THE BIOGRAPHY OF KATHLEEN ROSE (ROBERTS GLAD PALFRAMAN) MORENO

Here it is August 9, 2004 more than 58 years since my birth. I’ve started several journals but now they could be any where. If they are found, please insert them where appropriate.

 I’m not sure exactly how to begin, life has so many twists and turns. I suppose the best place would be my conception. Since that is surrounded in a mystery all by it’s self. 

Some time in the fall of 1945 my mother, Evelyn Rose Farnsworth, was in love with a soldier that was being deployed. The story that I’ve been told is that she ran away with him to get married. After spending a night with him she changed her mind and came home. When she discovered that she was pregnant she convinced a Claude V Thorpe to marry her even though I wasn’t his child. Mom & Claude moved to Oklahoma City, OK where I was born. That would be 20 July 1946.

 Things didn’t go very well, I think that I was about a year old when  Claude discovered that I wasn’t his child and mom called my grandfather, O. V Farnsworth, and my uncle, Royce Eugene Farnsworth, to come get her. They packed everything that would fit into the car and drove us back to Abilene, TX. 

We lived with Grandmother & Grandfather as well as my uncles, O. V. Jr & Eugene for a while. I remember this house fondly; it will always be my favorite home. It was made of rock and had a large yard. My uncles would chase me around the yard and throw me in the air as if I was a football. It was so much fun. Grandmother had a little black dog with a white patch on his chest, his name was Nicky. He would go everywhere with me. He was my protector. Mom got a job at the watch factory so Grandma would watch me. I can remember Christmas there and all the fun things I did in the summer. There was a big yard in the back where lots of flowers, and shrubs and trees grew. Grandma loved to garden. She planted lots & lots of gladiolas, amaryllis, iris, daisies, she was in a garden club so she would let me help plant flowers and I even got to enter my flowers in a contest. I don’t remember what I won, but I got a ribbon. When I was about three, my uncle Eugene was working on his motor bike and he had it up on a box so he could work on it better. I loved to ride his bike, so when he wasn’t looking I climbed up on it. It tipped over and fell on me and broke the small bone in my leg. He felt so bad about that, he even talks about it now. He said he carried me into the house and they had to take me to the hospital to have it x-rayed. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. It made it difficult for me to get around but I still got into mischief.

  Grandma had a house keeper that would come in and clean once a week or so. I really liked her, her name was Josie. Her skin was as black as night, and she had the biggest smile for me. I would follow her around and pretend to be cleaning right behind her. One day I had the dust mop and was ‘dusting’ every thing. I even wanted to dust the gas space heater in the fireplace which caught the dust mop on fire. I was so scared that I started running through the house to get it out side. I seemed to have set several other items on fire as I ran. Josie caught me and quickly put the fires out. However, grandma didn’t believe her when she said I had done it. I remember telling grandma that I had done it, but Grandma thought I was covering up for Josie.  Sadly, grandma wouldn’t leave me alone with Josie anymore. 

Another summer memory was a black plastic tub that grandma would put in the back yard, in the grass under the trees. This was my play pool on hot summer days. I can remember playing in the tub and looking up at the sky through the leaves in the trees and watching the clouds turn into all kinds of shapes. At night I’d lay on the law and watch the stars come out in that same spot. The sky was so black and the stars so bright. That’s when I was taught “Twinkle, Twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the sky so high……”

 In 1949 mom met Billy Charles Roberts. He had just come back from Japan and the war was over. He was to become my father.  He and mom got married in the back yard. I don’t remember much about the wedding, it just seemed like a big party to me.  We moved into a home of our own, but I still would spend the days at grandma’s while Mom & Dad were at work. During this time Mom & Dad started to build a starter home on Burger St, in Abilene. I can remember going over with them to see how things were progressing. There was big hole in the ground and a huge spider was in it. I later learned that the big fuzzy spider with the orange back was a tarantula. Not something I was suppose to play with. There are other memories of creepies in the gardens. One day Mom was weeding the flower bed on the side of the house. She pulled a rattle snake out of the flowers and started screaming, I ran around the house to see what was happening, I found her chopping the snake up into little pieces with the hoe. She didn’t want me around it. She said that when daddy came home he would bury it. I had heard that snakes wouldn’t die until the sun went down, so I would sneak out to see if it was really dead several times that afternoon. None of the pieces moved so it must have been dead. 

