Happy Birthday Brenda!!!

Brenda was born March 25, 1943 to Darrell and Edna Hymas Eborn.  She was born in the old Montpelier Hospital, which occupied the upper floor of a store building in Montpelier.  She was the first daughter and third child in the family.  At the time of  Brenda's birth the family was still living in the small, two-room log home on Lanark Lane.  It was very crowded, but we managed to get by and Dad and Mom began to make plans for a different home.  Brenda was a pretty little girl and was a joy to her parents.  Dad came up with an original little song which he always used to sing to Brenda.  It went something like this: " B-R-E-N-D-A, I sure love you today."  I can still hear Dad singing this to her in my mind.  The picture below was taken when Brenda was one year old and is the earliest picture of her that I am aware of.  It was kept in Mom's Book of Remembrance.

Brenda has posted another picture of her and Nina elsewhere in this blog (see The Girls).  It is the only picture of the two of them together as young children that I am aware of.

This a picture of Brenda during her years at Fielding High School.  Brenda was a very good student, one of the best in her class.

Brenda as a young woman,  I'm not quite sure of the age, but my guess is that it was taken shortly after she graduated from Fielding High School in Paris in 1961.

Brenda met her future husband, Dean, while they were attending BYU in Provo.  After a short courtship they were married and have been happily married ever since and have raised a wonderful family which has brought great joy to them.  Dean was born and raised in McCammon, Idaho.

Brenda and Dean and the beginning of their family, baby daughter, Myrna.

Same family on a vist to Grandma and Grandpa's about two years later.  Myrna is starting to grow up already.  After Dean graduated from BYU he took a job as a PE and health teacher and coach at South Fremont High School in St. Anthony, Idaho where they raised their family of three boys and three girls.

As ayoung child, I remember being very fond of my little sister,Brenda.  We would walk around the yard and the farm holding hands, exploring, and playing together for many hours every day

by Bart

Other Memories of Ellis and Jeannine's Family

Dad and Mom loved their grandchildren and were happy to know that their own children also were having families of their own.  Ellis, of course, was the oldest and so he got a head start on the rest of us so far as  having children and thus grandchildren for Mom and Dad to enjoy.  Unfortunately, they were in the Air Force for much of the time the children  were very young and so they only got to see them occasionally.  They were very proud of Ellis and his family.  Below are the pictures that were kept in Mom's Book of Remembrance.
The pictures in no way reflect the full measure of love and concern they had for all Ellis' family, but are indicative of some of their feelings toward them.  I know these are just a few of the many pictures and memories that could be shared.  Feel free to go into the blog and edit it or add to it as you desire.

Ellis married Jeannine Armitage from Motpelier, Idaho.  He had just completed his sophomore year at Utah State and she had just graduated from Montpelier High School.   They were married in the Idaho Falls Temple on August 30, 1957. 

Gergory was their first child.  He was born while Ellis and Jeannine were going to school at Utah State.
Here  he is wearing his Dad's Air Force hat.  Cute kid!

Here we see Greg and his little sister, Jeanne, taking a bath together.  What siblings have not done that?

Greg and Jeanne starting to grow up.

Here is Greg, a grown man, with his bride, Laura Wilson.

Greg and Jeanne's little Sister, Lory Lynn.

Jim and Jeanne Eborn Haddenbach

This picture was taken at one of the family reunions and depicts the love Dad had for his grandson, Christiopher,and Chris for his Grandpa.

by Bart

The Lanark Eborn Kids

Here are the four oldest children of Darrell and Edna Eborn,  Brenda and Nina in front and Bart and Ellis in back.  We are all dressed up for church at the old Lanark Church House.  That building is gone now and I don't have a picture of it, but it was there that much of our early childhood religious traning and the beginnings of our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Chtist and traditions began.   One thing I remember distinctly about that Church House was that it was never locked.  I'm not sure there was even a key to the building. The same was true of every home in town.  I think that says something about the times we grew up in and the community we called home.  We belonged to the Lanark Ward then.  I remember well the Sunday activities with friends and neighbors.  We rarely, if ever, missed going to Church on Sunday and Mutual on Tuesday nights, even on bitter cold and snowy winter days and nights .  They would let school out a little early on Wednesdays and the school bus driver would drop us off at the Church for Primary.  I miss the closeness that we had with other ward members and neighbors. We've had lots of good friends because of the Church everywhere we have lived, but the ones I seem to remember the most were those who lived in Lanark and took an interest in us when we were young.

