Happy Birthday, Susie.

I was 3 1/2 when Amy Susan was born.  We called her Susie and was she ever cute.  She was as calm as I was hyper, and her eyes were deep brown.

 It was interesting for me to have a baby in the house, my own sister.  I remember my mom giving her an orange tied in a clean cotton rag to suck on for a pacifier.  Her cheeks were very kissable.  She liked to be rocked and sung to and she was very cuddly.

I was thrilled that she was cuddling cheek to cheek with me.  I begged my mom to take a picture.

As she grew she became even cuter, if that's possible.  Her voice was so adorable people would ask her name again and again to hear her say, "Susie" (What punctuation conveys the preciousness?"  Once she looked into my mother's face and observed, "You have babies in your eyes."  Okay, it was a little tough to take when she was 3 and I was 7 and everything she said was cute, and everything I said was annoying, but that's how life goes, and she had a gift.  She's still darling and we all love to hear her cute laugh.

Me, Susie and our cousin, Maren

 She was obedient and easy.  My mom's friend was amazed when that tiny little girl was setting the table.  When my next little sister was born and would be crying,  little Susie would push her around the neighborhood in the stroller.

Susie, Melinda, Nana, Mary, Me

She is caring and compassionate.  I'll never forget the day I said something sassy to my mother and made her cry.  I huffed out of the room.  When I returned, Susie had her little arms around Mom's neck making her feel so much better.  Once she had made wheat pancackes for our children for breakfast.  She asked if my little boy wanted syrup.  I thought they were delicious plain and said, "Oh he can just eat them with butter."  A while later I noticed the child hadn't eaten his pancakes.  Susie looked at me with sad eyes and said, "He has no syrup."  

Susie has a very nice singing voice.  When she was little, Mom dressed her in overalls and a straw hat and taught her the song "If I had one wish to make."  We always called for encores to this fantastic number made fabulous by her sweet sincerety and cute little voice.  It went like this, only Susie did it better.  (No bias) 

When she was a senior in high school, she and our sisters, Melinda and Mary, won the Dos Palos High School talent show with their Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."  Later they worked up an awesome  "Breakin' up is hard to do."  She wisely married a musical husband and all her children have musical gifts.

Susie and I didn't go to High School together.  At the time I thought maybe I was okay with that, but when I saw the team that the next sisters had, I realized they were the lucky ones.  In my preteen and teen years I thought she was so much younger than I was.  I wish I would have tried to be kinder to her and make her my friend when we were young, because she is wonderful and has been one of my best friends throughout my life.  

At some point I recognized that she was more responsible than me. She worked and had money for cute clothes and whatever else she needed. When I was a senior, through a certain turn of events including other people turning down the award for a different award, I was named "Best Dressed Senior Girl."  The irony came on the "take a picture for the yearbook" day.  There was actually more than one "take a picture for the yearbook" days on account of the planets not aligning..  Every time I got dressed in my "Best Dressed Senior" outfit it was from Susie's closet, so the award should actually be called, "Senior with the best dressed sister."

 By the time she got to BYU, I was married  with a baby, and she was, you guessed it, soo cute.  She was the model prep and I was the model "Wear your husband's clothes because none of your clothes fit."  But I was proud of her and waited out her glory days so we could share our motherhood journey together (which are the REAL glory days.)

BYU co-ed with my firstborn

After her marriage to Paul Johnson she spent some time in Wisconsin.  I thought she was gone forever.  Then she moved to Chicago and I moved to Nebraska.  Now we were neighbors.  I would bring my million babies to her house and get inspired to be a better homemaker.  Every Thanksgiving she taught me to make an ornament that I could give to friends.  At Christmas she sent me the best cookie recipes.  In the summer she got me excited about sewing projects; totes, glasses cases, scrapbooks, etc.  One year I brought my unfinished quilt blocks to her house so she could save me and help me succeed.  I would sew the blocks together wrong, she would pick out the errant seams in a flash.  I would try again.  She never left me and I finished every block.  

Pete, Me, Susie, Megan and Sam

We aren't neighbors any more.  I live in GA and she lives in Iowa.  But, I still call her regularly, and she gets me excited about healthy food, BYUTV, books, fitness, and whatever cool thing she's doing that I need to do.

