Bartlome, Tippetts, Pearce: Carol Ann Pearce Bartlome

LIFE HISTORY OF

CAROL ANN PEARCE BARTLOMÉ

Born August 12, 1948

Carol Ann Pearce

I ask for your understanding and kindness in reading this history. I am not a writer nor do I pretend to be. I absolutely hate writing a journal but hope that some of the things that I write may be of interest or use to my family. I have not had a remarkable life but have tried to add some facts to make it interesting.

Father: Rulon C. Pearce

He was born October 9, 1898 in Montpelier, Idaho, passed away February 7, 1955, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the seventh of ten children born to Charles Rodwell Pearce and Agnes Hogensen Pearce. Charles was born October 3, 1859, in London Middlesex, England and Agnes was born November 9, 1863, in Paris, Bear Lake, Idaho. The children were Mary Fredone, who died at the age of three from whopping cough, Nellie, Nettie, Mabel, Irene, Jennie, and Ruth. There was a ninth child that was stillborn also a girl. The tenth child was my father’s only brother Norman. The family was very excited when my dad was born as he was the first male child. When he was just a few months old he contracted pneumonia and his mother cared for him for five days, as she was very worried. Then he began to improve and gradually began to recover.

Carol and Doug with their father Rulon Pearce

In the Fall of 1918 (World War I) he enlisted in the Student Army Training Corp., and was stationed at Fort Douglas, in Salt Lake City, Utah. In November, he again contracted pneumonia and again became very ill. Shortly after his recovery in December, the group was discharged.

He graduated from Montpelier High School May 16, 1919, after returning from his Student Army Training.

Rulon received his mission call to the Eastern States Mission January 20, 1920. The mission covered from Rhode Island to West Virginia, but he spent most of his mission in Brooklyn, New York area. He was released June 1, 1922.

Although his father had a farm, farming did not hold much interest for him. He had a dance band in which he played a saxophone and that is how he put himself through college. He attended Utah State University. He earned a teaching certificate and he returned to Idaho and taught school for several years but he decided he wanted a job that paid year round.

He moved to Brigham City where he attended Beauty School. After graduating he went to work for a Mr. Hodges as a hair stylist/barber when Grace came in to get a permanent wave. He was smitten and he lived with a family whose sister was a neighbor to my mother’s family and he got her to line them up on a blind date. He was dating another girl at the time.

They had dated about three times when he asked her to go to Montpelier, Idaho with him one day. She was floored when her parents gave their permission for her to go. Rulon proposed to her as they sat on an iron fence outside of the Second Ward Church. He told her she didn’t have to give him an answer right then but if she decided to marry him to put on the ring and he would know her answer. She told us that she was engaged to another man at the time so she had a big decision to make. It appears that Dad won out they married on April 3, 1931.

Carol with her mom Grace Pearce

Mother: Grace Estella Just Pearce

She was born February 9, 1912 in Brigham City, Utah, to Berthel Charles Just born October 16, 1889 in Copenhagen Denmark, and Estella J. Bott born January 30, 1890 in Brigham City, Utah. Grace was born in an upstairs room above the old mill where her parents lived, a monument works was also housed on the ground floor. This building was owned by her maternal grandfather John Henry Bott. Grace was the older of four children she had one brother Berthel Charles Just, born September 23 1913, and two sisters, Marie (Ada) Hadave Just born July 12, 1917, and Betty Ida Just born March 13, 1923. Mother always said that she was a twin but the other child was stillborn.

She worked very hard cleaning relative’s houses, and also later on her father’s farm. Her family did not have very much and all the children were expected to pitch in and help.

After graduation from high school she went to Salt Lake City to Quist Beauty School for a year. After graduating she went back to Brigham City and she and a friend decided to open a beauty shop in the girl’s home. However, a Greek man, by the name of George Hodges, didn’t want anyone else having a shop, so he lowered his prices so no one else could compete and they were forced to close up their shop after about a year.

Rulon and Grace lived in Brigham City for a few months and then moved to Salt Lake City, where he worked as a hair stylist for ZCMI. In the spring of 1935 they bought a house on 427 “B” Street. The story goes that bootleggers had owned the house and it was in terrible disrepair that is why they got it at such a good price. They worked hard to fix up the house. This is the house that my family lived in when I was born.

Carol playing dress-up on her front porch. See the "Beauty Salon" sign in the window.

My father built a beauty salon in the front bedroom and he worked as a hair stylist there and then my mother joined him in the family business. Grace continued to work in the beauty shop after Rulon died to support our family and be able to be home with her children.

My Family:

Carol with her four older siblings: Leonard, Barbara, JoAnn, and Doug.

I have two brothers and two sisters I was the baby of the five children. Leonard Rulon was born February 5, 1932, and died March 4, 2015, Barbara Jean Pearce Gardner was born November 4, 1934, JoAnn Pearce Jensen was born October 14, 1940, Douglas Charles was born October 3, 1943 and died December 7, 2008, Carol Ann Pearce Bartlomé born August 12, 1948. My mother told me that they were busy with customers in the beauty shop when she went into labor. So, they decided to have Dad finish up the customers and since we only lived 1 ½ blocks from the LDS hospital my mother walked over to the hospital and he came as soon as he could get the customers finished.

Baby Carol with mom Grace and brother Doug.

Carol and Doug

Mother said that my brother Douglas was protective of me. If I cried, he would pull my mother’s vanity stool over by my crib and jump from our parent’s bed to the stool and grab me from the crib then jump back to the stool and the bed with me. Then he would take me to the beauty shop and say “baby cry”.

My oldest brother Leonard left for his mission to Norway when I was three years old. My mother tells me that my father taught me the Gettysburg Address when I was three years old and he was so proud that he would stand me on a chair in the beauty shop and have me repeat it to the customers.
My father loved to repair household items and do wood working. He had a shop in our unfinished basement where he would repair appliances for the neighbors to supplement their income. We also received many Christmas presents he had made like a china closet, doll bed, vanity etc.

Carol and a serving cart that her dad made for her when she had tea parties.

When I was 4 ½ years old my father became very ill with colon cancer and I would sit on his bed with my arm around him and tell him stories as I had heard him do to the customers in the beauty salon as he cut their hair.

