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Next to the farmhouse was a two-seater outhouse,(probably the only excuse our parents could use to be alone). Toilet paper was the Sears catalog. I have a vivid memory of our small black dog accidentally falling through one of the outhouse holes. That dog smelled terrible for weeks!!!

At age four, when my parents were gone, I climbed our windmill without permission (what a little rebel). My older sister, Beverley was baby-sitting. When I climbed to the top I suddenly was overwhelmed by how high I was and lost my balance. I fell onto a pipe sticking out of the ground. Six stitches were eventually administered to the under-side of my little chin. I have often thought how close that pipe came to my vocal chords. At an early age God was aware of me and blessed me to only have minor injuries.

I’m told that my mother, Myra Elizabeth Helton, sang to her children in our home. Sacrament meetings and other venues were also graced with her beautiful voice. From a young age I loved to sing also. When I was in fifth grade I competed in a school vocal contest. My school teacher was a beautiful teacher Mrs. Asachuck (she needed to be good-looking with a name like that!). She gently encouraged me to enter the contest and sing “The Child and the Snowdrop.” I was very nervous. The words were:

“Pretty white flowr’t where did you hide
When the winter storms raged far and wide.”

At an early age I became acquainted with death, and the pain and anguish associated with it. When I was six years old my mother passed away of an embolism in the lungs.