Nana

My mother's mother was already known to our family as "Nana" by the time I was born. I had no grandfather on that side of the family. Nana had left an abusive marriage when my mother was a very little girl. Then she raised my mother and my uncle Bill as a single mother through the long, hard years of The Great Depression and the events leading up to World War II. She had been born to a large family in Wisconsin. Her parents were both German immigrants and lived a very difficult life trying to gain a foothold in this young nation. She and some of the older siblings had to be "hired out" to other families as domestic helpers or farm workers in order to assist their parents in bringing in the necessary income for the large family to survive financially. Although they were very bright and intellectually gifted, these children lacked the opportunity for the education they deserved. When the Mormon missionaries came to their little town, they found "fertile soil" with this family who accepted their message and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This action on the part of their family brought about a great deal of persecution, perpetrated upon them by those who should have been friends, neighbors and fellow Christians. This large German family decided to leave Wisconsin and go to the west where fellow "saints" in their new faith had gathered. The transcontinental railroad had recently been completed making the long journey much quicker and safer than it had been for the pioneers just a few years earlier. Sustaining life for a large family was still very hard on the frontier of the American west. The demands of getting an education, learning vocational skills and earning enough for a meager existence occupied so much of her time that my grandmother, Helena Alvina Sommerkorn, had little time to devote to her religion as she arrived at a marriageable age. At the point when she needed the guidance of Heaven the most, she was the least prepared to seek and receive it. She had caught the eye of a returned (World War I) soldier who did not share her faith or religious commitment. When he pleaded for her to marry him, she said "Oh, I guess so." She had been taught to live by her word, so she followed through with her "promise." He proved to be unfit for marriage. He was an alcoholic with a temper who could not keep a job to provide for his wife, a son and then a daughter (my mother). This young mother took her two precious little children and left that situation with the help of her family. Her commitment to living according to her faith was rekindled. It grew and strengthened and she would never abandon nor neglect that faith again all the rest of her life, no matter what challenges she would encounter. As a single mother of two children, she worked all the rest of her life and never remarried. She devoted herself to raising her children with honor and dignity. She excelled as a seamstress and as an educator. She served as a "live at home" missionary for the church and also became an accomplished genealogist. Her testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ became the foundation she built her life upon. By the time I was born in 1956, Nana had raised her two children to adulthood. My Uncle Bill became a colonel in the Strategic Air Command for the U.S. Air Force. My mother had married my dad at the opening of World War II and was now the mother of four sons. Nana lived and worked on the campus of the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind in Ogden, Utah. She worked as a resident house mother there. At that time, deaf or blind children moved away from their families to be educated at this school. Sometimes we would go visit her at this school when I was very young. A little later she found an apartment nearby on Jefferson Avenue and we would go visit her there. Nana walked everywhere she went or took the bus. She never owned a car or learned to drive. She owned a black and white television (the only kind there was back then) and we would go visit for Friday night movie time as a family. Our family did not own a TV yet, so this was a special treat for us. Nana also came to visit us out in Riverdale on special occasions. She would take the bus from Ogden to Riverdale and get off where our street, "Kid Lane," intersected Riverdale Road about two blocks away. We children would sit on the front lawn atop our hill and watch for the bus to stop. Soon a little, slightly bow-legged lady would get off the bus with her hand bag and begin walking toward our home. Her small silhouette and the way she walked made her unmistakeable, even from a distance. Then we would run down the hill and down the street as fast as we could to meet her and walk the rest of the way back with her. Oh, how we loved her! Even now, the sweet and tender memories cause tears to well up in my eyes. At Christmastime, Nana got to sleep on the fold-down couch out in our living room by the fireplace. We children were so envious of her. She could be right in the same room with Santa Clause when he came down the chimney! For some reason, she always slept right through the whole thing. WE could hardly sleep at all that night. Nana always made lots of nice clothes for us. She could sew almost anything and didn't even need a pattern. She just measured us with her tape measure and made it to fit. When I went to the First Grade, she made me a brand new shirt with an apple sewed on the pocket. She made our Christmas pajamas each year and she even made a beautiful bath robe for me to take on my mission when I was nineteen. Nana loved jig saw puzzles in her older years, so I sent her a huge puzzle of the city of Aalesund where I was a missionary in Norway. She put it all together so it could be framed and hung on our wall when I got home. It still graces our home to this very day. When I gaze upon it, I have fond memories of Nana and of my mission. When I returned from my mission, Nana was older and much more feeble than she had been. We moved her into our home so we could take care of her. I was in college and doing construction work to pay my way through school. Nana was placed in my bedroom so I could attend to her needs when she had to get up in the night to go to the bathroom. (I was a light sleeper.) You may think that I may have resented this as a burden at this busy stage of my life; but I felt honored to be able to give back to her even a tiny fraction of what she had given for me. Before long, I graduated from college, married and began full-time employment. I no longer lived at home. Within a year, our first daughter, Amy, was born and we took her to see my sweet, kind Nana, who was now confined to a bed. Nana got to see and touch our precious little girl who had so recently come from heaven above. A month later, Nana returned to heaven herself. A new generation had come and a former one had passed. I have no doubt that Nana inhabits a place of honor now among the generations of our past. Her life was hard, but she proved herself faithful. Her legacy has blessed, and will continue to bless her posterity into eternity. Now my own mother lives with us in our home at the same age as Nana was when I helped care for her at the end of her mortal journey. In a year she will have surpassed the length of time that Nana was with us upon the earth. I can see Nana in the face of my mother and again feel honored to have the privilege of giving just a little back to my mother who has done so much for me. Some day, all the generations of our family will be joined together once again and I shall embrace those who went before me and tell them of my gratitude for the legacy they left me. 

