Personal History of Maxine Moulton Owen through 1978

Mom and I worked hard on this personal history back in the late 70's.  A little tape recorder and an old fashioned transcription machine made it possible.  Now it is time to share it again in a new format.  There are many great stories in here.

I chose to put only a few photos in this post.  Hundreds of Owen family photos that could go along with this text can be downloaded from owen-gallery.com thanks to the hard work of Teresa Owen. 

Audio tapes of this personal history of Maxine Owen were first recorded and transcribed by Cyndy Owen Weiss and between October 1976 and December 1978.  Photocopies were distributed to all family members in 1978. 

  

Scanned copy of the original was edited by Cyndy in May 2015 and will also be put up on LDS FamilySearch Family Tree.

Enjoy the personal history of a remarkable woman!

 

 -------

Photo taken in 1944 of Maxine Moulton.

My mother was Margaret Lillian Cummings. My father was Hyrum Chase

Moulton. They were both born and raised in Heber City, Utah where I

was also born. I was born on July 17, 1922 and was the fifth girl in a

family of eleven. There were five girls and two boys, then another girl

and two more boys in our family. My dad, at the time I was born, was the

owner and operator of a Ford garage in Heber City and he owned the equiv-

alent of about a half block. The garage was on Main Street and the- house

in which I was born was on the other end of the block on First West. It is

still standing but has now been converted into three apartments. It had a

big porch around it and a big cottonwood tree in front that we just loved to

climb up in and sit and read. We could get up there and be hidden by the

leaves. Our porch was a favorite place to play and I can remember

wearing the concrete smooth playing jacks on the front steps .

Across the street was a football field and up on the corner was the seminary

building and the high school. Down a block from there was what they called

the Central Grade School with the first six grades where I attended school.

We took music lessons from a Mr. Dixon during the summer months and in

the sixth grade I remember I played the saxophone and we were permitted

to leave classes and go across the street and play in the high school band with

the Jr. High and Sr. High students and boy, did we think we were big! Deanne

played the clarinet, Evelyn played the baritone and I played the saxophone.

My mother was very musical. She was an excellent pianist. She tells some

beautiful stories about her days at the BYU playing with Professor Sauer

and his band and Professor Lund and the music that she was able to learn

through him as her piano teacher. She didn't have time to teach any of us

her talents in piano.

I liked school. I remember history and English and band. I always enjoyed

band. Mr. Dixon thought I was pretty good and he used to give me solos and

things and I was first chair for a while after the other girl graduated. I

guess I was pretty good on that saxophone from what they tell me. The way

mother talks I was alright. I was supposed to playa solo in an assembly

one day and I practiced and practiced and I got up there and I flubbed it up

and I couldn't play it. I got so sick. Just the nervousness of performing in

front of a group got to me, and it made me sick. I really went home sick.

I knew it by heart and I was going to be so brave and just get up there and do

it like nothing because I knew it. It shouldn’t be hard, I knew it. I get up

there and I just got sick to the stomach and couldn't do it.

I had the same experience when I was about four or five or six, just a little

tot. I was supposed to give the sacrament gem in Sunday School and I went

to stand up and give it and they pulled me back because I was early. I was

so eager to give it. Then after the opening prayer I was ready to give it,

and they called me back to the seat and pulled me down. And then after the

man got through whatever, I went to try and do it again, and they kept pulling

me back. So when it was finally my time to give it I stood up there and I went

blank. I couldn't remember it! I went home and I remember going to the

bedroom. There was a sheep camp in back, a kind of camper with a stove

in it and everything. Grandpa had parked it there or something. I got in

that thing and I hid from the family. I hid from everyone and just cried and

it just broke my heart. I've often wondered how much effect that had on me

as far as appearing before people, because I have never felt comfortable

appearing before people.

When I was in Central Grade School, I don't remember too much about

many of the teachers. I remember in the 3rd Grade I had a Miss Baird.

Her grandmother, her mother, or somebody lived right close and I can

remember going over to her house and we mixed bread one day and made

little loaves of bread with our teacher. I remember her little sister was

in my class. Miss Baird was about Fern's age (my oldest sister) so there

wasn't much spread. She was a good teacher- -I remember her.

I remember in the 6th Grade there was a man teacher. I can't remember

his name. It seems to me that it was in the fifth or sixth grade when I fell

off of the tricky bar. They claim that all my years of sickness was caused

from that accident, because I landed on the back of my neck and head and

it knocked me out. I can remember waking up in the school office. They

carried me in after being knocked out and took me home, and from then

on it seems like I constantly had a lot of vomiting, sick spells, and upsets.

I don't know, though, it seems like I had them before that too, so it has

never been determined for sure, but I was considered a very sickly gal

all of the years that I lived in Heber. I would have a sick spell that would

get me down and I would be down for a week and then I would go back to

school again until the next one hit. I'd just get sick at the stomach and

start vomiting and just vomit for a period of four to five days and then

just like that, overnight, I would snap out of it and be on the go again.

I remember reading, but I don't remember too much in the way of studying

or taking assignments home. I remember practicing our horns at home. We

used to go back into the "North Forty" which was what they called the back

bedroom, way in the corner. Oh, it was cold! Farms are broken up into

forty acres and the "North Forty" was a long way away and so was that back

bedroom. It was cold as ice, and that was where we slept too. We used to

stand over the floor furnace and fill our nightgowns with hot air and then

run back and jump in bed. There were four bedrooms and we would got through

one bedroom and a hall to get to our beds, but they were all cold, none of them

were ever heated.

I don't know if my father built the house, but I do remember him adding on

the back end of it, the three back bedrooms, and rearranging the plumbing.

It had a big, screened porch where we used to do all our washing. I remem-

ber making soap with mom and making ice cream in that screened porch.

She had clotheslines, three of them, put on pulleys and on a high telephone

post way out about half a block away. You would pin the clothes on the line

and then push it out and people would always know when mom had her clothes

out because they were hanging out as high up as a telephone post--up in the wind.

On that same half a block, just back of the garage Dad owned, he had what he

called the "Warehouse " where he had all the parts for Fords, the fenders

and all the parts and pieces it took to repair cars--tires and all that kind of

stuff. We used to just love to climb all over in that warehouse. We would

sit in the cars and pretend that we were going on trips and all this. I played

mostly with Deaun and Evelyn. Fern was older and she loved to work in the

garage. She was just like a mechanic to Dad. She used to pump gas and

change tires and do all of this for him. So since she worked at the garage,

Deaun and Evelyn and I were closer. I remember going in the shop--the

repair service end of the garage. It was run with a bunch of pulleys, one

main pulley and then all these big pulleys coming down to this work bench.

The shop was operated off of all these big pulleys. They turned the grinder

and the equipment that they used to repair things. I don't know quite how it

worked, but I remember this pulley assembly. I don't remember any bad

accidents.

We always had a pasture. We had a pig and a cow. Our cow was a real

favorite. She was called "Cow Lady Moulton" and she was our special cow

because she would come anytime anyone called and she was just so gentle

and kind. Norma would milk from one side and Fern from the other side.

She was a Jersey cow and gave real good milk and lots of cream, so I can

remember lots of ice cream.

I can remember one time when I was sick my Dad got an inner tube from the

garage and cut it across, laid it open and tied one end real tight with a string

and he tied the other end onto the hose and put the hose inside and tied it up

real tight and then turned the water on. He would fill this inner tube with

water and it got as big as three feet around. All the kids in the neighborhood

were out in the yard bouncing and playing on the inner tube--it was about 10 ft.

long by then. I can remember watching them from the inside. Dad did this

for me so I could have fun. And when it broke, finally, everybody just went

splashing all over the ground. This is something he did quite often, even when

I was well. He enjoyed taking old inner tubes and doing this for the kids in the

neighborhood. Dad was real special with us kids.

