Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

Jack Merlin Petersen

Male 1932 - 2014  (82 years)


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  • Name Jack Merlin Petersen 
    Born 22 Mar 1932  Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died 27 May 2014  Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried Washington Heights Memorial Park, South Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I43  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Father Paul Franklin Petersen,   b. 3 Aug 1902, Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 30 Dec 1969, Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 67 years) 
    Mother Irene Hales,   b. 11 Feb 1905, Junction, Piute, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 13 Jul 1967, Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 62 years) 
    Married 19 Nov 1926  Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F47  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Living 
    Children 
     1. Living
     2. Living
     3. Living
     4. Living
     5. Living
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F42  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsDied - 27 May 2014 - Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, United States Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES;
      1. Censuses:
      1960 LDS Church, FHL film 471796, May 1960, 1020 Gramercy, Ogden 21st Ward, Lorin Farr Stake:
      Jack Merlin Petersen, Elder, b. 22 Mar 1932 at Ogden, UT.
      Irene Lydie Nadia Filonoff De Lanskoy, member, b. 9 Aug 1933 at Nice, France.
      Kerry Andre Petersen, child, b. 7 Aug 1954 in Ogden, UT.
      Karen Lorie Petersen, child, b. 9 May 1956 in Ogden, UT.
      Chris Robert Petersen, child, b. 9 May 1956 in Ogden, UT.
      Notes previously of Ogden 8th Ward of the Lorin Farr Stake residing at 650 8th St.

      BIOGRAPHY:
      1. Occupation: glass and glazing contractor and owner of retail home decorating business in Anchorage, Alaska. Did glass work on Seattle Washington Temple.

      2. The newspaper "The Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner," Tuesday evening, July 29, 1952, p. 7:
      "Local reservists Take Part In Maneuvers, Big Sea Fair.
      Eight Utah naval reservists, four of them from Ogden, are participating in full scale sea maneuvers, the world famous Seattle Sea fair and a side trip to Vancouver, B.C., in an adventure which began last Saturday.
      The Utahns are Wendell A. Farr, 540 8th St.; Joseph A. Graves, SN, 3791 Ogden Ave.; Jack D. Lynch, FA, 590 8th St.; Jack M. Peterson, FA, 650 8th St.; Thomas G. Larsen, SR, Arcadia; Arnold E. Webb, SR, Myton; Franklin D. Spencer, SR, Neolas and Kendall B. Schaefemayer, SR, Roosevelt.
      Making the trip are 96 naval reserve officers from the 12th naval district, which included northern California, Nevada and Utah.
      Leave Treasure Island.
      The reservists left Treasure Island, San Francisco Saturday afternoon aboard the destroyer escorts, U.S.S. George A. Johnson, U.S.S. Grady and U.S.S. Thomas F. Nickel. The three ships were scheduled to rendezvous outside Golden Gate with three similar ships with reservists from the Eleventh naval district.
      En route to Seattle, the group will conduct battle problems and drills.
      During the Seattle Sea fair the reservists will join a long line of combat vessels in a salute to the host city of Seattle. Cruisers, destroyers, submarines and amphibious craft will be in the sea parade which will converge at its finish to a point where the ship's crews will march through the streets in a parade.
      A simulated amphibious assault will be staged against a Seattle park beach.
      From Seattle, the reservists will make a side trip to Canada and then will return to San Francisco, conducting training and gunnery exercises on the way."

      3. The newspaper "The Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner," Sunday evening, November 22, 1959, p. 2C:
      "Person to Person.
      From Europe.
      Good to get back! … Mrs. Jack M. Petersen will arrive home today with her three children, Kerry, and twins, Karen and Chris, to join her husband, after seven months in Europe.
      Mrs. Petersen, a native of Nice, France, has been there visiting her Russian parents, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas de Lanskoy, who are now making their home in Nice. It was her first visit home in nine years.
      Mrs. Petersen came to America is an LDS convert and receive her American citizenship papers four years ago. Mr. Petersen joined his family for a month in the summer and while there he and his family visited in Scotland, England, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany and Denmark.
      "My wife's mother acted as interpreter," Mr. Petersen said, "as she speaks 14 languages. She was attached to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., at the time of the Russian revolution."
      He explained that after the overthrow of the Russian government, Mrs. Petersen's parents were exiled in France and have lived there since."
      [Kerry's note: Article inaccurate in regards to Irene's correct parents and the number of languages spoken by her mother. Her mother was never married to Mr. Lanskoy; he was a family friend who gave his family name to Irene at her birth. Her mother spoke Russian, German, French, and English.]

      4. LDS Priesthood Ordinances and Ordinations (taken from Membership Record):
      Blessing: 5 Jun 1932 by Elton W. Wardle
      Baptism: 31 Mar 1940 by Blaine L. Hunter
      Confirmation: 31 Mar 1940 by Elton W. Wardle
      Deacon: 27 Aug 1944 by Vernal E. Facer
      Teacher: 29 Dec 1946 by Archibald O. Hokanson
      Priest: 27 Apr 1949 by Elton W. Wardle
      Elder: 2 Jun 1951 by Hershel P. Judd
      High Priest 25 Sep 1980 by Gary E. Cox

      5. Autobiography of Jack Merlin Petersen.
      Thank you for letting me tell my story. The following is a hodge-podge collection of bits and pieces of notes, quick memories, and copies of our children's school assignments about me and my family history collected over the years. It also includes history and stories about my business. Hopefully, this will be clarified and added to in the future a little at a time. It was suggested and I was able to get started through the prompting of my daughter Karen Jasper and with a lot of help from everybody.
      It all began in 1932.
      I, Jack Merlin Petersen, was born March 22, 1932 in Ogden, Weber County, Utah, in the United States of America at the Thomas Dee Hospital on Harrison Blvd. (The hospital has since been demolished.)
      My mother was Irene Hales, daughter of Charles Henry Hales III and Sarah (Sadie) Catherine Stoker. She was born in Junction City, Piute County, Utah.
      My father was Paul Franklin Petersen (he went by the name of Frank), son of Peter Petersen and Mary Ann Burnhope. He was born in Ogden, Weber County, Utah.
      My family has a rich heritage - the very better of two worlds: my wife Irene's European heritage – even though she did not experience it, her ancestors were well-to-do, well-bred and well-educated; my heritage was of pioneers – many living in log cabins with dirt floors and many not reading or writing, but they were very religious and dedicated.
      I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but not in the strictest sense as I now understand it as my father was not a member and never joined the Church. My mother was a member, but did not attend church much without Dad being with her. She did teach in the Primary at one time. Also in the church at that time a woman could not enter the Temple for their own endowment without her husband. They were both very supportive.
