I was born one cold February morning, in a log cabin at Arlington Wyoming. Feb. 24 1913 the second daughter of Walter Allen Greenlee (Hixson) and Georgia Sarah McIntyre. I was delivered by the grandmother, my father's mother, Emma W. Hixson. The reason my father had two names, was that his mother and father, George Walter Greenlee, were divorced when he was three years old. His mother married Henry Hixson and my father was raised by him thinking he was adopted and not knowing that his own father was still alive. So he went through our young years going by the name of Hixson. He found his real father when he was about 40 years old living at Independence, Missouri. I have one sister, Evelyn Violet, who is twenty-two months older than I am. My father and mother had a homestead on the Platte River out of Laramie, Wyoming. When I was about two, my father went to work on the railroad. I first went to school at Laramie, Wyoming. when I was seven we moved to Medicine Bow, Wyoming and later to Rawlins. When I was eight we moved to Melba, Idaho where I spent the rest of my school years, graduating from Melba High in December of 1930. I was a straight A student and enjoyed school but also studied hard. On 23 of December of 1930 I was married to John Robert Walker from Salt Lake, who had come up to Melba in my junior year to go to school. He later spent a year in the Air Force in Hawaii. He returned that December and we were married and went to live in Salt Lake City. It was at this time that I was introduced to the LDS (Mormon) church. We lived with his wonderful mother, this was the great depression and there was no work in Salt Lake. In August of 1931, Jack's uncle called from Pocatello Idaho and said he had a job for Jack working in a grocery store. So with an old car we had and five dollars we borrowed from his brother, we went to Pocatello where he worked for twelve dollars a week. We paid $7.50 a month on the old car, our rent, coal bills, etc. If we had 50 cents now and then to go to the show, we thought that was good.
My first child, Marilyn Mae Walker was born in Pocatello on 26 September 1932. She was a frail, delicate little girl, and I was very happy with her. We left Pocatello in the spring of 1934 to go to Melba and farm my father's farm while he and my mother worked mining property with my grandfather, Wm. McIntyre, my mother's father. We farmed two years and on 10 July 1935, our second child a son, James Ronald Walker was born at Mercy Hospital in Nampa. Jack's mother came up from San Francisco, California, to take care of the new baby and me. When he was six weeks old, we left Melba and went to San Francisco to live. It was in San Francisco that I had a wonderful home teacher who baptized me into the LDS Church on 28 December 1935. His name was Frederick Newton and he was a very dear friend.On 20 October 1937, our second son, Larry Ray Walker, was born at Mary's Help Hospital. He was such a good baby and a joy to raise. My father died on 28 December 1940 so in the spring of 1941, we loaded everything we had onto a homemade Chevy pickup and took off for Vale, Oregon, to run the farm of 80 acres that my father and mother had.
The first year was a rough one for us. If it had not been for lots of pheasants in our fields we might have gone hungry. The next spring we were able to borrow money to buy the farm and the livestock and the machinery from my mother. We did very well as the war started that fall and everything got very high. But Jack hurt his back and Doctor put him in a steel brace and eventually told him he would need to find more suitable employment.
In the fall of 1943, we sold the place and all of our stock and moved to Medford, Oregon. We bought a nice little home on Haven Street and Jack went to work in a saw mill. He didn't like that kind of work, so in the spring of 1945 we sold the house and moved to Redmond, Oregon where we bought 25 acres of lovely land, and a big old house that I dearly loved. I worked first in a grocery store and later went to work for Standard Oil.
Again, Jack's wanderlust caught up with him and that fall he sold the farm. I was so tired of moving, but could do nothing about it. Jack went to work for Keith Parkinson, at the pumice block plant in Redmond. On March 6, 1946, he met with a very bad accident at the plant. A heavy door blew shut in strong wind as a truck was backing up. It caught Jack's left leg and crushed it from the knee to the hip. We took him to the local doctor who advised us to take him to the ambulance and take him to Bend as the Redmond hospital did not have facilities to care for him. the doctor said he would me us at St. Charles Hospital in Bend. the leg was so badly crushed it had to be amputated on March 8. From the double shock of the accident and the amputation, his body functions did not work. He lived 10 more days, but on the 18th of March he died. He is buried at the Redmond Cemetery, which I am sure he is happy in, as it was in the beautiful fir and cedar trees he loved.
That summer when school was out the children and I put our furniture in storage and went first to Medford, to look for a home to buy and to have Marilyn's tonsils out. We stayed with very dear friends, the Clinton (Pete) Charley. After looking some weeks, I bought five acres which then was on the outskirts of the town of Ashland, Oregon. Then the children and I went to San Francisco to spend the summer with Mother Walker.
That fall, we returned to Ashland, had our furniture brought down from Redmond and settled into our new home. We found the five acres were more than we could take care of so I had it plotted offin lots and sold what we did not need.
While we had spent the three weeks in Medford with the Charleys, they had introduced me to a friend of theirs who had just returned from World War II. I wasn't really interested at the time and didn't think too much of it.
But after I returned that fall from California, they kept inviting me and the children here and there and here was their friend. I finally tumbled to what they were up to. They were match-making. I said to Ernestyne, I am not interested in any man. I have my home and sufficient income to take care of us, and I will wait until my children are raised. then I might be interested. She said by then you will be old and ugly and no one will want you.
Well anyway, my Larry fell in love with Art and I always say we chased him through Ashland Park. We were married on 10 April 1947 by the Mormon Bishop at Elko, Nevada. He has been such a good father to my children. they all love him very much. We had one daughter, Janine Kay Lusk, born on 19 April 1948 in Ashland Community Hospital.
The most important thing in my life was being baptized into the LDS Church. I have had several special experiences due to this. When I was first studying and asking questions one night in a cabin at Ellensburg, Washington, I dreamed where in Isaiah to find what I needed to know the gospel was true. And not long after I was baptized I had this dream : It seemed the whole world was dark and many people about me were crying and weeping and very much afraid. I dreamed I held out my arms in front of me and walked forward with all my family behind me. I said, "I am not afraid because I am Latter-Day Saint." And as I walked forward the sky lighted up brighter than day and Christ stood before me in ALL HIS GLORY. And I KNEW that the Gospel is true and I can never deny it. On another occasion when my oldest son, Ronald, was very very ill, I spent hours on my knees praying, and then a light came into the room and I knew that my baby was going to be all right.
Art was not LDS but in 1963, he joined the church and we have been sealed in the temple and this is a great joy to me. I love temple work and have spent many hours on genealogy work. I had the privilege of being sealed to my father and mother on my birthday and 1974.. Another very special occasion in my life.
Life story of Marian Charlotte Greenlee Hixson Walker Lusk in approximately 1978
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