A Lifelong Resident Recounts the Changes By Linda Helms After a great farming year for our family in 1952, we got a brand-new car from the dealer in Jerome. We also bought a set of encyclopedias to put
The Curb Ditch Project By Max Jenkins In the spring of 1958, I finished my sophomore year in pharmacy at Idaho State College in Pocatello and returned to my folks’ home on the south side of Grangeville. A
And Strength of Mind By Trisha Taylor Photos courtesy of Trisha Taylor When I was around ten years old, I wanted to go see Terri Clark in concert at the Twin Falls County Fair, but I got pneumonia
After Divorce, a Retreat By Kim Steinberg Photos courtesy of Monastery of the Ascension Divorce is a death. The death of dreams, the death of a family, and often, the loss of a father. Mine was all three.
The distant rumble of an all-too-familiar summer storm approaches from the west. I take a few steps outside my place near Jerome and look to the southeast, to judge how high the clouds are by the amount of light being reflected from the radio towers on the butte. The faint red glow tells me that lightning is more than likely hitting the ground. Another two rumbles that sound as I walk back into the house to grab my camera confirm my earlier thought. I decide to grab the camera, umbrella, and a jacket and walk onto the field rather than driving, as I am most likely working against a quickly shrinking timetable. With gear in hand, I head out and am instantly greeted by the cool, musty smell of rain being driven my way by the breeze. Continue reading
I went into the Jerome Library the other day and realized that since I first moved to town in 1998, much has changed—not only inside the building but in me, concerning how I think about and use libraries.
Before I moved here, I probably hadn’t visited a library more than two or three times since leaving college, and I still held the misconception that they were operated by gray-haired ladies who checked out books and shelved them according to some indecipherable system of their own, all the while maintaining the reverent silence of a funeral home. Boy, was I in for a surprise.
The first few years after I retired and moved to Jerome, I worked at two or three temporary jobs, but mostly I checked out books at the library, went fishing in good weather, and read when it was too wet, windy, or cold to fish. When I learned of a used book sale at the library, I bought a bag full of books at a bargain price. I spoke to a lady working at the sale, who invited me to join the Friends of the Library (FOL). The dues were, and still are, ten dollars a year. I’ve been attending the monthly meetings all this time, and am now president of the group.
By 2005, demands on our library had grown to the point that expansion and renovation of the building were badly needed. Thanks to a million-dollar donation from the estate of schoolteacher and longtime Jerome resident Evelyn Crowder, we completed a remodel and expansion of the facility in 2006.
I often wonder what the women who founded the library back in 1909 would think if they could visit it today and see our more than thirty thousand volumes, maintained with an annual operating budget of more than three hundred thousand dollars. Continue reading
In 1970, the Ray family lived on a small farm west of Wendell. May 12 made headlines in the Jerome newspaper, because twelve babies were delivered that day, an amazing number for the little hospital at the time. I was one of the twelve, the newest addition to the Rays.
We children often walked down the long lane from our home to the barn, where my mom milked the cows late at night. One of my first memories, from when I was about three, is walking down the lane and suddenly realizing I could not see. It was night and very dark. I began to scream and my sister said, “Just give your eyes a minute to adjust.” Continue reading
