Arlin Bartschi

I took some night classes at the college institute and started meeting more friends. My roommate was dating a boy and she wanted me to double date with her one night, so they set me up with one of his roommates on a blind date. That was the night I met Arlin Bartschi. We had fun and did a lot of things with them. When Christmas came, I went to Snowville for the holidays and Arlin went back to Nounan. I sent him a Christmas card and he sent me one too. I was excited to hear from him. He was what you would call tall, dark, and handsome. Ha ha!
Arlin Bartschi
After the holidays we started dating more and more and enjoyed being together. Arlin had such a funny sense of humor, and loved to scare people. I guess I had told him once how scared I was of mice, so one night we were walking down the sidewalk on our way to a movie and he held out his hand and said, “Here.” I held out my hand and he handed me a rubber mouse. I jumped and screamed “Oh S---!” He never let me live that down for a long time. Ha ha! He was always scaring me and loved to watch me jump.
My parents knew I was dating Arlin and were anxious to meet him, so we made the trip to Snowville. He was right there to help Dad with the chores, and Dad thought he was wonderful. He went with me to Dave’s mission farewell and spent all day in the kitchen helping mother wash dishes. When he asked them if he could marry me, it wasn’t hard for them to say yes. Ha ha!
Arlin shared this version of our courtship: “Like most other things I did in life I was a little slow in the uptake of dating and going out with the girls. I think I had one date in high school, and then spent three years on a mission. I didn’t get a running start. There were so many other things I liked doing running with the boys, I didn’t give it much of my time. As I got older, and with a little pushing from my sisters and others, I thought maybe it was something I should look into. When I was at Utah State, my best friend Karl Peterson kept encouraging me along those lines. There was lots of help trying to get me started. I did go with some nice girls, but some lived so far away I couldn’t get excited about going so far away from home. Ha! Then one of my other friends was going with a girl and wanted me to take her roommate on a date so we could double. Well, this girl’s name was Karolyn and she was from Snowville, Utah not too far from Logan. I remembered I had a classmate by the name of Joe Larkin who was from Snowville. When I told him I had gone on a date with Karolyn, he told me to keep going with her because she sure came from a good family. Well it wasn’t long before I went to Snowville and met her family. I felt right at home because they were farmers and lived the same lifestyle I had been raised with. It wasn’t long before I took Karolyn home to Nounan to meet my family. They all fell in love with her and took her under their wings. The rest is history and she is still keeping me around. I made a good choice.”
We were engaged in March and set our wedding date for June 3rd. It was exciting and lots of fun having bridal showers, finding a wedding dress, and making all the plans for our wedding. We found an apartment that had a kitchen, bath, and living room. Our bedroom was just a bed that came down out of the wall (murphy bed) at one end of the living room. It was small, but in our price range. Ha!
We were married on June 3, 1959 in the Logan Temple. It was a beautiful June day. Our reception that evening was in Snowville. We had a great turn out, with lots of dancing and fun for everyone.
We decided to go to Sun Valley, Idaho for our honeymoon. When we got there, we couldn’t afford to stay there or even eat. Everything was so expensive, and we were rather poor. We spent one night in Ketchum, in a cute little log cabin with red checkered curtains.
Then we went to Craters of the Moon, and explored Idaho Falls near the temple and stayed a night there. Little did we know that was going to be close to our future home the rest of our life. After the honeymoon we went back to Nounan and had a reception there with Shirley and Vickie’s help.
We received many wonderful gifts and had fun fixing up our little apartment. One of our wedding gifts was a Cuckoo clock that we kept in the living room/bedroom. I would be getting dressed and that cuckoo bird would pop out and scare me to death. Arlin already had me so jumpy from scaring me so many times. We kept very busy with our jobs and Arlin’s school work. I’d help him study and drill him on the nights before his tests. He did get better grades and our hard work paid off. I tried to support us financially as much as I could, and Arlin worked at construction and painting to help us get through school. He worked hard that first summer and tried to save as much as he could to get ready for school that fall. Elda was our landlady and she was a beautiful knitter. She taught me how to knit and I made sweaters that winter for Arlin, me, and our future baby.