My parents met in highschool when my mom had moved to Boise from a small town in eastern Idaho, named Arco. While in Arco, her dad was a potato farmer and was very involved in their community and local politics. Their family (and a lot of our ancestry) were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Grandpa and Grandma had served in many church positions, life really revolved around church, community and family. Grandpa served in the Idaho State Senate and State House of Representatives, he had been instrumental in bringing electricity to Arco.
My mom lived across the driveway from her Grandmother and had a lot of family that lived in the area. Isn’t that nice? Why did we ever move away from that model (living by family) as a society? I know why, but I wonder what we have lost in doing so…. I’ve often wished we could revert back to that. They had a large garden and a few farm animals. They were pretty self-sufficient there in the Lost River Valley- pretty cool.
Eventually my Grandmother’s health got so bad that they needed to move to a bigger city to be able to get her the medical help that she needed. Mom’s family moved to a neighborhood close to where my dad lived and ended up going to the same church ward (congregation) and the same high school.
In high school my parents were both involved in music and sang in the same choir at Capitol High. My dad was athletic and my mom was a cute little cheer leader. So cute! They were good friends in high school and occasionally dated. After high school my dad left for a 2-year LDS mission to the Philippines and mom went to Brigham Young University, where I think she studied Early Childhood Education- I know it was something to do with children and teaching- I’ll have to ask her. After two years my dad came back and made his way to Provo, Utah also to study at Brigham Young University. It didn’t take long before the two got married and started our soon to be large family. They’ve got some funny dating stories…maybe I’ll come back to those another time.
Life took them a few different places, but by the time I was born they had moved to Merced, California where my dad started working with his dad, in a company that his dad started called Triangle Bar. I think they installed fancy gates on ranches. My dad had graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree, but his job there would need none of that schooling. His degree would eventually help qualify him for a different job he would get in Boise, years later.
I was born September 1st, the 5th child of what would eventually be eight kids. Eight kids now seems like a big number, but it never seemed too big to me.
When I was born I was a really fussy baby because of constant ear infections, causing terrible pain in my ears. Eventually I ended up getting tubes put in my ears. Stories have it that I would beg for “my plugs” whenever I wanted to swim or play in the water, which seemed to be pretty often, California weather allowed for that.
When I was around two my mom found me passed out on our lawn. I had found a trash straw in our yard and drank some gasoline from the lawn mower. My poor mom found me…I was rushed to the hospital and had my stomach pumped- I don’t remember much of being little, and I don’t think I was a particularly difficult kid, but sounds like there were some exciting moments. Maybe the lack of memory was due to the gas…maybe a good excuse, anyway.
I don’t remember much of Merced. I started Kindergarten there and would only get through half of the year before we would move to Boise, Idaho. I do remember that my Carlson Grandparents lived near us. My uncle, who still lived with my grandparents, had this giant snake in his room, which was a sun room off the main house.I couldn’t figure out why he would ever keep such a large snake so close to where he was sleeping! Creepy
My grandma was a fancy lady and had grown up relatively wealthy. I remember her not wanting us to touch much in her home, and we had to stay pretty quiet (which wasn’t something us siblings did well - personalities in our family were not subdued). One thing that I loved about her home was that she had the cutest decorations and lots of knick knacks. At Christmas time her home was full of Christmas villages, white lights under fake snow, Santa clause, reindeer, snowmen decorations and of course multiple nativity scenes. My grandpa was so sweet, but I didn’t get to know him very well, until years later when they lived with us in Boise. He was an amazing man and I’m so glad I got to connect with him before he passed.
Grandpa was a veterinarian in his younger years and for one of his hobbies enjoyed molding things like silver into jewelry. I remember him making spur book end supports, earrings, bracelets and all kinds of beautiful items. When my grandparents ended up living with our family later in life, my dad built him a shop where he would work for hours, he had the coolest machines in there. One fond memory I have is of him coming back from his shop across the grass in our yard. He passed a tree that grabbed his cowboy hat as he passed under it. A couple steps later he stops, feels his head and looks super confused. Me and my sisters watched from the kitchen sliding glass door, we thought that was so hilarious.
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