Marshall &Kay Family Histories
B. VAUGHN MARSHALL
1976 - 1977
I (Yvonne KAY Marshall) Go Back To Work
For some time Vaughn (Marshall) had been trying to make his salary stretch to cover all the expenses of our home and family until it just wouldn't do it any longer. He hadn’t said too much to me about the constant struggle so when he told me, that all he could figure out was to have me work two days a week, I was surprised. I could see that his request was painful to him, like, somehow he had failed. I think it was even more difficult for him when he saw how disappointed I was. I hadn’t done any nursing for 17 years by then and the idea really frightened me. I wondered about whether I should work too because the Prophets had encouraged mothers to stay at home. I bring this up because I was shown at that time that I needed to help my husband by doing as he asked. I knew the depression was getting worse. So I tried but wasn’t able to get a job. No one wanted to hire me. I prayed and finally completely turned it over to the Lord and learned a lesson. He made a miracle! He put it into my mind where to go and I was hired. The nurse who interviewed me said she didn’t know why, but she was impressed that she should hire me despite my lack of recent experience. I worked the evening shift so that either Vaughn or I would be at home with the kids all the time. I put the girls in charge of dinners. They really did a pretty good job cooking. During those years I think Vaughn developed a special rapore with the girls; I heard stories about dinnertime “fun and games” with mom away. Our fourth daughter described it well. She writes: “When we were still young my mother had to return to work. She worked late shifts which left the dinner making and kitchen cleaning up to us. It was a chore – but those Friday nights at the diner table with dad got pretty silly many times! We’d giggle, laugh and joke around until dad would finally say, “OK, that’s enough! We need to behave at the dinner table!!” You see, the funny thing about this memory is that I believe that he was the one that started it!”
Depression
Now to return to the depression Vaughn was battling. The symptoms were getting worse. He was so fatigued; unable to sleep and unable to concentrate. He had developed a very negative self-image. He dreaded social situations and church callings .He decided it was time to see a doctor. His doctor sent him to a psychiatrist who prescribed a number of different antidepressants. None of them helped; in fact they seemed to make his symptoms worse. Years later we found out why and I’ll explain that later in his history. It frightened us both so he stopped taking all the medication. It helped a little to stop them but the depression was still plaguing him. He prayed a lot about it but he confided to me that when he prayed he didn’t feel like anyone was listening. This added to the depression. He had asked me not to talk about the problem to family or friends and so I did not. It was difficult to do because some people, both at work and at church, mistook his desire for isolation as just having a bad attitude. He kept trying to overcome the depression by concentrating on thinking in a positive way and doing positive things. One of the things he decided to do was to write a novel. He began with poetry and then started on his novel. It was a wonderful help for him to be able to look forward each day to making his mystery story as interesting as possible. He was able to keep his mind lifted from the depression for long periods of time as he planned and wrote his novel.
Mother’s Move
Toward the end of 1977 my mother (Mary Ingham Kay) decided it was time to make the move to our home. She hired a contractor (Mr. Smith) a friend in our church, to add some living area onto our house for her Mr. Smith came up with some very good plans and it increased the size and comfort of the house a lot. Mother sold her home in Menlo Park,CA and used quite a bit of that money to finance the addition on our home. It involved a lot of time and work. We knew that it would, but more time and work was required from us than we had expected. About half way into the job, Mr. Smith fell off of the roof of his house while working on it. He had been trying to remodel his house at the same time he was working on ours. He had been doing a lot of the work himself, probably to keep expenses down, and had been working long and hard on both houses and I think was quite tired. He fractured his right arm and elbow very badly and was not able to use it for months. We felt very bad for him but the situation added a great deal more stress to Vaughn’s already heavy load. The job was already way behind schedule and mother was with us, but very cramped in one of the girl’s rooms. Mr. Smith would come over and try to continue the building with one arm but of course it was slow going and there were many things he simply could not do without help. He tried not to ask Vaughn to help but it was obvious that if the job was to be completed he needed Vaughn’s help. It appeared that he had run out the funds that mother had paid him and couldn’t afford to hire help. For a number of weeks then, Vaughn would come home from work, and with Bro. Smith’s directions, helped finish the construction on the house. Mother moved into her new living quarters in July 1978. She seemed to really enjoy being there.
Mother and Vaughn had something special in common. They both loved to plant things. Vaughn used to love to go to the nursery and just browse for hours. It was one of the things he enjoyed most. He always liked having company because it was fun to share ideas. I was usually the one to go with him and probably got bored far too quickly. But when mother came to live with us she would often find a reason to go to the nursery and invite Vaughn to go with her. She loved “treating “ him to all kinds of plants. It was fun watching the enjoyment they both got out their excursions to the nursery.
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