The summer of 1998, I was in Spring City with my children, Cameron, Pamela and Anne. Diana Johnson and her three sons, Daniel, Gregory and Timmy joined us for a weekday summer adventure. Our husbands, Ralph and Ken, were working in Salt Lake. The small rural town in Sanpete County, Utah has so many pristine pioneer homes that the entire city is on the National Historic Register. The Major family home was built about 1869 out of oolite (cream-colored sandstone) by William Warner Major Jr. and Ellen Meek Major, pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains in covered wagons to join the Mormons in Utah. The sixteen inch wide stone walls mute outside sounds of crickets and birds. It keeps the house as cool as a cave in summer and when the coal stove is lit in winter, the house is toasty warm.
Since it was the first two story stone house built in Spring City, it was called the Major Mansion by the pioneer locals who walked the dusty road in front of the house in long dresses, bonnets and homemade breaches. Three generations of the Major family farmed the ten acres of land. When Vince and Agatha Major moved to Salt Lake City after World War II, the outhouse east of the log coal shed was in full use. The luxury of indoor plumbing was added by Bernard Major, and his sons, Ron, Ken Bruce and Mike in 1975 and the old farm house is used for summer vacations by the family.
Diana and I have been close friends since she moved next door to me in Centerville, six years earlier. Our children created backyard summer plays, Halloween spook houses in the basement, and sold rocks (yes, rocks) and lemonade on the street together. After a full day and night of playing in the creek that meandered through the property, roasting hotdogs, making s’mores, and sitting under the trees in cloth camping chairs laughing, reading and talking, we put on pajamas. The stairs to the upper story are so steep and narrow that they are more like a leaning ladder. Our children cautiously walked up, carefully placing their feet on the narrow steps and holding tightly to the railing. The girls turned left and boys right to small rooms with low ceilings where sagging mattresses lay on bare-springed antique beds.
I offered Diana the only bed on the main floor in the pink room where a lone light bulb dangled from a flower shaped chandelier high above the room. A green antique child’s bed formed from decorative metal, an old dresser with a cracked mirror, and a full sized bed crowded the small floor space. Ken’s father boxed in a small closet in the corner of the room after he returned from Guam in WWII. It was the only closet it the three bedrooms because pioneer farm families only had enough changes of clothes to hang on sturdy hooks on the back of the door. The room smells like my husband’s great grandfather or grandfather or father, all farmers who had slept in this room, just dragged in from outside, and shed sweaty clothes. I pulled out a portable mat and made up a bed on the on the 60 year old flower patterned linoleum floor, also a post war addition.
It was in June 1915. Daddy [Henry Vincen Major ]and his brother Horace were up on the Horseshoe Mountain taking care of the water that went to irrigate the farms in Pigen Hallow. [Nineteen month old]Arthur and I were with Grand Mother Major. One night I had just got in bed and relaxed and closed my eyes when I felt a presence in the room. I opened my eyes. A man was standing by my bed and he said don’t be afraid. I am a messenger for our Heavenly Father. I have been sent to take either your Husband or baby. Which shall I take?
I said I can’t part with either of them then he said you have to for I have been sent to take one of them so think it over which I did then I told him I just can’t give up either one of them then he said I have to go now so which one shall I take.
Unless you are ever placed in that position you don’t know how hard it was to have to part with one of the 2 dearest ones on Earth. But I said if it has to be one of them take the baby for I can get more but I can’t get another husband like Vince.
The next morning it was Daddies [Agatha crossed "Daddies" out and wrote in Grandpas] turn to go down to the side of the mountain and take care of the water. Horace was cooking breakfast and heard a voice say go to Vince. He dropped the frying pan and run just in time to save his life. A big landslide was going down the mountain But he heard Horace call him and ran out of the way just as a big rock weighing tons fell right where he was standing.
2 weeks later on July 10th Arthur died. If I had told that messenger to take Vince he would have been killed that day and I would have missed a lot of happyness besides 3 other precious children.
