History of Jaena Ricks – Gibson
12th December 1963 –
Daughter of
Howard Lee Ricks
24th October 1924 – 7th of August 1980
and
LaVerna Terry Ricks
2nd May 1926 –
Married to
Brent A. Gibson on the 3rd March 2006
The year was 1963. Winston Churchill was granted honorary U.S. Citizenship. A new land speed record of 407.45 miles per hour was made. The Supreme Court ruled for separation of church and school and John F. Kennedy, our beloved president of the United States was assassinated. And in August of 1963, Martin Luther King gave his famous speech “I Have a Dream“.
The average family income at the time was $5,800. A gallon of milk only cost $1.04, a loaf of bread was $.21 and a gallon of gas cost $.25. A new house cost around $30,000 and a new car about $2,300. Audio cassette tapes and Polaroid color film had just been invented and lava lamps hit the market.
Popular music in 1963 was My Boyfriend’s Back by Randy and the Rainbows, It’s My Party by Lesley Gore, He’s So Fine by the Chiffons and Walk Like a Man by the Four Seasons. Even more popular artists were Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The popular movies of the day were Tom Jones, Lilies of the Field, Hud, The Birds and Dr. Strangelove.
AND A NEW STAR WAS BORN…
MY BIRTH STORY
I was born on December 12th, 1963 at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Back in those days, the mothers were given anesthesia before birth so they were completely out and unaware of anything until they came out of the fog and had a cute little baby placed in their arms. Dad’s had to wait it in the waiting room for the doctor to come tell them if it was a boy or a girl. Hospital rooms weren’t private either. My mom shared a room with several other ladies and they could all hear the babies crying in the nursery. They all commented about how one of the babies squealed just like a pig when they cried and all the moms had a good laugh…but the joke was on mom when she realized it was actually her baby that did the squealing!
Dad really wanted a boy. He had big plans for a boy; he had inherited a furnace company from his dad and was hoping to finally have a boy to pass the business on to. Imagine his disappointment when he learned that his fourth girl had come, especially since my mother was 37 when I was born and her child bearing days were over.
NAME
I was named Jaena (pronounced Jay-nah). You may wonder how I got such an unusual name so I’m going to tell you. After I was born, my parents still hadn’t come up with a name for their fourth girl. They gathered around and my parents and my three sisters each wrote a name on a slip of paper, which was then placed in a hat. I’m not sure who drew the name out but the one my mother chose was the winner. She told me she had heard it on a television program and liked the sound of it!
She didn’t know how to spell it so she made up the spelling the best she could. If you think about the rules of the English language, you will see that my name is phonetically correct. To make a long vowel sound, the vowel needs to be followed by an “e”, so technically it works, except for the fact that it doesn’t occur to people to say it that way. For everyone who asks my name, I have to repeat it several times then spell it out very slowly, pausing after the “e” and then repeat that multiple times before they get it. Yes, my name is very unique and I must say I’ve never seen it on a key chain, a necklace or door sign. On the bright side, I’ve never had to look twice when someone calls my name because I’m the one and only Jaena in my neck of the woods.
There have been rare occasions in my life when I actually have run into someone else with my name. Usually it is spelled differently but there have been a few exceptions. For instance, one time I was in Lanai, Hawaii looking at a local newspaper and was shocked to see my name, spelled correctly, all over it. Upon further investigation, I learned that it is a common name used in the Philippines but it’s pronounced “Jaw-eena”. There is even some famous Filipino guy named Graciano Lopez Jaena. He owned a newspaper and was a prominent revolutionary journalist in the 1800’s. His picture was on the old Filipino peso and they actually still celebrate his birthday to this day in the province where he lived.
On another occasion, I was at one of my daughter’s softball games and heard my name called out. I fully expected the caller to approach me but they went directly to the cute girl sitting in the bleachers below me. Startled, I had to ask her one more time what her name was and then I was even more shocked to find out she spelled it exactly the same as mine! What are the chances? I told her she was the only person I’d ever met in all my years that had the same spelling; she agreed and said it was her first for her as well.
