Banida, Idaho - Early Years

The first child to be born to Mom and Dad was Coy Echo, who was born June 17, 1925.  Four years later, on July 21, 1929, I came into the world and as far as I know, this is the first, and only, picture I know that exists of those infant years.

     I was born at the home of my maternal grandparents, Jeddie and Amelia Almira Smith Miles, in the yellow brick house. My official name when I was blessed was/is Joe Junior Christensen.  Dad’s name was Joseph Amos Christensen.  Rather than naming me that with a “Jr.” on the end, they decided, as my mother reportedly said, “They will call him Joe anyway, so let’s just name him “Joe Junior.”  That is what happened and so the name has been a bit of a challenge throughout my life, particularly in the military. The Miles home seemed like a palace to me.  They even had indoor plumbing, bathtub, restroom, etc.  I loved to be there.  My grandparents, aunts and uncles all made me feel like I was something special.  I think they had a tendency to make everyone feel that way. 

     There must have been some kind of bonding that occurred because I always loved to be there.  Among my earliest memories were scampering to hide under the bed in my grandparents bedroom when my folks would come to take me home.  It was a place where I always felt that I was loved.  My grandmother’s cooking was always delicious and there were books to read.  Among the books I learned to love was one that told the stories of the Old Testament at a level that children could understand.  Stories of David and Goliath, and Joseph being sold into Egypt were among my favorites.

     The absolutely first and earliest memory of my life occurred down at Stewart and Vanona Geddes’s home.  Vaguely, I can remember the little black and white puppy that my sister, Coy, who was four years older than I, chose from the litter which would become “Boots” by name and a very important part of our family.

     My parents, Joseph Amos and Goldie Miles Christensen, owned and operated the only store in town.  It was a combination general store, gasoline station with one gas pump in front and the post office inside.  It was located on the northwest corner of the intersection of the town’s roads that led west to Coulam and east past Harold Larsen’s to what became Highway 91 that went south to Preston and north to Swan Lake, Downey and on to Pocatello. 
     During my earliest years, when I was three of four, Dad, Joseph A. Christensen, was the Bishop of the ward.  (He served for nine years and before had been a counselor to my Grandfather Jeddie LeRoy Miles.)  I felt very important that I would be sitting on the stand with him during our meetings in the ward.  Dad called me his “third counselor.”  It was a disappointment to me when we had a ward conference and all of the officers’ names were read for a sustaining vote and they somehow omitted reading my name as one of the counselors.  What I didn’t know at the time was that my mother, Goldie, was not in good health.  She suffered from rheumatic fever when she was very young and it had left her with an impaired heart and lungs.  She was always embarrassed in public by the chronic cough she developed as a result. 
     At that time, when I was serving as “third counselor,” she delivered my younger brother, Wade.  Her health was such that much of the care for Wade in his first months was provided by Aunts Sarah or Jane Miles.  Later, while I was on my mission to Mexico, I learned that Mom had about died.  I never knew it because she wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me because she didn’t want "anything to interfere with ‘Sonny’s’ mission." As far as I am concerned, I know that nothing she ever did was merely self-serving.  She was a people-person, put other people first, and we all came to know it.

     Our home was located in the back portion of that store which was called Christensen Mercantile.  I visited the foundation of the store and home several years ago and it seemed to me that it had shrunk considerably from what I had remembered.  As I recall, as we went from the store through the merchandise stock room, we would come into the kitchen, then there was a living room with a Heatrola stove in the center that provided heat for the entire house and whose wood and coal box had to be filled each night (that was my earliest remembered regular job assignment.)  The back westerly portion of the house was a bedroom that accommodated my folks on the south end and beds for us children on the north.

     The portion of the house that I remember most clearly was the corner of the living room where my sister Coy had set up a “classroom” and almost every night she felt it her obligation to corner me and teach me whatever she had learned that day from her teacher in our then, two-room school house.  In Coy’s first years, there was the “little” room for the younger students and the “big” room for the last years of elementary school before going on to bigger things at Preston Junior High.  The “big” room had been discontinued by the time I got to school and all six grades were taught in the same one room.

     Coy was a demanding teacher and made sure that I followed through with cursive writing practice, arithmetic and reading for about two years before I entered the first grade.  All the teachers I remember after that were not so demanding. I will have to admit that even though she was quite a disciplinarian, she made an impression on me that led me to like school and learning.

     My first and second grade teacher was Miss Alice Caldwell.  I remember vividly that it was she who administered my first experience with corporal punishment.  I had painted a circle red that clearly should have been painted black and visa-versa.  She sharply slapped my hand.  The punishment and embarrassment apparently worked because I never made that mistake again.

     My Mom, Goldie, was quite a gardener.  The garden was located just north of the little “wash house” which also was north of the store and our home.  We always had fresh vegetables in the summer.  She did most of the work but occasionally she would trust us to do some of the weeding.  

     Early summer vacations were special for me.  We would swim in the irrigation ditches—without a life guard in sight—hunt for, steal from the nests in the barn or garage and collect sparrow or “spug” eggs as we called them, which I hid under a diagonal cross brace on the corner of the fence just north of the store.  I have fond memories of those years which were sweetened by stealthy access to some of the candy in the store—especially the two-cent rectangular squares of chocolate that were so good, and especially nutritious!  I confess that Mom did not always know that I had slipped one from the box container in the store as I was passing through.

