60 Snapshots of my Childhood #31-40

31. When we were small my mother had an old ironer where she sat and ironed all our clothes. I haven’t seen one like it since I was little. She often dressed us in little Buster Brown knit clothes, and even ironed them. We loved to run around the basement while she ironed. I remember a wringer washer too, though it was rarely used.

32. In the summers we were allowed to stay up and watch old black and white movies on TV. Somehow we got the idea that whoever stayed up the latest won. We stayed up even after the stations all went off the air and only the test pattern showed. When I got older I secretly tried to stay up later than my oldest sister Pat who was 3 years older. Gee, wonder why I’m such a night owl.

33. Our clocks were always set 10 minutes fast to help us get places on time. It didn’t work. We all knew they were fast. With 8 children, and most of them primping girls, we just never got anywhere on time. Gee, wonder why I’m still running late.

34. Birthdays were usually family affairs, rarely a party with friends, especially for us younger kids. One year I was really surprised when I was eating breakfast in my pajamas and my mother walked in with my friends for a surprise birthday party for me! I think it was my 8th birthday. I got fins for my birthday that year and I wore them swimming all day - for hours. When I got out of the water I found I had worn them too tightly and they had worn the skin away on my ankles. I had big wet scabs for weeks, and still have the scars to show for it.

35. My busy mother usually bought a bakery cake for birthdays, and told me later that she always felt guilty that she didn’t make them herself. When I raised my own children, I couldn’t afford bakery cakes and always felt guilty that they had to have home-made, even though I decorated some pretty cute ones over the years. To this day I still love bakery cake .

36. I learned to ride a bike while my parents were away on a trip (Nassau or Hawaii). I did it all alone, and hurt myself a little when I couldn’t stop and went over the cement curb into a shrub by the garage. I had to wait forever while they unpacked all their souvenirs before they would come see what I had learned.

37. I spent many hours in our front room pitching wiffle balls to my older brother who was the captain of the high school baseball team (and football and basketball). I was the one he preferred to do that, and my mother let us even though we had two large picture windows in that room. I got to be a pretty fair pitcher.

38. My father had a small plane and I loved to go anywhere anytime with him in it, even though I usually ended up wetting myself or getting sick. We went to parades in Portland, rodeos in Pendleton, dog shows in Canada, and lots of interesting places. It was always amazing to me to fly high above the earth and through the clouds. It always gave me a new perspective.

39. My little brother John never water-skied with the rest of us. One cool, cloudy day when no one else was home, John asked me if I would drive for him. I did a lot of the driving for skiers. I was surprised, but he was persistent, so I took him out. He fell a lot, but with every fall he got noticeably better. In a very short time he was skiing, on one ski even, almost as good as anyone else. It was a very cool thing to see. I realized that he didn’t want to learn in front of everyone else, and took advantage of the privacy of that day.

40. My memory of my own experience learning to water ski always fills my heart with gratitude. I was taught, not by my own family, but by friends of ours that were using our dock. I was having a lot of trouble getting up. We tried and tried for what seemed like hours. I had been around the whole 2-mile lake trying. I wanted to give up; I didn’t think I could ever get it. But the kind lady, Muriel, would not let me give up. I’m sure the male driver was dying. Finally, finally I made it up. How happy and relieved we ALL were! And I rarely had trouble ever again; I just needed to feel once what it felt like to get up. But I never learned to ski on one ski; I always liked the security of two feet on the water.

The Queen of Everything

The Queen of Everything is a character drawn by the artist Mary Engelbreit. You can find her image on t-shirts, mugs, calendars, stationery, and more.

There’s another place I think it should be etched:
in our hearts and minds.

One of the drawings of The Queen of Everything shows her with one hand raised high and in her other hand is a scroll with all her demands on it, so long that it falls to the floor and keeps on rolling. The caption reads, "The Queen Has Spoken!" That is not the kind of queen I’m talking about.

