My Monstrous Miller Hair

I love to do genealogy. I especially enjoy seeing photos of my ancestors to see how they looked when they were younger. 

However, I don’t have to look at photos of my ancestors to see them; all I have to do is look in my mirror—I can see my ancestors’ in my horrible hair. For I have the “Horrible Hansen Hair.”

My Mother and her naturally curly hair

As far back as I can remember, I was cursed with the “Horrible Hansen Hair!” 

Technically it isn’t Hansen Hair—it is Miller Hair as it is from my father’s mother’s Miller side of the family. 

My mother on the other hand, had beautiful, thick, naturally curly hair; while mine was thin, fine and absolutely straight. I can recall my mother trying to do something with my hair, but it defied all her efforts to train it. So she would end up braiding it. Then she would look at my father and say, “She has your mother’s Miller hair.” 

For my father’s mother was a Miller from Southern Utah. They were very proud of their heritage as pioneers who had been the first teachers, school superintendents, and educated people in the area where my father grew up. And they let everyone know about it.   But they also had the finest, thinnest, wimpiest hair in the West. And it started to recede from a man’s hairline when he turned 21-years-old.

There was nothing that could be done with the “Miller Hair” as my mother discovered. She took me to her sister, who was a beautician, but it wouldn’t take a perm very well, and then it frizzed instead. If you managed to curl it by sleeping all night on curlers, they immediately drooped and fell out. My mother finally gave up and I lived with braids for years.

My Grandmother Hansen

My Grandmother Hansen (from whose Miller blood I inherited the monstrous hair from) had hair that was thin, but she worked hard to keep it looking good. She was a very elegant lady, who dressed to the nines, and she wouldn’t be caught dead with her hair not dressed perfectly. All I had to do was look at her sisters with their thinning, fly-away unkempt hair to know what mine would look like if I didn’t work as hard as my grandmother.

 I am pretty sure my grandmother went to a beautician regularly, just because of who she was—a proud Miller, the captain of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers chapter, and very involved in town life.

By the time I was a teenager, I had decided that perms and short hair were the only way for me to go (long straight hair was not popular then). I couldn’t afford to go to a beautician to get a perm so I’d buy a perm and have my sister, mother, friend, or anyone I could to give it to me. Even when I married and Ed had to go into the military and we were living on air and dreams, I told him that perms had to be budgeted in; I couldn’t live without them, even if I had to give them to myself. 

All my life I’ve fought with my hair—with perms and keeping it short, and cursing it. All I had to do was look at my dad with his balding thin hair, and it would remind me what my hair was like and I’d go get another perm. I tried various hairstyles, but I had a round face, so I needed height on top, so leaving it long and straight or pulling it back into a ponytail just didn’t seem an option.

My straight-haired daughter and granddaughters

 Out of my five children, only one of my children, (unfortunately a daughter) inherited my hair, but long straight hair is popular, so she just goes with it. It has more body than mine, and she can do more with it than I could, so she doesn’t stress about it. Both of her daughters inherited it, (de ja vu), but they keep in long and trimmed nicely. None of my sons inherited my father’s baldness (thank goodness).

My mother's mother--Grandmother Hendrickson

My mother’s mother, my Grandmother Hendrickson, had thick hair, but I don’t know if it was straight or curly, as she died when I was about six years old. But I do know that in every photo I have of her, her hair never turned gray. It stayed glossy and dark even to her death in her sixties. That gave me hope that maybe I wouldn’t go gray early, either. (My mother died at 48 years old, so I didn’t know if her hair would have turned gray or not.) 

But I began to hope. Maybe if I had one bad hair gene, I’d be compensated with one good hair gene. And it worked. Here I am almost 70 years old, and I have very few gray hairs. My hair isn’t dark so the gray doesn’t show up. 

Maybe there is some justice in life’s genetic hair lottery after all.

"Love the Danes"

         Denmark is the land of my heritage. My mother was first generation American and she spoke the Danish language as a child, served us many Danish foods, and shared with us many of the Danish customs she had grown up with. My mother’s father, Peter P. Hendrickson, left America to join the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 20 years of age; yet he loved his native land, his family and friends there very much. His wife, Kristen A. Mortensen, also a native Dane, also missed her beloved native land and both taught their children about the land of their birth. 

