Brief Histoy of Isabelle Romney Gledhill

Dec 10. 1913 - Aug 17, 1993
ANCESTORS

Personal History of Isabelle Romney Gledhill

September 10, 1987

                                              (Spelling and punctuation, in both journals, have been left as original as possible)                                  

            Several months ago my husband, Preston Ray Gledhill, gave me this note book and suggested I get busy writing my life history.  Yesterday, he reminded me again (after we attended our neighbor, Kathryn Haroldsen's, funeral.)  Kathryn had done an outstanding job writing her history so the family had a wealth of material to use at her Services.  That alone probably would not have caused me to begin writing since I'm not that concerned about what goes on

after I'm dead, but I happened on to the notebook again on a night when nothing was pressing and I happened to be lying on the bed following a foot operation and needed some way to pass the time.

            When my relatives and friends are visiting me, I have a tendency to recall many incidents that have happened to me and do not hesitate to relate them. With the possible exception of my children, who get too many of them, people seem to enjoy them.  My children just suggest that I write them down, implying probably that they might be more interested in them when I have departed from this life. The problem is that sitting at this notebook (later typed out) 1 probably will not be able to recall anything. Recently Robert and Michael (two of my sons) brought their families over for a home evening for me to tell the grandchildren some of my experiences growing up in Mexico. I couldn't remember anything interesting and I'm also tongue‑tied if I try to speak on a recorder.  That night I had a video‑cassette trained on me.  I hope I never have to see that thing.

            I was born out in the county near Salford, Arizona. My parents, Miles Archibald Romney and Emily Burrell Romney were living temporarily in the United States because of the Mexican Revolution.  Pancho Villa, the rebel leader, was a friend of the Mormons living in the Colonies, but the situation had become very dangerous and he could no longer promise protection.  The Colonists were forced to flee to the U.S.A..

10 June 1991

            Where did those years go?  Now, since I plan to have my history prepared as a present for my children for Christmas this year I must keep busy and seriously work on this project.

            To continue from above, I do have some descriptions of that exodus from the Colonies and will try to get some of the information and attach at the end of my life story.  My parents did not like to talk about the hard times of those years so the material I will leave comes from the diaries and memories of other people.

            At the time of my birth, my parents were living in a "shack" and my mother used to tell me about how cold the night was on December 10, 1913.  According to her, neighbors and friends brought quilts and held them up around the bed to protect us from the cold wind. She recalled that she still suffered in spite of their help.

            My father's brother‑in‑law, Dr. William Platt, delivered me. My mother had been praying for a son since she had given birth to 4 daughters (Fern and Burnetta by her first husband, and Laura and a still‑born daughter by my father). She was so sure that I'd be a son that they had decided to name me for the doctor.  Because I was a female they named me for my father's sister, Isabell, uncle William's wife.    

            I'm now 77 years old and have had to live with a name I disliked for all those years, I did get the spelling changed to Isabelle.  Without that last “E” the name looked unfinished to my teen‑age mind.  While I was in high‑school I had almost persuaded my parents to have it legally changed to Kathleen. About that time Aunt Isabell died and I had to forget that dream. At least I've never had to suffer having my children bestow it on a grandchild.

            When 1 was about a year old the revolution quieted down and my parents returned to Mexico. About 6 months later my mother's prayers were answered when my brother Irvin Burrell was born. Shortly after that the family had to leave Mexico again because the revolution moved into their area again. This time they moved to a farm near Virdin, New Mexico where my sister Elois was born. My sister Laura, a brown‑eyed blonde child, had died so my parents were very happy that Lois (as she was officially named, she added the E in front of her name while she was in high school) was also a brown‑eyed blonde which helped to make up for the loss of Laura. My  father always seemed especially fond of Elois,  although he was a fair man and made all of us feel important and loved.

