Leah Wanda Dickerson Carter Matson
Life Sketch written by her daughter, Teresa Carter Seng for her funeral 28 Jan 2013
Leah was born 30 Nov 1928, the sixth of ten children born to John and Rhoda Ann Wilde Dickerson. She was born at home at 219 east Main St, American Fork, Utah. She had four older brothers and one sister. (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, and Opal) Later would come 4 younger brothers. (Bob, Ken, Kay, and Jerry)
Leah was a tomboy from the get go. She was daddy's girl. She loved being outside with her brothers instead of spending her days in the kitchen with her sister and mother. She liked catching frogs and climbing trees. Her brothers and sister were her best friends.
Leah played the violin and cello (later in life she taught herself to play the piano and organ). All of the Dickerson children were encouraged to play an instrument and music was a big part of their young lives. Leah also loved dancing. When the family moved to Pocatello, Idaho, Leah attended Pocatello High School and became involved with cheerleading and orchestra. Cheerleading wasn't like it was today. It was mostly boys and very athletic. They were more like gymnasts or acrobats . Leah had many friends and loved her high school days. One of the dances was during the war and resources were scarce so the girls made all their fancy dresses out of crepe paper. She kept that dress in her cedar chest for years. Leah graduated from Pocatello High on Wednesday 21 May 1947.
In 1948, she met a handsome young service man stationed at the Naval Ordnance Plant in Pocatello. He was tall, dark and handsome and a Marine from Pennsylvania. William Andrew Carter. They dated and fell in love. They were married 6 Nov 1948 in her parents' home. She was a beautiful bride, attended by her sister, Opal as her matron of honor. The newlyweds took off on an adventure to meet his family. Bill was second oldest of 11 children and soon Leah loved this new family as much as she loved her own. Over the years Bill and Leah made many trips to Pennsylvania enjoying time with Bills family.
Bill's military career took them all over the country. Leah loved the excitement of the moves and adventure of exploring a new place. Every new place meant new friends. Leah made friends quickly and always had one or more of Bill's sisters visiting. Leah worked from the time she got married. Everywhere they lived she found one or more jobs, working at the military exchange or swimming pool, department stores, or the railroad when they were in Idaho. She was a working woman before it was common for women to be working outside the home.
In 1952, after several miscarriages Bill and Leah decided to adopt. Two children were placed in their home, a brother and sister. The boy was two and the girl an infant. But before the year required to finalize an adoption, Leah discovered she was pregnant. The judge did not approve the adoption because Leah could have a child of her own and the children were taken from their home. This was very difficult for Leah as she had loved these two little ones in the months they were a family and Bill was very attached to the boy. In September of 1953, while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Leah's first child was born. Teresa.
When Teresa was six weeks old, Leah moved back to Pocatello with her parents while Bill was deployed to Korea. When he returned they moved to Roswell, New Mexico, then Alabama, and then to San Antonio, Texas.
While in Alabama all officers were required to have a maid. This offended Leah. She didn't like the idea of a maid but when she saw the treatment of these "black servants" she was determined to give a better example. She treated the maid assigned to them with thoughtfulness and respect. They worked alongside each other . They enjoyed lunch at the table together . This caused Leah much criticism from the other wives and Bill much discomfort at work. Leah didn't enjoy the expectations of Officers wives while in San Antonio either. She couldn't see playing bridge all day or golfing on the weekends. (even though she did admit that golf was something she would enjoy if she practiced more) She rebelled and became a life guard at the base pool, also teaching swimming lessons. This kept her out of trouble with the other officers wives and gave her something she enjoyed. While in San Antonio she would travel to Mexico often with "the girls" and shop. She brought back an alligator purse on one trip and carried that purse everywhere for years. It had a face and teeth. It frightened her daughter for a long time.
Bill decided that the military wasn't the direction for them and resigned his commission to return to Pocatello. There he returned to college to finish his education so Leah worked for the railroad and a department store. They lived in an apartment by Leah's parents for a while and in the Summer Bill, Leah, and Teresa lived in a silver railroad car while they both worked for the railroad. This summer was interrupted when Bill's mother died. A Western Union Telegram came announcing the news. They made a quick trip to Pennsylvania and when they returned Leah took a job in late summer in Sun Valley, Idaho. She took Teresa and they went and worked getting things ready for the ski season while Bill returned to classes . Once while in Pocatello, Leah took the young women on a campout in Yellowstone. A grizzly bear interrupted the evening and in a hurried escape they left all their equipment behind and sought shelter in a motel outside the park where they finished their camp out. Grandpa Dickerson went to their campsite later to locate any remains of their equipment but only found a cast iron pan.
It was just after Christmas in 1957, Leah had Kathy. A second daughter. And soon after Kathy's birth they moved to Detroit, Michigan so Bill could attend Wayne State University. They lived in an upstairs apartment. Leah made all her children's clothes including winter coats. It was while they were in this apartment that Bill's sister, Annie, called them to Pennsylvania. She had bone cancer and as her mother had passed Leah nursed her until her death a few months later. They quickly returned to Pennsylvania when Bill's father died. This changed many things. Leah became mother to Bill's young siblings. Bill returned to Detroit and secured rent on a large home (six bedrooms) in a Jewish neighborhood right in the heart of Detroit. The rent was cheap because the landlord thought Bill was Jewish on a count of his big nose. The house big enough for everyone. But it was riddled with rats. From a family of four it grew to a family of nine overnight. Leah was pregnant with her third child. Leah was determined to handle the rat problem so no rat would get to the family areas. She was successful by covering every pipe and faucet with screen and had covers made for the heat registers . She taught everyone in the neighborhood how to set and bait these huge traps. This is where Leah emerged as an outspoken leader, taking charge and making big changes that improved conditions in our neighborhood.
In October of 1959, Patricia was born. Leah had problems with anemia after this baby that plagued her for years. She was always having treatment for iron deficiency. The doctor made her eat raw liver for a while, and when he allowed her to eat it cooked again she was very grateful. She also picked dandelion greens with her children and she called it spinach when she served it with dinner. (They were high in iron)
For extra money to help out, Leah would gather the wooden cheese boxes behind the Jewish Deli and make footstools to sell. They stunk of cheese when she brought them home, so they would sit and air on the back porch. Then she would cover them with material she got free from General Motors (head-ling fabric scraps) A local shop sold all she could make. She also made doll furniture out of tuna fish cans and the same fabric and sold those too.
Leah didn't like cooking. Stan or Rose would cook and Leah would do any other chore.
Bill was hired to do research and this allowed them to move to a new home in the suburbs of Detroit. Leah took a job as a bank teller in Detroit to help with finances. Leah loved yard work and she set about landscaping the yard of this new house. She planted plenty of roses, and cannon lilies. She loved plants with thorns and color. The driveway was lined with bayberry bushes. Plum colored shrubs with nasty thorns. (a killer if you fell off your bike in the driveway) She installed a swing set and hauled paint cans down the street in a wagon to get the construction workers to fill them with cement so she could plant the swing set and it wouldn't tip over when the kids got to swinging. Leah would have been happy spending every minute of every day in her yard, but that wasn't to be. She would get up early and put together breakfast, gather the two little girls and be in the car with Bill by 5:45am every weekday to make the commute to Detroit for work. They would drop the little girls to a babysitter close to their work and then get to work by 9. (it was a 3 hour one way drive into the city in traffic) Then they would leave work, pick up the little girls, and drive home arriving about 10 pm. This continued until the little girls were old enough for school.
Leah packed the weekends with Church assignments and entertaining Bill's work clients. She was the Relief Society President in her ward, Bill was ward Clerk. They both ran the local PTA, and Leah volunteered at the high school swimming pool as a lifeguard once a month in exchange for swimming for her children.
Leah had promised Bill's father that she would not convert his young children to the Mormon church. He was Episcopal and Leah honored that promise after his death. She supported Stan in his decision to become an Episcopal Minister. Never did she argue religion with Stan.
