The Autobiography of Pauline June Baxter Peterson --In her own words -

I was born January 20, 1921, in Salt Lake City Utah - the second child of "goodly parents" - Arch Levon and Effie Glenn Baxter. I had one sister two years older than me, Lorie, and a brother, Levon Glenn, two years younger. My earliest memory was when Glenn was born. My Mother had all of us at home with a doctor and nurse in attendance, Mother's youngest sister, Ruby, also came as a helper. My earliest memory was of the nurse trying to undress me for bed, with me crying loudly, "I want my Aunt Ruby to undress me." Both my sister and I vied for space in Mother's bed, with our baby brother in her arms.

I also remember going on the street car with my Mother and Lorie to Liberty Park. Holding paper dolls as we rode to the park, and having ice cream cones at the shop across at the street on13th East. What a surprise it was many years later when I learned that my daughter-in-law's grandfather was the owner of the ice cream shop and Cummings Candy Store.

In Salt Lake City we lived in the "avenues" and enjoyed visits from my parent's brother and sisters and their families. My Mother's oldest sister, Aunt Maggie lived only a few blocks away and her daughter, Cleo Hallam was a frequent playmate.

My father was an electrician for the railroad in Salt Lake. He was very fun-loving. I have pictures of him riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle with my mother, sister and I riding in the side car. My parents were very happy in Salt Lake, but the good life for them was not to last.

The depression hit and the railroad shut down. There were no jobs to be had in Salt Lake. Through a friend, my father obtained work in Baker, Oregon at a lumber mill grading lumber. We were moved by my grandfather Glenn to Baker, over gravel and dirt roads. It was nothing like the freeways we have today. We joined my mother's sister Zella, whose husband also worked for the lumber company. Later, Aunt Ruby and her husband Wesley joined the little group of mis-placed Salt Lakers. We lived in Baker for nine years and grew to love it and the many friends we made. I still correspond (at age 79) with my Baker "best friend" Barbara Head. There was a small group of staunch L.D.S. families in Baker which included Richard and Mary Eccles, who ran the lumber mill; the Eardleys (Dave was our Bishop); the Heads, Hills, Smurthwaits, Stratfords, Hunts, Leishmans, and Browns, these made up the nucleus of the Ward. At first we met in an old wooden building near the lumber mill and I remember President Heber J. Grant coming to that humble building to encourage the members to have a super strong testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and of the work we must do in Baker.

My Father and Mother helped build the first church building in Baker and I remember going with them to sand the new benches, put in flooring, do paint, etc. All construction was done by church members as was the custom in those days. My Mother's organizational abilities served her well as Primary President and Relief Society secretary.

I started school when I was 51/2 years old. My sister, who was in the 2nd grade, had home schooled me so thoroughly every day when she returned from school that I was allowed to skip the 1st grade and was placed in the second grade. We always "played school" at home using special hanging desks that my Father had made for us. {I have my Mother's desk)

As early as I can remember, my Mother was an excellent seamstress as she delighted in making all of our clothes. She always dressed my sister and me alike and people thought we were twins in spite of Lorie's beautiful black hair and brown eyes and my blond hair and blue eyes.

Our lives were centered around the Ward and we all were kept close to the members of the church. I was baptized in the Baker Ward and it was a shock to me to learn that there were other churches. My Father had a beautiful tenor voice and sang in the Ward choir. When the Ward put on an operetta, "Mikado", he sang the lead part. He had been to barber school in Salt Lake and he "barbered" hair for all the church families in Baker.

Our summers were spent camping in the Blue Mountains with the three close families - the Stratfords and Smurthwits. We slept on the ground pine boughs covered with home-made quilts. The fathers went fishing (East Eagle) and the mothers sat around the camp and visited, cooked and "tended" the children. The Smurthwaits had seven children, the Stratfords had five - so I have wonderful memories of our camping trips.

I remember when the movies came to Baker - The Clara Theater - a place of awe and delight. We also took short trips to Radium Hot Springs swimming pool. Eating out was never heard of, but invitations between the three families were a special treat. My Mother always held the place of "Best Cook" and was famous even then for her waffle parties.

