These black and white photos of the Metropolis Hotel and Lincoln School were copied from a 2009 Wells, NV, tourist brochure. Metropolis was the town--now a ghost town--about 15 miles northwest of Wells where Randolph W. Fife met Mabel V. Erickson in June, 1917. (Story below.)
This is what is left of the Metropolis Hotel today. (Picture taken May 11, 2009 by J.D. Fife)
This is the Metropolis school where R.W. Fife was a hod carrier, then began learning the trade of plasterer when some of the plasterers walked off the job. He was also homesteading in Metropolis.
And this is what is left of the school. Other than the cemetary, where Mabel Fife's sister Hazel Hutchinson is buried (as well as Ira and Ellen Jensen of Gridley, CA, who courted and married in Metropolis and wished to be buried there), these two ruins are all that is left of Metropolis, which once had a population of over 1,500 people.
Mabel Fife, a young Ogden, UT school teacher, went out to Metropolis to spend the summer with her sister.
How did my mother and father meet? Here it is, quoted from the Randolph W. Fife Family History, p. II-14 (Published by McDowell Printing, Gridley, CA., 1984.)
"Two days after Mabel's arrival the Ward Teachers [home teachers, today] arrived for a visit, Harry Storey and Randolph Fife. Mabel recalls, 'I thought Brother Fife must be a married man, as he looked quite mature and wearing a mustache.' They stayed and chatted for quite awhile. After they left Hazel said, with a twinkle in her eye, 'seems as if we have some new ward teachers.' When asked why she continued, 'I believe they just wanted to meet my sister.' Hazel informed Mabel that Ran was not married. He was 5' 9 1/2 " tall, had blue eyes, light brown hair and weighed about 160 pounds."
Now there is a motivation for doing your home teaching! (Even to those to whom you aren't assigned.)
(I can e-mail these pictures, plus a few others, taken in Metropolis this past May, should anyone want them. Just let me know: jdfife1@cox.net.)
