A Quiet Meaningful Miracle

 

My college years were years of financial struggle. During my teens I was prudent enough to put away much of what I made during a full schedule of babysitting my neighbors' children and what I earned at Taco Siesta. Babysitting brought in 50 cents an hour, until the summer I was 17, when I raised it to 75 cents an hour. Minimum wage at food establishments such as Taco Siesta was $1.45 per hour.

My freshman year (72-73) was spent attending COC, a local community college that was free. It gave me an extra year to earn college money. And during that school year I worked mostly part-time at Magic Mountain (now Six-Flags Magic Mountain), starting out at about $1.60/hour. My parents' desire was that after my freshman year I would transfer to a 4-year college a half hour from our home, a plan I had zero interest in for two reasons. First, I had the wanderlust, a burning need to get away. And second, the school for me was Brigham Young University. I wasn't even a Mormon, but had decided to transfer to BYU.

When my folks heard my plan for transfer, they played their trump card: if I went to BYU they would not give me a red cent.  My reply: "suit yourselves." And I increased my hours of work at Magic Mountain. In their defense, they knew nothing about this Mormon school--for all they knew it was some weird cult place that would brainwash me into a zombie (and zombies weren't even a thing back then). In the meantime I became a Mormon and in the fall of 1973, landed at BYU (tuition $300 per semester) giddy with excitement and on the cusp of a marvelous experience.

That sophomore year was fantastic, though my financial circumstances caused me some stress. While my roommates went skiing or did some other thing that cost money,  I humbly refrained. At one point I had to borrow some money from my folks to tide me over for a month until my tax return arrived. They weren't happy about it but made the short-term loan anyhow.

The end of that school year approached and I found myself standing on the edge of a cliff with no way out. To reserve an apartment for the next fall required a $50 deposit, and I was down to about $5 to my name. I knew that when I returned home I could get back my old job at Magic Mountain, but the first paycheck wouldn't come in for several weeks, and by that time the apartment my roommates were reserving would be full and I'd be without a place to live. Such agony it was, and worry and stress. No way did I let on to my roommates what dire straits I was in.

And then, the miracle. A card arrived in the mail one day from my Baba (my grandma). She did not write letters but would send a card on my birthday and Christmas. It wasn't my birthday or Christmas, but yet there was a card from her. When I opened it something fluttered out onto the floor. It was a check. A check from Baba. A check for $50. Not for $25, not for $100, but $50. She didn't know.  No one knew. Except Heavenly Father.

Until the end of this life I will never forget Heavenly Father's love for me, his awareness of my circumstances and that he inspired someone in my behalf.

Fare Thee Well, Heritage Halls

1953 was the landmark year that BYU built its revered housing complex for women, called Heritage Halls. 24 in number, each hall was named after a woman esteemed in Utah history for doing something really great. To this day, I don't know who Ms. Broadbent was, even though I lived in her hall for a very formative year of my life, but am sure she did something worthy of a hall bearing her name.

 

not Broadbent hall but a good view of what Heritage Halls looked like (that's stunning Squaw Peak in the distance)

The halls had room for about 56 students each, divided into 10 apartments. The two basement apartments housed four students each and the rest housed six each!! Yes, I shared a kitchen and bathroom with five other girls. We would have shared a living room too, but in the student housing department's infinite wisdom, the apartments were built without living rooms. Instead, there was a central gathering place in the middle of the hall so that all 56 of us could share space.

When I moved into Broadbent Hall (our apartment code was B2201) in August of 1973 the building felt older than it was. I didn't know until today while doing some research about Heritage Halls that they were built in 1953. I would have guessed 1943. Or 1933. They just had that Depression-era aura about them. Each apartment had 3 bedrooms. I shared with Suzanne Gaden from Oklahoma and golly, we could be loud and crazy. Dode Walker and Margie Scorup shared a room as did Holly Rogers and Linda Frost. Later Holly and Linda moved out and Taffy Bryant and Gloria Smith moved in. Somehow we refrained from committing murder while sharing the one bathroom, one telephone, and space in the dinky refrigerator.

  this could have been us in B2201--the phone looked just liked that and was in that same spot; if you craved privacy you could stretch the cord out the back door there to talk while standing in the icy cold stairwell

 why we thought a photo in the shower stall was a good idea, I have no clue

That year I spent in Broadbent Hall was where I formed meaningful friendships, learned what it meant to be a Mormon, and came away with a marvelous testimony of the gospel. Miracles happened during that year. And Broadbent was where Craig and I conducted our courtship. The memories are endless.

