Life Is Our Book

Life is our Book

Marilyn P. Johnson Aug. 3, 2009

Life is our book. . I'm still trying to learn new ways to communicate to my family and friends. Sometime I write about the here and now, or past memories. . . . . .
Pictures trigger my imagination of old times.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a wordless scrapbook will be worthless to your great-grandchildren. The stories behind the face will be a mystery.
Luckily old journals exist for most any situation, whether it be a celebration of a birthday or a holiday or just a day. Sometimes I write about self-discovery or even loss.

As I’m aging I realize that memory loss is a fact of life. But it is amazing when I look at old pictures or writings of my self and family, the stories come back. Maybe I don’t remember them exactly as they happened, and my children remember them a little different. But that is O.K. Some of my stories come from old journals and books that I kept as a child. I am lucky that many of my ancestors have sent me very old hard back books with genealogy and stories.
In one book there was a picture of me, age four with my sister and brother. These restores of my family history and feelings when I was a single mom back in 1970.
* * *
I think this might be a good obituary of my life in short form.

I Marilyn Paulson came into this world on December 27, 1931 in New York City, New york. I was born with cancer of the scull and the doctors said I would not make it through the night. But my father found a doctor who was experimenting with radium to kill cancer in new- borns. He too said she won’t make it through the night. But with his treatment I fooled them all.
I was often ill as a child, but happy, except for a painful side of my personality, I was very shy. At age 15 I suffered a serious ski accident which fractured my neck. The fall also broke bones in my pelvis and my left leg in 3 places, needing pins through the ankle and just below the knee, and leaving me with a limp. My mom persuaded me to take a modeling lessons, and being a dutiful child, but under protest, I took the lessons. To my surprise, within a year of hard work and exercise I overcame my limp and blossomed from the ugly duckling syndrome. I did commercials regularly on KSL-TV at night, four nights a week, and wholesale modeling for the big stores four times a year summer, spring, winter and fall. Also fashion show modeling for five years to finance my college education, and to live in the Pi Beta Phi Sorority house. on campus to sleep and eat and study.

I Graduated from the University of Utah in 1955 with a Bachelors’ in Elementary Education with Home Economics and Art as minors.

I married Gerald C. Jackson in the Salt Lake Temple, September 14, 1954, while we were both college seniors. I was surprised because two doctors said I could not carry a baby because of
the broken pelvis from the old ski accident. It was hard but I fooled the doctors. Eleven months later, Bryan Charles was born, August 1955, in Salt Lake City, Utah our family of three went to Boston, Massachusetts, where Jerry studied Dentistry at Tufts. I enjoyed motherhood again and Kevin Clark was born March 19, 1956, and Janette on June 24, 1958. The busy happy years continued and Jerry set up dental practice in Reno, Nevada 11, 1966 Melinda was born October 31, 1962, and Christopher Cordell, March 11, 1966.

Time has a way of altering our dreams and goals. Our marriage ended in divorce after 17
years and I was left alone in my world with five children, including little Chris who was 2-1/2.
I quickly went to work substitute teaching and was finally hired as a third grade teacher in a low- income area of Sun Valley, Nevada for the next 10 years. Teaching was truly my salvation. We were lucky and our family became closer and learned to do things together, including living on a short supply of money.

I have remained close to the L.D.S. Church and all of it’s teaching and we attended regularly as a family. My faith truly paid off during the trying years of being a single mother. Working full time, going to graduate school at night, and raising a family can either make you stronger or break you. My stubbornness wouldn't let me give up My church kept me from becoming hard-boiled. A friend told me, “your children are your assets or liabilities, it all depends on your attitude.” During these struggling years, I found strength and guidance at in our night Relief Society and it helped me to hold my family together.

My life has had many turns. I’ve moved 19 times since my birth in New York, 1931. I’m thankful for this last turn of luck.
I married again to a country gentleman, Virgil Kay Johnson, a Mormon widower with 4 lovely daughters, Debbie, Cheryl, Linda, Rachel.

Six of our children accompanied us to the Oakland Temple on Aug. 8, 1977 and to our delight all nine children made it to our Reno reception . We live in Kay’s home in Fernley Nevada, and have nine children between us. Five children in college, (U of Utah in Salt Lake City, B.Y.U. in Provo, and U of Nevada in Reno. Melinda attended high school in Reno, and Chris and Rachel lived with us full time and went to Fernley schools. The children came home whenever they could mostly in the summer. If they were all here at the same time some of them slept on the floor in sleeping bags. They tried to come home at Christmas and holidays.

The trials and tribulations of step-parenting were few and varying, but with Kay’s quick wit and gentle nature, the hurdles were jumped and our lives smoothed out again. Time passes quickly when you are having fun. With some children in college, married, grandchildren arriving, there is time again for a little tennis, gardening and painting.

I know now I’ll never have time to be a serious artist, but my life is so full, like a kaleidoscope with so many pictures and events. I have been writing a book about my paintings, and adding pictures. I send a few pages each Christmas to our children and grand children. I also have been making scrapbooks with pictures and stories about my life in a creative writing class at the Fernley Senior Center. Kay loves to work in the thrift store at the senior center. We both enjoy working in our gardens. We have many wonderful old pine trees and the incentive to keep up the yard for Kay’s annual birthday party, July 23. Ice cream and cake 7 to 9 at night, the guests leave as the many twinkling tiny lights begin to glow on the arches and walkway. I’m enjoying each new turn, of the kaleidoscope thankful for the Gospel and the happy life it affords us with new dreams and Eternal goals. Grateful for all our children and offspring, many friends and the students I was blessed to teach, I know that death is part of the Eternal Plan.