Childhood

My Dad organized a children’s parade in the avenues when I was little (this was before the big one downtown). We would decorate our tricycles and bikes, and make floats.

One year my Dad built a float that said "the Desert Shall Blossom as a Rose". Which was a quote from Brigham Young. My Mom made a really pretty red dress for me made out of chiffon and I got to ride on the float. I really felt that I was a princess.

I had some birthday parties when I was young.

I only remember having two birthday parties when I was older. One when I was about twelve, we went to the Peace Gardens in Salt Lake.

International Peace Gardens birthday party

Carol at the International Peace Gardens for her 12th birthday party.

The other one was when I was sixteen and I really wanted to have a store bought cake, as I had never had one before, we always had homemade birthday cakes. Of course, we had to buy it from Carol’s bakery and it was beautiful. Well, on the way home my Mom had to brake hard and the cake fell top down on the floor and smashed all the pretty flowers. Oh well at least the cake survived but I was crushed that my beautiful cake wasn’t so pretty anymore. Usually for my birthday we would go on a family picnic. I was so jealous of my friend who had a birthday close to Halloween and she always had a costume party.

We had a coal furnace in our house and I suppose that they changed it out sometime around when I was four. I remember my Dad taking the clinkers out of the furnace with a long metal rod with curved tongs on the end to take them out of the furnace as they were very hot. I don’t know how often this had to be done but I think several times a week. Clinkers are burned up coal, somewhat like lava, that they took out of the furnace and put in a bucket to cool then they were discarded into the trash. We also didn’t have wall to wall carpet we had a carpet cut to fit the room and bound around the edges. This was rolled up once a year and the hardwood floor was waxed by hand. If the rug wasn’t too big it was beat over an outside wall to get the deep dirt out of it despite using a vacuum during the year. Ours was too big. Then we had these pink cleaner erasers for the wallpaper that was about the size of Kraft cream cheese. We would break it in half and rub it over the wallpaper to clean it. It would leave crumbs somewhat like a pink pearl eraser.

Until I rebelled at about age four I always had to be baby New Year. I had a banner that said baby New Year and I had to pose for the photo in front of the Christmas tree every New Year. I hated it!!! We always had a Christmas Eve neighborhood party. It was a pot luck and everyone performed some kind of talent.

Doug teased me and called me Bucky Beaver, who was a spokes character for Ipana tooth paste. This was because my front teeth were kind of big for my little girl face until I grew a little more. This really hurt my feelings.

We had very big trees in front of our house and we loved to rake the leaves into a huge pile and jump in them.

We also love to rake them into the curb because we could get a bigger pile as the curb in front of our house had a slant into the gutter, but my Mother didn’t like us to do that as she was afraid we would get run over.

In 1954 we got transistor radios for Christmas. We really thought that they were so amazing as we had never seen a radio that didn’t need to be plugged into the wall to play, and the transistor radios you could take everywhere with you to listen to your music because it ran on batteries.

My Mom, neighbor ladies, and my aunts would have nights that they darned socks. They had a wooden egg shaped tool with a handle on the bottom and they would put the socks over it and weave heavy thread together vertical and horizontal to repair the holes in our socks. One of my adult pleasures was to be able to throw away socks when they had a hole in them and not have the lumpy repair in them.

We had to press the used soap together to make a new bigger bar of soap so that it could be used to the end. It is also an adult pleasure to throw away the small bar of soap and not have several used layers pressed together. We also had mismatched towels as we kept the ones that were not worn out until they were worn out. All of this was the depression mind set use it up and make do.

My Mom always hung her clothes to dry on a clothes line in the back yard. When I was around six years old she purchased a clothes dryer to dry the towels from the beauty salon. When the clothes were dry it would play a little tune “how dry I am”. We were so fascinated by it that we would turn the dial just to hear the tune. Mom was afraid we would wear out the long awaited clothes dryer by constantly turning the dial when she first got it, just to hear the tune.

Carol as a toddler and as a young girl playing in her yard. You can see towels being hung out to dry.

We were given school books each year and they had a paper pasted in the back cover that you signed and that book was checked out to us and was to be returned at the end of the year or we were expected to pay for it. We were also given a piece of brown paper somewhat like a grocery bag that we made a cover for our book with. We did not have backpacks to carry our books we just carried them in our arms and tried to keep the weather off of them as we walked home. Girls were expected to wear dresses to school, which was cold in the winter. We wore tights under our dresses in the winter to keep warm; they were called Susie Long Legs. Then when it snowed we wore rubber galoshes (boots) that had a fur top to try to keep the snow out of them, but snow inevitably accumulated around the fur and by the time we got home we had snow burn (chapped spots) on our legs, the galoshes were big enough to fit over your regular shoes.

Kindergarten class

We did not have adult crossing guards when I was in elementary school. When we reached sixth grade we were deemed to be old enough and responsible enough to monitor the kids wanting to cross the street. We were given a white woven belt thing that went over our shoulder and around our waist and a crossing guard badge that was pinned on the white belt. We had a long metal pole with a flag on the end of it. The kids were supposed to stay in back of that until the sixth graders decided it was safe to cross and we moved it out into the street. I had an interesting thing that happened with the pole. I had fallen down and skinned my elbow the previous day. The kids were pushing and being smart with the crossing guard. When he pushed it back to make the kids move back safely on the curb, the pole hit me on the sore elbow and it hurt so bad that I passed out face first into the street.

My father died when I was only six years old from colon cancer.

Me at my dad's grave

I do not remember a lot about him being sick because my early memories are foggy. I was hit by a car on “B” street and 9^th avenue in front of our house by a man who was speeding. It threw me through the intersection. This was just 54 days after my father passed away.

The newspaper articles about the accident.

I had a broken pelvis, compound fracture of my right upper femur, and a bad concussion. Our house was 1 ½ blocks from the L.D.S. hospital. They did not send for an ambulance to pick me up, but wheeled a gurney from the hospital to take me to the hospital. I must have been unconscious for at least 15 or 20 minutes as I remember waking up on the gurney half way to the hospital on 9^th avenue. One of the neighbor girls had been hit by a car while on an outing with her parents several months before. She had been in a coma for several months. When she woke up they said she would never pass third grade intelligence. That was the first question I remember asking, if I would be like her and not be normal intelligence.

