Nelda Watkins Gephart - Life Sketch

Nelda Watkins was born January 12, 1925 in Lehi, Arizona, the 11th and youngest child of Henry Cobb Watkins and Hester Caroline "Caddie" Rogers Watkins.  She joined siblings Vera 1906, Alice 1908, Willis Archie 1910, Henry Carl 1912, Alton Rogers 1913, Inez and Ivan 1914, John Hatch 1916, Norene 1919, and Leland 1922. 

When Grandma was six months old, her family left Arizona so her father could pursue carpentry work with the Libby, McNeill & Libby Canneries in California.  They traveled around central California's farmland for two years until Caddie told Henry her children needed a stable place to live so they could get an education.  They resolved to return their family to Arizona, but they decided to travel to Blanding, Utah, to visit family members on their way.  That visit ended up lasting for about 12 years. 

Henry and Caddie built a farm in Blanding and continued raising their family there.  Grandma remembered being her Daddy's favorite and sitting by him at dinner every night.  He loved her because she was his baby - but also because she was left-handed and he was right-handed, and sitting by little Nelda gave him extra elbowroom at a crowded table. 

She loved the garden her mother and sisters kept outside the house.  Being the baby of 11 afforded her quite a bit of freedom, and Grandma loved to sneak out to the garden to sample the vegetables as soon as they came in - radishes and cucumbers and fresh garden tomatoes remained some of her favorite snacks throughout her life.   

In her own personal life story, Grandma wrote:

            Every spring we planted a garden, a big one for our big family.  Dad would plow it with a hand plow pulled by old Bell, a lazy old horse we had.  He would have me ride her to keep her going.  I would take a book to read as we went round and round the garden, kicking old Bell with my heels to keep her going.

            We planted all kinds of vegetables, and then in the fall we had to bottle them for winter food.  I think I have washed more bottles than anyone else in the world.  Also I have cut gallons of corn off the cob, shelled gallons of peas and broken gallons of green beans. We also bottled boysenberries, currants, strawberries, gooseberries, peaches, apricots, pears, plums, cherries and a few apples.

Grandma turned eight years old in January of 1933 and was excited to be baptized.  But Blanding's water supply was low in the winter and she had to wait until the spring rainy season for enough water to fill the local creek so she could be baptized by immersion.  Finally on May 7, 1933, her turn came, and along with all the other Blanding children who turned eight that winter, Grandma was baptized in Recapture Creek near her home.

In September of 1940, when Grandma was 15 years old, the family finally ended their "visit" to Blanding and came home to Mesa.  They lived in a house two blocks west of the Mesa Temple, and grandma attended Mesa High School for her last three years, graduating in 1943.  She was also very proud of the fact that she graduated from Seminary that year.

We all saw little miracles in Grandma's life as a result of her simple and pure faith.  In her personal life story, Grandma recorded this story about the week after her high school graduation:

On Monday after graduating. Laverne Merkley and I went swimming in the canal.  Everyone did it in those days. Somehow I cut my right knee on a piece of glass.  Laverne took me home and Dad took me to the hospital.  The doctor sewed it up and told my Dad that I might not be able to walk again, and if so I would probably have a bad limp.  Of course Dad didn't tell me this at the time, but after I got home I was suffering quite a bit so Dad and a neighbor administered to me.  In the blessing I was told I would be able to walk normally again.  I have always been grateful for the blessing, especially after I learned what the doctor had said to my Dad.

After recovering from her injury that summer, Grandma went to work at Williams Air Force Base in September 1943 as a messenger.  She quickly moved up to other positions by virtue of her hard work and good attitude.  She met her sweetheart, Jean Gephart, while working at Williams.  She was a "stock tracer" who delivered parts to the Aero Repair Crew Chiefs, and Crew Chief Gephart thought she was quite a looker.  They developed a friendship at work and in May 1944, Grandpa asked Grandma for their first date.  She accepted and they set a date for the following Friday.  They had their first date at Encanto Park in Phoenix, even though Grandpa had missed work that day.  He'd been stung on the face by a bee and had one eye completely swollen shut and the other partway there, but he wasn't about to miss that first date with Nelda.

Grandma continued to work at the base while Grandpa was deployed with the Navy.  She enjoyed working and dating and many church activities during those years.  "I was also dating other guys as I wasn't really serious about him.  He was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I didn't intend to marry outside of the church."

Grandma wrote, "After he got his discharge we continued to date and he wanted to marry, and though I still didn't want to marry outside the church, soon I was not dating anyone else.  We discussed the church quite a bit and when he agreed that our children could become members I gave in."

