Post Office

See, one of my most embarrassing moments when I was a little girl - I was very, very conscientious and wanted to do everything right because my mother always bragged on me and said, "You were such a little lady," and, "You were so nice."

She would take me to Relief Society doing her visiting teaching because she couldn't drive a car - the mothers in those days didn't drive cars. So she'd walk up the block and some days I'd just be home with her and she'd take me visiting teaching. She'd say, "Now I know, when I go in to give this lesson, you'll sit down on the couch and you'll fold your arms, and you won't say anything while I give the lesson."

I would walk in, I would sit on that couch, I would fold my arms, I would say nothing all the time she gave the lesson. And then we'd walk out, start down the sidewalk, and she'd say, "You're the nicest little girl in the world. There's nobody that could sit like you do." And so I would just do this to be bragged on.

Well, so this day when I was about six - I was six - we had to go pick up a package from the post office. And I don't know whether it was my big sister Beryl or who that just drove up to the post office and had me run in to get it, or maybe I walked from my home to get it. And so I walked into the post office to ask for the package. And my dad worked for the post office, but he wasn't there at the time of course, and the man that worked with him knew me very well. His name was Willy Willaby. His name was William Willaby, and everybody called him Willy - Willy Willaby. He always just kind of teased me, you know, and talked with me all the time, and he said, "Oh, this package, you have to sign for it to get it." And so he handed me a piece of paper and a pen. Well, I had just learned to sign my name - I was a little girl six. So I stood there and I wanted to write as pretty as I could to sign my name, and as I started to sign it - see, I'm a south pond, I'm a left hander - and I turned my hand up like this to sign my name to get the package, and he said, "Stop, stop! That will ruin my pen! That pen's only for right handers!" Oh, I about cried. I dropped the pen fast and I was just about to cry because I had ruined his pen. And he laughed and said,

As told to and recorded by her son, Steve Nickle.