A visit home

On Saturday April 24, my sister Angie and I spent a few hours driving around Payson and reminiscing about the people and places we knew those many years ago. So much has changed over the decades, but it was fun to see the things that are left.

We started in West Mountain, where our Payson experience began. Our Dad purchased a small farm in 1959 and moved the family there from Salt Lake City. The home we lived in still stands, though it has been dramatically remodeled. The big box elder trees in the yard (the ones showing green in the photos) were there in our childhood, though the other trees have been added since. Here's a photo of the home approaching from the east:

While we were looking at the house from the street, the current owner noticed us and came out to talk. He was very friendly, shared his memories and experiences, and eventually invited us to come in the yard and the house for a tour!
This is the front view today. The nice covered porch is new, and the fireplace on the left. The gabled windows on top are among the few things that are still like we remember.

I like this view across the front lawn, looking west towards the chapel we attended in our youth. We remembered playing on this lawn (there was very little back yard), and recalled the really old push-mower that we used to cut the grass of our lawn.

In the back of the home, they raised the level of the ground (which naturally sloped away from the house) and made a much larger back yard. The changes to the house are much more dramatic from this angle. The original house is the smaller part on the left side of the photo. The two stories with the patio and balcony extending out are all additions. I think the current owner said they raised 7 or 8 children in the home? Probably if we had stayed, we would have needed more space than we had too.

I took only a very few photos inside the home; there weren't a lot of things that I could remember, and I didn't want to invade the privacy. I do wish I had taken a photo upstairs — those little rooms nestled up under the rafters were my sisters' bedrooms, and they are as small and tight as we both remembered.

This is the one picture I did take, of the steep narrow stairs leading up to the second level. In our time, there were some shelves under the stairs facing out where there is now a bulletin board. I remember once finding my Easter basket behind some things on that shelf!


This next view from the house across the yard to the shed evoked more memories and emotions. It seems there was always machinery scattered about, and an old sheep wagon (a kind of primitive camper trailer with a rounded top, silver I believe) off to the left. There was a haystack to the right. I remember our Mother standing at the kitchen window after our Dad was killed and crying, looking out across the yard for long stretches, maybe desperately hoping she would see him emerge from that shed again.

The field to the west was part of where our Dad farmed. Our section of land stretched along that road to the south where Tom Larson's home was.

This is looking southeast from the yard near the shed. I remember having sugar beets growing in this field, and having Indians and Mexicans hired to thin the beets and weed the plants. I also remember peas and wheat in our fields, and a big section of alfalfa down near the Larson home. This is a beautiful view to me; I wonder if my Dad enjoyed looking at the mountains as much as I do.

Saving the best for last. Though I enjoy walking the yard and fields where my Dad walked and worked, this fence is one of the few very personal "treasures" that still exists in the farmyard. It's bowed and aging, but still very functional almost 50 years after our Dad built it. When I touch it, I feel like I'm touching a part of him. It will be a very sad day to return to visit in the future and find it gone.