1977 - From my Journal

1977

                 Half-way through my sophomore year (January 1977), I just kind of pooped out of everything!  I dropped choir, and even though I was still in drill-team, me and Joan Adams (my cousin) and Cindy Nelson were the rebels.  I did try out for Varsity Cheerleader for the next year, (my Junior year) and made it, along with Debi Ball, Kaley Jensen, Marci Peterson, Susan Burraston, and Pauline Preece.     

               

                I went to an L.D.S. Youth Conference in Provo the first week of June, and missed my first period.  I just KNEW that I was pregnant.  I was 16 years old.  Boy was I scared to tell my parents!!  Roger told his sister Lynette, and she arranged for me to take a pregnancy test at the hospital.  Sure enough, it was positive.  Roger was working at Hobart at the Freeport Center at this time.  He was doing sheet-metal work, making dishwashers, refrigerators, etc.  I drove over from Lynette's to tell him.  We were both pretty scared, and decided we would tell our parents that night.  Of course, we both told our mothers, I didn't dare tell  my dad!  You can imagine they were pretty upset about it, more so than either Rog or myself.  As kids, you just don't realize what you are getting into.  You paint the world rosy, and think everything will work out just beautifully.  I ended up quitting cheerleading of course, and was replaced by another girl.

               

                We were married on July 14, 1977  and had our reception one week later on July 22nd.  Bishop Francis Webster married us on my mom and dad's back patio.  The next week when we were supposed to have the reception in my mom and dad's yard, it poured down rain.  We had the wedding line in the carport (with the grease stains and all) and  the presents were in the living room, and the refreshments were downstairs.  I guess it worked out all right.  I wasn't bothered at the time, but looking back on it, it was kind of a mess I guess.

               

                The summer I HAD to get married (That was the way you phrased it in those days) there were also a bunch of other girls in the same predicament.  7 of us total.  We all married the dad's, because this is what you did in 1977.

               

                 As of this date, (2002 - when I compiled this), only 3 of the 7 couples are still married.    Thank goodness Rog and I are still together.  It has been a rocky 25 years together.  It is true what they say about young marriages being hard, and the divorce rate high.

                Roger and I lived in a basement apartment on about 40th and Madison in Ogden for the first 3 weeks of our married life.  We both hated it.    We moved back to Morgan in August, and stayed at my mom's house while they were on vacation to California. We were waiting until an upstairs apartment was ready.  It was located in a house that was at 10 S. 200 E.  This house was made into 3 apartments.  We lived in the top one.  This house is no longer standing.  It was torn down to make way for a parking lot for Bob Walker's 8-plex's.  This little apartment will always be special to me.  It had slanted ceilings, and the stove was a little two burner that needed to be lighted with a match each time it was used.  It had one bedroom in the apartment, and another across the hall at the top of the stairs that we used for storage.  This is the home we brought Ambure home to.  

                Our first year of married life was ROCKY.  I look back now, and can't believe we made it.  There is NO WAY I would do it over again.  When we got married, my mom and dad gave us their old dark green Ford Galaxy 500.  That fall, I had driven over to mom's to get some bottled fruit.  I stacked the jars on the floor of the car, and as I pulled out of their driveway, they tipped over.  I bent down to straighten them, while still driving down the road.  I looked up just in time to see the car hit a telephone pole right on their street.  It broke the pole right in half, and it was boinging up and down. I hit my lip on the steering wheel, and it was bleeding.  I was okay.  Verl Mecham had been driving down Young Street at the exact moment that I hit the pole, and he came back to see if I was okay.  I was bawling, and he called the police and took me home to Roger.  Me and Roger drove back over to get things straightened out. My mom and dad were over to a football game, and Verl went and got them. We had to pay $100.00 to the city for a new telephone pole, and the damage it did to the car was about $200 or $300 dollars.  It was the pits.  We gave the car to Barclay Earl the next summer, and he drove it in the demolition derby. 

                I worked at Jay's Drive Inn (now Steph's) during the days.  This helped to bring in some extra money, but I sure put on the pounds eating fries, etc.  I worked there until about a month before Ambure was born.