In My Garden - Life History of Zelda L. Kline

Life History of Zelda L. Kline

1921 Clockwise from Baby: Zelda Lorraine Brown, Laverna Maude Brown, Amanda Petra Jeppesen, Ane Marie Hansen

I was born Zelda Lorraine Brown on the third day of April 1921 on Quincy Street in Ogden, Utah. My parents were LaVerna Maud Jeppesen and William Albert Brown. My mother had also been born in Ogden but she had grown up in Preston, Idaho. She was born to Amanda Petra Andreason and George Spears, but was later sealed to her stepfather, Marcus Jeppesen. My father was born in North Ogden to Barbara Ellen Beckstead and George Brown.

1921 William Albert Brown and Zelda

In the seven years my mother was married to my father, "Will", we lived in many places: Ogden, North Ogden, Rolap (near Castle Gate, Utah) and Salt Lake City. It was in Rolap that my younger sister, nine-month old Esther Jeannette died in 1924.

1924 Rolap, Utah

And in April, 1927, while they lived on Sixth West, in Salt Lake City, my father died, leaving my mother a very young widow of 24 with two small children and a third to be born seven months later.

The earliest memories are like a kaleidoscope, bits and pieces of swirling colors and times:

• A tall man standing beside a black kitchen cook stove with shining silver edges, frying something in a pan for me.
• Through an open door, a rocky piece of ground sloping down toward a river or stream and bright sunlight making me blink my eyes as I came out of the darkness of the house onto the step.
• Another time, the same man holding me on a very large old-fashioned tricycle as it rolled down a driveway in front of a yellow house and Mama standing across the street, watching.
• Sliding down the arched legs of an old-fashioned dining table and bumping my lip and crying when I saw the blood.
• Pushing a wicker baby carriage proudly with my baby brother, Mark, in it.
• Coming into a warm kitchen out of the cold night, wrapped in a quilt, being sat on a stool and the quilt falling away while Grandma Brown set a bowl of fresh bread and milk in front of me, spooning strawberry jam on top.

The old house was secure then.

Then I remember another night when things were not so secure and there were neighbors and people standing around. Later I remember being led up a flight of steps to a room to see the tall man, my father, laying as though he were asleep in a strange bed, but I knew he was not "just asleep".

The fear really came later, when I was lifted up to look at him as he lay in Grandma's front room. Years later in my life, I came to know a poem that said "pillowed in silk and scented down" and I knew what it meant and I remembered that day.

Later, a train rushed through the late afternoon. Mark was sleeping an exhausted sleep in Grandma's arms and I was glad that he had finally stopped crying. I climbed over onto Grandpa Marcus' lap and felt comforted, pressing my face against his bristly mustache and smelling his old pipe. Great Grandma Hansen was there too, sitting across from us, nodding sleepily. Mama had stayed in Salt Lake to take care of all the multitude of things that must be taken care of when death has paid a visit.

That train ride was when the bits and pieces settled down and my definite memories began. If I close my eyes, I can still see it as it was when we left the station and started up State Street toward home. Though it was April, it was cold and in the last daylight, flakes of snow were drifting down. I stuck out my tongue, tasting the cold wetness; glad to run ahead and shake from my legs the stiffness that came from sitting on the train so long. As we came to Aunt Lindy and Great Grandmother Hansen's house, Aunt Lindy came out with a shawl over her head. While they talked grown-up talk, I skipped up and down, anxious to be through this strange journey. Grandma Hansen patted my head and said, "Poor little Selda." and I knew that I should cry, but not quite why. Then they walked with us down the street to Grandma's house.