Extracts from James’ Journals

Wednesday 1 January 1992

The longest day of the year may be the first one.  Everyone has just endured Christmas vacation with its excitement and subsequent letdown.  The weather hasn’t been good, so much of the time has been spent cooped up in the house.  Having a new year arrive was supposed to be exciting, but it turns out that January 1^st looks just like all the preceding days.  If anything, it sparkles even less than its predecessors because it’s the last day of vacation, and tomorrow is school.

Long days and boredom are the seedbed for bright ideas.  With four teenagers in one house, it’s a foregone conclusion that sooner or later something is going to happen.

I sensed that an event was under way as I stepped in the door from doing my chores New Years Day 1992.  The first thing I saw was 85-year-old Grandma sitting on the couch and talking with someone on the phone.  This was unusual.  Due to her senility she’s not fun to talk with anymore, so her children don’t call.  They’ve opted to write letters instead, and thus avoid having to answer nonsensical and impossible questions.

Who could she be talking to?  She was beaming with pleasure.

The second thing I noticed was an unusually quiet and smiling group of children milling about the room and looking like a great, huge laugh was about to explode and engulf them all.

With my curiosity high I entered the kitchen and found my suspicions confirmed.  The other phone was also in use.  Matt was standing just around the corner from Grandma, 15 feet away, talking to her.  Was she aware that she was talking to Matt?  Given the looks on everyone’s faces, I thought not.

With a sense of foreboding I went on about my business.  Shortly one of the kids happily told me that everyone Grandma ever knew was going to call her that day.  Her niece, Janeen, whom Grandma had not seen for 20 years had just called and had a visit with her.  Janeen had in reality been Heidi.

Next, Bill Ferguson (Matt) had called her.  Bill Ferguson was Grandma’s boyfriend 65 years ago.  As Grandma’s mind has reverted to her early memories, she speaks fondly of her old flames, Bill and Bud, (who was going to call her next).

Grandma was thrilled to hear from Bill Ferguson.  It was a voice out of the past.

“Hello, this is Bill Ferguson.  Do you remember me?”

“Bill Ferguson?!  Well, I certainly do!  How are you?”

“I’m pretty good.  My wife died not long ago.  I’ve been pretty lonely, so I thought about you, and thought I’d call you up and see what you were doing.”

How long the conversation went on, I don’t know.  But Bill finally told her he was in a rest home, and that the nurses were there to change his diaper, so he’d have to go.

As I went back in the living room and sat down, Granma was all aglow.  Bill Ferguson had just called her, and she wanted to talk about it.  He had been in the hospital, but was just doing great.  He wished he could see her, and “Darn, I’ve let him get away.  I don’t know his phone number or how to get in touch with him.”

Events which took place at the beginning of time are, for the most part, crystal clear in Grandma’s mind.  The fact that today is not Sunday and that she was told that for the fifth time just two minutes ago is a completely different matter.  Most things which have happened in the past six years have not lodged in Grandma’s mind, or the memory of them has become so jumbled as to make them nearly unrecognizable when they’re repeated.

Some few things, however, get fixed in her mind with a maddening clarity.  Her phonograph needle gets stuck in that groove, and it’s impossible to lift it out and get it playing on something else.

It was plain to see that Bill Ferguson’s phone call would be one of those mind-stopping events.  It would be embellished and repeated hundreds of times.  Margie and I thought it best, therefore, to pop her bubble right away before we all regretted losing the opportunity.  We, therefore, asked her, “Are you sure that was Bill Ferguson, and not just Matt on the other phone?”

She didn’t want to believe it, but knowing Matt as she does, even her mind was able to come to grips with the truth.  “This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me, Matt!” she said with vehemence.

She settled back on the couch with her arms folded and lips pursed, fairly steaming.  Suddenly the look would relax, a beatific smile would cross her face, and she’d start to say something about the wonderful phone call she’d just gotten.  Then just as suddenly she’d cut her sentence short, and the storm would return to her face.

