MEAJP 102 Stories

While living on Delano Street in Pocatello, Gene bought a television set without a case around it. He then built the cabinet to put it in but had great difficulty getting the speakers working.  Once the TV was working he added a phonograph to the cabinet also. ------ Photo: A television console similar to what Gene made.

As a teenager, Ann went to a friend's house in the country. They stayed in the old house on the property and played in the snow. Ann said there was a newer modern house at the same place, but they played over in the old house. The friend's last name was Burkman -- probably Dorothy Burkman (later Toone). Of course, Ann didn't know that her friend was a cousin of the man she would eventually marry. Those who have been to the Burkman farm in New Sweden are familiar with both the old and modern houses. That friend also stayed at the Jones house one time. They slept on the porch, but her friend complained that it was too cold so they went inside. ----- Photo: Dorothy Burkman and Richard Toone in front of the old Burkman house, New Sweden, Idaho.

When Ann was about three years old, a Japanese family lived next door on 3rd Street in Idaho Falls. There was a mesh wire fence on their property beside the Joneses driveway. She remembers a girl that was about her age living there. She only encountered her one time.  One day Ann looked up and saw the girl on the other side of the fence watching her. Ann watched her back. The girl's mother called her into the house and Ann said she never saw her again. Over 90 years later, Ann remembered that little girl and wondered what happened to her. She asked me to see if I could figure out their name. I was not successful in that search. It intrigues me that this one encounter was so memorable to her. One of her favorite activities as a young girl was to go on "penny walks". She explained that she would walk to the end of the block and then flip a coin. If it came up heads then she would turn in one direction and if it came up tails then she would turn in a different direction. Sh...

Ann's brother Don was a rebel, she said. Ann's father (Luther Sr.) was a Democrat, so Don was a Republican. Don even made an ashtray of Franklin Roosevelt's face to smash cigarette butts in. He was a troublemaker and even got arrested once. Her father and Don were frequently upset with each other. Don went to the Albion State Normal School (a teacher's college) because he was initially ineligible for military service. Eventually, Don got into the Navy. Her brother Luther Jr. was a manly man involved in football, basketball, hunting, fishing, outdoor activities, and much more. He was particularly liked by her father because of their similar interests. Luther Jr. joined the military right after high school and was a navigator for the Army Air Corp in Europe. She remembers her mother being particularly concerned about Luther during the war. Ann said the only time she saw her mother cry was when World War II ended and she knew Luther and Don would be coming home alive. Ann...

When Susan was born, Ann spent less than 24 hours in the hospital. She had two girls and a husband at home and didn't want to "spend weeks recovering like some people do nowadays." She remembered her mother came to help for one day only. Her mother tore up old sheets into diaper liners and then when they became soiled she tossed them into the coal-burning furnace -- she never washed them -- just straight from soiled diaper to furnace. One day in 1963, Ann said she felt like an elephant had sat on her chest. She couldn't breathe. They called Dr. Hearn early in the morning. He said to come to his office immediately. She went in and the doctor said to go to the hospital immediately. Instead, they went home first, got things in order, and then went to the hospital. They operated immediately and removed part of her thyroid. She was told it was cancerous.  They expected a five-day stay but ended up spending 10 days in the hospital. This was the only time her mother Ruby eve...

In late 1950 (December she thinks) Ann was very ill. The doctor came to her house (this was back when doctors did house calls) and gave her a shot of penicillin. She started feeling better.  The next day the doctor again came to the house and gave her another shot of penicillin. She began to have a negative reaction. She said that as a result of that, she was allergic to penicillin. She described her reaction as life-threatening anaphylaxis.  She also believed the illness and shots, and her allergic reaction may have contributed to Barbara's many allergies. (This would have been during the first trimester of her pregnancy with Barbara.) ----- Photo: bottle of penicillin

Ann said there was only one time that she actually wanted to kill someone. She refused to say who it was except that it wasn't Gene.  Given all her stories, I have my theories. She had two sons in law that were not her favorites. Maybe it was one of them. She knew of a woman who wanted to sleep with her husband. Maybe it was her. We will never know. The above story needs to be modified. In the last few years of her life she repeatedly said that she wished someone would kill Donald Trump. My standard reply was that I was glad we don't have any guns in our house. I had never heard my mother hate anyone as much as she hated the former president.  There was a line  that she gave me  for her obituary and that I deleted. She wanted me to say that she wanted us to do all that we can "to remove the scourge of Donald Trump from this nation." She really, really, hated him. Instead, I wrote in her obituary to donate to one of her favorite charities.  ----- Photo: Ann Price...