         My mother’s sister, Ruth Hadley, served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark in the 1950s, and my brother Gary  served a mission there from 1961 to 1963. 

Denmark

       Denmark is a land associated with the sea; nowhere in the country are you more than 47 miles from the sea. Surrounding Jylland, the part of Denmark that is connected to Germany, is an archipelago of 483 islands that make up the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark, like much of Northern Europe, is wealthy, erudite, and liberal. Fewer than 3 percent of its people attend church, and Richard Andersen, a LDS Church Stake President in 1993 stated, “The Church’s biggest challenge in Denmark today is that we are an ungodly country.” Andersen blames the permissive laws passed in the 1960s. “Suddenly our country was affluent and wanted to show the world that our wealth gave us sophistication and understanding. So we passed laws allowing pornography, nudity on beaches, abortion on demand, marriage of homosexuals. Moral barriers fell all around us.”[i]

Gary as a missionary

      Gary’s mission in Denmark during those turbulent years was very difficult. During his two years there he baptized only one individual. One experience in Esberg, a fishing village about the size of Provo, Utah on the West Coast of Denmark, changed Gary’s attitude about his mission, Denmark, and life. 

     Gary had been in Esberg three months and was very discouraged; the missionaries had not taught a lesson or had not been received into a home for months. Gary and his companion wondered if they prayed and fasted more earnestly that maybe someone would listen to their message. They called the mission president for permission to fast; he gave them permission, but only for three days. 

       The first day of fasting was like any other; they tracted without success. The second day of fasting they continued to go door to door futilely. At the beginning of the third day of fasting, they knew their fast would end that night, yet that day was no different. That night they prayed long and hard and received no remarkable inspiration.

My Grandfather Hendrickson

        During the night Gary’s grandfather Peter P. Hendrickson (his mother’s father) appeared to him. Peter, who had grown up in Denmark and given it up only to join the other members of the church in Utah, stood at the end of Gary’s bed. He looked at Gary very solemnly; Gary could hear the silent words his grandfather was saying--that the only way Gary would ever be successful as a missionary was to love the Danish people with all he had and to look beyond their harshness. 

      “Love the people,” Gary's grandfather repeated. “Love the Danes.”

      When Gary’s companion awakened the next day, the companion told of how he had seen the nameplate and bell of a certain home in a dream and felt that it meant something special.

      The two companions prayed, then broke their fast. As they went out, they looked at the different streets carefully. Gary’s companion recognized the street he’d seen in his dream and they walked along it. Then he recognized the bell and nameplate. They had tracted out that area three times previously, but never stopped at the house. They rang the doorbell and a young woman came to the door. She allowed them to come in and talk to them.

      Gary was transferred soon afterwards and he never knew what happened to the woman and her family, or whether they accepted the gospel or not. 

       But the experience with his grandfather changed Gary’s life forever. He grew to love  the Danish people whether or not they invited him in, or accepted his message. He learned to love them unconditionally and appreciate their unique spirit.

       Even after he left his mission, his love for the Danes grew; he promoted everything Danish and Scandinavian he could. He began to celebrate an annual “Lief Ericksen” party on Columbus Day--to celebrate that the Vikings reached America before Columbus. He served as president of the “Sons of Norway” (a fraternal organization representing people of Norwegian heritage–there isn’t a “Sons of Denmark” organization).  He had a Danish foreign exchange student live with his family for a year.

    His daughter went on a mission to Norway and married a man whose family are as staunch in their celebration of their Norwegian heritage as Gary is of his Danish heritage, and Gary and his family have gone to Denmark several times. This fall Gary and his wife will return to Denmark as couple missionaries, and Gary's wife will be the mission nurse.

       Unconditional love is the key in all relationships; true charity that is concerned with the individual and develops a closer association is important. It accepts a person as they are, and loves them anyway. It doesn’t complain that they are not Italians, or Mexicans (or whoever would be easier to convert). Unconditional love doesn't give up if people don't accept the gospel right away, but loves them and accepts them despite it.

