MEMORIES OF RACHEL VELLA FOWLER
Informant Code: Jm
= Jim Neil, husband
Jo = brother
Joe 2 ½ years younger
L = sister Lois 1 ½ years older
N = sister Norma Rose, 9 years younger
W = brother Wendell, five years her junior
Appearance: W Tall
and stately, a little taller than most girls.
L Blond as a child, dark brown hair as an adult. Known for her
“violet eyes.”
L Fell a long way down in Waterfall Canyon
L: Mother didn’t use makeup and we
girls didn’t use much – maybe a little powder. When I got married and started
using makeup, mother was appalled.
Jo Didn’t fuss with appearance, made no effort to
enhance it, had no interest in fashion.
NR Never fussed about looks but always
looked very nice. Shoulder-length very dark hair usually wore long except
pulled it into a bun after marriage.
Jo A beauty queen – remember her riding
on a float around the track for a football game.
Courtship: W (uneasy
with this question) Because Jim Neil was not active in the church and because
he drank and smoked, Rose and Ben were not happy with Vella’s choice to date
him exclusively. Why would she do that when she had so many other beaus who all
wanted to date or marry her – good, handsome, popular young men? But the family
didn’t make it an issue for comment, just a word dropped here and there – it
was explored mostly by the parents in private. And the church wasn’t as strict
about such things then.
L One of her rejected beaus pleaded to
have her sealed to him after her death.
Domestic: W Mother
Rose was so efficient and good around the kitchen and house that she didn’t ask
her older daughters for help with cooking, dishes, or cleaning during the week
– only a little on weekends. She wanted them to have time to become what they
should become.
L The Crowthers were very pious and had
long and frequent family prayers that Rose wanted to continue but Ben did not.
So Rose never went against him. Ben also had a real temper, especially when
arriving home from work, and would sometimes shout around the house. Rose was
very loving -- liked physical closeness,
liked to kiss and hug the children and their friends. Always sweet in
temperament and touching people. Ben said too much love made children weak.
Vella rebelled against Ben’s rules to some degree but was never disrespectful
towards him.
(Meals W
dinner about 6:30 in the dining room, “father Ben” at the head of the table,
boys on one side, girls on other, “mother Rose” at the foot. Fowlers were
always noted for eating everything. Rose had a salad and cooked vegetable every
night. Ben brought home a steak every second or third night that weighed less
than a pound and was divided among the members.
Jo When he thinks of Vella he thinks of
her eating peanut butter and jam spread on bread. Dinner was to be at 6:30
sharp and anyone late caught “verbal hell.” There was always a lengthy evening
prayer at the table and the rest of the meal was pretty structured with discussions
about family matters, school, or any problem that needed to be addressed.
Intelligence:
W an outstanding, brilliant girl, quite a student.
NR and L Spoke beautiful French –
majored in it in college and spoke it socially with others who also spoke
French. English minor. Graduated with a perfect GPA but was not valedictorian
because the faculty chose a man with a comparable GPA but who majored in
engineering to take that honor.
Interests and
Talents: W Tennis, doubles
champion in Ogden
City
L Vella and I did a lot of
singing at different churches when we were about 9 and 10 – were invited by
different organizations, I (Lois) sang soprano and Vella alto. Also did some
dancing – Lois ballet, Vella tap --in public as children. Vella did
recitations. [The wards used to have this kind of talent at evening meetings.
What a gentle world without television and the Internet.]
NR She was seldom home; but when she
was there, she was always reading. She
was wonderful at tennis – played to the #2 position in Weber County
L and NR Went to
church as long as she was living at home and taught Sunday School. After
she moved in with the Neil family’s dormitory in Salt Lake, the Fowlers didn’t
call on her even though the building was only a half mile from the Fowler home
– said they didn’t feel comfortable with the obvious differences in point of
view over religion and religious practices.
Outings: W Every
summer the family took a car trip to Malad Idaho to visit with Rose’s relatives, the
Crowthers. The drive was always a lot of fun with conversation, jokes, and
plenty of singing.