Leah loved dinner parties and dressing up for work functions with Bill's work. She would wear her hair in a French roll and wear long white gloves with little buttons on the wrists. Once on a Sunday morning she was excited to see a photo in the Newspaper of some long haired boys. She said they were at the Pochatrain last night where they were attending a dinner party. It was the Beatles. Leah hadn't known at the time who they were. Of course the breakfast table became alive with conversation hearing that.
In 1963, Leah's father became ill and Leah took the girls and hurried to Utah to be at her father's side. She was devastated when he died.
Sometimes on weekends when there were no business dinners or clients to entertain there would be badminton and BBQ's, and in the evenings Leah and Bill would dance in the family room, then they would polka with the girls. Leah loved to dance. She often organized theme dances and performed for charity events. She could do a mean jitter bug and loved the Charleston. She never sat out a dance, but would twirl around the dance floor until she was worn out.
Sometimes in the summer they would use Bill's bosses cabin up on Lake Michigan and spend a week fishing. Leah loved being at the cabin. She hated to leave at the end of the week. She said she could have been a pioneer easily.
In the winter she taught the girls to ice skate and when Michigan winters would snow them in she would take her snowshoes out of the closet and climb out and walk for supplies. You would have thought they were in the Yukon. But she always came back with milk for everyone in the neighborhood so no baby would go without. The neighbors thought she was wonderful.
Leah could do just about anything. Don't tell her something wouldn't fit in the car, she would make it happen. She didn't see classes in people, to her they were all on the same level. She smiled when she worked and couldn't sit idle. She crocheted or embroidered when she was sitting.
She taught English to the neighbors. Her French neighbor, Mrs. Champoux and her Italian neighbor, Mrs. Perry. She was a hoot because she didn't know any French or Italian but she managed to have them speaking English by the end of one summer. (where she found the time I don't know)
In spring of 1966 Leah was pregnant with her fourth child, John. She became very ill in March and a month before John was due she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery as she had blood clots that were very serious. The last month of the pregnancy was concerning as they didn't know how the baby was. This was before modern ultra sounds. But in May, John entered the family healthy and happy. He was the apple of Leah's eye. Her only son. She was on top of the world. Again anemia plagued her and she struggled with keeping her iron up.
When Bill was working to help prepare George Romney for a future presidential campaign, Leah did a lot of typing . Her typewriter could be heard late into the night every weekend for a long time. George liked Leah and told her that she was the hardest working women he had met in a very long time.
Every other summer Leah tried to get back to Utah to visit family. It would be a non-stop drive with the family to get there as soon as possible. 4 days of driving day and night. Leah would put a pot roast and potatoes in a heavy wrapping of aluminum foil and attach it to the car engine to cook a meal on the road. That worked until once the foil ripped and Bill wouldn't allow it. (travelled for two days with the smell of burnt gravy and smoke that caused other drivers to honk and point) This was before air conditioning so she would put a pan of ice in the front seat and lay clean diapers over it and when the diapers were cold and wet she would hang them on the inside of the windows to cool the car down. (a trick she learned from her maid in Alabama for relief from hot nights) This was embarrassing to kids to have diapers hanging on the windows. But that was Leah. She would see a problem and figure out a way to make it better. She wasn't afraid to try something different. Her mind was always racing to find a new way to do something. And she never let anything keep her down. Once when on one of these summer trips to Utah she had a car accident in Iowa that took out a headlight so she taped a flashlight to the front fender and started off down the road until a policeman explained it wasn't ok. So the car could only be driven in the daylight until it was fixed. This annoyed her very much and she couldn't understand why the flashlight wasn't ok. The kids learned that motels did exist and enjoyed swimming at the motels every night all the way to Utah.
The political climate in Detroit became unsafe and so Bill and Leah headed to Galveston, Texas. They packed up a U-Haul truck and headed out. The first night out Bill was on the phone for hours while Leah and the kids swam at the pool. By dinner time they were changing direction and moving to Idaho. Leah was thrilled. She would be near family and that was her greatest happiness. The trip was crazy after that. She was so excited. Poor Kathy got left at a gas station when she filled up the car and a highway patrolman chased us for a long time to tell us to turn around. Leah thought she was sleeping on the back seat. Kathy didn't get out of the car after that to use the restroom for the rest of the trip. In fact everyone stayed pretty close in fear of being left behind.
Leah loved her new home in Boise. She was close to family. Her brother,Max just lived in Nampa, and the trip to American Fork or Pocatello could be made in a few hours allowing for frequent weekend jaunts. She introduced the kids to relatives they didn't know existed. Some of her cousins lived a few blocks away and she was thrilled to be reacquainted. She quickly found a job with a local bank, First Security and worked there until she retired. She introduced Bill to Pine and Featherville and they often went there on weekends with friends. Leah fell in love with the mountains.
Her life changed when she and Bill divorced and he moved back to Michigan. She was numb for a long time. Grandma Dickerson, her brother Max and other family stepped in and helped her regain her life.
Leah eventually remarried. She and Roy Matson were married 19 Feb 1972 in Elko, Nevada. He helped Leah smile again. She introduced him to her mountains and together they made plans to build a cabin and move there when they retired. A plan she fully executed. They built a beautiful home up in Featherville and spent as much time there as they could. It was the place Leah was happiest. She would plant fruit trees, and like Lucy she collected rocks from everywhere that she took to her cabin. She transplanted cactus and wildflowers. Everything was to beautify her home in the mountains.
She belonged to the sorority Beta Sigma Phi and was active for many years. She made many good friends and loved her involvement with them. She volunteered, working the gift shop and information desk at St Alphonsus hospital for many years. Leah kept busy. She knew how to work and how to enjoy life.
Leah loved to can salmon that they caught when the salmon ran. She loved to sit around a fire and roast marshmallows. She loved cribbage and pinochle. She loved the outdoors. She loved wearing crazy hats. She loved jewelry and wore as much as she could. She loved a good joke. She just loved life. Today she is wearing her happy shoes, because that's Leah.
She was actively involved with the senior center up in Pine and Boise. Again making many good friends and cherishing the time spent with them.
When her daughter, Kathy was stationed in Korea she and Roy travelled to Korea to visit her and her family. Leah talked about that trip for years. It was such a memorable and exciting trip for her. She said she would never forget that and was so grateful for the experience.
When Tricia's twins were born this was another exciting experience in Leah's life. There were twins in Bill's family but she never thought they would come into her family so this was special to her. Then John surprised her with another set of twins. Leah was overjoyed. Not to take away from her other grandchildren but the idea of twins was exciting for her.
Leah's life was exciting. She said she put her toe in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. She had a full life.
She will be missed by those who knew her.
She was preceded in death by her parents, 6 brothers (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, Bob, and Jerry) and her sister Opal. She is survived by two brothers, Kenneth Alvin Dickerson and his wife Lyn of Arizona, and Kay J Dickerson and his wife Ila Jean of Utah. Her 4 children: Teresa Seng and husband Michael of Grand View ; Kathleen Bruni of Boise ; Patricia Travis of Arizona; and John Carter of Nampa. 14 Grand children: Christine (David) Meyers, Michael Seng Jr, Carolyn (Rob) Altland, Chari Bruni, David (Eliane) Seng, Erin Seng, Cassandra (Mark) Rouintree, Corinne Travis, Alysse (Erik) Arellano, Ryan Travis, Joshua Bruni, Schuyler Carter, Kaelan Carter, Landen Carter and 13 beautiful great grandchildren: Brian Meyers, Alexander Meyers, Austin Meyers, Baileigh (Robbie) Swenson, Mackenzie Meyers, Alexander Altland, Jordyn Bruni, Nicholas Altland, Carly Rouintree, Benjamin Altland, John Kaylor Rouintree, Izaiah Arellano, and last of all Vincent Seng.
