Phyllis Call Ball
Born: April 17,1932
Much of the information on the Call family came from Phyllis Call Ball, whose biography is below.
The research and interviews for the Call Family Histories were conducted by Melanie Gunsay as a project for the
Bountiful Historical Preservation Foundation from a grant provided by the Utah Office of Museum Services.
Phyllis Call Ball
Phyllis Call was born April 17,1932, the fifth child of a family of seven. It was during the depression and she was born at home. Her home was an old rock home built in 1878 and is till standing at 10th North and 2nd West in Bountiful. It was heated by a coal stove in the kitchen and another coal heater in the front room. The bedrooms were not heated, however she grew up with water and electricity. In the bathroom, there was a bathtub with claw feet, and when Phyllis was about 10 years old, their family moved to another home that had an electric stove and a central heating coal furnace.
Phyllis would wash dishes and wipe the dishes dry after every meal. Her father was a farmer and a very young age, Phyllis went to the fields with him to work. Phyllis would help her father with weeding, hoeing and harvesting of the fruits and vegetables.
She helped her mother with canning and other household chores such as dusting, vacuuming, cleaning wallpaper, cooking, etc. Phyllis worked on the farm every summer until she reached the age of 18. During the fall (when she 18), she entered the Thomas D. Dee Hospital School of Nursing in Ogden. During her schooling, she lived at a home with the other nurses, and she ate at the hospital, and it did not cost money to gain this education. The hospital also provided the nurses with their uniforms and had them laundered, too.
Phyllis mother was a very hard worker. She cared for a large family and she would cook all of her meals from scratch. She was very industrious during the difficult times of the depression. She was a church leader, a genealogist, and a dedicated wife.
Phyllis’s father provided good food to the family. He milked a cow, raised chickens for meat and eggs, raised pigs for meat and hunted deer and pheasants. He would hunt pheasants between 2nd west and I-15 in Bountiful and also on 10th North and Pages lane. He also raised onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips, tomatoes, cucumbers. Beans, peas asparagus, potatoes and watermelons. The family has some fruit trees, too. They had peaches, prunes, apricots, cherries and apples. They also produced raspberries, currants and gooseberries. Phyllis did not picking the gooseberries or the red currants because they had painful thorns! The family seldom needed to go to the grocery store.
Phyllis’s mother washed her clothes with everything from a washboard to an automatic washing machine. Phyllis remembers a new twin tub Dexter washing machine with a wringer! To use the washer, a hose was used to furnish the hot water. Homemade soap or white king bars were used in the washer and bluing was put into the rinse tubs. The clothes were put into the first tub and agitated for a while then they were placed through the wringer to the rinse tub, and through the wringer again into a basket and outside to the clothes line and hung to dry summer and winter. This was done on Mondays. Phyllis’s mother always cooked a big kettle of navy beans and ham on wash day to serve for dinner. On Tuesday, my mother would iron the clothes.
Phyllis always wore dresses except in the summer. She would wear her brothers old levis and long sleeve work shirts to work in the fields. She would also wear a wide brim straw hat and working gloves. During her childhood, Phyllis wore long brown heavy socks held up by a garter belt under her dress and petticoat. On Easter, she was allowed to take off the long stockings and wear anklets.
Phyllis’s father proposed to her mother in a horse and buggy outside of Kaysville and their first automobile was a Model T Ford purchased by her father and his two brothers. Her parents could use it every third week.
Phyllis met her husband the summer after graduation in 1950. He was about to serve in the army, and their courtship consisted of letter writing for two and half years. When he returned home from his military service, they dated and were married in 1953, after Phyllis completed her nursing training.
HOME