      I was a member of the Ogden, Utah, 8th Ward, and Ben Lomond Stake. I received many Aaronic Priesthood Achievement Awards in my youth.
      I was blessed in the Church on June 5, 1932. I was baptized and confirmed on March 31, 1940, nine days after my eighth birthday. I was ordained a Deacon on August 27, 1944, a Teacher on December 29, 1946, a Priest on April 17, 1949, an Elder on June 2, 1951, and a High Priest on September 25, 1980.
      I have always thought that going to church was something that you were supposed to do.
      I introduced myself once in a church talk and I will use some of it here: I believe most of you know me; I am Jack Petersen, a common name, but there aren't very many of my Petersen family around. Truthfully, the name should be Pedersen. This was my grandfather's name when he arrived from Denmark at age nine.
      He had a younger sister, who never married; she took care of her parents into their old age. So you can all understand that without a husband to take care of, she was able to reach the age of ninety-five and eight months. She must have had an accent, as I learned to call her Ankristine. I was surprised to realize not too many years ago that it wasn't Ankristine but Aunt Christine.
      I have one sister, Shirley Petersen, married name Dunbar, born on June 10, 1928 in Ogden, Utah. My sister and I were part of a family of nine Petersen and eight Hales cousins. But in that group there were only three Petersen boys -- Sherman, Paul, and I are the only three Petersens in my generation. Paul has since passed away.
      The names of my cousins are:
      PeterSEN -- Sherman Carl Petersen, Paul Fredrick Petersen (deceased), Joyce Koepke, LaRay Koepke, Warner Lawrence Hansen (deceased), Keith Richard Shupe, and Carole Patricia Shupe.
      HALES -- Edward Scott Hales (deceased), Kenneth Lee Hales (deceased), Suzan Hales (deceased), Bonnie Hales, Charles Henry Hales(5th), and Patricia Hatten.
      My grandfather Peter Petersen was a cowboy and my grandmother's father Thomas Burnhope was also a cowboy; they rode the range together at Promontory, Utah.
      My Petersen grandparents had five children, four of whom lived. They lived in Utah and I have found or been told that all the children were blessed in the LDS Church – and some were baptized – but something or someone drove them out of the Church. I understand my grandmother took issue with the Church burial procedure at the death of her mother. She left the Church and never spoke thereafter of her brother Isaac, who supported the Church position. All I ever was told was that if I ever met a Burnhope, I would know I was related. I did by chance meet one and became acquainted with two third cousins, Keith and Ken Burnhope.
      My mother and father knew each other as children since their families had small farms next to each other on Third Street at Five Points in Ogden, Utah.
      My mother comes from a family of early Mormon pioneers. Her grandfather Charles Henry Hales II and her great grandfather Charles Henry Hales I were polygamous. Her great grandfather with his two wives had 26 children who all lived to adulthood. I have a lot of Hales relatives, even an Apostle. Also, in every major event in Mormon and Utah history, I had a relative present or involved: in the city of Nauvoo, on the covered wagon track, and in the Mormon Battalion with over 14 relatives serving including two grandfathers and a grandmother. Some sailed on the Ship Brooklyn. They lived in the settlements of Pueblo, CO, San Bernardino, CA, Southern Utah, and Northern Arizona. They were involved with the cotton industry, iron mills, the railroad, and many others.
      My mother had four brothers and one sister: Charles Henry (Jack), Clemont (Mont), Dwayne (Duke), and Doyle, and my Aunt Melba. I loved my uncles. They were very good to me. As I said before, Shirley and I have six cousins on the Hales side of the family. In 2010 it was down to three.
      My mother and dad built a "honeymoon house" at 650 8th Street in Ogden. It was just a two-room house and they built it themselves before they were married. They married November 19, 1926. I lived in this house throughout my youth. They added onto it a little at a time. I didn't move from this house until I was married in 1952. My parents lived here the rest of their lives. My dad lived at home with his parents while he was building their house. His dad charged him rent for living there, which didn't make dad very happy since it took a lot of his building funds. He said he would never charge his children rent if they lived at home and he never did.
      I was raised through the Depression years. I had no real understanding of the hardships it caused many -- I was too young. My father worked for George A. Lowe Company, a pioneer, full-line Hardware Company in Ogden, Utah on Wall Ave. and was steadily employed there for 20 years. This company had the first telephone in the state -- a line from their warehouse to their retail store.
      I do remember Dad going next door to help clean up a chicken coop for a family to move into. They didn't have any other place to live.
      Perhaps due to the depression there were very few pictures taken in my youth; however, occasionally a photographer would come down the street with ponies and they would have cowboy and cowgirl costumes for the children to put on. They would go door-to-door to see who would like a picture of their children sitting on a pony. I have several pictures of Shirley and myself on these ponies.
      As a young man, Dad worked for a canning factory making tomato ketchup. (They also made very good pork and beans.) He seemed to have enjoyed that experience. He spoke of it often. I have a picture of him standing by one of the company trucks. I believe the canning factory name was "Pierce."
      My mother was very neat and clean and hard-working. She would always call us children in and clean us and put fresh clothes on us prior to Father's return from daily work.
      We always had two meals a day with the family. We always sat down to eat breakfast together and we always had supper together. Mom would have it prepared and on the table by the time my dad came home from work, which was right around 6 o'clock. Dad was always very punctual.
      Mother always set the table with a tablecloth. We always had home canned fruit on the table along with jam or jelly. Her rule for nutrition was very simple, "Your plate must have three colors of food on it." My dad said it was cheaper to buy good food then it was to pay a doctor. So we ate well.
      She always thought she was overweight (a Hales' trait) inasmuch as she had copies of all the popular diets of that time. She also wore a house dress during the day, but a corset for dress-up. She liked to read -- especially the stories in romance magazines.
      As a child, I enjoyed eating the leftovers from my father's lunch box. I now believe that he saved me a half of his jelly sandwich or other treats. I enjoyed waiting on the street corner for my father's return from work. He would let me ride on the running board of our Model A Ford the rest of the way home. My father was industrious and very good with his hands. He did all of his own building and repairs at home. He had a large city lot, which was very well kept.
      He was very proper and polite. I never heard him tell a joke or an off-colored story. I never heard him swear -- not a word. He was so meticulous that even when he sharpened his wood pencil with a pocketknife, every cut was exactly the same. His pocketknife was always sharp as were all of his other tools and knives. He had little patience with anyone who did not take care of their tools.
      Dad had beautiful handwriting. Even while working in the warehouse, he kept his shoes shined. He had a shoe shining kit there and in it a brush with letters "WHSE" for warehouse carved in the wooden grip. I have that brush. While working in the warehouse, he always wore a rolled-up black stocking cap, a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and bibs overall. Dad sometime would have a baseball mitt in his back pocket; they played catch in the parking lot on their lunch break. Dad also played ball at the company picnic; he liked to bunt himself on base.