            My first memories are of Virdin. I recall the day my half-brother

Gaskell, was kicked in the head by a horse. 1 have retained very vivid picture of him being carried in from the field and placed on a cot in the shade while someone went for a doctor. In later years Gaskel, a great comic, used to claim (note: nothing more was written by mom here)

            Regarding the revolutions during Villa’s time, I often wondered if my family was present since so little was said about their experiences. The reason for this may have been that there was a sort of attitude in our family which prevented any member dwelling on unpleasant past experiences. What was past was past and we lived for the future. Anything past, especially of an unpleasant nature, was “better forgotten.”  Not that we didn’t recall incidents when we got together but they were always either humorous or happy.

            I only recall hearing one story. My mother was ill so her sister was helping her out one day. We were living (I might say “me” but I wasn’t yet in existence) in a farmhouse a few miles out of town. My aunt was in the kitchen and suddenly two Mexican men appeared. Aunt Lillie panicked and ran upstairs where mother was in bed. The two men followed. My older half sister, Burnetta (by mother’s first husband) was in the room doing some school work (they couldn’t let her go back to school because of Villa’s army camped in town). Mother told her to run for help but when she tried to dart pass the men, they blocked her progress. She then threw open some French windows, ran out on a second story balcony and leaped off. Fourteenthly a man working in a field across the street saw her jump and ran to investigate. Villa’s men by this time were hotfooting it up over a hill behind the house. The neighbor jumped on his horse and rushed to Villa’s camp. Villa hunted up the men, had Aunt Lillie identify them, then stood them against our barn and shot them.

            I recall another day when Dad and a neighbor pried up the huge stone slab that served as a hearthstone. Under the floor all kinds of exciting things were buried: quilts, books, bottled fruit, and a huge Bible. I was too young to understand why my mother cried when she saw everything was ruined—mildewed, etc.  The fact that they were ruined makes me realize that we were just returning from an exodus because our family stayed in Mexico as long as possible, then returned as soon as possible. Those things had been buried for years. We had probably just moved into a home Dad had purchased from some family who had decided not to return and the seller had probably told my parents where to look. (Later, actually this was probably the frame house on Main Street which I remember.) Mother needed those items and undoubtedly cried because they were beyond use.

            Those days when they left home—leaving almost everything, and then returned to burned furniture, broken windows, etc., must have been very hard. As I said, my parents did not dwell on those hard times.

            My father did buy up considerable property from those not coming back. I was only five when he bought the two homes Guy C. Wilson had built. In the attic of that home I learned a little of what the people must have gone through. The second story was not finished and our delight was to wait until Mother and Dad were away, then we’d crawl in the dark corners of that attic and search for “loot.”  The problem then was to explain to Dad and Mother how we happened to find books, a doll, some clothing, etc.  We didn’t tell them about finding considerable ammunition. My brothers took that and I do not know what they did with it. Years later, when I as a junior in high school, that home burned to the ground and it was obvious that we did not find all the ammunition for there were considerable auditory fireworks while it burned and caused the bullets to explode.

            The reason we had been forbidden to crawl back into the attic was due to the construction of the home and indicates something of the life in the Colonies in the early days. The home was a beautifully built brick home. It even had a charming curved veranda that ran about one-third of the way around it. But evidently building supplies were not available to complete it, so often the ceilings instead of being lath and plaster, were just tightly stretched canvas nailed to the rafters. My father did eventually get almost all the ceilings finished with plaster, which was fortunate when it started to burn. Otherwise, we would have had less time to get ourselves and most of our possessions out.

            No, the revolutions did not affect my life much or make it too different from the childhood any of you could have had in a small Utah town. True, we did have a little more of a feeling of isolation than a Utahan might have had. We were isolated, not only geographically, but by race, color, and religion.

