Chapter 21
Biographical Profiles of Mary Kay’s Parents - UT, CA, WA and ID
Ralph Southwick’s first wife, Erma Shupe, Patsy and Bruce’s mother died when Patsy was three.
Ralph and Phyllis Rebecca Dickerson had three children, Mary Kay, Anne Elizabeth and Rodney.
Phyllis was the only mother Patsy and Bruce can remember. At Phyllis’s death in 2008,
they had 20 grandchildren, 48 great grandchildren, five great-great grandchildren.
Chapter Index
Ralph – Before he met Phyllis
• Ralph, fifth of ten children
• Ralph’s ‘Tom Sawyer’ type boyhood
• Ralph’s first job – pea vinery
• Family moves to Harlem, Montana – two years
• Return to Liberty, Utah – sawmill and home-building business
• The Great Depression – their businesses shuttered
• Ralph meets and marries Erma Shupe
• Patsy and Bruce are born – Erma passes away
• Single parent and breadwinner – Ralph needed help
Phyllis - before she met Ralph
• Phyllis - tasked to take care of her younger siblings
• The life Phyllis knew – physical work over education
• Phyllis’s dream – college education - become a school teacher
• Self-reliance is the path to provident living.
• The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ – Phyllis knew it was true
Ralph and Phyllis – Courtship and married life
• Met at a construction site; courtship - brief and practical
• When are you going to introduce me to your children?
• Ralph and Phillis marry
• World War II and the Army draft
• William Southwick and Sons businesses reactavited
• Mary Kay is born
• Anne and Rodney are born
• War ends - William Southwick and Sons move to Willits, CA
• Ralph and Phyllis’s move to California – complex
• Family commitment to new venture – remarkable
• First California winter -heavy snow – miracle in disguise
• The “wooded green valley,” a wonderful place for children
• After seven years – sold sawmill
• Borden’s Dairy franchise – seven years in Willits
• Church callings – Northern California Mission
• Family moves to Connell, Washington – Phyllis enrolls at WSU
• Mary Kay’s higher education
• Ralph and Phyllis move to Utah – Phyllis enrolls at BYU
• Anne and Rod - higher education
• Phyllis graduates from BYU - Davis School District - Bountiful
• Phillis retires - move to Layton, Utah
• Ralph and Phyllis’s full-time mission
• Move to Dietrich, Idaho - 1978
• Rod and Penny move to Colorado - Ralph and Phyllis to Twin Falls
• Ralph and Phyllis’s declining years
Ralph-Before he met Phyllis
Ralph, fifth of 10 children – The Southwick family was living in Liberty, Utah when Ralph was born in 1911. He was 90 years old when he died in a Provo hospital. He was the fifth of ten children born to William Isaac Southwick and Mary Louise Campbell: Velda (1905-1905), Earl (1906-1976), Lee (1907-1994), Harold (1909-1972), Ralph (1911-2001), Glen Warren (1913-1913), LaVene (1914-1955), Verlon (1916-1995), Raymond (1923-2007) and Dale C (1925-2013).
Ralph’s ‘Tom Sawyer’ type boyhood - When Ralph was eight years old he was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church). He loved to hunt and fish on the beautiful mountains and streams near their home.
Ralph’s first job – pea vinery - Green peas is a farm crop that does well in higher elevations - short growing season and cooler weather. Entrepreneurs contracted with farmers to grow thousands of acres of peas and built a green-pea vinery in Liberty. When the peas were ready for harvest, the farmers mowed the pea vines, loaded them on wagons and hauled them to the pea vinery where the peas were shelled mechanically. The shelled peas were put into wooden crates and hauled to the cannery in Ogden. The vines and empty pods were a by-product - ensilage for cattle feed.
The Southwick’s had the contract for hauling and stacking the processed pea vines. Eight-year-old Ralph drove a team of horses pulling one of the sleds of processed product to the derrick.
