A fond farewell to Aunt Golda

My Aunt Golda, the wife of Lloyd Hunt and sister-in-law to my Father, Warren, passed away Jan. 15, 2010. She was 89 years old. Lloyd passed away several months ago.
I always have thought of Golda as the rock of her family. She worked tirelessly to keep her family on the straight and narrow. I think she did a fabulous job!
She was a tough farm woman but genuinely kind. As kids, Merrill and I loved going down to Sevier and visiting Uncle Lloyd, Aunt Golda and our cousins. I think Merrill always fit in with their family because he was built like them -- like a farm boy. I, on the other hand, was a little scrawny kid who enjoyed goofing around but din't much care for doing the chores they expected us to help with.
I always wanted to go with Merrill and Ray but always got left behind. Looking back, I realize how Robert always tried to be a good friend and cousin, but I was too much older than him -- probably by about a year. (Oh, my word, that much!!!?).
To this day I feel bad that I didn't hang out more with Robert. Over the years, he has stayed a good friend and often he would attend the Hunt reunions up in the Salt Lake area when the rest of his family stayed down South.
During those early years on our visits to Sevier, if I couldn't be with the big boys, then I wanted to hang out with Shawna. But Golda would give me a bad time about staying in the house with the women instead of being outdoors with the men. She was right, of course!

Shawna Cornelsen and her husband, Raymond, at "Mid-Evil Days & Knights" at Snowbird Resort.

I remember one fall when all the men in the family went deer hunting and I was left home with the women. I guess every felt I was too small for the rigors of the hunt. That really made me mad -- so I stayed back with Golda and pouted. The only thing that kept me from freaking was the incredible breakfast Golda would always make for us. She made the best pancakes! Back then I would eat a lot of them! She thought I had a hallow leg (but that didn't come until much later in life).
When I was about 10 or eleven, as I recall, I was staying with Lloyd and Golda for a couple of weeks. I remember having a very nice time. Merrill was back home in Granger, so I wasn't competing with him for attention. Everything was going pretty good. In fact, one day I was practicing my shooting skills with Robert's BB gun when I nailed a robin dead as a doornail. I was so proud! I couldn't wait to tell Golda and prove that I could hunt as good as Merrill or any of the other guys!
When I told Golda I had successfully downed a great big robin back among her apple trees, I was ready for the congratulations! Guess what? It turned out to be just like in The Christmas Story -- but worse. She wasn't so concerned about me shooting the BB gun, but she was really upset that I had shot a robin! "How could you shoot one of those beautiful birds!?" I was crushed. She told me to march right out there and bury that poor thing and to put the gun away. "No more shooting for you, Lee."
I'm not sure, but I think I ended up coming home earlier than originally planned. I remember being put on a Grayline bus and traveling several hours before reaching Salt Lake, where Mom and Dad had to pick me up.

Golda, Lloyd and Shawna at "Mid-Evil Days & Knights" at Snowbird Resort.

After Mom and Dad had divorced and I was living on funds from The State Division of Rehabilitation, I found myself in my last six months at college and very low on money. Lloyd and Golda allowed me to live with them in their home in Orem on State Street.
I really didn't spend a lot of time there because I was working as an editor on the Daily Universe in the late afternoon and then usually did my studies there at school. I mostly eat dinner at school and seldom ate breakfast.
When I was there at their home, Lloyd and Golda were very nice toward me. I enjoyed watching the football and basketball games with Lloyd and Golda. Ray & Becky lived with them, too, at the time, with their newborn son, Adam. We didn't seem to spend a lot of time together though because of our various activities. I usually went home on the weekends.
I remember during that time I had gone all out and bought tickets for all the Homecoming events: the football game, the homecoming dance and Homecoming Spectacular. I asked a girl out that I had known for several months there at school, and she turned me down even though I asked her way in advance (which I usually never did when asking anyone on a date). She wasn't interested in anything beyond just being friends. Well, I became pretty depressed about the whole BYU dating thing and decided just to forget the whole thing. I gave Ray and Becky the tickets to the football game and the Homecoming Dance, and I gave Lloyd and Golda the tickets to the Homecoming Spectacular. I probably could have sold them, but I thought the least I could do was repay the people I had been living with for their kindnesses toward me. As far as I recall, they had a great time. And I just endured.
Not long after that "fun" Homecoming week, Lloyd and Golda came back from a visit to Salt Lake. I guess the reports they got about Lorraine's kids and Dad were very critical. It was like the light had been turned out. Maybe I ate too much food, didn't clean my room right, watched too much TV, stayed in the tub too long. I don't think so. They asked if I could find another place to stay. My adviser at The Daily Universe, Bill Porter, took me in and let me sleep in his basement for the last three months of my college years. I started work at the Deseret News three days after completing school -- and a day after Christmas.
After getting married, Nancy and I visited Lloyd and Golda several times after they had moved to Monroe. One time we visited the Levi Hunt gravesite and took pictures. One of our boys is also named Levi. I still felt a strong connection to my Sevier family. On our visits, Lloyd and Golda were always very gracious -- and it was always great talking with them.