        Elder Russell M. Ballard said in October 1988 General Conference address (and probably more recently as well), “I encourage you to build personal, meaningful relationships with your nonmember friends and acquaintances. If they are not interested in the gospel, we should show unconditional love through acts of service and kindness, and never imply that we see an acquaintance only as a potential convert."[ii] Or as my grandfather, Peter P. Hendrickson said, “Love the People.”

---

[i] Florence, Giles: “Sea, Soil, and Souls in Denmark,” Liahona, June 1993, page 36

[ii] Ballard, Russell M.:“The Hand of Fellowship,” Ensign, November 1988,

The Courage Not to Gossip

                 My mother had a very soft, gentle voice, similar to that of Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy. She never yelled or raised her voice, which I always admired because I have a loud voice that carries a long way. In addition, my mother never criticized or complained about others, and NEVER gossiped about others; in fact she often complimented people and said kind things to and about others.

I recall that she went out of her way to be kind to those that others looked down upon or those who others felt were not important. She did not go to every baby or wedding shower, but if it was for someone who wasn’t “popular” or well-known, she would always be there. Perhaps it was because she had grown up as part of a poor, “immigrant” family whom others looked down on, she was very aware of those who did not fit in or who were different, and always tried to make them feel welcome.

                 Another thing my mother never allowed is gossip. If we nit-picked or complained about others, or gossiped, she would kindly but gently stop us and remind us that we shouldn’t do that. She was a very non-confrontational person who did not like arguing or disagreements, but one of the few times I saw her stand up for herself and disagree with someone, it was about gossiping.

Her visiting teachers were at our house, and somehow they began to gossip about another member (or situation) in the ward. Mother tried to turn the conversation back to the lesson or to something else, but the one sister kept talking about the gossip.

                Finally my mother gently but firmly told the sisters that she did not want to hear the gossip, and asked a question about something else. I was so amazed that my mild mother could be so blunt, especially when she was not gossiping—just listening. But I realized she was just living what she had taught us—she did not want to be around people who were gossiping.

              I thought of what President Thomas S. Monson said in a general conference talk in April 2009, “May I speak first about the courage to refrain from judging others. Oh, you may ask, ‘Does this really take courage?’ And I would reply that I believe there are many times when refraining from judgment—or gossip or criticism, which are certainly akin to judgment—takes an act of courage.”

My Mother Made Life Fun

My mother made life fun. We didn’t have a lot of money, but wherever we lived it was a place of enchantment. My earliest memory is of a smooth shiny floor in a narrow room. I was a very young child and my siblings and I took turns sliding across it on socks. Sometimes we’d take a towel, lay on it and ride it like a sleigh. It was a typical cleaning day, and after Mother had waxed the long, narrow living room floor, we helped her polish it by sliding across it. It was characteristic of Mother that she made a chore fun for us to share in and made our simple life amusing.

Our home in Monroe, Utah

 Mother made chores entertaining and work engaging, even in my earliest memories. There are photos of us in the front yard of the house in Monroe, Utah where we lived when I was three years old—with a big garden next door, with friends and relatives nearby.  I remember helping in the house and in the garden, but I don’t remember it being work.

 I do remember the house—the big living room, with the kitchen in the other end of the house. Next to the kitchen were stairs leading down to a dark, earthen-floored cellar which terrified me. I remember the rectangular hanging fluorescent light in the stairwell leading down to the fruit cellar—it reeked of a butcher’s store, a laboratory, or some clinical, unsafe inhospitable utilitarian place—not a portion of someone’s house. I’m sure Mother must have told stories about the fruit cellar to keep me out of it and those stories made the cellar such a scary place, just as her games made the living room a fun place.

Our yard with garden, me 2nd from right in front

My parent’s room led off the back of the kitchen, but I have no idea where my older brothers’ room was. My room was a tiny alcove off the living room with sunlight waking me up and mother’s bedtime stories wrapping me up in comfort. I remember setting the table, cleaning up after dinner, taking out trash, making my bed, all the common childhood chores, but they were done with Mother, singing and laughing. She made life fun, telling stories of her working during the depression, racing her sisters to the end of the row of crops they were weeding or picking.

