Featured Story in the January 2021 Issue of Mountain Times
I believe I first became somewhat aware of Jay Monroe when I was tending my Grandpa Daniels store in Annabella and I noticed the street was filling with cows followed by cowboys who were bringing cattle home in the Fall of the year. The guys soon tied their horses up and came in to refresh themselves with soft drinks, candy Punch boards and generally stretch out from their long ride following the cows off from Cove Mountain where they had spent the summer grazing.
Among the cowboys, one stood out. He was clearly the leader of the men, gregarious, friendly, outgoing. I immediately felt at ease with this invasion of strangers on a late fall afternoon. I was thirteen or fourteen and alone in the store (trying to stop eating the yummy cookies under the counter.) They milled around the store looking at everything. The tall stranger introduced himself by telling me that he knew both of my grandfathers. He had been on freighting trips with Charles Hawley, my mother’s father and he knew Grandpa Daniels very well.
He told me his name was Art Jensen. Eventually, I noticed that his son was one of the riders, but I didn’t particularly say anything to him then. I don’t think he paid any attention to me then either and finally they all got on their horses and resumed the roundup ending in Elsinore.
The next time I had occasion to meet Jay Monroe was when we got to High School in Monroe. He was reputedly the smartest boy in school.
When he was a Senior and I was a Junior, we happened to be in the same High School play. It was called “The Crab Apple”. I was still not in his circle of smart friends but he did write something really cute in my Yearbook and I noticed he was a clever writer.
Then came College and the war and everything changed for all of us. Jay Monroe went to the University of Utah and I went to the Branch Agricultural College (now part of the Utah State University system in Cedar City.) We were acquainted through Talmage Nielson. Another friend Marius Larsen (who was dating JM!) eventually suggested Jay Monroe ask me to be part of a Study Club function in Elsinore which she could not attend with him. That was a bad mistake on her part which she learned to her sorrow. Because from that time on we began a correspondence, started dating, and in June 1947, we were married in the Manti Temple.
The year we were married we went to Chicago where we spent the next four years. He graduated from the University of Chicago. He did his internship at the University of Chicago. Judith Ann was born on Easter Sunday in the Chicago Lying In Hospital. She was the only blond baby in the nursery.
Judith was a year old when we moved from Chicago to Philadelphia. It was a great move. Chicago was exciting in so many ways. I learned so much. We made great friends including Wayne and Phyllis Booth who became family friends Moving to Pennsylvania was an extension of the same excitement of new information and activities. Baseball and history.
I worked in many places during the four years after we were married as I supported our little family. Mostly as a secretary but it was very interesting.
My longest job was a secretary to the President of a publishing company that published and sold a set of books on the bible. My memory is that it was called “The Book of Life”. I also worked a long time for The American School focused on Geography, a national correspondence school where I could work from home after Judith was born. We always studied, we always read, we always listened to music, and we danced.
My life has been enriched by my children. They are everything to me and their achievements always make me very proud. We have always been engaged with each other.
Being a country girl, I baked bread, cakes, rolls, etc. I did such diverse things as make soap. I have to give my mother-in-law credit for some of this over the wall stuff such as making our own toothpaste. Jay M. distinguished himself by collecting used bacon grease from his colleagues at the hospital so I could make soap, I became known among our friends as the wife who could. As I said. I give credit to my mother-in-law who could not abide laziness. Keeping busy was a way of life.
After completing his internship Jay Monroe was accepted to do a surgical residency at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. I.S. Ravdin. which he completed including a fifth year in Red Bank, New Jersey at Monmouth Hospital.
Jay Arthur was born and Niels Fredrick was born a year later, both at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. We had our first three children during medical training.
We returned to Salt Lake in 1957 where Jay M practiced at LDS Hospital for some 30 years.
In Salt Lake City James Christian was born in 1958, Mary Karen was born in 1951, Peter Eric was born in 1964 and Nicoline Violet was born in 1968, all at the LDS Hospital.
We have moved a lot for the first 4 or 5 years and the kids changed schools frequently. This was not an easy task, but it did help us all build a confidence and forced them to develop social abilities. Since 1964, we have been at the same address.
Our family has maintained the Elsinore Ranch since Jay Monroe’s mother died in 1968. It has been a consuming place for the family and grandchildren to work and play. We own a couple of houses and a cabin and some land. Salt Lake remains the main headquarters for the family.
For the purpose of this little history, I will not try to describe the education, marriages, the grandchildren, etc.
Jay Monroe had a long and interesting surgical career and then passed to, I hope, a rich reward in December 1995. The family with its many changes has survived and thrived.
I am in my 96th year and now living with my daughter Judith on CrestHill Drive.
I have been blessed by my children and their spouses. I am very close to each of them as individuals and as couples. There are now 23 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren, and more on the horizon.
Thank you for sharing💑