So I did—Fateful Day! The Office Manager interviewed me, and I told him that if there was no chance of its being permanent I wasn’t interested and was going to get up and leave, but he said that they really were desperate for help and wouldn’t I please stay and help them that afternoon since I was already there. So I did. He put me on form letters to creditors, and of course, I sat there with the typewriter smoking and clattering and sputtering with my speed and did I ever put out the work. when it was quitting time, he also offered me a job as he secretary and it was really a good job for a time, so I took it and never did go back to finish up at the Business College. I really had never taken a lot of shorthand and I didn’t know whether I could read it back or not and the next day about noon, after writing a jillion more form letters, he dictated to me all afternoon and I was terrified. I went home that night and sat and transcribed all the letters above the shorthand. Actually, I didn’t have any problem with it at all and fit right into the job and began saving money to go to Chicago the next year…all time still continuing my lessons and playing with the all girl band.
Working at Macdonald’s was a tall, handsome fellow who was back in the shipping department. He was attractive and I thought it might be fun to date him. At the Chocolate Company, all the MacDonald family worked there even though at that time they had made a lot of money. The old man who started the firm, J. G. MacDonald, two of the sons and two of the daughters (both of whom were married, but working, all worked there. One of them worked on the switchboard, and I took her place during her lunch hour and often the tall handsome fellow would sit a few feet away and call his girlfriend and talk to her for half an hour. It sounded as though they had quite a relationship going, but even so I kept having some sort of a feeling about him. After he had talked to her, he most always came over and kidded around with me. I saw a date coming closer and closer as the days progressed, and finally one day he said, “What would you say if I asked you for a date?” And, in my ‘smartiest’ voice I answered, “Why don’t you ask me and see?” Well, that date led to many more and along the way the girl in Clearfield, or somewhere or other was forgotten. Of course, his name was Al (Alma) Worsley (no middle name) and our first date was on January 3, 1929 and I was 19.
I felt that he was strong in the Church and after Rod, that a big consideration. He seemed to be headed for better things there at the Company, and all in all, I thought he was acceptable. The night after our first date, when I got back to the apartment, the girls asked me how I liked him and my reply was “Oh, pretty good. I’m going to marry him. I think my folks would like him.” I think that at that time Rod was still the number one person in my life even though I knew I would probably never see him again. That statement was made because of the love affair I had shortly before with a fellow who was Catholic and the fuss my family had made.
Well, I started dating Al, and it got to be more and more of a habit. He cut it off with the old girlfriend whom his Mother thought he was going to marry and along about the first of March we got engaged. I had never met his folks, who lived in Farmington and dreaded it, but knew that it had to happen sooner or later.
On Saturday night he asked me to go out to Church with him at Farmington where he was in the Presidency of the Sunday School, meet his folks, and stay for dinner. I tried to wangle out of it, but knew it had to come sometime so I said I would. He usually went home on Saturday night and was there for Sunday, but once in a while when he had a late date, he stayed in Salt Lake. The next morning I was up and ready, but he was late. There was what seemed like three feet of snow on the ground. We had wanted to get there early enough to go and get his Mother and Luana (his only sister’s oldest daughter who lived with her grandparents) but since he was late, we didn’t get there in time and his Mother and Luana were walking up toward the Church from the lane where they lived when we arrived. Al stopped the car and asked his Mother and Luana (who was about five) to get in, but she just shrugged her shoulders and kept on walking. I was crushed. I couldn’t imagine anyone acting like that and from that moment on the relationship was a disaster. We drove up to the Church and waited outside the door for his Mother and Luana to arrive and when they did, he went over to his Mother to get her to come over and meet me, but she just brushed on past him and went toward the Church. I wanted to die right on the spot or be translated back to my apartment or something. Al went over and grabbed his Mother and remonstrated a little with her and practically dragged her back to meet me and she said a cold “How do you do.” and turned and walked into the Church. I don’t know what took place at Sunday School because I was in turmoil. When Sunday School was over, I asked Al to take me back to Salt Lake because I was surely not welcome in his home and wanted to get out of the whole thing right then, but he talked me into going down to the house where I met his Dad who was a little more cordial. They lived down a lane in a small house on a farm which his Dad rented. I don’t believe that he ever owned it, but if he did, they had lost or sold it and were still living in the house. His parents seemed ancient to me and since Al was the youngest of a fairly large family, I guess they were in their fifties, but to me at 19 that seemed very old.
His Mother unbent a little during the afternoon but not much. I was somewhat appalled at his family. Their language was coarse and then talked about things openly that I felt applied to the bedroom or bathroom only, and I guess in my sheltered life it was rather shocking. All in all it wasn’t the happiest of times.
When we left, Al knew I was very upset, but he said his Mother would get over it and that the reason that she was upset was that he had brought me to dinner and hadn’t brought any meat. At least that is the excuse she gave to another daughter-in-law later. I really wondered about that because how did she know we didn’t have a whole dead cow in the back of the car when we drove up.
