When we got home from our Church meetings today there was a message on the phone wanting to know if someone in my family had been a school teacher in Soda Springs in 1953.

We moved to Soda Springs from Tooele, Utah in 1952. Dad had graduated from Utah State University and had a newly minted teaching certificate. In August, 1952, he saw an advertisement on the job board in Logan for an English teacher in Soda Springs. He called, was interviewed over the phone and hired. We packed up and moved to Soda Springs so he could begin his new career as an English teacher at Soda Springs High School. He taught for four or five years and worked at Monsanto during the summer. Eventually he was making more working during the summer than he was as a teacher, so he went full time at Monsanto.

I called the number back and reached a woman who now lives in Oregon but was visiting in Chubbuck (neighbor city to Pocatello) and decided she’d like to see if my dad was still alive. She told me he was her favorite teacher in High School … and that he had taught her how to drive.

I explained dad’s current condition. She said she was going over to Soda Springs tomorrow and would stop in at the nursing home to see dad. That’s very nice!

Dad Update

His condition has actually worsened since the stroke on Friday. He is not able to hold anything in either hand. His left side is definitely much weaker than before. He cannot make words come out. He is very frustrated, but we have no good idea about his mental acuity. That is, we don’t know if his frustration is due to not being able to do things or not understanding his surroundings and situation.

We’ll go over on Monday afternoon to spend a few minutes with mother and see how dad is doing.