As per request, these are a couple of pictures from the book. There are more than one that were in black and white that were embellished with crayons. We didn't have slates, but we certainly sat in desks like those. 
I received the following message this morning from my lifetime friend, Jack Davidson, who spent most of his professional career at the University of Hawaii and now lives in Placerville, CA. Jack and I went through the University of Wyoming together; he went to UCal Berkeley for his doctorate; I went to Michigan. He is smarter than I am.
Sometime ago, Ann posted this unknown photo. I wrongly identified who these children were and would like to make that correction here. I am rereading Betty Sullivan's book of family history, "The Long Trek West". And lo and behold, this picture is in that publication. They are from left to right: Sarah, Mabel, Dreda and Billy Harper. They were Dad's (Russell Blood) cousins, their mother, Mabel Clare being a sister to Roscoe Blood and a grandmother to Betty Sullivan. I am always amazed, that for an orphan, Dad had so many family photos in his possession.
In Mother's things was this little memory box for me, containing the Tiddley Winks cup and game pieces, my jacks, and the keys to tighten my roller skates, plus a wheel from my skates.
My sister Liz and I both studied this annual repeatedly. I did not know until just a few years ago that she felt that her attraction to the University of Wyoming came from hours spent looking at this annual, just as my attraction to the University came from the same source. We were the only two among our siblings who attended the University of Wyoming. The fact that Mother attended the University of Wyoming at all was an absolute tribute to the strength of her ambition and her goal to become an elementary school teacher. For any one to come out of the hard scrabble existence of a pioneer irrigated farm in Penrose Wyoming and attend the University was a miracle. She had completed what was called "normal training" at the public high school before she went to Laramie, which was part of her sustained effort to become a teacher. Mother was the only one among her siblings to attend college. She would not graduate from the University of Wyoming until 1957, after many years of teaching, taking summer school courses, correspondence courses, completing lessons late into the evenings. She worked for every penny she had available while at the University of Wyoming "hashing" at the Commons and doing chore work for a family she stayed with, an unpleasant and onerous task which she endured, nonetheless, to accomplish her goal. Liz and I would follow in her footsteps more than two decades later, also earning every cent ourselves that we had available to pay our way through college. We could not do less than our mother did, nor could we quit before we achieved our educational goals. We remain in the process of establishing the Minnie Wasden Blood Elementary Education Scholarship at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, the town where we six Bloods attended school and where Mother and two of my sisters taught for a period of time.
This is Rosebud, who will be forever immortalized in the hearts of Steve and Mary Lynn and anyone who came to see them.
Mary Lynn's gardens are all so beautiful this is just one of them - 
The shop-barn where creation takes place with Steve and Mary Lynn running the show.
The next idea is being hatched!
To celebrate finding a scanner driver that works with my Mac and my old Epson, saving me from having to buy a new scanner, and also simultaneously finding this gem from our Sunday School manual of 1948, I wanted to share. I have not altered the original in any way. If I get many votes to delete, I can do that, but it does bring back memories of causing great grief to various Sunday School teachers.
At the time of our home fire in Penrose, (February 1943) I was age five, Marlene was age three, and mother was three months pregnant with a brother, James Orvil, (J.O.). Mother moved to Lovell where we lived with her parents for the interim of constructing a new home next to the Lovell schools. Mother remarried in 1947 to Walter S. Robb, a man from Cowley she met while working at the sugar factory. Four children were the issue of that marriage: Rick, Georgia, MaryLou, and Dean. I graduated from Lovell High School in 1955 and attended BYU for a year. In March 1957, I entered the USAF with a "loose" promise of transferring to Aviation Cadets as soon as a class opened--the results of the Russians launching Sputnik. The Air Force goofed! My first duty station was at a small fighter group base in Duluth, MN. My best friend and next-door neighbor, Bart Lynn was also stationed there. We hung-out just as we did as kids for nearly 9 months and I was sent to a new airbase located in Grand Forks, ND. I met and married the only eligible girl in the Branch and we continued with our education and raising a family of six children. I was recruited by the General Foods Corporation and sent to Chico, CA where we lived for 37 years. My True Love was struck down by uterine cancer and passed away at our home in Chico on September 5, 2001. She was buried in the Penrose Cemetery on September 11, 2001, just as the planes were hitting the World Trade Center in New York. I retired in 2003 and moved to Lehi, UT as a result of prayer and inspiration. I am living "the good life," with a lot of volunteering, traveling, and maintaining contact with loved ones. I am grateful to Dwight for permitting me to participate in this venue for extending my contact with you. I have managed to condense 65 years of my life in less than a hundred words; I will try to be more brief in the future. My signature close are the final words of Joyce: "I love you more!" I have spent my life saying "goodbye" to loved ones, I never want to close without expressing my love--no matter how "corny" it sounds. -- Phil
These pictures were taken last year - Top to bottom, Dwight, otherwise known as The Curmudgeonly Professor, his wife, Velna, and sister, Louise. These are some favorite pictures of mine of some favorite people in my life.