Terry Stephens

She Only Swore Once—And It was At me.

Swearing and bad language was not permitted in our home. I don't remember the rule ever being expressed or spelled out for us. Rather, it was implied and already in place before I learned to talk. My parents taught by example and my older brothers also lived by their code of conduct. I didn't know how unusual this was until I was in high school. When I was in the 10th grade, one of my teachers asked everyone in the class who had never spoken a swear word to raise their hand. I raised my hand and looked around to see how many others had raised a hand. That is when I noticed that everyone was looking at me! None had raised a hand. Many tried to get me to admit that I was not being truthful. But it WAS the truth. The teacher said that he hoped that we would try hard to "never loose our never haves." He went on to explain that it should be our goal to be able to truthfully say "I have never smoked." or " I have never tasted alcohol." or "I have never used drugs." and other things like that. Never swearing was a "never have" that almost everyone had already lost. I had never heard my father swear in spite of the fact that he had served as a soldier through five years of World War II. And, even now, he worked every day with people who swore and used bad language all the time. I figured that if he could have that much self control, so could I. If my dad could be considered a saint (and I believe he could), then my mother qualified as an angel. In my mind she was as near perfect as a person could be. That is why it hurt so much when I heard her swear only once and it was at me. We had finally gotten our long, steep dirt driveway up our hill paved with concrete. It had gotten dirty and she wanted to wash it off with our garden hose. She asked me to hand the running hose to her over the top of the bushes between our lawn and the driveway. I was short and had trouble seeing over the top of the bushes. I accidentally doused her with the cold water from the hose. She was so shocked that she yelled "Terry, _ _ _ _ you!" If the cold water had shocked her, the hot words from my mother scalded me. They reverberated in my head over and over. I dropped the hose and ran. I ran all the way to the woods beyond our neighborhood where I could be by myself to think. It had been an accident, yet my angel mother swore at me. I had never heard her swear even once and she swore AT ME! I cried and considered what had happened. What I had done had been an accident. I was short and inexperienced and a little clumsy. Could it be that she was a little short-sighted, inexperienced and clumsy too? I finally found the courage to go back home. If I had been sad, then my mother was truly distraught. It was worse for her. She was so very, very sorry. If she could have called her words back, she would have done it. But she could not. We had another of those heart to heart talks between a mother and her son. She explained that she really was not perfect. She had made a mistake and wounded a very sensitive son. Could I please forgive her? We forgave each other and recognized that we had both learned some important lessons. One of those lessons was that holding others and even ourselves up to impossibly high standards can set us up for terrible disappointment and hurt. The important thing is to work such things out in an atmosphere of mutual respect and love. Then one must move on with life and living, knowing that more lessons will come. We learn love and wisdom one step at a time. And sometimes it hurts. But oh how much greater becomes our capacity to love better and more completely! 

Terry Stephens

Primary Days

When I was a child, Primary was held right after school on a week-day afternoon. We would walk the half block down the hill from the old Riverdale School to the old Riverdale Ward building. Both buildings were very old, even when I was a child. I would guess they were built at the beginning of the century. On the front wall of the chapel, behind the choir seats, there was a large painting by Ramsey depicting the Angel Moroni showing the prophet, Joseph Smith, the stone box in the hill containing the gold plates; which held the ancient record which was translated to become The Book of Mormon. I loved that painting and spent my years growing up looking at it every Sunday and Primary day. We were taught to be very reverent and respectful as we entered the chapel for primary. The noise and tumult of children just let out of school had to be calmed and quieted by the women who filled the callings of the Primary presidency, chorister and teachers. We entered the chapel with arms folded to the quiet sound of soft music. The chapel doors seem to say to me "sh, be still." For this is the reverent place to be, "sh, be still." We gather here on Primary day-- To learn of Jesus, to sing and pray. So when we come through the chapel doors, "sh, be still." My primary teachers taught me that "I am a child of God" and "My Heavenly Father loves me." I felt something stirring inside my heart as we sang inspired words set to beautiful music and felt the love and devotion of the kind women who spent that time with us each and every week. Whenever I hear the song of a bird or look at the blue, blue sky, Whenever I feel the rain on my face or the wind as it rushes by, Whenever I touch a velvet rose or walk by our lilac tree, I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for me. He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings. He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sound of things. He gave me my life, my mind, my heart I thank him reverently-- for all his creations of which I'm a part. Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me! This song and many others like it found a place deep inside of me and became a permanent part of what I am and will always be. Desires for goodness and the love of the beautiful world around me took root and were nurtured in Primary during those young and tender years. My religious identity took shape at that time in my life and my faith and testimony in Jesus Christ became firm and enduring. I shall always have fond memories of my Primary days.

