As written by Wilma Naomi Gibson Kunz
Ivan Dustin Kunz was born in Bern, Bear Lake County, Idaho, at the David Kunz residence, which was the home of his grandparents, David and Mary Louise Jakob. Ivan was the first child of Ezra Louie Kunz and Vilda Dustin , Ezra having been born at Bern, and Vilda was born at Garden City, Rich County, Utah.
Ezra had completed a mission among his father’s people and others in Switzerland, and after coming home had enrolled in the Fielding Academy at Paris, Idaho, and there he met beautiful, blue-eyed Vilda. They were married in September and Ivan was born the following summer on 3 July, 1911.
Mother told me once that it was a wonder they both didn’t die from the heat as in those days they really piled the wool quilts on a new mother and baby so they wouldn’t take cold. Fortunately for us, they were strong and they survived all the heat and also the cold of Bern, for it does get cold there in the winter time and the snow gets deep.
During his childhood, Ivan lived in Bern, Pescadero and Blackfoot, and then when he was 8 years of age he was baptized by his father on 3 July, 1919, at Blackfoot, in the irrigation canal. He was confirmed a member of the Church on the 6th of July, 1919, by Robert Walters.
Now it so happened that while Ivan was growing up and getting ready to be baptized there arrived in Woolford, Alberta, Canada, a baby girl; born on February 24th, 1919 to Morgan S. and Clara Elizabeth Rice Gibson. She was not a tiny baby as she weighed in at somewhat over 9 pounds. She was the fourth child of the Gibson Family and the third girl. Since our children thought this was so funny, I thought I had better stress the fact that this baby girl was blessed on the 5th of April, 1919, just 3 months and 2 days before Ivan was baptized. She was blessed by Bishop William T. Ainscough.
Ivan went on to become a Deacon on the 8th of July, 1923, having been ordained by his father, Ezra.
On the 8th day of March, 1927 this girl in Canada whom I have so far forgotten to name, who was named Wilma Naomi Gibson, was also growing up and was baptized for herself in the beautiful font at the Cardston Alberta Temple, by Elder Heber W. Harker of Cardston and was confirmed the same day by Adam Gedlamen, also of Cardston.
Then on the 20th day of March 1927, Ivan Dustin Kunz was ordained a Teacher, by Joseph B. Jeppeson. They were now living in Yerrington, Nevada at Wabuska.
The years kept on rolling on and Ivan became a Priest on the 12th day of February, 1928, being ordained by Henry C. Jorgensen. Both of these young people kept on with the regular meetings and other functions of the Church. I have failed to mention that Ivan received his Patriarchal Blessing on the 16th day of June, 1917. It was bestowed by the power of the Holy Priesthood, by a great uncle, Patriarch Samuel Kunz.
Finally on the 2nd day of April, 1932, in the Cardston Temple, in a beautiful room with pictures of Christ and all the Latterday Presidents of the Church to date, a beautiful blessing was pronounced upon the head of Wilma Naomi Gibson, by Patriarch John F. Anderson, a wonderful little Scotsman whom everybody loved. Wilma was now 13.
The year of 1932 was also to prove an important one to a young man, now in Utah for some time, as Ivan was ordained an Elder on the 6th day of November of that year.
The previous year Ivan had been called as a Stake missionary, but had never been given a partner or been called by anyone to do any missionary work, so was not able to function in that capacity. However he kept on with his other Church assignments such as Ward Teaching and taught somewhat in Sunday School and worked in the M.I.A. for a time.
Meanwhile, up in Canada, Wilma was growing up, and the year after was promoted from Primary she was called to teach the Guide class (The oldest boys in Primary) and had 2 boys in her class, LaMar Purell and Doran Nelson. During the next few years she was Sunday School Secretary and Primary Secretary at the same time for one year. The Sunday School job she had for about 5 years or more, giving it up only when she left Canada, to her baby sister, Edra. She attended school there, participated in all the sports and activity it afforded and was either the Irish maid or the Negro maid in practically every play the MIA put on each winter after she was old enough for MIA.
Then in June of 1937, sometime after having had a dream about being in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City for conference, Wilma had the opportunity to go to Salt Lake so she did, and just as she had seen in her dream, she attended the MIA June Conference, with her cousin, Eleanor Bectell. Everything was just as she had seen it in her dream, even to the navy blue skirt and pink blouse she was wearing, and neither of which she had owned at the time of the dream. She worked for various people, doing housework and tending children and then on a fateful night, which just happened to be the 1st day of January 1938, she went with her mother to a dance at Covey’s Coconut Grove on 5th South and Main St. in Salt Lake City.
Ivan Kunz, in the meantime had been working for a number of years for Ed Madsen on South State Street in Sandy, tending ti his chickens and whatever else he needed done, and having a good time attending dances on Friday nights or Saturday nights at Covey’s in Salt Lake City, along with his sister Tekla and his brother Herb and all of their various dates.
Now, some may think this was just by chance, but I know the Lord had a hand in what happened at this particular time, because on the same night that Wilma went to the dance with her mother, Ivan took his sister Thekla there since she wanted to go and he had nothing special to do. In the personal historied of Ivan and Wilma the story of the meeting will be more in detail, meanwhile, suffice it to say, they met that night.
On the 22nd day of September, 1938, which was a Thursday, Ivan Dustin Kunz and Wilma Naomi Gibson were married and sealed for Time and Eternity by Elder George F. Richards Jr.. At this time he gave the newly weds a wonderful talk on the importance of the Church in their lives and the importance of the step they were taking, not only in their own lives, but also in the lives of their family to come. I am sorry to say that Elder Richards just passed away this spring, 1975, nearly 37 ears after our marriage.
Our first home was in Salem, Utah, though our address was Spanish Fork, and that is how we generally refer to it. We stayed there for 2 years (lacking 3 months). It was while there that our first darling baby was born at the Payson Hospital on the 20th day of January, 1940. Our Doctor was Dr. Merrill Lee Oldroyd of Payson and she was delivered at 11:20 P.M. She weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and was 19 inches long. This was a Saturday evening and after a long day. Jeanette was the first granddaughter on her mothers side of the family and the 3rd grandchild. On her fathers side she was the 2nd granddaughter as well as the 2nd grandchild.
Jeanette grew by leaps and bounds and when she was a little over 4 months old, we left Salem as work was slow there and moved to Sandy, with the folks for a bit as Ivan and Dad were both going to work up in the timber near Mirror Lake. Mother Kunz and Eddie, the baby and Loyal, the next youngest went up with Dad and Ivan and Wilma and Jeanette stayed in what his little brothers called ‘Little Chicago’. We stayed there all summer and it was a lovely cool summer, being just 5 miles from Mirror Lake and about 2 miles from Slide Lake, a lovely water lily rimmed lake with huge rocks from a slide on three sides of it. We used to go to the lake by leaping from one huge rock to another, Ivan carrying Jeanette in his arms as we went. Later we found there was a trail around and through the rocks, which was marked, but we didn’t find this out until the end of the summer. There were 8 to 10 families living in the area and all working for the Great Lakes Timber Company. Then a number of unmarried men lived in some of the cabins, probably about 9 of them of various ages, from 20 to probably in the 50’s as there were 2 rather old fellows there.
