An Uncle Vernon Story

 

I heard this story from my father.

My uncle Vernon Gee graduated from Idaho State University as a pharmacist. He wanted to go to medical school. He applied to Northwestern University in Chicago where his cousin Dr. George Lowe had gone. George was four years older than Vernon.

Vernon went to Chicago expecting to be accepted into medical school, but was not accepted. This did not deter him. He went to the registrar's office in the medical school and asked if he could be admitted if someone dropped out. This he did on a regular basis. Then one day he was told that someone had dropped out and he could be admitted. He completed medical school and went on to specialize and served in a MASH unit in Korea. 

I also applied to Northwestern, but the University of Utah was the first to accept me.  

 

Remember that persistence pays.

Disappointments in life

 

Disappointments in life

I will document some of the challenges in my life.

When I was in medical school two of my classmates sang in the tabernacle choir. At Christmas time ZCMI hired a quartet to dress up as elves and go around the store and sing Christmas carols. I sang bass and practiced with them. I wanted to earn some money during the Christmas break from school. I thought I was going to be singing with them, but they decided I was not a fit. I had to scramble for a job and wound up working at the post office.

During my senior year of medical school the armed forces had a plan called the Berry plan. If the candidate applied and was accepted the selected branch of the service would pay the tuition for school in exchange for four years of service as an officer. One could do the internship and residency to count as those years at a salary much higher than most internships and residency programs paid at that time. I had a physical at Fort Douglas and was declared not fit to serve.

I applied for an obstetrics residency at LDS hospital when I was an intern. One day a drug representative asked me if I wasn’t going to the LDS hospital for my residency. I told him that I hadn’t heard. He said that all the slots were filled. I called the doctor who was the head of the department. When I asked him why I hadn’t heard he told me they must have lost my application.

I had learned about an opening for a doctor in the BYU Jerusalem center from doctor Linford, who had served there from 1996-1998. When we got home from our mission in Germany in 2000, I applied for that position. The individual at BYU who was over the program had a disagreement with John and I was told never to apply again.

After we moved to North Salt Lake, I knew the doctor who was over the MTC in Provo. He was leaving and I sent in an application to replace him. I didn’t hear anything and I finally called them and they said they must have lost my application and they had hired someone else.

Disappointments and unfulfilled expectations come into everyone’s life. It depends on how we handle them. That is the test of our trip through mortality.

Love,

Grandpa

2 inches and two squares

 2 inches and two squares

This a strange title for a blog. The content is referring to our experiences growing up. 

Two inches

 
Alice was told that when she went to take a bath she was only to run two inches of water in the tub. Her mother would say every time she went to take a bath,”Only two inches Alice Virginia.”

The reasons were the cost of the water and at that time houses had septic tanks.
You probably have never had to deal with a septic tank. You are blessed with a sewer line that the water and sewage take that from your house and you never think about having to pay the water bill.

Two squares

 
This is grandpa’s story. We had a bathroom and tub all the time I was growing up until we moved to Lander. We were allowed as much water in the tub as we wanted. My mother asked her three boys to only use two squares of toilet paper when they went to the bathroom. We did not know what a bidet was and no one where we lived had any knowledge of that. I did as my mother requested and used just two squares. The toilet paper at that time was not soft like we buy today, but it was better than the paper in my grandmother Stucki’s outhouse. When we went to Paris we used the outhouse because she did not have a toilet in the house. It was built before they had indoor plumbing. My uncle Morris Athay put the bathroom toilets in the house. The toilet paper in the outhouse was the Montgomery Ward catalog.

You are raised in an affluent society compared to your grandparents. Your grandmother was paid 35 cents an hour when she was growing up working at the dime store and babysitting. I had a paper route and then worked at J. C. Penny after I was in high school for fifty cents an hour after school sweeping the floor.

Our parents did not have much money and had to pinch pennies and we grew up in that environment. So when you think things are bad remember your grandparents did not have it as good as you do. 

 

Love,

Grandpa