I was in the hospital with my leg in traction for a month

The LDS Hospital decided they were not equipped to handle a child and as the Primary Children’s Hospital was, at that time on 11^th avenue between “C” and “D” street they decided to transport me to Primary Children’s Hospital. The only thing was that my parents did not have health insurance and my Mom already had a great deal of debt from my father’s two year illness and funeral. So it was decided that the orthopedic doctor (who was treating me and was also a neighbor and member of our ward) would take me to the hospital in his personal car. The only thing was that he did not check the alignment of my leg when he got me to the hospital and it come out of alignment again. I complained about the pain in my leg for a day before he came back and checked it out and found that it had moved out of alignment again. I spent a month in the hospital in traction to allow my leg to heal well and not be shorter than my other leg.

When they decided that it was healed enough they put me in a body cast from under my arms covering the trunk of my body and down my whole right leg. I remember being very scared when they cut it off that they were going to cut me with the saw.

While I had the body cast on we went to Las Angles to see my mother’s sister, Aunt Ada and Uncle Sam and my brother thought it would be funny to turn on the heat in the car and as we were going across the Mohave Desert in the middle of summer, my leg began to get very hot. It took awhile to figure out that the heat was blowing on my cast and really making it feel hot, as the desert air was already hot.

There was a really nice nurse named Mrs. Cox at Primary Children’s Hospital she was so good to me and helped me to not be so scared and also to not be so homesick. They did an electroencephalogram on my head to make sure that everything was all right because of my concussion. I was so scared when they hooked all those wires to my head. I also had large road rash sores that were large open sores where I was dragged on the asphalt. They had a hard time getting them to heal as I had to lie on my back and could not move much as I was in traction. There was a girl that was in my room who was jealous of the lotion and things my Mom would bring me so she would threaten to take the weights off of my traction if I did not give her my lotion and stuff. As I remembered how badly it hurt when my leg was not aligned when they moved me from the LDS hospital to Primary hospital I would usually give in to her bullying.

In my home had a door between the kitchen and the dining room that was a swinging door but it had a stop that could be put down on the dining room side. Our Christmas tree was always in the front room. We had to eat a full breakfast before we were allowed to go into the front room to see what Santa Claus had brought us.

Doug, mom, and Carol

Carol and Barbara

Carol and Doug

Me and Doug. Our mom made our clothes, we thought they were great!

Mom had made each of us a Christmas stocking and embroidered Christmas designs on each of them. They were red with a white flannel top. We always received a crystal animal (like a sucker), ribbon candy, candy cane, candy shaped like a raspberry that was hard candy with a soft center much like a tootsie role pop only small like a raspberry, peanuts, an orange, banana, and an apple in our Christmas stocking, along with some kind of little toy. We always got new pajamas, slippers, and a robe. Mom would always make the boys a new shirt and they would get a pair of new pants, and she made the girls a new dress. When I was little I couldn’t figure out how Santa could always get the same material as my dress to make doll clothes for my new doll.

Doug and I hanging out stockings.

We always got a puzzle to do as a family and one or two family games, then something special for each of us individually. I remember that one year I had drooled over a grown up doll and every time we went to the store I would check her out. She actually had nylon stockings, and a ring on her finger. She was just for show but not to play with. However, I knew that there was no way that Santa Clause would ever bring me the doll I so desperately wanted as it cost $20 which was an absolute fortune at the time! You could buy two or three weeks groceries for that much money. But to my great surprise she was under the tree. I still have her in my cedar chest.

Carol and her mom Grace 1963

We had to be careful unwrapping our presents as the paper and bows were saved for the next year. Mom always insisted on having a pinion pine for our Christmas tree it always had to be a big one as the avenue homes had high ceilings. One or two days were always spent putting the aluminum icicles on the tree they had to be just so. When the tree was taken down they had to be wrapped around the cardboard piece that they came on for use the next year. We had a cardboard Christmas village that went around the bottom of the tree; each one had a light inserted inside. We always fought over who got which house each of us had a favorite house that we thought was the best. I usually lost out to the older kids. When Doug got his “N” gage train he would also set it up to run around the village. We also had bubble lights on the tree which we loved to watch. I especially remember the wonderful smell of the pine tree as it burned in the fire place after we took it down, now-a-day that would not be allowed because it is considered a fire hazard, but it sure smelled good!

Doug built a go cart and he used to take it around the house and down the hill, as we lived on a steep hill. He had a pet parakeet that would eat Cheerios out of his bowl in the morning when he was having breakfast. He loved to ride on his shoulder as Doug went down the hill. He never flew away because he was very well trained. One day he lost his balance and flew off and got run over. That broke my brother’s heart.

We used to roller-skate down “B” street hill. They were the metal skates that you would clamp on your shoes and then tighten them with a skate key, kind of like a little wrench, so they would not come off of your shoes. “B” street hill was very steep and our skates did not have breaks so we would run off onto the lawn to stop when we got going too fast. We would play kick soccer in the alley where the house garages were as there was a big dirt space between the garages; they were not attached to the houses in the avenues. We would also build forts in-between the garages, make paper darts that looked like the paper wrappers you get around a sugar cone, but much skinnier and shoot them out of a piece of pipe at each other by blowing. We also played slug tag where we would hit each other when we saw a copper survey marker and we knew where each one of them was. We played Red Rover, hide and go seek etc. We made doll clothes, and did the usual kid games.

Easter. Me and Wesley O. Balace in his front yard.

Carol playing with friends in her yard

When I was little my older brother and sister thought they would play a joke on me, we always had mice in the house in the winter because we had an unfinished basement, anyway they mice left droppings and they told me it was chocolate cake sprinkles and I believed them and ate one of them, YUCK!

After my stay in the hospital I did not like to be away from my family. I did not like to go to sleepovers, or girl’s camp or anything like that. I would get too homesick. I finally did go to a few of my best friends homes for sleepovers when I was a teenager. My Mom, in an attempt to make me a little less dependent on the family sent me up to Colorado on the bus when I was about seven or eight to see my oldest sister Barbara. When I got to Gunnison Colorado, where she lived, I was supposed to ask to use the phone and call her. Well, being extremely shy I didn’t want to ask to use the phone so I proceeded to try to walk down the road with the large metal steamer trunk for the three blocks to Barbara’s house. I was not supposed to talk to anyone but a kind man asked if he could help and I told him my sister’s house wasn’t far and promptly took off down the road. He followed me as best he could, carrying the suitcase. When I got to my sister’s house she was amazed to see the man coming down the street with my suitcase. She hurried and jumped in the car and took him back to the bus stop as he was about to miss his bus.

