Forever Family: Little Green House on the Hill

"Command thy children to do good." (Alma 39:12). Sarah worked as a teacher for the first year of our marriage and at the end of that year I finish my degree in Elementary Education. Sarah was also pregnant and gave birth to our first child, a little girl. Family and friends watched our little girl for about three months. Then Sarah and I switched places in the third grade class she was teaching in the dead of winter. I would continue to teach at that same school in first through third grades for almost thirty years. When I officially graduated and received my diploma I carried my daugher with me to accept it. Sarah washed our clothes on a washboard in the bathtub and hung them outside to dry. Once the wind almost carried our clothes off and the little umbrella clothesline they were hanging on.Then later we were able to buy a used wringer washer with tubs and washing clothes to the backporch which was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Sarah could play the piano so we managed to get a second hand upright for her to use. Both of us loved to sing and wanted our little girl to enjoy music as well. The first year of our marriage we started reading the whole New Testament. We finished New Year's Eve 1975. We had Family Home Evening every Monday night evening before Bronwyn was born. We read the lessons together, had a treat, and sometimes we would have an activity. At church Sarah was the Young Woman's President and the girls sometimes came to our house to work on projects. I served as a counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency briefly and I taught Sunday School. We lived near my folks and they had a big garden. That year we had bushels and bushels of tomatoes and green beens. We would sit on the front porch in the evenings and snap beans for canning. Sarah did a lot of canning to add to our years food supply. We had very little material possessions and we had to scrimp and save, but we were happy in our little green house on the hill.