We are all daughters of a Heavenly King, and in His Celestial Kingdom, any girl can qualify to become a queen:

You shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities and powers, dominions, all heights and depths—
you shall pass by the angels, to your exaltation and glory in all things.
Then shall you be above all, because all things are subject unto you. (D&C 132)

Doesn’t that sound like a Queen of Everything?
This is the promise given to those who enter into the New and Everlasting covenant, which includes all the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

The King of Heaven has taught, trained and tutored His daughters to this end.
The Prince of Peace has paid and paved The Way.
The only thing we need to do is to come to the Throne of God with credentials, proof of covenants made and kept, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and to be a Queen of Everything.

If you don’t, then you may be a Princess of Quite a Lot --
or a Prince of What’s Leftover.
But that’s never as good as being queen.

After all, “It’s Good to be Queen.”

Very good.

(Trademarks of Mary Engelbreit)

10 more of my 60 snapshots

21. One day in a youth Sunday School class we were learning about someone who didn’t believe in the gospel. I remember wondering out loud, “How can anyone not believe the Church is true?” A wise Sister Haneberg said, You say that now, but you just wait a couple of years and you too will start to have your doubts.
“Not me,” I thought.” I’ll never doubt it.”
Well, she was right. As I entered my teens I began to have questions about the Church. At first I was shocked that I would have doubts. Then I remembered what she said, and figured it must be normal to question what you had been taught.
I knew some people who sat in their box of “I don’t know” and I didn’t want to do that. So I made it a life’s quest to find the answers to the questions I had. It has been a very interesting journey, and truth has withstood any test I’ve given it.

22. My mother was a busy lady, so we got used to waiting for hours for her to pick us up, and sometimes forgetting about us altogether. One time she forgot I had a roller skating party after school. It was a Mutual night, so after waiting for hours I decided to walk home. It was pouring down heavy Northwest rain the whole way. I had a double-stack of heavy school books. The walk was probably about 5 miles, and, yes, much of it was uphill. I remember talking to myself the whole way home, going through the different stages of anger and forgiveness, misery and enjoyment, as I soaked through. My mother spotted me on a quick run to the grocery about half a mile from home. She felt so badly. She put me right into a hot tub, and nursed me the rest of the night. Then I felt badly for her.

23. We drove to Utah most summers (before freeways) and at one time had a black Kaiser, a regular sedan. Mom drove with 8 kids crawling all over the car, and no disposable diapers. One time the roof of the car caved in. And at least once all our clothes that had been strapped to the top of the car came loose and flew all over the highway.

24. In the “old days,” we bought marshmallows in a box, 12 to a box, with tissue paper and a very fine powdered coating. They were a nice confection, not the air-filled tasteless marshmallows of today. I snitched in them whenever I could. One Christmas I found a box, my very own box, in my stocking. That day I knew my mother really loved me.

25. My dad decided to enlarge the basement. Because we were little, he had us crawl under the house into the crawlspace to dig out dirt until he could fit in. It was very dirty, dark and spidery, and hard work. We would never say the word hell, or probably even think it, but it was not a fun place. Dad broke his finger one day pushing the wheelbarrow through the narrow cement opening that had been the little door, but continued to work into the night. It was hard to complain after we saw what he was willing to do.

26. We had a little red battery-run car for the kids to drive around the driveway. It had a “gas” pedal and brakes, a horn, lights, and really drove like a car. It was open, no top, and made of steel, not a plastic toy like today.

27. To give my mom a break from cooking, we often went out to dinner after morning church on Sunday. Most often we went to the back of Olberg’s Drug Store. I thought it was really fancy at the time, but realized later that it was just the back of a drug store. Dad never came, so I don’t know how much of a break it was for my mother to handle 8 very active kids in a restaurant. But those open-faced hot roast beef sandwiches sure seemed fancy.

28. I took a liking to cooking early in my life, and was often in the kitchen watching my mother, or watching cooking shows on television. For a while, my specialty was Puffed Omelet. It’s an omelet with beaten egg whites folded into the yolks to make it puffy, and we had a special pan that folded it in half. I made them every day after school.

29. All of us girls took dancing lessons. We took tap, ballet, and tumbling until high school. I think I was just getting into toe shoes when we gave it up, and I didn’t take tumbling long enough to learn flips with no hands. My mother made our costumes for our annual recitals. My favorite was my Little Red Riding Hood costume, with a tutu as always. My favorite ballet was to Waltz of the Flowers.