Ann worked picking potatoes while in school. She wasn’t the fastest in the fields but could earn $100 in a season. One year she earned enough money to buy herself a light tan jacket/coat. Her mother didn't get angry about it because the jacket got dirty very soon. She loved picking raspberries in her garden as a child. Later, as an adult, she picked raspberries for pay with her son Andrew. Ann's favorite jam is, of course, raspberry! Ann used to ride a neighbor's old horse when she was 6, 7, and 8 years old. It was really old and moved very slowly. The last time she rode a horse was when she was about 16 years old. She went with friends to a place in the country where another teen had a young horse. Everybody was taking turns riding. When Ann got on the horse he took off running "like a bat out of hell." she said, leaving the yard and running along the top of the narrow crest of a roadside ditch. It scared Ann terribly. She was afraid of falling off the top of the...

Ann said she doesn't believe in ghosts, but she saw one once. She was about 12 years old and was sleeping in the living room on 23rd St. in Idaho Falls. She saw the ghost walk toward her then backed away and disappeared. For most of her childhood, Ann went to places in groups - the three Jones girls Ann, Jane, and Ruby, with neighbors of similar age. The whole group went to the fair, walking all the way there and back. Her first time alone was her first date while in sixth grade. A boy asked her to the movies and Ann's mom agreed. The boy was late picking her up because he had to wait for his dad to come home to give him the money. They went to the Gayety Theater, which showed westerns on Saturday afternoons. This same boy used to hide Coca-Cola bottles for Ann in the canal near the house. The cold canal water would make the drink cold. They also went to concerts together. When asked, she couldn't remember the boy's name for certain. Ann has said on several occasions th...

Ann said she fell in a tub once. They were at a Motel 6 in Boise. As she stepped into the tub, she said, it felt like they'd waxed the tub. She fell really hard (but didn't hit her head). She went to the front desk to complain/inform them of the real hazard, and they didn't seem to care at all that she nearly died. She was really mad at them! While living on Delano Street in Pocatello (about mid-1950s), Ann had just finished scrubbing and waxing the tile floors. They were very slippery. Gene was playing with Barbara and Betty by holding them by their feet and spinning them around on the floor. They were giggling and having lots of fun. The girls told him to spin mom (Ann) around too, so he took her by her feet and started spinning her. She was (obviously) taller than the two girls, and ended up slamming her head into a pillar in the front room next to the doorway. It hurt a lot and Gene was really sorry. ----- Photo: Ann Price sitting in a rocking chair at 132 Delano St, Po...

Ann got a scar on her left knee swimming at Tautphaus Park as a teen. The park had a lake with a barbed wire fence to indicate where not to swim and she got too close. She got cut up pretty bad, but it never got infected.  She had that scar for her whole life. She used to go to Tautphaus Park all the time as a child to rollerblade and swim. It was only a couple of blocks from the family house on 23rd St. ----- 1935 photo of Tautphaus Lake. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tautphaus_Lake_about_1935.png

The Jones family used to eat fish every Friday, often cod or halibut. Ann said she didn't know how they could afford all that fish to feed the seven or eight people around the table. She remembers there were such large portions. They regularly had beans on Tuesdays, she said. Ann's mother, Ruby, wanted her to be a nutritionist. Ann said she was a home economics major in college but didn't do well in chemistry. She ended up marrying and never graduated from college. ----- Image of fish CCO - public domain

Ann attended schools in Idaho Falls for most of her life, though briefly in Pocatello. She graduated from Pocatello High School but didn't feel like she fit in there because they had just moved to Pocatello right before her senior year. She did remember attending O.E. Bell Junior High School in Idaho Falls. It was about 15 blocks from home (to 23rd Street) so during their lunch break she would go home to eat. Then she'd have to run to get back to the school on time. She said her leg bones would often hurt from running -- in retrospect, she thinks it was shin splints. She experienced the same pains later in life and wondered if running home for lunch in junior high made some permanent damage to her bones. While in high school Ann took the regular classes that others took. She did specifically remember taking home economics and learning how to sew and cook. She never went to her high school prom. She was asked to go to a ninth-grade dance. The boy gave her a nice lace handkerchie...