I had a lot of fun playing with the neighbor girls their last name was Cell. We decided to get up a neighborhood newspaper and in one of our articles told that one of the neighborhood lady was pregnant, the news of which she didn’t want to get out yet and we let the cat out of the bag. The Cells got a new dog and I went home and told Barbara that it was looking out their garage window, she didn’t believe me. Well it was a Great Dane so much to her surprise; it could look out the garage window. I got in a patch of weeds in the alley way in back of their house and my eyes were swollen shut by the time I came home. Barbara freaked out and ran me to the doctor. Another time I remember they thought they would teach me to do chores. They told me I could not go to the movies with them if I did not do the dishes. I was really upset and had a fit but finally did do the dishes, and was able to go to the movies.

My mom would save all her tips (quarters) up all year in a Crisco can and then when it was time to go on our trip each summer we would go to the bank with our quarters and they would put them into their coin counting machine and give my mother the equivalent in bills, this is what we used as our trip fund. We would go to visit her sister Ada and her husband Sam Ferelli for a week. They also had two adopted sons Mark and Paul.

Mom, Uncle Sam and Aunt Ada in California.

Then we would go to San Francisco for a few days on our way home and visit the golden gate park and china town. I always got to go shopping for school clothes while I was in Los Angeles so that made the trip even more exciting.

Trip to San Fransisco at the Golden Gate park.

We always got to go to Disneyland while we were visiting Aunt Ada. They would give us their left over tickets from their visits to supplement the tickets we would buy so we were able to spend the whole day at Disneyland it was so awesome for little kids.

When I had my cast on from my car accident Aunt Ada and Uncle Sam had a neighbor who was a western movie star called Tex Williams and he signed my cast, so when they took it off they gave me that piece of it he signed. I still have it.

Uncle Sam always threw a new baseball when we left and we were to look for it on our way home. It was always a long time and we were amazed how far he could throw the ball. I don’t know how Mom was able to drop the ball without us seeing it but it was always at least a half hour or more.

The power plant for the LDS hospital was across the street from our house. The plant burned coal and big belly dump semi trucks would bring coal to the plant. They would park across the sidewalk on 9^th avenue. There was a trap door that they would dump the coal into. We used to dare each other to run under the truck, which we were not supposed to do! It seemed like an hour before we got to the other side.

We only had one bathroom which we all shared so it was necessary to knock on the door and holler to make sure that no one was in there before going in. The customers from the beauty salon also used it and a few times we got walked in on even though we would tell them we were in there, they would forget. In my younger days we only took a bath once a week (probably my early elementary school days) as that was the normal thing to do at that time.

I was baptized in the baptismal font in the Salt Lake Tabernacle at Temple Square. It was on the west side in the basement. I don’t think they use it any more. My oldest brother Leonard baptized me and my Dad’s younger brother confirmed me, as my father was no longer alive.

Baptism pictures.

"My brother Leonard baptized both me and my friend Billie Sue Hackalow"

Some memories of our house:

The boys would take all of the items out of a large barrel that was used for storage in our unfinished basement downstairs and they and the older girls would fill it up with water and swim in it.

We had a room on the first floor that our parents would sleep in, in the summer to stay cool. It was a room that had large windows with screens on them so they could get the canyon breeze at night, we did not have air conditioning, and it was called the sleeping porch. I slept in my parents’ room in a trundle bed until I was a teenager then I slept upstairs and as there was very little insulation in the roof and walls it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

The stairs were narrow going upstairs and were covered with linoleum with a metal strip going across the edge. We didn’t seem to worry about how narrow they were we raced up and down them all the time. Sometimes we would trip and hit our knee, WOW did that hurt. There was also a cold air return that had a metal grate, at the bottom of the stairs so if you hit that in a fall coming down the stairs that really hurt too. Half of the upstairs was an unfinished attic; some of the floor was just slats of wood stretched across the ceiling joists, if you have seen the ‘Christmas Vacation’ movie it looked like the attic that Chevy Chase was walking around in his house when he got trapped in the attic. We didn’t go in there much as it was for storage and we didn’t like it too much it was a little spooky.

Our telephone was a private line, which was a luxury in those days, but necessary because my parents had a business. At that time most people had a party line and you would pick up the phone and listen to see if any of the other people that shared your line were using it, if not then you could dial your number and call whoever you wanted to talk to. Sometimes we would try to sneak the receiver off of the cradle and listen to the other people’s conversation which usually didn’t work as it made a click on the line when you picked it up. The telephones were rotary dial. It had a wheel with holes and numbers and letters under the holes, much like the buttons on the cell phones today, which you would stick your finger in and rotate it around for each letter or number you wanted to dial. Telephone numbers at that time had names at the first such as (ours was Elgin) and you would dial the appropriate letters ours was EL then the number. It seems like it was when I was in junior high that phone numbers changed to all numbers. Telephones were not portable and we had a very long cord that would stretch all around the house. It would get tangled and we would have to unclip it from the wall and untangle it every so often. I have no idea how long it was but it had to be long because we could take it all over the main floor of our house.

TEENAGER YEARS

Graduation from Junior High about 13 years old

When I was to go into seventh grade we had such a large class (I was a Baby Boomer) that the Junior High did not have room for us, so we stayed at my elementary school for seventh grade. That was interesting!

I believe it was when I was in eighth grade the first manned space craft went around the earth and it was such an important event that we were able to watch it on television in the cafeteria. We did not have televisions in the class rooms at that time so this was unusual and a real treat.

My Mother had a good friend and her sister that she did their hair for them and they would travel together. Mrs. Scott had a grandson that came to visit for the summer when I was 14. We dated all summer long, he was my first boyfriend, Tony Scott. He asked me to go steady and gave me his class ring but I didn’t take it because I thought my Mom would be upset.

