Discussion with Mom, Dad, and Karen on Wednesday, June 6th, 2008 about Grandma Knight, Joe, Kids, and Tootsie

Mom: Grandma knight didn't love me. I was not her choice.
Karen: Dad was that true?
M: Change the subject.
Dad: Karen wants to talk about her.
Ann Dee: You said Joe had a leash?
M: If you have babies that little and they run that fast, you have to manage.
A: What was it like with all those kids?
M: Joe did run away every chance he got.
A: Where would he go?
M: I was always right behind him what ever way he went but he went everywhere.
D; He'd just run off in the store.
M: The first time I ever took himto the store we walked in and before we even came to the first counter he was gone. I was panicked. I had never been so panicked in my life. I must have had Sandy with me and I didn't know he was going to take off. I wasn't prepared. After that, I got prepared.
A: Where did you live when you first got married?
D: We lived in Orem. We lived on about 16th south. We lived within a block of the Westmore school in Orem.
M: Because I taught there. It was a block west of westmore school.
A: Was it an apartment?
D; Yeah, it was a basement apartment and a guy named Madsen was the landlord and he lived upstairs and he was a relative. We didn't know him very well. He was pretty old--like seventy(ha ha from Dad) But he was a relative and he was famous because he left his wife and married this cute little chick. So we were living there with him and his cute little chick.
A: Did you hang out with him?
D: No we didn't do much with him but he was nice. But all we really knew is what people told us about him.

A: Mom you used to get bullied? I never knew that.
M: In the second grade a little girl named Marilyn got all the kids to hate me and mom didn't care because LuJean was going through the same thing I was but she was in high school. So Mom didn't really pay any attention to me.
A: Why did that girl do that?
M: She was new in town and everyone wanted to play with her and she got all the girls not to like me and she gave Tootsie a beautiful gift if she would not be my friend. When she first moved in all of us would go to her house on the way home from school and her mother would always have doughnuts and cookies and punch and wonderful things so Marilyn got really popular. I got to go a couple of times until she told everyone to not be my friend. She bought everyone away. Tootsie stayed with me a long time but then she called one day and said Marilyn was going to give her an a big beautiful present if she wasn't my friend. Tootsie told me she was sorry but she couldn't turn Marilyn down.
A: Really?
M: It was so bad. We didn't have that happen to our girls did we? Karen had that in the fifth grade.
D: Well, when your mother was little she and Tootsie went around singing "I don't want to play in your yard" all over the place.
M: Tootsie's mother taught us the song. The motivation was she wanted Tootsie's sister Jeraldine to learn how to accompany people on the piano so she made us learn songs. Then we got scheduled all over.
D: But Jewel's little grandmother came over to help her memorize songs. That was before Tootsie.
M: Oh , yeah. I sang when I was really little. They thought it was remarkable that I could memorize those songs. I was like five. I didn't do the stuff with Tootsie until I was in elementary school. I sang by myself all the time. They would put me on a stand kind of in front of the piano and I'd sing these songs at the top of my lungs.
K: remember when you made me sing I am a child of God all by myself when I was like three?
M: No, I would never do that to you.
A: Do you remember any of the songs?
M: "I'm a big girl now." we used to take turns singing different lines.
A: How'd you get back together with Tootsie after the Marilyn thing.
M: It just took time. For a long time she wasn't my friend but then we worked it out. Sometimes Me and Tootsie and Arlene Jorgenson would go to the top of the hill past Manila and ride our bikes clear to the other side of Pleasant Grove. We'd fly down that hill.