Ann's father (Luther) was gone from home a lot for his job as a train conductor. In retrospect, she thinks, her mother (Ruby) essentially raised the family by herself. She does have several memories of her father, however. She remembers that he would go fishing occasionally, but his real pastime was playing cards. He wasn't a serious gambler, but just played for fun, often down at the Eagles Club. He would play for candy bars and bring them home for the family. One time he won a Santa Claus. It was a Christmas decoration they had for many years. It wasn't ceramic, but stood tall and had a wonderful silky smooth beard. They had that Santa for many years -- but Ann's not sure where it ended up. She also remembers one time when her father brought home a stalk of bananas about 5 feet long. Apparently, he bought it from a person traveling on the train. She was fascinated by it. When they lived on 13th Street in Idaho Falls, they had a claw foot bathtub that her father could ...

Ann thinks her first train ride happened when she was about 8 years old. She rode the train from Idaho Falls to West Yellowstone with her two sisters. Her father, Luther, was the conductor on the train and let them sit in the expensive seating. She remembers being concerned that the rich people would find them in the fancy car and that they would get in trouble. She also remembers that they got to eat in the snack car. It was an evening trip, and she remembers looking up at the stars from inside the train. On another occasion, she rode the train from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake City with Ruby to see a dentist. They had some time to wait for the return train back home, and Ann ate chocolate chip cookies for dinner instead of a meal. She really regretted the train ride home as she became sick. ----- Photo of a passenger train pulled by a steam engine on its way to Yellowstone. Photo courtesy of the Yellowstone Historic Center.

Favorite singers: Barbara Streisand, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Merle Haggard. Ann used to have a cassette tape of Tennessee Ernie Ford. She wore it out listening to it so often. She loved his deep bass voice. It was better and deeper than her husband Gene's deep voice, she said. In the last few months of her life, Ann specifically requested and listened to Tennessee Ernie Ford -- his music was her wake-up music in the morning, playing from her Echo Dot device. Favorite song: Send in the Clowns - from A Little Night Music. Favorite comedians - Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters ----- Photo of Tennessee Ernie Ford. Original source unknown.

The house she grew up in was a basement house -- everything below ground level -- located at the corner of 23rd and Lee streets in Idaho Falls. They had a large garden behind the house. On one side was an apple grove belonging to their neighbors.  Ann remembers that when she was a child they had pigs in the back. During the day her father would be gone to work so whenever the pigs got out, her mother Ruby and the other children had to chase the pigs to catch them. She said it was nearly impossible to catch the pigs.  After the second or third time that the pig got out, they got rid of the pigs. They were tired of chasing them down. They also had a milking cow. Only her mother and brother Luther would milk the cow. She thinks Luther did it because he was the oldest at home at the time. She smiled and laughed while remembering Luther trying to ride the cow (bareback rodeo style).  After Luther left home, she said they didn't milk the cow anymore because they got rid of the ...

Ann remembers how much she enjoyed laying on the roof of their shed/barn when she was growing up. When it got dark, she would just stare up at the sky and watch for falling stars (meteor showers). They lived on the edge of town with farmland beyond so there were few or no lights. When it was time for her to get off the shed roof and go in the house her mother would turn on the front porch light. Ann always thought that was funny because the barn was in the back yard, and sometimes she wouldn't see the light turn on. Ann specifically remembered seeing the Milky Way, but said she hadn't seen it for a very long time because of all the lights around homes nowadays. She said the last time she saw it was at the house up Johnny Creek before all the surrounding houses were added. She really enjoyed gazing at the dark sky from that house. ----- Photo of the Milky Way at night, Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dianasch/32460747487

After her high school graduation, she was sent to live with Don and Ginny in Mountain Home, Idaho, because of persistent nose bleeds. She was told the drier climate would help. Nosebleeds may be genetic for our family as several family members suffered from them. In retrospect, Ann said, she felt like she was constantly being sent away. She doesn't know if other siblings got sent away as much as she did. She also spent some summers in Montana (in Butte or Bozeman - she couldn't remember which [see note below]) to spend time with her sister Dorothy and her husband Grant. Dorothy was ill, and Ann recalls that the water there was bad. When they moved out of Montana, she got better. One of the funniest sights she ever saw was while visiting her sister Dorothy. She remembers her nephew, little Lewis, coming around the corner inside the house wearing one of Ann’s skirts. It was a beautiful full skirt that she loved. Lewis was about 7 years old and must have just grabbed something to ...

