Lois Jean Oakes

MY PROGRESSION THROUGH LIFE

            An abbreviated version

                            –by Lois Jean Walton Oakes

I first saw the light of day on the 7th day of November, 1927 in the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I was born at 2 o'clock on the morning of that day to Hazen Bissell and Margaret Mary Johnson Walton, and was the only one of their children to be born in a hospital.  I was given the name of Lois Jean Walton in the Sugar House Ward on the lst day of January, 1928.

My brother Marvin was the oldest child in the family, being about sixteen years older than I.  Next came Anna, then Fern, then John, and then me.  At the time of my birth the family was living in a 4-room bungalow home with a sleeping porch on the rear, and it was located at 2027 McClelland Street in Sugar House.  My Uncle Rex and his family lived next door to the north of us, and then Grandpa and Grandma Walton lived next door north of them, so they were a happy little group.  However, my birth added to the crowded conditions in the home and so when I was about three months old the family moved into a larger home at 1066 Hollywood Avenue, just around the corner, and this is where I lived until the time of my marriage.

At the time of my birth, Dad worked as a real estate salesman for the LeGrand Richards Realty Company, but in about 1931 he and a group of other men entered into a partnership and formed the Peerless Laundry in Sugar House where Dad worked as a route salesman and drove truck No. 9.  His route was on the avenues section of Salt Lake and many of his customers were wealthy and influential people in the community, including David O. McKay when he served as one of the Council of the Twelve.  On some occasions he took me with him on his route while he finished up a few things, and I would sit on a little box which was situated next to his seat in which he kept his papers and receipts and other paraphernalia.  When I'd get tired I'd get in the back of the truck and rest my back against the bags of laundry.  As I think about it now it seems as though I can still smell those bags of clean laundry.  We would always stop at Farr's Ice Cream store east on South Temple Street and get an ice cream cone before heading home.  My favorite choice was root beer ice cream.            

Dad was always a friendly and sociable man and enjoyed talking to people.  He was always a hard worker–would go to work early and come home after dark six days a week.  I remember the laundry whistle blowing every day at 8:00 a.m., 12 noon and again at 12:30, and at 4:30 in the afternoon.  You could hear that old whistle all over Sugar House.

I can remember very little about the early years of my life.  I was just a very small child when Grandma Walton died.  At that time Grandpa came to live with us and worked as a night watchman.  I loved him very much.  I would be in bed early in the morning and would hear his key in the front door lock.  I would jump out of bed and run and hide behind his big chair in the living room to scare him, and no one ever acted as scared as Grandpa did.  I can remember, also, that when I was about three years old I sang a song on a radio program called the Kangaroo Club which was hosted by "Uncle Ray". I sat on his lap and sang, "East Side, West Side, All Around the Town–"  Mother said that Grandpa sat in front of the radio with tears in his eyes listening to every word I sang.  He loved to play with the little children and was quite an actor, much as my own father was later in his life.  Both Grandpa and my Dad worked as "Santa's Helper" at Christmas-time and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I really missed Grandpa when he passed away.

Sugar House was a busy little community, and I remember when it extended only from llth East to 9th East and not much farther south then 21st South.  That is the area that my life revolved around in my growing-up years.  I remember the Sugar Merc, a grocery store which Mr. Madsen, a neighbor, ran and the Piggley-Wiggley store which was close to it.  I probably just remember that one because of the rhymey name.  And there was Ben Franklin's which was a dime store which sold wonderful things for just a few pennies.  Ebmeyer's Bakery was a wonderful place to go into because everything smelled so delicious, and their cream puffs and chocolate eclairs sold for six for a quarter.  Yummy!

My best friends in those early days were Annabelle Biesinger, who lived next door to the west of us, and Norma Lloyd, who lived across the street.  Annabelle had two little red-haired twin brothers, Bobby and Ronnie, and an older brother, Dick.  The twins were always into mischief in one way or another, and we always seemed to be nearby on the fringes.  Dick Donelson lived west of them, and Hammy (Hamilton Fisher) Wilson was next to them.  Norma also had a brother and a sister, Charles and Charlene, who were twins.  We had lots of fun roller skating around and around the block and playing "Hide and Seek" and "Run Sheepie Run" and "No Bears Are Out Tonight" in the evenings, and in the wintertime there was always sleighriding on the hill behind Irving Junior High School.  That used to seem like the longest, steepest hill in the world.  Lila Cannon moved in next door to the east when I was a little older, and she was also a friend later on.

