Clarice Call Funeral

The biggest news this week is Amelia earned her Driver’s License. Hooray! Tuesday afternoon she took the driver’s skills test with the famous “Old Guy” all the teens meet at the Burger King in Nampa. He is legendary. Amelia passed with a 95% her first time. Wednesday she got out of school early again for the written test and DMV portion. I am glad we did the skills test first otherwise we would have to go one day for the written test, then return after getting the skills test. One DMV visit is enough. I brought all the paperwork on Amelia just in case the verification rules changed. I am very excited she can take the kids to dance on Tuesdays now instead of imposing on Sara. She can’t drive at night for 6 months alone and can only have one friend under 17 in the car if she is driving alone.  

Josie dressed up and applied makeup in order give me a fancy violin recital. The attendees were Ellie (stuck to the music stand) and I. Josie played the first four lines of Boil Down Cabbage 20 times. It was amazing! She is moving those fingers faster and faster. I did not mind the repetition at all, knowing it was helping her change notes. The make up was an extra bonus. Sara is in charge of the restaurant luncheons each month for our RS sisters. It’s a tradition to meet at Chapala’s once a month with the older crowd. Sara is trying to start a dessert evening for the younger ladies Tuesdays at 8:30. She convinced Amelia and I to tag along for blonde brownies at Applebees. We were extra silly, no one else showed up which made me glad we came along. 

I have 7 piano students at the Primer level, the first student of the group graduated up to level one! Brian is quite the student. He is a bit feisty and absolutely hates playing his pieces with the teacher part, but he overcame the challenges and is making progress. The girls wanted to combine mommy and me time to work on Leprechaun traps. They scrounged up empty boxes while dreaming up possibilities. We finally decided to make a slime trap. Evelyn's will have a slide into a container of slime with real money at the bottom. Josie settled on a trap with a booby-trapped tissue paper top, slime at the bottom of the box, money and Lucky Charms cereal as bait. We used about 10 glue sticks just getting the traps ready. Over the next week the girls decorated and finished the traps for school.  

Phillip and Ambree had an symphony performance Thursday evening. Sara took them to the Middle School while I headed to MCO with the other kiddos. Amelia and Everett caught a ride home with Danielle Young. The rest of us made it in time to attend the symphony fun. Once a year the drumline, band, and strings combine for a special concert with the 7-8th grades. Phillip played the snare, xylophone, and bass drums. The symphony sounded amazing, those kids worked extra hard. Josie is excited about her violin, she paid close attention!

Justin decided to attend Clarice’s funeral, mostly to see his cousins and be part of the impromptu Call reunion. We met with the kids to discuss the possibility of who could go with Dad. The older kids were concerned about missing another day of work so didn’t want to go. Justin decided to just go alone for ease of travel and accommodations. Took a bit of convincing to convince him we all should go, funerals are prime family time. We wanted to see Spenser, Laura, Ellie, Anson, and Gary, The James family, Grandpa Call, and etc. Another factor was the terrible weather forecast. Snow, wind, and snow covered the entire eastern side of Idaho. We braved the weather and made the trip with everyone in tow. Friday morning was a chaotic scene as the trip was green-lighted at 7:30 am. We stuffed clothes into packs, pillows into garbage bags, scrounged for snacks, and washed up the dishes. The snow and wind was quite impressive, near white-out conditions between Mountain Home and Snowville, in other words more than half the trip. We almost turned back after lunch in Burley but Justin said we were almost at the end of the storm front. The weather turned to rain right around Tremonton. Phew. That added more than an hour to the drive. Baaaartie was out in full force. We stopped at Charity’s for 20 minutes before everyone left for a Call Family party in Sandy. All the Call brothers were there with at least one child, most with several children and their families in tow. We had some pizza for dinner while visiting for 3 hours. Josie asked if there were some other people with “Call” names at the party! Umm, yep just a few. She also noticed the bald trend. The boys were thrilled to play with Anton and Gary. Josie adopted a basketball as a make believe dog, Amelia was bored enough to play along. All the brothers lined up one by one with their family for introductions. Bruce's knees are in terrible shape, he was in a lot of pain after traveling from DC so was unable to join us at the stage. Josie and Evelyn both chose a stuffed animal Grandma Clarice collected over the years. Josie found a cute bunny with the original tags still attached! Justin caught up with most of his cousins! Brad Call traveled from Okinawa and Darrell Call and wife left their Dominican Republic mission for a week to attend the funeral. It was snowing when we left the church. Grandpa and Grandma Lance let us crash on their basement floor. 

