We Move Up--to the Heights

The summer before second grade we moved to the Heights, a very nice place to live and only a block from the football field and swimming pool. Our home was about 50 years old and very large compared to our other ones. It had an upstairs, an attic, and a basement. Mom and Dad had a sun porch off their bedroom and the garage was very small and narrow on one side of the basement. The house was on a hill and from the front you could look all the way across the river. I imagined living on a ranch someday over there because it looked so beautiful. From Mom and Dad's bedroom window you could see out across the town.



Because of that hill we lived on we could easily sled all winter and could turn right and go down to Meade Avenue or go straight down Kendrick and cross the street at the bottom. We would see who could go the furthest, though the longer you went, the longer the walk back up the hill. When we came in our hands would be so cold you had to first put them in cold water and then slowly turn the water warmer and warmer to finally get feeling back in your fingers. One incident that stays in my mind was the homemade toboggan several could ride on at a time. One time we hit dirt and it stopped so fast we were thrown suddenly forward and I really hurt my back. I quickly ran inside because  I would not let anyone see me cry, ever.

Intake Dam

Marilyn and I shared a bedroom. Jeanne had her own and Dick and Dave shared a bedroom. Carole said she did not have a bedroom until Jeanne went to college. I do not remember that at all. She was six years younger than I though, so probably slept in Mom's room for awhile. The boys later moved to the basement when it was finished with a shower, bathroom, and a bedroom and I would get their bedroom. In the winter we would huddle around the stove at the top of the stairs to get dressed. Mom told us not to run around in our undershirts or our slips in front of the boys but it was hard to remember that and since the ironing board was down stairs we often had to run down there partially dressed.

I used to play a lot at Donna's house and it was about two and one half blocks away. I think she  had all the movie star paper dolls and Bride and Groom and Baby Sandy. It was wonderful. She had a huge double bedroom and we could spread the dolls all over the floor.  Her paper dolls were all boxed and stacked in her closet and we took very good care of them.  I had a few, but nothing like hers.  She could always sit with both legs fanned out from her knees--I always marveled at that.  Paper dolls were a very important part of my life and today I have over 50 books that I have collected as an adult. At Donna’s house there was always homemade vanilla ice cream with home made chocolate sauce and ice box cookies. This was a very happy part of my childhood. One problem was that it was often dark by the time I left Donna’s and I was afraid of someone jumping out from the bushes. I would walk in the middle of the street and sing “He walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am His own” a song I had learned at the Methodist Sunday School.

After we moved to the Heights I would go to the Methodist Sunday School with my new friend Myrna and her aunt was our Sunday School Teacher. She would also have parties for us at her home. One time I had to use her bathroom and the boys opened the door when I was in there but I had my skirt around my legs so I just sat there calmly till they closed the door. I can see it perfectly in my mind. I had on one of my plaid skirts.

Methodist Sunday School

Shirley lived down the hill from us and I did like to color at her house but we were not to become the great friends that Berta Mae and I did or Myrna and I. There was also George who lived down the hill and he was a special friend until junior high when he started looking at other girls. He had a dog named Duke and our dog was named Star and those dogs were always together. George and I played together a lot especially sledding in the winter on our hill and Ollie I Over on his garage in the summer or playing with his Put Put car. This was a wonderful little car that you could actually drive on the sidewalk. In second grade he sat behind me and had a little more trouble with reading and writing than I did so he was always looking over my shoulder and I would let him. One time he mistakenly wrote my name on his paper and got a real scolding by our teacher Miss Welsh.

We learned phonics that year and there were big charts showing all the sounds of the letters and the books were about Dick, Jane and Sally. I liked school. The only problem was the math time tests we had in second grade. On the way home from school Shirley would always ask how many I did right and she always did better, it seemed. I was not competitive and did not like her asking. She would talk a lot about President Roosevelt on the way home from school. She was very smart.

Our third grade teacher was Miss Lane, so pretty and so nice. I decided that year that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. In third grade I also decided to keep a diary. Unfortunately Jeanne found it and read it and reported to everyone on the way to school that I said George hung his tennis shoes by mine! I was so embarrassed and it seemed very mean of Jeanne.

It was probably about that time I decided I must have been adopted. My mother was not very sympathetic with my thoughts though and teasingly called me Bridget when she asked me to do something. I told her I must have been adopted because I was always the one that had to run errands.  I must have had an attitude about errands because I distinctly remember walking up the steps of Washington Elementary to deliver a message to a teacher.  As I was walking I was thinking, "Why does a teacher ask you if you would like to deliver a message for her--why doesn't she just say, "Will you deliver this message, please?" because there is no way you are going to tell her, "No I would not like to deliver your message."  I could not have been more than third or fourth grade when I was thinking this but I have always disliked being interrupted when I was busy on something.  And I can't remember a time when I wasn't busy on something.

We visited my Dad's Mom, Mary Jane Lillywhite Anderson  in Boise, Idaho and she had me dust the dining room table legs and chairs.  She also asked me to stand in front of her for the picture.  She had had her legs amputated because of diabetes.

On the same trip to Boise, we stopped in Brigham City and posed with our Great Grandfather Benjamin Lillywhite, Jr.  He came across with the pioneers when he was only five without either of his parents.  That is quite a story.  He was 98 in this picture and only had one eye.  His eye had been injured in a wood chopping accident and he had to have it removed.

Since my birthday was in the winter and we had no chapel or baptismal font we had to wait until it was warm enough for me to be baptized outside. It was May 4, 1941 and we drove out of town to a large pond where there were lots of swimmers that Saturday. My Dad asked all the swimmers if they would sit on the edge of the pond while we had the baptism. There was one older lady convert besides myself. I can picture in my mind those teenagers sitting on the high ledge of the pond and watching what was probably to them a very strange sight. They were very quiet though. I was dressed in a white cotton dress which was very large for me and I was barefoot. I walked down in the dirt to the pond with my Dad and a missionary. I had seen pictures of John baptizing Jesus in a river and in my mind my baptism was very much like that. I was not embarrassed to be there. It felt very right and I knew Jesus would be pleased with me. I will always remember the way I felt when we walked up out of the pond and my mother put a blanket around me. I was happy.