Elko

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Colleen Mary Andra’s Journal

This is the work of several hours of typing.  An hour here, an hour there, adding to a cumulative of about 10 hours over the past year.  I am happy to report, I have finally completed this task.
I never knew my Grandmother kept a journal until my Sister mentioned it to me in 2003.  I was finally able to snag it from my Aunt Jackie on the promise I would return it.  To uphold that promise and to ensure it is not lost with it going back into her hands (you would have to know the situation to understand) I have typed the entire thing up.  The same like I did with my Great Grandmother’s (Lillian Coley Jonas 1898-1987) journals.
To preserve these journals for posterity, I will place them all up here (Lillians’ will be up shortly).
This journal starts in mid 1944 and ends fall 1946.  It is her high school years and covers several noteworthy dates.  She records V-E and V-J day.  She comments about the passing and birthday of siblings.  While her entries are typically short, they do flesh out years I knew nothing of previously.  There are many sites mentioned which do not appear to be still present and even in asking older people, they do not know them either.  White City is the main location nobody seems to remember.  I assume the saw mill is the Temple Saw Mill site up Logan Canyon.  Logana was a swimming hole in Logan.  Another issue is that many people are mentioned by their first name only, and even then many by nickname.  I do not assume Dutch, Chick, and other names are actual names.  Hence my difficulty.  I fear only those closest to the situation would know who these people really where, and most of those closest don’t remember or are no longer available for asking.
There are also cultural things which have changed.  Going to a movie or swimming on Sunday is now taboo in LDS culture where they were much more common place then.  The separated meeting schedule is apparent with Sunday School and night church (Sacrament) being defined as separate meetings.  Most of us would not even make mention to the fact that we listened to the radio where it was made special mention of in this journal.  The putting up of the hair is another phrase which is not heard anymore.  Other phrases in the journal have a completely different connotation in today’s world and hopefully they will not be understood in that light.
Colleen Mary Andra was born 27 May 1928 in Preston, Franklin, Idaho.  As the journal shows, the main location of most events is Preston, Idaho.  She married Wilburn Norwood Jonas 27 Sep 1946 in Elko, Elko, Nevada as is obvious in the journal.  I have written more about them at this link:  Jonas-Andra Wedding.
There are interesting things to note of the Jonas family as well.  The marriage of Evan and Lona, the death of Irwin Jonas, and more are to be found.  The journal definitely focuses on the Andra side in its short entries.  Norwood would die tragically in 1975.  Colleen would remarry twice more before she would pass away suddenly in 1999 from an operation.
I hope for those who read this and can add anything more, I would appreciate hearing from you.  Defining more of these people and places involved would be great help and very appreciated.  Please feel free to download a copy (by clicking on the link below) for your reading pleasure.  I beg of you for your input and recollections!

Colleen’s Journal 1944-1946
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Out with the old liver, in with the new!

It has been an interesting day.  I was awakened last night by the ringing telephone around 12:30 AM.  It was Jan, my step-mother, informing me that my Dad and she were headed to Salt Lake City.  They had received a phone call that Dad needed to head to the hospital.  There was a liver coming to Salt Lake from Elko, Nevada.
Dad was right in his premonition that he would have a liver soon.  Many people wait years and die without ever receiving a liver transplant.  Dad had one within a few months.  I don’t remember exactly how long it has been, but I think it is less than 6 months.  Funny how things line up sometimes.
He went in for surgery about 8:30 AM this morning.  I guess the liver had to arrive and they had to inspect it to make sure it was suitable for Dad.  Can you imagine that scene?  “Hmmm, Dr. do you concur?  I do believe it is a liver.  Shall we fry some to make sure?  This thing is huge, are they sure it doesn’t belong to a horse?  Where did I put that tape measure?”
It seems a bit morbid to think that somebody was just dying to give this liver to Dad.  We don’t know what happened to the person who gave it up but one thing came out of the whole scenario, it is a big liver.  Jan commented later that they had to trim quite a bit off.  I never really considered that you could just trim it down to size.  I don’t imagine many organs you can do that.  What about a heart, it just seems it would not be the same after the trim.
The surgery was supposed to take 8 hours.  But at 5:30 Jan called me to tell me they had not put the new liver in.  What is up with that?  Talk about milking the clock.  I am sure they did not clock out for lunch and whatever else they were doing.  I hope they did not sew an onion ring up inside.
I write this at about 5 hours after when they were supposed to be done and I just received another call that they just finished hooking up all the blood vessels and such but they had yet to do the bile ducts.  The Dr. made a comment about doing a lot of trimming.
You must remember I am hearing all this information through chinese whispers.  I am sure they do not really divulge everything that has taken place.  There really must be a reason why the operation went 6 hours over (that is a 14 hour day, even if they did order in pizza and onion rings).  Perhaps it was like the gall bladder removal where the blood vessels were thick and required quite a bit of effort to keep things leaking too much.  Who knows.  Perhaps they accidentally removed the stomach and had to put it back in before actually getting to the liver.
At any rate, the doctors tell us everything has gone well.  That was at the last little break they took to come visit with Jan.  He is supposed to be unconscious the rest of the night and will spend the next few days in ICU.  We will have to see what happens.
In other news, I extracted 500 names from the indexing today.  Just wanted to make sure I am familiar with all of it if I am going to be getting others to volunteer.