Jan 11, 2011

Where was your first home? What are your earliest memories of your home? Can you draw a floor plan of your home?

We lived in an older home 2 miles or so from Duchesne. I remember in my earliest years at age three having to climb the stairs to my bedroom with a leg brace that prevented bending of my knee so I would step up one and swing my leg up to the step above that and lift myself up. It took me quite a bit of time to climb the stairs and strange as it may seem I do not have any vivid memory of going back down. There was also a pipe that ran up the side of the house near our bedroom window and I would climb out of the window and slide down the pipe to get out, a built in fire escape i suppose. It was easy to climb back up and get in the same way. Later after we dug two more rooms out from under the house that became me bedrooms , one for sleeping in and one for studying, of which I did very little of the latter. I could easily draw a floor plan but not in this blog. I will have to draw it and photograph it instead. there were three levels to the home consisting of several rooms. The basement had two bedrooms and a furnace room. Mainfloor had a kitchen, side porch (later included into the living room), two bathrooms, master bedroom, fruitroom, and back porch. The upper level had two bedrooms and two sides used for attic storage. I was the one who always got to clean and organize the attic space that collected old clothes, magazines and toys. It was actually pretty fun to play in also.

Jan 10, 2011

Share a memory of your brothers and sisters. To whom did you feel the closest? Why?

I think that the memories of the whole family together were mostly around the piano on sunday evenings after church.We would sing and dad was always so fun to listen to with his deep bass voice. Other than that I did a lot of things with them individually as well. Alma was older by 10 or so years and by the time I was very old she was off to college and I actually became closer to her after I was married and we would visit them in Sandy, Ut where they were living at the time. Stan also was older and I remember him best as my roommate after he returned from his mission and how I loved to listen to him play his guitar out in the furnace room. Lynn and I did an awful lot of farming together and that included irrigating, haying, gardening and milking the cows. We usually got along pretty good but did have our moments. Leesa and Marsha were probably the closest to me and Leesa especially after Pauline came to live with us. Pauline was Leesa'a age but in my class at school due to her Aug birthday and she waited a year while I went ahead a year. Marsha and I have been close most of our lives and I figure that is because we had to play together being the youngest and all.

Jan 9, 2011

What are the full names of your brothers and sisters? Where was your family living when they were born?

Alma Joyce Poulson Rasmussen Duchesne July 2, 1942

Stanley Kermit Poulson Duchesne April 19, 1945

Clair Melvin Poulson Duchesne Nov 12, 1946

Lynn Hansen Poulson Duchesne Jan 11, 1949

Leesa Ilean Poulson Wall Duchesne May 24, 1952

Kent Jay Poulson Duchesne Aug 13, 1953

Marsha Poulson Peterson Duchesne July 7, 1956

Jan 8, 2010

While you were growing up, which language s were spoken in your home?

English and Utahn. We spoke with the local Utah basin slur and mother was always trying to correct us. She was an English major or minor and wrote very well and was always helping us to speak better english even though it really doesn't always manifest itself now. Of course I have a Texan slang added to it also. Oh well it's all just communication. I look forward to speaking the Adamic language even though I may have a hard time learning it. Spanish also became a second language of sorts since Stan, Lynn and our neighbor Harold all spoke that as well, Lynn and Stan after their missions and Harold as a native language having grown up in the Mexican LDS colonies. of Mexico.

Jan 7, 2010

Who is the oldest person in your family you can remember knowing when you were a child? What do you remember about that person?

Wow this one is hard since I knew a lot of my mother and father's family. However I think that I will change the question a little since I think it means who was the oldest when you can first remember them but I will write about the one who was the oldest one I can remember at the time of their death.

Uncle Leo and Aunt Zelma were always pretty old even though I believe she was younger than Grandma Hansen who was her sister. But my Great Aunt Zelma lived one month shy of her 105th birthday. Great Uncle Leo was 94 when he passed away and Great Aunt Zelma was 90. Mom stated several times that she felt Aunt Zelma wanted to live longer than him and set her sites on 95 but made it to nearly 105.

They were never able to have children but adopted all of the nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews. I received $10.00 per month every month for the two years of my mission as did everyone else that served missions. She was also our measuring stick since she was barely four foot tall. We would measure our growth by her each time they came to visit and it was a special day when we were finally taller. Each of you also had a chance to meet her when we went to St George to see Grandma while she was there taking care of your Great Great Aunt Zelma. She was even shorter then since when had a severe case of ostioperosis. She was not very well the also so her cute personality also didn't show itself very well.She was always a very special person to me.

Jan 6, 2011

Who were your grandparents?

This question was answered last year. But here is one of my history stories That I might have posted already but goes along with the death of my paternal grandmother when I was 10 years old.

President Kennedy's assassination

Nov 22, 1963 was a day that I would end up never forgetting. It was one of those days that in the years to come you would always be able to remember what you were doing, where you were doing it, and why you remembered it so well. I have had several of those years in my life and this particular one comes to mind now since it is Nov 20, 2005 when I am writing this and in two days we will remember as a country the day that John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

I was in elementary school, 4^th Grade, and 10 years old. Mr. Leo Foy was my teacher and playing marbles was the highlight of our recess periods and lunch hours. We usually spent our recess in doors during this time of year due to the cold weather but that day we were outside. My school always made me think of the Texas Alamo even though I had never been there or visited it. The front had a part that was built like the front of the Alamo. Coming straight out from the front doors was a wide sidewalk that was level and had a couple of steps several feet apart that ended up making the sidewalk level with the street by the time it got to the street. My classroom was on the second story to the right of that built up part. We had to go up a lot of stairs as I remember to get to it. But at that age that was no problem since I was built to run so it seemed.

