In 1954, my father was working on his PhD at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He and my mother had been married for six years and had never been able to have children. They were surprised to learn in early 1954 that my mother was pregnant. Here they were, in Ithaca, away from family! After one office visit in early March, mom remembered that they “plopped” her on the table and took an Xray. When they came back, they treated her like a carton of eggs, and carefully helped her off the table.

Then much to their surprise, one night, the doctor showed up at their door. Ithaca doctors never made house calls. He came in and said, “I hope you want your family big.”

My dad queried, “You mean it’s twins?”

“Bigger than that,” returned the doctor. “It’s triplets!”

They were told not to tell anyone because mom would become “an object of curiosity.”

We were born without incident in April, 1954, around five pounds each. Our family returned to Utah after my dad obtained his degree and eventually located in Orem.

My mom’s family grew up in Ogden (Lorenzo and Esther Jarman) and two of her aunts, Trilby Jarman Hindmarsh and Mina Jarman Tanner, who lived in Ogden were like grandmothers to us as our grandma died when we were 5. We came to Ogden often growing up and now my family and I live in Harrisville.

Joanne Frost Christensen, Harrisville