I want to start with a trip to Salt Lake City. Larry and I visited Bobby in Jail, it broke my heart to see him there. We talked to some one in authority, and was told if we took Bobby to Nevada to live with us, they would release him. So that is how Bobby ended up with us that year of 1966 and 67. Bobby and Larry became really close and had many conversations about life, religion, goals etc.
I had a good friend who was a teacher and counselor at the Moapa Valley High School where Bobby was attending. His name was Lynn Bowler, and he took Bobby under his wing. He helped Bobby with his school work and Bobby was really studying and doing well in school.
I guess old habits catch up with us sometimes. Bobby seemed to be interested in some flowers I had planted in the back yard. I found out why later, he was growing pot in my flower garden. I think he told me at a much later date. I don't know if it produced anything?
One of the crazy things he did was to go over to the high school and catch a whole box of toads, and then bring them home and let them loose in my living room. I never did know if we captured all of them. I had a small organ and he loved to sit down and play it. He would play a song for the kids, and I would hear them singing "Mr. Bee, Buzz, Buzz." One day he told Sherry, my oldest daughter how to catch a bird. You had to pour salt on it's tail and then you could catch it. Sherry went outside and tried to do this. She ended up frustrated and I think cried. She remembers this to this day.
I will never forget the day of the bank robbery and Larry being killed. Bobby was in my bedroom studying, when my friends came to my home to break the bad news. August 29, 1967 will forever be etched in my memory. I was ironing Larry's work shirts, and I told my friends to have a seat, that Larry would be coming home soon. They told me to sit down, they had some bad news for me. When they told me that Larry had been killed in a bank robbery, I went into shock and was rolling back and forth on our sectional. Bobby came out with a look of horror on his face. I can still see that look on his face. When he found out why I was screaming and rolling all over the sectional, he immediately ran out the door and ran all the way to the bank. Of course it was taped off as a crime scene and Bobby could not get inside. He had to see for himself if what he had heard was true. After this Bobby returned to Salt Lake and not too long after he, he joined the Army.
I eventually moved back to Grantsville, and Bobby would come to see me. Later he told me about his training. He would be given a gun and he would hand it right back to whoever gave it to him. After a while, it was decided he should be a Medic, and this was his first introduction to the medical field, which led him to eventually becoming a nurse. Mom died while he was in the service and Bobby was given some kind of a family emergency discharge. The purpose was for him to be there to help Dad with the care of Kenny and Allen.
The day of Mom's funeral, Bobby, Patty, Kenny, Allen, and I were sitting on the stairs of the Rose Park home. Patty started on a rant and rave, and was yelling at me saying "I was the cause of Mom's death," Of course everyone was drinking including Patty. I still to this day don't know why she would ever blame me for Mom's death? Any way Bobby was very protective of me, and he poured his can of beer all over the top of Patty's head. I decided I had enough of this family mess, and ended up flying home early. Bobby took me to the airport. I had moved 400 miles away, and I really didn't visit my family very much as I didn't want my kids around this kind of a mess. Booze was the destroyer of my family, and I hated it with a passion.
The bottom picture is when Bobby took me to my 20th high school reunion. Frank had to work, and couldn't go with me. The dress I am wearing is one that Aunt Kay loaned me, and she helped me get ready for the occasion, makeup and all. The reunion was held at some fancy hotel downtown Salt Lake and there came a time when a mike was passed around and everyone introduced themselves. When it came to Bobby, he did his usual funny antics and had everyone in stitches. It was a fun night with my brother.
Some more funny memories of Bobby are: On a visit to Overton, we went swimming and had the pool to ourselves as Sherry was a lifeguard. Some how Bobby had a bike and he rode it off from the high diving board. Another time involved shaving cream, all over all of our faces. Of course every time he came to see us, I can still see him sitting at my dining room table drawing his cartoon character pictures of all of us. When Bobby was a young boy, and I was a teenager, I would take my friends to drag State Street to meet boys and just have fun. One time I was on my way to pick up my friends and up popped Bobby in the back seat of our 1951 Chevy. I can remember that he always had some kind of a job. He would get up at the crack of dawn to fold newspapers on our living room floor, and then deliver them. When I was working at the State Road Shops, he rode his bike a long distance with a basket full of doughnuts to sell to me and co-workers. He was an ambitious kid. So many more memories, but too many to write.
On my last visit with Bobby in Salt Lake, he was living by Liberty Park and he was having a lot of pain in his ear, and jaw. He apologized for calling me a hypochondriac. I never knew he had labeled me with this and it hurt. I have had a lot of health issues over the years, and later after being diagnosed with Diabetes, a doctor told me I more than likely had a metabolic problem all of my life. Any way we went for a ride during this visit to a place high on a mountain where we could over look the whole Sale Lake Valley. I sensed something in Bobby I had never sensed before, depression. I told him "Please don't do anything stupid like Chris, I couldn't stand losing you.! Not too long after that Bobby took his life. I miss my brother and think of him often. Some day I will get to see him again.
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