Our house on Wabash Avenue had a big garden area with fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. We heated the house with wood ends from the lumber mill which was delivered to our woodshed site. One of our summer jobs was to throw through the woodshed window and then stack the wood neatly inside. I can shut my eyes and still smell the special scent of new wood.

The depression in the United States deepened and little Baker, Oregon was not immune. The mills closed and my Father and two uncles were laid off. Even though I know my parents were deeply distressed, at the age of eleven - it didn't affect me personally until we were told that the family would come to Boise, Idaho where my Father had found work as a truck driver for a bakery - run by the Gwilliam family who were related to one of the Gwilliam families in the Baker Ward. It was devastating to have to leave our Baker friends and face making new friends and realizing that everything was to change. In the big picture, the move to Boise was a good thing for all of us and opened up opportunities which we would not have had in Baker.

When we arrived in Boise, we stayed with our Aunt Ruby who had moved to Boise a few months previously. Her husband also worked in the bakery. Soon after our arrival, my mother found a comfortable two-story house on 11th street. She wall-papered every room and painted the kitchen and bathroom. Six months later we moved into a very comfortable two-story brick house on 10th and Ridenbaugh. The house had beautiful hardwood floors and hot water heat registers. Some of our best years were spent there. We had a big swing on the front porch and our "boy friends" including my future husband and his two brothers spent time with my sister and me swinging and flirting.

I went to Longfellow School and made friends with some special people who still remain my good friends at this time - Beth Fitzwater, Mary Ellen Jordan, Woody Peterson and Joy Harris. Our main activities centered around the Boise 2nd Ward where my best "church" friend was Elise Smith (Kelly) and she continues to be one of my best friends.

My sister and I were, considered "cute". We were aggressive, popular and our Mother had made us feel that we were smarter and more capable than anyone else - an attribute that helped us cope with the sad and disastrous times to come. She continued to sew all our clothes which were the envy of many of our friends. I remember the long formals she made from yellow organdy for my graduation from the 8th grade.

Starting high school at Boise High was exciting for me and it was there that I met my best friend - Jane Barrett (Williamson). We were in the same home room. My first boy friend was Bill Graham, followed by Park Tyler, George Mudder, Jack Hawley and finally in my senior year - Wayne Peterson. I was in the school acapella choirs, a member of at the girl's club Scarlet Skirts, and may senior year was elected Yell Queen - Willy Anderson was Yell King and J. Reed Peterson (my future brother-in-law) was Yell Prince. We were the cheer leading team. Willy and his wife Dortha remain our close friends.

High school social activities were so much fun. We had dances twice a month - always date affairs. We all loved to dance. Lorie and I were members of the Junior Columbian Club and they put on lovely formal dances. The Co-Ed ball was sponsored by the girl's club and was for girls only. Sometimes the ball was crashed by the boys club - Wayne and Charles Lenfest (my sister's future husband) were members of the club.

I belonged to what the members thought was an elite group - Jane and I, Norma Farmer and Helen Marr Archibald, Dot Coon and Eleanor Finch, Valeria Delana and Dortha Power, Ann Barber and Helen Keithly. We used to go everywhere together - cook and eat dinner at each other's houses and in all probability were snooty to the other girls at school. All of them have remained friends. We went to basketball and football games. Many summers were spent with my friend, Dortha, at her family cabin at Grand Jean. This was the beginning of the love I have for that special mountain area.

My sister was the most popular girl in high school. She was President of her senior class, an ROTC Sponsor, President of the Scarlet Skirts, in the dramatic club, acapella choir - everyone knew her. I was lazy about going out for extracurricular activities and was content to bask in her popularity and to be known as Lorie's younger sister. It wasn't until I was in my 5O's that I became more aggressive and joined groups and held offices in clubs.

Charley and Wayne were good friends and the four of us used to double date. Picnics and swimming parties were the "thing to do" and I became a g good swimmer and always had a bicycle to ride, roller skate parties and yes, always dancing - these were my favorite sports. I had to keep moving and to this day I require a lot of physical activity.

