(still gathering photos)
VIOLA TRUMAN HANNIG NICHOLLS
Life History compiled by (daughter-in-law) Gerry Hannig
Florence Matilda Bowler gave birth to her eleventh and last child on September 22, 1917. It was a little girl and they named her Viola. Viola was born at home in St.George, Utah. Even though she had five sisters and three brothers (two of the total eleven children had died), there was only one sister -- Phyllis, and one brother -- Rod, who were at home when Viola made her entrance into the world.
Childhood was a fun and good time for Viola. She never was seriously ill with anything and as she was the baby of the family she wasn't made to do much around the house. This gave her rime to spend with her much loved dolls. Viola was definitely ALL GIRL.
The Truman Family had a ranch by Veyo where Viola was raised until she was seven or eight years old. But the ranch was sold and they moved to St. George because her father Albert Henry was very ill and wasn't able to run it.
Viola went straight from home and her dolls into the first grade. At that time there was no kindergarten but Viola did very well in first grade as she was a smart and very friendly person. Her sister Phyllis remembers seeing Viola perform in school plays. In one of the plays she was a yellow butterfly in a costume that her sister Mary had made.
At night they would use hot stones in their beds to help keep them warm. Viola has been accused of hogging the stones and letting her bed partner go without.
Something that is not very common in many families is being an aunt or an uncle and having nieces and nephews who are older than you. Viola had two nieces older than she was -- Isadora (Issie) Chadburn and Florence Cannon and she had two nephews who were just a few months younger than she was -- Truman Cannon and Alpine Chadburn were born in December of 1917, just three months after her birth. And even though they were her nephews and she was their aunt, they were very close. Viola also had a special love for her Uncle Francis (Bowler).
In 1933 Viola started dating Max Hannig. Max would be so anxious to see Viola he would go to her home in St. George and climb up the pillar on the front porch. Max doesn't recall that he had to ask her father's permission to date. They would get together with four or five other people and just party. They didn't go to movies and Max remembers of just one dance in Enterprise, Utah that they went to. They didn't do any square dancing though, just "regular dancing." Once they went with a lot of people in Max's pickup and his brother's car broke down. So they ended up taking 21 people home to Pioche over a gravel road, everyone piled into Max's pickup.
There was a pond east of Washington, Utah and Max would go there to catch goldfish and then take them into Pioche and sell them. Viola used to go with him and help him catch the goldfish. When they got to Pioche, Max would go door-to-door and sell the
fish for ten cents each while Viola went and stayed at her sister's Mary or Mable.South of Washington there was a field full of turkeys. In the middle of the field was a cot where the man who guarded the turkeys slept. Max and Viola would go and grab a couple of the turkeys and while the turkeys made all sorts of noise the guard would sleep through it all. They would then take the turkeys to Mable who would cook them.
Viola and Max were married May 28, 1935 in St. George, Utah. They were married quietly as they had no money for a big wedding. After having been married for only one month Max had a car wreck. They had $11.00 to their name and were staying with her folks. Max remembers that during this time that Viola had made 5 or 6 loaves of bread using the last of their flour. After the bread was done they went for a walk, came home, and found that all the bread was missing. "Ah well" they thought, "Viola could make more.”
A couple of months after they were married they went to Provo to get a truck full of tomatoes that they would take back and sell. They stayed overnight in a cabin without a bathroom that cost two or three dollars. When they got to Provo Viola saw the daughter of the man with the tomatoes hit some people with her car. One person was killed. This incident really upset Viola.
They were able to rent their own home in Washington for $30.00 a month. It had no bathroom but there was a half an acre of land. In July of 1935 they moved to Pioche and stayed with Mary (her sister) and Chet Elmer for a couple of months. Viola didn't work and Max did odd jobs until he went to work for Combined Metals. He worked there for over five years and earned $2.25 a day. No taxes and social security were withheld.
They rented their own place in Pioche for $25 to $30.00 a month and their power bill was $5 to $10 and they could get a bag of groceries for $2.00. Their first Christmas there Max got a bonus from work of about $70.00. Viola had a lot of fun going on a
shopping spree as money was usually pretty tight.Viola gave birth to their daughter Maxine on March 3, 1935. She was attended at home by Dr. Hasting and Nurse Mary Carmen. Her cost was $35. She was told to stay in bed for ten days. On the eleventh day the went for a walk and people thought that was
terrible that she'd do such a thing.When Maxine was a year or two old Viola and Max moved to Panaca where all of the houses had outhouses. They lived there for a year or so and then moved back to Pioche. About this same time Viola learned how to drive. She had been driving a couple of months when she and a friend decided to take their babies and drive to St. George over the dirt roads. They made the trip just fine even though Viola didn't have a driver's license. BUT, back then you didn't need one. Their car was a 1935 Ford and had cost $500.00 new.
Karl Hannig was born May 23, 1939. It was not a hard pregnancy but she was in labor twenty or thirty hours. Viola and Karl stayed in St. George with her mother because of Karl's health. When Karl was around a year old he got pneumonia. He had to stay in the hospital in St. George and Viola stayed right there with him. Dr. McGregor was his doctor and it all cost about $500. Soon after the pneumonia was over Karl had to have his tonsils out too.
Karl had ringlets and Viola just loved them but the other kids made fun of him and Karl wanted them cut. Viola did finally cut them but hated to do it.
When Karl was around four years old he got polio. He had to go to San Francisco when he was eight or nine for surgery on his legs. This was all very hard on Viola and it was also her first Big Trip.
