BRADFORD FAMILY NEWSLETTER – DEC 2022

DALLAS AND MARGIE BRADFORD

Dear Family,

Hopefully Kirk will write to the Cousins Quarterly to share the big news from our family this month, but if not, we will provide a brief report, even though many of you may have already seen the Facebook post. On December 29, Tyson proposed marriage to Jordan and she said, “yes.” We are thrilled. Jordan is a lovely young woman.

One of the “advantages” (?) of Dallas being on the WCF Insurance Board is that we “get to” go the annual Governor’s Gala, which is a formal affair at a local hotel/conference center. This year the event was at the Hyatt Regency, the newest big hotel in SLC, which is adjacent to the Convention Center and was built primarily to host conventions in Salt Lake. It was the first time we had been to this hotel. It was a very nice affair and we do enjoy visiting with the WCF people and with other friends.

We had our annual Christmas dinner at our home with the dinner group with whom we have been meeting for 45 years. All of the eleven (from 20 original members) who are still living were with us, even though three of them are in some kind of an assisted living facility. We shared some of our favorite Christmas traditions. Getting ready for this dinner caused us to have our home “holiday ready” right after Thanksgiving. That was no small task. But, with Callie’s help with the tree (that our ministering brother and his son helped us bring up from the storage room) and the help from a sister whose service we bought at the Young Women auction, Margie got the home ready and beautiful for the holidays. So, by the time of our family Christmas party at mid-month, we were all ready with a minimum amount of additional stress. We feel very blessed that we have the energy and strength to continue to do the things that we love doing during the holidays. We consider this a great blessing from the Lord.

This year we started early making our fudge bears, which we have been making for nearly 40 years. We started making the bears right after Thanksgiving because we made 90 bears this year. Someone asked us this year when do we plan to stop making the bears. Our response is as long as people look forward to receiving them we will make them. Each bear weighs about a pound. That’s a lot of fudge to make during the holidays.

All of our family were at our family party except for Chad’s family who spent a month here earlier for our family reunion in McCall and for Macy’s wedding and Leksi who was in Alaska visiting her grandmother, and Austin who is in Brazil. But Leksi did surprise Ty by coming to Utah a few days before Christmas day. Fortunately, her flights worked out so she could make it. (And Tanner, Jeanice and Emmett were able to return to Georgia on Christmas morning without any flight issues.) What a blessing for both families.

While Kent and Kay were in Utah watching Kyle and Jen’s children while K&J were in Hawaii, we were able to have lunch with them, and with Elaine, Vaughn, Don and Sue. It was good to get together and visit with each other. It’s so good to get together as siblings every once in a while since we live all around the country. Thankfully, the beach and Duck Creek do get us all together reasonably regularly.

While Kent and Kay were here, we had dinner with them and our neighbor, Carol Hillam, whose husband, Elder Harold Hillam (now deceased), is Kay’s cousin. Lavon and Harold’s mother are sisters. Carol and Kay recalls many, many times of visiting with each other in Idaho and Arlington. This was a very nice visit for all of us.

Sister Brynn Skousen returned home from her mission in Wisconsin on the same night that we had multiple reservations for our wedding anniversary. We missed meeting her at the airport, but we did get to see her the next day at our family Christmas party weekend.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner and evening in Salt Lake City for our anniversary celebration. Because it was so cold that evening, we did not walk around the city and temple square to see the lights and be among the people, but we did enjoy walking around the City Center mall and the lovely dinner. Interestingly, our “greeter” at Ruth’s Chris was Robert Parker, a former running back for BYU. It was fun to visit with him. He is now a minister in the Salt Lake area.

Our family Christmas party weekend includes our annual grandparent’s sleepover with pizza and games well into the early morning, Margie’s big French toast breakfast the next morning, and tubing for the grandchildren who can make it before all of the family meet for dinner at the country club. This year the kids decided they would rather go tubing on a hill in Bountiful rather than going to the hill at Soldier Hollow in Midway. Dallas made only one run because it was just a local hill with no tow rope. Dallas was not about to walk up that hill to make a second run. But the kids were really kind to their grandpa and helped him get down and off the hill without any harm. After dinner, we returned home for our big bingo game—always a favorite, our Christmas program, and other gift sharing, of which our favorites are the white envelopes that include reports on their acts of service during the year. Our Christmas program included a beautiful rendition of “Silent Night,” by all five of the Skousen children. This is the first time they have all been together for Christmas for several years.

Unfortunately, all of our family activities were on the same day as the BYU bowl game and the BYU/Utah basketball game. Dallas was very good and disciplined and did not “peek” at the TV during either game. After everyone left for the evening and the house was “reasonably” cleaned, he sat down and watched the recorded games. As a result, he did not get to bed very early.

