“Our Married Life”
I was very nervous waiting for the time to come for me to walk out to start a new life which would be so different from the one that I had been used to, to a place where I would be a stranger. I was all ready, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Yes, there was the music, and my father’s arm waiting to take me down the hall to give me to the man that I had picked for my companion. As we entered the room, I saw Vernal Pete standing. I said, “Oh, thank you dear Heavenly Father for making it possible that I could meet such a wonderful man, and that I would please him enough that he would want me for his wife.” He had a new blue pin-stripe suit on. A blue tie with yellow leaves. With him was Shirley Goodey who was our Best man. And on the other side was my Maid of Honor, Miss Kliss Whitworth, who had a formal floral design and the bridesmaids were, Misses Verlene Dives, and Joyce Gleed, each wore pink formals of sheer crepe. The room was beautifully decorated with red roses.
My going away suit was black and white checkered, with white accessories. We went to Salt Lake City, Utah for our honeymoon. We stayed in the Hotel Moxum. We returned on the Union Pacific Bus, to Logan, Utah.
We couldn’t rent a place to live so for the first month of our married life we stayed at my husband’s father’s home. During the first summer we also lived in Trenton, Utah, with Pete’s sister and her husband. Pete worked for him that summer. In September of the year of 1947 we rented, Dean Thompson home in Clarkston. Oh, how good it was to have a home. Pete worked in the Sugar Factory in Garland, Utah.
Early Sunday morning, on 1 February 1948, we went to the Cache Valley General Hospital, we were blessed beyond our comprehension with a beautiful baby girl. She weighed 9 lbs. 6 oz. No couple can know what a thrill it is for the nurse to bring a newborn child and say here is your baby, until they have gone through this miracle. But a cloud hung over our joy for it was believed that our daughter had a club foot. With treatment and prayer at six weeks, we were told that her foot would be normal and again our knee did bend with gratitude in our hearts for the goodness and blessing of the Lord.
Our home was perfect to us and we were very happy in it. But to the outside I guess it wouldn’t be very good. One cold winter morning in 1948, we woke up to find that our baby had frozen her hand, from then on we lived in one room and would keep our fire going. We named our baby on 28 March 1948. The name we chose was “Ila Marie”. She was blessed by her grandfather Richard Archie Goodey. When Ila Marie was nine months old, she could walk very well and at a year she would recite poems.
On 1 February 1949, I was very ill and we had been snowed in for two weeks and I was taken out of town to a doctor on a sled.
In the summer of 1949, we moved to Brigham City, Utah where my husband had a job with the civil service. We stayed there for three months. Then we moved back to Clarkston, Utah. We lived in a house owned by Charles Godfrey. While there we decided to buy a milk cow and try to work up to having a dairy farm. We had cows, chickens, and pigs, and one horse which we named Patch. Pete was very fond of the horse. Our little girl would take sugar out to feed him, and he would follow her all around. One day while I was canning I looked out and Ila Marie had a dirty string in her hand so I went out to take it away from her and it was a water snake.
On 23 November 1949, I thought it would be the saddest part of my life, we lost our baby son. He was born at 5:15 A.M. He was 2 lbs. ½ oz. He was 13 inches tall. Because of the seriousness of my condition the doctor wouldn’t let me see him so I don’t know what he looked like but the family told me that he had a slim nose and a little hair. He was very well portion [proportioned]. He didn’t live long, and because of his early birth the undertaker didn’t like to handle them so my husband had to build a coffin and fix the baby for burial. He had help from his mother, Stella, and Faye Goodey, his sister, and Mary Thompson, a neighbor, who came over and pleated silk for the inside of the coffin. Pete bought a lot in the cemetery and he [the baby] was buried about noon that day. Grandfather Goodey said the Dedication over the grave.
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord”.
Saturday, 7 April 1951, at 8:05 P.M. The Lord gave us our second son, who weighed 8 ½ pounds. But fate had a hand on our happiness. My blood is a negative factor and Pete is positive, so our son was having quite a time to live. After working with him for a couple of days the doctor told us that his liver was eating his blood and he would have to have a blood transfusion. Pete went to a Mrs. Acie Thompson of Lewiston who had the right kind of blood and she gave us the amount we had to have. She wouldn’t take one cent for it. When they got ready to give him the blood, his veins had gotten so little that they couldn’t get the needle into them. They tried and tried but all in vain. So Doctor W. Ezra Cragun cut around the ankle clear to the bone missing the cord and got the vein which they put the blood in and Alan, our son, began to get better. We had to keep taking him back for check ups, but the Lord sees fit for us to raise our son. He was blessed, Alan Pete Goodey on 6 May 1951 by Al**[Alma?] L. Goodey.
Summer came and went and our family was healthy and happy, then came the 2 October 1951. It was late afternoon and Ila Marie came in and wanted to lay down and have a rest. It was not like her, but I told her to if she wanted to. When she woke it was about six or a little after she was running a fever of 104. She ran such a high fever all night that early the next morning we took her to a doctor. AFter a very careful examination, he said she doesn’t have polio. I believe she has pneumonia. We took her back again the next day and also the rest of the week, but she didn’t get any better. Friday she was so sick that we had Grandfather Goodey and Alma Goodey come and administer to her. And that was the first night she slept all night long. When Saturday came she was completely paralyzed. The doctor took one look at her and said you had better get her to a hospital right away. We took her to the L.D.S. hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah and she had both the bulbar and spinal types of polio. That night she got worse and was put in the iron lung. She had to stay in it for about seven weeks. The doctor didn’t believe she would live and if she did she wouldn’t ever get out of the iron lung. She was only three, but at night she would say “Mommie would you call them two men in, so they can make me better. If they come I can sleep at night and it doesn’t hurt.” I am so thankful that we have the privilege of asking the Lord for his blessing and that he in his mercy will bless us and our children. Several times in the months to come we had emergency calls from the hospital that Ila Marie had taken a turn for the worse. They have called a special prayer circle and when we have made it to Salt Lake she had either been better or had gotten better right away. She went about six months before she could move anything by herself.
The summer of 1952, they had several cases of mumps and chickenpox on the children ward of the hospital, so they sent all the children home. We brought Ila Marie home and oh, we had so much fun. We had to move her and do everything for her but we enjoyed her so much. But while we were at her home she got pneumonia. We took her to the L.D.S. Hospital in Logan. Her lungs were so weak that she really had us scared for a couple of days. When we took her out we took her back to the hospital in Salt Lake only this time we took her to the Primary Children’s Hospital. She has been there ever since. She has very slowly improved and we pray that it will be the Lord’s will that she will overcome the paralysis completely.
I enjoyed working in the church very much. I have led the singing in Sunday School, and Mutual Class. Now I have been put on the genealogy committee. I hope that I may be able to do my job pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
Our little girl was operated on 3 December 1953 for the tendon in her right hand. She had a cast on for three weeks. When they took it off, her skin was so tender that it tore right open, and they had to sew it up again. She got along pretty good. She had to have her stomach pump. She has also had her tonsil out, this did her a lot of good. The doctor has told us that she is making marked improvements since they were taken out.