Back to Montana to Teach

Jeanne and I took a quick trip to Glendive with her little ones in the spring and I was able to see someone in Billings about the job and they were confident I could get the job!

Driving up to Glendive we went up through the center of Wyoming and through a mountainous area covered with fog Steven woke up and saw the low clouds and said, "Are we in heaven?" We surely enjoyed that trip.

The school I would be teaching at was Bench Elementary, a brand new school.  It was very nice and I had a bright colorful room so things looked very promising.  The staff was marvelous and so helpful to me.  We were able to exchange our talents.  So two teachers who were good in art and music would actually teach my children those subjects and I would do spelling for their classes.  It was not exactly a fair exchange but certainly a boon to my second graders.  I only had around 20 students which was almost unbelievable and something I would never experience again in California.

Montana did not pull out the retarded or the bright and have special classes for them.  So consequently I did have some challenges.  There was the little boy who called me Sandra.  He was probably about 75 IQ and that is the name he heard when the children called me 'Miss Anderson'.  He was very sweet but, of course, always needed special attention.  There was the lovely little girl who supposedly only had an IQ in the 90s but she worked so hard her work was always good.  I so wanted her to succeed and she did. Then there were the very bright students who were a delight to teach.  It was actually a very rewarding year as far as the teaching was concerned and a much gentler start to my teaching career than I would find in California the following year!

In second grade in Montana we began teaching cursive at the middle of the second grade. They also printed on closer spaced lines so they didn't have to write so large. I saw the wisdom of this when they sent me letters the next year while I was teaching in San Diego. Their handwriting was so much better than the California students.

There were a few strange things that happened. The little retarded boy decided to help me and dumped a bucket of water on the new wood floor so he could scrub it. The janitor was not happy. A bird came into our room and was having a panic trying to get out. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to not scream and run out of the room but I had to be brave for the children. And one Monday we came to school and heard that one of the teachers had been assaulted and badly beaten in an alley outside a bar. It was rumored he was gay and had been assaulted by some straights. It was a new world to me.

Because I didn't know anyone in Billings the first place I found to live was very small. It was in the basement of an elderly couple.  The living room/bedroom had a convertible couch for a bed.  The odd thing was the bathroom right off the living room so if you had company it was awkward to use the bathroom so close to where they were sitting on the couch.  The kitchen, however, was very large and I did enjoy fixing my meals and lunches there.  I was on some diet that had cottage cheese, cinnamon toast and peaches for lunch and it always tasted so good to me.  I have never forgotten the delicious apple pie the owner brought me.  For years I have tried to replicate how high the pie was piled with apples but I have never been successful.  Mine tastes good, just not so beautiful.

Harry was working for Shell Oil somewhere in Montana but not in Billings so I only saw him when he came to town.  One time when we must have parted on troubling terms I immediately went in to my nice kitchen and began making penuche.  Sweets were always my salvation for any problem.  I made penuche quite a lot that year as I remember.

At some school meeting I met up with a lovely teacher named Pat and we decided we would look for a larger place and live together.  Strangely she was a Catholic girl who had broken up with a Mormon boy and was still broken hearted.  Because he was now married she would feel sinful if she thought about him.  But at least we understood each other.  She was very devout in her religion.  Two priests came to visit and collect money and that is when I learned they paid tithing also.  She also had an interesting experience when Harry James came to town and she went to the concert.  He singled her out and she went out with him after the show.  She was as innocent as I and did not realize she was singled out for sex.  She had quite a struggle with him but managed to come home humiliated but virtue intact.

While I was in Billings the 'Old Time Oprey' come to town and I really enjoyed that. Because life was sometimes boring we found a very interesting diversion was to go to the Billings airport on Sunday afternoon and just sit and watch the people.

Another thing I did while in Billings was crochet my mother this white jacket trimmed in blue.  It looked good until I washed it.  It totally stretched out to a loose mess.  I think my crochet stitches were too loose.  In college it was argyle socks I knitted that were never perfect enough to give anyone.  I always had such hopes for my homemade items but they never turned out right.

Harry and I were not resolving our religious differences but we set a date for Valentine's Day as a possible wedding day, however he had not given me a ring so nothing was official.

At some point in time George from Glendive told me his friend Suzie was coming to Billings and wondered if we had room for her.  We did.  Suzie was called Beauty and Brains for a reason.  She was.  She worked in a bank as I recall and George, who was working in Glendive, brought her a birthday cake even though they had broken up.  She was having long conversations with another man she had met who had been transferred back east. 

Sadly for George she decided to marry this man and that was the last I heard about her until the High School Reunion in 2000.  Harry was telling me that George and Suzie had met again in Montana in 1990 after they were both divorced and were now happily married.  Nice ending to a rocky start.  

In the meantime, Harry and I changed our wedding date and then changed it again. I finally had a long talk with the Lord in which I said I had tried for seven years to either convert Harry or break up with him and I was never successful.  I had decided that I was not going to try to do either one anymore.  I was just going to marry him and be happy the way things were.  If the Lord wanted anything different for me he would have to do it Himself, I was through trying.  Within a very short time Harry and I were broken up and I was on my way to Washington and then California.  I cannot remember how it  happened.  It just did! Evidently the Lord took charge and I had no more say in it.

California sounded very good to me.  We had had winter from October to May!! I took the bus to Port Angeles, WA where my friend Colleen had been teaching her first year.  George was kind enough to take my car and extra things back to my home in Glendive. The trip across Montana was kind of interesting in the fact I was the only girl on a bus filled with soldiers.  As I walked down the aisle the soldiers would all invite me to sit by them.  I finally chose a shy looking fellow at the back.  He actually did try and get fresh when I shared my coat with him but was easily put off with a word.  He was very sweet.