Terry Stephens

Faith of Our Mothers

The opening hymn of or worship service in church today was "Faith of our Fathers." As I sang the thought provoking words, I considered my own situation today. There I was sitting next to my own mother who will turn 93 years old this week. (My wife, Marguerite, is in California this week caring for our daughter, Julie, who had her tonsils out on Wednesday.) My mother's mother, "Nana", was 93, I seem to remember, when she passed away. I had shared my room with her for a time after I returned from my church mission while I still lived at home in my parents house before I married. I was a busy college student and working part time, but I got up at night with "Nana" to gently wheel her to the bathroom on my mother's little sewing chair with casters. Oh, how I loved this dear, sweet grandmother of mine! It was her faith and faithfulness as a single mother of a son and a daughter that made MY mother what she is to me. MY mother has been an example of faith and faithfulness all of my life. I also considered as I sat and pondered, the faithfulness of my wife, Marguerite, as she has watched over our children, teaching them faith and devotion to correct principles, when I, myself, felt inadequate and defeated. (Yes, there were times as they emerged from teen agers to adulthood that I felt defeated.) She would go to the ends of the earth to rescue a child of ours in time of need. (Even to California) So why is there not a hymn, "Faith of our Mothers"? I thought of last week's general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the talk given by the apostle, Russell M. Nelson, extolling the qualities and faithfulness of good women and how much these qualities and Christlike attributes are needed in this generation of rapidly decaying societal values. I, myself, have lived long enough to witness four generations of faithful women in my own immediate family; and know them to be the kind of women this apostle was pleading for: the kind of women who will stand as a light and a beacon to the women of this world who are confused by the noise and clamor of the many messages conveyed to them in these times of spiritual darkness. I mentioned to my daughters listening with me that he was describing them. Yes, I am grateful for the "Faith of our Fathers." I do not wish to diminish their sacrifices in my behalf; but all their efforts could never have been sufficient alone to do the works necessary to shepherd their children in faith and faithfulness through the generations without the selfless devotion of faithful wives and mothers. I pay tribute to these valiant women for the often unheralded roll they have played in doing the works of the Savior, Jesus Christ, throughout all the trials and challenges of their mortal lives from generation to generation. Yes, such women are needed more than ever before! My daughters have a rich legacy to cary on; and I have every hope and expectation that they are fully equipped to do exactly what is needed for the times they shall live in. To my daughters and daughter-in-law, I say: I LOVE YOU and I TRUST YOU!

