Ferneth Brown Courtright
My Early Years
It was the year 1934, on September 2, in the small town of Virden, New Mexico, a baby daughter was born to Floyd Alonzo and Elmina Brown. I was the sixth of eight children.
That year, three days after I was born, Daddy came for Mamma and me at her mother's and took us to our upper valley home. In October, I received a name and a blessing, and was given the name Ferneth. I very likely wore a pink and white crocheted dress created by Grandma Brown. If so, I was so prettily dressed. My first picture was taken when I was three years old.
My Earlier Years include the basics of the following memories:
I remember Colleen's birth when I was almost three. I was kept from seeing her because I had whooping cough.
About six months later, I went to Merrill's store a block away and bought a candy bar with a nickel Daddy gave me. I wanted to give the candy to Ilene, who was sick with Typhoid Fever, hoping she would feel better.
Pictures taken in early 1937 were the first family pictures. Perhaps the photo session was the first sign of healing hearts from DeWitt's death in 1931. It was Ilene's last picture.
Ilene's death in 1937 was a sad child loss in our family for the second time.
An accident when I was five, spring of 1939. It was after Grandpa Brown and Pratt's deaths.
Daddy was working in the field on our farm west of town. I fell on a disk harrow.
Rita's birth, April 20, 1943. Our move to Kirtland October 31, 1943, from Virden, both in New Mexico. Maybe it was a moving on from severe trials of the 30s.
Our home in Kirtland included a living room, dining/kitchen, l bedroom, and front porch. The boys slept in storage room; we girls on the front porch, except for winter months.
First 4th of July community celebration, Mamma made dresses for Colleen, Rita and me. Red and white striped skirts and blouses. Oh, to have had pictures of that!
Daddy was made counselor in the Kirtland, LDS Ward. Mamma was called to music positions and Relief Society.
Mamma and Elsie Tanner were dear friends. Our families were close and children of both families shared wonderful friendships.
I babysat for the Russell Allens. Bishop Beckstead and wife, Cleah, took me with them to General Conference in Salt Lake City so I could babysit their young son.
Reva invited me to spend a week out on the reservation at the family trading post.
My first beau at age 13. Mr. Stocks was our principal. For 8th grade, he took our class to Farmington to the movies. R.B. Foutz asked me to sit by him. We held hands. Mamma took Colleen, Rita and me to a friend's orchard in Farmington
We picked white cherries for canning, which seemed almost a rarity. Mom was so excited to have access to a whole tree of white cherries.
Mamma was diagnosed with cancer the fall of 1946. That same day I had a knee injury. Mamma did well for a while. However, the cancer spread to the liver and she died February 18, 1947, the day after Daddy's birthday. We were left grief stricken. Kate Merrill and three of her children lived with us for a while.
An experience with a friend, Aleta Wheeler, who invited me to go to Farmington to a movie on a Sunday. She was allowed to drive her car at the age of 14. It sounded exciting to me. Daddy said it was a Sunday, and he didn't think I should go, but it was my decision. I went. Then realized Aleta was meeting a boyfriend. It wasn't anything more than that, but I learned later some of my friends' mothers were worried for me. I learned not to feed rumors, and I never went to a movie on Sunday again.
The fall of November, 1948, I had just started high school. November 1, Daddy's sudden death became a change so unwanted; we would then struggle with the break-up of our family. Returning to Virden, I lived with the Rob Mortensen family. High School, instead of the exciting time I had looked forward to since grade school, became a time of doing what was expected of me and wishing things were different. My Junior Year I was voted Queen of the high school prom. At a Music Festival in Silver City, I received certificates for achievement in a piano and voice recital. My senior year I was sent to Safford to live with a great aunt, Sylvia Burrell.
Coming of Age Years
I worked part-time in Mesa, starting college at Arizona State College. The summer of 1953, I stayed with Fern and Grandma Brown before going to BYU. Grandma wanted me to become a teacher, but just the idea of standing before a room full of students was something I didn't think I could do. I wish I had listened to Gramma B. and that someone would have told me that training to be a teacher would help me overcome the fear of being before students.
I started school at Brigham Young University in 1953, graduating in 1957 after a year off when I went to San Francisco to work, having run out of money. It was a wonderful experience of being on my own and making good decisions that kept me safe and active in San Francisco Ward.
In 1957 I went to Los Angeles to work. My sister Colleen went with me. We became members of Wilshire Ward, a mostly singles ward. Bishop Pratt showed great faith in me as he asked me to be drama director, then activities director, and finally Young Women's President for the ward MIA. I worked with a drama instructor of a private school, Tedd Woods, to produce a play, Good News. The following year, 1959, we produced a second play, Plain and Fancy.