30. When I was still in grade school my mother let me go to the movies with a boy named John. She dropped me off at the theater and I think another couple joined us. After the movie we went down the street to a diner and had chili. I didn’t think of it as a date until I was there, and the boy was really, really nice (and tall), but I don’t know what my mother was thinking! I didn’t do that again for many years.

Snapshots from My Life

In honor of my 60th birthday, I decided to record 60 snapshots from my childhood.

I thought it would be hard, but maybe I’ll live to be a hundred since that’s how many I came up with.

I won’t bore you to death with them all, but here’s 20 to start with.

My sisters may rightly dispute the facts, but these are my memories.


1. My earliest memory is standing in the living room looking at my mother in the hall of our small project house. It snapped in my brain like a photograph. It’s the only memory I have of that house.

2. I remember seeing the big white house on Kitsap Lake for the first time. The upstairs rooms were huge, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, walk-in closets and attics, and even a cool portal window in one of the closets. It was years later that I learned about The Secret Room, where bootleggers hid their wares during Prohibition.

3. In first grade at Washington Elementary, and there was a black boy who was in love with me. He always chased me at recess and wanted to kiss me. One day he cornered me. When everyone else had gone back to class, a teacher intervened to break the stalemate, and insisted I let him kiss me so we could all go back to class. I let him peck me on the cheek.

4. One day in 3rd grade I was standing around my teacher’s desk with some girls while the others were outside at recess. I don’t know what I said, but Mrs. Lumley said, “Georgia, just because your dad is a doctor doesn’t mean you are better than everyone else.” I was instantly horrified, totally repentant, and completely understood her, all at once. I knew she was right, and have never forgotten what she said.

5. When I was in the 5th grade, the small school library in our classroom. I was appointed the school librarian, a job I loved and cherished. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but if pressed to answer I say I want to be a librarian.

6. I was a middle child and often had to try on hand me downs. Clothes were made of stiff cottons then, and very fitted, so I got stuck many times in dresses that were too small. I hated those try-on sessions. Maybe that’s why I’m claustrophobic.

7. Every Easter my mother would take us to the upper floor of Bremer’s, the local department store owned by Mr. Bremer after whom Bremerton was named, and buy us new Easter outfits. We got the whole deal: dresses, slips, underwear, shoes, socks, coats, gloves and even hats.

8. In the sixth grade Mrs. Baker made me write 100 sentences. You’d think I’d never forget what I did and what I had to write, but I have. It was the only time in my life I was punished so. She said at the time that she knew I hated her then, but that I would thank her for it later. This wise teacher was right on both counts.

9. We had a real jukebox in the big upstairs room. It stood about 5 feet tall and played records. We danced for hours and hours, and put on shows for the family.

10. We had a large stone patio, and we liked to jump off it onto the lawn below. One day I got brave and jumped off the higher ledge, and put my front teeth through my tongue. The gash bled a lot, but you don’t stitch a wet tongue.

11. Our first boat at our house on the lake was a little dinghy. We loved to go out in it and row around the lake. Then we got a white boat that had a little motor on it. That’s the one we weren’t supposed to play on, but we did, and Kaye fell in. I remember the long, hard run up the hill to fetch my mother, seeing Sue sitting on the bow, and Kaye on her back in the water waving her arms like she was swimming.

12. One day we came home from school and there was a BIG box in our driveway. When Dad came home we opened it to find a 16’ motorboat! We always joked that it came in a box. That was the beginning of our waterskiing days on the lake. I did a lot of the driving, and I mean a lot.

13. We were coming home one day and as we started down the driveway, Kaye said, “Look at me” as she stuck her head out an open window. I blinked and she was gone! She had fallen out of the car. Cool trick, Kaye!

14. My sister was driving us to dancing lessons one Saturday morning. I got into the old convertible, leaned against the door, and she took off around the corner of the circular driveway. I hadn’t closed the door tightly, and it flew open and I flew out! I flew a good bit down the cement driveway. I was okay, but I didn’t go to dance that day.