Family moves to Harlem, Montana – two years – Ralph was 14 when his uncle Joe Southwick, who had moved to Harlem, Montana, invited William Isaac to join him. The Utah and Idaho Sugar Company had just opened a factory 20-miles near the Canadian border in Chinook. Farmers in the area were signing-up to grow sugar beets – thousands of acres under contract.
On the strength of Joe’s recommendation, William, Mary Louise and their children moved 700-miles north to Harlem in November, 1924. They shipped their household goods, farm equipment and animals by rail and drove their Hupmobile and Dart automobiles. (Chapter 23).
It appears that Joe found property for William to buy – farmland of an unknown size and a 20-acre ranchette with a log cabin. They said the cabin had “a dirt floor as hard as stone.” Their first winter was “very cold; hard to keep warm.”
The ice in the nearby lake was four feet thick. They sawed ice blocks and stored them in an “ice house” for use during the hot days of summer (Ice blocks stored between layers of sawdust or straw insulated the ice.). They enrolled the children in school; one-room school house - one instructor teaching eight grades.
The next spring, they planted their farm with sugar beets, spring-wheat and flax. Their crops failed. Unable to make the first mortgage payment, they lost their farmland to foreclosure. However, they were able to keep their ranchette.
William and his older boys worked for other farmers; thinning and weeding sugar beets with a hoe in the spring and harvesting grain and sugar beets in the summer and fall. The owner of a steam-powered threshing machine had grain-harvesting contracts with many of the local farmers. He moved his equipment and crews from farm-to-farm. He hired the Southwick’s to work the summer in his grain-binding and threshing operation.
Commentary - The “Hupmobile” was a car produced by the Hupp Motor Car Company in Detroit from 1909 to 1939. The Dart automobile may have been the “Martin Dart,” a car produced by James V. Martin.
All farming of the day, including threshing grain, was labor intensive. About two weeks before the grain was ripe, the operator of a horse-drawn “binder” cut the grain stalks at the base, mechanically tying the sheaf’s with twine and leaving the bundles lying on the ground. Crews with pitchforks followed behind; leaning the bundles against each other, seed-heads up - “shocks” to dry.
When the grain was ready for threshing, crews with pitchforks loaded the shocked bundles onto wagons and drove to the threshing machine in the farmer’s barnyard. The wagon driver used his pitchfork to offloaded the bundles, one-by-one, into the threshing machine’s intake chute. The chaff was rubbed off and the grain fell through screens and bagged. The chaff and straw were blown through the thresher onto a growing stack of loose straw.
Return to Liberty, Utah – sawmill and homebuilding businesses – After two-years in Montana, the Southwick’s had had enough. William Isaac and his sons decided their future livelihoods would come from wood products. They would return to Liberty; harvest free timber from federal forestland and go into the business of sawing lumber and building houses.
They named their business venture William Southwick & Sons, set-up a sawmill near Ogden and proceeded to cut logs from the public forests on the Monte Cristo Mountain Range - Cache National Forest, 30-miles to the east - and haul the logs to their sawmill. They sold sawn lumber on the open market and through their residential homebuilding business.
The Great Depression – their businesses shuttered - Ralph was 18-years-old when the stock market crashed in 1929. Within three years, the decade-long economic collapse called the Great Depression with its massive unemployment was underway. The demand for lumber and new-homes collapsed. The Southwick’s shuttered their fledgling businesses and tried individually to find other work.
Ralph found summer work as a sawyer, working for a large wood products company, living in work camps and cutting logs in the Monte Cristo Mountains. He lived in Liberty with his parents during the winter; enjoying the outdoors, hunting wild game and fishing; helping to put food on the table. He made his own skis and taught himself how to navigate over the snow-covered foothills.
He found work one summer driving truck for the North Ogden Canning Factory; hauling canned peaches and tomatoes during the harvest season; frequently working 18-hour days. When WPA jobs became available, he signed up to work on public infrastructure construction projects in the Ogden area, earning $48 a month.
He attended Church and went to community dances. He said that he dated many young women but put marriage out of his mind until he had stable employment.