The records we listened to when I was younger were heavy and thick, I think they were 78 speed. Later when the stereo came out the records changed to 33 1/3 speed and were much thinner. There was music on both sides. We also listened to small records that just had one song on each side and required a plastic disc in the middle to make the hole smaller so it would play on the regular stereo. The hole was about an inch wide and the spindle on the stereo was only maybe 1/8^th inch wide. These records were cheaper as they only had two songs on them one on each side, so you could get more of your favorite artist’s songs instead of spending a lot of money to buy a whole album. I believe that I was around eight when I got a portable record player for Christmas, boy did I think I was special. It was a kind of like a suitcase that you could take anywhere there was a plug in the house and play your 45 speed records

I was very lucky because I could get my hair dry by using professional hair dryers. Girls had to put their hair up in curlers and wait for them to air dry. When I was about 13 portable hair dryers were invented. They had a little round base and then a flexible tube that hooked to the base and a plastic inflatable head piece. You would put your hair up in curlers and then put a net over it so the hair dryer wouldn’t pull the curlers out. Then you would put this inflatable head piece over your curlers. And then sit with the air blowing for about a half hour to dry your hair. This was fantastic because it wasn’t necessary to wait all day or over night for your hair to dry in the air. The rollers had a brush inside to hold the hair on and then you put a little plastic stick like a long toothpick through it to hold it on, as well as the hair net. The brush curlers were not too comfortable to sleep on so we used a neck pillow somewhat like the pillows people use on airplanes these days. Later they came out with magnetic (only a name) curlers that were smooth but they didn’t stay in too well, also some girls used cans that the end was taken out of both ends and cleaned, if they did not want too much curl.

Carol with JoAnn and her son Craig.

One day my friends and I were coming home from Mutual. There had been a burglary in the neighborhood so we were spooked. I saw the front room curtain go up and down when I came up to my house so I was sure there was a burglar in the house. My friend said she would come in and help me look around to make sure it was all right. Well when I got all the way to the upstairs my brother jumped out and scared me. He thought it was really funny!

My Mother would have me go to the drive in movies with my sister JoAnn and her boyfriend as a chaperone. I was 8 years younger I thought it was really fun to go to the movies with them but I am not so sure they loved having me be their chaperone.

JoAnn and Larry at their wedding May 1960

I went camping with Larry and JoAnn my sister after they got married when I was about 14. The outhouses smelled sooooo bad!! We lit a match to kill the smell and then threw it in the hole. Well, it set the paper on fire in the hole. The lake was quite a way away and there wasn’t a water tap close. We didn’t know what to do so we sat down and put out the fire. So I guess we helped Smokey the Bear putting out a potential forest fire!!!

Illnesses

I think that I was about eight when I had my tonsils out but I almost died. They used ether and it was in a perfume bottle. They told me it was perfume. I loved perfume so much that I inhaled too much and was over sedated so it was touch and go for a while.

I had three day measles or roseola, and regular measles, whooping cough which I caught from one of my friends (it was so terrible). I remember coughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Thank heavens for vaccines. I was lucky that I didn’t get polio as I knew several kids that had it. They came out with the sugar cube vaccine when I was in elementary school. I remember lining up to get the vaccine that was put on a sugar cube and we just sucked on it. The shot came out later.

I also got Chicken pox really bad. I had them all over my body, in my hair, in my mouth, in my ears, etc. It was a little amusing because I came down with them at my mother’s aunt’s house. She was a clean freak and would wash a glass in back of you when you got a drink of water. She would not let me eat at her house because I was sick. Her husband owned half of the Sands in Las Vegas, when he was alive. She sent us down there to eat breakfast. Now Chicken Pox is an air borne virus, so we exposed the whole world by doing that.

When I was 12 I was playing that I was getting married with a curtain ring and when I went to put it on my finger. I inhaled it, don’t ask me how I did that because I couldn’t tell you. It was New Years Eve and I got to go to the hospital and have it taken out of my throat. It was lodged over my esophagus. Happy New Year to me!

I also got Scarlet Fever and I was covered with a fine rash. I know I was a teenager and was dramatic about it because I thought I was going to be scarred for life.

I had an anaphylaxis reaction to perfume when I was 16. I went to mutual and I started having a hard time breathing. When I told my mutual teacher that I couldn’t breathe she thought that I was being a smart alek. That was a strange reaction as she was a nurse and I was not a show off type of kid. Anyway she finally looked at me closer and took me home. My mother ran me to the LDS hospital which was 1 ½ blocks away. They told me that I would have died if I had waited a half hour longer as I had hives inside and outside clear down to my waist by that time.

I also had a bad reaction to teeth whitener as an adult and it made my lips swell up like the natives that put platters in their lips. The emergency room didn’t even ask my name when I walked in it was so serious. They wouldn’t let me go home until my lips went down. Gordon and I got bored and we were being smart, I looked at him with my huge lips and asked if he wanted a kiss. We got the giggles and the nurses couldn’t figure out what we thought was so funny when they walked by they kept giving us funny looks.

I caught pneumonia when I was in Pep Club decorating the football team member’s houses and also later as an adult.

HIGH SCHOOL:

I went to West High School. I was so excited when I made the honor role. As I was growing up I did not believe that I was smart. The kids in my elementary school had been so mean to me after my accident. The concussion took a while to overcome and I had to re-learn how to read, do math, etc.

I sang in the Junior Choir and loved it so much. One of my favorite Christmases was going around and performing for churches and other places. I made Pep Club which was a lot of fun.

The following pictures are Pep Club initiation.

Dinner for Pep Club

At the beginning of the year when I was in Pep Club we went to Ogden to a preseason football game. Our bus was parked on the Ogden side of the football stadium, which was a mistake. We won the game by a sizeable amount and were cheering and excited walking back to our bus. The bus driver was not there to let us in and some of the Ogden fans (boys) didn’t like us cheering and so they began to beat up the pep club. I was only shoved and got a few bruises. One girl got a broken collar bone and another girl a broken arm. Our parents almost stopped us from being in Pep Club after the incident but we were able to convince them to let us still participate. The football team wanted to jump in the bus and go back and beat up the boys when they found out. But the coaches stopped them from going back.

I was on a date when I was in high school and afterwards we pulled up in front of our house. The neighbor girl (and her date) had just moved down from in front of my house to in front of her house (which was two houses away). My mom came out and got mad because she thought I had been out in front necking with my boyfriend but it had been the neighbor girl and not me. Oh the injustice!