15. Our house had walk-in attics with low ceilings that were very fun. In the largest attic, we spent hours playing business, or we would play school where I taught my little sisters what I had learned. They claim it put them ahead in school.

16. Sue, Kaye and I slept in the big room upstairs, but not much. We kept each other up late most nights playing games. This was very frustrating to my mother. Sometimes she would come and stand in the hall. I would see her and get quiet, then my sisters would eventually get the hint. Or she would come into the room and turn on the light. Sometimes she would make us get up and clean up our messy room. Or she would make us go downstairs and do dishes, which sometimes ended up in another giggling session. Nothing she did ever cured us.

17. We went through a lot of milk with 8 kids. For a while the milkman brought it to our kitchen door twice a week. Sometimes we bought it in 3-gallon glass jugs, one which Kaye broke on the back steps when she was too little to carry it. She still has a scar from the gash she got. At one time we had a milk dispensing machine like restaurants have. It held 2 5-gallon metal containers and we dispensed it through a spout by lifting a handle. I think we had chocolate milk in it too.

18. In the 5th grade I learned to play the clarinet at school. What I really wanted, but never did, was to play the oboe. I had to give up the clarinet in 8th grade because orchestra was first period and I had a constant sore throat.

19. My mother was the ward organist most of our life. She didn’t do it often, but I loved it when she played the piano at home. That’s what made me want to learn to play. I took lessons long enough to learn to read music, but I hated practicing so I quit. But when the piano got moved from the living room to the privacy of a back bedroom, I renewed my interest in learning to play. One summer I played for hours and hours every day until I could play. The first song I learned with two hands was Beautiful Dreamer. I memorized Moon River so I could play it without looking.

20. My dad loved to go clam digging at the beach on the Pacific Ocean. We had to get up in the middle of the night to catch the tides. It was a long and winding ride in the dark. We played under dark gray skies on cold gray beaches while my dad dug for clams. We rode home on winding roads with smelly clams sloshing in the back of the station wagon. I don’t know how we did it on empty stomachs, but someone always threw up. And we always went back again. That Dad wanted to take us is still a wonder to me.

Landmark

Today is my birthday.
I'm another year older.

For the most part, I have enjoyed getting older.
There is, however, a point of diminishing returns.

They say “Older but Wiser”, but sometimes you’re just older.

Today I turned 60. 60, mind you!

The birthday itself doesn’t bother me.
I’ve never had trouble turning any age, except one. For me it was 50. The day itself didn’t bother me, but coming up on it did.
As I saw it, all the fun things of life were behind me: being a child, going to school, dating, marrying, having children. And what was there to look forward to? Not much.

It's now 10 happy years later, and I’m tired. I was born tired. I was so listless as a child my mother thought I had a disease. But now I’m really tired. I find that time moves faster and I move slower. I get less done. I am spent more easily. I rest more often.

I really can’t complain. My health is good. I still work and play and maybe can still do a handspring.

It’s small stuff that gravity is winning the war with my body, and that it takes me twice as long to look half as good. By the time I’ve applied eye cream, wrinkle cream, firming cream, moisturizer, make-up, and taken all my pills, it’s lunchtime.

Being 50 was okay, kind of middle-aged. But there’s nothing middle-aged about 60. I am officially old.

Growing old is not the same thing as growing up.
The real problem is that I’m not grown up enough to be 60.

The truth be told, I’m kind of proud to be 60.
I am at last grateful to my dad for my oily skin, and to my forever-young mother. I feel younger, look younger, and think younger than some people my age.


Maybe there’s something to Peter Pan.

Maybe I don't have to grow up.

I just have to grow.




You are always the same age inside. Mary Engelbreit

I Lived to See It

Sanford Porter, my 4th Great Maternal Grandfather

“Sanford is a strange boy. I cannot make him out.”
These were the words of his father upon Sanford’s nagging questions about God, the soul of man, the Bible, and the Afterlife.

When his father died, Sanford’s questions became even more intense.

An inveterate searcher of the Bible, yet finding no satisfactory answers, Sanford considered himself “very near, if not quite, an atheist or infidel”.