Commentary – The WPA, is the acronym for the Works Projects Administration, established by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression; part of his “New Deal” to provide jobs for millions of workers displaced by the Great Depression and build needed public infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Congress appropriated the money and the federal agency oversaw construction projects throughout the country. At WPA’s high-point the agency employed about 25 percent of the American workforce; 20 million people.
Ralph meets and marries Erma Shupe – Ralph’s brother, Harold and his wife LaCelle introduced Ralph to LaCelle’s sister, Erma Shupe. Erma was named Queen of the 1936 North Ogden Cherry Days celebration. They were married in the Salt Lake City Temple - Ralph had been ordained to the office of Elder in the Church three years earlier.
Patsy and Bruce are born – Erma passes away - Erma gave birth to Patsy Ruth in 1937. Ralph Bruce was born a year later. In late 1940, Erma became ill; diagnoses - spinal meningitis. She died four days after being admitted to the hospital.
Single parent and breadwinner – Ralph needed help – After Erma’s death, her widowed mother, Sophia, invited Ralph and the children to live with her. She would care of her grandchildren while Ralph was working.
However, Ralph’s travel to the William Southwick & Sons jobsites was complicated. After a few months, Ralph’s parents invited him to live with them in Liberty. Ralph agreed. He would ride with his father and brothers to the jobsites. His mother would add three more plates at the dinner-table, prepare one more lunchbox and take care of her two grandchildren.
Phyllis-Before she met Ralph
Phyllis – tasked to take care of her younger siblings - Phillis was born December 6, 1918 in Ogden, Weber County, Utah; the eldest of Udy Anderson and Ona Elizabeth Dickerson’s ten children: Phyllis (1918-2008), Herbert Udy Bert (1921-2008), Ona Louella (1923-2013), Ruby Alice (1925-2018), Ben Aranthon (1928-1932), Daniel Hugh (1931-2018), Richard, Melvin, LaZann (1937-1991) and Ted Elias (1943-1987). (Chapter 23).
Phillis’s parents tasked Phyllis to essentially be a surrogate mother to the younger siblings. As a teenager, Phillis said that she felt considerable pressure from this assignment – but it was a learning experience that influenced the rest of her life.
The life Phyllis knew – physical work over education – Phyllis’s said her parents had limited education. Her father, Udy, was large for his age and was earning his own way when he was a teenager; working in the building trades – developing journeyman-type skills with concrete, brick and stone.
Udy and Ona essentially taught their children their work ethic; if you weren’t doing physical work, you weren’t working. Phyllis said, “If I sat down to read a book I was called away to do some task. Phyllis accomplished the tasks given, but in her heart, she wanted education.
Phyllis’s dream - college education – become a school teacher – Different from her parents, Phyllis placed a premium on developing her mind. No matter how long it took; she was determined to graduate from college and become an elementary school teacher; a goal she achieved when she was 48-years-old.
Self-reliance is the path to provident-living - Phyllis’s parents used their physical strength to not only earn a living, but raise much of their own food. They tried to always have a garden, berry patch, orchard and barnyard animals. They preserved their winter’s food supply by canning and drying or storing in their root-cellar and flour-bins. When electricity became available, they used freezers. They taught their children the same rules of provident living.
The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ – Phyllis knew it was true – Even as a young girl, Phyllis studied her scriptures. She loved going to church and learning all she could - her father; not so much.
Phyllis told Anne that on one winter Sunday, the new snow was deep. She pleaded with her father to take her to Church. He refused; she persisted. Finally, her disinterested dad ordered her to put on her winter coat, opened the front door of their home, lifted her into the snow and said, “If you want to go to Church so bad, start walking.”
Commentary – When it came to her love for Jesus Christ and his pristine Gospel; Phyllis indeed kept walking.” Throughout her life Phillis strived to be true and faithful. Her father, Udy, would eventually repent and get there too.
