(Wendy) Since I have a little more time on my hands during this quarantine, I have been working on some family history projects. I am starting to digitize some of my childhood journals (or at least highlights from the journals) and making a timeline of these events to put into our shared family Dropbox. I found this entry pretty interesting:
October 18, 1982: My Grandma and Grandpa Norman were on a trip to Mexico. I was disappointed because I had to ask them some Genealogy questions for an English assignment. When my parents got home they helped me answer the questions, but my parents or grandparents couldn’t remember things like what foods they liked as a kid etc. So I am going to write down some things in case my kids need to use it…
The popular foods now are pizza, fries, coke… I love pizza and sprite (I hate coke and Pepperoni and hot spices and stuff) but I do love pizza – yum! Popular clothes are Levi Strauss – Izod shirts, those kind of church shoes with the bows on them, knickers, bermudas, and vuarnet sunglasses. Also Jan Brady (white tennis) shoes – I love those and wear them a lot. Popular hairstyles are hair curled (flipped) up or permed. My favorite T.V. shoes are Fame, Different Strokes, Facts of Life – but I don’t really have enough time for T.V. these days – hope this info will be helpful!!
So when I was 14 years old I was thinking about my future children and how I could help them with their Genealogy assignments in their English class! Aren't I considerate, ha ha!! (First picture is at my Great Grandma Bohne's 90th Birthday Party in February). I just cringe when I look back at these pictures with at my big, permed hair! Jeni looks so cute in her childhood pictures because she kept her hair long and straight!)
The picture on the left was in 1982 I believe, the ones on the right were in the 1980 Dropbox folder. Both Wendy and I took piano lessons from Lorraine Peckham for years. We would ride our bikes up past the church to her home (having to go past a house that had Dobermans that would lunge at the fence and bark at us ... scared me to death!) I remember we'd be required to practice 30 minutes a day, and I think lessons were once a week. Recitals were held in the chapel at church.
As for the boys ... Scott didn't ever take lessons, but Chris did for about eight months. Some friends in the Delta Club Group had a son that played "The Entertainer" on a TV talent show. That inspired Chris, but then he lost interest and wanted to quit. Mrs. Peckham said it was too bad, because she felt he had a natural ability. I remember Chris thought that if he knew how to play two songs, he could still use that to show off to girls (I think his plan was "The Entertainer" for his first, and "Jessica's Theme from Man From Snowy River" for his second.
Derek seemed to have a natural talent as well, learning to play by ear, and taking lessons for a short time in high school. I really never remembered him playing and was pretty surprised when he ended up quite the musician (see Derek in Concert). He has quite a few piano spotlights on his Instagram account, as well as his cover albums.
Back to the 80s ... Recitals always stressed me out! I'd practice and practice, and get semi-memorized, enough that sometimes I'd zone out, and then not remember where I was in the piece. In my later years, I always said I was more of an accompanist than a pianist. I could follow a singer (or I was the singer) but was never very technical. I'd always ask my piano teacher to play through the music once before I attempted, as I really struggled with reading the timing.
There were some programs saved from recitals over the years ...
In the 1979 program, you can see the Westra girls at #12, #14 (duets), #23, #27 and #35. How long was this recital? I actually remember the name Palace Garden and Grandfather's Clock (while not really remembering the melodies). Wendy did some classical pieces and 5th Avenue Poodle. Glancing through the program, most of the names of the other students are familiar to the Westra siblings (friends, neighbors, other kids in the ward). Apologies for the quality (or lack thereof, this is actually the improved copy)...
... another program, this time from 1983. This recital doesn't look nearly as long as the one in 1982, AND it was broken up into two separate performances to trim it down even further (good move!) I don't remember "Solfeggio in C Minor" but "Moonlight Sonata" is a famous number.
It wasn't just recitals ... we would play in school, girl scouts, family reunion talent shows, in church, etc.
The program below was from Woodstock Elementary, 1979 (2nd grade for Jen). I wonder what song I played?
This piece (Hungary) wasn't listed in these saved programs,
but I remember this as a recital piece, and I still have the music.
I've even attempted (unsuccessfully) to try and play it again.
You can see it being played HERE (not by me, but you can imagine)
A few of the classic Westra music books ... interesting to note, you can see the price (middle/bottom half on the blue cover) ....$1.25. That was for the book, with six long pieces in it! The Burgmueller has a price of $2.50 printed on it. The theory book (ugg, theory!) was $3.95 - you can also see it was purchased at Day Murray Music down on State Street (it's still there, it's where we bought most of our music). Hungary (above - single sheet) had a price tag of $1.95 ... as of 2022, it's $5.99. Inflation, etc.
Here's a little sample of the Burgmueller music ...
This totally brought back music memories!
https://youtu.be/YmrAIf5WlaI
... and the Sonatinas (I went with #3, most memorable to me)
https://youtu.be/42qx4zVyjmw
Are any of the grandkids taking piano lessons now? Wendy's were for a while (blog mention here). I did an email search (in the WriteOn blog) and found taking lessons mentioned ... Adria (2010), Adria&Rella (2014) and Ani (2021) ...
