Family Story - The First Home I Remember

My first home that I remember was in Salt Lake City, at 322 Quince Street. It was a historical pioneer neighborhood that had been standing ever since homes were built in Utah. Growing up as a young child in this neighborhood was kind of magical.

We (my father, mother and my three brothers) lived on the top floor of the house – a lady named Doncella lived downstairs. Our neighbors in the big yellow house were Brother and Sister Lemon (go figure).

The front steps were very steep for my little legs. I held onto the railing very tightly going up and going down, especially after watching my older brother Michael go rolling down the steps once. I lived in fear of falling down those steps.

Inside the house, there was the living room. We had a small piano I liked to plunk upon, and I’m sure I annoyed many, many people. My mother got her friend, Linda Shirts, to try to give me piano lessons, and I couldn’t keep up my interest in it – one of the great regrets of my young life. 

We had an old black and white TV with foil-covered rabbit ears in that room, where we would watch Saturday morning cartoons, and I would lay on the floor with my feet over my head pointing straight up, because it felt good. I didn't know it was a yoga pose I was doing until later in life, and I had a very flat belly because of it, and felt very proud of myself.

We had a rocking chair in the living room that I loved. My mother’s mom, Lora Fowler, lived with us for a while before she passed away. She would rock me in that rocker, which was a very pleasant experience. I spent an entire day, learning to tie my shoes, sitting in that rocking chair.

My bedroom was loaded with bunk beds, for myself and my brothers. I remember my younger brother rolling off the top bunk, and I feared for my own little life up on the top bunk, so I usually got the bottom bunk. We went through chicken pox together in that room, passing the useless calamine lotion bottle around. I learned to read in that room. My brother or my grandmother would read to me, and I would take the book and read to myself. I could read before I started kindergarden.

The living room went into the kitchen, where I have memories of my arms up to my elbows in bread dough. My mom made dough in a bowl as big as a washtub to my child mind, and she would make 15 loaves at a time, every week. She also did canning when I was a child, and I loved her canned fruit and her canned cherries on cottage cheese.

The worst memory I have in that kitchen was my father trying to make me eat raw tomatoes, which were the worst thing in the world I could have ever put in my mouth. Hated them – but I love them now. My other worst memory of that kitchen was the day my father butchered our pet bunnies. I had no idea it was coming, but one day our pets became dinner. I saw the dead bunny head in the trash, and the carcasses hung for disemboweling, and I ran crying into the bedroom and wished for terrible things to happen to my father.

I’m glad my child-pleadings were not answered then, since, being a child, I was completely oblivious to the fact that we lived in pretty desperate poverty. My father made 7/an hour grinding lenses in Salt Lake, and my mother stayed at home to raise us. I thought that everybody went to the Church Welfare Center to get food. My dad had determined that he couldn’t justify raising rabbits when his children needed the food more.

My grandmother had a sewing room off to the side of the kitchen, while she was alive. It was piled high with cloth and patterns and a big iron sewing machine. I wasn’t very interested in sewing though – never have been.

It was the backyard that really entranced me, as a child. We had a cement patio, and an area set off with chicken wire for the dogs (when we had dogs – we usually did). Often I had to feed those dogs, and doing so was terrifying, because they would jump on me.

Often I went past the patio and into the jungle area behind our yard. There were tall trees, and lots of grass, and it went up the hill until it ended at a big wall. Everything looked so huge as a kid.

I loved to play out there. My brother convinced me to shed my clothing and get all natural back there, and the Lemons called my grandmother, who came running out and grabbed me, smacking my bare butt, and telling me to get in the house and get to my room and get some clothes on.

So I ran to my room crying, and I prayed for God to take her away, just like I had for my father when he butchered my pet rabbits that I loved.

And He did.

She passed away a day before she turned sixty – she died from heart disease and cancer, a double whammy.

And I prayed for a long time after that, wishing that I could take it back, what I said. 

But I couldn’t bring her back. She looked like my grandmother, laying there in her big satiny coffin at the funeral, but her arm felt like wood.