He used to have a motorcycle with a little sidecar on it. It was a three wheeler

and he used to just delight in taking kids for a ride in that. We would pile in

and he would take us for a ride around town and different places.

I remember going to Salt Lake quite often for special shopping trips. I can

remember one time they wanted to start out real early and the car had frozen

up, sitting in the garage (we had a garage in the back of the house). So my

Dad had to take hot water out and all kinds of things, lights, etc. to thaw it

out before we could start our trip. It was just a long time waiting to get

started. We used to bundle up in robes and blankets and hooded coats and

everything to take that trip, because it was a cold trip and it was a long one.

The car I remember was a 1932 Ford. It had these tires on the side and it

had a running board. It had a side trunk for tools for repairing things. If

we had a flat tire it had to be done right on the road. We used to take trips

to Salt Lake and do it in two days. We would stay with Aunt Hannah Clements,

(no relation"a friend of Mom's in Salt Lake) and we would spread out all over

the floor and sleep overnight and come back the next day. It was a big event

for us. Usually it would be when Mom was shopping for school clothes or

Christmas or something like that.

I can remember Mother going to Salt Lake and leaving us at home with instruc-

tions to stay out of the big walk-in closet, but we rifled it and we found a

great big can of marshmallows. They came in five pound cans and there

were no marshmallows left when she got home. We used to set them in pans

over this floor furnace and they would puff up twice as big- -just like roasted

marshmallows. Oh, they were good.

I can remember the year that we got our dolls. Deaun and Evelyn and I all

got big life size baby dolls. Mine was walking, but Deaun and Evelyn got

six-month dolls that you could treat like a baby and dress and feed and stuff.

Mine was more like a two-year doll. It had walking legs that you could

move and it would walk. I still have it, but it is all scarred up in the china

face. It once had beautiful hair and was a lovely doll. Anyway, this year

we found them up in that closet before Christmas, but we never did let Mom

and Dad know that we knew they were there. They had a big Christmas

Program in the Tabernacle in town, and our family was selected to be the

family to present the Christmas Pageant. All I remember is the curtains

opened up with Dad and Mom on stage with a Christmas tree setting, and

all these dolls and tricycles and bicycles and a wagon. What a Christmas !

They were all on the stage and then they left and all of us kids were turned

loose. We went out on that stage and didn't even know the audience was there.

It was one of those spontaneous things, no rehearsal or anything, and we

got our dolls and played with them. I can remember Duane riding the

tricycle and I remember the bicycle and E. J. Then when Christmas morn-

ing came we had all the same things over again--they were ours for real.

We were wishing that they would be ours during the pageant, but we didn't

know for sure.

I remember going to the shows in the Heber City Theater. I can remember

Mom giving me eggs so that I could go up to the confectionary, which was

the store right next to the garage, and we could trade in an egg and get penny

candy. This was a real treat when we could get two or three cents worth of

candy in exchange for an egg. We must have earned the eggs from working

around the house, but I don't remember. I don’t even remember having

chickens. I remember Mother stocking up on flour for the winter months.

overhead, above the steps going downstairs. Dad had built a shelf across

up in that unused area and he would put the flour up on that special shelf

where the mice and anything couldn’t climb up, because it was up above

your head as you went downstairs and a real beautiful spot.

I remember going to 4 H Club meetings or classes for afternoons with my

friends at a lady's house--Mrs. Hicken was her name, I think, And I can

remember going to Sunday School in the Second Ward. My Dad was in the

Sunday School Superintendency, and mother, of course, was organist. She

played all over for everything, every funeral or anything. She was always

practicing with quartets and groups. We always had a piano in

our home.  It was after we got to Salt Lake that I asked her to show me

where the keys were in relation to the music--what music note was played

with what key--and then I used to figure out and count up and down and find

out what note to play and I would pick out a few notes here and there, and

that was about all I ever got in the way of music instruction from Mom.

I don't remember Family Home Evening as such. I remember having a lot

of fun with pulling taffy and popcorn and games and stuff with the family at

various times. I had a lot of cousins in Heber. My Aunt Vivian and her

family, my Uncle Clay and his family. On my Dad's side there was Uncle

Tom and his family. They had a daughter named Wanda that was my age.

They moved up to Klamath Falls, Oregon about the same time we moved

to Salt Lake and I've never seen or heard from them since.

I can remember one real bad winter when Heber had a lot of snow and we

used to climb up on the roof of the house and slide down to the ground. The

snow had been shoveled off of the house and it filled up to the point that it

was just straight down. I can remember going to school walking across

crusted snow and not even stopping for fences. We would just go right over

the fences. It must have been about three feet deep that year. I never

remember it like that before or since. That year it was really something.

Of course, being little at the time, I might have exaggerated it a bit, but I

don't remember going through fences, just walking over them on this crusted

snow. I remember walking with this Wanda Moulton, my cousin, and she was

coming home with me (they lived about two blocks from us) and she used a

big word and I'll never forget it. She said, "Oh this snow is so substantial.”

“Substantial" was a word that I had never heard before. She was my age and

I went home and told mama how smart she was because she had used this

long word. Isn't it funny how a word will stick with you?

I remember going to school dances or what they called Junior Proms or

something. It was not a date affair. Everybody went to these dances. I

remember I was l3 because it was the year we moved to Salt Lake--we moved

in May after school was out. Anyway, I had a formal and Neil Turner, my

"date" came over and picked me up and we walked over to the Amusement

Hall. It was a block beyond the Chapel and is still there today. It had a

floor that was very unique. It was one of these that was suspended on springs

and was bouncy. You would step up about 6 inches to get on the dance floor.

Seats were all around the periphery where people sat and watched. Every-

body went to the dances. My Grandma (Hannah) Cummings used to love to go to them

and watch people dance. Mother would play or dance or be involved with

the music someway, but adults, children, everybody went.

So I remember this special formal that I had and I remember Neil Turner,

the best looking kid in the class. I don't remember making it, I didn't make

many of my clothes until we moved to Salt Lake, but I can remember my

sisters helping me get ready. It was as exciting for them as it was for me.

They went too, but this was a big deal for me. And Neil Turner, he was

dark, beautiful big eyes. My mother just fell for him because she loved

dark eyed kids anyway, and she just thought it was real special. It was a

date, but the thing is, you would go with them and then you would go and

stand in the girls line and he would go stand with the boys and they would

come over and ask you for a dance and then after you were through they

would take you back to the line and someone else would come and ask you

to dance. Or, on the floor if you were through before you would ever get

back to the line, someone else would come out and intercept and you would

dance the next dance with someone else and then the last dance you would

dance with the fellow you came with. They would always announce the last

dance and everybody danced with their partner and then we walked home.

I remember bands or groups playing, not just piano music.

Heber City had about 1000 people then--I guess--there were two wards,

two grade schools and then the high school and the seminary right next to

the high school. I was baptized in the seminary building. I can remember

I got ready and went up to be baptized with two or three other kids. We

went in and sat down, and my Uncle Clay, who was Stake President for

many years, was there. I don't remember any of my family being there.

Mother had all of her children at home. Dr. Dannenburg lived on the other

half of the block of our house. We went over our back fence and we would

be in his back yard. He had a boy my age in school. He was our family

doctor and delivered all the babies. He came to our house and Mother would

have all her children at home. I can remember taking care of the babies

When Dale was born, they almost lost him. He hemorrhaged so bad the

first day. I can remember going back there and they called in Uncle Clay

and blessed him and gave him a name immediately because it didn't look

like he was going to live. I can remember gong into the bathroom and this

bathtub was full of bloody rags, just filled with them. It really scared us

all, particularly Deaun and Evelyn and I because we tended a lot of babies as

well as our younger brothers and sisters. We were really concerned. They

named him Dale Elisha after Grandpa Elisha Jones Cummings. It seems

like within two or three days everything was all right with Dale.

