mike and ruth

We have had family Thanksgiving celebrations three times this past weekend. It was great to visit with family and see how much the youngest generation has grown in the past year or more. Thursday we met with Mon’s side of the family at Uncle John’s home. It was very nice but I hadn’t had any sleep so I was not as social as I might have been. Friday more of Mom’s family met at Ed and Jean’s ward building. The Parsons were there among others we didn’t see on Thursday. I missed this one so I could get some sleep. Saturday was our family’s dinner at the Granite Tabernacle. It was very fun to see everyone who came including Eric’s newest grandchildren who I saw for the first time. It was so nice to meet Rachel’s husband and other “new” members of the family. Melodie asked that we do a little singing together to record for a part of a family audio history, which we did after dinner. I felt bad that Mark and a few others had already left but the remaining men who chose to sing with us enjoyed harmonizing together. Five of us sang a few of the hymns we have sung at family reunions in the past as well as at funeral services or other get-togethers, and then we asked the rest of the younger men to join us and sing one last hymn together, as you can see in the last photo.

We had several birthdays to celebrate in October including Dad, Sharisse, Ethan, and Kristen. We celebrated Dad’s and Sharisse’s birthdays on Dad’s birthday, Ethan’s on his birthday, and Kristen’s on her birthday. I cannot remember celebrating four birthdays in the same month. We enjoyed every minute of the celebrations, especially the dinners, cakes and ice cream (pie in Kristen’s case), and seeing the gifts. Lots of fun! Here are a few photos for those of you who were unable to be here with us to celebrate. Happy Birthday to everyone else for the year! We hope that we at least sang to you, and sent you a card to let you know how much we love you and we try to remember everyone’s special day! Notice Mom’s new curtains in Kristen’s picture and the under-counter lighting in Dad’s. Yes, we are still making slow progress but have some good reasons to pick things up and make the changes needed more quickly now we are really approaching the holiday season with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Never has history meant so much to me as I move on in years, and now that I have some history of my own I am interested in history of others more too. Here are a few pictures will take us all back many years. Mom and I had been married only a short time when I took this photo of her. Quentin shows what he liked to do when he felt like he needed a snack, and the kids were out on the porch reading books when I decided to come and take their picture. I think you will recognize that the baby is Quentin. I purchased my scanner because it was advertised as being able to scan negatives and slides. I only recently discovered that my scanner will digitize them quite nicely even without part of the hardware it was sold with, that will make it easier to use for this purpose. It isn’t as fast as some scanners but it does a respectable job and is already paid for.

I hope you will enjoy these few photos from the past, and I expect to share more with you in the near future. We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season!

William Holmes Call “Bill”, was called back home the morning of 29 Sept. 2009 at his home under the tender care of his wife Virginia and Hospice Specialists.He was the only child of William Cornell Call and Nathell Holmes. Born 13 July 1922 in Brigham City, Utah. Bill grew up in Brigham City and graduated from Box Elder High School. He later received an Associates degree. Bill married Barbara Lee in Salt Lake City in Nov. 1942. Shortly after their marriage Bill was called to serve his country in the US Army Air Corps in Italy, during World War II. After World War II Bill was recalled for service in the Air Force during the Korean War. Bill and Barbara had one son, William Lee Call. Barbara passed away in 1966. Bill married Winnifred Kennard Remington in 1967. They served a mission in Texas. They returned to Salt Lake City and were active in Temple service until Winnifred passed away in 2003. Bill married Virginia Bean in 2005. Bill was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving as Bishops counselor, Bishop, High Councilman-multiple times. He was passionate in his service to the Lord. Bill was an avid genealogist, and enjoyed gardening. Bill retired form the Newspaper Agency Corp. where he worked many years as a Linotype Operator, and served in the Union leadership. Bill is survived by his wife, Virginia, a son W. Lee Call (Mary), stepchildren David Remington (Shirlene), Doug Remington (Bonnie), Don Remington (Christine), James Bean (Chris), Audrey Allison (James), Karen Bean (James), Evelyn Homer Sheehan (James), 34 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren. Preceded in death by parents, wives Barbara and Winnifred. Funeral services will be held Friday 2 Oct. 2009, 10 a.m., at Larkin Mortuary, 260 East South Temple where a viewing will be held Thursday from 6-8 p.m. and Friday one hour prior to services. Interment: Brigham City Cemetery at 1 p.m. Online condolences to www.larkincares.com
The Kennard family had a small choir that sang for the services. Uncle Bill was remembered as a person who cared about others and who was frequently “guilty” of helping others, without anyone else knowing it. He was a person who liked to joke about himself, saying, “I am in pretty good shape, considering the shape I’m in.” He will be missed by his family and good friends.

