My Home on Pages Lane

 When I was little, we lived in a beautiful home on Pages Lane, in Centerville, Utah. It had started from a one-bedroom house of rock right after the pioneers moved to the valley. From that one-room home, many families lived in the house throughout the years and rooms were added on. Eventually, it grew to a large home with three bedrooms 1 ½ baths and much more.

The living room was very large and rectangle-shaped, and I’ve included a drawing I’ve made from memory, which is definitely not to scale.  The front faced Pages Lane on the north side of the street.

The House on Pages Lane

There were a large lawn and sidewalk leading to the front door, which isn’t shown on the sketch.

Mother working in the garden with
Highway 89 behind her

To the north of the house was a furnace room which came out of the utility room. I can’t figure out how it fit, because it wasn’t very big, so I’ve just put it on where it was.

Outside to the north of the house was a root cellar—just like in Wizard of Oz with doors that opened out. It had shelves and a dirt floor. I found some of my favorite treasures there—1900s books that a former resident (an English teacher) had left behind. Most of them were small, pocket-sized hardback books, but to me they were wonderful!

As you entered the front door (main entrance), you were in the large living room. I can’t recall the placement of furniture, except for a large round oak table where we all sat for dinner (there were seven children and two parents). On the west side of the living room was a large mural painting that my mother had painted that was the visual highlight of the room.

The kitchen held a magic secret—it had a trap door where you could escape from the

Our family in the kitchen of the Pages Lane house

table. I can’t recall if it was some shelves and if it went clear to the living room. However, if you were a child and you couldn’t get out of the table without lots of people moving, you could climb down onto the floor and open the bottom shelf and escape.

I recall the back door faced the north, and so did the sink, but I can’t recall if there was a window over the sink where we girls washed the dishes.

Next to the kitchen, to the west was the girls' room, where my two sisters and I shared a bedroom. My youngest sister was born while we lived in the house but was not big enough to share out room. The bedroom had a set of bunk beds and a regular single bed, with a window in between. As the oldest, I always had the top bunk. Just west of the door was a rectangular built-in armoire. It didn’t go to the ceiling, so there was a crawl space between it and the ceiling. I often climbed up into the crawl-space to get away from my siblings and find a little peace. Inside the armoire was a toilet! This was our half bath.

I recall when I was about eight or nine years old, I had the Asian flu and was very sick. As I lay on my bed, I rubbed my finger across the old wallpaper. Eventually, I wore down several layers of wallpaper and came across a wallpaper that had a “swastika-like” pattern. I was sure that someone had lived in the house that was Nazi and had covered up the wallpaper to hide their politics. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that since we lived in the house in the mid -1950s, and there were at least five layers of wallpaper over the swastika-like pattern, it probably dated back to the 1920s—before Hitler’s rise to fame. But as I lay there sick, I made stories of the people who may have put that political wallpaper up.

Just west of the girls’ room was the bathroom, with an old-fashioned tub with a wooden cabinet holding it. I recall once finding a loose board in the cabinet and found an older brother had hidden a Playboy magazine inside it. Another toilet and a sink were the only things in the bathroom.

The utility room was west of the bathroom and I’m sure it is not in scale, but it seemed large to me. There was an old-fashioned typewriter there where I wrote stories. If you typed too fast, the keys stuck together, but to me it was magic. The entry to the utility room was not a door, but a curtain and I recall we had plays outside in the living room with the curtain the entrance.

I’m sure my parents’ room is not to scale, but it seemed HUGE to me. It was the original rock house that had been built in the 1860s and was truly the heart of the house.

It was the neatest thing to be able to lie on my parents’ large bed, but the only memory of doing so was when I was recovering from the Asian floor. Someone gave me a “Mars” candy bar. I ate it and threw up everywhere. I still can’t face a “Mars” bar without nausea to this day.

Because of the rock walls, my parents’ room was always cool and shady, and it felt

wonderful to be in it. I recall my mother had a beautiful vanity of gold-colored wood. In my memory, the mirror was much larger and the wood more golden than this image I’ve located on the internet. I loved to sit on the stool and look in the mirror, but watching my mother get ready to go while sitting there was amazing. She always seemed beautiful, but when she sat there putting makeup on and her necklaces, it seemed as if she grew more beautiful by the minute.

