Richard Crabtree's Memories of our Parents Earl Mason Turner and Sarah Elaine Parkin Crabtree Turner

Earl Turner holding baby daughter, Patty

 

                Richard Crabtree’s Memories of our Parents Earl Mason Turner

                                    Sarah Elaine Parkin Crabtree Turner

            My mother, my sister and I moved to San Francisco when I was about six or seven and Judy (our sister) was one or two.  My parents had divorced earlier.  Our mother died when I was ten.  Mom worked while we were in San Francisco, but I do not know where.  We lived in a boarding house.  I think several single moms and their children must have lived there because I remember a lot of kids.  It was a big house with a big kitchen.

            The lady who owned the boarding house was ornery.  She seemed to fix sauerkraut often and I hated it.  I could not leave the table until I cleaned my plate and I hated the sauerkraut so I would put it in my pocket, leave the table, and then flush it down the toilet.  I must have had some really stinky jeans.

            I did not know how to tie my shoes.  The lady put me out on the steps and told me I could not come in until I learned how to tie my shoes.  I finally did it.  I still tie my shoes differently from other people, but they stay tied.

            When our parents married they rented a little house down the street about a block from Aunt Elva and Uncle Delbert, my mother's sister and brother-in-law.  I remember spending time with them and their family.

            When Earl, my step-father, mustered out of the Army, he was able to buy an old Army Jeep with a rag top.  We drove in that from San Francisco when we moved to Henderson, Nevada.  I remember the huge trees and driving through one of them. (That must have been Sequoia National Park)

            We arrived in Las Vegas at midnight and even though it was dark, the neon signs were spectacular.  I remember the sign on the Golden Nugget with the man panning for gold.  I was about eight at the time.  We moved into a house in Henderson and the back yard was desert. 

            We lived next door to the Ehrets.  Lucille and Mom were good friends.  I do not remember too much about Charles.  There was a family down the street, the Sullivans, who had a bunch of kids and several were boys.  They were my good friends.  A neighbor across from them had the prettiest dog ever.  It was a collie.

            Mom was a good cook.  She tried lots of different foods like frog legs and artichokes. I remember getting chewed out for my report card.  I must not have been a very good student.

            Earl’s son, Steve, would come to visit during the summer from Bakersfield.  He was just younger than I was.  There was an old guy who lived on the Colorado River and panned for gold.  He would come into town to buy groceries and get gas.  He looked like Gabby Hayes and lived in a cave on the river.  One summer Earl and Steve and I went to see him.  We pulled the horse trailer, parked it and rode the horses in to see him.  We stayed for two or three nights and panned for gold.  The burros would come down to the river at night to drink.

            I remember lots of outings in the boat.  Earl would get the boat going really fast and jump out.  He taught me how to swim.  One time he bumped me off the boat dock and I remember being way under the water.  When I came up, Earl was grinning at me.  I learned how to swim.

            In the summer we would take the Jeep and chase wild horses across the desert.  One time we hit a hole and I thought Earl would bury the Jeep it was so deep.  There were buzzards eating a dead horse and they did not fly away even when we got near them.  They were not giving up their feast.

            The day Mom died I was outside playing with the Sullivan boys.  She had come home from the hospital after having the baby and must have called Earl that something was wrong.  An ambulance backed up to the back door and then they were gone.  I hated the sound of sirens after that.

            My dad came and got Judy and me and we moved back to Salt Lake and lived with Grandma and Grandpa Parkin, my mother's parents.  The kids from my school in Henderson made me a scrapbook and wrote notes to me that they missed me and they were sorry my mom had died.  The teacher sent it to me in Salt Lake.  I still have it.

Crabtree, Richard G. "Knowledge". (West Valley City, Utah)