty than anyone else’s. It’s too bad that we were the only ones that could see all of this beauty.
I am so truly glad that I had a childhood full of fantasy and imagination. I am so glad that I was allowed to create, arrange, and imagine rather than to have everything created for me. As you can see, we were never bored, and no one had to do our planning for us.
But, our trees were not through yet. One day, depending on the weather and usually a short time before Halloween, Mother would tell us, “Tonight after school you can begin to gather the leaves together and soon we will have our big bonfire.”
After we had gathered all of the leavers, which would take us two or three days, we would have a big mound of leaves that would be about like of a small haystack. Then we would go over to the Orchard of my Aunt Hilda (on the south east corner of 3rd East and State Street)
and each of us would get the prettiest big red potato apple that we could find. (I think they are now called Baldwin apples.) Each of us would also get a potato from the garden and put them both into the leaves to be roasted. Kids from all over the neighborhood would join in this fantastic event and bring their own apples and potatoes to go into the big bonfire.
Of course when the fire was out or nearly out, the apples and potatoes would be blackened or burned from the fire and smoke but would only be half done. But how could an apple or potato ever taste so good. Each boy or girl would bring their own salt shaker to shake salt on their potato each time they took another bite. The apples usually didn’t need salt.
That was truly a wonderful day for all of us. We would go to bed that night with visions and memories of the joys that had come this year and the anticipation of the joys that would come next year from our beautiful cottonwood trees.
For the rest of the fall and winter our trees would stand there like sleeping gray sentinels, sometimes beautifully festooned with ice and snow, as if gaining strength to produce more beautiful leaves and useless cotton for the next great cycle of their life. We looked forward to the coming of the leaves in the spring, to enjoying the shade they would produce in the summer, to seeing the leaves turn to that special gold in the fall, to building our dream houses when the leaves dropped, and to having another beautiful bonfire on a late October evening when the moon was there to see it all take place.
This was truly the beautiful life of our cottonwood trees.
Appendix
The Children’s Autumn Songs
That Leoan Remembered
Come, Little Leaves
by George Cooper,
by George Cooper,
Come, little leaves, Said the wind one d
Come down to the meadows With me and play.
Put on your dresses Of red and gold;
For summer is past, And the days grow cold.
Soon as the leaves, Heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering, One and all.
Over the meadows, They danced and flew,
All singing the soft, Little songs they knew.
Dancing and flying, The leaves went along,
Till Winter called them, To end their sweet song.
Soon, fast asleep, In their earthy beds,
The snow lay a coverlet, O'er their heads.
October’s Party
by George Cooper
October gave a party; The leaves by hundreds came.
The Chestnuts, Oaks and Maples, And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow, The Oaks in crimson dressed
The lovely Misses Maple In scarlet looked their best.
All balanced to their partners, And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow, New fallen from the sky.
To hear the music to Come, Little Leaves, do a CTRL+CLICK on: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/comelittleleaves.htm
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Hamilton Poets ~ Betty Gunderson Woodbury and David R. Gunderson Collection
Poetry by the Children of Mt. Pleasant – Printed circa 1908 by the Mt. Pleasant Pyramid. The original copy is from the archives of Betty G. Woodbury & restoration work has been done by David Gunderson. As you read these delightful verses, you will get a glimpse of an era gone by and you might find a verse written by one of your ancestors.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Hamilton Poets ~ Betty Gunderson Woodbury and David R. Gunderson Collection
Poetry by the Children of Mt. Pleasant – Printed circa 1908 by the Mt. Pleasant Pyramid. The original copy is from the archives of Betty G. Woodbury & restoration work has been done by David Gunderson. As you read these delightful verses, you will get a glimpse of an era gone by and you might find a verse written by one of your ancestors.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Hamilton Poets ~ from the Betty Gunderson Woodbury and David Gunderson Collection
Poetry by the Children of Mt. Pleasant – Printed circa 1908 by the Mt. Pleasant Pyramid. The original copy is from the archives of Betty G. Woodbury & restoration work has been done by David Gunderson. As you read these delightful verses, you will get a glimpse of an era gone by and you might find a verse written by one of your ancestors.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Hamilton Poets ~ Betty Gunderson Woodbury and David R. Gunderson Collection
Help us identify the students please!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Hans Brotherson/Niels Peter Nielsen Home
The retouch work was done by David R. Gunderson of Ogden, Utah. He has worked his magic on several of our photos. This home was located where the Wasatch Academy soccer field now stands on 300 West 100 South. Pete and Mary Nielsen lived there as well as Hans Brothersen. I am not sure who was there first.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Poetry of Students From Hamilton School
If anyone can enlighten us as to when this poetry was written, let us know.
These are sent in by David R. Gunderson of Ogden. Hopefully there will be more.
