Not long after high school graduation I went to work for American Airlines as a mail clerk (if you are from England then I was a postal clark). Eventually my work must have pleased my bosses and I moved into crew schedule where I kept track of pilots and stewardesses (they were stewardesses then) flight time.
I turned 19 in Feb of 1961 and planned to serve a mission but I wanted to take advantage of my free flight benefits just once so I planned a trip for my parents and me to go to New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Mexico City and Acapulco during the summer. We went on our vacation and when we returned I began the interview process for my mission. First an interview with my bishop, then stake pres., then a general authority. For the general authority interview I drove to San Diego to be interviewed by Alma R. Sonne (a member of the Seventy). After the interviews were completed I just had to wait for my "call".
One day in early Sept. I received a call at work from my mom to say the call had arrived in the mail so I asked her to open the letter and tell me where. Since I had taken 4 years of Spanish in high school I fully expected to go to Mexico or Chile or Peru and to serve for 2 1/2 years. Mom said North Central States Mission with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota (I had to get a map to find out where Minnesota was). I knew NOTHING about Minnesota, certainly not that it was cold in the winter.
This picture was in SLC. Can you find me? I can't.
50 years ago there wasn't much information in the call packet, just dates that I needed to report to the mission home in SLC, that I needed to have a physical, have my dental work done and what clothing to bring.
The time came for me to report to the mission home and Mom, Dad, Marylee & Laurie drove me to to SLC. Along the way we stopped for a night in Las Vegas and we went to a show where we saw bare breasted dancers (I don't know what Mom & Dad's motivation was there). We also stopped at BYU, then to SLC.
The mission home was a surprise. It apparently was at one time a hotel and I was assigned to my room on the 3rd or 4th floor. There were 16 missionaries on my floor and there was only ONE bathroom with ONE shower, ONE toilet and ONE sink and I shared a double bed with 2 other missionaries. The mission home was right around the corned from the Hotel Utah (now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) and we ate our meals in a dining hall in the basement, went to classes there and listened to speakers there. Actually there weren't classes but mostly just speakers. We had talks from many members of the Quorum of the Twelve and also lessons on the basics of cooking, laundry and how to iron a shirt.
After one week we were sent on our way to our various missions. I boarded a train (flying was not yet permitted) along with 8 other missionaries for my mission. The train ride was 33 hours with no sleeping or eating (except food in Butte, MT) opportunities. We huddled together and prayed, studied the 7 lessons and sang hymns until a drunk in the car told us to shut up.
We arrived in Minneapolis early in the morning in mid October and it was cold. I had previously purchased an overcoat and dress hat (we were required to wear hats summer and winter) in SLC but I now discovered I needed more warmth so a pair of long johns were purchased within a few days.
After a 2 day stay in the mission home (which was at 2219 Pillsbury Ave So) we met or new companions and went to our first areas and began our 2 years of service.
2 comments:
You don't still have that hat, do you? Too bad the hat requirement has gone by the wayside. I think OJ might actually think that was kind of fun. (he's going to start working on submitting his papers when he gets back in July)
I think you are in the second row from the back in the middle. You aren't smiling.
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