Remembering Mom

It's been 10 years now since Mom passed away.  The time went  fast. I will write down a few things I remember about her.

Mom was was born in Clear Creek Utah on Sept 19, 1923. She only weighed 4 pounds and they put her in a box behind the coal stove to keep her warm. As a girl she loved to read and was often late to school because she couldn't put her book down. She loved play Tarzan and other games. Her brother Duane was very shy. Mom stuck up for him and kicked the bullies and knocked them down.

Their family moved a lot and they lived in many places while her father found work. They lived in California, Idaho, Arizona, Montana but Fairview Utah was home.

She played her friends and cousins while living in Fairview. She knew everybody in town. She loved to jump rope, roller skate and rides bikes. In high school she got a crush on her music teacher Spencer Covert. She went to many dances and school games.  She loved to dance. It was her life. But Daddy did not like to dance.

After she graduated, she met Dad at a dance. She and her friend Ruby took a ride with the guys. She was actually not with Dad but with his friend. Ruby was with Dad. Dad actually admitted in one his letters that he had been drinking that night. Later we he tried to take Ruby on a date and she was not home, he decided to go to Mom's house and ask "the skinny girl" out. They hit if off right away.  Mom's mother thoughht Dad's family were a bunch of hicks with bad haircuts and dumb clothes and weird ways of talking. But Mom needed work and so she went to Califronia  where her dad and brother were and started working there. Dad went back to his sheep herding business and pined for Mom until he finally decided to go to California to be with her.. He got a job down. Word War II was in the process of drafting. He got drafted and they decided to marry before he went to war.

Mom was ill a lot and after giving birth to me, she had bad fever and nearly died. When Dad came home they moved to Orem Utah because Mom thought Dad was just too smart to be a farmer. He worked at Geneva and the pipe mill and for a company called Ralph's Radio where he learned to fix electric things. He got a degree through BYU night school.

The had another, a boy named Christopher George. Mom had to have a hysterectomy. Dad applied to the  Orem Post Office and got a job. The job that he retired with.

Mom always wanted a little farm to have a garden and have animals so they moved to Lake View with an acre of ground . Mom loved Lake View. Dad got itching to move. Mom didn't want to but said if he could a house acreage, then she would move. So he found one here in Vineyard on 558 N 1200 W, Orem. And today I am living in that same house which Alex and I bought in 1970. It has been built on to and remodeled several times.

Mom wanted lot of kids so they adopted 2 baby girls, Laura and Robin. Robin had been living in a Greek orphange. Mom and Dad had moved to east Orem later.

Although Mom suffered so much with pain, she always thought of her family first. She always made cute dresses for the girls in the family. She never forgot Valentine's Day or Halloween even when was not hardly able to get out of bed. She and Dad used to take a lot trips and camping trips with our little family following behind. She was so nice, she let some of the kids sleep in their trailer. The kids loved these trips.

She taught me how to be a hard worker. Can my own food. Pick my own vegetables, She even helped me learn to clean out chickens to get them ready for the freezer. She used to bake 8 loaves of bread a week and taught me how as well. She and Dad both taught me the value of money and we were taught to never waste anything.

Despite her illness, she managed to keep up with almost everything until the very last years before her death. She taught us to be good people and to live by her example which I will never live up to. I  love you Mom. Thank you for being my Mom.

Mom died February 19, 2003, She was released from all her pain and she is in another realm. Daddy is now with her. Rest in Peace.

Memoirs of an Oremite

The other day when my girls took me out for my birthday, the mall and the movie and whole of that area was so crowded.  There were hardly any parking places. The Orem mall and the theater were packed. I got to thinking about Orem and how it used to be here.

Having spent my whole life in Orem, I can remember when the mall used to be a bunch of orchards with pears, apples and cherries. I used to pick fruit in those orchards. The only theater in Orem was the Scera. The only two grocery stores was Scott Wilkins and Wilbergs, both small family run stores. We used to go to Provo to shop for groceries sometimes and they only had Happy Service, (where the Deseret Industries are now and Safeway and Skaggs.) Orem later got Safeway. 

Center street in Orem did not exist until 1962 and then albertson's came in.  You could not even buy thread in Orem until Woolworths came in and then Cornet's. Provo was where went to buy clothes. Firmage's Penny's, Lerner Shop Clark's. There was Kress and Woolworth's as well. Walgreen's had a fountain where you could get sandwiches and ice cream. So did Woolworth's. We loved Kress for toyland at Christmas. It was considered a five and dime store.

800 North in Orem was a dirt road with a turkey farm located nearby. University Parkway was just being built. There was not college. There was a large swamp there. Where Wal-mart is was a dairy farm where you could buy raw milk. Jeppson's Potato chips factory was located on Sandhill Road. Geneva Steel was the main emplyoyer at the time. There were two drive in theaters in Orem. 1200 West where I live now was a dirt road and the hills above were vacant and it was called Lizard Valley. Our telephone had a party line. The phone company had to come to your house and install the phone which was their property and you paid more for a colored phone. Coal was still being used as the most common method of heating the home. Natural gas came in later.

Most mothers did not work and one car per family was the norm. Girls had to wear dresses to school. There were not very many large homes in Orem. they were usually small except for some very old homes. When you moved to a new neigborhood, the people next door always welcomed you with a treat and if there were kids, they immediately became friends. They had neighborhood clubs and my mother belonged to one. Orem was small enough, that my dad, working at the post office knew every family by name and address in Orem.

If you chewed gum in school, you were expelled. For recess there was jump the rope, jacks, roller skaing and tether ball. School lunch was a full coarse meal for 20 cents.  We finally got the mall in Orem and Grand Central. A lot of orchards were cut down. Since then, Orem has never stopped growing and traffic and crowds abound.