B.Vaughn Marshall Hist. 1966-1970

B. VAUGHN MARSHALL

1966 - 1970

Father-in-law - John B. Kay

Vaughn always seemed to be the kind of person who was able to handle emergencies calmly. It was a natural thing for my mother to turn to him when she was notified that my father was taken very ill at work. This was in Feb of 1968. Actually he had died suddenly of a heart attack while climbing the steps in his office building. It took about an hour to drive to Southern Pacific in San Francisco so the people who notified her didn’t want to give her that news over the phone. Vaughn drove her on up and stayed with her during that painful time. I followed as soon as I was able to find someone to care for the children. My mother was so devastated with the news. She told me later how much help Vaughn was while she worked through the painful decisions that had to be made so quickly. We invited her to live with us at that time but she wasn’t quite ready to give up her independence.

Cupertino, California

Before my father’s death we had been looking around for a larger home but after his death we began looking in earnest. Our lovely home in Sunnyvale had gotten too small. Mother didn’t want to move from her home at that time but she indicated that it might not be too long before she might want to take us up on our offer. For that reason she became vitally interested in the area and the home we would choose. We decided on a large home in the San Jose area. Mother didn’t feel good at all about that. She felt that the neighborhood would go down in value. We were concerned about that too, but it was all we could afford for a home that size. She offered to help us with the down payment so that we could buy a similar home in a much better neighborhood. She felt that it was an investment in her future as well as ours. Vaughn kept an open mind to her offer. As it all turned out it was the best decision that could have been made. The San Jose area did decrease in value while the area in Cupertino, where we bought our home, greatly increased in value over the years. In fact, that increase made it possible for us to buy a comfortable home in Washington where we moved and enabled Vaughn to retire early from the survey.

We bought our home in Cupertino in late 1968, and we lived in that home for nineteen years where we shared many growing experiences. The lot we chose was a very large one for a city lot, with about two-thirds of it making up the back yard. It was a wonderful place for someone who loved to grow things, and Vaughn loved to grow things. He enjoyed planting all kinds of things, but especially enjoyed planting things that he could harvest. He enjoyed growing fruit trees the most. He had a special feeling about trees; I often accused him of talking to them. This is one of the short poems he wrote about them:

I look out to see the plants against the sky

Reflected brilliantly as the wind blows by

No worries over the philosophies of men

Nor what is right, nor what they ‘ken’

A tree grows without regard to reason

Their one concern, ‘What is the season?’

He learned how to grow trees, spray them, prune them, thin the fruit and generally keep them healthy. It gave him so much satisfaction to watch the fruit mature and ripen. When the time was right he gathered the family together and we all picked the fruit. He really enjoyed seeing all the bottles of fruit we put up. Canning fruit was not ever my favorite thing to do but I learned how to do it because I knew how much joy it gave him. I found myself growing and learning and doing something the Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints encouraged us to do because of Vaughn.

We had been in our new home a few months when I became pregnant with the twins. We were both excited to know that we were expecting twins but I was so ill during that pregnancy that I don’t remember much of it. Vaughn pretty much held things together during that time. He assigned a lot of the work to the older children. When it came time to deliver the babies Vaughn was able to be with me through the whole labor and delivery. With all the other babies he had been directed to a waiting room when I was taken into the delivery room. The hospitals ‘in those days’ were still primitive in their approach to the father’s participation in the birth process. Vaughn said that he didn’t really know if he wanted to see a birth, but he felt that he had “ missed out” on the special feelings of closeness that come while watching the birth of his children. So we were both happy to share the experience this last time. Guess what? We had two more beautiful girls .

Vaughn was only in the field for one week that year. That same year his dad retired and he and Elaine put together a retirement party in our nice big back yard. He had borrowed tables from our Church and everything was set up really nice. Many people attended --- it turned out to be a big success.

Letter From Vaughn

I received a very special letter from Vaughn in 1970. He was on the ice island and it was our seventeenth wedding anniversary. I decided to go ahead and include a portion of it because it contained a sentiment that he had expressed to me a number of times throughout our married years. I wondered if I should share it because it was special. I finally decided to go ahead and include it because it shows how grateful he was to his Heavenly Father for answering one of his special prayers. I quote:

“ I want to thank you for the last seventeen years. They have been and are very dear to me. I know I’ve told you this before but I want to say it again. When I was a teenager and full of the expectations and frustrations of youth, I used to wonder what kind of a girl I would eventually marry. Of course I wanted her to be pretty and attractive – to me especially, but the thing I really used to pray for was that she would love me. You have shown me your love in so many ways and have brought so much happiness in my life, that I know my prayers were answered.”

I kept that letter in my wallet for so long that it almost fell apart – it meant so much to me. He had said that to me a number of times and despite the fact that I was quite a bit less than a perfect wife, I am so grateful that he felt his prayer had been answered. He repeated that same thing to me throughout the years. The last time I remember his repeating it was about a month before he died.