My Brief History (More Later)

BRIEF HIGHLIGHTS OF MY LIFE

By Recollections Johnson Carrillo
(these are childhood memories; I will write memories of my later life at another time.)

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS: The first reckonings I have of my life was my grandmother Sanders, whom I called "Nana." She was the one who made me feel good, even though I was sick most of the time. I was a frail child, looking like an orphan suffering malnutrition. I had a very poor appetite. Apparently I had an allergy to milk, which caused my poor appetite and illness. My grandma used to sing to me and always seem to be near when I was feeling low. My own mother was often very ill herself, and was not always able to care for me. This was when I was very young and lived with my grandmother and mother in Fairview, Utah, while my father was in the army during World War II.

I remember living in a subdivision in Orem with a few friends in which I used to get into fights with quite often. I used to push kids down the stairs, hit them over the head with rocks and bite them etc. But they always provoked me. Once, right after moving to Orem, some older girls put red ants all over me. It's funny that I can remember this, as I was probably only about two years old.

I remember being called "skinny" constantly by my peers. I didn't even know what skinny meant. I thought it meant you had too much hair on your arms. I was skinny all my childhood due to my illness from infancy. My father finally got me to start eating better, and by the time I married, I weighed about 95 lbs.! (At this writing, I refuse to admit my weight, suffice it to say it's a good deal more than when I married).

I remember being very shy when I started school. I had not been shy earlier as I had been able to stand and recite poems and sing complete songs at family reunions at the age of two. I guess my shyness was caused because of the way my peers always made fun of me because of my thinness. I remember hating kindergarten. (We only went for six weeks during the summer back then). I cried and actually felt sick at my stomach when I had to go. As a result, my mother had me go again the next year. I did much better then.

I would now like to just relate some of my feelings and experiences I had as a child about different times and occasions.

CHRISTMAS: I loved Christmas as most children do. I loved the smell of the tree and that special magic that is hard to explain. I loved to go to the five and dime store and look at all the magical items there. Nowadays, children could hardly relate to the items found then. Glistening bottles of perfume, Glowing trinkets, plastic dolls, perfumed soaps, all sorts of magical things. The favorite store we loved to go to go window shopping was called Kress'. It wasn't the things that I would get at Christmas that would excite me, it was that special feeling that is hard to explain, a kind of mysterious feeling. It wasn't the presents, it was the unknown of the neatly wrapped gifts that held a special wonder. When they were unwrapped and lay scattered on the floor, that special feeling was no longer there. I can truly say that the waiting was what made Christmas so special. It was saying to myself "It's coming, it's coming." I remember one Christmas my Aunt Beverly put a beautifully wrapped box for me under the tree. I just could not contain myself, I opened it one day when my parents were out. It was a delightful present; 4 bottles of Cologne in bottles shaped like elephants. One pink, carnation scent, one green, jasmine scent, one yellow, honeysuckle scent and one lavender, lavender scent. They were truly wonderful, but the magic was gone and I wrapped them back up again so no one would find out what I had done. Ever since then, I have waited for Christmas day to open my gifts. It is so much more exciting that way. I have always loved Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day.

I remember going to the annual Christmas parade held the day after Thanksgiving. We were always excited because we got to see Santa. I went one year with the neighbors and got lost after the parade and a policeman came and asked me my phone number. The neighbors finally found me, but I was scared for a while. One Christmas eve, I got up and could swear to this day that I saw Santa bending over the lit-up tree with his bells around his waist and placing toys under the tree. My brother, Chris, and I loved Christmas a whole lot. Chris got so excited that he always got up really early and opened everything before the rest of the family got up.

PETS: As a child, and to this day, I always loved cats. When I was young, I went trough a great many cats. When I say I went through them, I mean they were always dying and disappearing, and then I would be very upset, but I would always get another. My favorite cat was named "Scappy." He was a lot like a human. He was the best cat ever.

