Janice Linford History Notes

Janice Linford (Bio)

Janice Linford was born on Thursday, December 15, 1938, to LaRue Hodges and Dott Fullmer Linford, the third of six children consisting of two girls and four boys. Her birth was in the new house that her father had built in Afton, Wyoming. Grandma Fullmer came to Afton to help Dott and left in time to get back to Logan for Christmas. Janice had blue eyes and blonde curly hair, and looked like her Grandmother, Leonora Hodges Linford. LaRue had pet names for each member of his family, and he called Janice “Jingle Fritz and Fritzie.”

LaRue was head of the Commercial Department and taught bookkeeping, type, shorthand, and auto mechanics at Star Valley High School in Afton.

In August 1939, a Linford Family Reunion was held at the grade school in Afton. At that time a picture was taken. In the picture, Grandma Leonora Hodges Linford is sitting with Janice on her lap.

Horse-drawn Wagon

On November 22, 1939, the family was going from Afton to Logan to spend the Thanksgiving holiday the next day with Grandpa and Grandma Fullmer. It was late at night and very dark since they had to wait until LaRue got home from teaching school before they could leave. LaRue and Dott were in the front seat of the car, and Frank, Janice, and Donna were in the back. Dott had made the seat down into a bed for the children so they could sleep during the trip.

On the other side of Paris, Idaho, they suddenly came upon a big, horse-drawn wagon hauling logs out of the canyon. Of course, the wagon was going much slower than the car. The wagon full of logs had no warning flag or marker of any kind on the end of the logs, which were sticking far out over the tail end of the wagon. LaRue saw it just in time and swerved, clipping the back wheel of the wagon and breaking its reach. The car went off of the road and into the bar pit, narrowly missing some telephone poles that were there. The family was badly shaken but unhurt, although Janice, who was eleven months old, was thrown onto the floor of the car. The back wheel of the car was broken and was stuck in the bar pit. Everyone got out and slogged through the bar pit, which was full of water, mud, and weeds.

The sheriff of the next town was traveling behind the car, returning from home teaching, and he and his partner saw what happened. The driver of the wagon was very indignant and said LaRue would have to pay for repairing the reach on the wagon. (The reach is the rod joining the back axle to the forward bolster of the wagon.) Sheriff Allred told the driver he would be lucky if LaRue didn’t sue him for every dime he had. If the car had hit the logs the family would probably have been decapitated, as the logs would have entered the car through the windshield and gone right on through.

The sheriff took the family to his home. His wife made beds for everyone and said they would like to have them stay the night. But, LaRue and Dott called Uncle Vern Egan, who immediately came and got Dott and the kids and took them to Logan. LaRue stayed there at the home of the sheriff. He had Thanksgiving dinner with them the next day and made arrangements to have the car pulled out of the bar pit and repaired.

The Hole

Donna was told about an incident that occurred when she was riding her tricycle along the sidewalk on the south side of their house in Afton. LaRue was building some outside stairs leading to an entrance he was building into the basement for a rental unit he was building there. Janice, who was four years younger than Donna, was standing by the hole. Donna told her to move so she could get by. Janice refused, and Donna proceeded around her and ran over a stick. The stick tripped Janice, and she fell from the top to the bottom of the hole. She lit on some large boulders at the bottom, which her Dad was using as a base for cement. Janice was hurt quite badly by the fall, and it is a miracle she lived. For the rest of her life, she had back trouble.

The Clinker

The new home LaRue built in Afton was heated by a coal furnace, with a unit called a stoker to one side of it. These were located in a room in the basement of the house. There was a long-handled, tong-like tool that was used to remove the hot clinkers left from the burned coal. One time when LaRue was removing the clinkers, Janice got too close, and the inside calf of her leg was burned almost to the bone. This caused an infection in the paper-thin lining between the flesh and the skin, and it nearly cost her life. A light globe was strung up above the front room dining table, and Dott made Janice a bed on the table to get her closer to the light. Moisture had to be kept on the sore for a specified period of time, and then the light was turned on it for so many minutes. The doctors did not seem to know how to treat the infection. The leg started turning pink, and the doctor said if it got up to the groin it would kill her. It stopped just short of it. Sulfa had just come out, and the doctor started to give it to Janice. In those days, sulfa was given according to the weight of a person. The sulfa the doctor used was the first used in Star Valley. It was a miracle that Janice lived. She had a scar about an inch long from this burn.

