Beach Haven

Week of 29 August 1983


Despite taking off work a few days this week because of being sick, she still managed to work on a doll and a quilt she was making for somebody. She still struggled this week over some of Dad’s choices. She saw the situation as having to look the other way or break up. She pleads, “God give me peace.”

That week Dan took his driver test for the second time. He was using a manual transmission car and had trouble with clutching so had to take it a third time. Maybe next try will be with an automatic? That weekend the daughter of a long-time family friend got married. She was a teen and pregnant. Crystal helped as a server at the wedding.

Seems I called from Spain that Saturday looking for the contact information of our stake president. About this time the mission president was beginning to make arrangements for my district’s return home at the end of the year. He needed to start communicating with the stake president. 

Week of 22 Aug 1983

Mom notes that Dad and Crystal picked and shelled 50 ears of corn. Mom froze some, and also dried some along with a bunch of grapes. Later when Crystal was at a neighbor’s house, Mom performed surgery on a doll she was making for Crystal. At least that’s how it reads. She wrote, “got the head and body together and stuffed.” Maybe it was less surgery and more taxidermy?

The fair was happening that week and they took 10 chickens to show at the fair. She notes that collectively they brought home 8 blue ribbons and 2 red. She hadn’t gotten a letter from me on my mission in three weeks and she was worried. (Mike’s note: For you youngsters, that’s just how international snail mail works. It’s inefficient, but it’s what we had. I would make the argument that getting a physical letter might be more appealing than email or texts, and as such is worth the waiting.)
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Lisa broke her finger, and Mom took her to the hospital. Dad and Mom were fighting over more signs of his bad decisions. This was a difficult time for her between that and Lisa beginning divorce papers. She was clearly discouraged.  

Week of 15 Aug 1983

Crystal had a bike crash on this week. She skinned up her arm and leg. Along with a plethora of tasks, Mom spent a bunch of time making a quilt for me (Mike). I was still on my mission in Spain at the time. Dan spend some time over the weekend riding horse on the mountain above Honeyville with Lance Maxwell. Lance has since died (much later than this time period). Lance’s older brother James was friends with me in high school. James and I also at times rode horses on the mountain above Honeyville. Both Lisa and Vangee were living in Salt Lake City. Mom noted that they were getting time together.

This week was difficult for Mom in a particular way. In past years my parents had almost divorced because of bad choices Dad had made. On this week, Mom had reason to worry he was making similar choices. 
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Week of 25 July 1983

There was a Primary Pioneer Picnic that Monday in Honeyville. Lisa was visiting that weekend and Mom took her back to Salt Lake City after the picnic. It must have been picnic week, because the next day was a softball league picnic. She was in a cleaning up mode. After listing a bunch of tasks knocked out, as usual, she mentions going through some of Crystal’s clothes and a box of letters from Mike.

Lisa got word that her soon-to-be ex was in a ‘mental institution’ for three weeks. She, Lisa, was torn on what to do.

​Mom was looking ahead to Christmas already, because that’s just how she would think. She reached out to friends Don and Alma Thrash to start building a dollhouse for Crystal. She went to help Lisa in SLC and while there “bought a small family” for the dollhouse. On Saturday she bought some contact paper for the dollhouse walls, then found some material for bedspreads, curtains, and rugs.
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Week of 27 June 1983

This week continued with crochet work on an afghan. Looks like she did complete the one she had been working on the past few weeks. Crystal had a game and a loss. This seems to have been a pattern for her team, at least has Mom documented things. Dan killed some cat that was after one of Dad’s ducks. At least one of the ducks had disappeared, and Dad was upset because these particular ducks had been expensive to buy. A box arrived from me (Mike) in Spain with a birthday present for Crystal. It was a small statue of Flamenco dancers.

Mom was preparing for an upcoming vacation, including training another secretary at work how to do her tasks. There was a long list of preparatory home tasks as well. Lisa came up by bus to spend the weekend. On Saturday Mom picked up extended family members Martin and Barbara at the airport. It's not clear if Dad was with them. Maybe that will be more explicit in the next week's entries. The group visited a few local northern Utah sites like the Osmond studio, then began their first southward drive-leg of the trip that would last through the next week. I can get into the trip notes next time, but it will come as no surprise to anyone who knew her that there is an extensive detailed itinerary and cost estimate document taped to a page of the journal. She also documented over several pages all the individual expenses of the trip as they happened. That's so Mom.

Beach Family Conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
By Paulene Beach
Document Shared by Crystal Dunn

My daughter, Crystal Lee Dunn, has asked me to write the story of our conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will record this to the bet of my ability from my memory.

