Memory from Jerry

We often hear stories of widowed women who even though they themselves have very little are still willing to give to the Lord’s church from their meager store.  Our mother, Verna Davis, was just such a women.  A few years after our father died, our ward was divided and a new church building was needed.  At that time, people in the ward had to contribute 50% of the cost of a new building.  Along with fund raisers, members were given an assessment.  The bishop did not want to give mother an assessment due to her meager income but she insisted she could contribute.  She was a great cook and a terrific candy maker, especially her peanut brittle, which she poured onto a marble slab and with rubber gloves, would stretch the hot candy until it was paper thin and would melt in your mouth.  She came up with a plan to make and sell her candy at Christmas time.  She got the word out about her candy sales, bought one-pound boxes, individual candy papers, ingredients and got to work.  The one pound boxes of peanut brittle were her best sellers.  She also offered boxes of assorted candy which included home-made chocolates, stuffed dates, divinity, fudge, toffee, caramels and others.  Mother made the best molasses taffy I have ever tasted and that could even be included.  Mother worked long hours, the house smelled delicious and candy boxes were stored everywhere.  If my memory serves me correctly, she did this two years.  I don’t know the exact amount she contributed to the building fund but I believe it was several hundred dollars and she had done her part in building up the kingdom.  The building she contributed to is the building Mary and Don Belnap meet in at present.  She knew the church was true and knew the Lord would bless her when she put her faith and trust in Him.  I think both Lyle and Paul make candy from mother’s recipes.  Others might do the same.  Both the candy and the example are a legacy for us.
       

The Faith of a Family by Roger Davis

It was Friday, 9 Oct. 1953 day of the “Little-Brown-Jug” football game. This game was the traditional cross-town revelry between Ogden and Weber High Schools. The victor received the honor to hold the trophy, a brown
jug, until the following year. It was a big event in Ogden, Utah. I was sixteen years old and a junior at Ogden. I arrived home after an exciting day. The thrill of the game was on the minds of the student-body and we had a great pep-rally that had raised the excitement level even higher. I was looking forward to attending the game at the rodeo grounds on 17th Street. It was a beautiful fall day and I felt so good and happy. There was a basket of freshly harvested plums setting on the back porch of our home on Monroe Boulevard just south of 32nd Street. I grabbed a handful and went to my radio shack to work on my hobby. It wasn’t but a few minutes after eating the plums that I experienced the most painful stomach cramp. Usually a cramp will ease after awhile but not this one and it was so
painful. I went looking for Mother. She began treating me with treatments she had used over the years to keep her family healthy. Nothing would ease the pain. I could not sleep and Mother was up with me all night. I even tried standing on my head to ease the pain. Dr. Ross, our family doctor, arrived in the morning and after an exam said it appeared to be appendicitis. He offered to drive me to the Dee Hospital and prepare for surgery. At the hospital I remember being awakened several times throughout the day with doctors pocking and probing me and asking where it hurts. All I could say was: “it hurts everywhere.” By Saturday evening they decided to do exploratory surgery to find the problem. My sister Shirley was a nurse at the Hospital and was given the permission to watch the surgery
but not participate. The next thing I remembered was waking up Sunday morning hearing Father telling members of my Sunday school class what had happened. I was amazed as I heard that my small intestine had become strangulated by hole in the lining of my stomach and when they operated gangrene required them to remove about three feet of it. I was woozy and fell in and out of sleep as I tried to visit. Dad said that I was very blessed to be alive. I knew that my family had been fasting and praying for me and that I had received a priesthood blessing. I was in the hospital twelve days and my parents and siblings took turns sitting by my bedside. Late one night Donald became worried about my deep sleep and irregular breathing. He kept looking for someone to check me but could find no one. Finally a nurse friend of Shirley’s, who was just getting off work and thought to herself “I’ll check on Shirley’s brother before I go home” came in the room. She realized that I had been given too much pain medicine and my pulse had become very slow. She sounded the alarm. Doctors came running from all parts of the hospital.
They gave me a shot of Adrenalin that got my heart going again and caused me to wake up with a shock. I saw Dad, Paul, Donald and several Doctors in a circle around my bed. I kept saying: “what’s wrong, what’s wrong.” They said: “everything is OK now, just go to sleep”, they gave me a priesthood blessing during which I fell asleep. This happened before anything had been written about near death experiences. Two things that I remembered very distinctly were a very bright light that was the center of my focus and the indescribable peace. It was so peaceful that I was upset for being forced to wake up. I am grateful for Mother’s care through a long painful night, for Shirley watching over me in the operating room, for Dad’s blessings, for Sterling building me a new radio shack, for Paul managing all the bills, for all who took care of me in the hospital, for Donald and Shirley’s friend who followed the promptings of the spirit and for the faith and prayers offered in my behalf. I will be eternally grateful that I belonged to a “Family of Faith.” I didn’t get to go to the “Little-Brown-Jug” game but am still alive. I don’t know who won, probably Ogden. Ha

