Minnie Mable Lindsay and Frederick Crook

Mother Minnie was my husband’s great-grandmother. She was of Scottish descent, fiesty when she wanted to be, and quite the cook. For this week’s Sunday Society post I am sharing snippets of Mother Minnie’s life as remembered by her posterity as well as some taken directly from her own “sketch of life.”

Minnie Mable Lindsay was born Oct. 30th, 1874 in Heber City, UT. She went to school in a little log school house where they taught ‘reading, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic’. Minnie remembers being punished for drawing pictures on her slate, the punishment was to stand on one foot and hold a bag of books in one hand for 10 minutes.

Minnie married Frederick Crook on Feb. 22, 1893. She was baptized a couple of months later. Shortly after she went to Salt Lake City to the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. In June of that year Fred and Minnie went to the temple to be sealed for time and eternity. They had eleven children, eight boys and three girls, and also raised three grandsons when her oldest daughter and her husband died from sickness.

“I remember that Grandpa Crook was a sweet and patient man and very hard of hearing. (He freaked us out one time when he took out his glass eye! He had lost his eye when a willow branch stuck into it when he was irrigating.) Grandma was the opposite of patience with her Scotch peppery tongue. It was a trial to her when Grandpa couldn’t hear well and she sometimes scolded him!

“What meals Grandma could put on the table! She had a large kitchen and a teen weency workroom, just big enough for a sink, some cupboards and a place to roll out her pies and make the bread. When all the family was home she made bread every day! Mom says she went through a sack of flour a week! Mom remembers walking past the Crook house on Main street and seeing a clothesline full of shirts on washday (Mondays). Grandma Crook had a little white gazebo set apart from the house where she did all her summer canning. It must have been handy for Grandma to be able to so some of her summer cooking out there. Her pantry was so small I have never figure out how she put out such wonderful meals in such a small space. Two people could hardly fit by the sink to wash dishes. One thing that Grandma was famous for was her delicious bread. She provided bread for the sacrament at church every Sunday all the time Grandpa was Bishop of the Third ward (30 years?). Every year at the time of the COunty Fair, Grandma entered some bouquets from her garden. I know she won many prizes. I can remember some of her beautiful dahlias.” (memories by Jean Crook Lance, granddaughter)

“When we were young, I remember Grandma fed us at a large round table in the kitchen. Before breakfast and dinner, the chairs were moved out and turned around so the backs were against that table so we could kneel down and have prayers. The table was always set with knives and forks, but the spoons were in a spoon dish in the middle of the table. I remember one time she gave us hot cereal for breakfast, and carefully sprinkled sugar on top of the cereal and none of us would eat it. I can still hear her muttering something like, “What kind of parents would teach their children to NOT put sugar on their cereal?” I think that Dad, with a master’s in animal nutrition, figured that if sugar was bad for animals, it was bad for humans, and so he taught us to sprinkles a little salt on the cereal instead of sugar. . . I remember going down in the basement with Grandma and it was a scary place and smelled funny!

“Grandma was a great cook. She made the best pies in the world. I still remmeber one cherry pie with a vanilla pudding kind of sauce in the bottom, the cherries, and then whipped cream on top. You could have died and gone to heaven after eating it. Her pie crust was so tender and flaky that I have given up making pies because I can’t even come close to hers.

“Grandma was tiny – she didn’t even come up to my shoulder when she got older. She was pretty fiesty and made her opinions known in true Scots fashion. . . Grandma Crook could put on a Scottish accent when she chose. She could recite some of Robert Burns poetry beautifully.” (memories of Mary Crook Hill, granddaughter)

Mother Minnie

“The kitchen was my favorite room. In the morning, the chairs were turned out, so we could kneel for family prayer. This ritual never varied and made a lasting impression in me. A man once said he could set his watch on his way to work, because the Crooks prayed at exactly the same time every morning.

“There was a tiny pantry where we did the dishes. It seemed funny that such a little place have been used to wash thousands upon thousands of dishes. There were lots of “depression plates” that came free in oatmeal boxes. My dad said the boys took turns washing dishes along with the girls.

