Gerber Baby

You ask, "Why the baby photo to identify yourself?" Well, since this blog is to make an accounting for the way I've spent my life, I put that photo as a symbol of how I began. As a baby. A cute one, too, I think. My mother told me that people used to call me the Gerber Baby. Perhaps some of you wonder who the Gerber Baby is/was; she was the face on all the bottles of Gerber Baby food. And some of you now may wonder, "Was Gerber Baby food around that many generations ago? Did they even process and sell baby food way back then?" Well, of course they did or no one would have looked at me and thought of that face on the bottle of pureed orange squash!

I was born in Tacoma, Washington, on March 12, 1955. My dad was in the Air Force and at that time was stationed at McChord AFB. Of course I have no memories of Tacoma from way back then. But a few years ago my son, Alan, married a beautiful young woman from Federal Way, Washington. Her family has strong ties to Tacoma, and when we went to Federal Way for the reception I showed Jessica's dad, John Jarstad, the address on the back of my birth certificate. He knew exactly where it was and took my husband, Tom, and me to see the home where my family lived where I was born. He also took us to the hospital where I was delivered and across the street from there was the LDS chapel where I was given my name and a blessing. A wonderful coincidence is that my daughter-in-law, Jessica, was also blessed in that same chapel!
Since Alan and Jessica lived in the Puget Sound area for several years, I was able to become acquainted with the area my parents described as a beautiful place they hated to leave (but still did so willingly because Dad's next assignment was Bermuda!).

Seeing and getting to know the place where I began did something for me. I needed this beginning so I could make better sense of the path that led from there. I wasn't sure that I had ever belonged anywhere. Besides Washington and Bermuda, we lived in Mississippi, California, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah, the Philippine Islands, Montana, and Nebraska. What could I say to people when they asked me where I was from? Where was my hometown? My father had been in the Air Force for nearly all my youthful years, until I was a junior in high school. We never lived in a home longer than a couple of years. Even after I was married it was not meant that I would grow any deep roots.

And now we are here in Grantsville, Utah. Whoever thought I'd end up in a small town populated by country folk who lived in the same home all their lives, shopped at their hometown grocery and hardware stores, sat and chatted with their family next door about the happenings about town, and who wanted to keep their small town small? But who knows--maybe I've finally found home after all....And as you'll begin to see in many of my future posts, most of my life has really been all about coming home.