:Family Matters

January 1, 2008,

Is it just me or do the years seem like they are getting shorter to you as well? I can remember when they used to last, well, all year not like the present when I hardly have time to get used to the new one before it is the old one. Really, this could be quite confusing if one were of a weaker mind set than moi, but I have worn my ‘I can cope with anything’ cape for so long that time speeding up is, fortunately, not much of a problem other than I have to remember to buy a new calendar much sooner than I used to, which is a problem.

About the time MGH’s employment was ending with the dairy in Loa he received an offer from Utah State University to work in their extension service to fill a position that had opened up in Richfield just 40 miles down the mountain from us. One of the things they required before the contract was finalized was to finish the work on his doctorate degree. While he had completed all the required course work and written his thesis there was one final step—he had to successfully ‘defend’–before a panel of professors– his thesis. He hadn’t done so while we were at Michigan State because we were flat out of funds and couldn’t afford to stay there after his graduate school stipend ran out, which it had.

A phone call to his major professor Lon McGilliard resulted in the necessary arrangements being quickly made for his ‘defense’ which required him to fly from Salt Lake to East Lansing, Michigan around Thanksgiving of 1971. Having everything come together so quickly was a stand alone miracle on its own as it required much re-arranging of schedules to find a space in the busy lives of 5 professorss for this process to take place. That they were able and willing to do so shows the high regard they had for MGH.

I was left to hold down the fort in Loa with our three week old baby along with Ford, Sylvia, Jay, Mark, Kyle & Robyn who also stood duty with me. This was the infamous week when Kyle came down with what we thought at first was ‘the flu’ but was really an intestinal blockage. Katie C., our neighbor and local health care expert suggested that paregoric, which is an opium derived product that at one time was available over the counter and used to treat diarrhea, might help. After listening to her make her pitch I agreed to have Kyle try it in the hopes it would give him some relief. This being decided she said that she would check around the community to see if there was any available. Unfortunately, this particular flu had seen all the local supplies used up. She then assured me that she could arrange for my being able to get some at the drug store in Richfield if I could get there before it closed.

By this time I was really getting desperate as nothing we had done for Kyle seemed to help. You can tell just how desperate I was by the fact that I was even considering driving down that steep mountain road in the dark in our worn out car leaving my tiny baby at home under the care of his siblings. As my family very well knows I drove like a grandmother long before I ever became one. Even a hint of bad weather was/is enough for me to stay home until roads are clear and dry. However, this was a time when, even though I was scared silly, I knew I had to make the attempt like it or not.

So off I went, after leaving careful instructions on the care of the baby, who I hoped would sleep the whole time as I was nursing him which meant they wouldn’t be able to do much for him in the feeding department if he woke up and was hungry except let him cry. I prayed constantly as I drove that I would be able to make the trip safely and that if I got into trouble there would be someone to help. That dark, cold evening I saw one other car on the road and that was at the only place where the road was icy so help would have been there had I needed it. Coincidence, I think not. Fortunately, I was able to navigate successfully through the slick spots and find my way to the drugstore where I quickly picked up the paregoric which was waiting for me as Katie had promised it would be. I found all well when I returned home. We gave Kyle the medication but after a few hours it became apparent that it was not going to help him.

The next morning when Katie called to see how he was doing I told her that he was still very sick and in a lot of pain and that I felt that he needed to be taken to see the doctor immediately. At this point, sensing that I meant to do just that as well as realizing that home remedies were not going to work she volunteered to drive us in their bigger/heavier/four door car knowing I would have my hands full as the baby would be with me this time as well as Kyle, who was still trying to throw up even though he had long ago emptied every thing out, which she did. I remember how pale and miserable Kyle was on that trip as he huddled in the back seat of their car holding onto the big aluminum salad bowl that our family used when they were sick.

MGH returned home several days later, late at night, having successfully defended his thesis, excited by this accomplishment and at being back home, only to receive word of his critically ill oldest son. He immediately turned around and drove the long dreary miles back to Salt Lake taking one of the children with him, I think it was Sylvia, to help him stay awake, in order to be there for Kyle. He arrived to find Kyle already in surgery, his condition too grave to wait for parental permission.

Kyle is a fighter; he survived recovering his strength in a most remarkable manner which allowed him to play baseball on his high school team by the end of the school year.

Our family was indeed blessed with many miracles while living in Loa. I cannot deny them for I was there when/as they happened.