   Dad officially adopted me so I would always be his daughter. I know that he loved me and there was never any doubt that he was my father. Maybe not my biological father but a father in every other way.  We moved into the new house and I would spend the days listening to the Radio. There was The Lone Ranger, Woody Wood Pecker and other radio shows that I’d listen to.  I loved to play dress up, dolls, go out in the back yard, and play on the swing set that I had there. Dad liked to grow Amaryllis and drink beer and smoke. He also had many friends. He was very friendly; he always said that a stranger was someone that he hadn’t met yet. As well as friends dad had 10 sisters and 2 brothers. He was the youngest of the Andrew F Roberts family.  I barely remember his father. The last memory I have of him was when dad took me to say good-bye to him when he was sick. He died a few days later so I never got to know him.  He was married to Miss Minnie then, but dad didn’t see her much after that. 

   March 20, 1951 my brother Billy Michael Roberts was born. I remember dad sneaking me up to the window in the hospital so I could see mom and my little brother. At that time mothers and baby stayed in the hospital for 10 days or more and they didn’t let the new mother get up and move around. Having a baby in the house was a new experience for me. After all I was 5 and had been the baby. Dad didn’t let the baby take my place in is heart though. He always made me feel loved. I had forgotten that he wasn’t my real dad. He use to take me to the parties that he had at college and I would recite poems and perform for the audience. Dad was a singer. He had a small band and would go around performing at different parties. He even made a few records. His sister, Elsie, had them and they are gone now. Dad had a beautiful singing voice. Some times he could imitate Nat King Cole or Johnny Mathis. He would play the guitar and sing. I remember that he worked as a shoe sales man for Ernest Grissoms in Downtown Abilene, then he would go to school in the evenings and on weekends, he and the band would sing.  I usually stayed at grandmas on the weekends.  

   When I was 6 I started school. I was in the First grade. I remember the little red reader that I learned to read out of. Dick, Jane, Sally & Spot.  I was shy so I didn’t make friends all that easy. But I was a very active little girl. In fact I couldn’t hold still. When we would have reading circle the teacher would sit me right next to her and wanted me to be very still. I just couldn’t do that. The teacher would tap me on the head with her scissors every time I moved.  After a few days of that I got sores on my scalp and they got infected and dad was so angry at the teacher for hitting me and causing me to get an infection. At the time, I had long, blonde hair. The doctor had to cut off all my hair to treat the infection. Now I looked different from all the other girls so I really tried to hide from all the other children.  I was teased because I looked like a boy in a dress. Kids can be so mean. 

Mom used to have Josie come clean our house. I loved it when Josie would come over. She had a little girl about my age and we would play outside while she cleaned. I loved to make mud pies. One day I got it into my head that I wanted to be black like Josie, so I made lots of mud, and it was black mud and covered my body with it. Mom found me covered with the mud and was upset. She asked me what I thought I was doing. I told her I wanted to be black like Josie. She didn’t seem to appreciate my plight. She took the hose and washed off all the mud then took me into the house and put me in the tub with soap and water. I didn’t do that again.

My brother, Mike, was walking and talking now so Dad taught him to sing with him and we would get to perform with him sometimes. I could never sing so I always told a story or recited a poem. Dad always validated me and told me how good I was.

	 Around Christmas of 1952 My uncle Eugene met Beverly and fell in love with her. They were married on 26 Dec. I can remember the wedding because it was in a big fancy church. I really like Beverly, she is the sweetest person you will ever meet.  Right when Beverly walked up to the Minister I, in my unbridled enthusiasm, yelled, “HI Beverly” this caused some embarrassment to my family…didn’t bother me though. 