            I did, however, do about the same things any country girl would do: learned to swim in a river, learned to ride horses, learned to help with the haying, with fruit picking (picked my share of berries), hoed in a garden, etc.  Speaking of swimming, we did have a practice that might have been different. We had boys’ day and girls’ day—not “co-ed” swimming except for illegal swimming parties up the river with guards posted in case parents showed up. I did not, and do not to this day, enjoy swimming as much as I should due to a near drowning when I was about ten. The river was in flood and my mother was very reluctant to let me go that day. A friend named Helen Mae Taylor helped me persuade mother by assuring her that her mother would be going and would be most happy to watch me, too. Helen Mae and I could not swim alone. We had nothing to help us but “homemade” life preservers which consisted of a wet pillow case that had been flung through the air fast enough to partially fill them with air. We then clasped the open end tightly in our hands and used the buoyancy thus created to hold us up while we swam. We were safe enough where we had been told to swim but suddenly Helen Mae called to tell her mother that she was going to swim across the river and set out with me right behind her. Because of the flood she was swept downstream, panicked and let go of her “life jacket.” I followed suit. Helen Mae’s mother swam to rescue her daughter and all attention was on that rescue. I was swept downstream and only accidentally someone saw me disappearing around the bend in the river. Only because there were several excellent swimmers was I rescued. Getting me back to consciousness was touch and go for some time. My mother would not let me go swimming for a long time. She only relented when some of the townspeople, who I suspect, realized I needed to get back in the water before I developed a real trauma, teased her about “not letting my daughter go swimming until she learns how to swim.”

            The thing that makes my early life different from yours is that my father was a polygamist and I have 26 brothers and sisters. Some of you may question that church members practiced polygamy as late as my parents did. I used to try to question my mother but her answer was always, “We have been asked not to discuss that.”  So I have let the past stay buried I only know that quite a number of families were married in polygamy, families in high places in the church like Guy C. Wilson, Ed Eyring (Sister Kimball’s father), Skousens, Calls, et al and my father.

            One day she told me about her courtship with my father.

            In Mexico, at that time, there were many young ladies of marriageable age and almost no men. My grandmother had four daughters between 18 and 23 and no prospects for husbands.

Then at one conference time, a member of the First Presidency came to the Colonies. During his visit my mother was called in and informed that my father had been requested to take a plural wife and he asked for her. She knew him because she worked in the M.I.A. with him. In fact, all the young girls were very much aware of him even though he was married. He had just returned from a mission to England which added a little glamour. Mother was honored and thrilled. However, up to this point my father’s first wife had not been informed and when  her permission was sought, she refused. In fact, she was very upset and mother was then informed that the marriage was off.

            Mother, with a broken heart, accepted a young man who had long sought her consent. Under the circumstances this marriage had little chance of success and after a number of unhappy years mother was widowed and left with two little daughters to support. Meanwhile, Aunt Frances, Dad’s first wife, had relented and Dad had really taken care of Grandmother’s problems. He’d married mother’s sister just older than she was and the one just younger than mother and now he was able to marry Mother too. They never had a date and all contacts were made with either Dad’s wives or my grandmother present.

            And so my life was different. As I grew up, I had not only one home but four for I felt just as free to ask for something to eat or to fall on a bed and for a nap in one house as in another. Furthermore, I had two brothers my same age. It was like being a triplet.

            My father taught all of us to work! That work was often  more fun than drudgery because we lived a type of communal existence that divided the jobs according to age. I went through the picking up potatoes, the taking lunch to the boys, the shifts in the apple packer, where because I couldn’t work as fast as some of the Mexican girls, I sometimes had to sort culls—a job most of us disliked. Regardless of the job, it was always more fun because I was working with half-brothers and sisters who were in some way not as boring as full brothers and sisters.

            Taking the lunch was especially fun because those assigned this task got out of washing dishes. The philosophy was that the boys ought to have a meal at midday. We were expected to walk, but no one checked and we generally got it there anyway we wished—generally that was to round up a donkey or two wandering the streets and ride them. Sometimes the older girls home from college went along for the lark. Celia was always the funniest because she invariably picked a donkey that “bucked.”  Looking back, I think she had some way of assuring the bucking, sort of a frustrated actress.