And, that next morning, Sunday, was when Brynn reported on her mission in sacrament meeting. We were so pleased to be with her and then later with her family and friends at her home. We have attended a lot of meetings when missionaries have spoken before and after their missions. We are not exaggerating when we say that this talk by Brynn truly was one of the most outstanding we have ever experienced. Everything about it was extraordinary. And this is not just the observation of doting grandparents; her bishop made a point of making a similar observation from the pulpit.

We enjoyed being with Glenn and Michelle and their family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and a sushi bar a couple of days later that included many of the Utah families. Alyse is in charge of the sushi bar and got a lot of help from her siblings and many of her cousins. We ended Christmas day at the Varners with them and the Skousens for munchies and games. It is so good to be close to many of our family for these special occasions and so thankful for all those who make the extra efforts to be with us—Alyse and Evelyn from Seattle, Tanner, Jeanice and Emmett from Georgia, and Ty and Leksi from North Carolina.

We are preparing this letter while we are in St. George for the New Year’s weekend. No special reason, just a time to get out of town for a few days. When we planned this getaway, Dallas was hoping for some good weather to get in a round of golf, but, unfortunately, the weather has not been very accommodating and he probably won’t be able to swing the clubs. But the two of us are expecting to have a big PAHRTEE on New Year’s Eve, part of which will include the BYU basketball game. We will go to church tomorrow at the “10:30 ward.”

We continue to pray for each of you. And we pray that each member of our family will have a wonderful 2023.

Dallas and Margie

KENT AND KAY BRADFORD

Dear Family,

How thrilled I am to be writing this newsletter! (Yep, this is Kay). We just returned from Minneapolis where we celebrated Sam and Sara’s wedding. What joy to be with all of our 5 children at the wedding in the Minneapolis Temple. Many times I said a prayer of gratitude in my heart that I was able to be there for the event. I am grateful for modern transportation that made it possible for us to be together and for family that made the effort to attend. The wedding was AWESOME and I am sure Mark and Kimberly will send pictures. It was a winter wonderland but snow and cold.

The weather was cold up to the date of the wedding (below zero degrees) but the weather warmed up to a winter thaw of 30 degrees the day of the wedding. Crazy how that it felt warm.

All the wedding party has left Minneapolis. The Pollmann home was packed to capacity and many of the wedding party stayed at the Taylor’s home (friends of the Pollmanns who were out of town for the week). Debbie Horne (a childhood friend of our family) came to the Wedding. It was so fun and nice to see Dale & Brenda and their Minneapolis families. Earlier in the month when we were in Utah, it was wonderful to have lunch with Dallas & Margie, Donald & Sue, and Vaughn and Elaine. How blessed to be a part of the Henry & Afton family!

Now we begin the New Year with much optimism. Hopefully, mid January to begin a clinical trial that will be successful. Much to look forward to this new year – Eddie and Lucia’s (Mark and Kim’s son) wedding will be in the Jordan River Temple (February 14), later Bethany and Sydney will return from missions, David will still be serving his mission, graduations, and as of now, no new babies (that we know of) yet to be born.

We will keep you advised and as always – so appreciate your love, prayers and support. We are so grateful for prayer and that we can also pray for you in our family.

Love,

Kent and Kay

HENRY & TRUDY BRADFORD

Dear Family,

Henry has made a few notes for the family letter for me to prepare to send for the family letter. Last month really just got away from us. I hope at least some of our kiddos will send a letter for the CQ.

We are pleased that Bonnie and Thomas have precious little Molly Stringham home at last. It was such a worry to have Bonnie driving up to the U of U Medical Center every day. It was snow, snow, snow most of the time. I know Bonnie is glad to have that part over, also. It was wonderful for me to get to take care of some of the things and “little” people she needed help with. I loved it. They live in a wonderful ward - the kindest people who have, along with family and friends, been supportive and generous during the month that Molly was making her way to the earth, and then getting ready to live here. So grateful for many blessings.

The Christmas tree hasn’t been up long enough but already it is time to take it down and put all of the decorations away for another year. We drove into Las Vegas before Christmas to have dinner with James and Yolanda. We had a wonderful visit. She is liable to learn English before I get my Spanish sentences worked out. Nathan and Nadja and Dan Boy and Andrea and their families came for Christmas Eve dinner. As we looked around, we could see that our little get-togethers are shrinking. Bob is in Utah and didn’t come home for Christmas. I was glad to see Tara made it since she works now. She is looking toward a day when she is able to fly the nest. I imagine everyone of our generation is looking around, seeing the same thing.