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December 30, 2007

Another year is coming to a close. I know this not just because the calendar
says so but because the news outlets are all listing the years highlights in sports/politics/weather/whatever. To be honest they might as well save their ink as far as I am concerned as I rarely look at their choices for all too often the criteria for selection seems to be ‘if it bleeds it leads’ and having been made aware of all the tragedy around me at the time it occurred I find I have very little patience for a recap.

There is a song “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” written by Frank Loesser inspired by the words of a Navy Chaplain Howell Forgy, aboard the USS New Orleans during the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. The words go like this:

Down went the gunner, a bullet was his fate.
Down went the gunner, then the gunners mate.
Up jumped the sky pilot, gave the boys a look
and manned the gun himself as he laid aside
The Book, shouting
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition and we’ll all stay free!
Praise the Lord and swing into position!
Can’t afford to sit around and wishin’
Praise the Lord we’re all between perdition
and the deep blue sea!
Yes the sky pilot said it
You’ve got to give him credit
for a son-of-a-gun-of-a-gunner was he,
Chorus: Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Etc.

MGH sang this song to me many years ago and I found it touched a core in the center of my very being. I believe that this is what I/we all have to do to make it through until we are called back to our maker–’praise the Lord and pass the ammunition’.

January 27, 2007 saw the passing of a young nephew Ford Thomas Hervey son of Robert and Amy Hervey. It was sudden and totally unexpected. This Christmas his family sent the following with their Christmas card. I quote it with permission.

Life at
Hervey Haven 2007
Lessons We Learned:
If you try you get good grades.
Reading is fun.
You are stronger than you know.
The refiner’s fire polishes you into a gem.
It is ok to die. It is ok to cry. Death is not the end.
The hardest trials bring the most precious blessings.
(Sorrow was tempered by joy when our 6th child was born.)
Home is the closest thing to heaven.
Families are eternal.
You always make time for the things that matter the most to you.
Perseverance takes you to your goal.
The priesthood is God’s power here on earth.
The Book of Mormon is true.
Each person is important. Each one of us needs love and kindness.
A good influence is far reaching. You really do make a difference in the life of
others.
Heavenly Father knows, loves and cares about us. He hears and answers our
prayers.
Always listen to promptings. . . .
Miracles come in many ways, shapes and sizes.
This year we have learned in a small way how God must have felt to watch his
son Jesus Christ die.

When he was on his death bed MGH’s maternal grandfather John George Wright told his family, “It’s good to have been here”, to which I add my own Amen. No matter how long or short, how happy or sad, how good or bad it’s good to be here learning/trying to do our best and realizing that our Heavenly Father is always there for us. I believe this with all my heart. So here is to lessons learned in the past year and here is to the New Year
opening before us—may we ‘live long and prosper’ as we ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. . . .

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December 23, 2007

Sometimes a decision made on the spur of the moment triggers future events in the most unexpected manner—the result of which can be far reaching for many. While I realize that there is nothing quite as ‘old’ news as the story of a baby’s birth, that is unless it is yours or the story of the birth of the Christ Child, still I feel the need to tell of the birth of my fourth child. Just as an aside, I wonder if Marie had any idea of what she was stirring up when she put her questions down for me to answer on that piece of lined note book paper. For stir things up, she has indeed. Much as allowing a horse freedom to take off on a wild gallop when he gets the bit in his teeth her questions have given me permission to remember. . . .

In June of 1974 MGH accepted a position with American Breeders Service located in DeForest, WI where he would work with their progeny testing program. This meant a serious relocation for our family without much time to locate housing so we decided that MGH would go on ahead and begin his new job while looking for a place to live with the idea that once said place was found we would come join him as quickly as possible. We felt like this was the best course of action as I was getting quite far along with my latest pregnancy and didn’t much fancy the idea of a change while moving further into the ‘waddling’ stage of the third trimester. Marie was married, while Dawn was working on her own which meant that they were now gone from home along with Mark who was off working in Colorado for the summer on a farm run by former ward members while Kyle was serving a mission in Taiwan. This left Robyn Jay, Sylvia, Ford and Brooks still at home to keep things interesting for their parental units.

Much to our surprise and delight MGH quickly found a place for us to rent in the small farming town of DeForest, Wisconsin located about five miles from his work. Finding a place to live so quickly put me into a real quandary, my baby was due in just over a month and so I needed to decide, should I wait until after the birth which meant I could continue to see the family doctor who had been over seeing my prenatal care or cut and run so that we were together as a family again? ABS had made an unusual exception for us and agreed to cover the cost of moving as well as flying us to Wisconsin which was something that they didn’t usually do for new employees. This would simplify things for me in many ways but I needed to find out when the cut off date was for flying as I had heard that the airlines didn’t allow women in the last month of their pregnancy to fly, I suppose because they didn’t want any little bundles of joy to decide it was time to make an unexpected appearance while airborne. Upon checking I found out that I could still purchase a ticket if the doctor I was seeing agreed that it was safe for me to travel. So there I was, should I, shouldn’t I? The conclusion, once reached, went against our original plan as it meant leaving at once. I must confess here that I didn’t much cotton to the thought of seeing another doctor much preferring to stay where I was but while thinking about the situation it came to me that any doctor could deliver a baby–even a husband if it came to that and that there was was no reason to delay the move.