The summer of 1960, after finding a new job and a new place to live, I moved to Westwood, not far from the Los Angeles Temple. My job was for the president of Computer Equipment Corp., as well as the acting Personnel Director.
I met Ivan Courtright in January 1962 and we dated for a year. By August we were getting serious, so he went with me to our Brown Family reunion. Everyone liked him. I was impressed with how good he was with children, which we hadn't been around as we dated. We got engaged on my birthday (Sept. 2), and were married at the LDS Institute, USC campus, in Los Angeles on February 2, 1963. We were sealed in the Mesa Temple on July 5, 1963.
My Courtright Years
Ivan was bornin Santa Monica, California, March 19, 1936. He had graduated in geology from UCLA and served as an officer in Army Intelligence and later as a Special Agent. When we met, he was in graduate school at USC and working as a sales engineer in the field of scientific instruments.
Our first home was in Sherman Oaks. We moved to northern California in 1968, settling in the Los Altos and Mountain View communities, where we raised our family over the next 25 years. We especially loved vacationing by the sea in Monterey, or going to Yosemite Valley and hiking the mountain trails.
In the fall of 1994, when the economy tanked and jobs in the Silicon Valley had dried up, Ivan and I returned to southern California. Leaving our children was very hard to do. They were just going on their own, and it was unsettling to everyone. We now live in Anaheim Hills and are members of the Anaheim Sixth Ward, Anaheim California East Stake.
It was the year 1934, on September 2, in the small town of Virden, New Mexico, a baby daughter was born to Floyd Alonzo and Elmina Brown. I was the sixth of eight children.
That year, three days after I was born, Daddy came for Mamma and me at her mother's and took us to our upper valley home. In October, I received a name and a blessing, and was given the name Ferneth. I very likely wore a pink and white crocheted dress created by Grandma Brown. If so, I was so prettily dressed. My first picture was taken when I was three years old.
My Earlier Years include the basics of the following memories:
I remember Colleen's birth when I was almost three. I was kept from seeing her because I had whooping cough.
About six months later, I went to Merrill's store a block away and bought a candy bar with a nickel Daddy gave me. I wanted to give the candy to Ilene, who was sick with Typhoid Fever, hoping she would feel better.
Pictures taken in early 1937 were the first family pictures. Perhaps the photo session was the first sign of healing hearts from DeWitt's death in 1931. It was Ilene's last picture.
Ilene's death in 1937 was a sad child loss in our family for the second time.
An accident when I was five, spring of 1939. It was after Grandpa Brown and Pratt's deaths.
Daddy was working in the field on our farm west of town. I fell on a disk harrow.
Rita's birth, April 20, 1943. Our move to Kirtland October 31, 1943, from Virden, both in New Mexico. Maybe it was a moving on from severe trials of the 30s.
Our home in Kirtland included a living room, dining/kitchen, l bedroom, and front porch. The boys slept in storage room; we girls on the front porch, except for winter months.
First 4th of July community celebration, Mamma made dresses for Colleen, Rita and me. Red and white striped skirts and blouses. Oh, to have had pictures of that!
Daddy was made counselor in the Kirtland, LDS Ward. Mamma was called to music positions and Relief Society.
Mamma and Elsie Tanner were dear friends. Our families were close and children of both families shared wonderful friendships.
I babysat for the Russell Allens. Bishop Beckstead and wife, Cleah, took me with them to General Conference in Salt Lake City so I could babysit their young son.
Reva invited me to spend a week out on the reservation at the family trading post.
My first beau at age 13. Mr. Stocks was our principal. For 8th grade, he took our class to Farmington to the movies. R.B. Foutz asked me to sit by him. We held hands. Mamma took Colleen, Rita and me to a friend's orchard in Farmington
We picked white cherries for canning, which seemed almost a rarity. Mom was so excited to have access to a whole tree of white cherries.
Mamma was diagnosed with cancer the fall of 1946. That same day I had a knee injury. Mamma did well for a while. However, the cancer spread to the liver and she died February 18, 1947, the day after Daddy's birthday. We were left grief stricken. Kate Merrill and three of her children lived with us for a while.
An experience with a friend, Aleta Wheeler, who invited me to go to Farmington to a movie on a Sunday. She was allowed to drive her car at the age of 14. It sounded exciting to me. Daddy said it was a Sunday, and he didn't think I should go, but it was my decision. I went. Then realized Aleta was meeting a boyfriend. It wasn't anything more than that, but I learned later some of my friends' mothers were worried for me. I learned not to feed rumors, and I never went to a movie on Sunday again.