      Dad smoked all his life. Through my younger years, he always rolled his own cigarettes. You would always see him with a string and round tag from the "Bull Durham" tobacco sack hanging out of his shirt pocket, western style. I believe that smoking had a lot to do with his early death at age 67. He wouldn't go to a doctor because of the lecture he would get about smoking.
      At George A. Lowe Hardware, Dad managed the upstairs floor. The warehouse was almost a city block long. I enjoyed visiting there. Grandpa Petersen also worked there in packing and shipping. He would wave to me on my visits. I always snuck a ride down the chute from the second floor to the shipping department and met with him.
      One of my dad's responsibilities was the ordering of many tons of coal for the heating of the warehouse. I once visited with Dad when he was giving an order to the owner of a coal company. I blurted out something like, "With all the coal that Dad buys from you, you ought to give us coal for our home for free." He said, "I couldn't do that, that's my business." Dad responded to me by saying, "Where do you think the fruit comes from at home for Christmas?" (We always had a case of apples, oranges, or grapefruit under the Christmas tree.) The owner's remark always fascinated me about not giving away for free the actual product that he sold for a living.
      Irene captured a great photograph of Dad – a very typical one. Dad always wore a white shirt and tie and a pair of western cut pants called "Pinks." He would come home and change into his bib overalls, take off his tie, and would keep the white shirt on. The photograph shows him sitting in the kitchen below a Union Pacific Railroad calendar, which he always used for scheduling. He was holding his glass of beer. His ring with a diamond set in black onyx and watch (both of which I have in my possession) are showing in the picture.
      Payday was Shirley's and my big day. Dad would bring home a sack full of candy bars, five or six for each of us. He purchased these at Payless drug store, three for a dime. Dad liked licorice. When Shirley started working she would bring home expensive handmade chocolates.
      Our house was set back deep in the lot, and we had a large grassed front yard with a winding sidewalk to the front door. The front door and entrance had a round top and round glass door window. There was a special curtain for the door made by Mother that gathered to the center. (I now have that curtain – 2012.) Our front yard had five large Rome Beauty apple trees and a large Catalpa tree. I spent a lot of time climbing in the apple trees and picking up fallen apples.
      I found that with a pointed stick about 18" long, I could stick it into an apple and throw the apple almost a city block. I often cleaned the yard this way. You might wonder what the neighbors thought -- but apples came from such a distance that they could never guess the source!
      We had a large fruit and vegetable garden in the rear of the house as well as a large chicken coop. Dad kept the garden and the yard immaculate. I was often jealous of the yard because Dad spent so much time in it. I played most of my games at the neighbors because Dad would not let us roughneck in our yard. The garden was irrigated weekly and the irrigation ditch came from the front down the right side of the yard.
      I spent many hours under the apple trees in the irrigation ditch playing "cars," building roads and garages on its banks with road system surpassing today's freeways. I also did a lot of the irrigating, weeding, and harvesting of our garden. Sometimes it got pretty hot though. Every spring a farmer would bring a team of horses down the street soliciting work at plowing your garden spot. Dad used their services sometimes, but most of the time we hand-spaded it ourselves.
      The city would grade the dirt street in front of our house. They used a road grader that looked a lot like the ones used today but a team of horses pulled these; it was also oiled yearly.
      In the garden, we had all types of fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, black caps, dewberries, gooseberries, currants – red, black, and yellow – rhubarb, cherries (white Queen Ann canning cherries; our red Bing cherry tree died), peaches, pears, and many varieties of grapes. We had two walnut trees – Black and English. We would also always raise carrots, peas, radishes, onions – both green and seed – corn, tomatoes, green peppers, and "grass peas."
      The "grass peas" seed originally came from Denmark and was brought over by my great grandfather. They resembled and were used like Lima beans. They were cooked with a ham hock. I still have a few of these seeds. They were very tasty.
      My grandfather, Peter Petersen, with a "sen" in the name, came with his parents at the age 9 from Denmark. I have always believed his dream was to travel, which you didn't do much in those days. I now believe he did this thru reading his National Geographic magazines. He always had a stack of them. He gave me one of his old books, a large old book, which I still have: "Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1928."
      I spent a lot of good times working with my father in the garden. I also helped my mother can the fruit and vegetables. We always had over 200 quarts of tomatoes at the end of the season, along with peaches, pears, apricots, and cherries. I remember working the cherry pitter with juice running down my arms and off my elbows. My favorite was canned apricots with pineapple chunks and apricot jam with apricot nuts. I would crack the nuts. We also put up a lot of grape juice.
      Thinking of irrigating, every spring the neighbors would form a work party and we would cut the weeds out of the canals. I still remember the smell of the weeds and the spearmint that grew along the ditch bank just like "herb tea." (Is that why I have never liked it?)
      My father taught me the use of tools and being in the hardware business he always had the newest tools available. He taught me to make repairs properly and not just to do a quick fix. My Uncle Mont had the reputation of wiring and taping things together -- I was told to do it right and not like "Mont."
      I helped my father mix his own house paint – white lead, linseed oil, and turpentine. He taught me how to hold a paintbrush and how to work the paint into the wood.
      Dad would save the salvaged wooden shipping crates at the Lowes' warehouse. When he had a big enough pile, he would have their truck deliver it home. It was my job to pull, straighten, and save all the nails, then cut the wood up for firewood. The crates were made out of cheap hardwood and I used a carpenter handsaw to cut them up. This was hard work. I don't think I ever used a new nail until I was out of high school.
      Spring was greeted with the ladies on the street putting scarves on their heads and with an apron over their house dress and armed with a stepladder, brushes, and a bucket full of hot soapy water, they would handwash the outside of their houses,
      Chickens were a major part of my youth: feeding, caring for, egg gathering, and butchering. In the spring we would have the little chicks around a light bulb in the basement, later in the back of garage. Dad liked Leghorns (white eggs) and Grandpa Petersen liked Rhode Island Reds (brown eggs) and the two discussed quite often the virtues of each breed of chicken. I have learned that the world record for egg production is held by a White Leghorn that laid 371 eggs in 365 days. My mother would gather the eggs and sell the surplus for her kitchen money. I can remember the Metropolitan Insurance salesman coming weekly for the $1.00 premium for the insurance policy for Shirley's and my education. Mom would have to make sure she had her eggs sold for this payment, as well as for our monthly church fast offering envelope.