Life Sketch written by her daughter, Teresa Carter Seng for her funeral 28 Jan 2013
Leah was born 30 Nov 1928, the sixth of ten children born to John and Rhoda Ann Wilde Dickerson. She was born at home at 219 east Main St, American Fork, Utah. She had four older brothers and one sister. (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, and Opal) Later would come 4 younger brothers. (Bob, Ken, Kay, and Jerry)
Leah was a tomboy from the get go. She was daddy's girl. She loved being outside with her brothers instead of spending her days in the kitchen with her sister and mother. She liked catching frogs and climbing trees. Her brothers and sister were her best friends.
Leah played the violin and cello (later in life she taught herself to play the piano and organ). All of the Dickerson children were encouraged to play an instrument and music was a big part of their young lives. Leah also loved dancing. When the family moved to Pocatello, Idaho, Leah attended Pocatello High School and became involved with cheerleading and orchestra. Cheerleading wasn't like it was today. It was mostly boys and very athletic. They were more like gymnasts or acrobats . Leah had many friends and loved her high school days. One of the dances was during the war and resources were scarce so the girls made all their fancy dresses out of crepe paper. She kept that dress in her cedar chest for years. Leah graduated from Pocatello High on Wednesday 21 May 1947.
In 1948, she met a handsome young service man stationed at the Naval Ordnance Plant in Pocatello. He was tall, dark and handsome and a Marine from Pennsylvania. William Andrew Carter. They dated and fell in love. They were married 6 Nov 1948 in her parents' home. She was a beautiful bride, attended by her sister, Opal as her matron of honor. The newlyweds took off on an adventure to meet his family. Bill was second oldest of 11 children and soon Leah loved this new family as much as she loved her own. Over the years Bill and Leah made many trips to Pennsylvania enjoying time with Bills family.
Bill's military career took them all over the country. Leah loved the excitement of the moves and adventure of exploring a new place. Every new place meant new friends. Leah made friends quickly and always had one or more of Bill's sisters visiting. Leah worked from the time she got married. Everywhere they lived she found one or more jobs, working at the military exchange or swimming pool, department stores, or the railroad when they were in Idaho. She was a working woman before it was common for women to be working outside the home.
In 1952, after several miscarriages Bill and Leah decided to adopt. Two children were placed in their home, a brother and sister. The boy was two and the girl an infant. But before the year required to finalize an adoption, Leah discovered she was pregnant. The judge did not approve the adoption because Leah could have a child of her own and the children were taken from their home. This was very difficult for Leah as she had loved these two little ones in the months they were a family and Bill was very attached to the boy. In September of 1953, while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Leah's first child was born. Teresa.
When Teresa was six weeks old, Leah moved back to Pocatello with her parents while Bill was deployed to Korea. When he returned they moved to Roswell, New Mexico, then Alabama, and then to San Antonio, Texas.
While in Alabama all officers were required to have a maid. This offended Leah. She didn't like the idea of a maid but when she saw the treatment of these "black servants" she was determined to give a better example. She treated the maid assigned to them with thoughtfulness and respect. They worked alongside each other . They enjoyed lunch at the table together . This caused Leah much criticism from the other wives and Bill much discomfort at work. Leah didn't enjoy the expectations of Officers wives while in San Antonio either. She couldn't see playing bridge all day or golfing on the weekends. (even though she did admit that golf was something she would enjoy if she practiced more) She rebelled and became a life guard at the base pool, also teaching swimming lessons. This kept her out of trouble with the other officers wives and gave her something she enjoyed. While in San Antonio she would travel to Mexico often with "the girls" and shop. She brought back an alligator purse on one trip and carried that purse everywhere for years. It had a face and teeth. It frightened her daughter for a long time.
Bill decided that the military wasn't the direction for them and resigned his commission to return to Pocatello. There he returned to college to finish his education so Leah worked for the railroad and a department store. They lived in an apartment by Leah's parents for a while and in the Summer Bill, Leah, and Teresa lived in a silver railroad car while they both worked for the railroad. This summer was interrupted when Bill's mother died. A Western Union Telegram came announcing the news. They made a quick trip to Pennsylvania and when they returned Leah took a job in late summer in Sun Valley, Idaho. She took Teresa and they went and worked getting things ready for the ski season while Bill returned to classes . Once while in Pocatello, Leah took the young women on a campout in Yellowstone. A grizzly bear interrupted the evening and in a hurried escape they left all their equipment behind and sought shelter in a motel outside the park where they finished their camp out. Grandpa Dickerson went to their campsite later to locate any remains of their equipment but only found a cast iron pan.
It was just after Christmas in 1957, Leah had Kathy. A second daughter. And soon after Kathy's birth they moved to Detroit, Michigan so Bill could attend Wayne State University. They lived in an upstairs apartment. Leah made all her children's clothes including winter coats. It was while they were in this apartment that Bill's sister, Annie, called them to Pennsylvania. She had bone cancer and as her mother had passed Leah nursed her until her death a few months later. They quickly returned to Pennsylvania when Bill's father died. This changed many things. Leah became mother to Bill's young siblings. Bill returned to Detroit and secured rent on a large home (six bedrooms) in a Jewish neighborhood right in the heart of Detroit. The rent was cheap because the landlord thought Bill was Jewish on a count of his big nose. The house big enough for everyone. But it was riddled with rats. From a family of four it grew to a family of nine overnight. Leah was pregnant with her third child. Leah was determined to handle the rat problem so no rat would get to the family areas. She was successful by covering every pipe and faucet with screen and had covers made for the heat registers . She taught everyone in the neighborhood how to set and bait these huge traps. This is where Leah emerged as an outspoken leader, taking charge and making big changes that improved conditions in our neighborhood.
In October of 1959, Patricia was born. Leah had problems with anemia after this baby that plagued her for years. She was always having treatment for iron deficiency. The doctor made her eat raw liver for a while, and when he allowed her to eat it cooked again she was very grateful. She also picked dandelion greens with her children and she called it spinach when she served it with dinner. (They were high in iron)
For extra money to help out, Leah would gather the wooden cheese boxes behind the Jewish Deli and make footstools to sell. They stunk of cheese when she brought them home, so they would sit and air on the back porch. Then she would cover them with material she got free from General Motors (head-ling fabric scraps) A local shop sold all she could make. She also made doll furniture out of tuna fish cans and the same fabric and sold those too.
Leah didn't like cooking. Stan or Rose would cook and Leah would do any other chore.
Bill was hired to do research and this allowed them to move to a new home in the suburbs of Detroit. Leah took a job as a bank teller in Detroit to help with finances. Leah loved yard work and she set about landscaping the yard of this new house. She planted plenty of roses, and cannon lilies. She loved plants with thorns and color. The driveway was lined with bayberry bushes. Plum colored shrubs with nasty thorns. (a killer if you fell off your bike in the driveway) She installed a swing set and hauled paint cans down the street in a wagon to get the construction workers to fill them with cement so she could plant the swing set and it wouldn't tip over when the kids got to swinging. Leah would have been happy spending every minute of every day in her yard, but that wasn't to be. She would get up early and put together breakfast, gather the two little girls and be in the car with Bill by 5:45am every weekday to make the commute to Detroit for work. They would drop the little girls to a babysitter close to their work and then get to work by 9. (it was a 3 hour one way drive into the city in traffic) Then they would leave work, pick up the little girls, and drive home arriving about 10 pm. This continued until the little girls were old enough for school.
Leah packed the weekends with Church assignments and entertaining Bill's work clients. She was the Relief Society President in her ward, Bill was ward Clerk. They both ran the local PTA, and Leah volunteered at the high school swimming pool as a lifeguard once a month in exchange for swimming for her children.
Leah had promised Bill's father that she would not convert his young children to the Mormon church. He was Episcopal and Leah honored that promise after his death. She supported Stan in his decision to become an Episcopal Minister. Never did she argue religion with Stan.
