Latest / Stories That Live In Us / Idaho: Unboxing Gems of the Past (with Jen Iverson) | Episode 76

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Idaho: Unboxing Gems of the Past (with Jen Iverson) | Episode 76 · Stories That Live In Us

0:00
Jen Iverson: Sometimes different people came and went in the band, but there was a core group of them.
0:04
Jen Iverson: They were called the Twilighters.
0:06
Jen Iverson: They actually played every Monday night for years I know at least 15 years, because in 1979 the state of Idaho gave them an award for Volunteer of the Year for playing you know, like 15 years in the Senior Citizen Center.
0:23
Jen Iverson: So they were together a long time.
0:25
Crista Cowan: Stories that Live in Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future.
0:33
Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
0:37
Crista Cowan: Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America.
0:46
Crista Cowan: 250th birthday.
0:46
Crista Cowan: You'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America Tales of immigration, migration, courage and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us.
0:57
Crista Cowan: So join me for season two as we discover, from sea to shining sea, the stories that live in us.
1:13
Crista Cowan: My paternal grandmother was born in a little town called Twin Falls, idaho.
1:14
Crista Cowan: Now.
1:14
Crista Cowan: She wasn't very old when her family picked up and moved to Los Angeles, which is where she was raised and she raised my dad, but so interesting to me that, as we get to talk about Idaho today, I have that connection to that state.
1:27
Crista Cowan: That's not the only connection I have to our story today, though.
1:31
Crista Cowan: My grandmother, after my grandfather passed, started to develop dementia, and so I would make a concerted effort, about every other month or so, to drive the 10 hours from Utah down to Los Angeles to visit her so that I could spend as much time with her as possible before the dementia took her from us.
1:54
Crista Cowan: There were times when I would be with her.
1:57
Crista Cowan: When she would be tired, her memory would fail, she would kind of start to fade out, and on one of those visits I pulled out my phone and pulled up a music app and decided to play some Glenn Miller big band music for her.
2:12
Crista Cowan: I knew that she and my grandfather loved to go dancing.
2:15
Crista Cowan: What I didn't expect was how her face would immediately brighten and how it was almost like her memory returned.
2:25
Crista Cowan: But her memory was from that time in her life and she would start to share stories again and I had found a trigger or a window into her memory that I used for the next decade.
2:38
Crista Cowan: As her memory continued to fail, I would sing songs to her, I would play music for her, and it just sometimes brought a peace to her that I really appreciated.
2:51
Crista Cowan: As a matter of fact, one of my last memories with my grandmother was I was down in LA on business, brought some friends with me to see her in her nursing home and we sang to her and it was just the most beautiful, peaceful moment to be able to spend that with her.
3:09
Crista Cowan: As I think about the effect of music on my grandmother, music is kind of like a time machine.
3:16
Crista Cowan: It can take any of us, whether we have dementia or not, back to a place and a time in our lives.
3:23
Crista Cowan: You hear a song, you connect it with a memory, sometimes you can feel the emotions and smell the smells and certainly it connects you with the people.
3:33
Crista Cowan: That is what our guest today has in common with my story of my grandmother, of my grandmother.
3:49
Crista Cowan: Jen Iverson is a Gen X mom of young adults and teenagers who loves family history and she has such a passion for making sure that stories get passed on that photos tell those stories, that she engages with the people in her life, the young adults and the kids, to be able to pass those stories on.
4:04
Crista Cowan: But how those stories have come to her is a story that she is going to share with us and the connection to music and the connection to her family.
4:16
Crista Cowan: You'll see it's a little bit of a time machine.
4:19
Crista Cowan: Enjoy my conversation with Jen Iverson.
4:22
Crista Cowan: So I'm so excited not only to have this conversation with you but to get to know you a little bit better.
4:26
Crista Cowan: Did you always have an interest in family history, or is this a new passion?
4:31
Jen Iverson: I think I always have.
4:32
Jen Iverson: I remember being a young girl, like 10, 11 years old, and I was the one keeping a journal and keeping every little piece of anything and gluing it into a book.
4:44
Jen Iverson: So I really always have.
4:45
Jen Iverson: But it wasn't until, like some experiences later in life, that really solidified my love for family history.
4:52
Crista Cowan: So you were one of those scrapbooker moms.
4:55
Jen Iverson: Well, yes.
4:57
Crista Cowan: I went through the scrapbooking craze as well.
5:00
Crista Cowan: It was a lot.
5:02
Jen Iverson: Although I never was like one of the moms.
5:05
Jen Iverson: I'm not crafty at all.
5:06
Jen Iverson: So I love to tell stories and write stories and I love photography, but craftiness is just not my thing.