            Holidays always meant a family dinner—not just the wives and their broods but all the uncles, aunts, cousins, and some who were sort of  “shirttail” cousins. Fortunately we lived in a warm climate so that even on Thanksgiving we could set up the tables outside. When we had to eat inside, the adults ate first while the kids ran wild. A favorite place to do that was the barn. Generally when the cousins were there we would jump off the loft into the hay or swing on the barn rafters without the usual scoldings.

            My father was a “fair” man which helped to make our family a close knit one in spite of its size. Each wife was allotted her provisions according to the number of children. If one wife got a trip to El Paso for shopping, each of the other wives got one, too. When one wife was “acting up,” Dad could have found the atmosphere much more pleasant in one of his other homes, but NEVER did he permit himself that escape. He wasn’t always sleeping at our house but never did a day pass that he was not in our home. Generally he made two visits—one in the morning to see that we were all up and functioning and one at night before going to bed. On one visit or the other he knelt with us in prayer.

            Aunt Frances, the first wife, always resented the other families somewhat, which was the basis for some discomfort. In my opinion, she and my father got along as well as they would have even if he had not taken other wives.

            To understand her more, take an example of living next to her as mother did for years. Aunt Frances was the ambitious kind and could not stand any appearance of sloth. Monday morning was her wash day and at about 4:00 a.m. she’d jump out of bed, got all her children up, stripped the beds, and began her washing. One eye was on our place and generally by daylight she couldn’t stand it any longer and would come knocking on our door calling, “Emily, Emily, are you oversleeping? The sun is going to be up and it will be too hot to wash. Come on, come on. You kids get out of bed and help.”  She’d then start stripping our beds, lit a fire to get the old black washtub on. I used to dread wash day, but mother never complained or showed any rudeness even though she may have been up most of the night with a young baby. I, my mother’s eldest, was six months younger than Aunt Frances’ baby.

            I think mother’s response was placid because she knew Aunt Frances suffered from an overactive thyroid and because she knew that she really had a heart of gold—and mother could count on her for any help or support she needed and because Aunt Frances was always doing things for her—sitting with sick children, bringing fresh bread, taking home ironing Mother couldn’t manage, etc.

            When finances permitted Dad to let all the wives hire the washing and ironing done, Aunt Frances still did hers. She couldn’t find a maid willing to come early enough to satisfy her, or one that could iron well enough, or scrub a floor clean enough. So Dad just gave her a monetary allowance to use as she wished.

            From Dad I learned respect. Once I “sassed” Aunt Frances and he called me in. He didn’t say I had to apologize, he just pointed out how I’d feel if I did. And I did apologize and I did feel happy and Aunt Frances and I loved each other more for the experience.

            He also chastised us in a positive way. Once I accepted a date with a young man who had a rather wild reputation. The next morning Dad was in my room before the sun came up. He woke me and said, “You know, my girl, it’s wonderful to know that I can trust you out with a young man like that, for I know that a daughter of mine would never permit a young man to cheapen her in any way.”  Since my conscience wasn’t quite as pure as he implied that morning, I squirmed but it surely put controls on my future actions.

            Another time my younger sister and I stayed out very late with our boyfriends. We were sitting in our car (we’d been to a dance with a brother driving) and suddenly that brother, who had also been out late, tapped on the window and said, “Dad’s coming.”  We knew Dad had planned to leave for El Paso in the morning but hadn’t expected him to leave as early as 4:00 a.m.  Since getting in at a reasonable time was one law Dad expected to be kept, my sister and I and our boyfriends “split.”  The fellows went out through an orchard behind the house then up over a hill to avoid meeting him. Elois and I dashed in the house and jumped into bed. In a few moments, Dad came in the bedroom and said, “Here, girls, you left in such a hurry one of you left a purse which I think you’ll need. Then you had better get your shoes off. You’ll sleep better that way before your mother gets you up at six to help her.”  This kind of chastising did more than anything else could have. Thus, he kept his large family in line. Once a brother was also out late and enjoyed a ride home with Dad. All the way home Irvin kept waiting for the storm to hit but Dad just whistled softly and when he got home he said, “Good night son. See you in a couple of hours.”  And no one had to get that brother out of bed.