Leah loved dinner parties and dressing up for work functions with Bill's work. She would wear her hair in a French roll and wear long white gloves with little buttons on the wrists. Once on a Sunday morning she was excited to see a photo in the Newspaper of some long haired boys. She said they were at the Pochatrain last night where they were attending a dinner party. It was the Beatles. Leah hadn't known at the time who they were. Of course the breakfast table became alive with conversation hearing that.
In 1963, Leah's father became ill and Leah took the girls and hurried to Utah to be at her father's side. She was devastated when he died.
Sometimes on weekends when there were no business dinners or clients to entertain there would be badminton and BBQ's, and in the evenings Leah and Bill would dance in the family room, then they would polka with the girls. Leah loved to dance. She often organized theme dances and performed for charity events. She could do a mean jitter bug and loved the Charleston. She never sat out a dance, but would twirl around the dance floor until she was worn out.
Sometimes in the summer they would use Bill's bosses cabin up on Lake Michigan and spend a week fishing. Leah loved being at the cabin. She hated to leave at the end of the week. She said she could have been a pioneer easily.
In the winter she taught the girls to ice skate and when Michigan winters would snow them in she would take her snowshoes out of the closet and climb out and walk for supplies. You would have thought they were in the Yukon. But she always came back with milk for everyone in the neighborhood so no baby would go without. The neighbors thought she was wonderful.
Leah could do just about anything. Don't tell her something wouldn't fit in the car, she would make it happen. She didn't see classes in people, to her they were all on the same level. She smiled when she worked and couldn't sit idle. She crocheted or embroidered when she was sitting.
She taught English to the neighbors. Her French neighbor, Mrs. Champoux and her Italian neighbor, Mrs. Perry. She was a hoot because she didn't know any French or Italian but she managed to have them speaking English by the end of one summer. (where she found the time I don't know)
In spring of 1966 Leah was pregnant with her fourth child, John. She became very ill in March and a month before John was due she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery as she had blood clots that were very serious. The last month of the pregnancy was concerning as they didn't know how the baby was. This was before modern ultra sounds. But in May, John entered the family healthy and happy. He was the apple of Leah's eye. Her only son. She was on top of the world. Again anemia plagued her and she struggled with keeping her iron up.
When Bill was working to help prepare George Romney for a future presidential campaign, Leah did a lot of typing . Her typewriter could be heard late into the night every weekend for a long time. George liked Leah and told her that she was the hardest working women he had met in a very long time.
Every other summer Leah tried to get back to Utah to visit family. It would be a non-stop drive with the family to get there as soon as possible. 4 days of driving day and night. Leah would put a pot roast and potatoes in a heavy wrapping of aluminum foil and attach it to the car engine to cook a meal on the road. That worked until once the foil ripped and Bill wouldn't allow it. (travelled for two days with the smell of burnt gravy and smoke that caused other drivers to honk and point) This was before air conditioning so she would put a pan of ice in the front seat and lay clean diapers over it and when the diapers were cold and wet she would hang them on the inside of the windows to cool the car down. (a trick she learned from her maid in Alabama for relief from hot nights) This was embarrassing to kids to have diapers hanging on the windows. But that was Leah. She would see a problem and figure out a way to make it better. She wasn't afraid to try something different. Her mind was always racing to find a new way to do something. And she never let anything keep her down. Once when on one of these summer trips to Utah she had a car accident in Iowa that took out a headlight so she taped a flashlight to the front fender and started off down the road until a policeman explained it wasn't ok. So the car could only be driven in the daylight until it was fixed. This annoyed her very much and she couldn't understand why the flashlight wasn't ok. The kids learned that motels did exist and enjoyed swimming at the motels every night all the way to Utah.
The political climate in Detroit became unsafe and so Bill and Leah headed to Galveston, Texas. They packed up a U-Haul truck and headed out. The first night out Bill was on the phone for hours while Leah and the kids swam at the pool. By dinner time they were changing direction and moving to Idaho. Leah was thrilled. She would be near family and that was her greatest happiness. The trip was crazy after that. She was so excited. Poor Kathy got left at a gas station when she filled up the car and a highway patrolman chased us for a long time to tell us to turn around. Leah thought she was sleeping on the back seat. Kathy didn't get out of the car after that to use the restroom for the rest of the trip. In fact everyone stayed pretty close in fear of being left behind.
Leah loved her new home in Boise. She was close to family. Her brother,Max just lived in Nampa, and the trip to American Fork or Pocatello could be made in a few hours allowing for frequent weekend jaunts. She introduced the kids to relatives they didn't know existed. Some of her cousins lived a few blocks away and she was thrilled to be reacquainted. She quickly found a job with a local bank, First Security and worked there until she retired. She introduced Bill to Pine and Featherville and they often went there on weekends with friends. Leah fell in love with the mountains.
Her life changed when she and Bill divorced and he moved back to Michigan. She was numb for a long time. Grandma Dickerson, her brother Max and other family stepped in and helped her regain her life.
Leah eventually remarried. She and Roy Matson were married 19 Feb 1972 in Elko, Nevada. He helped Leah smile again. She introduced him to her mountains and together they made plans to build a cabin and move there when they retired. A plan she fully executed. They built a beautiful home up in Featherville and spent as much time there as they could. It was the place Leah was happiest. She would plant fruit trees, and like Lucy she collected rocks from everywhere that she took to her cabin. She transplanted cactus and wildflowers. Everything was to beautify her home in the mountains.
She belonged to the sorority Beta Sigma Phi and was active for many years. She made many good friends and loved her involvement with them. She volunteered, working the gift shop and information desk at St Alphonsus hospital for many years. Leah kept busy. She knew how to work and how to enjoy life.
Leah loved to can salmon that they caught when the salmon ran. She loved to sit around a fire and roast marshmallows. She loved cribbage and pinochle. She loved the outdoors. She loved wearing crazy hats. She loved jewelry and wore as much as she could. She loved a good joke. She just loved life. Today she is wearing her happy shoes, because that's Leah.
She was actively involved with the senior center up in Pine and Boise. Again making many good friends and cherishing the time spent with them.
When her daughter, Kathy was stationed in Korea she and Roy travelled to Korea to visit her and her family. Leah talked about that trip for years. It was such a memorable and exciting trip for her. She said she would never forget that and was so grateful for the experience.
When Tricia's twins were born this was another exciting experience in Leah's life. There were twins in Bill's family but she never thought they would come into her family so this was special to her. Then John surprised her with another set of twins. Leah was overjoyed. Not to take away from her other grandchildren but the idea of twins was exciting for her.
Leah's life was exciting. She said she put her toe in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. She had a full life.
She will be missed by those who knew her.
She was preceded in death by her parents, 6 brothers (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, Bob, and Jerry) and her sister Opal. She is survived by two brothers, Kenneth Alvin Dickerson and his wife Lyn of Arizona, and Kay J Dickerson and his wife Ila Jean of Utah. Her 4 children: Teresa Seng and husband Michael of Grand View ; Kathleen Bruni of Boise ; Patricia Travis of Arizona; and John Carter of Nampa. 14 Grand children: Christine (David) Meyers, Michael Seng Jr, Carolyn (Rob) Altland, Chari Bruni, David (Eliane) Seng, Erin Seng, Cassandra (Mark) Rouintree, Corinne Travis, Alysse (Erik) Arellano, Ryan Travis, Joshua Bruni, Schuyler Carter, Kaelan Carter, Landen Carter and 13 beautiful great grandchildren: Brian Meyers, Alexander Meyers, Austin Meyers, Baileigh (Robbie) Swenson, Mackenzie Meyers, Alexander Altland, Jordyn Bruni, Nicholas Altland, Carly Rouintree, Benjamin Altland, John Kaylor Rouintree, Izaiah Arellano, and last of all Vincent Seng.