5:14
Crista Cowan: Okay, so you live here in Utah now.
5:17
Crista Cowan: Did you raise your family here?
5:18
Jen Iverson: Yes, I moved to Layton when I was 17.
5:22
Crista Cowan: Okay, and so where did you grow?
5:24
Jen Iverson: up.
5:24
Jen Iverson: I kind of grew up all over.
5:26
Jen Iverson: My dad's family, my mom's family, are both from Pocatello, idaho, okay, but I was born in South Dakota.
5:31
Jen Iverson: As a child, I lived my summers in South Dakota and my winters in South Texas because my family owned a migratory beekeeping business.
5:41
Jen Iverson: What?
5:44
Crista Cowan: I need to know all the things.
5:45
Jen Iverson: Right, it just was something that happened.
5:48
Jen Iverson: My grandpa was in an accident and in the seventies he was ran over by a train, and so he ended up buying a beekeeping business in South Dakota and my mom and dad got married and then went out to help him and so, yeah, we lived there and did that life until I was like middle elementary school years.
6:10
Crista Cowan: And they had to move the bees.
6:11
Crista Cowan: Yes, because of the weather.
6:13
Jen Iverson: Yes, so they would produce all year long.
6:15
Crista Cowan: That's amazing.
6:16
Crista Cowan: I literally have never heard of that.
6:17
Crista Cowan: I went.
6:18
Crista Cowan: Something new every day.
6:19
Jen Iverson: My dad still has bees.
6:20
Jen Iverson: We have all kinds of honey.
6:22
Crista Cowan: That's so fun.
6:23
Crista Cowan: Yeah, so did your grandfather stay in Idaho.
6:27
Jen Iverson: No, he actually in the 70s.
6:29
Jen Iverson: After he got ran over and healed, then he bought that business and moved to South Dakota.
6:34
Jen Iverson: Yeah, and he stayed in South Dakota until he died in 2023.
6:38
Crista Cowan: Okay.
6:39
Crista Cowan: So did you have any connection to Idaho other than through family history, like, did you visit there as a kid?
6:45
Jen Iverson: Did you have yeah, so after we left South Dakota we lived in Idaho, kind of my middle growing up years.
6:52
Jen Iverson: My mom and dad were both born and raised there, kind of generational.
6:57
Jen Iverson: A few generations have lived there, okay so.
7:01
Crista Cowan: Let's see if I can remember this.
7:02
Crista Cowan: My great grandparents Nope, great great grandparents died in Pocatello.
7:08
Crista Cowan: Oh, really yeah.
7:09
Crista Cowan: My great great grandfather was the superintendent of janitorial services for the university, really yeah.
7:17
Crista Cowan: So they moved there when my grandmother was probably a teenager.
7:22
Crista Cowan: So she talks about visiting her grandparents in Pocatello, and so I've always had fond memories.
7:28
Crista Cowan: And then I went to school in Rexburg and so driving, you know, back and forth through Pocatello all the time.
7:34
Crista Cowan: That's a great area, it is a darling little community but it's obviously grown a ton.
7:39
Crista Cowan: But super sweet community and so you had this connection to this place that your parents were raised.
7:52
Jen Iverson: And were you raised with family stories?
7:53
Jen Iverson: Absolutely yeah.
7:53
Jen Iverson: I think I just was raised with a real sense of family.
7:55
Jen Iverson: My dad's family especially is very close.
7:56
Jen Iverson: My mom's family is close, maybe not so much.
7:58
Jen Iverson: Her mom died when she was 18.
8:00
Jen Iverson: So you know they had some hard years where my grandma had breast cancer and so it was hard for him, so maybe not quite as close but her great grandparents stepped in and really really helped him and helped raise those kids oh, that's lovely.
8:15
Crista Cowan: And then, how big is your dad's family?
8:17
Crista Cowan: Large?
8:19
Jen Iverson: My dad is the oldest of five and most he still has three siblings that live in Pocatello, and my great-grandparents moved there in I can't remember off the top of my head what year, but they bought a hotel out in Arco and ended up in Pocatello, and so, yeah, it was just.
8:37
Crista Cowan: Out in Arco.
8:38
Crista Cowan: I know where Arco is.
8:41
Jen Iverson: Yeah, my grandpa, my dad's dad, lived in Blackfoot, went to high school there and so, so crazy.
8:47
Crista Cowan: All these little towns in Idaho are so fun and they all have kind of their own little personality, which I love.
8:53
Crista Cowan: I dated a guy from Blackfoot once and so I've spent a little time there.
