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| Bertha Clarice Copeland Inglish About Age 16 |
There was lots of laughter when I asked Ralph and cousin AP to tell me more about their grandmother, Bertha Clarice Copeland Inglish (1882-1977), whom they were very close to growing up. She was a hard worker, a natural at raising children, had a prolific garden, loved ice cream from Dairy Queen, and was an excellent cook (including at making a crowd-pleasing cornbread stuffing). Her hair was often worn back in a tight bun, and her eyes sparkled.
Here are some stories shared about her by Ralph and cousin AP (grandchildren of Bertha), as well as BR (great granddaughter). What more can we add here? Please leave a comment (short or long) in the contact form at the bottom of this page - we’d love to fill in the details of her life to get to know her better.
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Overview
Born in Telephone, Texas, on 25 August 1882, she was the sixth of nine children of Samuel W. Copeland (1835-1902) and Mary Ann McRae (1853-1899). At age 19 she married Earl Inglish (1873-1958) in Ivanhoe, Texas - he was 28.
Earl and Bertha had 6 children together, and by the time she passed away at age 94, she was survived by great, great grandchildren (would be interesting to know how many!) - 5 generations alive at the same time.
She and Earl were converts to the LDS church, and after passing away, both were buried in the City of Mesa Cemetery.
Early Years
Born in Telephone, Fannin County, Texas, Bertha loved to say that there wasn’t a telephone in the town at the time. Her father, Samuel Copeland, was a schoolteacher (1), and her mother, Mary Ann McRae, was busy caring for their 9 children and their home. (2)
When Bertha was 16, her mother passed away. With her father needing to support the family, he needed someone to help take care of his children, so they went to live with his sister. (3)
AP: Her mother died, I think in childbirth, with one of the younger children. And her father went to live with his sister. Her father was a school teacher, and he took his children and went to live with his sister. They owned a big plantation or something where there were a lot of workers, and they would cook the meals for the workers. She said that her cousins, the children of the aunt she was living with, they were kind of lazy and didn’t do much, but she stayed in the kitchen and helped her aunt all the time and helped her fix the meals for all the people that worked at this place.
She would tell us how they would go out way early in the morning to start working and then they would come in for breakfast, about breakfast time, they would get up about day break and do what they could before, then they’d come in to eat and always have a big breakfast of fried potatoes, eggs, and pancakes, and biscuits, the whole works. And then, they would just barely get the kitchen cleaned up in time to start the dinner. The next meal was dinner, and all the workers would come in hungry from the field and they would feed them. And in the evening, they would just snack on bread and milk and onions, something like that. … She mostly stayed in the kitchen and helped her aunt with all those meals. (4)
Courtship and Marriage
AP: [They met] at some dance, and somebody wanted her to come over and meet this fellow. I think he introduced himself as Earl Inglish. I can’t remember what it was he he said about why he was there, and she made some remark about he looked like one that the cat brought in or the dog brought in, something to the that effect....but it didn’t seem to deter his longing to date her. [Chuckles] She talked like she was a little bit smart aleck about it.
When it was time to get married - she was 19, he was 28 - it was a very common practice in that era that “they got in the buggy and rode to the justice of the peace’s home, and just sat in the buggy, he came outside, and married them, and signed all the documents and so forth and gave them, and they went on their way.” As far as AP knows, their parents were not in attendance and there were no witnesses, but we don’t know for sure.
Personality
AP: She really was kind of quiet. She wasn’t real outspoken.
RM: I would say she was opinionated but not overbearing or outspoken.
AP: Right! That’s it! Opinionated but not overbearing or outspoken, really.
RM: But she did get her point across!
AP: I never heard her raise her voice or get upset or mad at anybody or anything. She did get a little out of sorts with Granddaddy every once in awhile. [Chuckles]
RM: Earl! [Chuckles]
AP: He was quite overweight and he loved to eat candy bars. And sometimes I think he did it just to get at her. So he would sit and eat candy bars and he was real quite overweight, and she’d ask him how it felt to pregnant all of the time. [Chuckles] The more she fussed at him about those kinds of things, the more he did it. [Chuckles]
Daily Life
AP: She was a very good cook. You never wasted a thing. When you set a dish on the table to be served, if there was anything left in the bowl, even just a little bit, it got put away in the refrigerator and it came out at that next meal. And so besides whatever she fixed for that meal, we would have all these little dishes of leftovers.
