After Roger graduated from high school, he enrolled at I.S.U. in a general program. He played football. He made many new friends on the football team. At Thanksgiving we invited a lot of them for dinner. We had about 30-35 people. It was a great day.
Roger was again having a great time—but doing little studying. His grades were poor. He had to retake some classes because he failed. It was just a terrible year for me because I was so worried about him. I had hoped he would go on a mission, but when he became 19 he was not interested in going. He started school again the next year. He wasted so much time and money on classes where he didn’t study!
Roger worked for Talent Search at college, as Dale had done. All through high school and college Roger worked for the Pocatello recreation department, full time in the summers and part time during the school year.
Roger always had lots of friends around. For a couple of years he and his friends played games at our house on Sunday evenings after church. Many kids lived with us, beginning with a friend Dale brought home. I can’t even remember all of the kids who lived with us for a semester, or a few weeks, or a month or two or for a few days. I got so I was never really sure who I’d find sleeping in the basement bedrooms.
In December of 1972, Roger asked me if two boys could come and live with us until basketball season was over. They were Rick Edwards, a ninth grader, and his brother Jeff Edwards, a tenth grader. Roger had gone with the boys’ older sisters, Lynette and Derra Lee, all through high school. He had been sort of a big brother to the boys. The boys’ mother and stepfather were moving to a small farm west of Blackfoot and the boys did not want to go with them. They were both playing basketball and wanted to finish the season. None of the four children got along with their stepfather. In fact, the girls had already moved out. Rick and Jeff moved i. Only Roger and I were at home so we had plenty of room. They stayed for 7 ½ years. They left for some things for a while but it was 7 ½ years before they moved out permanently. I learned to love them both. I consider them my sons. Their mother gave me $50 a month and then $60 to help with groceries. But I largely supported them. I did their laundry, helped them with their studies, let them use my car as my own sons had done, attended their games and did all the things a mother does. Their own mother bought their clothes.
At the beginning of the second semester, another friend of Roger’s moved I with us. Dale Morrow lived with us during the school year until he graduated from college two- and one-half years later.
An ironic thing happened. As soon as Roger had gotten these three fellows moved in to our home, he began to think about going on a mission. When he went, the three boys stayed with me. I was glad to have them all. I’d really been lonesome without them. Derra Lee also came and lived with me during this time for three years. Lynette lived with us a little too.
The only bad thing was that Dale and Jeff didn’t like each other. We never had any real problems, but they were not friends.
Having Jeff and Rick with me was great. They each had lots of friends who were at our home. They also each had steady girlfriends who were around a lot. Jeff decided to run for student body president. I helped him with his campaign as did some teachers. He won and was the student body president at Pocatello H.S. his senior year, 1974-75. It was great for him!
The fall of 1973 I transferred to Pocatello H.S. to teach English. I had been at Irving for nine years teaching English and literature. I had such dear friends, especially Sharon Fleischman and Sharon Call. We all went to Poky together. Sharon F. went first. She found out they needed another English teacher and told me. I went two weeks after school had started. Then a couple month later Sharon C. joined us. She had planned to lay out that year, but changed her mind when a position at Poky became available. We taught together there for eleven years. Ronda Black was also teaching there. I had taught her in fifth grade many years before. The four of us became such fast friends and had such good times together! We still go to games and dinner together. We think alike. Once Sharon Call told me that she had quoted me to someone. We really laughed about it because I had not said what she credited me with. But she said, “I knew what you thought about it.” And she did. We four still do not have to express our opinions vocally to each other. We just all think about the same. We are also four opinionated, confident, vocal persons. When we are together, we have two or three conversations going at the same time. It’s stimulating! We all taught English, too. We were all working on advanced degrees, but so far, I am the only one who has gotten a masters.
I found some other dear friends at Poky, but they were not a part of our little group. There was Beryl Taylor, Arlin Walker, Louise Hunt and Karen Hunzaker. I truly liked and admired my principal Dale Hammond and Dick Fleishmann, Sharon’s husband, who was vice principal. It was a great faculty—not a single person I didn’t like.
Jeff and Rick, reared in the same home, were quite different. I tried to get them to go to church and take seminary. They had been reared in a totally inactive L.D.S. home. Weekends, and especially Sundays had always been the time when they rode horses, skied and worked around the barns. After they came to live with us they saw me going to church all the time, and Roger frequently. Rick began to attend church too, but Jeff always had some excuse.