Another memory of the living room in that house is of it darkened, and quiet. My brothers and I had measles and we were kept all together in that room so Mother could nurse us together. The windows were draped to protect our eyes and noise was shut out so it wouldn’t hurt our ears. I can’t remember how long we were sick, but I remember being excited to be included with my brothers instead of being kept apart as a younger sister. I must have not have been too sick, because I recall Mother having a difficult time keeping me still. I didn’t want to lie in bed. I wanted to do things, to play with my toys, but Mother insisted I couldn’t; I must lie still like my brothers.

My oldest brother was especially sick; I know he lost his hearing in one ear. I don’t think my other brother being harmed as much by the measles, but I doubt he was such a trial to mother as I was as an active three-year-old. There was not much you could do for measles in 1947 except isolate them and encourage them to rest, although most were probably so sick they probably just wanted to sleep.

Finally I remember Mother came up with a plan to entertain me; she decided to paint a picture of me. So I tried to hold still while she painted my portrait and told me stories. She only had a piece of particle board to paint on, but she painted me as long as I could keep quiet. Finally we got well and got on with our lives.

Years later I found that old scrap of a painting. It had never been finished, but was just a face painted on part of an uneven board. But as I looked at the toddler in the painting, I realized Mother had not painted me with the measles that I had suffered with. She had refused to scar my face with them, but painted me as she wanted to see me— happy and free from illness. She captured me as an eternally happy child in a home where we shined floors by sliding on them, and listened to stories that took the pain away.

Bryan & I

I thought I was too old to have any other children, and then one night Bryan appeared to me. With my eyes closed, I sensed a tall spirit with light brown hair standing beside me who told me that he was coming to earth to be our son. He seemed very excited and I knew he belonged to us. I was thrilled to have such a special spirit join our family, and knew he would add a lot to our lives. However, I was surprised that he was announcing his arrival. I didn’t realize that he was warning me!

Bryan has always been a tease. He loves to joke about everything, and his wit is priceless. He is especially talented in Improv—Improvisation, which requires creative thinking, clarity in communication, confidence, and humor. He has always used that wit with razor-sharp effect.

Even as a child, Bryan knew how to find my weaknesses and pull my leg. I remember how we’d be sitting in church and he’d walk his fingers up my arm; I’d cringe and whisper to him to stop before I went out of my mind. He’d look at me with pity and do it again. One Sunday after church I told him how sensitive my skin on my arms were and how that action of just tinkling the skin really made my skin crawl. I explained how when I was a child my younger sister had sat beside me in church and done exactly the same thing as he did—just walk her fingers up and done my skin, and I’d about go crazy. I’d start to squirm and wiggle until my parents would get after me. I’d try to tell them it was my sister’s fault for annoying me, but she’d sit there with an innocent smile on her face, glowing like an angel, and I’d end up sent to my room without dinner after church for misbehaving. BIG MISTAKE TO TELL BRYAN. Now he always tries to make my skin crawl by running his fingers up my arms!

Bryan always likes to tease me. Usually when I say something to him, he pretends he has mis-heard me; I say, “Are you on your way to school?” and he’ll say, “No, I’m not a fool.” And it goes on and on until I don’t know what I’ve said. Then he’ll laugh, wink at me and disappear before I can hit him.

Another problem is that I have OCB Obsession Compulsive Behavior—especially about always doing everything early, and to the best of my ability. Whether it is a simple school assignment or a favor for a friend—as soon as I’m asked to do something, I do it. Ask me to notify all the neighbors of an Emergency Preparedness Drill, and I type up a reminder, list all the information, decorate it with graphics, and even put some audio file on it that plays music. Then I’ll deliver it to everyone in the neighborhood by that afternoon with cookies.