We moved back in today among stacks of boxes and many items out of place for the moment. We are very thankful to be back in our own place and to have the conveniences we are blessed to have. It has been three months since we have been able to live here. We still hope to persuade the insurance company that they should re-imburse us for more of the repair and renewal expenses than the adjuster feels we are entitled to. We had considered changing from Farmers Insurance to our auto provider, State Farm, and since this issue we have wished we had because of the way we have been treated by our adjuster. Hopefully a discussion with the agent will take place and we can get a few more things straightened out. Thanks to everyone for your help and time as we went through the renovation and repair process to get things ready.

We still have a few things to move around to make room so we can move in. There are many things in the bedrooms, especially Kristen’s but maybe we can get that taken care of Monday. I will keep you posted.
Aunt Carma is back in the hospital with pneumonia and other complications. Please pray for her and her family.

We have finally passed a major milestone in the remodeling of our home with the completion of the living room today.

Last night Uncle Tom and Aunt Janice came over the help Mom and Kristen paint while I was at choir rehearsal. Thank you Tom and Janice for your help! Mom and I came early to finish up and touch up a few things, and Van Farnworth came over to help me move the larger furniture out of the living room. The carpet man came on time at 9am. He worked until about noon and was done. We then began planning a few changes to the way things are arranged. Quentin came from a funeral just in time to help move the piano into place, and stayed to help move other things in for us. There are still a few little details to finish including cutting in the perimeter of the living room windows after repairing the slight damage to the plaster from moisture and the weather. These little things need to be taken care of before we can hang the curtains, but otherwise it is finished. As Quentin and I were moving in the couch and love seat we found that most of the springs in these two were broken. We are going to try and repair them (the sectional in the Family Room also has broken springs) so they will be more fresh and “like new” in the near future. We hope to move in TODAY (Saturday) so we are here Sunday morning! Hurrah! It will be nice having our own place again. It has been three months since we were able to live here. What do you think of the new color instead of the same off-white everywhere? Mom chose this green color but thinks it is too dark, but it does look very nice. Grandma Hill has been so accomdating to us and we are very grateful that she made some space for us while we have been working on this project. The project is not completed, but the upstairs is almost finished. Then we have the basement areas to focus on as we get ready for Devin and Emily’s visit (“wahoo”, as Emily would say)! Thank you for your encouragement and help. Quentin came along today just in time to help us get the piano back in place along with many other things.

I have finished the bathroom with the exception of a couple of 5-minute jobs that I hope to do during the day Saturday: caulking the bottom of the tile along the bottom of the walls, and installing and caulking the spalsh around the sink. Mom wants to thoroughly wash the sink and spalsh components before I glue them in. I wanted you to see how nice the tile along the wall looks in place of the oak baseboard. No vent cover installed yet, so that looks a little unfinished.

Plumbing is something I can do but requires quite a bit of patience. Mom and I were trying to get the bathtub drain back in and it wasn’t working well. She asked me if we’d had our prayer for the day and I said we hadn’t, because I went straight to our house from work that day and the next. We prayed and asked for help getting the drain installed. After our prayer we tried again and it worked quickly and properly, which rather surprised me that we would get an answer so quickly. No task is too trivial to ask for divine help with. I am grateful that Mom would suggest that we pray about it; the result was that we were successful and the drain is now installed and working.

We heard today that Aunt Carma was up during the night in a lot of pain but waited about 4 hours to call her daughter Jeannine at about 6am. When examined at the hospital they found she had an apparent aortic dissection. Wikipedia explains, “Aortic dissection is a tear in the wall of the aorta that causes blood to flow between the layers of the wall of the aorta and force the layers apart. Aortic dissection is a medical emergency and can quickly lead to death, even with optimal treatment. If the dissection tears the aorta completely open (through all three layers), massive and rapid blood loss occurs. Aortic dissections resulting in rupture have an 80% mortality rate, and 50% of patients die before they even reach the hospital. If the dissection reaches 6 cm, the patient must be taken for emergency surgery.” My best friend from high school, Doug Buhler, had this same condition only a few months ago and is reported to be doing extremely well now after his open-heart surgery. It is frequently a condition shared by siblings; his sister also had this same condition a few years ago and is also doing fine after treatment.

Aunt Carma went in for open-heart surgery this afternoon and is reported to be doing well after some extensive procedures that took about 8 hours. Although her age (82) is against her she is very healthy so this is something that is advantageous for her. Please pray for her speedy recovery with the rest of us!