For entertainment in Pioche, Viola and Max would go to the movies and go sit in the balcony. It cost about thirty cents to get in and they would pay an older lady to baby-sit for them for twenty-five cents for the whole evening. Sometimes they would just sit on the street in Pioche and watch the drunks go by.
Every year they would go on vacation. Viola would start saving as soon as one vacation was over for the next one. She really enjoyed going places. They went to Oregon, Yellowstone (National Park) and Mexico. On one vacation they were gone for over a week. They stayed in a motel each night, ate three meals a day, bought all the gas at 25 cents a gallon, bought souvenirs and did it all on $100.
Every evening Viola milked cows. She would sell a quart and give away a gallon! She'd also gather eggs. She went to work when both kids were in school for Dr. Fortiere and the hospital in Pioche. She also did volunteer work for the school lunch at the grade school.
Viola loved to embroider, read lots of fiction, sew for the kids when they were little and do canning. She went to Rod Chadburn's Dad’s place by Veyo to pick tomatoes and cucumbers and when she was sewing she would go thru the flour sacks to get the empty ones to make things with them. Viola loved flowers and enjoyed picking pine nuts, going fishing and having the family picnics on Easter at the Bud Collins’ ranch. The family always got together with everyone around and had a big party for Grandma Truman on March 17. They would have home made ice cream.
During this time of 1945-48 Viola would get really bad headaches. Max took her to Salt Lake City and had a spinal tap done because there was too much fluid. This helped for awhile but the relief didn't last for long. All of this kind of scared Viola because a
couple of her sisters (Mattie and Mable) had cancer. In the early part of 1951 Max and Viola were divorced. Viola married George (Bunk) Nicholls in October 1951 and lived in Pioche for approximately one year until Castleton closed. Bunk had been working there and with that job finished they moved then to Las Vegas. Bunk worked on the railroad and Viola went to work for Dr. Fortiere. (The
same doctor that she had worked for in Pioche.)In 1953 or 1954 she went back to Salt Lake for more surgery for the headaches. The surgery did help some. She still had the headaches but they weren't as bad.
During the next twenty years she went to work for the Hotels in Vegas as a maid and an inspectress. She worked at the Riviera, Tropicana, Horseshoe, and Fremont.
After Karl graduated she had Karl and many of his friends over. There was Jim Stewart, Nolan Barnum, Melvin Peterson, Dave Elmer... Viola always had room for one more. Karl married Brenda Ballow in 1958 at Viola's home in Las Vegas.
Viola and Mary Smith used to go shopping a lot. They'd mostly look for material and books. Occasionally she would go to Los Angeles for a couple of days and stay overnight with one of Bunk's sisters.
In Las Vegas Viola grew beautiful flowers. She had a beautiful bed of sweet peas and a good-sized grape arbor with very good grapes and she had some good fruit trees too.
Viola loved cats. She had one named Maling, a Siamese, that was there when she died. She also had a couple of dogs, one named Pee Wee and one named Socks. She had glass cats sitting around and even had some that she could stick into planters.
Professional baseball was a favorite of Viola's. She always wanted to go see the team in San Francisco play but she never made it. Once Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale were at the Tropicana and Viola went and bought a baseball and had them sign it for her. Hank Aaron was one of her favorite players.
Viola was a much loved Grandma. She had eight grandchildren in all. She'd make clothes for Karla, her oldest and only granddaughter, and take her shopping for plastic horses because Karla loved them so much. She made it fun for the grand-klds when they came so of course they always wanted to "go to Grandma's." They thought she was "really cuddly." You could "feel the love" that she had for them. There were always cans of nuts sitting around just for the grand-kids and there was always the
special Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners that Viola did every year.Karla once borrowed Viola's car to go on vacation to Yellowstone. She would not let the gas station attendant wash the bear tracks off the windows because she wanted to show them to Viola. Her family and friends felt that Viola was a "very loving and compassionate person. She never talked badly about anyone and saw everyone’s good side.
Karl and Brenda had divorced in 1954. On March 16, 1965 he married Gerry Marrow. They were married at Viola's home. Gerry and Karl would go over to Viola's on the weekends and take the kids to visit. They always had a good time because at Viola's
you had a "feeling of being with ones who cared for you and really wanted you there.’The first part of March 1975 Viola became sick. No one knows for sure if it was the flu, a cold, pneumonia, or what. But after a week or so she was put in the hospital in a comatose state and she never came out of it. She existed that way until the 27th of
May. She died in the morning around five or six o'clock. Her brother Rod preceded her in death by only a few hours.During the time of her illness this poem was started. It was finished after she died.
LOVE
Love is giving
You gave so willing, so completely
So unselfishly, so often
Love is sharing
You shared of your time, your talents
Your loved ones. Mostly you shared, your son, my husband
Love is caring
You cared when no one else thought it was important
You cared when I needed it most
Love is doing
You always did so willing
Never a doubt as to why
Love is being
Being there--Being you--Being kind
Being considerate--Being thoughtful--Just Being
Love is Death
The sorrow of losing you is hard to bear
Love is Eternal life
The joy of knowing one day we will meet again is love.
I Love You.
by Gerry Morrow Hang(Thank you to Phyllis Bracken, Max Hannig, Mary Smith, Emma Truman, Mike Grant, Karl, Karla and the rest for giving information.)
MAXWELL HANNIG
(not available at this time)
GEORGE LEVON NICHOLLS
(not available at this time)
Created: 15 Aug 01
Updated: 14 Sep 07
Owned and Maintained by Paul E. Price