Bryan has Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. This means he can’t complete an assignment if his life depended on it; if I sat on him until he did finish it, he would never turn it in—EVER! This means we had 12 years of cooperative frustration! I drove him senseless; he drove me insane. Everything I did to help him irritated him, and everything he did exasperated me. It is a miracle he survived high school and I lived through it. Maybe it was despite each other.    

But now, even while Bryan is attending college, he continues to exasperate me. He is very intelligent, but he does things in his own unique way. For the past three years Bryan has been performing at the Desert Star Theater, which does parody musical theater, and been performing with several improv troupes, as well as attending school full time. Last Christmas he went to Chicago to attend an Improv workshop at Second City, the quintessential improv comedy enterprise. Afterwards, he was tempted to quit college and move out to Chicago and try to make it big in theater there, EXCEPT for the fact that as Ed’s dependent he has a grant that pays for his college tuition. He told me he was sorry that he had that grant as it MADE him HAVE to go to college and get his education. If he didn’t have the grant, he could quit school, go to Chicago and make it big in the theater! I just shook my head! Poor Bryan, what a shame that he HAD to get his education! How sad that we had deprived him of his opportunity to struggle and wait tables while he waited for his big break!

This semester he completes his Associates Degree and is trying to decide where he will go to college to complete his bachelor’s degree. He also had to decide what he will get his bachelor’s degree in. He has maintained that all he wants to do is get a performing arts degree, no matter how difficult it is in that field.  We had suggested getting a bachelor’s degree in education and teaching in high school as a backup while he tried to make it big in the theater, but he ignored us. So as he was looking at and applying for colleges with performing art programs, we didn’t say a word. After the deadline for admissions passed, he came home one night all excited.

“Mom, in our English class tonight we wrote a memory of someone who made a difference in our life and I remembered Mr. Johansen. He was my Jr. High School teacher and the one that introduced me to Improv! I realized, after I wrote that paper, I would really like to be a high school teacher, teaching Creative Writing and Drama.”

I looked at Bryan, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head; I thought I would pass out. Then I stopped and quickly looked at Bryan as he started to walk out the room. He looked back at me and winked!

I Recognized Death's Shadow

My life changed when I was nine years old. I learned about death and suddenly my life was no longer secure, but frightening and uneasy. I realized how easily death could change the rhythms of my life; forever afterwards I waited for death’s scythe to strike. 

Mom & Will 1953

In February of that year—1953—my mother gave birth to my youngest brother, Bill. During her pregnancy she had had strange unsettling, prophetic dreams that the baby would not be able to speak, but quack like a duck. This bothered her and she prayed continually that the baby would be all right. She felt that something was wrong with his mouth and that he wouldn’t be able to speak correctly. One night after she had prayed for weeks that he’d be all right, she suddenly had a feeling of peace come over her and she knew he would be okay. When he was born, he was “tongue-tied” and the doctor had to cut the tissue that constricted his tongue. Afterwards he was fine. My mother felt that her dreams had warned her of difficulties in his development that her prayers had prevented, and that his “tongue-tied” problems were all that were left of these developmental abnormalities. [i]

Beth & Darl in Monticello 1949

Afterwards, my mother started having prophetic “warnings” that something was going to happen to people. She would be doing something and suddenly look down and she would see a coffin; soon after she would hear of someone’s death. Mother had always had a special sense of ESP, but previously it was always to help others. When I was five years old we were living on a dry farm 12 miles out of Monticello, Utah. One day I was playing out in the fields with my older brothers when I cut my foot deeply on a metal corner of a farm cart. Even though Mother was at the house somehow she knew I was hurt, where I was and reached us almost immediately after it happened. She was able to stop the bleeding, and carried me back to the house. She quickly drove us to Monticello to the doctor for stitches, but he was in Colorado for the day, so the nurse wrapped up the deep cut so it looked like I had a club foot; I still have a scar.

