My second year at the University
wasn’t such a traumatic adjustment as my Freshman year. I was used to Dorm life and knew my way
around the Campus. I made the change in
my major to Dietetics and was now enrolled in the School of Home Economics
which was housed on the third floor of the old Ag building. My professors were wonderful. Dr. Ethel Thompson was my major professor and
she took a liking to me, even invited me to her home for little luncheons and
entertainments. Here I became acquainted
with Dr. Margaret Smith, (a biochemist at the University of Arizona) who with
her husband (H.V. Smith) found the relationship of fluoride to reduced tooth
decay. Many of the students from St.
David had mottling, which were brown patches on their teeth due to over
abundance of fluorides in the drinking water.
However, these same students had no tooth decay. This led to the discovery of fluorides to
protect teeth from decay. Years later my
husband tried desperately to get fluoride added to the drinking water in Snowflake
to protect the children’s teeth but an uninformed and uneducated citizenry blocked the effort.
Besides
the excitement of school and the numerous singing engagements I was enjoying, I
had many wonderful boyfriends to occupy my thoughts. Stanley Cardon, a graduate student working on
his Masters Degree in English, was without a doubt the most serious
suitor. I think Mother’s visit to Tucson
was to check him out as well as to hear me sing. I suppose the Lord had his arm around me
during those precarious college years, for before the year was out, Stan had
been called on a mission to Switzerland, and even if we thought our love could
withstand separation, it proved to be not the right thing for either of
us.
Another
young man who I feel played a part in my life at that time was Bill Moran, a
cripple, who had had osteo mylitis which had left him with almost useless
legs. However, he got around beautifully
on crutches. In Salt Lake, Dr. Lowell
Bennion had been a close personal friend of Bill’s, and invited him to spend
the winter in Tucson feeling the warm weather would be good for him. In the close feeling we enjoyed at the
Institute, Bill and I became very good friends.
He had so many fine qualities which I admired, and even though I have
lost track of him over the years, I shall always be grateful for his love and
understanding during those turbulent college years.
Mother
and Dad had many trials during this time also.
My sister Mayola had married and was living in New Orleans, my sister
Louise was struggling with her courses at Flagstaff. But perhaps the greatest challenge was
Grandpa Smith who had suffered several strokes, which left him confused and
mixed up. Mother kept Grandpa for many
years before he died, and for part of this time she kept Grandpa Rogers as
well. The years have taught me to appreciate
her great sacrifice incaring for her parents, and the nobility of her soul to
do so under such trying circumstances.
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| New Orleans |
It
was June 1938, after finishing my sophomore year, that our family took our
first trip to New Orleans. Dad and
Mother and Louise picked me up in Tucson.
It was a time of chattering the entire way down and back, telling my
family all about my wonderful new experiences in a big city and a big
school. Red and Mayola could not do
enough for us to show us the sights of that beautiful old Southern City. I shall never forget Mayola as she led us out
of the city on our way back home, and when she stopped to tell us goodby the
tears streamed down her dear face, in loneliness and love.