I'm glad I was given a head's up that Heritage would be demolished. In 1999 when Bridget moved into one of the Heritage Halls, the housing dude told us they would be eventually torn down to be replaced with modern halls that would appeal to the next generation of students. It took over a decade for that demolition to begin. My beloved Broadbent Hall was the last to go, just a few months ago. The building may be gone but that special time will always remain with me. What treasures I amassed during my year in that tiny place.

Thanks Broadbent, for the cherished memories!

my 19th birthday was celebrated in Broadbent

the spectacular view from Suzanne and Suzanne's bedroom window

in the kitchen with Holly

my roommates tried to throw me into the moat on my birthday (a Heritage Halls tradition), but they were unsuccessful

Broadbent in the snow; I froze in my California clothes and shoes

horsing around with Dave Murdock

second semester in Broadbent

goofing off

the "court" yard outside Broadbent hall

out with the old, in with the new and beautiful

The Treasure Under My Bed

my 1975 notes from Genealogy 101

We are wrapping up a remodel of our master bedroom and bathroom.  Shoved underneath our bed are a few boxes of stuff that have no other place in the house, and yesterday it was time to deal with those.  One box labeled Genealogy is full of photographs, old letters (including some from my Mom, Grandma, Dad, and other special relatives), and even the notes from a genealogy class I took in winter semester (Jan-April 1975) during my junior year at BYU.   Yeah.  Why did I keep those notes from 39 years ago??

various brochures and instruction sheets 

That class was taught by Norman Edgar Wright, a professional genealogist who had a gift for teaching.  I loved him, and remember very well him using his own ancestors as examples of how to locate information on deceased people.  His great or great-great-grandmother, Kindness Ann Drain, sticks with me as does the surname Badger.  Maybe Kindness Ann Drain's maiden name was Badger.  Or something.  Prof. Wright's wife's surname was Welsh: Bevan.  Wright explained this Welsh patronymic that evolved into Bevan by repeating ap Evan, ap Evan, apEvan, a-pevan, Bevan.

Wright laid out the principles of genealogical research in a logical way, and set me on the course of becoming a serious researcher.  He took the class on a couple of field trips to the Family History Library in Salt Lake, so we could immerse ourselves and learn how to use it.  All of this supplemented the research training I received in classes as a history major.

Some of the pearls of research wisdom contained in these class notes:

• Work from the known to the unknown (Surprise! I've assisted people determined to go directly to the unknown without building a foundation on the known)
• Begin with family and home sources ( "Smart" people try to skip this step too)
• Document your research in the form of a research calendar (The biggest failing of budding researchers)
• Keep careful record of findings (Another common failing)
• Keep careful record of sources you have eliminated (Fail)
• Learn the card catalog of the FHL (No longer necessary)
• Use every available record: vital, church, cemetery, census, probate, court, military, emigration, obituaries, land, etc.
• Shrewdly evaluate primary and secondary sources (This becomes natural with experience)

Listed as research sources in my notes were the following that were "must-check" in 1975:

TIB (temple index bureau), began 1921
CRA (Church Records Archives), began 1942
CFI (computer file index), began 1969

No researcher today would even know what those are, because it's 2014 and we don't do family history like your grandmother did her genealogy!

more "how-to" brochures and handouts

To answer the burning question, Why did I keep those notes from 39 years ago??   At first, because they provided useful guidance; then it became sentimental thing.  Those notes brought back rich memories of a marvelous time in my life.  It is time to send them to recycle heaven though.  They are now immortalized on this blog.

Tomorrow: Not Your Grandma's Genealogy

There's Nothing Like [the View of] the Cheap Seats

No, I did not misquote Alabama in the title of this post.  Love their song though, especially the line, "there's nothing like the view from the cheap seats!"   Reminds me of some of the Dodger baseball games I attended a very long time ago.

This post concerns not the view FROM the cheap seats, but the view OF the cheap seats.  Cheap in this case means free.  And though they were singing about baseball, this is about football.   And we had to work for these free seats by doing card stunts.

