A Trip Down Memory Lane

I really don't get to my hometown very often anymore, so when I do, I find that it has changed so much, I can hardly recognize it!  Since Ricks College has changed to become Brigham Young University-Idaho and gone from 1,400 kids at a two-year college when I went there to over 18,000 students at a four-year university now, my little hometown of Rexburg has grown by leaps and bounds.  But that is another whole story.

When my father graduated from law school, we moved to a small community called Hibbard, Idaho, which was about 4 1/2 miles from Rexburg.   

 This picture was taken about 10 years ago, but shows the little home we lived in with six children and our mother and father.  I didn't take a picture of what it looks like today, but it is looking even older just like we are, I guess!  Although we only had one bathroom for that many people and two bedrooms--four of us slept in one bunk bed (two in each bed), while the other two slept in a baby crib until they were four and six years old, this was how we lived until I was a sophomore in high school.  We never knew we weren't living like kings and queens.  There was a lot of love and happiness in this little home.  The only thing we ever complained about was when it got cold and ice would form on the windows because there was only one little stove in the living room and absolutely no heat in the bedrooms at all!  Remember--this is Idaho!  We would warm our pillows on the stove and then run like crazy to jump into bed where we were certainly glad to have a bed partner to make the bed a little warmer!

    This was the cement cellar where we had to be lowered to turn the water on or off.  Someone in the years since has discovered a very novel idea of adding to the line and bringing the place where you attach the hose to the surface, but it wasn't like that when we were young.  We all hated being lowered down the seven or eight feet to the bottom.   I was always afraid of spiders or mice!  Shudder the thought!

This is the house we moved to that my mother designed  and drew out on a piece of paper from which the builder actually  worked to build it. 

This picture is so endearing to me because it is my dad taking care of his petunias just like my mother did when she was still alive.  Not a year went by that she didn't have these flower beds just filled with petunias that seemed to just thrive under her loving care.  Now, my dad does the same.  It appeared that perhaps they wouldn't get planted 12 years ago when my mother died, but when we came back from the cemetery on the day of her funeral, to our surprise, all the petunias were planted by the people who owned the greenhouse.  It brought tears to our eyes that those people would think of doing something that was so important to our entire family!

The day after we returned from going to Island Park and Yellowstone with our dad, we decided to take a little walk--"a little walk" which turned out to be four miles.  We walked around the entire mile square--the four of us, Beverly, Joyce, Natalie, and me.  Talking together and reliving memories made it so special.  We passed old friends' homes, the church where we all went together as a family, etc., etc.  But, I took pictures of just a few of the highlights.  This is the home where my dad was born and where he lived while he was growing up.   It formerly belonged to my dad's Grandpa and Grandma Lucas and now belongs to one of my cousins.

Walking about half a mile from the house where my dad was raised, we came upon my Grandpa Rigby's next farm house.  Immediately, it brought back so many memories.

My Grandpa Lester and Grandma Hattie  moved to this house in 1946 which is where Grandpa Lester's parents had formerly lived.  They moved into town and sold the farm to their son, my Grandpa Lester.

To the left of the house used to be a huge garden where my grandma, aunts, and cousins all planted, harvested, bottled, and froze the produce.  It was a giant family affair that we all enjoyed doing because we were all working together and felt such a sense of accomplishment when we looked at all we had done.

The little wash house next to the main house is where we loved to pretend was our own house.  So much fun!  And the garage--this is where we all sat and husked the corn, snapped the beans, shelled the peas, and put the chickens in the scalding water on the stove inside so we could take the feathers off.  My least favorite job!  I will never forget the smell of those boiling chickens!   I couldn't believe how my sweet little grandma could wield that big ax and cut the heads off those chickens!  She always said she hoped she wouldn't have to meet all those chickens in heaven!  Hah!  That garage is where my grandma, also, taught me to sweep.  "You don't whip the dirt in the air--just slow brushes from the outside until it's all together in a pile to pick up."  Yes, I will never forget that very valuable lesson.

