Audrey Chase: The Life Story of Audrey Melissa Wardle Chase: Chapter 8: Parenting Friends of Roger, Roger's Mission, Move

 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.

Chapter Six: The Life Story of Audrey Melissa Wardle: Four Weddings

Chapter 1 A Chapter 1 B  Chapter 2. Chapter 3 Chapter 4A Chapter 4b  Chapter 5  Chapter 6  Chapter 7  Chapter 8.    Chapter 9. Chapter 10

After five years in the house on Wyeth I decided to move. The house was so terrible nothing could be done with is so I looked for a long time for another one. I finally found our house on East Sherman. It had two bedrooms and a bath upstairs and two bedrooms with a bath with a shower downstairs. What heaven that was! One bathroom had always been a problem with so many of us. I had to pay a man to take our old house off my hands. Kenneth had one bedroom downstairs and Dale the other. The rest of us were upstairs. Kenneth and Dale shared the downstairs bathroom. In this house was where we played musical bedrooms. As the children came and went, someone was always ready to move into a bedroom that became vacant, if only for a few months. The new house had a beautiful kitchen. I have such good memories of our family meals in the bright and cheerful dining area. The living room was large. Kenneth frequently brought groups home after a dance. A funny thing happened one night. Dale had taken our car and gone somewhere. It was in the winter and I was so worried about the ice and snow when anyone was driving. Kenneth brought a large group home for cake and ice cream after a dance. They were there for an hour or an hour and a half. I slept in the front bedroom with Roger also there in a single bed. I lay awake worrying and wondering why Dale had never come home. I had checked outside and there was no car. I called the police. I called the hospitals. There was no report of an accident so I just paced the floor and worried. Finally, about 4 a.m., I had sense enough to go down to Dale’s room. There he was, sound asleep. He had run out of gas about two blocks from home so he just left the car. He had come in at the same time as Kenneth and his friends came so I hadn’t heard him. But what a night! Kenneth and Dale took turns with the car each weekend while Dale was a junior and senior in high school and Kenneth was a junior and senior in college. One would use it on Friday night and the other on Saturday. The next weekend they would reverse the days. If one needed the car on a night it was not his, they worked it out. They both took friends with them when they had the car so when they didn’t, they rode with their friends. The rest of us really didn’t need the car those nights. It worked out fine. Roger had gone through the first three grades at Jefferson. With our move he went to Washington. In the fourth grade, he had the worst teacher any of my children ever had. She was a mean old woman and she didn’t like him. His fifth-grade teacher was great. Carolyn was a sophomore at Poky when we moved. It was not a good move for her. There were no girls her age in the ward, a fourth ward again. For two years she attended classes with the girls older than she and they liked her and became her friends. But after they finished mutual, the girls who were one year younger than she was were so nasty to her that she just quit going to mutual. The boys in the ward treated Dale terribly too. He quit mutual and went less to other meetings. Moving to that ward was a bad move. It had never occurred to me that anyone would treat them so badly, or I’d have never moved. I had never been in a ward before where the kids tried to drive other kids from the church. During the years we lived in Pocatello, we took quite a few trips, especially in the summer. Our trips were mostly to the hills, Yellowstone Park, Teton Basin, etc. Sometimes I skipped a house payment to take a trip, but it was always worth it. I wanted to take the children on trips as we had always done when their dad was alive. I figured it was something that had to be done when the children were around, not when I could afford it—which would probably have been never. My children came to love the hills as I do. Ann decided she would like to go to Utah State to school. So in the fall of 1961 she enrolled there in social work. She lived in the dorm with a girl I felt was all wrong for her, but Ann liked her so she stayed with her. Later, she realized that all I had sensed was wrong with the girl really was wrong. But she lived with her for three years first. I kept working at the Green Triangle to keep her in school. One summer she lived with her Aunt Zula and Uncle Nephi at Dayton and worked in a food processing plant at Franklin. She was always very fond of her cousins, Ida Ruth and Lucille, who worked with her. There was some