GRANDMA ERICKSON

Dear Katrina,

I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to get to this—and I promised to have it to you the next day. Anyway, here it is.

I met Grandma Erickson early in September of 1951. Jack went into the Marine Corps and I was still living with my sister Grace and her husband and kids but I spent quite a bit of time at Grandpa and Grandma Ehlers home. I met Jack on Monday, August 13, 195l and had only two official dates with him before he left to go to Boot Camp which lasted nine weeks. Jack did take me to Blanding so he could meet my parents in addition to the two dates we had. We knew before he left that we would be married and we planned to do that on his boot leave early in November. (Actually, we both knew we would get married before we met but that’s another story.) He told his parents that we would be getting married and his entire family, including his grandparents, aunts and uncles embraced me immediately and welcomed me into the family. As a result of that, I spent quite a bit of time at Jack’s parents’ home. Your Grandmother Black (whom I will refer to as Elaine in the rest of this story just for brevity) welcomed me into her circle of friends and had me come out to their house on week-ends as well as one or two nights a week.

It was during this time that I met the Ericksons. Grandma and Grandpa Erickson came out to the Ehlers’ home frequently to help in that big yard and to help with the harvesting of the crops the Ehlers’ grew. In those days they had a lot of fruit trees (mainly peach trees) and a wonderful garden with all kinds of vegetables. Grandma Erickson and Grandma Ehlers would bottle peaches, pears, tomatoes, jams and jellies. It was faster and more fun to work together than to work separately at their homes. (I always called Arnold and Thelma Ehlers mom and dad because they welcomed me so quickly and lovingly and I felt very close to them but, here, I will refer to both of them as Grandma and Grandpa Ehlers.) Sometimes Grandpa Ehlers would pick up Grandma Erickson and bring her out to their place but sometimes she walked to the bus stop and rode the bus to the Ehlers’.

Sometimes, Grandma Erickson was at the Ehlers’ home when I was there and that’s how I got to know her. When she learned Jack and I were going to get married she began making us a quilt—quilted, not tied. She was always very loving and kind. When Jack came home from boot camp we got married. Grandma Ehlers (working with Grandma Erickson) had an open house for us on Sunday afternoon and invited the relatives. Then they gave us an open house Sunday evening and invited friends. We were married on Monday, November 5, 1951 in the Salt Lake Temple. We traveled to Blanding where my parents gave us a reception on Wednesday evening. Thursday we traveled back to Salt Lake City, packed all our belongings into our car and left to go to Santa Ana, California, on Friday afternoon because Jack was due back at the “El Toro” Marine Base on Monday morning, November 12^th. We arrived in Santa Ana on Sunday

afternoon. We were not able to find an apartment in Santa Ana so we just started driving

looking for “For Rent” signs. We finally found one right on the beach in Newport Beach and it was only about 10 miles from the Base. He was on base during the day time and was able to come home at night and he had week-ends off. We paid $50.00 per month rent. Not a bad place to begin our married life.

We were in Newport Beach about five weeks when Jack got orders to go to Korea. So we packed everything and took the long way back to Salt Lake by dropping down through Arizona and into Blanding to see my parents and then we spent Christmas with the Ehlers. Christmas Eve festivities were held at Grandma Erickson’s home and it was absolutely incredible. I had never known a Christmas Eve like that. I guess Grandma Erickson and Grandma Ehlers had been cooking and baking for several days. I ate food I had never eaten before. There was fun and comraderie that was very new to me. Grandma Erickson was so happy Jack and I could be home for Christmas and she fussed over us and treated us like celebrities. Of course, she treated everyone that way. Christmas 1951 was the first time I tasted Snow Pudding. Grandma Erickson had made it for the Christmas Eve get-together. I thought it was odd but it was not unpleasant. Everyone else at the party loved Snow Pudding so I figured if I was to be one of them I’d better learn to like it. It didn’t take long to learn to love it.

A couple of weeks later Jack was on his way to Korea and I was living with the Ehlers family. I had assumed I would get an apartment until Jack came back but Grandma and Grandpa Ehlers insisted I stay with them. It was the best thing I could ever have done. I was able to learn more about cooking, sewing and other things from the “Pro”, Grandma Ehlers. I also found a job at the Church Welfare Offices. I was secretary for two men, Bishop Irvin B. Nydegger and Brother ElRay L. Christiansen who was an assistant to the twelve apostles. (They didn’t have the huge Quorum of Seventies in place then as they do now. As I recall, there were six Assistants to the Apostles.) They were wonderful bosses.

While living with the Ehlers, I was better able to get to know Grandma and Grandpa Erickson simply because I had opportunity to see them more. From the first time I met them I could feel the love. They were so kind and warm. I learned that Grandma Minnie took care of all kinds of neighbors. When I say, “took care of”, I mean that she liked to keep track of the older ladies in the Ward and neighborhood. If any one of them was the least bit under the weather she would make a pot of soup or bread or something else and take it to whoever needed it. Then she would say: “The poor thing isn’t feeling well. She has such a hard time.” The chances were “the poor thing” was 10 to 15 years younger than Grandma Minnie but that was just the kind of person she was. She looked after her neighbors.