Terry Stephens

My Dad

I was wondering why I don't have very many childhood memories of my dad. As I pondered on this question, the reasons began to multiply. When I was born, I already had three older brothers. One was four years ahead of me and the other two were heading into the teen-age years. By the time I was old enough to remember much about them, they were in high school. Dad's job at Hill Air Force Base did not provide sufficient income for our family, which soon added a fifth son after me and finally a much hoped for daughter, my only sister. Dad had a second job at a metal finishing company called Wood-Hill and later called Permalloy. He would go to work there after his day job and on week-ends. I remember all of us getting up before daylight so we could eat breakfast together with him before he car-pooled to work at Hill A.F.B. I never did see where Dad worked there, but I smelled it when he came home. His clothes reeked so strongly of cigarette smoke that he would have to air them out on the back porch after work. There were no laws against smoking in offices back then. Though Dad did not smoke, he was forced to breathe his co-workers smoke all day long. I did get to see Dad's other work place, his part-time job. It was nearer our home, not far beyond the Ogden airport. It seemed to me that it was in a constant state of renovation and remodeling. Dad was the renovator, remodeler and handyman. We only had one family car, so we sometimes took him to work or picked him up. That is when he would show us around the facility. It was kind of a scary place for me as a small boy. There were huge vats of chemicals and various other solutions with overhead cranes or hoists to move the manufactured items from one vat to another as they were processed. One of the processes was the anodizing of aluminum products. I remember Dad suggesting that we take our big five gallon cans of stored and solidified honey and letting it sit in one of those steaming vats to make it liquid again. The very thought of eating that honey afterward frightened me. I did not want anything that had been in one of those steaming vats. Dad took pride in his performance at both of his jobs. He saved the federal government millions of dollars by finding unused idle assets at one air force facility and putting them to use at another facility, thereby eliminating the need to purchase new assets. For several weeks each year he went on T.D.Y. assignments in other places in the nation or the world. T.D.Y. stands for "temporary duty yonder." He would go for several weeks at a time, leaving Mother to care for our family of six children on her own. He always came home with surprises and gifts for each of us from the places he visited. Some of these places were Pennsylvania, Alabama, Texas, California and Hawaii. He also went on a long trip to southeast Asia, including Thailand and Viet Nam. Dad loved traveling and seeing new places and people. Mom, however, was content to stay home. Dad had a "wander-lust" in his personality which could only be satisfied by visiting new places he had never been before. Dad was very intelligent and resourceful. He knew how to use all kinds of tools and owned a great many of them. Our neighbors were always stopping by to get his help or advice when something needed to be fixed. Sometimes they just came to borrow a tool they needed and "knew" that he would have. Because of the war (World War II), Dad did not get a university education; but he knew how to do much more than most people and was not afraid to try much of anything. He even learned how to pilot an airplane but had to give up flying as his family grew in size. When I was young, he rebuilt a car from the chassis up--all from parts purchased at salvage yards. He had a hard time justifying the purchase of anything new because he could build it himself from components others had discarded as "unsalvageable." That word was a foreign concept to him. He felt great satisfaction in proving that description wrong. We kept the pressure up on Dad to buy something new and finally got him to agree to buy a brand new Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon for the family. We younger children were so excited that we wanted to sleep in it the first night we had it. Of course, a few years later, he bought an identical one which had been "totaled" and he stashed it under the spruce tree in the back yard so he would have spare parts in case anything had to be replaced on the first one. In my early childhood, Dad enforced strict discipline on my older brothers. Once or twice I remember him threatening to use the belt or a willow branch on them as punishment for something they had done. I determined that such a thing would never happen to me. I learned effectively by paying attention to actions and consequences. I was spanked a time or two, or, as he called it, "finger printed." But Dad mellowed with age and experience. The effect of the gospel teachings at church also softened him and made him a much kinder and gentler person with each passing year. We knew that he loved us, but it was a long battle for him to overcome cultural expectations of the past and the terrible experiences of the war years. It can't be easy to switch from being a soldier to a family man. When I was young, Dad was an Elder in our ward congregation. His callings were often in the boy scouting program or in the Sunday School organization. He was ordained a "Seventy" when I was a little older and as such, he did more missionary related work. Each August, the "Seventies" in our Riverdale Stake held a banquet which they sold tickets to, in order to raise money to support missionary work. Many families and individuals supported the event. I always liked going and watching all the dads cook and fill the tables with roast beef, potatoes and gravy. They always served fresh, locally grown, corn and tomatoes. Most of the wives had also provided home made pies and cakes. My dad and the other dads who were "Seventies" advertised prepared, served, and cleaned up after the banquet. We kids "helped." When I was old enough to notice such things, I began to wonder why my dad was never called to fill any of the "important positions" in the church. He never had any "high profile" calling like being in a bishopric or stake leadership position. I was kind of upset about it and wondered "what was wrong with him." Dad went to church faithfully every week and fulfilled his assignments, yet I never saw him at the pulpit in front of the congregation. Instead, he was always teaching boy scouts how to make rope, perform first aid, or to hike or camp. He went home teaching and also took Mom to the temple clear up in Logan to do vicarious ordinances in behalf of people who had lived and died before our time. He took his sons to stake priesthood meetings and to general priesthood meetings at the stake center faithfully. It took me years to realize that his callings in the church were just as important as the callings my friends' dads had been given. In fact, some of my peers and their dads did not amount to much after a while. It all came down to their desire and commitment to endure faithfully in accepting and fulfilling their duties in the callings they had been given--including fatherhood. My dad was a consistent, faithful and dependable soldier in "The Army of God." He was not a general or commander, but, without him and many others like him, the "war" being waged could never be won. I can only hope to do as well with the circumstances and opportunities I have been given. Both my mother and my father taught me how to work; but a boy needs the special touch of a father. Fortunately, our family's financial situation improved as Dad's career matured and Mom began her preschool business in our home. Dad didn't need to work a second job anymore and had more time to spend at home with us children. This was when I really needed a dad and the friend he became to me. My childhood friends had gone other ways for the most part. Some of them began to persecute me for being "a little angel." I was unskilled at sports, very small for my age and did not fit well in my new environment at the junior high school. My self esteem and self confidence plummeted. I spent a lot of time with my dad at that time. When my brother, Lynn, left on his mission to Germany, my dad and I took on our over-stuffed garage as our work project. As I said before, he had almost every kind of tool you could think of, but finding it, getting to it and having room to use it was a problem. Our church building was being remodeled at that time, so we salvaged cabinets, lumber, ceiling tiles, light fixtures, wire and more from the church building. We used these materials to fix up and organize our garage. I talked my dad into throwing away a great many things he had saved over the years. (This made me a hero to my mom.) We insulated, sheet rocked and tiled the whole ceiling. We installed the salvaged library cabinets. We built lumber racks, set up a big work bench and table and organized all the tools and tool bins and shelves. We built a little kitchen next to the garage for home canning and added food storage shelves and closets for all our camping supplies and equipment. It was a BIG project and I worked side-by-side with my dad. In the summer, we worked together in our yard. Much of our hillside yard was (and always had been) covered in weeds. Our whole yard had to be watered by hand with a garden hose. We spent several summers installing a sprinkler system (much of it with salvaged materials) and finally had the ability to water the whole yard just by turning valves (manually, of course). This meant we could plant shrubbery on the whole hillside and finally not have weeds everywhere. New shrubs, however, were too expensive. We dug up shrubs at our bishop's house which was demolished to make room for the church expansion. This was much more work and more time consuming than buying new shrubs in convenient planting containers; but , if you have free labor, why spend money? Even Dad decided this was too much work and came up with a "plan B." We dug holes on the hillside for each juniper shrub, but instead of transplanting mature shrubs from the bishop's yard, we stuck a steel rod in the ground around each planting hole and inserted a pruned off juniper branch in each hole. Dad assured me that if we kept them watered, they would take root in the clay hill and grow. Not all of them did, but enough of them did that the whole hill eventually was covered with shrubbery. It is a slow process when done the way we did it. But maybe my dad was doing something more important than landscaping a yard. Perhaps he was teaching life skills and saving a son. Dad was not a big, strong man. Most other boys' dads were bigger than mine. But my dad could physically out-work most of them. Sometimes he attempted things that were just too hard or even dangerous. It seemed that each winter our big weeping willow tree would send its roots into the seems and joints of our sewer line between our home and the street below. It would plug up our sewer every February about the time of his birthday. He would have to go rent a big "roto-rooter" machine and lug it up our steps and over to his hand-excavated hole over the sewer pipe and work the heavy, dirty machinery himself. ( It was "to expensive" to hire someone to come do it and he knew how and where to do the job himself. After all, he had built this house himself and knew where the defective, second hand, pipes were.) Well, he was trying to run this cumbersome roto-rooter machine while standing in the muddy hole he had dug with a pick and shovel on a cold February day with the sewer backed up into our basement on his birthday when the machine jerked and fell into the hole and broke his foot. I was young and small and unable to help him. I hadn't seen my dad hurt like that before. I don't remember how the job got done, but I do remember my dad coming back from the doctor all bandaged up and in pain. I had always assumed my dad was invincible. I remember breaking into tears and crying for my dad because he was hurt and "broken." I was tender hearted and felt something for my dad I hadn't felt before. Was it concern, sympathy or empathy--or just a new form of love? I would not trade those years with my dad for anything. And I would not trade my dad for any other dad. Sure, my dad had lots of faults, weaknesses, inadequacies and idiosyncrasies; but those things made him a unique and real person. I watched and witnessed as he worked on those challenges year after year and rose above them to really make something of himself. He was loved and honored in our small community by the good people around us. Widows and others in need of help could depend on him for unsolicited help when others were too distracted to notice. It has been said that the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards (J.R.R. Tolkien). When Dad passed away, those he had served and worked with all his life, and those who were themselves deserving of praise, came to honor his memory. Every bishop of our Riverdale Ward for the last fifty years of his life attended his funeral services except for those who had passed before him. Even those were represented by someone in their family who came to honor his memory and legacy. I too honor and love him as I come to understand him better and follow the path he made better by traveling it ahead of me.