Both boys had a large group of boy friends who did the same things the boys had always done on Sundays. Jeff stayed with his friends. They were no bad boys—in fact, were good boys—but they did not attend church nor have many goals. Rick, on the other hand took seminary and began going with a very active L.D.S. girl. She was a good influence on him. He hated to lose his friends, boys he’d known and played with since grade school. I felt badly about it too, but Rick decided he wanted to be a different kind of person, so he gradually did a complete turnaround. He graduated from seminary, advanced in the priesthood ad studied hard at school. He stopped running around with and of his old friends. Later he made good friends in the groups he now chose to associate with. It was fun to have the boys at the school where I taught. Rick had evidently thought about it q lot and finally decided he was making too much work for me and decided to move back with his mother and stepfather. I was just heartsick because I’d miss him and he really didn’t ant to go. His locker was outside my room where I could see him when he came to it. He packed everything he owned in an old jeep he had, came to school early and checked out and went out to the new high school, which was about 45 minutes away in time to enroll and go to his first class. About third hour and looked out of my room and there was Rick at his locker. I went running out to see what was wrong. “Audrey, I just can’t stand it.!” I went to class and walked around the school and realized no way was I going to that school. I’ll work hard at home to make things easier for you, but I want to stay!” I was of course delighted. The school he would have attended was a dinky rural high school with poor offerings. Pocatello H.S. was a superior school.
Rick did work hard. He did well I his classes and was active in seminary from which he graduated. He was vice president of the seminary student body his senior year. He has always been a source of pride and joy to me.
Jeff had a great year as student body president. I just couldn’t get him to go to church. In his senior year I asked him if, as a favor to me, he would take seminary. He said yes. He took it all year and liked it. I should have approached him that way sooner. He still ran around with his old boy friends and did some partying. Jeff played football and was one of the starters. He played in the backfield. He was very quick and very tough. He dropped out of basketball because he was too short. Rick dropped out too. But both boys were always jocks.
Jeff did not attend church. He was never ordained to any priesthood office. Two boys raised the same, encouraged the same, but quite different. Jeff had a lovely girl he went with all through H.S. until the end of his senior year. Then he began going with Katy, a doll. Both boys were well liked. Jeff was more outgoing than Rick.
Jeff got a scholarship to I.S.U. for being student body president. He began the fall after he graduated, but he didn’t like it. He was never really interested in academics. He quit and tried several different jobs. He finally got a job with the railroad and made this his life work. All the Edwards kids are great skiers and ski at every opportunity. My own kids were not. I worked so much I didn’t have time to take them and besides I couldn’t afford it.
After Roger moved the three boys in with us, he decided to go on a mission. I knew nothing of his decision. He wanted to do it all on his own with no pressure or influence from me. When he was presented to the people of the stake to be an elder, I was not there. I knew nothing about it. Roger and I were going to conference, but I was sick. Roger persuaded me to stay home and he went himself. No one mentioned it to me. I knew nothing about it until Roger received hi mission call. Then he told me and showed me the letter. I don’t think he’d have told me then, but he had to have my financial support. I’ve always felt badly that he did not want me to share any of this time with him. However, the important thing was that he was going on a mission, leaving July of 1873. He served one year in his mission. He worked a lot with the Indians and became a district leader and then a zone leader. After one year, the mission was split and his final year was in the California San Diego mission. His mission was wonderful for him. He gained a testimony of the gospel, developed a talent for leadership and helped many people.
I had begun working at a sort of fast-food place because I just couldn’t make it on my salary. It was a place where there was no tipping. I worked there two years. But with Roger leaving for a mission, I had to have work where I would make more money. I began working at the Highwayman Café of Althea and Ted Marshall. I stayed 8 ½ years and loved it all. I stayed until they went out of business. The tips were good and I liked the people—both customers and my fellow employees. It gave me plenty of money for Roger. In fact, I just stayed on after he came home from his mission. I worked three or four nights a week from five till eleven and Mon. and Wed. and from five till one on Fri. and Sat. They were open on Sundays, but I usually didn’t work, except on holidays. For the about twenty years I worked in cafes part-time, I always worked all holidays. We arranged our family activities around my work. However, holidays were always very busy and I’d be so tired when they were over that I could do little more. We were closed on Christmas but all other holidays I worked. I came to not like Mother’s Day because it was one of the worst days—but good tips!