She was always big on having a big breakfast. She would do biscuits and pancakes and toast...we always had something of that sort, along with eggs and bacon and sometimes potatoes or cooked cereal, cream of wheat or oatmeal or cracked wheat, something like that.
A Hard Worker and Always Active
AP: She was [a very hard worker]. All of her life she gardened and was very active. When Uncle Ray finally built a new home for them, kind of up the street from the ward building, and there was a little park right there next to the ward building, she would go out and take her walk around that park every morning.
Her Grandchildren Growing Up Near Her
AP: I did live with her in high school. My family was living in Phoenix, and I went back to live with Grandmother in Mesa so I could attend Mesa High School…. But as a child growing up, we didn’t necessarily live with them, but we spent a lot of time at their place.
They lived in a little section of Mesa that we used to call “Little Jerusalem” [which has since been torn down and built as condos for temple workers] because it it was just a bunch of little houses built by the LDS people, and the house that Grandmother and Granddaddy lived in looked just like the houses in Jerusalem. It was sparse, two-story, had two rooms on the bottom - kind of a living room/bedroom combination and then a kitchen - and then there was one full room up above. And the stairs went up on the outside of the house, to the room that was up above. And at first there was no bathroom or anything; they did put a toilet underneath the staircase finally, and you bathed in the wash tub.
We spent lots of evenings there, Thanksgivings and just every little bit we were at Grandma’s house for dinner and playing around the yard there.
When they lived in this Little Jerusalem area, it was south of the temple, and we lived about a block north of the temple, on the other side of Main St. in Mesa, and if Mother was not at home, we were to go to Grandmother’s. And so, lots of time after heading home from school, I would walk across and I remember running my hands along the bars of the temple fence there. I was talking to M [her sister] last week and she was talking about how she would run her hands along the bars of the temple fence too! There were just little bars that go up and down. We would get a stick or use our fingers and run them along those bars as we walked by the temple on our way to Grandma’s.
A Natural at Raising Children
AP: She was quite the lady! When I went to high school and lived with her, I got a real education on how to raise children. She was always telling me how I should do it. Take your children to church and don’t let their feet touch the floor. Teach them how to sit on the bench and behave. She said if you raise your first children right then the others you don’t need to worry about. I learned a lot! I give Grandma credit for a lot of my skills and knowledge that I gained to raise my family.
She babysat children until she was I think 92...I remember our chorus teacher when I was in high school, she took care of his children and she took care of their doctor’s children. And she was up in her early 90s babysitting! The people that she babysat for loved her. They thought that she was the best, and so when she did have this stroke, the first thing they did was call the doctor she had been babysitting for.
She was just very strict about teaching children integrity, honesty, all those kinds of things to really focus on teaching children properly to grow up to be good parents. And she would say, when you spank your children, you should tell them, “I’m spanking you because I love you and I want other people to love you too. I love you no matter what but I want other people to love you too, so I spank you to know how to behave so other people will like you.”
KF: I wish I could call her up when I have parenting questions! AP: Yes, I’ve thought about that a few times too! RM: How would Grandma handle this? [All chuckle]
Teaching Life Skills and Life Lessons
RM: I think we were all aware of how fair she was, and how firm, how strict and firm, but fair. There was no monkey business.
AP: Right! You did not put your feet on the couch! You did not jump on the bed! I never allowed my kids to do that either! And now the kids just tear the place up! [Chuckles]
RM: She taught us to take care of the things we got.
AP: We grew up during the depression. When something got broken, you could not replace it! So we took care of what we had and used it for many many years.
AP: She taught us to be polite. She was extremely strict in some of these things but always taught us to have good manners. To say please and thank you, and respect your elders and all this kind of stuff. She was very quiet about it. She didn’t raise her voice. She was very staunch for things that were not proper.
As an example, there was an argument that Larry and I had when we were dating. My family was living in Phoenix and I wanted to go to Mesa High, so I had to live with Grandmother to be able to do that. So I would live with Grandmother during the week and then go home on weekends. I met Larry when I was a freshman in high school, and at about basketball season was our first date, and we dated all the rest of that year. Then I went back to Phoenix to be with my family, and he was living in Mesa, and so I told him, “I know that I’ll be coming back to Grandmother’s this summer because she had some painting she wanted me to help her do.” He said, “When you come, call me and let me know that you’re here, and I’ll come get you and we’ll go do something.”