Our wash water and drinking water had to be carried The folks lived in a large cabin next door to us and we had a 7ft. x 14 ft. cabin to begin with, but Mr. Sweeney allowed Ivan to get some lumber from the sawmill and build us about a 10 x 10 addition to it. It sure helped having a bedroom so Jeanette could sleep and I could go on with my work without waking her. Ivan built a swinging door between the kitchen and bedroom and the place was really cute, rustic, yes, but we were very happy and the fact that we had each other and Jeanette made it all very special. Being raised in large families and growing up during the depression taught us both that the important things in life are people and families, not nice houses and the expensive things money could buy. Sure, we wanted a nice home someday, but we were willing to work for it and wait until we could afford it. The important thing was to have a family and raise them, the other things can come later.
Jeanette needed a potty chair and a high chair, so Ivan planed down tough lumber and made her both of these. We used the high chair for all the children except Dean and Carla, and it had really seen it’s day so we burned it. The potty chair I gave to someone after we got into our house where we had an indoor toilet, but I’m not sure who it was. In preparation for Jeanette, Ivan had built a crib with little dogs burned into the wood, which everyone of out children, 2 of Bernice’s children and some of our grandchildren have used. As a matter of fact, Eileen and Brent have it now, so their baby Jeime can nap in it in the basement on hot days.
During the summer in Little Chicago, it was so cool in the shade of the cabin I had to put a heavy coat and sweater on Jeanette and a couple of blankets over her as she took her naps out in the fresh air in her buggy. We had a big mosquito netting to cover the buggy to keep off deer flies, flies and mosquitoes and she would lie there talking to some of her toys which hung from the hood of the carriage, similar to the mobiles the little ones have nowadays to watch and play with for amusement. When I’d take her up to feed her, her little hands would be like a couple of little icebergs, but she was always happy and ready to go outside again. Ivan has always been a wonderful husband and father and the kids are really tickled when he gets home from work to play with them.
In the fall, the women and children are usually sent out of Little Chicago by the end of October, but the year we were there Verna Evans and Dorothy Nelson talked Mr. Sweeney in buying the food for out Thanksgiving dinner an letting we women prepare it, so we could all eat together instead of giving each man enough money to for his family’s Thanksgiving dinner. We had a lot of fun preparing it. Mother Kunz had had to come down before that time because Eddie and Loyal had to start school in September, and some of the other women had left also but there were 2 couples of newly weds, the Popes and the Jensons who were still there, also us and Verna and Park Evans, Dorothy and Reg Nelson. The other names have escaped me at this time for they were people whom I didn’t know too well. At any rate the dinner was really good and we had all we could eat of it. After the dinner and the dishes were done we played games for a while, so it was an enjoyable time. The next day the Rangers were there with instructions that we women be taken out the next morning at the latest as a storm could come and snow us in at any time, again I stayed with my folks until Ivan came down to stay just before Christmas. Then we alternated between his folks place and ours until he secured a job with Fur Breeders inc. a new company that was starting up in Midvale and which Ed Madsen and his wife were instrumental in getting going to make feed for foxes and mink in the area. Ed was now raising mink instead of the chickens he used to raise.
There was a house in West Jordan which belonged to Fur Breeders and the told us we could live there if we wanted to fix it up that much, so Ivan and his brothers papered the huge kitchen and the rest of it stayed as it was except for a little cleaning. It was an old house with 4 rooms and a back porch, also a cellar out back, plus of course the little house out back which in Canada we had called Mrs. Jones’s and they now days call “The John”, which little place was a very necessary part of any farm home. We were just above a large irrigation canal and 2 houses from the William & Ralph Gardners, who became close friends while we were there.
Just as we were preparing to move to this house, Jeanette broke out with the Chicken Pox and I mean she really broke out, even her mouth was full of them. The poor child was really in misery and before she was over them, My Grandmother Gibson passed away and was buried on January 19th, the day before Jeanette’s first birthday. Grandma Kunz came in to my folks’ place on Fern Avenue to tend Jeanette so I could go to Grandma’s funeral. The day after Jeanette’s birthday we moved to West Jordan and a few days later, Herb moved in with us.
He had married in the fall and has wife would not leave her mother to go live with Herb so he lived with us, as he, too worked for Fur Breeders, and they could both walk across the fields to work, thus saving a lot of money for groceries that otherwise would have gone for gasoline.
Jeanette loved to go grocery shopping with us, the only problem was we always ended up at the check stand with a lot of Wyandotte olives because she loved them. She also liked the pictures of the animals on cat and dog food, so we had to weed them out prior to checking out. Another favorite food was the tiny sweet gherkin pickles, which she was very disturbed about, when I took them away and wouldn’t let her have and more. She also love butter, straight off a knife or spoon or just a handful would do, whenever she was able to get it. When dad and I told her she couldn’t have any more butter, she’d give her spoon to Herb and say, “Unca Ub, Peas” and she would get it, unless I took it so he couldn’t reach it. While we were there Ivan got some goats and Jeanette loved them, but I didn’t. We had also had a goat whe we were in Little Chicago, ours’ was Suzy Q and the one the folks had was Betty Boop. They liked the milk, but to me it tasted like it had a sheep dragged through it; actually I guess it was dragged through the cousin of a sheep. It was a very happy day for me when we got rid of the goats, especially the Billy, as we were mutual enemies, and I detested feeding and watering him.
Herb gained his freedom that summer and that fall he got a job working at the Remington Arms plant in Southwest Salt Lake City (out where the AG & IGA area and the church garment factory is today, After some time there he went into the Airforce of the USA. By this time Ivan had started working for English and Bagby Inc. in Midvale and we had left West Jordan and moved to Sandy. Living on 6th East between 2nd and 3rd South in the old Jensen home. We lived in the north 3 rooms and someone else were in the other side.
Things were better for us now as I was where I could go to Relief Society and as he didn’t have to work Sundays we could go to church when we wished to. Also we weren’t stuck off in the fields away from everyone. Jeanette could even see her Grandma when she was out working in her yard, so Grandma had to ignore her calling her, or the child would have been running away all the time. When we would go to see them in the evening we would pass the Marvin Bird home and they generally spent the afternoons in the shade where we passé by them. As we would go along Jeanette would say hello to everyone she saw and the Bird family got a big kick out of it. They would ask her name and se would tell them, so they’d ask her how she was and she would say, “ I’se dist pine.” When she went to the elementary school, Mr. Bird was the custodian and every time he’d see her he’d ask her the same thing and they had sort of a game of it as no one else knew what they were talking about.
I don’t remember her teachers names for sure, but Jeanette was a good student, and plenty smart, and her teachers had her help the other kids who were slower because she needed something to do to keep her interest after her own work was finished.
