I was born on July 24, 1937 in Ogden, Utah and all the Mormons were celebrating my birthday that day (Pioneer Day) Ha! My parents were Rulon Alan Ward and Rose Dredge. They lived across the street from each other and were good friends. In fact, when my father was born Grandma Ward didn’t know what to name him. She was visiting with Grandmother Dredge and she suggested she name him Rulon. Little did she know at the time she was naming her future son-in-law.
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| Rulon Ward and Rose Dredge |
Mother wrote about their courtship: “We’d grown up together and were more like brother and sister. We’d been in each other’s homes all our lives and he’d always called my mother Aunt Nellie. A day after I came home from college, Rulon came right over to our home and asked me for a date for Saturday night. I thought he was just kidding so I said, “Oh, sure!” A few days later, he called me on the phone to check and see if we really had a date, and I told him I thought he had been kidding me. He said, “Well, I’m not!” We went together for six weeks before we were engaged, and we were married in three months.”
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| Rose and Rulon Ward |
Dad and mom were married October 21, 1936 in the Logan Temple. Early that next Spring mother and dad moved out on the ranch by Snowville, Utah. Grandpa Ward had purchased some ground in that area. Their first home was a sheep camp and they worked hard burning sagebrush and clearing the ground for farming. Mother was expecting me that summer. Daddy taught her how to shoot a 22 gun. Instead of “Annie Get Your Gun” It was “Rosie get your gun”. She spent a lot of her time shooting rabbits, rattlesnakes, and squirrels. When I was born, I was shell shocked and have never been able to slow down or sit still for very long since.
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| Rulon and Rose Ward |
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| Karolyn Rose Ward |
My parents named me Karolyn Rose, after my mother’s first name. Dad always used to sing this song “Carolina Rose” to me. I was born at the McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah. Mother recorded some memories of my early years: “When we brought [Karolyn] home, I’d boil bottles and water and prepare several bottles of milk. She only nursed a small amount out of one bottle and that took her all day. Rulon said he knew he’d made a big enough hole in the nipple, so it had to be that something was very wrong with our baby. So off we went 150 miles to see Dr. Ward in Ogden, Utah. He looked her over and really checked everything and looked at us and said, “There’s nothing wrong with this kid.” He tried her bottle and said, “She’s nursing strong, so it has to be the nipple.” He got a large safety pin and heated it hot and put it in the end of the rubber nipple and made the hole larger. Then he sat down and fed her and she really emptied the bottle. He showed us how to burp her also and said, “You kids take this baby home and fix her other nipples like I’ve shown you, and I want to check her in a month.” We felt like crawling out the door, we were so embarrassed. It didn’t take Karolyn long to get fat and sassy when she got a chance to eat. She was a good baby. She only had a little fuzz on her head which was a light blonde color. I thought she’d never get her hair. I put bonnets on her for a long time because people would say, “That’s a fine-looking boy you’ve got there!” even though I had her dressed in frilly girls clothes."
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| Karolyn on the farm |
"When her hair grew in, it was fine and curly, just like her dad’s hair. Rulon started jumping Karolyn up and down on his lap when she was four or five months old and she loved that. She’d about wear everyone out wanting to jump constantly. So we got a jumper and she really got her exercise and developed her muscles and legs, so that is no wonder she started walking at eight or nine months of age.” (Experiences and Memories of Rulon Allen and Rose Dredge Ward, p. 33)