Richard was my date to Graduation Dance

I also participated in Symphony Sub Debs. This is a club that supported the symphony and we got deals to go see them. I did this with my best friend Barbara Willis. She was my best friend as I was growing up.

Senior picture 1966

I graduated from West High School June 1966. We were the last class to be able to graduate from the Tabernacle on Temple Square.

I got a scholarship to the U of U and I was so excited. I joined Lambda Delta Sigma which was a church sorority. I was on the committee for the Christmas Dance at the State Capitol rotunda. We made crape paper roses and wound the roses and vines around the columns there.

My brother Doug had gone on a mission to England and one of the families he met there came to America. The son, Zigmund Peacock, had just come home from Scotland where he served on a mission. My brother lined us up and we double dated to the dance. I was smitten by his English accent (as the Beetles were very popular at that time). We dated for six months and were married June 9, 1967 in the Salt Lake Temple.

Engagement picture

I made my wedding dress. It took me two months to make. It was empire waist (which means the waist was just below the bust line), dull satin, with silk organza over it, I appliquéd lace on the silk organza and sowed seed pearls in the middle of the lace flowers. It was a lot of work but was very pretty when I finished and I was really proud that it turned out so well.

The Lambda Delta Sigma sorority I belonged to always came and sang the ‘sweetheart song’ at each girls wedding. They were having a toga party that night so they came dressed in their togas. It was a funny sight when they walked in, all the wedding guests wondered what was going on. I have a picture of it in my wedding photos.

Zig and Carol

Grace, Barbara, Carol, JoAnn

Carol's nieces and nephews

I was still only 18 years old and turned 19 two months later. We did not have very much money and so I did not feel that I could afford to go to school, pay for books and not work full time, and I was more interested in being married and having a family so I gave up my scholarship.

The gas was 25 cents a gallon at the time we got married; groceries were $20.00 for two weeks worth of groceries. I remember our first apartment was $70 a month all utilities paid. We lived in a one bedroom basement apartment 1609 S 1600 E Salt Lake City, UT.

Our first house in the basement apartment.

Our landlord allowed us to use his wringer washer in a storage room that attached to our kitchen, and then I would hang the clothes on the outside clothes line to dry. We did not have a telephone so if anyone wanted to get a hold of us they had to dial the landlord’s telephone number and he would come down and knock on our door, or we had a key to his house and if he was not home we could run upstairs and open the door and answer the phone. In our first apartment we had a beagle but our landlord made us get rid of it after a few weeks.

A year and a half later we had a beautiful little boy. He was 6 weeks early. He was born November 25, 1968, and was due on January 3, 1969. He weighed 4 pounds 11 ½ ounces. Kirk was born in the worst snow storm that winter. It seems to snow quite often on his birthday. He was born on Monday and was in a regular crib on Wednesday and we were able to take him home the following week- 11 days later. It was kind of funny because they did not have preemie clothes at the time so we took the smallest stretchy outfit we had and his legs only came just past the crotch on the outfit, it took me a half hour to fold the diapers small enough for him. We could put his head in the palm of our hand and his feet came to our elbow.

We lived at the 1609 South 1600 East apartment for awhile after Kirk was born. Then the landlord sold his house. We wanted to buy it but couldn’t quite come up with the funds. I will detail the houses I lived in later. We moved over a couple of blocks to 1532 Roosevelt Avenue into another one room basement apartment until Kirk was almost two years old.

Carol, Grace, Kirk, Zig with Zig's family.

We built our house in Rose Park on 1394 North Miami Road, in Salt Lake City, UT. It did not get finished quite on time so we had to go live with my Mom for two weeks. We were sitting on her front porch and the guard rail had been knocked down on one end where there was about a four foot drop my Mom was crocheting and Kirk grabbed her ball of yarn and began to run with it (as only two year olds will do). Before we could catch him he had fallen off the drop and he broke his leg. He had a walking cast. He called it his boom because of the sound it made, it didn’t slow him down a bit.

When Kirk was 1 ½ years old Neil Armstrong went on the first flight to the moon and we went to a neighborhood party to watch his landing on the moon. That was a very exciting time! I remember that he said, “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind”.

We bought a spring bar tent with our third tax return. We loved to go camping and also backpacking that was how we spent our family vacations. We loved to hike the Wasatch Mountains and go fishing. Later we bought an Avon rubber raft and we went river running. One of our first adventures with it was down the Provo River just below the dam; it was in flood in June. When we went under the Heber Creeper Bridge we got caught in an eddy and the D ring on the side of the boat caught on a bolt on the bridge and hung up. Luckily Kirk was on the side of the bridge and could climb out of the boat onto the cement support pillar that held the post for the bridge, so that he was all right. I know he was quite small around six or seven. I however, was on the other side and when the boat caught the force of the river sucked the tube of the boat under and my leg was caught in run off debris. I could not get my leg loose and the water was washing over my head. Zig kept pulling me up so that I could breath and after about a half hour I was able to get my leg free and swim to the other side of the river. He was then able to get the boat free by pulling the D Ring off the bolt and steering it to shore. I have tried to snorkel twice since then. But I can’t as it brings back that bad experience when I almost drowned. I have decided that I won’t be even trying that again.

After Kirk was born I decided to use a new kind of birth control. It was called a coil. It was supposed to be “safer” than the pill. Well, it was so new that they did not know all of the side effects. Three years later we decided to have another baby. The "coil" had caused PID. Which meant I would get about three + months pregnant and then go into full labor and have a miscarriage. I lost eight babies over the next 12 years and then decided that I didn’t want to go through that anymore.

We got a basset hound when we moved into our house on 1394 N. Miami Rd, in Salt Lake City. called Lady Ann of Cheshire, (she was papered that is why the long name) or Annabel for short. We had her for about a year and then decided that we would sell her because she was not very easy to train. I had a hard time holding on to her when we walked and she would pull Kirk over because she was so strong. She wasn’t a very fun dog to have for a pet. There was something funny about her though. We lived in a split entry house and she would get tearing down the stairs and trip over her ears and go head over heels to the bottom of the stairs.