In the meantime, our family was to experience an event which changed our lives forever. The year after my freshman year, my Father bought a little house in the east end - Coston & Jefferson, 1421 East Jefferson. He had plans drawn to remodel it and was glad to be able to finally, own a house instead of continuing to rent. Lorie, Glenn and I were unhappy to leave our nice home on 10th street and move to a completely different area of the city and into a tiny, wooden house with a cramped kitchen and bathroom. But the worst was yet to come.

In 1935, my Father - 38 years old - suffered a burst appendix and died a week later at St. Luke's Hospital. At that time there were no antibiotics and many people died from lack of medication. As he lay dying, our Bishop, Ever Harris, brought us three children to see him for the last time and tried to comfort our distraught mother. My father's body, as was the custom, was brought to our house for friends and relatives to view. His funeral was held the following day at the Stake Center (Boise 2nd Ward) and he was buried in Morris Hill Cemetery.

And thus began our lives, which had been economically precarious to say the least, now had become economically poverty-stricken with no help in sight. My grandfather Glenn offered to have us come to live with them, but my independent Mother felt that would be a fate worse than death. Instead, she went to work for the bakery in their downtown shop, as a clerk and cake decorator - at minimum wages which at that time was .25 cents an hour. She didn't know how to drive and either walked or took the bus to the bakery shop, which was three miles away from her home. She had exactly $1,000.00 in life insurance, nothing in a savings account, a tiny old house and three children to rear and care for. At times the shock was almost too much for her and she succumbed to terrible bouts of weeping and grieving. Her friends in the church helped all they could, but everyone was economically depressed. From then on, all of us worked at whatever we could find - and no one ever guessed how poor we were. She continued to sew for us at night so we were still fashionably dressed. Even now, neither my sister, brother, nor I ever enter into talk about how everyone lived during the depression. No one would believe how we survived on my Mother's meager salary.

In Charlotte Bronte's book, Villette, the heroine described her plight after losing her entire family. Her words best describe our feelings at the time of our Father's death: "I felt as if I were on a ship, that I had fallen overboard or there must have been a wreck at least. There was a long time of cold, of danger, of contention. There was a terrible storm and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. The ship was lost; the crew perished."

But somehow, we did not perish. We did survive. I worked at babysitting; summers I worked at a drive in - Murrays. I pitted cherries for the bakery, clerked at Woolworths. In spite of all this, I was able to take piano lessons and dancing lessons because my Mother exchanged lessons for her sewing. We didn't have a piano but she made arrangements for me to practice at a friend's house every day; and later to practice at KIDO radio station which was located in the Owyhee Hotel. I used to go there every day after high school. Can you imagine anyone nowadays wanting to learn to play the piano badly enough to go to those lengths?

I think we mentally blacked out all the humiliation of poverty by pretending it didn't happen. Even worse than the physical discomforts were the mental sadness and terrible loss of our Father who was the happy light of our lives. The bright candle of his kindness, humor, and love had been snuffed out. While Mother was the strong mover and doer, the innovator and talented worker, my Father was comforting and loving. However, it was a good thing that mother was so strong in order to pull us through the bad times. We never got over losing him, at his and our early ages. We have always wondered how differently our lives would have been had he lived.

After my Junior year in high School I worked during the summer for Chaney Freight Line, and following that, I typed a manuscript for a would be author.

After high school graduation came another sad period when almost all of our friends left for college in other towns. Lorie and I both attended Boise Junior College - each of us doing secretarial work for the President - Eugene Chaffee and continuing our baby-sitting business. I took the state civil service exam and started working at the Department of Health as Secretary to the Director of the Maternal and Child Health Division, a job I held until I was married in May, 1942. I also received a stake calling. Wayne's father knew that I was very proficient in short-hand and typing and I was called by the stake president, Z Reed Millar, to be the secretary for the Stake Presidency and had to attend all their meetings and take notes of what happened and the decisions made, type up the notes and then read them at the next meeting. The Stake Presidency met twice a month beginning at 7:00 PM. All of these meetings were long and some meetings would not end until 2:00 AM. Wayne's father would drive me home. I had this calling until I was married.