Back in the day BYU passes for the card stunt section at football games were free, the original cheap seats.  And they were on the 50-yard-line.  Yeah we sat on hard wooden benches but the vantage point was as good as it gets.

To get the passes we had to show up to the Wilk Ballroom at 7 a.m. on a given Saturday to sign up.   The passes were good for for the entire football season.  We were given basic instruction on how the card-stunts work.   In a typical game we might do 5 or 6 stunts by following directions written on big poster paper and held up for us to see.  The poster had a picture of what we were creating with our cards.  Our stack of 5 or 6 colored cards stayed under our benches until needed.  Of course, we could never see the stunts ourselves.  I trust they were colorful and dynamic when viewed from the paying seats across the field.  Most of them were words or short phrases pertaining to football, but I remember one that was a marriage proposal orchestrated by a guy who sat with his girlfriend on the opposing side of the field.  We didn't know until after the game that we had just asked an unsuspecting gal if she would marry the guy sitting next to her.

I couldn't find a photo of a BYU stunt, but here's one from UCLA:

I'm pretty sure we never did anything close to this intricate American flag stunt:

Here's the link to that nostalgic song,
The Cheap Seats

Our Version of Poverty

We were our own brand of poor in the early years of our marriage (1974).  Never "no food on the table" poor. I don't mean to insult people who are seriously suffering from want.   But neither were we the obnoxious hand-wringing "oh dear, we can afford to dine out only twice this week" brand of "poor."   Maybe twice a year for us then.  At McDonalds.  With a shared small fries and ice water.

our car was the same model and color, but way less posh than this one

We drove a metallic blue 1966 Chevy Impala station wagon that Craig's folks gave us.  As in "free."  Otherwise we would not have had a car.   But we had a car.  Yet  . . .

We rarely drove it because gas was a whopping 40 to 50 cents a gallon.  So, we walked or cycled to school and other places.  Weekly grocery shopping exercised our car.   We shopped at Storehouse Market on Second West.  It was the original warehouse-style grocery store, extremely basic.  Concrete floors, dark gloomy clammy atmosphere, canned and packaged goods still in their cases, and produce that had mostly lived out its useful life.  Oranges were 5 cents a pound, a third of what they were elsewhere, but I had to pick through a mountain of them to get 20 good ones.  Bananas were 9 cents a pound, always, as advertised on a permanent sign outside the store.   Decades after graduation we happened to pass by Storehouse Market on a visit to Provo.  Bananas were still 9 cents a pound.  It was the same old sun-faded sign, too.
                           

the remodeled Storehouse Market--photo probably taken in the 90s

We found other unique ways to save pennies here and there.  Our telephone was a party-line, but at least we had a phone.  A party-line was shared between several other people and was half the cost of a private phone line.  Occasionally when we picked up the phone to make a call, a stranger who shared our line would be using it.  We could listen into their conversation if we wanted to (but we didn't want to).  And how quaint is this?  To save a ten-cent stamp when bill-paying, Craig rode his bike 3 miles downtown to the utility company to pay in person.

In those college days we usually had a nickel left at the end of the month.  Seriously folks, we came in barely under our $195 per month budget.  Rent was @ $90-something, food @ $60-70 per month, we had some small insurance costs, utilities, rare fill-ups for the car, super rare clothing and shoe purchases, and college textbooks and supplies.  And what did we do with that nickel at the end of the month?   We bought one soft ice cream cone at the Wilk.  To share between us.

In 1976 we were heading home to Southern Californa for a visit, and there was the problem of paying for gas.  We advertised on the ride-board and 6 students responded to share in gas costs.  One of those was leaving college for good with her mountain of stuff to take home.  We drove the 650 miles with 3 people in the front seat, 3 in back, and 2 stretched out in the way-back, recumbent on top of that gal's stuff.   Seatbelts?  The driver, yes.  AC?  "4-and-80", which means: open all 4 windows and drive 80 miles per hour.  Without those 6 students to pay for the gas we would have had to take out a loan to get home.

My most pathetic memory of our "poverty" involved my senior thesis.  I splurged on a package of quality paper (50 sheets), borrowed a typewriter, and went to work transforming my rough draft.  Near the end it became apparent I was going to run out of paper, maybe by 2 or 3 sheets.  To spend a couple of dollars to buy another pack just for a few sheets was out of the question.  I dug around in my old notebooks and found 3 sheets of cheap yellowed typing paper and used those.  It didn't make a difference in my grade of course, but my pride was dinged, and I wondered if the prof thought I was a dope for marring the beauty of my thesis.