On Tuesday morning following Christmas Scott and Kaylene and all of their family had plans to fly to Hawaii for a little vacation. When they arrived at the airport in SLC they learned otherwise, getting the news that their flights were cancelled. They considered the options (another flight in less than two days seemed impossible) and decided they could drive as far as Logandale and catch flights out of Las Vegas for sure on Thursday morning. Brooklyn and her husband Austin were flying out of Missouri to Dallas to Hawaii and had no problem, but the rest of the family treated us to a fun post-Christmas surprise. Our neighbors across the street had an empty casita and so there was room for all without too much crowding or waiting for facilities. And I knew I had shredded all of that extra pork roast, bagged it, and put it in the freezer for a good reason!

Henry just received his preliminary temple schedule for this Saturday. His coordinator pointed out that we only have 17 Saturdays to work this year. There will be the usual winter closing in mid-January and then about three months beginning in August for extensive work. One of the men Henry works with there (Don Scott) is a retired accountant. When he graduated

from BYU he interviewed with Dallas Bradford at Arthur Anderson. He was surprised to learn Henry was his brother. And even more surprised to learn he was also Jay Bradford’s brother, whom he also interviewed with later.

Henry was chatting with this same Don Scott a couple of weeks ago and they were talking about their pre-mature grandchildren. He and his wife had recently had a grand-baby that had similar problems to Molly’s. Don said, “You won’t believe what they named him. Henry Bradford Scott.” And he was right.

We thank all of you who have been sloshing through snow and sliding over ice. Our granddaughter Lynnette posted the readings for their Montana weather report. Extremely cold. Snow snow snow! We have been blessed with rain many days. We are happy with that. And hope some of the snow falling now will make its way as water south in the spring.

Patriarchal blessings continue to be an important part of our lives and time.

Happy New Year!

Love,

Henry and Trudy

JAY AND KAREN BRADFORD

Dear Family – I appreciate Kyle giving me a little more time to get my letter in as I did not write in November so I wanted to catch you all up on our activities.  At the beginning of November Karen had carpal tunnel surgery and also at the same time they fixed her “trigger finger”.  We were fortunate to have Dr. Allen Tham do the surgery as he is not only a great surgeon but is also Paul and Janelle’s best friend.  Because of that, he gave her a lot of special treatment like coming to our house to take her stitches out.  Karen did have to go to a few weeks of physical therapy but things have turned out quite well.

Stephanie and her family came and stayed with us for a few days in the middle of the month as they all went to Disneyland for 2 days.  We also had a few other events at our house during the month.  Mason (Greg and Deanna), his girlfriend and two of their roommates from BYU Idaho also came for 3 days, went to Disneyland, swam and played a lot in the pool, went to the beach, etc. and had a great time.  Jagger had his birthday party as our place and had two large bouncy houses on our tennis court and all had a great time and fortunately no one got hurt.  That actually was amazing to me when you have 20 six year old’s do all the crazy things they do.

Mom and I along with Hank and Stephanie and their family went to our Duck Creek cabin for Thanksgiving.  The weather was nice but very cold and we also invited Tom and Nan Lindsey (our close friends from across the street) to join us for dinner.  After Stephanie and family left to go home, Karen and I went over to the Lindsey’s to listen to our Church on zoom and then had dinner with them.  The only problem with the week-end was when we were on our way home we found out from Deanna that our home had been broken into while we were gone.  We have high definition cameras on the outside of our home so we saw everything the robber did.  We saw him drive up to the house, break out the glass of our family room door, enter the house and then a few minutes later go back out the door and drive away.  Luckily he was a very neat robber and did very little damage to the house other than the glass door.  We were able to download the entire video from the cameras and give it to the police but his face was mostly covered and we couldn’t see his license plate.  While you feel a little violated when this happens we were very lucky we didn’t have any major loss or other problems.

Then the last day of November Greg, Deanna, Taylor and I went to the Lakers game vs. Portland.  It was a great game but the Lakers lost on a last second shot!

With the help of Taylor and Emma, we were able to get our house all decorated for Christmas before we went to the cabin as Karen and her quilt class had their annual Christmas luncheon at our place two day after we got home form Duck Creek.  The luncheon was great and they always enjoy getting together as a group.  Our December was full of activities just like yours.  Some of them were as follows: 1. Went to see Josh (Paul  and Janelle’s) perform in the play Legally Blond and he was great. He has performed in about 6 plays from both school and a Yorba Linda city group.  He has had a number of singing rolls and is getting quite good. 2. Emma had her High School soccer team party at our house, 3. Mason (Deanna’s) had his ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood at our house with his family, member of the Stake Presidency and some close friends, 4. Ward Christmas party, 5.  Laker games against Boston and Charlotte and a L.A. Kings game against the Flyers.