fun, besides just work. In the spring of 1964 Ann graduated from Utah State with a degree in social work. She had loved her years there. The summer of 1963 Carolyn, Ann, Roger and I took an especially good trip. We went up through Glacier National Park and on into Canada to Lake Louise and Banff. We went on east a way through the grain fields. On our trips we always camped out. Roger told me he wasn’t going again if we didn’t get a tent. We camped at a lake at the foot of a glacier one night and nearly froze. We always had scanty equipment; sleeping bags and quilts and we’d cook over a fire. If we’d waited to get better equipment, we’d never have gone. We came home through Montana. It was a great trip. The spring of 1963 dale graduated from Pocatello High School. He had signed up to go in the Navy. The last year he was at home was a bad year for both of us. He just wanted to get away from me. I tried so hard to make things better between us, but they just seemed to get worse. So as soon as he graduated, he left for boot camp at San Diego. I just felt terrible. I truly thought I’d never hear from him or see hm again. But after a couple weeks I got a letter from him. All the time he was in the Navy he wrote frequently and sent money home for me to save for him. That school year of 1962-63 was one of the hardest I ever put in. Dale was a senior at Poky and Carolyn was a junior there. Ann was a junior at Utah State and Kenneth a senior at I.S.U. It was a tough year to make ends meet and I was so worried about Dale that I was just miserable most of the time. Kenneth and the girl with whom he had been dating, Sarah Lloyd, decided to get married. They were married in her ward chapel on July 19, 1963. Sarah had not wanted to be married at the temple because her father couldn’t be with her. They did have a beautiful wedding. They even had an orchestra and a dance at the reception which followed the ceremony. Dale came home from boot camp and was part of the wedding party. We had a family picture taken at this time. I have really treasured that picture. My parents were the only ones of my family who came to the wedding, though some of them lived quite near. The Chases attended in force, as they did everything when we needed them. Kenneth and Sarah had a honeymoon at Lake Tahoe. Kenneth had bought a new car, a Dodge. It was the first car he had ever owned and he was proud of it. He got a job teaching school in Alamo, Nevada and he and Sarah moved there. Kenneth was 25 years old and Sarah 22. Dale loved boot camp and was happy to be in the Navy. He spent three years there and by then he was glad to get out. He never liked the rest of it as well as he did boot camp and wouldn’t reenlist. Getting away from me had made him feel better towards me. When we moved to the house on East Sherman, I changed schools so I could still walk to school. I taught at Roosevelt for two years and Roger went to Washington Elementary. I had a good principal there too, Murray Layne. In fact, in all my years of teaching the principal at New Sweden was the only poor one I had. I made a wonderful young friend at Roosevelt, Annabel Leslie. It was her first year of teaching. She became Carolyn’s friend and they did lots of things together. She was Roger’s friend too. After two years I transferred to Irving Junior High to teach English. I taught, first under Sam Fairchild who was wonderful and then under Ray Holcomb who was at first a good principal, and then because of personal problems a poor one. Mr. Holcomb was always especially good to me. I was very fond of him. My friend, Aileen Johnston, transferred from Roosevelt to Irving with me. When I transferred to Irving, I arranged for Roger to go back to Jefferson for his sixth grade. I did this because he was going to be transferred anyway and I wanted him where he knew some people. Also, I liked having him near me, he could come to my room after school, and I didn’t want him to go to Bonneville where he should have gone. I had my car for my use now, so Roger and I went to school together all this year. After graduating from Utah State in social work, Ann came home and began to look for a job. While looking for a job in her field, she got a temporary job as a waitress in a café. While working there, she met Ferdinand Zdenek, “Zeke.” He was a geologist who was working in the area. He was the neatest fellow but he was not LDS. How Roger and I liked him! Roger was in the seventh grade and Zeke took him on a few trips. Ann went with Zeke for some time. They became engaged and he gave her a beautiful ring. She finally decided not to marry him and returned his ring. He kept in touch with me for a few years and then we lost track of each other. But how I liked him! Ann finally got a job working for the LDS Social Services in Salt