In the meantime, I was going "steady" with Wayne who was attending the University of Idaho in Moscow, and Lorie was going "steady" with Charles Lenfest who had an appointment to West Point. Because he was so far away in New York State, Lorie (through Wayne's Dad, who was a close friend of Ezra Taft Benson) got a job with the National Association of Farm Bureaus in Washington D.C. doing secretarial work for Ezra Taft Benson where she stayed until she married Charles in 1943.

I used to go to Moscow and stay with Jane Barrett to attend dances and of course during summer vacation and Christmas vacation, Wayne was home and we continued to date and were married in 1942.

My younger brother Glenn was a very popular boy in high school and when he was 17 and still a junior in school, he enrolled in the National Guard and left Boise to make the military his career. Our family was split up - Lorie in Washington D.C., and Glenn in various military camps. We remained very close but were never again physically reunited as a family.

When Wayne graduated from the University of Idaho in 1942, he received his commission as 2nd Lt. Through the ROTC program. This was the period of great turmoil in the world with World War II commencing and everyone in the U.S. was affected. My husband, brother, brother-in-law and all our friends and relatives were in the military service.

Wayne had been informed that he would be sent immediately to a training camp in Arkansas upon graduation, so we were married in Moscow, thinking there was no time for a proper wedding in Boise. Mother, Wayne's Mom and Dad, his younger brother, Jake and I all traveled to Moscow, thinking there was no time for a proper wedding in Boise. J. Reed (who was in school at the University) was the best man and Jane was my bridesmaid. None of our friends had big, elaborate

weddings because of the war. We all wore short, dressy dresses. Mother had a family breakfast at a hotel after the wedding. Wayne and I went to Spokane for a three day honeymoon. When Wayne found out that he would have two weeks before reporting and not immediately, we went to Logan Utah, stayed with his grandmother and were re-married in the Logan Temple. Because weddings were not performed in LDS churches at that time, our Moscow wedding took place in a beautiful little Episcopal church.

Wayne left for Arkansas on June 1st, 1942, and I followed in August. Then began a period of my life that was both interesting but unnatural. Wayne was at Camp Robinson in Little Rock, Ark. Housing was at a premium in all the towns near army bases, and we were only able to obtain a bedroom with cooking privileges wherever he was sent.

Wayne transferred to the Air Corp from the Infantry, and we went to Sweetwater, Texas, then San Antonio, Texas. I had never been away from home before and had a hard time adjusting to the heat in the south and to a southern culture. While in Little Rock, I worked for six months for the Arkansas Health Department - my years with the Idaho Department helped me to get the job. From San Antonio, Wayne returned to the Infantry and was sent to Columbus, Georgia to Staff and Command school. We were able to rent a beautiful house there which we shared with another military couple - which was a popular practice during the war. I became ill in Georgia with a large cyst on one of my ovaries. It became the size of a grapefruit and when Wayne was sent back to Little Rock, I had surgery to have it removed. Charley had been sent to an air force fighter squadron in England. Lorie was pregnant and going back to Boise for the duration of the war. She came to Little Rock to stay with me after the surgery before going home. The cyst had destroyed one ovary and consequently I had a hard time becoming pregnant. I was married for almost ten years before I had a baby which was very sad for me and I spent many months and years thinking I would never have a family. Perhaps that deep desire for children affected a terrific love for my five grandchildren - they were the additional family I never had.

I failed to mention that while we were in Sweetwater, Texas - Wayne in pilot training, Lorie and Charley came to stay with us on their honeymoon. They had been in Boise for a few days after being married at West Point. My Mother also came to Sweetwater to see us.

From Camp Robinson Arkansas Wayne was sent to the 99th Division in Tyler, Texas and then to Paris,Texas from where he embarked for Europe to fight in Germany in the Battle of the Bulge. We were three years in the U.S. while he was training infantry troops and he was one year overseas.

When he left for Germany, I retired home to join Lorie, her baby Linda and we all lived again with Mother. I started working for a small war construction company - they were making steel landing nets for the navy. I was in charge of their office and did all the bookkeeping. They sent me to Seattle to learn the payroll process. I worked there until the war was over and Wayne returned home. He was sent to Denver, Colorado in December 1945 to be released to civilian life and I met him Christmas Eve in Denver for a wonderful reunion.