Leah Wanda Dickerson Carter Matson
Life Sketch written by her daughter, Teresa Carter Seng for her funeral 28 Jan 2013
Leah was born 30 Nov 1928, the sixth of ten children born to John and Rhoda Ann Wilde Dickerson. She was born at home at 219 east Main St, American Fork, Utah. She had four older brothers and one sister. (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, and Opal) Later would come 4 younger brothers. (Bob, Ken, Kay, and Jerry)
Leah was a tomboy from the get go. She was daddy's girl. She loved being outside with her brothers instead of spending her days in the kitchen with her sister and mother. She liked catching frogs and climbing trees. Her brothers and sister were her best friends.
Leah played the violin and cello (later in life she taught herself to play the piano and organ). All of the Dickerson children were encouraged to play an instrument and music was a big part of their young lives. Leah also loved dancing. When the family moved to Pocatello, Idaho, Leah attended Pocatello High School and became involved with cheerleading and orchestra. Cheerleading wasn't like it was today. It was mostly boys and very athletic. They were more like gymnasts or acrobats . Leah had many friends and loved her high school days. One of the dances was during the war and resources were scarce so the girls made all their fancy dresses out of crepe paper. She kept that dress in her cedar chest for years. Leah graduated from Pocatello High on Wednesday 21 May 1947.
In 1948, she met a handsome young service man stationed at the Naval Ordnance Plant in Pocatello. He was tall, dark and handsome and a Marine from Pennsylvania. William Andrew Carter. They dated and fell in love. They were married 6 Nov 1948 in her parents' home. She was a beautiful bride, attended by her sister, Opal as her matron of honor. The newlyweds took off on an adventure to meet his family. Bill was second oldest of 11 children and soon Leah loved this new family as much as she loved her own. Over the years Bill and Leah made many trips to Pennsylvania enjoying time with Bills family.
Bill's military career took them all over the country. Leah loved the excitement of the moves and adventure of exploring a new place. Every new place meant new friends. Leah made friends quickly and always had one or more of Bill's sisters visiting. Leah worked from the time she got married. Everywhere they lived she found one or more jobs, working at the military exchange or swimming pool, department stores, or the railroad when they were in Idaho. She was a working woman before it was common for women to be working outside the home.
In 1952, after several miscarriages Bill and Leah decided to adopt. Two children were placed in their home, a brother and sister. The boy was two and the girl an infant. But before the year required to finalize an adoption, Leah discovered she was pregnant. The judge did not approve the adoption because Leah could have a child of her own and the children were taken from their home. This was very difficult for Leah as she had loved these two little ones in the months they were a family and Bill was very attached to the boy. In September of 1953, while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Leah's first child was born. Teresa.
When Teresa was six weeks old, Leah moved back to Pocatello with her parents while Bill was deployed to Korea. When he returned they moved to Roswell, New Mexico, then Alabama, and then to San Antonio, Texas.
While in Alabama all officers were required to have a maid. This offended Leah. She didn't like the idea of a maid but when she saw the treatment of these "black servants" she was determined to give a better example. She treated the maid assigned to them with thoughtfulness and respect. They worked alongside each other . They enjoyed lunch at the table together . This caused Leah much criticism from the other wives and Bill much discomfort at work. Leah didn't enjoy the expectations of Officers wives while in San Antonio either. She couldn't see playing bridge all day or golfing on the weekends. (even though she did admit that golf was something she would enjoy if she practiced more) She rebelled and became a life guard at the base pool, also teaching swimming lessons. This kept her out of trouble with the other officers wives and gave her something she enjoyed. While in San Antonio she would travel to Mexico often with "the girls" and shop. She brought back an alligator purse on one trip and carried that purse everywhere for years. It had a face and teeth. It frightened her daughter for a long time.
Bill decided that the military wasn't the direction for them and resigned his commission to return to Pocatello. There he returned to college to finish his education so Leah worked for the railroad and a department store. They lived in an apartment by Leah's parents for a while and in the Summer Bill, Leah, and Teresa lived in a silver railroad car while they both worked for the railroad. This summer was interrupted when Bill's mother died. A Western Union Telegram came announcing the news. They made a quick trip to Pennsylvania and when they returned Leah took a job in late summer in Sun Valley, Idaho. She took Teresa and they went and worked getting things ready for the ski season while Bill returned to classes . Once while in Pocatello, Leah took the young women on a campout in Yellowstone. A grizzly bear interrupted the evening and in a hurried escape they left all their equipment behind and sought shelter in a motel outside the park where they finished their camp out. Grandpa Dickerson went to their campsite later to locate any remains of their equipment but only found a cast iron pan.
It was just after Christmas in 1957, Leah had Kathy. A second daughter. And soon after Kathy's birth they moved to Detroit, Michigan so Bill could attend Wayne State University. They lived in an upstairs apartment. Leah made all her children's clothes including winter coats. It was while they were in this apartment that Bill's sister, Annie, called them to Pennsylvania. She had bone cancer and as her mother had passed Leah nursed her until her death a few months later. They quickly returned to Pennsylvania when Bill's father died. This changed many things. Leah became mother to Bill's young siblings. Bill returned to Detroit and secured rent on a large home (six bedrooms) in a Jewish neighborhood right in the heart of Detroit. The rent was cheap because the landlord thought Bill was Jewish on a count of his big nose. The house big enough for everyone. But it was riddled with rats. From a family of four it grew to a family of nine overnight. Leah was pregnant with her third child. Leah was determined to handle the rat problem so no rat would get to the family areas. She was successful by covering every pipe and faucet with screen and had covers made for the heat registers . She taught everyone in the neighborhood how to set and bait these huge traps. This is where Leah emerged as an outspoken leader, taking charge and making big changes that improved conditions in our neighborhood.
In October of 1959, Patricia was born. Leah had problems with anemia after this baby that plagued her for years. She was always having treatment for iron deficiency. The doctor made her eat raw liver for a while, and when he allowed her to eat it cooked again she was very grateful. She also picked dandelion greens with her children and she called it spinach when she served it with dinner. (They were high in iron)
For extra money to help out, Leah would gather the wooden cheese boxes behind the Jewish Deli and make footstools to sell. They stunk of cheese when she brought them home, so they would sit and air on the back porch. Then she would cover them with material she got free from General Motors (head-ling fabric scraps) A local shop sold all she could make. She also made doll furniture out of tuna fish cans and the same fabric and sold those too.
Leah didn't like cooking. Stan or Rose would cook and Leah would do any other chore.
Bill was hired to do research and this allowed them to move to a new home in the suburbs of Detroit. Leah took a job as a bank teller in Detroit to help with finances. Leah loved yard work and she set about landscaping the yard of this new house. She planted plenty of roses, and cannon lilies. She loved plants with thorns and color. The driveway was lined with bayberry bushes. Plum colored shrubs with nasty thorns. (a killer if you fell off your bike in the driveway) She installed a swing set and hauled paint cans down the street in a wagon to get the construction workers to fill them with cement so she could plant the swing set and it wouldn't tip over when the kids got to swinging. Leah would have been happy spending every minute of every day in her yard, but that wasn't to be. She would get up early and put together breakfast, gather the two little girls and be in the car with Bill by 5:45am every weekday to make the commute to Detroit for work. They would drop the little girls to a babysitter close to their work and then get to work by 9. (it was a 3 hour one way drive into the city in traffic) Then they would leave work, pick up the little girls, and drive home arriving about 10 pm. This continued until the little girls were old enough for school.
Leah packed the weekends with Church assignments and entertaining Bill's work clients. She was the Relief Society President in her ward, Bill was ward Clerk. They both ran the local PTA, and Leah volunteered at the high school swimming pool as a lifeguard once a month in exchange for swimming for her children.
Leah had promised Bill's father that she would not convert his young children to the Mormon church. He was Episcopal and Leah honored that promise after his death. She supported Stan in his decision to become an Episcopal Minister. Never did she argue religion with Stan.