To go back a few years, we moved from the Jensen place not too long after Reva and Ralph Bishop moved out because we couldn’t stand the noise from next door and I was becoming a nervous wreck from lack of sleep. Plus being pregnant and unable to hold any food down for very long, so we moved to 11th East (Sandy’s) and still between 2nd and 3rd South. This time we were in the Silberstein place, more commonly called the old Orton Home. We moved there in the late fall and on the 1st of the following February we went to the old Cottonwood Maternity ward and got us a baby boy, whom we named Marvin Gibson. This was the 1st of February 1943. Jeanette was 3 years old and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Gibson while I was in the hospital. The day Ivan brought me home he went and got Jeanette so she could help bring us home and what a happy girl she was to have a brother. On the way home she said, “Mama, Grandma Cook and this nother lady came to see Grandma Gibson, she sounded like a man, Mama, but she isn’t she’s a lady.” I said “ Was it Aunt Em?” and she said , “Yes that’s who it was, and she’s not a man.” This was my mother’s sister Emma who has a very deep voice for a woman. Marvin was delivered by Dr. Thomas E. Clark, who resided and still resides on West Main Street, close to State Street. He weighed in at 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 21 inches long. He was born on Monday morning. His birth certificate says at 5:20 AM, but I was back in my room by that time so I’m sure the time must have been 4:20, as I went to the hospital about 2:00 AM and was only there about 2 hours when he was born. He was a black haired boy with a dimple chin and a beautiful one at that. Both the boy and the dimple. The Cottonwood Maternity Home was in Murray and is at present Midgley Manor Rest Home for older people.
Marvin was a good baby as Jeanette had also been, so we were blessed. He was all boy and as he got a little older we had quite a time keeping him quiet in church. He seemed to think he could talk as well as the next person, though he wasn’t as bad as some kids I’ve seen. I don’t remember having to take him out, I just had to keep him entertained. ****** was the 2nd Grandson in the **** family but was the first to have the **** name which made his dad pretty proud. Dr. Clark once told me that my father-in-law had cornered him one day to brag about the fine baby boy we had to continue on the name of the clan.
Marvin loved to play in the water, as most boys do, every time Hugh and Jane Harwood would water their lawn Marvin would try to get into their yard to play in it. One day Hugh had come in quick and was going to hurry back out so he didn’t close the gate tight. As he started out again there stood Marvin, right up against the sprinkler gasping as the cold water hit his face and yet refusing to move away. Hugh ran out and got him out of it so he wouldn’t get drenched and brought him home just howling like the dickens, for his fun had been spoiled. Hugh and Jane and the Rawson’s on the other side of us had lots of beautiful flowers so I had taught Marvin and Jeanette that they were not to pick any of the flowers, they could just stoop over and smell them. Marvin as soon as he learned to walk would walk along the fence stooping down and smelling the flowers, but none of us ever caught either of them picking flowers.
Before Marvin was born, Herb and Ivan had bought 10 acres of land from Carrie Samuelson, (up on the county 7th East and Sandy’s 15th East) which they farmed and as they would come up to work, Marvin and Jeanette loved to come to the farm, too. One night Ivan was coming up to irrigate and Marvin cried so hard to come too, that his dad told him he could come if he would stay in the car. He said he would, so his dad rolled up the window enough that he was sure he couldn’t climb through them, and he went out to do the watering. All of a sudden he heard a funny splashing sound and looked around to find 1 ½ year old Marvin right in the ditch behind him, doing exactly what he had seen his dad do, patting down the dirt in the rows he didn’t want watered yet, so water wouldn’t come down the row. He wondered how he got out of the car and so he looked and there was the window rolled all the way down. That was the last time he came to help daddy water unless Mama came along as well. The amazing thing was he had only been walking about three months at the time.
That summer, about the end of July or first of August, our landlord came and asked if we could be out of the house in 2 weeks as he and his wife wished to move into it. At that time there were no houses to be had as it was wartime and no one was allowed to build a house out of new material at least. I told him we had some land we wanted to build on eventually, but for the time being we certainly couldn’t do so and be out that soon. He then told me he would give us 6 weeks to be out of the house because he would definitely have to have it by then. I told him we would see what we could do, so when Ivan came home I told hem Mr. Silberstein wanted his house in 6 weeks so what would we do?
Like he said there was only one thing to do and that was to build us a small house or double garage on the farm and move in as quickly as possible. He managed to find an old building in Orem that had to be torn down and he bought the lumber in it. He also had to buy use doors and windows as all new lumber was froze for the duration of the war for anything except barns or chicken coops et. He then checked on the price of cinder blocks and we decided to build out that and to build a double garage. At first it was to be a 10 foot x 20 foot structure, temporarily divided into 3 rooms, but I couldn’t quite go along with that. I knew that for a very small sum more we could build a 20 x 24 foot structure and then we could have a bathroom with a shower, washbasin and toilet, (all used of course as they were not making any new ones). So, I finally won out and we got to work and Ivan measured off the area for the house and cleared all the alfalfa off it and started building forms. On the 23 of August we poured the forms for the cinder blocks to rest on with the help of Jane and Hugh Harwood. It was a big job and my dad was here to help us, too, so we finally finished it about 10:30 or 11 that night.
Ivan’s folks were in Richland, Washington, as were Bernice and Larry Nelson, and Herb and Loyal were in the service. My two brothers, Vern and Lynn were also in the service, and so with some help from Everett and some from Earl Walk, plus what Dad could give us, we finally got the place up, with windows in it and a roof on it so we could be out of the other place in 6 weeks. I really don’t know how Ivan ever survived the long hours he spent at work and then working on the place. He seemed to be going steady around the clock. But our Heavenly Father blessed him with the strength to go on and get things done. With 2 children and expecting another, I was not of much help to him, except to run errands to the hardware and back, which I did rather hesitantly at first as I had not driven a car since our courtship days. However I knew Ivan couldn’t do it all alone, so I decided to grit my teeth and learn to drive, which I did.
We couldn’t afford window shades or blinds, whichever you prefer, so I decided to make my own curtains out of old sheets and dye them. For the living room, I made blue curtains, which could be pulled across the window at night for privacy. I used only the outside edges of the sheets, which weren’t too badly worn. For the bedroom I used only pink dye and although the place was no palace, it was ours. Ivan had done all the plumbing and Earl had given him some pointers on the wiring, so he did that, too. We couldn’t connect to the city sewer, so Ivan built a septic tank at the southwest corner of the house, and it was surely wonderful to finally have an indoor John for both myself and the kids. They were so tickled with it they wanted to show it off to everyone who came to see us. We had an oil heater in the living room as the kitchen range was not enough to heat the whole place. We were slightly crowded but it was wonderful to know that what we had was our own and no one could demand that we be out in 6 weeks or 6 years. It was in September 1944 we moved to the farm and the kids really loved it for now they could go with daddy to milk the cows and tend the horses. We had two of them here, Mick and Mack belonged to us. It was hard to believe that two horses could be so near alike in both name and looks and have been bought from 2 different fellows. The kids really liked it when Dad would put them up on the horses as he led them to the irrigation ditch to get a drink, or else in from the field. Knowing how I loved to do the same thing as a child, I cultivated their interest in helping Daddy so he could get better acquainted with them.
On the 8th day of March, and a couple of weeks before I expected him, Kenneth Ray arrived at Cottonwood Hospital, weighing in at 7 pounds 11 ounces and being 21 inches in length. Kenneth had such broad shoulders that we had quite a time getting him here. When his head came I thought he was born, but he wasn’t, so the nurse slapped me and told me wake up and help the Doctor or I’d kill my baby. Tired or not, I woke up and it was sure a relief when he finally came. And the Doctor decided he was all right and told me to go to sleep now. Kenneth had arrived at 8:30 AM and he too, had dark hair as the other two had done. However there was a difference as they grew older, both Jeanette and Kenneth rubbed all the hair of their heads and the new hair came in blonde, but Marvin didn’t rub his off and it has always been dark, even though Ken’s is almost as dark now. Marvin had started to show brown in his eyes by the time he was 6 months old, but Kenneth didn’t show any until he was almost a year old, but both have brown eyes now.
