The Move Into Town

Klamath Falls was not too big years ago, so there wasn't a big choice of rental homes.  We were anxious to get settled before school started in the fall.  We had enjoyed our little home  in Wocus and had made new friends.  But it was just to far out of town.  I felt a little isolated out there without a car to go anywhere.  And we did need to be closer to a school.  We finally found a small home which just happened to be across the street from the elementary school.  It had three bedrooms, but the layout was a little strange.  Two bedrooms were to the front of the house and the third was in the back, kind of isolated from the others.  We decided to put all three girls in one bedroom and use the third as a playroom.  That worked well.  The house had a big back yard with a plum tree which was another plus. (I'm not so sure that plum tree was a plus once it started bearing fruit.  The fruit seemed non ending.)   I began making Jeanie clothes for school.  It was nothing but dresses because girls were not allowed to wear pants to school.  I still remember the three dresses I made ... a red two-piece skirt and top, a blue print dress with white trim, and a green paisley print with a white collar and a big bow at the neck.  Yes, she got by with three dresses for the whole year which meant she had to wear the same dress twice during the week.  And would you believe she never complained even once?  I don't think any kid in the school even noticed.  Clothes just weren't that important back then, at least to kindergartners. We started Jeanie and Debbie in a dance class and both seemed to enjoy it.  It was fun to watch them both perform in their first recital.  They did "good"!  But Jeanie's interest soon waned, but for Debbie it was the beginning of her love of dance which would continue for the rest of her life. Both Jim and I received callings in the Church, Jim as Explorer leader the the young men's program, and I as a counselor in the Young Women's.  It was my first and only time in my life working in that program.  It seemed from that time on it was Primary and Relief Society for me. It was at this time that I experienced a miscarriage.  I was in the early stages of pregnancy so it wasn't as devastating as it could have been.  But what WAS devastating to me was that the doctor said I would have trouble carrying any more babies because of a physical problem that had developed.  When he saw how upset I was about the prospects of not having more children, he agreed to do a procedure that he thought MIGHT help. I remember Jim being furious about the way the doctor had so insensitively the doctor had told me the "bad news" that he marched into his office and confronted him with, (I'm paraphrasing) "How dare you say that it is unlikely that my wife will probably have no more children.  You're not God!  It's not in your hands."  Those of you who know Jim can just see him saying something like that.  I was a little embarrassed because I knew the doctor was just stating a medical fact as he saw it.  Even though he could have been a little less "factual" and a little more sensitive, he was just doing his job as a doctor.  There was no way he could have known how important family was to us. The best part of moving into town was that I was now able to walk to a real grocery store when I needed something, and I could even walk into "downtown", if I wanted to walk about a mile dragging along three little girls.  I only tried that a couple of times and only when I was desperate for something that couldn't wait until the weekend, usually some sewing item that I needed.  Back then all stores closed at five or six o'clock, so no shopping in the evening when Dad was home. We had now been Klamath Falls for a whole year as January, 1961, rolled around.  This would be a "red flag" year for us, one that would bring about major changes for the whole family.

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