8:58
Crista Cowan: Like I mentioned, I went to school in Rexburg, Like yeah, like that whole little corridor of that part of Idaho it's beautiful and I just love the little communities so much.
9:07
Crista Cowan: Tell us about your great-grandparents.
9:11
Jen Iverson: My great-grandparents were Arnold and Fern Steed.
9:13
Jen Iverson: They lived in Pocatello, on the corner of Poplar and Jefferson.
9:17
Jen Iverson: They lived there for a good long time over 50 years and they were just wonderful people.
9:23
Crista Cowan: Did you know them?
9:24
Jen Iverson: I did.
9:25
Jen Iverson: Okay, yeah, I did.
9:26
Jen Iverson: My grandma didn't.
9:27
Jen Iverson: My great grandma didn't die until 1999.
9:31
Jen Iverson: Oh wow.
9:31
Jen Iverson: So I was pregnant with my first child when she died.
9:33
Jen Iverson: Yeah, she died in July and I had my child in August, so, but he died in 1985.
9:40
Jen Iverson: So I was eight when he died.
9:43
Jen Iverson: So I don't have a ton of memories of him, but I do have memories of him playing with his band and neighbors gathering to listen to him, and just good memories.
9:55
Crista Cowan: So I love that not many people I mean a lot of people don't know all four grandparents, much less to have known and had a relationship with great-grandparents.
10:03
Crista Cowan: That's really special.
10:05
Jen Iverson: It is really special, and I was fortunate enough to have three great-grandmothers alive for all of my growing years.
10:14
Crista Cowan: So is this particular couple on your dad's side or your mom's side?
10:17
Crista Cowan: My mom's, okay, it's my mom's grandparents.
10:20
Crista Cowan: And they're the ones who kind of stepped in and helped when her mom died.
10:23
Jen Iverson: Yeah, they are wonderful people.
10:25
Jen Iverson: I love that.
10:25
Jen Iverson: How many children did they have?
10:27
Jen Iverson: They had three, my grandma.
10:34
Jen Iverson: They just weren't able to have a lot of children, and she had one a few years after they got married, in the 30s, and then another one in the 40s and another one in the 50s oh my goodness.
10:40
Jen Iverson: So my mom has an uncle that's just barely older than her.
10:45
Crista Cowan: That's amazing.
10:45
Crista Cowan: I mean I can't imagine having children in three decades.
10:48
Crista Cowan: But well done her.
10:50
Jen Iverson: I can't imagine.
10:51
Jen Iverson: Either.
10:52
Crista Cowan: You'd think you were just about done.
10:53
Crista Cowan: You know, like your kid's going to be a teenager soon and then you have another baby.
10:56
Crista Cowan: Yep, that's a lot.
10:57
Crista Cowan: Yeah, it would be a lot, wow.
11:00
Crista Cowan: So what, like, as you think about time you spent with your great-grandmother, in particular because you knew her the longest did she share stories, was there, or was it just more of a like you know, living in the moment kind of a relationship?
11:16
Jen Iverson: spend quite a bit of time with her and even with my grandpa when I was little.
11:23
Jen Iverson: So I think you know I just have good memories.
11:27
Jen Iverson: She always had a record player not a record player, a cassette player in her kitchen and even long after my grandpa had passed she would put those tapes in and listen to his tapes.
11:40
Jen Iverson: I'm sure it brought her a lot of comfort.
11:41
Jen Iverson: So that music is is very familiar to me and she was just a good woman, very hardworking, very thrifty.
11:49
Jen Iverson: I mean every piece of tinfoil she was saving, every soaps she would, you know, mash them all together when they would get small.
11:58
Jen Iverson: You could tell she grew up during the Great Depression and she had some hard things in her life.
12:03
Crista Cowan: Yeah, that frugality not only very much children of the Great Depression but also just that part of Idaho too right Like that's my great.
12:11
Crista Cowan: my grandmother was born in Twin Falls and like she was the same way, like she used to take saran wrap and rinse it off and put it on the cabinet, the front of the cabinet, to dry, like little things.
12:25
Crista Cowan: Like you, you're like there's more saran wrap, but she just was going to use everything up and I always was, um, kind of flabbergasted by that as a child, but as an adult I can kind of appreciate it you can.
12:38
Jen Iverson: She was thrifty, yeah that's crazy.
12:41
Crista Cowan: So talk to me about your great-grandfather's music.
12:44
Crista Cowan: You knew he grew up or he played in a band, but was he always musical his whole life?
12:50
Crista Cowan: Did he play more instruments than just one?
12:53
Jen Iverson: So I remember him playing the drums and singing.
12:57
Jen Iverson: He has this really rich voice that is just very unique and just kind of booming.
