Salt Lake City House

I had a request for a "picture" of the house in Salt Lake City that Gerry and I built way back in 1961. The only picture I have of that house is in my head, so I drew a picture (rough as it is!) to post here. It was sort of a western rendition of a colonial. If you travel anywhere in the Salt Lake or Utah Valleys, you will see a lot of this floor plan. It was very popular in the '60's. I hope you can get an idea of what it looked like, since I don't have a picture. I really feel bad that we didn't take pictures of our first house. I remember blue shutters, but there may not be any shutters -- maybe I just wanted them! I couldn't duplicate the color of the brick, just think of it as the color of golden blonde hair!

I lost a friend today!

No one likes to receive or give bad news, but as sure as we live, sadness will come into our lives on numerous occassions. Another of my far too young friends passed away yesterday because she probably wasn't treated properly or soon enough for Pancreatitis. It is too common of a story! Pancreatitis is deadly!

She called me on Wednesday to tell me that she was in the hospital awaiting news about an upcoming surgery to remove her gallbladder. That's a simple enough procedure for a healthy person, but with her complications, it was just too much for her sick little body to fight back -- and now she is gone. She went into complete system failure and the family made the most difficult of decisions yesterday to take her off of life support.

I will miss her terribly. We have been friends for only a few short years, but she touched my life so incredibly deeply. I shall ever be grateful that our paths crossed and that we could share such an amazing friendship.

Good-bye, dearest friend, Verna Starr. Shine brightly wherever you are! I will keep the memory of you and our friendship with me forever -- and we shall meet again!

Check out my Slide Show!

And on and on it goes...

I think one of the reasons that I started this particular "journey" thing, was to review all of the moves that I have made in my life time. Now, let me see, where was I? Oh yes, I believe it was the move to Salt Lake City!

Now that was an adventure if ever we had one! We actually were there for five whole years! AND, we built our first house. We were renting a little 2-bedroom house in a nice little cul-d'sac, and I was expecting baby #3, (Debi). We knew we would need something bigger, so we started looking. We looked all over the valley with a Real Estate friend of ours (from BYU days) and got some ideas of the floor plan we liked, but we really didn't want to move from the East Bench where we were. We liked our Ward and our Bishop and had made some amazing friends.

We started asking around and found out that the owners of a huge pie-shaped lot right across the street from us might be available. And lo, and behold, we found the owner and yes, they would sell. We got it for a steal! $3500.00! It was a 1/3 acre lot. The next step was to get the plans to the floor plan that we liked and find a builder. All of that took some time, but by spring, we were ready to build!

One of the cool things about the house, was that Gerry got to use the new "blonde" brick that he had developed (found the clay and sand and developed the color) for Gladding-McBean (now Interpace Brick). It was gorgeous and there was nothing like it anywhere in the area! Our floor plan was a two complete level house with a split level entry. It had columns in the front and had they been turned columns, it would have looked like something out of the south! We had three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a kitchen with a dining area and a living room (with a fireplace) upstairs; and in the sub-basement level, (which was unfinished for a while) were 3 more bedroom spaces, a huge family/game/storage room (also with a fireplace), a laundry room and my cousin (Vance) finished a third bathroom for us. It was 2,200 sf of wonderful space -- and we were able to build it for just over $16,000.00!
(Boy, where have those days gone?)

We had our fourth baby (JerriAnne) while we lived in that house! Gerry and I were very busy in the Church, me in the Young Women's (I did just about everything!) and he in the Elder's Quorum (he was President!) We loved to attend the Temple, go on picnics in the canyons, ski in the many ski areas, and go on vacation back to California.

Gerry sort of got tired of Interpace, and so went to night school (BYU extension) and took a Calculus class -- getting ready to apply for a Doctorate program somewhere. That class helped boost his confidence and so we started writing letters. I think we must have written letters to everywhere in the country! In the summer of 1966, we got theanswer he was waiting for and he was accepted to University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. Now, we had to sell the house!

More to come...

Is Anybody Out There?

I'm beginning to feel like these Coy Fish -- swimming around in circles and not getting anywhere and it really doesn't matter whethere anybody pays much attention to me or not -- I still just swim and swim and swim!

Oh, well! I'll just keep writing, because it is a nice way to post my life's events and keep a mini journal! I found out today that I can print my posts and so I am starting a "Blogger Notebook."

Have a happy day and don't get too dizzy with me swimming around in circles!