Near the end of her life, tall, lean, white-haired Agatha shared this story with me and I have never questioned its truth. It came from a woman of great faith and high integrity. Since I have had a similar experience in the Spring City house, I can tell you without any doubt that angels speak and give warnings.
That night in the old Major home in Spring City with the Johnson family, I slept well on the mat on the floor. Just as the daylight started to penetrate the multi-paned windows and the heaviness of dreams faded, I heard a voice very clearly say, “Finish your work. Your time is short.” Startled, my eyes flew open and I looked around. Was it a dream? I was certain it wasn’t. There are those people we hear about who are not sick, yet go about methodically preparing for death. I’ve often wondered if they had a premonition.
After the children were up, fed and outside playing, I told Diana about the voice. Shocked, she answered, “Oh no.” It didn’t occur to her to question the voice or me. As we talked, the worry for family grew intense. It was as if my death had already occurred and I was already grieving for my sweet husband, my best friend, my sweetheart, my confident, my comfort, my life. How could I abandon my eight wonderful children. In 1998 Rachelle and Paul Stokes had 2 children. Chris and Kristy were newly married. Melanie had just returned from Montreal, Canada where she served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Byron was assigned to a Navy helicopter squad that flew from the USS Constellation aircraft carrier that was then docked in San Diego. Jason and Cameron were in high school and Pamela and Anne, my identical twins, were just starting 6th grade. I knew they could live without me; many families have a parent die or walk away from the family and they move on.
My Dad left our home when I was ten, so Mother worked 10 hour days, six days a week as a housekeeper, cleaning other people’s toilets to help support us. I was one of those parents who wanted to give my children what I lacked growing up. What I missed most in my childhood was time with my Mom and Dad and that’s the gift I was determined to bestow on my children. Was God really going to take that away from me? From them?
Most families begin with a child and then gradually add one or two more. Parenthood for Ken and I came with a crash when I was 23 years old and Ken was 25. Our sweet baby daughter, Melanie Gay Major, was born to very proud parents on October 29, 1975. Two months later, on January 1, 1976, Ken’s sister, Pamela, and her husband, Don Crowder were killed by a drunk driver. On the way home from a New Year’s party their Volkswagen Beetle was demolished by speeding pickup truck that plowed through a green light.
Several months before the accident, Pamela began telling the Major and Crowder families that she and Don were writing a will and they had decided Jill and Ken would raise their children should anything happen to them. Did she hear a voice or have a premonition? I certainly had no clue of our impending parenthood. Pamela introduced the news to me on Christmas day. We bundled up our baby, placed our meager wrapped gifts in our little blue car and drove the few miles to visit Ken’s family. Five year old, Rachelle was tantruming on the floor, long hair flying, screaming in her high pitched voice, because she didn’t want to leave Grandma’s house. A young, brash, know-it-all Jill said, “Boy, that kid is spoiled.”
My sister-in-law Pamela answered, “Well, she is yours if something happens to us.”
I retorted, “Please be safe, because I don’t want her. She’s spoiled.”
A week later the grieving blonde-haired, blue eyed five year old Rachelle and 15 month old Christopher began calling me Mom. I quit graduate school at the University of Utah and dedicated all my time to wifehood and motherhood. Ken was in army reserves, assigned to the 142nd Military Linguistic and Intelligence Unit. His dream was to be an officer, and he recently had been accepted to officer’s training school. He immediately withdrew his application, because it would require weeks and weekends away from family. Time for our family meant everything to us and I had no doubts, that summer in 1998 in Spring City, that my mortal time with my children and husband was quickly ending.
There is no phone at the Spring City house and we didn't own a cell phone in 1998, so it wasn’t until we returned home that Ken and I talked. Folded in his gentle arms we cried. Was it possible to plead with God for an extension of time? I remembered a King in the Old Testament who did just that.
Isaiah 38:1-8:
In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. (38:1)
Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, (38:2) And said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. (38:3)
Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, (38:4) Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.