13:04
Jen Iverson: So when you hear it you're like, oh, I know whose voice that is.
13:07
Jen Iverson: But he played the drums.
13:10
Jen Iverson: I swear I remember him playing the accordion.
13:12
Jen Iverson: My mom says, yeah, I think he did, but not in the band.
13:22
Jen Iverson: But I remember him gathering.
13:23
Jen Iverson: He always had his drums set up in his garage.
13:24
Jen Iverson: They had a detached garage.
13:25
Jen Iverson: His drums were always set up in there, set up in his garage.
13:27
Jen Iverson: They had a detached garage.
13:28
Jen Iverson: His drums were always set up in there and they had this overhang on their outside of their garage.
13:31
Jen Iverson: And I remember summer nights you know him and his friends gathering to play and neighbors would come and listen.
13:36
Jen Iverson: So I remember little glimpses of hearing him play and they would play in local malls and senior citizen centers.
13:45
Jen Iverson: They just went all over.
13:46
Crista Cowan: And did he do that as a career when he was younger, or that was just his passion?
13:51
Jen Iverson: He actually he kind of hopped jobs.
13:54
Jen Iverson: He worked for the Union Pacific Railroad, some he did woodworking.
13:58
Jen Iverson: He and my grandmother owned a little cafe in town for about 15 years and then he and my grandfather owned a dry cleaning store in the 70s.
14:07
Crista Cowan: So music was just his passion.
14:08
Crista Cowan: Yeah, he loved it.
14:09
Crista Cowan: I love that so much.
14:11
Crista Cowan: That's so fun.
14:12
Crista Cowan: This band of his.
14:13
Crista Cowan: Did they have a name?
14:15
Crista Cowan: Did they play together all the time?
14:18
Crista Cowan: Was it different?
14:19
Crista Cowan: People in and out?
14:19
Jen Iverson: of the band.
14:20
Jen Iverson: It sounds like sometimes different people came and went in the band, but there was a core group of them.
14:26
Jen Iverson: They were called the Twilighters.
14:27
Jen Iverson: They actually played every Monday night for years I know at least 15 years because in 1979, the state of Idaho gave them an award for volunteer of the year for playing you know like 15 years in the Senior Citizen Center.
14:44
Jen Iverson: So they were together a long time.
14:46
Jen Iverson: A lot of community events they did.
14:49
Jen Iverson: And was it their own music or were they playing covers.
14:52
Crista Cowan: They were playing covers.
14:53
Crista Cowan: Okay, your grandfather never got into writing music.
14:57
Jen Iverson: No, but I know of that would be really fun, but lots of catchy old songs that they were playing.
15:04
Jen Iverson: From like the 20s and 30s or all eras, kind of all eras, right in there.
15:10
Crista Cowan: I bet that was such a trait for the people in those living facilities too, right, I know when my grandmother was getting older she lived to be 96 and she had dementia pretty badly the last few years, but she kind of started declining into it later in her 80s and whenever I would put on big band music she would just perk right up and then her memories would start to flow Like she never was really in the present, but her memories from the past because of that music.
15:39
Crista Cowan: It was such a beautiful thing to watch that happen.
15:43
Crista Cowan: It was almost like, you know, there had been scales on her eyes and they just the music just caused them to fall away.
15:49
Crista Cowan: So music has such power and I love that he had the opportunity to volunteer that way and that he chose to serve that way.
15:57
Crista Cowan: That's a lovely thing, right?
15:59
Jen Iverson: It's a really great thing, and you're right, music does hold power.
16:02
Jen Iverson: It just builds emotion, and we still, you know, years later we can hear a song or something, and we're right back to that moment when it happened.
16:11
Crista Cowan: Yeah, so last November you were at your uncle's and there was some things that happened.
16:16
Crista Cowan: Why don't you tell us?
16:17
Jen Iverson: about that.
16:17
Jen Iverson: So I have an uncle who lives in a skilled nursing facility and every year my mom and I we kind of and my little brother will go in clean out his room, good, and decorate it all up for Christmas.
16:29
Jen Iverson: And he had this trunk that was under his desk that he could not reach he's in a wheelchair and so we pulled it out and sitting on top is this brown case of cassette tapes and we opened it up and I didn't really believe.
16:46
Jen Iverson: I wanted to believe so badly that it really was what was written on the tapes.
16:51
Jen Iverson: And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, those are.
16:53
Jen Iverson: Those are Grandpa Arnold's music.
16:56
Jen Iverson: And I just couldn't believe that we'd actually found recordings because not even two days before I had spoken the words, what I wouldn't give to hear grandpa's music again and then to two days later find this just treasure of his music.
