Lake Fork, Idaho, 500 miles away was our destination...It was December 1st 1950...We left Porterville, late afternoon in a rainstorm that soon turned to snow...Our "caravan" included a touring car, a pickup truck, loaded with furniture and two large cattle trucks, one with horses and the other with farm machinery...We drove until midnight that first day, stayed in Burley, Idaho at a motel and arrived in Lake Fork the following evening, after dark, in a blinding snowstorm...We drove 3 miles on an unplowed dirt road to our new home, with only fence posts to guide us and some how managed to stay on the road.
Lake Fork was not a city, just a grocery store that housed the post office, a bar, church, grange hall and a quonset hut for community gatherings...McCall was a small town 6 miles away...McCall/Valley County was known as snow country, with hard winters, and a place where people from Boise had summer homes along the shores of Payette Lake...Our new farm, had a three bedroom farm house, with running water, but no bathroom, only an outhouse...A big barn to store hay, and a place for milk cows...200 acres of farm land and 300 acres of timber...A wood shed stood near the house as wood was our only heat, as well as for the cook stove.
December 1st, the snow was already deep and we soon learned that trips to town were only for necessities...Our road was seldom plowed and always snow covered...We had a team of horses and a bob sled and many times that was our transportation to school...I'm not sure what our parents were thinking when they made this move in the middle of winter...Summers were short and farm work is never ending, planting and harvesting and storing for winter...We had horses, cows, sheep, and chickens to care for...Mona loved riding horses and herding the cattle on horseback all summer.
Mona and I were enrolled in a one room school house, "Wood Grove," that was about 2 miles from our house...We joined 10 other students in varying grades 1 thru 8, and a lady teacher...Mona was the only 8th grader...This was quite a switch from our classrooms in Utah with 20 kids to a class...Mona finished out the year and looked forward to high school...She fit in well at Donnelly/McCall High school, making an immediate friend with "China McBride" for the rest of her school days...China grew up in McCall and guided Mona through the ropes and included her with the other kids...Socially Mona blossomed but school work was a struggle for her...From 1st grade on she struggled with reading , so of course struggled in all classes...I think in this day and age, she would have been tagged as dyslectic, and might get more help...Back then, kids were labeled as slow or dumb and weren't worth extra time to help them...Mona made it through the next four years, with help from classmates and a couple of understanding teachers, that could tell that this hard working girl was anything but dumb...Her grades were passing and it was a proud day for her and our parents when she was awarded a diploma...Both of our parents had left school with only an eighth grade education...They wanted more for their children.
Mona was happy to be out of school, was engaged to Bob, who was in the Navy...She worked with Daddy that summer on the farm and into the winter, before getting a job cleaning motels rooms in McCall...She lived at home and was saving money for when they got married...In the meantime, another Navy guy, Jerry (son of the motel owner) came home on leave and was attracted to the girl he saw cleaning rooms at his fathers motel...He ignored the diamond on her left hand and asked her to go to a movie, after turning him down several times and he wouldn't take no for an answer, she finally said yes, thinking that one date and then he would leave her alone...Fate intervened and two weeks later she wrote a "Dear John letter" to Bob, enclosed the diamond and Mona and Jerry stood before the Justice of the Peace, in the living room of the "farm house in lake Fork," exchanged gold bands and became Man and Wife on May 6, 1956...Everyone was in shock!!!...Hugs and Love to the Park Family...OWAV:)
Lake Fork Farm house
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