That having been decided we pulled out of Glenwood, after a wild scramble to procure a moving van and make all the arrangements necessary to shut down our home as well as coordinate with the airline for tickets, in our yellow 1972 Ford pick-up with its 8 cylinder engine, which Henry Day, who sold the truck to MGH assured him could ‘run’ with anything on the highway, on July 17th. Dean Larsen who was the Bishop of our ward had come over to help with the last minute details of getting everything loaded and wish us well as we set off. I can remember him checking the hitch on the trailer we would be pulling to make sure it was safely attached just before we left—one final small kindness from a good friend.

Thank goodness I just had to keep the truck pointed forward on the road to Draper where we would leave it parked at MGH’s mother’s until we could figure out a way to retrieve it as I don’t know if I could have backed it up, had the need arisen, never having mastered that skill. Once safely at Grandma Andrus’ we stayed over night and then were able to snag a ride with a nephew of MGH who worked at the airport who also aided us with getting luggage checked and tickets cleared for our flight which was really quite kind of him.

We stepped off the plane into the moist humid air of a mid-western summer day, arriving at Madison, WI on July 18 where we were met by MGH, all of us much relieved and excited to be reunited as a family and much sooner then anticipated.

A doctor was quickly found who was practicing in DeForest which was a relief as it meant I didn’t have to travel far to keep an appointment. Upon hearing that my blood type was Rh negative while MGH’s was positive, alarm bells started going off which resulted in a blood check to make sure that the baby was not in trouble from a condition called hemolytic disease. (This is no longer a big problem as new mother’s to be can receive Rh-immune globulin which protects the baby from his/hers mother’s antibodies which perceive the baby’s blood type as dangerous and begin attacking. This treatment was just coming into use when I first began to have babies and I never received this protection which put each subsequent baby that I carried at greater danger for life threatening conditions to appear.) My new doctor continued to check for anti-body development through a blood test each week with the up shot being a decision that I should enter the hospital on August 20, 1974 for an amniocentesis to check the fluid that surrounds the baby in the placenta for signs of fetal difficulty. They also wanted to make sure that the baby could survive if he needed to be delivered immediately based on the result of the tests they were making.

As was feared the news was not good and so it was decided to induce labor immediately. I had previously told the doctor that my deliveries could go quickly so he stayed with me as the Pitocin was begun. After about an hour I could see the doctor was feeling the need to get back to the patients he was delaying seeing, having decided that I wasn’t going to deliver as quickly as I claimed he was making preparations to leave when I said that I thought the baby was about to come. “How can that be?” he asked, which was a perfectly natural question as I hadn’t been dilated nearly enough when last checked for that to be the case. Never-the-less it was decided to take me to the delivery room in the off hand chance that I might be right. While the doctors involved along with MGH were getting sterile the nurses were trying to get me to move from the gurney to the delivery table which I was unable to do. They were quite cross with me until one decided to check what was happening with the baby at which time an urgent call went out for Dr Paganos and Dr Walsh to come immediately, which they did arriving just in time to catch our number six son as he made a rather unexpectedly abrupt arrival.

Now comes the part that has always amazed me. Sherman was born at St. Mary’s hospital which at that time had the neo-natal intensive care unit not just for Madison but the entire upper mid-west region. Their equipment was cutting edge/state of the art and the pediatricians were the best available. Within a half hour of his birth they came back with the news that he was very jaundiced and would need to have a total blood transfusion, which basically replaces the blood from the baby’s mother with blood that has the correct Rh factor, in order to help the baby fight off the anti-bodies that were attacking him. We agreed to this procedure after we understood that failure to do so could lead to damage to his brain among other unpleasant things. He required two of these transfusions which they later told us was unusual as most babies often required four or more before they were out of danger.

