A Visit to the Old Neighborhood

Yesterday Tove and I were in South Salt Lake County with a little time on our hands so we decided to go check out the old neighborhood. We drove around what used to be the Murray 3rd Ward area. I could recognize many of the houses and could remember who lived in some of them. I wondered if anyone still lived there who I would remember or who could remember me. As we were driving past Anderson's we saw an elderly gentleman on the front porch who turned and entered the house. We wondered if it could be Milt Anderson or maybe one of his kids. So I parked and went up and knocked on the door. The man came to the door and I was pretty sure it was Milt but I asked, "Does Milt Anderson still live here?" He said, pushing open the screen door, "He sure does. Come on in here." I don't think he recognized me but I immediately told him who I was and he was delighted. His wife, Margaret, was sitting there in the living room and they gushed over me and had me bring Tove. He told us that he had recently turned 96. I will be very fortunate if I can live to 96 and even more so if I am as sharp then as Milt is at 96. We had a great conversation about old times. He said the only other person in the ward who would have been there back in 1958 when I left was Mary Soffe who still lived in the apartment above the Soffe Mortuary there on State Street. We talked about the fact that Tove's brother Audun married Jerrie Davis the daughter of a good friend and former partner of Milt's, Leon Davis. A few minutes into our conversation Milt and Margaret's daughter Ranae and her husband came so we reminisced with her for a few minutes. And then as we were leaving their son Jeff drove in the driveway and we were able to say hello to him. I was a lot of fun to see the old neighborhood and especially to talk with the Andersons.

Trip to California Summer 1959

In the summer of 1959 when I was home on leave from the Naval Academy we took a family trip to southern California. I wouldn't go unless Tove came too so, as you can see, she did. Here are some of the slides Dad took.

Photos From Murray

Alice's memories of Mom

I have some pictures of our family in Canon City.  We went to the state penitentiary while we were there.  Was that after Grandma Norman died?  I am wearing the moccasins that we bought from the inmates.  John is just a toddler, so he isn't the one that cut them with scissors......must have been you, Van.  No one was sympathetic with my crying after you cut them because I had dared you to do it.  It was just a small snip in the leather, but I remember bawling forever....    I also remember visiting the Royal Gorge bridge that Dad helped build.  I think it is just outside Canon City.  I was scared to death.  Maybe that is when my fear of heights began.

I have another memory of a family trip to Yellowstone Park.  I don't remember much about the trip except driving through the park, again being scared to death, because one of you told me that King Kodiak bears would come and tip over cars and kill everyone inside!  Was I an easy  target?

I remember that I loved to go to Aunt Rosalia' home.  One summer I stayed there for a few days.  I loved eating the apricots and cherries that they grew in their orchards.  But even more than that, I loved taking a hammer, breaking open the pit of the apricot and eating the nut that was inside.  They had buckets of the apricot pits.  I also remember Aunt Rosalia's legs (which, by the way, mine resemble today).  She wore nylon stockings and would roll them down just below her knees.  Not a good look.  She also had many collapsed veins and they were so creepy that they scared me too.  What a wimp!  They made homemade root beer sometimes and I loved that!  I have looked for their home when I have been in Bountiful, but can't find it.  I have either forgotten what it looked like, or it is gone.  Aunt Rosalia and Uncle Hugh lived with us in Bountiful for a little while when he was so sick.   Do you remember that, John?

Because it is Mother's Day today, I am going to write some memories of Mom.

Can you believe she let me paint all those flowers on the wall of the basement?  She was always so willing to let me do just about anything that I wanted to do.....except sleep in, because that was a sin!  She supported me in so many things.  I'm not sure I would be such a supportive mother if my daughter wanted to go to Lake Tahoe for the summer to work in a casino or go to Paris with a friend, basically with no specifics on what we would find or do when we got there.....and the BIGGEST of all, marry a non member and then treat him just the same (or in some cases better, i.e.  "Don't you think Bob would like a steak tonight for dinner?) as any other member of the family.  I don't remember a time that I felt that she didn't trust me.

Of course her service to others is paramount in my mind.  She was so willing to serve others that she had no idea (here again, she always thought the best of me) that I didn't always appreciate it when she volunteered me to serve too.  I am grateful for that today, but feel ashamed that I didn't always  respond the way she did when she saw a need and an opportunity to serve.  Now, as a grandma, I know that taking care of several little children for many hour, or days, is HARD work.  She never made me feel that way with my children....I thought she was just having a great time!

