Service Story Project

For my creative writing class I had to go to the old folks home and interview someone there and get their life story so I could turn it into a creative non-fiction piece for them. When I went, the lady that I interviewed was not very open with me and didn't give me hardly any information that i could use. She kept telling me that that was it just to get rid of me. It was an awkward situation. But here is the story that I wrote about her in her perspective.

I Remember

My name is Bessy. I don’t have much to say about my life. I had two girls and three boys. My girls played the piano and my boys played in the band; the band at the school. One played the trumpet and the other one played… I don’t know. It’s an instrument like the trumpet. What are some other instruments in the band? What’s the long one called? I don’t remember. It was so many years ago.

I do remember my little girl loved to play the drums. She was very good at it. We would all go to the school basketball games to watch her play. They all loved her. But both my girls are gone now.

I guess that’s about it.

What did we do for fun back then? Oh, probably just the regular things that people do: school activities, camping, spending time together. We didn’t have the money like people do these days. I remember we couldn’t do as many things. We didn’t have the money.

But when we went camping, we would sleep in tents and would stay out for a few days. All of us would go. My husband loved to fish. He would go to Salmon and catch his fish there and we all went with him as a family. That is how we spent our summers. I remember, we loved to go camping.

Now my summers are spent in St. George. I guess that’s about it. I don’t have much to say.

We were farmers, my husband and I. We had it from the time we were first married. He would work and I would cook. I cooked for hard men. They were the men who worked on the farm and they were hard men to cook for. I would stay home and take care of our two girls and three boys. They were just young and needed someone to watch them.

I do remember it was hard work on the farm. We did it for nearly 30 years. Yes, 30 years. We had cows, horses, chickens, and what was the other one? It was so long ago. Pigs, we had pigs. We had grain that we would harvest with a harvester. We also farmed potatoes, and what was the other one? Oh, I don’t remember. It was so many years ago. It was hay. That’s what it was. We also farmed hay.

Me? I was a singer. I sang in all sorts of places. I had a singing lesson teacher from when I was 10 to, I think, before I was married. I guess I was 17 years old. How many years was that? Seven years? My teacher was from Australia and was a convert to the church. I remember she taught me a lot. She was very good.

Now I can’t sing.

But when I could sing, I sang in conference. I don’t remember what conference it was, but it was whatever conference had a lot of crowds of people. Not General Conference with the prophet but the other kind of conference. I remember I would be nervous. I was a bashful girl. I would sing alone and I did a pretty good job. I sang in a church building. So it was Stake Conference. That’s the kind of conference it was.

I would sing in the Tabernacle in Rexburg a lot. I didn’t sing with groups, I would sing by myself. I would sing every kind of song. I loved to sing. I do remember that.

But, now I can’t sing anymore.

That’s about it, I guess. It was so many years ago. It’s hard to remember some things. I guess that’s it.