Where Marvin had been a rather quiet boy in some respects and was rather afraid to go very far from the house, Kenneth wasn’t afraid of anything around the place either human, animal or farm equipment, so I was constantly having to get him down of from something or other to keep him from killing himself. He had been rather Jaundiced as a baby and was that way for several weeks though lots of water it soon cleared up and he grew like a little weed. It seemed like it wasn’t any time at all until he was outside running around with the other two. About this time we sort of quit going to Church as it was easier to stay home than to fight squirming kids. We went occasionally but not very often, which I have regretted since as I know we all missed much by doing so, but with 3 active, and I do mean active children it seemed the lesser of two evils, the other one being that they would bother other people with their squirming.
As Kenneth grew, Jeanette became quite the bossy little mother, and she really did try to mother them both, and as boys and brothers especially, they were never to cooperative with her. At this time there were no neighbors around with small children, so they had to play together and get along whether they liked it or not. When daddy was home he had 3 little shadows wherever he went unless he asked me to keep them out of his way and then I had some very unhappy kids on my hands. One night as Ivan was doing the chores, and the kids had taken their cups out to get some of that nice warm milk, straight from the cow and later some of it right out of the separator, Daddy told them to stay in the shed where the separator was while he fed the cows. Big sister was really feeling her responsibility of tending the 2 boys and was bossing them around until Marvin had had it. The bucket of milk sat on the floor with a couple of inches of foam on it and Jeanette was right in front of it, so Marvin gave a quick push and Jeanette landed in the milk bucket up to the armpits, and there was separated milk everywhere.
I was in the house with the windows open due to the heat and the first thing I knew I heard Jeanette scream and Marvin laugh. By the time I had run over to where they were he wasn’t laughing, probably because he wondered what was to happen to him now. I had a hard time not laughing because Jeanette looked like a half drowned rat and she was really in tears, and yet having wished a few times that I could get even with a big sister or brother, I couldn’t blame ****** too much for she was bossy.
On the 1st day of September 1947, at 8:48 A.M. another boy arrived for the **** family. I had been so certain that he was going to be a girl that I was a bit of a disappointment for me for a few minutes when the doctor said it is a fine boy. He knew how badly I wanted a girl and he was disappointed for me, for he said to the nurse, “She really wanted a girl this time. He thought I was asleep, but I was trying to get control of my emotions. When I heard him day it, I said ‘It’s alright doctor, just so he’s alright. He assured me that he was OK and when Ivan came in and I told him to go call the kids to tell them about the baby, I told him to tell Jeanette not to be disappointed because I wasn’t. I had had to go to bed for a few weeks to keep from losing Richard, so it was a relief to know that he was alright.
As soon as he was born, the nurse said, “Good Lord, who took a hunk out of that kids chin?” Doctor Clark asked her if she had met the baby’s father and she said she hadn’t. He told her to go tell the father that he had a fine boy and when she got back he would answer her question. When she came back, he said, “Any questions now?”, and she said, “None whatever.” Richard, too had arrived 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated, so I had 2 bushel of pears, and a bushel of tomatoes sitting at home ready to be canned. Besides this I ordered 4 bushel of peaches for the following Thursday, so I could get all my canning done before I had to go to the hospital. I knew I had to keep on my feet so I wouldn’t lose strength, so I told the doctor my plight, and I added that I was not going to let my fruit spoil, so he had to let me up, after all, I had no stitches, so I was alright. I got up the 2nd day and went home about the 4th day.
He was named Richard Ivan (with a chin like that he had to have his dad’s name). On the way to church the day he was blessed, Ivan kept saying Christopher Alexander and I kept saying Richard Ivan. My poor mother thought Ivan would really name him that, but I knew better, he was just trying to get and argument. Finally mom said, “what would you do if he does name him that?” I told her “I will stand up and yell, Bishop, I protest!” I forgot to mention that Richard weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces at birth and as the others he had lots of dark hair, but like Jeanette and Kenneth, his was to get rubbed off and then come in blonde, in his case almost cotton top. Like the other boys, he too was 21 inches in length at birth.
When Richard was about a month old Despain’s young heifer that Everett had brought here for us to take care of due to her breachiness, decided that I was busy doing a big wash, so that would be an ideal time to get into the Lucerne patch and have a feast. I was busy hanging clothes when I finally realized she was in the hay field, so I had to chase her out and fix the fence. Of course she immediately went to the ditch to get a drink even though I tried to keep her away. All of a sudden she blew up like a balloon, so I called Ivan and told him what had happened. Fortunately he was able to get right home and he tried everything he had heard of to get her to belch, but she refused. He put a piece of garden hose down her throat, gave her stuff to cause burping, ran cold water over her back as she stood with her front feet up on the ditch bank. Nothing did a bit of good and she went down. We knew if she went down again it might be for the last time, so Ivan told me to get a butcher knife, that I did and he stuck the cow in the upper stomach. Fermenting alfalfa immediately came rushing out the hole and some air with it, but Ivan knew more had to come or the heifer would die, and she was a nice little Jersey, soon to have a calf. He had to stand there and pull handfuls of the stuff out of the hole time after time in order to keep her from dying. He saved her life and then we called the Veterinarian to have him sew her up. However she was so heavy with calf that he said it was impossible, so we should just keep fly spray on her to keep the flies away and as soon as the calf was born it would heal itself. Despains came and got her then and took her home, which was a blessing to me as I was surely tired of chasing her back into the corral and fixing fences she had broken.
The following spring the kids loved to try to ride the calves and the first thing I knew here came Marvin covered with fresh cow manure from head to foot, along his back. I asked what happened and accused them of riding claves again and I was constantly after them to keep off. One day while I was busy washing clothes, again!!, they were out riding out riding calves again and of course they denied it. According to their story that all three of them had rehearsed very well and stuck to. Marvin had started to jump over a cow pie and slipped and fell in it, and they were all sorry about it. Well I was sorry, too, for he was the stinkingest kid I had ever had the misfortune to have to change and I had to do it. A few years ago when Ken was home they were laughing about the time they had fell into the pie while riding calves. I said, “oh so now the truth comes out when you know I can’t spank you anymore huh?” they asked what they had told me and they allowed it was rather far fetched as a story all right. It seems that Marvin and Jeanette were both on the calf and Marvin fell when it bucked and Jeanette landed on top of him and smeared him in it good. (Marvin is retyping this at this time 2005 ten years after mother and dad have passed away. I remember this incident differently from the version mother had described here. Although we kids were guilty of riding calves that didn’t occur until years later and we were older. The time I landed in the cow manure we three kids found the milk cow lying down in the pasture behind the barn. We decided it would be some fun to try and rider her. We went to the barn and found a burlap feed sack and went back to the pasture. We walked up to the cow, that remained lying down, and placed the sack on her back and Jeanette and I proceeded to climb onto the sack on her back. The cow being annoyed with us simply started to stand up with the two of us still on her back. As she did so we simply fell off with Jeanette landing on top of me and me lying in the manure. The riding of the calves came later and I don’t even recall Jeanette being involved in that. Kenneth and I were older and the Romero boys, Ralph and Philip were our accomplices. It also involved us cutting a piece leather, from and inconspicuous place from the horse harness that Uncle Herb had hanging in the barn, to use as a surcingle or belt to hold onto while riding the calves. We were only discovered when dad and Uncle Herb moved the stack of bailed straw that was in the barn and discovered the hiding place for the riding strap.) (Incidentally this has nothing to do with this history but I attended Uncle Herb’s marriage yesterday June 17, 2005. He married Ruth Nelson widow of Alman Nelson. Herb is in his 90th year of age.)
