The Memories of Myrl Goodwin Gudmundsen
As recorded on audio tape by Myrl herself from about 1971 - 1977.
Chapter 1 Early Childhood
(Another of their homes at 80 West 400 North is on National Historic Building Registry)
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Wanda, Myrl, Olena, friend, Harold |
Our home was very spacious and had lots of ground around it. The house had five bedrooms. On the bottom floor, the main floor, there was a nice front entrance and to the left, a living room and then a big library off of that. We had a large dining room and what we called the pantry and a large kitchen. In the kitchen, we had a blackboard on the east wall. It was quite spacious, and here our father had built a bench that we could stand on, and we could write. We each would make lines with chalk, and this was my part, and this was so and so’s, and so and so’s. We had chalk dust all over the kitchen, but it was a good way to entertain us, especially during the winter months. It was a place where we had all sorts of bulletins on that board as we grew older. It had a great nostalgic value to all of us.
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Myrl, Wanda, Harold |
We had a big lot with every kind of a fruit tree and bush of berries that you could imagine: strawberries, raspberries, grapes, peaches, apples, pears, and one particular apple tree that we loved and called the Little Joe tree. They came early in the summer, and we loved to climb that big tree. There was one tree in particular up in the lot that I loved. It was a peach tree, and early peach tree. I used to climb right up to the tip-top, and it was just like a big umbrella. To look around and see the beautiful big luscious peaches with their pink and red skins, I just didn’t know which one to take first! That was always my breakfast. I just loved to climb up there. As long as there were peaches, that’s where you would find me in the mornings. And the beautiful sunshine... how we loved that place.
We had many, many things to remember about it. When we were small, our father purchased about a thousand little evergreen trees. He set them out in the west part of the lot. As they grew up , many people would come and want to buy one to put on their cemetery lot or in their homes or grounds somewhere. I remember my Daddy used to sell them for 50 cents apiece. We used to sprinkle them for him too and help him. Those little things we remember.
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As a small, small child I always loved the water. We had in the house what we called a milk box. We had a flowing well, and it ran into this big refrigerator in the pantry. There, Mother would keep the milk in the top part, and in the bottom we’d keep the food and it would be cool. It was that way until later years when refrigeration came in, and we had a big refrigerator. The water drained away from that (milk box) into a little flue outside, very small. And my parents said that I used to go up with one foot in and come back with the other and that I always had wet feet. My Daddy said he used to always tell Mother, Well, I better look and see if Myrl has webbed feet yet, she’s just like a duck, she’s always in the water, which proved to be something, because I always loved to swim and dive. I became very good, as I do say about it because I loved it so. And I enjoyed very much going to Saratoga and swimming and diving there as the years went by.
We had a wonderful family, as I said, and one of a great religious nature. We loved to do things for one another. We grew up healthy and extremely happy, and as a family we did love to help one another. This philosophy stayed with us throughout our lives which was a wonderful thing indeed.
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