Terry Stephens

When Ever I Hear The Song of a Bird

When we went out to play with friends away from our own home and yard, it was difficult for us to know when it was time to come home. The standard practice in our neighborhood was for someone with a big voice to go out on the porch and yell the name of the kid who needed to come home. Each child could recognize the distinctive sound of his mother, father, brother or sister calling his name. I can still remember the sound of my next-door neighbor, Cleoma Allen calling Gaaaaryyyyy from her front porch. Gary did not have any big brothers to call him home, but I had three of them. One day I was playing with my friend, Rick, on a nice summer morning. We had been playing for quite a while and I was getting hungry. I heard the song of a meadow lark and thought to myself "Maybe that means it's lunch time." I went home and asked my mother if it was lunch time yet. She replied, "It sure is!" After that, when ever I heard the song of a meadow lark, I decided that it was probably lunch time and I would go home for lunch. Sure enough, it usually was lunch time. Sometimes we took our lunch with us so we wouldn't have to stop playing and go home for lunch. I took a tuna fish sandwich or sometimes peanut butter and jelly. My friend, Gary's, favorite was a tuna fish and jam sandwich. He tried to get me to try it but I just couldn't make myself do it. One time, my friend, Rick, and I took our tuna fish sandwiches to our tree hut to eat. He had two fire crackers with him and some matches, so we decided we would eat one sandwich and put the two fire crackers in the other one to see what would happen when we lit them. The sandwich exploded in every direction, covering us both with tuna fish! We both agreed that it had been a great experiment, but when our moms did the laundry that week they suspected something fishy had been going on. I went over to Rick's house to play with him late one afternoon, but he didn't come to the door. A big girl in the neighborhood, whom I didn't know well, said to me "He's in the back yard. I will show you." She knew the family was on vacation, but I did not know it. When we were out of sight, she held me tight and took my clothes off and would not let me go. I cried and pleaded with her, but she poked me with sticks and held me tight. Then one of my big brothers began calling me from our back porch over and over again. I told my tormentor that I had to go home or they would come looking for me. She believed me and feared she would be caught, so she let me get dressed and go home. I told my family what had happened. My big brothers made sure that girl would never bother me again. I was sure glad that my big brother had come out when he did and called loudly from our back porch so that the whole neighborhood could hear him. It may not have been the song of a bird, but it came when I needed it the most, and it certainly was time to come home! Terry Stephens