After the war, we returned to Moscow for Wayne to get a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics. We spent two years there and I worked as secretary for the president of the agriculture college, Dr. D.R. Theophilus, who later became president of the University. And thus began a new phase of my life. All of our friends were returning to universities to finish their education. I enrolled part-time while working and took home economic class and piano lessons. Wayne had a good friend - an elderly woman who had been the house mother in his Kappa Sigma fraternity. She had a house next to the Kappa Sig house on the campus with an upstairs apartment and we were lucky enough to be able to rent it, where we lived for the next two years. We had such a great time during those two years, attending all the athletic events, the Kappa Sigma dances and we were part of a group of couples all returning after the war. I joined an evening bridge club made up of Boise friends. Wayne worked in the summer at the local saw mill. We returned to Boise for holiday with our families.

After graduation, Wayne took a job with the Pacific Agriculture Cooperative and was sent to Coeur 'Alene, Idaho. He did not like the work and we returned to Boise to try to find something more suitable to his schooling. The country was in a depression and jobs were hard to find. He eventually took a job with Wilson Packing Co. as a sales representative - traveling to Mountain Home and Twin Falls. Through Wayne's Dad, I started working for the IRS. This was a turmoil time for us- we had decided to buy a duplex in what had been called Sergeant City - a military housing project. We lived in one half and rented the other half to our good friends, Rosalie and Bob Barbour who had been in Moscow with us. Because of my discontent and unhappiness over not being able to have a baby, we decided to try to adopt. We were finally scheduled to get Abby after much investigation by social workers etc. When we were notified that we would have our adopted baby in three months, I discovered - much to our joy - that I was pregnant and nine months later, Jake came into our lives. The years after his birth were my happiest and our whole lives changed and took on a new meaning. All of our friends and our two families rejoiced with us over our long-awaited baby, We took him everywhere with us and only left him with one of his grandmothers. We really hovered over him and I worried constantly for fear something would happen to him.

We lived in our duplex until Jake was four years old when we bought our house at 6220 Robertson Dr. (1953) and have lived there ever since. We spent our summers camping and fishing. Wayne was in the military reserve and had to spend two weeks each year at some military base - usually Fort Lewis. We often went with him for a few days. Wayne enjoyed hunting big game and had many good hunting trips with his hunting pals. When Jake became older he went pheasant hunting with his Dad. I was working two days a week at the Merit System office. Wayne's job only took four days a week and he kept Jake with him the days I worked. I worked for the Merit System Council only while Jake was in school from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm and never in the summer. In 1960 Wayne left Wilson and Co. and went to work for the Bureau of Reclamation as Regional Economist. This required his full time commitment (five days a week) and some our hunting and fishing days were limited.

We had a wonderful neighborhood. Jake had lots of children to play with - the Harper's seven children, Sally Witter, Tunison's four and the Barbour's four. I became involved with the PTA, taught cub scouts, was the school stamp lady and was the chorister for Junior Sunday school (for 20 years). I started working full time for the Merit System Council when Jake was in college. Those school years seemed to have passed all too quickly. I belonged the old bridge club that had been started in Moscow and am still with them at 79 years. (We were all in grad school together in Boise.). Along with our neighbors, the Harpers, Tunnisons, Witters, Barbours and our friends the Kellys and Brasses, we belonged to the Gowen Field Officer's Club and had so much fun at the monthly dances. Wayne and I even took dancing lessons, learning the tango and other South American dances. We were closely involved with our families - my Mother, Wayne's parents, his brother Woody and children, his younger brother J. Reed and his children. When we first moved into our present house, I kept Mary and Jan (J. Reed's children) for a year during some troubled times for J. Reed. I have always been close to Mary who was only 3 months old when she came to live with us. I felt that she was the daughter I didn't have.