The jaundice required him to spend time under an ultra-violet light, sunlight will do the same thing, that had been shown to help clear up this problem. I would often find him in his little bed “under the light” wearing nothing but a black mask over his eyes to protect them as the hospital staff worked to bring him to good health. Because of his jaundice I went home without him, which was naturally a difficult thing to do made even more difficult because MGH was scheduled to be out of town for the next ten days on a business trip that there was no getting out of. Fortunately, we had made friends with another family also recently employed by ABS who were kind enough to take me to the hospital so I could retrieve my baby without completely losing my sanity—Madison is not an easy city to navigate and I had no clue as to how to get back to the hospital, not that I couldn’t have found out–but their help definitely made things easier for me.

I know without a doubt that had we stayed in Utah, as was the original plan, that Sherman might not have lived. I base this on the on the fact that the doctor I was seeing had never checked my blood to see if there were problems occurring because of the Rh incompatibility. If Sherman had been born in Richfield who knows how long it might have taken before the seriousness of his condition was recognized and he was sent to Primary Children’s in Salt Lake to receive the necessary medical help. I believe that the insight I received about any doctor being able to deliver a baby was a correct one which resulted in a change of plans which in turn led to in our new born receiving the best medical care possible. I am grateful for the opportunities that opened up which resulted in our being able to change course so quickly which gave our son, who has been a blessing and delight to us from the very first, a fighting chance to survive.

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December 16, 2007

Where have the years gone? This searching for stories long left behind as I continue rummaging through my memories trying to shake loose bits of flotsam from the past, which MGH and I shared with our children as they grew up in our home, continues to roil up reminiscences from those long ago days—most of which are probably best left buried, resting in peace until such time as I stand before my Maker at the judgment bar ‘fessing up to all I am or have been with, I hope, considerable amounts of leeway given for intentions and not for what the actual outcome was. It has been said, “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip”, to which I heartily add my amen as time has shown me that while it is true that we pick our destination by the road we travel, getting there isn’t always as easy as it looked on the map. Therefore, this being the season when Christians celebrate the birth of a babe I feel the need to tell of the birth into our family of a son who will ever be known to us as, ‘our mountain top baby’.

I was seven months pregnant when we moved to Loa, Utah in 1971. So tight was our financial situation I had not, as yet, seen a doctor although I had been able to purchase generic pre-natal vitamins from the drug store which did give me a little comfort. Fortunately, my pregnancy seemed to be moving forward without any problems and I rationalized my situation as being no different than that of many women who delivered their babies without ever consulting anyone in the medical profession. That’s not to say that I didn’t look forward to getting back on track with the medical world as I was not at all keen on a ‘do-it-yourself’ delivery.

For me this was a much longed for pregnancy. While MGH likes to tease me about my wish to ‘not have my babies close together’ by asking me if 19 years was far enough apart from the first to the last. I must state here that that was never my intention, I just wanted time to enjoy my babies and had decided that three years apart seemed about the right distance. Sylvia and Ford are almost exactly three years apart and I fully intended to continue on with the rest arriving neatly on schedule but ‘twas not to be. I miscarried early in my third pregnancy the baby that would have met this criterion and then nothing happened after that so you can imagine how delighted I was to find myself pregnant again after such a long wait even though covering the cost of this new little one looked to be a real nightmare given our financial situation at Michigan State with no health insurance and a graduate student stipend of $3,600.00 a year.

MGH was to be paid $600.00 a month for his work with the dairy in Loa which was almost double what we had been living on so we felt that by careful budgeting we should be able to handle the expenses of our large family and hopefully even start saving a little money as well but his compensation from the dairy didn’t include health insurance leaving us vulnerable in that department. Keeping that in mind we still felt that we could buy a few items that would make life a little easier. Our first purchase was a new double bed as sleeping on the floor was proving a wee bit of a problem for me (the apt. at MSU came furnished with a double bed so we had disposed of ours before moving there and believe me, we didn’t lose any sleep over the deed as it was well past its allotted life span). Then came a washer and dryer which I longed for passionately after washing clothes at the Laundromat for so many years. I also started seeing Dr. Worley in Richfield, Utah which was 40 miles downhill from Loa and began to breathe a little easier about my pregnancy as everything seemed to be fine with both mother and baby.

Things weren’t fine, however, with the dairy. What MGH was actually doing in no way met the job description that he had signed on for when he accepted the employment. He found himself almost single handedly caring for 200 head of dairy cattle which included not only the milking but the clean up, sans tractor (a vital piece of equipment needed to keep the holding pens free of manure), and feeding not to mention acting as mid-wife to 75 of these bovine ladies as they birthed their calves. The hours were brutal and left him exhausted but perhaps the most alarming thing was that the men who had pooled their resources were expecting an immediate return on their investment and it was not happening which left them looking for someone to hold responsible and that person was MGH—among other things they felt that he was being vastly overpaid.

