An Extra Day

by
Julia Romania Brown Peterson
Hand-written circa 1989
Transcribed by David Howarth

All of my life I have wished for an extra day. I've always been a day behind. If ever I was expecting company I always wished for an extra day to clean the house or whatever else I was doing.

I feel at this time my dear Father in Heaven has allowed me an extra day. I want to gather together my information I have been gathering for many years, also to tell you a little about your father & I and all of you wonderful children and grandchildren.

Always have I felt very blessed. Your dear father was the most special person I ever knew. We had our ups & downs, but I loved him very much even when I was ticked at him. I believe he felt the same way.

We met at a dance & was special the first time we met. I came home on visit & saw him again at [a] dance then we started to write to each other. He came to see me in Salt Lake & I came back to Delta & we met each others folks & he asked me to marry him on that trip. We were married March 28, 1940 at the City & County Building. (Salt Lake City, Utah) We were married on my day off. I had to work in the morning & then got married in the afternoon. We stayed over night in Salt Lake then left for Oak City next day. We visited relatives all the way. First we visited his Aunt Leah Marcroft in Salt Lake. Next stop was to visit Aunt Minnie Ingersoll, my fathers sister in American Fork, then we stopped in Santaquin to see mothers sisters Annie & Nettie Borgeson. We visited Aunt Lizzie in Salt Lake. We didn't get to Oak City 'til evening. Walter's friends were looking for us to chaivari us (spelling not guaranteed) [shivaree] so we went to Delta down to my mothers to spend that night. We came back to Oak City the next morning. We surveyed our house & Walter had to irrigate as the high water was booming. At night we went to a party up to the hall. They had home made ice cream. The piled my dish so high & such a big one I didn't think I could ever eat it all, but glad I did. Then they caught us & gave us a wild ride on the cart they had for such purposes cars honking behind us.

It took us a few days to get the house ready & our furniture wasn't there yet we had ordered so we stayed over to his folks place. Finally it came. We had bought a new Monarch coal range, a bed room set & kitchen table & 4 chairs. I had had a shower in Salt Lake so we had a few dishes (melmac) [At the time a state-of-the-art (and cheap) china ware substitute] for 4 & glasses. We had enough to get along. Walter had traded potatoes to get spices & sugar & we had flour from the wheat he had taken to the mill. I made a chocolate cake every day (My specialty in those days) Walter was proud of my cakes because he invited all his friends for cake. His cousin Harold (Marians) came every day for cake. Walter was his ideal. He thought what Walter did was just what he wanted too. Anyhow he came every day til Grandma Lovell got a little jealous & made him stop. Marian & Leila Nielsen came every day too.

It was spring & all the spring work had to go on. Walter irrigated on two ditches & the water was high. He had planting to do too. We sat several days & cut potatoes for him to plant. He planted them that year on the 28th of April. We had our wedding dance that night. We got quite a lovely array of presents a set of dishes, pots & pans. We got quilts from our mothers, my aunts & my cousin Clara. I had got the measurements of the windows while I was working so bought curtains for all the windows. I used to love to look out the kitchen windows, before we built the back rooms on. That covered the 2 windows, I could see the train in Lyndyll go clear to Delta. There are houses there to block the view now, but that was such a pretty view to see so far.

We were pretty happy & very busy raising our gardens & then trying to get bottles & filling them for winter. We just had half of the cream check to live on all summer until crops came on to sell. We used to check the electric meter so it (the bill) wouldn't get so high we couldn't pay it. At night after the cows were milked & if he didn't have to irrigate we sat in the kitchen & he read books & I crocheted. When everything froze in the [???] we still sat in the kitchen evenings, but one day Walter found a little pot bellied stove for $5. so he bought it & set it up in the front room & he got an old radio from his folks so we listened to the radio at nights while he read & I crocheted. We were expecting Charlotte so I was trying to get some sewing done. Every time I went to Delta I used mothers sewing machine because I didn't have one. Finally mother decided I needed a machine more than she did so she gave it to me. My father had bought it for her when they first got married. Grandpa Bunker found another one & bought it for mother so she had one anyway.

I sure used that machine a lot. I didn't know how to sew really, but, I got some patterns & just went at it. I never did make anything that couldn't be worn so I felt good about it. I made cute dresses for Charlotte & sewed for myself.

I didn't have a washer til Gerald was born. I took our clothes to grandma Peterson’s every week, but I washed on the board in between. Grandma thought I should just dry wet diapers & put them back on you kids, but I never did. She had some mighty weird ideas. She sent a baby bottle over with your dad one day for me to use. I asked him where she had gotten it. He said she had used to raise baby pigs. Did I ever pitch that bottle. Not in my babies mouths would I put it.

Your dad & Grandpa Peterson divided up the money on the farm fairly as long as he lived. They paid the expenses & divided the money. After he died Grandma made your dad pay all the expenses himself out of our share. Farming didn't pay that much. She was truly a very selfish person. Every time she would get mad at your dad she would threaten to disinherit him & he had worked so hard on the farm. He was one overworked kid. Everyone told me so. He also thought he owed them so much for adopting him. He thought he owed them his whole life.

Finally when we moved to Salt Lake he said disinherit away. She had possession even of his water stock. I went over and asked for it. She had turned your dad down several times. She didn't want to, but she finally got it for me. I shook all the way home with it. She said we could lose it. We put it up to borrow for our down payment for (the) house in Salt Lake.

She had been so selfish. I would go and weed her garden & when it matured she would sell everything & keep it (the money). She'd tell me to go & pick the beans so I would go over to pick them and she'd already picked & sold them. I didn't even get enough for dinner so I started just doing my own garden at home so we'd have food for and own bottles.

I don't have pleasant memories at all of her.

Anyhow in Feb on the 8 in 1941 Charlotte was born down in mother's house in Delta. Walter was so thrilled to have a baby of his own. I don't think his feet touched the ground for a week. Charlotte only weighed 5-1/4 lbs.