History of Burton Family—Carolyn/Nancy K/Ellen, Social Security and Medicare, and Gary

 

                 Janice, Hortense, Nancy K Burton

I don’t have many images of my geneology copied and saved on-line or even as physical photos.  I was looking on FamilySearch and found some pictures that my cousin posted.

Mom talked about having ringlets when she was young.  Now I know what she looked like.  

The Burton Women

Nancy K/Hortense/Martha/Ellen K/Janice

 The Arthur Burton Family 

Hortense/Arthur/Martha

Janice/Ellen Kathleen (mom)/Arthur (dad) Nancy K

These were taken at the same time.  I think my mom was pregnant with me at this point.

I’ve written about Afton WY before.  Mom grew up there and we spent every summer there for years.  There were horses there—although I only got to ride once.  Dad asked the neighbor (a few homes down) if we could.  He said yes and I got to go with him up the side of the mountain on horseback for about an hour.  

Grandma always had a garden.  Vegetables and (what I remember the most) 3 long rows of raspberry bushes.  She would tie a drying cloth around our middles with a quart jar pinned to our stomachs.  Directions were to eat as much as we wanted and then fill up the jar before coming back inside.

For the first few years, there were horses right next-door, we would feed them green grass through the fence and often we’d pull up (one at a time) 5 or 6 carrots as a final treat.

It was then that I realized horses are fickle mammals, as soon as the treats were gone . . . so were they.

The other thing I remember doing was having picnics with each other.  Leaves for plates.  Tiny carrots and tiny snap peas for dinner.  

I don’t remember ever going somewhere special when we were at Grandma Burton’s home.  We loved poking around in the attic and reading the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books—and the hundred or so Reader’s Digest magazines.  They were thick for a magazine about 8” by 5” and filled with short stories about rescues and adventures and biographies.  My favorite parts were the “Humor in Uniform” and “Life in These United States.”

Which brings up a break from the subject:  Better Homes and Gardens magazines used to have a funny essay called “The Man Next Door.”  It formed the context for my short essays . . . written for me . . . about how I saw the world . . . and about how I saw my part in it.  

Mom used to buy subscriptions to magazines:  Better Homes and Gardens, National Geographic, and Reader’s Digest magazine.  The first time I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn it was a condensed book that mom bought.  The condensed books were offered with usually 4 different novels.  Sometimes I liked one of the choices—sometimes none.

Today, though, all that history gets thrown behind me in a critical way.  Brent is retiring on 30 June 2026 and so we need sign-up for Social Security and Medicare.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal except I’m waiting for back surgery and everything gets funneled through different insurance shoots.  Not sure how long it’s going to be before Medicare will pay to get my surgeon to fuse L4 L5 S1 together as one. 

 

A last thought.  I’m not volunteering at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary any longer.  Here Nathan is communicating with Gary the Goose.  She was very old and had lots of health problems with the meds to go with them.  No one was really sure how old she was—she was surrendered as a pet who was no longer wanted.   Her arthritis was bad—it hurt her to walk.  At the older Busch campus I would pick a particular type of grass that she loved.  As soon as she heard my wagon wheels rolling along the dirt road, she would start to honk until I appeared and offered her a treat.  At the new Busch the grass is not the same, her enclosure is bigger with about 20 other birds, and new is never better when you’ve become accustomed to your old home.

The staff of animal care and hospital decided that it would be kinder to put her to sleep rather than make her continue as she was.

Immovable Swing

    Today I'm starting with an image of the three of us: my husband, my son and me.  My son is pushing me in the swing that the two of them built for me. My husband is holding the iPhone that remembers the event.

    Nathan and I were talking about immovable features in the front lawns of some of our neighbor.  There were humongous trees whose branches covered much of the house.  There were fences made out of brick and incredibly ornate gates between the home and the street.

    Nathan was quiet for a moment.  He pointed out that the birthday swing he and his dad constructed for me would never be moved.  

    He was right.

    I don't know how many dozen bags of cement support each leg. The top bar is some 20 feet high.  