The people in the small community of Loa were friendly and helpful to us in many ways whether sharing produce from their gardens to helping me quilt a small blanket for the new baby to be. In fact, that is just what they did on the day he was born. Three ladies came and helped me set up a borrowed quilt frame and then began quilting with me. One of the most enjoyable things about ‘group’ quilting is the conversation that takes place as each tiny stitch is put in place. They, of course, were curious about just when the baby was due and if the quilt would be finished in time to bring the new arrival home ‘in’. I assured them that I thought there would be plenty of time as it was a small baby blanket and the baby was at least a week away. That night I woke MGH, after debating whether I should or not because I knew how tired he was, to tell him that I thought I was starting to go into labor. MGH called the Dr and asked his advice and was told he better bring me in as quickly as possible, “Just in case this was the real thing”. So I got dressed and as we were going out the door I grabbed a clean towel and a blanket to take along as well–just in case.

Our car was a two door 1965 Dodge Cornet whose better days were now long gone with well over a hundred thousand miles on it as well as a somewhat iffy transmission—but you would never have known it by the way MGH drove down that steep/curvy road in the pitch black of a November night trying desperately to get me to the hospital on time, not that I was paying that much attention to his driving, which on most occasions I monitor closely, as I found my attention to be quite diverted by a more immediate concern.

We could see the lights of Koosharem twinkling in the distance when I told MGH that I needed to lie down. He immediately pulled over and helped me into the back seat which was made more difficult as I had to squeeze in between the front and back seat losing in the process one of my black loafers which slid off as I was making the transition. We had barely gotten started again when I told him “I think the baby is almost here”. We had made it as far as the flats along the Koosharam Reservoir which is why the Dr. listed that as Brooks’ place of birth, where MGH stopped just in time to deliver a little boy into the cold early morning air. Upon hearing an aggrieved wail which indicated the baby had made the transition to breathing on his own MGH placed the baby on me and then pulling out his trusty knife he cut the umbilical cord and told me to hold tightly to the end of the cord that was attached to the baby. Thank goodness for the blanket we had thought to bring as it kept the baby and me toasty warm for the rest of the drive down the mountain. Thank goodness as well for all the practice MGH had had in the preceding two months at delivering newborns.
When we arrived at the hospital the nurses were beside themselves with the situation we presented them and in their anxiety they managed to uncover the baby which thoroughly chilled him and then proceeded to scold MGH for not keeping him ‘warm’. When the Dr. arrived he looked at MGH and asked, “Did you do a good job”? When he was finished caring for me he came out of the delivery room and told MGH, “You did a good job”.

This then was how our son P. B. A. arrived on the scene November 2, 1971. Just as an aside, it was the easiest delivery for me of any of my five. The Dr. commiserated with MGH about what a pain it was going to be to get the car cleaned up but the only thing that had to be cleaned was my blue winter coat which after a trip to the dry cleaners came out fine. I really think we had the angels helping us that early Tuesday morning.

As for paying for him most of the hospitals in these small communities were owned, at that time by the LDS church which gave the physicians who practiced in them some say as to billing which they don’t have now. Dr. Worley saw to it that the hospital did not bill us for the delivery room saying the work had been done before we got there. He also did not send us a bill for his services for the same reason. He did this without our ever having said anything to him about our financial problems. The total hospital cost to us was $176.00 which we were able to pay in full.

The small quilt was finished by the ladies who had been helping me work on it in time to bring Brooks home wrapped in their kindness. At about the same time MGH was offered a job with Utah State University in the Extension Service. The position was located in Richfield, Utah which meant a move down the mountain but no great long distance upheaval for our family.

That Christmas saw many miracles for us as a family one of which was the safe arrival of our ‘mountain top’ baby who managed to arrive in a rather unorthodox way which adds weight to my earlier contention that there can, indeed, ‘be many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip’. Thank goodness for the bit of wisdom that counters with, “all’s well that ends well”.

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WAYNE COUNTY CHRISTMAS

by J. M. A.

December 19, 2004

We only lived in Wayne County for five months, and we only spent one Christmas there. But that was when I learned what Christmas was all about.

We moved to Loa, Utah, in the heart of Wayne County, in September of 1971, when I was fifteen years old and a sophomore in high school. I loved the small town feeling and the warmth and friendliness of the people immediately. They even had an assembly the first week of school for the new students at the high school. There were only four of us – Kyle, myself, and two others. They had us come up on the stage in front of the entire student body, who all fit into the cracker box gym, and had us tell something about ourselves.