In the next few months, Ken and I knelt by our bedside and in the Holy temple and begged that my life would be extended. And, we also planned. I was writing a history of William Warner Major, Sr, the portrait artist and Ken’s great great grandfather. In the next months, I spent long hours, while my children were at school, finishing the research and gathering it into book form for publication, hoping and feeling this was the “work” I was commanded to finish. Since Ken and I were first married, I journaled thoughts, family experiences and milestones. During this time of preparation, I placed those in a readable order. I wrote a letter to strengthen and comfort my husband and children and tucked it away with my will along with an outline for my funeral. Ken and I met with our insurance agent and doubled both of our life insurance policies. Then, we met with local mortuary director and made plans for a funeral. Years earlier Ken and I had purchased a joint plot in the Centerville Cemetery where my family is buried. All that was needed was for Ken to sign the death certificate.
While we were putting all of this in place, Ken and I spent every moment we could with each other and our family. Since we were a young married couple, we often half-jokingly said to each other. “We better take this vacation together now, because we may never make it to retirement together.” I say half-joking, because always in the back of my mind was the feeling we may not retire together. During the summer we always spent a few days away celebrating our anniversary. That summer of 1998 on June 22, we celebrated our anniversary just as we had our honeymoon, vacationing at Disneyland, just the two of us. As we held hands riding down Main Street in a trolley car, we laughed about how 25 years ago we had no idea we would raise 8 children! When we planned back then, I wanted two children and Ken wanted four. I aspired to be a school psychologist and Ken was working on a degree in accounting. In that 25 year time, Ken became an Administrative Law Judge for the State of Utah and I was a full time mother and part time professional writer and researcher. Life! I once heard that there is an old proverb that says, “Man plans and God laughs.”
We also took every opportunity we could to attend the temple alone or together and beg for my life. On one occasion, I was sitting in my white dress in the beautiful celestial room. My eyes were closed and my cheeks wet, as I pleaded with God that he would allow me to stay on earth and finish raising my children. Then a feeling of great comfort surrounded me and permeated my whole being, physical and spirit. The death sentence had been lifted and I knew it, just as I knew that months ago I heard a voice that said, “Finish your work. Your time is short.” Like King Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:4) God heard my prayer, and saw my tears and added days, months, perhaps years to my life.
When I told Ken about the experience, we rejoiced together. Ken was not a man to multiply words; he expressed himself best through touch and tears. He held me close against his heart, we cried and then we prayed together trying to express our gratitude to a loving Father.
At Christmas great joy replaced the sorrow and anxiety. In my journal I recorded:
Chris and Kristy gave the family a gift. On a white napkin they wrote:
To Mom and Dad and family,
From: Chris and Mook
We have a gift you cannot see
We cannot put it under the Christmas tree
7-8 months and it will be free
Merry Christmas
They are expecting a baby in early August!
And still there were more joys. From my journal on January 22, 1999:
Melanie and Tyson Rogers became engaged in the back of a horse trader. He cleaned it out and Bonnie Rogers decorated it complete with a candle light dinner. Melanie’s ring was in the center of a white rose.
From my journal on January 31, 1999, Sunday
Pamela Jean Major received her Patriarchal Blessing. She said, “The Patriarch said I would be happy, so I must be going to have a happy life!”
At first Tyson and Melanie were going to get married in the fall or winter of 1999, but then one afternoon Melanie and I were hiking on the mountain and she said, “Tyson and I have prayed about the date for our wedding and we both have a very strong feeling we should get married in May.” They hadn’t even known each other a year, but it felt right to me also and I agreed.
The next months were spent in a whirl of dresses, reception invitations, wedding plans, showers for Kristy and Melanie and celebrations. Ken was sworn in as an Administrative Law Judge in the Supreme Court Room by a Chief Justice on March 6. We were also raising a guide dog, Jada, and if this were not enough, Honey gave birth to 9 very healthy, furry little pups on March 23. It was a school/work day, but Cameron was videotaping and Ken ran to the store to get surgical gloves. Melanie, Jason, Pamela and Patricia stood ready. “Melanie delivered the 6th – a female. Pamela delivered the 7th, a male. Patricia moved into place to deliver the eighth, but she dropped out clean, a female.” Theresa Baker, who had a lot experience delivering pups, and Beverlee Lombardi, whose daughter was adopting one of the pups, was also there. Melanie adopted Shersta and Rachelle adopted Lillie, who she renamed Solana.