And she's still adorable and I love her and I'm so thankful that she's my sister.

Susie and her beautiful family

How to have a fantastic summer.

One down 2 to go. School is so close to being out.  Andrew is done.  Rebecca is all but done, and Gabe wants to be done.  It's coming, that beautiful time of endless possibilities.  And because summer is so magical, I'm starting to feel the presssure that I always feel when expectations are high and my abilities are middling.  How are we going to make this summer great?  It started in March when people began asking me what we were doing this summer.  The answer is pending. As I thought about our greatest summer memories, very few of them were planned and organized by a mother.  Okay, I always have opinions, but mostly my job is to organize the work and structure so as to raise the value and motivate the possessors of free time.


When my Dad was in Dental School and we lived in the projects at Wolsey Ct. in Portland, Oregon, my memory of summer is of me pretty much running free through the neighborhood with my friend, Wess.  My mom was available, and I had to iron my washcloths before I could play, but she didn't plan my whole day. I'm pretty sure no adult would plan bee catching as the activity.  She did provide me with the mason jar, but I came up with capturing them in the clover and adding them to the jar until there were too many to manage all by myself. When an errant bee sneaked out and stung me on the finger I knew it was time for the next activity.  I went crying to my mommy and she put baking soda paste on the sting.  When I forgot how bad it hurt, the bee catching would resume.  One time I needed some money, so I put some clover leaves in a pretty box lined with cotton and went selling door to door.  No one needed any clover leaves that day, but maybe some other time.

When I was 5 our family moved to Corvallis, OR. We lived first on Grant Street.  The best thing about summer on Grant Street was sitting in the cherry tree eating cherries and spitting the seeds to the ground.  I felt satisfied that I was planting a new tree with every spit.  There should be about 500 cherry trees in a 20 ft. radius right about now.  On another great day, after my sister and I dressed like ladies, I used the high heel of my beautiful lady shoe to stab into the fallen gravenstein apples so we could suck out the juice.  On special days my mom let me walk down to the store to buy a nickel fudgesicle if I promised to use the crosswalk.  I had another favorite activity that my mom never knew about.  It gives me shivers to think about it.  I would push my bike up to the top of a double hill.  The reward for the long push was soaring down, fast as the wind.  So, there was a stop sign at the bottom of the hill.  I almost always stopped, but maybe a couple of times, if it looked like there were no cars, I sped right through the intersection.  Basically, I could have gotten myself killed, but for some reason I was spared.  No one ever do that.  Ever.

On Circle Place we had the Johnsons as neighbors.  I have mentioned playing with them before.  The most magical summer activity was when Kris and Lori started collecting comic books.  Have we talked about my love for Archie and Betty and Veronica and Jughead?  Well, we didn't just read comic books.  We had a comic book fort.  We hung sheets from the clothes line and laid around on sleeping bags reading stacks and stacks of comics.  The most magical part of all was our secret food stash.  Earlier, we had put cake mix onto aluminum foil squares and folded them up.  We hid them around the yard.  When we were hungry we just found one, added hose water, and voila!  Instant cake batter.  That was the life.  In Corvallis, it never got hot outside.  If it hit 70 degrees we went all crazy and busted out the swimsuits and sprinklers.  We usually had goosebumps and a towel close by.  The public pool was indoors and of course my mom let me ride my bike over there if I had a friend.

In California, it was definitely hot...like over 100 every day hot.  When we were lucky, a neighbor would invite us to their pool.  Otherwise we rode our bikes 1.5 miles into town.  It seemed like 15 miles.  It's probably because of the high level of danger we had to endure.  The Bunting family across the street owned a Newfoundland named Major. He could have gobbled me in one bite.  When he came bounding out of the yard to chase me down the road, it's lucky I didn't die from a heart attack.  I don't think that much adrenaline is healthy.  If we didn't get eaten by Major, there were the Olds'  little yappy dogs to contend with.  They weren't much bigger than rats, but they actually did bite, so it was hard to relax with one of them at your heels.  If I pedalled fast enough and long enough they got tired and went back home.  It made the ride to town a little more exciting than it should have been, but we braved it.  If we turned right instead of left on Visalia road we could go to Amelia's grocery for a candy bar.  So dogs or no dogs, we braved the ride frequently.  The best part about summer in CA was watermelon, grapes, peaches, and berries from my dad's garden, and lots of cantaloupes from generous farmers.

