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Show 48 The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey Grouse Creek no doubt sustains other Mormon folklore like humorous tales and jokes, personal experiences from the mission field, and legends about famous Mormon leaders. Grouse Creek has always been too small to support an extensive mercantile establishment. For many years, the Wakefield family ran a small general store. But about thirty years ago, its profitability declined and the store became a cooperative venture managed on a part-time basis by a group of community members. Music is another important facet of Grouse Creek culture. In an earlier time, monthly dances were held on the fine dance floor in the basement of the ward chapel. Residents danced reels, two-steps, waltzes, polkas, and fox-trots to the music of the Grouse Creek Orchestra, consisting of a violin, saxophone, guitar or banjo, and piano. Today the monthly dances have ended; a decline in ward population and the demolition of the old church are the reasons most often given for their demise. But the community continues to stage dances on holidays, weddings, and other special occasions. Although the musicians are no longer local, a band with an eclectic repertory of popular favorites will play for what is truly a family gathering, with attendees ranging from babies to the elderly. In addition, one or two local musicians still perform. Seventy-five-year-old Archie Toyn, one of the community's leading performers, often sings at family gatherings and ward functions. Toyn, who learned to sing from his father and from a neighbor, was for many years a member of the Grouse Creek Orchestra. His repertory consists primarily of older sentimental songs from the 1920s and 1930s such as "The Haunted Falls" and "An Old Rocking Chair." These pieces, and the popular Mormon hymns that everyone knows, typify the singing found in other Mormon communities, and the repertory ties Grouse Creek to the extensive Mormon culture region to the east. Conspicuous by their absence are songs of cowboys and ranching life. The survey discovered a vigorous tradition of composing and reciting poems in Grouse Creek. Verses are written for specific community functions and gatherings like birthdays, weddings, wedding anniversaries, family reunions, and funerals. A great many residents-both men and women-participate in this activity, and poems were recited for the field team by Steve Kimber, Marge Thompson, Opal Kimber, and Rhea Toyn. The poems tend to be regularly metered, rhymed, and composed in four-line stanzas. They resemble the cowboy verse prevalent in the West but differ in content. Rhea Toyn's "Reunions" is a good example of Grouse Creek poetry. The poem was written in July 1985 and offers an insight into the important place families occupy in Mormon belief. Families are important to Mormons-as they are for other Americans- as a vehicle for maintaining particular values and customs. In addition, Mormons believe that their extended families can be reunited after death if the ancestors can be identified through genealogical research, and if certain temple ceremonies are performed on their behalf. Rhea Toyn's poem "Reunions" notes the relationship between a reunion of the living family and the promise of the reunion to come. The survey team encountered only one or two examples of, or references to, cowboy poetry. This |