            Dad also had a sense of humor which helped hold the family together and keep tempers cooled. Once coming home from a dance in a Colony 18 miles away, Elois and I were pouting because we had to kneel on the floor. Three of our brothers had taken dates so there wasn’t room on the seat and we resented it. Suddenly Dad said, “Oh be careful.”  The brother driving slammed on the brakes and said, “What’s the matter?”  Dad said, “Well we’re so crowded I’m afraid the sides of the car are bulging so we won’t be able to get through those posts up ahead.”  It was so ridiculous that all of us laughed and thus brightened the atmosphere. My brothers inherited it and gatherings are fun.

            My grandfather, Miles Park Romney, was charged with the responsibility of starting a little theater in Mexico and after his death my father was asked to continue the same. So from the time I could walk I sat on the front seat watching my dad perform. Because I had long braids, big eyes, and was skinny I was a natural to play parts of the child of the poor widow being harassed by a wicked villain. Dad was always the villain. However, his acting self and his real self were never mixed in my mind.

            All of us inherited to some extent this love of the stage—and on our straw stacks more great dramas were presented, often in costumes we’d borrowed from Dad’s costume closet. We knew those costumed performances needed to be extra good to keep Dad entertained enough that he would forget to mention the costumes.

            Home evenings were often with the whole family gathered around a fireplace, and really special because of the crowd.

            In tribute to my dad and his wives I’d like to say that although none of them had the benefit of a very long, formal education they instilled in their children a desire. Most of us “worked” to get through school, generally for Dad. All but about three (and those three are the wealthiest of the lot) finished college. All but two sons, who didn’t want to go, went on missions. Dad didn’t believe in girls going so none of us did.

            All of us learned to work. Dad used to look at his last three children (all sons) and laugh. “Look at those lazy little shavers,” he’d say. “They’ll probably have a hard time making a living when they grow up.”  They’ve proven to be three of the hardest workers of all.

            My first memory of Amy Young Valentine was on a morning when my mother was dragging me to school and we met Amy’s mother dragging her to school, too. I started school young but I loved everything about it until I reached the fourth grade. That year the superintendent of schools had a brainstorm. He administered I.Q. tests to all students in all of the schools. Based on those test many were demoted and some were promoted. Amy and I were promoted which resulted in my reluctance to go (hers too, I suppose). My position was particularly sad because socially I was not overly adjusted anyway (too shy) and now most of my friends were in the third grade and I was in the fifth with several “older” children (ranchers’ children and others who for some reason or other had missed some years). Since Amy was younger of course, I couldn’t associate with her but it was a real comfort to know that I was not the only miserable being in that school. My schooling was affected so that I really didn’t get my real footing again until my junior year in high school.

            At age 16 I graduated, far too young to go to BYU. Any school closer was unthinkable since they were all gentile schools. I planed to take a post graduate course in high school—just one class and just have myself a good time, but my father and the superintendent had other ideas (Dad was President of the Board of Education). There was a small colony, Garcia, way up in the Sierra Madres which needed a teacher. So I who was too young and innocent to go to BYU, was sent to Garcia to teach the first four grades.

            Teaching under an excellent Supervisor was not a problem. I rather enjoyed it and took to it like a duck to water. I could not, after I’d been there a few weeks, understand how my parents could have permitted their innocent, naive daughter to live in Garcia. At BYU I would have encountered far less sin.