Growing up, I always wanted a middle name. All my sisters had one and I felt kind of left out. Darla took pity on me and made up a silly nick name for me Jaena Leana Suzy. Not sure where that even came from but she calls me that a lot. One of my favorite nick names came when I got my first nursing job. Menopausal and hot flashing I was happiest when I could turn the temperature to the coolest setting available and I would freeze all the other nurses out. My redeeming factor was my big, loving, heart which earned me the nickname of Olaf, the cute snowman on frozen who loved warm hugs.
The other day I ‘Googled’ Jaena (you can find anything on Google). I learned that Jaena is a derivative of the name Jane which is a Hebrew name that means merciful. I’ve never thought of myself in those terms but it sounds nice. I’ve finally decided that even though a name like mine takes a extra work, it’s a good name and it suits me just fine. To this day, I’m always a little surprised and amazed at the people who pronounce my name right the first time. Usually I have to reply with my standard quip, “You can call me anything you want…as long as you don’t call me late for supper!”
PARENTS & SISTERS
My dad’s full name was Howard Lee Ricks, Howard after his dad, but Lee was the name he used. He was born the 24th of October 1924 to Howard and Tressa (Hansen) Ricks. They lived in Lehi, Utah when he was born and he grew up there. He passed away when he was only 55 years old, on 7th of August 1980, due to complications from type II diabetes.
My mother, Laverna Terry was born the 2nd of May 1926 to Franklin Amos and Ellen Anna (Goodliffe) Terry. She grew up on a farm in Enterprise, Utah. She passed away on the 28th of November, 2020 at the ripe old age of 94 after she got COVID.
My parents met at a dance in Salt Lake City and quickly fell in love. They dated for about three months and were married in Elko, Nevada on the 16th of September 1947. Later, they were sealed in the Salt Lake temple on 14th September 1956 and I was born in the covenant. My father inherited Ricks Furnace and Air Conditioning from his father after he had a stroke. My mother had a few odd jobs here and there, mostly when she wanted to buy something for herself. They were good parents with good intent and did the best they could at raising their family. I’m grateful for all they taught me.
I have three older sisters: Shauna Lee Frazier born 23rd of April 1948, Darla Ann Bowden born 6th of November 1951 and Vicki Lynn Ricks born 14th of January 1955. My next oldest sibling is nine years older than me. Each one of my sisters married at a young age and by the time I was six years old, they were all moved out of the house so I was basically raised as an only child which had its challenges.
MOM’S STORY
My mom took the time to write out a little story about my birth. She put it in a baby book that I’ve kept all these years. I’d like to share her words with you:
“One night I decided I had waited long enough to come to the bright new world, so on December 12th, 1963 at 2:35 a.m. I came to life at L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah [with the assistance of J. Poulson Hunter, our family doctor]. Weighing in at 7 pounds 10 ounces, I was bigger than all three of my sisters and in between on height at 20 inches.
“I had dark brown hair, darkest of all my sisters and quite a lot of it too. I had blue eyes, one thing we all had at birth. Now I’d say from that description that I had the beginning of my own personality and thought I was pretty, but lo and behold, what did I hear my oldest fifteen year old sister Shauna say when I was only seventeen hours old…that I was ugly??? Well didn’t she know that I hadn’t quite had the time to smooth out a few wrinkles and let some swollenness and redness disappear, the same as all babies do. Well I’d show here a thing or two…and I did. The next time she saw me, she thought I was a doll and so did everyone else. Shauna must have published this fact because Darla my twelve year old sister broke all the hospital rules (she wasn’t quite old enough to visit and daddies were supposed to be the only visitors) to see me and got caught as she was leaving. They must have understood the situation because they didn’t say too much to her.
“I guess I kind of disappointed my dear daddy by being a girl, I hear he really planned on a boy after three girls. The rumor got around that when he was called at the dad’s room and told about me he said, ‘Oh no! This is my fourth girl!’ But I knew I could win him over when he saw me, and I guess I did because each day he visited mom he came to see me too and I saw the twinkle in his eyes…and after three days at the hospital he too me home!