Leah loved dinner parties and dressing up for work functions with Bill's work. She would wear her hair in a French roll and wear long white gloves with little buttons on the wrists. Once on a Sunday morning she was excited to see a photo in the Newspaper of some long haired boys. She said they were at the Pochatrain last night where they were attending a dinner party. It was the Beatles. Leah hadn't known at the time who they were. Of course the breakfast table became alive with conversation hearing that.
In 1963, Leah's father became ill and Leah took the girls and hurried to Utah to be at her father's side. She was devastated when he died.
Sometimes on weekends when there were no business dinners or clients to entertain there would be badminton and BBQ's, and in the evenings Leah and Bill would dance in the family room, then they would polka with the girls. Leah loved to dance. She often organized theme dances and performed for charity events. She could do a mean jitter bug and loved the Charleston. She never sat out a dance, but would twirl around the dance floor until she was worn out.
Sometimes in the summer they would use Bill's bosses cabin up on Lake Michigan and spend a week fishing. Leah loved being at the cabin. She hated to leave at the end of the week. She said she could have been a pioneer easily.
In the winter she taught the girls to ice skate and when Michigan winters would snow them in she would take her snowshoes out of the closet and climb out and walk for supplies. You would have thought they were in the Yukon. But she always came back with milk for everyone in the neighborhood so no baby would go without. The neighbors thought she was wonderful.
Leah could do just about anything. Don't tell her something wouldn't fit in the car, she would make it happen. She didn't see classes in people, to her they were all on the same level. She smiled when she worked and couldn't sit idle. She crocheted or embroidered when she was sitting.
She taught English to the neighbors. Her French neighbor, Mrs. Champoux and her Italian neighbor, Mrs. Perry. She was a hoot because she didn't know any French or Italian but she managed to have them speaking English by the end of one summer. (where she found the time I don't know)
In spring of 1966 Leah was pregnant with her fourth child, John. She became very ill in March and a month before John was due she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery as she had blood clots that were very serious. The last month of the pregnancy was concerning as they didn't know how the baby was. This was before modern ultra sounds. But in May, John entered the family healthy and happy. He was the apple of Leah's eye. Her only son. She was on top of the world. Again anemia plagued her and she struggled with keeping her iron up.
When Bill was working to help prepare George Romney for a future presidential campaign, Leah did a lot of typing . Her typewriter could be heard late into the night every weekend for a long time. George liked Leah and told her that she was the hardest working women he had met in a very long time.
Every other summer Leah tried to get back to Utah to visit family. It would be a non-stop drive with the family to get there as soon as possible. 4 days of driving day and night. Leah would put a pot roast and potatoes in a heavy wrapping of aluminum foil and attach it to the car engine to cook a meal on the road. That worked until once the foil ripped and Bill wouldn't allow it. (travelled for two days with the smell of burnt gravy and smoke that caused other drivers to honk and point) This was before air conditioning so she would put a pan of ice in the front seat and lay clean diapers over it and when the diapers were cold and wet she would hang them on the inside of the windows to cool the car down. (a trick she learned from her maid in Alabama for relief from hot nights) This was embarrassing to kids to have diapers hanging on the windows. But that was Leah. She would see a problem and figure out a way to make it better. She wasn't afraid to try something different. Her mind was always racing to find a new way to do something. And she never let anything keep her down. Once when on one of these summer trips to Utah she had a car accident in Iowa that took out a headlight so she taped a flashlight to the front fender and started off down the road until a policeman explained it wasn't ok. So the car could only be driven in the daylight until it was fixed. This annoyed her very much and she couldn't understand why the flashlight wasn't ok. The kids learned that motels did exist and enjoyed swimming at the motels every night all the way to Utah.
The political climate in Detroit became unsafe and so Bill and Leah headed to Galveston, Texas. They packed up a U-Haul truck and headed out. The first night out Bill was on the phone for hours while Leah and the kids swam at the pool. By dinner time they were changing direction and moving to Idaho. Leah was thrilled. She would be near family and that was her greatest happiness. The trip was crazy after that. She was so excited. Poor Kathy got left at a gas station when she filled up the car and a highway patrolman chased us for a long time to tell us to turn around. Leah thought she was sleeping on the back seat. Kathy didn't get out of the car after that to use the restroom for the rest of the trip. In fact everyone stayed pretty close in fear of being left behind.
Leah loved her new home in Boise. She was close to family. Her brother,Max just lived in Nampa, and the trip to American Fork or Pocatello could be made in a few hours allowing for frequent weekend jaunts. She introduced the kids to relatives they didn't know existed. Some of her cousins lived a few blocks away and she was thrilled to be reacquainted. She quickly found a job with a local bank, First Security and worked there until she retired. She introduced Bill to Pine and Featherville and they often went there on weekends with friends. Leah fell in love with the mountains.
Her life changed when she and Bill divorced and he moved back to Michigan. She was numb for a long time. Grandma Dickerson, her brother Max and other family stepped in and helped her regain her life.
Leah eventually remarried. She and Roy Matson were married 19 Feb 1972 in Elko, Nevada. He helped Leah smile again. She introduced him to her mountains and together they made plans to build a cabin and move there when they retired. A plan she fully executed. They built a beautiful home up in Featherville and spent as much time there as they could. It was the place Leah was happiest. She would plant fruit trees, and like Lucy she collected rocks from everywhere that she took to her cabin. She transplanted cactus and wildflowers. Everything was to beautify her home in the mountains.
She belonged to the sorority Beta Sigma Phi and was active for many years. She made many good friends and loved her involvement with them. She volunteered, working the gift shop and information desk at St Alphonsus hospital for many years. Leah kept busy. She knew how to work and how to enjoy life.
Leah loved to can salmon that they caught when the salmon ran. She loved to sit around a fire and roast marshmallows. She loved cribbage and pinochle. She loved the outdoors. She loved wearing crazy hats. She loved jewelry and wore as much as she could. She loved a good joke. She just loved life. Today she is wearing her happy shoes, because that's Leah.
She was actively involved with the senior center up in Pine and Boise. Again making many good friends and cherishing the time spent with them.
When her daughter, Kathy was stationed in Korea she and Roy travelled to Korea to visit her and her family. Leah talked about that trip for years. It was such a memorable and exciting trip for her. She said she would never forget that and was so grateful for the experience.
When Tricia's twins were born this was another exciting experience in Leah's life. There were twins in Bill's family but she never thought they would come into her family so this was special to her. Then John surprised her with another set of twins. Leah was overjoyed. Not to take away from her other grandchildren but the idea of twins was exciting for her.
Leah's life was exciting. She said she put her toe in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. She had a full life.
She will be missed by those who knew her.
She was preceded in death by her parents, 6 brothers (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, Bob, and Jerry) and her sister Opal. She is survived by two brothers, Kenneth Alvin Dickerson and his wife Lyn of Arizona, and Kay J Dickerson and his wife Ila Jean of Utah. Her 4 children: Teresa Seng and husband Michael of Grand View ; Kathleen Bruni of Boise ; Patricia Travis of Arizona; and John Carter of Nampa. 14 Grand children: Christine (David) Meyers, Michael Seng Jr, Carolyn (Rob) Altland, Chari Bruni, David (Eliane) Seng, Erin Seng, Cassandra (Mark) Rouintree, Corinne Travis, Alysse (Erik) Arellano, Ryan Travis, Joshua Bruni, Schuyler Carter, Kaelan Carter, Landen Carter and 13 beautiful great grandchildren: Brian Meyers, Alexander Meyers, Austin Meyers, Baileigh (Robbie) Swenson, Mackenzie Meyers, Alexander Altland, Jordyn Bruni, Nicholas Altland, Carly Rouintree, Benjamin Altland, John Kaylor Rouintree, Izaiah Arellano, and last of all Vincent Seng.