      Chicken was a main dish at home with the spring fryers as one of my favorite. When they were large enough, they would be split in half and fried, and I would get a whole half chicken. Mother made great fried chicken, as did my Grandmother Hales! The older hens were used for stewing with homemade hand-cut noodles. I remember many times hearing my dad tell my mother that the egg production was down and it was time for him to go talk to the chickens again. He would go to the coop, sit on his haunches, and talk to them. He told the chickens that if they didn't start laying more eggs some of them would lose their heads. While doing this he would have a chance to feel the underside of the individual hens and pick out a few that were barren, these are the ones that got their heads cut off. The egg production would increase almost overnight while we had chicken and noodles for supper.
      The family rule was if you did not know what to feed Frank, fry him two eggs.
      Dad always tried to raise pigs as he did in the earlier days. He would wash down the pens daily and handwash the pigs, but the neighbors would always report him for keeping pigs. The city was being built up around us and it was against the city ordinances.
      As I said earlier, my father was not a member of the LDS Church. I do not know how serious he was but he said that if he had to join a church, it would be the Catholic Church. He said this is because when he was young he used to sell newspapers. He would always go over to the Catholic Church when there was a mass to sell newspapers. The members would be in a good mood after church and be very kind, so they bought lots of his newspapers -- so he thought the Catholic Church was all right.
      There were a lot of experiences with the Mormon missionaries trying to convert him. He was always fair game for any new missionaries that came around. Their challenge was to "go over and convert Frank Petersen." He was always polite, but he teased them -- he liked to tease (a Petersen trait). One time they asked him what religion he belonged to. He said, "The Salvation Army." The two sister missionaries said, "That's not a religion." Dad replied, "It is, and it's a very popular Protestant religion," which it is. They came back 30 days later after they had spent all their free time studying the Salvation Army religion. They asked him questions about the religion and of course he knew nothing about it. He was very quiet that evening.
      Our earlier Bishop was Roland Peterson. According to dad, Shirley got special attention until the membership realized she was not his daughter, and then it all stopped -- wrong Peterson
      We were members of the Ogden 8th Ward, Ben Lomond Stake. The church was on 7th street and Adam. The church building was dated with reddish brown brick, and was a story and half tall, with the congregation area on the upper floor and the classrooms in the daylight basement. It had tall, wide concrete steps in front up to a porch and double entrance doors. Primary was on Wednesday afternoon. On that day, I hurried from school to the church – first one there put a stick through door handles and was the guardian of the doors. I liked that assignment. The congregation area had a wooden floor with moveable chairs. On one end there was a full stage with curtain and on the other end the speaker's pulpit with the choir setting. The chairs would be turned around as needed or moved to the side for dances and other activities. I remember on hot summer days I would stand at door and pass out paper fans with wooden handle.
      I don't know the circumstances but after 20 years at Lowe's Dad quit one day, got drunk, and threw away his lunch bucket, as he was never going to work again. About three weeks later he went to work for Sears & Roebuck Co. Sears was located on the main street, Washington Boulevard, close to 22nd Street with the warehouse on the street behind. It was next door to the American Food Store where I worked.
      There was a little desk over in one corner where they were starting to sale insurance. The sign read "All-State." They also sold a small car called "The All-State." It was actually a "Henry J" made by Kaiser-Frazer Motor Company with a Sears's nameplate.
      Dad started in the warehouse, then sold farm machinery, and then worked in the retail store in the hardware department. He worked there for another 20 years until his retirement.
      I don't have a clear memory of this; however, Lowe's opened up a small satellite retail store called Riteway Hardware. Dad was involved with the operation and worked there. When they decided to sell the store, I was in high school. I did my best to try to talk him into buying it so that we could work together. This didn't happen. It was sold to another Lowe's employee, Mr. Sorenson. My sister Shirley worked for him for some time.
      My favorite dessert was Hasty Pudding (sometimes called "Poor Man's Pudding"). Ingredients: 2 cups water, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup sugar, ½ cup of milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp butter, 1 cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Boil water, sugar, vanilla and 1 tsp butter together. While this is boiling, cream the remaining ingredients into a batter. Then fold in 1/2 cup of raisins and nuts, dropping by tablespoon in the boiling mixture. Then bake for 1/2 hour at 375 degrees. Black walnuts are the best to use in this recipe. Cracking and cleaning them was my job.
      I also liked egg-less cake, sometimes called "Depression cake," with white frosting. During the Depression, eggs and shortening were very expensive and this cake needed none.
      My dad was also able to "water witch" using a forked stick to find ground water. By holding the forked stick overhand with each hand over the individual forks, then spreading the forks and rolling both hands under and up between the forks until the knuckles faced each other, and then pulling back and again spreading the forks, the front of the stick (the "pointer") would turn down toward the ground if water was present. He would team up with an acquaintance from work. Dad would locate the water and while holding the willow over his knees; his partner would count the pulsations of the willow to determine the depth to the water. I never saw the friend do his thing, but I saw Dad locate water many times.
      When I was in the eighth grade, my science teacher said that there was no such thing as the gift of water witching. I told this to my dad and so he took me out front of the house and cut a green forked stick from the apple tree and told me to hold it properly over a known underground stream. Nothing happened! He put his hand on my shoulder and the forked stick began to move and scared me to a point that I dropped it. I picked it up again and told myself that there was no way I was going to get fooled. I gripped tightly on the stick, my dad put his hand on my shoulder and it again began to turn down with such force that it twisted the bark off in my hands.
      There was a drought in the area for several years and many of the neighbors hand dug wells for themselves. There was an underground stream that came down the street and crossed under our front yard. They would tap into this stream. One of our neighbors, the Wardles (he later became my bishop) four lots west of us down the street, wanted Dad to locate water on his property. Dad and his friend searched diligently and could not locate this stream on his property. Brother Wardle had no choice but to dead-reckon a location by sighting a line between a well west and a well east of his property and he hand dug very deep but never found water. Later, that boarded up dry well hole was always a concern to our parents when we played in the area.
      In recalling a few of my funniest memories, I will relate a few.
      There are only two ways to sweep with a straw-broom; turn the broom sideways for a wide stroke or endways for narrow power stroke. Once in my youth I was busy sweeping and my father put his hand on my shoulder and told me to turn the broom because I was sweeping like a woman. (You could say things like than then.) It is terrible how we forget the important lessons in life when we get older. I can't remember which way he had then told me to sweep. I may have spent my whole life sweeping like a woman. I am also told that a woman sweeps toward herself and a men sweeps away.
      One other was when my mother chased me up the apple tree with a willow switch in her hand. She then pulled up a chair and sat at the base of the tree until my father came home. I did not know until that day that my dad could climb apple trees.
      I remember when I had made a successful raid on the neighbor's melon patch with an armful of cantaloupes. I knew how much my dad enjoyed them, so I burst into our house shouting: "Dad would you like some melons I just stole?" To my horror, there sat the ward teachers from the church. One of them was a counselor in the Bishopric who owned the melon patch. My dad surveyed the embarrassment and calmly received the cantaloupes, sliced them and served the stolen bounty to all.