For decades I saved $$ on groceries with coupons.  Couponing has experienced a resurgence, and it seems that the younger generation thinks they invented the technique, but no, it's what got us through the lean years back in the day.  Everything that we could buy on clearance, or at least on sale, we did.  I sewed my kids' clothes using remnants that were marked to half off.

My friends and I became experts at gleaning produce from local farms.  If we went for cherries or apples or pears and they were 5 cents a pound cheaper if we picked our own, that's what we did.  One day Janet and I went to a commercial orchard looking for a deal on peaches.  They had culls not good enough to send to the cannery, but for $3 per bushel (half price), we picked through them and came home with more than enough for both our families.

We still live cheap, even though it's no longer a necessity.  It's always a satisfaction to me to buy something marked down to half of the clearance price, or to buy the slightly bruised bargain bananas.  Some things never change.

The Really Good Old Days at BYU

Craig and I met the night before our sophomore years began in the fall of 1973 at a church social event.  The next evening Craig and some other guys came over to my all-female apartment building to talk and play guitars.  He was noticeably more mature than most of the guys around, and for obvious reasons: he was 21 and had just returned from 2 years of missionary work in Germany.  We spent most of the next year dating before becoming engaged.

BYU was a blast for dating couples like us.  We could enjoy the mountains, lake and rivers, the changing seasons made for a variety of activities, the campus theater showed recent films for 50 cents, and you could see older films or foreign language films for free.  The rec center in the basement of the Wilk was where we went bowling for cheap.  We almost never ate out due to the restrictions of a student budget (students now manage to afford it and I wonder how).    

Craig had the use of his family's old metallic-blue Chevy station-wagon (which we christened "the Chuck-wagon) (I should do a post on that old car).  But gas was not too affordable--again, the restrictions of that pesky student budget.   We were content to have fun within the general confines of campus though.

See a few photos from those simpler days:

 

 Handsome dude!  Plaid pants and turtlenecks were 'the thing' in 1973

 On a picnic up Provo Canyon, September 1973

I bet our kids haven't ever seen this picture

We're sitting on the bridge above Heritage Hall's irrigation canal

Why did we think this was a clever photo?  

On my last visit here I looked for this spot; the tree is gone and the canal is covered over

The Good Old Days at BYU

I spent 3 delightful happy years at BYU, 1973-1976, and graduated in BYU's centennial year, 4 months pregnant with my first baby.  Some choice photos from those good ol' days:

Christmas 1973 at Broadbent Hall in Heritage Halls with my roomates, clockwise from top left: Holly Rogers from Arizona, Linda Frost from Arizona, Margie Scorup from Washington, Suzie Gaden from Oklahoma, Dode (Melodi) Walker from Idaho, and me.  Our apartment had 3 bedrooms, two girls per room.  Suzie and I shared and we were the only sophomores, both transfer students, both converts to the Church.  We had too much fun in B-22;  a few weren't doing too well in school.

Spring 1974: A slight variation on the roommates, clockwise from top left: Suzie, Dode, Taffy Bryant from AZ, me, Gloria Smith from AZ, and Margie in the center.  Why we were in the shower for this photo, I don't remember.  By the way, there was one bathroom for the 6 of us!

Spring 1974

A fine group of friends. Though faces are familiar I have forgotten half the names.  Dave Murdock was a favorite.  He was the funniest fun person ever; he is the guy in the back row looking to his right. Craig and I are on the left, Gloria Smith next to me (white collar), Suzie Gaden to her left (light dress), Craig Knudsen to her left (in vest), Margie Scorup kneeling in front with Mike Pang on her left, Dode Walker on far right, Matt Davis in dark jacket to her right, Taffy Bryant is in middle row in light pink sweater. 

 Graduation day, April 1976
Craig received a BA in Electrical Engineering and went on for a Masters degree; my BA was in History and I went on to have Blair in September

Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve

Last month we dropped off our youngest child at BYU to begin his freshman year. He graduated from high school June 14 and began college June 21. He was only 17 then (is now 18). His growth the past 12 months has been marvelous, and he had an excellent senior year—all As and 1 B, the only B being in AP Calc. He has shown he can meet higher education head on.

