This forum is an opportunity for each Hill and Johnston family member to share personal memories that will be preserved for children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and all future posterity.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Question #7
Name the towns and states you lived in before you were married.
I lived in the state of California until I was 22 years old. I lived in San Diego, San Francisco, Alameda, and Lakeside. At least, those are the places I remember. I moved to Rexburg, Idaho right before I got married.
I was told that I lived in 22 states before I was 2 years old. That was probably true since my dad moved around all the time. Some of the states that I know we lived in are Michigan (6 days), Washington, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, and Texas. When I was two my mom left my dad and we moved to El Paso to my grandmother's property. She had 3 acres with a house in the middle surrounded by a trailer park, a two-story apartment building, a duplex, and a motel. We moved into the apartment building for a while, then later on we moved into the duplex. We lived there for a couple of years while my mom was going to college. Then we moved to a house that was made from an old motel that was across the street from Ysleta High School in Ysleta. It was a long skinny place with narrow hallways. I remember taking baths in the kitchen sink there. I started school while we lived there and went to 2nd and 3rd grade for those two years. There were cotton fields behind the house and to the back side of the house. Sam and I used to go into the fields and pick cotton there with the black and mexican helpers. We would get a nickel or a dime and thought we were so rich! There was a huge dirt lot in front of the house (remember it was set sideways from the street)and on the other side of the lot was a church that we went to. The pastor made me cry (he was a real pulpit pounder) and I remember being baptized while we lived there. My brother and I would also play in the dirt all the time. We would build roads and drive his cars all over the place. In 1965 we moved to a house that mom had bought. I had my own bedroom there! I was in 4th grade and learned to ride a bike while I lived there. Our next door neighbor was Elizabeth Taylor (not the famous one)on one side and the other side neighbors had chickens in their back yard. When they were having chicken they would cut the heads off and I learned what it means to run like a chicken with your head cut off. There was a weeping willow tree in the back yard and Sam and I would go under the branches and had our own little fort/hideout. We lost that house because mom had cosigned on a loan that someone defaulted on (so I was told). We moved in 1966 to Arizona to the border town of Nogales. It was a little house with a big screened in porch. We got a dog while we were living there. She was a white husky and we named her Lady. We then moved into a house on the same block the next year (bigger with less rent). In 1969 we moved to El Centro, another border town but in California. We first moved into a small 2 bedroom house. Kae got married, Lucille and I shared a room, Sam had his own room, and Mom slept in the living room on the couch. The lady and her daughter who lived in the house before us had a piano that the daughter didn't want to play and the lady didn't want to move the heavy thing, so she sold it to us for $25. I still love that piano. We moved a few months later down the street to 917 S. 14th. It had 3 bedrooms so mom could have her own room there (and it was cheaper too). I found out later that your dad had lived in the same house a few years earlier! That was too weird. We lived there for 4 years until 1973. I was in stage crew while we lived there in high school. I remember many days when we were building sets and painting backdrops outside the gym where the high school stage was. There was a huge door that would open up for the equipment to moved on and off the stage. When that door was open you could see pretty well up and down the street. I remember lots of days that I would look at the house across the street, with a beautiful back yard. There was a pool with a palm tree next to it and a curvy slide that went around the tree and into the pool. It seemed so beautiful to me and I knew that someday I would live in that house. In 1973 when my mom died the pastor of our church drove us up to the door of that house. The people who had bought the house a couple of years before were teachers that my brother and I both had in Junior High and they had offered to become our guardians. It was a shock to think that I really had some foresight about living in that house, even though I didn't like the way that it happened. We lived there for about 4 years until I was married and that is where I met the missionaries and joined the church. So those are the places I lived in before I got married (outside of a year at BYU when I lived with the Butterfields at 450 Chokecherry Circle in Orem).