The Biesinger kids and I used to like to go down to J. C. Penney's on the corner of McClelland Street and 21st South where we could find the best boxes to drag home to make a playhouse out of.  There was just enough room between our house and Biesinger's house on the west to make a good playhouse and this is where the boxes were kept.  When I think now of all of the junk my poor father had to dispose of–  And I mustn't forget Kunick's furniture store there by our back yard.  Mr. and Mrs. Kunick (Frank and Gladys) were a childless couple who lived above their furniture store.  As much as we used to hang around there, I don't think they ever sent us home and told us to stay there.  Mr. Kunick was always generous with his nickels for an ice cream cone, and Mrs. Kunick would let us go out of the window by their upstairs apartment and sit on the flat roof of the store to watch the people go by down below us.  We would drop tiny little pebbles down on people as they passed below us and would then duck down so we couldn't be seen when the people would look up to see what was dropping from the sky.

I remember in the summertime, before the advent of all of the soft drink machines in the stores, we would make Koolaid and sell it to the people who worked in the stores there along 11th East.  We did a lot of business with the men working in Kunick's refinishing the furniture, and at Broadbeck's Ideal Repair Shop where the sidewalk was always lined with lawnmowers and bicycles in various stages of repair.  Mrs. Erskine in the plumbing store was always a good customer, as were the fellows who worked in the Texaco gas station on the corner.  We would always start business just before lunchtime and did what we thought was a fabulous business.

Another memory of mine was the time my family attended a program at the University of Utah in the Stadium Bowl.  At the conclusion of the program as we were walking to our car we saw President Heber J. Grant.  My father took me by the hand and led me up to the President of our Church and introduced me to him.  He was very gracious as he talked to me.  It was an experience I will never forget.

I attended the Forest School, which was on the corner of 9th East and 21st South, until the 7th grade, then entered Irving Junior High for the 8th and 9th grades.  This school was located on 12th East and 21st South.  I attended South High School for grades 10, 11, and 12.  For these years, I had to walk or ride the bus, as the school was on State Street just north of 17th South. quite some distance from our home.  The old State Penitentiary was on 21st South at about 13th East on up to about 17th East.  We would occasionally catch glimpses of the prisoners around about the place and would sometimes hear the sirens blaring if there was an escape.  It was kind of exciting.  (Many years later when I was married and expecting my first baby, I worked at a bank in Sugarhouse at which the wife of the assistant warden also worked.  She gave a baby shower for me at her home on the prison grounds.  Inmate trustees were the cook and the server of the meal.  Getting in and out of the prison grounds was an event in itself, as was just being there in that atmosphere.  I don't know of anyone else who had that experience.)

About a year after I was born the Lincoln Ward of the Granite Stake was built, and our family became members of that ward.  It was a great ward to live in, and many good people were members of it.  I have many fond memories of those years.  I remember the awesome experience of my baptism into the Church by Frank J. Newman when I was eight years old.  I was baptized on the 28th of December, 1935 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle font and was confirmed on January 5, 1936 by my father.  Dad was not able to baptize me because he couldn’t get off work to do it, but he did come later and drive us home.

Airplanes in those days weren't as common as they are today.  They were a relatively new invention.  Charles A. Lindbergh made his famous flight over the Atlantic Ocean in May of the year I was born, 1927.  It seemed like the planes flew quite low in those days.  When we would hear the drone of an airplane  overhead we would shout, "There's an airplane," and we would run outside to have a look at it.  My friends and I would yell, "Gimme a ride," at the top of our lungs and wonder if the pilot heard us.  Of course, much to our disappointment, he never did. 

Quite often in the summertime as an advertising gimmick skywriters would be employed to write words in the sky with their planes.  When we would see them looping around in the sky getting ready to go to work, we would lie on the ground and watch carefully.  We saw them write "Pepsi," for one thing that I remember, and thought that really would be a fun thing to do.  We would also lie on the ground and look up at the clouds in the sky and imagine all kinds of shapes and forms and make up stories about them.