It was probably about that time I made up a new song which went, “I live in a crazy house, a crazy house, a crazy house. I live in a crazy house and it is so much fun.”
Ken and I put the trauma of the fall warning in the back of our minds, but at times I wondered, “Did I just invent that? Did that really happen?” But mostly, our life was tumbling so fast that we moved on and forgot. I wrote on May 9th, “Ken and I are happy. We are working together, more loving, more in love. The last few weeks have been a sweet time for us, a honeymoon time. I have great hope our marriage will endure forever.”
On May 29, 1999 I wrote:
Yesterday Melanie Gay Major, age 23 married Tyson Rogers, age 22 at the Manti Temple at 2:35 p.m. Graham Doxsey performed the wedding…we drove to Spring City Chapel for a dinner prepared by Tyson’s mother and family. Melanie and Tyson sang a song, “I Promise, I Promise.” Melanie sang after Tyson sang the first verse. Melanie was so emotional, she could hardly get the words out, so Tyson came to her rescue and sang her part to help her out. I thought, “How perfect! What perfect symbolism. The rest of your life, in trial or pain or moments of sorrow or times they simply don’t have the strength, the emotional stamina, they will always and forever have each other to lean on.”
The night of the wedding, Ken first danced with Melanie and then we danced together, whispering our happiness and love to each other. After the reception, Ken beamed. “I danced with all my girls.” Sadie, even danced with Ken, stepping on top of his shoes. I also danced with my sons. I was particularly happy that Byron was granted leave from the Navy and was there, looking handsome, decked out in his dress Navy uniform.
My journal only has a few pages in it from July 5, 1999 to March 3, 2000. This time was very difficult to write about and I still cry remembering it.
“Ken started feeling a pain in his left side under his ribs the week before Melanie was married. Pamela and Trish (Lolly Joy) went home with Rachelle and Paul after the wedding, so after 2 weeks, Ken and I went to pick them up. We had a marvelous time in Seattle, celebrating our 26th anniversary. We hiked in a rain forest, so beautiful. The trees were huge, so big that we thought the fir trees were Redwoods. There were ferns that covered everything and berries called Salmon berries, that were salmon colored (da- of course) that we picked them and ate along the way. The Twins Falls were so incredible – one dropped 100 ft and the second dropped 150 ft. At one place you can gaze over from a hill top climb and see the falls. We stopped there to kiss…”
In Seattle Ken continued to feel the pain and it increased. After we returned home, he went to Dr. Hendler, but after tests, she thought it was something else. (Ken had a thorough exam around his birthday, June 4, and there was no indication of cancer then.) Then on Tuesday, June 29, about noon, the pain became so bad that the Dr. sent him to emergency. Poking, prodding, questions, then the x-rays showed a mass about 3 inches in diameter on the kidney…They took Ken in for an MRI. When the doctor came back I could tell he was shocked. We all thought this was gall bladder or something simple. “It’s cancer,” he said. We were so shocked. We quizzed him and he explained “…under the right rib.” He pointed to the center of his chest. “They saw a spot here.”
“In the lungs?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. That’s when we began to understand the magnitude, the tragedy.
“Can I do anything to help you?” the doctor asked.
“We just need time, “ I said.
Then we cried. I put down the side of the hospital bed and lay on Ken’s chest and held him as he sobbed. We were in shock…Later, when the doctor was talking us with again, there were tears in his eyes. I am grateful he took off his professional mask for a few moments to cry with us. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t ever have to give news like this to people.”
It was after 8:00 p.m. when we arrived home. Jason moved out after the wedding, so wasn’t here. Cameron was at scout camp. Mom had the girls. Melanie immediately left work when she heard Ken was in the hospital, so she had spent the day with us, but she went home before the news of the cancer.