      I remember as a child when both of our parents were working. My sister and I had chores to do when we got home from school. One of these chores was to light a fire in the kitchen range, to have it ready to cook supper and also work as a heater to warm the house. Many times we would argue over whose turn it was to light the fire and our folks would find us huddled in blankets in a cold, dark house. Supper was delayed on those evenings, if we got any at all.
      I slept on a fold-down couch in the kitchen in our little two-room house. Our house was well-built and in bad weather the neighbors would spend the night with us. One night the wind was blowing very hard and the neighbors came over to stay with us as their houses were built on wood foundations and they could feel the wind begin to lift their houses. I remember waking up finding their kids in bed with me. Ogden experienced a lot of heavy winds called "Easterners" or "Mountain Wind." I came home from elementary school one day and the wind was so strong we had to walk backwards against the wind or it would suck our breath away. I found our large chicken coop had been picked up and turned upside down. Dad rebuilt the coop but only half the size.
      One of my earliest recollections was our outhouse. We had a very nice two-holer. It sat in the back of the garage. It was so nice that the neighbors would often use it. I would occasionally find one sitting sound asleep.
      I am told that I was frightened of teddy bears. I was even frightened of the closet where they were kept.
      I had pure white hair and was called "Cotton-top" by the relatives. I also wore bib overalls and tennis shoes.
      I was told that one day I got lost. The whole neighborhood was out looking for me. Everybody was getting very panicky. I was found still asleep in my bed. I had rolled over against the wall.
      We bathed in a tin tub on the kitchen floor and the water was heated in a tea kettle on the coal-burning range. Mother always rinsed our hair with vinegar water.
      Our two-room house was enlarged first with a closed porch off the kitchen and a half basement, then two bedrooms and a bath in the rear. This was done about the time that I was 7 or 8 years of age. There was a stairway leading up into a large attic. This was to be my bedroom but it never came about.
      I remember watching the basement being dug out from under the house. It was done with a team of horses and a scoop. They would back the horses under the house and pull out a scoop full of dirt.
      My weekly allowance was 25 cents. It was saved and spent on Saturday. It cost me 5 cents for the bus to town, 10 cents for a movie ticket – this covered the cost of a double feature movie, two cartoons, and a news reel – 5 cents for a the bus fare home, and 5 cents for a candy bar. I liked the cowboy movies and there were a lot of them. The good guys wore white hats; the bad guys wore black ones. Sometimes I would buy two candy bars and walk home, about four miles. If I ever had an extra dime, I would buy a comic book. Shirley was into "Big Little Books." They were about three inches square and one inch or so thick.
      No matter where I walked, I would always try to find a short cut. This was quite easy because there were walkways along the irrigation ditches (they had to have public access to the ditches). In most cases these "short cuts" probably took longer to get home. Isn't that the way all short cuts are!
      "Budget Cards": The LDS Church used to assign each family a portion of the ward budget. When this was paid, a "budget card" was issued. The card was used for admission to all church activities. It was important to me as a youth as the 21st Ward had a movie every Friday night. The ward was only a few shortcuts away from home.
      One of my favorite short cuts was to walk on a trail called lover's lane, which skirted around a hill and the lower edge of the old Ogden Pioneer Cemetery. There was no concern with walking this way in the daytime, "But at night, never!" One time I was late getting out from a movie and it was getting dark. The fog was rolling up the trail from the Ogden River. With the darkness, the cemetery, the fog, and the howling dogs, I was pretty spooked.
      In my earlier years, we did a lot of camping. If a camping trip was planned, Mom would always fry up a bunch of chicken to take along and boy was it good. Nothing like what we eat today. Camping and fried chicken were some of my favorite things. In most instances, Dad would come home from work on Friday and decide to spend the weekend camping. We would fill up the back seat of our Model A Ford, and then Shirley and I would ride on the top of the bedding, which was great fun. In most of those trips, we experienced two or three flat tires, which was common. Dad always carried a jack, a hand pump, a tire iron, and a box of patches. I can still remember him walking across the field with an inner tube in one hand and a pump in the other heading for a creek to find the leak.
      Most of our camping trips were up Ogden Canyon and into South Fork. We always stopped at "The Oaks" for a treat on the way home. It was usually pink "Mother Goose Popcorn," which came with a surprise in the box or maybe a box of "Cracker Jacks." The LDS Church had a large picnic park in the canyon; it was used for outings. I remember it well; at one outing I walked by a large table with three or four large milk cans on it. One was marked butter milk; I poured myself a paper cup full – "Yuck! now I know what butter milk is." I have now learned to like it.
      On one of these trips, we found a very nice campsite. Someone had left in a hurry. There was a watermelon in the creek and firewood gathered, cut, and neatly stacked. Dad would make our bed by laying a mattress and bedding on a canvas ground cloth. Mom and Dad would sleep on the sides with us two kids in between. That night Mom awakened with a start. She had felt a cold nose in her hand. She woke in time to see a mountain lion run away into the brushes. Dad rolled up the bedding with us kids still in it, loaded up the car, and we were gone.
      Shirley had a very bad case of hay fever one year, which was relieved in the canyon. So we lived in a tent in the canyon all summer and Dad commuted to work. These trips stopped when the car broke down and you could not get replacement parts through the war years. Even if it hadn't broken, we could not have gotten gas due to the rationing of gas, tires, and batteries. How I miss these trips. This was devastating for a young fellow not to be able to go back into the mountains that I loved so much.
      I remember traveling to Logan once on a bus and to Salt Lake City several times riding on the Bamberger Electric Railroad, which ran between those cities at that time. We would always visit the State Capitol. I liked to see the "Mormon Meteor," the fastest car in the world at the time. It was on display there. It set world records on the Salt Flats.
      I remember my dad taking my Grandpa Peter Petersen to Montana looking for the old ranch where he worked. I don't remember the trip but I do remember the valley that he pointed out. I discovered a full skeleton of a deer or maybe a sheep that I found interesting and a bit scary.
      On another trip my Aunt Melba was with us. Dad parked the car and I took off up the steep hill. Melba yelled at me, "Don't go up there, the jackrabbits will get you!" I didn't know what a jackrabbit was. I turned and tumbled down the hill. I must have been a boob.
      Melba was my aunt, my mother's only sister, and the youngest child in her family. She was a redhead and covered with freckles. I always blamed her for my freckles. She was a California girl and always dressed the part – always wearing Bermuda shorts.
      Melba lived with my family on 8th Street in Ogden after her high school graduation. In 1938-39 she had graduated in the first class from the new million-dollar Ogden High School built with PWA funds -- it actually cost $1,200,000. She worked as a telephone operator. The waiting time to have a home telephone was over a year. But as she was on call, we had a phone immediately. When she left our home, the phone left too.