My friends and I would also go to Sugar House Park and Fairmont Park in the summertime and have arts and crafts activities and go swimming.  Our ward also had annual outings at Fairmont Park to which each family took their own meal and then afterwards a program would be held on the hill over by the duck pond.  This was an event that was looked forward to each summer, and I think things like this helped very much to form a strong bond between the families in the ward.  Roller skating around the block was a fun thing for us to do.  Around and around we'd go.  Sugar House was always a fun place to explore and we got to know the clerks in the stores very well.  We were probably a great big pain. 

The year I finished the seventh grade at Forest our family took a two-week vacation trip to Zions, Bryce, and Grand Canyons, down to Phoenix, Arizona to visit Uncle Rex and his family, over to La Mesa, California to visit with Uncle Leon's family (these were both Dad's brothers), and then up to the San Francisco World's Fair.  This was in about 1939 and we had a new car.  We had a very nice trip together.  In Phoenix we saw oranges and grapefruit growing on the trees, and I remember how very, very hot it was there at that time of the year, which was the last part of May.  This was the only big vacation trip I remember our family taking together.  It lasted about two weeks, and I was car sick the entire time, existing on cream of tomato soup, which was about the only thing that would stay down.  Surprisingly enough, I still like it.

We did take a few trips to Burley, Idaho to visit Aunt Hannah and her family, but they weren't very often because of the distance involved.  Even going to Spanish Fork to visit Aunt Nene and Aunt Ann, two more of mother's sisters, was a big endeavor.  It was always fun to visit their homes on the farm and see the different sights and have different experiences.  I remember visiting the little church that Aunt Hannah's family attended out in the country where they each had so many callings to keep things running, and I was impressed.  On those trips to Burley we would always end up traveling some at night because we had to wait to leave until Dad got off work.  I remember counting the jack rabbits that would run across the road in front of the car, and there were scads of them.  Sometimes we'd see a deer, or some other animal, standing alongside the road, and its eyes would shine out in the dark as they reflected the light from the car's headlights.  I'd usually get a careful ride on a horse with my cousins if I was lucky.  My brother, John, and brother-in-law, Harry Ohrn, did the driving of the car on those trips.             

The Fall after our trip to California I entered the Irving Junior High School, and it was while I attended this school that my brother John went on his mission to the Hawaiian Islands and while he was there, on the 7th of December, 1941, the islands were attacked by the Japanese people and World War II began.  It was a scarey time while he was gone, and I think his mission lasted for two and a half years because they couldn't bring any new missionaries into the field because of the war.

I enjoyed my high school days at South High School, and my very favorite times were spent in my music classes.  In the Glee Club and the A'Cappella we presented the school operetta, and while in the A'Cappella I was a member of a special choir (which I guess is now considered to be the Madrigals) and we would visit Bushnell Hospital in Brigham City to sing to wounded servicemen, to Wendover at the army base, and to visit various wards to present musical programs for sacrament meetings.  It was a lot of fun.  Typing and shorthand were also enjoyable classes, and I developed good skills in them which have served me well through the years.

Upon my graduation from high school I obtained a job at the First National Bank of Salt Lake City, Sugar House Branch, just through the block from our home, where I worked for four years as secretary to the manager, C. G. (Neal) White.  This was the second job held by me, as I had worked the summer before my graduation from high school in the Church Membership Department for $88.00 a month, which to me at the time seemed like all the money in the world.  I was hired by LeGrand Richards, who was the Presiding Bishop of the Church at the time.  He was a good friend of Dad's.  It pays to know good people.  I worked at the bank for four years and enjoyed it a great deal.  I started there at a salary of $100.00 a month, and when I left I had worked up to $175.00 a month.

