MEAJP 102 Stories

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.