“There was an old ringer washer on the connecting porch and the old-fashioned non-electris heavy irons were still around when I was a little girl. I remember Grandma saying she “never put a diaper on her babies that wasn’t ironed.” That’s quite a feat if you have 11 children!

“Dad told me that Grandma washed on Mondays, using a washer that had to be hand-cranked to make the dollies turn. When Grandpa and the boys came in from the fields, sometimes she was so tired, she’d be crying from exhaustion. Grandpa would set the boys to cranking, and he would help finish the wash. It seems that in their home, everyone helped whenever they were needed, and your sex had nothing to so with it.

“Grandma was a small lady. I had to stoop to kiss her from the time I was nine. SHe was also very much a lady. She always wore white gloves when she went out. She always sat with her knees and feet neatly together. Her thin white hair was fixed in a knot at the back of her head.

“She was extremely proud of her pioneer heritage and was active in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. She had a number of sisters and was close to them all. I believe there was only one brother, Bennet. Once she ran away from home, because her father scolded her when she and Bennet were doing dishes. When her father came for her, she said, “I wouldn’t have run away but you only scolded me and not Bennet, and that wasn’t fair.” Every time I heard the tale she was not one bit apologetic – even into her eighties – and she wouldn’t go home until her father apologized.

“She was a great mother. My father never remembered a spanking – back in the days when “spare the rod” was the norm. He said once, as a little boy he had done something wrong. He got a little scared and started walking away from the house. His mother and father quietly followed him all over town until he wore out and apologized.

“When there were four little children in their family Grandpa was called on a mission. Grandma was to run the farm to make a living – and send Grandpa money every month. She told Grandpa that she certainly couldn’t pay tithing too. (She was raised in an inactive family). He told her to pay tithing for a little while and see how it went. She never stopped and had a real testimony of tithing the rest of her life.

“She made the world’s best sugar cookies {many of the remembrances of Minnie mentioned this!} She had a scalloped cookie cutter, and I have never tasted cookies as good as hers.

“Its common knowledge that she and Grandpa raised 11 children of their own and Velma’s boys after her death. My mother asked her once how she knew how much to cook. “All the pots could hold,” she answered.

“Once she told us that when Grandpa was on his mission, a friend wanted her to go with her to visit their husbands back East. Grandma smiled and said, “I didn’t dare. I already had children to raise alone,and I didn’t want another one yet!” (memories of Kathleen Crook Frankman, granddaughter)

“Sister Crook made a beautiful ritual of the sacrament by keeping the tablecloths spotless and ironed. She also baked bread and carefully trimmed off the crusts so that the slices were soft and white. We used tiny glass cups for the water and I can remember seeing her after meetings (twice a day) on Sunday. She had two basins of water (one soapy and one clear) in which she lovingly washed the tiny cups and then rinsed and dried before before returning them to the shiny silver tray.” (memories of Suzanne Witt Thacker, lifelong neighbor)

There are so many more interesting tidbits of Minnie Mable Lindsay Crook’s life. She was also very adept at handiwork. Idleness was never a trait she possessed.  She always had some type of needlework to do while she sat. She created applique quilts, tablecloths, bedspread, doilies and dainty handkerchiefs to give away as gifts to her posterity.

Minnie supported her husband while he served as the first Bishop of the Heber 3rd Ward for 28 years. She also served in various callings: Relief Society teacher, counselor in the Primary presidency, a visiting teacher and a counselor in the Relief Society presidency (several times).

In a newspaper interview given when she was 86 years old Minnie stated, “My house has had a heap of living in it. We have reared 11 of our own children and three of my daughter’s after she and her husband died. Eleven of the 14 were boys so you know there were no dull moments.” Questioned about her plans for the future she simply stated, “I have no other plan than to continue my work. After all, there is no time for idleness or loneliness when you have 35 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-grandchild. Every day is open house at my home.”

Join us for Society Sunday Blog Hop! Write your thoughts on this week’s articles (Mary Fielding Smith and a letter from Eliza R. Snow) or post a short biography or story about a Relief Society sister you know, or an experience you have had, as we continue to write our history!  Post your link here.

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