Logan

The family moved from Star Valley to Logan, Utah, in the fall of 1942, when Janice was three years old. At first, they rented an upstairs apartment on 3rd North, then bought a four-apartment house west of Main Street, and eventually moved into Aunt Bell (Fullmer) and Uncle Vern Egan’s vacant home on West 3 Point Avenue, across the street from Grandma and Grandpa Fullmer’s home, and next to Uncle Clarence and Aunt Thelma Fullmer’s home. Uncle Don and Aunt Louie Fullmer lived across the street next to Grandma and Grandpa Fullmer.

While living in the four-apartment house in Logan, Janice, who had beautiful blond, curly hair, cut it all off close to her head. She piled the hair under the bathroom sink. When she came out of the bathroom, Dott looked at her and thought she looked different. The realization of what had occurred made Dott terribly upset. She never did forget about the incident and neither did Janice.

From Logan, the family moved to a new brick home at 444 South 200 East in Brigham City. While living in Brigham City during World War II, LaRue was over the PX and all recreational facilities at Bushnell Hospital, where the war amputees were sent for convalescence. One of the soldiers made a turquoise and silver bracelet and a ring, which LaRue bought. He gave the bracelet to Janice and the ring to Donna. On the east foothills of Brigham City, just before the road went up into the canyon, there was a large sand and gravel pit. Janice and her siblings used to go there and play in the sand. Once, while doing so, Janice buried her bracelet in the sand. They were never able to find it.

During the war everything was rationed, and stamps were allotted to each person to buy food items, shoes, gasoline, etc. Dott traded her sugar stamps with everyone she could in order to keep shoes on Janice’s feet, because she was so hard on them. Aunt Bell Egan, Dott’s sister, needed more sugar stamps than she was allotted in order to bottle her fruit, and Dott got plenty of them because of her large family. So, they traded back and forth a lot.

Grandma Claudia Jane Wayman Fullmer died on January 28, 1944, following a four year battle with cancer. She had turned fifty-seven years old the previous month. Grandpa David Franklin Fullmer died of a heart attack on October 9, 1944, at the age of 70. Dott received twelve hundred dollars from her father’s estate.

The Glass Company

As World War II was coming to a close, LaRue realized the hospital would be shut down. His brother, Duane, had received a medical discharge from the Navy and had been working for a glass company in Salt Lake. With Dott’s inheritance from her father and Uncle Duane’s glazing tools from the glass company, they bought Utah Glass Company in Salt Lake City. When the war ended, Uncle Grant and Uncle Newel were discharged from the Air Force and went into the business with their two older brothers. Then, Uncle Dale came into the business with them.

Since housing was extremely scarce in Salt Lake, the family moved into a former military housing unit in Verdeland Park in Layton. The bathtub was made of cement! In Layton during the winter, on occasions when Dott and LaRue were away from home in the evenings, Donna, Frank, Janice, and David would run barefoot in the snow across the field behind their house to see who could run the farthest. Many times, the snow would be frozen hard, and they would run on top of its crusty surface.

Grandpa and Grandma Linford and Uncle Dale, age 16, were living in Salt Lake City, and Grandma Leonora Hodges Linford died March 23, 1945, from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of fifty-five.

In the summer of 1946, the family moved to Salt Lake City into a house LaRue bought at 350 Marion Street. The house, which faced west, was long and narrow. There was a long, wooden porch along the south side, running from the front of the house to the door of the large room that later became the kitchen. There was a step down from the largest room into a small room at the back, which had been built onto the original old house. At first, this room was their kitchen, until LaRue converted the largest room into one. Then, the small room became a bedroom for Janice and Donna. The cupboards were still left hanging on the walls.

