Mom's Early Years

Mom and Sister Beverly Ann

Mom with her Brother Duane and their Doggy

As a girl, my mom grew up in many different places. Her father was a welder, a carpenter and a coal miner. He went where the work was. One of his first jobs was working in the coal mines of Clear Creek. That is where my mother was born. Later, he got a job in Salt Lake City. The year he got that job was a very wet and muddy Spring. He had to have his car shipped by the railroad to Salt Lake City because he could not drive it because of the mud.

Later the family moved to Hiawatha Utah. It was a little coal mining town. My mother had her happiest days there. Playing Tarzan and swinging from trees and going to the Tarzan movies. She made friends easily. Her brother Duane did not. He had a very hard time moving so many times. He and Mom were often picked on because of their Dad's name. (Goveita) They used to yell out: "Goveit Goveit, go home and wash your feet. They smell so bad I cannot eat." Duane would get all upset and would start to cry but Mom would throw them down on the sidewalk and hit their heads up and down on the cement."

Later they moved to Montana and then to Idaho. Mom's dad ran a gas station for a while. Grandpa and Grandma Sanders split up for a while. They had trouble getting along and it was mostly because my Grandpa wasn't religious and my Grandma was very religious. He was in Montana and she and kids were in Burley Idaho where she ran a hot dog stand. They rented a front part of a house. They did get back together and then moved to California where my Grandpa worked for the May Company. He had been looking for work for weeks when he finally got that job. They lived in a house right next the ocean in Ventura California. It was a rented house. Mom used to go daily and gather seashells. It was the time of the Great Depression and they often had nothing to eat but onion sandwiches. Grandma Sanders told Mom and Duane to drink lots of water to fill up their empty stomachs. She did say it helped a little with the hunger pangs.

Then it was back to Salt Lake again, where Beverly was born in 1933. And then back to Fairview. For a time they lived with Mom's cousin Alden. in Fairview. Mom said there was a billy goat there that would chase them everytime they went to the old outhouse. If he got near them, he would butt them. In the outhouse, there were always wasp nests and it was either get stung by a wasp or butted by Billy or both. They lived way out of town and had to walk to school in really deep snow for miles and miles. (parents always had to walk for mile to get to school it seems)

My mother's dad (Jordan Brady) and most of her aunts and uncles lived in Fairview. At first Grandma and Grandpa were renting a house in Fairview. Grandma Sander's  dad sold them some land next to his place and my grandpa proceeded to built their very own home. They lived in a big tent while he was building it.

Mom had many friends. She always had plenty to do. Most every night she went to the dance. Dancing was her life. She went rolling skating, to the movies and bike riding. She listened to the Hit Parade on the radio. She loved playing paper dolls and reading to Beverly. She had lots of chores to do around the house. There were lots of cousins, uncles, aunts and other relatives who lived near her. She had some health problems, mostly that she got sick easily and was always passing out because of low blood pressure. She was very cute and petite. More to follow.....