17:14
Jen Iverson: Do you want to see it?
17:15
Jen Iverson: I love that you brought all this stuff.
17:18
Jen Iverson: I brought it.
17:19
Jen Iverson: I had to bring it.
17:20
Jen Iverson: All you know what it tells a story too.
17:22
Jen Iverson: I mean, look at my great grandmother's tidy handwriting on here Right, all of them.
17:27
Crista Cowan: Cassette tapes, and these were made in the 70s.
17:30
Jen Iverson: Yeah, 70s and early 80s, Like one says 1980, but I've labeled them.
17:37
Crista Cowan: You've labeled them, but she also wrote on them.
17:40
Jen Iverson: Yes.
17:41
Crista Cowan: And, like, before you had a chance to listen to these, did you trust that's what was actually on here?
17:47
Crista Cowan: My parents record stuff all the time and I never trust.
17:51
Jen Iverson: Right, that was my hardest thing.
17:52
Jen Iverson: My uncle swore that these really were recordings of grandpa and I just kept thinking there is no way, and so I hesitantly trusted and wanted so badly for them to be what they are.
18:09
Crista Cowan: That's their address.
18:10
Crista Cowan: Oh no, that's where it was.
18:11
Jen Iverson: That's oh yeah, so this says the Pocatello Mall.
18:14
Jen Iverson: So this she even made notes of where they were recorded.
18:17
Jen Iverson: That's amazing.
18:19
Jen Iverson: Yeah, so so great.
18:20
Crista Cowan: What a treasure.
18:22
Jen Iverson: Yes, absolutely so.
18:23
Jen Iverson: My uncle gave me the tapes.
18:25
Jen Iverson: He just said take them, do whatever with them.
18:27
Jen Iverson: Absolutely so.
18:28
Jen Iverson: My uncle gave me the tapes.
18:28
Jen Iverson: He just said take them, do whatever with them.
18:31
Jen Iverson: So I took them and, yeah, it kind of came home.
18:33
Jen Iverson: I couldn't find a cassette player.
18:34
Jen Iverson: In all of the neighborhood I'm texting friends, texting neighbors Do you have a cassette player?
18:40
Jen Iverson: Nobody had one.
18:41
Jen Iverson: It was Monday evening evening.
18:43
Jen Iverson: So the next morning, that next Tuesday morning, bright and early, I showed up, you know, box in hand, at the family search center in Layton and and they had a cassette player.
18:54
Crista Cowan: They had a cassette.
18:54
Crista Cowan: Did you know they had?
18:55
Jen Iverson: one?
18:56
Jen Iverson: Yes, I did know.
18:57
Jen Iverson: I've spent some time there working on various projects and I did know they had a cassette player.
19:02
Jen Iverson: So, yeah, I plugged it in, put the headphones on and what was that moment?
19:09
Jen Iverson: Amazing, like I just cried, in all honesty.
19:13
Jen Iverson: I put the headphones on and, it's funny, I don't even know how I picked that tape out of there, but the first tape I put in was a duet of my great grandparents singing, like just right out of the gates.
19:26
Jen Iverson: It was that duet of them singing and I just cried.
19:30
Jen Iverson: I stood there crying and I stood there crying and listening for two hours and the cute missionary kept coming up to me and patting me on the shoulder and bringing me chocolate and I was like they're happy tears.
19:41
Jen Iverson: It was just so special and so wonderful to hear their voices again.
19:46
Jen Iverson: Wow, that was great.
19:51
Jen Iverson: Had she always sung with him or was that kind of a trait?
19:52
Jen Iverson: She would sing along in her house and here and there when they would perform she would sing along.
19:58
Jen Iverson: But like she has a fun voice not definitely not like an amazing voice that you would typically hear singing with a band, right, but just fun to hear her sing.
20:11
Jen Iverson: I love that.
20:12
Crista Cowan: And what was the like?
20:13
Crista Cowan: I mean, did they record that intentionally to preserve it, or was?
20:18
Crista Cowan: Did somebody just record one of their performances?
20:22
Jen Iverson: They recorded a lot of their performances.
20:23
Jen Iverson: So I actually have 14 tapes, two sides.
20:26
Jen Iverson: I've digitized them all, but a couple of them were corrupted and they just were old.
20:33
Jen Iverson: But yeah, the background noise isn't great because you know it was the 70s and recording devices aren't what they are today, but still they recorded a lot and so now I have just a wonderful gift in their music.