One of the most thrilling experiences in my life was transferring to BYU in 1973 as a sophomore. I’ll never forget driving up with my folks from Southern California in the pre-Interstate-15 days when much of the route was a sluggish 2-lane road. The freeway speeds us along now, but then it was fascinating driving down the main streets of historic pioneer towns such as Fillmore, Mona, Nephi, and Levan. Approaching Provo, the Wasatch Mountains loomed up in the distance, hovering over the campus. The weather was typical for late August—hot, clear, and sparkly. Coming closer, the gigantic Y emerged into view, perkily perched on the mountain to the east. When we passed the sign at the campus entrance,

Enter To Learn; Go Forth To Serve

a current of electric excitement ran through the air so strong that everyone felt it, even my folks who feared they were dropping me off at a cultish den of iniquity. I had joined the LDS Church the previous year, and though they knew a few Mormons and liked them, they understood little of the doctrine, but boy-oh-boy, they knew it was the antithesis of the stodgy church they attended.

 

BYU Campus and Y Mountain

My folks moved me into Heritage Halls where I met my roommates: Suzanne Gaden from Seiling Oklahoma, Dode Walker from Burley Idaho, Margie Scorup from Othello Washington, Holly Rogers and Linda Frost from Flagstaff Arizona. In front of Broadbent Hall, Dode and her folks were taking her picture. She was wearing this really odd getup: a gaudy sequined shirt and pants with a matching cowboy hat, all the same garish hot pink! What the heck!? Who dresses like that!? I soon found out it was the garb of a rodeo princess--we weren't in Kansas anymore. I had no idea about things like rodeo princesses and was about to learn much more, not the least of which was Mormon Culture 101.

I am deeply grateful for BYUs stunningly magnificent campus and setting, the cleanliness, the tidiness of the students. Mom and Dad commented on all of these, and were impressed by the friendliness of everyone they met. The BYU atmosphere contributed to my folks’ very positive impression of BYU and the Church. It was at that point they realized the LDS Church was a power for good and not some odd cult. And from this point on my life became much more pleasant. Thank you BYU!

Dinosaur College Registration

 BYU Smith Fieldhouse--scene of some not-so-fun memories

In my first few semesters at BYU the class registration system was positively prehistoric, even by 1973-74 standards. The process was entirely hands-on, so we trudged on down to the Smith Field-house on the west end of lower campus to register on the athletic courts. The procedure went as follows:

Step 1: At home, you (student) studied the current class catalog, picking out classes required for your major, some electives, and then a few options as backups. Each class usually offered a number of sections; popular classes could have dozens of sections available (especially lower division 100s and 200s) but specialized subjects could be restricted to just a few sections. On paper you created a matrix showing how all your chosen class sections fit together time-wise, allowing breaks, and taking care you did not get stuck with any 7 a.m. classes. You took this carefully crafted schedule with you to registration.

Step 2: You trekked to the Field-house but on entering and encountering thousands of other eager students, about-faced and headed for home. No really, that wasn’t a choice. Scores of small tables were set up around the perimeter of the building, each with a sign taped to the front edge announcing which discipline it represented. So if a student wanted History 310 he found the history area, then stood in the line that displayed History 300 classes. If there were a hundred people ahead of you that was tough luck, you twiddled your thumbs for a while.

Step 3: Each table held numerous file boxes holding hundreds of 3x5 cards. Cards were divided up according to the particular course, then within that, the particular section, each card representing one student in that class. If there were 40 spots for one class section, the box held 40 cards for that section, and each time a student requested the class, a card was removed. As you told the monitor what you wanted it seemed that half the time there were no cards left for that section. Right there you had to make a quick decision on whether you could accommodate a different section of the same class, or if you just had to abandon the class altogether. Remember that carefully crafted schedule? It went right out the window. The trouble was, you didn’t know until you went to all the other tables on your list, whether you would get into those class sections, so theoretically you could spend all day going from table to table to construct a decent schedule!

Around my junior year the system changed but I don’t remember exactly how it went, except that  BYU abandoned the Field-house folly and probably switched to a mail-in system, which is still prehistoric in comparison with the sleek online registration of today.