Mom and Dell

After talking to Aunt Sally, Uncle Sharm and Hazel Baker (Dell’s Sister), this is to the best of my knowledge what happened. Mom was just out of High School and she was taking Grandma to work at the tomato factory when she met Dell. He had come home from the war and fell madly in love with him. One story that I heard was how he saved Mom from the boys picking on her at the swimming pool. Her falling in love with Dell was crushing for her High School sweetheart and he cried to Uncle Sharm wondering what he was going to do without her. Uncle Sharm says that he was a very good looking man. Dell had been a Golden Gloves boxer, which was an armature ranking, but had moved up to the pros and was well on his way to being in the big time. I’m not sure how long they went out, but I do know that he proposed to her under the power lines above where Uncle Sharm lives now. Because he was boxer they weren’t suppose to get married, so they did it in secret. Six weeks after they were married he had a fight with Remo Pauladory (sp); Uncle Sharm, Grandpa Jess, Uncle Seymour, Uncle Rulon Weaver and Hazel were all there. Any way they say that this guy just beat the crap out of Dell, the ambulance came and took him to U of U hospital, where they tried to release the pressure on his bleeding brain, by drilling into it, but he was too far gone and he died. I think that I can remember Mom saying that she never saw him fight, but I do know that she wasn’t there that night. Uncle Sharm said that when she found out, she shut herself in the bedroom and cried for hours. When she came out she threw down the marriage license on the table and said that they had killed her husband and that is how Grandma and Grandpa found out about the marriage. One of the stories that Aunt Sally told me about was that Mom got his car and her and Sally were driving home from Bountiful with it and the brakes went out. The only way Mom knew how she could stop it was to drive it into the old tree out in their yard when they finally got home and wreaked it. I’m not sure of the dates but she went to work at the Navy Base and that is where they picked her for “Queen of the Navy”. Sally said that it was the Centennial Year parade of 1947 and so they held the parade for 2 days and that she got to go to her cousin’s house and go to see Mom both times, riding on the float. She said that she was beautiful!! After a year had passed Mom insisted on marring Dell thro proxy in the temple. Everyone tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen, her mind was made up and so John Baker stood in for Dell and they were sealed. It was after that when Uncle Sharm said that she kind of lost her way and wanted to try something different. Mom had two friends that lived in Chicago and so she went there to live with them for about a year. It was while she was there that she got her ears pinned back. After they finally talked her into coming home it was New Year’s Eve and she went on a blind date with who turned out to be my Dad and that is a whole other story for another time! So now you get my version of what happened when Mom got up there. You know that they say that it is a life time to us here on earth, but for Dell it was a very short time. There he stood waiting for Mother, the love of his life and he her’s. Their eyes meet and while it seemed forever for Mom it was only moments for Dell. They picked up right where they had left off and Mom and Dell are living eternally “Happily Forever After”!!!!!!! (Says me, in my fantasy, fairy tale, little life!)
P.S. After talking to LeAnne, she remembers things that I don’t and now she said that she would write one also. Plus she says that I have letters that Mom and Dell wrote to each other somewhere in my basement, so that will be my next project, to find them and read them and then I’ll write again!