20:48
Crista Cowan: Yeah oh, my goodness, I know I love the story, but I also I'm just super curious about how you went about digitizing those tapes, because I think that's like we have all these treasures, photos and slides and old eight millimeter movies, and like there's so many different mediums of stuff and our generation is now starting to inherit those things from grandparents and parents who are, you know, getting older and passing and downsizing, and so, like you know, how did you go about doing that?
21:17
Jen Iverson: So it's actually a really easy process.
21:19
Jen Iverson: If anyone has a family search center close to them, they have all kinds of things available to you for free.
21:25
Jen Iverson: All I did was I went online, made a reservation and then I showed up tapes in hand the sister missionaries or any of the missionaries there can tell you really how to use anything in the center and I just plugged it in.
21:39
Jen Iverson: And the hard thing and the good thing about digitizing a tape is that you can't fast forward.
21:47
Jen Iverson: About digitizing a tape is that you can't fast forward, so you just have to listen.
21:52
Jen Iverson: Basically, I had to listen to it because, um, sometimes though you know you're probably familiar with cassette tapes those little, all that film kind of gets turned and, yeah, as they age, you have to be really careful with them.
22:03
Jen Iverson: So I ended up listening to all the hours of the tape, which was fun, it was a treasure and I really love that time.
22:10
Jen Iverson: But yeah, they just have these tape recorders.
22:14
Jen Iverson: You plug a thumb drive into them and it automatically, when you record, goes right onto that thumb drive and then you're able to put it into your computer.
22:21
Jen Iverson: You can burn it on a CD from there, however you want to have it preserved.
22:25
Crista Cowan: Okay, wow, I had no idea they had cassette recording equipment.
22:30
Crista Cowan: I'll have to go check out our local family search center.
22:32
Crista Cowan: You mentioned hearing that first moment, hearing them sing that song.
22:37
Crista Cowan: What was the song?
22:39
Jen Iverson: Ma, he's Making Eyes at Me, stop.
22:42
Crista Cowan: I know right, Is that a song that you were familiar with already?
22:46
Jen Iverson: I remember my grandma singing it along to his music, so I had heard it, but I hadn't heard it in years.
22:56
Crista Cowan: I think I know the song.
22:57
Crista Cowan: Do you have it?
22:59
Jen Iverson: I have it.
22:59
Jen Iverson: Do you want to hear it?
23:00
Jen Iverson: Yes, okay, okay.
23:04
Crista Cowan: So you took the digital recording and what?
23:03
Jen Iverson: did you do with it?
23:04
Crista Cowan: Okay, so you took the digital recording and what did you do with it?
23:07
Jen Iverson: So I was able to upload one of them onto FamilySearch.
23:13
Jen Iverson: I can put more on there, but as a memory on there, yeah, so that whoever could have access to it.
23:19
Jen Iverson: And then I for Christmas presents because it was Christmas time, I actually made all of my siblings and, like my great uncle and some other people, I gave them thumb drives and, fun enough, there was a whole entire Christmas performance on there.
23:36
Jen Iverson: So, yeah, so here we go, monty made a wise of me.
23:38
Jen Iverson: Monty told my story.
23:39
Speaker 3: Monty's, all the more.
23:49
Speaker 3: That made my heart.
24:07
Speaker 3: I'll let you talk to God.
24:07
Speaker 3: You know he wants to love me, me Be my holy reaper and the man that he is calling out to me when all my children cry.
24:19
Speaker 3: Lord, keep your sleep.
24:25
Crista Cowan: He has a very distinct voice.
24:27
Crista Cowan: You're right.
24:28
Crista Cowan: Yeah, like boomy, yeah, and she just sounds like she's having a ball.
24:33
Crista Cowan: Right, that's so fun and that like how many instruments are going there?
24:38
Jen Iverson: You know what I don't know in this one how many are going, but all sorts of fun band.
24:43
Crista Cowan: It sounds like there's a lot of people there.
24:45
Crista Cowan: Was it one of the senior?
24:46
Jen Iverson: centers.
24:47
Jen Iverson: Yes, that recording is at a senior citizen center in Pocatello, Idaho.
24:51
Jen Iverson: I believe it was called Hillcrest Haven was the name of it.
24:56
Crista Cowan: Random that you know that.
24:57
Jen Iverson: I know I just remember that he walked around singing just randomly all of the time and so I was looking up on those tapes is just some incidental recordings of them playing games, and so it just gave me a little tidbit, a little view into what their life was like at that moment in time.
25:21
Jen Iverson: They loved card games.
25:22
Jen Iverson: And then also there is some like practice sessions on there of just him acapella singing, which I loved, because then it was just his voice alone which was really special are you lonesome tonight?
25:41
Speaker 4: do you miss me tonight?
25:45
Speaker 4: Sorry, we drifted apart.