      The Palmer family lived four houses up the street from ours. They made excellent homemade candy and supplied the neighborhood around the holidays. I played with their kids. We liked to put on plays. We used their single car garage as our stage, hung a blanket over the doorway as our curtain, and set chairs in the driveway. We charged the neighborhood kids a button or two or a marble to see our performance.
      I also remember the Palmer's clothesline always lined up with long underwear. This was strange even in those days. I was a senior in high school when my girlfriend told me that Mormons in good standing wore undergarments. I recall saying, "Not me!"
      One day the young Palmer boy met me on the sidewalk in front of our house. He was showing off two new cap pistols – replicas of a pirate's muskets with two hammers and two triggers on each. He handed one to me for my inspection. It was a nice gun. As I examined it, he asked for it back. I told him to give me a minute, but he then grabbed for it and knocked it out of my hand. It fell and broke on the sidewalk. He ran crying home and apparently told his mother that I had taken it away from him and thrown it on the sidewalk. The mother came charging down to our house and ran into my hot-tempered redheaded Aunt Melba. This caused a rift between the families that never did heal.
      Several years later, I was walking past their house and the same boy came charging out of his house right through the screen door with his hair and clothing on fire. I tackled him and rolled him around in the newly cut grass and patted him down with the wet grass. His mother, not aware of the crisis, walked from behind the house carrying a straw broom. She apparently saw what looked like me beating up her son. She came a running and broke the broom handle over my back. I got up and walked away. Later she was very apologetic.
      My Uncle Doyle was the only one to graduate from college in the family. He was called into the service as a Captain in the coast artillery in Panama throughout the duration of the war. He met and married a nurse there, Margaret Scott. She was once a Catholic nun. They had only one child, my cousin Ed Hales. She died shortly after his birth from cancer.
      My Uncle Jack was drafted. He was "Big Jack" and I was "Little Jack." He sent home for a copy of his birth certificate. When he received it, it had the name Charles Henry on it. He sent it back telling his mother that she had sent his Dad's certificate. He did not know until that time that his name was Charles Henry (III). He named his fourth child Charles Henry also. He had three small children when he was drafted. My dad and mother gave his family a lot of assistance at that time. They repaid them later by giving us a lot of help and gifts for our children. My uncle Jack did not serve in combat.
      In 1957, I attended the funeral of my Uncle Duke (Dwayne Hales), who lived in Pasadena, California. The family went by caravan from Ogden. Irene was not able to go because of the young children. My uncle's wife was Beatrice "Bea" Hales. She was a very nice lady and they had no children. She worked in the Sears headquarters, which was in Pasadena. As my dad also worked at Sears, they had something in common. I'm told she remarried and was living in Las Vegas. She has since passed away.
      My mother was very protective. As I understand, when she was a child living in North Ogden, she was rabbit hunting with a young boy with a .22 rifle and there was an accident and the boy shot himself and died in her arms -- so she was extremely scared of guns. I wasn't allowed to have a gun. I was a very disappointed Scout when my parents would not sign the release to target shoot at the firing range at scout camp. When my troop would go to the shooting range, I was restricted to our cabin. Later, when Mother visited our house, we had to put away all the kid's toy guns as they upset her too much. My dad did have a .22 rifle that I was able to use when I was older. I used it to rabbit hunt which I enjoyed. I got my first gun when I graduated from high school, an Ithaca 12 gauge shotgun which I still own. I now have Dad's .22 Rifles; it is a model 62A Winchester pump.
      I also wasn't allowed to have a bike until I was almost 15. I was more interested in cars by then. I kind of resented that. I did put a lot of miles on that bicycle though.
      I was riding down a hill on my bike and a big dog came out of a driveway – yes, a big dog. He got me on the leg and I crashed into a barbed-wire fence. It was a nasty wound. My uncles got out their guns and were going to shoot the dog but this was stopped. The wound became infected. I remember the doctor putting some type of acid on it to burn out the infection.
      I had another injury in my youth. My mother and I were in a five-and-dime store. I was looking at toys. Glass divider strips were used to separate the toys. My mother said, "Let's go." I did not want to. As she pulled me, I grabbed onto one of the strips and my finger was sliced open. The store doctor wasn't very sober when he stapled my finger back together.
      Fridays were garbage pick-up days. We would ride our bikes around and pick up magazines. Life and Look Magazines were our favorites. We would then sit on our front lawns and cut out pictures and articles that would interest us. Lots of war stuff. We pasted them into scrapbooks. I still have two of those scrap books – I still like to cut and paste.
      I liked helping my mother with her housework. I especially liked to put the clothes through the washing machine ringer. Our big day came when our Twin Dexter arrived. The Twin Dexter was a two-tub washing machine. One tub always had Stewart Bluing in the water. When I hung the clothes on the outside line, my mother made sure that like items and sizes were hung together neatly with as few clothes pins as possible. We didn't have many. Whites with whites hung first, shirts by the tail, never by the shoulders. Our clothesline ran from the back of the garage to the front of the chicken coop. We had four lines with a supporting post in the middle. You had to wash the lines before hanging any clothes, walking the length of each line with a damp cloth.
      My mother did a lot of fine needlework, tatting, crocheting, and embroidery. We still have some of her pieces. It was my job to tear strips of overalls and other items for the rag rugs. Mother ironed everything – shirts, pants, dresses, towels, bed sheets, pillowcases, handkerchiefs – everything. Of course, fabrics were not the same then as they are today. She had a system to fold the item as she ironed and did both sides at the same time. She taught me how to iron a shirt, which process I still use today – first the collar both sides, the yoke both sides, both sleeves, the body right to left, then touch up the collar & yoke.
      Through my younger years my mother was always home. She did work out of the home only at harvest time. She would work in the canning factory. She was paid by the piece and did quite well especially processing tomatoes. I remember her coming home in the evening with her hands cut and wrapped with tape, cut by the sharp spoon-shaped tomato knife. The money she made all went for the household extras and furnishings.
      While she was working, I some time stayed with my Grandma Hales. A daily train went past her house on 16th Street and up Ogden Canyon. It was a great sport to smash pennies and other items on the track.
      I came down with the chicken pox at Grandma's house and the house was quarantined and I couldn't go home. They posted a "Quarantined" sign on the house. I have also had red measles and mumps. I was quarantined at home for those also.
      Shortly after the war started, Mother went to work for the Civil Service as a clerk at the 2nd Street Ordinance Depot in Ogden, Utah. She later, after an illness, transferred to Hill Field Air Force Base. She would have her hair done so she always looked very nice. She had beautiful white hair.