MY BROTHER My brother, Chris, was a real hellion as a child. He was a lovable hellion though. He loved adventure. He liked to wreck up his toy cars to make playing with them more interesting. He loved to play army. He was mischievous like most boys but even more so. He and I got along pretty good though; even though he tore up my paper dolls, pounded the spokes out of my bicycle and made dents in the fender. He could talk his way out of anything. I wasn't so lucky; I was unrepentive, but since he always said "sorry", he was free to go out and be mischievous again. He baptized my sister's cats, killed toads and dug them up later, among some of the crazy things he did. We still had good times. I really liked going on vacation with him. We loved camping out and playing soft ball.

MY MOTHER: My mom always looked like a movie star to me. She had large eyes and beautiful skin and reminded me of Loretta Young. (I'm sure my children won't even know who she is, but she was a beautiful movie star back in the 40's and 50's.) She used to play guessing games with Chris and I when my dad was working late. She could make up really great stories to tell. I liked them a lot better than stories out of books. She made good things to eat. I remember the apple dumpling she used to fix in the old dutch oven. We loved it so much. I remember that she was really scared of mice and bats. One day, a bat was asleep during the day on the garage roof. She got a broom and was hitting him and screaming. I guess she was afraid he would get in her hair. She always wanted a piano when she was growing up. I had a yearn to play the piano too. She saw that I got one for my 11th birthday. She was learning to play along with me, but gave it up because she got discouraged. She shouldn't have done that. She liked operas and classical music and great literature. So did I. We went to a couple of operas together and read some Charles Dicken's books.

MY DAD: Dad was very hard-working. He was also very frugal. I remember our farm in Lakeview. He built a barn out of trees he cut down himself from the mountains so we could save money. He dug a root cellar too. We had every kind of animal imaginable on that farm. We had rabbits, chickens, pigs, a milk cow, even a couple of ducks. We did not have horses though. Dad only kept animals that could earn their keep. Horses couldn't be eaten or did not produce eggs, and we did not ride them. They were the ones who were always eating and Dad was not going to spend money on something that ate and could not be eaten or earn its keep. Dad had been raised on a ranch, but never cared much about horses. He rode them to do his work on, but not for pleasure.

Dad was always busy, but he always found time to play with us kids. He loved to throw bean bags at us, and we would hide behind the couch and when we rose up, he would let us have it. We loved every minute of it. We even had a basketball hoop in the living room and played ball all the time.

OUR FAMILY: Our family had really good times together. We played softball every summer evening after supper, and when it got dark, we played hide-and-seek. My parents played with us. All the neighbor kids came to our house to play because their parents were dull and liked to sit in the house all evening or go out with friends.

My parents were always doing things with us. When we played hide and seek, we really had fun. There were big bushes all around the house and lots of places to hide. My brother, Chris, and I used to like to play a game called "poison cars", it was a game that you would go in the front yard at night and look for car lights coming down the road. When you saw lights, you had to run around the back of the house before the car got to your place or you would be killed by the poison from the cars. Hardly any cars ever came down the street because we lived out on a dirt road seldom traveled, yet my cats always got killed on the road despite this. Kids today would hardly find any fun in the things we did, but it was a blast to us. One of the things I really liked to do was make dirt houses in the sand. I would stick sticks in the houses for chimneys and pieces of glass for the windows. I would often build them by the furrows my dad made for the irrigation water and pretend they were rivers or lakes. I liked doing this much better than playing with toys.

I liked using cats to dress up instead of dolls. I had one cat that was really congenial. His name was Scrappy, and he would let me do about anything to him. He was killed on the road, but I hope someday to meet up with him on the other side. I hope Heavenly Father knows how much I loved him and would really like to see him again. I found fun with ordinary things. I played with buttons and gave them names, I even had a flashlight named Barbara (I loved that name). I would collect pieces of broken glass. I liked all the pretty colors. I had quite a collection.

FAMILY VACATIONS:
I loved to go on vacations with our family. That is one happy memory many kids can't relate to. We had such good times together. One of my favorite vacations was going to California. I thought it was the most magical place in the world. I especially loved the palm trees and the ocean. I could have stayed out in the ocean all day and let the waves knock me down. To me there is something mysterious and frightening about the sea. When it crashes against the rocks it can be very scary, but it is also an amazing and breath-taking sight. I love to watch the ocean and listen to the sounds it makes. Another trip we went on was to Canada. We went in a camper my dad had made. Whenever we stopped for lunch or to camp for the night, we would play softball. We went to Yellowstone many times too. I just loved going on vacations, especially camping vacations and I still do.