     We had cows.  Dad operated the milk route that would pick up cans of milk from Banida and Winder and take them to the Sego Milk Factory in Preston.  Most of the milk was drawn by hand in those early years of my remembrance.  Almost every family had cows that would produce enough extra milk to be put into one or more ten-gallon cans to be picked up the milk hauler—either my Dad or Uncle Alex Swann who worked for us.  The milk check would be one of the main sources of a family’s cash flow during the years of the Great Depression. 

     There wasn’t much money circulating at that time.  It was not unusual for the youngsters to bring an egg or two to the store and exchange them for penny candy.  Often some of the folks in town would ride to Preston on the milk truck to do their shopping.  Dad, or Uncle Alex, would frequently bring back coal or other supplies to deliver to those who had made the request.

     Speaking of milking cows:  By the time I was old enough to join in with the milking, Dad had purchased a milking machine—which as I recall was the first to come into Banida.  My milking experience, except for old “Flory” who only had two teats and was milked separately, was assisted by this new-fangled machine.  I was never sorry for that invention!   From that time in my life until leaving home to go to college it never failed that we heard Dad say at precisely six o’clock in the morning, “Wake up boys, it’s time to do the milking.”  We knew that morning and evening there were chores to be done regardless of the hour we may have got to bed the night before.

      A vivid memory in my life occurred in November of 1938.  We were near the end of the school day when Glen Larson, whose class had ended prior to ours, came rushing to the door of the room and shouted, “Christerson’s store is on fire!!"  (For some reason, Glen always pronounced our name with the “r” in place of the “n.”)  We all immediately rushed to the south hall window and saw the billowing flames and black smoke coming from the store.  I ran home along with the rest.  We were cautioned to stand way back for fear that the gasoline pump and tank would explode.  One of the Casperson’s (I think,  Nathan) climbed up the pump and wrapped wet burlap sacks around the glass container at the top of the pump to help prevent its catching fire.  John Casperson was out on the roof of the wash house seeing that no sparks settled on its roof to start burning.  Others were doing the same on the hay stacks and barn to protect them.

     A few things were salvaged from the store and home, but very few.  Some new ice skating boots that I prized were among the treasures that were consumed.  The frame building that was our home and a substantial part of our family’s livelihood went up in smoke.  For us, it was devastating.  They never knew the cause of the fire.  Some thought it had been caused by some electrical wiring problems.  Dad and Harold Larson were in Ogden for one of Dad’s purchasing trips for the store and they arrived home way after dark.  As the car lights shone on the smoking rubble of the store, Dad was extremely worried that some of us may have been in the fire.  He was relieved when he learned that we were all safe and up to Grandpa and Grandma Miles’ home waiting for his return.

     Shortly before the trauma of the store and home burning, Dad, with Uncle Austin Christensen’s help, had built a small home for my widowed Grandmother Elsie Marie Christensen, just south of Uncle Alex and Aunt Anna Swann’s home.  That is where we were to live as a family until another place could be found.  Dad purchased the vacated home of H.S. Geddes on the corner north of the store on the southeast corner and began the re-modeling work.  Harold Larsen was hired to assist in the process.  About a year later, we moved into our “new” home.  

     Although the store was gone, Dad, and especially Mom, decided that they would not let the post office go.  Mom’s feeling was that if there were not a post office in a town, from a national standpoint, the town would lose its identity, disappear on the map, and she wanted to help preserve Banida’s place in the world.  A small area in the entrance to our new home was adjusted to accommodate the mail boxes and people would come to our home to pick up their mail.  That gave Mom a chance to meet regularly with a good share of the folks in Banida as they would come to retrieve their mail.  The mail was brought each week-day from the train that passed through Coulam.  It was picked up most often by Aunt Huitau Geddes Miles who would make the trek with the bag of mail to and from there each day.

     I suppose the combination of the convenience of the post office being in our home with Mom being the postmistress and her natural tendency to keep in touch may have led to my receiving a letter from her almost every day, or at least more than once a week from the time I left home to go to college, the mission, air force, graduate school and beyond.  There were hundreds and even thousands of them.  The letters were generally not more than one or two short notes on a page.  I have heard from several who were away from Banida in military service during WW II, or on missions, who have said that they also received regular letters from her.  She thought that everyone needed to be reminded that they were missed and very important to her.
  

     

This is the whole Banida school, grades one through six.  I am standing right in front of our teacher, Wyora Jackson.

     Back to school in Banida:  Wyora Jackson was the next teacher to arrive.  She was beautiful and young.  She was the first person I remember falling in love with.  It a way, it was for me, a disappointment when we learned that she had married LaMar Cole.  As far as I knew, all the students loved her.  I don’t know all the details, but it was she who recommended to my folks that rather than going into the fourth grade that I should skip to the fifth grade and join such as Verna Swann, Carma Larson, Mae Caldwell and Owen Casperson who were already there.  That was a real and challenging change for me and one that I enjoyed very much.