      I remember my dad and mother discussing if he should quit his civilian job and go to work at the higher paying government defense work. He rationalized that after the war those bases would all be closed and everyone would be looking for a job and jobs would be hard to find. Of course, this didn't happen. Most bases are still open.
      There was a prisoner-of-war camp located in the Second Street Ordinance Depot in Ogden with mostly Italian prisoners and a few German prisoners. They made a lot of trinkets for sale – especially out of U.S. silver coins.
      I remember once when my father was preparing to do some concrete work and he knew of a location in the rear of the yard that would yield fine pea gravel. He offered me five dollars if I would dig down and uncover it. I dug and picked for a week after school in the hot sun and I finally gave up. My dad spent another 15 minutes and moved a couple of inches of dirt and found what he was looking for. I learned here a lesson of perseverance and enduring to the end. Remembering that lost five dollars has spurred me on to complete many dreaded projects.
      I was always quite industrious selling greeting cards door-to-door in the fall, gardening seeds in the spring, and shoveling snow. The inventory came from ads that used to appear in comic books. However, my best product was black walnuts. I would clean and rake the neighbor's yards for an exchange of their fallen walnuts. I would husk them and bag them and sell them door-to-door, pulling them in my red wagon. This lasted until I was old enough to pick fruit. I could make more money picking cherries than any other type of fruit. I would enter the orchard with a bus load of pickers. By mid-morning many of them would have twice the cherries turned in than I would. But by the end of the day I would be the top picker and I learned there that it was best to set a pace and stay with it to the end. In the long run you would accomplish more. I used some of this money for the down payment for my first car, the green Chevrolet.
      I hated picking raspberries. Their bushes were always full of stinkbugs. I look at raspberries today even in the stores and still smell those little green guys.
      I also received a lesson when I was working for a farmer planting celery. Utah celery was in high demand as it was whiter than most. I was being paid very little by the hour. It didn't take me long to realize that the more hours you worked, the more money you made. So I was working 12 to 14 hours a day. The farmer called me to the side and said that I was foolish. He said that I soon would burn myself out and lose interest in the job. He said that in the long run I would make more money if I set a more reasonable pace. I shrugged this off and continued the long hours. But, as he said, I get so tired that I lost interest and quit. The others on the crew worked the reasonable shift and completed the project and made much more money than I did. This was a lesson I learned but have never totally been able to apply. I have continued to work long hours. Maybe I am still looking for the five dollars I lost before.
      I also hoed sugar beets. The rows were long and the sun was hot. You worked with a short hoe with a three-foot long handle. So you worked bent over. I also worked in the onion fields. We crawled down the rows and cut off the tops just before they were dug up.
      I also worked in the peonies fields. We "budded" the plants, cutting off all the little buds and leaving only the biggest ones. This was done in spring so it was not so hot.
      I received my first steady job at the age of 14 at the American Food Stores as a box boy, working there full and part-time for six years. I worked in the groceries but mostly with produce. The store and company no longer exists.
      I liked the grocery business. It was exciting. Every week we had a new challenge, a new promotion, and new displays. You could see very quickly what worked and what didn't. I also made good friends with our customers. The railroad pay day was our big weekend. I worked so hard as a box boy on those weekends, I couldn't sleep at night.
      The store closed on Sundays, so on Saturday nights the employees could buy a big bag of bakery goods for a dollar. I would take one home for my folks. I also saved the blemished citrus fruit for them. Dad would buy them at a special price for juice. Also, Hi-C canned fruit juice was a family favorite.
      I also worked with a milkman delivering milk on a route. I felt I had made quite an accomplishment when I could carry two full milk bottles in each hand.
      I was taught how to fold a paper airplane by an older boy sitting on the high exterior steps of Lincoln Elementary School. I had just finished my first plane when he had a seizure and rolled down the steps. That was the first seizure I had ever seen. It wasn't a good experience. I still make this paper plane and every time I do, I think of him.
      During the time dad worked at Lowe's, the owner's family stored some of their personal belongings at the Lowe's warehouse. Some had been there for many years. To get rid of them, they put them up for auction to the employees. Dad bought a large trunk for a few dollars, sight unseen. We opened it at home. It was full of old fashioned clothes, an old set of small blue encyclopedia books, dishes, and lots of Christmas ornaments. It was great fun; we kids used the clothes for dress up.
      Mentioning encyclopedias, our family had a set of "Book of Knowledge" which I really enjoyed. They had a lot of fairy tales in them, which I had not yet seen elsewhere. They also had pictures and articles of many places that were "a must to see." I remember in particular a picture of a Model T Ford parked in front of one of the windows of Zion's National Park tunnel. Also Lake Louise, Canada, Crater Lake, Oregon, Carlsbad Caverns, and many other sights. I believe I have now personally visited them all.
      On December 7, 1941, I was lying on my folk's bed with my mother and we were reading the Sunday funny papers. That was fun as the bed always had a feather tick on it. A neighbor, a friend of Shirley's, ran over to our house and announced that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor and a war was beginning. We all rushed to the radio for more information. I was nine years old at the time. I believe that I had a very normal childhood until the war started.
      The war years used rationing coupons for gasoline, sugar, coffee, shoes and other items. Food stamps were also used. The lowest priority of gasoline rationing was 3 gallons per week. There were war bond drives – even in schools where the kids could buy stamps of a small denomination, glue them into a book, and exchange the full book for a bond. There were salvage drives for newspapers, old rubber tires, and scrap metal. We even saved tin foil from packages and gum wrappers. We would form them into a ball sometimes as large as a softball. These would be all turned in. We also harvested milkweed cotton for life preservers. We were paid quite well for these salvage items.
      The family automobile was a Model "T" Ford, which I don't remember. It was replaced with a Model "A" Ford. Shortly after the beginning of the war, our beloved Model "A" Ford broke down and parts were not available to repair it. We did not have another car for seven years until Dad's purchase of a 1946 Plymouth Club Coupe in 1949. Dad purchased it from my new brother-in-law Bob Dunbar. After the war, veterans had priority in buying new cars; Bob was able to buy the Plymouth as he served in the Navy. Bob sold his Plymouth to dad and bought a new Chevrolet. I had always thought that this Chevrolet was a wedding gift from his folks, but I have been corrected.
      Without an automobile for seven years, it stopped my love for camping, fishing and hunting, which I never picked up again in my later years, which I now regret.
