Our first apartment after we married was in South Jordan, Utah. My husband was living in college student housing with roommates in Orem, Utah, and working at Signetics there. He looked and looked for a place we could live as a couple. There are several colleges in and around Orem, including Brigham Young University; there was no housing available that he could afford. When he found an apartment available an hour north, he jumped on it.

It was a basement apartment under a really nice home, in an expensive neighborhood one mile from the South Jordan Temple. Our landlord and landlady lived upstairs with their three children; they had room for a trampoline, a garden, and a sheep pasture behind their house. The other homes in the neighborhood were also spacious and beautiful, in a, “Our trees are no more than 15 years old” way. They had sidewalks and the entire neighborhood was U-shaped with a cul-de-sac in the middle of the U. The home at the bottom of the U was enormous, with a tennis court and an indoor basketball court. They had a son and a daughter the same ages as our landlord’s two eldest sons. Most of the neighbors were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our entire congregation covered about four blocks square. They were large, Salt Lake blocks, but still… only four blocks for a congregation of two-three hundred people. The congregation, called a ward, had their own baseball team. The millionaire in the enormous house paid for baseball uniforms for the ward team. When they held a dinner for the women’s group, called the Relief Society, they’d ship in exotic ingredients from Hawaii.

We were easily the poorest members in our ward. When the women, called sisters, found out we had no furniture, they made a list for the neighborhood yard sale. I was given a map of what was where: this house had a table and chairs, that house had pans for us, this house had a diaper pail and carseat. We bought a lot of the things they pointed out, but not everything. The sister who offered a diaper pail was baffled that we didn’t want it. She didn’t know that we had already acquired a five-gallon bucket, the type that seals tightly, to use.

When we announced that we were moving in a couple weeks, they sped up plans for a baby shower. It was held on the day before we left; I opened presents, exclaimed over them, and another woman stowed them in a box which they sealed for me when I left the shower. They had each woman make a page of advice, using pictures cut from magazines, and assembled it into a book for me. I enjoyed it. When we arrived in Pennsylvania, I opened the box. For over a week I didn’t have to wash any baby clothes; they provided enough that I could just grab another outfit.

I loved those dear sisters. They had us over for dinner; they brought us meals while I was on bedrest. At one point I was so sick I couldn’t stand up to shower. A mom of several small children let me use her bathtub. I forgot to lock the bathroom door. Her children walked in on me and stared while she shooed them out again. I just looked at them, and smiled. It wasn’t worth getting upset about.