A Relative of Nancy Hanks Carries On

A Relative of Nancy Hanks Carries On By Professor H. R. Merrill I MET him the other day in my home town. With his head up, his hard hat mark- ing him as different among all the men on the street, the stubs of his arms shoved well into his coat pockets — I knew that he had no hands, — his face gleam- ing in the autumn sunshine, radiating light and optimism al- though I knew that behind his large, smoked glasses there were no seeing eyes, he was walking along a crowded street unat- tended. After our conversation, which lasted a few moments, I let him pass on unassisted chief- ly because his optimism and his assurance convinced me that he needed none. I had met Nymphas Cori- don Hanks, Cory Hanks, as he is called up and down his own state, where he is known and loved, many years before when he came to our high school without eyes, without hands and had given one of his inspiring talks. 1 had met him a number of times since, and I had read Up From The Hills, the book in which he tells his story, but I had never really had an intimate conversation with him. This time I was determined to know this wonder man a bit better; therefore, I hailed him. "Good morning, brother," he replied as he held out his right arm for me to clasp. I gave him my name. From his response I knew that his alert mind had jumped back through the years from one of our several meetings to another. He invited me to call upon him at the hotel, an invitation which I lost no time in accepting. For exactly a quarter of a century this man has walked up and N. C. Hanks, on Campus of the Brigham Young University, where He Was a Student Twenty-Five Years Ago

200 IMPROVEMENT ERA down the world in darkness, but beholding the light; without hands, but grasping many of the finer things of life with a firmness denied him in earlier manhood. ^Twenty-five years ago, in other words, in the fall of 1903, N. C. Hanks was a youthful, vigorous miner to whom the world looked unusually beautiful. He and his friend were working a mine on the western slope of Mt. Nebo, thirty miles southwest of Provo. It was November and the November sun made the mountain and the checkered valley below a paradise of color. About 11:30 of a sunny day, N. C. Hanks walked from the cabin to a point near a huge rock where he took in his hands a box containing 100 XXX California giant-powder caps which had been standing directly in the hot, November sunshine. The box was hot. Young Hanks, as he held it between his two strong hands, shook it slightly. A roar rocked the canyon as the caps exploded, each of the hundred being guaranteed to exert power of 300 pounds. In other words, thirty thousand pounds or fifteen tons of power were sud- denly turned loose between those two strong hands. Hanks was thrown back fifteen or twenty feet, but was not knocked unconscious. Both hands were blown off and his eyes were shattered. In his book, Up From The Hills, he describes his experiences. "I found myself lying on the rocks about fifteen feet from where the explosion occurred," he says. "I immediately rolled over and stood up calm, sane, and collected. My hands were gone, my eyes were blind. Darkness loomed. The blood streamed. Where my left hand should have been, sharp bones protruded as I raised it to my face. The wreck of my right hand was even worse, mashed like sausage. I was not in extreme pain. My face was smarting as if I had been hit with a handful of gravel, my clothes were torn and burned; in fact, most of them were gone. My body was bruised and cut, and flying particles of copper had played havoc with my eyes. My partner wept and beat his head. "From that minute on, down, down I sped, worse and worse, until it seemed that I would die. It began with a walk up the trail to the cabin door. The seat on the bed was a welcome place; the fire was made by my partner and the examination began. He opened my right eye with his thumb and finger. " 'My God,' he said, 'that one is gone.' "The left eye was next in turn. He opened it wide. 'Can't you see? That one looks good.' 'You are not lying to me,' said I. 'Look here, old man, if that one is gone I want you to tell me, and right here is where I will take my medicine.'

A RELATIVE OF NANCY HANKS CARRIES ON 201 'No, I'm not lying, I can't see where that one is hurt at all.' " 'Is it worth a chance?' " 'Yes.' "Then we had better tie it up and stop the blood, or this will soon be all over.' " Through that conversation shows the grit of the man. The details of that awful experience are told elsewhere. Of the waiting from 11:30 until after dark for his companion to return with the doctor, of the remaining over night in the little cabin, of the long trip in a wagon down the canyon, of the railroad ride the following day to the hospital, and then of the struggle after the operation — all are told graphically and well. But in it all there is no whining at fate — just this: "Until my dying day I shall thank the Almighty Creator for the last glorious look over the mountains and cliffs." For twenty-five years — all in darkness, many times more awful than mere physical darkness — N. C. Hanks has been like that: thank- ing God for the bright spots in his life and never complaining at the dark ones. Blind and without hands this man set out to build a new life. It was difficult and trying, but in his veins was blood that had overcome. He has delivered to young and old 5,654 lectures in all parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Hawaiian islands. He has crossed the continent 34 times, has visited Mexico four times, and Canada fourteen times, always revealing the silver lining, never the dark clouds which must, in spite of him, hover thick and black at times. He is the grandson of Eph Hanks, famous in the annals of the Utah pioneers and a cousin of Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln. Cory relates the experiences of his grandfather with pride. He got much of his information from one Tom Dobson, who knew old Eph well. "Eph never stuck," said Dobson, "when there was anything to do he did it." There's the blood which makes a man out of a fragment. But on the opposite side N. C. Hanks had blood equally determined. From his grandfather. Nymphas Murdock, he gets his first given name and along with it much of the Murdock grit. N. C. Hanks is in his forty-sixth year, but he is looking young. His determined optimism has driven back the years. He looks to be thirty-five. As he stands before an audience with face uplifted, one can almost sense the flash of the sightless eyes behind the smoked glasses and can feel that here is a Westerner; for his grit, his quiet acceptance of fate, his determination, his fine optimism, his keen appreciation of friendships make him more like the Westerner is thought to be than any finely drawn hero of fiction.