Summer is a great time for children to develop the important skills, Lego building, friendship bracelet making, beading, tennis, Quidditch, slip 'n slide, theme parties, yard saling, shirt tie-dying, water balloon construction and throwing, and couch to couch reading.

Summer reading is still one of my favorite things in life. Thanks, J. K. Rowling for the week of 5 people fighting over two books night and day, and for making road trips infinitely more tolerable.  What worse punishment could there be than to get booted from the Harry Potter on tape car into the Mom and babies car for bad behavior?  For the final Harry Potter installment we went to 4 stores before we found the rare and coveted audio CD's.  But there was a little too much text for the trip from Utah to Illinois.  Our friends were understanding when after our arrival the kids couldn't take the suspense and  sequestered themselves in another room to listen to the resolution.  There was the Eragon summer and the Twilight summer and the Hunger Games summer and the Inkheart summer and the Mistborn Summer...so great.

 And of course we'll be eating our favorite summer foods; watermelon, peaches, snow cones, orange juice popsicles, Publix Hula Hula ice cream,  mango salsa, and fresh tomato salsa.  I've banned my kids from ice pops.  I know I'm old and crotchety, but I found one too many plastic wrappers on the grass and snapped.  But maybe I'll introduce them to hose water cake batter.

Blessings on the heads of the mothers of my grandchildren.

So, I'm living the golden years of motherhood.  The only thing that wakes me up at night is a little trip to the bathroom.  Well, I confess, there is that occasional sleepless night of anxiety, but those nights are largely optional at this point.  Six of my children are adults living away from home.  I still want them to eat vegetables and go to bed early and clean their rooms, but I don't really know if they are or not and that makes us all happier.  They call me and tell me their news and that they love me.  I see them once or twice a year.  At that point my mother brain locks in and I tell them to stand up straight and cut their hair and once that's over, they impress me with what they've learned and become since leaving me.  I'm very proud of them and I think they're wonderful.

The kids at home make their own lunches and breakfasts.  Two of them do their own laundry.  They never cry out loud.  They still tantrum a bit, but not more than I do.  I worry about them choosing happiness, but I don't worry about them dying in their sleep, or running into the street, or if they'll learn to read.  In fact,  I've just been ignoring them for an hour.  I went around the house and did a spot check and this is what I found.  All is well.

Okay, they posed for the camera.  They were doing homework.

Sometimes I look at pictures of when they were little, and I'm surprised at how long ago that seems, and how short a time that was.  I was sharing these observations with my daughter-in-law.  I said those crazy things that grandmas say to young mothers, "Enjoy them while they're little.  They grow up so fast."  She insightfully reminded me, "I know that's true and I'm trying to remember that, but I can't even go to the bathroom by myself."

 I realize that the memory loss that comes along at my age is one of the secrets to happiness, but I want to step out of my blissful state for a moment to thank the mothers of my grandchildren for giving all to the health and well-being, temporal and eternal, of my beloved grandchildren.

Thank you for pushing through months of nausea, and discomfort as new life grows within you.  Thank you for enduring the pain that gives way to birth into this mortal probation.  Thank you for loving the father of your children and keeping the promises you made on your wedding day.  Thank you for nursing and feeding your newborn child and sustaining their new little humanity.  Thank you for keeping them clean, diaper after diaper, in the day, in the night, on the road, at the store, and on and on and on.  Thank you for washing their sweet small clothes that may or may not be damp with spit-up, urine, milk, and who knows what else.  Thank you for being patient with their tears as they learn to solve problems and cope with the chllenges in life like hunger, fatigue, cold, hot, boredom, lonliness, how to sleep, how to get mom to carry you everywhere, not enough candy eating times, not enough electronic times, too much room cleaning, too much church, too much being quiet, not enough staying up late, not enough jumping on the bed, etc.