In February of 1946 I noticed a young man who was a stranger to me and who had just been released from the Army.  His mother, brother, and aunt had moved into our ward a few months earlier from Springville, Utah.  This young man also noticed me and later told me that it was because he saw me everywhere he looked, either directing music, giving a two-and-a-half minute talk in church, serving as secretary in an organization, working at the bank, or walking on the streets of Sugar House.  He couldn't avoid me, so decided to join me, and so I started to date Royal E. Oakes.  In June of that year he was called on a mission to the Northwestern States where he labored until February of 1948.  We corresponded during that time, and in May of 1948 we became engaged to be married.  On the 8th of September, 1948, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple by Benjamin L. Bowring, and we moved into an apartment in a little house at 770 South 9th East where we lived until after the birth of our first child, Marsha, on July 28, 1949.  We would have to move because of the impending birth of our baby since no children were allowed there, so we applied for married student housing at the University of Utah.

Two weeks after Marsha's birth we moved into Apt. No. 1 at 1579 Sigma Avenue in Stadium Village, an apartment complex for married students at the University of Utah where Royal was a student. These apartments were remodeled Army barracks which had been brought in and remodeled into apartments.  They weren't the classiest places by any sense of the word, but they were convenient and we could afford the rent, which was about $21.00 a month.  We were fortunate that no fires ever broke out while we lived there, but a large portion of the roof did blow off in a tornado-like windstorm.  The weather had turned very dark and ominous and my washing was on the clothesline down by the other end of the building.  I went down to gather it in and just as I finished and had started back to our apartment a big chunk of the roof flew over my head and took down the clothesline.  Another big portion of it landed in the middle of the street just down from our apartment.  It was a big scary to say the least.  One of the upstairs neighbor ladies was sitting in her bedroom sewing and the next thing she knew the roof was gone above her.  It was quite an experience.

Fourteen months after we moved into Stadium Village, on October 18, 1950, our second child, Stephen Walton Oakes, was born, and this made it necessary to move into a larger apartment in the same building, No. 9.  We met some very fine people while living at Stadium Village, some of whose paths we have crossed in the years since.  Royal served as Mayor there for one year, and I received my Golden Gleaner award while living in the Stadium Village Branch.  We were there until Royal finished his schooling in March of 1952, at which time he accepted employment in Springville, Utah, his old home town, working for the Ralph Child Construction Company there.

When we moved to Springville, we lived in the Mendenhall family home which had been built by Royal's grandfather, Thomas Lovell Mendenhall in 1876, and it is the home in which both Royal and his mother grew up.  It was a large, two-story, stucco home on a corner lot at 117 East 2nd North.  We lived there for three years, and Catherine, our third child, joined our family on December 23, 1952, being our main Christmas present for that year.  I was kept busy in those years with three children born in the space of three years.  Royal worked away from home a lot during that time and it was lonely and difficult for me there all week with two babies and expecting a third.  I had no car and no family there, and how we looked forward to the weekends when our Dad would come home for a couple of days.

Royal changed jobs in 1952, working in Springville for Utah County Tractor Sales which made us much happier.  I learned to drive and got my first driver's license, which gave me a little more freedom to get around, but I didn't venture very far.  Now I could at least go to the grocery store without having to pull the children in a little red wagon, and I enjoyed carefully driving the back roads to go over to Spanish Fork to visit with Aunt Ann where I could buy fresh eggs and whipping cream from her.  She was always fun to visit with, and made kind of a substitute grandmother for my children.

In 1954 we moved back to Salt Lake into a little home at 1315 Edison Street, in the Browning Ward area, eventually buying a home at 1046 Buccaneer Drive in Rose Park where we were the second family to move into our subdivision–no paved roads, no telephones, no drapes at the window, one family as neighbors, and construction all around us.  But these things all came later in time and we enjoyed living there.  It was fun to fix up our own little home and plant a yard.  Our soil was alkali dirt which was difficult to grow things in, but we kept working away at it and finally overcame the problems.  My Dad enjoyed coming down and bringing starts of plants to help beautify the surroundings.  He always loved to putter around doing things like that, and we appreciated his efforts.

March 7, 1956 brought another son into our family–Eugene Royal–and life with him was an experience during his first year.  He had a very hard time keeping his food down due to a sensitivity to formula and was on a special soy diet, but that, too, was overcome in time.  He threw up what seemed like huge volumes with great gusto, and we always had more than a little sour aroma around us for the first year or so.  We had to leave him in the hospital for a few days after I came home because of his problems, and I was grateful to Royal's mother, who was head nurse in the Maternity Division at L.D.S. Hospital, as she kept a good eye on him and kept us informed as to his progress.  She, incidentally, was with me at the time of the birth of Marsha, Stephen, Eugene, and David, which was a comfort.  Cathy was born in Provo, and Linnea came along after Grandma Oakes passed away.

