- Life Sketch of Flora Cecelia Jensen Brighton
Flora Cecelia Jensen was born on Jan. 18, 1920 to Alma and Emma Jensen. The Doctor drove his car over the frozen snowdrifts to come to Ucon for the delivery. She weighted a little over 8 pounds and had a lot of dark hair. Her mother and father called her their dollie.
Three years later her sister, Arda, was born on September 12, 1923. They loved each other and did the things sisters do. There was sagebrush left along the fence lines of their farm and as spring came, Flora and Arda would go for walks, hunting the first buttercups and wild, pink sweet- williams. Their mother had little bouquets of them all spring on the kitchen cupboard.
There was no heat in their bedroom. In the winter they were covered with so many quilts it was hard to turn over. The nail heads in the walls had frost on them most of the winter. Many mornings the quilts were frozen where they breathed on them through the night.
As a family they took trips to central Utah to visit relatives. They road the train or traveled in car. The roads were all dirt with no road signs. They traveled many hours to get to Downey, Idaho by the first night. They could only travel in the daylight because the car lights were so poor.
The winter she started school, her father was called on a six month mission to Kansas. At Christmas time, Flora and Arda got the measles. They were very sick. Aunt Mariah Jensen and Sister Robinson came to rub their feet to make them feel better.
Flora learned how to work from her parents. Her mother was a wonderful homemaker and cook. She helped her father with the horses. They had a pretty brown horse that they called Brownie. In the fall, when they were digging potatoes to get the horse warmed up, Flora would drive Brownie up and down the fields scattering potato sacks. They did this so that Brownie wouldn’t bock when they put her on to pull the digger. Brownie would stand very still until Flora got on her, then she would stand in one place and jump up and down until she fell off. Then Brownie would stand still again and they repeated this performance several times.
Flora learned to play the piano and flute. She played special musical numbers whenever she was asked. In high school she was in a special girl’s choir. The uniforms were gold satin blouses and black satin skirts with a gold rope belt.
During her sophomore year, she spent a lot of time in room 10 at school during lunch. She had a Mickey mouse watch and Bill Brighton spent a lot of time fixing for her. Later, Flora admitted that every night she would take the watch apart and readjust it so he could fix it again the next day.
They dated for the next four years. They went to the Senior Ball--even though Bill’s foot was broken and he couldn’t dance. Bill attended ISU while Flora finished her high school. Then she attended Ricks academy while he finished up at ISU and got his teaching certificate.
They were married August 23, 1939 in the Salt Lake Temple. They moved to Edmonds, Idaho where they lived across the street from the school. He signed a teaching contract for $830 a year. They had no car and had to walk 4 miles to the store for groceries.
After teaching for 3 years, they could see that there was not enough money in it to raise a family and they bought a farm in Milo. They moved to Milo in the spring of 1942 about one week before World War II was declared. Because Bill was a farmer, he was frozen to the farm and couldn’t be drafted.
Sharel was born Nov. 28, 1942. They had waited for 4 years for a baby and they were very pleased at her arrival. Flora stayed in the hospital 10 days and the final bill was $45.
J was born Feb. 15, 1945,the day after Grandma Brighton’s birthday. It was a cold morning and when Bill went to go home the wheels of the car were frozen and wouldn’t go around for awhile.
Ilene was born June 2, 1947. Flora had been quite sick with this pregnancy. The baby was born breach. When she was born the nurse said, “She’s black, but she’ll breath.” And she did.
Annette was born June 4, 1951. J was sure he was getting a brother. When Bill brought the kids to the hospital to bring their mother home, Flora asked J if they should take her back. He said no, he’d keep her.
LaRee was late in coming. They expected her in the middle of December. All the other ladies in the primary who were expecting had already had their babies. But LaRee came Feb. 4 1953. She was blessed the same day as J was confirmed. They were the last ones to have this done in the old Milo church.
In the fall of 1957, Dad had a major heart attack and life completely changed for them. They sold their milk cows, rented the farm, and Dad started working at Arnold Machinery Co. To make ends meet, they kept a few cows and soon they were milking 10-15 cows. Mom would always start milking before he got home from work. She did everything she could think of to lighten his load.