      About the same period, our radio died and we couldn't get it repaired. There were very few radio tubes available, and you couldn't buy a new radio. A friend of Dad's tried to wire around the missing tubes, but this didn't last long. So throughout the war I used a crystal set with earphones. With it I could pick up only one station – Ogden's KLO. A crystal set was more of a toy. It had a wire coil and a wire came out of the end of the coil, which was called a "cat whisker." You needed a long aerial of maybe 100 feet or more. By touching a rock crystal with the cat whisker you could pick up a radio wave and hear it on the earphones. You couldn't get any other volume. A dry-cell battery powered it. I haven't seen one of these for a long time. It was about 5" tall and maybe 2 ½" in diameter. I would listen to programs like the Lone Ranger, Terry and the Pirates, I Love a Mystery, Captain Midnight, the Shadow, the Saint, and others.
      Now back to our little house. There was no heat in the back bedroom so a blanket would be hung across the hallway.
      The sewer line came out the back of the house at a depth of about four feet. It ran along and out from the back, down the east side of the house, and out to the street. The connection there was about 12 feet deep. The total run was about 250 feet. Dad hand dug the trench, laid the pipe, and hand filled it by himself. He tunneled under all the apple tree roots
      As I said before, our hot water came from a teakettle heated on the kitchen range. We advanced to a kitchen range with a water jacket built in with a hot water tank next to it. When the basement was completed, we had running hot water heated by a monkey stove (a small coal-fired stove with a water jacket and tank next to it). I later used this little stove as a temporary heater in the house I was building. A few years later, we installed a coal stoker and hot air furnace in our basement and had for the first time central heating throughout the house.
      As we grew older, Shirley took over the bedroom and Dad remodeled the back porch into a very small bedroom for me. I collected automobile pictures of 1946 to 1948 vintages and hung them all over my room. I hung my model airplanes from the ceiling. I enjoyed drawing pictures of planes and carving them out of pine blocks. I still bear scars on my hands from the knife. One of my original planes is a dead ringer to the F15 that flies today.
      Our family enjoyed the holidays. We always had Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Hales' home on 16th street in Ogden, where an old-fashioned country dinner was prepared. I remember the mashed potatoes and gravy the most and also the white cake. My grandpa would always pour milk on his cake making it more like a pudding. Bread and milk was common at the Hales as well as milk toast (two pieces of toast with hot milk, a chunk of butter, and salt and pepper).
      Christmas dinner was always served at Grandpa and Grandma Petersen's on Madison Street. I would have to leave my Christmas toys behind at home much to my dislike. We would leave at about one o'clock for their house. On Christmas morning the type of gifts I would generally get were Tinker Toys, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, microscopes, chemistry sets, and games such as Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Monopoly, and Pit.
      It would always seem like the uncles and aunts would get together and send me the same gift. One year it might be all pocket knives or wallets or belts. My Aunt Melba's gifts were always wrapped very elaborately. My biggest disappointment was when I reached the age my uncles and aunts stopped giving gifts.
      I remember Grandma Petersen with her long white hair always rolled into a bun on top of her head. She was prim and proper and had blue eyes. There we would have a second Christmas and we had a gift exchange with our relatives on that side of the family. Their home was at 2264 Madison Avenue in Ogden; it was built in the 1800's and four generations of my family have lived in it. (It was demolished in 2010.) My cousins Warner, Joyce, and LaRae were good friends. I was always surprised of the different types of toys they enjoyed such as a toy working typewriter, lead soldiers, a casting set for melting lead, and other items. Dinner would be more continental than country. Plum pudding was always a treat as it was served flaming when brought in by Grandma Petersen.
      Grandpa Petersen also kept a very neat garden and chickens. He didn't have as many flowers as Dad did. My favorite thing other than the chickens was his Mulberry tree. I liked to climb the tree and eat the berries. He had a small dirt cellar under the house with access through a floor trap door located in the enclosed rear porch. The cellar was always full of home canned jars of peaches, pears, jams and jellies neatly placed on wooden shelves grandpa built and wood kindling very neatly stacked, chopped and ready to set morning fires. Grandma only burned wood in her big black kitchen range. She said it cooled down faster than coal when she was through cooking. On the porch was the ice-box that was filled each week with a chunk of ice. I remember the bath room with it claw-footed bathtub. I locked myself in there once.
      Grandpa had a fancy wind-up clock hanging on a kitchen wall that I liked. Grandma had a piano that she played. She gave me my one and only piano lesson by showing me how to play a few keys. The piano sat in the small living room along with a coal stove (with isinglass in the door) with a coal bucket and shovel. The wall behind the piano had a narrow set of stairs leading to the upstairs bed rooms.
      Sometimes I would go with Dad to visit Grandpa Petersen. They would sit in the kitchen and talk and have a glass of his homemade wine. I would get a taste once in a while.
      The first Christmas I remember was in our own family's two-room house. I remember my fold-down bed was in the kitchen and Dad had built me a windmill out of Tinker Toys, which I was very proud of. He had gone outside and shook some sleigh bells and then told me that Santa Claus was outside and if I didn't go to sleep he wouldn't come in. I dozed off very quickly. Dad would buy the tree and string the lights, then us kids took over and decorated the tree. We used the old-fashioned ornaments from Dad's old trunk, strings of popcorn, cranberries, and colored-paper chains.
      As a kid, we played a lot of tag games. One was called "Round-up." The first one caught in the previous game was "it." He would chase after the others. If he captured or tagged one, he became his helper and chased after the others that weren't tagged. This game ranged over miles through barns, over hay stacks, and over roofs of chicken coops. It was an all-out war.
      "Kick the Can." A can would be placed under an "arc" (or street) light and the person that was "it" had to protect the can as well as jump over the can to tag someone. The person that was "it" would find a player and race him to the can. He would yell "over the can for the player and identify him by name." If he was beat to the can and it was kicked, the kicker was free as well as any other players that had been caught and were waiting in prison.
      We played marbles, usually the traditional knock the marble out of the circle – but my favorite was "holies." You would dig 4 holes about the size of a cup about 5 feet apart at the corners forming a square. Another hole would be dug in the center. It would look something like a baseball diamond. You would each put several marbles in the center of the hole and this would be the pot to win. You would lag to a line drawn in the dirt for position of turn. The person closest to the line was the first and so on. The first person would start from the first hole. You could take a hand span (thumb in the bottom of the hole and make a radius with the finger) and shoot from anywhere within the radius to the next hole. When you reached a hole you had a second turn. The next player would shoot the same way and attempt to hit his marble for a repeat turn and to knock him out of the playing field similar to croquet. If you could span into your hole another marble, you would have three tries to knock it out of the hole. If you were able to, you got your next hole free. You would always try to knock your competitor's marble into the center hole. This would kill him or yourself if you went in. You traversed the square three times and then you would shoot to the center hole and be made a king. You would then attempt to hit the other players' marbles. A touch from the king would kill the player. The last one alive took the pot. The marble that the individual shot with was called the "ta." We took great pride in this marble.
      Of course we played "hide and seek" also.
      If you had an "arc" light in front of your house, you were the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Kids don't play