Bedtime Stories (Camile - editor in chief)

Carly and Ellise love to hear bedtime stories about Aaron and I when we were little and also stories about their grandparents. I vaguely remember some of the stories I heard from Mom and Dad growing up, but I thought this blog would be a good way to record some of these memories and keep the details all straight (if Mom and Dad can keep them striaght) :).


My hope is to publish a post for each of them once a month. If you have requests for specific memory or story posts then send me an e-mail at parson27@gmail.com.

Donut (Nanny Nette)

While living in Bozeman mt, uncle Melvin Neves brought our family a little German Shepherd puppy. He was a rolly polly little thing! Of course we were all excited. Janet was a baby, so the four older kids (Linnie, myself, Mary and Lester) were all trying to agree on a name. Lester wasn't in school and went with my mother to downtown Bozeman and passed the bakery and could smell the donuts. He said, "I know what we can name him! Donut!". None of the rest of us were very thrilled at the time, but Lester was pretty spoiled about getting his way and the name stuck.

Donut was a great guard dog and was very protective of us. I remember one evening, sitting at the dinner table and Donut was laying on the lawn just wagging his tail. A salesman pulled up in his car and would not get out of his car because of this big German Shepherd between him and the front door. My Dad was thrilled because he didn't like salesmen in the first place!

A few years later when we moved to Helena we took Donut with us, but then when my family moved to Orem, UT we had to leave Donut at Uncle Callis' farm in Helena. A year later when Grandma and Grandpa Henderson got married, Uncle Callis brought Donut to us in Burlington. We were thrilled that we had our dog back. When I was a sophomore or junior in High School we got word at school that Donut had been chasing cars and been hit and died. I remember we cried and cried!

Dina Babe (Grandpa)

We had a little Pekinese dog named Dina Babe. She was grandma's girl - the only girl she had. Dina Babe had a "little dog" personality - she was ferocious (until another dog barked back at her). She thought she was the boss of everything, like the other big, outside dogs - Ruff and Guss. (Ruff was a female Collie mix and Guss was her pup.)

When we lived in Powell, Dina Babe was expecting pups. And she had 3 pups I think. The last one, when it was born, we thought it was deformed and Dina Babe started eating it. So, Grandma rescued the pup and took it to the vet. The vet said it would have been okay and that Dina was just eating the sac away from the pup. But Dina Babe ended up with just two pups.

Dina Babe died when she was about 10 years old in '67 or '68. She got to where she wouldn't eat anything, then she died. She was like part of the family.