Dean Larue Wassmer

Birthdays were not a big deal and in fact the kids wouldn't want anyone to know it was their birthday since the kids would slap you on your rear end for how many years. The day wasn't even mentioned. Dean had one party when he was eight or nine, Hester said that they were going to have a party for his birthday since he had been going to a lot of his friends' parties. So she said that Thursday they would have a party. Dean was so excited and couldn't believe it. He invited his friends and expected them to come and have cake and maybe play some games like pin the tail on the donkey (no one gave presents back then). So Thursday all the kids came to the back door and Dean said okay come on in, and planned to take the boys through the kitchen into the living room to have his party. When his mom saw all those boys in the back yard she got cold feet and said no I can't stand it. So what she did was to cut the cake and came out on the back step and said each of you come and take a piece. And that was his party.

On the forth of July they would sometimes go to a relatives house and have homemade ice cream. Dean always got sick. It was so rich made out of whipping cream. And they weren't used to it. They could never get it hard in the hard crank machines and it would be melting in the hot sun and be just like a bowl of whipping cream but it tasted so good.

Had job when 8, pulling rusty nails out of boards , 8 hours a day for a dollar. he would go home every weekend and his mother would take the $7 and give him 20 cents. he would go to the movies and get a candy bar. He never thought anything of that, it was just what you did. It was just part of being a member of a family.

During the Depression Dean got a job in Ogden at a canning factory he would lean over and pick up four cans and put them in a stack. He would do that 100 times for 8 cents. He did that all summer and made $42 and when he got home his dad said that they needed all of that money to pay taxes and he gave it all without even thinking. He was so lucky to have that job and it was only because he knew the owner's nephew that he got it. In Ogden there were married men with families begging for jobs there. (Dean's boss told the boys that came up with him that they had to get baptized or they wouldn't have a job, they all got baptized)

At one time during the Depression Dean was working at Walgreens Drug Store. He was really sick and called in and said he was so aching sick. The manager said come in or don't bother returning.

When he was 16 he got pneumonia because he thought it was a beautiful sunny day and even though it was December he went out hiking all day and came back with pneumonia. He was home in bed then for 24 hours a day and got to know his mother better. She resented him in a way for getting sick, and taking so much of her time.

When you went to school you wanted to have a nice jacket tie and shirt and a nice pair of slacks and shoes. You always looked up to someone who did.

Was baptized at the insistence of his boss at the canning factory in Ogden. It was either baptism or he no longer had a job.

When they moved to the new house Dean would ride the whole way to and from Roosevelt to play with his old friends.

When he and Shirley were first dated she was active and told Dean that she liked to go to church and do things. So he took her to the Gold and Green ball and they danced and they didn't ask him to pray so he started attending. But he didn't start going really until they had been married a couple of years.

In WWII serving in the medical core. He was in field army hospital 130. He was in England and was standing outside while the invasion was happening and said "this is the day they are invading!" And all of the guys said NO, everyone get some rest now because you are not going to sleep again. He went in and slept and his friends didn't. Pretty soon they started to bring to wounded back and you were lucky if you got two hours sleep in 24 hours. For the next week it was terrible. He was two years in England and then 6 months on the continent. He was in France and then moved on to Germany to service the troops, to Heidelberg. They took over an old Calvary building and it still stands (1990'S) and the labels Dean put on the shelves are still there. That was the place that General Patten died

They had the first television set in their neighborhood. The neighbors all came over to watch it. There was no set programming you just turned it one and waited for something to come on. The screen would be gray and fuzzy and then a test pattern and then all of a sudden BOOM the program. It might be at 7 minutes after eight or 10 to seven. It was in 1949 or 1950.

Dean worked at the post office. He had a heart attack and had bypass surgery. Then another heart attack and by pass surgery, the third time he had a heart attack he died right on his drive way. He possibly had an infected kidney removed sometime as well.