Judy told me I had omitted flowers for Louise's birthday. I hereby correct this oversight with some orange cactus flowers, some dusty pink roses, and some yellow lilies. Double click to get the full view.
I had to look hard to find another picture of Louise since my sisters have been busy, busy! But here's one, San Bernardino (somewhere around), fall of 1954. And where is the other shoe?
I've always loved this picture that Dwight took of Louise and me doing the dishes. We didn't notice that our surroundings were very humble (enlarge the picture and look at the details!). The picture tells a lot. Louise, being older, was always the leader and example for me. She directed traffic - she washed and I wiped. Water was heated on the stove in the teakettle and the big reservoir at the end of the stove. Sometimes the dish water would get "cold", so we would put the red and white enamel dishpans on the stove to re-heat while we went to play or just fiddle around. Working together was a great opportunity for us to tell each other about our day, or to re-enact movies, especially those that Louise, being older, got to see, and I had to stay home and baby-sit (yes, Steve, Ann, and Judy - that's what it was.) We solved our problems, occasionally quarreled, tried to hurry so that we could hear Lux Radio Theater on Monday nights, or lingered in the kitchen doorway
Happy Birthday, Louise! These are just a few of my favorite pictures of you. And I get to be in a couple of them with you. I especially love the one in the lower right-hand corner. That was a first-day-of school picture taken by Dwight, who posed us in the middle of the road as we waited for the school bus. Louise looked so pretty in her brown and white dress and shoes, and I, wearing a made-over dress from the old clothes we got from friends in Cody, with my pigtails, glasses, and penny loafers. Louise has guided me through a lot of things in life - now, she is my quilting guru, and I constantly bombard her with questions about how I can solve those problems, as well as my problems about life. Now, this blog has become far too wordy, and I think I'll go and eat a piece of that chocolate (devil's food?) cake with the brown-sugar or penuche frosting. Enjoy the day, and I hope your birthday celebration continues throughout the week. May you have another wonderful year! Lots of Love to you, Elizabeth.
Now we open the presents. Lousie, I don't know how I got this.......but I think you wrote this with your heart. And I post it here for all to read.
This picture was taken in the mid-80's when Stanley Allgeier, Dad's cousin, visited in Olympia. From left to right, Elna (Wasden, House) Blood, Stanley Allgeier, Russell Blood, Elizabeth Gage, Judy Petersen with Ben. Dad had a great fondness for Stan and his brother, Bob, from the days he lived with them in Carneyville, near Sheridan, Wyoming, while his father was so ill. He and Stan were the same age. Their mother, our great-aunt Rose (Krajicek) Allgeier was much beloved.
This picture was sent to me from Jan (Allgeier) Brocket. You can see Stan in the front row, a little to the right of center. The celebration was for his 100th birthday in May. Jan, his daughter, and our second cousin, is just to his right. Most of the others are also related to us.
In the late 1970's, Russell and Minnie Blood's grandson, Ron Blood, was in Vienna, Austria on a mission, and he sent a tapestry with this picture on it to them. They prized it, and hung it on a wall in their home in Washington. Dad was always fascinated with the picture on it - castles, steps, a coach with horses, people, mountains, trees - everything. He put tracing paper over the tapestry and attempted to trace it, but wasn't satisfied with the results. He gave me the drawing, and I completed it, and had blueprint copies made of the design for him for Christmas. He was pleased, but said that he really wanted me to share in the making of the picture. We worked together planning and cutting veneer. He completed the right half of the picture, and I did the left. We finished it in March of 1990. Size is 54 1/2" x 29". Working with Dad on this project was one of the choice experiences of my life.
Aunt Lucinda (Cindy) Sorensen and Uncle Norman Sorensen were more frequent visitors to our home in Penrose. Cindy was the youngest girl in the Wasden family, and, like all younger sisters, came in for a fair amount of coddling from parents and persecution from older siblings. I can remember when they came to our home when we lived in the little brown house, when they announced that they were getting married. He had served a mission to Denmark, and she had worked at the hospital in Lovell. (The reason that I remember is that I was quite small and shy, but he carried me piggy back around the yard.) Their children were younger than Louise, Dwight, and myself. Sunday afternoons were often a time for visiting, and we children would linger in the living room to hear the unusual conversations that went on between our parents. It was interesting to see them in a new role.
This is the last of the photos in the collection of Aunt Rose with "Will" (William) by her side. In all of her letters to our parents, she always wrote of her love and concern for them. Her love of the garden is evident in one her last letters. 
When Dad and Mother moved to 93rd south of Tumwater, Washington, they met many new people. One woman had Dad cut out wood for her tole painting activities. Dad was intrigued, and tried his hand at painting some pieces. He is explaining to Uncle Brooks about the technique - I think this piece was strawberries. When the Wasden family reunion was held in Lovell in 1974, Uncle Brooks and Aunt Lorraine came in their little camper on the back of their pickup, and camped in my back yard. Dad and Mother also stayed with us - don't know how we all fit into the little tiny house on south Clark, but it was fun. I remember that Diane (Paul) and her family came too late for most of the reunion, but they slept on my living room floor. Those were the days of one bathroom, too. Details like that were not important. 