 

When she first moved in with us here in Boise we were assigned to be visiting teaching companions.  I think I can probably count on one hand the times we went out together.......she would just do it at the first of each month by herself "because I was so busy".  Thinking back, I could have used the blessings of visiting teaching, but at the time I was so grateful that she just did it.  

I wish I had more memories of her when I was a little child.  I do remember how much she loved her family...especially her sisters.  EVERY Memorial Day we would drive to the SLC Cemetery.  We would have picked several bouquets of lilacs and peonies...filling tin cans with water and then putting them on the graves of her mom and dad, her brother Ted, and then Aunt Emily's baby who had died and Uncle Heber's daughter who had been hit by a car.  There is a wonderful climbing tree there and I know I loved seeing how high I could climb.

I think my strongest memory of Mom is her testimony and commitment to the gospel.  Many time I would go into her room when she lived with us and find her reading her "big print" Book of Mormon.  I will forever be grateful for the time she lived with us, as she demonstrated to my children what enduring to the end is all about!  What a good Mom!!!!!!  Alice

Some Photos

Murray and Brigham City memories

I have a few memories of swimming in the outdoor pool at Murray park and walking home and stopping at the little store on Vine Street that was across the from the entrance to the park.  We would buy penny candy there.  I know that we commuted to Brigham City for a few months until our house in Brigham City was finished.  The freeway was not finished and we had to drive on highway 89.   It must have taken us hours each way.  I know we would leave like at 4 in the morning and then not get back until late at night.  How long did we do that?  I remember that aunt Verrie came to visit us in Brigham and that she and I went outside and picked up construction debris from the yard.  When we got done we had quite a pile of trash.  I remember that Van slept in the unfinished basement.  That the grade school was on double shifts and that my morning shift was done sometime just afternoon and mom gave me money to walk to the movie theater on State Street a few blocks north of the grade school and see the same movie everyday and I had enough money to buy a treat except for primary day when I would go to primary at the Talbot’s ward where Sister Bott was my teacher.  I went to their ward because I could walk there our ward was too far away.  I can’t remember what I would do after the movie.  Do you Alice?  I was only 7 at the beginning of the school year and I remember she was an old lady but I liked her and she liked me.  She wrote me on my mission once and she came to our wedding.  She was a great lady.  I was baptized in Brigham.  Dad baptized me.  I was his only child that he was able to baptize.  He had joined the church when I was 6.  When did we move to Bountiful was it the summer after we moved to Brigham?  I remember playing with Dad’s jointer and getting my middle finger shortened.  Dad was pretty upset and I had to get my finger sowed up.

Memories from Alice

One of my vivid memories of growing up is watching our LITTLE TV on Sunday evenings.  It was in the knotty pine room.  We always watched the Ed Sullivan Show and What's my line.  I remember that one time Arlene Francis (show regular) wore a dress that must have been a bit low cut or something...I don't remember the exact problem.  Dad and Mom kept commenting on how inappropriate it was.  I can't imagine what they would say if they watched TV today!  The one constant with watching TV on Sunday was having popcorn in the shallow plastic popcorn bowls.  I don't think we used them for anything but popcorn.  I think we had four or five and they were each a different color.  Dad loved the "old maids"!   The other TV shows that I remember watching were Howdy Doody and a local SLC kids show.  I can't remember the name.  I just remember being so confused that I couldn't watch these shows whenever I wanted.  Mom had to explain to me time and time again that they only came on at certain times and we had to watch them then......not just when we wanted to.  Where was Tevo when I needed it?  I believe we were watching TV when John set the bed on fire in Gar and Tad's room.  When that happened, I remember John came into the room and crawled up on Dad's lap and started to cry and no one knew why.....until we smelled the smoke.

I don't remember having birthday parties with friends when I grew up.  Did we have them?  I do remember I got to have a Valentine's party one year....I must have been 7 or so.  It was in the dining room and I got to decorate with red doilies.  Mom made a cake with really fluffy white frosting and then put red construction paper hearts all around it.  I have a picture of the party that I will find and post.  That is the only party I remember having.