            There were no young ladies in town; they were away to school or in the U.S.A. working. There were, however, because ranching was the main support, many young men and all of them wanted to try out the new school teacher. Bets were laid on which one she’d kiss first, etc. I resolved my problem by refusing to go out with anyone alone, always I insisted on two or three. And I remained pure in spite of innocently attending a chicken dinner for which the chickens had been acquired “free of charge” from the local “jefe’s” coop.

            About Christmas time there was a mass excommunication. Almost everyone in town had been sleeping with someone else’s wife or husband.

            It was a year for maturing and experiencing. There were some exciting times like going out on a wild horse roundup and wild turkey shoots where the turkey cock comes strutting right up close thinking he’s responding to a mating call which is only someone making a noise by sucking through a bone.

            The game we often played on these trips was “make Isabelle lose her direction and try to go home the wrong way.”  Those were days before I had become corrupted by living in Provo so I never was lost.

            So them I came to BYU and a whole new world opened up. Up to that time I’d seen a few movies while on yearly shopping trips to El Paso, Texas. Now I lived in a town with three movie houses. For the first few months I saw every change. Football games were terribly exciting. In fact I liked everything about college and loved Provo! Snow got rather tiresome by March and April but then the lilacs bloomed and the bridal wreath and the snowballs.

            After my junior year I stopped college to teach a couple of years at the Academy in Juarez. In 1938 I came back as a senior and with a firm resolve to try to find someone I’d like to marry. The first day of classes I stepped into the Little Theater for a class in theater history and looked around. Seated on the side was a blond, curly headed fellow that I liked the looks of and thought, “I’d love to know him.”  During the class, however, I decided he was aloof and stuck-up and dismissed him.

            By Christmas I was beginning to get a little desperate about finding a husband. I was going out with a fellow from the Colonies who was far too fond of me and I wanted to break that off. Early in January I persuaded him not to meet me after class outside the Little Theater. As we stepped out into the hall, the curly one I mentioned above looked around and said, “Where’s your watchdog?” “Not coming today,” I replied. “Well then, may I carry home your books,” said he. And I was dated up for the dance that Friday.

            However, the date proved disappointing. He yawned all evening and I became more and more pert, refusing to let him come in when we got home. And I crossed him off!

            So March came and my last quarter in school and a contract to teach again at Juarez Stake Academy. By then Amy and I had quit our respective places of board and room and were roommates at Amanda Knight Hall which had just opened. I loved living with all the exciting girls in the dorm and especially with Amy as a roommate.

            Then, after the first Mask Club of the new quarter, four friends and I went to Calders. I’d promised them a nickel treat; I was the only one that happened to have any money. Just as we stepped up to the counter, the door opened and curly Pres came in. “Let me treat you girls,” he said. “Oh get something more than a one-scoop cone.”  And he talked most of them into a least 25¢ worth, then reached for his wallet. It was customary to wear formal dress for Mask Club play readings and when he’d changed into his tux, he’d forgotten to transfer his wallet. So yours truly paid!

            He left Calders with us and walking up University Avenue we had fun speculating about which of us he was interested in. I knew that it couldn’t be me, yet as the others left us one by one, he kept walking along until only I was left walking with him. I could see he was bursting with excitement but I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

            “I have an exciting job offer in Alaska,” he said. “I have to leave just as soon as school is out. Will you come with me?”

            “Well,” said I. “Is this a proposition or are you needing a secretary?

            “Oh of course not. I want you to come as my wife.”

            “Wife!” said I. “Well, you’ll have to admit this is a little sudden.”

            “Is it? I’ve been thinking about it all year.”

            “You have? Well, I’ll need to give it a little thought. I’ll need a little time to get used to it and perhaps we should get better acquainted.”

            Then followed a period of sheer bliss. Everything was just tops including being cast in leading romantic roles in “You Can’t Take It With You.”  It is during this period that we experienced truly being in love.