So when I got to Grandmother’s, Grandmother didn’t have a phone but the neighbors next door did, and I was real close friends with the girl there. And I wanted to go next door to use the telephone to call Larry to let him know that I was there. And Grandmother would not hear of it. Girls did not call boys! When I look back on it now, I think most girls nowadays would have just gone over to their friend's house and used the phone and called. But I didn’t! I was told not to do it, and I did not do it. Even though I was over there visiting with my girlfriend, I did not dare call Larry and let him know!
The whole week went by and it was time for me to go home, and I was feeling sad because I hadn’t been able to make contact with him and let him know that I was there, and I was sitting out on the lawn in front of Grandmother’s house when Larry rode by on his bicycle. And he saw me! So he stopped. He was happy that I was there in Mesa. He said, “When do you you have to go home?” I said, “Tomorrow.” He said, “I thought you were going to be here for a week. I said, “Well, I have been, but Grandmother would not let me call you.” Well, Larry had kind of a quick temper. He just got on his bicycle and rode off. I was devastated! I cried and cried!
Before he had asked me this, he had mentioned his brother’s wedding reception that night and wanted to know if I would like to go with him to this wedding reception. And I said yes. But when he got mad and rode off I didn’t know whether he was going to come back or not! And I went in and cried to M. M was there and she was going to spend the night, and the both of us were going to go home the next morning. And I cried to M, “Grandma wouldn’t let me call him and now he’s mad at me!” Oh, I was so sad and cried and my eyes were all swollen red!
And there was a knock at the door and M sent me to answer it, and it was Larry. And he was standing there with his chin and his lip quivering, and he wanted an explanation. And when I explained to him that Grandmother would not let me go call him, then he realized it wasn’t my fault. We made up and we went to the reception that night. That was my first sad love argument, or however you want to call it! But Grandmother was very strict that way. You did not do those things that were improper! [Chuckles] And we did not cross her! When she said don’t do it, we did not do it!
Teaching Lessons through Singing Songs
AP: As they were raising their family, they spent a lot of time in the evening singing songs. They had a lot of cute songs! They would put famous poems to music, and then they would sings these songs. Mom used to sing them to us.
She had the song about the grasshopper, the grasshopper who once had a game of ball with a cricket who lived nearby.
“The grasshopper once had a game of ball with a cricket who lived nearby.
But he stubbed his toe and oh he [wept?] in the twinkling of an eye.
The cricket leaned up against the wall and laughed ‘til his sides were sore.
But the grasshopper said, you are laughing at me, and I won’t play anymore.
So off he went, though he wanted to stay, for he was not hurt by his [?].
But the great gay little crickets went on with their play, and never missed him at all.
A bright eyed [squirrel?] called out in defense, hanging from a tree by his toe,
[Not sure of the lyrics here] where that grasshopper was, but he [?] on his own little nose.
She would use that in teaching us - don’t get upset over things. Let it go, go play, or they’re just going to play without you. And we have sung that song to our kids, and my kids have sung it to their kids. In fact my daughter now says she’ll go play with the crickets and let the grasshopper do what it wants.
There was also the one about “The Nobody Man.” If we had done something and she couldn’t get to the bottom of what happened, then she’d start singing about the Nobody Man.
“I walked one day, a long long way, to a topsy turvy town,
But it rained all night and it [shined?] all day in the land of Upside Down ...
And it goes on to tell about why he is the Nobody Man and how he takes the blame for anything that nobody will own up to. When she had trouble getting to the bottom of the quarrel and whose fault it was, she would just kind of walk off singing “The Nobody Man”, and blame it all on “the Nobody Man.” She’d do that a lot! Sometimes she didn’t really say anything but would just sing the song and go on and leave us to ponder because we knew what she was talking about.
KF: Did either of your grandparents parents play a musical instrument? Were these songs accompanied by a harmonica or guitar or anything?
AP: No, I don’t think they played any instruments. They just sang the songs there. That was just what they did in the evening in those days, ya know, because they were living out in the middle of the prairie a lot of times. No TV, no radio, no nothing. And so they would just sit around in the evening and sing songs.
Happy Memories and Funny Stories
AP: She loved Dairy Queen. [RM: “I worked there so I would bring some home.”] And in between times she would go down and get some! When her and Mom and Aunt Wee [Juanita, Ralph’s mother] lived together, they always went nearly every evening to get ice cream at Dairy Queen. The neighbors all around there used to call them the Three Musketeers.
RM: I brought a quart of Dairy Queen home one time. We had some for supper, and put it back in the refrigerator. The next day, I asked her, “Can I have some Dairy Queen?” and she said, “We don’t have any. There wasn’t enough left in the quart to freeze it.” [She had finished it off all by herself!]
