· 16 February 2014 · 0 Comments
Genevieve Hardy Black
Given at her funeral June 8, 2000
By her daughter Eva Lynn Black Garlick

Our mother, Genevieve Hardy Black was born December 13, 1912, in St. George, Utah, the second child of George Gile and Sarah Agnes Harvey Hardy. Mother’s brother, George, was just 18 months old. Her parents, Gile and Sarah, had grown up, met, and married in the Mormon Mexican Colony of Diaz. When Sarah’s father, (James Douglas Harvey) was murdered there in May of 1912, Gile and Sarah took Sarah’s mother (Sarah Elisabeth Kellet Harvey) and younger children on a trip to Idaho and Utah to visit relatives. While they were away the church authorities advised the saints in Mexico to temporarily leave the colonies because the political climate had put them in grave danger.

Gile and Sarah never went back. That summer in Idaho, Gile worked as a blacksmith and then in late September he and Sarah and little George, traveled by railroad flat car and then stage coach to St. George, where Gile’s mother lived. There they started over with only the clothes they had brought in their suitcase. Mother was born that December.

In 1915 Mother’s parents left St. George and moved to Uintah County to homestead near Sarah’s mother. Here, in 1918, Mother’s second brother, Harve (James Harvey), was born. The winters in Uintah were very severe and Gile soon decided to move his little family back to the warmer climate of Dixie. They made the trip by team and wagon in summer of 1918. For Mother, who was five years old, it was a grand adventure that she always remembered vividly. It took four weeks to cover the distance and the distance and the little family hunted and fished along the way and played around the campfire at night.

Mother always spoke of her childhood as a happy time with Hardy cousins and relatives close by. Her parents, from her account, were sweethearts and full of fun. Many times she told us how after dinner her father would playfully flip a spoonful of water across the table at mother, Sarah. Sarah would return the challenge and things would gradually escalate until it was an all out water fight outside in the yard.

Mother attended the Woodward school and loved assembling outside in the morning and marching up to cement steps by classes. She loved her signature was flawless to her latest day. She also took pride in her play and told many times how she was a jump-rope champion--she could jump not just on her feet but also on her knees and then while sitting on the ground. I could never quite figure that out and by the time I came along she was not young enough to demonstrate.

When Mother was nine years old she was blessed with a baby sister but joy was turned to sorrow when little Ruth contracted whooping cough and died at six weeks old. The birth of her brother, Alvin Frank, 18 months later helped to fill a void in the family left by little Ruth’s death.

The seeds of Mother’s faith and reliance on the Lord were planted early. On one occasion, she and her brother George were given the responsibility of taking the cows out to graze during the day and bringing them home in the evening. As children will, she and George became engrossed in their play and the cows wandered from their view. When they finally looked up , the hour was late and cows were nowhere to be found. After a fruitless and frantic search, the only place to turn was prayer and so they knelt and told Heavenly Father their dilemma. As you might guess, they got up from their knees and followed their impressions to look in a different direction. The cows were found bedded down in a low spot and George and Mother were soon on their way home with the cows, meeting their worried father coming toward them.

As a teenager Mother spent much of her time at home with her parents. She said her parents were her best friends and she was a great comfort to them. Her father affectionately called her Sis or Genny. Mother attended high school at the old Dixie College for just short of two years. She did a lot of sewing and entered one of her dresses in a competition, taking first place. The dress hung on display in the gymnasium for some time. She and her mother made quilts and Mother traded two quilts for the first two permanent wave hairdos she and Grandmother ever had.

When Mother was 18, her sister Betty (Elizabeth Ann) was born. Just a year later, Mother was married with her own little boy, Bob (Robert Gile). He was the joy of her heart and the focus of her life. When Bob was two, Mother took care of her grandmother Hardy for several months, during a lingering illness. When her grandmother finally passed away in 1935, the property in St. George was given to Mother.

In 1936 her youngest sister was born and Mother was allowed to name her Wanetta Jean. Two years later in 1938, Sandra was born. Betty and Bob, Wanetta and Sandra were more like siblings than aunts, niece and nephew. Mother’s life had taken some difficult turns and now she was a single mother trying to provide for her little ones while the country struggled to work its way out of the great depression.