I’m not sure of the dates so everything is approximate.

(When I was about the age of seven my grandparents moved to Orem, UT. Mom wanted to move with them. As the story goes, she told dad that they could have a fresh start where no one knew them or her and she wanted to be close to her mother. Dad agreed so he packed our ford convertible with the plaid top and a trailer to drive to Utah.

That seemed to be a very long drive. My brother, Mike was 2 years old and I was a fidgety seven years old. What I do remember was that when we reached the mountains in Utah are was scary. The roads didn’t seem wide enough for the car and trailer. The side of the road was a shear cliff straight down into a deep canyon. Mom was watching out the window to make sure the trailer didn’t slip off the road and pull us down into the cliffs. She was scared. Dad was driving really slowly and we had to be very quite.

We finally got out of the mountains and into a valley where the road was much wider and straighter. We drove into Orem, Utah to where my grandparents had bought a fruit farm. The address was 165 North 400 West, Orem, UT. I remember the house seeming to be so big, with lots of yard. There were 10 or so really tall trees on the north side of the house. I knew it was grandmother’s house because in the middle of the trees on the lawn, was the Bird house with her parakeets. On the South side was an orchard of sweet cherry trees, two English walnut trees and several other kinds of trees, shrubs and flowers. There was a separate 2 car garage and a small house behind the big house. We were going to be staying in the little 1 bedroom cottage until mom and dad found another place to live. My grandparents’ house had 2 bedrooms upstairs and more room downstairs. I wanted to stay in the basement because I felt safe from tornados. I later found out that there are no tornados in Utah. The basement was an exciting place to play and stay. There was a coal burning furnace with a room just for the coal. There was another room that Grandmother used for storage. In that room as a very old wood and coal burning stove for cooking. It had hot plates and was rather ornate. Grandmother said it was for emergency cooking if there wasn’t any gas or electricity. It was never used, as far as I know. Behind that room was a bedroom. I recognized the beds because they had been my uncles redwood beds and dresser set. The light fixtures were bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings with a pull chain. There were 3 small windows just above the ground that let light in from the outside. They didn’t let much light in because there were flowers and plants all around them.

When we came into the back door you could either go up the stairs to the rest of the house or down into the basement. Up stairs was a big walk in pantry just off the kitchen, grandmother had lots of food and stuff in there. The kitchen had older appliances, a clothes washing machine, a gas stove to cook on and the kitchen sink had windows looking out at the Cherry trees. If you went left you would be in a huge hall way that granddad had put shelves in so now it looked like a library with a desk at the end of the hall in an alcove area. There were two bedrooms with a large bathroom between them. Grandmother’s room was the largest. She had a small walk in closet. She had lovely pink and white wall paper with a window on the both the west and north sides. Granddads room was smaller but he had a small window on the north side and a picture window on the east side which looked onto the wonderful large front porch where a porch swing could be hung. You could also see the mountains.

The living and dinning room were just one very large room with and arch on the ceiling to separate the room. There had been a door way from the living room into the hall way but granddad closed that up and made it into a book shelf. There was a large picture window in the living room as well. I was too young to appreciate the views but there were lots of trees and fruit orchards and in the back ground the Mountains. Both Mt. Timpanogas and Cascade Mountain. You could see the big block Y on the mountain behind BYU.

In the back yard, as I’ve mentioned before, were two very large English Walnut trees as well as pie cherry and apricot trees. Behind the garage was a root cellar where the apples, carrots, potatoes and other vegetables were stored for the winter. The garage was built for two cars. Granddad had a work bench on the one side for him to do all his projects and repairs. North of the garage was a small 1 bedroom cottage. This is where the 4 of us lived until dad found a place of our own. Little did I know then, that I would be living here with my husband, Richard, when we got married in 1969.)

I think it was 1955 that Granddad lost his district manager position with Safeway and took a job as the first City Manager of Orem, UT. They sold the beautiful rock house and moved to Orem, UT. Mom was so lonely and sad that she wanted to move as well. She convinced dad that it would be good to move so that we could start over and not have anyone around that knew about her past. So dad sold the house, packed the car and trailer and we all drove to Utah to live.

