Minerva Teichert Autobiography Part 3

Continuing on a thread from 2011, I'll continue along Minerva Teichert's autobiography:

I fell quite in love with a young country boy near Soda, but Ben Dixon spent money on me. He visited my home in vacation. He wrote to me every day. I believe, of course, his bon bons won me. We became engaged. I took up a homestead so did he. He wanted me to marry him and live on his homestead. I wanted him to come live on mine till I “proved up”. We were both keeping still about those homesteads, but finally fess up. We were both obligated to our fathers and had to “prove up”. I tried to final proof in fourteen months but failed, so did he… So, it would be at least three years residence before we could get married.

I had by now finished the 3 year Academic Course at the Art Institute in Chicago was back in Idaho dead broke and in debt. I took the first chance teaching a country school again. My family was living in Arizona so I went to my cousins in Sterling, Idaho where I taught 60 pupils in a tucked u[p] room without space for aisles. I would prove up on my homestead in early spring and be married soon as school was out. The night before I went to be married the brother of my cousin’s wife, who had been an admirer for a number of years, stayed late. He just sat there holding my hand in his silent way and the tears ran down the insides of his eyelids. If he had asked me I think I would have given Ben Dixon up, but he didn’t. He just held my hand very tight, almost crushing it, and let me trek on. I think he didn’t hear a word I said.

At last I was visiting with my other cousins, the Wades in Ft. Hall Bottoms when we went to American Falls to see “A Hundred Years of Mormonism” played in Film. An old chum asked, “What will your folks think when they find you’ve married out of the church?” I answered flippantly, “Oh, we should worry. After it’s over they’ll like it alright.” But her eyes told me she did not believe me. To tell the truth it was the first time I had thot about it. That night on the Bottoms I dreamed another man came and begged me not to marry Ben Dixon—that I was meant for him. I was angry and answered, “Of course I shall. I’m going to married next Sunday.” I could not see his face distinctly –I did not want to. I feared it might be Herman Teichert and he did not speak good enough American for me, but I noted the tweed of his suit and in a life time I could never forget the tiny red and orange flecks in that soft dark tweed. I have watched for it and longed to find it as I have traveled in cars across America. I’ve looked for it in the crowds on Coney Island, Atlantic City, Broadway, on the boats between New York and Boston. Sometimes I’d think I saw it, then the old man who stood behind the wearer would not be there. What would I have done had I recognized the particular tweed? I do not know. It seemed, in my dream, that everything in his life depended upon marrying me and he wept. I became alarmed and said, “why I’ll not marry Ben Dixon if you don’t want me to. I’m sure he doesn’t care so much for me as that.” When I woke up it seemed I could hear him saying, “You’ll never wait, you’ll never wait.”

I was so distressed I got up and dressed at the first hint of day. I walked along the river throwing rocks into the water and skimming them across the glassy surface and calling on my rebellious friends. Would I listen to a fool of a dream when I was to be married next Sunday?

At breakfast my cousin, Clarence Wade, said, “Minerva, what makes you so pale this morning and why were you walking along the river in the night?” “Oh, nothing,” I answered, but he and Cousin Marion, his wife both insisted I tell them what was the matter, so I told them my dream in an insolent way. They both declared, “You’ll never marry Ben Dixon.” Of course it was up to me to show them. For the fi[r]st time Ben Dixon asked me in a letter who should perform the ceremony. I answered Pres. Hyde of Pocatello Stake, my father’s friend. His next letter came Thursday. He said something that could never be unsaid—“I would rather live single all my life than to be married by a Mormon or in a Mormon church.” It was the first thing he had ever said against the Mormons and while I made no profession of religion I made the home plate with both feet. “Start your life!” was my answer. He came to me begging forgiveness but in his apology I detected a lie. He said he objected only to Pres. Hyde. So in Pocatello I saw President Hyde to ask if they had ever had any differences—Ben Dixon was a deputy sheriff at this time and Pres. Hyde Probate Judge. Wm A. Hyde answered, “No, indeed. I have always admired the young man. We are friends.”

Well, it was a shock to my vanity. For four or five years he had written to me every day or every other day and his letters had lead me to believe him deeply in love. I tho[ugh]t I should marry the man who loved me so much even tho[ugh] back in Sterling I was leaving one that I loved more. So Herman became my real sweetheart and my family moved back from Arizona. They wanted me to marry a Mormon boy. I knew none or ever had except speaking acquaintances so after another year’s teaching and to avoid our approaching wedding day, Mother offered to help me go to New York to study under Robert Henri. She begged me to wait a year. So I took French leave of Herman who was in Idaho while I taught in Pleasant View, Utah. I was easy to do at first for I wanted very much to study under Robert Henri, but what should I do with Herman. I quit—told him to marry a friend of ours. I was leaving him behind. This washed my hands of him. I think I threw his pleading letters on the floor and walked on them for days at a time, but I didn’t feel that way and many times I fought back the bitter tears with folly. I gathered a crowd about me in my boarding home. I kept in a crowd at the Art Student’s League. I was no longer a dashing girl. I was from now on mature. I did not ever let myself think. I painted like mad under Dimitri Romanoffski. I had had three years of drawing at the Art Institute under John Vanderpool but I joined a Bridgman drawing class in New York and stayed with him until he told me what ever told few, “You can draw as well as I, now, paint.”