Mother always had a lady come and stay with us. She was an older person

and just really worked and helped Mom and she would stay with us about

ten days to two weeks while Mom was getting over having the baby- -they

used to keep them down about ten days. Mrs. McDonald was her name and

I can sure see her!

I can remember spending evenings with Grandma (Hannah Mary) Cummings. She just loved

to listen to her radio. Especially to "Amos and Andy" at nine o'clock before

we would go to bed. She liked to have her grandchildren come down and

spend the night with her. She lived just a block down the street on 2nd West.

There was a big barn in back of Grandpa Cummings house and we used to

love to swing on the rope in that big barn and go from haystack to haystack

across that big barn. I remember sleeping upstairs in Grandma's house.

She had drawers full of pictures and we used to just sit and look at the pic-

tures and enjoy getting into her things upstairs. She had a parlor where she

had some beautiful lamps and piano and graphophone and records that we were

able to play by winding it up by hand. But the parlor was just opened on

special occasions and it took special permission to get in there. I can re-

member going down to Grandma's to get yeast to mix bread. They had this

"everlasting yeast" and mother would let hers run out or Grandma would

come up and get some from Mom or something and we'd go down and get a

quart of yeast and by the time we got home it would be half gone. It was so

good! It was made out of potato water and yeast.

Grandpa (Elisha Jones) Cummings was a sheepman. He raised and herded in the Uintas

and different areas around. I don't know exactly where they were located,

but he was a sheepman and very well to do and highly respected in town as

a business man. I remember Grandpa Cummings passing away when we

lived in Heber, just about a year before we left. People used to think that

is why mother left- -she stayed there until after he'd gone. He was quite

active. He used to stop and visit every time he went by our house. We'd

sit on his lap and he had a mustache that he used to tickle us with. He died

from carbuncles and boils that developed and poisoned his system. I can

remember going down to his house when he was sick and going to the funeral.

It was in the Heber City Tabernacle, I think.

Grandma (Hannah) Cummings lived with Mom in Salt Lake for the last six months of

her life. She died in our house in Salt Lake. My mother tells stories of

her last days of talking with people of her family- -aunts, uncles and others

who had died, coming into her room to visit with her prior to her dying and

passing on. She could tell you interesting stories about that.

Grandma (Margaret Ann Griffiths) Clegg, Grandma (Hannah Mary Clegg)

Cumming’s mother, lived about a block south from us in Heber.

She had a log house that has been remodeled and changed over. You wouldn't

recognize it now. I don't remember too much about her. She must have

died when I was kind of young. I remember her, and that's about all.

We used to play as a group on the street corner. There were several of

us in the neighborhood and we would get together and play "Kick the Can" and

"Run Sheep, Run." Those were the two favorites. In the evening when it

got too dark, we would meet under the streetlight and divide into teams and

draw maps for "Run Sheep, Run.” You know how you have to hide and then

the captain would go back and draw a map of where your sheep are hidden.

Then the other team has to go out and find them according to the map you've

drawn. After that they are free to sneak in and get "safe" at home base in

any way they can until they are all found or home "safe". I can't remember

the rest. I can remember "Fox and Geese " is the one they play in the snow

where they make this big wheel with spokes that you have to run around and

be in the center, but you have to stay on the path made in the snow.

I can remember going to basketball games and football games, but I was

kind of young. I don't remember that Dad particularly enjoyed any special

sport, but it seems like he was always there when we did things .

I think we had a quite large family, considering the size of the others in the

neighborhood and around. Mother was an excellent housekeeper and she

dressed us like she had only one. I can remember ironing and ironing and

ironing, ruffles on dresses and white shirts for kids, spotless and washed

all the time. She was an excellent housekeeper and never gave up but just

kept working all the time.

Mother was on the Stake MIA Board and she was active in visiting the distant

wards. She would go way out to Charleston and Wallsburg, out to Midway and

Keetley and these remote areas of the stake. Charleston isn't there anymore.

It is underneath that Deer Creek reservoir. It was only three miles out from

Heber. Midway is also about three miles from Heber. I can remember going

out to the river that divided Heber from Midway. The "Midway Bridge"

crossed there and nearby was a beautiful swimming hole where we would go

swimming there in the river. We would walk down and walk back. One time

Deaun, Evelyn and I went swimming and got sunburned so bad that we had to

lay for about a week on our stomachs and Deaun and I ended up with boils on

our backs because of it.

I don't remember anything outside of Heber except for a trip to Salt Lake

once in a while. I can remember Evelyn standing behind Daddy telling him

to "Be Careful!"  Some of the hairpin turns and areas in the road were sharp

and she was always afraid that we would never make it. She was always

more concerned than the rest of us because she was so conscious about his

driving!  Just outside of Park City they had a waste area from the mines -

a water pond, and this road went right through it, intersected it, and if you

went off the road you would get into this water. It wasn't deep, but to us it

looked like a big lake, a big sea almost, and it always scared us to go across

that because of this little narrow road with water on both sides. I was always

glad to get across that.

I can remember getting stuck once in a snowstorm and just sitting there for

hours. We always bundled up before we left on a trip. They had to dig us

out before cars could go through and it was on one of those turns where the

snow had drifted across the road.

There were people in the garage beside Daddy and his brother.  Anyway, when

the Depression hit about 1930, Dad lost everything. I don't know quite how

it all worked really, but I can remember we moved to Salt Lake about 1935,

I think, so there were three or four years before we moved when it was just

a real struggle. I can remember Daddy coming home with cereal that he had

picked up from the distribution in town (food bank) where they helped people out with food.

I can remember him taking the car and us and Mom and going on a trip and we

would visit some of his old accounts. It would take all day and he would pick

up potatoes and onions and half a pork and maybe a little bit of beef and apples

and come home with a carload of food from people that owed him money. They

would give him things off of their farms. We went as far as Timpanogos Cave

on that Alpine road down into some of those areas--it was kind of exciting and

fun to go with him on these trips. He would go up to Keetley and Wallsburg and

those places collecting food for us on these accounts that owed him money.

 Eventually, he went down to Salt Lake and talked to a real estate man, Mr.

Chapman, who let him have the opportunity of having a house that was vacant

if he would contract to fix up and repair all their houses. He was to do the

plumbing. (In his earlier years of marriage he had been a plumber.) So

without any down payment or anything, they gave him this house and gave him

the job to fix up these other houses.

I was 13 when my youngest brother Dale was born in October (Norma was

married in November) and the following May when Dale was about 6 months

old we moved to Salt Lake as a family. Norma was the only one that stayed

in Heber as she had married Neal Montgomery and they stayed to make their

home there.

We lived in the house the real estate company provided for a year. It was cramped.

We cleaned out the furnace room for a bedroom for the boys. It was on 5th

East and 14th South in Salt Lake (1412 So. 5th East).  The Waterloo ward we moved into was a great ward.  They really accepted us. I went to Lincoln Junior High School.

After a year Dad had done so well that the folks found another house at 1964 So.

9th East and we moved out there. By then they really liked him. His work was

excellent. I can remember him going out to Little America in Wyoming or

somewhere and putting in plumbing for a motel. He would be gone for a week

or two at a time and then he would come home and spend a weekend before

driving all the way back. He was a hard worker.

Norma had married and stayed in Heber, so Fern went to work at ZCMI in

the department that carried materials for handwork, embroidery, crocheting,

and all that stuff. Then she got a job on the sewing machine doing hemstitching

and she used to have a special machine to mark garments for people who would

bring them in. Now you buy them already marked, but then they weren't sold

that way. Mother used to think it was kind of strange that they would let her

do that as she was single. She thought Fern should have been married in order

to do that.

Fern was very interested in genealogy and very spiritual. She went through

the temple long before she got married and she enjoyed doing temple work.