My grandparents bought a working fruit farm in Orem, UT. When we arrived we found that not only was there a huge farm, but there was a large home on the front of the property and a small one bedroom house in the back. The four of us moved into the small house for the time being. The one memory I have of this house was the huge bathtub with claw feet. When I sat in the tub I couldn’t see over the edge. I thought is was a swimming pool.

Since my grandparents had a huge house with a basement I was able to stay with them often. I really loved sleeping in the basement. I felt safe from tornadoes. I was to young to realize that there are no storms in Utah like there was in Texas.

Granddad had a long time friend his name was Howard Sherman he owned a grocery story named “Happy Service” in Provo. He gave dad a job there as well as made him foreman on a ranch he owned in American Fork, UT. There must have been 100 acres too farm. So we stared raising cattle, planting peas & hay and farming. We had cows, sheep, dogs, cats. It was great. I remember the house being very old and 2 stories. My brother & I had a bedroom upstairs. There was no central heat. Just a wood burning stove in the Kitchen. Mom was not used to this. She learned to cook on it though. I remember she burned a lot of food until she got the knack of it. We had the longest drive way. Dad would drive me out to catch the bus to go to school when it snowed. Usually I had to walk. When the weather got cold the pipes usually froze so dad would build a fire under the pipes that brought water into the house. The winters were fun after all this was the first time I’d seen snow in my life. We had two holding ponds on the property so dad would fill them with water and then they would freeze and we learned to ice skate. One day dad was out testing the ice and he fell through. He came back to the house wet and cold.

There was an old covered wagon out back and my friends and I use to play in it. The wheels were gone and it looked more like a skeleton of a wagon. But I remember the small drawers and cubby holes that we would pretend to be in a wagon train and going west to discover gold or other treasures. We would play cowboys and Indians with toy guns and bows and arrows. One day mom even gave us an old blanket or sheet or something to put on the rings over the wagon so we would have shade. Then it looked like a real covered wagon, except there were no wheels. Since we had horses, I learned to ride. I remember that one day Mom went to pick up Dad from work and it was getting dark so I thought I was big enough to go out and feed the cattle in the feedlots; I couldn’t get enough feed in the trough to feed anything. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old because I was going to school at Forbes Elementary School in American Fork, UT. I can remember the field trips that we would take to the old Mills where they would grind the wheat into flour. It was walking distance from the school. I’ve gone back in later years and could never find the mill again. Of course, by now, 2004, everything is different. The school is still there. The old farm is gone and a huge subdivision of homes is now on the land.

I remember riding on the tractor with my dad harvesting the peas and mowing the hay. He taught me how to drive the old tractor so he could gather up the bales of hay. It wasn’t all that hard stop and go, stop and go. I don’t know what happened but as I look back it must not have been very productive or Mom didn’t like living like a pioneer with the wood burning cook stove and the ringer washer and all. The next year we moved back to Orem and lived in the little cottage behind Granddad’s house. It was small only one bedroom and a screened porch in the back. Next to it was a detached 2 car garage, behind the garage was a root cellar and Granddad’s house seemed so huge. It had a basement with a furnace room, storage room, and there was an old wood burning cook stove in the basement. I don’t remember them ever using it, but Grandma said it was for emergencies if they ever needed to live in the basement. There was a bedroom down there as well. This was my safe place. I stayed in the big house because there wasn’t much room in the cottage. At least I slept in the bedroom there. I remember wanting to be there because it was safe from tornados, I didn’t know that there were no tornados in Utah. There sure had been a lot of them in Texas. There were times that we had to go into storm cellars until the wind had stopped. I can remember on night that the sky was black and funnel clouds were all around and there was a big white stripe in the sky. That storm tore up much of Abilene that night. I suppose that was another reason that Mom wanted to move to Utah.