Memories from the past by Sterling

Our rental house located at 655 30th Street in Ogden, Utah, was small, five rooms, compared to present day home construction. In the eyes of a six year old in 1935 it was huge and magnificent. We lived there eleven years. The house faced north. The east side consisted of a living and dining room separated by a large archway, and a kitchen with a closed-in mud porch covering the exit to the back yard. The west side had a front porch, two bedrooms and a closed-in back porch. A bathroom and two walk-in closets were located between the bedrooms and the outside west wall. You passed through the master bedroom to get to the bathroom. You passed through the other bedroom to get to a large walk-in closet. This closet was large enough to accommodate a baby crib. It was by this crib that I spent many hours rocking Carolyn to sleep. It seemed that my job became one of watching out for Carolyn, putting her to sleep and responding quickly when she awoke. I was twelve years old at the time. We became fast friends. The house was placed on a half basement located below the bedrooms and bath. Entrance to the basement was down a concrete stairway, which I fell down once, covered by a trap door in the floor of the back porch. This closed-in porch was large enough to accommodate two double beds. The basement contained a storage room, where bottled fruit and other food items were stored, a room to store two tons of coal, the furnace to heat water, and room enough for a double bed. The house was heated with hot water radiators, one located in each of the five large rooms. The kitchen was the center of activity, however, we always ate the evening meal and Sunday dinner as a family in the dining room. The boys slept in the unheated back porch and in the basement, the two girls, Arlene and Shirley prior to 1941 and Shirley and Carolyn after 1942, (Arlene was married before Carolyn was born), occupied the center bedroom, which had no windows, and our parents occupied what we called Grand Central Station, because of the location of the bathroom. Christmas was always a special family time. A tree was set up in the living room. Stockings, chosen from Dad’s closet because ours were too small, were pinned to the back of the davenport, because there was no fireplace in this house. Each child was busy making, or searching for just the right gift to give. In school we made presents of calendars and hand prints for our parents. I remember the first time I had money enough to buy something for each family member. I spent many hours searching the stores in downtown Ogden to find a toy for those younger than I, and something useful for those older. I remember the secrecy of wrapping and hiding each item, then Christmas Eve when they were carefully placed under the tree. On Christmas morning I was always amazed at how the quantity of presents had increased around the tree. The circle of gifts seemed to extend to the center of the room. The stockings contained a toy and were also stuffed with nuts, still in the shell, and a large orange, a real treat in those days. Dad would distribute the gifts. In later years it was the older brothers and with the passage of time, I had a turn. Some of the gifts were for the children in general, such as the snow sled or the red wagon. My gifts from Santa, I remember most, are a wind-up caterpillar tractor one year, and a set of Tinker Toys with an electric motor, another year. What I remember most of all is the feeling of love of family, the older children taking care of the younger, all of us loving our parents, and the great love of our parents for each of us individually and collectively. We were a happy family in that house on 30th Street.