In 1950 we were gong to have a baby girl on her daddy’s birthday which is the 3rd of July. After all, the last w came 2 weeks early so she could come 4 days early, for I knew positively that she would arrive by the 7th of July at the very latest. We were on the Old Folks Committee and were to go to Lagoon to take care of them and their lunch and dinner on the 19th and I wanted to go so I figured that way she and I could both go.
So the days came and went and Ivan’s birthday passed and she still didn’t come so on the 19th of July, I got up and fried my chicken and did the other things I had to do to help with the dinner and we went to Lagoon, Ivan and I and some of the old folks of the ward, both members and non-members of the Church. It was a great day and I ate as much chicken and watermelon as I wanted and then that night we came home. All the others on the committee had a great time trying to tease me about being afraid I’d miss going to Lagoon so I wouldn’t have the baby when I should have. I told them it was just a very stubborn baby, with a mind of it’s own and tomorrow we would probably get it over with. Sure enough the next morning I went to the hospital attain and this time I did get a girl a 9 pound 1 ounce girl with dark hair and weighing more than any of the kids to date.She was born at 4:00 P.M. on a Thursday, which was July 20th and she was 21 inches long as her three brothers had been. She too, had lots of dark hair and she as Marvin didn’t rub hers all off and have it come in blonde, she kept it dark brown. She too, grew like the proverbial weed and it seemed like no time at all until she was tagging the rest of the kids around the farm.
Ivan and Herb had fenced the 10 acres they bought so as long as the kids were on the 10 acres they were considered as being home, but they knew better than to go off the property without permission.
One night when Marv was about 4 years old he got tired while out with his dad, so he slipped into the living room and I didn’t hear him come in. Before long his dad asked if I’d gotten him to bed and I told him he hadn’t come in yet, so we started to search for him as the irrigation ditch was really full and we were afraid he might have by it in spite of all our warnings. We called and called and he didn’t answer. I ran to the neighbors and they hadn’t seen him. When I was about to panic good, Ivan asked if I had looked in the living room and I told him I hadn’t heard him cone in, but I’d look. There curled up in the chair in the darkest part of the room was Marvin, sleeping very soundly.
Another time Kenneth got tired waiting for his dad to separate the milk and feed the cows and not wanting to come into the house alone, he noticed the light was still on in the barn, so he went in there, took a grain sack, spread it in the grain barrel, that dad had cut a piece from the side of, climbed into it and went to sleep. When Ivan came into the barn to turn off the light he didn’t see anyone so he came in thinking he was already in the house. Again, we looked all over everywhere for a child and finally Marvin said sometimes we play we are asleep in the grain barrel in the barn, so Ivan went out there and sure enough there he was, sound asleep.
The irrigation ditch was the worry of my life while the kids were growing up so it was really a thrill to me when Ivan and Herb decided to cover the ditch past the place and do away with the second ditch that used to be there, too. When Carla was a little girl they finally got it all covered.
The street was another worry and Kenneth was the biggest worry where it was concerned for he had no fear of cars, and trucks or anything else that ran down the street, not even his mother. I am digressing quite a bit here, because this was when Kenneth was 2 years old, every time I turned my back, out into the street he would go, and run right down the middle of it, going north as fast as he could run. I’d call for him to come back and he would just run faster, so I’d have to run to get him. I wasn’t able to get anything done except when he was taking his nap and the chasing him was taking its toll on me, so Ivan told me to take a willow after him and let him fell it once and that should take care of it. He even brought me a willow and told Kenneth, it was going to be used on him if he got out in the street again. Our telling him he would get hurt or killed didn’t faze him at all, each time I came into the house to do what had to be done, he was off again.
I hated to use the willow on those little legs, but finally I decided it was that or have a dead child as he seemed bent on self destruction as there were two bridges at that time, where one ditch was full every day and the other one for 8 to 10 hours at a time twice a week and watching over his shoulder like he did as he ran, he could have very easily fallen into either ditch, so it was a constant worry with me. That is why one day I went after the little scamp with a nice weeping willow switch and I hit him hard enough that he would know I meant business. Wouldn’t you know it, as I brought him back down the street switching him as we came, he wasn’t crying but he was hurrying to get away from that switch; when should appear on the scene, but Uncle Everett and Aunt Nellie and her parents. Well they saw me spanking Ken with that switch and did they ever light into me about how cruel I was and her mother told me I should have all my kids taken away from me for child abuse.
I told her it was a heck of a lot kinder to spank a little runaway boy with a willow switch to try to keep him from getting hit by a car or from falling in the ditch and drowning and I’d rather have a healthy spanked child than a dead one or an injured one. Several years later some people in the ward who wouldn’t spank their little girl for heading for the ditch each time she got a chance, had the misfortune of losing her to the ditch when her mother was busy nursing the new baby and big brother left the gate to her pen open. Her body was found battered and swollen, two miles down the ditch. I didn’t know the people, but Ev and Nellie did, so when they came from seeing them that night they stopped by and Nellie and Ev both apologized for what they and her folks had said. Nellie said, “Now I know what you meant when you said, ‘ Better a spanked child than a dead one.’”
Just previous to Eileen’s birth we could see that out double garage was going to have to be turned into a house for sure as I had felt like we should do it all along, and as we needed more space, we were going to add on a bit, so on the front of the house we added a 10 x 20 addition. Then my clever husband turned the partition which used to be the front wall of the house so it would be the center wall between the new addition and the old living room would be divided in half. So instead of the living room being a 20 foot x 10 foot strip across the front of the house, it was now a 20 x10 foot strip along the Northeast corner and the part on the south was two bedrooms, one for us and one for Jeanette. The three boys had the original 10 x 20 foot bedroom, and wow, did it take a beating from them at their best. I hate to think of all the wallboard that had to be replaced in there. One time it was caved in when Marvin threw Kenneth through it. But they finally did grow up somewhat and the walls were more stable. Or with the thickness of wallboard we now had it was not so easy to break.