Personality: W Vella was always very congenial, pleasant, helpful.
Strong willed at times but not seriously. Very popular at school. Boyfriends
coming over to the house almost every night. Vice President of school senior
year, elected final prom queen – a big deal, selected as a “sponsor” for the
ROTC band (ROTC was also a big deal at the time.) complete with uniform and “presence”
at band appearances.
L She had tall friends. Some
seemed ugly or unconventional in dress or behavior but she chose them for her
own reasons – liked everybody. Ben very disturbed by her choice of friends. She
was a tom-boy, usually played outside at whatever the boys were playing rather
than playing with dolls or crayons like her sisters. Liked to ride her bike.
Later as a young woman she had a very romantic outlook on life – longed for
true love, being swept off her feet by a handsome man and living happily ever
after. [I think this was a “Fowler women’s” dream, but less of my mother than
the others.]
L Vella was always light-hearted,
optimistic, and upbeat, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Inquisitive,
brave, went off on her own exploring as a child. Generous. A religious rebel.
(Apparently Vella had told Lois that Lois was “too stiff.”)
L As a child Vella took a double dose
of Epson salts (one belonging to Lois) because Lois put up such a fuss with
lots of crying. The double dose made Vella very sick, but she didn’t complain
about it – “She was like that” – a dare devil, willing to try anything. When
Norma Rose was whining about having to do dishes, Vella locked her out of the
kitchen and did the dishes for her. Told NR to ignore her brothers’ teasing and
they would soon stop it. This worked. (Joe had said that it was fun to tease
both Lois and Vella because they were so trusting and gullible).
NR AND L Vella was idolized by all who knew her and with no
resentment because people thought she deserved it.
NR If Vella had a fault it was
being stubborn. She preferred odd balls for friends.
Jo He and Vella argued. She would work with a
problem; he was more headstrong. She was well-organized; knew what she was
doing. Good outlook on life. Not distracted by other people’s opinion.
The following is all Jim and not really
categorical:
They lived in the same LD.S. Ward in Ogden and performed on the same evening
programs – Jim doing recitations and poetry readings. She was two years
younger, a grade behind in school, and he sat behind her in a speech class and
never spoke to her once. Her junior year she was in the “queen’s court” and the
following year elected Queen of the Classicalia with Karl Hopkins’ son working
“fervently” to elect her even though her father was superintendent of the Weber
Schools and Hopkins superintendent of the Ogden schools. Vella won by the
largest margin of any girl in the history of the school. After she started college, Mrs. Eccles (which
one) asked Jim to escort Vella to one of her parties, and Jim never took out
another girls after that although Vella continued to date other men.
“Vella was not differential like Lois and her mother.
Instead she was very vivacious. Lois would sit quietly at a table at the party and
observe the action while Vella got right in the middle of it. At the same time
she was totally gracious. All of the Fowler girls were very idealistic,
expecting a rosy future. She was very strong. She was a great athlete. We would
play tennis and I got beat pretty often. Or she and another partner would play me
and my male partner and we got beaten
regularly, also. She had a strong serve and a great net game that she wasn’t
afraid to play to the fullest. She wore a white blouse or sweater to play
tennis, a colored skirt, white tennis sox over her nylon hose and white canvas
shoes – Keds or Converse. No woman wore pants or shorts at the time – an
outrage.”
One of her former friends went to Hollywood where he worked for a movie
company; and when he showed Vella’s photo to a director, he was told ‘If you
can get her here, we can cast her,’” At 5’7” she weighed about 125 pounds.
School (college) clothes were skirts with a blouse or sweater, or a print dress
and hose with soft suede shoes that we called “mocs” but were not really Indian
moccasins. She had beautiful party dresses (Rose’s work) and a little
high-quality jewelry that looked very good on her as she had a long neck and
pretty shoulders and neckline. She wore a fragrance called Coty’s ‘Chic.’