Thank you for not sleeping enough.  Thank you for giving up "me" time for a lot of  "we" time.  Thank you for carrying my grandchildren around, plus their diaper bag full of "what ifs" plus their stroller and every other large heavy item that comes with a wee little child.  Thank you for keeping your cool when pushed to the brink when it's  not even an hour into the day.  Thank you for chasing after the wild little "run aways" and always bringing them back home with you.  Thank you for cleaning up the mess, and thank you for letting the mess stand while there is creation afoot. Thank you for learning all that you can about being a good mother and doing your best and then doing your best again tomorrow  and even the tomorrow after that.  Thank you for loving God and teaching your children the same

Erica:  I can't even imagine how hard it is to be a military wife with young children.  You've been through some tough times this go-around with Daniel gone and I'm very proud of you.  You are capable and strong.  Keep up the good work.  Thank you for never giving up.    I know there won't be anyone at your house to spoil you on Mother's Day, but I am very thankful for you and I love you. I pray for blessings upon your head. You mean the world to your children and family and your efforts do not go unnoticed. You are a great example of someone who goes to great lengths to meet the needs of others.  Caleb and I had a little conversation and he told me some of  the things that you do for him that he's thankful for:  "She takes care of me.  She makes me dinner.  She cleans the messes up.  She goes to get food at the grocery store.  She drives for us."  This is what he said you've taught him:   "Be nice to my friends.  Don't lie.  Clean up my plate.  Be responsible for my own actions.  Jesus is always with us.  Jesus always loves us with whatever mistakes we make."  This is a wonderful tribute to you, a very dedicated and loving mother.

Mallory: You've had 3 babies and lived 4 places in just six years.  I'm inspired by your positive and eternal perspective.  Always teaching, always patient,  even when your active little sweeties are giving you a run for your money, you meet your challenges beautifully.  Annabelle said she loves that you play with her a lot and give her kisses.  Remember the cute thing she said a while ago?  "Tomorrow I'm going to not whine or cry.  I'm going to be perfect like you."  You are a wonderful role model.  Thank you for blessing the lives of our family.

Happy Birthday Brandon II

Well, I'm on year 2 of my blog.  That means I've written a birthday blog for every child.  While subsequent birthday posts will not be as comprehensive, I still love my children and still want to say Happy Birthday.

Since last year's post, Brandon up and moved across the country, taking his darling family with him, but he's in a good situation and I'm thankful for their blessings.  Brandon's good to call whenever he's left at home without Mallory, and it's not midnight in Georgia.  He's still sweet and kind and faithful and happy.  He does a mom's heart good.  Here are some pictures of his cuteness from when he was my baby.

Brandon and Daniel at Grandma Stoker's house.
I was just telling Mallory that moms need to be realistic about when their baby boys
need a haircut.  Clearly I was one of those moms.

Brandon and my "forms" activity.  He would sit on the bathroom
sink and I would paint him into a "Form."  Thurndercats
was his favorite.  This is not a Thundercat.

Brandon and Shannon Albright on 4th of July

Always a hero

Brandon sledding with Aaron

Nathan, Aaron and Brandon

:)

Awesome soccer pic in his Lincoln rec league reversable t-shirt.  Genius.

Brandon loving his siblings.  Baby crying?  No worries.
Eliza and Jacob

Happy Birthday!

Who doesn't love Dare Graduation?  Okay, who doesn't participate in Dare graduation?

Brandon got to Stone Mountain long before we did.

Chubby Bunny

Gun show

Cross Country glory days

Stoker Brothers' EFY duet
Eatin' Goober Peas

Spiffed up for the dance

Love of his life.
Fantastic Mallory

Best. Day. Ever.

PS  We put together a little Star Wars Birthday Video.  If you'd like to see it, go to this link:
http://youtu.be/9hYL65BSJxQ

Happy Birthday Grandpa Miller

Janus Wayne Miller (My dad's dad) was born May 5, 1900 in Richfield, UT in the Miller home located 2 blocks west of the court house. I so enjoyed reading the life history he wrote.  To have these stories written in his "voice" is a great blessing.  It changes the way I want to approach my life history.  Not only is it valuable to know the details and inspiring to learn of the struggles, it's heart warming to know a little of his humor and personality.  I will be largely quoting from this history so will proceed with quotes and summaries in the first person from my Grandpa's perspective:

I was born a son of Hans Peter Miller Jr. and Emma Annette Agnes Christensen; but I was not the only fortunate one.  My mother brought 10 of us into the world.  Our father was the first male child born in Richfield, UT.  Our mother was born in Benstrup, Denmark.  She emigrated with her parents to UT.  Our father's parents also emigrated from Denmark to UT.