My father purchased an old, very tiny, condemned store that had been thrugh a flood. This was in Santa Ana, California. He tore out the wallboards and gutted the inside of the place and shoveled out the mud & gunk. He then partitioned the small square building into a living room, 2 small bedrooms with 1 closet between them, a kitchen, and a bathroom. This is where I lived after I was born. My brother (6 1/2 yrs. older) and I shared a bedroom with bunkbeds. My father eventually added a small porch with mother's wringer washing machine and a basin where she scrubbed clolthes by hand on a scrubbing boarde. She hung the clothes on the clothes-line, rain or shine, to dry. When I turned 8, we moved to Garden Grove, California. We moved there, one mile from Disneyland, the same year Disneyland opened. As a young teenager, my friends and I would pay $2.00 just to go inside and watch the bands and walk up and down mainstreet and play at the penny arcade. We also lived about 15 min. from Knotts Berry Farm, where we could go for free. We used to go to the candy shop, watch candles being made, pan for gold, go to McDonald's petting zoo, and listen to the singers around the wagon ring at dusk. It was fun. When I got into high school, I used to go to Knotts Berry Farm where some of the kids from school performed at the Old Time Theater in the Park. I didn't know at that time that Steve Martin, whom I went to high school with, would be famous, but he was one of the people I used to watch at the Knotts Berry Farm Theater. When I turned 19, I moved into an apartment with a girlfriend from church. She wanted to be baptized into the Mormon church and her parents said they would disown her if she did. So she and I moved into our own apartment in Buena Park California and she was baptized. A couple of years later she and I were Maids of Honor in each other's wedding receptions. Both of us moved back to our homes with our families (her family didn't disown her) to simplify our wedding plans and Don moved into the apt. until we married.
I was born and raised in El Cajon--a suburb of San Diego, CA. The first time I moved outside the state was for an eight-week residency in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT. Following this brief stay, I traveled to the Texas San Antonio Mission.
While in Texas, I lived in San Antonio (at three different residencies), Kerrville, Del Rio, Austin, and Waco. At the conclusion of my two-year stay in the Lone-Star State, it was time to move home again.
Following a brief stay in El Cajon, I left for college in Rexburg, ID. I remained there until that wonderful, life-changing event of marriage took place!
4 comments:
I lived in the state of California until I was 22 years old. I lived in San Diego, San Francisco, Alameda, and Lakeside. At least, those are the places I remember. I moved to Rexburg, Idaho right before I got married.
I was told that I lived in 22 states before I was 2 years old. That was probably true since my dad moved around all the time. Some of the states that I know we lived in are Michigan (6 days), Washington, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, and Texas. When I was two my mom left my dad and we moved to El Paso to my grandmother's property. She had 3 acres with a house in the middle surrounded by a trailer park, a two-story apartment building, a duplex, and a motel. We moved into the apartment building for a while, then later on we moved into the duplex. We lived there for a couple of years while my mom was going to college. Then we moved to a house that was made from an old motel that was across the street from Ysleta High School in Ysleta. It was a long skinny place with narrow hallways. I remember taking baths in the kitchen sink there. I started school while we lived there and went to 2nd and 3rd grade for those two years. There were cotton fields behind the house and to the back side of the house. Sam and I used to go into the fields and pick cotton there with the black and mexican helpers. We would get a nickel or a dime and thought we were so rich! There was a huge dirt lot in front of the house (remember it was set sideways from the street)and on the other side of the lot was a church that we went to. The pastor made me cry (he was a real pulpit pounder) and I remember being baptized while we lived there. My brother and I would also play in the dirt all the time. We would build roads and drive his cars all over the place. In 1965 we moved to a house that mom had bought. I had my own bedroom there! I was in 4th grade and learned to ride a bike while I lived there. Our next door neighbor was Elizabeth Taylor (not the famous one)on one side and the other side neighbors had chickens in their back yard. When they were having chicken they would cut the heads off and I learned what it means to run like a chicken with your head cut off. There was a weeping willow tree in the back yard and Sam and I would go under the branches and had our own little fort/hideout. We lost that house because mom had cosigned on a loan