Searching for Cora Sue - 13 - Saltair and Dinner

Kate had arranged for BF to pick us up at ten. We dressed quickly, had our breakfast and were waiting in the lounge when he called in.

He had a very pleasant car - a 1909 Cadillac, series 3. The lake was 17 miles from the city, and
took just under an hour.

“Did you ladies hear about our earthquake earlier this year?”

“Only just that it had happened, and we didn’t really register the significance of the
place at the time, not knowing then that my sister lived here.”

“There were actually three earthquake shocks, and they lasted for only two minutes, on that
Sunday morning in May, but it certainly made its mark on us.”

“Were you or your house hurt in any way?”

“No, the only real damage was some broken dishes in the houses. We apparently are on a fault line
and the quake is attributed to the slipping of a huge crystal block along the base of our mountains, the Wasatch range.”

“Did you ever have one before?”

“Not in my lifetime. It was sufficiently severe to sway and rock the buildings and houses in many
portions of the city. I think some plaster walls showed cracks, mirrors were broken, and chimneys were toppled. But the worst effect was on people’s nerves, waking to the rumbling, with the floor
rocking and the dishes jangling and not knowing what was happening.”

“Were you still in bed when it happened?”

“As a matter of fact I was at the telephone office. The Bell building is one of the strongest in town, of reinforced concrete, but it shook with an undulating movement, as the floor seemed to move under the high chairs of the operators. The day shift had just come on deck, and the girls were badly frightened. The entire switchboard became a blaze of light, with everybody in town wanting to know right off all about it. It is claimed that 5,000 calls were sent within 20 minutes after the shock. As the Sunday force is much smaller than the regular business day force, anything like prompt service was a physical impossibility. So the information and chief operators and such men clerks and officials as
were in the building took their places at the board to help out, including me. The addition of men's voices to Central produced some confusion in the minds of anxious inquirers who thought others on
their party lines must be talking also, and refused to be convinced. Then such queries were heard as 'has the earthquake changed your voices to men's?' ”

We had a good laugh about that one.

It wasn’t long before we had arrived at our destination, Saltair beach. (pictured above)

“This beach was complete in 1893 and was jointly owned by the Mormons and the Railroad Company. It rests on over 2,000 posts and pilings.

“Saltair was intended to provide a safe and wholesome atmosphere with the open supervision of
Church leaders. While some of the other resorts in the area were seen as spiritually bleak, a young couple could visit Saltair without worrying about the gossip. Some criticism was pointed at the Church over the sale of coffee, tea or alcohol (all of which are prohibited by Mormon doctrine), as well as Saltair's being open on Sunday.

“This road, from Salt Lake City to the Tooele Valley and to Skull Valley, so it was a popular resting area for those travelling by horseback or wagon.”

“It certainly looks like a lot of fun,” said Kate, and I agreed as we got out of the car and made
our way around the various amusements. I hardly thought about Cora Sue all day, until we got back to our hotel at 4, and I knew that we soon would be going to meet her again.

Cora Sue met us just inside the dining room. She rushed over, and giving us each a little hug, she motioned for a big man, who was sitting at the bar, to come over. He was wearing a business suit, but he looked somehow sleek and untrustworthy. I judged him to be in his early 60’s - nearly 20 years Cora’s senior.

“This is my husband, Edward Allison Ulrey. And Eddie, this is my sister, Mattie, and her mother-in-law, Kate.”

He bowed deeply and then kissed our hands. Very much a gentleman, but somehow so fakey. I hated him from first sight.

“So pleased that you ladies could join us tonight. Our usual table is just over there,” he said pointing to one near a window.

So we sat down, and tried to relax.

“We have spent the afternoon at Saltair,” started Kate, “and had a wonderful time.”

“How did you get there?” asked Eddie.

“We were taken by Mr. Riter, who we met a few days ago.”

“Oh, old BF - although some of us called him BS behind his back,” laughed Eddie.

“He is a very charming man,” I said, “and he has been very kind to us.”

“I’m sure he can be exactly like that when he wants to be, but he's a very shrewd businessman and
wouldn’t give a dime to a starving man unless he thought he could make some use of him.”

“Oh, Eddie,” interrupted Cora who could see how upset we were getting, “let’s talk about
something else. Eddie was wondering if you might like to go to see his silver mine tomorrow?”

“That would be most interesting,” I said.

“And I could show you my jewelery collection. You might want to take a little keepsake back
with you for your friends and loved ones back home.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” said Kate. “You'll have to explain to us how you make your
jewelery.”

“Well, I won’t be giving away any trade secrets, but, tell you what, I will make a necklace for each of you when you're there. What do you say to that?”

“How kind, Mr. Ulrey. I’m sure we would love for you to do that.”

“Did you experience many problems in the earthquake?” I asked.

“Oh, what a panic. We had women running out of the hotel in their nightclothes. And some of
them were screaming and crying. Nothing was hurt - except for the odd few glasses that got broke in the bar,” said Eddie.

“Some of them thought it was caused by the comet,” said Cora Sue.

“Speaking of the comet,” I said to Cora Sue “did you read what our friend Samuel Clemens said
before he died?”

“You ladies are friends of Mark Twain? How come you never told me that, sweetie?”

“Well, we weren’t exactly friends. We met him once when we were still in high school,” she
said. “So what did he say about the comet, then?” she asked me.

“In his biography which was published last year, he wrote 'I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year , and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.' And then he died on April 21st this year, and that was just after the comet’s perhelion.”

“Oh, fancy talk. And what exactly does that mean?”

“It’s Greek, I think, and means when the comet comes closest to the sun.”