We started off our Christmas day with a wonderful family dinner.  Our entire family was here except for Stephanies family.  Christine and her family had just flown in earlier that day.  It was special to have such a wonderful time together. Paul and his family left the next day to go to Duck Creek with 4 other family for a few days of skiing, snowmobiling, sledding, etc.  The only sad part from our Christmas time together is Andrew and Tami came down with Covid and then just after they went home Karen got Covid.  She still has it now but luckily she has not had a serious case but it is still a pain.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and your families are all doing well.  We love you all and love this special time of year to focus more on the life of our dear Savior. 

Love,

Jay and Karen

DONALD & SUE BRADFORD

Dear Family,

Since we didn't write last month, we will play catch-up! 

Donald serves as the financial clerk in our little loving ward. He goes around snow blowing the neighbors' driveways & sidewalks, as well as the church's. We don't have any future missionaries, yet, to teach. Waiting for the call to serve with our last young man, Moroni. We love hearing about our extended family members going, serving and returning. 

Susie and I are doing fine other than her struggling with diabetes meds, insurance coverage and other getting older issues! Susie's sister, Iva is doing about the same. Susie goes up every Tuesday and every other Saturday for BINGO. She has better stats than us! MS has taken her mobility & leg use away but she still has pretty good days. Her dear friends, the Couette's from Washington, came down and spent a few days visiting. Iva took them out to dinner one night and did really good! It was fun to see them interacting together.

November was great as it is an official month for Susie to have a good old fashion Turkey dinner! Her favorite! This was the year for the kids' spouse's family...but even with that we had Adam, Johnathan & Heather's families here!! And Heather's friend, who doesn't have family to go to, came. We brought Iva here from her senior living place. She stayed overnight a couple of nights. It is somewhat difficult but makes her happy to get out for a few. 

We had an early family Christmas gathering on the 18th. EVERYONE was here!! Altogether there is 28...so we need extra space...the garage works great as an extra-large room...so with a little cleaning up and decorating it fit us all.  Three space heaters heat it up wonderfully...still too hot for Donald, but everyone didn't have to wear their Longjohns!! Food can get spilt and Donald doesn't have to clean up much...just sweeps it up!

We celebrated our 51st anniversary very quietly. Then we got together with Elaine, Vaughn, Dallas & Marg for lunch with Kent & Kay coming in town. It was a great visit. Kay, you are an amazing lady! 

Glad that you can keep up the getting around. You & Dale are a great example of perseverance in dealing with your illnesses!! Here is to a continued example in the upcoming New Year!! 

With all the December days gone and a New Year just minutes away...we are so glad to have family, faith & friends that have helped us be better people. 

Blessings & prayers coming from us all the days.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

Love,

Donald & Sue

DALE AND BRENDA BRADFORD

Did not submit letter.

ELAINE & VAUGN HUNTSMAN

Dear Family,

As 2022 comes to an end, we pause to reflect on our many blessings of this past year.

Health- even though we have our aches and pains, and a few medical issues, we are still able to do the things we enjoy, the day to day things, and those things we need to do.  So thankful for our health that we can serve in our ward and as Church Service Missionaries, Elaine serving in the Payson Temple and Vaughn serving at the Bishop’s Storehouse. 

Prosperity- blessed with comfortable lives,. We have plenty of food to eat, a nice place to live, vehicles to get us from place to place, and the comforts and conveniences of life- our needs are met!

Family-  blessed for the many times we could be with our children and grand children and for the wonderful memories made.  Blessed that the Bradford siblings are able to get together so often, these relationships we cherish.  Blessed that we could finally have the Bradford reunion again!   We’re so blessed for this wonderful legacy that Dad and Mom, Henry and Afton, left for us!  I know they are smiling down from heaven watching us.  So very blessed with the gift of eternal families!

Friends- blessed for the many friends, near and far, that have enriched our lives!  They bring an added measure of joy!

Jesus Christ- blessed for the knowledge and testimony we have of our Savior.  Blessed to feel His love in our lives. Blessed for the restored gospel, for prophets and apostles, for temples, for the priesthood and the sealing powers to bind families together. 

There are so many more things we could list but will close our letter here.  2022 was a great year for us and we look forward to what 2023 has to offer.  We pray the Lord’s blessings to be with each one of you this coming year as well.

We love you,

Elaine & Vaughn