Lake. She really liked her job. She worked for them for eight years. My parents were married April 8, 1914 so we had a reception for them on their golden wedding anniversary in Rigby on March 28, 1964. All their children and grandchildren were present. Many friends called to wish them well. It was quite an achievement to reach that fifty hear mark. Over the years that we lived in Pocatello; I saw quite a lot of my parents. I went up to Rigby about twice a month to see them. Roger went with me most of the time. When the girls were at home, they often went too. The children were especially fond of their grandmother. I enjoyed spending time with my parents. If they had been able, they would have liked to help me financially. My parents always quarreled a lot, but I feel they really cared for each other. After spending one year at Alamo, Kenneth and Sarah moved to Babbitt, Nevada where Kenneth taught social studies in the junior high. They had a son David, born April 16, 1965. Carolyn graduated from Pocatello High School in 1964. She enrolled in English Education at ISU that fall. She went there one year. Then she decided to go to the University of Utah. She had a great year there and would have liked to stay and finish her school, but I got sick and had to quit work at the Triangle so I couldn’t afford to keep her at the U of U. Carolyn worked at a rest home and spent part of one summer in Jackson working in a laundry to help with her school expenses. She discovered she didn’t like life in Jackson so she came back to the rest home. While working at the rest home one day, Carolyn fainted. A young girl who worked with her had a child who had epilepsy. She thought Carolyn was having a seizure and that she’d have to get her tongue so she wouldn’t swallow it. When she couldn’t get her mouth open, she picked up a hairbrush and hit her in the mouth breaking out two teeth. Carolyn suffered a lot of pain before her teeth were finally fixed. Carolyn always had good girl friends with whom she had a lot of fun. By 1967 I had not been feeling well for a couple of years. I had pains in y stomach. It just hurt all the time. Finally, one day at school at Irving, I got really sick. I had felt terrible when I got up that morning, but the pain usually lessened if I kept working. I felt nauseated, weak and light-headed in addition to the pain. After a couple of classes, I felt even worse. In fact, I couldn’t sit up any longer. I told my class to keep working while I went in my little store room and lay down because I was so sick. I put my coat on the floor and lay on it. I didn’t think I could feel worse but I did. Two girls kept looking in at me. Finally they went for Mr. Holcomb. He took me to the hospital. I had a perforated ulcer. They kept me in the hospital for two weeks while the tried to stop the bleeding. I had a lot of transfusions. They gave me so much chalky, milky stuff to drink that I have never been able to drink milk since then, nor eat many things made with milk. After two weeks they operated on me and took out a little over half of my stomach. I was still getting lots of transfusions. My doctor finally told me that it wasn’t possible for a person to live if their body wasn’t making blood, but that is what had happened to me. The doctor couldn’t explain it, nor could the internist that was called in. They sent samples of my blood all over the country, but no lab could come up with an explanation. Finally, the decided to discontinue the transfusions and see if my body wouldn’t take over. All this time, for nearly six weeks, I was so weak that to turn my head just a little required more effort than I could make. I remember lying in bed so weak and light-headed that I was scarcely conscious. My neck would be hurting so badly I could hardly stand it because I had been in one position for such a long time, but I didn’t have the strength to turn my head. Just opening my eyes required more strength than I seemed to have. After a few days, my body did begin to take over and make blood again and I began to feel better. After the surgery, I had no problem with my stomach, the pain was gone. It was the problem with my blood which kept me in the hospital for so long. Once again, I had come close to dying. I was in the hospital for six weeks. Roger had a rather bad time while I was in the hospital. He and I were living alone so he was left home alone. He stayed a night or two with friends. Then Dale moved back home so Roger wouldn’t be alone. Dale came back from the Navy in the summer of 1966. He was glad to be back home and back in Pocatello. All my fears that I would never see him again when he went into the Navy were groundless. Dale lived at home for a while then moved into a fraternity house. When I got sick and was away from home for so long, Dale