Janus on front left
Hans Peter Miller Jr. and Emma Annette Agnes Christensen with 8 of their children

On January 21, 1906 my older brother, Lamont, and I had been sent over to a neighbor's to play while our baby sister, Emma, was making her appearance into the world.  After playing for some time I opened the door and entered the house.  The scene that met my eyes was my Father and oldest brother Arno sitting on the kitchen table with their faces buried in their hands and crying bitterly.  When I asked them why they cried, I was told that I had a new baby sister, but in giving life to my sister, my mother had given her life, and that I wouldn't have a mother to talk to me now.

 Then came lonely days and years for me, as well as the others of our family.  With 8 children at home, everyone had to do their part.  I was helping Imelda make "lumpy dick."  I must have stirred too hard .  The kettle tipped over and spilled down on my legs.  That warmed me up good.  I laid on the couch for days and time did the trick, and I kept eating lumpy dick mush for breakfast for many years to come.

June 26, 1907, Father married Sarah Ann Lazenby from Loa, Wayne County, UT.  She was a good woman, but since each of us have our own personalities, her ways were not always as those of our mother.  It took a lot of adjusting on both the children as well as Aunt Sarah's part.  At that time we children often thought it was pretty hard for us, but since I have grown older I think that she had it doubly hard.  Upon her marriage to our father she was presented with 7 children.  She also commenced raising a family of her own.

During parts of the summer months,  I spent time living with my sisters and their husbands in their respective homes.  I was 8 yrs. old and it was my job to drive the cattle from their home in Scrabble Hard or Brooklyn, as it was properly called, up to Marysvale where they had several acres of excellent pasture ground.  It bordered the Sevier River on its East side and ran to the foothills to the west. I rode a very trustworthy horse named Brownie.  He would follow along back of the herd, going from one side to the other, and if a "Critter" stopped to browse a clump of grass, Brownie would bite them on their tail or rump.

On June 2, 1908 my father and Aunt Sarah drove me in a buggy pulled by a team of horses 45-50 miles to the Manti temple where I was baptized.  That night we stayed at the home of friends of my father from his mission in Denmark.  Their name was Petersen, and their eldest son had just returned from a mission in Honolulu, Hawaii.  I was so impressed by the stories he related that from that time on I never gave up the hope and desire that some day I, too, could go to Hawaii.

In 1910 we moved onto my Father's farm in Venice, 5 miles north of Richfield, where my father lived the rest of his life. On June 6, 1912 I was accidentally shot with a "22" rifle through the shin bone of my left leg.  We were camping in a sheep wagon near the Bertelsen Canal 4 miles south of Monroe, UT.  The only bandage material we had was a cloth we used to dry our dishes.  I bandaged my leg the best I could while Jack Naser, the lad handling the gun, saddled an old sore-footed mare, and we started for Monroe on a slow walk.  The lead from that bullet is still in my leg.  I'm keeping it there for a souvenir.

There was very little money to be had for a young fellow through those years.  I worked farm jobs through harvest season.  In January of 1919, my brother, LaMont, and his wife were living in Eureka, UT and invited me to come up.  They thought I could get a job in one of the mines. While working in the mines  I had a couple of close calls. Once where I was supposed to muck out a car, but the car was kept under this frightful rock.  I felt terrible fear and ran back a little way to size the situation up.  The fear left me somewhat, and I felt that I should go up close and throw my shovel out at the wall right back of where I had been working, for the rock looked shattered.  I did this, and no sooner did the shovel strike the wall when the whole ceiling of the mine around where I had been working  fell in.  Had I bumped that wall while working, I would have been crushed by the falling rock.  I didn't work too long in the mine for several old miners would tell me to get out of the mine and find work outside before it was too late.  Mine work was very unhealthy.

In the summer I went to work for Roy Nelson at a two man sawmill.  As an off bearer it was my duty to hold the plank that was being ripped with the saw to keep it pulled away so that it would not fall into the saw when it sawed free.  But one instance there was not power enough to saw it on through, so Roy pulled the log back from the saw, and my hand went with it.  But you know, that saw never even growled, as it ripped through the first joint of the middle finger on my right hand.  Well, I stopped saw milling and went back to farm work.