In 1941 President Roosevelt’s WPA program in St.George used a recreational allotment to put on old-time dances. Mother attended with her parents and she and her dad made quite a couple. Their nimble movements caught the eye of a young fellow by the name of Allen Black. Allen, our Dad, had had some business dealings with Gile and admired his blacksmith skill but mostly he admired Grandpa’s honesty and integrity. It wasn’t long before Dad was escorting Mother to the dances. If people fall in love, Dad by his own admission fell twice--once for Mother, and once for her children. Dad has written…

Genevieve and I went together for a dozen times or so and I noticed that she took good care of her family. When I picked her up for the dances I watched the instructions she gave to Bob and how he should take care of Sandra. I could see how dear her children were to her and that appealed to me because I knew the love I had had for my little brothers and sisters.
So one night when I took her home from the dance we were talking and she had told me some of the things that had happened in her life and some of the disappointments and some of the things that she expected out of life. I thought it over and it hit me that those were the same things that I wanted. So I asked her if she would marry me. She said she’d think it over for a few days and she wanted to know what had brought that on. So I told her about how I felt about her attitude toward her little kids. I told her those little ones were really an attraction to me and I’d like to share that with her.(from Personal History of Allen C. Black, printed 1990, p. 32.)

They were married April 24th 1941.

Mother and Dad started their married life with almost nothing in the way of material possessions.
In fact their first home was a two-bedroom shack that they “parked” on the back of uncle George Hardy’s lot in North Las Vegas where they shared his outside toilet.

During the next two years, Dad worked construction and they pulled a little house trailer behind their Willy’s coupe to the San Francisco Bay Area and then to Phoenix. It didn’t take Dad long to realize that life very far from St. George and Grandma Hardy just would not work for Mother. When Hardy was born in 1943, Dad was working at the defense plant in Henderson, Nevada, and their family settled in to stay for the next thirty years.
In April 1945, Mother and Dad, Bob, Sandra and Hardy were sealed in the St. George Temple. That same month Dad was drafted into the army and Mother moved to St. George, prepared to stay there for the duration of the war. However, Dad’s military stint was a short three months because he was discharged on account of his vision problems.

In Henderson, Mother’s life centered around her husband, children, and church service. For many years she was also an active member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Organization. At that time the church organization in Henderson was a fledgling branch and Mother and Dad soon became an integral part of the activities. Mother taught Sunday School, and she and Dad became organizers and supporters of Elder’s quorum activities and parties.

In 1948, Kerry was born. The birth was a difficult one that threatened both mother and baby. As a consequence, my birth, five years later in l953, was a carefully planned cesarean section.

Another five years later, at the age of 45, Mother was counting on one last baby, but it was not to be and she miscarried. That disappointment was surely a factor in 1962, when Mother and Dad took two-year old Krystal Lynne into their hearts and home to raise.

Mother was a natural homemaker as her mother had been before her. Dad says:

Mother was a very thrifty person. The hard times that we’d been through and the knocking around that we’d done had taught her a lesson--always have a little something on hand and never be caught short. This blessing really proved itself at one time. We had a strike in that area and trucks didn’t come in. Of course with nothing being raised there, it was only just a few days before groceries got short and people went to the grocery store and actually fought over things. In a week’s time they were in bad shape. We weren’t because we had a few things laid up. We had a sack of flour and Mother made bread and we hardly noticed it. Milk was still available so we got along fine. I really appreciated her and her forethought in doing those things. (from Personal History of Allen C. Black, printed 1990, p. 40.)

Living through the depression as a young adult gave her an appreciation for things that our succeeding generation can hardly understand. Her storeroom was always stocked. She used things until they were worn out or used up. And she saved every scrap of material.

Mother was a good cook, especially when it came to baking. Her bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, and pies were very well known. When others were asked to bring a casserole or vegetable dish to a ward budget dinner she was always assigned five dozen homemade rolls or four homemade pies. She often pointed out that inequity to her family, but she took satisfaction in it, too.
Mother was an excellent seamstress. She made all her own clothes and her daughter’s as well as
a little girl, I thought my big sister, Sandra, looked like a princess with her long blond hair and the beautiful full dresses Mother made for her. Mother made draperies and everything you can sew for a house. We had a bag of handmade Halloween costumes that has become a family legend. It was always a special day each fall when we could get them out of the closet and see which ones would fit who that year.