Jim thought she got the scar through her eyebrow in a
motorcycle accident. He remembers her hair as long, “very long to the middle of
her back. She wore it braided in two long braids that she wrapped around on the
top of her head like a Jewish skull cap. Or she coiled them on either side of
her head in a style called ‘shells.’ Or she let them hang down her back and
tied them together at the end. Or she wore
a single long braid that hung down her back. She wore a bun for special
occasions.
They had regular Sunday afternoon dates when they went to
one of two homes in Ogden
of wealthy and prominent families where the young people gathered to visit and
play cards and eat. Once they went to a
large dance at the Alhambra Dance Hall in Ogden
with Jim her date. He therefore had her dance card and so was theoretically in
charge of her dances. He took dances four, eight, and twelve for himself,
waltzes, because he didn’t want anyone else to get that close to her. And he
always had to fill his choices in immediately because it otherwise filled up
the first minute. But just after dance four, two guy appeared who had come down
from southern Idaho
and were related to her family “and she asked me to find them a place. And I
said ‘your card is full,’ and she asked me if I couldn’t just fix it somehow so
they could have dances after coming such a long way. So I gave up my last two
dances, went to the coat room, checked out my coat, and was going to go back in
and give one of them her claim check and ask them to take her home. But I
watched her out there on the floor – so lovely -- and I just couldn’t walk away
from that. So I returned my coat and waited. But I did want to say, ‘Lady, I
just can’t compete with all this traffic.’”
Vella had to drop out of college to work for a dentist named
Foutz where she functioned as a receptionist and dental assistant. And when she
had saved enough, she transferred to the University of Utah Salt Lake City .
After they were engaged (no ring, no announcement) they were sitting on one of the dorm
balconies and Jim had loosened her braids and was running his fingers through
her hair to loosen it. One of her many suitors passed by and saw Jim’s action.
Vella began to cry. She knew that the other man would realize she was promised
to someone else and that would wound him. And his wound caused Vella to cry for
him. She was very tender hearted, kind and compassionate. She could also find
something good to say about anything, even the squalid apartment they had after
they were married – she liked it because Jim was there. Jim’s father used to
brag that his son was going to marry a woman who was much too good for him. But
he’d add – ‘She’s too good for anybody.’
They were married the afternoon they graduated by Apostle
Richard R. Lyman in the Church Office Bldg. They didn’t go to church; they
“prized their weekends together” as she had been either studying or in class or
working at the dorm and he did the same plus working at Utah Power and Light on
North Temple where he arrived by street car after school and caught the last
car home at night arriving by 1 a.m. Weekends were the time they had together
“We never said much about church, didn’t discuss religion at all. Her faith must
have been there because her family were very devout, and you can’t live with
religion without it rubbing off a little on you. But she dated Mormons and
non-Mormons equally and married a Jack-Mormon. After the wedding the family
fathered for a lunch that Ben Fowler sponsored.”
Jim and Vella spent their honeymoon summer working at Ideal Beach
When school started they moved into a one-room basement
apartment on the corner of Jefferson and 25th Street , directly across from what
was then Ogden High School
Their entertainment was walking even in the cold of winter.
Unfortunately, Jim and his best friend spent almost every evening in the little
apartment with the only window closed against the cold. Both were chain
smokers, and Vella got an unhealthy dose of second-hand smoke for several months before her baby was born. It didn’t
affect her appetite, however. “Her favorite meals were breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. She had no food dislikes and was a good cook. She was the only person
I’ve ever known who would throw out dishwater when it got dirty and finish the
rest with fresh water. She was also meticulously clean about her self, bathing,
showering, and washing her hair often. She would rub cold cream on her face
every night before bed, thick enough to be white before she rubbed it in. She
also took her hair out and let it fall freely during the evening before going
to bed.”
“She got only one new item to wear after their marriage.