SCHOOL:

For most of my elementary school days I went to a little old school on Geneva Road called Union School. I really liked that school. It was really small, only 1 classroom per grade. We had to go outside to another building for lunch. It was a really old school. I remember that there were very old black walnut trees growing outside the school. There was a girl named Jeneal who was a tomboy. She used to throw rocks up into the trees and knock down the nuts for us to eat. She could throw better than any boy. I loved those black walnuts. We used to play softball at recess. We learned a lot of songs and really enjoyed singing at that school. I don't thinks kids nowadays sing in school like we used to. I have always loved to sing, and I think it was because our teachers loved it and taught us so many songs. We learned to dance waltzes and foxtrots and all kinds of ballroom dancing. I didn't like those kinds of dances because I wasn't very graceful, and dancing so close with boys made me very nervous. But we learned to square dance, and I loved square dancing better because you got to dance with many different partners and you didn't have to be so graceful. We had a Spring Fling each spring and our parents would come and watch us dance. We practiced for ages. It was really fun. Another thing I really liked about the old school was at Christmas time we would learn so many songs. We had a great big tree in the upstairs hallway. It would glow with lights on dark winter mornings. We would stand around the tree and sing carols before class. There was a special magic those dark winter mornings. I would be so excited for Christmas. The tree all aglow would make me tingle.

Some Brief Family Histories

FAMILY HISTORIES
Compiled by Rita Johnson Carrillo

HISTORY OF ALFRED JOHNSON JR.
(My grandfather on my father's side)

My grandfather on my father's side was born Sept, 16, 1886 in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, his father was Alfred Sr. who was born in Sweden. His mother was Mette Marie Jensen. I was never very close to him or never knew much about him. He was a hard worker and very tight with money and very strict. His kids had to work very hard, and never got to finish school because they had to stay home and work except the youngest one.

All the children were very smart in school. Alfred married Kate Larsen on March 12, 1909. She died January 19, 1950. They had seven children: Loftin, Bernice, Betty, Alice, Kenneth, (my father), Glen and Ray. A couple of children died in infancy.

He was a member of the L.D.S Church but never had time for it. His wife never joined the church, but saw to it that all her children were baptized. After his wife died, he married Anne Vickers. She had been a Mormon but had joined the Jehovah's Witness Church. In later life, Alfred also joined the Jehovah's Witness Church.

He had cancer for many years and finally died on April 1, 1972. He had two funerals, one at the at the Jehovah's Witness'and one at the Mormon chruch. He is buried in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

CATHERINE MARIE (KATE) LARSEN JOHNSON

(My grandmother on my father's side.)

Her father was John Rassmus Larsen. She was born June 5, 1889 in Odense, Denmark. She died when I was six years old. I remember her being short and plump with white hair and wearing it in a bun.

She never joined the Mormon Church, her husband was a member, but it was she who saw to it that their children baptized.

She came to Sanpete county from Denmark as a young girl. She came with her parents. They had been sold some land in Sanpete County from someone who gave them the impression that Utah was a more beautiful place than Denmark. They were very disappointed in the dry, sagebrush country of Utah. Denmark had been lush and green. They stayed in Utah for awhile, but they hated it. They had been told that Oregon was a much better place so they all moved to Portland except for Kate, who stayed and got a job at my great grandfathers (Alfred Sr.) in Fountain Green, Utah. Later she married my grandfather (Alfred Jr.), on March 12, 1809.
HISTORY OF GOVIETA LEONARD SANDERS
(My grandfather on my mothers side)


He was born in Provo, Utah on February 8, 1900, but it has been disputed that he was born in 1899. Since records of his birth have never been found, no one could prove when he was really born. He married Christa Brady on June 5, 1921 in the Salt Lake Temple. His parents were Charles Sanders and Kate White. His father (whom nothing is known00 about) was in Mexico and when he was one or two years old or so, his mother went by train to Mexico to meet his father when she became ill and died of inflammation of the bowels as the death report states. This happened in Douglas Arizona. She is also buried there.