Well, that was my introduction to his family. He had another brother and his wife, Frank and Naomi, who lived in Farmington. Frank was a butcher and they had been unable to have children who lived. During the course of the next few years they had four beautiful babies who only lived until they were about six months old or so and then choked to death slowly with some thymus condition. After the second death, she went to another doctor who said he felt he could get her through a successful pregnancy without the former problems. I can remember her having a whole shelf full of medicine that she took and wonder of wonders this baby girl lived. She’s still alive now and a good friend with me and all the family. She has been overweight all her life and I felt she might never marry, but she did and he is a wonderful husband and father and they have several fine children as well as adopting several Indian children who lived with them and went to school. She and her husband still live in Farmington and her personality is still as charming and fun as ever and I always enjoy visiting with her. Her name is Bernice Worsley Smith. After she was born, two more children were born with the same condition as the first two and died. Bernice said at those funerals, people kept telling her parents that they must have been very special children to be taken so early. She said she grew up feeling that she must not be very special or worthy because God didn’t take her. It took a long time for her to come to terms with her feelings. About a month or so after the last child died, the doctors found a cure for this thymus condition and no baby needs to die now because of it. I have always felt sad for them.
Al had another brother living in Ogden who was married to a society gal who wasn’t a member of the Church. His name was Bill (William Wallace) and I always wondered how he had married this type of girl. They had one adopted daughter, Helen, who is now very active in the Church, but I can’t remember where she lives. This brother smoked and wasn’t active in the Church and I really can’t remember much what he did for a living, but I’ll bring him into this history later.
Al’s oldest brother, Sid, lived with his family in Indiana, and as I heard from Naomi and Frank, his wife couldn’t stand the in-laws and since she was from Indiana, she persuaded her husband to move there and they have been there since, although both are gone now. He was the only brother to go on a mission to the Northwestern part of the United States. They had a fine family and I am still very friendly with one of the sons who lives in Portland, Oregon, but who graduated from the Y and we were good friends. Another lives here in Provo and I see them occasionally.
Another brother had a very sad life. He went into the Army during World War I and was reported missing in action. The family didn’t know any details about him and supposed he was killed until years later a friend was going through the army hospital in Washington, D. C. and saw him. His tag had evidently been shot off in a battle and no one knew his identity. He was returned to Utah and from then on spent most of his life in an Army hospital. He suffered from ‘shell shock’ He was completely out of it most of the time, but did have periods of lucidity and during one he married a nice women and they had twin sons. I was told that he had more potential for his life than any other of the children in Al’s family, and I always felt that if there was ever a situation against war, it was his life.
Al’s only sister, Marion, also married outside the Church and had four children of which Luana was the oldest. Her husband, whom I didn’t know must not have been much of a provider or husband and one day he left her with the four children. She had no education–probably just graduated from the 8th grade and she had to go to work doing anything that she could find. She had a little house of four rooms in Farmington and there she struggled to raise the children. She worked some summers at Lagoon, but life was always a struggle for her. I really don’t know too much about the children, but one son, Don. After many years and the children were raised, Marion married a man who was pretty ugly looking—had something wrong with one eye among other things and it was a mystery to me how she could ever marry him, but he was very good to her and all of us had to admire him. He was a hard worker and joined the Church and as far as I know is still active, although Marian has been gone for many years and he remarried. When Grandma Worsley became very old and sick, Marian was left with the responsibility of taking care of her. And, it took years with Grandma bedridden and not able to move and with bed sores, etc., and Marian never complained, but with all her other hardships, she quietly took care of her mother until she died. There must be a special place in heaven for people like that.
Al’s father never worked after I knew him and they didn’t own anything except some furniture in their house. They lived down the lane in Farmington in a small house, but I don’t even know if they paid rent. The children had to keep them and pay hospital bills, etc., and it was hard because none of us were earning much money. Naomi and Frank were especially good to them, taking them food, and taking them for rides in their car, but I never did hear Al’s Mother ever say a kind word about them and it always made me angry. She would brag on Bill about how he had bought her a big chair or something, but I learned as time went on that she would ask him for things and then make him feel good about bragging on how he had been so wonderful as to buy her what she had asked them for.
And that was Al’s family. Most of them were uneducated and even cousins and more distant relatives shocked me when I met them. Their language was bad and they were uncouth and many times they would talk about things that I almost didn’t know existed in people’s lives.
From then on, I heard little glimmerings here and there about how upset she was that we were….well, before this, Al didn’t announce that afternoon that we were engaged, in fact, no one ever came close to mentioning it. But afterwards, his folks and especially his brothers must have noticed something because they asked him if I was ‘the girl’ and he said, “Oh no. She was just a friend.” I didn’t hear this until after we were married and it was a great shock to know that we were engaged and still he wouldn’t admit to his family. However, I guess that he was so afraid of his Mother that he didn’t dare come right out and admit it.