When Gene was a baby I served as Primary President in the Rose Park 6th Ward, and Grandma Oakes would come down every week and tend him while the other children and I went to Primary. I also    served as a visiting teacher and chorister in the Relief Society, and as a Den Mother in the Cub Scouts.  Our ward had a real struggle to exist, but we plodded along and did the best we could.

David Hazen was born March 2, 1960 and with his advent into the family we eventually decided that a larger home was in order and we started looking around for one.  The one we found was in Bountiful, at 20 South 750 East, which is about ten miles north of Salt Lake.  It is situated on a hill overlooking Great Salt Lake with a beautiful view to the west and north, and it was also closer to Hill Air Force Base, where Royal was then working.  We moved into this home July 28, 1961, Marsha's 12th birthday, and it was one of the best things we have done in our marriage.  We have enjoyed greatly living in Bountiful.  It has been a good place for our entire family to live.

It didn't take long for us to become acquainted in our new neighborhood and ward, the Bountiful 18th Ward, and to be given assignments to serve.  I, as a mother of young children, was immediately put into the Primary as a teacher and later as a chorister.  I also sang in the ward choir and served as a Den Mother.  I have also served as a councilor in the Young Women’s organization, chorister in the Relief Society, a teacher in Junior Sunday School, secretary to Bishop Jerry K. Lawrence for six years and to President Harold C. Yancey, of the Bountiful Stake, for nine years.  This service was in the Bountiful 18th and 31st wards and the Bountiful Stake.  Incidentally, President Yancey also served as the first President of the new Bountiful Temple when it was built in 1995.

Our sixth, and youngest child, Linnea, was born April 13, 1963.

At this time I was working at home typing court transcripts for  Ron Hubbard, a court reporter for the United States District Court, District of Utah.  I had gotten into this indirectly through my cousin, Lucille Hallam, who was also a federal court reporter, and my sister, Fern, who was typing court transcripts, also.  The good part about this job was that I could do it at home and still be there with my children most of the time.  We occasionally had to work on what was called a Daily Copy where we had to get the transcript out, typed and bound, for use in court the following day.  These were usually for big antitrust cases involving large corporations and was generally not very interesting copy.  Both court reporters were involved, as well as the two typists, and we would work until we were through, usually the wee small hours of the morning, and then be back to work the following day when court began.  It was very hard, tiring work, but I would make good money on them.  It was nice to work so closely with Lucille and Fern, and I learned some good work ethics while doing so, sharpening up my accuracy, spelling, neatness, and speed, which served me well in later years.  I worked for Ron for about 18 years.

My father passed away January 3, 1962 and this was a sad day for our family.  Mother lived by herself for a few years, but it eventually became necessary for her to leave her home and live where she could be with other care givers.  Fern, Anna, and I took turns having her come into our homes, but it gradually fell upon my shoulders to have her with us in our home as Fern went into full-time employment with the courts and Anna, being a widow, was also working outside of the home.  Mother lived with us full time for seven years until she passed away April 6, 1974 just ten days short of her 91st birthday.  She was a sweet lady, never complaining or finding fault, although I'm sure there were many times when she could have said something but chose to keep it to herself, which is a good quality to have.  She was at Fern's home for the weekend when she passed away quietly in her sleep.

Through my sister Fern, again, I started to work for the law firm of Christensen, Gardiner, Jensen & Evans (later changed to Christensen, Jensen & Powell) whose offices were at 900 Kearns Building at 136 South Main Street.  This was in April of 1978.  This was not a job that I sought after, but was one I was recommended for.  I worked for them for nine years and worked as secretary to the senior partner, Ray R. Christensen, for that length of time.  He was a very well-known and respected attorney in his field, well-known all over the country, and I enjoyed working for him, but I quit working in September of 1986 at the time Royal retired from Hill Air Force Base.