AP: I remember the day she got her hand in the wringer, in the old wringer washing machine. She was putting the clothes through the wringer to wring them dry to put into the next tub, and she got her fingers caught some way and it went almost all the way up to her elbow before we could figure out how to stop it. There was a safety handle there to release it. It was pretty red and bruised for a long time! I don’t remember whether she went to the doctor or anything. I don’t think she did.
Toward the End of Her Life
One morning she went out - we were talking about how her mind was really good. She was alert and didn’t seem to have any dementia, she participated in the Sunday School class that Sunday, and went out Monday morning and took her walk around the park and came in and was fixing her breakfast when she had a stroke. She lived for about a week after that but she was completely immobile and really didn’t know what was going on at all.... My daughters and I and others who were able there took turns staying the night and sometimes during the day to come and take care of her.
She babysat for a doctor there in Mesa who was very good - he was her regular doctor. And that doctor’s family loved her like their own. So he was the first person they called. And he told them, because of her age and the situation we weren’t to do anything, just keep her mouth moist, give her a little Jell-O if we could. Other than that, just let her relax and keep her taken care of. She lived about a week in that condition.
She passed away on 2 May 1977 and was buried in the Mesa Cemetery. She was 94 years old. (5)
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| Bertha's Gravestone in the Mesa Cemetery |
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Memories from BR, Great Granddaughter
Memories shared from MJ, Granddaughter
Here, Ralph's cousin MJ shares how Grandmother sharing wisdom and spiritual/scriptural messages; joining MJ for school programs; teaching her how to sew.
Here, Ralph's cousin MJ shares how Grandmother sharing wisdom and spiritual/scriptural messages; joining MJ for school programs; teaching her how to sew.
Recorded 26 October 2018
2:14 min
And here, Ralph and MJ share about Grandmother's pancakes and biscuits, Grandaddy with his hot drink, snuggling Grandaddy in his chair and his hearing aids.
Recorded 26 October 2018
3:20 min
Memories from BR, Great Granddaughter
One time when Grandma Inglish was visiting us, I was in high school, I asked how long her hair was because she always wore it in a bun at her neck. She disappeared then returned to the room and her hair was let down. It was all the way down her back. She was so cute.
She always traveled with a bottle of blackstrap molasses. She had some everyday. [Her build] was small and thin. I don’t know if she shrunk but I remember her being small. She had a mild [Texan] accent. Very mild. Her eyes sparkled.
She had the most amazing garden. Her sweet peas were huge and growing outside her kitchen window. Her vegetable garden was huge, out in back of the house.
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| Obituary for Bertha |
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| Newspaper Article about Mesa's Gay Nineties Club 20 Sept 1972 |
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| Funeral Program |
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Sources:
- Phone call with AP and RM, grandchildren, on 11 October 2015
- Text from BR, great granddaughter, November 2015
- Videos of Ralph and MJ recorded 26 October 2018
Notes:
- Did Samuel Copeland teach a particular grade or subject? Or did he teach at a one-room school house? In which city did he teach? AP has a copy of his teaching certificate. Note also: The 1880 United States Census lists his occupation as “laborer.” See "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFN4-BM7 : accessed 9 March 2016), Sam W Copeland, Precinct 6, Fannin, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district ED 29, sheet 498D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 1303; FHL microfilm 1,255,303.)
- The 1880 United States Census lists Mary Ann McRae’s occupation as “keeps house.” See "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFN4-BMW : accessed 11 March 2016), Mary A Copeland in household of Sam W Copeland, Precinct 6, Fannin, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district ED 29, sheet 498D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 1303; FHL microfilm 1,255,303.)
- FamilySearch lists Mary Ann McRae’s death date as 26 Jun 1899 in Elwood, TX. However, her youngest child, Arthur Bryan Copeland, is listed as being born in 1890 (after she had passed away?) in Telephone, TX. These dates then don’t seem quite correct. Was this the child she died in childbirth with? Or even, did she in fact die in childbirth?
- Which aunt did Bertha, her widower father, and siblings go live with after her mother passed away? AP thinks it was a sister of her father, but no sisters are listed on FamilySearch. AP thinks there was a set of twin cousins, children of that aunt. Or was it one of her mother’s sisters? Did her 3 younger siblings (Rosie, Hugh, and Arthur) and the sibling just older than her, Walter, join them also? Thinking on it more, did her widower father come as well, or did he work elsewhere while the aunt looked after the children? What city was this in?
- Does anyone have an obituary or funeral program for her?