Golda Hunt and actor Bruce Craven as Brother Smothers in "Mid-Evil Days & Knights" at Snowbird Resort.

One time when Lloyd and Golda came up to Salt Lake back in probably around 1993, I got them tickets to one of our shows at Snowbird. That night the show was "Mid-Evil Days & Knights." They came up with Shawna and her husband, Raymond. I think they had a great time. It made me feel good that I could show them something I had accomplished -- and also to say thank you to them.
It'll be good when I can visit with the two of them again!

A salute to my Uncle David

On Jan. 31, 2012, I added the pictures in this post, which came from a stash of photos I inherited from my mother, Lorraine, who is David's older sister.

David played for Bingham High
School. I was young but remember
going to a couple of his games.

Today, Feb. 1, 2010, has been a shocking, sad day for my extended family on my Mom's side. Our Uncle David, brother to my mother, Lorraine, was found dead today after going missing following church Sunday. He was last seen by Elaine, his wife, when she decided to walk the two blocks home from church and Dave was to drive home in the car. Police found his car this morning after a missing person bulletin was posted overnight.
I'll miss Uncle David a lot! Some of the best memories were of playing basketball with David. He had a great hock shot, and he was a very good dribbler. When I was little, he loved teasing me by dribbling the basketball while I would try to get the ball. He would dribble it around his back, between his legs, over my head (I was really short) and I seldom could get the ball away from him. He played on the Bingham High School basketball team when the school was in Copperton. Bingham was a powerhouse in basketball back then. Vivian, David's older brother, was a senior when Dave was a sophomore, and I believe Clifford was a sophomore on the team when Dave was a senior. Everyone knew about the Butt basketball players. I remember mostly watching them play basketball in the driveway at their home in Copperton. I mostly watched because I was too little to play -- and they played a very aggressive game. Sometimes I would get to shoot around with them.

David, Elaine & Ronald lived down the street in Granger
for several years when I was a teenager.

 When Merrill and I were young and living in Granger, Mom and Dad would take up to my Grandma and Grandpa Butts on Halloween. It was a great place to do trick or treating because the homes Copperton is very compact with the homes close together and the residence pretty well to-do -- at least back then. Most of them worked at Kennecott, and the mine was doing was doing quite well back then. Many times we would get regular-size candy bars. One of the highlights of Halloween at Grandmas was when Dave, Vivian and Clifford went all out and did a spook alley through their home. Guests would come in the front door and would be greeted by a Dave as a Monster, then Vivian would pop out of a florescent-painted coffin looking like a skeleton (Grandma used an old pair of flannel underwear and dyed them black and then painted the bones of the skeleton with florescent paint. Vivian did a mask over his head that was painted like a skull. Then Clifford came out of the hallway as Frankenstein and scared the visitors as they were looking at Vivian. Then they had to go through the kitchen and down the back stairs and out the back door. The whole living room, kitchen and back stairs were all decorated for the spook alley. This would have been back around 1958-1960. Probably just before Vivian went to college.

David's Missionary picture, 1961.

Dave went on a mission, setting the example for many of us younger guys in the extended family. Soon after he returned home, he was working at ZCMI. The workers used a freight elevator that had a light bulb that had gone out and hadn't been replaced yet. The workers got used to still using it. One day, Dave stepped into the elevator, but the elevator wasn't there. He fell to the bottom and landed on the top of the elevator, shattering his leg. I can't remember what else was broken, but I remember that the leg was what put Dave down in the hospital bed hooked up to a weight pulley on his leg for months and months. Elaine, his wife of more than 40 years, was one of the nurses that took care of him in the hospital. After he was released, he came to our hospital -- put was still in his hospital bed with the weight pulley for several more months. It was "fun" for us kids having him there, but I do remember needing to do a lot of fetching for him.
I remember a couple of teaching moments for us kids: Dave taught us the proper way to eat with a fork and a knife. "In your left hand, you take the fork and hold it with your index finger pressing against the back of the fork just at the bottom of the handle. Keep your elbow as low and you can and use the knife in your right hand, holding similarly. Then after making three small mouth-size cuts of the meat, you set the knife down and put the fork in your right hand and continue eating the different items on the plate until you need to slice more meat. Repeat as needed."

Front cover of David's
Mission Farewell.