Life Sketch written by her daughter, Teresa Carter Seng for her funeral 28 Jan 2013
Leah was born 30 Nov 1928, the sixth of ten children born to John and Rhoda Ann Wilde Dickerson. She was born at home at 219 east Main St, American Fork, Utah. She had four older brothers and one sister. (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, and Opal) Later would come 4 younger brothers. (Bob, Ken, Kay, and Jerry)
Leah was a tomboy from the get go. She was daddy's girl. She loved being outside with her brothers instead of spending her days in the kitchen with her sister and mother. She liked catching frogs and climbing trees. Her brothers and sister were her best friends.
Leah played the violin and cello (later in life she taught herself to play the piano and organ). All of the Dickerson children were encouraged to play an instrument and music was a big part of their young lives. Leah also loved dancing. When the family moved to Pocatello, Idaho, Leah attended Pocatello High School and became involved with cheerleading and orchestra. Cheerleading wasn't like it was today. It was mostly boys and very athletic. They were more like gymnasts or acrobats . Leah had many friends and loved her high school days. One of the dances was during the war and resources were scarce so the girls made all their fancy dresses out of crepe paper. She kept that dress in her cedar chest for years. Leah graduated from Pocatello High on Wednesday 21 May 1947.
In 1948, she met a handsome young service man stationed at the Naval Ordnance Plant in Pocatello. He was tall, dark and handsome and a Marine from Pennsylvania. William Andrew Carter. They dated and fell in love. They were married 6 Nov 1948 in her parents' home. She was a beautiful bride, attended by her sister, Opal as her matron of honor. The newlyweds took off on an adventure to meet his family. Bill was second oldest of 11 children and soon Leah loved this new family as much as she loved her own. Over the years Bill and Leah made many trips to Pennsylvania enjoying time with Bills family.
Bill's military career took them all over the country. Leah loved the excitement of the moves and adventure of exploring a new place. Every new place meant new friends. Leah made friends quickly and always had one or more of Bill's sisters visiting. Leah worked from the time she got married. Everywhere they lived she found one or more jobs, working at the military exchange or swimming pool, department stores, or the railroad when they were in Idaho. She was a working woman before it was common for women to be working outside the home.
In 1952, after several miscarriages Bill and Leah decided to adopt. Two children were placed in their home, a brother and sister. The boy was two and the girl an infant. But before the year required to finalize an adoption, Leah discovered she was pregnant. The judge did not approve the adoption because Leah could have a child of her own and the children were taken from their home. This was very difficult for Leah as she had loved these two little ones in the months they were a family and Bill was very attached to the boy. In September of 1953, while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Leah's first child was born. Teresa.
When Teresa was six weeks old, Leah moved back to Pocatello with her parents while Bill was deployed to Korea. When he returned they moved to Roswell, New Mexico, then Alabama, and then to San Antonio, Texas.
While in Alabama all officers were required to have a maid. This offended Leah. She didn't like the idea of a maid but when she saw the treatment of these "black servants" she was determined to give a better example. She treated the maid assigned to them with thoughtfulness and respect. They worked alongside each other . They enjoyed lunch at the table together . This caused Leah much criticism from the other wives and Bill much discomfort at work. Leah didn't enjoy the expectations of Officers wives while in San Antonio either. She couldn't see playing bridge all day or golfing on the weekends. (even though she did admit that golf was something she would enjoy if she practiced more) She rebelled and became a life guard at the base pool, also teaching swimming lessons. This kept her out of trouble with the other officers wives and gave her something she enjoyed. While in San Antonio she would travel to Mexico often with "the girls" and shop. She brought back an alligator purse on one trip and carried that purse everywhere for years. It had a face and teeth. It frightened her daughter for a long time.
Bill decided that the military wasn't the direction for them and resigned his commission to return to Pocatello. There he returned to college to finish his education so Leah worked for the railroad and a department store. They lived in an apartment by Leah's parents for a while and in the Summer Bill, Leah, and Teresa lived in a silver railroad car while they both worked for the railroad. This summer was interrupted when Bill's mother died. A Western Union Telegram came announcing the news. They made a quick trip to Pennsylvania and when they returned Leah took a job in late summer in Sun Valley, Idaho. She took Teresa and they went and worked getting things ready for the ski season while Bill returned to classes . Once while in Pocatello, Leah took the young women on a campout in Yellowstone. A grizzly bear interrupted the evening and in a hurried escape they left all their equipment behind and sought shelter in a motel outside the park where they finished their camp out. Grandpa Dickerson went to their campsite later to locate any remains of their equipment but only found a cast iron pan.
It was just after Christmas in 1957, Leah had Kathy. A second daughter. And soon after Kathy's birth they moved to Detroit, Michigan so Bill could attend Wayne State University. They lived in an upstairs apartment. Leah made all her children's clothes including winter coats. It was while they were in this apartment that Bill's sister, Annie, called them to Pennsylvania. She had bone cancer and as her mother had passed Leah nursed her until her death a few months later. They quickly returned to Pennsylvania when Bill's father died. This changed many things. Leah became mother to Bill's young siblings. Bill returned to Detroit and secured rent on a large home (six bedrooms) in a Jewish neighborhood right in the heart of Detroit. The rent was cheap because the landlord thought Bill was Jewish on a count of his big nose. The house big enough for everyone. But it was riddled with rats. From a family of four it grew to a family of nine overnight. Leah was pregnant with her third child. Leah was determined to handle the rat problem so no rat would get to the family areas. She was successful by covering every pipe and faucet with screen and had covers made for the heat registers . She taught everyone in the neighborhood how to set and bait these huge traps. This is where Leah emerged as an outspoken leader, taking charge and making big changes that improved conditions in our neighborhood.
In October of 1959, Patricia was born. Leah had problems with anemia after this baby that plagued her for years. She was always having treatment for iron deficiency. The doctor made her eat raw liver for a while, and when he allowed her to eat it cooked again she was very grateful. She also picked dandelion greens with her children and she called it spinach when she served it with dinner. (They were high in iron)
For extra money to help out, Leah would gather the wooden cheese boxes behind the Jewish Deli and make footstools to sell. They stunk of cheese when she brought them home, so they would sit and air on the back porch. Then she would cover them with material she got free from General Motors (head-ling fabric scraps) A local shop sold all she could make. She also made doll furniture out of tuna fish cans and the same fabric and sold those too.
Leah didn't like cooking. Stan or Rose would cook and Leah would do any other chore.
Bill was hired to do research and this allowed them to move to a new home in the suburbs of Detroit. Leah took a job as a bank teller in Detroit to help with finances. Leah loved yard work and she set about landscaping the yard of this new house. She planted plenty of roses, and cannon lilies. She loved plants with thorns and color. The driveway was lined with bayberry bushes. Plum colored shrubs with nasty thorns. (a killer if you fell off your bike in the driveway) She installed a swing set and hauled paint cans down the street in a wagon to get the construction workers to fill them with cement so she could plant the swing set and it wouldn't tip over when the kids got to swinging. Leah would have been happy spending every minute of every day in her yard, but that wasn't to be. She would get up early and put together breakfast, gather the two little girls and be in the car with Bill by 5:45am every weekday to make the commute to Detroit for work. They would drop the little girls to a babysitter close to their work and then get to work by 9. (it was a 3 hour one way drive into the city in traffic) Then they would leave work, pick up the little girls, and drive home arriving about 10 pm. This continued until the little girls were old enough for school.
Leah packed the weekends with Church assignments and entertaining Bill's work clients. She was the Relief Society President in her ward, Bill was ward Clerk. They both ran the local PTA, and Leah volunteered at the high school swimming pool as a lifeguard once a month in exchange for swimming for her children.
Leah had promised Bill's father that she would not convert his young children to the Mormon church. He was Episcopal and Leah honored that promise after his death. She supported Stan in his decision to become an Episcopal Minister. Never did she argue religion with Stan.