Jack came home after six months in Korea and was being sent for special training at Quantico, Virginia. We packed everything we owned into the back seat and trunk of our 1947 Dodge and headed east. Both Grandma’s were sad to see us go but it was another grand adventure for me.

I could tell you many stories about our life back east but I’ll put those stories in another part of my blog. This story is about Grandma Erickson.

Jack was discharged from the Marine Corps in August of 1953. We came home and lived in the “coop” for a little over a year. During that year Jack attended the U of U studying Architecture. He attended the University for three quarters of school (fall, winter and spring-they weren’t doing semesters in those days). He took the following summer off and during that summer of 1954 he decided he wanted a new car. He set his heart on a new Buick Roadmaster. It was the top of the line Buick. He ordered it and got the date it would be available at the factory in Flint, Michigan. He decided we would go to Flint to pick it up. (In those days it was cheaper to buy bus tickets to the factory and drive the car home than to pay the shipping so that’s what we did. It was also another new adventure for me.) When we arrived home he wanted his mom and dad to see it and then he wanted Grandma Erickson to see it so we drove down to her home on Douglas Street. Jack was very excited for Grandma Minnie to see the new car. Grandma was not as excited as he had hoped she would be. She just said, “Jack, what did you do? Did you rob a bank?” I laugh every time I think of it. It was so typically Grandma. Actually, she had a delightful sense of humor.

Now, I will regress a little. The U of U had a “young” Architecture Department and they were still in the process of figuring out the actual schedule for that Department. Jack had taken a couple of classes that were required at the time and then the Dept. heads decided that wasn’t the direction they wanted to go and they dropped the classes and also dropped the credits, so it turned out to be a waste of time for those who had taken the classes. Jack decided he wanted to go to an established School of Architecture where the schedules were set and later come back when the schedule at the U of U was solid. He did some research and applied to the University of Washington in Seattle. He was accepted. We couldn’t make it there in time for fall quarter. We left SLC in November so we’d be settled by the beginning of winter quarter. (We later met two other guys who had transferred from U of U to U of W for the same reason we transferred.)

We came back to SLC each summer in l955 and l956 for a couple weeks vacation. We visited with Grandma and Grandpa Erickson both years. They were wonderful and looked forward to when we’d be home permanently. Each time we came home Grandma Erickson would look at me and hold her arms as though she were holding a baby and swing them back and forth with a question on her face. I would shake my head and she would shake her head in sadness for us. The evening of December 20, 1956 we received a phone call from Grandpa Ehlers informing us Grandma Erickson had passed away that day. After Jack hung up the phone he said, “Now, we’ll have a baby.” I heard him very clearly but I said, “What did you say?” He looked at me, shook his head and said, “I don’t know why I said that.” It really impressed me, however, and I thought I would be pregnant in January. January came and went and I was not pregnant. Then my thought was: I will be pregnant in February. February came and went and I was not pregnant. Toward the end of February Jack withdrew from the U of W and we moved back to Salt Lake. We had really loved Seattle and toyed with the idea of staying there but suddenly it seemed important to move back to Utah and live here. Jack had done some checking on the curriculum at the U of U and it had stabilized so we deemed it safe to return.

Jack and I had been seeing some specialists as to why I wasn’t getting pregnant. We had both been prodded and poked and I had some procedures done. Obviously they didn’t have as much knowledge in 1955 and 1956 as they do now but those particular specialists had a high rate of success with their patients. We were hopeful. When we went to our last appointment we told them we were moving to Utah. They told us: “We don’t think you will ever have any children. We don’t know why but our suggestion is: When you get to Utah you should apply for adoption.”

That made us very sad but we departed to Utah. We bought Grandma and Grandpa Erickson’s home on Douglas Street and settled in. Immediately after we moved to their home I called the LDS adoption services and made an appointment to see them and to fill out adoption papers. The appointment was the last week of April in l957. By the time we went to that appointment I had begun to suspect I was pregnant. At our interview we did not mention the possibility that I might be pregnant, just in case. A few weeks later we were able to have the pregnancy confirmed. (About three months later we let the people at the adoption agency know we were pregnant.)

Bret was due December 6, 1957. He didn’t come. He was born two weeks late on December 21, 1957—one year and one day after Grandma Erickson passed away. Jack summed it up this way: “It took Grandma a couple of months to find her way around in Heaven and then she began to shake things up.” She was a sweet, loving, kind, generous and feisty woman. We always have felt that Grandma Erickson had a hand in our ability to have children. Bret: December 21, 1957; Jackie: December 22, 1958; I had a miscarriage in 1960; Patti: May 27, 1961; Shanna: August 12, 1962; two miscarriages;

Tal: July 25, 1967. Grandma was very persuasive.

Katrina, I hope this gives you a little more information about Grandma Erickson. I loved that woman with all my heart.