To get back to Eileen who was the baby of the family. I was teaching Sunday School so I had to go to prayer meeting each Sunday morning before Sunday School, so Marvin and Kenneth started standing by the door of the church following Priesthood Meeting so they could take her and show her off to their friends while I was in meeting. Some of the early birds who came early often told me how lucky I was to have big boys like that who were so fond of their baby sister. Believe me she didn’t lack for attention, and she was really a beautiful baby, even if I do say so myself, after all I’m not partial, I’m the mother of the group. By the time Eileen was 18 months old I was taking her to class with me even though the children I taught were supposed to be three years of age. She loved going to Mama’s Sunday School instead of Daddy’s. Of course the adult classes have nothing to offer a child, and Mama had stories, songs and rest exercises. When she was 2 I was asked to be the Stake Nursery leader so I was in a quandary as to what I should do about Eileen, as I knew she wouldn’t want to go back with her dad. That however was solved when the Junior Sunday School coordinator, Donna Gotberg called me and told me that if Eileen would keep on being as good with another teacher as she had been with me she could keep on coming to Junior Sunday School, even though she wasn’t three.
We had a talk and she decided she didn’t want to go to big Sunday School so she was as good as gold. Eileen as she grew up was really a Tomboy where as Jeanette was very feminine. Of course Jeanette had Bonnie Christian and Marsha Romero to play with and until Claudia came along over at Uncle Eddie’s house, the brothers and Ronnie were the only one’s she had to play with, so it is no wonder. Paula was a little older than Eileen but she was a very feminine little girl who liked to stay in the house and help mama. This was a good thing as her mother developed Multiple Sclerosis when Paula was about 14 and Paula took over the cooking and sewing etc. for the family.
When Eileen was not quite five years old, Grandpa Gibson (my darling dad) passed away and a few days later our son Dean was born prematurely, about two full months, so he only weighed 4 pounds 4 ounces, though he was 19 inches long. He was in a humi-crib for a few days and it took three weeks for him to get big enough to come home from the hospital. In the meantime I had developed a virus cold and a good case of phlebitis in one leg, so I had to get rid of these before he came home. Fortunately for me, Dad Kunz had found an elder doctor in Provo who took care of both the virus and the phlebitis in two treatments and I would never have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it. We called him Dad’s Ouija Board Doctor as he had a little box with a bunch of dials on it and he spun the dials and did some strange things, as he worked with electrical impulses, but he got results and I was cleared up in no time. Dr. Clark decided it must have been an awfully light case of phlebitis as it cleared up so easy. However I know it was these treatments, even though I just felt a tingle in my body occasionally during the process.
I didn’t think anything could be as bas as having to leave a baby in the hospital but I was to find out there are worse things. At the time Dean was born, the Doctor was very worried about it, I could feel it, even though he did try to hide it from me. He had thought I was asleep on the delivery table and he told the nurse that I had just lost my father and he was afraid for my life if anything happened to the baby, too. I really did shock the poor man when I told him to quit worrying because Dean was going to be all right. He nearly flipped, and then he said, “Well keep up the faith it is more than half the battle.” I remember the big smile he had on Sunday morning after Dean’s birth on Thursday when he came in to see me and tell me I could go home that day to help my husband celebrate his birthday. He had finally decided that Dean was going to make it okay and it sure did show. So I came home from the hospital and left Dean there in the nursery, and I hadn’t even so much as held the child. I wasn’t even allowed to get up close to him and for the next three weeks we fought the “Battle of the Ounces”. One day he would have gained and ounce and then for a day he would hold his own but not gain, and it was a terrible thing to go see him behind a glass and see the nurse cuddle him and not be able to do so for yourself. The nurses at Cottonwood were very good to the babies though. One little German woman came in to see me before I left the hospital to tell me I would have to walk the floor with my baby when he got home. I informed her I had never had to walk the floor with a child before and I was not about to start now. She insisted “You will though, that baby needs to be loved and every time I have a few minutes I go in there and I walk the floor with him and love him and sing to him.” You know what? She was right! When he did finally get home, he liked to be walked between 8 and 10 at night and he’d really set it up if I sat down. It took several weeks to make him understand he could be loved from a rocking chair as much as when walking the floor.
Dean had been so tiny for so long that it really seemed good when the
Doctor decided he was finally average in everything and we have to go get a penicillin shot for him every time he sneezed. He grew and grew and except for being the shortest boy in the family you would never know he had been a preemie. At this time he is in Dillon, Montana, waiting for his visa to come so he can go on to Brazil to finish his mission in the land his call is to.
On glancing back I find I didn’t say that Dean Morgan was born on the 30th of June, just five days after Dad’s death. This was in 1955. Because he was premature, his Dad and Ivan Frandsen, a neighbor went to the hospital that night and gave him his name and blessing as the Doctor was afraid he wouldn’t make it, and as he said, “A blessing right now will sure help his chances.”
Dean was dad’s shadow around the place and was very close to his dad for several years, partly because the Doctor gave his dad to understand that I could not stand the pace of baby feeding every 2 hours night and day alone so he suggested we take turns in the night and Jeanette and I take turns in the day. I was to sleep when she was feeding him but somehow I didn’t do much sleeping, but I did rest. It was a great relief for all of us when the doctor decided he was big enough to go three hours and then finally to eat on demand. He demanded too. Dean was also born on Thursday. He was born at 3:55 P.M.
With my next pregnancy I expected twins all the way through, but it was just one large 10 pound 10 ounce boy whom we called Jimmy Ezra. He was born on January 12, 1958 at 11:00 A.M., but was stillborn. He was a big beautiful baby so the Doctor told me. I didn’t see him and neither did Ivan, as someone had thrown the little thing in the furnace and then tried to get my signature on a paper saying it was okay to go ahead and cremate him. It was sometime before I remembered what had gone on, which I guess is just as well as his spirit went back to his Heavenly Father even though his body was burned. I don’t like cremation. He was born on Sunday morning, and as I said previously I was to find out there was still something worse than leaving a baby in the hospital and that is having no baby to go back for. Jimmy’s death hit all of us pretty hard. My neighbor told me she never felt so sorry for anyone in her life as she did for my big boys who were to old to cry, but who were heart broken at the loss of a little brother.
The summer before jimmy was born, Jeanette was married to Ronald Campbell, also of Sandy and they had moved into a little house down on 8000 South for a time. Then they moved into Uncle Herb’s little house across the way from us, and finally went up to Mountain Home, Utah for sometime. They were married on the 15th day of August, 1957, at the home of his folks, Hiley (Harold) Campbell and Mary Campbell (Smith, his Step-mother).
At the time Jeanette was married I was expecting another child or children as I has thought. The Doctor, too, thought it must be twins or else I was much further along than I thought I was. I knew approximately when I got pregnant because we had wanted another child for several months, and it took several months for me to get going I guess. At any rate I knew the due date was by the middle of January. By the time I was three months along I had to start wearing maternity clothes, I was so big. Then by the time I was 4 months it was getting very hard to bend over to do my work. The last three months were just about a nightmare. I couldn’t even turn over in bed alone, and I was so miserable I could not even go to church, funerals or anything else, and I most certainly couldn’t or wouldn’t go to parties or shows. Mom came up from Phoenix in the fall and went up to stay with Vera in Canada and visited for a while, then she came back this far and seeing how ungainly and miserable I was she decided to stay till after my baby was born. I don’t know what I’d have done without her as I just could not get around the last two months. Finally the big day arrived and it was Sunday the 12th day of January, 1958 that I went to the hospital to get Jimmy. Things progressed very slow, so Dr. Clark called in an Obstetrician and he too decided I was going to have twins and they were both large babies. They decided to put me out to conserve my strength and sometime later they had decided what they had decided was one baby was a bag of water. Since I had thought I lost all the water before I left home, they found this unusual, but when they ruptured it, they got a flood. Because of the two bags of water I still think I must have started out with twins even though I didn’t end up with them.