While Roger was on his mission, Carolyn and her three boys, Steve, Chris and Adam, came home to live. Rick had been sent to Germany and there was no housing available for his family. They stayed with me for seven months. The house was full! Rick and Jeff shared a downstairs bedroom. Dall Morrow had the other one. Carolyn, the boys and I were upstairs. It was during this time that Rick thought he’d better move back with his folks but, as already stated, he didn’t stay.
Steve was about four, Chris about two and Adam about six months. What a delight they were! I had the most food storage I’d ever had, but we used all of it, my money, Carolyn’s money and the token amounts from my foster sons. There were seven of us to feed. Carolyn did a big share of the work. I still taught and worked at the Highwaymen.
After Christmas that year, Carolyn and I decided to go to Salt Lake to see Ann. We had planned on taking my car, but at the last-minute Jeff needed it so we went in Carolyn and Rick’s new V.W. van. We had a terrible wreck on the interstate down near Downy. If we had taken my car, it probably would not have happened. The roads were not too back but we hit an icy spot and began to slide. It was very windy and just as we started to slide a very strong gust of grabbed the van. It was tall and a little top heavy. We were thrown into the air and then bounced back to the ground three times. We ended up on our side between the lanes of the highway. Carolyn was the only one hurt. She had a broken collar bone. One funny thing happened, though it wasn’t funny at the time. Adam was in a car seat in the second row of seats. We had a big bottle of cranapple juice on the floor near him. In the wreck, the lid came off the bottle and Adam was drenched with red juice. When Carolyn looked back at him, she thought he was covered with blood. The wind shield popped out and Stephen who had been on my lap was thrown into that empty space. We were bruised and sore but not hurt. The new van was totaled.
Carolyn went to the hospital and had a cast put on. The stupid incompetent doctor put her in a body cast from her neck to below her buttocks. It was agony and unnecessary for a broken collar bone. One arm was out of the cast. Carolyn worked at caring for her children as best she could. I remember her trying to hang up clothes. With her one hand she would lift an article of clothing from the basket, then hold it in her mouth, get a clothes pin on her one hand, and some way, get it fastened to the line. Rick was given emergency leave and the Red Cross brought him home for one month.
We really had a full house. Everyone helped. A couple of Rick’s sisters came and stayed with Carolyn while I was in school. They each stayed a few days, but there was little help from the Read family.
The first cast broke and Carolyn went to a different doctor who knew what he was doing and took good care of her. After the month, Rick went back to Germany. Carolyn was still in her second cast when he left. After Carolyn and the boys had been with us for seven months, Rick found housing for them on the base in Germany and they left. It was a terrible trip for Carolyn. She was out of her cast, but having the sole care of three little boys all the way to Germany was hard.
With her gone, our house settled back into it normal routine. Dale Morrow had graduated from school the previous spring and no longer lived with us. His girlfriend Debby was at our house a lot an spent a lot of time with us that summer while she attended summer school. She was a dear girl who has added much to my life. She and Dale married, lived in Pocatello and have two children. Dale is always helping me and doing nice things for me. Dale and Roger are as close as brothers.
In 1975, Roger returned from his mission. He was glad to have Rick and Jeff with us. Jeff had finished high school and Rick was going to be a senior. Roger and Jeff have always been very close.
That summer, I suddenly decided I wanted a different house. Our house was a good one, but would require a lot of work to make it the way I wanted it. So, I began looking. I found a house in the Indian Hills. I almost didn’t look at it because I knew it would be too expensive. I went on my own and asked the lady in it if I could look at it. It was new, had been lived in only seven months. The owners were getting a divorce and needed to sell. I loved the house, but still felt it was beyond my means. However, I contacted Richard Dixon, a realtor, and ended up buying the house. My old house would have been paid for in one more year, but I wanted a new one. My old house was sold for a good price and I applied most of it on the new house.
I did keep out $5,000 dollars which I invested in a special carburetor being promoted by the son of a friend of mine. Nothing ever came of it. My one attempt to invest and the only time I had money to invest came to nothing. I realized I took a chance, but I never felt too badly about it. I always felt if it went it went, if not it wouldn’t.
Anyway, we moved in the new house in November of 1975. The three boys were with me. Roger and I each had a bedroom upstairs and Jeff and Rick each had one downstairs. There was only one bedroom, a family room and a bath downstairs. I had another room finished downstairs for Rick. It is the nicest room in the house. He slept in the laundry room until it was finished.