Jake was involved with sports in school and was especially good in track. We went to all his track meets, baseball games and other school events. The three of us went on many many camping and fishing trips together. All too soon, Jake was a freshman at the University of Idaho. He pledged Sigma Chi fraternity, but quickly became disillusioned with the fraternity life and at mid semester transferred to BYU - so our travels then took us to Provo Utah. During his Sophomore year, he met and married Ann Stromness, a special, talented and bright girl. While Jake and Ann finished school at BYU, they spent their vacations with us, and we enjoyed making trips to Utah to see them. What a joy it was for us to have a daughter-ion-law, who filled our lives with happiness and fun. We finally had our own daughter. Throughout the rest of our lives, Ann was a thoughtful, kind considerate member of our family. In his later years when Wayne became incapacitated, she was always helpful in caring for him.

I started working full time for the Idaho Personal Commission in 1968 as secretary to the Assistant Director, and after two years was promoted to Personnel Analyst and lead worker under our Director. Len Munther.Our section was in charge of recruitment and examination. I traveled all over the state conducting examinations for everything from CRP Specialists to Counselors for Disability Determination, Liquor Store Clerks, Fish and Game Biologists, and Employment Consultants. I enjoyed the diversity, the co-workers, and the challenges my position presented.

Jake and Ann graduated from BYU and Jake was accepted and attended law school at the University of Idaho. So our travels once more took us to Moscow, especially after Wayne and Amy were born while Jake was still in Law School. What a joy it was for us to have two beautiful grandchildren. When Jake graduated from Law School and returned to Boise, they were soon joined by John, Natalie and eight years later, Mary Margaret I can still hardly believe that we are so lucky to have five grandchildren - and later to have two great-grandchildren.

Our lives continued to be busy with work and church work. I was Relief Society President in the 18th ward, was appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Cancer society, joined the Embroiders Guide of America, the D.U.P and did secretarial work for the Democratic Party. I also started playing golf, which became a real enjoyment. I continued my long relationship with the bridge club, started in 1950.

When we both retired in 1980, we bought a travel trailer and for ten years we enjoyed travels all over the Northwest, and particularly every year going to Campbell River on north Vancouver Island where Pete went salmon fishing in his little boat and I played golf. Lorie and Charley met us there one year and for three years we went to Campbell River with Jeanne and Art Racine - our long-time friends.

Wayne, Amy, John and Natalie spent a good part of their summer vacations with us in the trailer at Grand Jean where we parked it each summer. We had marvelous times those summers - fishing, going horse back riding, swimming in the warm water pool and in the hot pools; picking huckleberries. Mary Margaret joined us as soon as she was old enough to leave her mother. We took all the grandchildren to the Oregon Coast, to Silver Plunge, Yellowstone Park, Magic Reservoir and many other places in Idaho.

Eventually Pete was unable physically, to handle the trailer and we reluctantly sold it and the boat. As each grandchild turned 12, we took them on a special trip. Wayne went with us to Washington D.C. for a wonderful week of sight-seeing including a boat trip to Mt. Vernon. Amy went with us and our friends from South Carolina the Phillips and their 12 year old granddaughter, on a cruise to the Caribbean which was a luxurious vacation for all of us. We took Natalie on a cruise to Hawaii accompanied by Amy so Natalie would have someone to "play with". John's cruise was to Alaska where he fell in love the spectacular county and the food served on the ship, especially the midnight Buffett. He later married a girl from Ketchacan Alaska. When Mary Margaret turned 12, Pete was having many health problems, and unable to travel, so we paid for her to go to Europe with Jake, Ann and Amy.

The loss of my Mother, who died at age 83 in 1979 was a great sorrow to me. She was an extraordinary woman, and a wonderful example to all of us. From her humble beginning as a bakery clerk, she soon became their bookkeeper. During the war she was a bookkeeper for an automatic music company and later ran her own drapery business and eventually became the travel agent in Boise for the Ester James Travel Agency of Salt Lake City. She was also a tour guide for the tours and traveled all over the United States. Many people, especially older women, would only go if Effie Baxter was going to be the guide. She always lived in her little remodeled house and although she never achieved affluence, she was able to Iye comfortably and independently. She passed on to me her philosophy that you should save at least half of what you earned. I was in charge of her funeral and settling her estate. My sister and brother were both amazed, as I was, as to how much money she had saved and passed on to us.