25:49
Speaker 4: Does your memo restrain To a bright summer day when I kiss you, call you sweetheart.
26:01
Speaker 4: Do your chairs in your parlor Seem empty and bare?
26:08
Speaker 4: Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me?
26:14
Speaker 4: There Is your heart filled with pain?
26:18
Speaker 4: Shall I come back again.
26:22
Speaker 4: Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?
26:32
Crista Cowan: Oh, what a treasure to be able to have that, and so, as you gave that to your family, what was their reaction?
26:38
Jen Iverson: Well, I didn't wait until Christmas to give it to my mom.
26:42
Jen Iverson: That first day, after I came home from the library, I kind of messed with it a little bit, put it on the computer and then I couldn't wait any longer.
26:53
Jen Iverson: I just FaceTimed her.
26:53
Jen Iverson: She's literally five minutes away.
26:54
Jen Iverson: I was like you have to hear this.
26:55
Jen Iverson: Just tears, tears.
26:57
Jen Iverson: You know, to hear the voices of people she loves so much, who made such a difference in her life, it was just great.
27:04
Jen Iverson: But I didn't play them.
27:06
Jen Iverson: I didn't play any of the music or say anything really to my uncle, whose whose tapes they originally were, until we had his little Christmas party and then I just played.
27:17
Jen Iverson: You know, I had that grandpa's Christmas music playing as he came in and again, just tears.
27:23
Jen Iverson: Just those connections are so special.
27:25
Jen Iverson: They were his grandparents but they had helped raise him after my grandma died and so it was just so fun to see his reaction of hearing those voices.
27:36
Jen Iverson: That meant so much to him.
27:37
Jen Iverson: So it was great.
27:39
Crista Cowan: Oh, and then your siblings like did they get it?
27:42
Jen Iverson: You know, my little brother who's 18 months younger than me I think he got it but my younger siblings, of course they were so excited to have him and to hear him, but they were young.
27:54
Jen Iverson: I have a sister who's 10 years younger than I am a brother who's 13.
27:59
Jen Iverson: So they didn't know them as well as I knew them, and my family wasn't living there when they were young.
28:04
Jen Iverson: So I think it probably meant the most to those of us who really had great relationships with them, but it still was precious to the ones who didn't know them as well.
28:16
Crista Cowan: Yeah, that's always so interesting to me when you have a family that has just entirely different relationships with relatives.
28:22
Crista Cowan: Like I'm an oldest grandchild and I spend a ton of time with my grandparents.
28:27
Crista Cowan: I went and lived near one of my grandmothers after college.
28:28
Crista Cowan: I mean, just I went and lived with, you know, one of you know, near one of my grandmothers when I after college, and I mean just like I had these relationships with them.
28:35
Crista Cowan: My youngest cousin is.
28:37
Crista Cowan: She was born when I was 18.
28:38
Crista Cowan: And so I'm the oldest, she's the youngest.
28:40
Crista Cowan: There's seven, nine of us.
28:42
Crista Cowan: I don't even know how many of us there are there's.
28:44
Crista Cowan: There's a lot of us and, and she calls them something different.
28:49
Crista Cowan: Her memories of them are different, her experience with them.
28:52
Crista Cowan: Like when I knew my grandfather and grandmother, they were still young and working and and you know, they were only 50.
28:59
Crista Cowan: They were younger than I am now when I was born, right Like, and and yet she only knew them old, yes, and so again, like it's just such a different experience and yet we want so much to be the bridge, like we love these people.
29:12
Crista Cowan: How do we bridge that?
29:14
Crista Cowan: How do we share those stories?
29:15
Crista Cowan: So, other than just sharing the music, like what does that storytelling look like in your?
29:20
Jen Iverson: family.
29:23
Jen Iverson: Now their interest in knowing the stories and knowing their great-grandparents has definitely increased.
29:31
Jen Iverson: So, you know, we have conversations all the time because you're right that, as an, I'm also an oldest child, an oldest grandchild, an oldest great-grandchild, so we absolutely have different views and different relationships with our parents.
29:44
Jen Iverson: Even our parents, our parents are great-grandparents and our grandparents, and so it's been fun to share those things because we do remember them young and active, and I remember, you know, gardening with my grandma or my grandpa from the other side, like I lived close to him when a lot of my other cousins didn't have that opportunity.
30:04
Jen Iverson: So it's fun to share those little bits of information of a younger version of those grandparents where people in our lives and so things like music and photos can help with that.
30:17
Crista Cowan: Do you have family photos as well?
30:18
Jen Iverson: I do have family photos.
