This is one of the stories in my autobiographical collection.

The Relief Society Homemaking Project- decorated waste baskets from ice cream barrels, early 1960's 37th Married Student Ward, on BYU campus.

One of the many Relief Society Homemaking projects that I will never forget involved ice cream barrels that we procured from the local ice cream stores in Provo, UT in the 60's.

Some of us would call the ice cream shops and pick them up before they were thrown out. Then we would wash them and dry them.

Then, we would decorate them in Relief Society Homemaking Meeting in the basement of one of the Wymount Terrace buildings on campus.

I remember putting all kinds of items on them: tiny pom-pom balls, rick-rack and covering them in cloth or wall paper! We were recycling even back then!

One Christmas, as very poor students, I decorated one waste paper basket for my mother and one for my mother in law as presents and managed to get them in our little car and drive them all the way to Portland, Oregon.

The one I gave to my mother was kept by her favorite over-stuffed chair in the living room. Mother had polio many years before and suffered many strokes. She spent a lot of time in her favorite chair next to her small bookcase reading, watching TV, doing crossword puzzles, and napping.

Mother loved her dogs. She had a little white cock-a-poo-mix, called "Cookie" that never left her side and used to sit by her on the wide arm of her large chair.

"Cookie" got old and a little blind and would often sleep on the arm of that chair with Mother. Most days both of them fell asleep in the chair.

One day, when I called home, I asked about her little dog "Cookie." Mother told me that "Cookie" died. "She is pretty old," I said, "I guess it was her time."

"Well, mother said, "Cookie fell into the waste basket and broke her neck!" I gasped! "The waste basket?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "you remember the one you made me for Christmas a long time ago?"

I have never been sure whether "Cookie" died on the arm of the chair and fell off or fell off in her sleep and the waste basket broke her neck and she died.

Either way, that little decorated ice cream barrel is forever associated with the death of "Cookie" and a Relief Society Project of recycling by very poor students at Christmas time!

Ahh, the days of Relief Society Projects!

Toilet paper holders? 2 #10 cans (I think) stacked, decorated and would hold 4-5 toilet papers! Barbie doll on top of toilet could hold another one!!!

Susie,

I just realized that I was also in the 37th married student ward when I lived at Wymount Terrace. This was in 1970-72.

We must have just missed crossing paths as members of the same ward at the same time!

gemini Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Susie,
>
> I just realized that I was also in the 37th
> married student ward when I lived at Wymount
> Terrace. This was in 1970-72.
>
> We must have just missed crossing paths as members
> of the same ward at the same time!


Oh my gosh!! Leon graduated in 1966 and started the graduate program when he was nearly killed in a bike/auto accident. We lived in 2A 65 and 2D 111. Traded apartments when he had the accident and had to use crutches -- those cement steps were horrible!! (How do I remember those apt. numbers! - I hope I got them right! )
Those were strange days for me as I was a new convert from Portland OR and thrown into Utah Mormon Culture - what a shock!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2013 12:45AM by SusieQ#1.

Oh my, SusieQ....Wymount Terrace 1962.. I came as a freshman from the midwest and lived there in an apt. with 5 other girls. The paint on the place was barely dry and the overflow from on-campus girls' housing used them before the married students moved in.

Yes, culture shock.

It was mostly married students, and all poverty stricken. I can't remember the ward #. As a new convert, I wasn't used to a non-family congregation, so I pushed my now Ex to see if he could get us a transfer to the local town ward. They let us in, and it was better in some ways, and not in others.

Carol Y. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It was mostly married students, and all poverty
> stricken. I can't remember the ward #. As a new
> convert, I wasn't used to a non-family
> congregation, so I pushed my now Ex to see if he
> could get us a transfer to the local town ward.
> They let us in, and it was better in some ways,
> and not in others.


Yes, some of the students with families did that when we were there.
It was a very insulated system: we lived in a quad of two story housing, and attended the same meetings: Rel. Soc. was held in the basement of one of the meetings, we went to a building on campus for Sacrament and Sunday School.
I was busy trying to figure everything out and fit in!

I've had relatives live in Wymount Terrace -- 20 yrs later.I had forgotten how small they are! But they were nicer than our homes we came from! (Ya, we were poor but didn't know it! )