he was born because it was the dead of winter, and the heat in the house in Arimo was too unreliable
to bring a new-born baby. I was 7 1/2 when he was born, so I was enthralled with the new baby.
My memories of Wade are that he was such a cute little thing, but I swore his head was too big for his
body. Obviously, he finally grew into it. :-) I remember Wade rocking almost all the time. If he was
sitting, he would rock back and forth, and it didn't matter where he was. If he was lying down, he'd
bounce up and down on his pillow.
One memory I have involves me needing to confess my sins. We still lived on the farm so I was about
9 at the time and Wade was around 2 or 2/1, I was swinging a bat in the front yard. Wade came out of
the house, and I wasn't paying attention to exactly where he was when I swung the bat the last time,
and as I swung, I didn't hit the ball; I hit Wade right in the forehead. I felt so awful, but I knew I was
going to be in big trouble if I told Mom what really happened, so I told her that Wade tripped and fell
when we was going down the steps and hit his head on the cement. Wade couldn't tell any different
'cause he was crying too hard, and because he didn't talk so well. I felt so bad that I gave him a huge
goose egg on his forehead, but not still wasn't big enough to admit that I was the one who did it.
The other memory I have is a funny one. I still think of it when I'm crossing the streets in downtown
Salt Lake. When I was 16 and Wade was 9, we came to Salt Lake, and I arranged to go see Kevin at
the Salt Palace where they were having a circus. Mom agreed to drive me there. We found a place to
park a block or two away, and we had to wait for the signal to come on before we could cross the
street. When the walk signal lit up, we started across the street. We had gotten 1/2 way across when
the stop hand started to flash saying "Don't Walk." Wade stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the
intersection, and when we prodded him to come on, he refused. I told him that he had to get across
the street, and he said, "No, it says don't walk!" I finally convinced him that it only meant for anyone on
the sidewalk to not start across, and told him that if he didn't walk, all the cars there were going to
run over him. He was finally convinced and ran the rest of the way across the street.
Wade lived with Kevin and I for a while when he was in high school, and he was really good with the
kids, who were quite little at the time. On fond memory I have of that time is Christmas, 1989. Kevin
and I had just gotten married on the 2nd of December, and we had 6 kids between the two of us. That
first Christmas, a few days before Christmas, both K-Mart and ShopKo called me to tell me to come pick
up my layaways as Santa had paid for them. It didn't stop there. On Christmas Eve, Santa came to our
house. We had finished putting out the presents under the tree and were talking to Pam & Monte in the
living room, when a pick-up pulled into the driveway. When it backed out, we were sure it was just
someone lost and turning around. We were quite surprised when it backed back into the driveway and
Santa Claus got out. As he started pulling bag after bag from the back of the pick-up, Wade went
downstairs and woke the kids up so they could see Santa Claus and know that he does truly exist. As
he was leading them up the stairs, Santa came in, saying "Ho, Ho, Ho" and when he saw the kids, he told
them they'd better get back to bed because if they didn't, he'd have to leave right away. Wade
shepherded the kids back to bed.
My 1st wedding.
which year
I'm the graduate
May 19, 1982