It Takes A Community

It has been said that it takes a community to raise a child. That is a concept with which I agree. The community I was born to and raised in had the picturesque name of Riverdale and it was true to its name. It had been a farming community for the most part, until after World War II when many new families began moving in to make it their home. Our town had one L.D.S. (Mormon) church called the Riverdale Ward. Just up the hill from the church was the old, original Riverdale Elementary School. There were just a few businesses and two drive-in theaters. We were a rural suburb of the larger city of Ogden, situated to the east across the river and railroad tracks. Ours was a patriotic little town which celebrated Independence Day each year with a Forth of July parade which passed by our church and ended at the school. Most of the children who owned bicycles would decorate them with red, white and blue crepe paper wound through the spokes and streaming from the handle bars. They would proudly peddle past the waving and cheering onlookers with big smiles, following the bright red fire truck and brightly polished cars of the mayor and other dignitaries. As I said, the original settlers were farmers and fruit growers. We had cherry and peach orchards on the hill top above and to the west of our home and broad fields to the east stretching to the river and watered by an irrigation ditch across the street below our home. There was a feeling of peacefulness and safety and a true sense of community among the inhabitants of our little town. Our neighbors to the south, Sedley and Cleo Brough, lived in an old farm house with high ceilings and had a few farm animals. We purchased raw, fresh milk from them which we carried up the hill in one-gallon glass jugs. We bottled peaches which we purchased from neighbors up the hill to the west of us. We also bottled and preserved other locally grown produce. The adult couples who lived near us had interesting names like Ken & Cleoma, Floyd & Coral, Gail & Dorris, Dahl & Birdeen, Faye & Verla and others just as unique. I hold all their memories dear. Everyone knew everyone else because we all went to the same church together and the kids went to the same school. There was only one class for each grade and only 20-25 kids in each class. We called every adult Brother or Sister so and so (filling in the appropriate surname). We almost never called anyone Mr. or Mrs. except for school teachers or people we did not know. The success of an individual brought pleasure to the others and the tragedy or sorrow of one family was shared by others in the community also. We all worked together to upgrade our old church building when I was a child although I was too young to do anything but observe. All the church leaders and teachers were our neighbors and were all volunteers. Everyone had something to contribute for the good of the whole. We were taught duty, honor and accountability from our earliest childhood. In our church, we fasted the first Sunday of each month and donated the money not spent on our meals to help provide food, clothing and shelter to those of our neighbors who were in need. We also tithed a tenth of our income to support the expenses and growth of the church throughout the world. Even children were taught to do this. On one day of the week, as soon as school let out, we children walked down the hill to our church to attend Primary. Primary was an organization for children which was run by the women of the church, including widows, single women and mothers. We learned songs like "I am a Child of God" and "Tell me the Stories of Jesus." Then we divided up into age groups for lessons from the scriptures and to learn the importance of kindness, virtue and other Christ-like attributes. We also memorized our articles of faith and the boys began participating in the Boy Scout program On Sundays, the older boys and men went to priesthood meeting in the morning. Then the whole family would come for Sunday School. The adults and older children gathered first in the chapel for combined worship and the learning of hymns. Everyone also had the opportunity (assignment) to stand at the pulpit and give a two and one half minute talk once or twice a year. The younger children went to Jr. Sunday School downstairs. We also learned songs and gave short talks. I gave my first talk before I had learned to read, so my mother drew little stick figures depicting the story of the little children who went to see Jesus and were almost turned away until Jesus told his disciples to let them come "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The talk turned out so well that I was asked to give the same talk the next week upstairs in the chapel for the big people to hear. That is how my public speaking experience began After Sunday School was over, we went home for our Sunday family dinner. Each of us boys had our assigned duty preparing the dinner. I became the gravy specialist. I would sift the weevil out of the flour (it seemed like we always had weevil in the flour) and put the flour in a bowl with some water. Then I used the "ploompety-ploomper" to bend it together and eliminate the lumps in order to thicken the drippings from the meat and make the gravy. Our traditional Sunday dinner was roast beef, potatoes and gravy and a vegetable. After an afternoon rest, we returned to the church around six o'clock for Sacrament Meeting. The main purpose of this meeting was for all the members of the congregation to receive the "sacrament of the Lord's supper," known more commonly as just "the sacrament." This holy ordinance was administered to the congregation in remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ which was sacrificed for all mankind. It was administered by the Aaronic Priesthood holders who were ordained young men between the ages of twelve and nineteen. Deacons of age twelve and thirteen passed the sacrament to the congregation. Teachers of the age fourteen and fifteen prepared the emblems and trays of the sacrament before the meeting and cleared it up after the meeting. Priests of age sixteen to nineteen broke the bread and offered the sacramental prayers. I grew up watching my older brothers do all of these duties with respect and dignity. I was eager to follow their example After the sacrament was passed to all the congregation, the rest of the meeting was devoted to the singing of hymns and listening to talks or sermons. These were longer than those given in Sunday School and were delivered by visiting church leaders and by members of our own congregation, including youth. When a young man or woman was leaving to be a missionary for the church, the departing missionary always spoke in church along with other family members and friends. I remember the great excitement and celebratory feeling of our Riverdale ward members when my two eldest brothers, Jim and Bill, spoke in our church before leaving on their two and one half year missions to Finland and Germany. I was still very young, but I knew this was a very significant event in the lives of my brothers and for our whole family. The cost of supporting two missionaries at the same time and providing for the rest of us still at home was a real test of faith and commitment for my parents. Our family was not unique in sending out missionaries. Many more missionaries left from our ward both before and after my brothers. When the Viet Nam war escalated, each ward (congregation) was allowed to send only two young men per year on missions for the church because the nation needed all the young men to be soldiers. In fact, as soon as Jim and Bill returned from their 30 month missions for the church, they had no choice but to enlist in military service or to be drafted. The transition from a highly spiritual experience to the vulgarities of war was very hard on them. It was hard on our family too! I hoped and prayed the war would end before I came of age to go. The families in our little town helped one another through all of these experiences and events. All of us learned from each other through sharing our lives together. Since all the "old people" I knew were good and kind, I believed it to be the natural result of aging. It saddened me to learn at a later age that this is not always so. People who don't live this kind of life sometimes grow up to be bitter, mean and selfish. I have spent my life living among people trying to be "Latter-Day Saints." Terry Stephens

