Meet My Mom by Cherrie Newman Dyer

Meet my Mom

By Cherrie Newman Dyer 

The only thing I didn’t like about her was he name … Dora Wandrella … (named after her mom, Wandrella) … I think it sounded like one of Cinderella’s step-sisters … Well, she was a ‘small cry’ for that … she was very sweet … in fact if she had lived she would be 100 this June 23^rd. However her life was cut short by a heart operation that went awry … and she died 10 days after the operation. The calcium that they took away from her heart .. a piece escaped and went to her brain .. and had she lived she would not be able to walk or talk. So she died at age 62 … the older I get the younger that seems. Her patriarchal blessing said she would live a long life!!! I didn’t think 62 was a long life but my sister Dianne said that with a  bad heart that was a comfort to her … tan she would be able to raise her children. She died when my little brother was 19 and in the mission training center. 

My Mom loved to cook. My brother Jay said he loved her cookie sheet filled with hot cinnamon rolls. I remember her spending all day making 6 or 7 pies … and my  brothers bringing home a friend … cut a pie in half … loading it with ice cream and eating the whole pie!!!

I don’t remember Mom ever getting mad. I remember her getting perturbed, when my brothers teased her. My brother Jay said the only time he remembers her being mad is when he fed the neighbors big dog a whole package of Hot Dogs that Mom was planning to have for dinner. I don’t recall Mom ever saying a bad thing about anybody. The closest think I remember her saying when she was Relief Society President was that Sister Herzog was kind of ‘different’.

My Mom’s homemade rolls would melt in your mouth. She never seemed tired of cooking.

She did get an ulcer when she was President of the Relief Society. I think it was from trying to keep ‘peace’ among the sisters. A counselor in the Relief Society said Mam always had an excuse for every one.

I feel bad that many of her 27 grandchildren didn’t get a chance to really know her!!!  Because to know her was to love her.

Meet My Dad by Cherrie Newman Dyer

Meet My Dad

By Cherrie Newman Dyer

The Family called him ‘Pappa Joe’. He came from an immigrant family from Germany. He was the number 10 child – 3 brothers died in Germany from unperfected D.P.T. shots. My Father said he was born on the railroad tracks … actually my grandparents arrived in Salt Lake City in March and he was born in May. My grandparents were converts to the church. I think they were converted by a couple of homesick missionaries.

My grandparents thought they were coming to Zion … which turned out to be a far ‘cry’ from Zion. At the time there was a great anti-German feeling in the U.S.  When my Grandparents arrived in Utah … none would hire my Grandfather being he was German. My Grandfather went to work at the salt flats shoveling salt. My Aunts quit school in the 3^rd and 4^th grade and went to work cleaning houses for 25 cents a day. Grandma also went to work cleaning also.

My father said he supported himself from the time he was 12 years old. My father went on a mission to Germany … when he came home no one wanted to hire a German … (probably 1935) … so he changed his last name for Naumann to Newman. H was really a ‘go getter’. He worked for his brother –in-law who had a 7-up bottling company. Then when the war broke out he go a job working for Railroad Express driving a delivery truck. This made him so they would be able to not be drafted. I don’t think he wanted to go to war … and fight against his cousins. To make extra money he started to sell Insurance on the ‘side’. He was lucky to get into selling for a good company … ‘State Farm’.

My Father was always the life of the party with his countless jokes.

Well, you take a farmer’s daughter and the son of a poor immigrant family and what do you have  … two workaholics!!

I always remember my parents getting up at around 5:30 – 6:00 am and working most days except Sunday till around 8 or 9 at night. (My father had his Insurance Office in our home)

My Father has a bad temper – He never hit us but I was a bit of a brat … and I remember him yelling at me … in fact my cousin who lived two housed away … remembers my Father chasing me out the front door … and I ‘flew down’ a number of steps!!!

My parents never hugged me or told me they loved me … but I just knew they did love me.

Dick & Madeleine Family 2010

Sandy & Helen Newman Family 2011