What does a girl do when she's done riding a Mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Why, Dance, of course!

Alberta Kleinfelder Neilans wasn't, in my lifetime, anyone that you could ever imagine letting loose and cutting the rug.  She owned a radio, a small one, which sat on her kitchen table, and was perpetually tuned to talk radio. There was rarely music in her home.  When she was someplace that music was playing, she never appeared to be particularly stirred by it.  In fact, in thirty eight years of my life, I don't remember her even tapping a toe.  I have one picture of her dancing the obligatory dance with one of her sons at his wedding, and she was barely smiling. Church was the only place that she seemed to enjoy or embrace music at all, singing loudly to her favorite hymns, "The Old Rugged Cross" and "In the Garden".


So, then I read this journal, and discovered that, after a long day of mule riding at the Grand Canyon, the Daughters Courageous cleaned themselves up and put on their dancing shoes.  I thought maybe for a moment that Grandma just went along, but maybe stayed on the sidelines, but, no, she was right out there, dancing with a guy nicknamed Texas.  By the end of the night, Texas was calling her Peaches, and they were planning another evening of dancing the following night.


According to the journal, the girls returned from the mule ride, "dressed in their best bibs and tuckers" and headed to the Bright Angel Lodge for a dance.  Their mule ride added to their "appeal", and they quickly all found dancing partners.  Once the band at the Lodge finished playing at 10:30, the girls took their guys, Texas, Ralph and Herm, and headed to the "Well", which sounds like the local watering hole.  There they taught the boys the Beer Barrel Polka.  The following day they describe as a day of catching up on sleep and laundry, and preparing for their next evening of "tripping the light fantasic" again at the Well.


The group got a late start on the following morning, heading away from the Grand Canyon, but only after "Dr. Texas" helped remove some cactus needles from Miggles' foot.  The Daughters Courageous were on the road again.


There are no pictures in the journal of this day of the trip (hence no pictures on this entry), and Grandma didn't write home to tell her parents of her night of dancing.  No pictures of the guys they danced with, or matchbooks from the Well.  I wish I could have seen my Grandma having what sounds like so much fun.


I have to admit that I enjoy knowing these things about my Grandma.  She always seemed old and wise and stoic, and I always thought she must not have had very much fun in her life.  It's fun to picture her as a pretty, vivacious young woman, letting loose with her girl friends, meeting new people and enjoying herself.  I once asked her if she left any broken hearts along her way during this trip, to which I got the customary "Humph, I don't think so".  Somehow I suspect there was something she wasn't telling me!