Personal History - First Home

Where was your first home?

I feel I've already answered this question in full. But now I can't find the answer.

Though my life began in Florida, I don't remember any of that.

We moved when I was six weeks old, with Hurricane Camille on our heels. Seat belts were optional in those days, and my mother tried to drive the family car and breastfeed me at the same time.

I feel lucky to be alive.

We then landed in Orem for a short time, and from there, we came to sunny Salt Lake City, where we lived on 322 Quince Street, the first home I remember.

The First Home Memory That Stuck...

My first memory involved blue legs, like tree trunks. Looking up and up, to see very tall men in suits in our family living room. Missionaries from our church. Everyone and everything seemed really tall back then.

The stairs might as well have been carved into a mountain. I feared falling down them (and probably pushed my little brother down them a time or two - can't remember very well now).

We split the home with another lady who lived downstairs - her name was Doncella, I believe, and as a child, I feared her. I think I saw an ant on her once, and felt afraid that if I touched her, I would get ants on me too. I have no memory of ever visiting her half of the house, even though she and my mom talked frequently.

Come along for a virtual tour.

My Bedroom

My bunk bed (one of four that I shared with three brothers) seemed gigantic. And younger brother fell out of that one too, and survived. An impressive feat. I used to spin on that bed, hoping to turn into Wonder Woman. One Christmas I was dragged out of that bed and forced to put on a costume and pretend to be Mary in an impromptu Nativity presentation. My brother Mike played Joseph, Peter pulled off a nice shepherd, and baby Paul laid in the crib and nailed the Savior. It's a cute picture, but I got yelled at at least once for being grumpy about it, so the memory is slightly tainted.

...To The Living Room...

The living room in my home held a black-and-white TV, with tinfoil on the rabbit ears from time to time. Getting good reception took some effort, but Saturday morning cartoons wove a magic spell every weekend. And for some reason, adding sugar to those cartoons just supercharged the effect.

...To the Kitchen...

Only a few steps took you to the kitchen, a small white room with a table, a fridge, and a drying rack, with another bedroom to the side. Mom would make bread for us in huge batches - seven or eight loaves at a time - and I would help her knead, up to my elbows in a big washtub of rubbery dough.

I learned to make cake there, and pasta. (Such a carby childhood - again, glad to be alive!) My father tried to get me to eat tomatoes there, and many years passed before I could. Then there was the rabbits...but that's a horror story for another day.

...To the Backyard.

Out the door out back, and a jungle unfolded to one's view. A cement area close to the house, but after that, it was dogs and trees and mud pies and a gigantic wall with vines hanging down.

For some reason, backyards in Utah seemed to extend forever in a sort of Narnia effect when I was a kid. I didn't always go all the way to the back, like my brothers did though. Or maybe my mind did some embellishing of my surroundings.

I would stop about halfway to the wall, and turn around and look at the view of my house, the Lemon's house next door, and the street heading down towards our church and Temple Square.

...and Down the Street to the Rest of my World

Behind the wall was steep mountains, and if you went a little ways to the left down the street and up the hill, the Utah Capital building arose into view along with those mountains. A little further to the left, and the spires of the temple rose.

Everything seemed to tower over me, and left me feeling a strong sense of awe a lot of the time.

This summer my family is planning a return to that place, where I'm sure my bubble of memory is likely to bust. Nothing's ever as big as it used to be. Still, that sense of nostalgia for that home is definitely worth the trip.

Follow-Up

My mother corrected me on several points on this story, as follows...

"...we never lived in Orem. We lived in Ogden when we first moved to Utah. Also, Doncella never lived in the same house with us. She was a family friend. The people who lived in the basement apartment at the Quince Street house were a young couple. My memory of them is inviting them to come to dinner, at which time the young man proceeded to tell me that his mother's food was so much better than mine. We never did become good buddies."

LOL! Oh well - at least I remembered it started with an 'O'! :-) And I don't remember Mr. and Mrs. Manners at all...