“Oh ho!!! Here is where the fun began. I was met downstairs by Darla and Vicki. I was such a celebrity that they got to miss Sunday-school which was a rare occasion for them. When I got to my nice home, everyone wanted to see and hold me which I really enjoyed. And do you know the first time I cried at home, my mother said, “Oh no, she couldn’t be – – -you see at the hospital there were a few words passed around by the mothers about one of us infants squealing like a pig when they cried. Well you guessed it; I couldn’t conceal it any longer. It didn’t seem to make any difference to my family though, they still loved me and even fought over who was going to hold and feed me. I really enjoyed this and when I heard my mom say, ‘you can’t spoil babies, they can be over loved but not spoiled’ I decided to demand this attention.
“I had a lot of company come to see me – – – friends and relatives. One of the first gifts I received was from my Grandmother Terry. It was a beautiful blue shawl and a [Tommee Tippee] feeding set. This set included a dish and a cup; this set was blue and had a suction cup base and lid on the cup so it wouldn’t spill. The shawl was a pretty pale blue with white interwoven fringe on two sides and blue on two sides.
My mother took the time to draw and color pictures of each of these gifts which included: “a pair of white booties given by Eva Hall, a friend and neighbor and a pair of pink booties given by the Robb’s, our next door neighbor.
The Forsythe’s from Cedar City gave a pretty blue jumper and a white blouse trimmed with white and white anklets. The Terry’s, Cliff and Eileen gave a beautiful nylon bassinette comforter and a very pretty, original receiving blanket that was pink print on one side and blue on the other. Virginia Harris, a friend and neighbor gave three pair of plastic pants. The Boynton’s gave a playpen. The Keddington’s, very good friends and neighbors who I often heard mom say she could never repay them for the things they have done gave me a white nylon terry playsuit. The Martin’s from Milford gave me three shirts, one blue nylon terry playsuit and a used layette which was in very good condition, I really used this. My sister Shauna gave me a white and blue telephone rattle. The Holgerson’s from Fair Oaks, California gave me a pair of cute pink velvet bunny shoes, a blue rubber play spoon and a melon color cotton trimmed with white lace dress, it was one of Terry Ann’s dresses that was like new. The Terry’s, Arnold and Kaye gave me a carrying seat and good “used” dresses and shoes, I got a lot of wear from these. Dorothy Haberchok’s a friend that mother worked with at Sperry Rand gave her three red roses, a playsuit, orange pants and a brown blouse. From great aunt Ruth and Uncle Chuck from California, I receive one dozen Curity diapers to help keep my bottom dry. The Cannon’s gave me a bargain on Debra’s crib. Other gifts came from Grandma and Grandpa Ricks gave me a white nylon blessing dress and Ron Griffith, Shauna’s boyfriend gave me flowers which my mother dried and preserved.
“Now after receiving all these gifts I decided it paid off to wait nine years to be accepted into a family and really be a celebrity. From what I heard mom and dad say, they really appreciated these things as much as I know I’ll enjoy them. [Mom sent Thank You cards to everyone – it is pictured on the right here, she always believed that if people were going to take the time to think of you, then it’s the least you can do to thank them with a nice card].
“I was blessed on the 19th of January 1964 at the Canyon Rim Ward at Sale Lake City, Utah by my daddy, Howard L. Ricks. He wrote a few words of advice on a paper after the blessing, ‘Plan out your life in the future. This is the golden key. Obey the Lord and this key will be your happiness.’
“My bath, I didn’t enjoy too much at first. The only thing I like about it was having my hair washed. One day mom said she couldn’t wake me up so she washed my hair and I slept all the time but when she touched my face to wash it…well that did it. I had my first bath in the big bathtub when I was five weeks old. This was fun. I could really stretch, kick and splash.
Mom kept a growth and milestone chart and was vigilant in keeping it up to date. “I started smiling when I was three weeks old. At this time, I also decided to surprise my folks, so I slept my first full night from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. That really felt good, and I wasn’t even hungry the next morning. Guess I’ll do this all the time now. At one month old, I recognized my mother’s voice and followed movement with my eyes. Also, at one month, I got the flu and my first cold at five weeks old, right after this I was moved to my own crib but I didn’t like it. I laughed out loud and noticed my hands and could hold a rattle at six weeks old. I really liked the color pink and would lay and look at anything pink and try to talk to it. At three months old I got my first tooth. At four months, I sat up on my own. I crawled at six months and took my first steps at nine months. At ten months I said “Mama and Dada”. At thirteen months I could clap my hands, tap my toes and blink on command. At fourteen months I could say ‘Darla, Auna (short of Shauna), Vicki, bye-bye, meow kitty, thank you, Aura (for Laura), no, and mine (which meant bottle).