Lois and Harry took her to Ogden
and opened Harry’s mother’s store and helped her choose a maternity dress. We
should have had twins because I wanted a girl to name Vella (she said not Rachel Vella) and she wanted a boy
to name James Sidney Neil. That’s why my daughter’s middle name is Sidney .” After Christmas
Jim moved Vella to Salt
Lake Ogden ,
and they saw each other only on weekends.
One story has Vella walking the three blocks from the
Highland Dorm to the Holy
Cross Hospital Hot Springs – an unlikely
choice. In any case, her doctor was impatient that the placenta did not deliver
quickly and gave her an extra heavy dose of pitossin which brought the placenta
in a hurry but also apparently caused the uterus to turn completely inside out.
No one checked on this, as would be standard now. Instead she was taken to a
private room where her mother, Rose, sat by her bedside, naive, not daring to
pry into such indelicate business, until Vella turned deadly white and Rose
asked a nurse if something was wrong. Apparently the bed was bathed in blood.
Her blood had not been typed, those willing to donate had not been typed, and
all efforts were too little and too late. She was twenty-two. After her
daughter’s death, Rose lobbied strongly to take the baby. Since she had been he
person who had produced the superior original, shouldn’t she be the grandmother
to reproduce it in the granddaughter? But Jim argued that the child shouldn’t
have to lose both mother and father as his job was in Ogden . His own mother left the Highland Dorm
and took a house in Ogden
whereshe could care for the baby and keep house for Jim. And so it turned out
that Vella’s daughter was raised by her father’s mother – a woman who loved her
as her own. They moved from Ogden when Vella was
2 to Idaho Falls – Jim following – and back to Ogden when Vella was 11.
The Fowler grandparents, Lois, Wendell and Joe lived in Salt Lake California . And so it was that young Vella
saw very little of her Fowler relatives until she was 19 and lived with Ben and
Rose for three years while attending the University. There she worked after
school until five o’clock each afternoon and during her senior year – Saturday
morning, as well. She saw cousins only on Thanksgiving and briefly on
Christmas. Little wonder they did not grow up close. Perhaps something of that
can yet be achieved.
Vella Sidney’s
Observations:
With the exception of her high school English teacher – who
was also my high school English teacher – Vella was constantly described as the
smartest, most beautiful, kind, and universally loved of anyone that speaker
knew. (My English teacher said Lois was prettier.) Even the art teacher LeConte
Stewart said she was beautiful. Many women said she was “dainty” – but no man
ever did. Her French teacher (later my French teacher) said she spoke French
like a native and thought fluently in
French.
More than one person said that Vella was not her father’s
favorite child. That honor would go to Wendell (over the long haul) although
the focus was early on Joe. Ben even concocted the name Benson to identify his
paternity, as it otherwise has no relevance in the family.
Over the course of the years, I have come across this
additional; information: I have two photos of her on horseback -- she was
apparently an all-round athlete, a member of a social club in high school
“Carpe diem” and belonged to the modern languages club in college. She was also
the society editor for the Acorn, the
college yearbook. At that time, Weber College was actually a church school – the L.D.S. Academy
in Ogden , with
daily devotionals just like BYU. She included everything in her annual report,
from the devotionals to the debate team’s honors, to the team sports, the
plays, and finally the school dances of which she was particularly fond. The
literary editor of the Acorn chose
two poems and one short story to include in the yearbook, and it was Vella’s
story -- suggesting additional talent
with language and narration.
Here are the things that struck me in reading her yearbook
singings: Class leaders, reputed athletes, other beauty queens, and “ordinaries”
all wrote in her book. Several teachers wrote saying they had enjoyed her in
their classes. A couple of the men said they loved her. Many wrote that she had
helped them enjoy the school year. Many
of the high school girls and college women told her that they loved her. I find
this amazing, as a girl who is beautiful, smart, prominent, talented, and a
“queen” is sometimes resented by other girls. Apparently Vella didn’t wear her “superiority”
out in front and people related to her on a genuinely human level. One of the
college men told her that she had the rare quality of being herself.
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