On request Mother sewed for others. She made beautiful wedding gowns. Her had embroidered christening gowns are treasured heirlooms.

She was an excellent barber and none of her sons saw the inside of a barber shop until they left home.

She loved to have a garden but that was always a real challenge in the alkaline soil and scorching Nevada summers. Still she managed to have some Swiss chard or beet greens and a few grapes.

Mother was content with her life but never satisfied. She always thought there was room for improvement or growth. This led her to try to do many things. At one point, she and Dad changed all the windows in their house in Henderson. She taped, mudded and sanded all the seams in the new wall boards. They added a fireplace and Mother laid the brick. They poured a new driveway and she finished the cement. She was a master at finishing cement with a trowel. There are too many examples to relate but this story in her own words says it best.

"We’re encouraged to be self-sufficient, gain knowledge about many things and with the help of the spirit, learn those truths that build a better life. I don’t have any degrees. I haven’t had any formal training, yet I’ve mastered many skills. I smile when I think how many things I’ve tried.
My husband had lost his eyesight. Our youngest boy was in the mission field. Our car was sick but my husband didn’t want to take it to the shop. So with his knowledge and my eyes we decided to overhaul the car. We dismantled the engine, put a chain around it and pulled it out of the car with a come-a-long, rolled the car away and put the engine on a large steel drum to work on it.
We discovered the bolt had pulled loose from the head. So we bored it out, put inserts in and re-tapped it. We did a ring job and valve job. In fact we did all you can do to a car. We wanted to do the job right. We had our little set backs but we finally got the engine bolted together and mounted in the car.
It was then I began to have doubts. Here were all these little parts scattered around and I had no idea where they belonged. I asked Allen if he thought we could finish this. He said, “I know we can.” So with trial and error we finally got it assembled. If we’d have given up we would have had to move--we hadn’t worked unnoticed.
I was the chauffeur, so it was a tense moment as I inserted the key to start the car. It started right off and I’ve never heard such a wonderful sound. Allen will tell you that is the best overhaul a car ever got." (From a talk given in Sacrament Meeting by Genevieve Black, Orem, Utah.)

Mother loved to have a group together to eat and play games. In the early days it was the Elders quorum parties. Then as the family grew, it was her children’s friends. Later, it became children, their spouses, and grandchildren. Some of her favorite games were Pit, spoons, cat and dog, and Rook. In all the years I played Rook with my mother I cannot recall her ever losing.

Every birthday was an occasion for a family dinner. In the winter it was in her family room and in the summer it was often outside at the park. She loved the energy of the group. She took great joy in seeing her children and grandchildren enjoy each other. When family members gathered around her bed last Saturday, she was asked if the noise and confusion was bothering her. She said the ethically, “No, I love it!”

Mother loved music and had a lovely soprano voice. We grew up hearing her sing, mostly church hymns and the folk songs and ballads that her father sang, interspersed with a few popular songs of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

On the frequent car trips back and forth from Henderson to St. George, Mother passed the time singing. As the miles stretched out over the Mormon Mesa we heard Johnny Sands, the Birdies Ball, Little Old Syd, When It’s Night Time in Nevada, Lamp Lighting Time in the Valley, Your Sweetheart Still Waits for You Jack or that other wistful and depressing cowboy ballad that starts out, “In my pocket I carry a pistol…”

In the mornings as she did her housework, she sang, “Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel.”

For many years, Mother sang in the Relief Society choir called the Singing Mothers. She encouraged the musical interest of her children and loved to see and hear her grandchildren perform.

Mother was a faithful and conscientious church worker. She taught Sunday School and Primary. She served on the Stake Sunday School Board and in the Relief Society and Primary presidencies.

She was never one to promote herself or want to be up-front, but when she was assigned to talk or teach she prepared carefully and prayerfully. When I was in high school Mother was the in-service leader in Primary. I was the pianist and then chorister so I attended her lessons. I saw her careful preparation and humble presentation. However, the indelible picture in my mind is of her slipping into her bedroom and kneeling beside her bed to seek the Lord’s help before each lesson.