moved back so Roger wouldn’t be alone. Roger was in the ninth grade this year. He had never been anything but a joy and a delight to me. His ninth-grade year he lettered in four sports, football, basketball, wrestling and track. He was becoming a jock. He attended Franklin Junior High all his junior high years. He really had some good teachers and did well academically. While I was in the hospital, both Carolyn and Ann came to Pocatello to see me. They were both living in Salt Lake. Dale enrolled in I.S.U. in the fall of 1967. He was majoring in special education. Dale had started to go with a lovely girl, Ann Montgomery. He made a point of letting me know she wasn’t a Mormon. Some of the things people in the church had done to him plus my emphasis on church had really turned him off on Mormonism. Anyway, I guess that’s what turned him off. I like Annie instantly. I called her Annie to differentiate from my daughter Ann. When I came home from the hospital, Annie had been to the house, cleaned it and put clean sheets on my bed. She was around a lot from then on. She and Dale seemed especially well suited to each other. I was out of school for six more weeks. By then, I was feeling great. The only after effects I ever had from the operation was that I’ve never since been able to drink milk or any other drink with milk in it. I also eat very few milk-based foods. One other thing, I’ve had to be very careful of the amount of any liquid which I drink. I just can’t drink much of anything. Once in a while, if I eat something sweet or if I overeat, I get sick. The sickness just lasts a few hours and always seems to be my fault. I never went back to the Green Triangle to work. I had worked there nine years. The two years I didn’t go to summer school, I worked there full time. I hated every minute I worked there. The work was so hard. Because I was very fast, I did the work of two people. The two summers I worked there, I worked the coffee shop all alone during the lunch hour, that was a long counter, about six booths and about six tables. When I think about it, I don’t know how I did it. The money I made there was a great help. It kept Kenneth on his mission, Ann at Utah State and Carolyn at the University of Utah for one year. My tips were about $5 a might and those tips kept us in gas, odds and ends of groceries, lunch money and Dale and Roger (Carolyn didn’t like school lunches) and spending money for the three children. Their spending money was usually $1 to go to a movie and buy a little treat. They were very careful about money and asked for very little. I especially disliked most of the customers at the Green Triangle. A few of them were ordinary people, but most of them were the lowest kind of people. I hated the drunks. I liked most of the people I worked with. I’m sure forcing myself to work there when I hated it so much was what put me into the hospital. Even now, I shudder to think of that awful place. Carolyn had written to Eric Read for about a year while he was in Vietnam. He was the brother of a girl she had worked with at the rest home. Then they stopped writing for about a year and then resumed. Rick was sent for a second tour of duty to Vietnam. While there he had an R&R in Hawaii and Carolyn went to meet him. She stayed with her cousin Linda. When Carolyn returned, she and Rick were engaged. Roger’s sophomore year at Pocatello High School was good and not so good. He was outstanding in athletics, but he didn’t study much for his classes. He also had some friends who influenced him to start partying a little. He had always been such a good boy that I just couldn’t realize what was happening. I was worried sick about him. I asked Jim, who was then at the University of Southern Illinois if he could get Roger a job back there for the summer. He got him a job working with Dale Millis on an experimental wheat farm. Roger lived with Jim and Ileen. It was a good summer for Roger. Jim had left the farm and went back to school at Utah State. The years that he lived in Hyrum near Logan we had lots of fun times together. While Roger was in the eighth and ninth grades, we took several trips with Jim, Ileen and their family. Roger and Connie always had a good time together. After Jim finished at Utah State, he went to Denver for one year and got an M.A. in Library Science. When he graduated, Roger, my mother and I drove to the graduation. Mother was so proud of Jim. While Ann was at Utah State, Roger and I made many trips to Logan. We continued our trips when Jim and Ileen and family were there. Jim and Ileen liked to have us with them. We felt almost part of their family. That’s why I could ask them to let Roger spend the summer with them and why he wanted to go. This was the summer of 1968. I had begun work on my M.A. in