One day in late 1970, I went to my friend’s house to visit her. It seemed to be every Saturday we visited. Her name was Dorothy Fairchild Mowery. Her husband was the most evil person that I had ever met. Dot was a great person and I don’t know how she put up with him. He was a drunk and he beat her all the time. He even made her lose a baby because she wouldn’t come downstairs and make food for him and his buddy and two women in the middle of the night. He threw her down the stairs and she miscarried. I met her when I was 18 and we worked in the sewing factory together.

Anyway, while I was visiting (and her husband was out) the doorbell rang and there were two young missionaries there. They asked if they could talk to us. They explained they were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had a message for us. I had been raised Evangelical (Methodist now) but they could never answer my questions so I quit going in my teenage years. I had been thinking about looking for God in my life, but didn’t know where to look.

The missionaries taught us the first discussion and I knew IMMEDIATELY that this is what I believed also was looking for. They asked if they could come back next week but Dot was afraid her husband might be there and hurt them. My husband, Fred, had just thrown the Jehovah Witnesses out of our house the week before, but I decided I needed to hear them. They asked if I wanted to go to church next week. Fred was going to be gone with the military, so I decided to try it. The closest branch was 35 miles away (in Sunbury, PA). A lady from the branch picked me up (Louise Bredbender). It was really impressive.

When the missionaries came the next week to our house, I explained to Fred about them. He listened and so did the kids. We started to study with the missionaries and decided to join the church. I was so happy that the family chose to follow me into the church. Lisa and I were baptized in January 1971. Fred said he had to be able to quit drinking coffee and smoking before he would join. He became the longest investigator, but went to church every week.

In 1972, Fred decided he was ready. I was upstairs and picked up the hall phone to call someone and I heard Fred on the downstairs phone talking to the missionaries. He told them he wanted to be baptized. I was so excited that I started to cry and ran downstairs. He was baptized right after that. When Mike was eight, he was baptized also and the others followed when they turned eight.

We drove to Sunbury every week. It was before the block. We went down in the morning and took our lunch and then went back in the evening. We did that for about a year. Our town, Berwick, PA, was central to several towns around us. We were the only members in our town except Don and Alma Thrash, who moved to Utah not too long after. They followed their married kids out there. They were our parents in the branch.

After about a year, some of the members and us, asked if we could start a branch in Berwick, since it was central to the towns that members lived in. We were told to find a location for a building we could rent. Fred and I looked around Berwick and found we could rent a Justice of Peace’s office on the weekends. It was smelly from people smoking in the office. On Saturdays our family cleaned the building and aired out the smoke. We held Sunday School sitting on the floor in the hallway for the kids. We adults used the main entrance and one of the offices for our meeting room. The Justice’s office was our chapel.

There were about seven families and us who got it started. Richard Long was our first branch president. Richard and Lydia were our good friends from Bloomsburg, PA. They are still our best friends today [Note from Mike – Mom put no date on this document, but both she and Dad have since passed away as has Lydia Long]. I’m trying to remember the other families. There was Doyle and Betty Smethers from Mainville, PA and their kids. Also Doyle (chicken lips) and Diane Breech from Catawissa, PA along with Jean Bitner and her husband (can’t remember his name) and their kids from Catawissa also. Then there was Bill and Linda Schmidt and their family also from Mainville area. Nancy Zehner from Mainville (Nancy, Bill Schmidt and Betty Smethers were sisters and a brother). Cecil and Ann Turburville and their family were from Bloomsburg, PA. We became one big family and stayed that way ever since. Many of them have died now and the one’s left are old and ready to go.

We used that building for about a year and then bought an old school building outside of Berwick. We had a fund raising spaghetti dinner to raise money to remodel. At that time Fred (my husband) had his own country and western band and they played for a dance with a dinner. Fred must have eaten too much spaghetti because when he was playing his guitar his belt buckle came off and flew across the dance floor under everyone’s feet. He got teased about that for a long time.

We tore it all up and remodeled it ourselves as a branch. For money to remodel, Lydia and I made my recipe of chili and sold it at an auction that Lydia worked with. Some of the people said they followed the auction just for our chili. It was all donated to the building fund. It was a lot of fun working the auction and it helped a lot. We were still going to that building in 1977 when we sold our house and left for Utah. Now there is a new regular ward building there. We visit it every year when we go back. It’s great seeing our old family again.

When we moved here [to Utah], Alma and Don Thrash had a house all picked out for us. We lived in it 28 years. We buried them (at their request) in our grave plot at Calls Fort cemetery between Brigham City and Honeyville, Utah. Their two kids were nomads and moved around a lot and died out of state later. Dona and Alma were our parents in the church and great friends. Fred is already buried beside them and I will be also someday.

We enjoyed having the missionaries at our house on P day. They did their laundry there and ate supper with us often. They played with our kids and took Mike and Fred with them on splits often. We have kept in touch with Elder Drue Smith and his family over the years but have lost track of Elder Johnson [we have confirmed the other missionary was actually Steven Hardy Jackson].