Mother was a woman of humble faith who taught her children and grandchildren to rely on the Lord and trust his promises. If we ever expressed doubts about our abilities to carry out a task or assignment she was quick to say, “If someone else can do it, with the help of the Lord, you can do it too.”

She had an innate sense of propriety and a reverence for sacred things. She had no tolerance for anything irreverent, disrespectful or degrading and she let you know it.

Mother’s instincts were always to look out for those who needed help or encouragement. In her Primary service she volunteered more than once to take the rowdy or difficult class because she believed that the universal antidote to misbehavior was love and sincere teaching and she was successful at it.

In 1974 Dad retired and Mother and Dad sold their home in Henderson and moved to Orem where they could be near Sandra and Kerry and their families. Here she was able to again serve in the church, attend the temple more often, raise a bigger garden and become a Utah Jazz and BYU fan.

I had never before known Mother to take more than a casual interest in sports, but I soon learned not to expect to visit on the phone with her during a BYU football game. She’d take the phone call but the conversation was lopsided. I made a great mistake once while we lived in Portland. I called her just after the Portland Trail Blazers had taken a game from the Utah Jazz in the MBA playoffs. I think I might have been gloating. She let me know in no uncertain terms that “that Terry Porter was out to kill her Johnny Stockton!” Even during her recent illness, she was still watching and cheering for the Utah Jazz.

Mother always managed her financial affairs carefully. She could not tolerate debt and made the payment of tithes and offerings the first rule of her money management. Last Saturday, the afternoon before she died, she knew that the Social Security check had been automatically deposited in her checking account and she was concerned that the tithing would be paid on that fast Sunday.

The result of her careful management was that she and Dad always had resources to help other family members when needed and they did. At times it was obvious that she could have used some new dresses or other personal things. If we chided her she would simply reply, “Oh, I just don’t want those things.”

Mother was a very modest person and not given to showing open affection. But we never doubted that she loved us and our dad. For several years, Dad kept a couple of milk cows in a corral on the outskirts of Henderson. He loved his cows. He patted them and talked to them as he fed and milked them. When Mother wanted to needle him she accused him of thinking more of his cows than he did of her. Almost every night after dinner Dad would get up form eating, walk around behind Mother’s chair, lean over and kiss her on the neck. More often than not she would pretend not to like it, but there was always a hint of a smile in her eyes. If he added an affectionate pat, that was her cue-- “Don’t pat me!” she’d say. “You pat me just like you pat your cows.”

When Dad came into the house with grease on his shoes, or annoyed her with a mess in the driveway, she’d call him, “That Allen Black”. If his projects didn’t meet with her standard they were some “Joe McGee Outfit.” I, for one, never knew who Joe McGee or his Outfit were. But I knew they weren’t good.

On the other hand, Mr. Black, as she affectionately referred to him was her rock and her strength. There was never a concern or a problem that she didn’t share with him in full confidence that his was the best advice she could seek. And he never failed her. On the contrary, her security, her happiness, and her comfort was always the primary focus of his life.

Just three weeks ago I sat at her side as we watched Dad feel his way out of the bedroom. She turned to me and said, “You know, he’s perfect. He’s been the perfect husband and father.” Then she grinned and added, “I really believe that, contrary to anything I might have said or done.” A few days later as we talked about why she had married Dad, 59 years ago, she said simply, “I just loved him. I really did.”

Apart from her painful hips and hip replacement surgery a few years ago, Mother enjoyed good health and a life rich in the things she valued most. Since last fall she had struggled as her heart gradually weakened. Four months ago she was still baking bread and planning her summer garden. With her hand in Dad’s, Mother passed away at Kerry’s home in the wee hours of the morning, Sunday, June 4, 2000.

Our only loss, today is that she has temporarily moved beyond the reach of our sight and touch. Her love for us is eternal. Her concern for us has not ended. That love and concern may even be enlarged now because of her refined senses. May we live as she has worked for, and hoped for, and prepared us to live. May we honor her today and always by using her example as our standard to build upon until we meet her in the shining world of light is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.