Rhea Mae Langford
My Grandma Rhea Mae Langford was born on January 7, 1931. In a small town called Overton, Nevada, about a half hour north of Las Vegas. She was the second oldest of six siblings. Oldest to youngest there is Merrill James Langford, Rhea Mae Langford, Dorothy Jeane, Norma Rae, Lillie Marie, and William Fount. As the oldest daughter, my grandma was very responsible. She would help teach her younger siblings how to clean, make beds do dishes and cook. My Great-Aunt Lillie loved having her hair French braided by her sister. She said, “ She also would French Braid my hair and fix it so tight, it would stay in for days before having to be redone!!” She was a friend to her siblings throughout her life; even though distance and other factors were rough on relationships.
She loved to play the piano. One of her favorite songs to play was “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Autumn Leaves.” I remember when she would babysit my siblings and I she would make sure that I practiced everyday! More then my mom ever made me practice, I didn’t really understand why Grandma made me practice so much, but now I realize that she had an appreciation for music, and was a talented musician.
Her Father, Fountain Langford worked hard and maintained several different jobs during her childhood. He worked as a diesel mechanic. When he and his wife Dorothy Madelyn Risse moved to Overton he owned is first garage. Before they had moved to Overton they were living in a tent in Las Vegas! He and my great-grandmother owned a motel, and all of their children, including my grandma worked to keep it running. Later when my grandma was in secretary school he opened a live bait shops. He had several locations along Lake Mead, named Langford Bait Farm. After about ten years he sold the successful business and retired.
Her mother, Dorothy Madelyn, was who I was named after. She graduated from an all girls Catholic School in Phoenix Arizona. Great-grandma Dorothy was essential to the running of the motel and bait farms as she was detail oriented when it came to business and office details. She worked hard in cleaning and doing laundry for the rooms. Eventually they were able to hire a maid, as well as send the laundry to Las Vegas. My Great-Aunty Lilly recounts, “It was nice to get all the clean sheets, pillowcases all back wrapped tightly in butcher paper to keep it clean.” Dorothy also helped with the bait farm, especially during the spring and summer months when fishing was good. As well as supporting Fount in his work, she was a great homemaker. Her home was known for her cooking, and took pride in a well-groomed family. Aunt Lillie recounts, “ She would starch all our shirts, dresses, skirts, then would iron everything and hang it neatly in our closet so we always had clean, starched dresses, skirts and blouses!! They would crinkle when you walked!!”
Grandma Rhea learned to work hard, as she was born at the start of the Great Depression. She helped with the family business growing up. Along with her siblings, my grandmother helped clean rooms. She was a diligent worker. During the springtime, she would join many of the youth from her area and work packing a variety of vegetables to be sent from the Moapa valley to the railroad lines.
My Grandma enjoyed school. Maybe it was because that was where she met my Grandpa, Elwin Dean Pulsipher! They met while in the 9th grade, after they combined the two local schools. They dated throughout high school and were apart during college. In high school my Grandma Rhea was Class President her sophomore year, in the Opera for all four years, and the lead her senior year. Twila Waite and Arlene Lewis were two of her good friends, and they often worked together to run for office and on projects. She was a member of the pep club throughout school. As well, she was a member of several other clubs and associations. She was voted to be an attendant for many dances, which is like the court royalty. She was involved with both the school newspaper and yearbook. She worked with my Grandpa on these; as well they were both elected as Moapa Valley Personalities. They were chosen by the students their senior year to represent the Spirit of Moapa Valley in standards of conduct and scholarship.
After high school she moved to Phoenix, Arizona and lived with her Grandparents, William Ludlow Peter and Florence Adeline Risse. While in Phoenix she went to business school for a year. After that she worked for as a secretary for the schools’ district’s superintendent. Then she moved to Las Vegas and worked at Nellis Air Force Base. At the time my Grandpa was at school at University of Nevada at Reno, and was writing her. But around the time she was back in Nevada, he was a slower correspondent. Rhea started to date someone else, and once it got more serious my Grandma wrote my Grandpa. He must not have been very happy that some guy was picking up on his girl so he made it back down to Las Vegas and asked Grandma Rhea to marry him!
My Grandparents were married on June 12, 1953 in the Saint George, Utah Temple. After they were married they lived at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. They received a short notice call for a moved out Fort Benning in Georgia for active duty officer training. Next they lived at Fort Ord in Monterey, California. While in California my Grandpa was doing basic training for the Army, as he was a platoon leader for 28 men (he was a 2LT and did do basic training.) A little more then a year after they were married, in 1954 my Aunt Jill Maureen Pulsipher was born.