Ralph and Phyllis
Courtship and marriage
Met at a construction site – courtship - brief and practical – William Southwick & Sons had the contract to provide lumber and frame a house in North Ogden in 1941. The developer, Udy Dickerson, would do his own brick and concrete work. Udy, accompanied by his daughter Phyllis Rebecca, delivered a truckload of bricks to the jobsite. Thirty-year-old Ralph was struck by Udy’s attractive 23-year-old daughter and asked her for a date. She declined.
When are you going to introduce me to your children? - Ralph and Phyllis later met at a Church dance and their romance developed. On one of their dates, Ralph was taken aback when Phyllis asked, “When are you going to introduce her to your children?”
Ralph and Phyllis marry – They were married on November 5, 1941 in the Salt Lake City Temple. They and their children, Patsy and Bruce, made their residence in Liberty, 16 miles northeast of Ogden. Phyllis said, “I didn’t go to a movie theater until after I was 23 and we were married.”
World War II and Army draft - Thirty-one days after Ralph and Phyllis were married, the Empire of Japan bombed Peral Harbor. Ralph’s three younger brothers either enlisted or were drafted into the Army.
Ralph, Phillis and their children had moved to Ogden; living in a home they purchased on Harrison Street.
Ralph was exempt from the draft because his job was critical to the war effort. He was a fireman at Hill Field, now Hill Air Force Base. Shorty after the war started, Ralph was promoted to “Fire chief” – in charge of one of the fire crews that went into action when a plane crashed.
Commentary - Hill Field was largely used for repairing bomber aircraft and overhauling their engines. The war brought increased runway traffic and problem landings and takeoffs.
William Southwick & Sons business reactivated – Shortly after the U.S. entered the war, the military announced that sawn lumber was critical for the war effort. Men involved in the production of lumber could be exempt from the Army draft. William Isaac and Ralph’s older brothers opened the family’s sawmill operation and invited Ralph to join them.
Over the objections of his Hill Field bosses, Ralph resigned his position and joined his father and older brothers in the production of sawn lumber.
Mary Kay is Born – Thirteen months after the war began, Phyllis gave birth to her first child. Mary Kay was born December 31, 1942. It was a very difficult delivery – life threatening for both mother and baby. (Chapter 1).
Anne and Rodney are born – Both Anne and Rodney were born in Ogden. Anne, two years younger than Mary Kay, was born in 1944; Rodney in 1946.
War ends – William Southwick & Sons move to Willits, California - Ralph’s three brothers who had been serving in the military, returned home in 1945. The nation’s economy had changed. The military’s demand for lumber was more than replaced by millions of returning soldiers, starting families and buying new homes.
Expanding their sawmill and homebuilding business in Ogden was problematic. The stands of merchantable timber in the Monte Cristo Mountains were increasingly difficult to access by tractor and truck. They needed to find a better location for their business.
Some of the sons researched communities in the northwest and felt their best opportunity was in Northern California. They found a 20-acre parcel of land for sale in a small mountain valley bordered by thousands of acres of federal forests; ten miles north of Willits, just off U.S. Highway 101. The property included a one-room home, a few outbuildings and a beautiful clear-water stream which they could dam-up for a log pond; an idyllic location. The climate was more moderate than Ogden - in Willits, they could operate almost year-round.
They bought the parcel in 1947 and proceeded with implementing their plan; first moving their sawmill equipment, then the household goods of each of the seven families 800 miles.
Commentary – Willits is 35 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean (from Fort Bragg). Its elevation is 1,400 ft.; precipitation averages 50 inches annually. Average annual temperatures range from 32 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
When Mary Kay, our children and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1972, she said it felt like Willits; Atlanta’s elevation (1,050 ft.), precipitation (50 in.) and 250 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean (from Savanah). Albeit, snow was uncommon and different vegetation species.
Ralph and Phyllis’s move to California - complex – Ralph and Phyllis moved their household goods soon after the sawmill equipment was shipped. They loaded their household goods on one of the partnership’s trucks – two trips.