I remember one year when I was quite young that Grandma Norman came for Christmas.  She took the train from Canyon City and it didn't arrive until Christmas morning.  Dad didn't want us to go into the living room until she got there so he put furniture in front of the doorways.....it was piled up so we couldn't even look in.  I don't remember much about her visit, but I do remember that she made us terrycloth bathrobes.  Anyone have memories of that?  Our Christmas' weren't all that extravagant.  Every year we had an orange in the toe of our stockings.  I think we usually got one or two things.  As I got older, Mom just gave me $ to use at the after Christmas sales.  I do remember that Mom and Dad always went to a holiday party with their "Study group".  Maybe it was a New Year party.  I just remember that Mom would wear her fanciest dress.   I am pretty sure I cried the whole time they were gone,  just like I did each time they were gone.  It didn't help that my older brothers always told me they had heard that a brown Pontiac had been in a car wreck and everyone had died!  Whenever they were gone I remember looking out the front window for them and watching the cars turn down Atwood Blvd.  I was always disappointed until I saw the car with the glowing indian head in front.  I also remember that Paige Simper's mom and dad always decorated their house....inside and out for Christmas and I was pretty jealous because us just put up a Christmas tree and got out Mom's Santa mugs and bowl.

I loved school and I loved that all the teachers knew my older brothers.  I also loved that I could stop at the library on my way home from school.  I children's library was in the basement.  I think I read every series they had.....Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Sue Barton Student Nurse.  My favorites were horse stories.  I wanted a horse so bad!  I don't know who owned them, but my friends and I use to go down to the "pasture" and get on the horses and ride them bareback with just a rope around the neck.  I am pretty sure we didn't have permission to do this, but we never got in trouble.   I believe the pasture was between Mountain View Circle and the river.

Memories of Mom

Mom had a ceramic kiln which was a metal cube about two and half feet on each side with a heavy, hinged lid on top and a very small window in the front. The kiln was lined with bricks of some kind and heated by electricity. She had molds in which she poured liquid clay and then then after a time, when a layer of clay had solidified against the inside surface of the mold, she would open the mold and remove the casting (I’m not sure if that is the correct term). The casting would then be put in the kiln, probably with a few others, and “fired.” She could tell when the firing was done by looking in the little window in the front of the kiln to see if the little test cone that she had put in with the castings had begun to melt. The kiln would then be turned off and allowed to cool over some hours after which the fired castings could be removed and painted. She would paint all sorts of detail on whatever it was she was making. I remember most her Santa Claus mugs which were about the size of a coffee cup with Santa’s face on one side and the stocking hat serving as the mug handle. After the castings were painted they had to be fired again to make the paint a permanent part of the finished piece. I don’t know when she quit doing ceramics or what happened to the kiln. Does anyone have any of her ceramics? Maybe a Santa Clause mug?

Mom was a stalwart in the ward. She served as Junior Sunday School Coordinator for many years. She was always one to be concerned for others and to help anyone whenever and however she could.

I never thought we were poor or deprived in any way but I know that it was not easy to make Dad’s income meet all our needs. She was always looking for ways to save or make things go further. One of her friends told Mom about her husband going pheasant hunting and bringing home some pheasants which made a great meal. Mom thought that sounded like a good way to save some money on her grocery budget so she talked Dad into borrowing somebody’s shotgun and going pheasant hunting. He took Gar and me with him and one Saturday afternoon we tramped all over some fields somewhere in south Salt Lake Valley trying to no avail to scare up pheasants. Gar and I were terribly disappointed because we thought that if Dad shot a few then maybe he would let us shoot too. Dad finally gave up and we were headed back to the car with Gar and me begging to be allowed to shoot the shotgun at least once each. Dad let us have our way and Gar shot first. He held the gun properly, tight against his shoulder, and the kickback was obviously powerful. He admitted to me that it hurt like crazy. So I was afraid to hold the gun against my shoulder. I held it rather loosely with the stock barely under my arm against my ribs. When it went off the stock kicked up against my jaw ramming my lower teeth into my uppers and breaking a piece off one tooth. The tooth had to be ground smooth by a dentist who did not perform his services for free. Rather that saving money on groceries, the pheasant hunting trip turned out to be a considerable expense. It is the only time I know of that Dad went hunting.

