My Mother Made Life Fun

My mother made life fun. We didn’t have a lot of money, but wherever we lived it was a place of enchantment. My earliest memory is of a smooth shiny floor in a narrow room. I was a very young child and my siblings and I took turns sliding across it on socks. Sometimes we’d take a towel, lay on it and ride it like a sleigh. It was a typical cleaning day, and after Mother had waxed the long, narrow living room floor, we helped her polish it by sliding across it. It was characteristic of Mother that she made a chore fun for us to share in and made our simple life amusing.

Our home in Monroe, Utah

 Mother made chores entertaining and work engaging, even in my earliest memories. There are photos of us in the front yard of the house in Monroe, Utah where we lived when I was three years old—with a big garden next door, with friends and relatives nearby.  I remember helping in the house and in the garden, but I don’t remember it being work.

 I do remember the house—the big living room, with the kitchen in the other end of the house. Next to the kitchen were stairs leading down to a dark, earthen-floored cellar which terrified me. I remember the rectangular hanging fluorescent light in the stairwell leading down to the fruit cellar—it reeked of a butcher’s store, a laboratory, or some clinical, unsafe inhospitable utilitarian place—not a portion of someone’s house. I’m sure Mother must have told stories about the fruit cellar to keep me out of it and those stories made the cellar such a scary place, just as her games made the living room a fun place.

Our yard with garden, me 2nd from right in front

My parent’s room led off the back of the kitchen, but I have no idea where my older brothers’ room was. My room was a tiny alcove off the living room with sunlight waking me up and mother’s bedtime stories wrapping me up in comfort. I remember setting the table, cleaning up after dinner, taking out trash, making my bed, all the common childhood chores, but they were done with Mother, singing and laughing. She made life fun, telling stories of her working during the depression, racing her sisters to the end of the row of crops they were weeding or picking.

Another memory of the living room in that house is of it darkened, and quiet. My brothers and I had measles and we were kept all together in that room so Mother could nurse us together. The windows were draped to protect our eyes and noise was shut out so it wouldn’t hurt our ears. I can’t remember how long we were sick, but I remember being excited to be included with my brothers instead of being kept apart as a younger sister. I must have not have been too sick, because I recall Mother having a difficult time keeping me still. I didn’t want to lie in bed. I wanted to do things, to play with my toys, but Mother insisted I couldn’t; I must lie still like my brothers.

My oldest brother was especially sick; I know he lost his hearing in one ear. I don’t think my other brother being harmed as much by the measles, but I doubt he was such a trial to mother as I was as an active three-year-old. There was not much you could do for measles in 1947 except isolate them and encourage them to rest, although most were probably so sick they probably just wanted to sleep.

Finally I remember Mother came up with a plan to entertain me; she decided to paint a picture of me. So I tried to hold still while she painted my portrait and told me stories. She only had a piece of particle board to paint on, but she painted me as long as I could keep quiet. Finally we got well and got on with our lives.

Years later I found that old scrap of a painting. It had never been finished, but was just a face painted on part of an uneven board. But as I looked at the toddler in the painting, I realized Mother had not painted me with the measles that I had suffered with. She had refused to scar my face with them, but painted me as she wanted to see me— happy and free from illness. She captured me as an eternally happy child in a home where we shined floors by sliding on them, and listened to stories that took the pain away.

Family Gatherings

"In the end, life teaches us what is important, and that is family." -Stephen Covey

I dreamed last night of a family gathering in my youth. There were aunts and

uncles, cousins, my parents and my siblings. We were laughing and talking and I felt such a warmth and love and sense of belonging. I know why I dreamed such a dream; This past week we have had my daughter and son-in-law here from Chicago to seal their adopted son in the temple and have him blessed and given a name in church. All of my children were here for this special occasion, as well as most of their children, many of my siblings, cousins, and other family. In fact during the blessing ceremony, the chapel was completely filled with family and friends.

Family gatherings during special occasions, weddings, christenings, funerals, Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, and many other holidays may be a common occurrence, but it is also an important binding experience. It is the glue that holds families together from generation to generation. Someone said, “Families that play together stay together, especially when their play is uplifting and wholesome. Family vacations, holidays, birthday celebrations, and other activities build strong bonds and feelings of self-worth. The phrase “Remember when we…” is sure to bring love and laughter in the years to come.” –Unknown

I remember my family gatherings when I was a child. I recall getting together with my cousins on both sides of my family—I even remember going to stay with my cousin in Brigham City. After my mother died when I was 20 years old, it was her sister, my Aunt Ruth, who was the link to her family, who kept us close to her family. It is because of Aunt Ruth that I am still close to my cousins, Elaine and Cindy, and their brothers, and that I contacted my cousin Jean Hendrickson Fisher when we lived near each other in Omaha, Nebraska. Family is essential to me.

My father’s family was closer, both because my father was alive to associate with them, and because they lived nearby. There were cousins near my age that I was friends with, and my father’s family had family reunions. I recall my parents getting together with his cousins and having parties and having fun.

I have tried to replicate extended family gatherings for my own although it was a challenge while we were in the military and far from family for most of the older children’s lives. They did not have a tradition of getting together with cousins or aunts and uncles because there were none close to us. However, since we moved to Utah 21 years ago, we have tried to be very involved with our extended families. That was the reason I was so determined to move back to Utah when we retired.

Maybe because our nuclear family was so isolated in the military, we had to depend on each other so much. Just as our children have supported each other by attending each other’s school activities when they were younger, whether it was sports or theater, they have continued to support each other by attending each others’ weddings, the baptisms of their children, or in the case of the past week, the sealing of baby Aiden to Diana and Jason.

They have also tried to get together with each other at the cabin near Yellowstone Park (that belongs to Athena’s husband’s family), or at our house such as when we got back from California, or at least once a year or two. They do this despite the fact that they are living throughout the country and it involves flying great distances and making sacrifices in time and work.

Our family activities have changed through the years. I remember that years ago when they were mostly young adults, they always used to go to movies after Thanksgiving dinner or at family gatherings.

Then they used to play board games until late in the night long after the “old folks” and “little ones” went to bed. We have often gone bowling. This is something every one of all ages could enjoy.

This past weekend when all were gathered at our house, we played participation games—adults, young adults, teens, children and even little ones. It was quite funny to see us gathered in teams, with older ones helping younger ones play “Taboo” and do the challenge and pass out and pay the penalties. It wasn’t as sophisticated as if it were only adults, but the children enjoyed seeing Papa having his wrists “velcroed to his head,” Uncle Bryan having to play an air guitar every time a bell sounded and 12-year-old Jenni having to quack before she could talk. But hopefully someday they will have their own families and remember what they did when they gathered with their extended family. Then they will tell their children, “When I was your age and went to Grandpa’s house, we . . . ."