July 11, 1999, Sunday
Up early one more time. It is indeed very difficult to sleep. If not having a husband who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer was not enough, each day I am beginning to realize how financially devastating having the bread winner of our family knocked off his feet is. For the next 6 months, we will have to survive on about 1/3 of our normal income. The Lord says, “fear not!” and the Elders didn’t get the blessing because they feared (D&C 67:1-3). My husband may be dying, is dying unless the Lord intervenes to save his life. My children will be without a father, may be without a father. How do I not fear Heavenly Father? Thou hast given the commandment; now tell me how to accomplish it! I want to “be of good cheer” and “endure it well”.
I see the blessings come flowing in. Yesterday Conway, Becky, Bobby, Dad Major, Mike Major, Barney, Chris, and Cameron painted our duplex. It is now ready to be occupied. Yesterday I needed new pajamas for the twins and Beverlee Lombardi found some that fit, so they can go to camp comfortably.
The Teas lent us their cabin and the Shanks sent us flowers. The blessings are flowing in. I can see them. I can see the miracles. Ken, who is always so emotional, is being brave and strong. Please Father, I need thee. Forgive my pride and help me not fear, but be believing. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
July 13, 5:25 a.m.
I slept? In the hospital, getting to bed about midnight and waking about 3:30 a.m. My heart is full of gratitude to be here next to Ken. It has been made known to me that the reason we can survive financially now on 1/3 of our salary is because we always paid tithing and I followed the prophet’s counsel, “Mother’s go home from the work place.”
I look at my children and they are amazing people! They love us so deeply and now they are willing to sacrifice, because we sacrificed for them. Rachelle and Paul came running home to spend a week with us, a treasured time we could have with them and our grandchildren. Chris and Kristy are moving home so Cameron and the twins will have some supervision. Melanie and Tyson gave up their vacation this week, readjusting their work schedule, so they could support Ken and I in surgery. Cameron stayed home from his job in scout camp to lend us support. He’s been pitching in, doing dishes, and housework without being asked. Jason shows his concern with hugs and visits. Pamela and Trish just make us happy. Their perfect faith and child minds do not dwell on these problems.
Pamela asked me Saturday night if she could speak to me about a serious problem. We sat on the stairs leading to the basement. For a few minutes Pamela was just too distraught to tell me the problem. Finally she blurted out, “Do you know why I don’t like to swim? My legs have hair on them!” It was all I could do to keep from laughing as I assured her about this gigantic problem and other feminine concerns. The next night, the day before Ken’s kidney surgery, I helped her shave for the first time. As the hair peeled off, I could tell she was immensely relieved. What an amazing gift God gave to children that allow them to think about hairy legs at a time like this. Pamela and Trish give us so much happiness!
It was shortly after the kidney surgery that Ken started seeing a counselor. After one session, the counselor asked me to join Ken. She then asked Ken to share with me what he had told her. Ken reminded me of the voice I heard in Spring City say, “Finish your work, your time is short”. It seemed like eons ago, but it was just the summer of 1998. Ken looked at me with great concern in his eyes, “I decided that if one of us had to die, it should be me; you are the better parent. So, I prayed that God would take me instead of you.”
Shocked, I cried and hugged him. Ken asked, “Are you mad at me?”
“No sweetheart, of course not,” I answered. He offered his life as a sacrifice for my life. I know that the Savior died so all mankind can live again; it was not at all difficult for me accept that Ken sacrificed his life for me and for his children. “Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Ken died December 12, 1999. The family was there that early Sunday morning, sleeping or talking quietly in the other rooms of our house. A hospital bed was set up in the study and Ken and I were alone there when he took his last breath. Because of the preparations for my death we made in the fall of 1998, the only thing I had left to do was sign Ken’s death certificate. There were times in the next years when I was angry that Ken left me to deal with all the family trials and ordeals that followed. There were times when pneumonia kept filling up lungs and I was tempted to let it take my life, so I could be with Ken. But then I remembered Ken’s confidence in me: “You are the better parent, so I prayed that God would take me instead of you.”
I love you my sweetheart, and I miss you terribly. People ask me why I don’t remarry. I tell them because there are some animals that only mate once in a life time and I’m one of them. But really the reason is that I can’t imagine trying to love someone else when I’m still so much in love with you.
Forever and ever yours,
Jill
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