Scarlet Fever

In Salt Lake, Janice attended Onequa Elementary. On the last day of school in 1947, Janice came down with scarlet fever. She had become ill at school that day, but her teacher wouldn’t let her go home. Finally, Janice threw up several times, and the teacher decided she could go home. In those days, scarlet fever was a very serious disease, and the family was quarantined for six weeks. LaRue and Dott got special permission to leave the yard so he could go to work and she could go to the grocery store. Everyone in the family was given penicillin to take by mouth in order to prevent coming down with scarlet fever.

Following grade school, Janice went to Jackson Junior High and graduated from West High School in 1957. After graduation, her first job was in the Utah State Capitol building.

The Fullmer Family reunions were held at the park in Logan when Janice was growing up. Many years later they were held at Jordan Park in Salt Lake City, and eventually, they were held in the bowery behind an LDS church building on 600 West and about 2500 South in Salt Lake City. Janice and Donna went to them every year.

454 Chicago Street

LaRue bought some property and built a home at 454 Chicago Street, still in Riverside Ward, where he also served as bishop. The family moved there early in the year 1952.

During these years, she lived for a time with some girlfriends in the Sugar House area, but then returned home to live with her parents.

Janice was the maid of honor at her sister Donna’s wedding reception in 1954. She wore a wine-colored dress and the bridesmaids and flower girl wore pink dresses. Years later, she was at the reception table at the wedding reception for Donna’s oldest daughter, Debbie.

Grandpa James Franklin Linford used to walk in his sleep. Many of his descendants did, also. This included Janice. On February 15, 1961, Grandpa Linford died at the age of seventy-five. Donna and Janice went to Russon Brothers Mortuary in Salt Lake City to see Grandpa before the rest of the family arrived. Bishop Leo Russon was very solicitous and said he wanted to be sure Grandpa looked like Grandpa. Bishop Russon asked if Grandpa had always been so thin. They told him Grandpa had been very ill and was probably thinner than usual, but he had always been thin. Grandpa was buried in the Logan City Cemetery at the side of Grandma.

The story is told of a time when a young man came to pick Janice up to go on a date, and her little niece, Lynne Putnam, was there. Lynne began singing in a loud voice over and over, “Aunt Jan’s got a boyfriend, Aunt Jan’s got a boyfriend.” Jan was totally mortified.

Song and Dance

During the years 1958 to 1968, Janice was active with single adult organizations consisting of LDS members. She especially enjoyed performing with the “International Folklorics” dancing group, who did dances of different countries. She once said, “No wonder those Russians are so strong. They have to be to dance the way they do!” The group went in three cars to dance in Mexico City, where they had many interesting experiences. For example, one carload hit a cow, and they had to meet with the law and pay for the cow.

She sang with the Sacre Dulce Chorus. They practiced every Sunday after their church meetings. It was an LDS Singles group who put on sacrament meetings with speakers from the chorus and the chorus providing all the musical numbers. The directors of the chorus were Ron Pexton, Fred Blackburn, and Don Crandal. It was a fun group. They had many parties and “singouts” in many areas, some as far away as San Francisco, California. In Zions National Park they camped out and cooked over a fire. At Bear Lake they water skied and had water fights and many fun times.

Janice was on the committee for the Thursday night dances, held every Thursday night at the Terrace Ballroom in downtown Salt Lake City. This was an LDS function. Its attendees had to have a card signed by their bishop stating they were in good standing in their ward.

The Girls

Women from these groups, whom she called, “The Girls”, became her lifelong friends, and they continued to get together for birthdays to play cards – “Wild Horse Rummy,” Pinochle, and “Hand and Foot.” On special occasions they celebrated their birthdays by cooking steaks and eating them with salads, baked potatoes, and Janice’s wonderful strawberry dessert.

“The Girls” went on vacation to Hawaii May 24 to June 1, 1980. While there, some of the sites they visited were the Polynesian Cultural Center, the LDS Temple, Pearl Harbor, and Punch Bowl Cemetery.