Ralph and Phyllis would take the two youngest children, Anne and Rodney, with them on the first trip. Ralph would take the other three children with him when he returned to get the remainder of their goods. However, when everything was loaded, there was no room for all three children.
Ralph’s new plan – he would take 8-year-old Bruce with him; 10-year-old Patsy and 5-year-old Mary Kay would stay with family in Ogden for a few days. He bought tickets for them on the Greyhound bus to San Francisco. He and Phyllis would be at the bus station when they arrived.
However, when it was time for the two girls to board the “big bus” in Ogden, little Mary Kay was afraid and cried. She said, “I was a skinny little kid and was scolded for not eating.”
Ralph and Phyllis drove 140 miles south from Willits to the San Francisco bus station and were waiting as Patsy and Mary Kay got off the bus.
Commentary – Children traveling alone can be unsafe. However, the bus companies of that day offered a program of special services for such children. The bus driver paid close personal attention to insure their good care and safety.
Family commitment to the new venture – remarkable – They extended Southwick families had two pressing priorities; get their new sawmill business up and running and provide secure housing for their families.
Six of the families chose to build homes near the sawmill and travel to Willits for Church, school and shopping. Verlon and Lee chose to buy homes in nearby Ukiah and commute to the mill. Dale left the partnership the following year.
Ralph and Phillis took the one-room house located on the property. The other families living at the site, constructed temporary wood-canvas shelters until they could build permanent houses.
Mary Kay said, “Their house was heated with a wood cook stove. The home had no indoor plumbing – we used the necessary house (outhouse). Everyone had a Saturday night bath with water heated on the cook stove and poured into a large metal washtub – the first kid in the tub had clean water.”
Commentary – It is remarkable that the Southwick brothers and their families endured so many business and personal hardships and still remained friends; consistently enjoying each other’s company.
After Mary Kay and I were married in 1964, I was included in several of the Southwick’s outdoor camping and fishing trips. I was struck how much the Southwick brothers, spouses and children loved each other and looked for opportunities to be together. Relationships that with few exceptions, has continued for generations.
The attribute I observed that bound the family together was love for God and others. With few exceptions, the Southwick’s I know have chosen to never lose their testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. They consistently strive to live Christ-centered lives. Different from many people, cultures, and religions throughout history and today, they strived to not “look beyond the mark” of Jesus Christ.” (BM Jacob 4:14)
First California winter – heavy snow - miracle in disguise – The Southwick families had no income until they were producing and selling lumber in the spring of 1949. Fortunately, they had learned the Lord’s principles of provident living: several months’ supply of food and cash reserves, plant a garden as soon as weather permits, dig root cellars and raise farm animals. They augmented their food supplies with wild game and fish from the nearby streams.
However, their move and business set-up costs had depleted their cash savings. They were anxiously waiting for the cash flow they expected from the sale of lumber.
Their problems were compounded by the unusually harsh winter of 1948-49; heavy accumulations of snow in the western states. One December snowstorm brought motor vehicle traffic to a standstill; dozens of cars and trucks on U.S. Highway 101 were stuck at the bottom of their valley; spinning out as they attempted to climb the steep grades in either direction.
Mary Kay said, “My dad, grandpa and uncles chained-up the wheels on their two 4-wheel drive trucks and pulled the vehicles up the steep inclines. The grateful travelers were shocked when the Southwick’s told them, “no charge.” However, most of the heretofore stranded motorists were grateful and gave cash to the Southwick’s for their service – which the Southwick’s happily accepted as a Godsend.”
Their “wooded green valley” a wonderful place for children – Mary Kay said that the families in the valley lived so close the kids would sometimes go unannounced to their cousin’s homes for meals – whomever they were playing with at the time. A family joke was when a mom and dad determined “the number of kids setting at their table equaled the number of their own kids; they shut the door.”
The forests around their home offered adventure for the children; a lot of wildlife. The streams were a great attraction as was the mill itself. Mary Kay said, “I grew up having many of my cousins around me. For twelve years we played together, went to school together and worshiped together; bonding as best friends; it was wonderful.”