Establishing A Family

The family I was born into had its beginnings as the world was thrown into commotion as World War II broke out. Like a tornado, it ripped people up from their roots and set them down somewhere else, in a place often very foreign to them. My parents fell in love and were married during this great upheaval. They courted at home in Utah, married in the state of Washington and moved around the nation where ever the duties of a soldier took them. My two eldest brothers, Jim and Bill, were born in these war years and lived the first years of their lives in many different homes without their father being able to be with them much of the time. These were years of trial and poverty. Yet, since there were so many living this way, it was accepted as the way it must be. When this great upheaval of events finally ended, many things could get back to "normal," but there was much of opportunities lost and things that could never be the same again. The lost years when my father might have been a missionary and received a higher education were gone forever. He had a family to support, no savings and had to build a career upon the foundation of experiences gained growing up during The Great Depression immediately followed by serving as a soldier through the long years of World War II. My mother had grown up fatherless herself and had lived a life of hardship also. She was only nineteen years old when she married my dad. This young couple began their life together with no material possessions to speak of and lived on the lowest of a soldiers wages all through the war. Faith, family, determination and hard work got them through these early years of marriage. But then, that had been true of their parents too, and for many generations before. When the war finally ended, a new spirit of hope and optimism emerged. Families could finally be reunited. Children had their fathers again and wives had their husbands. By the time a third son, Lynn, was added to the family, my parents prepared to build a home and "put down roots." The community my parents chose to live in was a little farm town with the Weber River running through it. It was called Riverdale. There was one church, one school, a gas station, and a couple of other businesses. Mom and Dad bought a piece of property on the point of a hill overlooking the farms and fields stretching toward the river. This property also had a commanding view of the city of Ogden to the east nestled up against the Wasatch mountain range, topped by the majestic Mount Ogden. My ancestors were among the first pioneers to settle in Ogden after the long trek west. My parents set to work building this home themselves using war surplus jeep crates as forms for the foundation walls. Building materials were scarce after the war, so Dad used many salvaged or previously used items to build our home. It was a big home by current standards and a very ambitious project; but Dad was not intimidated by the task, even though he had no formal training or education. Progress was slow and tedious as many things were learned "the hard way." I was the next child born to this family of boys. When I was born in 1956, several more neighbors had joined my family on "the hill." Our little town was growing rapidly both in numbers of homes and numbers of children being born to the families in these homes. The road in front of our home which lead to the school and church became known as "kid lane." Though our home was still a "work in progress," as I was growing up, we were safe and sheltered from the weather and had warmth in the winter. Doors for our bedrooms, carpet and blinds or curtains for the windows would come years later. Our long, steep driveway up the hill was dirt when it was dry and mud when it was wet. We had a lawn to play on, a vegetable garden, fruit trees and some ornamental shrubbery and trees which were recent additions at the time of my childhood. We also had more weeds than could be pulled by a whole army. The next addition to our family of boys was another son, Mark. He and I would share a bedroom and grow up together in the years that followed. We fought and tormented each other frequently but were also the best of friends. He and I were a little more than two years apart; so we had a close relationship and similar interests Finally, my only sister, Julie, was born. She was the last child to join this family. She loved all the things which we boys loved; but she also loved being a girl and doing "girl things." I think she got the best of both worlds. The family was now complete with two loving parents, five sons and one lovely, baby daughter. We were all healthy most of the time, very active and rambunctious and constantly stretched our parents' patience and the limits of their energy. We were very aware that many people around us owned more of the material things of this world than we did; but we also knew that there were many less fortunate than ourselves. We loved our home, our neighbors, our church and our community. We were thankful for our pioneer heritage and to be citizens of a great nation, who's freedom our father had fought to preserve. As children, we had the peace and security of knowing we had a father and mother who loved us and were 100% devoted to our happiness and success in life. If all children in the world had parents like ours, what a wonderful world it would be! Terry Stephens

