Historical Society hosts antique show

By Phil Fauver Staff writer

The Emery County Historical Society held their second Annual Antique Road Show at the Museum of the San Rafael.
President Evelyn Huntsman announced elections for Historical Society Officers would be held in January. She also announced that Wade Allinson would make a presentation about the history of cowboys and their names on the rocks under the ledge during the January meeting.
Huntsman explained the Pioneer Museum had earlier in the day decorated the museum meeting room as an example of an early day Christmas with antique items. The Pioneer Museum, in their display, included an easy chair, a floor lamp with a colorful cloth shade, a Victrola Phonograph, a tree with home made decorations, a red velvet couch, a sled with steel runners and a fireplace with stockings hanging from it.
Joyce Staley announced that the out of print “Emery County History” book is available on CD for $10 during this meeting and the CD will be $15 next year.
Many members brought their favorite treats for the taster’s table and when the meeting started, the taster’s table was loaded with a variety of treats for all to sample when the Antique Show ended.
Huntsman started the meeting with the group singing Silent Night. Ed Geary was selected by Huntsman to be the Master of Ceremonies for the evening. Geary invited those who brought antiques to come forward one at a time and tell about their antique item.
Don Roper was one of the first to come forward and held in his hand a so-called monkey wrench. He said the wrench was forged in the USA by a man by the name of Monkey. It was found in a toolbox that came with an early Ford. The wrench could be used to turn bolts and the handle was used with the car jack that raised the car up.
Kathleen Conover displayed two items received from her grandmother. One of those was an 1891 hymnbook and the other was a long leather purse in which her grandmother used to keep her money handy.
Paul Conover told about the colorful plaid shirt he was wearing. It was a heavy cotton shirt made by Levi Straus many years ago. He also displayed a stockman’s pocketknife given to him by his father 60 years ago. This type of knife, he said, is used by ranchers for many things such as docking calves or cutting a wattle on the neck or ear of a calf for identification purposes.
Gail Miles in her antique display had a book from her grandmother’s estate. The book had a white cover and Gail explained the book was an original “Whitehouse Cookbook” made in 1887. The wives of several US Presidents included their recipes in the “Whitehouse Cookbook.” There were only about 100 White House Cookbooks made. Gail Miles also displayed her father’s ancient radio that used vacuum tubes to make it work. Gail’s father was using this radio in 1936. She said the radio still works.
Kit Anderson showed the group how his antique wooden butter churn worked by turning a crank that moved wooden paddles inside the churn. Butter is made by churning cream until the cream separates into butter and buttermilk.
Derald Oliver told about his old pressurized gas lamp that used white gas and cloth mantels to produce enough light to light up a room. The lamp was used in his home in the late 1930s
Elwin Rasmussen showed photos of antique automobiles that he had restored over the years. Until he retired he worked as an auto mechanic and garage owner for many years in East Carbon. He now has seven restored antique cars in his garage in Castle Dale. Some of the cars are as old as 1928 and they all run. Elwin is willing to give tours of his garage and discuss the cars if asked.
Trina Branson represented Claudia Kenny who has an extensive glassware collection. Claudia had on display several pieces of Vaseline Glassware illuminated by an ultraviolet light that made the glass glow green. Trina read a brief description about Antique Vaseline Glass.
Antique Vaseline Glass is a yellow or yellow-green glass that, when put under ultraviolet light, turns a beautiful, fluorescent green. To get the yellow color, glassmakers added between one-half to two percent uranium dioxide, or uranium salts, to their formula. Vaseline Glass will actually set off a Geiger Counter, but the radiation involved is low and not harmful.
In the early 1800s a pair of Vaseline Glass candlesticks were given to the Queen of England made by White Friars Glass Works in London. Vaseline Glass was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.
Geary explained that the only commercial use for uranium was for coloring paint and glass. In the early days the uranium miners in the San Rafael region were after radium and they discarded the uranium into the mine dump. At the end of the second world war when the government started buying uranium the miners took dump trucks down to Temple Mountain and gathered the uranium from the mine dump in order to haul the uranium to the smelter.
Mary Bentley indicated that she was born and raised in Beaver Utah and her daughter has lived in Emery County for 35 years. Mary showed the group a picturesque map of Emery County and a newspaper from the Beaver Press with a photo of her niece who joined the Air Force forty years ago. There was also a picture of Interstate 70 going through the San Rafael Swell. The newspaper she displayed had pictures of several favorite country singers from that era.
Huntsman discussed her old butter bowel, paddle and butter mold used by her grandmother. She said, when you are making butter you churn the cream until you have butter and buttermilk. You pour out the buttermilk and then using the paddle mold the butter into a shape for putting the butter into a butter dish on the kitchen table.
The wooden butter mold she displayed would hold one pound of butter. Some butter molds had a carved design built in for decorating the butter. If the butter were sold in the store the design would identify the butter maker.
Suzanne Anderson has a spoon given to her by her mother and was told that it came from her Winchester line of genealogy. Winchester is the name of the people that owned the Winchester gun company. Josephine Winchester brought the spoon across the plains. It was given to Suzanne’s grandmother Hardman and then down to Suzanne’s mother.
Paul Cowley showed a sickle found on the farm his grandfather homesteaded and where Paul now lives. A sickle is a handheld agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting grain or hay. He also had an old tarnished silver fork found near East Carbon.
Lori Ann Larsen received from a friend a collection of cattle ear tags found with a metal detector in Emery County. One small-framed collection had ear tags from 1947 to 1958. The ear tags were used to identify the ownership of cows.
Connie Christensen displayed her grandmothers brown purse made entirely of wood with cloth covering.
She also had the songbook of her grandfather from 1938. Titled “The One Hundred and One Best Songs.”