After seven years – sawmill sold – Mary Kay wrote, “The sawmill business’s first year was hard, the second, somewhat improved, but still the income was inadequate to sustain seven growing families and grandpa and grandma.” Dale and his wife Eathea (Johnnie) had already left (Dale became a professional rodeo cowboy competing for prize money; eventually buying a farm in Dietrich, Idaho in 1969). Verlon left soon after, eventually managing Deseret Industries and Goodwill stores; moving to a farm in in Dietrich, Idaho in 1977.
Mary Kay said the remaining brothers and their father continued operating the sawmill and “did quite well.” However, “when grandma became ill, she and grandpa sold out and moved back to Ogden in 1954. Earl and his family returned to Utah with them. Grandma died a few years later.” The remaining four brothers sold the sawmill business the following year. It had been seven years since they moved to California.
Borden’s Dairy franchise – seven years in Willits - Ralph and his two brothers Lee and Harold purchased the Borden’s Dairy retail franchise in Willits and moved into town in 1955. Raymond and Ruby moved to Othello, Washington where Raymond worked for a bank as their agriculture agent.
Ralph drove one of Borden’s open-door home-delivery trucks. Eleven-year-old Mary Kay said she often got up to ride with her father when he delivered bottled milk and other dairy products to their customers.
Church callings – Northern California Mission – Ralph was called to be the Sunday School president and Phyllis secretary for the Northern California Mission when they were living in Willits. Their callings necessitated occasional travel to the mission headquarters in San Francisco. When they drove the three hours to San Francisco, they took their children with them.
Mary Kay said these trips included visits to Fisherman’s Warf for lunch and sightseeing around the Bay - an adventure; exciting times. Anne said the Mission President often accepted Ralph and Phyllis’s dinner invitation when he was traveling through Willits.
Family moves to Connell – Phyllis enrolls at WSU – Mary Kay said as the children grew older, it became increasingly apparent that the Borden’s Dairy operation could not financially support three growing families. One family would have to sell-out.
In the summer of 1960, Raymond called Ralph with a business proposition. Raymond had been working with a national bank as their agricultural representative. He said confined feedlot operators and horse racing stables preferred to feed their animals pelletized alfalfa than bulky baled hay; less waste, easier to handle. Alfalfa was a major crop grown by area farmers. Raymond projected they could make a handsome profit pelletizing alfalfa hay.
He said he and Ruby (Phyllis’s sister) would sell their home in Othello and move 24-miles to Connell. The two families would buy adjoining building lots at the edge of town and help each other build attractive chiseled-façade, colored cinder-brick homes.
Ralph and Phillis agreed, sold their property in Willits and moved 750 miles north to Connell. Mary Kay was 17, getting ready to begin her senior year in high school. She wanted to stay in Willits with extended family. However, her request was denied.
Phyllis would be going to school at Washington State University in Pullman, 80-miles east of Connell; taking courses to become an elementary school teacher. She would rent an apartment in Pullman for extended periods. Mary Kay was the oldest child at home (Patsy had married Bennett Anderson and Bruce had joined the Army). She was needed at home to take the lead in cooking and cleaning while her mother was away.
Commentary - Mary Kay’s mother focused on getting a college education so that she could achieve her dream of teaching school, and help provide for her and Ralph in retirement.
Mary Kay’s higher education – Upon graduating from Connell high school in 1961, Marek Kay worked at an implement farm business, saving her money for college. She enrolled at Weber State in 1962 and graduated with an associate’s degree in 1964. (Chapter 1).
Ralph and Phyllis move to Utah – Phyllis enrolls at BYU – Five years after moving to Connell, Ralph and Phyllis sold their home and business and moved 700 miles southeast to Provo where Phyllis enrolled at BYU. Her objective was to get her bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate.
Anne and Rod – higher education - Anne was enrolled at BYU in 1965. Rod had graduated from Connell High School, had attended one quarter at Snow College in Ephraim, 75 miles south of Provo. Soon thereafter, he received a Church mission call to serve in the Gulf States Mission.