She used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir before she was married. I remember

that she would get off work and go to the Salt Lake Temple and then come

home kind of late because she had been to the temple.

Deaun and Evelyn and I were still in school. After we moved to 9th East I went

to Irving Junior High in Sugarhouse for one year. I remember the graduation

from there. It was held in one of the chapels in the area. Then I went to

South High for two years and graduated from South High in 1940.

I played my saxophone in all three schools. I remember playing in the bands,

not so much in Junior High, but at South High I remember carrying my

instrument to school and back lots of times. We walked the two miles to

l7th South and State Street--everyone walked. We used to have boys come

along and give us rides or carry our instruments for us. The one fellow I

enjoyed the most walking home with Kay Dayton. He played the Saxophone

too. We were in the pep band for all the games. There was a dance band

also, and I was in that too. I remember playing "In the Mood". .."Da da da

da da da da da da da da da da” forever and ever.  And then we had an all

girls dance band and we played for the matinee dances in the afternoons for

an hour after school. I don't remember them lasting very long. I remember

doing a lot of practicing and then playing a few times, and then it dropped off.

v.e played at the assembly some of the songs we learned so well.

I never did like shorthand. I started out with shorthand and did real well and

then I got sick and by the time I went back I was so far behind I never did

catch up. I was forced to hang on to that class-they never did let me drop

it, until..I don't remember finishing it. I just hated it. I was always

behind. I never could understand it or know what I was doing.

I liked bookkeeping real well. Mr. Stevens was my teacher in bookkeeping

and he was the nicest guy to work with. I always liked the bookkeeping end

of things and I ended up working in a bank-I guess that was probably why.

I remember learning Algebra and liking that real well. My teacher thought

I was kind of a whiz at that because he used to have me helping the others.

I remember having a Miss Benz for English. We used to call her the

waddling duck because that was the way she walked down the hall. She had

her hair on top of her head in a bun and she wore glasses and used to always

carry a stick or a ruler or something and she would slap your hand when she

would come around and we would be diagramming on the board. She would

point out on the board, tapping on the board, where you were wrong and

where you were right. She taught English like nobody ever taught before

nor since. She was excellent. But I don't remember anything! Jim starts

quoting all this stuff (past participles and things) and I don't even remember

what he is talking about.

When I was going to Irving Junior High, Le Grande Bernards (who was a year

ahead of me and went to South High) would always come and pick me up after

school each day. He had a little Willeys car--comparable to a VW today.

He worked for his dad (he was a printer) and I remember after school he

had the job of delivering printing to various establishments around town, so

he had the car all the time. Between getting out of school and reporting to

work, he'd come up to Irving and meet me and pick me up and take me home.

It was almost a kind of "going steady" situation. He lived in our ward, Lincoln

Ward, and I remember dating other fellows in the ward. It wasn't really

"going steady" but I was "Lee's girl" and yet he wasn't really a "boy-friend"

but more a close friend. We were the best of friends. We just talked and

talked and we played tennis and went ice-skating and bowling. When I got

into South High I don't ever remember going to a dance with him. I went to

the "big" dance of the year with Eugene Chapman, Mid's brother (a doctor

now in Provo). Eugene was a Captain in the ROTC and was one of the big wigs of

the dance of the year because of being a Captain and I was his date that night.

I wore a black dress, tafetta, and I remember that I was sick and I used to

excuse myself and go to the bathroom and throw up, rinse my mouth and go

back and dance and feel pretty good until all of a sudden that attack would hit

me and I'd go back and throw up again. That was when I was in High School.

In Junior High, LeGrande would come and pick me up, and I guess that is the

only boyfriend I remember in Junior High. That's about the year that I had

my appendix out. Because the doctors could never figure out what my prob-

lem was, they decided, “Well, maybe it is the appendix" and so I remember

walking into the LDS Hospital. Dr. Hatch was the doctor and he met me

there. I changed my clothes and I was just as calm as walking in to get your

teeth filled or something. I can remember being rolled down the hall past

Mother and Dad and onto the elevator on the stretcher and they were there

waiting for me when I got out. I went back to my room and it was just like

tossing a ball in the air, you know. I don't ever remember being sick, but

it was really great.

The kids from the Lincoln Ward all came up to visit me.  They'd take

me in the wheelchair and wheel me out on the sun deck and we'd

visit and play and LeGrande was there nearly 3-4 times every day! They

brought me gifts and it was a delightful time. It was about five days. I wasn't

really sick from the surgery, but it didn’t help my original sickness. I often

wondered what Mother thought of LeGrande because he spent so much time

with me at home. Even after I got home from the hospital, they kept me in

bed, and he would come and spend hours visiting with me. Then eventually

he got to dating Myrtle Weidner and married her after he came back from

his mission. He was a real good kid.

South High School was quite a big school. I think there were about 1500-2000

students. I don't remember being too much involved with cabinets or offices

or anything. All I remember is the pep band and playing for games. Dancing

was a big thing then--a fun thing. I used to love to dance. I was good. I

learned all the new dances, the big apple, the jitterbug and all these different

steps. They had what they called a "Rainbow Rendevous" downtown and they

also had what was known as "Covey's”--two dance places downtown. The

“Rainbow Rendevous” was the most popular with dance kids. I used to have a

friend, Max Garrick was his name. He liked me and I liked him. He was a

real good date, lots of fun. We used to get double dates or triple dates or

crowds and go to the “Rainbow Rendevous”. I don't remember that it cost very

much, a dollar maybe $2.00 a couple, I don't know. They had tables around

the periphery. They used to have real good name bands come and Max and I

always went to these special dances. You'd trade dances with the group you

came with. At school dances, special ones, you would have dance books that

you would get filled up and schedule all dances ahead for the evening.

I still have my Beehive book and my bandelo and some of my other Seagull

books and church class books that I received as I advanced along. I was a

Gleaner and a Golden Gleaner- -an achievement similar to Master M-Men, but

for girls. I have pictures of the awards that were given to the Golden Gleaners

in our stake because it was more or less a pilot program in our stake then.

I also have pictures of the big Gleaner "Sheaf Binding" programs for the

Granite Stake. Deaun and I were both involved.

Les Goates wrote a daily sports column in the Deseret News and as a hobby

he directed a group of singing girls to which Deaun and Evelyn and I belonged.

Grant Johannesen was the accompanist at that time. He has since gone on to

become a very famous concert pianist! I can remember singing around at

different wards with that group and then there would be a yearly concert in

June or something. I did it for just one year.

When I got out of High School, I went to the L.D.S. Business College and

worked part time in a used car lot. I used to type up contracts and do

general office work. I remember that was my first job just out of high school.

At the L.D.S. Business College. Mr. (Kenneth S.) Bennion was what you would call a "principal"and Mr. Howell was the office manager. They both taught classes but they

also worked in the office. I remember taking letters from Mr. Bennion and

working with him taking shorthand. Even though I hated shorthand. I did get

enough that I could use it a little bit. I must have taken something to refresh

what I knew. I liked to do the business machines and the bookkeeping. We

took a Book of Mormon Class or a religion class. I remember studying world

religions as one of my classes in business college.

After eight or ten months. I got a job where they made loans by mail. I can't

remember the name of the place. There would be maybe 15-20 ladies work-

ing, each at our own desk. We would process the application, get the credit

report, and process it to the point of whether we would accept it or reject it

and then we would type the check and away it would go. Mostly for amounts

under a thousand dollars. Generally they were $200-$300 or small loans.

Interest was about 6%. I had a lady boss and she was a pretty good gal. At

the time I had this job I was also working at night school at the LDS Business

College and I used to like that. I would go up and spend about three hours a

night in the office. I worked quite closely with Mr. Bennion. We would

register the new students and it was kind of a fun job.