            On June 7, 1939, both sets of parents were on hand as we marched south on University Avenue in our caps and gowns and in exercises held in the Provo Tabernacle and watched us receive our B.A. degrees. Then after lunch at Keeleys, we drove to Salt Lake and were sealed together in the Salt Lake Temple by the President.

            Bliss for the next three months despite the heat through the west upstairs’ windows of Brockbanks in Provo and the coolness (no hot water) in a picturesque cabin at Aspen Grove (with the aid of Floyd Cornaby, Pres’ former roommate) followed by the deepest sorrow and dilemma I have ever had to face. I was honor-bound to fulfill my contract to teach in Mexico and Pres had received a fellowship from L.S.U. which would allow him to get his master’s degree in Romance Languages. A few years later when thousands of couples were separated by war might not have been as hard. At least I would have had company.

            We did get together at Christmas and Easter, but finally in June, one year after our marriage, we were back together never to be separated for any length of time again. A heart murmur kept Pres out of the service. We’ve built a family of four wonderful children: Robert Barry born in Rexburg, Idaho; David Charles born four years later in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Michael Brent born four years later in Provo, Utah, and Julie Anne born four years later in Provo. Each has his own individual personality, each a challenge in one way or the other and each loving and kind to aging parents. Keeping track of the year of birth has been easy. I just had to remember that Robert was born on the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1942 and then go 46, 50, 54. Of course some were four years apart and some were 3½ and some were 4½, but the year of birth just happened to be four years.

            Now to backtrack a way. Our first honeymoon home after our romantic beginning in Wildwood was upstairs in Shirley Paxman’s parents’ home directly across from Michael’s parents-in-law (the Reids). It was it was on the southwest corner. There was no air conditioning and we enjoyed a record heat wave that June. We had a little kitchen with two large windows on the west. Wanting to impress my new husband was the aim of my life right then so I had washed (and starched) all of his shirts and wanted to get them all ironed that day. I stood over that ironing board with the temperature outside over 100 degrees and ironed all afternoon. Although I thought I had done a great job, I’m afraid he didn’t. He’d been used to having his shirts done at a laundry. The starch or stiffening made the collars stiff but did not irritate his neck. He just praised me and endured the scratchy starch. I’d notice him tugging at his collar and saw the red marks around his neck. He must have said something to his mother because she introduced me to a different type of starch that wasn’t as painful as that I’d made out of flour, water, and sugar. Anyway, the result of that effort wasn’t so great. I woke up in the night with a severe chill. The next day Pres helped me to the couch in the living room and I was lying there wrapped in a heavy Indian blanket still shivering when my brother Van dropped in to see us. He was horrified that I didn’t know about heat exhaustion, told me to drink gallons of fluid, went to the store for lemons and made about two gallons and told Pres if I wasn’t decidedly better the next day to get me to a doctor. Of course he called his dad and his father said the same thing. Anyway I didn’t spend an afternoon “impressing” him with my ability to iron again.

            My next great adventure in the kitchen was to surprise him with baking powder biscuits. When I got them out of the oven they were like hard rocks. I hid them in a wastepaper basket and ran to the store for bread. He came home meanwhile, smelled bread and looked around. He was holding one in his hand pretending he was trying to eat it. He had a great time over that and I was mortified. An hour later his parents dropped by on their way to Salt Lake and of course he brought out the baked offering. I think his mother then believed what I’d said the day of our wedding. We were going on a three-day honeymoon to Wildwood in Provo Canyon. At the last minute she brought out a couple of sacks of groceries and apologized for fear she had offended me by buying them. She said, “I noticed you hadn’t bought anything and no matter how much in love Preston is, he’ll still want to eat. I hope I bought something you like to cook.”  I thanked her for remembering what I had totally forgotten and said it didn’t matter what was in the sacks, I don’t know how to cook anyway. One look at my baking powder delights must have convinced her I meant it. Poor woman! How she must have worried.

End of Mother’s (Isabelle Romney Gledhill) journal.

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