A Few Memories

I’m so grateful for the great parents I have,

Father: Orley Edwin Bills Sr. Dad has Passed away
Mother: Joy Matilda Bentley Bills, Mother is presently living at the Manor Care Nursing Facility

My parents worked hard all of their lives to provide for the needs of their family, including their children, brothers and sisters, and their parents.

Growing up we didn’t have a lot. Financially we would have been considered poor. But we always had a home to live in, Food to eat and clothes to wear.

Our food was always very good as my mother was an excellent cook, she could even make Liver taste good, and I hate liver

What I didn’t know until I got much older was that we were so rich in other ways, I wish I would have realized it sooner.

Dad loved doing things with his kids, We never went on a vacation that I can remember, but we did go to the park a lot and up the canyon for picnics,
drives in the mountains, day fishing excursions, and as a young girl of about 8 or 9 I can remember going jack rabbit hunting with my dad, as he would shoot the rabbits I would go get them and carry all of them by their long hairy ears, when we got back to the car, he threw all the rabbits away,
I was upset but dad explained to me what a pest the jack rabbits were, and how they destroyed farmers crops and that they were not good for eating.
He said we were actually helping farmers by killing these pests.

Another time Dad and I went fishing, He had previously broken his ankle and was in a walking cast, He helped me get my hook baited and then he went off a ways down the river to do his own fishing. I had no sooner cast my hook into the river when I felt a tug on my line, I yelled for dad and he came hobbling as fast as he could to help me. We got my line reeled in and what I thought had been a fish was actually my shoe, I had taken my shoes Con’t Jan

off and was going barefoot. I guess when I cast my line in the hook got caught in my show and I cast shoe worm and all into the river.

As a young wife and mother I really began to appreciate my own mother,
I understood then how much she actually loved me, she had loved me enough to actually set down rules that she expected me to obey, grounded me when I didn’t obey them, and all at once I began to understand what a great teacher and example she had always been to me. And I began to understand why there had to be rules and punishments. I feel I have become the person I am today because of my mother.

Whenever I got discouraged while raising my own children, mom would sometimes show up and take me out to breakfast or lunch and just get me away from it all for a short time. In times of Illness my mom always knew just what to do, I was constantly calling her for advise or a recipe, it was helpful sometimes just to hear her voice, then it seemed like all would be well in my world for a little bit.

I can remember getting sassy with mom one time and thinking I could just run away from her to escape punishment, I sadly found out that my Mom could run faster than I could.