Leah loved dinner parties and dressing up for work functions with Bill's work. She would wear her hair in a French roll and wear long white gloves with little buttons on the wrists. Once on a Sunday morning she was excited to see a photo in the Newspaper of some long haired boys. She said they were at the Pochatrain last night where they were attending a dinner party. It was the Beatles. Leah hadn't known at the time who they were. Of course the breakfast table became alive with conversation hearing that.
In 1963, Leah's father became ill and Leah took the girls and hurried to Utah to be at her father's side. She was devastated when he died.
Sometimes on weekends when there were no business dinners or clients to entertain there would be badminton and BBQ's, and in the evenings Leah and Bill would dance in the family room, then they would polka with the girls. Leah loved to dance. She often organized theme dances and performed for charity events. She could do a mean jitter bug and loved the Charleston. She never sat out a dance, but would twirl around the dance floor until she was worn out.
Sometimes in the summer they would use Bill's bosses cabin up on Lake Michigan and spend a week fishing. Leah loved being at the cabin. She hated to leave at the end of the week. She said she could have been a pioneer easily.
In the winter she taught the girls to ice skate and when Michigan winters would snow them in she would take her snowshoes out of the closet and climb out and walk for supplies. You would have thought they were in the Yukon. But she always came back with milk for everyone in the neighborhood so no baby would go without. The neighbors thought she was wonderful.
Leah could do just about anything. Don't tell her something wouldn't fit in the car, she would make it happen. She didn't see classes in people, to her they were all on the same level. She smiled when she worked and couldn't sit idle. She crocheted or embroidered when she was sitting.
She taught English to the neighbors. Her French neighbor, Mrs. Champoux and her Italian neighbor, Mrs. Perry. She was a hoot because she didn't know any French or Italian but she managed to have them speaking English by the end of one summer. (where she found the time I don't know)
In spring of 1966 Leah was pregnant with her fourth child, John. She became very ill in March and a month before John was due she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery as she had blood clots that were very serious. The last month of the pregnancy was concerning as they didn't know how the baby was. This was before modern ultra sounds. But in May, John entered the family healthy and happy. He was the apple of Leah's eye. Her only son. She was on top of the world. Again anemia plagued her and she struggled with keeping her iron up.
When Bill was working to help prepare George Romney for a future presidential campaign, Leah did a lot of typing . Her typewriter could be heard late into the night every weekend for a long time. George liked Leah and told her that she was the hardest working women he had met in a very long time.
Every other summer Leah tried to get back to Utah to visit family. It would be a non-stop drive with the family to get there as soon as possible. 4 days of driving day and night. Leah would put a pot roast and potatoes in a heavy wrapping of aluminum foil and attach it to the car engine to cook a meal on the road. That worked until once the foil ripped and Bill wouldn't allow it. (travelled for two days with the smell of burnt gravy and smoke that caused other drivers to honk and point) This was before air conditioning so she would put a pan of ice in the front seat and lay clean diapers over it and when the diapers were cold and wet she would hang them on the inside of the windows to cool the car down. (a trick she learned from her maid in Alabama for relief from hot nights) This was embarrassing to kids to have diapers hanging on the windows. But that was Leah. She would see a problem and figure out a way to make it better. She wasn't afraid to try something different. Her mind was always racing to find a new way to do something. And she never let anything keep her down. Once when on one of these summer trips to Utah she had a car accident in Iowa that took out a headlight so she taped a flashlight to the front fender and started off down the road until a policeman explained it wasn't ok. So the car could only be driven in the daylight until it was fixed. This annoyed her very much and she couldn't understand why the flashlight wasn't ok. The kids learned that motels did exist and enjoyed swimming at the motels every night all the way to Utah.
The political climate in Detroit became unsafe and so Bill and Leah headed to Galveston, Texas. They packed up a U-Haul truck and headed out. The first night out Bill was on the phone for hours while Leah and the kids swam at the pool. By dinner time they were changing direction and moving to Idaho. Leah was thrilled. She would be near family and that was her greatest happiness. The trip was crazy after that. She was so excited. Poor Kathy got left at a gas station when she filled up the car and a highway patrolman chased us for a long time to tell us to turn around. Leah thought she was sleeping on the back seat. Kathy didn't get out of the car after that to use the restroom for the rest of the trip. In fact everyone stayed pretty close in fear of being left behind.
Leah loved her new home in Boise. She was close to family. Her brother,Max just lived in Nampa, and the trip to American Fork or Pocatello could be made in a few hours allowing for frequent weekend jaunts. She introduced the kids to relatives they didn't know existed. Some of her cousins lived a few blocks away and she was thrilled to be reacquainted. She quickly found a job with a local bank, First Security and worked there until she retired. She introduced Bill to Pine and Featherville and they often went there on weekends with friends. Leah fell in love with the mountains.
Her life changed when she and Bill divorced and he moved back to Michigan. She was numb for a long time. Grandma Dickerson, her brother Max and other family stepped in and helped her regain her life.
Leah eventually remarried. She and Roy Matson were married 19 Feb 1972 in Elko, Nevada. He helped Leah smile again. She introduced him to her mountains and together they made plans to build a cabin and move there when they retired. A plan she fully executed. They built a beautiful home up in Featherville and spent as much time there as they could. It was the place Leah was happiest. She would plant fruit trees, and like Lucy she collected rocks from everywhere that she took to her cabin. She transplanted cactus and wildflowers. Everything was to beautify her home in the mountains.
She belonged to the sorority Beta Sigma Phi and was active for many years. She made many good friends and loved her involvement with them. She volunteered, working the gift shop and information desk at St Alphonsus hospital for many years. Leah kept busy. She knew how to work and how to enjoy life.
Leah loved to can salmon that they caught when the salmon ran. She loved to sit around a fire and roast marshmallows. She loved cribbage and pinochle. She loved the outdoors. She loved wearing crazy hats. She loved jewelry and wore as much as she could. She loved a good joke. She just loved life. Today she is wearing her happy shoes, because that's Leah.
She was actively involved with the senior center up in Pine and Boise. Again making many good friends and cherishing the time spent with them.
When her daughter, Kathy was stationed in Korea she and Roy travelled to Korea to visit her and her family. Leah talked about that trip for years. It was such a memorable and exciting trip for her. She said she would never forget that and was so grateful for the experience.
When Tricia's twins were born this was another exciting experience in Leah's life. There were twins in Bill's family but she never thought they would come into her family so this was special to her. Then John surprised her with another set of twins. Leah was overjoyed. Not to take away from her other grandchildren but the idea of twins was exciting for her.
Leah's life was exciting. She said she put her toe in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. She had a full life.
She will be missed by those who knew her.
She was preceded in death by her parents, 6 brothers (Cecil, Leo, John, Max, Bob, and Jerry) and her sister Opal. She is survived by two brothers, Kenneth Alvin Dickerson and his wife Lyn of Arizona, and Kay J Dickerson and his wife Ila Jean of Utah. Her 4 children: Teresa Seng and husband Michael of Grand View ; Kathleen Bruni of Boise ; Patricia Travis of Arizona; and John Carter of Nampa. 14 Grand children: Christine (David) Meyers, Michael Seng Jr, Carolyn (Rob) Altland, Chari Bruni, David (Eliane) Seng, Erin Seng, Cassandra (Mark) Rouintree, Corinne Travis, Alysse (Erik) Arellano, Ryan Travis, Joshua Bruni, Schuyler Carter, Kaelan Carter, Landen Carter and 13 beautiful great grandchildren: Brian Meyers, Alexander Meyers, Austin Meyers, Baileigh (Robbie) Swenson, Mackenzie Meyers, Alexander Altland, Jordyn Bruni, Nicholas Altland, Carly Rouintree, Benjamin Altland, John Kaylor Rouintree, Izaiah Arellano, and last of all Vincent Seng.
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