Govieta was taken to Sanpete County to live with his mothers sister, Lydia Halberg. His father was never heard of again and was supposedly killed in Mexico. My grandfather had been named for some Mexican general. (Govieta).

His mother had been married before and divorced and had a girl about two years older than my grandfather. She was his half sister, but she was taken to rased by her father in San Francisco, and I don't think my grandfather knew her very well at all. My mother did meet her once.

My grandfather was a very quiet man. But he liked to give presents. It always made him happy to give things. Although he married my grandmother in the temple, he quit going to church after his marriage, but my grandmother remained active. He smoked and drank some too. He worked in the coal mines most of his life, which ruined his lungs later on.

He was the father of three children: Duane, Fawn (my mother) and Beverly. He moved around a lot never staying in one place for long. When my mother was a teenager, he finally settled for good in Fairview, Utah, where he built a home. (He was a good carpenter, and played the saxophone, trumpet and harmonica and also gave lessons).

He had trouble with his lungs because of working in mines and because of his smoking. He finally quit smoking because of his health. He couldn't find work in Fairview, so he got work at some factory in Tooele, Utah. He only came home to Fairview on weekends. At the last he became too ill to work and came to live with us in Orem, Utah, and was going to collect unemployment. He never got to because he died only one day after moving in with us. He died at the hospital in Provo on March 11, 1956.

He never became reactivated in the church, but when my grandma paid tithing, he said he could see the difference in their lives, and he got a testimony of tithing. The lung disease he died of was emphysema, and I remember him always having an oxygen tent on him.

I have two things which he made, a doll cupboard and a chest of drawers. He is buried in Fairview, Utah.

CHRISTA VALE BRADY SANDERS
(My grandmother on my mother's side)

She was my longest living grandparent. She was born February 28, 1901. I could write a lot about her since she is my favorite grandparent. She practically raised me during the first two years of my life, even though I was very small, I remember her rocking me and singing to me many hours. I was very sickly as a child and needed a lot of attention.

She was born in Fairview, Utah to Jordan H. Brady and Levee Sanderson. She grew up in Fairview and had many brothers and sisters. She was the third to the youngest in the family. Four of the children in the family died in infancy. There would have been 13 children altogether, nine of them survived.

Her parents were from, pioneer stock. When she was young she wore her hair tightly braided down to her waist. She said the braids had to last for a week, and so they were pulled so tightly she nearly cried.

After my mother had me, my father was in the war, and so my mother lived with my grandma. Since my mother was sick a lot, my grandma was very close to me and took care of me a lot. I used to call her Nana. She had kind of a hard life. When she was young, she had scarlet fever or measles which ruined her eyesight, which got worse as she got older and she is almost blind at the time of her death.

She and my grandfather (Goveita Sanders) had marital problems. They didn't see eye to eye on many things. My grandfather spent money foolishly and moved around from job to job, often leaving my grandmother home in a different state to care for the children alone with little money. She had tree children, Duane, Fawn and Beverly.

She lived through the depression and her family often had very little to eat. She was always active in the church but sometimes stayed home because my grandpa didn't want her to go or she was so poor she had nothing to wear.

She was only 55 years old when her husband died. Having no money, and not being eligible for social security, she had to find work. There was little work in the Fairview area. She finally got a job in the Moroni Turkey Plant. The work was hard and not steady. She couldn't find another job nearby, so she was forced to sell the home her home her husband had built for a mere $5000 and move to Salt Lake City. She got a job there as a cook in a sorority house and later worked in the Salt Lake Temple cafeteria. She served an LDS mission in the North Carolina, Virginia area in about 1958. Also, in her earlier life, she ran a hamburger and hot dog stand in Burley, Idaho.