Journey Memories (Continued)

Gerry was a Geologist! That probably doesn't mean much to most of you, but to me it meant "frequent moves!" We started our married life together in Santa Monica, California. Well, that was after we traveled to Denver, Colorado "the Geologist job capital of the USA!" We lived for two weeks with my cousin in Inglewood, Colorado while both Gerry and I looked for work. Neither one of us was successful. With much discouragement, we spent the last of our money on gasoline to drive back to California and lived with my parents for a few months.

In Santa Monica, I got a job with Winfield China Company in their accounting office, and Gerry took a job at Douglas Aircraft (later to become McDonald/Douglas) and worked on the moon landing project as a draftsman -- a far cry from Geology, but it was a job. We managed to save up enough money to move into our own apartment (one on Cloverfield Avenue, and then to another one on Pico Blvd., right across the street from my dad's restaurant). 9 1/2 months after we were married, we were blessed with a beautiful little daughter, whom we called Kimberlee.

Right after Kimmy was born, Gerry finally got a job in his field, working for Gladding-McBean in Glendale, California. He commuted for a while, and then they transferred him to Mesa, Arizona. I followed in May and we lived in a nice apartment with a swimming pool (a must for that hot climate!) and not far from the Mesa Temple. We were there for only 3 or 4 months.

Our next move was to Sacramento, California. By this time, I was pregnant again and enjoyed the cooler climate and daily walks with Kimmy in the stroller. We had a nice little apartment there, but no pool! In December, Gerry was transferred again. This time, we would go back to Santa Monica, and he would go on to Lodi, California. I wanted the baby to be born in Santa Monica, so I stayed there. We were fortunate to live in Lodi for a year and a half and experience many new challenges as a family of four. (Mark was our boy!) We started out in an apartment, and then moved to a house. We made lots of friends in Lodi and worked hard in the Church. The Oakland Temple was built while we were there, and our branch became a ward and we all worked hard on the building of that chapel. Back in those days, the members contributed money and labor toward the building of their chapels and Temples. They were rewarding times.

(Stay tuned...)

Back from a Month of Graduations!

The end of May and the first of June have been the most exhilerating 4 weeks of this year. Oh, what a trip I had! Dean and I started out on May 20th to travel to our old stomping grounds of Taos, New Mexico where his son, Eliot was to graduate from Taos High School. We flew to Albuquerque, rented a car and drove to Taos. We were so fortunate to utilize our World Mark Timeshare in Taos, so lodging was a wonderful experience. Eliot graduated 6th in his class of 198, and received 2 scholarships. The graduation was "interesting," with many undertones of the Liberal atmosphere that still lives in Taos being spoken of in several of the speeches. Taos has not changed.

The World Mark was so accomodatinig and allowed us to have a little reception for Eliot for his friends and family to attend. His mom provided all of the food, which was wonderful, by the way, and Dean and his friends from his former Mariachi band provided the musical entertainment at poos-side and in the patio of the entrance. A great time was had by all who attended the event. We were elated to have been able to go and share this memorable day with Eliot.

On to Salt Lake City, Utah! I traveled alone from this point, as Dean had to go back to work (poor guy!) I stayed with JerriAnne for the first week of my stay in Provo. We attended Randi's graduation on May 30th at the beautiful Marriott Center on BYU Campus. Her class was considerably larger than Eliot's. I believe there were something like 688 graduating Seniors. She was beautiful and we took lots of pictures! We had a wonderful time in Provo. JerriAnne and I visited Thanksgiving Point and went to a dinner theater in downtown Provo to see "The Mikado!" I was in that musical play when I was a Senior in High School. It really brought back a lot of memories. (Oops -- I didn't get this picture rotated right -- oh well, I'm still learning!)

The last week, I stayed with Debi and we had a lot of fun, going up to their property in the mountains in Indianola. (It is a long drive, nearly to Manti!) We also got to go to Manti and while Debi and Brian were supervising the youth with Baptisms, I did a session in the Temple. I had never been to that Temple before. I had a wonderful time in the Provo/Orem area.

Debi, Randi and I drove from Orem to St. George, and then on to Las Vegas. We went to Church with Mark and Terrie and the children in St. George, and then drove on Monday morning to Las Vegas, where Debi and Randi got a motel. I stayed with JerriAnne at the Las Vegas World Mark. It was wonderful, but a long way from Heather's house.

Elissa's graduation was also wonderful. It was held at the big Thomas and Mack Center on the UNLV campus. Her class was over 800. It was a wonderful celebration and she looked so beautiful. We all had a great time celebrating with her.

Well, that is 3 graduations down for this year. I believe I have a year respite before there are any more to follow. "Seven down, seven to go!" (The last four will not be for a few years, as they are still babies. I pray I will be around for them!

I came home on June 18th, and am back in the swing of things at work. Happy summer to you all!