Recently I used the phrase "get fresh" with my granddaughters and they had never heard that term before.  They had fun with it after that.

The bus trip was very long and I felt very lonely as I gazed out the window and wondered what was going to happen to me next.  Harry had been such a big part of my life for so long.  I was very sad.

The whole thing with the final break up is not even in my memory.  I don't know if I successfully repress all bad memories or what, but it is not there.

What I do remember is that Port Angeles was very grey and I knew I could never live in Washington.  We did visit Victoria and that was memorable as was the ferry ride over and back.  The plan was to travel down the coast of California and apply for a teaching job wherever we liked.  Colleen's brother and mother traveled with us for awhile.  This was fine except for one thing.

I have always been an early riser.  What do I do with myself for a couple of hours while everyone else is still sleeping in your motel room?  I just had to have a book ready to read and sit outside until they were ready to go.

We drove right through Oregon, it was pretty but not where we wanted to be.  San Francisco was very attractive to us and especially the San Jose area below San Francisco.  Neither of them needed any teachers for the coming year.

Colleen and I really wanted to see the ocean and go on a ship in San Francisco so we went to the Navy Pier and stopped some sailor that was leaving the base.  We asked him if he had some buddies that might take us on board a ship.  He made the phone call and then put me on the phone.  The sailor said they were coming in a few minutes.  I asked how we would know them and he said he would be wearing a white hat.  I didn't get it until he hung up.  But evidently they liked the way we looked and we had the grand tour.  Then they asked if we wanted to see the rest of San Francisco and we had a grand tour of China town and everything, even took us out to dinner.  They were really nice guys, treated us royally with lots of respect.  I doubt you could do that today with strangers.

We stayed a night at a great place overlooking the ocean but we came in late at night and the attendant gave us the only place left.  As I recall Colleen had to coax him to let us stay there.  In the middle of the night we began to hear voices talking and I discovered on the wall under the table what looked like the ability to hear what was going on in any room of your choice.  This appeared to be the room next to us.  For quite some time we were entertained with all the things couples say to each other when they are making love.  It was quite an eyeopener to us and although Colleen wanted to drift back to sleep I stayed glued to the mike taking it all in.  The next morning we were anxious to see who this couple was and imagined all kinds of scenarios.  We laughed and laughed when the couple emerged.  They were overweight, in their 60s probably, and looked like a laundry woman and a gardener--not the romantic young couple we had envisioned at all.

We enjoyed our tour of the Hearst Castle very much but kept heading south.  Santa Barbara looked really ideal for teaching but same story, they did not need anyone.  I can't remember if we even inquired in the Los Angeles area but somehow we knew we could get a job there if we really need it.  We kept heading south.

The day we drove in to San Diego was sunny and bright and we knew immediately that this was the place.  We wondered why our roommate Gerry hadn't told us how beautiful it was.  The Education Center took our applications and told us we would be hired.  The supervisor of hiring loved BYU students and even though he was out of town they assured us of a job and that contracts would be mailed to us.

We spent the next week getting acquainted with where we would like to live.  We stayed at the Oceanview apartments and spent a lot of time on the beach.  I looked good in a tan!  While there, one of the boarders started hanging around and he was nice, he took me to the movies and to eat and just hung around the beach.  However, when he tried to entice me to his room I decided that was enough.  This was a whole new world having guys hit on me whom I knew nothing about.

Another funny thing happened in San Diego.  At that time most of the shopping and movie houses were downtown and the Navy Base was nearby.  Colleen and I went to see 'Trapeze' and the theater was so full of sailors we had to sit separately!  I was so surrounded by sailors that I could't squeal, cover my mouth, or make any movement or they would look at me and wonder what was wrong.  It was unreal.

We had fun in Las Vegas visiting all the Casinos and seeing the Nat King Cole Show.  I even bumped in to Peter Lawford and saw Elizabeth Taylor.  When Colleen and I drove up through Nevada toward home I had the worst hay fever I have ever had in my life!  My eyes were so sore from watering and I was sneezing all the time.  I knew I could never live in Nevada.

I decided to spend the rest of the summer at Jeanne's and take a BYU class because Stan said he could use me at the Dairy Freez and I needed the money.  When I finally heard I had a contract I would be out of school on the 17th and had to be in San Diego on the 30th of August!

It was a quick trip home to organize for the big move to California.  While upstairs doing some sewing on my next year's wardrobe I heard my Mom talking  to a neighbor on the patio below.  She told her that Janet would always be prepared for whatever she had to do.  I try.

Colleen had a contract, too but still needed to finish her class to graduate but we made plans to meet in San Diego and look for a place to live. 

The day I took the train to California in August 1956 the Glendive National Guard was taking the train somewhere to camp.  I was sitting a car or so behind them but George came and sat with me and we lamented about our lost loves.  

Harry even came up to say another goodbye and I didn't see him again until Christmas 1957.  Bill and I had driven to Glendive for him to meet my family.  I saw Harry across the gym at the basketball game but did not speak to him. 

He married the following year in 1958 and I the year after 1959--but not to Bill.  Who is Bill?  Well, after leaving Heartbreak #1 I met Heartbreak #2 a few months later but that is a whole new story in 'The San Diego Scene' Part1 my life from 1956 to 1980.