Grandma's Email

I asked Grandma for some information about her early married life.

This is what she gave me:

When we got married I felt like were were starting our own world. If I could choose the perfect couple to be Adam and Eve, I would choose Jim's parents. We lived in Salt Lake. Jim was going to the University of Utah on the GI Bill, so we sold our car to save money and found it really did save us a lot of money. We walked to school and church and grocery shopping. I worked at Continental Bank downtown and road the bus to work. Jim & I road the bus to attend the temple monthly. It was fun! When I got pregnant, the cigar smell that the cleaning lady left after using our bathroom was to much for me. I'd walk in from work and have to run and throw up. Jim got a job in White Sands New Mexico. I stayed with my parents with the baby coming. I had cramping and called the doctor, He said, meet me at the hospital and I'll check you. A big nurse tried to prep me for delivery, but I insisted I had only come to be checked. He sent me home and I had to ride the bus to the doctor once a week for a shot to keep the baby.

I was doing the dishes when I started in labor. We did not want another false alarm so mother and I drove around Liberty Park for a while to make sure this was the real thing. I didn't have bad pains until they told me I had to lay down. Walking around worked great! I was fine. Jim and I had taken the classes for a natural childbirth delivery. Then this big nurse came into the room without a word or warning & slapped a gas mask on my face. It was awful, chloroform, the spinning and a feeling of sinking & voices getting farther away.

Jill was a fine healthy baby, but I couldn't remember whether I had a boy or a girl. I asked several times. Jim came home to see us because I had to go back to the hospital after 10 days they didn't get all the afterbirth. Jim didn't feel right about handing out paychecks to his employees that were larger than his, just because they had a degree and he didn't. He quit his job and worked for the post office delivering mail that Christmas.

We moved to Elizabeth Street to a house on stilts. It was cold! There was one wall heater. We kept Jill next to it and we slept on the couch. It was too cold in the bedroom. There were holes in the floor that we could look down and see the ground way below. We stuffed newspapers into them to try and make it warmer. A family in our ward moved, so we moved into Vogel's apartment on Douglas Street. We loved it there well enough that we were still there after Raymond was born. Lemoyne and Mary, Jim's sister, lived not far away. Lemoyne taught me to drive in
his Volkswagon. Those were great times. Mary has always been so fun!

We didn't have much money. The bishop looked at me and asked when I had any meat. I thought that was a strange question. He brought Jim & me some meat and a case of canned milk for Jill. We bought a Volkswagon so we could show off our children to their grandparents and stalk up on garden vegetables from Jim's dad's garden and the Japanese gardeners. We got as much food as the car would hold for $.50 It was so good and lasted so long.

Love you!

I'm sorry I can't seem to make things simple.

Hello everyone

Hello, I finally figured out how to do this. It wouldn't connect through my e-mail but brilliant Heahter helped me, actually I figured out what to do about the same time she did. Life is good. The wedding for Liz and Joe is scheduled for May 14th at 10:00 AM in Timpanogos Temple. We will be having an open house the night before at our house, if the weather decides to rain on our parade we will go to our little church, but I have faith in sunshine.

YIPPEE!!!!!

Congratulations, Liz!!! We are so excited for you. We can't wait to hear more about him and when the wedding will take place. Keep us posted.

p.s. i think we need to re-invite everyone to join the blog, so email me any email addresses you have for the family so that they can all be up to date on the goings on of the walkers.

So I have some new for everyone: I'm getting married! The guy's name is Joe Braithwaite and I'll include a picture of him so you can see. We met in September up in Logan and we plan on getting married in May sometime.

Follow the Brethren: Blog

Thought you’d all like to know that we are yet following the latest counsel of the Brethren.

 

This week, Elder Ballard encouraged church members (specifically graduates at BYU-H) to participate in new communication mediums such as blogging:

 

“We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches.”

 

He also said:

 

“Now, to you who are graduating today, along with the other students at this wonderful university, may I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the New Media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration.  Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true.  You can download videos from Church and other appropriate sites, including Newsroom at LDS.org, and send them to your friends.  You can write to media sites on the Internet that report on the Church, and voice your views as to the accuracy of the reports. This, of course, requires that you understand the basic principles of the gospel.”

 

You can read Elder Ballard’s talk here.  

 

Thanks for setting up and participating in the family blog! Let’s take it one step further and personally make sure we share the gospel through our conversations on the Internet!

 

P.S. Do you think my parents would ever use an iPod like Elder Ballard?

I am so excited I am about to burst

Here's an early Christmas present for all of you:

I have recently completed a family history website that has some information about our family!

I am planning on adding a lot of stories and information to the website as I collect more, but is some good stuff on there already.

Go to walkerboot.com and start exploring! You can also help me out by emailing me anything you want me to put on the website.

Thank you!

:D

(One more thing: The website isn't perfect--I already have found some links that don't work correctly. If you find mistakes of any sort (grammatical, historical, something doesn't show up right, you're confused, etc.), PLEASE , PLEASE tell me about them so I can correct them. Add a comment to this blog or email me.)

McLaughlin Group on Mormons

Ugh. I can’t believe how much mis-information about the church is out there. I’m surprised how many people get their information from anti-Mormon propaganda.

 

Still, it is fascinating to see. Watch the video at the end of this post, or here.  

 

On a political front, I find it interesting that the hard-line left wing call so many people bigots, racist, and discriminatory, while they then turn around and discriminate against certain religions, as illustrated by liberal in the video. And the right wing isn’t much better in their hypocrisy when it comes to their parties’ foundational beliefs. It seems that people are less concerned about who will lead better, and are more concerned by party affiliations and the whole “my team wins” mentality.