To the left of the house used to be lots of apple trees.  I remember when one of my aunts fell out of the tree while picking apples.  We all thought she was dead for sure!  Luckily, she survived the fall.  We all loved to watch the old apple peeler take the peels off, then we would cut the apples up and bottle them.  Just as with everything, at the end of the day, we divided all of the items for each family.

 The house is being rented now, but we hoped the renters didn't mind us strolling back to see some of the areas we remembered so well as children.  Here is the grainery where grain and chicken feed was stored.   

Here is the old barn . . .

I remember when my sisters and I were lying in the soft straw one day when all of a sudden a bunch of little mice went running over us!  Times like this are the reason I still have a giant fear of mice!

The chicken coop has the most memories.  The day we looked forward to the most was when our Grandma Hattie would bring home a box of new little chicks and then put them into a small makeshift cage in the middle of the chicken coop.  A light was necessary to keep them warn.  As young grandchildren, we loved to go visit when the chicks were little, and we could hold them in our hands.  They grew up way too fast, however, and soon they were so fast we couldn't catch them.

This is where the chickens would just hang out, the roosting area.  My grandparents always kept their farm and buildings clean and tidy--that included their barns and chicken coop.  Each spring, we helped our grandma clean this coop this from top to bottom, including scraping the floor.   It made me sad to see that it isn't how she would have kept it now. 

Our grandma would let us gather the eggs from the nesting areas.  We were all thrilled to see that they are still in pretty good shape.  We never wanted to get the eggs from under the nesting hens because they would peck us!  Our grandma took care of her chickens until she was well into her eighties--which included feeding and watering them.  The water came from a hand pump over near the barn.  In the winter time, she had to trudge the distance from the barn over to the coop through mounds of snow, but she never complained about it.

Me, Beverly, and Joyce 

Seeing an old piece of machinery made us smile--so different than the farming equipment of today where everything is done on a much larger scale with the farmer inside an air-conditioned cab of a giant tractor.

Passing by the Hibbard School which I would have never recognized had it not had the sign on it.  I attended elementary school here from first to fifth grade.  It has been totally re-done, plus it has been added on to. 

One time we were over at the school when Beverly, Joyce, and I were watching George and Larry play basketball in the gymnasium with our dad and brothers.  We were on the upper hallway which looked down into the gymnasium enjoying the fun.  Suddenly, a large portion of the ceiling started falling and we all stood paralyzed as to what we should do.  It was headed straight for my brother-in-law, Larry.  Had we yelled at him, he would have looked up and it would have fallen right on his face.  As it was, it landed on top of his head which sent him crumbling to the ground.  Luckily, he was okay, but it was a very scary experience.  Yes, this place definitely needed some fix-up work.  It looks so nice now!

The final place on our four-mile walk was the Charlie Robinson house.  Why  I put this as a memory is because this is where I got to watch my first television when I was about five or six years old, I believe.  Charlie and his wife (who were old enough to be my grandparents) had one of the first televisions in our community, and Charlie invited me to come over to watch.  I was definitely mesmerized!  It was only on for a few hours a day in our community, I believe he could only get one channel, and in black and white, but it was fantastic to me!  One day I went over and he and his wife had put a multi-colored piece of cellophane over the front of the picture so you could watch "color" television.  No matter that everyone's faces were yellow, they all wore blue clothes, and their shoes were all purple.  It was color to us and we loved it!

  

The other reason I put this picture was because this is where I saw my dear friend, Charlie, lying in his casket in front of the window you see right there.  In those days, the caskets were brought to the home for the viewing.  I had never seen a dead person before and when I walked up to him lying there, I was really bothered by it.  I saw one other person in the community after that--a young boy who had been run over.  For so long, I just couldn't see a person who had died.  I remember my dad having a long talk to me about death, and how it is just a door into another world that we must all pass through--that the body is here, but the person is happy in the spirit world.  Because Christ died for us and was resurrected, we all will have our bodies and spirit reunited again, too.  It helped so much, and I finally was able to go to viewings and not be so bothered by it.  

Well, there you have it.  My little four-mile walk with my sisters and some of the memories that came back to me.  Thanks Beverly, Joyce, and Natalie for the walk and talk together--especially to Natalie who thought this was the slowest walk ever!  Hah!