that someone defaulted on (so I was told). We moved in 1966 to Arizona to the border town of Nogales. It was a little house with a big screened in porch. We got a dog while we were living there. She was a white husky and we named her Lady. We then moved into a house on the same block the next year (bigger with less rent). In 1969 we moved to El Centro, another border town but in California. We first moved into a small 2 bedroom house. Kae got married, Lucille and I shared a room, Sam had his own room, and Mom slept in the living room on the couch. The lady and her daughter who lived in the house before us had a piano that the daughter didn't want to play and the lady didn't want to move the heavy thing, so she sold it to us for $25. I still love that piano. We moved a few months later down the street to 917 S. 14th. It had 3 bedrooms so mom could have her own room there (and it was cheaper too). I found out later that your dad had lived in the same house a few years earlier! That was too weird. We lived there for 4 years until 1973. I was in stage crew while we lived there in high school. I remember many days when we were building sets and painting backdrops outside the gym where the high school stage was. There was a huge door that would open up for the equipment to moved on and off the stage. When that door was open you could see pretty well up and down the street. I remember lots of days that I would look at the house across the street, with a beautiful back yard. There was a pool with a palm tree next to it and a curvy slide that went around the tree and into the pool. It seemed so beautiful to me and I knew that someday I would live in that house. In 1973 when my mom died the pastor of our church drove us up to the door of that house. The people who had bought the house a couple of years before were teachers that my brother and I both had in Junior High and they had offered to become our guardians. It was a shock to think that I really had some foresight about living in that house, even though I didn't like the way that it happened. We lived there for about 4 years until I was married and that is where I met the missionaries and joined the church. So those are the places I lived in before I got married (outside of a year at BYU when I lived with the Butterfields at 450 Chokecherry Circle in Orem).
My father purchased an old, very tiny, condemned store that had been thrugh a flood. This was in Santa Ana, California. He tore out the wallboards and gutted the inside of the place and shoveled out the mud & gunk. He then partitioned the small square building into a living room, 2 small bedrooms with 1 closet between them, a kitchen, and a bathroom. This is where I lived after I was born. My brother (6 1/2 yrs. older) and I shared a bedroom with bunkbeds. My father eventually added a small porch with mother's wringer washing machine and a basin where she scrubbed clolthes by hand on a scrubbing boarde. She hung the clothes on the clothes-line, rain or shine, to dry. When I turned 8, we moved to Garden Grove, California. We moved there, one mile from Disneyland, the same year Disneyland opened. As a young teenager, my friends and I would pay $2.00 just to go inside and watch the bands and walk up and down mainstreet and play at the penny arcade. We also lived about 15 min. from Knotts Berry Farm, where we could go for free. We used to go to the candy shop, watch candles being made, pan for gold, go to McDonald's petting zoo, and listen to the singers around the wagon ring at dusk. It was fun. When I got into high school, I used to go to Knotts Berry Farm where some of the kids from school performed at the Old Time Theater in the Park. I didn't know at that time that Steve Martin, whom I went to high school with, would be famous, but he was one of the people I used to watch at the Knotts Berry Farm Theater. When I turned 19, I moved into an apartment with a girlfriend from church. She wanted to be baptized into the Mormon church and her parents said they would disown her if she did. So she and I moved into our own apartment in Buena Park California and she was baptized. A couple of years later she and I were Maids of Honor in each other's wedding receptions. Both of us moved back to our homes with our families (her family didn't disown her) to simplify our wedding plans and Don moved into the apt. until we married.
I was born and raised in El Cajon--a suburb of San Diego, CA. The first time I moved outside the state was for an eight-week residency in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT. Following this brief stay, I traveled to the Texas San Antonio Mission.
While in Texas, I lived in San Antonio (at three different residencies), Kerrville, Del Rio, Austin, and Waco. At the conclusion of my two-year stay in the Lone-Star State, it was time to move home again.
Following a brief stay in El Cajon, I left for college in Rexburg, ID. I remained there until that wonderful, life-changing event of marriage took place!
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