Janice, Nancy Anderson, Teresa (Nancy’s young daughter), and Janet Kraus went on a Caribbean seven-to-ten day cruise.

She loved going to plays at Hale Centre Theatre and had season tickets for many years. Later, she took up golf. She joined her friend, Janet Kraus’ Utah Power and Light company Ladies Golf League. They played at Rose Park Golf Course on Redwood Road on Monday afternoons.

In the summer of 1977, Dott and LaRue left to serve a mission to the Washington D.C. Temple and Janice stayed at home on Chicago Street to take care of things. Her parents had planted a large garden that spring. It produced a great big banana squash, and Janice packaged it up and sent it by UPS to her parents. They couldn’t imagine what was in that large box. When they opened it and found the squash, what a surprise! They cut it up and shared it with all of the temple missionaries in the building where they lived.

While Dott and LaRue were on their mission, Janice found a lump in her breast. She called Donna, and together they went to the doctor. The lump was removed and was not malignant.

LaRue died July 15, 1983, from a massive heart attack while he and Dott were vacationing in their Winnebago motorhome at the Bear Lake CamperWorld.

After her father died, Dott, Janice, Donna, and Bob Putnam would go to dinner together on Friday nights. Sometimes it was to ­Sweet Tomatoes, or Little America, but later it was always to Robintino’s. Afterward, they would go to Dott’s house and play table games. Sometimes, Frank and Darlene would go to dinner with them.

Dott died November 6, 1998, from a stroke. She had suffered several small strokes over the years.

Acts of Service and Retirement

Janice never married. Following the death of her father in July 1983, she continued to live with and serve as a companion to her mother and help with her needs for more than fifteen years until her mother’s death in November 1998. Janice was always generous with her means, giving freely to her sister, brothers, and her many nieces and nephews whom she adored and who loved their Aunt Jan.

Janice loved the Lord and was always an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She served faithfully in various callings, including Relief Society teacher, gospel doctrine teacher, ward newsletter editor, and visiting teacher.

Janice retired from L-3 Communications August 1, 2004, where she had worked for forty-six years, first as a secretary, and then specializing in computer graphics. She enjoyed giving service and volunteered at the front desk in LDS Hospital two days a week following her retirement. Her brother, Frank, served with her at the desk. Her brother-in-law, Bob Putnam, and her sister, Donna, also volunteered at the hospital during that time.

Deteriorating Health

Janice had surgery to remove her gall bladder, which was to have been a simple laparoscopic surgery. But a stone had lodged itself in a place they couldn’t reach, so it was necessary to open her up. In doing so, they found she had two tubes from her liver that had to be closed off, instead of just one. If that hadn’t been done, she would have died.

Received endowment in the Salt Lake Temple on January 13, 2007. Many ward members, friends, and relatives were there with her.

Janice had a complete hysterectomy as a result of cervical cancer. A year or two later, a node that was left in became malignant, and she went to the Huntsman Cancer Center weekly for radiation treatments. At first, Donna went with her, but then Jan decided she could go by herself.

Janice lost her balance and fell several times, resulting in severe head injuries. One time was when she was sitting in the chair at LDS Hospital front desk and it fell backward. She hit her head hard on the floor. While in the ER, she was so embarrassed that she told them she was all right. Another time was when she was walking over to Donna’s so they could go somewhere together, she fell on American Beauty Drive at 800 North, causing a large hematoma over one eye and scraping her face. Donna took her to Instant Care for examination.

Janice began having problems with her memory in 2008, which first manifested itself in her speech. In the middle of a sentence, her mind would go totally blank. The culmination was when she was asked to give the prayer in church one day, and in the middle of it, her mind went completely blank and she couldn’t finish the prayer. What an embarrassment and distress that was to her. Also, driving her car became more erratic and somewhat scary to the passengers.

