Orvilla Mae Luke Jeppesen

Orvilla Mae Luke Jeppesen is approaching her ninetieth year. She doesn’t remember how old she is, “You know it changes every year!” but she knows she was born August 10, 1919. Many days her thoughts hover around her childhood and her parents.
Orvilla’s mother, Sarah Jane Howarth, was a little apple dumpling of a woman. She came only to Orvilla’s shoulders and was heavy set when she was young. Sarah Jane was married when she was fifteen. Orvilla remembers that when she would express surprise at this her mother would say, “Well it was either that or work in the fields for my Dad.” Sarah Jane would make dresses for Orvilla without a pattern. She would simply cut a front and a back in a T shape and stitch them together. Orvilla says, “That’s all she knew how to do.” Sarah Jane did genealogy for dozens of people in Provo and was never paid a cent. Orvilla remembers coming home from school to find the table strewn with papers which were filled with other people’s genealogy. Once Sarah Jane had sewn a quilt for a doctor’s wife in Provo. When the woman came to pick it up she asked, “How much do I owe you?” The woman was aghast when Sarah said the quilt would be thirty-five dollars. That was the only time Sarah was ever paid for any of the work she did for other people.
Orvilla’s father, Richard Osmer Luke was an actor. When company would come he would stand up and entertain them with one of his roles. Orvilla remembers many sayings he would recite to her. One of her favorites is The Wise Old Owl: “The wise old owl sat on an oak. The more he heard the less he spoke. The less he spoke the more he heard. Why can’t you be like that wise old bird?” Richard was also a mail carrier. It was his job to meet the train six times a day and carry the mail between the post office and the depot. The first train was at six in the morning and the last at six in the evening. They lived near the depot and Richard had time between trains to be at home or take Sarah to visit friends. The people they most often visited were dear friends that they grew up with in Heber, the Nickols. Richard had this job for seventeen years. Eventually, someone at the post office wanted his brother to have the job, so they bumped Richard off. After he lost the job at the post office he mostly did odd jobs.
Orvilla remembers that the depression was a sad time for people. There weren’t any jobs. It was difficult and she knew of people who were so discouraged they ended up divorcing. The depression hit some people very hard, but Orvilla’s family was fortunate that Richard was ambitious. They always had food on the table. Because they lived so close to the train depot, strangers would often beg at their house. Sarah never turned any one away. She was too nervous to invite strangers into the house, but she would make sandwiches for them to take with them.
When Orvilla was old enough to take piano lessons her dad would do yard work for the teacher and her family in exchange for lessons. When Orvilla finished high school she worked as an accompanist at Franklin Elementary school. She played for each of the classes’ music lessons and did office work. After she was married, she often played for church meetings and choirs. She also accompanied her husband, Rhodes Jeppesen. When she learned to type her instructor said her typing reminded him of Liberace.
All of Orvilla’s older siblings worked at Startup’s candy factory. Her sister Ethel would bring her the scraps from sample books of fancy papers that were used for making boxes and wrappers. These were precious. During the depression there was no money for fancy things like that. Orvilla would make paper chains and cut doilies from the pretty papers. Living in hard times when people had so little teaches you to think creatively and use everything you have.
I remember visiting Orvilla when I was a young girl. She is my grandma. She taught me how to cut snow flakes and make paper chains. Once when I visited, she had saved a stack of junk mail. She showed me how to cut the margins off, arrange the scraps neatly in a stack, and staple them to make a little note pad. The pad was just the right size to make a grocery shopping list on. Orvilla taught me that if you are creative you can make useful and beautiful things with what you already have. She doesn’t remember the time we made note pads out of junk mail, or how old she is now, but written here her great-grandchildren will know and remember.

This little history was created as an assignment for my elementary social studies methods class. Many of the words are Orvilla's. The top photo is Orvilla in 1923 at age 4. The bottom photos are Richard Osmer Luke and Sara Jane Howarth.