“When I was three weeks old, I got another surprise. This was orange juice; 1 ounce of juice mixed with 2 ounces of water. Yum! That was really good and I even smacked my lips. That went much too fast. Oh…oh…three or four days later a rash started appearing…will I get more? We’ll have to wait and see. The next day, mom put something had and funny in my mouth. She said it was a spoon with cereal on it, she said that it was good and I should swallow the funny stuff. But it was so bad that I kept pushing it right back to her. The second or third time it really tasted a little better.
“On January 8th, 1964, four days short of a month old, I had my first visit to Dr. Hunter’s office for my check up. His comments were; good growth, weight 9 ½ pounds, length 20 inches. He changed my formula to 10 ounces of evaporated milk, 18 ounces of water and 6 tablespoons of Dextri-Maltose #1. He said to stop that good orange juice, he said I was much too young for that. I could have oatmeal cereal mixed in with my formula and taken with the bottle, so I wouldn’t have to feel that hard old spoon anymore…what this I hear? I have loose hips? This didn’t sound good. Here I go to another doctor, Dr. Winters, for x-rays. Well the reports were good, nothing was wrong.
“Now comes another episode in my life, the first change in my formula which I accepted and liked. It was 8 ounces of Carnation Evaporated Milk, 16 ounces of water and 3 tablespoons of Dextri-Maltose #1. I would take from 3 ½ to 4 ounces at each feeding.
“At two weeks I got 6 ounces of Tri-Vi-Sol [vitamin drops]. Ophs, what is this? I really shuttered when I got them at first. Second time wasn’t bad. Third day it was pretty good, I guess I’ll like my vitamins, but at 2 ½ months I decided those vitamins weren’t good at all…but I know when I was well off. When I was 3 months, we changed to a Dec-A-Sol with fluoride in it. Didn’t think anything could ever be that bad. I wonder if I will ever learn to like them, we’ll just have to wait and see.
“At two months, I decided to coo and talk to my family. I knew mom’s voice and would look all over until I found her. I would watch her work from my carry-all-seat on the table. At this time, I had my second check up then. My doctors comments were: normal growth, weight 12 ½ pounds, length 23 inches. He said I could start eating barley cereal and he changed my formula to 12 ounces of milk, 20 ounces of water and 6 tablespoons of Dextri-Maltose #1. When I was two months and two weeks old, I started having a lot of colic. I guess I really made the family tend me, but darn it…my stomach hurt. I started sucking my fingers, lips, tongue or anything I could get a hold of. Mom got some colic medicine when I was three months old and this helps. On my third doctor visit, he kept my formula the same and said I had good growth and could have vegetables now. I gained to 12 pounds 5 ½ ounces and 24 inches. Ouch! Something hurt! I got my first D.P.T. shot and I wasn’t sick afterwards. On March 5th, I got some carrots and on March 12th I got some peas.
MY MEMORIES
I think I was lucky to have a few professional photo shoots as a kid. My parents may have had a little more time and maybe more money than they did when my sisters were little. I don’t think my parents had any idea how much I would enjoy having these photos to look back on!
When I was 9 months old and just learning to walk, my mother took me out exploring at the Great Salt Lake that was about thirty minutes from our home. The lake was clean at that time and many people visited there to float in the salty water. Rumor had it that no one could sink because the salt content was so high.
As far as I know, this picture may have been taken when I was about one year old. It was at Grandpa and Grandma Ricks’ house in the living room. You can see their feet and their white fireplace in the background. If I guessed right, this picture may have been taken around Christmas time and I’m guessing that I was teething because of the rosy red cheeks.
WHAT GIRL DOESN’T LOVE TO TWIRL?