Because I had such a hard time learning to read after my accident and subsequent concussion, I did not like to read very much. I didn’t learn to like to read until later in my adult life. However, I knew that it was very important to have a love of reading for school. I did everything that I could think of to help Kirk love to read. A book club membership to Dr. Seuss books. I still hate one of the books because we read it so much, "One thumb one thumb drumming on a drum dum, ditty dum, ditty dum, dum, dum". We got him his own library card. He would check out so many books that we had to limit him to the books he could carry out of the library on his own. One of the neighbor ladies had a red wagon and we would take her two girls and Kirk over to the library in the wagon once a week to check out books. It was about a mile away.

When Kirk was little he would sleep so sound that we couldn’t wake him up on Christmas morning and we would get so excited that we would jingle the bells on his Christmas sock and shout Ho Ho Ho as loud as we could to get him to get up.

It never did much good to put him in time-out because he would just invent games and build things in his room so he was completely entertained for whatever time he had to stay in his room.

The boys in the neighborhood loved to go to a dirt field and ride their dirt bikes over the dirt mounds. They called it "bumpity hills". Kirk saved up his baby sitting money and bought a BMX dirt bike. He also raised gerbils and sold them to get money. He also bought his first skate board. He was one of the favorite babysitters in the neighborhood because he always played games with the kids and they had so much fun.

Kirk was very smart and was in the gifted program in elementary school. He loved his classes. In Junior High they did not have the gifted program and he didn’t really enjoy it as well. We enrolled him in summer classes for kids at the U of U and he loved them. When he went to West High School he was there for two years and was bored there also so he decided to do the conjunctive study his senior year at the U of U and was a sophomore by the time he graduated. The only problem was the U didn’t finish until later than West and so he did not get his graduation with honors tassel for graduation because he couldn’t get his report card soon enough.

Kirk started out in Communications and then switched to Engineering; it must have been karma because he met Teresa in one of his computer labs when she asked for help.

My husband Zig made some decisions that were very hurtful to our marriage and so after 21 ½ half years of marriage we got a divorce. This was a very hard time for me because I had not ever planned on being divorced. He was the love of my life. I was extremely shy and didn’t have the skills to get a very high paying job. At that time people kind of looked down on you if you were divorced. However he ended up doing me a favor. I found out that I was a capable and smart person. I got a job working for Mountain Fuel Supply where I could move up in the company and they made it possible for me to finish my degree that I had started 18 years before. I also built my own home in Farmington. It was my red badge of courage! It proved that I was capable of making good decisions and providing for me and my son.

The Farmington house 1990

Two years later I met Gordon Bartlomé at a singles dance. He was dancing with my best friend and then we had a few dances. I am shy and he thought I was stuck up at first because I didn’t say a lot. We met at another dance a week later and hit it off.

We dated for a year and then married August 18, 1992 in the Salt Lake Temple.

This was marriage for "time" only as we didn’t get my temple clearance papers in time to be sealed for eternity then. We got the paperwork a year later and then they got lost somewhere at Church headquarters. So we started the process again and were sealed in the Bountiful Temple on our third anniversary for Eternity.

We are each other’s best friend and love doing all things together. We love hiking, dancing, watching sports, going on trips, and love being with our family!! We have had soooo much fun together!

Kirk and Teresa's wedding 1993.

Here we are 26 years later and hope to make it much longer. The three older daughters, Yvette, Monique, and Monette were married when we got married. Andre went on his mission a month before we got married. But we knew each other for the year that Gordon and I dated before he left on his mission. Nicole was a senior in High School. That was hard for her to move High Schools as a senior. She was shy and Davis High School wouldn’t let her play on the soccer team because she had not been there in her previous years (school politics gees!). Marci was 12 years old and that was a hard adjustment for her. She had been the apple of her Dad’s eye and it was hard to share his attentions with someone else.

Gordon, Andre, Nicole, Marci and I went on a hike to the Zion Canyon Narrows the month before Andre left on his mission because he really wanted to do an adventure before he left for his mission. We had a lot of fun doing it. It was so awesome. The canyon walls were 2,000 feet straight up. It was a little scary for Marci as the water came up to her chest in spots as she had not started growing yet.

Funny side note about Nicole. We had to ground her to go out with her friends. She would just stay home most of the time and we wanted her to get to know some of the kids in the neighborhood more. Marci had a lot of friends because she is so social. It did not take her long to get to know the kids in the neighborhood and have lots of friends.

Gordon had four grand kids when we got married. Heather was four, Whitney and Rachelle were three, and Mick was eight months old. Wow what 26 years can do. Now we have 22 grand kids, six grand kid-in- laws, and eight soon to be nine great grand kids, it has been a lot of fun watching our family grow.

When Andre left for his mission Marci was a little girl and she turned into a teenager while he was gone. He walked right by her at the airport. She was miffed. She said, “what is the matter Andre, don’t you recognize me?” And he didn’t, because she had changed so much. He had a girl follow him home from Spain; she thought that he would marry her. He also was nice to a girl in the neighborhood and she thought she was going to marry him also. She was just a friend in Andre’s eyes. He had known Janelle in High School and had been good friends. They dated for over a year while he finished his bachelor’s degree. We figured he was going to get around to asking her to marry him when he took her with him to look at houses when he decided to buy one.

When Marci was a teenager I used to have fun when her boyfriends called because we sounded a lot alike on the phone and so I would string them along for awhile. When Marci graduated we took her on a trip to Orlando with us when I was having a work convention. We stayed at the Arnold Palmer PGA hotel. She was so embarrassed when we went to Burger King and came back to the hotel with the bag of hamburgers and fries for dinner, as it was a really fancy hotel. We went to Disney World with her and Universal Studios prior to my convention. One of the nights they had a gambling for just chips and the chips earned were turned in for prizes. Several people thought she was so fun and cute they gave her their chips to turn in for prizes so she made out like a bandit.

When we lived in Farmington and Kaysville, I used to make 100 dozen cookies to take to the neighbors for Christmas. When we moved to West Jordan I thought it was a good excuse to not do that anymore because it was soooo much work.

Gordon and I started having a New Year’s Eve party in West Jordan. It became the neighborhood place to be on New Year’s Eve. People would walk up to us in June and tell us they had their white elephant gifts for the New Year’s party. We haven’t done it in Washington.

It was a lot of fun having the Thanksgiving and Christmas parties at our house we had good times with everyone there. Family gatherings are the best!!!

