Happy Birthday Ilo - Leslie That Is!!!

Ilo Leslie Smith was born on April 16, 1905. 111 years ago tomorrow.   We have heard what an amazing worker Les was here, but let's look at his recreational side.  His father Manasseh Smith built a cabin up Big Cottonwood Canyon, a short distance from Brighton Ski Area. It is on the right in the picture below.

 I am not quite sure when it was built, but my mom remembers very vividly spending time there as a girl.  It was pretty primitive with a coal stove for heating, a kitchen, a bedroom downstairs for Manasseh and Gracie and a fold-out bed for visitors and a loft with a couple of beds upstairs for the grandkids.  My mom remembers the stairs going to the loft being very steep.  She talked about how scary it was to go up there and after making it up the stairs, having to crawl to the beds - no standing up in this loft. There was no running water or bathrooms in those days.   Outhouses were the order of the day.  Manasseh had an advanced plan though. He had rigged a suspended sheet in the corner of the room for some privacy to pull across the corner when using a chamber pot was preferred over using the outhouse. Another great Gracie Smith story was that when she took a turn behind the curtain it was accompanied by her belting out  lovely songs to drown out any other sounds.  Gracie loved the cabin for picnics, hiking and playing cards.  Apparently the Les Smiths were pretty regular visitors.  The card game my mom remembered playing most  with her grandmother at the cabin was slapjack.  On one of the hikes Beverly took she wandered into stinging nettle. Another time they passed by a patch of wild strawberries.  Beverly and Carol her sister picked a small basket of strawberries.  When they presented them to Gracie she jumped right up and said, "Let's make those into a strawberry shortcake."  They ran to the kitchen and started baking when a few minutes later Manasseh walked into the kitchen with the empty basket and a reddish stain on his lips thanking whomever picked the strawberries for his afternoon snack. All the girls were devastated.  The Smith Cabin was pretty well known in the Murray First Ward and many a young men and young woman group asked to have their activities there.

The road to the cabin was windy.  My mom remembers her dad spontaneously proposing an idea to have a picnic at the cabin one day.  They jumped in the car and headed up the canyon.  When they arrived he realized that he had left the hamburger meat at home and asked Beverly if she wanted to race down to Murray with him to get the meat.  She said that was the scariest ride she had ever had as he clipped the tight corners to get down and back before the picnic started.

 During nursing school Beverly and her friend decided to ski at Brighton and afterward ski to the cabin to spend the night.    Bev hadn't worn any goggles while skiing and after arriving through the woods to the cabin realized she had a severe case of snow blindness.   She couldn't see and didn't have any way to contact her parents until they arrived the next day.  That was B.C. (Before Cell Phones). 

With such fond memories of cabin life and a lot becoming available next to Manasseh's lot, Ilo and Inez leased the lot from the government and proceeded to build a cabin of their own.  It is on the left in the picture above.  It had four bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen, dining room and family room on the first floor with a big porch.  My mom invited her handsome fiancee up for the weekend while the cabin was being built.  She says she had a romantic time planned.  Les had a different idea.  He was going to use his future son-in-law to work.  (Sound familiar to anyone???)  He asked Mel to white wash the outhouse, which he worked very hard at.  So much for the romantic weekend.

Here is Inez on the roof at the cabin with her father-in-law Manasseh right behind.

Not sure if this picture of Inez cleaning the windows at the cabin, but it sure looks like it could have been.

The following pictures are from a trip that Les, Inez and Reed and Mildred took to the cabin in the winter.  Reed is my dad's brother and apparently Les and Reed became pretty good friends.  I am happy about that, because Reed had just purchased a new camera and so most of the pictures I have of Inez and Les are from that camera.

Les and Reed - look at the length of those skis. 

Inez and Reed - Must have made two trips or spent the night - different outfits.

Inez

Inez and Les -  My mom said that they weren't really skiers, but had a fun day messing around in the snow.

This is a picture of most of the Hodgkinson clan at the Smith cabin.  It looked like a nice gathering place.    My mom isn't sure when  or why the cabins were sold.  It could have been because the government lease expired.  Sure would have been fun to spend some time at both Cornwall and Smith cabins.