The Prices vacationed several times in Oregon, visiting long-time friends who had moved there. When driving to Oregon, Gene would leave right after work. He would drive from Pocatello to about Payette (about 5 or so hours). Even though he stopped smoking years earlier, he would smoke while driving -- to keep himself awake, Ann said.  Ann was responsible for driving from Payette to about Bend, Oregon, (over 6 hours) -- which would be through the middle of the night. Gene would sleep while she drove, and she would have to stay awake while he drove to take care of the children and to keep him awake.  When they got to the mountains of Oregon, Gene would drive again as the sun came up. He would be rested, but Ann would have gone without any sleep. She hated that drive. As far as Ann knew, Gene was a faithful husband for most of their marriage. There was only one exception she did share. It happened when the family vacationed in Oregon. Ann didn't share the details of what happ...

Ann was braver than Gene -- she was the one who asked him to sit by her when they first met. Gene was a safe person, she said, but not a brave person. After they got married (eloped to Twin Falls), Gene and Ann went up to the church youth camp where his mother and father worked during the summer. Ann got the impression that his parents didn't know they were getting married. Gene had to borrow some money from them to pay for a short honeymoon. Mostly they camped out. They argued like normal married couples, but Gene hit her only once. She was mad and slapped him first. He slapped her back. ----- Photo of Eugene Price in front of a camping tent in the middle of a forest.

Gene bought two or three engagement rings. He bought one ring for the first time they became engaged. Then they had a fight and called off the wedding, and Gene returned the ring to the store. Then they got back together, got engaged again, and so he would buy another ring. She thinks that may have happened a third time. Through it all, they never fought about rings. At some point, Ann gave her wedding ring to her daughter Susan to keep. _____ AI-generated image of two rings

In late June and July of 1949, Ann's mother Ruby, and her sister Hazel (age 15) flew to Norfolk, Virginia, to bring Ann (now age 20) home. The return home must have been a memorable adventure as she spoke of it many times. They took a boat to Baltimore, then the train to New York's Grand Central Station. There they changed trains and went to Detroit via Albany and across southern Canada (through Toronto).  Ruby's brother (Ann's uncle) Roy met them in Detroit and drove them to his home in Alpena, Michigan, where they stayed for a few days.  She remembers Hazel climbing trees there in Alpena.  From Alpena, they drove to Chicago and to Iowa to visit relatives there, and then on to Littleton, Colorado, to visit another relative. All the driving was before the interstate system -- Chicago to Littleton was all on US 30 (the Lincoln Highway). With five people in the car and no air conditioning, this part of the trip was miserable. The trip took several days. From Littleton, th...

Ann first met Wayne Miller (her sister Ruby's future husband) when she and her mother met him in 1948 at Ham's Field airstrip (now the site of the ISU Minidome).  The airstrip was part of the University of Idaho - Southern Branch Vocational program and was sometimes called the University Field. The airfield did not have scheduled commercial aircraft but served private flights and was an educational site for the university's aircraft maintenance program. _____ Map from the 1950 Idaho Airport Directory.

Ann was a passenger in the car while her father taught her sister Ruby how to drive. The experience was so awful that she didn't learn to drive a car until after she got married. Gene taught her to drive. The first time she drove alone, she went to the grocery store at night and forgot to turn on her headlights. _____ AI-generated photo of a 1950s car and a woman in front of a grocery store.

Once she landed in Virginia, she lived briefly with her brother Don and his wife Ginny in Portsmouth and then g ot a job and an apartment in Historic Williamsburg, Virginia.  Her apartment was on the third floor of a building on Prince George's Street, across the street from the Tri-Delta house near the campus of William and Mary College.  The room was so small she would prefer to go down to the second floor to look out the windows and watch the people on campus walking around.  She remembers the end of the semester or year when big limos would show up to pick up the students to go home.  She walked to work at the Williamsburg Inn (a distance of about a mile). The walk took her through historic Williamsburg every day. At the Inn, she had to enter by the back (employee) entrance. She worked in the coffee shop, drawing beer, making sandwiches, and serving the customers. She loved that job. She never really did the touristy things in Williamsburg, though she did remembe...

Ann's mother (Ruby Potter Jones) thought Gene and gotten her pregnant before they were married so she shipped Ann off to live with her brother Don and his wife Ginny in Virginia. (She was not pregnant.)  When Ann found out why she was sent away she was furious at her mother. Roughly 50 years later she learned that her mother borrowed money from Ann's sister Jane to buy the plane ticket to send her away. (That was also her very first airplane flight.) _____ AI-generated image of a passenger plane flying over a bay.