What little girl doesn’t love to put on a dress and twirl around and around in it? I don’t remember these next pictures as they were taken when I was only 18 months old, but I do remember loving to spin around and around and then getting so dizzy that I would fall to the ground while I watched the world continue to spin, then I would laugh and laugh and do it all over again. I never got tired of twirling or rolling down the grassy hills as a kid.
The other thing I really love about the pictures below is the background. It is fun to see the old shakes on the side of the house that we had to hand paint several times before getting siding. I love seeing Shauna walking next to her fancy convertible, as well as the Wasatch Mountains and a few houses up Kenton Drive where we lived.
The following picture was taken when I was 18 months old. I might have been a little bashful. See the way my chin fell to my shoulder, that was my look. It was also a very effective mechanism for protecting my ticklish neck!
I grew up in the Canyon Rim area in Salt Lake City. We were nestled in just below the Wasatch Mountains and there wasn’t a huge amount of development up the mountain side like there is now. I loved the weather at the base of the mountains, in the summer we’d have wonderful canyon breezes and in the winter we’d get buried in snow! I can easily remember storms that dropped two feet or more. I learned to love playing out in the snow. These pictures were taken in our backyard on such a day. I distinctly remember mom bundling me all up in my snow suit to go out and play and a few minutes later, I’d be knocking on the door to go to the bathroom. It was a lot of work getting all that gear on and off!
From before I can remember, I loved to visit my Grandma Ricks’ house. She and grandpa lived in Holladay at Holladay Villa Condominiums. It was a wonderful, magical place for me. It was here that I got to spend time with my cousins and have a sleep over. This is also where I learned how to swim and how to measure things properly and how to play games. Grandma loved to do crafts and make candy or popcorn which I loved. This is also where I was introduced to the Wonderful World of Walt Disney after dinner on Sunday evenings. After dinner we’d retire to her huge bedroom to watch TV. If there wasn’t anything good on TV, sometimes I could talk Grandma and Grandpa into setting up the projector so we could watch home movies about their trips, I especially enjoyed this as well. On one of our visits, I remember Grandma sitting me down and talking to me about what it meant to be a Ricks. She wanted to make sure that I honored my name and that I could be proud of it! We visited Grandma often, maybe even a couple of times a week. The following is a picture of me standing on the front porch when I was about two years old.
When I was younger, my mother decided to make a huge family tree. It was a huge undertaking as there were nine children in her family who were all married and had children; she wanted a picture of each one individually. No computers back then to size and process pictures. Each picture required a visit with that person, a staged snapshot then a trip to the store to drop the film off and then another trip to pick up the pictures. With that kind of process, you always hoped and prayed the pictures turned out okay. Then she made copies, sized and cut out each picture. She did her best to remember all the names but it was sometimes challenging as a lot of us were close in age and looked similar. She then made a name label and glued the picture to a branch on the tree. After months and months of painstaking work, she framed the tree. We still display this tree at family reunions; it is beautifully done and is a great tribute to the Terry family. The next picture is me standing on a chair in the basement, being staged for my picture as she did with all the cousins.
I have loved Christmas for as long as I can remember! In 1966, I was three years old and we had a beautiful, silver tinsel tree in the basement. This year I received a really awesome gift and it has been one of my favorite Christmas’s ever since! You see, we had a big stereo in the basement and Santa knew how much I loved to listen to stories and music on the record player. We had several 78’s with Peter and the Wolf and other children’s stories and music on them…imagine my delight at getting my very own table top record player and some records to go with it!!! I remember one of the songs was “A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine go Down” from the popular Mary Poppin’s movie that was released in 1964. The silly, fun song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” was on the other side. I think I must have listened to those songs at least a thousand times and they are still among my favorites today.
When I was little, everyone said I had the biggest brown eyes they’d ever seen. I like this next picture because even though I must have been feeling sad, it shows those big brown eyes.
One of my most favorite memories from childhood was just before nap time, mom sitting on the bed with me and reading fairy tales to me. Oh how I loved those stories and the wonderful pictures! It really helped me to develop a wonderful imagination. Thumbelina was one of my favorites. It was a story about a tiny girl and her grand adventures. I remember others such as The Fisherman and His Wife, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, and The Ugly Duckling. Mom even wrote a little book about a Fairy Baby who lost her mother and she illustrated it as well. Mom was quite talented in the art department. This has been a life long treasure of mine.
