The Baby Book

Baby - 6 months

Mother - Amy Heaton Esplin 

Father - John Lynn Esplin 

Baby Arrives: On Saturday the 3^rd day of October, 1936, at six o’ clock PM, to Mr. and Mrs. J. Lynn Esplin. Born in Kanab Hospital, Kanab, Utah; 56^th baby born in hospital. (My classmate, James Freeborn Maxwell was the first baby born in the new hospital. Dr. Aiken told his folks that if they would name him Freeborn, he would not charge them for the birth.)

Baby’s First Outing: Jeanette had her first trip when she left the hospital and came home to Orderville with Daddy, Mother, Lucy LaRee, Lynn James & DeLoy. Shirley was in school or she would have been along too. She went out to Moccasin the first time in Uncle Ed’s car when she was about five months old. Jeanette and Mother went out to stay with Grandma for a week because she was sick. (Grandma Heaton died July 20, 1937, in Moccasin, Mohave County, Arizona).

Baby’s First Words: Jeanette said “da-da” and “ta-ta” at eight months. She would wave her little hand and say “ta-ta” every time someone went out of the door. She said “mamma” soon after. When she was one year old, she would try to say quite a few words. Of course, no one could understand her but the family.

Jeanette put sentences together and talked good when she was 1-1/2 years old.

First Christmas: Jeanette had such a cold, we couldn’t take her out to do any Christmas visiting.

Baby’s Pets: When Jeanette was just five months old, she would sit and watch the kitty playing for a long time. We’d say, “Kitty, Kitty” and she’d look all over the floor for it.

Jeanette had some doggie lambs when she was a year and a half old. Daddy brought them from the herd.  She always had to help feed them and would chase them around and have a lot of fun with them. She liked cows too. She would hold the cow’s tail when Daddy or Mamma milked; and she would walk right up to a cow and try to milk it. She wasn’t a bit afraid of animals.

Jeanette almost worshiped LaRue (daughter of Joe and Pearl Bolander. Joe was Mama’s first cousin.) when she was between one and two years old. It was always “Rue-Rue” and she was just so happy when Rue would come to see her.

Favorite Stories:  When Jeanette was 2 years old, she came home from Sunday School and tried to tell us the story of the 3 Bears. She just liked to repeat Mother Goose rhymes and hear stories.

Other Important Events: When Jeanette was 2-1/2 years old, instead of her birthday being in October, she’d say it was “knocked over”. She’d said “I haven’t got a birthday now because it is knocked over. I wonder who knocked my birthday over.”

Jeanette and Shirley went out to the herd and stayed with Daddy for a week before Jeanette was 3 years old and Mother got so lonesome.

Just after Jeanette turned 4 years old, she could say the ABC’s and write most of them; write her name and spell a number of words.

When she had her tonsils out at 4-1/2 years old, she was just so good about it. She didn’t make a bit of fuss. Nellie took her in to the operating room as Mother had to stay with Jerry because he had just had his out.

 Duck Creek 1937

We're all helping take baby's picture.
Daddy holding Jeanette, Lucy, Lynn James, DeLoy 1937

Daddy and the kids at the herd.
Shirley, Lynn James, Daddy holding Jeanette, Lucy LaRee, DeLoy 1937

Jeanette, DeLoy, Lynn James

I always had an ear ache. . .

 All alone.

Shirley, Jerry, Lucy, DeLoy, Jeanette, Lynn James 1938

Shirley, VeRene, Lynn James, Jeanette, DeLoy

Sunshine and Shadow 
Jeanette and double-first cousin John Jay.

 The Family.

DeLoy, Lucy LaRee, Jeanette, Lynn James, Shirley 1937

Jeanette in hand-crocheted dress

 I'm on my way to the herd to find Daddy.

1-1/2 years old.

Shall we play cowboy?

We borrowed Lynn James' and DeLoy's hats. 1938

Jeanette & Lucy

 Where's Jeanette?

 
Lynn James, Lucy LaRee, Shirley, DeLoy, Jerry (with the curls), Jeanette
The Family - July 1939

Poor kitties. Fall of 1939.

Jerry & Jeanette 1940
Jerry got his Big Boy haircut.

DeLoy - who loved to pull faces - Jeanette, Jerry

 Lucy, Jeanette, Shirley

1939

Jeanette & Jerry - 1940

When Jeanette came back from having her picture taken, she said, "I sure was scared."
February 1940

 

 Our Twins - Jeanette & Jerry

 First day of Play School with my rug to take a nap. 1941

 Play School Class - teacher Emily Adair 1942

Jeanette, Georgai, Mary Lee, Juanita, Lorene, Irene, Maureen.

Jack, George Kirby, Dale Heaton, Charles Carroll, John Hardy, Odena Crofts.

 Our girls.

Shirley, Lucy holding Carol Lee, Jeanette 1942

 DeLoy, Jeanette, Jerry 1940

 Jeanette - 4 years old

 My Primary Class the day I was 4 years old 1940

Aunt Lucy and Laura Porter, teachers.
I recognize LaRue Bolander, Jeanette Esplin, Georgia Troy on the front row.