  Anyway, the cottage was really small but it had this huge bath tub with feet on it. I’ve learned to appreciate tubs like that now. It was so big that I could almost swim in it. Of course I wasn’t all that big. I can remember just sitting in the tub and barely being able to see over the edge.  

 Granddad & Grandma’s farm was bigger than the one in American Fork (actually the area was called Hiland ).  There were fruit trees of every kind.  The biggest sweet cherry trees, apple trees, pear trees, plum,  peach trees and plenty of land to grow a garden in. Grandmother would plant every vegetable you can think of. Asparagus would grow wild in the orchards. We always had more corn that we could manage. There were a dozen cherry trees right next to the big house as well as two English walnut trees. I remember there being a cherry orchard on one side of the house and 10 really big popular trees on the other side. In the fall the leaves from the popular trees would fill the yard up and we would rake the leaves into a great big pile and jump right in the middle.  The big house had a covered front porch and one day I took a running jump off the porch to land in the piles of leaves. I missed and landed on a very thorny bush. It hurt a bunch and dad had to take me to the emergency room in Provo.

Some of my fondest memories are always about the fruit farm that Grandmother & Grandfather owned. There were two big English walnut trees in the back yard. They would provide the shade for the whole back yard as well as the many cherry trees that were beside the house. We would sit under the walnut trees to pit pie cherries or split open apricots for canning, or make ice cream in an old hand crank ice cream maker. I can remember great grandmother telling me stories of her child hood and being married to great grandfather and all the children she had.

  	The back yard was full of places to play, trees to climb and places to play hide and seek. Behind the detached garage was a root cellar where we would store the onions, potatoes, carrots, apples, squash and other cold storage items. Then behind that there was a garden area. This was the small vegetable garden where we would plant small areas of veggies. Like bell peppers, okra, and berries. This was the boysenberry patch. There were only a few bushes of berries but they were the best tasting berries I’ve ever had. Behind this garden was a tractor road then the fields of alfalfa for hay. Later grandpa planted a pie cherry orchard with strawberries underneath, to the north was corrals, barns and more pear orchards. There was also a “shed” where we would sort the fruit before packing it and shipping it off to the buyers. Grandpa always kept the tractor in the shed. The barns were for the animals. Mostly pigs, as I remember. They also had a huge barn or building that housed grandma’s parakeets, she loved to raise these beautiful little birds. This building was north of the big house and in front of the property. There were hundreds of parakeets in all colors and sizes.  The aviary  was partitioned off into 4 separate cages. Two were for nesting and hatching the baby birds. One was for the young birds when they were old enough to leave the nest. I think the 4th was for birds that were ready to be sold or something. It was the smallest of the cages. In the winter there as a large pot bellied stove that was always burning to keep the birds warm. In addition, there were gunnysack bags of birdseed stacked one on top of another. Every few months my brother and I would help clean out the cages and grandma would use the bird droppings and saw dust to mulch the flower gardens. Which would cause some interesting weeds to grow.  She would always keep several of the birds in a small freestanding cage in the side yard under the big popular trees during the summer.  As fall would come and the leaves would begin to fall the birdcage would be taken into a storage shed and the birds would be put with all the other birds in the aviary until the last sign of frost in the Spring.  

Attached to the aviary was the building that stored all the “stuff” that grandmother didn’t want in the house. There was an old Victrola (a very old hand cranked record player) and some antique furniture that I always loved. There were also our sleds for winter, snowshoes and other things that I wasn’t allowed to play with. I would always want to play in there because it was such a great place to hide and so much stuff to explore and imagine with. All these buildings were toward the front of the farm as you would go west there would be acres of fruit trees. There were pie cherry, sweet cherry, apple, pears, peaches, plumbs, nectarines, and more. To the North of the house were more sweet cherry trees and a very large open space where my grandmother would plant her many flowers. There were lots and lots of Peonies', hundreds of different varieties of roses, daisies, tulips, lilic bushes, daffodils, gladiolas, iris and many more flowers, to numerous for me to remember. I just remember the field being covered with bright colors, scents and flowers. If there was a fruit or vegetable that could be grown in Utah, she was growing it somewhere on the farm. I learned how to garden, raise animals and be responsible. When one is given the task of taking care of a new born pig, chickens, sheep or horses it really helps you understand the cycle of life and death.