In fact, he never did tell the family until months later when the Chocolate Company sent him to Boise, Idaho and Oregon area as a salesman. This was a big step up for him and we looked forward to being married and going to Boise to live. He left to go to his territory there, and since I was no longer going to go to Chicago to Music Conservatory, I decided I might as well go home and work in the store and prepare to get married. However, I did not want to be married in the Temple. Something kept making me say that I did not want to go through. I wasn’t aware of why. We were both worthy to go and could easily have gotten a recommend, but I didn’t want to.
We finally set the date for our marriage on July 3rd. So I quit my job to go back to Colorado and visit with my parents for a few weeks and to get ready for the wedding. Finally Al had to tell his family, but no one raised a finger to do anything for us. Meantime, in Colorado, my family and friends were having parties for me and giving me gifts and about a week before the wedding as I recall, I packed up all my gifts and went back to Salt Lake. I must have stayed with friends that I was living with because I know I didn’t stay with any of Al’s folks. We decided that our wedding day would be July 3rd because that was when he would be called into the office for meetings or something. We would be married and go back to Boise and the trip there would be our honeymoon. Anyway, my friends entertained me with showers in Colorado and while my parents felt very bad that we weren’t getting married in the Temple, they said that I had to be the one to make the decision and that they wouldn’t interfere, for which I was grateful. It was a different story with Al’s folks. They really made a big fuss about our not being married in the Temple. By the way, Al never did tell his folks that we were even serious until he was in Idaho and it was nearly time for him to go to Salt Lake. I kept waiting for his parents to make some overture about the wedding but nothing happened. (Several years later, sorting through a trunk I came across a letter Al’s Mother had written to him when she got the letter from him saying we were going to be married. You would have thought he was going into a ‘fate worse than death’ to marry me. She really carried on. I was shocked and sorrowed and was glad that I didn’t see it before we were married.
We met in Salt Lake and went out to see his parents. His Mother spent the afternoon wailing and weeping about us not getting married in the Temple. I have to be fair and say that his Dad just said that he felt we should get married in the Temple or not at all, but it was our decision to make and he shut up, for which I was terribly grateful. But his mother went on and on. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore so I asked Al if we couldn’t leave. I wasn’t unkind to any of them. I just wanted to get out of there. I couldn’t quite understand this because only two of her children had been married in the Temple; the one in Indiana and Frank and Naomi. Two of the other children had married outside the Church, but I guess that she always considered until her dying day that Al was ‘her baby boy’ and she was putting on some kind of fuss because we weren’t being married in the Temple. His Mother had said that it would kill her if we didn’t get married in the Temple. This was rather surprising to me because she had survived three of her other children being married outside the Temple and she was still healthy.
We finally got away from her and she went back into the house and we started for Salt Lake, but before we got to the end of the lane, I asked Al to stop the car and I took off my engagement ring and handed it back to him and said that I didn’t want to kill his Mother so we had better call off the whole thing. We had quite a discussion there in the lane and he was stricken and said he never wanted me to take the ring off and to please forget what his Mother had said. He pleaded with me over and over, but I just felt that I had had it with his family. By then I was beginning to wonder what life would be like with them as in-laws. I liked Frank and Naomi and continued to from then on, but they were the only ones I really liked except for Marian, his sister, whom I felt profoundly sorry for as well as liking her. He finally persuaded me to put the ring back on and that we would be married the next day.
On July 3rd we drove to Ogden to the city and county building and were married. This isn’t really the way I wanted it, but he didn’t have time to go to Colorado so my parents could have a nice wedding for us, with our bishop marrying us and his folks didn’t raise a finger to do anything, so the only thing left was just to get married, which we did with the county clerk, or whoever it was who9 called in a fellow worker to be witness. I wore a light green chiffon dress of the 1920’s vintage, and Al wore a suit.
We went to his home afterwards and Al said to his Mother that we didn’t have any pillows so since she had many extras, he was taking a couple. That made her angry as the dickens but she let him take them and I was really embarrassed about it because I would have much rather buy some than make her angry. That is the closest that any one of his family came to giving us a wedding present. They didn’t ask us to stay for dinner or wish us well. BUT!!!!!! AL’S MOTHER WENT ON OUR HONEYMOON WITH US!!!
She wanted to go to Idaho to visit her son Hod and his family so she asked to go with us. This was pretty much the last straw, but I went along with it. The day or so after we got married, we packed everything in his car and stopped off at his folks and picked up his mother. After all the fuss she had made in my life, she went on our honeymoon with us. Somehow now, in putting it down, and I really have been factual, although I’m sure that a little negative feeling has come through in this, but it is all as I have told it….exactly. I have put down the bare facts. So, we took his mother to her son’s place and then we went on to Boise which was to be our home for about three or more years.