Although I liked Wayne County and we were treated well there, those were tough times for our family economically. Dad had just finished two years of school at Michigan State University, where we had also lived in poverty, and we were still trying to get back on our feet financially. To add to our fiscal frustrations, Kyle had spent quite a bit of time in the hospital and had undergone surgery, running up some extra bills. But we had clothes to wear and food to eat, so we kids didn’t much notice the family’s pecuniary pains. Except when Christmas came.

Mom and Dad had let us know that there wasn’t much extra for Christmas – I’m sure that was to make sure we weren’t dashed by unfulfilled high expectations. And I was at an age where I was starting to notice those kinds of things a little more, so I realized there was no cash in the till, and that Santa’s sleigh wouldn’t lose much weight as it passed by our house that December. I was prepared for the Spartan holiday that was to come.

On Christmas Eve Mom and Dad were tired (Dad was spending long hours at the farm, both early in the morning and going late at night), and asked if Dawn and I would mind playing Santa and filling the stockings. I had never participated in that process before and was at an age where I was eager to do so.

Dawn and I stayed up until everyone else had gone to bed. Then we pulled out the supplies for filling the stockings and went to work. An apple went to the toe of every sock, then some hard candies, and an orange in the heel. We added some mixed nuts and peanuts in the shell along the ankle of the socks, along with a new toothbrush. With ten stockings to fill, it took us quite a while, and we talked as we worked.

Although we always got the same thing in our Christmas stockings, it was still fun to be the one filling the stockings. And Dawn, as always, was good at creating excitement and a certain air of flair and zest to any occasion. By the time we were finished and ready for bed ourselves, I was more excited for Christmas than I had ever been. I could see the meager smattering of presents under the Christmas tree, but that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm in the least. I was learning a little more about Christmas than I had previously known – a side of Christmas I had only peeked at before.

In the morning I was surprised to find a new, quality leather football under the tree for me (it had not been there the night before). Other than a little bit of clothing, it was the only present I received, but it was the best present I ever got. And it was the best Christmas of my childhood, for a couple of reasons: first, with very small expectations, even a modest present came as a wonderful boon; and second, for the first time, I was one of the creators of Christmas cheer, not just a recipient. I began to understand how and why Christmas has survived for two thousand years.

Post Script December 12, 2007

As you can see, I wrote this at Christmas time three years ago. I did not know in 1971, nor did I ever discover, until two days ago when I read Mom’s account of that same Christmas, just how dire our financial straits were, or who had provided the Christmas presents that we received. Because that Christmas has always stood out in my mind as a very special one, I have been quite touched to discover, as Paul Harvey would say, “the REST of the story.”

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December 9, 2007

All this rummaging around in boxes and such like has stirred up another memory—or maybe its just Thanksgiving that has brought this one to the fore.

In 1971 we moved from East Lansing, Michigan where MGH had just completed the course work for a doctorate in animal breeding to Loa, Utah which is so high up in the tops of the mountains that Marie said it was like living on the moon. He had accepted employment to mange the combined dairy herds of about six of the local farmers in that area who had pooled their resources and built a beautiful new state of the art milk parlor as well as corrals and housing. Having invested a great deal of time and money in this project they were now anxiously awaiting the flow of much cash to fill their now empty pockets and begin paying off the loans they had taken out to get the project started. While they were pleased to have a man with as much education as MGH now possessed, he had agreed with mixed feelings having hoped for work in a university or at least someplace where all his fancy degrees could be actually put to good use rather than a job he could have done without any extra schooling. Unfortunately for us, the available jobs in his area of expertise seemed to have dried up while MGH was acquiring the degree leaving us floundering for employment. The 18 months we had spent in Michigan on a graduate student’s stipend of $3,600.00 a year had forced us into a deferred maintenance mode that threatened to be our undoing if we didn’t get a larger income generated somehow. Did I mention that at this point we had eight children with one more on the way? Well we did and while they had all been real troopers in supporting their father’s attaining his dream there were some real needs that needed to be taken care of.

While at Michigan State MGH spent his time filling requirements for his degree work and writing his thesis which left him with little time for anything else such as working to keep the wolf from the door, not to fear, as his family did their part as well in order to assure the success of this endeavor. Kyle and Mark quickly acquired the entire paper route for Spartan Village (a vast warren of married student apartments located about two miles from the center of campus which is also, by the way, where we lived) delivering the Detroit Free Press as well as the Lansing State Journal early enough in the morning to allow them to finish in time to attend seminary which was held before the start of school. Marie, who was attending Rick’s College in Rexburg, Idaho came home in the summers and held down a job at a nursing home which required a great deal of grit and determination on her part as the work was not easy and often a source of great frustration to her. Baby sitting provided another means of helping provide for the needs of the family with all the children who were old enough to do so being in constant demand as there were many babies and small children living in the complex but few teenagers.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything but then perhaps it does as it goes directly to the ‘worldly wealth’ which was not what the students living in Spartan Village had with most of them making great monetary sacrifices in order to further their educations. The favorite drink served at parties, at least among the LDS students, was water colored with green food coloring which gave the impression of being more than it was but also satisfied the need to provide that little extra something that makes a get together special.