Ingeborg & sons

Another time in Monticello my mother’s older sister Ingeborg was dying of breast cancer in Brigham City. Because there was no telephone out on the farm where we lived, Mother was worried we wouldn’t get word of Ingeborg’s death in time to drive to Brigham City. But right after Ingeborg died, she appeared to Mother and told mother that she had died; Mother got up and had everything ready so they could leave immediately when they received the telegram from Monticello later that day.[ii]

However, these “warnings” of death that mother foresaw after Bill’s birth were disturbing. She told me about them, and said that because they served no purpose, but only upset her, she prayed and prayed they would go away.

But a foreshadowing—an unease that something was wrong—never left her. During her pregnancy she had noticed a lump in her breast, but she ignored it. She did not want to consider the implication that it might be cancer because her older sister Ingeborg had died of breast cancer, and her younger sister Ruth had also lost a breast to cancer. Just the thought that she, too, might have the disease was too frightening.

However, as much as she wanted to deny it, in the beginning of the summer she finally gave in to my father’s plea to go to the doctor to see about the lump in her breast. At that time the standard procedure was to do a biopsy and if the biopsy showed cancer, they would do a mastectomy immediately, without bringing the patient out of anesthesia. I hadn’t even known my mother was going in for a biopsy that morning, but that afternoon my father told me she had breast cancer and they were afraid she was going to die.

At first I thought Dad was just exaggerating as he usually did. Aunt Ruth, who was closest to Mother in age and who had lived with us a few times, had had breast cancer, but she was still alive—in fact she was presently serving a mission in Denmark. Yet I also remembered Aunt Ingeborg, who had died of breast cancer a few years earlier. My grandmother Hendrickson, mother’s mother, had just died, but they had said she had heart problems as well as cancer. I couldn’t see why mother had to die right away like Dad was saying.

But late that evening our neighbor Mrs. Mann came by after Dad had gone back to the hospital. She hugged me tightly as she told us how she had been sitting with mother in the hospital after the surgery. She said Mother had suddenly stopped breathing and turned gray. She said Mother had died! Mrs. Mann had panicked, screamed and called for the nurses. Just then one of the general authorities walked in the room. He said he felt that someone in that room needed a blessing and he immediately administered to Mother. Mother gasped and began to breathe just as the nurse came rushing in.

The nurse yelled for help as she said mother was having a problem with the after-effects of the anesthesia because of her asthma. Mrs. Mann said a bunch of nurses and doctors surrounded mom and worked on her and she recovered consciousness. During that time the general authority quietly left. I don’t know who the general authority was who administered to mom was, but Mrs. Mann and others told me later of the veracity of the miracle that brought mother back to life. Mrs. Mann also said the general authority promised Mother that she would have one more child, (and she did, Ann, born three and a half years later, a year before she had a second recurrence of the breast cancer—in the other breast.)[iii]

Mother was in the hospital for several weeks, and we couldn’t visit her. I worried, imagining what had happened to her—what she looked like. What did a person look like who had died? Was her skin still white and ghostly? Why wouldn’t they let us see her? Was she deformed and sick? Would she ever be well again? Would she always be in bed?

When Mom finally came home, Dad was always telling us not to bother her—to stay away from her because she was too weak, too sick. He was always reminding me to work extra hard to help mother, or she would get sicker and die. I would look at Mom as she lay sleeping and wonder if my real mother had died and this frail ghost had taken her place.

Mother never really recovered from that first radical mastectomy. Because the cancer was so large, they had removed a lot of muscle and breast tissue and her chest was concave. For a long time she was so weak and her “spirit” was gone. She laughed and smiled, but she was different. She was very self-conscious of her body and felt she was deformed.

More than that, I think she accepted the realization of her eventual death. She didn’t say it; she didn’t need to. I saw it in her face and in the quiet acceptance of her sorrow and pain.

Mother didn’t die for 11 more years after much more suffering and pain. But at nine years of age, I recognized the spirit of death that had entered my life that summer. I always remembered that time as when I recognized death’s shadow

---

[i] “History of Mary Jennie Hendrickson,” by Coleen Hansen Baird, July 1994, page 58

[ii] “History of Mary Jennie Hendrickson,” by Coleen Hansen Baird, July 1994, page 53

[iii] “History of Mary Jennie Hendrickson,” by Coleen Hansen Baird, July 1994, page 55