I was sustained June 2, 1963 and this was a challenge. I wasn’t mature enough to know all the things I needed to know. I relied on the Lord and He taught me. I am not a visitor. When Erma Magelby, who had just been released as R.S. Pres., came and told me the things I needed to do and who needed me the most. She told me my counselors could take care of the meetings. My responsiblity was to care for the sick and the widows. How could I do regular visits with a three year old. I decided that rather than make lengthy visits I would make short visits. This worked for me. Kent was content if I didn’t stay too long. Some of my closest friends resulted from these short visits. Esther Mae Boulter’s husband was dying from emphysema. One day his face was blue as he struggled to breathe. Esther Mae said, in all sincerity, she would be glad to trade places with him, so he could have a normal life.
Artella Schneiter’s husband was injured in a car accident and paralyzed from the waist down. When her husband needed a blood transfusion, I went to donate blood. The nurse couldn’t get a sample of blood to determine my blood type. She told me to never give blood, I didn’t have enough for myself. I was way to thin at this time.
Glen Sharp was crippled with arthritis and was in and out of hospitals. When he died, Jeannette had health problems of her own, she had multiple sclerosis and soon couldn’t walk and had constant pain. I would scold her for not eating right. I took her leftovers from my house. I ask her what she had eaten that day. She said she just opened the fridge and ate whatever she needed to eat, before it spoiled. I scolded her regularly for not eating right. Now 2013 I open the fridge and eat whatever is there. I never quit being her R.S, Pres. From 1962 until she died in 1986 I either visited her or wrote her a letter every day. Tom was working in the nursing home, where she was living and he would read my letters to Jeannette when the nurses didn’t take time to do it.
Naomi Clements cared for her mother, Margaret Ann Briggs, who was in her late eighties. Naomi and Leonard treated Margaret Ann as a queen. When cancer was discovered, the doctors said it was risky to operate on someone that old. She requested the R.S. sisters to come to Naomi’s house and pray for her. I will always treasure the spirit I felt, as we all knelt around her and prayed. She made a complete recovery.
The Bishop told me to go to a family and see if they needed a welfare order. I was amazed. The husband had a good school teaching job and they had just built a gorgeous new home. The wife was my age and we were good friends. The Bishop told me to pray about it. I still didn’t know what to say when I knocked on the door. I knew I wasn’t going to ask her if she needed food. I soon felt impressed to ask her. She started to cry. She didn’t have any food in the house to feed her family that night. They didn’t have any money or any credit. She filled out an order and I drove straight to Ucon, picked up the order and delivered it before her children were home from school.
I soon learned how greedy some people are, especially those who move in the ward and want a welfare order the next day. One lady didn’t want hamburger, nothing but steak, only butter and expensive things. When we quit taking her food, they soon moved out of the ward. Every year at Christmas, we would take a special order to the widows to fill out, but not one of them would do it. I knew some of them really needed extra food. We would make up an order for each of them and take it to them but they didn’t want to accept it. They would say, “Someone else needs this more than I do.” Later they told me they appreciated the ward helping them.
Our first big home making lesson, was going to be on personal appearance. We had it at night so the ladies could bring their daughters. We had a beauty operator scheduled to give the demonstration. I left home the usual time to deliver eggs in Idaho Falls. When I arrived at the last store, there was a message for me to call home. I was terrified thinking that one of my sons was hurt. Instead the lady who had agreed to do the demonstration decided not to come. Marjean Weekes had called all the beauty operators she knew, but none would do it on such short notice. The name of Ellen Marie Luthy flashed in my mind. I didn’t know until I got home that she had accepted. Her demonstration was excellent and she and I both knew the Lord had blessed her.
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