English. After receiving my B.A. in 1960 I continued to take classes, partly because I enjoyed the classes and partly because I wanted a B.A. plus 15 graduate hours to raise myself on the pay scale. After a few years, I began to consider working on an M.A. in English-no Education. I was really terrified to try my first graduate English class. I didn’t think I was smart enough because the English program was so very difficult. But I passed one class, then another and another. My first grade was an “A”. I decided I was already on my way to an M.A. so I applied for acceptance in the Graduate English program and was accepted. Dr. William Shanahan was my advisor. He was fantastic! I had selected a thesis topic, “A Critism of Eighteenth and Twentieth Century Satire: A Johnsonian Approach”, and had begun work on it. After the summer of 1968 was nearly over, we decided to go back to Illinois and pick Roger up to bring him back in time for school. Ann was working in Salt Lake and had a new little car which we drove. Carolyn went with us. We went through Kansas on our way to Carbondale. What a desolate route! When we got to Illinois, we stayed about a week with Jim and Ileen. We really had a good time. Jim and Ileen had some good friends who lived in the same apartment building. They went on vacation and said that I could use their apartment while they were gone. They left the key for me. I went up to their apartment for four to five hours a day for about five days and worked on my thesis. What a wonderful experience! The apartment was air conditioned and no one bothered me. I was there all alone. I got a great deal done. It is the only time in all my studying that I really had ideal conditions. Jim took us to many entertaining places. He was working in the library. We really had a great trip coming home. We were only 300 miles from Hannibal, Missouri. I liked the works of Mark Twain so much that I couldn’t be that close to where he had lived and where he had set some of his books and not go see it. So, we went to Hannibal. We saw Tom Sawyer’s home, Becky’s home, the cave and many other things mentioned in Twain’s books. Of course, it was a tourist town, but it was fun. It was close to Carthage and Nauvoo so we had to go there and see the jail where Joseph Smith was killed, the visitor’s center and other interesting things connected with the early days in the church. We came back by way of the Dakotas and went t the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore. It was great! We came home through Wyoming, through the north entrance of Yellowstone Park. It rained most of the time in the northern part of the park, but that only made it more beautiful. Such mountains! Such trees! We got back in time for Roger and me to start school; Roger as a junior at Poky and me at Irving. Ann went back to her job in Salt Lake. We had stopped in St. Louis where I bought a pretty blue dress to wear to Dale’s and Annie’s wedding. That summer of ’68 before we went to Illinois was really special. Dale and Annie had decided to be married. Annie had graduated from I.S.U. with a degree in social work. She did not want to go home to Caldwell for the summer, so she lived with us. Annie’s mother had died from cancer when Annie was fourteen. All through high school, she had kept house for her dad and two brothers. Her dad remarried while Annie was at college so her home was quite different. She didn’t want to go back there, and we were delighted to have her live with us. It was one of the nicest things that ever happened to me. We had fun together and I learned to love Annie. In many ways, we are much alike. The really wonderful thing was that Annie wanted to be part of our family. She didn’t want to marry Dale and then go away so that they’d seldom see us. She wanted to be around us. It was partly because her own mother was dead, but she learned to love us too. Before we went to Illinois, we sent out wedding invitations. Then Annie went to Caldwell to prepare for their wedding while we went to Illinois. They were married in Annie’s church, the Christian church in Caldwell Sept. 7, 1968. It was a beautiful wedding. Roger was Dale’s best man. Ann, Carolyn and I were there. Kenneth and his family were on their way to the wedding when they had a wreck on the Nevada desert. They were not hurt, but their car had been towed back home. They had a terrible time. Kenneth really felt badly when he couldn’t be at the wedding. Annie had some dear friends, Dessa and Mrs. Finck who helped her with the wedding. We had a lovey rehearsal dinner at the local café. I hosted it. It was very nice. Some of our old friends from Nampa came, also Muriel and Berniece Chase and Berniece’s daughter, Julia. Dale and Annie honeymooned in northern Idaho. They came back to Pocatello to live. Annie