Just south of my parents’ room was the boys’ bedroom, and I have no memory of how it was arranged because I have no memory of being there that often. The covered porch had windows along the South and there may have been a couch or something there, but it was mainly a hallway. I do recall trying to convince my parents to let me sleep on the couch there, but they didn’t let me.

To the far north of the house, right off the utility room, was a furnace room, and I recall it had several steps going to the north. I wanted so much to have a space of my own, that I once convinced my parents to let me put my clothes and stuff there, although they never let me sleep there.

My family in 1954

Looking back, I think that as the oldest girl in a family of seven children, I was often frustrated that I didn’t have a “place of my own.” My younger sister recalls I was always trying to get away from my sisters (her included), but I think it was hard sharing with younger siblings who were always getting into my things and messing up my stuff. My crawl space above the armoire/toilet was a place where I could escape, as well as the modified furnace room.

The outside of our house was not your typical suburban yard, either. To the north, we had a cow and chickens that we raised also, as well as rabbits that we cooked and ate. Further to the east, we had a large cornfield where I could make hideouts and put water-proof furniture in. It was a secret place in the summer where no one could find me (I thought) and I could dream and make up stories.

We had a boxer dog named Sandy, but he was fenced up most of the time. We had our own well on the large property, and behind the house to the north was fields, and pig pens.

Younger Children & friend playing of front yard

There were other memories of the front lawn. My older teenage brother was a “Pat Boone” look-a-like and I can recall him singing in the front yard.

In 1956, the state started to put in a freeway, instead of the old Highway 89 we had lived
next to, and our property was purchased and torn down to make way for it. We sang, “The freeway runs through the middle of the house,” whenever we drove down by the corner of Pages Lane and the frontage road. Now a company is on the easternmost part of our property.

Most houses are boring and looking back at them you think how old-fashioned and old they are, but when I think of our house on Pages Lane, it still seems magical in my memory.

TV and Me

 I remember the very first TV my family bought! It was 1950 and we were living in Bountiful, Utah, but my dad bought an early TV, even though we could only get two channels, and they were limited!

I remember “Howdy Doody,” and later “Captain Kangaroo,” and even later “Mickey Mouse Club.” How I enjoyed these early tv shows. The screen was maybe seven inches high and in black and white, but I loved it. It was a magic box.

My father, who was an early adopter and technology viewed the TV as a status symbol instead of an enjoyment, and I remember that we weren’t allowed to watch TV when he was home—unless he was watching a show, then we could watch alongside him.

I don’t recall my mother, who loved stories, mysteries, and books, ever watching TV unless it was with Dad. Dad liked the “Luci Show” (which I hated), “Gene Autry,” and of course the comedies, “George Burns,” “Sid Caesar,” and the “Lone Ranger.”'

Dad’s favorite show was the “Your Hit Parade,” and he watched it faithfully

each week; I loved the music, and later we’d all sing them. I recall my older brother, Gary, with his hair styled like Pat Boone, singing the teen hits.

Another of my father’s favorites was “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and he loved to listen to the new music performers.

There were also Teen music shows; “Dick Clark’s American

Dick Clark American Bandstand

Bandstand,” was a favorite and we’d sing and dance along with the music. It filmed all over the country, and occasionally it would film in Salt Lake City, and we’d try to see who of our friends made it on TV.

I remember our first color TV, and how we were among the first in the neighborhood to get one; everyone wanted to come to our house and watch it.

I was a young married woman when “The Beatles” came to “Ed Sullivan’s” and I recall enjoying

Beatles

their music. I recall I was a Beehive teacher, and our Beehives made a skit of some of the earliest Beatles songs and sang it at the ward talent show.

When we got married, Ed’s parents gave us a small used 13-inch black and white TV, and that was our view of the world. I don’t recall watching it that much, although Ed liked “Dragnet,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Bonanza,” and we both liked “Perry Mason.”

I preferred lighter fare, “Bewitched,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and “Gilligan’s Island.”

Walk on the Moon

One of the most momentous memories of TV was when in 1969, man walked on the moon, and we watched it on our home TV. I was expecting my first daughter that July and had hoped she would be born during the moon landing. She was born over a month later—in late August

.

