These sojourns in Paris and later in Provo, Utah, reflect mother's never ending efforts to give her children a high school education, or above, and at the same time be close to them. May I add here that it worked. There was very little, if anything, mother set out to do that she did not do--and successfully too. Sometimes I have wondered if she fully realized how well she was succeeding. Perhaps she did, but her eyes were always on the difficult goals ahead. She was too busy attaining these goals to think of any success.

With this in mind it is easy to see why, before we were all through high school, she moved to Provo to start her children on the college climb. This worked too. Melvin missed the Provo stint, but he availed himself of the Agricultural College in Logan, Utah. About this time he spent between two and three years on a mission for the L.D.S. Church and a more or less equal time in the Army; four or five years in a young man's life in those days didn't leave much time for further schooling. Walter came to Provo after he married.

There is a very interesting postlude to this educational facet in mother's life; she was on her way to a genealogy meeting to learn more about research when she slumped down on the sidewalk with a heart attack. In a matter of minutes she was gone, pursuing an ideal to the end.

If mother did not fully realize how successful she had been in her efforts and determination to have her children get an education, there were others who did. On my rather infrequent visits to Bear Lake, people in their conversation with me have referred to this success. One case I will mention was somewhat typical of the others. On one visit to Georgetown I was visiting with a friend of about the age of Melvin or Rhoda. He congratulated me on some success or achievement I had experienced and then went on to elaborate on the productive and useful lives of other members of our family. He ended his observation by saying: "But your family had an advantage over many of the rest of us who grew up in Georgetown. Your mother saw to it that all of you received advanced education. It made a difference."

Well, I am aware of other reasons which contributed to any success or lack of success, but he was right about the advantage we had over quite a few people of the area who failed to get training above the local norm. Lest I be mis-understood, let me hasten to say that other families, other parents, saw to it that their children received education above the level I refer to as the "local norm", and it was to their advantage. Also, of course, there were successful people who made it without this early advanced schooling. I am sure mother realized this latter possibility, but she had a theory that no matter what the possibilities, education provided by the schools would be helpful.

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