It would be interesting to compare the types of music (I assume classical is still a big part), prices, and how music is purchased (most sheet music can be found and downloaded online, printed off immediately at home). How much is technology used in teaching today? As all the YouTube links above indicate ... I would no longer need my piano teacher to play the piece for me so I could hear the timing. Progression of piano playing over the years.
Anyone up for playing "Chopsticks" ... or perhaps a duet of "Heart and Soul"??
Happy Mother's Day! Mom came home from the hospital today with baby Derek! He is four days old! We gave her all the presents. I gave her a basket and a wooden "MOM," and magnets, and some coupons. Derek is sooo cute!! We went to Grandma's for dinner.
On Wednesday, May 5th 1982, the expectant parents went to St. Marks Hospital in Salt Lake at 7:00 in the morning. Labor was induced at 8:30 a.m. and it lasted eight hours. Derek was born at 4:08 p.m. He weighed 6 pounds 9½ ounces and was 19½ inches long. He needed to stay under the lights for jaundice.
I asked Mom to write up her memories about each of the kids births for this blog (2020): Because of our experience with Cory, I had to go into the hospital at least a couple times when he was nearer to term. They would hook me up with an IV with Pitocin (?) I think and induce labor and track it for a while to see how my body was handling it. It took a few hours. Then my doctor wanted to induce me a couple weeks early, since that was the point when Cory had died. So I remember us going to the hospital early in the morning for them to induce labor. I had heard that induced labors take longer, especially done that early, before your body is quite ready, so he wasn't born until about 6 p.m. that evening. 6 lbs. something. I had my first epidural with him. They didn't do routine ultrasounds back then, like they do now. But I chose to have one and to have the amniocentesis procedure done. It is not without risk, but I really needed the peace of mind it could bring. If there had been a problem with the baby, we would not have aborted anyway, but chances were high that all would be normal, so I could relax a little more with the pregnancy. So I think Derek is the only one of our 8 where we knew the sex before our baby was born.
On one of the pages of the baby book, Dad wrote up some of the expense totals for the time ...
Margie/Dr.Brown(OB) $685
Margie/St.Marks (Hospital) $1056
Margie/Dr.Morris (Anesthesiologist?) $346.50
Derek/St.Marks (Hospital) $525.10
Derek/Dr.Carr (Pediatrician) $130
Derek/X-Ray $6.50
Total costs charged $2749.10 (no notation of what insurance covered and what was out of pocket).
It would be interesting to have the medical bills from all the births to compare ...
and to compare to the costs when the Westra kids had their babies, and to today!
There was a page in the baby book with all of the siblings holding baby Derek ... sans Jen! Where was the picture of me holding the baby? I KNEW it existed. I guess I had taken the picture for my personal photo album (but Wendy has her photo in her album too, we usually got double prints). These had not been in the Dropbox folder for the year (until now) so I wonder if there are still some negatives out there that didn't get converted with the rest. There are a LOT of photos of baby Derek (the folks hadn't gotten around to taking pictures with baby Kellie and didn't have any of Cory, and I'm sure that played a part in the plethora of pictures now).
More notes from the baby book ...
Likes to sleep on tummy
Not good in infant seat for very long at all.
Sleeps good at night, but not great during the day, just small cat naps
Sucks his two middle fingers of his right hand
Blessed June 6th, 1982
There is a "Gifts and Goodies" list in Dropbox, a scan of the "births" section from the newspaper (they give the home address of the families ... that would not be acceptable in today's society!) and a couple other snapshots and memorabilia. There was also another blog post about Derek Memories on his last birthday.
Sunday April 11, 1982: From Wendy's journal (almost 14).
Happy Easter!! I didn't get a new Easter dress, but I got new Easter shoes. I didn't have a hard time getting up this morning like I usually do! I got dressed and then we went in to look in our Easter baskets full of candy! We got a big chocolate marshmallow egg, M&M's, jelly beans and candy eggs hidden around the house. Shane is 5 and still believes in the Easter Bunny so we have to be careful what we say around him! Also, for Easter each year we get to choose any kind of cereal we want to get for Easter. I chose Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch and Lucky Charms. Chris ate both his boxes of cereal in one day!
We went to church and learned more about the real meaning of Easter with Christ and His Resurrection. Today we gave our mutual teacher some candy and flowers. We had all pitched in money to do it. We saw a movie about Christ in Mutual. After church we went to Grandma Burgener's house for dinner and we had ham sandwiches and some decorated hard-boiled eggs and cookies and candy! It was delicious!
(Wendy) We went to Fairview to celebrate Great-Grandma Bohne's 90th birthday! It was a big family reunion. We had a talent show and I played "Saturday's Warrior" on the piano.