My close girl friends were Barbara and Myrtle Weidner, Verlin Webb, Gwen

Lee, Alice Gardner, Lucille Inch, Mary Alice Hamilton, Dorthy Brammer,

Melba Burton, and just people that were in the group there in Lincoln Ward

that I grew up with. Then, of course, I met some girls on the job, people I

would go out to lunch and stuff with.

Eventually I got a job in the bank in Sugarhouse. These other jobs were just

kind of part-time jobs for about six to eight months or so. My first job at

the bank was to take letters and work with the manager. Mr. Aldous. I turned

him down to start with. He wanted me to be his secretary and I told him I

didn't know how to take shorthand well enough and he told me "Well, I'll talk

real slow.”  He was willing to work with me and so I accepted the job. It

turned out that I was almost able to take it down in longhand because he was

so easy dictating. He was a real easy person to work with. Then after the

first few weeks. I ended up composing the letters anyway. He would just give

them to me and say, "Write this letter”.  So it turned out that there wasn't

that much actual dictation.

When I wasn't busy with letters, they would call me into the cages to take over

during the lunch breaks or the rest periods. That was secondary and they

moved me around the bank this way and I got a lot of experience in different

positions and eventually I was more valuable in that position than I was as a

secretary, so I ended up in the cages where it was lots of collecting and

various other things. I was kind of an "everthing" around and then I ended up

doing the bookkeeping machine and running the machine where they distributed

the checks-sorted and cancelled them and sent them out to the various banks

where they were to go, to the Federal Reserve and all over.

I remember working with Jack Holmstrom.  Whenever there was any dis-

crepancy or errors that we couldn't find, I remember checking tape against

tape with him and we would usually find it. He'd explain how it worked and I

learned a lot. It was a small bank. Only five or six tellers. You can learn

a lot when you work in a small bank. It is the same bank that Ron Folkerson

is now manager of.  Some of the same people are still working there too!

Dorothy, one of the ladies I worked with, retired three months ago. Mardene

was telling me about her and how they gave her a big party. She has been

there all these years, the same girl I used to work with. Mr. Aldous was

transferred uptown and then we got a new manager by the name of Mr. White.

He was there when I left to go down to BYU to go to school.

It was during this time that the war years hit and the boys were going off to

the army and to the services and they were depleting the ranks as far as dates

or anything and there was nothing much to do and so it was a good time to

go down to the "Y". The war ended (August of '45) and then in 1946 Floyd and

E. Jay had come back from the service and Deaun and Evelyn and I, all five of

us were down there at one time. We got our picture in the “Y” news as being

the Moulton Family down at the university.

We went to school not with the idea of graduating, so we used to take what we

needed to and then what we wanted to in the way of classes that we enjoyed.

I remember taking literature and music classes just because we enjoyed them.

Brother Reed Bradford was a favorite teacher then. I never knew him person-

ally, but at that time, he wasn't married. He married a student that, I think,

was in one of my classes. She was very quiet and unassuming. You wouldn't

even expect her to be outward enough to say "Hello " to a teacher, let alone to

marry him. I don’t think he was that young, she was about 10 years younger

than he was. We also had Hugh B. Brown as a teacher. Jim likes to tell good

stories about how Bro. Brown motivated me to propose marriage to Jim.

It was the other way around.

We (Deaun, Evelyn, and I) lived in the basement of Benson's apartment just

around the corner from where Cyndy and Mark lived. We were there for a

year and then we moved to another apartment. We used to have dinner and

invite these guys over. Had a great time there, but I can't remember very

many names. I remember Virgil Harris as being one of my favorite friends

because we used to have such good talks together. He was going into political

science and it would be interesting to know where he is now-he was a brain.

I had my share of dates and dances, at least I never did stand around. They

had Richard Ballou and his band there in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

and real good dances.

When I was there the Joseph Smith building was built and that was the begin-

ning of the expansion of the upper campus. We used to take classes on the

lower campus and go back and forth to the upper campus. I remember I

started a piano course, group instruction, on the lower campus with a Mr.

Hansen. Evelyn and I took it together. It lasted for about four or five weeks .

Most of the classes were on upper campus, as I remember. Either in the

Heber J. Grant Library, in the Brimhall Building, or in the Joseph Smith

and Maeser Buildings. And then they had a lot of barracks that I remember

they held classes in. I think I took this class from Bradford in one of those

barracks.

Evelyn and I lived in the Neilsen Co-op House (Cooperative House).

There were about eight to ten girls. It was while I was

living there that I met Jim. When I first saw him, he

was in the hallway of the Heber J. Grant Library, lounging around and I was

going to one of my classes. I looked at him and thought, “Gee, someone new,

interesting, good looking, handsome.” He said he kind of noticed me at the

same time and this is when we started cooking things up between Vera and I.

I talked with Vera about him and she said that she had a class with him and sat

next to him. The girls engineered a party so that Vera could invite Jim to

the party and I could meet him. We had this party and Jim came. It was

fun ! I don't know if he ever knew that we did that for his sake or not.

I can remember meeting Jim in October1947 and if was about six weeks later

when we were engaged! It was nine days and we were serious, but I didn’t

get my ring until Christmas. I remember that we were up to my home for

Thanksgiving. I can’t remember much of the detail. We were sitting around

the table but I can’t remember who was there. Most of the family would be

gone. Anyway, he liked my dad right away. Dad impressed Jim because

he went in and put on a suit and tie for the occasion. He and Dad hit it off

real well. Daddy was fixing a chair--reinforcing the legs that were weak and

wobbly with wire. You know how you cross brace them and wind them up.

Jim, being so handy with his hands, got off to a good start with him.

Soon after that I had second thoughts. All of a sudden I thought, “Well, I

don't know if I really want to go through with this.”  I didn't know whether

I was sure and I started treating Jim very cool. Everything happened so fast

and there was this understanding and then I just had second thoughts about it

all. I started treating him rather cool and he would call and I wouldn't be

home or he would come to see me and I would just kind of get lost and I just

didn't want to have anything to do with him. I don't know why. I went down

to visit Deaun and told her and she laughed and said, “Oh, I did the same

thing with Floyd.” She told me all about her experience and then I thought,

"Well, I guess I am not so abnormal after all.”  

It changed my mind completely and my whole feeling had

changed just from talking with Deaun and I was really looking

forward to seeing him again--really eager-- and I hoped

I hadn't turned things off too far!  I went home and he was there and he came

to the door and I treated him very cordially and happily and then the roses

came. He always said that if those roses had come before he got there, he

would have thought that the roses had changed my vain nature. However, he

was there before the roses and everything was kind of patched up and there

were good feelings. This was the only really bad feeling that I had about the

whole thing and it was just because everything happened so fast.

Jim had a friend, Keith Horton, from Nebraska, who was going to drive home

for the holidays to get his wife Hannah, and Jim asked me if I could go home

and meet his family back there. I remember talking with Mom on the phone

and asking her if it was alright if I went back and she would say, 'Well,

Maxine are you sure ?” and I would say, “Yes” and she would say it again,

"Well, Maxine are you sure?”  I’d say “Yes” and she said “OK”.  Daddy

didn't ask if I was sure, what he wanted to know was if I had enough money.

“Do you need any money?" and "If you have any problems, can you come home?”

But he liked Jim and so he wasn't too concerned.

So we drove back to Lincoln, Nebraska with Keith. We went to the “Messiah”

at the High School (Lincoln High, I guess it was) along with Keith and Hannah.

This was just before Christmas. We went down to Lincoln shopping and bought

a gift for his mother. They gave me a real nice room upstairs in the house.

His Mother was very quiet, not very talkative, but she was cordial and cooked

really good meals. I met some of his family that came to visit.

Christmas evening they had a Christmas tree and that's when he gave me my

diamond--that was Christmas Eve. We were sitting in the front room of his

house with the Christmas lights on and he had this beautiful ring in a box.