I had a desire to serve a mission.  In the fall of 1919, I left my Harley Davidson Motorcycle that I had bought with my brother home and rode on horseback to have a talk with the bishop.  He said, "Yes, Brother Miller, I think you are worthy to go on a mission, but have you got the money?"  I told him "No, I didn't have the money, but I had always been taught that where there was a will there was a way."  As I still had that yearning hope within me, I asked the bishop if one could go to a place of his own choosing, or did the church authorities send missionaries where they saw fit.  The bishop answered that since I had volunteered to go, he thought I might have a preference.  Then I said that I was willing to go wherever they saw fit to send me, but I would like to go to Hawaii or New Zealand.  In due time my call came for Hawaii.  The Lord had granted me my long hoped for desire.  Now I had to make things count.

The state was graveling the highway.  I got a job with my team of horses loading gravel trucks.  I read the Book of Mormon through while on this job.  I sold my wagon, a double disc plow, and my cows.  I sold my motorcycle.  My brother and sister, John and Carrie, gave me $50.00.  Willie and Imelda gave a benefit party, and all in all I had enough money to take me to Hawaii and pay my expenses for 1 1/2 years.  More than once I got down to my last 50 cents, but I never went hungry, nor did the Lord ever let me go in need.  My brothers and sisters and friends sent money to me, and the Venice Ward sent me a check one Christmas.  My dear old Grandmother--my father's mother, got a pension each month in the amount of $10.00 and I am sure that she sent me more of this money than she kept for herself.

I arrived in Pearl Harbor April 6, 1920. The following day I was sent to Laie to labor in the temple  Here I remained until July 16 when I was assigned to labor in the Hilo Conference on the Island of Hawaii. I served here for 2 years.

The Lord was indeed good to me.  Shortly before I left my home for the mission field, Patriarch Joseph S. Horn gave me a blessing wherein he promised me health and strength--that I would travel in peace and safety, whether by land or by sea; but he also said that Lucifer would try to stop me from finishing my work, but if I was faithful, I would be blessed, and would fulfill an honorable mission and return home to my family and friends.

Now, as I have stated, before leaving for the mission field, I had contracted the flu, as did the rest of the family, but I thought I was over that, and all my life before that, I had had good health, but on arriving in the Islands, I became quite sick.  I got to where I could not lie on my back, but only on my right side.  I made several trips to the doctor.  It seemed that something was pulling my shoulders together.  I couldn't stand erect, and it was hard for me to breathe.  I developed a cough which steadily got worse for well into the second year of my mission.  By this time the other missionaries at the mission home were becoming afraid of me.  They thought I had tuberculosis.  One evening while holding a cottage meeting, I was asked to speak, but it seemed that with every word, I would have to cough.  I had been worried for several months, and now I was discouraged.  As Elder Amussen and I walked home that night, I told him that on the morrow I was going to write President Smith at Honolulu and ask for a change of field of labor to a different climate, or a release to go home.

The next morning, while standing before the mirror shaving, and thinking how I would word my letter to Pres. Smith, a voice from directly back of me said, "He who findeth his life shall lose it, but he who loseth his life for my sake the same shall find it."  I turned to see who had spoken, but there was no one there.  Again I [started to shave] when the same voice said again, "He who findeth his life shall lose it, but he who loseth his life for my sake the same shall find it."  I finished my shaving, then went in to where Elder Amussen was and told him that I was not writing President Smith--that if necessary they could send me home in a box, but I was staying there until I was called to a different field.  Within two weeks I was almost over my cough, and at present I am healthy and strong.

Another faith promoting incident:  On the 10th of January, 1922, while in the process of tarring the roof of the mission home in Hilo, Elder Amussen and I had climbed up on the roof.  Elder Amussen was sitting astride the ridge while I was working about two thirds of the way up the roof.  When all of a sudden, it felt like someone had caught me by the bottom of my trouser legs and gave me a jerk.  I turned a flip-flop and landed on my back over on the part that I had just tarred.  It seemed to me that I just zipped down the roof, but to my astonishment, as my feet shot over the eves, I stopped abruptly.  I turned over onto my hands and knees and looked up just as Elder Amussen said, "I knew you would not go off."

