Wednesday, April 23, 2014

41 years ago

April 23, 1973

            Harold - dist leader Lyon
            New address/  Chez Thome
                                    74 Cours de la Liberte
                                    69003
                                    Lyon, France

Dear Family,

It is Monday morning again.  Yesterday was Easter, and I believe for the first time in the history of the Carlson Clan we didn’t cook or color Easter eggs.  In fact, a pound of Easter candies, and a chocolate rabbit were all we got.  Yesterday afternoon Grandma and I went to Salt Lake to Bill Davidson’s missionary farewell.  He is going to the Northern mission, with headquarters in Chicago.  Most of the family were there.  I’m afraid I get too tired tho.  I haven’t gone in the car lately without nearly going to sleep at the wheel.  I don’t get to sleep before midnight, and am awake at 6:A.M.  Last night I got to bed by 9:30 for the first time in months, and slept till 7:A.M. and I felt better.  Will has been going out playing night games with the neighborhood kids every night till 10:P.M. and I am going to have to put a stop to that except for a couple of nights a week.  This every night has got to stop.  He went again to McDonald’s and they always say come back in three weeks.  This time he is going in every week till they get tired of seeing him.

Elda Mae Runyan and Lee Gaskill came by one evening last week to visit.  The Runyans were here on a youth temple trip.  They did baptisms in the Salt Lake Temple and in Manti.  Denver school had a whole week off for Easter Vacation.  Grandma is quite a character.  About 9:15 P.M. she said, “When are they going home.”  I told her in a little while, and asked her if I could help her get to bed.  She said, “No, I had better not go to bed.  I had better stay up and help you get rid of them.”  I took her to the bedroom and told her that those ladies had come all the way from Denver to see me, and she said, “Denver isn’t very far away these days” “Tell them that the goblins come out after 9:o’clock at night around here.”  We just had a good laugh over it.  Elda Mae was saying that Grandma Lucy is now in a nursing home, that her mind wanders, and George has taken over her property and finances.  Lee Gaskell spent the night with me, and mentioned that Tim Runyan is not active in the church.  She said that he started working for Jerry Slaughter and got in with the wrong bunch.

Lou called Friday evening, and he has only one more test to take, and his average percentage is 90, and he will graduate on the 18th, and they will be here by the evening of the 19th.  He is going to get spoiled with the army coming in and packing all his household goods etc.  The army will even come here and get all their things from here.  Kirkhams will have to bring the things they have up there, and the Army will pick them all up here.  Boy, some people have it easy.  They will have 15 days off, and then they will be going to Ft. Riley, Kansas.  We can go see them on our way home from Virginia.  Will can’t get off school till the 24th, so if Laurie has had her baby, we will leave the afternoon of the 24th of May for Virginia, and will go as far as Loveland, get there about 1:A.M., sleep till about 5 or 6 A.M. and then get going again.  We will probably make one more stop before we get to Virginia.  We are taking the old car.  I will buy 4 new tires, and have someone check the car over good, and I think we will make it ok.  Lou and Karen will stay here till Alice and Sam arrive, then they will go on up to Salt Lake.  Of course Laurie and Marlin has room for them if they want to go up there.  By then, maybe the snow will be gone from the road.  Yesterday the sun was out all day, but it was quite cold.  It snowed nearly every day last week, and as I looked up at the mountains, I felt that we were in the garden of the selfish giant where it was always winter.  The deer were even down on the mountain again on Saturday morning.

I’ll be glad when my May lesson is over.  It has been quite hard for me to concentrate long enough to prepare a lesson.  I sometimes feel like I have nothing, or no object to my life.  I work till I am ready to drop just so I won’t have to think.  It is crazy, but I will either get a job by fall, or start going to school, and try to catch up with my children.


Harold I feel that you are going thru a testing period with so little activity in the church in the city of Valence.  This is probably the hardest time of your whole mission, and the way you discipline yourself will determine how you feel about yourself, and your mission.  There is someone in that town looking for the gospel, or you wouldn’t have been kept there for so long a time.  Keep searching them out.  Hope the tapes arrived ok.  Lou and Karen’s David is going into the hospital to have his tear duct probed.  It has been clogged since birth, and they had it all scheduled for last week, and he caught cold, and they had to cancel.  They were going in again today to have him checked.  End of paper. Lovingly, Mother

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