Prior to that he had gone shopping over to his friends, Bowmaster’s Jewelry

Store. His friends helped him get the ring. It fit very good.

We went out on the campus and over to the college (Wesleyan) meeting some of his friends

as we went along. I remember meeting his favorite teacher, Miss Rose Clark,

and then he took me all around the campus and where he had grown up, the

church and different places, so it was kind of a fun trip.

Driving was hazardous. It was icy all the way. The first day we started out

from Provo late in the evening, as I remember, and going around the

point of the mountain it was slick and slippery and I thought, "Oh, what are

we getting into?" The forecast was for snow all the way and just a miserable

trip. I don't remember too much other than sleeping and driving because we

didn't stop except for gas. I woke up the next morning from just lounging in

the car, you know how you do when you are riding sitting, and I looked at

Jim and he had this beard. I thought, “Oh, no!” I had never seen his beard

before and had that rude awakening. But when he got his beard off he was the

same old Jim. I didn't know how bad I looked, just how bad he looked!

I can remember Jim took me to a dance, but he never did like to dance. He

liked football and I couldn’t figure out how he could be such a good athlete and

not be agile enough on his feet to dance. The dance was just a big joke all

night. It was a formal in the Smith Memorial. We would just sit out and

talk and if I got a dance with someone else, he would sit out and talk with the

other girl while I would dance. I just thought it was a big joke but

I soon came to find out he does not like dancing! Mom

and Dad were great dancers and that's what I grew up on. I still like dancing.

So that is one thing I have missed in marrying Jim, but then there are plenty

of other things besides dancing.

We went to a couple of shows. Most of our time was spent just visiting on

campus or typing or talking. He would bring papers over for me to type

(some of his schoolwork) and that is about all I remember in the day of dating.

We didn't ever really do anything special but the shows and maybe out for

hamburgers.

The following February we were active in the Wymount Branch and Sid Noble

was our Bishop. He interviewed Jim and I for temple recommends and we went to

the temple and got our endowments with a group of BYU kids that went up

special from that branch. There were several of them, not just us, getting

their own endowments. 

James Austin Owen and Reva Maxine Moulton married on June 2, 1948 in the Salt Lake City Temple.

We were married the following June on June 2, 1948.

His mother came out for the wedding and I can remember her sitting out on

a bench out by the temple gate. They didn't even have a foyer that you could

go into like they do now where non-members could wait. She was out on a

bench waiting in the sunshine. We went in and were sealed in the temple (we

didn't go through on a full session) and then we came out and she was still

there. That seemed so cold to me to think back on that.

My mother was very cordial to her, I thought. Jim felt she was rather cool

to her because she didn't put on her favorite linen! She treated her like one

of the family and she had boiled chicken and instead of taking the chicken off

the bone and fixing a nice creamed chicken like his mother would have done,

she just boiled the chicken and made gravy and everybody ate off the bones.

You know how Grandma would do it. It was the way she always served boiled

chicken-good! And instead of setting a fancy table with special linen and

special things, we would sit around the kitchen table, use everyday dishes

and nothing was very special for Grandma Owen. Jim, I think has always

felt like she was treated rather coolly because when people went visiting his

Mom, she went out of her way to cook and serve and do in a very special way.

Jim is a little bit like this too.

The wedding reception was held in our home on 9th East where I grew up, and Willis

LeGrande Lee, who was with Jim in the Army and was instrumental in Jim

joining the church, was the best man. We had a nice reception line. All

my sisters, my Mom and Dad, Jim's mother--I have some beautiful wedding

pictures. I can't remember who took the pictures, but Jim and I were really

busy ordering flowers and things around town and we didn’t have much money

to work with. We somehow got it, I don’t know where, to pay for the flowers

and things. That partition which closes off Grandma’s bedroom from the front

room wasn't there.  At the time it was an open archway. All the gifts were on

the table in that room and then the refreshments were served in the back

dining area, back in the back of the house, off of the kitchen.

Where Duane is now, there used to be a dining room and den. There was a

swinging door from the kitchen into the dining area. The steps went up the

other way, over Grandma's bedroom, to a landing where all those apartments

are now. When they closed those apartments off and took those steps out, they

reversed them and put the steps up that back porch and closed that off so that

instead of part of the upstairs, it was part of Grandma's. Then they brought

the steps in from the outside and made the two upstairs apartments. They did

that a couple years after our wedding reception. Rex did the work. I can

remember the family writing, asking us to sign an agreement for Rex to buy

the lower part of that lot that none of us were really interested in, to build

an apartment complex. Anyway, when Rex built the apartments in the back,

he remodeled our house for Mom and Dad and it was several years before

Grandpa Moulton died.

My brother Floyd was going down at the “Y” and he offered to let us use his

car for our honeymoon and so we had a little BelAire Chevrolet Coupe and

we drove that down through Bryce Canyon, through Zion's Canyon, came down

as far as St. George and went through the St. George Temple. At Manti we were too late

to get a session in there, but we met the caretaker, and he took us through and

showed us all the temple. A beautiful temple! We also went to Las Vegas

and Lake Mead.

We went back to Provo to an upstairs apartment in Wymount Village. These

were barracks that had been remodeled and fixed up for student housing. We

lived there for the summer months and were members in the Wymount Branch.

Then Jim got his teaching contract to teach for the seminary system in Burley,

Idaho, so in the fall we went up to Burley.

They didn't have any place for us to live, no apartment or anything, so we

moved all our things into the basement room of the seminary. It was kind

of a storage area, a big room that they didn't use for much. It was across

from the recreation room in the basement of the seminary. I guess it was

about 15 ft. x 15 ft. and we moved some orange crates and a couch-bed in and

we had a hot plate and a roaster oven and just a few things. We hung our

clothes on the water pipes that went through the room and we had a card table

and were really cozy. We thought we had a real nice set-up there. We were

ready to stay there for quite a while, but the cooking odors drifted upstairs

and on into the classes and I didn't realize that to start with. I’d cook for

lunch and the smell would get to the classes. Anyway, it turned out that it

really wasn't a good place to live for very long and it wasn't long before we

found a little house, a cute little doll house kind of thing only a couple, three

blocks from the school.

We lived there for the first year, and then we got interested in possibly

building a home. We inquired around and got apiece of land, six acres, on

the edge of town. Jim was doing odd jobs with Mr. Allred, the Seminary

Principal, who worked in carpentry-building garages and remodeling things on

weekends.

The following summer, Harold (Jim's brother) came out and

helped us dig the basement with a "fresno”. That's a big shovel that you

hold onto, pulled by a horse, that scoops out the dirt. They dug the basement

and framed it up and poured the cement and got the frame all up within

a couple of weeks with Harold there working. It went real fast and it wasn’t

very long. Rex was reminding us of this recently. He also said he remem-

bered working on our other roof in Burley. He came up with Floyd and Eve-

lyn and Mac and there was a weekend where they all came and helped us get

our roof on and shingled. We closed it in, but didn't have our windows yet. We

had rock lath on the inside walls and no interior doors. We put cardboard

up on the outside windows.

Ralph was born January 5th, 1950 and at that time we still didn’t have windows ,

so we went over to Allred's for four or five days after we got out of the hos-

pital. My sister Evelyn came up to help us. Then we went back out to our

house. We had curtains up to the doors to keep the cold air from going from

one room to another. We had a nice stove and could build it up really hot.

It was only a two bedroom home and it heated our whole house.

We got a little laundry cart, about 3 ft. x 5 ft. and it had wheels on it and we built

a little shelf so that it set down about six inches inside of this wooden laundry

cart. Then we put a piece of plywood on it and blankets and mattresses and

that was the crib for the baby. Then as he grew older, we let the shelf down,

and as he got old enough to stand up in it, he was down to the bottom level of

this laundry cart. It converted to a playpen when we finally got a crib for

him. It worked out fine and was a nice playpen. The only thing was you

couldn't see out of it! But it was a good little bed.