Summer on the farm was always busy with lots to do. Even though I was young, I still had to work. I learned to pick fruit, sort fruit, pack fruit as well as how to grow vegetables and work a garden. The farm was watered by flood irrigation so every 5 days we had a water turn. It would rotate among all the farmers in the area so sometimes dad and grandpa would be irrigating all night long. When we had the water during the day, it was great. We would play in the water on the lawns because it was like a wading pool. The lawn would look like a lake for a little while.  When I was older, dad would take me with him to irrigate so I was helping to “run” the farm as well. When I was young, I loved climbing the trees and picking the fruit and earning some money, as I grew to be a teenager it became a real chore. However, I always made good money to buy my own clothes and any extras I wanted or needed. 

My uncle Eugene came to visit in the fall to see what Granddad had bought and what he was doing. He drove his old Model T out to Utah. I remember that being the coolest car. It had a rumble seat in the back and running boards on the side. While he was there, he would take me to school in it. All the other kids thought it was a cool car as well. Eugene always did like cars and building things. I always considered him my favorite Uncle. He was like my cool big brother.

Dad wanted to have a farm or ranch of his own so he bought some property at 534 S. 1200 W. in Orem, UT. It wasn’t as big as grandpa’s but it was all pasture land and some sand dunes. There was some peach orchards across the street and dad arranged to take care of it for a part of the profit. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough water to sustain the trees. The fruit was never as good as the fruit on granddad’s farm. It was a great place to live though. Dad bought horses and cows and pigs and we could go riding whenever we wanted to. There were plenty of open areas to ride in. There were even some barns to play in with the other kids in the area. The house was a frame house with two bedrooms and ½ a basement. The basement had a bedroom, furnace room, coal room, washer/dryer and a storage room. I of course wanted the bedroom in the basement. It was after we moved into this house that my brother, Richard (Ricky), was born. (I think) and then about 5 years later Mark was born. So we lived in that house until 1963. I grew up there. We had several sheds with a detached garage. We turned the sheds into a chicken coop and another shed into a Rabbit hutch. We had to have a rabbit hutch because Dad gave us two rabbits for Easter. They started to multiply and Dad got the idea to raise rabbits and sell them. We had rabbits everywhere. Below the rabbit hutch was the pig pens and below that were the pastures for the horses.

Dad wanted a barn and there was an old barn that belonged to the Rawlings family. Dad bought the barn and proceeded to move it over to our place. That was an interesting feat. He got several of the neighbors to help jack the barn up, put it on wheels and then move it over to our pasture. Then he firmly attached it to a foundation. Dad did a lot of work on that place.

We wanted a swimming pool so Mom, Mike, & I started to dig a hole. Before long we had a small two level concrete pool. It was only about 3 feet deep but it was enough to keep us wet and cool. Dad didn’t like for us to go to public pools because of the germs. He was funny that way.

I was in third grade at Westmore Elementary School in Orem; I remember my teacher was Mrs. Wentz, 4th grade I can’t remember, 5th grade was Mr. Hansen ( I remember him because later he would become my Bishop and perform the marriage ceremony for Richard & me.) 6th grade was Mr. Seastrand. Orem was rather a small community at that time so all the adults seemed to know each other. Of course, Dad knew everybody.

Dad started to work for Ed Firmage in downtown Provo. Firmage’s was the nicest department store in Provo, actually in all of Utah County. He worked in the shoe department; I think he became the manager of that department. He was the best salesman. Dad became good friends with the Firmage family and we’d go to dinner, horseback riding and family outings with them. I don’t remember to much about them other than they owned horses, had nice houses. They had a summer home in the mountains near Homestead or Charleston. After all, they were all adults and no children my age.