More early memories of the Murray house

During our Monday morning talk last week someone mentioned how we would sleep on the deck that was over the garage.  There was a door from the formal dining room that opened onto the deck.  I think that part of the deck had a roof over it, but most of it was just open to the sky.  I remember on one morning waking up and my eyes were almost swollen shut.  Mom and dad thought it was because I had been bitten by spiders during the night.  I only remember sleeping out there with the either Van or Alice.  I remember that there was a metal handrail around the outside and where the metal was anchored into the cement was a yellow material.  Why do we remember such strange little pieces of information?  Another memory of the house and yard were the big lilac bushes on the south of the house.  When they were in bloom they had a lot of purple flowers and were very fragrant.  I think mom would cut some and put them in a vase sometimes.  Van remembers if you were really bad dad would cut a switch from the bushes and you would get you behind swatted.  I must have been too young for a proper spanking because I don’t have any memories of ever getting spanked with a switch from the lilac bushes.  My first memory of Gar was playing in the back yard with everyone and he was trying to teach me to tell time.  He went into the house and got a clock that must have had a battery and we were lying on the grass on the slope going north and he explaining how to tell time.  Well I just I wanted to run around and play with everyone and he was so disgusted with me that I didn’t want to learn how to tell time.  I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 because he left on his mission when I was 7. 

John’s Trip to the Doctor’s office in Canyon City

Tad’s post about some of the stupid things he did as a child made me remember one the stupid things I did while we were visiting Canyon City.  You will all have to fill in some of my fuzzy memories.  I know I must have been between 4 and 7.  I remember that everyone was inside the house taking and I was outside on the porch playing.  I took a piece of rope and tied it the ends of the hand rail at the top of the porch and then thought it would be a good idea to lean against the rope with my back going down the stairs.  Well the rope gave way and I fell backwards down the stairs.  My head hit the corner or the edge of one of the concrete stairs and split my head open.  I remember Aunt Eddie or Verrie took me with dad to the doctor’s office and they put 2 metal clamps in the back of my head.  I got some kind of treat for being such a brave little boy at the doctor’s office.  I think this was before Grandma Norman had passed away.  Please fill in any memories of the trip or correct my memory.

Before Atwood There Was Murphys Lane

I am the only one left who can remember when we lived on Murphys Lane a half block below Highland Drive at about 3600 South. We lived there while Dad was building the house on Atwood and moved when he got the basement finished. I attended half of either the second or third grade while living on Murphys Lane and finished the last half at Arlington Elementary School in Murray. So Van would have been only about two or three when we moved. He says he has a memory of the back yard on Murphys Lane.

I had a friend named Ronnie Rowell whose dad owned a dairy right there on Murphy’s Lane just a few houses West of ours. You all know the famous triple dog dare in the classic movie “A Christmas Story” when Flick froze his tongue to the flag pole. A similar thing happened to me when Ronnie Rowell told me to put my tongue on a pipe that was on the outside of the small refrigerator building at their dairy where they kept the milk cold. The tip of my tongue froze to the pipe. We didn’t need the Fire Department to rescue me. I jerked it loose but left some of it on the pipe.

Another memory involves an injury. We had a detached garage behind the house and the garage had a cement floor and exposed ceiling joists. For some reason there was a pulley attached to one of the joists and there was a rope hanging over the pulley. I grabbed hold of both ends of the rope and swung my legs above my head so that I was hanging upside down. There was no problem until I adjusted my hands a little and one of those rope ends slipped through my grip dropping me head first onto the concrete floor. I did not pass out but I saw more stars than I ever thought possible and I was very dizzy and nauseated. Soon I had a huge goose egg and a splitting headache.

My final memory involves another stupid kid thing. Mom had bought me a new pair of galoshes which I wore to school one wet late winter day. When it was time to go home I couldn’t find my galoshes. I looked and looked. The other kids had left and there was just one pair of galoshes left in the cloak room but they were not mine. The teacher said that maybe some other boy had taken the wrong pair and that I should take that last pair and then bring them back the next day to exchange. I took them home but was angry or something and didn’t want them so I threw them in the creek. When I got home and Mom asked me where my galoshes were I told her what had happened and what I had done. She was, of course, furious with me and marched me up to where I had thrown the galoshes in the creek so that we could retrieve them. We were not able to find them and Mom was very upset with me because money was always tight and galoshes didn’t come cheap.

