We loved our new home and all the space we had. It was worth all of our hard work. We were able to share our home with many over the years. We had three nieces, a cousin, a friend of Cheree’s, and four college boys live with us over a period of a few years.  |
| Finished home in Sugar City, Idaho |
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| Arlin Bartschi |
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| Cheree, Craig, Bryan, Lisa Rosanne, Karolyn, Arlin, Max |
When Craig received his mission call to Australia, I knew I needed to find a job to help support him. Max had just started first grade, so I found a job at Porter’s Bookstore. I worked there for a year, but it was hard because I wouldn’t get home until after 6:00 and had to fix supper and I was never there when the kids came home from school, so it just wasn’t working. So then I talked to Brother Kershaw and asked if there was any need for an aid at the school so I could work those hours and be home when the kids got home. It worked out great and I loved it. I left for work after they left for school, and I was always home by the time the children returned home. I also had the summers off with them. It wasn’t a big paying job, but I made just enough to support our missionaries. I worked with the Chapter One program for 15 years and was able to support all three boys on their missions.
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| Kershaw Intermediate School Co-workers |
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| Karolyn Bartschi |
I loved working with the children on their math, reading, and spelling. It was so rewarding to watch them prove to themselves they could learn and get good grades. Later I picked up a second job working for ArtCo at home in the evenings doing piece pasting for their card sample catalogs. I continued to do that while Max was on his mission.
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| Craig, Bryan, Lisa, Cheree Max, Rosanne, Karolyn, Arlin |
Craig came home from his mission and married his highschool sweetheart, Pam Bowen, on February 11, 1982 in the Logan, Utah Temple. They had dated in high school and she wrote to him while he was on his mission.
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| Cheree, Craig, Bryan, Todd Tolman Pam & Jason, Arlin, Karolyn, Lisa Rosanne & Max After Lisa graduated high school she took some classes up at Ricks College in the fall, and her favorite thing to do between classes or whenever she had time was to visit her dad, because he was always excited to see her and made her feel real special. It also gave her an opportunity to meet any of his students that might be worth dating. One night she had gone to the disco with some friends and a tall, dark, and handsome fellow came up to her at the disco and said, “Aren’t you Arlin Bartschi’s daughter? I think I’ve seen you come into class a few times to visit him.” His name was Todd Tolman, and they started going together after the holidays. When spring semester was almost over, Todd went in to visit with Arlin in his office and said, “I’d like to marry your daughter.” Arlin replied, “I think we ought to shut the door,” and not only did he close the door but he went and pulled down all the blinds in his office that were exposed to the windows in the lab. Arlin and Todd had a good chat because Todd was from Bancroft which is close to Nounan and they had a lot in common. Once Arlin got over the shock, he agreed to let Todd marry Lisa and they were married on July 15, 1983. |
In February of 1985 Arlin’s dad called us and said his pipes had frozen and he didn’t have any water, so we brought him up to live with us and that’s when we took him to the doctor to find out he had cancer. We never did tell him he had cancer. It was in his bones and in his brain and Arlin didn’t want him to know. He just thought he was suffering from bad arthritis. Just a few short weeks before he passed away I thought, “He probably doesn’t even know I’m taking care of him.” But one day I left to go down to the ranch with Arlin and asked Cheree to come and watch over Grandpa and be here to help him, and he’d say to her, “Where’s your mom?” And when I got back Cheree told me “He just kept asking for you.” And that just did my heart good because I then I knew “He knows I’m taking care of him.” And then he was gone in just a few days. But I was glad I got to do that and kept my promise with him that I would take care of him. He was a sweetheart.
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| Legrand Henry Bartschi |
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| Legrand Bartschi Funeral in Nounan, Idaho |
After Grandpa passed away I remember sitting in Sacrament meeting a few weeks later, and Rosanne was sitting next to me and she leaned over and whispered to me, “Mom, I want to go and be with Grandpa.” And that just hit me so funny, and I wondered, “Now why would she say something like that?” It really kind of bothered me. Later that year, Rosanne, who was only 12-years-old, got sick. We took her to the hospital for some tests and before I even spoke to the doctor I knew she had cancer. Dr. Gemlich was our doctor, and they’d done a test and everything and I was just sitting there on the chair waiting for him to come back and tell me what they’d found out, and I know it was Grandma Dredge who spoke to me and told me what was wrong with her. So when Dr. Gemlich came back I just looked at him and I said, “She’s got cancer, doesn’t she?” And he just said, “How did you know?” But that’s how I knew, and I knew it was Grandma who told me. Even though it was as hard as it was, we had a lot of blessings through that trial, but we never could have made it had Rosanne not had the kind of spirit that she did. I always felt like her little spirit was so mature for her age. She would say, “Mom, I’m not afraid to die. And I’m going to do this and that and I’m going to be a missionary when I get to the other side.” So she had me all pumped up when I was feeling so low.
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| Rosanne and Arlin |
We started treatment and Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah and I practically lived there throughout the next year. I was down there with her all the time and it seemed like we were hardly ever home. When she was off treatment and we could leave the hospital, I would go to Shirley and Laddie’s and spend some time there. When we did go home once in a while she’d get sick and we’d have to take her back. I remember driving back to Utah all night with her burning up with fever and different things and it was hard.
Max and Cheree stayed at home with Arlin mostly, until we were ready to try a bone marrow transplant which had to be done in California at UCLA. Cheree was the donor match for Rosanne, so we took her and Max to California with us and they did the transplant. Cheree flew home with Max and Arlin and I drove home with Rosanne. The doctor told us we needed to have our entire house clean and sanitized before we could bring her home, and I hadn’t been back there for a while and had no idea what the house looked like. So I had to make the hardest phone call I ever had to make and explain to the bishop that we needed someone to come deep clean our house before we could bring Rosanne home. I hated to ask for that kind of help, it was terrible. I had been Relief Society President before and had helped everybody else, but I was just so embarrassed about what they would find. But you know, afterward people came up and told me how much they appreciated being able to help. They even cleaned out the China hutch and washed all the dishes. Janine Harris told me, “Karolyn, it was so fun that we could do that service for you.” They were all so sweet, but I was just dying. So that was a lesson to me too and I really had to humble myself. But as hard as it was, people were wonderful through it all.
When we knew it was the end I really didn’t want Rosanne to pass away at home for some reason, I guess I felt like I needed the help over there at the hospital in Rexburg. But we took her up there to the hospital and she passed away on April 22, 1987. Arlin, who had been the bishop and lost his dear counselor Delwin in a tractor accident and had seen several families go through deaths and tragedies, made the comment that, “I just hurt so bad after so many of those deaths and losing so many people I’ve been close to that I thought I knew how bad it hurt, but I really didn’t until I lost one of my own.”
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| Rosanne Bartschi 1986 |
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| Rosanne's Funeral 1987 |
I thought back on that day in Sacrament meeting after Grandpa passed away when Rosanne had whispered, “Mom, I want to go and be with Grandpa.” And I realized, “She got her wish.” And I never forgot about that.