The work on the farm was not a burden, it was a family project. Mom made everything an adventure. We had picnics in the field, so we could have lunch with Dad. J took over a lot of the farm responsibilities and we all helped with the chores. He got pretty good at putting up with his sisters for his hired help. We put up the hay and combined the grain.
When J went on his mission Teron Cox rented most of the farm. The part that was left became the girls project. With Mom and Dad’s help we girls loaded hay and changed the water. Somehow we managed until J got home and could do it right again.
Mom took great pride in making the things around her pretty. It was very important to her that her girls hair was curled and that we wore the latest styles to school. She was a very good seamstress and we all had new dresses to start school, for Christmas, and for Easter.
Mom gave us all piano lessons. She wanted all her girls to learn to play the hymns. She taught us to embroidery and crochet. It was important to her that we did not waste time. There were many hours spent out in the pasture under the shade tree embroidering pillow cases while we watched the cows so they didn’t get out of the fence and into the hay crop.
We grew a wonderful garden. The children could earn money by hoeing the rows. We got $.10 a row. If that was not enough pay, we could hoe the row for nothing. We also could earn money by digging up burdocks. If we got enough of the root, she would pay us one penny for every ten burdocks or one hundred burdocks for a dime.
Aunt Arda had us come to her place and get apples. Grandma Jensen, Mom and Aunt Arda would peel the apples and bottle hundreds of bottles of applesauce each year. We canned all kinds of fruit and vegetables every summer.
Mom believed that fresh air and sunshine was good for growing children. In the winter, we would bundle up in so many coats, scarves, and mittens that we could hardly walk and make a snowman. We loved it when Dad would get out the tractor and pull our sleighs up and down the road.
Flora took delight in making her house a home. One of her greatest loves was the beauty of nature. She grew many kinds of flower inside and outside of her home. One of her favorites was African Violets. She gave starts of plants to many people in the ward. She was famous for her beautiful peonies. When the Milo church was dedicated, they used bouquets of her white peonies on the pulpit.
Her life was filled with service. Service to her family and service in the church. She held many callings throughout her life. Many of them carried with them great responsibilities. She worked in both the stake relief society and the stake primary. It seemed that every summer she was in charge of making a float for the 24th of July or writing a program for this or that. One of the favorite things she did was write new words to music to fit a program. She wrote the words of “Come to Primary” from a popular song, “The Little Blue Man.”
She sang with the singing mothers, and she was a wonderful teacher. It was hard for her to get in front of people to give a lesson. She spent a lot of time preparing for her lessons. I don’t think anyone in her class knew how hard it was for Mom to give those lessons, because she always did such a good job. She loved teaching the laurels and Mia Maids. When she was in charge of a program she watched all the details that made everything extra special.
She took the time to have special teaching moments with her children. We would walk together to go get the cows. This was a good time to find out how our day was at school and what was happening in our lives.
We had many choice experiences as a family. Mom and Dad felt like we should work and play together. Every year we went on a nice vacation. We all went and many times we took grandma Jensen with us. We went to Mount Rushmore, Disneyland, California and to Seattle to visit Uncle George’s family and Uncle Stayner’s family.
All of her children have been through the temple. When the grandchildren came, she was a wonderful grandmother. She was always available to tend her grandchildren. They have special memories of grandma’s macaroni and cheese with cookies from the freezer for desert. Her house was filled with homemade bread and raspberry jam, wonderful books, fun music, and fascinating toys. And there was that special candy dish that was available to you as you left to go home.
In her later years, her life was filled with more gardening and service. Mom and Dad were called as temple workers in 1983. They looked forward to their 4:30 A.M. prayer meeting. They really enjoyed working with the sweet people in the temple.
Mom developed her many talents through service. She wrote poetry and programs for nearly every occasion. She served her family her entire life. She made an embroidered quilt for each of her granddaughters and a patch work quilt for e
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1920 - 2004 (84 år)
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