I had friends from school and around where we lived. My childhood friends were Carolyn Peck she had an older sister named Lorraine her mother’s name was Trudy. There was Anita Rawlings, there were a lot of Rawlings families in the neighborhood. Brice Rawlings was a few years older than I was and he was a terrible tease. There was Gerald Day, Norman Rhoades, Kent Stewart, he was Lorraine’s boy friend, he had a brother named Paul who married Connie Spalding who had a brother William Spalding. The Spalding’s owned a turkey farm. Fern Swarts became my best friend. We spent lot’s of time together from 6th grade on. Jackie Olsen lived on the Hill she & I were friends until one day we were horse back riding together and my horse bolted and ran for home we both fell off but she got a broken ankle. We weren’t such good friends after that. Then there was Jerry & Jimmy Jex, Fra Russell. As you can see there were a lot more boys than girls. I was more of a Tom Boy any way. I wanted to ride horses, and play cowboys & Indians. The girls wanted to play house. We’d build forts in the sand dunes and pretend to shoot the bad guys who were usually Brice and Kent.

	I had another friend whose name was Warren Grimes.  We spent more time together than any of the other friends. Later, when I was a few years older he was my first date. But we were never more than good friends.  Fern was really my only girl friend when I was young. She liked horses as much as I did and she didn’t want to play house like all the other girls. 

 I was about 10 years old when we moved to this house in Orem. Dad made friends quickly , but I felt like an out cast. Maybe because I liked playing with the boys instead of the girls. Then the missionaries started to come to the house to tell us about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Dad was born Lutheran and raised Southern Baptist. He knew his bible in side out, so he was a real challenge for the Missionaries. Granddad and Grandmother were LDS so they encouraged us to attend church with them. Which I must have done all along. I remember going to Sunday school in Abilene and then in Utah. What I realized was that I didn’t have friends at school because I didn’t belong to their church. Unfortunately I lived in the Old Vineyard area of Orem, everyone there had lived there since the place and been settled.  So they didn’t want to accept new comers especially if they weren’t LDS. So I decided that I’d be baptized and join all the other kids in church activities.  Actually, this was a good thing. I learned that the LDS church is true and that God and Christ are the foundation of our lives. There we fun things to do, like girl’s camp up in the mountains. This was great fun. We spent a week up in a huge lodge up behind Timp Haven ski area. There was hiking, tubing, playing in the waterfalls, exploring the woods, crafts and ghost stories at night. The whole second floor of the lodge was the sleeping area. There was probably 100 girls with their leaders there. I couldn’t believe that some of the girls actually got home sick and wanted to go home. Not me, I was having a great time. In fact I didn’t want to go home I was having so much fun. The only bad thing I remember was that Anita was playing with the ax and trying to chop wood and she missed and cut off her little toe. She had to go home.  We did a night hike with flashlights and found a place that the leaders and hung cookies in the trees, then we all gathered around a camp fire and talked about Heavenly Father and what He expected from us. It was fun and spiritual at the same time. I only remember going that one time. I know I wanted to go again the next year. I don’t remember why I didn’t. There were a lot of learning experiences that I had in church. Although I didn’t really become a convert until I was 21. More on that later. 

The primary and then MIA (now called young women & young mens) taught me a lot. Not only about God but about getting along with people. There were always opportunities to give talks, participate in skits, learn to cook & sew, I got to write a skit and perform in it with my friends. That was so funny. I can’t remember exactly what the story was about, but there was suppose to be a dead chicken in it. Fern was suppose to shoot the chicken and it would fall on the stage. I was on the opposite side of the stage with the chicken so I slide across the stage and threw the chicken in the air for her to shoot. It got a big laugh.

0In 6th grade I had to go to Union Elementary School because they changed the boundaries so I had to make friends all over again. I was glad that Fern was in my class. The best thing about 6th grade was the square dancing. I love to dance. Unfortunately, I had a partner that didn’t like to dance. However, I had fun anyway. I guess that boys at that age don’t like girls much anyway, or dancing. We put on plays and our teacher, Mr. Seastrand, was great at making history, English & reading fun. He was one of my favorite teachers. He was also a good friend of my grandparents.