Grandma and Grandpa were married September 19, 1947 in Globe, Arizona, with Grandma's sister Norene and Grandpa's best friend John Baker present at the ceremony.  They honeymooned that weekend in Show Low before returning to Chandler to build their life together.  They rented a small home in South Chandler for about a year, and then moved into an apartment in a better neighborhood.  By 1949 they had saved enough to build their own home at 655 East Flint Street in Chandler, Arizona, where they both lived for the rest of their lives. 

Grandma continued to work at Williams until January 1949.  That summer she had her first son, Robert Dale Gephart.  Three years later the family welcomed Linda Jeanne in 1952, and baby John David was born in 1960. 

Grandma's life story is full of specific things she loved about her children.  She wrote that Bob was a wonderful and kind big brother, and always very smart and quick to pick up on things she taught him.  She wrote, "Bob loved his little sister and thought of her as his own personal baby.  We could do anything with or for her except claim her as our baby.  Then he would say, 'No, Mommy, she is mine.'  He really loved her and would do anything for her. "

Grandma and Grandpa were so happy to have a daughter when Linda was born.  Grandma wrote, "Jean was really happy to have a daughter.  Having no sisters she was a new experience for him to look forward to."  Linda was active and curious from the beginning and kept her parents on their toes.

John was her special baby, the last one to join the family.  Grandma wrote, "Bob and Linda really enjoyed their little brother and Linda really mothered him.  He says she still does.  He has always been a very loving and thoughtful person and has added much to our lives.  He loved to be read to and was always pulling all the books out of the bookcase looking the one he wanted to hear.  To this day he loves to read. "

Grandpa was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1957, and Grandma was sealed to her family in the Mesa Temple on October 12, 1968.  Grandma wrote that it was, quote, "a wonderful day in all our lives." 

Shortly after Bob left on his mission in 1968, Grandma took a job working in the neighborhood school cafeteria.  Much like she did at Williams, Grandma started at the bottom and worked her way through different positions until she became manager of the cafeteria supervising a crew of eight women.  She wanted to make sure she was home with John when he was out of school, but she enjoyed her work and used her wages to support her boys on their missions and help pay for Linda's education.  She wrote, "I am very grateful for that experience.  I think it was very good for me and taught me many things I have needed to know."

Grandma enjoyed traveling all over North America with Grandpa, and over the course of their life together they visited all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces.   Grandpa always wanted to see historical sites and geographical wonders like Little Big Horn and Niagara Falls, but Grandma's reason for traveling revolved around one of her life's pleasures: family history research.  She was excited to meet Grandpa's Illinois family and collect genealogical information when they took their first big vacation together in 1959.  Again and again in her history she wrote, "We met this relative and this relative, and they were wonderful, but we did not receive any more family history information than what we already had." 

On the drive back to Arizona from this big trip they stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois, where her great-grandfather had helped build the temple.  Years later when her mother-in-law passed away, Grandma was left the money in a small savings account to be used toward a family history research trip to New England, which she happily was able to take a few years later.   

Grandma and Grandpa continued to travel together after their retirement.  They joined the Commemorative Air Force and toured with the B-17 many summers.  Grandma has maintained long-distance friendships with many of the people they met on those tours. 

Grandma loved the temple and felt the pull to family history work her whole life.   She remembered her first trip to the Salt Lake Temple the summer after she turned 13.  She cherished the memory of participating in 12 baptisms in the temple where her parents had been married.  Then just last year, after her memory had begun to fade and her body had started to fail her, she asked my mom and me to take her to the temple one more time.  Her family, both ancestors and posterity, were the most precious thing to her, and her greatest desire was to bless us any way she could.

Grandma wanted a large family and I'm afraid she felt cheated that she only got to have 3 children, but she took great pride in her family.  She was proud of the missions served and high school and college graduations, church service given and new families created.

This week Grandma returned to her mother and father, 10 brothers and sisters, her dear husband, a daughter- and son-in-law who she loved like her own, nieces and nephews, and all the ancestors she spent years seeking out.  

She leaves behind three children, a beloved daughter-in-law, eight grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and many more people who she would envelop into her family.

As we've remembered and planned and arranged this week, putting together a celebration of life we hope Grandma would appreciate, we've said again and again: Grandma was an includer.  She found a reason to love everyone she met. I'm sure that love was returned to her a thousand times over when she returned home last Saturday.  And I hope that when we remember Grandma, we remember the unconditional love she had for each of us and that we do our best to show that love again.