Here we are ready for Church again on a beautiful summer day.  Mom had away of keeping a beautiful petunia patch in front of the house and down along the east side of it.  I remember her doing this right up until she could no longer live alone at home.  Maybe that is where I gained my love of petunias and flowers in general.  This is another photo of Mom's "staircase".

By Bart

Ellis as a Child and Growing up

Happy Birthday, Ellis.

Some reminisences of my big brother, Ellis

Ellis was born just short of a year after Mom and Dad were married.  He was born at home in the old Arthur Eborn home in Lanark on March 6th 1937.  Mother told me that after he was born she thought she was the luckiest and happiest woman on the face of the earth.  It was while Ellis was still an infant that Dad and Mom bought the farm over on Lanark Lane.  They began to work the farm and  Mother told me of how she had a baby buggy which she used to push Ellis over to the farm on the gravel roads so she could be near where Dad was busy working.  Then after a time they would walk home together for the evening.  This went on until they were able to move the log cabin home which was over in the field across the slough over next to the road on Lanark Lane.  I can still hear Mother talking about how Ellis would lay in the buggy and goo until he went to sleep.  This was a time of great happiness in the lives of Mom and Dad.  They were beginning a family and also having a home and a farm , which they could call their own.  The home and the farm were a project as they were quite run down and there was a tremendous amout of work to do.  A well had to be dug and yes, Dad dug our well with his own shovel.  It was a shallow well, only about twenty feet deep, but it provided water for the family for many years.  I can only imagine what a job it was to dig a well with a shovel even that deep.  The farm work and fixing up that old cabin to make it livable were not the only challenges.  Starting a family there on that dusty knoll was a challenge in and of itself.  I think Dad was especially glad that their first child was a boy.  Heaven knows, they needed another set of hands to do all of the work.  Ellis grew up in that environment and it was at a very young age that he was doing a lot to help out around the farm.  I know Dad was glad to have a little man around partly for the company and partly for the work he could do. Ellis learned to drive a team of horses on the plow and the rake and other farm implements.  He learned to herd and milk cows and to feed calves, pigs and chickens.  He was a very good worker and very responsible for his age.  He was a very good looking child.  In fact, he was the best looking kid in the whole family for over three years.  Then I came along and he had to relenquish that title.  Ha, Ha,  Actually, in my eyes, Ellis was such a big, strong boy and there was nothing that he couldn't do.  I grew up kind of in his shadow because he was older, bigger, stronger, smarter, and maybe he was really even better looking.  Anyway, he was my big brother and I looked up to him.

This is a picture of Ellis as an infant.  It was kept in Grandma's Book of Rememberance.

This is Ellis when he was a young child, about three or four years old. Mom used that old curling iron on us all, I think.  He really was cute, now that I take a little closer look. It's not hard to see why Mom and Dad were so happy with their firstborn son.

Ellis attended school for the first two years in the Lanark School.  He has written elsewhere about this.  Later he went to Paris to Emerson Elementary School through the eigth grade.  He was elected as the Studentbody President of the school when he was an Eightgrader.  Mom and Dad were very proud of their son.

He attended high school in Paris at Fielding High School.  He was active in spoorts and played basketball on the High School team.  I remember one big game he played in.  It was against Montpelier High School.  They were the biggest of rivals and as I recall, the score was 62-50.  The Fielding Spartans defeated the highly favored Montpelier team at the Fielding High School Gymansium.  I can still see, in my minds eye, the gym filled to overflowing with wildly screaming high school  basketball fans.  These were fun memories for everyone who attended.

Ellis graduated from Fielding High School in 1955 and then attended Utah State Agricultural College in Logan that fall.  He was also a graduate of the LDS Seminary program.

Mom used to call us a stairway in this picture.  It was taken before Mark was born, but about the time
Ellis was a Junior in High School.  One can easily see why we felt, at times, we were in his shadow, he was the first and he was the bigest and the strongest. What's more he never let us forget it.