With the extra water out of the way, the two doctors decided I was going to have problems so I’d better have the baby by Caesarian, so they called Dr. Lyman Horne, a OB Specialist and told him they were sending me to LDS Hospital in an ambulance and asked if he would meet it. Then they and Ivan laid their hands on my head, after anointing me, and the Obstetrician (and I don’t even know his name) gave me the most beautiful blessing so Ivan tells me. I was out so I didn’t hear it. They then put me into an ambulance and Ivan sat beside me and we headed out for LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City at 75 and 80 miles per hour, yet Ivan says it was the slowest ride he had ever had, it seemed like it took an eternity for us to get there., even though he knew the speedometer needle didn’t go below 70 all the way. On the way , probably due to the swaying of the ambulance and also the amount of ether I had had, I became sick and I partially remember waking a little and being so sick I felt like I’d die if the dizziness didn’t pass. I thought I’d better shut my eyes quick or I’d vomit for sure. Then I went out again. What I didn’t know was that I did vomit and in doing so the afterbirth came and the baby died immediately. By the time the ambulance started to pull into the hospital, Dr. Horne was in it and was checking me with a stethoscope. On the way along the hall he told Ivan that the baby was already dead and could find no signs of life in me, so he didn’t dare try caesarean as it was sure to finish me. He said they would give some transfusions and force labor and all he could promise was that they would keep me alive if it was possible. This was at 9:00 in the morning. Poor Ivan, for the next 2 ½ hours didn’t know what was going on as two doctors and two nurses took turns pushing and pulling and trying to get my big baby here. He finally came about 11:30 and they put me out good so I could rest so I didn’t know anything until after 4:30 that afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon Dr. Clark came in and told me I could go home if I’d stay down for a week because I’d had such a rough time I was in no condition to get up before that. Mother stayed with me about ten days more and then she went back to Phoenix, but by that time I was finally rested up a bit. That was one time in my life when I knew what complete exhaustion was, believe me. As they were taking me in the wheel chair to go to the car, the head nurse on the floor came and gave me a squeeze and said, “Mrs. Kunz, you don’t know how good it is to see you going out of here in a wheelchair, we all expected you to go feet first, your Heavenly Father must have a wonderful mission for you yet.” As I said before, we called the baby Jimmy Ezra even though he was stillborn, for after all he was a full term child and the last I remember before they put me out about 7:30 he was full of life. He weighed 10 pounds 10 ounces at birth, but the Doctor tells me he would have probably been 12 pounds 12 ounces he been alive at birth. I felt grateful to have had such a big one with no stitches, to live with afterward. I was very fortunate this wat I had one stitch with Jeanette and that was all I ever had.
I didn’t remember what went on at all and it was all quite a nightmare so far as I was concerned, but the fact that one of the nurses said I had signed a certain paper did bother me because I couldn’t remember having signed anything. This bothered me for several months, but one day in the early part of April I was out hanging clothes when all of a sudden I started remembering what had bone on somewhat following Jimmy’s birth. I could remember someone shaking me and telling me to wake up and sign a paper. I told her I was to tired and told her to go away. She then told me again I had to sign it. I told her I couldn’t sign it because I couldn’t even see it, so it would have to wait. I then asked about the baby and she told me the baby died and that was the reason I had to sign the paper. At this point I decided it was all a bad dream so I’d just close my eyes and go to sleep and when I woke up the baby would be fine and so would everything else. I knew that Bishop Richards had blessed me that everything would be alright with me and the baby, according to the Lord’s will, so I was not worried at all, I was just exhausted. This nurse was very persistent and kept shaking me until I finally opened my eyes again part way and she put a pencil in my hand and it fell to the floor. At this she picked it up again and slapped me and told me to hold on to it because she had to get my signature right now. At this point another nurse asked her what she was doing and told her I was Dr. Horne’s new patient. As the two of them talked I went off again, coming back to reality only long enough to hear the nurse say, “And that’s why we have to have her signature before her husband gets back. When I heard this I knew something was wrong and decided she was not going to get my correct and legal signature which was Wilma G. Kunz, and the only way I ever sign it on legal documents, and I seldom sign it otherwise on anything. So when she put the pencil in my hand again and said she would help me sign it, I held on to it, and she asked me what my name was. I told her it was Wilma Kunz. She asked me if I used an initial and I told her no. She helped me sign the paper and I can just about imagine what it must have looked like as I was lying on my back and she was standing beside me guiding my poor weak hand. When I told the doctor what I remembered, he told me I could have sued the hospital if I had remembered sooner. When Ivan and Mom came to see me that afternoon, they were told that I had given permission to cremate the baby, and they said they knew better. She then showed them my signature and the both told her I was so sick I didn’t know what I was doing as that didn’t even resemble my signature, as I was a beautiful writer and that was hen scratching. She still insisted I signed it and I couldn’t remember anything at the time so I didn’t know. However I feel that it was the Lord’s wish that I not remember any sooner, so we are just writing it off as a bad experience all the way around. It really was, as I felt like I was all arms, they knew they should have a baby to cuddle but there was none, also the milk tried to come into my breasts for several months, at any rate I would get the same feeling in them that one gets when the milk starts to come in and this kept up about every 4 hours for a couple of months.
It was a sad experience and yet I feel that my Heavenly Father was kind in taking him as he did for the way we was growing he would soon have been of monstrous size, as I’m sure there was something wrong. As the doctor said, he seemed to be 100 percent all right but when they are stillborn you can’t tell what might have been wrong in the brain. A few years later we were to find out from our baby girl that she knew Jimmy before she came to us. I’ve told it in another account about my own life so I won’t go in to it here.
We found that life goes on even when you lose a loved one and so we went on, too. We had decided that this was all the children we were gong to have as I wasn’t anxious to go through it again and Ivan couldn’t stand the thoughts of me gong through what I had gone through again either. The loss of Jimmy did one thing for us though, it made both of us see that we had taken the other one for granted and so we have been closer as a result of the loss. When he thought of how close he came to losing me, it was a very frightening thing, and when I thought of how easily I could have slept away, it made me realize how blessed I was to be able to stay and help to raise my other darling children.
One night a little over a year after losing Jimmy, we went to the temple and there while sitting in the beautiful room, we were each told that the decision did not belong to us as to whether we were going to have any more children, it belonged to our Heavenly Father. How grateful I am for whomever it was that told me this, for had we not received this message, we may have missed out entirely on a beautiful black haired baby who was to arrive on October 18th, 1959 at 11:30 A.M. on a beautiful Sunday morning. What an inspiration this little girl has been to us, and what a great loss to our family had we not had her. Apparently we were not supposed to have any others because we were not told how many more we were to have and even though we have done nothing to keep from having others, we had only her. Up until she was born, by the time my baby was about a year old I would become baby hungry again. This time I didn’t and haven’t since. I’ve had people say, “You have your grandchildren now,” but I had two of them before Carla was born so that can’t be the reason for it. I feel certain that Carla was the last one I was supposed to have.
