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Show of 1950, she was 56 and Tom was 62, he was skeptical, but they had to do something. She leased the lovely furniture that she had salvaged through the years, for half the advanced rent on a house. Tom's friendly cousjn laid down $100.00 and said, "Don't pay it back, 1"11 live it up in your home". Two patients asked Olive to let them live with her before she found a house; their pay bought the first groceries. Olive felt confident because she felt prepared, she had planned it for a long time. Olive spent so much of her time doing what had to be done, that we who knew her grew to expect if of her. She even prepared two bodies for burial and helped maletheir caskets, back in the days when that was le~Ja 1, and she was Relief Society President, doing a lot of nursing. Although she had no formal training, she was a good pupil of EXPERIENCE ANn NECESSITY; with her great love of humanity she had the right qualifications to operate a rest home. } In a few weeks the Rest Home was doing fin~ with six patients, except for the terribly unbalanced budget. Then a letter came from the Utah State Board of Health saying that Olive would have to be in Salt Lake City and pass a two day test to get a license to operate a rest home, this was ) l ne~ssed law. She called relatives of all her patients and put these facts before them, they all begged her to keep their aged relatives, and they would pay her more if she would just go on operating. She passed the test the second trial; some of the scientific terms had been out 0 f he r reach the first time. . Tom was trying to stay sober but not succeeding well at all when a telephone call came from Don stating that a new grandson .had been born, and he was to be named Mark Thomas. '~ell, if I am going to have grandsons named after me I guess I had better straighten up and be a man," Tom said. At this time an "AA" took him to one of their meetings; Tom was thri lled and went right to work, soon he was one of the "AA" leaders in the St. George area. He grew to,in the rest home work, the old folks all loved him, he could tell the whitest lies the fastest to make them feel in the right. You could hear a patient calling from any room, "Tom, I want Tom". The business grew until it was necessary to move into a larger house. Olive and Tom.found a large two story house with lots of room for patients. Two of Olive's sisters. Sadie and Minnie, came to live with them here as well as Tom's sister. Lucy, who had had a stroke. Olive and Tom insisted on Lucy coming there since all of the married daughters had families of s;~lall children with homes much to small to accomodate an invalid, and besides Olive and Tom had always taken care of Lucy. Voluntary entertainment came in often with guitars, violins, and singing; it was always welcomed; but one night Little Annie had just been given -20- |