Memories of Dad

Dad was a handyman’s handyman. He could fix anything and build anything. He built our house on Atwood Blvd. in Murray. I remember living in the basement while he finished the upstairs. I remember Mom telling about when she was setting nails and filling the holes with putty she was complaining to a neighbor or someone about how many nails she had to set. That person told her that Ed had used more nails than others would have because he built things to last. Dad built a doll house for Aaron and Merle Thueson to give to their daughter Ann as a birthday or Christmas gift. Dad had all his tools in a cabinet he had built and hung on the back wall of the garage. It was locked with a padlock and he enclosed the power switch for his table saw in a metal box with a padlock on it. He had a joiner with a dented break in its table that had probably been made by one of us kids pounding on it with a hammer.

Dad liked to sing and had a good voice. He was a member of the Olympus Male Chorus for many years. He sang songs to us kids like “Yo ho, I’m goin’ crazy. Don’t you want to come along. I live in a nuthouse over the Hill. Play all day ‘mid the dafodils. Yo ho, I’m goin’ crazy. Don’t you want to come along.” And, “I just got back from my mile high shack in that healthy, wealthy, wonderful state of mine. Its, stop, look, listen not a hill top missin’ and the sun just loves to shine. C.O. Hello, hip, hip huradio, I’m a mile high feelin’ fine.” And “When They Ring Those Golden Bells for You and Me.” And, “In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, stood a cow on the railroad tracks. She was a good old cow with eyes so fine, but how do you expect a cow to read a railroad sign. So she stood and she stood in the middle of the track. Along came a train and bumped her in the back. Now her bones lie on the Virginia mountains, with her tail on the lonesome spine.”

Dad loved us kids and was interested in our activities. One day he came home and asked where Alice was. He was told that she had gone with a neighbor family ice skating at Hygeia Ice in Sugarhouse. He quickly got ready and hurried off in the car for Sugarhouse explaining that he didn’t want some other dad to be the one to watch Alice on ice skates for her first time.

I bugged Dad for a long time about getting a horse and he kept telling me no because we had no place to keep a horse. Finally I said, “Well, if I find a horse can I keep It?” Dad, surely thinking that the odds of my finding a horse were acceptably miniscule, said, “Yes.”  It wasn’t many days later that he came home from work and there was a horse calmly grazing on our front lawn. He thought, “Oh, no! Tad found a horse!” He was very relieved to learn that such was not the case. It was a horse that had escaped from a nearby pasture and just happened to have wandered onto out lawn.

John was a pyromaniac!

My two brothers, Tad and Van and my sister, Alice and I spent more than an hour on Skype last Monday morning trying to remember things about growing up in our house in Murray.  We plan to do this every Monday morning.  Tad mentioned in one of his comments on the Norman Family History blog that when I was very little 4 or 5 that I started his bedroom on fire.  Well it is true and my memory, although limited, is as follows.  Somehow I found a box of matches and took them into Gar and Tad’s bedroom which was in the southwest corner of the house.  Mom had a basket of clean clothes partly folded on the matching twin beds.  They were wood and I think Alice inherited them.  Some of the clothes were hanging over the bed and I crawled under the bed and started playing with the matches.  At some point I caught the clothes on fire.  I ran out of the room and went and sat next to my dad who I think was watching TV in the knotty pine room.  I was scared to say anything but I think he knew something was wrong and was asking me what “was the matter.”  I don’t remember if I finally told him.  I do remember crying.  But the long and the short of it was he either smelled smoke or I said something and he went in and put the fire out.  It had gotten big enough that one of the beds had black burned marks deep into the foot board.  Unfortunately, that was not the only time I started a fire. A few years later, I started a field on fire and the fire department had to be called to put it out.  I think I was 5 or 6 and there was a big field behind the Day and Andersons it was in the summer and the field had a lot of dry weeds and grass.  I don’t even remember what or how the fire got started but after the fire department had put it out, I confessed to dad and he made me go over to Andersons and apologize to Mr. Anderson because he was a part time fireman.  I got in a lot of trouble for that one but alas I can’t remember what my punishment was.  Van says that growing up in Murray during the summer all he ever wore was a pair of levis, no shirt or shoes.  That you could be gone all day and no one would ever check on you and he had very little supervision.  I don’t think our parents were negligent but we lived in a different time and had a lot of free time to entertain ourselves.