We accumulated a piece of furniture here and there and we bought the White

electric sewing machine at that time. We bought a stove and a bed, etc.

Then we added on to that house. We put a big garage and a recreation room

with a fireplace inside and a barbeque outside. We laid all the brick for that

big chimney. It was of Roman tile-cream color and really pretty. I think we

did a good job. We got the house finished and then we made application to the

VA to get a loan on it and pay it all off. We got the loan in the fall of the year (1952)

and had made just two or three payments when Jim came down with polio.

It was in November, three years later. We were building it all that time,

finishing all the inside stuff and enjoying living in it. We used to have people

come out to firesides with that fireplace going in that recreation room. Oh!

that was a nice room.

Jim got polio in November 1952 and then we moved from there. He was in

the Twin Falls Hospital for several days. I never have gotten this straight.

He was in an iron lung, so it must have been about ten days. When he was

brave enough to get out of the iron lung (that is a panicky feeling, to have to

breathe on your own when you have relied on the machine to do it for you)

and they thought he was to the point where he could take the trip on his own,

we went to Salt Lake. It was pretty scary, but they took him from there in

an ambulance on an icy afternoon in November. It was snowing and Ralph

and Cynthia and I followed him in the car to the Salt Lake Veteran’s Administration

Hospital. We left about 3:00 in the afternoon.

That was a terrible time to be leaving on a trip to Salt Lake.

We got into Salt Lake about 7:30 p.m.  I remember Mother

was waiting for us and it was Thanksgiving Day and she had warmed over

turnkey and dressing for me when we got there.

The next day I went up to the hospital. They had put him on a rocking bed to

help his breathing, but they hadn't had to put him back in the iron lung. He

was doing fine, but totally paralyzed. You know, I never did think of him

staying that way. I mean, you just think, “Well, when he gets better…”

Anyway, I moved into the basement apartment at Mother's house and then as

Jim finally got a little better, he was allowed to come home for Christmas,

but it was March and April before he could come and spend weekends at home

and then just go into the hospital during the week. Finally it got so that he

could spend most of his time at home and just go in for therapy. Louise was

born in April and in May or June were able to sell our home in Burley and

we got a little money ahead, so we used that money as a down payment on our

house in Salt Lake because we though that was where we would be staying.

We moved into that house up in East Mill Creek Ward, up on the hill, 33rd

South and 39th East and Jim was going to try selling Nutralite and Insurance,

but it takes a lot of push and people who have had polio (I've heard from

many sources) their energy isn't there. Their intentions are good, but the

energy just isn't. He started out feeling like he could put in eight hours and

come home after two just thoroughly exhausted. He would go to one house

and make a presentation and just give out. He just physically couldn't do it.

He was out of a wheelchair at that time, but still relying on a cane. Then he

got to where he didn’t use a cane. He got along real good. It took about a

year, because it was the following year that we decided to go back to school-

to Chiropractic College.

In August (1954) we landed in Portland, Oregon, driving two cars

and pulling two U-Haul trailers. We sold our home to Floyd (my brother) and

Elaine who were moving back from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. They needed a

home and we made a good deal with them. We didn't lose anything on it and

they made a good deal in buying it. With the money we got out of it, we turned

around and bought a house in Portland--7010 S. E. Flavel--a new four bedroom

home with no basement. It was a good deal, but then it didn't leave us any

money. All our money had gone back into real estate.

Jim went to work as the janitor of the LDS Portland Third Ward Chapel and working for

the (Western States Chiropractic) school, etc. All the kids helped. It seems

like he was remodling some of the school's clinic areas, or something.

It was over a period of time that he was there. And then he had

some equipment that he gave them that the school took on tuition.

He made some tables for their clinic and just different things that helped pay his tuition.

I went to work at Western States' Lumberman's Association in the bookkeeping

department. It was while I was there that I took time off (six to eight weeks)

and Steven was born. It was nearing the end of his schooling so we started to

look for property in various places around Portland for a clinic. We found a

piece of land out in Rockwood (near Gresham) on Stark Street (17815 S. E. Stark)

and we bought it. By selling our home we had enough as down payment to swing

that deal. We moved out there and planned to build a clinic on the Stark Street

end of the property, which would have been the front end, and then build a

house on the back end (which would be a dedicated street someday) and we

thought we had it made. However, we had a chance to sell that property and

we made about $3000 on the deal and we felt like it was a good deal to get us

out of debt. So we sold that and bought a piece of property on 6lst & between

Stark and Burnside (206 S. E. 61st) and that was where Diane was born.

(August 22, 1959). This was the year Jim graduated and he went to work with

Dr. Hill, in the same building but a separate practice. Up to that time I was

working.

He was working with Dr. Hill for quite awhile and still quite satisfied when

we found another piece of property on Burnside right close to where we were

living, just 4-5 blocks away (6541 East Burnside) and felt that would be a

good clinic location. So we bought that and moved over there. Donnie and

David were born in that home. We had plans for building our clinic all drawn

up, but the zoning didn't go through.

By this time Jim was working up on Sandy Blvd. in his own office,

7129 N. E. Sandy, in a remodled leased office space. He felt

like he was settled, I guess, and so we bought this nicer home

because we couldn't use the home on 65th as far as a clinic goes. So we moved

to this nice mansion on the corner of 39th and Burnside (10 S. E. 39th).

Teresa was born there.

The girls loved their third floor rooms with the funny dormer windows and the

little bathtub and their desks that Daddy made for them up there. Steven,

Donnie, David, and Ralph were in the other bedrooms and we had our big

master bedroom with the walk-in closet and the big bath and the fireplace

in the bedroom and the big basement with the recreation room and the dining

room and kitchen and those formal stairs. Oh, what a beautiful home if it

could have been where we could have remodeled it and fixed it up a little bit.

While living there, Dr. Looslie and dad became Stake Missionary companions

and through many discussions of my health problem, they decided that there

was an obstruction and that food wasn't getting out of the stomach because of this

obstruction. Dr. Looslie operated making a new stomach opening so the food

could go through. It was very successful. Dr. Looslie, I think was rea11y

inspired in the way he did that surgery…at least he tells us he was. This was

done a month after Teresa was born and I got through that surgery really great.

I remember thinking when I went into that hospital. “I wonder if I’ll ever come

out" and yet I knew I would. And then I thought, “Well, there are a lot of

people that know they are going to be alright by don't make it. Maybe I'll be

one of these and then what would the family do?” Grandma and Deaun (sister) came

up at that time and helped with the family.

We used to spend a lot of our time helping at the office, but less and less. I

remember we did a lot of office work at home, bookwork and letters and stuff, so we

didn't have to spend so much time at the office.  We brought the linens home

and you kids used to spend hours folding and ironing them.  And then Jim got

kind of "itchy feet" about wanting an office, a beautiful office of his own, and

we ran across the one out in Westmoreland (7215 S. E. 13th). In order to swing

this new building, we had to sell our "mansion". It was really a nice home,

but we only got exactly out of it what we had originally put into it and didn't

gain anything.  We should have, but we were pressed. We painted it just before

we moved.

We got the clinic building painted and renovated, etc. and we moved out there

and lived for seven years in the Portland 2nd Ward. Unfortunately, the house

was so close to the office that I spent too much time in the office and not enough

time at home. Jim began to rely on that more and more. If we had had a

separate office and a separate house, it never would have happened that way.

While we were out there, Jim got involved with his feelings against the govern-

ment on Social Security and Income Tax and all this heavy government oppres -

sion. He started resisting and fighting back. He got involved with the courts

and government regulations and restrictions and he just got fed up with it all

after so many years of fighting. It was on our family trip to the coast one day

when he was reading about the Social Security taking another hike and the

percentages and withdrawals and how they would take it out of the people and

he just decided that he had had enough. He was going to get out of it.