We arrived in Loa, with little more than the clothes on our backs and a few household possessions, where we set up housekeeping in a home rented to us by the Chapell family who were one of the biggest contributors to the dairy. While small there was more room than the two bedroom apartment we had lived in at Michigan State and so we settled into our new location worried about how we would meet all the needs of our large family and hoping we could survive until a better position opened up for MGH but never the less glad to have found a place to settle into even if it was less than ideal.

Disaster struck when Kyle came down with what we thought was the flu, and who knows, that might have been the cause of the inflammation that caused a bowel obstruction. (Kyle had suffered with this as a small baby and had undergone successful surgery for this condition.) It never occurred to me that he might be struggling with the same problem and so I let myself be influenced by our neighbor Katie C. who assured me that he probably just had a severe case of flu which was ‘going around’ at the time. MGH was in Michigan defending his thesis and so I was on my own with seven children (Marie and Dawn were away at Ricks) one of whom was only three weeks old. Loa was forty miles up the mountain from Richfield, Utah where there were doctors and a hospital as well. This being the case Katie told me that the people living in Loa had gotten pretty good at taking care of each other during times of need and then she proceeded to list the things that she thought I ought to be doing to care for Kyle—which I tried and which did no good at all in relieving his pain or helping him get better. After several days of this I decided that enough was enough and I was going to see that he got to the Doctor irregardless of all the advice to the contrary.

This did not prove to be a magic answer as it took several days for the Doctor to realize that something very serious was going on with the upshot that when he did he loaded Kyle into the ambulance, which he drove himself, with lights flashing and sirens wailing at break neck speed, to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City 150 miles away.

So serious was Kyle’s condition by this time that he was taken immediately into surgery where the obstruction was repaired but the condition of his intestine was so compromised that in places it was as thin as tissue paper and ruptured in the process of the surgery. Kyle was very, very sick and it was nip and tuck for a bit as to whether he would survive. He spent thirty days in the hospital before returning home to his family. We didn’t have insurance of any kind and knew that the bills from the hospital were in all probability going to sink us financially but having a recovering son at home cancelled out any negatives as far as we were concerned.

This all played out around Thanksgiving 1971 and we felt very blessed in spite of our financial problems to have our family circle still complete. Christmas was coming up and we knew that it would be very meager that year. On the Sunday before Christmas the Bishop of our ward called us into his office and asked how we were doing. We of course said, “Fine”. He then asked about Kyle and if we had medical insurance to help pay for the cost of his hospitalization, (I think he already knew the answer to that but just needed to have his suspicions confirmed). When we told him that we had none he told us, that he had been Bishop for a number of years and had faithfully sent the fast offerings collected from the ward members to the stake for all those years where it was put to good use but he felt that now would be a good time to see that members from his ward received some help. He then suggested that with our permission he would set things in motion to see that Kyle’s medical bills were paid. We were dumbfounded and grateful for this gift in our time of need and thanked him for his care and concern.

Knowing that we could never repay the monetary amount but still wanting to do something I later asked the Relief Society President if there was anything I could do for the ward. She thought about it and then said that she had an idea and asked me if I would be willing to do a little sewing to which I replied, “Yes”. A few days later she brought me two pair of children’s flannel pajamas and asked me if I would mind putting the button holes in them as well as sew on the buttons, which I did. That was all she found for me to do.

We were about to leave his office when he asked us if we had money for Christmas to which we replied, “No”. He said he thought the church could help us there as well and so MGH and I found ourselves, along with the Relief Society President, later that week in a room where many items of clothes and toys were laid out and we were told that we could pick out one gift for each child. I remember a pair of brown corduroy pants that went to Robyn and a large book of Bible stories written for children were among the things that we picked out. This generosity meant that there would be gifts under the Christmas tree that year and along with the Christmas stockings full of candy/nuts/fruit we knew we would, indeed, have a lovely Christmas after all even though we didn’t have a Christmas tree.

