Smelterville: Weekends in Pinehurst

Aside from Rollerskating, I also spent a portion of my weekends in Pinehurst, staying at the Caldwell's on main street. There house was between the Post Office and the Library and sat back away from the road. The little house we lived in when I was born, was further back and to the right of their home.

Dorothy Caldwell was a school teacher (fourth grade) in Pinehurst, and she was like a grandmother to me. (My grandparents all lived in Utah, and I only saw them about once a year). She and her husband, Glen, had 5 kids who were 7 yrs or more older than I. The two daughters M & D used to babysit me when I was very young. When I was 5, I was the flowergirl in M's wedding. I spent many days and likely a few nights at D & her husband R's place - off and on through my younger years.

On weekends, I had a standing invitation to spend the night at Dorothy and Glen's. I would sleep on the hide-a-bed, watch cartoons on Sat morning, eat Trix cereal and play with their dog Coonie. (By this time Lucky was gone.) Sometimes I would plunk out melodies on their piano, or listen to their youngest son play the "Flying Purple People Eater" on his record player. (He also had a Flying Purple People Eater stuffed animal that hung high by his bedroom door, but I wasn't afraid of it because it was too little to eat anyone.)

One week, Dorothy called me and said she had a surprise for me when I came to stay. I really wanted to know what it was, and she told me a new family had moved in next door (behind the Post Office) and they had a little girl I could play with. She told me the family was all boys except the one little girl, and she was excited for me to come and play.

That weekend, I met the Carvers for the first time. The parents and all 6 kids lived in the very small home. I remembered the parents bedroom was past the kitchen before we'd go out the back door in a porchlike area. (And it probably was). They had just moved to Idaho from West Virginia at the invitation of some relatives who lived in the eastern part of Shoshone County. They had four boys, the girl, and then another baby boy. The girl M and I became very good friends, but I also became friends with the boys who were near my age. G was my age, S, a year older, and B 3 yrs older.

When I went over to play with M, we usually ended up outside playing Tarzan with some of her brothers. S was Tarzan, I was Jane, M was "girl" (a role we invented for her), G was Boy and B was Cheeta. They was no tree house, but we would play in the base of the trees and pretend it was a tree house. When we couldn't play outside, we would watch movies inside. I really looked forward to going to Caldwell's and playing with the Carver kids.

In addition to being my weekend get-away, the Caldwells also were the first people I knew who bought a color televison. They got theirs in about 1963. Our family was invited to come every Sunday night to watch Bonanza and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in COLOR! It became our Sunday night ritual and I loved it.