After retirement, she went on living in Salt Lake and working as a temple worker. She married Willis Tidwell in the early 1970's. She was hoping he would fill a void in her life and take her traveling a lot. But he turned out to be very tight with money and set in his ways. He died in 1973 of a cancerous brain tumor. She had been his third wife and the only on to outlive him.

She was a wonderful person and very staunch in the church. She kept the rest of us on our toes. She was able to get some compensation from my grandfather's working in the mines. Because of his disease, she was able to collect money from the black lung from the government and times weren't as hard for her as before.

Grandma Sanders had been going downhill fast since eary Fall 1992. My parents were forced to put her in a nursing home in October of 1992. She had really gone completely blind and was losing her sense of direction. She had suffered several small strokes. She got so she would not eat, and would not communicate with people. She kept getting worse until on Januray 24, at 4 a.m., she passed away and joined her family and Father in Heaven. We miss her a lot, but she is much better off now, and not suffering. A lovely graveside service was held for her at the Fairview Cemetary. It was a beautiful sunny day. The snow was glistening, and we could feel Heavenly Father's presence there. She would have been 92 on February 28.

HISTORY OF MARTIN MADRID
(My husband's Grandfather on his mothers side)

We don't know much about him. He married Ruben in about 1905 or 1906. His father was Juan Madrid and his mother was Teresa Trujillo. He was born December 21, 1881. We don't know where he was born. He died December 10, 1953, in Monero, New Mexico, of diabetes. He is buried in Monero, New Mexico. He was the father of nine children: Juana, Pablita, (my husband's mother), Plasida, Valentina, Martin, Margarita, Carmel, Minerva, and Cordelia. Martin was staying with Alex' family in Monero at the time of his death.

He was about 23 when he married his wife. She was only 14. The marriage had been arranged. After all their children were raised, they no longer lived together. Alex got to know him because he died when he was 11. He had one known brother, Juan, who lived in Montecello, Utah.


RUBEN SALAZAR MADRID
(My husband's grandmother on his mothers side)

She was born August 1891. She and Alex were quite close. But he doesn't have much information about her. Ever since Alex knew her, she did not live with her husband. The marriage had been arranged when she was only 14, and she had never been happy with it. She lived with her son, Martin. Alex often went to stay with her. She was very good to him and had more time for him than his mother who was so busy with all her other children. She always wore black and her hair bobbed up. She also rolled her own cigarettes. She died after Alex' family moved to Utah, in Espanola or Sante Fe. Her father was Pablo Salazar. Her mother was Juliana Aarchuleta. Her Mother's mother and her husband's mother were of some relation. She died in November of 1961. Both Martin and Ruben have had their temple work one for them which was done by Alex and me on November 8, 1977.

MY FATHER (KENNETH GEORGE JOHNSON

Dad was born on sept. 2, 1920 at Mt. Pleasant, Utah. He lived at a ranch 4 miles southeast of town. Because of transporation problems, he didn't start school until he was be The family moved to Fountain Green in 1928. In 1931, the family moved back to the ranch and they went to school in a horse-drawn cart. In the winter they went to school in a horse-drawn cutter which is sort of a sled. The roads were never plowed in those days and in the winter a car could not get through. Times were very tough because of the great depression, but they never went hunry as they had sheep and grain to use for food but not much else.

He did not think his childhood years were much different from other kids in that day and age, except living away from town restricted some of his school and church activities. Sunday was just like another day to them. He learned the value of work at a very early age and that has been an asset to him for the rest of his life. The kids in his school often made jokes calling his father "Busy Alfred", but he guesses that it was really a compliment.

Because of the severe depression, it ws several years before the family could afford hired help. So the kids had to pitch in and do the all the chores. Because of this, they only went to school in the winter when there weren't so many chores to do. All of the kids went school only up to the 8th or 9th grade. His father assumed because he had gone to school that many years and was doing just fine, that it was ok for the kids to do the same. His mother, however, was upset when his father made the kids quit school.

After he quit school, he worked for his father for very little money except for a little spending money now and again. So when he was spared from his dad's work, he got jobs from other farmers in the area. He started out riding a hay fork horse all day for 35 cents.