Arlin’s seminary teaching assignment for that fall 1962 was in Sugar City, Idaho. We had some friends from Idaho, Kay and Joyce Johnson, whose parents lived in Sugar City. They invited us to go home with them on a weekend in April. Bryan was just a few weeks old and we were anxious to see where we would be living. The next morning after we got there, we woke up to snow. That should have told us something then, right? There was no place for us to live in Sugar City, but we found an upstairs apartment in Rexburg. Mother and Dad helped us move from Logan, and Mother helped me get the apartment clean and livable.
On our first visit to our new ward in Rexburg, we ran into our friends The Flamms and The Jeppsens, from Utah State. We couldn’t believe it! They had moved back home and Merle was working on the family farm and Jim was working at the family mortuary. Over the years we have been great friends and have done many things together with our families. I would cut the girls hair and Merle would cut hair for the men (except Arlin) and we would put the money in a jar, which was the money we used to buy gas for all of our little trips we would take together with our small children to Yellowstone Park and Grandpa Bartschi’s ranch.
Arlin got work in construction that first summer and helped build the Kmart building and many homes in the area. That fall before school started, the Stake President asked us to move to Sugar City. They wanted us to be in the community where Arlin would be teaching. They had a home on the church dairy farm. They also needed a relief milker on weekends, so this would help pay our rent. We were thrilled to be able to make the move. The house didn’t have central heat, just wood-burning stoves. Arlin had to do a lot of work fixing it up. He finished the upstairs and made a bedroom for the boys and a playroom. We were expecting another baby in May and needed more room.
Besides Arlin teaching seminary and milking cows on the weekend, he was asked if he would also like to be a school bus driver. So he would get up early in the mornings and go to Newdale, pick up all the students in that area and head back to Sugar City in time for school to start. Then after school he would take them all back home. He loved that job and really got to know all the kids and where they lived. He also drove the sports teams to their games and he loved that. So you can see I was home alone much of the time trying to raise our family. Arlin was a good hard worker and loved to be around people. They all loved him as well, with his humor and all the tricks he played on everyone. His seminary classroom was above the school cafeteria and he came home almost every day smelling like an onion. I guess that is one of the reasons he dislikes them to this day.
We were always very busy with church job and our little family. Our home on the dairy had a fenced in yard and we lived on the main high way. So I felt safe letting the boys outside to play. One day I had made cupcakes and set them out on the back step for the boys to eat them, since I had just cleaned the house and didn’t want crumbs all over. A few minutes later I went to check on them and couldn’t find Bryan. I asked Craig where he was and he said, “He fell in the water and we will have to get another one.” I looked and saw the gate was open where Arlin would go to the dairy barn. There was a small bridge where the canal runs through the property that Arlin always had to walk across. I ran as fast as I could up and down that canal crying and hollering for Bryan. I couldn’t see him anywhere and the water was moving quite fast. A few minutes later the milkman came carrying him out of the barn and asked me if I was looking for him. He was just a little toddler and only had his diaper on. I was never so glad to see my baby. He had gotten the gate open somehow and had made it into the barn. He was tall for his age and had very long arms for just a little guy. That just meant he could get into more trouble. Ha ha! That was one day I knew our Heavenly Father was with us and protecting us, and it was one experience I’ll never forget. Of course I was scared to death of water and never learned how to swim. Arlin even tried to teach me how to swim after we were married, but he finally gave up… you can’t learn how to swim if you won’t put your face under the water. I did make sure all my children learned how to swim, but I hated taking them to swimming lessons. I was always so nervous and just knew they were going to drown, but I was so glad when it was all over and they finally knew how to swim.
On May 8th, 1964 our Lisa Ann was born, weighing 8 lbs, 8 oz. (This was the only birth date and weight her dad could remember, because it was all eights!) I got to bring her home from the hospital on Mother’s Day. What a special Mother’s Day present. She was a darling baby with lots of black curly hair. I was so thrilled to have a baby girl, especially with all that hair that I could play with. She was a thrill for all of us, and the boys really enjoyed their new baby sister. We still lived in the house on the dairy farm. When she started to move around, I had her upstairs in her little walker and told the boys to watch her while I ran downstairs for something. The next thing I heard was her crashing down the stairs, walker and all. They were steep stairs and plenty of them, but she landed at the bottom right side up and still in one piece. We were so lucky she didn’t get hurt, just crying and scared, and it scared all the rest of us as well. Our Heavenly Father was watching over her that day.
In June we had to go to summer school in Provo for six weeks as one of Arlin’s Seminary requirements. We stayed in the girl’s dorm up on the second floor that summer. Arlin and I were busy unpacking the car, coming up the stairs with an arm load of things, only to find our two sweet country boys peeing out over the deck trying to see who had the longest aim. Needless to say, we had to teach them a few things about city life.
