1972 Our First Home

 By Cheryl Groom Merrick

Lingering on our honeymoon we slowly made our way from San Francisco, California to Provo, Utah. Finally, anxious to make it to our first home, we rushed “home” just in time for Garrett to dash out to make it to his new class at BYU. There I sat- alone. The trailer was stuffy since it had been closed up for a week, and it was hot from the August sun. I looked around seeing nearly every surface covered with piles of things. I felt like crying. The honeymoon was definitely over!

Summoning my courage, I began to set up housekeeping in our old 10 foot by 40 foot trailer in the Laurelwood trailer court on the south of Provo where the Provo Town Mall now is. We lived there for four years while Garrett was attending Brigham Young University as he worked on his second college degree. 

We had a small kitchen with a stove and a refrigerator and just enough room for a small table. Our living room had an old sofa and a couple of end tables. The bathroom was pink with a pink washer and bathtub. We had to squeeze past the washer to get into the bathroom. The master bedroom had a built in dresser with mirror and a closet with sliding doors just beside it. There was just enough room to walk around the bed on two sides.

We had two doors. The front door had a porch covered in carpet. It was rotten. I fell through it, and we later fixed it. We also had a back door across from the bathroom with several steps and no handrail. There was also a gas stove, furnace, and water heater all of which made me feel ill.

There was a small room beside the furnace which we later used as our children’s room. It had several small built in drawers, a small closet with a sliding door, and a small window. I always worried about our children being near the furnace. Garrett lined it with a sheet of asbestos.

Ken lived with us for our first three months when he first moved to Utah, before he got an apartment in Provo. Before our first baby was born, Ken bought us a metal shed and helped put it together. It gave us room for a dryer. I had slipped on the ice taking our clothes to the dryer at the mobile home clubhouse.

We also had a good sized yard for a trailer court; about 40 feet by 40 feet. Garrett later fenced it and the kids loved to play there.

From my journal spring 1973

Books, clothes, and dishes filled the trailer’s floor and covered the bed, counters, and table. Would this disorder ever be a home? Excited, unsure, discouraged, and ill at times, armed with scrub brush, bucket, cleaner, and young muscles, the dirt and clutter began to give way and a home has begun to appear. Books have found their spot on the newly made shelf. Things are finding their own special place, and decorations have appeared, plants are growing, and Fred, our cat, has discovered all the most comfortable spots to lay and has made his place in our hearts; routines have developed, many projects begun, friends met, Thanksgiving, Garrett’s birthday, Christmas, and New Years have been shared along with 15 minute dinners, doing the laundry, dessert at one a.m., studies, excitement, fears, house planning, and baby planning. All these elements combined with time and plenty of love have made this Our Home.