I'm telling you, it made a good impression on the girls at school when they saw the proper way I ate. (Well, I thought so, anyway.)
Also, he taught Merrill and me an important lesson in the nuances of girl and boy relations: "When you pass the bath of a good-looking girl, don't make any weird comments or whistle at her or them. Just give them a smile and continue on -- and especially don't look back. That's a no-no. Even if they turn and look at you, still continue on. If by chance you might up with them again, they may show more interest." I know I tried to follow his advice, but I doubt it helped me any.
After being stuck in a hospital bed for months and months, several of those at our house, Dave finally was able to get out of bed and get around. What was one of the first things he did? I'm pretty sure it was dating Elaine.
He still lived with us for several weeks after he started getting around, but even when he moved home, he would often come by on the weekends after a late date and come into the boys room and crawl into bed.
One night, I was awaken by the squeaky floor boards in the hallway. I was sure it was a monster coming down the hall to get me. When I heard the bedroom door handle and the door squeaking, I was positive I was a goner. When I felt the breath of the "monster" on my neck -- I was shaking with dread! Then I heard the words: "Hey, Lee, where should I sleep tonight?"

Left two inside pages of David's Farewell program.

Oh, it's just David! I'm safe! No monster! Just David!
It didn't seem like too much longer after that that Dave and Elaine married.
Dave walked with a limp most of his live -- and had at least two knee replacements (or was it hip replacements?). He also battled diabetes for many years. Diabetes had claimed his sister, Idella, two brothers, Clayton and Sylvan, and was a factor in my mother's suffering, too, though she died of an aneurysm.
When I returned home from my mission and had to have my left leg amputated because of bone cancer, Dave served as an inspiration to me. He had suffered so much because of the elevator accident -- which changed his life forever. But he was happily married and had a great family. That became my goal: I would go on despite having just one leg, go to college, get a job and most importantly find a sweetheart like Dave had found, get married and have a family.

One of the highlights during my recovery was going to the movies with Dave, Elaine, Vivian, Doris and my Mom. Our favorite theater back then was the doomed Century Theater off State Street and 3300 South. I remember going to Towering Inferno with them. At that time, all of us lived in the same ward in Granger (now West Valley City).

In October of 1971, while I was still recovering from the amputation of my left leg, I decided that we should replicate the spook alley that Dave, Vivian and Clifford had done up in Copperton. Dave and Elaine lived just down the road from us at this time, and he, Merrill and I re-created the spook alley -- with a few twists. Merrill became the monster with a bloody machete, Dave was Frankenstein and I was a poor victim of a machete attack. We stuffed one of Mom's nylon stockings and placed it below my stump as I laid on a bench in the kitchen near the back door. I had painted the end of my leg stump like blood and bones -- very ghastly. Dad was outside and directed the visitors through the back door. He had piped load Halloween music outside from his stereo system in the living room. As they stepped into the kitchen, Merrill would step from the side of the fridge and swing the machete at my leg, the leg would fall off onto the ground, and I would shake my stump and scream like I had had my leg chopped off! It was pretty "bad." Then Dave would step out from the hallway in the living room and would complete the fright as the kids and parents left through the front door. It was pretty cool! Dad had to stop a lot of the little kids and give them candy out in the driveway because our spook alley was too scary for little kids -- and really too much for a lot of the older kids. They said the machete attack was too real! They wondered how we were able to make it look so real! Dave was the link between the first spook alley and our spook alley.

David outside home in Copperton.

Over the years, I had the chance to listen to Dave talk in church many times. I loved listening to his talks and enjoyed talking church with him.
After I went off to college, I didn't have as much to do with them as I would have liked, but while Mom was still alive, we always seemed to get together on holidays or near holidays, for Christmas. But after Mom passed away and I got tied up with Hunt Mysteries, we didn't get together near enough!

Elaine & David at "Godfather of the Bride."

Elaine, Vicki Voss as Carla Beckenstein and Dave at performance of "Godfather of the Bride" at Gray Cliff Lodge in Ogden Canyon.
Dave and Elaine came to several of our shows -- many of them were close to where they lived when they were living in Liberty in Ogden Valley.
The last time we got together with them was at the funeral for Margaret, Clifford's wife, who passed away just a few months ago after her battle with cancer.

I'll miss David, but he and Mom can now catch up on things up there. And maybe he'll find another mission.

Dave was 70 years old. I'll be 60 years old this month. He was only 10 years older! That's not a big difference when you get our age! My dad, Warren, just turned 86 years old. Dad was shocked and saddened, too, over the news. Dad always seemed to enjoy being around Dave. There was a lot of connections -- Dave's missionary years, the times he lived with us and the time when we all were in the same ward. Those were good times.
I'll miss Dave, but I'll be seeing him pretty soon I suppose. (Oh, Heather, my daughter, says I'm not supposed to say that last part! Sorry!)

Ronald was Dave's firstborn.

Ronald Sherilynn. I'm not sure who the others are!

This was a special Valentine's that Mom kept of David.

A grown-up Ronald with his bride.

Dining with the extended family: Lorraine, left, Elaine, David,
Lee (across from David) and Nancy Hunt.