One day after my nap, I woke up scared. I thought I saw a man in our backyard. He had a little ladder that looked like a “stile” that he used to climb over the chain link fence into the neighbors yard and then he disappeared just like that. I cried out and mom and dad both came to see what was wrong but of course the man was gone and they didn’t believe me. Now that I’m older, I can’t imagine how or why that would happen and maybe it was just part of a weird dream, maybe even a remnant of a fairy tale story, or maybe it really was real, it seemed real, so vivid that I still remember it to this day!
OUR HOME:
I grew up in a home located at 3338 Kenton Drive in the Canyon Rim area. My parents bought this house in 1952, before I was born. Here is the story of how it came to be: One day mom and dad went out for a drive to get some tomatoes when they passed by a new subdivision in the Canyon Rim area. Mom remembers commenting about how the houses were ugly and she didn’t want to live there to which Dad replied, “That’s too bad because I think we could get a good deal on them.”
A week later they passed by there again and decided to stop and look inside one of the houses. It was a nice brick home with two bedrooms upstairs and a basement. They decided they liked it and went to tell Dad’s parents about it. Grandpa’s company, Ricks Furnace, had done some work in the area and they said it sounded like a real good deal. They thought maybe the builders would work out a down payment with them in exchange for a furnace. Dad and Grandpa went back to talk to them but learned the house was already sold. The savvy builder showed them some of his other houses and they became very intrigued. They finally settled on a bigger house with three bedrooms but no basement. It was bigger and cheaper and the builder did agree to discount the down payment for a furnace installation. Grandma and Grandpa Ricks furnished the rest of the down payment for them and then mom and dad paid them $50 a month until it was paid off. They bought the house for $14,500. The monthly payment was $90. The builder gave them the key the same day he showed it to them and they moved in immediately.
The next day mom was working in the kitchen when a strange man walked in the front door. She was quite surprised and asked, “What are you here?” And he replied in kind, “What are YOU doing here?” She informed him they had bought the house and he said he was just there yesterday and was planning to do the same!
In 1955, they decided to dig out a basement. Mom was tending the neighbor’s children for some extra cash at the time. She very cleverly told all the children they were going to play like they were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, soon she had them each digging with their little shovels and buckets and carrying dirt out! The digging started on Memorial Day and all the dirt was excavated by Labor Day of that year. This was the home I grew up in, I had my own bedroom which was later torn out and made into a dining room. In May of 1994, fourteen years after dad passed away, mom decided it was too hard for her to keep up the maintenance and yard work of the home so she sold it for $140,000 and moved into a double wide trailer at Winchester Estates.
OUR YARD:
Oh how I loved our yard. We had lots of flowers, snowballs, apple and peach blossoms, flags, peonies, pretty pink flowers under my window and raspberry bushes. In the front we had beautiful rose bushes. My mom loved to spend time in the flower garden. She got up early almost every Saturday and went to the yard. Sometimes I’d go find her and we’d work together pulling weeds, planting flowers and watering. She was a hard worker and taught me how to work as well.
MOWING LAWN WITH DAD:
When I was small, about three or four years old, my dad would sometimes put me in his shoulders while he mowed the lawn. I loved being outside with him. He built a great big swing set for us. It had one big swing and a tricky bar across the front. I loved to swing and try to touch my feet in the leaves of the apple tree. And then I’d practice tricks in the bar or climb in the apple tree. I remember many happy memories of running around chasing little white butterflies around the yard; I still smile and get a warm feeling whenever I see the white butterflies!
HOUSEWORK:
As I grew, my mom taught be how to cook and clean. It was my job to do the dishes after every dinner. I hated this job. My mom would inspect every dish I washed and I knew I was in big trouble if one wasn’t clean enough. This frustrated her as well. I remember many times getting cracked over the head with an unclean frying pan or the handle of the broom; or being swatted on my bare legs with a fly swatter…whatever was handy. I had to wash the dishes over and over sometimes and wiping the counters was a whole other story. The dishcloth had to be wrung out good, just so that it was wet but not enough to leave water on the counter. I absolutely hated being forced to clean, but looking back on it I’m glad my mother insisted on me knowing how to keep a house sparkling clean and do dishes that didn’t grow bacteria!