We are really grateful that Andre has the big Christmas party now as it was getting to be such a big ordeal with all the people we have now.

One more side note I thought of. When Kirk, André, Nicole, and Marci got married I made them a pieced hand quilted quilt for their marriage. I was too chicken to enter Kirk and Teresa’s quilt in the fair but I got brave and I entered André and Janelle’s quilt in the Davis County fair and I won a blue ribbon for it. I was so excited because it was a lot of work and only my second pieced hand quilted quilt. Marci’s was machine quilted as I made it a couple of years ago and my fingers have some arthritis in them and I am not able to hand quilt that large of quilt.

I started making hand quilted crib size baby quilts for all the grand kids after we got married starting with Jordan and also a flannel blanket and burp pad that has crocheting around the blanket and burp pad, for each one of the grand kids. The way I figure it I have made 26 sets of quilts and flannel blankets so far. I plan on continuing for as long as my arthritis will let me quilt.

Universities I have attended

University of Utah 1966-1967 returned 1986 for a year

Weber State University Associate Degree 1997

Brigham Young University bachelor in Business Management 2003 at age 55 took me 7 years I was so excited it had been my goal for so long.

Work

University of Utah Clinical Psychology while I went to school there

Flinco when first married for a few months then left to work as a dental assistant

Brig Cutler’s Dentist office. He was my cousin’s husband and I was his dental assistant. I worked there until I had Kirk.

When Kirk was born I stayed at home and babysat kids until Kirk went to first grade

Bryner Clinic receptionist five years

Intermountain Allergy clinic five years

Mountain Fuel Supply 25 ½ years until they outsourced us to Wells Fargo Bank

Equity Title laid off after a year due to economy

Broadcast International I was laid off after a year due to economy

Jordan School District Administrative assistant to school administrator four years

Retired and moved to St George Yah!!!

Houses I have lived in pictures are in my childhood and adult scrapbooks

427 “B” Street, Salt Lake City, UT House I was born in and lived until I got married

1609 South 1600 East, Salt Lake City, UT First apartment where Kirk was born

1532 Roosevelt Ave, Salt Lake City, UT

1394 North Miami Rd. Salt Lake City, UT First House

1753 West 1300 North Apt A, Salt Lake City, UT while building my house in Farmington

1154 North 1100 West Farmington, UT

1307 South 200 East Kaysville, UT all the grand kids loved rolling down the steep lawn in this house. We thought the back yard would be a fabulous place for Marci to get married in but she got married in January so that didn’t work out

9324 South Avignon Place, West Jordan, UT

1103 Trimble Creek Drive, West Jordan, UT. Also lived in friend’s basement apartment for six months while building our Washington, UT house

1109 East Silver Shadows Drive, Washington, UT

Cars I have owned

Oldsmobile F85 my first car- don’t remember what year

Ford Fairlane 1966 metallic silver, 390 engine and four barrel carburetor it was a muscle car and really pretty and ate a lot of gas but that was back in the day of 25 cents a gallon

Ford Galaxy 1964

Alpha Romeo it was new but can’t remember what year it was

Alpha Romeo Spider don’t know year it never ran Zig was going to fix it up but never did

Subaru bright yellow and it put out its own smoke cloud before we sold it don’t know the year

Malibu don’t know year

Volkswagen Quantum I don’t remember the year but it had an interesting problem. It would all of a sudden accelerate to 60 miles an hour on its own. They couldn’t figure it out for a while. Finally they figured out that a computer in the car would tell the fuel injectors on the car that it didn’t have enough gas and feed it enough to make it accelerate to 60 miles an hour on its own. Sold that car as soon as I got it fixed didn’t like that it driving on its own.

Honda Accord 1985 loved it. It was metallic blue with chrome side panels

Civic 2000

Toyota Celica 1987

Mazda 626 1995

Mazda Tribute 2004

Pilot 2011 one of my favorite cars everyone thought we bought it for Gordon but it was my baby

Honda Accord 2008

Honda Pilot 2014

Trips we have been on

We went to Seattle and British Columbia for our honeymoon

Trips for work

-Florida. We saw an upside down house (actually built upside down) in Orlando area. Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy)

-Key West before Fort Lauderdale. we stayed at the Breakers and unbelievable expensive historical hotel. While there we visited Henry Morrison Flagler’s Mansion. He was responsible for developing the railroad between mainland Florida and the Keys and also the bridges. He also developed a lot of Florida. His house was interesting because he actually had running water and swamp air conditioning before it was available elsewhere.

-Ft. Lauderdale

-Tampa Bay

Trips for pleasure

-Eastern Caribbean

-Hawaii

-Western Caribbean twice.

-London. We used our Marriott points from owning a condo before we sold it. We took the London Tube everywhere. My Paternal Grandfather came from Essex in South East Corner of London

-Alaska

-Church History tour

-Eastern Seaboard. This was awesome as we got to see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis island where Gordon’s Dad and my Maternal Grandfather came through, also ground zero.

-European Romance trip. (Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam, France, where we saw Omaha Beach and the American cemetery a couple days before D Day, besides the other France sites, Austria, Switzerland we saw Bern where Gordon’s father came

-Iceland, Denmark, Norway, We saw the church where the Christ statue from Temple Square came from I also got to see Copenhagen where my Maternal Grandfather came from and My Paternal Great-Great-Grandparents came from Norway and my oldest brother went on a mission there

-Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji

-Canada and the West Coast

-Mediterranean Spain, Italy, Greece, and Malta and Monaco

I would like all of you to know that I have had several experiences in my life that as a result of them I should not have survived. I don’t know why I was spared, but I know that my Heavenly Father lives. He spared me in those situations and has helped me through some difficult time in my life. I do believe that our ancestors are there to help us from the other side and love and watch over us.

I do love all of you and am glad that I have had the chance to be your Mother, Grandmother, and Great-grandmother.

Other pictures from the time Carol was born until she married Gordon.
These are a selection of the pictures in her albums

Barbara, Carol, Leonard
JoAnn, Doug

Carol Pearce 6 months

Carol in the front yard

Friend, JoAnn, Carol, Barbara

With JoAnn

"Me in the back yard. Oh so sad! This was my favorite doll. Her name was Kerlinkie. My mom made her hat. It was crocheted without a pattern. The doll took a bottle and wet her pants."