Fortunately, reality seems to have won the tug-of-war her mind went through this time.  The call hasn’t been mentioned again.  I live in fear, however, that it got filed in some dusty drawer in the back of her mind, and that at some point in the future she’ll discover that drawer and open it up and find a new, embellished, brightly-polished, but jumbled, memory to regale us with.

 

 

 

Friday 10 January 1992                      Grandma’s Conversations

Grandma was fumbling with a cassette tape that she thought was supposed to be wrapped up in a paper beside it.  She wrapped it up in the paper and asked, “Where do you want these glasses?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I’ll ask Margie.—Margie, where shall I put Jim’s glasses?”

“Jim doesn’t wear glasses.  That’s a tape.  Put it on the recorder.”

She tottered back toward me and said, “These are Gladys’.”

“Yeah, these are Gladys’ glasses.  She’s always leaving things around.  If Gladys asks where anything is, just tell her it’s on the recorder.”

 

“I can’t get over how much this looks like the place I just left.  See, there’s the same shed up there.  Somebody tore it down and had boards scattered everywhere, and the next day someone built it up again.  I guess it has a history.  Someone probably died there.  Dave and I lived in a place like that when we were first married….That’s probably where he is now…We take a walk up there every spring…How did I get here this morning?...How long have you lived here?...Do you like it here?  I never think of you living here…How many rooms do you have upstairs?…One of those girls was here this morning when I got here…A couple of girls came up this morning didn’t they?...When we worked up at Adlers I thought of you as having blonde hair (to Margie)…”

 

Friday 24 January 1992

“Good morning, Grandma.  How are you this morning?”

“Oh, I’m fine.  I’ve just been up there trying to hash things over.”

“What things?”

“Oh, what I’m going to do.  The boys are asking questions about their father, and I don’t know what to tell them.”

“What boys?—Danny, Adam and Aaron?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m their father.”

“Well, you are not.  You know that.  I’ve never been married to you.”

“I’m married to Margie, and they’re our kids.  You’re their grandmother.”

“How long have you been married to Margie?  When did you marry her?  I didn’t know you married her.  What am I going to do about my husband?  What am I going to do about finances?  He’s never paid any alimony.  Should I divorce him?  My boys are asking questions, and I just tell them not to worry about it.  They know something is wrong.  They’re really good about it.”

“You’re just like my father.  You have to have something to worry about.”

“Who’s your father?”… “Tom Kerns!”…“I guess I don’t know him.”—and on and on and on.

 

Tuesday 11 February 1992

Zelma is losing it.  All week she has been watching for Dave (her deceased husband) to come get her.  She pelts us with questions, the same ones over and over.  She doesn’t recognize us.  “Give me Jim and Marge’s number and I’ll call them to come take me out to the ranch.”

She vacillates between thinking I’m her husband and not recognizing me at all.

Everything is doubled in her mind.  She has another Dave Hunt (her current husband whom she married after Dave died), there are 2 ranches, 2 Jims and 2 Margies, and Ivy looks exactly like her little Ivy.

Last night at 2:50 the lights went on in the kitchen.  I was just going to let her be until I heard her start dialing the telephone.  At that point I leaped out of bed to save someone from being awakened in the middle of the night.  (I doubt that she could have dialed properly anyway).  She was relieved to see me.  “I’m locked in,” she said.  “I didn’t know when you locked up last night, and I’m here all alone.”  I put her back to bed.

 

27 September 1992     Verbatim conversation between Zelma Hunt and James Kerns

“When can I go home?”

“You are home.  You’ve been living here for three years.”

“That’s what everyone tells me—Did I quit school?”

“No, you’re 86 years old.”

“Well, I knew I was 86 or 87, but I was going to go to Utah.  My mother is dying, and I wanted to see her before she died.”

“…Well, could I head home?”

“You live here.”

“Wouldn’t you like to get rid of me?”

“No.”

“I’m a big expense.”

“You’re no expense.”

 

“Why not?  Did someone give you this outfit?”

“No, we bought it.”

“Shall I catch a train?”

“Where would you catch a train to?”

“Utah.”

“Whereabouts?”

“I, uh, can’t say the name of it.  I have two brothers down there—and a sister.  I have a real loyal sister.  She takes care of me.”