Comment from Lee R. Christensen:;
Kathy: Re: Poetry of Students, David Gunderson’s Collection: As usual, I may be stretching it, but: PM Nielsen shown as District Supervisor had a daughter, Margaret, who returned to North Sanpete High School about 1937 to teach English and girl’s PE.. PM, about then, living in Salt Lake City and a widower married Etta Rolph Peterson, a widow and originally from Mt Pleasant featured on theses pages as a young girl. Margaret I think was the producer, director and chorographer of the NS High dance revues. One number featured Joe Matson and a partner and could have made Broadway. Another one starring Lynn Paulson and buddies was unintentionally pure burlesque. lee
Friday, April 23, 2010
JOE THE PARROT ~ by David R. Gunderson
Memories of Andrew Madsen’s Parrot, Joe ~ by David R. Gunderson
Early Photo of Hilda's House on State Street
I first met Joe in the late fall of 1942 when our family spent December at Aunt Hilda’s house in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Originally, this home had been built by Andrew Madsen, Aunt Hilda’s father and my great-grandfather, and it was one of the first houses built outside the fort in the early 1860’s.
Aunt Hilda
Joe lived in the south-west corner of Aunt Hilda’s kitchen and could speak in both English and Danish. Sometimes he used words in English that, as a five year old, I was not allowed to say. I don’t know about his Danish vocabulary, but I’ll bet it was just as colorful as his English vocabulary. I did notice that, unlike me, Joe’s mouth was never washed out with soap when he used any of his more colorful words. I also noticed that Dad and Uncle Bruce didn’t get the soap treatment either. I decided that maybe Aunt Hilda and Mom had just given up on all three of them A Picture of an Amazon Parrot
We believe that Joe was an Amazon or perhaps a Military Macaw parrot and that he had been obtained by Andrew Madsen in the 1910 time frame, after his first parrot had flown off. The story goes that one day in the early fall, the first parrot was placed on the front porch to get some sun. When he saw a flock of birds migrating south, he simply flew up and joined them. His wings had been clipped and family members feared for his safety. They carefully searched for him for several days but no sign of him was ever found in Sanpete.
In 1948, Aunt Emma, called to offer to let us have one of her newly born purebred wirehaired terrier puppies. (Aunt Emma was very selective about the people she would trust with one of her puppies, and it was a great honor to be given an opportunity to have one of them.) When we entered Aunt Emma’s kitchen to get my new pup, mother walked over towards Joe’s perch to say hello. Joe wasn’t ready for such familiarity with someone he didn’t recognize and he turned toward Mom, flapping his wings and squawking at the top of his lungs. This was not an angry attack but enough to let Mom know that he felt that she was intruding on his private space. Mom backed off a bit but continued to talk quietly to Joe.
When he had settled down, he seemed to begin to study her, like you would when you meet someone you think you should know. He then brightened up and called her name in his shrill parrot’s voice, first, softly as a question, then with increasing volume as he recognized her, and finally brightly as a welcome to a dear friend that he hadn’t seen in far to long a time.
Joe then seemed delighted that Mom had come to visit him; he wanted her to pick him up, and let him stand on her shoulder so that he could preen her hair and “cuddle” her. Mom let him stand on her hand and wrist and let him climb up to her shoulder once but didn’t trust him to stay there. Both Mom and Joe seemed to enjoy this renewal of their long friendship.
I believe this visit to Aunt Emma’s to get my new puppy was the last time we ever saw Joe. He died a year or two later at the young age (for parrots) of about 42 years, far short of the 60+ years he might have lived in the wild.
In all, Joe shared his life with four generations of our family. We all loved him, and enjoyed his quirky ways. I believe that, in his way, Joe loved us too.
Early Photo of Hilda's House on State Street
I first met Joe in the late fall of 1942 when our family spent December at Aunt Hilda’s house in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Originally, this home had been built by Andrew Madsen, Aunt Hilda’s father and my great-grandfather, and it was one of the first houses built outside the fort in the early 1860’s.
Aunt Hilda
Joe lived in the south-west corner of Aunt Hilda’s kitchen and could speak in both English and Danish. Sometimes he used words in English that, as a five year old, I was not allowed to say. I don’t know about his Danish vocabulary, but I’ll bet it was just as colorful as his English vocabulary. I did notice that, unlike me, Joe’s mouth was never washed out with soap when he used any of his more colorful words. I also noticed that Dad and Uncle Bruce didn’t get the soap treatment either. I decided that maybe Aunt Hilda and Mom had just given up on all three of them A Picture of an Amazon Parrot
We believe that Joe was an Amazon or perhaps a Military Macaw parrot and that he had been obtained by Andrew Madsen in the 1910 time frame, after his first parrot had flown off. The story goes that one day in the early fall, the first parrot was placed on the front porch to get some sun. When he saw a flock of birds migrating south, he simply flew up and joined them. His wings had been clipped and family members feared for his safety. They carefully searched for him for several days but no sign of him was ever found in Sanpete.
