CHAPTER 5

The RLDS Church

During the late winter or early spring of 1924, Mother met Clara wheeler in the store next door and they discovered that they were both new comers to the area. Clara invited Mother to come to her home, only a few blocks away. We had had no contact with the church since leaving Canada except for the Herald. Mother had the feeling that Clara belonged to the R.L.D.S. (The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ or Latter Day Saints) Church but was to timid to ask. When she visited Clara, she looked around the living room hoping to see a church book but saw none. Clara told us later that she had had the same feeling and soon the two families got together. Through the Wheelers, we got to know other Latter Day Saints in the area. The first service I attended was with the Wheelers in the home of Marion and Lottie Bronson in Tacoma. Soon after, prayer services were started in the homes in Puyallup. It was at these services that I first met Burr. He is the youngest in the family of Claude and Ermina Wildermuth Bronson. His sisters Ruby Gouldsmith (then deceased), Ada Wilcox, and Milla Ferguson, and his brothers Lester, Marion, and Hiel. It was under the leadership of Lester, an elder, that a little building on Pioneer Avenue, near town, was rented for Sunday services from the Boy Scouts. From this came the Puyallup branch and among the members were the Claude Bronsons, the Lester Bronsons, the Clarence Wheelers, the Pearl Reeds, the Clifford Wilcoxes, the Clarkes, and others who came later.

In September of 1924, I did not return to school for my senior year. My father was of the opinion that higher education for girls was a waste of time and money.

I worked in the berry fields, box factory and cannery, and for a time, with a Sirs. Gibbs, a semi-invalid. Minimum wage was $13.20 per week of forty-eight hours and I managed to save a little for clothes and other needs.

In August of 1925, I attended my first Church reunion with the Lester Bronson family at Silver Lake near Everett, Washington. It was at this time that Burr and I each received our patriarchal blessing given by Presiding Patriarch Frederick A. Smith with Alice N. Phipps acting as secretary.

That fall, I returned to school. I had discovered that when I had applied for jobs in Puyallup or Tacoma, one of the first questions asked was, "Do you have a high-school diploma?" So I resolved to go back and finish. After a year's absence, I found I had a lot of review work to do. Another problem was getting to know even a few of the students in this new class. However, I made it through carrying a full load of subjects but felt out of place enough not to attend class parties or the Prom. A grade average of 90% was required to be on the honor roll. I just missed it with having only 89-7/10.

Just before Christmas, Burr went to Redlands to join his parents who had gone there in late summer to visit a daughter, Milla Ferguson and family, and decided to stay there. Burr and his nephew Claire had been living and going to school near Orting. Burr finished his senior year and graduated from Redlands High the same spring that I finished.

After graduation in June 1926, I worked in Brews Box Factory where wooden shipping boxes for fruit were made. Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries were widely grown in the valley; so besides supplying the cannery, many were shipped to fresh fruit markets.