I was born Luzene Jennings on July 20, 1910 in Levan, Utah. Some people say, "Levan, Utah, where is that?" It is about ninety miles south from Salt Lake City. An easy way to remember the name Levan is to think of it as "naval" spelled backwards. Levan is a small Mormon town. Nephi is the nearest bigger town.
My mother's name was Estella Eunice Dalton. She was the eldest in her family of Dalton's. My father's name was Henry Milton Jennings.
As near as any relative can remember, I was born about twelve noon. It was a very hot day and the women who attended my mother at home had their hsbands turn the hoses on the house to keep it cool enough to be bearable. I was the third child. My mother had given birth to a stillborn son and then to my brother named Douglas Milton who was a year and a half older than I.
I was named Luzene after the wife of one of my father's best friends who was named Lee Harper. Dad and Lee had been in missionary training together and Lee met a girl named Luzene while he was in France. He married her and brought her to the United States. I never met Luzene Harper and have found no one else in my whole life with this name. I hated the name as I was growing up because of what happened my first day in school. When the teacher asked each one of us to stand and give their name, I had such a weak and timid voice that the teacher shouted, "What did you say? Loosing...loosing what?" So after school the children would tease me saying, "Loosing? Loosing what? Loosing your underpants!" I thought later that perhaps Luzene Harper had a different spelling of her name but I didn't find out.
Our home was a small house on the property of my Grandfather Jennings. It was customary in that time for the father to give each son a small part of the farm and start him with a cow, pig, chickens, and a horse. In later years the small house was moved into the center of town and was used as a post office, and I would sometimes hear my relatives telling someone that my bvrother and I were born in the post office.
My earliest memories are of the time when i was about three years old. My brother Doug and I were constantly together. He teased me but would always stick up for me if I misbehaved in any way.
Early in my life there was a very serious epedimic of polio in the town of Levan. There was no special treatment for polio at this time and polio affected whole families, but especially children. My father became so terribly fearful of the disease that he could think of nothing else. He made a very big decision to try and find some other place to work outside of Utah.
He headed for Nevada trying to find some kind of work that would take into account his having a family and the need for a place for us to live. He went to work in a mill in a place which is no longer on the map. The town was called Newhouse and the nearest little was called Frisco where there was a mine which employeed quite a few men. He worked in those two different places.
He came home when the work was slow and he reported that he had not yet found a house for us to live in.Shortly after he came home that time, my sister Fern was born. She was a year and a half younger than I. Dad had been away from home so much that when he came home when Fern was just beginning to talk and walk, she just cried all the time and complained. "A man in the house." She wouldn't go to bed because there was a man in the room. Needless to say, this didn't endear her to Dad and I think that the animosity lasted all their lives.
We made jokes about Fern when she was older because she was so very much interested in "the man". She had said that she wanted to grow up and have lotys of children and no man, but she never had a child of her own but she did have four husbands. Mother doted on Fern and it may have been that she was trying to make up to her for the loss of a good relationship with her father.
Fern was the daintest, prettiest girl and I loved her with all my heart but was always a bit jealous of her. She wass also clever and witty and later in life built a very successful business for herself. She had the admiration of everyone who met her.
I was just over three years old when Dad finally found a home that was suitable for us. I astill have the letters that he wrote to Mother at that time. He used such tender and loving words, words that I don't remember ever hearing him use in my presence. he wrote that he would send someone to help her pack and then she was to get the three of us ready and he would come to Levan with a team of horses and a wagon and he would pack all of our belongings and head for Newhouse.
