MY MEMORIES OF MY SISTER FREDA

(I was cleaning off some 3 1/2 computer disk, since we still have an old working computer that has that drive in it. I came across this story on one of them)

By: Shirley Powell

I was about 12 years old when Freda died so I only remember her as a teenager. She was a very happy, bouncy person and was always singing and dancing . She was quite small and very pretty.

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There was always boys hanging around, one in particular I remember very clearly. His name was Orvill Judd. At the time he was very good looking and thought the world of Freda. Freda always had a mischievous way about her and was always playing tricks on Orvill; and making him the brunt of the joke. But as I remember she also thought a lot of him and would spend much of the time talking and flirting with him. He spent a lot of time in our home; and Freda would always get him to do things for her.
One time Orville told Nome that he would break a little wild horse that Nome had. The streets in Fredonia were deep sandy places. So the men including my Dad, roped the horse, and took him out on the road south of the house, Orville then proceeded to try to ride the horse. Freda got so angry with all of them that she started screaming and crying. Orville was thrown from the horse and broke his arm, and Freda wouldn’t talk to any of the men for a few days. Freda had quite a temper and would blow up quite rapidly, but she would get over it just the same.

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She was a very talented person. She was in most of the school plays that would be put on. Along with acting she was also an exceptionally good dancer.

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One Summer Freda put a store in one of the sheds Dad had out by the barn. A friend of hers, Isabel Brooksby, helped her gather up stuff from both homes to sell. In those days we used pop bottle caps for money, they hadn’t started using the cans for pop yet. One day when Freda was gone, I went into her store, opened it up to all my friends, and sold everything I could for just a few caps and pennies. Needless to say when Freda came back home I was in deep trouble. That was the end of her store.

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She loved to play tricks on people. One night Isabel came down to the house, mom had just baked a batch of bread. Isabel grabbed a loaf and pulled the end out and went to the cupboard for the butter. Us younger kids had the Chicken Pox, to stop the itch mom had mixed some dry sulfur with cream to rub on us. Freda had taken the bowl of sulfur and set it in the place of the butter, and never said a word to Isabel about it. Isabel lathered her hot bread with the sulfur mixture and bit into it. Freda stood and laughed at her. When Isabel got mad at Freda, all the Freda said was “Why didn’t you ask for the butter?”

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At the same time that she would pull jokes on people, she was also very loving. Some of my fondest memory of her was the long talks her and I would have, and the nights I slept with her and she would rub my back.
One time when she was still going with Orville Judd, he gave her a big tin box of candy(?) for Christmas. She was deathly afraid of mice. Orville had taken the candy out of the box and filled it with rocks, then right in the middle he placed a dead mouse. When Freda saw it she threw the box clear across the room and started to scream. I think as I looked back that was the beginning of the end between Freda and Orvill. Shortly after that she went to St. George to go to school. She was very popular and made many friends.

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I remember the dresses that mom made for her. Mom was an excellent seamstress and could make up her own patterns. Freda was very tiny, at eight years old I was as big as she was. Not as tall, but about the same around the hips and across the shoulders. The other places mom could expand the patterns as needed. In High School Freda was chosen to be in all of the stage productions and mom always made her costumes and dresses.

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While at college Freda met Walter Pace. I remember the night she called and told our folks she was married. Her and Walt had gone to Las Vegas, Nevada. They moved to Fredonia and lived in a little house back towards the creek that grandpa owned. Dad used to tell Freda that Walter was no good and she shouldn’t have married him. Freda would tell him that she would make a good man out of him if it killed her trying.

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Freda loved Joy when she was born. Freda was pregnant with Ralph shortly after Joy was born. She would cuddle Joy and sing to her. She was always saying, “I want a little girl just like Joy,” but when Ralph came she didn’t seem to awful disappointed because he was a boy.
Walt worked away from the home quit alot, when she was pregnant the last time. I would go with her and spend the night. I remember the two of us walking out through the corral and hurrying through the plowed ground to keep away from Johnny, the blind bull calf, when dad would forget to lock him up at night. Freda was very big and heavy with the baby she was caring. I was eleven years old and taller then she was. I would carry Ralph and try to help Freda. We must have been a funny sight.
When it came time for the baby to be born Freda was taken to a home in Kanab where a woman would take care of new mothers and babies for two weeks after the baby was born, Freda didn’t get along very good. Her appendices broke when the baby was born, and mom had the doctor bring Freda back to the home in Fredonia where mom took care of Freda for the next two weeks, but Freda was to ill and without any anti-biotic to take care of the infection our beloved sister died. The little girl she had, never knew how much her mother loved her.
I was very close to Freda and she always treated me like I was very special. She died in January, but before she had become so sick she had bought me a fancy jump rope. My mother gave it to me on my birthday and told me Freda had bought it for me.

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Many times through the years I have had dreams about Freda and it has always been when I was in need of some extra love or had problems that I couldn’t handle on my own. She has talked to me and brought me much comfort and peace.