We also took a wonderful cruise with our friends, the Phillips though the Panama Canal and also a cruise from New York City, up the coast to Maine and down the St. Lawrence seaway to Quebec and Montreal. Ann encouraged me to write about the most frightening event in my life. This experience is it. Our last cruise began in New York City and we arrived at the Newark airport. We collected our baggage and boarded a bus to take us to the cruise ship in the New York harbor. The bus we boarded didn't leave for 45 minutes. We sat waiting - but Pete finally had to get off to go to a restroom. Upon leaving the restroom, he made a wrong turn and exited at the wrong spot - there were no buses in sight - so he thought we had left him and proceeded to make his way to New York and the harbor - first by a local bus going toward New York, then by taxi; finally getting out on 42nd street and then by foot toward the cruise ship which he had in in his sight.

In the meantime, when he didn't return to the bus where all the passengers were waiting for him, I had to get off, struggling with all our carry-on to see if I could find him. I got help from the cruise ship personnel who had the whole airport alerted; had the rest rooms, medical stations search, called over the loud-speakers, etc. But no Pete. I looked everywhere, while all the busses going to the cruise ship kept leaving.

Finally, after fervent prayer, I decided to board the last cruise ship bus and arrived at the boarding building - when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Pete scrambling through some landscape bushes - and we met each other at the entrance - my prayers were answered, but I didn't let him out of my sight for the rest of the trip.

It was my first trip to New York, and instead of enjoying the view of the Statute of Liberty, the Hudson River, the New York skyline and all the aspects if the big city life, all I could think about was what had happened to him; how I could find him; would have to call Jake and tell him to come to New York to find his Dad, I vowed that if we made if home safely, I would never go on another cruise.

We worried about Wayne going on his mission to California and about John on his mission to Mexico. We Followed all their romantic attachments and were able to go to the weddings when Wayne married Alicia and Amy married Ryan. I was able to go to John's wedding, which was held at the Timpanogas Temple but because of his health problems, Pete was unable to attend.

Two years before our Canadian cruise, we went on a battlefield tour of all the places in Europe where Pete's outfit - the 99th division - had served during the war. We went with our friends - the Phillips. H.B. Phillip had been Pete's company commander during the war and the two of them had formed a close friendship. Pete helped rescue H.B. when he was injured during the battle of the bulge. What fascination to travel to Belgium, France, Germany, and Austria and see all the places where Pete had been during the war. Of special interest, pertaining to war incidents, Pete had helped liberate the prisoner of war camp where our brother-in law, Charley, had been held.

Shortly after our Canadian cruise, Pete suffered a stroke, had a blood clot in his leg, back surgery, kidney stones, another stroke, a heart attack, the onset of diabetes cataract surgery and as I write this (1-8-2000) he had just returned from two weeks in the hospital from a serious infection and possibly another stroke. In 1980, just before he retired, he had cancer of the bladder and had to have his bladder removed. And as a urostomy patient, had health problems related to this procedure. He withstood this terrible procedure with bravery and never complained over his fate. He continued to be super-active all the years following until his stroke. Even now, although he is restricted in his activities, he iOS cheerful and pleasant. His balance is precarious, and walking is a struggle for him. For the past two years, I have planted and cared for the garden, taken care of the yard, mowed the lawn, done all the driving, took care of our finances, income taxes and helped him with his health problems. I am only writing about this to show how I have been blessed with excellent health and energy. I love to play golf and am so "addicted" that I would plan every day if I could. I especially enjoy playing golf with Jake in McCall.

I have truly enjoyed having Lorie and Charley move back to Boise. My dear friend, Rhea Snow, had moved to Provo to be near her sons, my best and oldest friend, Jane Williamson died in august 1999 and I'll never completely recover from losing her; Dortha and Andy have moved to California - so our lives are slowly coming to the end. However, I plan to be around for some time to come. We get together often with Lorie and Charlie and I reminisce over our childhood. We also talk about our brother Glenn, who was such a darling person and who died from a heart attack when he was only 58 years old. Because of his military career we saw very little of him and his family, but loved him dearly.

Our greatest joy has been having Jake, Ann and their five children and husbands and wives as our constant companions and sharing their joys and sorrows. Our greatest hope is that they will all marry worthily and have great grandchildren for us to enjoy.

THE END