“Musetta died, didn’t she?”

“Not that I know of.  I sure don’t know what to do.”

“What do you need to do?”

“Oh, I need to find a job and support myself.”

“Why can’t you just live here?”

“Well, we have that ranch in Utah.  I guess Mother sold that, though.  My Dad died.  He had wheat.  At one time my father was considered one of the greatest men in the country…He went to Laidlaw, Oregon and got work.  Then the Depression came, and we lost almost everything.  He had three boys:  Fred, Clarence and Cleon.”

“How many kids did you have?”

“Let’s see, I had…I’ve almost forgotten.  I had one named after Cleon and one after Clarence.  He went to college and got a job in Ogden and Salt Lake.  He married Florence Smurthwaite.  Her father pretty well ran the town.  My mother looked out the window and there was a 13-year-old boy.  He looked about ready to die.  She took him in and fed him.  Then Mother married Fred Simmons…Florence Smurthwaite’s mother married someone.  The Smurthwaite bunch went to town.  They bought offices and really went to town.  My dad took sick and died suddenly.  He’s buried in Beaverdam.  He married one of their daughters.  That was Florence.  Zella got a job with Leo Adler.  She was smart.  She ran his business for him.  She quit work for him not too long ago.  I think they were getting ready to be married, but they had some big flare up…I worked for this lawyer and he had this son—Manly, Manly Strayer.  They’d do anything for me.  They went broke, and Zella went to work for Leo Adler.  She hired me and I went to work in the office.  And then my brother married Florence Smurthwaite.  They did very well.  He died here not too long ago…

“Jim Smurthwaite.  Mother took him in and fed him.  That’s the story of my mother.  They didn’t get married—to each other.  They each found a mate.

“One of them stayed with Zella.  And they have lived just that way.  Zella bought that great big thing in Baker.  I don’t know what it is.  It’s kind of secretive.  Anyway Cleon married Jim Smurthwaite’s daughter, Zella.

“You know Carol, don’t you?  That’s one of the girls.  And Cleon—fell in love with Florence and they got married.  Let’s see, who did Florence have?—Zella.

“And then my dad died.  He bought a wheat ranch when he moved there.  Very ambitious man, very intelligent.  If I have any smarts, I got it from him.  People did everything he did.  They said Fred Simmons is the greatest man I ever met.

And Mother married a Wight.  That’s W I G H T.  And Dad idolized his two little girls.  We moved to Mountain Home.  We had two crop failures.  Florence told Zella about it, and we moved to Baker.  Fred and Clarence got good jobs.  Zella died not too long ago.  I don’t know what happened after that.  We’re still good friends.  She lived quite a while and called Mother Sput.  They were both raised in Brigham.  They moved to Baker along with us.  Leo Adler fell in love with Zella.  Zella saw to it that Mother’s kids had jobs.  She had a job waiting for me.  Leo Adler would break his neck to do anything for her.  But she didn’t stay with the Church.

“When we went to Beaverdam we bought that great big brick house.  It’s still standing.

“…Is this Thursday?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“That’s right, I went to church today…You’ve heard of Leo Adler?”

“Yes.”

“Zella worked for him.  She runs the business.  We still have that place in Beaverdam.”

“Who runs it?”

“I don’t know.  My dad bought it.  He had a real brain.  But he died and left it to my brother, Fred.  But he got me a job with Leo Adler.  A nice, steady job.”

(As I read this to the family, 2 April 2000, Ivy said, “You know, your journal could really confuse the family history).

 

Wednesday 11 November 1992

Today’s telephone conversation as I’ve pieced it together:

“Ring.”

“Hello,” Zelma answered.

“Hi, this is Jackie from Walco.  Is this Marge?”

“No, I’m Ivy’s mother.”

“Oh, well is Marge there?”

“Uh, here, I’ll get the bride to be…”

“Hello,” Katie says.

“Is this Marge?”  Jackie asked.

“No, she’s my mother.”

“Oh, dear!...Well, would you just tell her that Jerry will be there next week if you want anything.”