When Ellis was tewnty he married his sweetheart, Jeannine Armitage, from Montpelier in the Idaho Falls Temple.  They moved to Logan where they started a family and Ellis continued his education at Utah State.

At Utah State Ellis majored in geology and also was involved in the Air Force ROTC program.  Upon graduation he was commissioned a Second Leutenant and began flight training as a navigator.  This picture was taken by Mom and Dad when they went by train to visit Ellis and Jeannine where he was stationed in Texas. Here they are with their first two kids.  Gregory and Jeanne were the custest kids I think I had ever seen.  Anyway, I was a proud uncle.

Here are Ellis' children, Gregory, Jeanne, Lori Lynn, and Jonathan.  Christopher had not yet been born.

Cute kids!!

by Bart

Our Extended Eborn Family

Last week I recieved a phone call from our cousin, Janet Mumford, who lives in Soda Springs.  She informed me that her mother, Aunt Helen Rae's husband, had passed away.  He was ninetythree and had been in a nursing home for some time so it was not unexpected.  Iris and I decided to go the the funeral this past Monday, since we had nothing else on the agenda and wanted to pay our respects to Aunt Helen Rae.  She was glad we came and even gave us a special call on Wednesday thanking us for coming.  Her husband, Harry was a very nice man and they had a wonderful service for him.  He was buried in Burley where he had lived before he met Aunt Helen Rae.  Uncle Dean Larsen, Aunt Helen Rae's first husbsnd had died many years before.  I think he was in his fifties at the time.  Aunt Helen Rae had lived as a widow for a long time before she met Harry and was married to him.  They seemed to have a very good relationship and visited friends and relatives in the Bear Lake Valley quite often until Harry became incapacitated.  They visisted us quite often in Montpelier, especially during the time that Mother lived with us.   One time, at Harry's suggestion, they even brought us a lunch to have while they were there visiting.

     As a result of our being at the funeral and seeing some of the Eborn cousins and family. my thoughts turned to Grandpa Arthur and Grandma Nina Eborn.  They raised twelve kids to maturity in a small frame home in Lanark.  They all married and had families of their own.  Most of these were relatively large families and now the posterity of Arthur Phipp and Nina Passey Eborn numbers well over a thousand.  Much good has been done by this extended family and I'm sure they are looking down with pride on their posterity and also wish some of us would get on the ball and shape up and be a little more involved with one another.

I found a few pictures which I will share on this blog and hope that some of the readers might have a comment about their memories of the extended family, or maybe a few questions that some of us might be able to answer for the rest.

This is a picture of Arthur Phipp Eborn and Nina Louise Passey Eborn on their wedding day.

Here they are fifty years later on their golden wedding anniversary.

This is the home in Paris where they spent the last part of their lives, after having lived in Lanark for the first part of their married lives.  This is the home I remember when I visited them often as a youth.  It was right across the street from the Emerson Elemantary school where we all went to school up through the eigth grade.

This is a picture of Grandma and Grandpa Eborn's children and their spouses.  They are left to right,  Alice and Seth Moser, Darrell and Edna Eborn, LaMar and Vesta Eborn, Willard and Blanche Eborn. behind Aunt Blanche is Aunt Fern and next to her is Uncle Weldon, Next to Uncle Weldon is Uncle Dean Larsen and just in front of him is Aunt Helen Rae Larsen.  Next to Uncle Dean is the youngest in the family, Uncle Worth and his wife Aunt Nina, Grandma Nina Louise Passey Eborn and Grandpa Arthur Phipp Eborn are in the front and center of the picture.  Next to Grandpa Eborn is Uncle Harlan and his wife, Aunt Agnes,  is just behind him.  Next to Harlan, is Aunt Opal, who recently died just ten days short of her 99th birthday and Uncle Hugh Shephed directly behind her. Next ot Aunt Opal is Aunt Velda Michaelson.  Her husband, Alton, was apparently missing from this photograph. Directly behind Aunt Velda is Aunt Elizabeth (Lizzie)Eborn.  She was married to Uncle Virgil Eborn, who is also missing from this photograph.  On the far right are Aunt Golda and Uncle Clifford Skinner.  This large family was fortunate enough to live relatively close to one another in the Bear Lake Valley for most of their lives.