Troubled by questions for years, it got to where he paced the barn by day and the house by night. Finally, he could not eat or sleep, yet was not tired or hungry, and for three days he talked to no one and no one talked to him. He spread his arms out, raised his hands, and cried aloud, “O God, if there be a God, show me the way, the right way.”
Then he heard a Voice: “There is a God, and he has known the desires of your heart this number of years. I will instruct you three times this night the way that is right.”

He lay down to sleep, and when he closed his eyes an angel in a long white robe with a red sash appeared and bid him, “Come”. Sanford was shown the Spirit World, and the order of Heaven. He was able to ask his questions and receive answers:
Was Jesus Christ the Son of God: Yes, temporally and spiritually.
Is the Bible true? Many things are lost, but true enough for salvation if read by the Spirit.
If a child dies in infancy are they doomed to hell? “No, emphatically no!”
Are there any churches that are right? “No. But the time is shortly ripe for it to come again. You may not live to see it, but your children certainly will.” This was in 1816.

About 15 years later, a couple of missionaries came to his home to tell of a new profession. They were Lyman Wight and John Corrill. For three days and nights, almost without sleep, he studied the Book of Mormon with them, and asked his many questions.

On the morning of the third day, he said, “If you have told me the truth—and I have not the least doubt of it—your church is the right church, and the only one on the face of the whole earth.” Shortly thereafter, he and his wife were baptized into the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In his journal, Sanford wrote:

“I had a vision, and I know I had a vision,” though "they (promulgators of priestcraft) called me a liar, a blasphemer, a dreamer."

“We were in a dark chamber and could find no window or door that would admit light—groping in darkness—terrible darkness. There is still darkness on the earth and in the minds of men, but nothing to compare with the gross darkness that existed before the advent of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel had diffused light and warmth upon the earth, and to some extent all men are partakers of it.

“I have lived to see it!”

Georgie-Porgie

I, Georgia Bramwell, was born on August 7, the fourth child, third daughter of Glen Paul and Frances Bramwell, in the old Harrison Memorial Hospital on Marion Avenue in Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington. My dad always introduced me as “#4”.

In those days, mothers were completely knocked out, so my mother didn’t know what she’d had until she came out of the anesthesia. She stayed in the hospital for two weeks.

I know very little about my childhood, except that I walked very late (but I’ve been slow and late my whole life), and supposedly I was a very sweet-tempered child.

When I was about 4 we moved out of Navy project housing and into a large 3-story white brick house on Kitsap Lake. Three of us, my younger sisters and I, slept in a double bed in a nook in what was called the “piano room”. When we outgrew that, we each got our own section of the large upstairs bedroom where we kept each other awake late into the night every night.

One day I was playing with my two little sisters on the dock, or, more correctly, the boat, which we weren’t supposed to do. My youngest sister fell into the water. We were too little to get her out. It took an eternity for my little legs to run all the way up the hill to the house. When I finally found my mother she was on a long distance call. I finally broke through all the shushes to tell what happened. I followed my mother down to the lake, at a much faster pace than going up, and watched her jump into the water to rescue my sister. My other sister was still just sitting on the bow of the boat, and the water was only about a foot deep, but, what can I say?—we were little and dumb. We took my dripping wet sister to my dad (the doctor)’s office where they pumped her stomach and she survived. Whew!

When I was 5, Kindergarten wasn’t part of the school system, but my mother, when she had time, drove me to a dark little house in the woods where someone was teaching kindergarten.

I was baptized at 8 into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but several months after my birthday. A new chapel was being built and I wanted to be the first one baptized there, but my mother was impatient to get me dunked, so I was the last one baptized at the old YMCA and my best friend got to be the first one in the new church. No one in my family came to my baptism.

I was considered kind of a sickly child, though I never had any serious illnesses. I had measles, maybe mumps, but I never had chicken pox nor had my tonsils taken out. I just didn’t feel well alot. It was probably psychological, but when I was in junior high I was diagnosed with a structural stomach problem that has been a small “thorn in my side” all my life. I had to quit the orchestra in 8th grade because playing a clarinet caused a constant sore throat, something I’m still prone to. Thankfully, I can’t sing for very long.