“Did you go to Mr. Barnum’s funeral?” asked Cora Sue.

“What? You ladies knew the circus man too? My goodness, so much I am learning about my wife that she never thought to tell me.”

“A few weeks before his death, Phineas gave permission to the Evening Sun to print his obituary, so that he might have a chance to read it. On April 7th he asked about the box office receipts for the day; a few hours later, he was dead. Phineas was buried almost next to Tom Thumb, and Grandma, who died a month before him, was buried very close by. I have decided I want to be buried there, too. I was surprised that you never came home for her funeral.”

“It was a long way to go, and I couldn’t see that it would do either of us any good,” said Cora Sue.

“I forgot to ask you before if you have any kids?”

“No,” she said, “Well, that is I don’t, but Eddie has a daughter that we see quite a lot of. Her name is Mary Ann. She’s married now and has kids of her own.”

“I have one son only, Frankie, named after his dad. He went off to medical school this fall. I didn’t think I would get over it, not having him around any more. That is partly why I went on this trip -
to stop thinking about that.”

“How is your husband?”

“He is well. Very busy. We hardly ever see him. Kate lives with us now. Her husband died a few years ago.”

“Where is it that you ladies live?” asked Eddie.

“Just north of Boston,” I said.

“And talking of Barnum, Cora Sue, sorry, I mean Cora, did you know that Mr. Barnum donated the
elephant he was so proud of and that it is the main exhibit at the museum at Taft College, which is in our town?”

“Tell us about him. I can’t even remember his name,” said Cora Sue.

“Jumbo,” I said. “Mr. Barnum called him the Greatest Tail on Earth. Don’t you remember how he   told us that he wanted to import Jumbo from England, and lots of school children there sent letters to the Queen, begging that she not sell him to America. But Jumbo didn’t start his life in England either. He was captured in Abyssinia in 1861, and then he went to Paris where he got his name, and eventually he was bought by the London Zoo.”

“I remember now. Phineas told me that he was a wonderful presence at the zoo, letting the children
give him coins and peanuts and English buns. He also allowed the children to ride on the howdah on his back”

“Mr. Barnum usually got what he wanted. I can remember what he said before he actually bought Jumbo. 'I had often looked wistfully on Jumbo, but with no hope of ever getting possession of him, as I knew him to be a great favorite of Queen Victoria, whose children and grandchildren are among the tens of thousands of British juveniles whom Jumbo had carried on his back. I did not suppose he would ever be sold. By this time Jumbo was 11½ feet tall and weighed some seven tons. But I offered them $10,000 and they sold him to me. Then I had to spend another $20,000 to get him to the States. But in the first year after I had him, he paid for himself. He brought in $1.5 million.'”

“How did Jumbo die?”

“It was in 1885, as the circus was loading the menagerie onto trains in Ontario, the tragedy
occurred. A portion of the fence that ran along the rail yard tracks had been removed, allowing the parading animals to descend a small hill and board the cars. Jumbo and the baby clown elephant, Tom Thumb, were ambling toward their Palace Car when an unscheduled express freight train roared toward the entourage. Seeing that Jumbo and Tom Thumb were in danger, their trainer, Scottie, scrambled down the adjacent embankment and shouted a warning. Jumbo sacrificed his own life to save the baby elephant. He swung around, wrapped his long trunk around Tom Thumb, and hurled him 20 yards away, with a force that cost the calf a broken hind leg, but saved his life. With no
hope of his own salvation, Jumbo took the locomotive head on, trumpeting the ensuing onslaught.

“Jumbo reached out his long trunk, wrapped it around his trainer and then drew him down to where
that majestic head lay blood stained in the cinders. Scotty cried like a baby. Five minutes later, they lifted him from the lifeless body.

“Our local Medford College, Tufts, where Barnum was a trustee and major donor, was promised Jumbo's stuffed hide, and the Smithsonian Institution, his skeleton.”

“What a palaver,” put in Eddie.

“The day after Jumbo's death, the process of removing his skin was begun. His remains were shipped to Henry Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, where the five-month process of dissection, mounting and stuffing began immediately.

“The hide, which weighed some 1,500 pounds, was meticulously stretched over a huge, padded wooden frame, and secured with 75,000 nails, until it looked like a living Jumbo. The taxidermists then repaired Jumbo's smashed skull and mounted his bones as a separate display.”

“And you’ve gone to see them?” asked Eddie.

“Oh, yes, lots of times. It was really funny when he arrived at the museum. After being unloaded at the junction of Highland and Willow Avenues, he was hauled to Tufts by a double team of horses. When that team proved unable to pull him up College Hill, more than 50 Tufts professors and students, aided by some local boys, completed the task. The museum is a two-story stone structure with a pitched roof and an arched, recessed doorway under the front porch. Since Jumbo was too big for the door, and the structurally vital arch could not be moved, masons worked
from below - removing several stone steps from the threshold and pulling portions of the brick floor in order to squeeze him through.”

By now we had finished our excellent meal, and it was time for Kate and me to go home.

“So, we'll see you ladies in the morning, then, for our trip to the silver mine,” said Eddie.

“What sort of time?”

“Oh, tennish.”

“I was hoping to go to the Cathedral for Mass.”

“Oh, Mattie, surely you can miss Mass once. This is a special occasion,” said Cora Sue.

“All right. I actually missed last Sunday too, so I suppose once more won’t matter all that much.”

So we went home, agreeing to meet at the hotel the next morning, and I, for one, was quite pleased
that the evening was over. My sister seemed more like herself again, but, I continued in my not so unreasonable dislike of her brute of a husband.