30:20
Jen Iverson: When my grandpa passed away in 2012, I became the keeper of my great-great-grandparents photo album, and so I have a bunch of photos.
30:30
Jen Iverson: Do you want to see my great Of course I do.
30:33
Jen Iverson: So this is Carrie and Abe Felix and Carrie Barnhart.
30:39
Jen Iverson: Okay, look at that.
30:40
Jen Iverson: Our maiden name is Carlisle.
30:42
Jen Iverson: I know right, this picture was taken in 1903.
30:46
Jen Iverson: And it was.
30:48
Jen Iverson: My mom thinks this is their house in Blackfoot, idaho, but where it was taken in 1903, I don't believe so.
30:54
Jen Iverson: They lived in Louisiana, okay, and so they were married in Louisiana and then they had two children there, but my great grandmother was born in Driggs, idaho.
31:04
Jen Iverson: So sometime between the birth of their second child and the birth of their third child, so sometime between the birth of their second child and the birth of their third child, they left Louisiana and they went to Driggs, idaho.
31:15
Jen Iverson: Okay, why Driggs?
31:16
Jen Iverson: I have no idea.
31:16
Crista Cowan: I mean, it's beautiful.
31:18
Jen Iverson: It is beautiful and I cannot figure it out.
31:19
Jen Iverson: I don't know what brought them there, whether it was work or I would love to know, but I have no way to find out, and then they end up down in Blackfoot.
31:28
Jen Iverson: Yeah.
31:38
Crista Cowan: They end up down in Blackfoot.
31:38
Crista Cowan: Yeah, they end up in area.
31:39
Crista Cowan: Yeah, okay.
31:39
Crista Cowan: Well, that's so great that house is.
31:40
Crista Cowan: I'm, isn't that fun?
31:40
Crista Cowan: Yeah, it's just so neat, right?
31:41
Crista Cowan: I'm always fascinated by properties and like to see does the house still stand?
31:43
Crista Cowan: Does it still look the same?
31:44
Crista Cowan: Yeah, that's um, my grandparents house.
31:47
Crista Cowan: The people who bought it demolished it and rebuilt, and so the last time I was in LA, I was just like I can't even, I don't even want to go drive through the neighborhood anymore, because it's not their house anymore.
31:58
Crista Cowan: It's not the same.
31:59
Crista Cowan: Do you get up to Idaho?
32:01
Crista Cowan: Have you ever done like a little family history tour?
32:04
Jen Iverson: I haven't done a family history tour per se, but we definitely get up there.
32:08
Jen Iverson: So my great-grandmother and grandfather, whose music we listen to, they're buried in Income.
32:13
Jen Iverson: My grandparents are buried in Income.
32:15
Jen Iverson: My grandmother on my dad's side, my great-grandparents on that side are all buried up in Shelley.
32:21
Jen Iverson: They were from the Shelley area, so definitely have people all over and I still have uncles and aunts and cousins that live up there, so we get up there quite often.
32:31
Crista Cowan: I love that.
32:32
Crista Cowan: What does it mean to you to be connected to Idaho that way?
32:37
Jen Iverson: It's just my roots.
32:38
Jen Iverson: You know I love the people who are there so much.
32:43
Jen Iverson: I love that state I have such fond memories of, you know, years spent vacationing up there with my family and my extended family and my grandpa, his family, vacationed to Island Park and up over in another area.
32:59
Jen Iverson: For years they vacationed there and we still go up there most every year to Island Park, to Buffalo Campground and fish the river and float the river and it's just really special to me to have those roots there.
33:15
Jen Iverson: Just a place that we've been going for years, for generations of my family, gets to visit there.
33:21
Crista Cowan: Do you think that will carry on into the next generation?
33:23
Jen Iverson: I absolutely do.
33:24
Jen Iverson: My children love to go up there.
33:26
Jen Iverson: They all make every effort they can to get up there with us when we go to go up there.
33:30
Jen Iverson: They all make every effort they can to get up there with us when we go.
33:31
Jen Iverson: And we still vacation with my uncles and aunts and whoever's available.
33:34
Jen Iverson: You know we still go up there.
33:41
Crista Cowan: It's like a little mini family reunion.
33:42
Crista Cowan: It is Absolutely.
33:43
Crista Cowan: I love that.
33:46
Crista Cowan: Well, thank you for sharing your family with us and sharing your love of Idaho with us.
33:49
Crista Cowan: Idaho also has a fond place in my heart, and so I always love talking to people about places that I'm familiar with, but I can tell how much they all mean to you as well.
33:57
Jen Iverson: They do.
33:57
Jen Iverson: I love them dearly, so thank you.
33:59
Jen Iverson: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.