Huntington Beach

The move to Huntington Beach was as uneventful as a move can be. The children were young enough not to be inseparably attached to friends. They adjust easily to new circumstances and make new friends pretty easily. It was not so easy for me. I am, by nature, not an outgoing person, and it takes me a while to make friends. It seems that when I do begin establishing some close relationships, we move. In Novato it was Lorna Burdette, Irene Laycock, Betty Schmidt and our neighbor, Wanda Dunn, that had become those close friends. It was hard to leave and start all over. I have often wished that I could be like those little children who immediately attach themselves to others their own age. Another difficult thing for me was that we had to leave Prince behind with a friend because we failed to ask our new landlord if we could have a dog. We did get permission for an "outside" dog which Prince was, and we had him flown to L.A. Boy, was he glad to see his family when we picked him up at the airport!

That fall, the five older children started school. It was so convenient for me that all of them were able to walk the short distance to the local elementary school. Jeanie was in sixth grade, Debbie in fifth, Kathi in third and the twins in first. The school was pretty progressive for which we were pleased. I was especially happy with the stress that was put on reading in the first grade. The children were challenged to read as many books that they could that first year, and I wasn't surprised that Jim took up the challenge and read the most books in the whole first grade. He has always been very competitive. I don't remember how many books he read (or how many trips we took to the library) but it was a LOT!!

Huntington Beach was a fast growing new community and the Church had not been able to keep up with growth. We did have a stake in the area with five wards but only one building. That was interesting! Four wards met in that building, and one met in a rented warehouse. I was called almost immediately into the Primary, teaching one of the three Merry Miss girl's classes (9 to 12-year olds). At the time Primary was held on a weekday after school which meant I had to take baby Jon with me. The older five children were all in Primary classes, Jeanie in her last year. It wasn't unusual on Wednesday to load up the VW bus with 12 to 15 children to take them to the church because many of the children didn't have rides. I'm sure it wasn't too safe, but not against the law because there were now seat belt laws. As long as all the children were able to sit, it was legal. And you could pack a lot of little children onto three rows of seats.

One of the positive things that came out of that calling was that I learned to knit. Knitting, crocheting and simple embroidery were part of the Merry Miss program. I could crochet and embroider, but I had never learned to knit. One of the other teachers taught me simple knit and pearl before I had to t each the girls, and I even made Rochelle a little pink sweater - the one and only thing I ever knit.

Going to the beach was one of the favorite things to do in the summertime. All of the kids loved it, and it was one of the things that we could do on the spur of the moment since we were only about five minutes away. It wasn't unusual for daddy to come to an empty house, but he always knew where he could find us. However, Dad traveled a lot with his new position at work, so going to beach also killed a lot of lonely time. AND I could get by with just fixing Mac and Cheese for the children for dinner, so we could stay longer. More of Dad's travels later.

So went our first year in Huntington Beach. We loved the community, and we had some great neighbors, which helped a lot when Dad was gone. More of Huntington each in my next blog.