Even more touching to me, was in 1973 when the Vietnam POWs were returned to the United States. I remember staying up all night watching them arrive in the Philippines and then to America. Ed and I stayed up watching as each walked down the ramp off the plane and called out the ones we knew personally. Most of the ones released first were the Air Force Pilots who had been in prison the longest, and Ed was touched when his high school buddy, Larry Chesley, was among those released.

I recall crying when Jay Hess of Bountiful was released in 1973. I been at a “Waiting Wives” meeting

Jay Hess meeting his daughter

with his wife in August 1967; When I dropped her off at her home, I noticed the ominous blue Air Force car at her house that had come to notify her that her husband had been shot down.

Other memorable TV moments was watching the earliest Cable News Network (CNN) in Alabama and being amazed at being a part of all the news of the world.

One of my all-time favorite series was “Poldark,” both the 1975 series that we saw on TV and the 2015 series that I love even more. The 1975 series was on TV 9 hours earlier than in the states, so I watched it in the middle of the day. But oh, how I loved it. Eventually, the whole series was released, and I bought the entire series!

I remember TV while we were living in Italy. We could only get an Armed Forces Network (broadcast from where we lived in Vicenza). It wasn’t satellite TV; in fact, all the shows we got were years older than in the states, so the first year we’d already seen everything.

The station opened at 6:00 A.M. with the Star-Spangled Banner and closed at midnight with the same. We always stood at attention when it played.

They did have one show that we enjoyed. It was an armed forces program about places in Italy (and in Germany) and it was fun to get ideas on where to go visit.

My oldest son worked at the station after his first year of college, and they did their own local news---I even have recordings of him telling the news (it was never sensational news, but more what was going on around the base).

Once in a great while, we got some up-to-date national news—but only a short burst.

We could receive Italian TV, but I didn’t watch it very much, even when I was studying Italian and wanted to listen to the language and try to interpret it. It was hard to watch because the country receivers were different. We were NTSC and Italy was some other frequency, so you never got good reception.

Sometimes in my life, I’ve had cable TV and even satellite TV, and enjoyed it, even though I’m not a big aficionado of TV. My husband loved it, and as his health failed, he loved to watch it. His favorite, of course, was sports, though I don’t care for it. I continued to enjoy CNN.

Now, I have only local channels available through small antennas. I still love TV, especially the PBS shows, the movies, the NCIS shows, mysteries and of course, BYU TV. I guess I’m an anomaly, and that’s okay!

A Lonely Christmas

My Christmas of 1970 was really rough. My husband was serving his 2^nd tour of Vietnam, and I was back home in Utah with a 1 ½ year old and a 3-year-old. I was expecting my third child in February, and I was big and uncomfortable. My children seemed to be sick all the time, and I felt sorry for myself.

I lived in an upstairs apartment and my children were hyperactive. I constantly had to remind them not too be so loud that the downstairs’ neighbors would complain.

I compared myself to all my other “waiting wives” friends whose families were large and supported them during their husband’s service in Vietnam. My mother had died years earlier, and my father was busy with his own worries. Only my two youngest siblings were home, a 13-year-old sister and a 15-year-old brother. My other siblings were married and lived far away with their own families.

One friend Shirleen, lived not too far from me with three boys similar in age to mine, only she seemed to have a lot of extended family in the area to do Christmas-y things with.

At times I would think, “I should call Shirleen and we can take our children to see Santa (or any activity),” but I would stop myself. “She has lots of family and friends to do things with; I’m sure she wouldn’t be available to go with me.”

On Christmas Eve, my daughter became very ill. I took her to the doctors, they took an X-ray and said it was just a cough. I took her home and busied myself doing Christmasy things.

Then I received a callback from the doctor; she had pneumonia and I must take her back to get treatment. So, I ended up in the emergency room with my children. There, to my surprise, I met my friend, Shirleen, with her three children, who were all very sick. Shirleen saw me and began to cry.

“I felt so alone,” she sobbed. “I felt like my children were the only one who were sick on Christmas Eve!”

We laughed and compared notes; neither of us had much family interaction, because everyone was so busy with their own life. She was as lonely and discouraged as I was.

“There’s a destiny that makes us brothers

“None goes his way alone.

“All that we send into the lives of others

“Will come back into our home.”

Edwin Markham