The years 1949 to 1966
1949 to 1965. Following is the history of the early life of Linda Dee Taylor, Fawn’s third child. It is written with Linda as ‘first person’, but it obviously was written by Fawn herself. Because of that fact and due to the additional insight it gives into Fawn’s life, I have included this account in its entirety.
“Any of the old timers who were around at the time of my birth will instantly tell you that the winter of 1949 was one of the worst in the history of Humboldt County, Nevada. My mother tells me that it had snowed all day long the day before I was born, and then it continued during the night. When Daddy took mother to the Humboldt General Hospital for my birth, the snow was deeper than the tops of her new red galoshes. When I was born on Sunday, January 16, 1949, the snow was almost at the level of the window ledges. The snow finally stopped, the sun came out, but by that night the temperatures were again at the freezing level. Doctor Lynn Felder was our doctor and had held up going on a vacation so that he could be there for my birth. As soon as I was born, he left for a trip. I weighed 9 pounds 14 ounces when I was born and I had hardly any hair at all. My two sisters, Deanna and Dayna Kay, were so happy when Daddy brought us home.
“My Aunt Inez, my mother’s older sister, came out to Winnemucca from American Fork, Utah to help my mother when I was born. She was a wonderful warm meal prepared when Daddy brought us home, and it was a happy time in the Taylor home. Aunt Inez liked to laugh and tell how cold it was one night when she went to bed. She tells of wearing lots of clothing and then stacking on bedding until she almost smothered, but she managed to stay warm that night.
“I was taken to church in March of 1949 and there my father gave me a fathers’ blessing and a name. My folks had quite a time deciding on my name. At the hospital, my mother told them my name was to be Jacqueline, but upon coming home it was decided that we would change it and name me Linda Dee Taylor.
“When I was a little girl, we moved into a lovely new home in Winnemucca which my father had built himself. The only other home we lived in during my life in Winnemucca was on Kendall Street, close to Emma and Vern Schoenfeld. Our children and theirs played together. Vern was the bishop of our ward and my dad was in the bishopric. Winnemucca, Nevada, the place of my birth, wasn’t a very big place, but many people from the surrounding areas came to Winnemucca to shop. On Saturday nights, the place really livened up.
“Our family eventually moved to Reno, Nevada. I lived there until I was 15 years of age, but we had one move away from Reno. This was a move for about 2 years while my father served in the military.
“When we first moved to Reno, we lived in the apartment under Daddy’s dental office on Wells Avenue. I can still remember the black widow spiders that were so plentiful in that place. Mother almost went nutty there, as we were always finding those spiders in our apartment and in the garage. We lived here for several months, then moved into a very lovely home at 1237 Mark Twain Avenue. My father purchased this home from Mr. Clarence Kind. It was a lovely home, on a very beautiful and well-kept street. I had many happy times living there. It was in 1952 that Daddy was called back into the service as a dentist, so we left Reno by train for Augusta, Georgia. Daddy had gone on ahead and mother had quite a time taking 4 children way back there. I say four children now, because about 7 months after we moved into our home on Mark Twain we had a new little baby come to our house. It was a boy, which was a thrill to us all. After three girls, it was a pleasant surprise to know that we now had some competition from the male sex, and now mother could do something besides curl little girls’ hair and buy little frilly dresses. Michael was born on April 24, 1952, and he was about 6 months old when we left for Georgia.
“Daddy had such a hard time finding a place for us to live that he finally settled on an apartment which was just over the Savannah River and was the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. The name of the little town where we lived was North Augusta, South Carolina. This apartment house was practically constructed entirely of concrete and about the only thing I can remember about living here was that one day as I was running up a flight of stairs, I fell and cracked my head. It made me sick and I carried a huge lump for quite some time. None of us had good health while we lived in South Carolina. Michael had one ear infection after the other, so Daddy wrote to our congressman and had us transferred out of there. We were transferred to Camp Roberts in Atascadero, California and we had all of our things shipped by the army and then we traveled out to California by car. Michael was sick most of the way to Provo. Daddy put us in one of Aunt Inez Karren’s apartments to stay while we went on down to California to find us housing. It was fun to live in American Fork for a while and to see the sunshine again. Michael got better just in the short time we were back in Utah and away from the damp moist climate of the south.
“We had a nice little two-bedroom apartment at Atascadero. We were in this town about 8 or 9 months, then they closed the base at Camp Roberts and Daddy was transferred to Fort Ord, California. We lived right on the base in the housing there and it was a lot of fun to be right in the middle of all the military and to see the goings on every day. Our houses were all alike and were built up on stilts. This made it so we could crawl under the houses and I remember the fun we used to have crawling under there to hunt for things. About all we ever found was junk.
“It was on May 5, 1954 that we arrived back in Reno to our lovely home on Mark Twain Avenue. It had snowed a little that day and mother tells me how cold our home was after being closed up and empty for some time. The furnace soon was on and the warmth inside felt good to us, as we trampled in and out, unpacking and getting back to our home.
“In September of 1954 I started kindergarten at Mount Rose Elementary School. Mrs. Springmeyer was my first teacher and how I loved her and admired her. She died some years later while we were still in Reno and she had cancer of the breast. I attended Mount Rose during my elementary years and then attended Billinghurst Junior High School. I spent 7th, 8th, and 9th grades at this school. When I finished 9th grade, they had done away with graduating exercises so a party was held in the gymnasium.
“I met a girl named Marla Murphy when I was in about the 5th grade and she was my friend all during school until they moved away to California. While knowing her we had many good times jumping the “Marla Bar” which her folks had invented. We were in parades and shows of all types, even went to Oakland, California to a big athletic convention for all the schools of California. Here we demonstrated the bar and stayed at the swanky Clairmont Hotel for 4 days. Mother went along too as my chaperone and we had so much fun. I can still remember the cherry pies they served in the dining room and they were so good, we smuggled a few up to our room every night after dinner then ate them later on. Marla and I really had many good times together and got to love each other, but our friendship seemed to end with her moving so far away.
“I was in the district for Reno High School, but Mother arranged with the school board to have me attend Wooster High School because my now best friend, Jennifer Morris, was going there. I went to Wooster High until we moved to American Fork. Just before we left Reno, I tried out for cheerleader and felt badly that I didn’t make it. I always felt that they found out we were moving away and thus was not chosen.
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