I had some real good friends and always played with them. Marbles was not always the choice of games because we would often play kickball or baseball. Other times we would play on the swing set, pumping as hard as we could until we several feet in the air and then bailing out to the ground below. It was a contest to see who could go the highest before bailing out. I think back on it now and wonder why we didn’t have numerous broken legs and arms from the activity. Then there were the days when we simply chased the girls for whatever reason but mainly because it was fun and some of them were really cute.

This particular day however I was content to play marbles on that huge sidewalk in the front of the building. It was our noon recess so we had a little extra time to play. I had my favorite taws just like everyone else but I don’t remember ever really playing marbles for keeps. It always seemed more fun just to see how many we could win and then give them back to each other at the end of the game. There were just two of us playing that day as I remember but I can’t remember who the other person was at the time. Someone came out of the front doors in a rush yelling to us to come inside because Pres Kennedy had been shot. I don’t remember any of the rest of the day but do have some memory of the funeral services a few days later.

It was ten years later, while serving as a missionary in Texas, that I had an opportunity to go to the place where it had all happened and to see where the motorcade had gone and where the rifle had been fired. There was a special exhibit in an old building that housed all of the information. I remember it being a somewhat dumpy part of Dallas and understand that in the years since my mission it has been cleaned up and made into a very beautiful memorial for JFK.

One month and four days later, the day after Christmas, Grandma Poulson passed away in our home after suffering for an extended period of time from the effects of a stroke. That is another story but part of that memorable holiday season of that year.

Jan 5, 2011

What do you remember most about your father from your childhood? About your mother?

It is interesting but one of the things that sticks out most in my mind was the way dad's keys jingled on the side of his hip. There were many times that we would have to run to stop one of those blasted cows from taking off in a direction it wasn't suppose to go and as we would run to turn them dad's keys would be flipping up and down making a terrible noise. The keys were all of the keys that went to the different school buildings and how he ever knew which one went where I don't know but they were all used quite often. The other things that really sticks out in my mind also was the "Time to get up!" at 6 am and then "get up" as he would start to clinker the furnace right outside of the door a few minutes later. We would always get to sleep a little after the first call and it was kinda like hitting the snooze button. I still wake up better if I hit the snooze button a couple of times.

For Mom it was the scrubbing the floor at midnight on saturday night. It never made a whole lot of sense because she wouldn't clean on sunday but it was usually sunday morning by the time we got the floor scrubbed on saturday night. No matter how soon we started we never got done before 12;30 AM or so. That went right along side of the clothes washing that happened every saturday as well. I loved the smell of the fresh sheets each saturday night when we finally did get to crawl into them but I hated taking them off and usually putting them back on in order to go to bed (after the floors were scrubbed.)

Jan 4, 2010

What did your parents do for a living?

Dad was a rancher, then farmer and dairyman with his brothers for many years. About the time I started school dad was a carpenter building homes for part of his employment then he was hired by the Duchesne County School District as the Superintendent of the Buildings and grounds which he did until retirement. He then supervised the project where the Rocky point ditch (canal) was put into a pipeline from the river to the end of our property. He passed away three years after retirement from the school district job. He continued to run the farm during his entire life but never really made any money from it other than providing meat and produce for the family after he started working construction.

Mom was a school teacher in Gunnison and then a County Social Services agent in Duchesne. She had wanted to go on a mission but was unable due to her health. Her sisters all went on missions which she was finally able to also do in her late 60's. She taught school in Duchesne for several years and was finally hired as the full time librarian at Duchesne High School, the job from which she retired at age 65 or 66. After her mission and after going to St George she returned to Duchesne and was a worker in the Vernal temple for the last few years of her life.

Jan 3, 2010

Who were your parents? What are their full names? Where and when were they born? Where did they grow up?

This set of questions seems a little more in detailed than the last book so I will answer them and they might be a bit redundant but that's OK.
Kermit Poulson
Born May 27, 1090 in Holden Utah. Lived there until his family moved to the basin when he was age 4. Lived the rest of his life in Duchesne. Was a rancher with his father and had a ranch house near Strawberry ridge east of the home in Indian Canyon.

Gertrude Ilean Hansen Poulson
Born July 4, 1916 in Centerfield Utah. (It might have been Gunnison where she was actually born, I don't know for sure.) Grew up in Centerfield until she went to Snow college and then the University of Utah. where she earned a degree in Social Sciences and went to Duchesne to work as a Social Services person in the basin. She met dad there. She was 25 and he was 32. They were married in the Manti Temple Sept 9, 1941. Needless to say she spent the rest of her married life in Duchesne. After Dad died she went on a mission to the South Dakota mission and returned from the mission to move to St George to take care of her Aunt Zelma until she passed away a few years later after which she returned to Duchesne and lived the rest of her life there.

Jan 2, 2011

Were there any unusual circumstances surrounding your birth?

I was a little different from most of the older children in that I was actually born in a Duchesne Hospital. It was a small one and I understand the older brothers and sister got to look at me through the window of the room where mom and I were. The hospital was there for only a few years and vacant for a good share of my youth. I am not sure when it was torn down or moved.