Some years later, a group of LDS missionaries returning to Sanpete from Mexico, reported that they had seen a parrot, perched in a tree that looked like the Madsen’s lost bird. When they approached it to try to coax it down, it flew away swearing at them in both English and Danish. We can’t say, for sure if this bird was Andrew Madsen’s lost parrot, but the number of feral parrots in Northern Mexico at that time, with the lost bird’s coloring and the language skills, must have been extremely small.
Joe seems to have joined the family at about the time of my mother’s birth and a year or two after Aunt Hilda had resigned her management position in the Scofield Division of the Eastern Utah Telephone Company to take over the management of the Madsen home in Mt. Pleasant.
Joe with Russel, Royal, Leoan, & Chesley Madsen
Joe was quite attached to Aunt Hilda and he loved my mother, Leoan. He and Mom had a lifelong friendship and they had seen each other nearly every day as Mom was growing up.
When Mom was eighteen or nineteen years old, she entered the University of Utah and had to be away from home for some extended periods of time. Joe missed her during these periods and must have felt that she had been ignoring him. He took personal offence to this, and when she came home on breaks, Joe would totally ignore her for a day or so. We think this was just to teach her a lesson, and let her know how it felt to be ignored. But this never lasted long, and he would soon forgive her and welcome her back into his inner circle of friends.
Joe was always busy cracking seeds, preening his feathers, honing his beak, scolding, surveying his domain, or doing other things that are important to parrots. But, when you entered “his” kitchen, Joe would always stop all of his activities and say, “Hello Joe, Hello Joe” (always said twice) and then he would wait for you to say “Hello Joe” back before he resumed his busy schedule.
By the time I met him, Joe was about 32 years of age, late in his midlife years, and he had become a bit “crotchety”. Aunt Hilda warned us that Joe had been known to bite and cautioned us that we should keep away from him.
Joe always wanted to have things done “his way”, and when Aunt Hilda did something he didn’t like, I remember of seeing him charge at her feet, with his wings flapping, and scolding her at the top of his lungs. This made believers of us children, so after that, we enjoyed Joe from a safe distance. Joe seemed to have liked this arrangement, because I don’t recall that any one of us was ever bitten or even scolded by Joe.
Joe had a perch, a cage, some toys and a cover for night. He also had a cup for food and one for water. Each morning, Aunt Hilda would give him fresh water, fill his food cup with sunflower and other seeds and give him fruits and greens. I loved to see him play with his toys, pick up a seed, shell it, and pop it into his mouth. He wasn’t very tidy with the seed shells, scattering them all around his perch.
Aunt Hilda raised sunflowers in her garden for Jo; the ones with the huge heads and equally huge seeds. She had quite a few of these dried sunflower “heads” stored in her back porch, and I remember that she recruited me to help her pick them or scrape the large seeds out of the “heads” for Joe. I loved her cat "Tom" helping to do something for him.
Hilda, "Joe the Parrot" and "Tom the Cat"
Aunt Hilda suffered from rheumatism which worsened as she grew older. When she was away for treatment or visiting nieces and nephews, she always left Joe with her cousin, Emma Anderson. The Andersons liked Joe and he seemed to have liked them as well. In 1944 or 1945, after Aunt Hilda had cared for Joe for some 35 years, she found that she could no longer carry on and Joe went to live with the Andersons permanently.
In 1948, Aunt Emma, called to offer to let us have one of her newly born purebred wirehaired terrier puppies. (Aunt Emma was very selective about the people she would trust with one of her puppies, and it was a great honor to be given an opportunity to have one of them.) When we entered Aunt Emma’s kitchen to get my new pup, mother walked over towards Joe’s perch to say hello. Joe wasn’t ready for such familiarity with someone he didn’t recognize and he turned toward Mom, flapping his wings and squawking at the top of his lungs. This was not an angry attack but enough to let Mom know that he felt that she was intruding on his private space. Mom backed off a bit but continued to talk quietly to Joe.
When he had settled down, he seemed to begin to study her, like you would when you meet someone you think you should know. He then brightened up and called her name in his shrill parrot’s voice, first, softly as a question, then with increasing volume as he recognized her, and finally brightly as a welcome to a dear friend that he hadn’t seen in far to long a time.
“Leoan??? … Leoan??? …. Leoan!!!”
Joe then seemed delighted that Mom had come to visit him; he wanted her to pick him up, and let him stand on her shoulder so that he could preen her hair and “cuddle” her. Mom let him stand on her hand and wrist and let him climb up to her shoulder once but didn’t trust him to stay there. Both Mom and Joe seemed to enjoy this renewal of their long friendship.
I believe this visit to Aunt Emma’s to get my new puppy was the last time we ever saw Joe. He died a year or two later at the young age (for parrots) of about 42 years, far short of the 60+ years he might have lived in the wild.
In all, Joe shared his life with four generations of our family. We all loved him, and enjoyed his quirky ways. I believe that, in his way, Joe loved us too.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Goddess of Liberty
David R. Gunderson shared this with us. He is a nephew of Hilda Madsen Longsdorf. Remember the picture of Hilda "all grown up"?
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