On Sunday’s, we often had dinner at Grandma Ricks’ house where I was expected to do the dishes as well. My mom and grandma taught me that if someone was nice enough to offer their food and cook you a meal, you darn well better be willing to help with the dishes for them!
SOME COUSINS:
Seems like just about every year, we would travel to California to see dad’s brothers, Ken and Larry and their families. I liked that because we often went to the ocean and to Disneyland! The picture below is of me and my cousins eating watermelon, by the looks of us, I’m guessing we were at the beach. I see the marble board next to Jana so I’m sure it was some outing of fun and games. I remember thinking Jana was super cool not only because she was a year older than me but she had the same name as me – almost. She was Jana Ricks and I was Jaena Ricks. In all honesty, we didn’t get along that well when she came to stay with us…probably because we were so close in age.
PLAYING GAMES:
As a child I loved to play games. I first learned how to play the card game Slap Jack from my grandma. We’d play and laugh and laugh and laugh. Then she taught be how to play fish, then I got to play cards with the adults. This is when I learned how to play hearts and clubs with the grown ups, two games I love to this day.
Another game we played often was marbles, not the kind you roll with your finger, but a board game similar to the game Trouble. My grandma and mom each had a marble board and now I have one as well. It was home made from a piece of wood with holes drilled in certain places where the marbles set. Four people could play at once and sometimes we’d have tournaments. My parents and grandparents even made up some of their own rules to give the game a twist, like every time you rolled a four, you had to move backwards, or if you shook a six you got a second turn. I remember many nights drifting off to sleep at grandma’s house listening to my mom and dad, grandma and Ada (her roommate for a time) play marbles late into the night. Then my dad would pick me up and pack me to the car for the ride home.
My mom occasionally watched the neighbor boy, his name was Wayne. I didn’t like this very much because whenever we colored together, he colored all the faces of the people in my coloring books black! I just couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a mean and horrible thing but he thought it was a riot, I’m sure he did it just get get a rise out of me. Later, my mom made some flash cards thinking that she would help Wayne and I learn our addition and subtraction. This was the worst thing ever for me because Wayne was two years older than me and I didn’t stand half a chance at ever getting an answer right before he did! I hated him for that!
There were several kids close to my age in the neighborhood and soon I started being able to go out on my own and play with them. Karie and Steven lived two houses east of me, I have many fond memories of them which I’ll take more about later, one of which was playing with trucks and building things in their cool sandbox. Wayne also had a sandbox in his backyard but I liked Karie’s better. Karen and Peggy, the neighbors on the west side of us were a lot of fun too. I was just in between their ages. We like to climb up in their large Walnut tree in the backyard and play house or dolls together. Sometimes we played “dress up” as well, Karen’s mom had lots of grown up clothing she let us try on and parade around the house in.
When I was about four years old, my mother decided to get a job. She had arranged for me to go to the Montessori Day Care on 3300 South 2806 East in Millcreek area while she worked. This was a bad idea. I hadn’t ever really been around a lot of other kids and I felt like they were all looking at me funny and being mean to me. I climbed up inside a big red tunnel on the playground and refused to come out. The staff called my mom and eventually she managed to coax me out and we left. They told my mom I couldn’t come back so she arranged for my older sister Shauna to watch me. I remember mom waking me up super early in the morning, bundling me up and putting me in her yellow Volkswagen to drop me off. I enjoyed my time at Shauna’s house. Kelly and Bryant my cousins were close to my age and Shauna was a fun mom. She taught me how to cut out snowflakes and we made pictures out of construction paper for different holidays. She also let me help her make treats in the kitchen.
Darla also took her turn babysitting me. She was a little less domestic than Shauna and seemed to have a carefree wild streak in her. Troy, my oldest nephew, was only a couple years younger than me and we got along fine. I remember many times being squished between Darla and Clint on the back of a motorcycle zooming around town. Darla was also the one who took me to LaGoon a lot. They had carload deals where everyone in the car could get in for $10, so we’d load in as many people as we could (pre seat belt days) and spend the day well into the night riding all the rides.
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