It was about this time anyway that his health had been going downhill. He had had

surgery for the removal of a cataract on one eye and he wasn't able to read

the x-rays and do as good of job and was feeling very inadequate compared

to what he felt he should have been doing. After he had that cataract surgery,

it helped and he was able to see better, but he still couldn't see the x-rays

too well, the density and all this, and he felt he was doing an inferior job.

Then his health started to go downhill too. He just wasn’t as well as he had

been in the past, so we started trying to sellout. It took us a couple of years ,

but we finally sold and moved to Leeds, Utah.

Our reasons for moving to Utah were varied. We wanted to be closer to a

temple so we could do more temple work, we wanted to be in a smaller town,

to “get out of the rat-race", as Jim would put it, so we could have more time

with the family. Of course, Utah was home to me. I would have chosen

Springville or Orem, or one of the towns near to Provo, but Jim liked the

idea of the warmer climate they had in the St. George area, 'Where the

summer sun spends the winter" and “the sunshines 365 days a year”!!!

We had taken a big family trip down through the state of Utah and through

all the small towns from one end to the other and over the period of one and

a half years we travelled to St. George about three times looking for property.

During this same time, Orvin Nielsen was also planning to move and liked

St. George. He was able to locate an eleven acre tract of land in Leeds and

agreed to let us have two acres of that parcel. So Leeds became our new home.

We had accumulated so much "stuff” (office, shop tools, equipment, our

furniture, etc.) that it took three big Ryder rental trucks on three separate -

trips over a period of two months to get us all moved. I was "elected" to

drive those trips and believe me, when I started out with that first load in

that great big truck{22 foot long bed), I was apprehensive. A couple of the

kids would ride with me, and the rest were in the car with Jim. We would

turn the truck in at Las Vegas, take the car back to Portland and get another load!

This was during February and March, the winter months, and the second load

was the worst. We ran into a terrific snow storm going over the Pendleton

Pass, visibility was near zero and we could hardly see the rear lights of the

vehicle ahead. Trucks slipped off the road in various places and it was icy,

but we managed to get through and we felt really blessed that we made it

without problems .

We put all our things in storage in a building in town, moved into a two-bedroom

trailer, used our camper for a bed area for a couple of boys, and an

extra trailer which Hamilton's had for another bed area for a couple more

so we managed.

We had invested our proceeds from the sale of the clinic into lumber and

building supplies which we had shipped down from Portland (because we made some really

good buys) and we pooled the purchase with Orvin. Our plans were to start

immediately to build and have our home completed sufficiently to move into

by winter, six months at least. However, we were moving during February

and March 1974, and in April Jim got sick. We took him up to Salt Lake to

the Veteran's Hospital and he was diagnosed as having chronic kidney failure.

After he improved sufficiently to be released, he was put on a "kidney trans-

plant list" and cautioned to be ready to come to the hospital on a moment’s

notice for a kidney transplant. He continued to go in monthly for clinic

appointments and his condition gradually improved until he was taken off

the list.

Since then he has been in and out of the hospital numerous times. Sometimes

for eye problems (cataract surgery on the other eye and lens surgery to

clear up film in his good eye) and sometimes for kidney flare-ups, but each

time he would come through and keep going.

During this time, we moved into a three bedroom home in town (just before

Christmas of 1974). The following August we moved a trailer onto our

property so we could be closer to the building. We poured footings, etc.

and started our home. Things went slow, and it was two years before we

could move from the trailer into a semi-completed home. We put up our

vinyl-plastic windows and were "closed in" with all the conveniences of

water, electricity, plumbing, etc. and the blessing of early springs, long falls,

and short winters.  We felt really blessed.

We liked Leeds, the people in the ward are just great. ' The small town had

its effects on the kids, however, because they didn’t have too many friends

of thelr own age. They went to school in St. George, 13 miles by bus, but

were too far away to be really active in school activities.

When Steven graduated in June 1975, he left to go to Roy, Utah and live

with Scott and Susan Taysom, and work with Scott in the construction busi-

ness (hauling bricks as Scott’s work involved brickwork and fireplaces). He

loved it and lived there with them for one year and left in July 1976 for the

Tulsa Oklahoma Mission.

Scott then asked if Donnie could come up and live with them

and work for the summer to sort of take Steven's place. He

liked it so well that he stayed on with them and enrolled in the Roy High

School and continued to live with them. They have been the greatest "Foster

Parents" to Donald. They have loved him and treated him very special, and

he has done extremely well in his school work and working for Scott.

In May of 1977 Diane was married and moved to Las Vegas, so that left us

with just David and Teresa at home. Our big home was suddenly too large,

and still incomplete, so we changed our plans and converted the basement

into two apartments units so when it is finally completed we will have an

income property.

Maxine Owen about 1990.

We now (1978) have financing sufficient to complete the home, and hope to have it

all done by October 1979 or before. At the moment (December 1978) Jim

is still waiting to be scheduled for Dialysis training and then hopefully we

will be able to take a dialysis machine back home and stay at home for his

treatments. Then we can be there to work on the house.

I should explain that in July 1978 he had another kidney failure. This time

it didn't reverse itself and he is now on dialysis three times per week for a period of four

hours each treatment. This treatment cleanses the blood of all the impurities

that the kidneys function used to do. We have to live in Salt Lake at this time

so he can be close to where these treatments are given. It’s frustrating,

being away from home.

David is temporarily living in Roy with Scott and Susan, (and Donald and

Steven and their own four boys ), and Teresa is at home in Leeds

being on her own and watched over by neighbors and friends .

Jim and I are moving around staying with my brothers and sisters, or with

Louise (Daniels) or Sandy (Ostler) on weekends .

We have kept active in our Leeds Ward. I taught Primary soon after we

arrived here, and then I worked as Relief Society Homemaking Leader, and

was released from that to be Junior Sunday School Coordinator at the time

we moved into our new chapel. After a year in that position, I was put in

the Relief Society presidency as Homemaking Counselor, but when Jim got

sick this last July, I had to be released from that so we could be up here

for Jim's treatments. Jim was Sunday School Inservice Leader and doing

a good job. Also, it has been a joy to be so close to the St. George Temple

and we have had many enjoyable hours doing temple work. 

Last July 12th, while Jim and I were driving up to bring Jim into the hospital

again, my family were trying to call by phone to tell me that Mother was

critically ill. She passed away the following morning at Deaun's home and

her funeral was held the following Monday, July l7th- -my birthday.

Jim was in the hospital at the time, but sufficieptly well so that he was able

to attend the funeral services. They were lovely. It was a very special occasion

and a special blessing that Mother went so swiftly and didn't

linger and suffer. I have really missed her. Driving around town and

just being her in Salt Lake and not having the opportunity to drop in and

visit with her has seemed really strange. She lived a long and useful life

and was loved by many, but it's nice to think of her being with Dad and

Norma and Fern.

“In reviewing my life thus far, I feel that I have been very much blessed.

I am so grateful for Jim and the direction he has given to our family, and

for each one of you children. I am especially grateful for the influence of

the gospel in our lives, the choices we have made along the way, and the

direction that we are going. We are so pleased with all our children and feel

that you are all doing a great job directing your lives in the way they should go.”

Reva Maxine Moulton Owen Webb in October, 2014.

Mom wrote this in a family letter in 1978 after the 21-page document was first distributed to family members:

“In reading through it, I feel it is too much oriented to facts and not much to feelings, but I have never been one to express my feelings too much.  I have them, but I guess I keep it pretty well hidden.  Perhaps someday I can add to this and give more expression as to how I have felt and why I reacted as I have to these incidents in my life thus far.”

=================================