There are a few details here as pertains to Minerva’s family:

(a)    The extended relationship with different cousins – different sets on her mother’s side.

(b)    Fred’s relationship to William A. Hyde of the Pocatello stake. The relationship here would have been through the church, not via a professional relationship.

(c)     There is a shocking resemblance or repetition between Ella and Fred’s courtship, along with Minerva’s. It’s a sort of mystical romance. The finding of one’s spouse via a dream. There’s also the way the “wrong match” was to be short circuited. Ella used an engagement to get her mother to allow her to go to school. She now was using the desire and promise for school to keep her own daughter from getting married.

(d)    Her parents cared that she stay married within the faith (even though she does not; Herman later converts when she goes to the hospital for lead poisoning). It’s somewhat surprising that Minerva had not thought about it to this point. Her parents were very religious and involved in the Mormon community. She helped fund a mission her father fulfilled in his 40’s. How did she not think about this until this time? What does that say about Minerva?

(e)    Parents go to and from Arizona. It’s not clear what makes them return or exactly when they returned based on these notes, something I will have to tease out further. I have a good sense of when they left, but not when they came back.

(f) Obligation to the father. Was this a financial and/or moral obligation? It is something she shared with Ben Dixon.

Minerva Teichert Autobiography Part 2

Minerva's autobiography contains other brief notes about her early family life and her relationship to her parents, as well as details on their personalities and values. On page 198, she writes:

We had been burned out [When she was 12/13 the family store in Riverside, Idaho burned to the ground] and were very hard up and back on the ranch when I entered Pocatello High School. I worked for my board but the lady I went to live with was called to Montpelier, Ida[ho] after two weeks of school, leaving me without a home [During Teichert's high school years (1902-1906), she initially lived with artist Isabel Ballantyne West, and later in a house in Pocatello owned by her mother].

I could not go back to American Falls to the old ranch I was studying. They pronounced the certificate [Minerva's first teaching certificate, for which she had to pass a qualifying exam] "fine." It was new and shiny but since I only taught to please my mother and hadn't opened the cover of a single book to prepare for it I had barely passed by the skin of my teeth, but after all that wasn't the trouble. Two, at least ,of the trustees could neither read nor write but they knew I wasn't "lickin" the kids enough and I was "awful young fer a teacher." A hint came to my mother that they were planning to surprise me by introducing a new teacher the morning after the holidays, so she sat up all night before getting my things ready and next morning at 3:30 took me fifteen miles to Rockland to meet the American Falls mail stage. It was thirty two miles to American Falls and the coldest day I have ever known.

I went to Soda Springs and taught there two years. My father was on a mission in Germany and I helped my family so altho John Held [unclear whether this refers to John Held, Jr., the popular illustrator of the flap era, or John Held, Sr.--the latter is more likel, since the senior already was an engraver and illustrator] of Salt Lake had persuaded me that I should study at the Art Institute in Chicago I never could see a dollar to start with. The next year I taught on Raft River 4 mo. As there was no store within 35 mi[les] I saved all my money. I had by now a serious case of sinus. Dr. Noth of Am[erican] Falls, with the aid of his good wife, who was an excellent nurse, operated on me on his kitchen table to save the expense of sending me to a hospital. He would not accept a cent until I finished my studies at the Art Institute, several years later.

This account notes at least the second incident where fire burnt down a piece of Kohlhepp property. The first incident was captured in a newspaper in June 1894, when Fred's residence and furniture was destroyed while he was in the Ogden hospital. This at least second incident was very hard on the Kohlhepps according to Minerva. They couldn't provide her room and board, forcing her to live with a willing, kind soul. Another tell incident of their lack of finances is how Minerva had an operation on a kitchen table to avoid the costs of going to a hospital. Her father's visits to hospitals must have taught them the cost of those expenses.

We see the strong influence and assertiveness of Fred's wife, Mary Ella. Minerva feels compelled to teach because her mother wanted her to (probably for financial reasons). Her parents at least had done some teaching throught the Mormon Church's sunday schools; perhaps they encouraged her to do it because it was something they were familiar with. The school system Minerva taught in must have been very poor if people on the board could not read and write. On the other hand, it is less surprising that she past the teaching exam if this was the case. Minerva's portrayal of the school board makes it look a little bit like a good old boys' club. Interestingly, we see another side of Mary Ella once the board plans to "surprise" Minerva: Mary Ella is not up to seeing her children publicly shamed. She makes a long trip to pick up her child and pull her out to save her the embarrassment. This is another instance of Mary Ella travelling as she pleases. Fred hardly tethered her down, nor does it seem like he could have.

During Fred's missionary years, Minerva describes herself as being mostly a teacher, trying to save her money to fund her education at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her father's mission costs must have made it quite impossible for Minerva to gain financial support from her parents to study art at this time.