While volunteering at LDS Hospital, Janice and Frank would come just as Donna’s shift concluded, and the three of them would go to the hospital cafeteria and eat dinner. One time, Janice didn’t show up at LDS Hospital for her shift. Nor did she answer the phone when Donna called her home several times. So, Donna and Frank went to find Jan. She was in her basement bedroom where she had fallen the night before and stayed there, on the floor, not answering the phone three-feet away, all night and all the next day. Donna cleaned her up, put her in bed, and took her to the doctor the next day.

By January 2009, her condition had deteriorated. She was unable to form sentences or explain things she was trying to say, lost completely her train of thought, couldn’t answer questions asked of her, and had a total loss of memory of recent happenings.

In 2009, it was found that Janice had developed a benign cyst on her brain stem. In April, the doctor told her the tumor will grow gradually and couldn’t be cured. If it grew bigger, it would cause sensation symptoms, motor weakness, problems in her arms and legs, and put pressure on the spinal cord. Eventually, it would depress the spinal cord and she would have symptoms. He didn’t know how long it would be until that happened. He told her to decide whether to get it out then or wait until it grew bigger or caused problems.

The problem with waiting was they never know if the symptoms she was having would be resolved by taking the tumor out, or if she would have them forever. He advised taking it out because she was not getting any younger and the tumor was not getting any smaller.

Janice hoped removal of the tumor would help with the problems she was having due to the onset of dementia. The doctor said it wouldn’t, and it didn’t. Prior to the surgery, she decided to have her sister, Donna, given Power of Attorney, and information about her financial investments, etc.

Janice went to her appointment with Dr. Reichman, who said the cyst on her brain stem would not cause the problems she was having. He asked if she had been to see a neurologist. When she told him no, he said she must do that, return to see him on March 18, after she had seen the neurologist, and then they will determine what to do about the cyst. Janice was very upset and said she thought the cyst was the cause of the problems she has been having. She immediately called Salt Lake Clinic to see if she could see Dr. Skuster after all, and was told the first opening for an appointment is April 1, which is two weeks after she is supposed to see Dr. Reichman again.

Assisted Living

Following the surgery, Janice was unable to live alone any longer. She went into a rehab facility in Bountiful, and from there to Heritage Place on Main Street in Bountiful for assisted living.

Eventually, the neurologist, Dr. Skuster, arranged for a PET scan and found that the front and temporal lobes of her brain were deteriorating. She was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

By July 2009, the tremors were getting worse.

The neurologist thought it might be hereditary and not Parkinson’s, and she said to only contact her again if there was a need at all.

She tired very easily. Some of it may have had to do with what to her were stressful situations, such as when she went to the doctor. Even playing games or having company tired her.

She told her niece that she didn’t get involved in the activities at Heritage Place because she wasn’t going to be there that long. However, one time she did walk, using her walker, several blocks with a group of ladies from there to get some ice cream. She was chastised by her occupational therapist for doing that. She enjoyed the outing and ice cream, but was very tired after going.

She went by bus with a group from Heritage Place to the open house for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and enjoyed that very much.

She said she liked it at Heritage Place, but she would be glad when she could go home. In a lot of ways she was becoming more like a child.

She said the thing she wanted to do more than anything else was drive her car.

She spent most of her time watching television, which is what she was doing when she was at home.

A lot of her problems seemed to have come about since she retired.

She said she couldn’t do anything anymore and was tired all the time. She said she was lonesome, and she slept a lot. She was stubborn when pressed about things.

The occupational therapist said she had brain damage, and that was what was causing her problem.

Janice left Heritage Place twice without permission and walked to Smith’s Marketplace alone. When she got there, she didn’t know where she was or how to get back. Her brother Frank found her there one time when he went to buy groceries. It was raining, and he took her back to Heritage Place. They had to watch her because she would sneak out of the back door at Heritage Place. Finally, she was moved into a confined dementia area for her own protection.

She had been seeing two therapists, a physical therapist, and a speech. The physical therapist said she acted like those who had stroke aftermath. Her limiting factor was now her cognition issue. Speech will help with that as much as possible.

She stopped mentioning she wanted to go home or drive her car.