But I never believed I would be a widow. Kay promised I could die first years ago. But he got to 103 first and the Lord took him to his Eternal Home in a well reserved place in Paradise, August 23, 2011. I must be brave again and make the most of these last few years on earth.

Our large family of 9 children and mates and 27 grandchildren mostly married and 35 great grandchildren. Not a day goes by that I don’t get a card, e-mail, phone call or visit. Nights are the hardest I miss my foot rubs and our long night prayers with Kay. When I get too lonesome at night I think of one of Kay's jokes and wonder which one he will tell me when I get to my Eternal Home with him. I think too of being able to see perfect with two eyes and hear without my hearing ads and walk and run with strong bones and no cane. Love Is Eternal, Marilyn P.S. I died when I turned 103, on August 23, 2015.

Service will be held Saturday August 26, 2015, at Ross Burke and Knobel Mortuary, 21 Kietzke Lane, Reno Nevada with a visitation from 2 until 4 pm with service beginning at 4 p.m. and a reception will immediately follow the service. You are invited to leave a condolence message in the “Family guest book” at the website of www.Rossburknoble.com In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Hospice Foundation of Northern Nevada P.O. Box 51138, Sparks. 89435 * * *
Immediately following the funeral service, burial will be in the family plot at Mountain View Cemetery in Reno Nevada.

Bryan the Lion

Story to follow at a later date. Bryan The Lion's early will follow at a later date.

Marilyn had this baby that two doctors said she would never have because of the badly broken pelvis as a teenager in a ski accident. We were going to adopt but it happened. I was a senior at University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I was bound and determined to graduate as a teacher so I could be around children. Funny things happened while living in the continental apartment house just off campus with my parents, and Jerry was graduating too. I was grounded from using stairs and the diabetes was high and I needed a lot of sleep, but was doing well in my classes and graduated that year with honors. One day, I got on the elevator, went to the basement, and washed the clothes, folded them, and put them back in the elevator. As I reached the twelfth floor, the power went out, and it was getting very hot. I prayed again, and investigated the buttons with no luck. But I decided to open the doors and I could see I was between floors, put the basket in the door, pulled the floor down so I could crawl out. I went into labor the next day, and Bryan was born after a difficult 36 hour labor during a rainstorm, and the lights went out in the hospital except in the delivery room. I slept for two days, and the nurses had fun feeding this hungry baby. He weighed abut 9 1/2 pounds. I had gained twenty pounds but lost thirty pounds in labor. Bryan was born with bright red hair and no eye-lashes and a nervous chin, because he was born two or three weeks early.

Bryan Charles Jackson was my first son born August 5, 1955.

This is Lewalla Jackson and Bryan is the first grandbaby on the Jackson side of the family.

Clarence Jackson was a proud grandfather. Baby Bryan was named after the two grandfathers, Bryan Charles Jackson.

Jerry went away to Boston to dental school. The doctors would not release me without a nurse's care. Three more weeks of nurses care and they gave me permission to go to Phoenix and be under my parents' care. My mother hired a black nurse to care for Bryan. I gained my strength and the blood pressure was normal by Thanksgiving. Bryan and I flew to Boston and a happy reunion.

My mother and father took me to the airport and cried as I left. They loved that little boy too.

Jerry the proud father checking Bryan's first tooth.

Bryan loved to dress up and go to church. Money was tight, mom bought material by the pound left over from the factories, because Boston was the clothing capital of the US. I loved to sew for my children.

Kay's Birthday Parties

Kay's Birthday Party 1978
We invited family and relatives.

Marilyn is painting the furniture blue to get ready for the party.

Grandson Cody trimmed the bushes and did other yard work.

Heather Bailey, our oldest granddaughter, and our great grandchildren, Madelyn and Eliza came the day before the party to wish Happy Birthday to Kay.

Grandson Cody's wife Jen came a day early to wish Grandpa a Happy Birthday and to give him a kiss on the forehead!

My masseuse came and gave short massages to the guests.

The Senior Center friends enjoyed coming too. Kay works there several days a week to help them with heavy things and make shelves and tell jokes.
Grandpa Kay's 81st birthday and only two daughters, Debbie, and Rachel, could come. So we wouldn't be lonesome, we invited the neighborhood and friends. And this year, 95 people showed up for the ice cream and cake party.

We invited lots of friends new and old from the community, and our LDS Church. This is a new family that just recently moved here.

The Powelson family just moved here from Canada. He's a pharmacist at Fernley Wal-Mart. Sometimes Summer and her children come to a wading pool party with other children during the week.

Grandpa's birthday kiss from his daughters admist the twinkling lights as it got dark. We saved cleaning up the tables and putting away the chairs for the next day.

We were tired, but happy as we sat down to say goodbye to the guests as they were leaving. Daughters Debbie and Rachel laughed even harder when they said "We forgot to light the candles and sing Happy Birhday!" The people were just arriving so fast the little children sat on the quilt in front of the ice cream table and were served first. Then off they ran to the swing set and sandbox and we just stayed busy serving ice cream and cake and visiting.

The next day, Kay's girls took us to the Wigwam and they remembered to bring Kay a piece of cake, ice cream, and a candle! And, the help came and sang Happy Birthday to Kay. Kay's four daughters worked at the Wigwam for many years to save money for college.

Ruby Brodie joyfully brought four of her great grandchildren and we enjoyed visiting with Ruby and her family. Ruby is one of Kay's oldest friends.