Another Life Sketch by Shirley Tobler Bushman
On a hot July 25th in Utah’s Dixie I was born to Vernon and Olive Dodge Tobler. My grandfather Tobler was one of a very choice group of Swiss immigrants sent by Brigham Young to settle in Santa Clara. Mother’s father was sent to Santa Clara to plant orchards and vineyards.
My early life as a child seemed like one of constant moving. My family moved to Salt Lake when I was two years old, back to Santa Clara where I attended the First and Second grades, back to Salt Lake while I attended Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth grades, then back to Dixie where I finished my schooling.
In the years we lived in Salt Lake, life was anything but dull, as we did considerable moving about there also. Altogether in my life I have lived in eighteen different houses. Life was interesting, and rather gay in my memory as a child as through the years I constantly had new friends to make. I was young and not too aware of the difficulties of those depression years.
At the age of ten the depression forced my family from the city as my father was an appliance salesman and people just didn’t have the money for those things. We owned some land on the sandy Santa Clara bench, and one of a team of horses, so back we came in hopes of survival, I think. Dad worked hard to make the move on an early April morning. He was ill that morning as we left but wouldn’t give in to rest until the family was settled. A few days after the move Dad’s illness forced him to bed with pneumonia. There he stayed for sometime fighting against death. By the time he was well again, things had become pretty rough for us. We had our Dixie sorghum, but little money for sugar. I can remember eating molasses cake, molasses cookies, even having a little molasses in the yeast to sweeten the bread. In my memory, though, they were very good. Mother had a knack for making delicious food out of very little.
I loved my years during those hard times, although I was aware of the worries of my parents. In our new town nine of us girls soon became very close friends, and along with seven boys those next few years leaves one of the richest memories possible. Constantly we were together making our own fun, roaming those red hills, playing games on hot summer evenings, having cook-outs and swimming, having dances and early Christmas morning caroling. It was here in my associations and church classes my values of the important things in life became established.
But all things end, and as I finished my first year of college, I left my town along with two friends to work for the next few years in Salt Lake. One of my new friends in the city was a girl from Magna. Her parents were from Lehi and June spent considerable time visiting her grandparents there. Her boy friend was also from there. He was Wayne’s closest friend, and one night while he was on furlough from the army he told me that Wayne had made arrangements for him to go out that night with June’s girlfriend. He hadn’t, and I wasn’t too happy about the whole thing, but at June’s insistence I went. That began an attraction that soon led us to the altar in the Salt Lake Temple, and has, through the years, been a close and very happy partnership.
To our union have been born seven very choice children. Eileen, Marilyn, Kenneth & Carole (twins), Janice, Neil and JaLaine. How soon other things become secondary, and our joys and hopes lie in the righteous choices of those spirits given to us. We are proud of our children.
We are happy with our associations through the years. These things we discover are life’s choicest blessings. We appreciate the callings the Lord has given us in His church. Many happy hours and close friends have been ours because of this.
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