Tough Times 1982-1983

TOUGH TIMES, TRIALS  and DEATHS 1982-1983

This section will not be long, but I want to do a rapid review of a few eternal things that happened in the interim between babies. 1982-1983 were tough years. Five of our grandparents passed away among other challenges:

Ada May Sailor Meyerhoeffer died in February 1982.  I am pretty sure she had Alzheimers Disease before we even knew it existed. She was always such a gentle, proper, classy woman. She had been a spinster who raised the Tate's children when my grandpa Marvin married her after his divorce. The last time we visited her she showed my mother and I “friends” who were visiting her in her bedroom mirror (they were us) and she had been feeding my grandpa cat food and leaving the stove top on. 

Marvin Lewis Meyerhoeffer passed away on June 17, 1982. My parents moved Grandpa Marv to Twin Falls shortly after Ada died. He had suffered a stroke and was not in the best health. Roger and I had picked out a comfortable recliner for him to sit in, but he did not need it long since he was put in a care facility shortly after arriving in Twin Falls. When he died my parents and brothers had all gone to Pebble Beach for the U.S. Open, so the Care Center called me hoping to have me help because none of us knew where they were and it was the days before cell phones.

My Grandpa Marv and Grandma Ada in Moscow with my dad.

Bertha Lesta Hatfield died on October 20, 1982. She was my Grandpa Art’s mother and everyone was so impressed she had lived so long in good health. She was born in 1888. I did not know her well, but remember visiting her occasionally.

Mattie Fjeldsted Lewis left this earth on December 7, 1982.  Grandma Lewis was Roger’s mother’s mother and had lived with them for many years. Her health was never good, but she was always a delight and would read our fortunes with cards or read our palms when we asked. (Her sisters even read tea leaves and head bumps.) She was a friend that I enjoyed visiting with and even wrote her a poem. Both Roger’s and Keegan’s middle names came from her family names.

Benjamin Williams Harding passed away on February 2, 1983. He was in a car wreck the day before and life-flighted to Salt Lake City, but did not make it. He had pulled out in front of a teenaged driver that he did not see, probably because he was wearing a hat the police said. Grandpa Ben had been a sheep herder at one time and loved sports. He always had candy for us grandkids…Horehound hard candies, Beemans and Black Licorice gum...were some of the flavors I remember. They had moved to Heyburn, Idaho and were living in a little house on my Uncle Gerald Ben’s farm when he died. My Gma June lived there alone unable to use her arms for another 22 years.

Grandpa Ben and Grandma June in Heyburn, Idaho 

Then Roger’s sister Cheri’s little boy James Ryan Hessing died on August 10, 1983. He was their first son after four daughters and the family had all gone camping and left him with his Hessing grandparents to tend. He was found in his crib deceased from crib death. Roger and his dad came and picked me up at girl’s camp and we went with some Hessing family members to find Cheri and Brent and tell them. It was one of the most awful things I have had to do. As soon as Cheri saw us she started wailing… “no, no, not my son”. (Ryan later appeared to Cheri as a missionary-aged young man to comfort her and let her know he was okay.) Then my cousin Cindy Harding Mickelson lost her daughter Megan to crib death that year too. It was a tough time of loss in our family.

A different kind of loss happened that year as well. On Stephanie’s first birth in December of 1982, Roger lost his job and was no longer employed. Economic times were tough. First he had been cut to four day work weeks, which had been tight, but better than no job at all. Roger was so depressed. He felt like he had done everything asked of him and thought God had let him down. His dear grandmother had just died a few weeks before and things seemed so heavy he could not get out of bed for a few days. I truly was not worried and tried to be his cheerleader, but was probably just annoying. I knew Roger was a hard worker and heaven would provide. It was a tough Christmastime that year, but shortly after he was offered a job by our neighbor at Associates Financial Services. Not his dream job, but a job was a job and it had potential. We still had our house and two darling daughters and my brother Chris lived with us while going to Boise State that year so his rent helped too. Roger’s former boss the Stake President called me to the Stake Young Women’s presidency shortly after Roger’s job ended and that was an awkward interesting interview. President Grow cried. I hope he felt a little bad about leaving a young family unemployed.

One bright spot during that time (and of course there were others too) was that my dad was hired as President of the College of Southern Idaho.