Describe a favorite childhood friend and something you did with him or her.

Gloria Staples. In Central there were no girls my age, only me and 2 boys Kent Mason and Robert Nielson the age one year older was 2 boys Richard Christiansen and _______ Larsen so I either had to have friends 1 year younger which were my sister Joy’s friends because we were 1 year and 3 days apart in age or have friends 2 years older. You can imagine how some of them felt when then went to MIA first as Beehives and a 10 year old got to come. There was a large group 2 years older: Joyce Nielson, Marjorie Christiansen, LaDona Barney, Gloria Staples, Jean Rogers, Carla Mason. Some were really mean to me, especially Joyce but not Gloria.

Of course they graduated from High School 2 years earlier than me and Gloria and Carla got jobs as telephone operators and an apartment in Richfield. When I graduated my parents wanted me to go to college so I went to Snow for 2 quarters then Gloria got me a job at the telephone office. 

The really fun thing we did was take my car and go to Provo and stay in the Roberts Hotel for a week end and shop in Provo: Gloria, Carla, Carol—Gloria’s sister, and I went. It was the greatest trip. Gloria died about 15 years ago. So did Jean and Joyce.

Tell about your teenage social life—friends, dances, dating, church functions, etc.

I was 2 years younger than the other girls in Central so my friends in Central were 2 years older than me. There was quite a group 2 years older: Jean Rogers, Joyce Nielson, Margie Christiansen, Gloria Staples, Mona Lou Barney, Carla Mason. The group just naturally divided: Jean, Gloria, Carla, and sometimes Mona Lou; and Joyce, Marjorie, and sometimes Mona Lou.

The problem started when we were through Primary and going into Young Women’s. Margorie and Joyce especially, didn’t want me to go to Young Womens with them. There was  a big meeting. My mother was YW President and she was crying and the other girls were crying or angry. The spirit go the Lord was not in that meeting. I went with the girls one year younger that put me in the same group with my sister Joy, so the Bishop just said I would start YW with the older group. What started on such a negative note blossomed into a lifetime friendship. Jean, Carla, Gloria, and sometimes Mona Lou accepted me whole heartedly and Joyce, Margie, and sometimes Mona Lou just ignored I existed.

The four of us had a ball as teenagers with playing in the school square, made candy every Sunday afternoon that we didn’t go to Richfield to the shoes [shows?]. Everyone brought a cup of sugar and a cup of cream and eggs. We all had cows but the taro syrup was a problem. One day we were making divinity and I was pouring the syrup into the egg whites. Joyce was stirring the mixture and somehow got her hand under the hot syrup—it was a really nasty burn. 

We also played monopoly lots of times and collected movie star’s pictures which we plastered [pasted] all over our rooms. One day we were at Jean’s playing monopoly in her bedroom because her parents had company in the living room. I left the bedroom to go to the kitchen to get a drink of water and I heard Arthela, Jean’s mother, say some really unkind things about me. I was really surprised because our mothers were such good friends and I thought she like me also. Year later, after I was married, and lived in an apartment house in Richfield, she and mother would come to our apartment everyday and take off their shoes and eat their lunch there. The both worked at Christensens department store.

None of us were big into dating. Example, one gold and green ball the church held each year the Laurals were honored with a corsage. We decorated the church rec room had a floor show with the golden green ball as part of the food show. The Laurels honored. I sang a solo, not that my voice was that good, it’s the best Central had and all the boys in Central brought girls from Annabella or Monroe to the dance and all the girls from Central sat on the side humiliated to death.

Jean and Carla got married right out of High school and Mona Lou went to Bryce Canyon where she met some guy from the middle west and went with him to his home. She returned to Central 3 years later looking like a skeleton so thin her eyes bugged out. She must have nearly starved to death with the husband. Anyway she had a little boy with her and never looked back. I guess she divorced him because she married a Conder from Ashton and never left again. Jean died years ago, Carla just dropped out of the picture and Gloria, my best and closest friend died a few years ago of cancer.

My first years in Central were not the greatest nor were my mothers—we just didn’t fit in and then “wham” a miracle happened. They bussed the Central and Annabella kids to Monroe and closed the 2 small schools and Virginia Nielson moved into an empty house about 3 blocks from our house. She and mother hit it off from the first and became close friends till mom died. Virginia was a native of Central, being a  Staples before she married. Whether or not his made a difference I don’t know but from then on we were in.

My first day at Monroe was awful! My mother would brush my hair into long red ringlets every night and put 2 bobbie pins in each curl. The kids from Monroe danced around my desk and chanted “red headed wood pecker—peck, peck, peck.” I went home in tears. The next day was totally different. The kids learned they were children of my moms old school friends and then I could be one of them. Jeannine Madsen asked me to go home with her for lunch. She lived close enough to school she could walk home for lunch. Her mother Madelyn and her Aunt Melva owned a very small department store in Monroe and both had gone to school with Mom.

There were many great friend in Monroe and lots of fun and parties. Dawn Baker, Jeannine Madsen, Beverly Swindle, Sherrie Lee, Annabelle Lest, Louise Hanson. I stayed over lots at least 2 nights a week for something or other. My Uncle Vance and Aunt Gladys lived just across the street from the department store and next door to the drug store in the old hotel they had restored. And Grandma Nielson lived on the second to last street going south out of town so I always had a place to stay.  We always had lots of sleepovers where I spent the night with one of the girls.