A FORWARD TO MY PERSONAL HISTORY

March of 2020: I feel somewhat like the prophet Mormon, tasked with the overwhelming duty of reviewing a thousand years of records and experiences of his people in order to abridge them into one comprehensive and readable volume, a book with the power and capacity to put the wisdom of a millennium of learning into the hands and hearts of future readers. Of course, I am reviewing only a little more than sixty years of my own life experiences and those of others who were, and are, close to me as family, friends and work associates. Nevertheless, having been a dedicated journal writer for more than forty years, I have a great deal of material to draw from and condense into something of manageable size. The process of this endeavor can be both spiritually and emotionally overwhelming at times. It is also very revelatory in nature. Patterns emerge which were never obvious as these events were taking place, but become very clear when viewed in retrospect as I see how the stories played out over an extended period. The context in which individual experiences and challenges took place plays a crucial role in understanding those experiences and gleaning the important life lessons they provided then, and provide now—after years of reflection upon them. That is why many of my entries herein contain more than the titles above them may imply. It also demonstrates the value of noticing the dates associated with the events. The experiences of life build one upon another over an extended period of time. One experience affects the outcome and builds the context for actions and thoughts when the next one occurs—and every succeeding experience thereafter. 

You may wonder why I found it necessary to include and document some very personal challenges with conditions such as depression, anxiety, fear, doubt, agony, menopause, hormone imbalances, physical and emotional injuries, sexuality, contention in marriage and in the home, cruelty, sins of many varieties and a host of other issues which are both embarrassing and unpleasant to remember or contemplate. I suppose that many readers may only wish to know of my triumphs, successful ventures, happy times, joyful experiences and my personal fulfillment and progress. Those are included also in great abundance—and in context. 

One fact is inescapable however. There is opposition in all things. Strength cannot be acquired in the absence of resistance. There is no triumph without opposition. Joy comes only after navigating through affliction. Happiness is meaningless if one has never experienced sorrow and disappointment. 

My life has been very real. I could have chosen to whitewash my history and leave the impression that I lived an idealistic life, free from the stains of a fallen world; but how would that help anyone hoping to benefit from my real world experiences? This life is a gift—all of it, the good and the bad. My purpose is to demonstrate that our benevolent Creator and loving Father designed this mortal experience for our eternal benefit, knowing full well that it would be crucial for us to acquire the strength and ability to deal with the eternal laws and realities of our universe—for we are eternal beings and citizens of the the universe, not confined to this mortal earth alone and a finite lifespan. God, our Father, has not left us helpless in this pursuit. He gave us a Savior and Redeemer to mark the path and lead the way. He has sent prophets through the ages to inform us of these things. For the faithful and willing, there will always be a rescuer from every peril, even if that rescue must wait for a time beyond the grave. Because of Jesus Christ, all are rescued from the grave!

My experience has shown me that those who choose the path of discipleship are rescued from their trials both large and small by happy, restful interludes—timed as if they were micromanaged by divine providence. Real life consists of a complex blend of good and bad experiences which, if viewed only in the moment, may seem totally random and unconnected to things within our control, or heavenly design. Discovering the purpose of such experiences demands a lifetime of effort and remembrance. These stories and accounts drawn from my life of effort and remembering have the purpose of testifying that each struggle is worth our determined effort to be valiant in the cause of this eternal progression which is our birthright as sons and daughters of God.

Terry Stephens