How did you meet grandpa?

J:

I met him at a dance down at Billie Van's. And I went with some friends to the dance and he was there, and towards the end of the - no - it wasn't the end of the dance, about the middle part of the dance, I met him. Danced with me and he asked to take me home and I told him, ‘No’. And he said, ‘Well, I know the friends you're with’, and I said, ‘Well, I came with them, and I'm going home with them.’ He said, ‘I'll take them home, too.’ So when we went to go home, I said, ‘All right, if he'd take them home too.’ But, when we went to go home, this fellow, they both knew my husband so they wouldn't go, they said, ‘I never did like to take anyone home.’ So I went home with him, and very reluctantly I went, cause I'd already said I would. So he took me home that night. That' how I met him.

G:

How long did you go with him before you got married?

J:

Well, most of the time we wrote letters. The I wrote him and told him ... I came to Salt Lake after that to work and I wrote letters to him. And one time I wrote to him and told him I was coming to Delta, so he took me out then. And then he came to Salt Lake to seem me and he always went to these hotels and told them a different name than his was. I didn't pay any attention. I was working up here and I thought that I'd never have any reason to see him during the day so I didn't remember what name he gave down there at the hotel. So, I got the day off unexpectedly and I couldn't remember the name but I knew the hotel he was staying at, so I called there and asked them if there was a fellow staying there that had a red truck. I don't know what they thought, but that's how I got in touch with him. When we went around then all day and he stayed up a few days and we visited and I went to Delta another time or two and he asked me to marry him. So, I thought he was really nice. Thought was the handsomest nicest fellow I had ever seen, so, of course, I said, ‘Yes’. Felt very lucky.

G:

After your got married, where did you live?

J:

We moved into the house that we still own in Oak City [EN Utah]. He had floored it, oh, the kitchen and the living room, he had floored it. Before that we had, and in the other rooms we had this, oh, it's made of lumber and oh, it was real funny, you could even lose things in between the boards. And we had a little -- Well, we got a kitchen stove and a table and chairs and our bedroom set, that's all the furniture we had. So when it got real cold, we had to sit in the kitchen at night. One day he went and got a little pot-bellied stove and we could sit in the other room then. We just had our kitchen chairs to sit on at that time but we thought that was just wonderful to be able to sit in there. [This house was torn down in the 1990's. One of Julia's sons has a modern home on the site.]

Julia - early marriage

How many kids did you have?

J:

I had seven. Four boys and 3 girls.

G:

As the kids got older, were they really wild? Tell me some stories that they did.

J:

Well, I have to think of some. Well, yes, they weren't any little angels. In fact, they never took naps. NEVER! But they went to bed early, thank heavens. But when I'd go outside to hang out the clothes, I had an old wringer washer and I had to hang the clothes on the line in those days, and there'd always be crashes in the house that would just worry me no end and I thought, ‘Well, I just won't have anything left at all’, so ... And usually it was something that crashed and broke, but the kids found out it really excited me, so to make it a little bit more exciting, they'd throw the lids up in the air and let them crash and I couldn't say, ‘What's happenin?’ And then they'd all laugh. I remember they get into so much mischief that I'd tie them and they would get into so much mischief that I'd tie their hands behind them with socks and Charlotte would untie them and they would get on top of the closet and they'd jump down on the bed and they'd just swing from the light fixture, oh, what kids. But life was very exciting in those days and it was wonderful. I wouldn't mind living it over. When I go down to that house, I, it just seems like it's dead now.

G:

On the fourth of July, I heard that they'd - the boys did something. What did they do?

J:

Well, they tied a tub up in the tree with ropes and when anybody would go by, they would pull the ropes and it would, the water would fall on whoever was under. And another thing I'm going to tell extra here. Across the street they had a garage and they were always saying, now, ‘Nobody can throw rocks at our garage.’ Course these kids, they had thrown rocks, too so to get even they threw rocks over at their garage. But they'd all come out, the woman would come out and yell at them. So they tied a inner tube across the gate, it was just a giant flipper and they put boulders in this and just flip them across the street at this garage and hide and she'd come out and she'd say, ‘Who did that?’ and there's nobody to be seen so they'd wait until she went into the house and there they'd - it'd take about five of them to pull this flipper back and there it'd fly across the street and she'd come out again and I don't believe she ever did find out what happened.

G:

What school did the kids go to?

J:

Well, the kids went to the Oak City School, Delta Junior High and Delta High School [Delta, Utah, about 13 miles from Oak City] and then we moved to Salt Lake and Dennis went to East [High School] and graduated from East High, and Janice and Howard and Mary all went to Roosevelt and graduated from East High except Howard and he graduated from High School in the Navy. And then they all went to college. Dennis graduated from the University of Utah and Gerald graduated from the University of Utah and then he went on to California and learned to be an optometrist. Jess went on a mission and Janice went to college, she didn't never graduate really and Howard is attending Weber College and Mary is going to school in American River in Sacramento and she also went to the U (University of Utah).

G:

When you were little, what kind of stuff did they have to curl your hair?

J:

Well, when I was little my mother, you mean when I was little?

G:

When you were growing up.

J:

My mother curled my hair in rags. She'd tear off rags and put my hair up. Then she got some other curlers that were called kid curlers. And my head was always tender and it hurt when she put it up and I used to hate her to do it but I would have rather just gone straight headed I guess. Mother always fixed me up cute and then she got these kid curlers and they wouldn't hurt, but they pulled just as bad. But she always did keep my hair nice.

G:

When we came up to visit you, what kind of hairdo's did we do?

J:

I had some real doosies! My daughter, Mary, started this and she put bow ribbons in my hair at Christmas bow ribbons. And one day, she couldn't get it in all of a sudden I felt something gooey on my head and she was gluing them on. Then Geri Kay came along and she put - she'd tie yarn and ribbons in my hair and Mariann fixed my hair like a waterfall. She just pulled it all on top of my head and put an elastic around it and just draped it on like a waterfall. And Sterling, he always fixed my hair like an Indian. He'd pull it all up and I can't remember how it looked, but anyway, he'd always like to fix it like a Mohawk. And Scott, one time he got a big artificial flower, a big long wire stem he just bobby pinned it all around my head and said, ‘Grandma, now you're ready. Why don't you go out and go to Relief Society. Why don't you go somewhere?’ I can't remember some of the others right this minute. And Carrie Jean, she put barrettes in my hair. I liked her especially because she would put her arms around my neck and every once in a while kiss me. Her little hands felt so good. I could feel it just hours later almost. And Tara fixed my hair, she was a little fussy girl. She always did have real good taste fixing hair. I think she fixed mine more then normal than most kids. And it really looked nice when she got through. How Geri Kay liked to do my hair especially though, get a glass of water and just get it real wet. I would just about be soaking wet when she got through. I'd give her make-up and she would put make-up on me. Yep, it's really been fun. One time on the way to Oak City, I was riding down with Jess and his family and Marjorie looked at my hair and, ‘Grandma, I am going to fix your hair so you don't look dumb.’