I remember some of the great stories mom (Maxine) told me about her childhood years. She was quite a bit younger than her other siblings and I believe she always wanted a big family (that is probably why she had seven children). She loved her mother and father very much. Her father was in Canada working with the railroad, and her mother raised her in Canada, and Utah, but most of her growing up years were in California. She always had a great love of books and she recalled a neighbor in her apartment building having a sort of library in her apartment. Mother would go to her apartment and check books out on a regular basis. Her love of reading carried on throughout her life, and she shared that with all of her children.

She tells of the first birthday party that she remembers having. It was her ninth birthday. Her mother baked a cake for her and wrapped nickles and dimes in wax paper and inserted them in the cake. She used to tell us about that when she would bake birthday cakes. She was very thrilled about her 'money cake'.

When Maxine was a very young girl, her mother had breast cancer and had a full mastectomy. Canada winters were very hard on her mother, her father traveled all over Canada and couldn't take care of his wife. She was not well, and it was decided that Maxine and her mother would move to Salt Lake City with Nonie (Maxine's sister). Nonie could care for her while she was trying to recuperate. Maxine was 6 yrs old at the time. They boarded the train for Salt Lake City. Maxine's father was the conductor of that train. She was very excited to see him as the train conductor. She did not know that she would not see him again for three years.

While living in Salt Lake City, Maxine's grandfather Karren came to live with them. She said, "I remember he wore a green corduroy jacket and I could tell when he was coming downstairs because he always shuffled his feet. I use to love to fool Mother and Nonie by pretending I was Grandpa by coming down the steps the same way he did. They always acted surprised when it turned out to be ME!"

Maxine also remembered when she was about four years old, she was walking home from somewhere and spied a pretty doll on someone's lawn. She went over and picked it up. She wanted it so badly that she took it home. When her mother asked her about the doll, she told her where she got it. She remembered that her mother lectured her on stealing and made her return the doll where she found it. She state's, "I can honestly say that I have never taken anything that did not belong to me since that time." She said she didn't ever remember her mother ever getting mad at her and being very soft spoken. I'm sure this is where she got that same demeanor.

One day, early in the evening, Nonie and her Mother were going to see Maxine's aunt Mayme and Uncle Jack. Maxine begged them to go with them but they wouldn't let her. They told her she had to stay and babysit a family of children (that she didn't even know). They dropped her off and it started raining heavy with thunder and lightening. Maxine and the kids were so scared they crawled under a table and prayed. After the people came home they waited for her mother and Nonie to come, but they didn't come. Finally the phone rang and it was her mother telling her they had been in a terrible auto accident. A drunk man had broadsided their car on Nonie's side. Her mother had some cuts and bruises, but Nonie was taken to the hospital with a broken pelvis. Her mother told Maxine that she felt if she would have gone with them that she would have probably been killed in the accident.

Maxine's mother was always active in the church and she remembered her taking her to all the meetings and to General Conference while they lived in Salt Lake City. Maxine was baptized in Salt Lake City somewhere on temple square.