 Jeanette & DeLoy 4th of July 1942

5 years old. 1941

First Day of School 1942

1943

Carol Lee, 4 years old, & Jeanette, 9 years old, with the kitties 1945

Verla and Jeanette 1946

DeLoy & Jeanette - Must have been after the war if we had a bike. 1946

 Jeanette, Jerry, Lynn James, DeLoy, Carol Lee, Shirley, Lucy holding Verla 1946

 Lucy, Jeanette holding cat, Carol Lee, Verla 1948

 Verla, Carol Lee, Jeanette, Lucy LaRee, Shirley 1948

 Jeanette and Verla 1949

 10 years old

 The Family is getting grown up 1950
Jeanette, Shirley, Jerry, Verla & Carol Lee

Carol Lee (5) & Jeanette (10)

 

 Shirley

 Lucy

 Lynn James

 DeLoy

Jerry

Carol Lee 1943

Mother’s Notes:  Baby started to smile when she was three weeks old and she just smiled a lot after that.

When she was 2-1/2 months old, she liked to be in her little bed and have us talk to her. She would just kick and play and would almost laugh out loud, would also talk baby talk.

Jeanette laughed out loud on the 17^th day of December – 2 months and 15 days old when Mother was giving her her bath, washing her under the chin. Shirley, Lucy, LaRee, Lynn James & DeLoy were all watching us.

Jeanette started to sit alone all by herself at 5-1/2 months.

She had a smile for everyone and liked to be noticed. She sure liked to play with Daddy.

When Jeanette was 6-1/2 months old, she would lie on the floor on her stomach and push herself backwards; she could raise upon her hands and feet to.

We let Baby start to wear her little colored dresses when she was six months old.

At eight months, she started to creep, either on her hands and knees or on her hands and feet. She pulled herself up by things just after she turned nine months old and would stand alone at 10-1/2 months.

Jeanette was weaned just after she turned ten months old.  She didn’t make a bit of fuss about it.

She would say “da-da” “Mamma” and “ta-ta” at eight months.  Every time she saw anyone go out the door or she went out, she would wave her little hand and say “ta-ta”.

Everyone admired her pretty long curls by the time she was nine months old. It would stay in little ringlets so cute.

We took a trip up on the mountain, Cedar Breaks, Navajo Lake, etc., when Baby was nine months old, and she enjoyed the trip as much as the rest of the family.

When she was a year old, she liked to play Lambie with DeLoy while the rest of the children were in school. They’d put the chairs in a circle for a corral – and then they’d go around on their hands and knees saying “baa”. She sure thot she was big.

Jeanette was always glad when her da-da came from the sheep herd. She would always do her best to show off for him and get him to notice her.

She liked to play doll a lot and would sing and rock them to sleep; she always had to have Daddy tend her baby when he came home. She always liked the dolls with the prettiest dresses on. She took a special liking to Negro dollies.

Baby Brother was born when Jeanette was a year and a half old. When Mother first came home from the hospital, she wouldn’t have anything to do with her or the Baby either. She was just sort of jealous of the new Baby, but it wasn’t long until she thot Jerry was pretty nice. He was “Mine and Mama’s baby.”

Aunt Lucy kept Jeanette when Jerry was born and Beth tended the rest of the Family. Jeanette had been sick for a month – fever and tonsillitis and it made Mother feel pretty bad to go leave her but Aunt Lucy had her almost well when she got home with the New Boy.

We all went to the herd for a week when Jeanette was almost 2 years old and Jeanette just had a big time. She walked all the way down and up Bob Creek Hill.

Jeanette started school Sept. 14, 1942. Mrs. Vera Dean Blackburn was her teacher. She learned to read real quick – before Thanksgiving she brot two books home that she had read in school.

What would we do without mothers to brag on us for doing the most ordinary mundane things?  Perhaps it gave us a boost in life to have someone think we were extraordinaire.

This is more a tribute to my mother than it is a history of me. I was her fifth child, her mother was dying, (her father had been dead for over six years); her husband was out to the herd tending his sheep most of the time, yet she took the time to take pictures and keep a book for each one of us.  She spelled “brought” “brot”, which may have been acceptable at the time; otherwise without spell checker or the Internet at her fingertips, I found no spelling or grammatical errors.

I like what it tells about the times – white clothes until 6 months old; cows and doggie lambs for pets; visiting at Christmastime. She didn’t mention that even though we lived in the one of the grand old houses in town, built in 1901 by my Grandpa Esplin, that we didn’t have hot running water; or an indoor bathroom; that we had to build a fire in the wood stove to cook a meal.  We had no central heating or air conditioning.  Burr, those bedrooms were cold in the wintertime. Orderville is 5500 feet elevation. Or that she raised a gigantic garden and we bottled vegetables and fruit endlessly. We also had pigs, chickens, and horses.

Her most noble acts were yet to come. A year after her 8^th child was born; her husband was killed in a fall while herding sheep. With an 8^th grade education (she was raised on a ranch with no school beyond 8^th grade), she acquired the job of Post Master of the Orderville Post Office and finished rearing and educating all eight children on her own.

I salute her.