Square Dancing Fiddle Player

My grandmother’s brother on my mom’s side, has been an interesting character to me. I always liked Great Uncle Bill, and his wife, Great Aunt Stella, but I can’t say that I always knew him very well. Recently as I have been researching my family’s history, I have again come across Great Uncle Bill, both in pictures and in stories. I found a cousin named Marlene, who had told a story about a time in Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunt Stella’s life when they lived in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Great Uncle Bill had worked for the Railroad for a number of years, and while living in Kemmerer, the railroad provided them with a beautiful place outside of town. It was a two story house and a bunk house and a little house just for the railroad car that they used every day. The bunkhouse served a dual purpose, becoming a dance hall when it was time to do Great Uncle Bill’s favorite passtime, which is dancing, and more specifically square dancing. They loved holding those dances, and usually had more than a dozen couples in attendance.

Marlene tells about the summer she and her siblings got to spend with Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunt Stella. She painted a picture of Great Aunt Stella cooking on the old wood cook stove the house had. For one of the dances, Marlene and her siblings got to help bake cupcakes for the dance in that old wood cook stove. She tells me that Great Aunt Stella could make that cook stove create the most wonderful things to eat. The cupcakes were frosted with green and blue frosting, which were met with mixed feelings at the dance…probably because of the blue and green lips they would create.

Great Uncle Bill also loved to play the fiddle and was an excellent caller for the square dances. Marlene always had such a great time, because she had learned to square dance, and was better than most of the adults. It must have been great fun to be able to keep up with the adults at a real square dance. And Great Uncle Bill could really play the fiddle. It was his passion. He had won many competitions and was a grand champion, several times over.

After emailing back and forth and reading the story Marlene posted on Ancestry.com, I feel like I now know my Great Uncle Bill and my Great Aunt Stella better. Great Uncle Bill passed away in December, 2005, and Great Aunt Stella passed away in December, 2009. Today, his birthday, Great Uncle Bill would have been 96 years old. I can’t help but think about how sad it is that the fiddle is now silenced, the dances over, but then, that is just on this earth. I’m sure there is room in Heaven for a dancing fiddle player like my Great Uncle Bill and his favorite partner, Stella.