    They placed the swing between two very tall pine trees in our back yard so they had to chop countless roots to get a hole wide and deep enough to hold the hundreds of pounds of cement. 

    When, in 50 years, someone very rich wants to bulldoze the whole area and build a shopping Mall or billion dollar homes--they will have to build around my swing. 

    

      

IMAGINE A POINT IN THE FUTURE 2017

 

 

        Cool graphic from doctor office corridor.  Sculpted of nubbled, brown stone.

 

POINT IN THE FUTURE

cewhendry 12 Aug 2017

 

    Imagine a point in the future

    When time as we know it is done.

    Close your eyes. Lift your head to the heavens.

    See yourself as you first meet God's son.

Are you glad for improving your talents?

For finding the names of your dead?

Are you feeling so very embarrassed that

You sat by the TV instead?

    Are you pleased with the gardens you tended?

    Are you mad that you didn't forgive?

    Are you shamed for the times that you

    Couldn't just

    Let go

    To live and let live?

Are you satisfied with all your efforts

To fulfill each assignment received?

Are you grateful you didn't spread gossip

Of things you had heard or believed?

    Imagine a point in the future

    When time as we know it is done.

    Close your eyes. Lift your head to the heavens.

    See yourself as you first meet God's son.

Are there memories of temple endowments

That bound all your family to him?

Do regrets of lost temper surround you,

When kindness and love faded dim?

    Are there verses of scripture you've captured

    That carried you forward when lost?

    Are there friends that you knew you could count on?

    Are there prayers when you counted the cost?

Imagine a point in the future

When time as we know it is done.

Close your eyes. Lift your head to the heavens.

See yourself as you first meet God's son.

    Did you plan famous actions of valor

    When you knew that your life could be more?

    Did you fade into sorrow with failure?

    Was your visiting teaching a chore?

Did you know that our Heavenly Father,

His Son, and so many folks more

Would be waiting to love you and thank you

As you opened that celestial door?

    Imagine a point in the future

    When time as we know it is done.

    Close your eyes. Lift your head to the heavens.

    See yourself as you first meet God's son.

                             --Carolyn Hendry            

 

From a talk given in Sacrament Meeting. 

 

Millie's Mother's Red Dress by Carol Lynn Pearson

 

Even though I read this poem more than some 20 years ago, the image of that bloody red cutting through the dark has remained with me.  It was a guide to me--the reason I was the mother I was.  My mother was also like Millie's.  She once told me that my brothers and sisters and I were the priority in deciding where money would be spent.  They decided that music lessons, travel, theatre productions, education and hobbies for US would be more important than extra experiences for her and dad. I didn't agree with her decision--and so even when my own children were young, I found time and Brent found the money to let me ride horses, take piano lessons, and even participate in community theatre productions.

When we moved to a new place, which happened quite frequently while our children were growing up, Brent would go first and find a house for us. By the time I had sold the other house and brought the children and the movers to our new home, all of Brent's coworkers knew all about me and the things that I loved to do. They thought it's strange that he did not have a boat or a jet ski or a woodworking shop or travel to exotic places. He told everyone that I was his hobby; watching me grow and flourish was what he enjoyed the most. 

I was his life.

While he was an undergraduate, I began my Master's degree in English.  While he was in law school, I taught part time in the evenings.  When he finished his studies in law, he asked me to do what I could to take a full-time job during his last semesters.  If I would put him through law school, he would provide for us--for me--for the rest of our lives.  In 1985, I graduated from Drake University and then worked for Dickinson, Throckmorton, Parker, Mannheimer & Raife, in Des Moines, Iowa {a firm that has evolved through several mergers and name changes, ultimately becoming Dickinson, Mackaman, Tyler & Hagen by 1993, and merging with Bradshaw in 2024 to become Dickinson Bradshaw}. 

I worked as a legal assistant (paralegal) in the Estate division of the firm.  

Since Brent graduated, passed the Texas Bar, and was hired in the legal department of the Federal Home Loan Bank.  He was one of the first attorneys to work with swaps--trading losses from one entity for another's gains. 