One Monday evening when Rodney and Carol Hatch stopped at Heritage Place to pick up Jan before going to pick up Donna to go the Hale Centre Theatre, they found that Jan had fallen and was badly hurt. Carol telephoned Donna, who went there immediately. Jan had been in the bathroom and an aide said it was her fault that Jan had fallen and hit her head. (She later recanted her being the cause for this fall because her superiors told her not to take the blame and to say it was Janice’s fault.) Donna called Frank, who came and gave Janice a blessing. When he left he told Donna to leave, too, but she thought it better to stay with Jan, who later began throwing up and was very sick. Donna called David, who said to call the paramedics and have them take Jan to the hospital and not to drive Jan there herself. So, Donna called the paramedics. The Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful had the nearest emergency room. After examining Janice, they said she should be taken to IMC, and the ambulance took her there. Upon examination, it was found that Jan had a concussion and bleeding on her brain. That was the worst fall she had ever had.

Janice was moved to the memory care ward at Heritage Place. It became evident that the staff at Heritage Place wasn’t equipped to care in a proper way for dementia residents because they didn’t have the proper training for memory care.

So, on September 30, 2011, Janice went to live at Legacy Village Memory Care in Taylorsville, Utah.

By June 18, 2012, Jan had lost 45 pounds in about six weeks because she has quit eating and refuses to take anything they try to feed her, even her medications. Her refusal to eat began when she had a flu type virus that was in the whole facility.

It was found that Jan had Diabetes. So, they started her on insulin and checked her blood every day (pricking her finger) and giving her an insulin shot.

Hospice

On June 25, the decision was made to start her on Hospice, which was done. They went to the facility every day to test her blood and give her an insulin shot.

Because the shots for diabetes were so distressing to Janice, the doctor later decided to discontinue them.

Janice rallied and was taken off Hospice.

Then, in December 2015, Janice was again put on Hospice because her condition had deteriorated so much. Unable to speak, she expressed herself by yelling when needing a drink of water, or something to eat, or when she was having pain.

While visiting with Janice, Donna and she would say nursery rhymes, each saying one line and the other the next. And, every time Donna left Jan after a visit, she always said, “See you later alligator!” And Jan would respond with, “After awhile crocodile.” This continued until January 2016, when the effects of the dementia became so severe that Jan could no longer respond.

—

Janice Linford, beloved sister, aunt, and friend, returned to her Heavenly Father, at 6:55 a.m. on Wednesday, February 3, 2016, at the Legacy Village Memory Care in Taylorsville, Utah, after enduring the devastating effects of Frontotemporal Dementia for several years. Viewings were held Friday, February 5, at the McDougal Funeral Home; 4330 South Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, and on Saturday, February 6, at the LDS Bernina Ward Building, 3045 Bernina Dr. (5820 S) Taylorsville, Utah, prior to the services. She was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery next to her parents.

Janice was an angel, a valiant and courageous example of faith, kindness, and service, always giving of herself to all who were blessed to know her. In lieu of flowers, the family suggested contributions be made to the General Missionary fund of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in memory of Janice.

Janice is survived by her sister, Donna Linford Putnam, Salt Lake City, Utah; brothers: Frank Fullmer Linford, Elk Ridge, Utah; David Fullmer Linford and his wife Marilyn, Clearfield, Utah; James Fullmer Linford and his wife Cheryl, Santaquin, Utah; Richard Fullmer Linford, Centerville, Utah; and many loved nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, LaRue Hodges and Dott Fullmer Linford; a brother-in-law, Robert Lynn Putnam (Donna’s husband); two sisters-in-law, Darlene Tracy Linford (Frank’s wife) and Karel Kilfoyle Linford (Richard’s wife); a niece, Julee Linford Marlin, daughter of David and Marilyn Linford; and two nephews, David Ray Marlin (Julee’s husband), and James David Linford, son of David and Marilyn Linford.

The family expressed special appreciation to the dedicated staff at Legacy Village Memory Care and to Brighton Home Health & Hospice for their compassionate and loving care of Janice.