I followed three illustrious siblings into high school where they were student officers, team captains, cheerleaders, drill teamers, etc., but I laid very low and kept quiet. My senior year I was elected president of the biggest club in school, the one everyone could join. I was shocked! When I went to talk to the principal, he was shocked! “How can you be a Bramwell and I not know you!”

This late-bloomer was just beginning to bloom. During that time I was in charge of my high school’s Homecoming. I was Ward Chorister, Ward Dance Director, an assistant to the adult leaders at Girls Camp, and directed a Road Show. It was all a great learning experience for this reluctant novice.

And I hadn’t even left home yet.

Back to Adam

Take this with a BIG grain of salt, but it's fun to see the possibilities!

And maybe it will help Kathryn pick a baby name.
(I still like Printha Priscilla--ha.)

1. Adam
2. Seth
3. Enos
4. Cainan
5. Mahalaleel
6. Jared
7. Enoch
8. Methusaleh
9. Lamech
10. NOAH
11. Shem
12. Arphazad
13. Selah
14. Eber
15. Peleg
16. Reu
17. Serug
18. Nahor
19. Terah
20. Abraham
21. Isaac
22. Jacob
23. Judah
24. Pharoz
25. Hezron
26. Aram
27. Aminadab
28. Nashon
29. Salmon
30. Boaz md Ruth
31. Obed
32. Jesse
33. DAVID
34. Nathan
35. Mattatha
36. Menan
37. Melea
38. Eliakim
39. Jonan
40. Joseph
41. Juda
42. Simeon
43. Levi
44. Matthat
45. Jorim
46. Eliezer
47. Jose
48. Er
49. Elmodam
50. Cosam
51. Addi
52. Melchi
53. Neri
54. Salathiel
55. Zorobabel
56. Rhesa
57. Joanna
58. Juda
59. Joseph
60. Semei
61. Mattathias
62. Maath
63. Nagge
64. Esli
65. Naum
66. Amos
67. Mattathias
68. Joseph
69. Janna
70. Melchi
71. Levi
72. Matthan
73. Joseph of Arimathea
74. ANNA, cousin to Mary
75. Penardim
76. Bran
77. Caradoc
78. Cyllin
79. Coel King of Britain
80. Arthildis md King of Franconia
81. Clodimir King of the Franks
82. Farabert King
83. Sunno King
84. Hilderic King
85. Bartherus King
86. Clodius III King
87. Walter King
88. Dagobert King
89. Genebald Duke of East Franks
90. Dagobert King
91. Clodius King
92. Marcomir King
93. Pharamond First King of France
94. Clodio King of Westphalia
95. Sigimerus
96. Ferreolus
97. Ausbert
98. Arnoaldos
99. St. Arnolph
100. Anchises
101. Pipin of Heristal
102. Charles Martel
103. Pipin le Bref King of France
104. CHARLEMAGNE Emperor of the West
105. Pepin King of Italy
106. Bernard King of Italy
107. Pepin II King of Italy
108. Herbert I de Vermandois
109. Beatrice de Vermandois
110. Hugh the Great Count of Paris
111. Hugh Capet King of France
112. Robert II King of France
113. Adela Princess of France
114. Matilda Queen of England md William I “The Conqueror”
115. Henry I King of England
116. Matilda Empress of Germany
117. Henry II
118. John “Lackland” King of England md Isabella
119. Henry III King of England
120. Edmund Prince of England
121. Henry Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster
122. Joan of Lancaster
123. John de Mowbray
124. Eleanor de Mowbray
125. Eleanor de Welles
126. Constance Poynings
127. John Paulet
128. John Paulet
129. Eleanor Paulet
130. Anne Paulet md Thomas Goddard
131. Richard Goddard
132. Edward Goddard
133. William Goddard
134. Edward Goddard
135. Ebenezer Goddard
136. Susannah Goddard md Phineas Howe
137. Rhoda Howe md Joseph Richards
138. Phineas Richards
139. Samuel Whitney Richards
140. Maria Ann Richards md David Spilsbury
141. Josephine Spilsbury md Wilford Bramwell
142. Glen Paul Bramwell
143. Georgia Bramwell