That was taken care of when MGH came home from work and reported that he had seen one outside the elementary school waiting to be disposed of after school let out for Christmas vacation. Upon hearing this I grabbed a couple of the kids to help me and we retrieved the tree which was in decent shape considering that it had bounced around the school yard like a large green tumble weed. We set it up in our front room and decorated it with glad hearts knowing that whether it is ‘a ram in the thicket’ or ‘a tree in a school yard’ the Lord provides what is needed in our time of need.

I am grateful to our Father in Heaven for the many tender mercies that he has shown our family through the years. I know that he is aware of each of us and our needs. We have been truly blessed as a family in many ways, some of which we are aware of.

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December 2, 2007

In the process of going through boxes, in the so far vain hope of finding the various papers I have promised Marie, I have come across some items of interest—at least to me they are. One of them is an essay Joy wrote for her high school language arts class on December 11, 1997. I sent this to my dad in a jo-let dated 1/18/98. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

My Christmas Memory

“Every year at Christmas time my family goes on a quest to find the perfect Christmas tree. It’s like an ancient ritual passed on down from generation to generation, with each generation adding some new aspect-no, it’s not really, but sometimes I wonder. Picking out a Christmas tree is a tradition in my family though, and it’s my favorite memory of Christmases gone by.

Dad would pick the day we were going and on that day it didn’t matter if it was twenty degrees below zero, we were going to cut a Christmas tree. “Put some long underwear on and get in the car!” was Dad’s favorite line to anyone who dared suggest we should go on a warmer day. Despite all the complaints, in our hearts we really didn’t care if it was too cold or windy, because going to cut the tree was an adventure and being together as a family left us feeling warm from the inside out. So we would bundle up and pile in the car, our Dalmatian puppy Jackson included, and away we would go.

Over the years of Christmas tree shopping my family had graced many different tree farms with our glorious presence. Mom, always on the watch for a sale, would comb through the Wisconsin State Journal weeks in advance to see who was selling their trees for the best price. Usually a map would be next to the advertising and Mom would carefully cut it out and bring it along. At this point, things would get interesting because we always got lost. I think my parents planned it that way as some sort of sick revenge on us for not doing the dishes or something. I’m sure that every car on the road could hear us as we argued about where to go. “You passed the turn off!” My mother would say anxiously. “No, no, its three miles up the road! was Dad’s hot-headed reply. I always chimed my voice into the chorus with. “Mom, are we there yet?” And so it went until we finally saw Christmas trees off the side of the road and Dad frantically looked for a place to get off at.

After we finally reached our destination, picking the tree was easy. We would tramp off into the snow, Jackson leaping around and trying to eat the white stuff that was all over. I was always full of good ideas for which tree to choose, and I would run ahead of everybody else, find a tree and come back yelling cheerfully, “You have to come see this one! How about this one Mom?” But when it came down to it, Mom was the one who got to pick the tree. As soon as we found one she thought was beautiful and majestic, my dad would heave himself down onto the cold snow and begin sawing away. Just before the tree was about to come crashing down my dad would yell, “TIMBER!!” with the rest of us joining in and scrambling out of the way. Dad would stand back up looking very pleased with himself and we would all grin down at the tree, our tree.

Once we got the tree back home, Mom and I took over the decorating. I have always loved decorating the tree with my mom. Opening up the boxes of ornaments, and reminiscing about where each one came from is always fun. We say the same things every year, and remember the same memories, but never get tired of it. For some reason once the tree is up in our front room with all the lights and ornaments, it really feels like Christmas. As soon as it is dark outside we turn the lights on and watch them blink. It’s the perfect ending to a really special day.”

Joy did a good job of capturing a favorite memory of Christmas didn’t she? How about the rest of you—what are your special memories?

If you are like me you haven’t a clue as to who has whom for a family member Christmas gift this year. My digging in boxes turned up the list I made last year and here it is for your edification and enlightenment: Mom and Dad have Ford. Marie has Brooks—who by the way has a new address. Robyn has Sherman. Dawn has Joy. Kyle has Mom and Dad. Mark has Marie. Jay has Robyn. Sylvia has Dawn. Ford has Kyle. Brooks has Mark. Sherman has Jay. Joy has Sylvia.
Does the above help/confuse? If it is ‘help’ than I am relieved. If it is ‘confused’ you will just have to join the crowd and muddle along as best you can. A family gift is probably best. The suggested amount is $20.00 which I know doesn’t go far in this day and age, but do the best that you can. Your father and I look forward to both the giving and receiving and wish that we could do more for each of you but being in a Retirement Home does put limits on us—but, for that matter, when was it ever any different? We’ve always been a lot longer on love than money haven’t we?

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