got a job working as a social worker at the state hospital in Blackfoot. Dale had a part time job and attended school full time. They had an apartment near us and were around for two more years. Annie was the greatest thing that ever happened to Dale. She really helped and encouraged him so that he was able to finish school. We saw them all the time. Annie liked to be with us. I love her as much as my daughters. In every way she has been a daughter to me. She has always been someone to whom I could talk when I was troubled or worried. How I love her! Rick had come home from Vietnam and he and Carolyn decided to be married. Rick was not LDS but he joined the church and was baptized in Saigon. They were married in the Fourth Ward chapel Feb. 28, 1969. Carolyn was a beautiful bride. Roger and Ann were part of the wedding party. The reception was held in the recreation hall. Bill Green, Verna’s husband, came to town a couple hours before the wedding. He was a help. For some reason, I was ready to fall apart. Carolyn graduated from I.S.U. with a degree in English Education the spring of 1969, after her marriage. Carolyn and Rick went to Tacoma, Wash. Where Rick was stationed at Fort Louis. A year later, May 22, 1970, the were sealed in the Idaho Falls temple. Rick was as wonderful for Carolyn as Annie was for Dale. Together they have grown. They had always reinforced each other. Rick has always been especially good to me. I love him too. Ann, too, decided to get married. She had met Bud Carter in Salt Lake. He was divorce, the father of five children and older than Ann. He was a fine man and was trying hard to care for his children. Ann and Bud were married in Salt Lake, Mar. 15, 1969. They were married at the home of Ann’s bishop. It was a beautiful setting and the wedding was beautiful. So was the bride. Many, many people attended. Once again, I about fell apart. Annie and Carolyn kept me calmed down. We had had three weddings in about seven months. I don’t know how we ever did it all. I really didn’t think I’d survive it all, but I did. I was happy for my newly married children, but it really left me and Roger alone.

Ross Park Pocatello Memories

 We use to hold the William Haston and Annie Serena Sorensen Wardle family reunion at ross Park in Pocatello every other year.  We had some very good times there, eating and exploring the cliffs.  I returned a couple weeks ago and took a few pictures.  I was told at the museum that Dead Man's Cave is no longer there.  However the zoo i there.  The Fort Hall replica is now at the top of the park.  The rides have been removed.  There is still a stage area, but it may have been moved.  There is still a pool across the street, but it is larger and has a water slide.  Also there is a skate park across the street.  I wonder if it my be time to return and have a large reunion.  

Cousin Roger Chase: Mayor of Pocatello

My cousin, Roger Chase, served as mayor of Pocatello for a couple of terms.  He also loved Pocatello more than any place.  When he came to stay with us a coupe times during the summer, in Logan and Pocatello, he was always bored saying there wasn't stuff to do like in Pocatello.  Roger is youngest child of Aunt Audrey Wardle Chase.

My Mom's memories of William and Annie Sorenson Wardle reunions

Wardle Reunion by: Ileen Wardle
The last week in July of even years was a special time for our family as the Wardle [William Haston and Anne Sorenson] reunion would be held in Pocatello, Idaho at Ross Park.  The children enjoyed getting together with their cousins they hadn’t seen since the last reunion.
    Everyone brought a special dish and a big pot luck dinner was served.  We all looked forward to Aunt Lucy’s delicious German chocolate cake, Aunt Lucille’s fresh raspberries that she had picked the day before from her patch.  There were all kinds of salads, baked beans, rolls, chicken, ham and roast beef.  Everyone gathered around the table for blessing on the food, fixed our plates, and ate until one could hardly move.
    After dinner there were many different kinds of games for the children as the adults watched the sack races, foot races and then a good ballgame was played.  Pictures were taken of each family group and then many interesting stories were told of the good old days in the Teton Valley were Grandpa and Grandma Wardle had raised their family.  A program was presented with a member from each family presenting a number such as singing, dancing, playing the violin and speaking.
    In the later part of the day a genealogy meeting was held and family group sheets were brought up to date.  During the meeting most of the children would go swimming.  [There was a pool across the street.] 
A delightful time was enjoyed by all and families again left for their various homes.