Long before we moved to Bountiful I became interested in my genealogy and I began to ask questions of my parents, sought information and kept records of my ancestors.  I have felt a strong need to write histories so there would be a record of their lives for our children to read.  I became a member of the Ann Briggs Camp of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers shortly after moving to Bountiful, and I know that through my membership in this organization my desire to know my ancestors better has become stronger.  I know that I have been blessed in my efforts to do this work and I have written many stories and histories and kept many records through the years.  In 1978 our camp was divided and I served as the first Captain of the Emma Tolman Riley Camp and as chorister in both camps for many years.  I also served for eleven years on the County Board of the Davis County East Bountiful Company.  A big project I had was to prepare a book of my family stories called Grandma's Story Time for my grandchildren to have and to read so they can get to know their family better.  

My next big endeavor was through my cousin Bliss.  She had been working for many years doing genealogy research on our Icelandic ancestors and asked me if I would be interested in working with her in trying to extend our Grandfather Johnson's line back further.  Since I find it difficult to say "no", and recognizing the great opportunity that it was, I got involved in that worthwhile venture not realizing that it would prove to be much more of a project than I had bargained for at the time, but which I am very glad I had an opportunity to participate in.  To this date (1995) I have been involved in this work for six years, four years of that time putting close to 22,000 Icelandic names on the computer for use in the Church's PAF (Personal Ancestral File) program.  It has been a tremendous job, but a rewarding one.  Not much else of significance occurred in my life during those years.  There wasn't time.  That was my mission, my calling, and I felt such a compulsion to stay with it and get the job done.  Not much of anything else got in the way.

Our six children and their spouses are all college graduates.  Four of our children, our three boys and our oldest daughter, and our three sons-in-law, have served honorable missions for the Church.  We currently (1999) are the grandparents of twenty "wonderful and highly intelligent" grandchildren, with parents who were married in the temples of the Lord.  We are very proud of all of them and grateful for the good lives they are living.

Our daughter, Catherine, was the first of our children to be married.  She and Kelly Haynie Tate, of Salt Lake City, were married in the Provo Temple July 21, 1977, and they are the parents of five children: Andrea, Alison, Christopher Alan, Justin Oakes, and David Lynn Tate.  They live in Centerville, Utah. 

Our son, Eugene Royal, served honorably in the Texas Dallas Mission.  After his return home he was married to Wendy Stillman, of Salt Lake City, March 23, 1978 in the Salt Lake Temple.  They had two children, Robert Stillman Oakes and Rachelle Oakes (whom we call Shellie) until they adopted two little brothers, Jordan Lee and Tyler Gene in 1997.  They, also, live in Centerville. 

Marsha served in the Missouri Independence Mission.  She was married May 28, 1981 in the Ogden Temple to Robert Leslie Clark, of Ogden, Utah.  She met him in Warrensburg, Missouri while she was serving a mission there.  They now live in Joplin, Missouri, and they are the parents of five children: Emily Catherine, Michael Robert, David Aaron, James Royal, and Matthew Charles Clark.

David Hazen's mission was to the Scotland Edinburgh Mission.  He was married April 29, 1983 in the Washington D.C. Temple to Kimberly Ruth Hawes, of New Canaan, Connecticut.  Their three children are Kathryn Anne, Matthew David, and Andrew Hazen Oakes, and they live in Ridgefield, Connecticut. 

Our son, Stephen Walton Oakes, served his mission in Tokyo, Japan.  He is now with, and also works for, the Air Force Reserve and is living in Tacoma, Washington.  He was married to Teresa Lee Trimble, of Seattle, Washington, June 19, 1987 at our home, and there were no children born to them.  He has been, and is, our world traveler.  They are no longer married.

Linnea, our youngest, married Clinton Dee Child, of Bountiful, Utah, December 12, 1987 in the Salt Lake Temple, and they are the parents of Stephen Eugene, Brendan Clark, and Jennifer Marie Child.  They live in Kaysville, Utah.

Our children are also all college graduates, as are their spouses, and we are very proud of them for their accomplishments in this regard.  Currently two of our granddaughters, Andrea and Alison, are attending college.

Royal and I have been able to do some traveling during the years of our marriage.  We have had two trips to Hawa