I have never worked for a salary--volunteered for many organizations, yes, but never to receive a monthly stipend.  

I learned from this poem that my life didn't end at my marriage to Brent.  Instead, it truly began. Brent has been my life and my love.  He has given his whole life to supporting me and our children.  He has been my savior in so many ways.  Together we have lived as an eternal family.  I've worn my "red dress" for the past 44 years.  As the patriarchal leader, true to his priesthood calling, Brent has allowed me to grow in the Gospel with him.  

Not only would Brent have loved my "red dress", he would have asked me to wear it for him every day. 

Millie’s Mother’s Red Dress

by Carol Lynn Pearson

It hung there in the closet

While she was dying, Mother’s red dress,

Like a gash in the row

Of dark, old clothes

She had worn away her life in.

They had called me home

And I knew when I saw her

She wasn’t going to last.

When I saw the dress, I said

“Why, Mother – – how beautiful!

I’ve never seen it on you.”

“I’ve never worn it,” she slowly said.

“Sit down, Millie – – I’d like to undo

A lesson or two before I go, if I can.”

I sat by her bed

And she sighed a bigger breath

Then I thought she could hold.

“Now that I’ll soon be gone,

I see some things.

Oh, I taught you good – – but I taught you wrong.”

“What do you mean Mother?”

“Well – – I always thought

That a good woman never takes her turn,

That she’s just for doing for somebody else.

Do here, do there, always keep

Everybody else’s wants tended and make sure

Yours are at the bottom of the heap.”

“Maybe someday you’ll get to them.

But of course you never do.

My life was like that – – doing for your dad,

Doing for the boys, for your sisters, for you.”

“You did – – everything a mother could.”

“Oh, Millie, Millie, it was not good – –

For you – – for him. Don’t you see?

I did you the worst of wrongs.

I asked for nothing – – for me!”

“Your father in the other room,

All stirred up and staring at the walls – –

When the doctor told him, he took

It bad – – came to my bed and all but shook

The life right out of me. ‘You can’t die,

Do you hear? What’ll become of me?’

‘ What’ll become of me?’

It’ll be hard, all right when I go.

He can’t even find the frying pan, you know.”

“And you children – –

I was a free ride for everybody, everywhere.

I was the first one up and the last one down

Seven days out of the week.

I always took the toast that got burned,

And the very smallest piece of pie.”

“I look at how some of your brothers

Treat their wives now

And it makes me sick, ’cause it was me

That taught it to them. And they learned,

They learned that a woman doesn’t

Even exist except to give.

Why, every single penny that I could save

Went for your clothes, or your books,

Even when it wasn’t necessary.

Can’t even remember once when I took

Myself downtown to buy something beautiful – –

For me.”

“Except last year when I got that red dress.

I found I had twenty dollars

That wasn’t especially spoke for.

I was on my way to pay extra on the washer.

But somehow – – I came home with this big box.

Your father really gave it to me then.

‘Where you going to wear a thing like that to – –

Some opera or something?’

And he was right, I guess.

I’ve never, except in the store,

Put on that dress.”

“Oh Millie – – I always thought if you take

Nothing for yourself in this world

You’d have it all in the next – – somehow

I don’t believe that anymore.

I think the Lord wants us to have something – –

Here – – and now.”

“And I’m telling you , Millie, if some miracle

Could get me off this bed, you could look

For a different mother, ’cause I would be one.

Oh, I passed up my turn so long

I would hardly know how to take it.

But I’d learn, Millie.

I would learn!”

It hung there in the closet

While she was dying, Mother’s red dress,

Like a gash in the row

Of dark, old clothes

She had worn away her life in.

Her last words to me were these:

“Do me the honor, Millie,

Of not following in my footsteps.

Promise me that.”

I promised.

She caught her breath

Then Mother took her turn

In death.

 

Random Thoughts, PBCC, 2008, Mom's Cursive Writing

 

Random Thoughts, PBCC, 2008, Mom's Cursive Writing