And so it went day after day, organizing branches reorganizing others, giving instructions as to this and that, preaching, teaching, baptising, administering to the sick, etc. As  I had been writing to four of five different girls, I wondered which of them if any, might be the right one; so I made it a matter of prayer.  On this night I dreamed that I was conducting a meeting, and as I sat on the stand watching the people come in a begin filling the benches all of them seemed to be Hawaiians.  Then I looked down ghrough the building, and on the third row of benches to my right and about center, there sat a beautiful girl and something said to me, "She shall be your wife."  I had met this girl just shortly before leaving for my mission.  While attending the county fair at Richflield, UT her cousin, Pearl Chidester, introduced me to her.  Her name was and is Ila Casto from Salina, UT.

I was then assigned again to work in the temple in Laie where I stayed until Feb. 13, 1923.  I sailed to San Francisco, went south to Venice, CA and stayed a week with my Aunt Marie and visited with brothers Arno and Carlyle.  From here I traveled on to Salt Lake City where I reported my return from duties of the church in Hawaii.  On the 17th of March, I arrived back home, just four days short of three years from the time I left for my mission.

On arriving home I rented my father's farm and part of Pres. R. D. Young's farm, borrowed my father's model T. Ford and make a trip to Salina to see my dream girl.  We were sealed as husband and wife in the Manti Temple on Sept. 12, 1923.

Our first child, Magdaline Lei Nomi (Pearl Wreath) was born Sept. 15, 1924.  Late in July 1925 we made ready a model T Ford that we had bought and headed for California, where I hoped to find work.  We were loaded to the bows, and some predicted that we would never get there.  The roads were terrible.  The highway through Beaver, UT was closed, and we had to go up through Panguitch, then take a wood road up over the mountain and down into Paragonah.  The first night we made our bed among the rocks in the dark with no light.  The reason that we pitched camp here was because our old Ford just wouldn't pull our load up that last steep pitch on the hill.  Morning finally came, and we made ready to try again.  Let me state here that we had made three attempts the night before, but the car would only go so far and stop, and I figured it was due to the fact that the old model T Ford had a gravity gas feed.  The gas tank was under the front seat, making the gas tank lower than the engine when going up a steep hill.  For that reason I thought maybe we could make it over the hill by going up backwards.  When we were already to start, I told Mom, "I believe I'll try once more and see if the car will go up the hill."  To our surprise, it went right up to the top, just as it should.  Then, we knew why we couldn't get over it the night before, for, had we gotten to the top, we may have been there yet.  Immediately from on top, the road went steep down the other side, and there, perhaps 20 or 30 feet down was a large pine tree, and the road made a sharp turn to the right to miss it.  Had we gone over it in the dark of the night, we would have smashed right into it; so the Lord does provide, as he has done many times in my lifetime, for which I am grateful.

Ila and Magdalene

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Grandpa and Grandma went on to have 5 children.

Robert, Janus, Jeanine, Magdalene, Donna, Milo

Milo, Donna, Robert (Dad), Ila, Jeanine, Janus, Magdalene

  Grandpa's prized possession in life was his dog, Moss.  Moss was an amazing little border collie that "spoke English" and helped Grandpa run the farm.   Janus and Ila never had a lot of material wealth, but they were stalwart and faithful in their dedication to the church.  They joyfully served in many different capacities and especially loved service in the Manti Visitor's center. They lived in a variety of places: UT, CA, OR, WA and even Missouri for a time. Grandpa said they always had wonderful neighbors. I think this means they must have been wonderful neighbors.   I remember their place in Manti best and am happy that my father bought it from them so I can return to refresh my memories.  I remember Grandpa milking cows in the barn with their tail tied to a hook to avoid getting flicked.  I would take a little tin cup for Grandpa to fill with fresh milk for me to drink.  He would kill errant bees by squishing them on the fronts to avoid getting stung by the backs, except this one time when he was driving and he accidently squished the back...ouch.  There was a manure pile out by the barn that I could have lived without, but that's probably the secret to their nice garden.  When I went to visit as a young girl, he would give me a great big twinkly eyed welcome saying, "There's my girl."  Thank you for your legacy of faith, Grandpa.