Phyllis graduates from BYU - Davis School District - Bountiful - Phyllis graduated from BYU with a degree in Elementary Education in 1966. The Davis School District offered her employment - teaching third-grade students in Bountiful. She and Ralph purchased a home in Bountiful and Phyllis began her full-time teaching career.
Phyllis retires - move to Layton, Utah – After 23-years of teaching, Phyllis retired - age 70. She and Ralph sold their Bountiful home in 1989 and moved 14-miles north to Layton where they bought a home in a mobile home park - Ralph was employed maintaining the community swimming pool and other common-area facilities.
Ralph and Phyllis’s full-time mission – Ralph and Phyllis were called to serve an 18-month Church mission on the Sioux Indian Reservation - South Dakota.
Move to Dietrich, Idaho – 1978 – Rod and Penny had purchased a small farm in Dietrich. Rod was employed in partnership with his cousin, Mark, building houses.
Rod and Penny suggested Ralph and Phyllis buy a double-wide manufactured home and place it on their farm; positioning it at the end of their graveled road from the highway, fronting a large parking area and shop and next to a large garden plot. Tall Cottonwood trees on the west would shade their home from the hot afternoon sun - ideal location.
Ralph’s two brothers, Verlon and Dale, owned farms outside Dietrich and encouraged them to accept Rod and Penny’s offer. Raymond and Ruby were planning to retire and build a home in Twin Falls. Ralph and Phyllis accepted.
Rod and Penny move to Colorado - Ralph and Phyllis to Twin Falls – Double-digit mortgage interest rates caused the housing market to dry-up in Dietrich. Rod and his cousin Mark’s residential construction business to dried-up – they had to look for other work.
Rod found excellent full-time employment. However, it was 500 miles away in Craig, Colorado. Rod and Penny would need to sell their property in Dietrich and move.
Ralph and Phyllis remained in Dietrich to watch over the property until it sold. A buyer purchased the farm with Ralph and Phyllis’s manufactured home two years later.
Ralph and Phyllis purchased a double-wide manufactured home in a Twin Falls mobile home park and moved.
Ralph and Phyllis’s declining years - Ralph and Phyllis lived in their Twin Falls manufactured home for several years; often going fishing and camping with their siblings and their families. In later camping trips, Raymond and Dale placed their rigs in front and in back of Ralph’s camper so he wouldn’t become disoriented while driving.
Subsequently, Ralph and Phyllis’s health declined to the point they sold everything and moved to an assisted living center in Twin Falls. Ralph died November 30, 2001; age 90.
Rod and Penny took Phyllis to Craig Colorado to live with them. However, her mental health was problematic and it was potentially hazardous to leave her alone.
Mary Kay and I brought her to live with us. When it became apparent that her healthcare needs were greater than we could provide, Phyllis, in consultation with her children, decided she would be happier in an assisted living center in Meridian where trained healthcare providers could physically help her - move in and out of bed and bathe. Mary Kay visited her every day she was in town. Church services were conducted at the Center by local ward and stake leaders. Mary Kay and I attended Church services with Phyllis.
Phyllis contracted shingles on one side of her head - blistering on the affected side, including the inside of her eye – very painful. Phyllis passed away, January 31, 2008 while living at the Center. Mary Kay and Anne were at either side of her bedside when she died. As she passed, she mouthed the word, “Momma.”
Ralph and Phyllis are interned at the Ben Lomond Cemetery in North Ogden. At Phyllis’s death in 2008, they had 20 grandchildren, 48 great grandchildren, five great-great grandchildren.
Commentary - It is conjecture what Phyllis saw as she died. However, the idea that her mother – living in the world of spirits – came to receive her is consistent with people going to the Temple for the first time. In the Temple, women are attended and escorted by other women, often a family member and an ordinance worker. Likewise, men are attended by other men.
It is noteworthy that Mary Kay also passed away on November 30; 12-years after her father.