As I said, I had two grandchildren before Carla was born, Tamera Campbell, who was born to Jeanette and Ronald on July 24th, 1958 in the hospital at Roosevelt, Utah, and Sandra, her little sister born a year later, also on the 24th of July. Ivan has a hard time remembering his children’s birthdays, so when Sandra arrived he made the wise remark, that he could remember his grandchildren’s birthdays if they kept them coming on the 24th of July. Jeanette’s next child Barbara arrived 13 months after Sandra, on the 27th of August at Cottonwood in Murray and a year and a few months later, on November 4th, 1961 Marsha came to join the family. What a busy couple Jeanette and Ronald have been ever since trying to keep up to their four little girls. Now is a really busy time as Tamera (Tammy) is 17, Sandra 16, Barbara will be 15 by the end of the month and in November our Marsha will be 14.
The most important things in our lives now are the missions and marriages of our children and needless to say the arrival of grandchildren.
Marvin married Charlene Louise Moore on the 4th of August, 1965, in the Reception Center on 33rd South and about 12th East in Salt Lake City, they were married by Bishop Lloyd P. Stevens. They now have 5 children David Brian, who was born the 22nd of May, 1966, Jeffrey Scott, who was born October 16th 1968, Lori, who was born May 31st, 1970, Noelle, who was born December 20th, 1972, and Adam born the 1st of April, 1975. (Sherri our 6th child was born April 13th, 1977).
Kenneth married Kathleen Reid on the 4th of February, 1966. They were married in the Relief Society room at the Sandy 1st Ward meetinghouse. On the 5th of May Ken went into the service and served a 5year tour of duty. Their first child Karina Lynn was born September 8th, 1968 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, on the 20th day of September, 1966, their 2nd child Kenneth Randall (As Kenneth blessed him, Kathie changed his name to Randall Allan) was born September 8th, 1968. On November 22nd 1969, Kathie divorced Kenneth while he was stationed in Alabama, at Fort Rucker. On the 5th of September, 1970, Kenneth married Grace, Or rather Virginia Grace Goff Vaughn, who was the mother of 2 boys, Rick and Tom, that gave us 2 more grandchildren. Rick is just older than Tammy and Tom is just younger than Carla. Since that time, and on September 26th 1971, Grace gave birth to a daughter who was named Amelia Jane. We had the privilege this past June of taking Carla and flying down to Ozark, Alabama, where they live and visiting for a week with them, that was real special except the week went too fast.
Richard went into the service, only he was in the Air Force instead of the Army, he enlisted In May also and left on the 20th, just 2 days before Davey was born. Believe me this was a bad time for me, as I cried more the next 2 months of so than I have in my whole life. I knew that Lynn had been very active in Church until he went into the service and it hurt me very much when he came home so inactive and has never been active for very long since that time. I know the heartache it has been to Mom and to the rest of us, too. They may I’m only hurting myself, but that is not true. They are hurting the whole family, because as a family we love them and care what happens to them. Knowing this and knowing the pitfalls ahead of them it was very hard to have Ken go in on the 5th and Rich on the 20th of the same month. Rich was in Turkey for most of his tour of duty, then at Mountain Home, Idaho for the last of it. Ken was in El Paso, Texas for basic, Rich in San Antonio, Texas. Ken then went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Rich to Chanute AFB Champagne, Illinois. Ken then went to CTC in Fort Belvoir, Virginia and from there to Georgia and thence to Fort Rucker, Alabama. Rich went from Champagne to Turkey. What a blessed relief it was when Rich came home, and especially so when Ken came as he had been in the conflict in Viet Nam for a year, Rich hadn’t been in combat. Ken was sent back to Fort Rucker as an instructor in flying the “Birddog” observation planes. Rich went to Snow College for the Winter and Spring Quarters and then went on an LDS Mission to Australia South Mission, with headquarters in Melbourne. While he was at Snow College he met Yvonne Holdaway from Vinyard (Orem), Utah, who was of the impression that every young man in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owed it to himself to go on a mission, no matter how old he was, so that is the reason Rich decided he wasn’t too old to go. He had a good mission and a year after his return, he and Yvonne were married on the 15th of June, 1973.
While Richard was on his mission Eileen was married to Brent E. Woffinden on the 25th of August, 1972.
Rich and Yvonne at present have a son Brian Dean who was born April 26th, 1974. He is adorable, but then all our grandchildren are.
Eileen and Brent have two girls, Kori, born December 15th, 1972, and Jeimi born February 26th, 1975.
Eileen and Richard were at Snow College at the same time and Yvonne lived in the same Dormitory as Eileen. Eileen had gone to Beauty School in Sugarhouse for a year and then after graduation decided she wanted to go to College, so she did. She and Yvonne had not become more than acquainted at the time Rich met her. Poor Yvonne knew Eileen was going fairly steady with a young man at the college and after Christmas she started to see her chasing around with another fellow in his car and she wondered what kind of a two-timer Eileen was. Then she found out that the other fellow was just her brother Rich, so it was all right after all. We called Eileen and told her one weekend that we were going to come down to meet her and her boyfriend. When we got there we had a double meeting, because Rich was there with Yvonne, so we could meet her too. Of course we approved of both Howard and Yvonne, as they were great young people. I wasn’t to sure that they would both marry the current dates but I figured time will tell, and then Eileen met Brent the next year. She and Yvonne were roommates that year and what a time they had. I don’t believe Snow College has been the same since.
This brings us down to Dean. For a while he was off on the wrong track, but after a lot of praying and some fasting and talking when the time was right, he finally got on the beam and at present is in Dillon, Montana, on a mission for the Church, while he is awaiting his visa to go to Brazil, in South America, where he was called to go. He has been to BYU to learn the Portugese language and is anxiously waiting for his visa now. In the meantime he is teaching the gospel to those who wish to hear it in Dillon. He was in Casper, Wyoming for a while, and has now been on his mission for 6 months.
Carla has been to Alabama this summer also to Chicago, as she flew to Chicago, and from there to California, where she spent three weeks with my sister Edra and her husband Lee and daughter Becky Sue. She has had a great summer. On the 27th of July she and I went to the Salt Lake Airport to meet my sister Vera and her daughter Clara, who flew down to visit for a week. Clara and Carla got along fine and had a goof visit during her brief stay. At present all of us are well and are waiting for Vera’s son, Merlyn and his wife Margaret and family to come down sometime after the 20th of August.
We were especially happy to go to Alabama this year to get acquainted with Ken and Grace and their family, especially Tom, Rick and Amelia. They do have a wonderful family and we really enjoyed them. The only thing we feel badly about is that there are not at least 4 less states between us, so we can get together more often.
We have a wonderful family and our Heavenly Father has blessed us much more than we deserve. We are grateful for our membership in His Church and the influence it has had on our children, and the joy it brings into our lives. Carla is going to High School this fall and last night the Bishop called her to be President of her APMIA class, so she is prayerfully trying to decide who her counselors and secretary shall be. This is a wonderful opportunity for growth, and it was really a tremendous thing to see, Dean start this new program for the youth in the ward two years ago. Carla was a class president, too and watching them grow and develop was simply beautiful. Carla had been quite shy and timid, but through encouragement from Dean as well as the calling that she has, she has really grown into a spiritual young woman. We are grateful to our Heavenly Father for these opportunities all out family have had and will have.
