Lila...Part 2

Here is the next little bit of Grandma's History...

When I was 12 years old we moved to a farm out of Cardston on the Beazer road. We traded places with a Bateman Family. This always seemed strange to me, I had seen trading horses, cattle, etc., but trading homes was different and it took me quite awhile to feel at home there. But soon we got acquainted with neighbors and found a few friends to replace our old ones. Some of our neighbors were the Alec & Mable Glenn family, Brigham & Antrice Low family and Ellsworth and Erma Bevans family. We didn't get together very often because we lived several miles apart so we were teenagers before we had any youth parties. The first boy I ever went with was Keith Bevans (everyone called him Casey) and it was kind of a family arrangement. My sister Ruth was dating Fulton Bevans, his brother who lived about five miles from us on a farm just out of Cardston. When Fulton came to pick up Ruth, Keith would come with him and I went with them so I guess you'd say we were double dating. I wasn't too excited about this arrangement because Keith was younger than I was, but it got me places and we did have a lot of fun. Then Gib Shafer, one of Fulton's good friends, joined our group and I went with him for awhile. Sometimes we double dated with Ruth & Fulton as well. By this time England was at war with Germany & Gib was called into the service. Also my brother, Eldon got his call and after training went to England as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He had been over there only a few months when Mom & Dad received word that he was missing in action and presumed dead. Six months later it was confirmed that his plane collided in mid-air with another aircraft and sank into the Severn River near Bedwin Sands England. Date of Death was January 26th 1943. This was especially hard on my mother and she never quite got over it. Eldon was given a blessing before he left that he would return home safely. sometime after this in an interview with the Bishop, Mom was told that he did return safely to his heavenly home. I'm sure this was a source of comfort to my mother.

Soon after this I started dating Charles Boradbent. He had a very nice singing voice and had received a lot of vocal training from Luella Smith, a Cardston music teacher. During the time I went with him he sang at many ward and stake functions and I accompanied him there. I became quite smitten with him and his singing voice and the acclaim he received wherever we went but he too was called into the service in the air force, and even though he gave me a diamond ring just before he went overseas, which meant we were engaged, it didn't work out and I sent his ring back. During this time I had met and fell in love with Woodrow Forsyth and knew he was Mr. Right. We were married in the Alberta Temple September 26, 1945. We had a reception at the Blue Room of the Grill in Carston with a catered dinner and a special program. There were 50 guests present. Then we had a wedding picture taken at Atterton Studio, after which we escaped some people who were out to shivaree us (This was an expression for a disgusting custom of the time to separate the bride and groom). Russel Kearl helped us get to Macleod and then on to Lethbridge where we borarded a plane for a wonderful one week honeymoon in Great Falls, Montana.

We lived in and around Cardston for a few years, moving to wherever he had a ranching job. Much of it was seasonal however and we were looking for stability. Our first son, James Eldon, was born on June 26, 1946 in the Cardston Hospital. He weighed 4lbs. and 9 oz., so they put him in an incubator and kept both of us in the hospital for 10 days til he weighed 5 lbs. He was very tiny so we carried him around on a pillow so we wouldn't drop him. I was nursing him but he wasn't doing very well, so at six weeks old I weaned him and put him on formula and bottle fed him and he grew quite rapidly after that and became a contented baby. Woody was working for a rancher and we lived in a one room cabin provided for us; they were milking several cows so there was lots of milk for the baby as well as ourselves. He worked for several ranchers in turn and then he got a job truck driving and did well at that & it was a year round job. He bought a truck and was hauling livestock for a couple of years. One of his brothers, D.R. as he was called (David Ronald) had moved to Spokane and had a steady job working for Kaiser Aluminum. Also another brother Charles wanted to move down there with the lure of steady work, so Woody decided we should move down there too. We had a truck which was big enough to haul our belongings and those of Charles & Thea as well, so we moved down to Spokane together in November 1948, Charles & Thea and their two children, us with one and expecting another one in three months.

I was due in February and we were on a doctor's contract in Cardston so I went on a train with Eldon, our two year old and a half year old son to Cardston to wait for the 2nd baby to arrive. He came about a week later on February 15th, 1949, my grandpa Caldwell's birthday. He weighed 6 lbs., 7 ozs. and was born in the Cardston Hospital and we named him Randall Woodrow and called him Randy. I stayed alternately with my folks and Woody's folks for about a month till I was able to travel with my two boys. My folks took me to the border where Woody met us and we went back to Spokane.

Woody hadn't found steady work but he contacted his uncle, Herb Bassett, who said he could use help lambing and herding sheep for the summer, so we left Spokane and moved to Cody, Wyoming where his Uncle lived. We were there for the summer and fall living in a one room sheep cabin in the "badlands". Our busy oldest son turned 3 that summer and loved to play outside. I had to watch him like a hawk because there were known to be rattle snakes in the area. Everyone wore western boots because of the rattle snakes so we had to buy Woody & I as well as Eldon, who fell down in his before we left the store. Other problems included no water or electricity so we couldn't use our washer because it was electric. We had to haul water from the river, make a fire in a woodstove to heat it, and wash the clothes on a washboard in a round tub. I boiled the baby's diapers in a boiler on the stove. Also with no refrigeration we couldn't have fresh milk, so we bought by the case little 5 oz cans of condensed milk. This I fixed into formula by adding boiled water with only one can at a time to feed the baby, Randy.

I guess that will do us for today. What an amazing summer for them. No electricity or running water, with babies. I really am grateful for my modern conveniences!!