The fall of November, 1948, I had just started high school. November 1, Daddy's sudden death became a change so unwanted; we would then struggle with the break-up of our family. Returning to Virden, I lived with the Rob Mortensen family. High School, instead of the exciting time I had looked forward to since grade school, became a time of doing what was expected of me and wishing things were different. My Junior Year I was voted Queen of the high school prom. At a Music Festival in Silver City, I received certificates for achievement in a piano and voice recital. My senior year I was sent to Safford to live with a great aunt, Sylvia Burrell.
Coming of Age Years
I worked part-time in Mesa, starting college at Arizona State College. The summer of 1953, I stayed with Fern and Grandma Brown before going to BYU. Grandma wanted me to become a teacher, but just the idea of standing before a room full of students was something I didn't think I could do. I wish I had listened to Gramma B. and that someone would have told me that training to be a teacher would help me overcome the fear of being before students.
I started school at Brigham Young University in 1953, graduating in 1957 after a year off when I went to San Francisco to work, having run out of money. It was a wonderful experience of being on my own and making good decisions that kept me safe and active in San Francisco Ward.
In 1957 I went to Los Angeles to work. My sister Colleen went with me. We became members of Wilshire Ward, a mostly singles ward. Bishop Pratt showed great faith in me as he asked me to be drama director, then activities director, and finally Young Women's President for the ward MIA. I worked with a drama instructor of a private school, Tedd Woods, to produce a play, Good News. The following year, 1959, we produced a second play, Plain and Fancy.
The summer of 1960, after finding a new job and a new place to live, I moved to Westwood, not far from the Los Angeles Temple. My job was for the president of Computer Equipment Corp., as well as the acting Personnel Director.
I met Ivan Courtright in January 1962 and we dated for a year. By August we were getting serious, so he went with me to our Brown Family reunion. Everyone liked him. I was impressed with how good he was with children, which we hadn't been around as we dated. We got engaged on my birthday (Sept. 2), and were married at the LDS Institute, USC campus, in Los Angeles on February 2, 1963. We were sealed in the Mesa Temple on July 5, 1963.
My Courtright Years
Ivan was bornin Santa Monica, California, March 19, 1936. He had graduated in geology from UCLA and served as an officer in Army Intelligence and later as a Special Agent. When we met, he was in graduate school at USC and working as a sales engineer in the field of scientific instruments.
Our first home was in Sherman Oaks. We moved to northern California in 1968, settling in the Los Altos and Mountain View communities, where we raised our family over the next 25 years. We especially loved vacationing by the sea in Monterey, or going to Yosemite Valley and hiking the mountain trails.
In the fall of 1994, when the economy tanked and jobs in the Silicon Valley had dried up, Ivan and I returned to southern California. Leaving our children was very hard to do. They were just going on their own, and it was unsettling to everyone. We now live in Anaheim Hills and are members of the Anaheim Sixth Ward, Anaheim California East Stake.
Information for Ferneth Brown Courtright
Parents: Floyd Alonzo & Elmina Mortensen Brown
Birth: September 2, 1934
Place: Virden, New Mexico
Marriage: February 2, 1963
Place: LDS Institute USC, Los Angeles, CA
Sealed: July 5, 1963
Place: Mesa, Arizona Temple
Spouse: Ivan Courtright
Birth: March 19, 1936
Place: Santa Monica, California
Parents: Ivan Allspaugh Courtright & Cecil Irene Runyan
Children
Camela Courtright (21 May 1966 – present)
Charlene Courtright Summers (17 Oct 1966 – 26 Jan 2009)
Bradley Brown Courtright, aka Luke Rainey (5 Jan 1969 – present)
Candra Courtright, aka Candra Tyler Rainey (24 May 1974 – present)
Birth: September 2, 1934
Place: Virden, New Mexico
Marriage: February 2, 1963
Place: LDS Institute USC, Los Angeles, CA
Sealed: July 5, 1963
Place: Mesa, Arizona Temple
Spouse: Ivan Courtright
Birth: March 19, 1936
Place: Santa Monica, California
Parents: Ivan Allspaugh Courtright & Cecil Irene Runyan
Children
Camela Courtright (21 May 1966 – present)
Charlene Courtright Summers (17 Oct 1966 – 26 Jan 2009)
Bradley Brown Courtright, aka Luke Rainey (5 Jan 1969 – present)
Candra Courtright, aka Candra Tyler Rainey (24 May 1974 – present)