Saturday we left early at 8:45 am for the funeral in Heber at 11 am. Mom fed us delicious scrambled eggs and wheat toast before we ran out the door. Grandma Jean said Alice would be at the funeral! Hooray! Going over the pass through Park City was like experiencing Heidi all over again. Evelyn was charmed with the snow and mountain peaks, made the story seem even more real. We drove by the chapel Grandpa Call and John Robert helped build, drove by Grandma Call’s home, then headed to the chapel for the viewing and funeral. The family was parked in the room with Clarice chatting up a storm. Evelyn was brave enough to peer into the coffin at the embalmed remains of Clarice’s body. Shudder, why do we still follow this trend? Evelyn quickly let me know seeing a dead body was not as bad as she imagined, but still might have nightmares. I did not ask or force her, she was more curious than afraid. The funeral started soon after a song and family prayer. I enjoyed a moment of two with Alice Hicken (my Great-Aunt). Amelia did not even know (remember?) she had a Grandma Clarice. Justin does not talk about her, except to say she was awful. Hearing all the uplifting stories from the younger Call Brothers felt disconcerting, the older boys had quite a different experience with their new step-mom than the younger 5 kids. From what I garnered Clarice was in her 40s when Harold married her, 4 years after the sudden death of Helen. Clarice was a retired Marine working as a secretary at the Capitol building. She became the instant mother to 7 rowdy boys and one brave girl. I hear she was very orderly, clean, no-nonsense kind of woman. A complete opposite of the tender, loving Helen Pay Call. The graveside service was short and sweet with Military honors, bagpipe, and Uncle Darrell dedicating the grave. It was muddy as the piles of removed snow left a wet mess. One toddler had a hay day in the mud before his mom noticed. We returned to the church for a luncheon of ham, funeral potatoes, and fruited jello! Delicious, and traditionally Mormon. I wanted to stop at Grandma’s Shakes where my Grandma Crook was born. We enjoyed milk shakes inside the home. The owner was delighted to meet me, He told me about an old lady he met last year. They talked for an hour about her memories of the original house. He showed me a photo of…my Grandma Jean! He let us peek into the attic, there are 3 rooms up there with angled ceilings that follow the roof line. The rest of the day we crashed at Charity’s until most everyone else left for other activities. We headed back to Grandma’s for a waffle dinner. We surprised Hannah and Rachel, left a squishmallow on the porch then rang the doorbell and hid. Hannah was confused to find the toy on the porch, we scared the wits out of her as we swarmed from around the corner to the porch! The kids played for an hour while we visited with Jana and Rudy. Everett was quite disappointed we refused to take him back to Charity’s for a sleepover with Anton and Gary. It was late, day light savings, and too much for everyone. Poor kids put himself to bed crying over the injustice of life. 

Sunday! My Dad turned 69 today! We went to sacrament meeting with Mom and Dad. Dad patrolled the parking lot as is his norm. We all feel absolutely exhausted, combined with travel fatigue it was daylight savings. Uggh. I could barely keep my eyes open. I was thrilled to finally pick up my new piano bench stored in Grandma’s garage. We stopped at Charity’s for a couple hours visiting with the Arizona Calls. We are on the way home, hoping to get home before 7 so we can get life arranged for another busy week.