My testimony has grown over the years and I am so happy to have found Jesus’s church. It is the best thing that has happened to me and our family in my life except for having my family beside me. Thank you Heavenly Father and Jesus and the Holy Ghost for finding us.
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Paulene Fay (Miller) Beach

Week beginning 14 Feb 1983

Happy Mother’s Day! Here is another take of me summarizing a week in the life of Paulene Beach based on her journals. We love you Mom! Hope you’re keeping busy in the spirit world.

After working on Monday, she ran kids to the skating rink in Ogden. While they skated she visited long-time friends the Fisher family. We knew them when they were temporarily stationed in Pennsylvania back in our early church membership. They eventually transferred to Hill AFB and were living in Roy, UT at the time of this entry.

Mom was interviewed for a new position she was up for at work. She was nervous because the boss she would be working for depended heavily on dictation and the increased demand for short-hand that would place on her. That Friday she took Crystal and a family friend, Heather Hoffmeister, to a “mother-daughter thing” at school.

That Saturday, Dad was back at a Navy Reserves event. He was also working a lot of overtime to keep up to all the family expenses, mostly for needs by us children such as sustaining me on my full-time church mission. Dad continued to go to work despite a bad cold. Mom was packing for him as after working the overnight he was leaving the next morning for a Navy training trip in the Caribbean.

​Among an endless list of tasks documented, she also notes receiving a letter from her step cousin, Martin Hartman. She notes how he and his wife Barbara have always been among her extended family favorites. They indicated a desire to visit in the summer. She wrote to them later that day.  That Sunday was an interview with the Stake President to renew her temple recommend. She quilted for about five hours and wrote to me on my church mission. Dan had woken her up at 11pm that evening. He had ‘accidentally’ put his hand in a cake she had made. So she got up and fixed the cake.
 

Week beginning 6 Feb 1983

​A snow storm caused Mom to be late getting home on Monday, making for a short Family Home Evening conducted by Crystal. She got letters that week from Mike on his church mission, and another from Lisa feeling sick from pregnancy. Lisa encouraged Dan and Crystal to visit over the summer. Perhaps she was feeling a bit homesick.

Crystal had to go to the orthodontist this week to get spacers put in. More interaction with Lisa made it clear she wanted to stay with our grandparents since her in-laws were not supportive. Our cousin, Jeff was asking to do the same thing so Grammy Miller called to chat with Mom about it. Seems Grammy wasn’t really in a position to take in either at that time. Despite that, Grammy Miller seems to have let Lisa go to PA from where she was living. PA was closer for her than UT. Mom was worried because of the heavy snow in the weather report, but Lisa made it safe at least. At issue was that her husband of that time, Vince, was in basic training in the military. They had no money until he got paid. The in-laws were very negative about everything which put Lisa in a bad place.

Spring-like weather that Friday. That week Mom put in for a job that came up within Thiokol. It was a “six” level job. She said she was sure not to get it since she was new to her current position, and so many would apply since that level job was rarely available. Her boss wasn’t happy to hear about it. Dad and Dan had valentines and candy waiting for her and Crystal when they got home. Dad was working overtime that week which meant leaving for work at 10p.

Saturday brought time at the temple, then a bunch of tasks. Don Thrash gave her a tunnel to go with the family Christmas miniature train set. While she was away and Crystal was with the Thrashes, Dan had decided to clean the house for her. He had even dusted! The evening was full of other house chores (laundry, dishes, etc.). Don Thrash had been working on their taxes for them, and was expecting them to get a return of about $2000, clearly much needed. The evening ended this way for Mom, “worked on embroidering and watched a movie, wrote letters.” Dad had a Navy Reserve weekend duty after working all night.

Sunday brought church, choir practice, more letter writing and embroidering. 

From her journal, the third week of January 1983 was full of after-Christmas activities like exchanging gifts, and shipping boxes off for Lisa. There was some snow, so she talked about work shoveling snow. She particularly notes how Dan was home that day (Saturday), and he took care of washing the dishes. I wonder if that was so rare an event for her to have noted it in her journal. What do you think, Dan? She also notes that Dan went to a stake dance later that evening. Were any of us actually that young? I guess we were, or at least in this case there is evidence that Dan was.

In church that week she notes the focus of one of the lessons was about Alma 16 and 17 in the Book of Mormon. Then she notes: “Talked to the kids about responsibility of choosing right from wrong in TV shows, music, books, etc.”

That Sunday she noted she went to welcome Mike Holland to Honeyville. He and his family moved to the town about this time. The reason she particularly looked to welcome him was that we knew him as a missionary. He had served in our little branch of the church in Pennsylvania while we still lived there.
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She wrapped up her week/Sunday entry in a definitive normal way for her: “Burritos for supper, went to choir practice, wrote to Mike."