By Bart

Ellis while serving in the US Air Force

Ellis graduated from Utah State University and then went into the Air Force as an officer.  These are the only two pictures I have of him from that period of time.  He has another which was a painting of him when he was in Vietnam, I believe.  Mom and Dad had that picture hanging in their home I think until the day they died. The first picture is of his Navigator Class graduation in Texas. I remember how proud Mom and Dad were of their soldier son, as was I.

I think this picture was taken about the same time.  Here he is all dressed up ready for duty.

I appreciate the example Ellis set for me when I was growing up.  We had our brotherly battles with me always coming out on the losing end of the stick, but we loved each other and we worked and played together for many years,  I missed him when he got married and went into the Air Force.  I remember thinking Greg and Jeanne were to two cutest kids ever.  Of course that was before I got kids of my own and even better than that was when I got grandkids of my own.

by Bart

Memorable Events During Military Career

I promise this will be my last post on military, wars and the like.  They were hard to include in one post however but were events that I felt were important in my life.  In 1961 I entered Navigation School in Waco Texas as a 2nd Lt.  18 Months later I completed Navigation and Radar Intercept School and Survival Training at Reno Nevada.   My first operational Unit was the 963 Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing.   I was checked out in the EC121 which is one of those aircraft with big radar pods on the top and bottom.   It had lots of sophisticated  radio equipment.aboard and was designed for special missions.    Shortly after I was checked out in the aircraft I was called up and told to be ready for deployment within 1 hour.     It turned out to be a mission operating under the Joint Chief of Staff and participating in the Cuban Missile Crises.  The entire military was in a high state of alert and each morning we took of from an Air Base near Orlando Florida,  We flew very low out over the ocean and as close as we could get to Cuba.  It was our job to control the U-2s, which were very high flying aircraft with the ability to take very detailed pictures.  On one day that aircraft was hit by a missile and crashed into the ocean killing the pilot.   I performed this mission for about a month sometimes flying as low as 100 feet.

In in 1965 my crew went to Viet Nam.   Viet Nam   was a terrible environment.  It was hot, humid and smelly.  We flew every day, sometimes 12 or more hours.   We mostly flew over Laos, N Vietnam, and in the Tonkin gulf.   Other aircraft were constantly getting shot down.  It was our job to warn the fighters of hostile aircraft in the area.   I had a large Radar next to me and some days there were emergency locator beacons all around me, each one representing downed aircraft and crew.  One of the most frustrating things was the sight of Russian ships coming and going in the Viet Namese ports.  No one was allowed to touch them.  War is a violent way to live.  There are those that like it but they change over time --seem to lose care for anything but fighting and killing.

I saw so many horrible things in Viet Nam, kids with their legs and arms blown off, dragging themselves around.  I decided that that kind of life was not for me. If  I was fighting to defend my life or my home I think I could do it -- but that is the only way.  I didn't want to do it as a way of making a living.  We landed with one or more  engines out many times.  On one early morning takeoff we had the 2 right engines catch fire. 

I quit flying with the Air Force and Air National Guard after 12 years.   I held the rank of Major.   I enjoyed the Military and the flying but not the war.  I bought a couple of  Cessna 182's  during the 1990's which I really enjoyed flying, but I don't fly any more --except as an occasional passenger.

I have great respect for the military.  My experience has proven to me that the soldiers in the various military organizations are among the finest  people in our country.  Their training and discipline and character is emphasized.  I believe military training would be good for all youth. 

This country has made many mistakes around the world in their interactions with other Nations.   One important fact, however, was relayed to me by a friend of mine who lives a couple of streets away and who survived the advances of Hitler in Europe during the 2nd world war.  He said " THIS WOULD BE A MUCH DIFFERENT WORLD IF IT WASN'T FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA".  Yes there are those among us, both Republicans and Democrats,  who have forgotten that they were elected to serve the public.  Some have become impressed with their own power and have desired to obtain more, rather that to serve the public and to uphold the Constitution.  Evil will continue to to be among us.   All government policies and those that want to implement them should be judged by the effect they will have on our freedom, which is GOD GIVEN.   Remember government cannot give us anything that they don't first take away.   Don't let anyone take our freedom away.

By Ellis