In December of 1954 he received orders for Japan. In January he left to go to school for special training. Prior to that he volunteered for the Army’s new Special Operations training and in January and Grandma Rhea moved back to Overton. While she was there she worked at a nuclear testing plant Monday through Friday and drove back for weekends. Grandma Langford took care of Jill during those long weeks. Later, after four months Grandma Rhea joined Grandpa in Japan after four months of separation. Grandpa met them in Tokyo. Reunited, they lived at Camp Haugen in Hadhnoy Misawa Air force base 150 miles south of the main island. At Misawa they did not have officer housing, so they bought a small home and lived here for eight months.. Grandma was lucky and had a maid for most of their time in Japan. Shortly after Grandma and Jill arrived in Japan, Grandma Rhea got pregnant. The Army was slowly phasing out military camps in Japan, so Grandpa was reassigned to a base in Kyoto. The new base was not going to have the facilities to meet the needs for Grandma’s pregnancy, as well as for two other pregnant women, so they delayed the move until after the babies were born. On January 27th 1956 Michele Gaye Pulsipher and Michael Dean Pulsipher were born. So Grandma Rhea and Grandpa Elwin had 3 children born within 20 months. When the babies were six weeks old, they moved by train, to Kyoto.
Kyoto was Beautiful! Over 3000 people worked on the base, and there was a golf course. While they were there Grandma and Grandpa learned Japanese well enough to survive. They were even brave enough to go visit and site see. They hired another maid, and Grandma got a job for the Army Security Agency until they came back to the United States in November of 1958. Events occurred that helped them decide then that were going to make army his career.
Once back in the states, he had to report back to Fort Benning in Georgia for advanced officers training. The process took seven months. Shortly after finishing in Georgia he was assigned to Ft. Ord to the Defense Language School to learn Korean. He was a Senior First Lieutenant, and was on the trial council as a judge for about two and a half years. He reported that this training helped him in life especially when he became a counselor for standards at BYU. While in California, he got a call for the Special Forces. He accepted and was transferred to the Korea Army Group near Fort Ord. Grandpa Elwin was taking Korean during that time, so they sold house and moved back on post for language school. They were there for a year. Later the Army assigned him to a Special Forces unit, which had 2000 people in it and was designed by President John F. Kennedy. Grandma moved to Overton, Nevada during the first part of Grandpa assignment. Later, after four months Grandma came out to Okinawa where Grandpa Elwin was stationed.
Grandpa and other Army men were being trained for all sorts of activities, emergency medical training along with infiltration behind enemy lines, training insurgents in small unit tactics, airborne operations, and escape and evasion. There was no provided housing there, so he contracted to have houses built there. Rhea ended up joining him before Christmas that year. Grandpa went to Thailand and Vietnam and grandma stayed in Okinawa. While they were in Okinawa my Grandma got pregnant. The timing was good, as they were able to travel back to the United States.
They were assigned to Leavenworth, Kansas. Grandpa Elwin was assigned to Ft. Leavenworth to attend the Command and General Staff College. While they lived there my Uncle Matthew Todd was born on August 11th 1964. Then they moved to Alabama where Grandpa got his Masters Degree in business at University of Alabama. Tuscaloosa. Soon after he graduated in 1967, Elwin was assigned back to Vietnam. Grandma moved back to Overton. In the middle of his tour grandma met him in Hawaii! For this tour he was in Vietnam for a year, ending May 1968. Near the end of tour he received assignment to start the ARMY ROTC program at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
They bought a house in Provo, and that was where my mother, Norma Jean Pulsipher was born! After three years in Provo, he was assigned back to Korea in 1971. He was there for a time, 8 months, but Grandma was alone with five kids for the first time in her life. She was often sick, and didn’t have many friends right when she moved there, and she really missed my Grandpa. “She operated better when my dad was around” says my Aunt Jill. There my Grandmother started working in the Fine Arts Department at Brigham Young University when my Mom started school. At that point, my Grandpa worked in the Standards Office at Brigham Young University and started to work on his Doctorate which he completed in 1977.
My grandmother was a fantastic cook! Her love lives on in the amazing cookbook that my Aunt Michelle helped to compile. Several of my Aunts and Uncles remarked that she loved through her cooking. Favorite memories with Rhea for many of her family are linked to a special dish that she knew they especially liked. Some of her favorite foods were Mexican and homemade bread. She loved her mom’s chocolate cake and special fruitcake for Christmas. During the summer all of her siblings loved fresh fruits and veggies.
When my mom was about seven, my Grandpa was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. This crippling disease is also known as ALS and is what Stephen Hawking has. For the next several years his whole body started to atrophy in a sense. It eventually left him complete incapacitated except (his mind remained the same and he had the ability to blink and think.) This changed every member of their family’s lives, especially so for the two children still at home, and for my Grandma. They took care of him, mainly from home for about 9 years. For a long time family members would take turns staying up with him at night, as it was possible that his life support system might not work. My Grandmother was working full time as well. My mom took on a lot of the housework, and she would help her Dad shave and eat. My Uncle would help my Grandmother bathe him. He was bed ridden for about nine years. Before he completely lost the ability to talk, my Aunts and mother worked with him to record his life story, which is where a lot of the information I used for this biography came from. Her Mother and her children really were her rock during this time. She had to deal with insurances, nurses and people gossiping about her life. This was a hard, hard time for the Pulsipher family, but especially so for my Grandma.
My Grandpa died in 1987, while my mother was on study abroad in Europe. He died so young, a lot their dreams weren’t fulfilled in the way they wanted. My grandparents wanted to go on a mission together, enjoy their grandchildren and children and teach them to love the outdoors! I never met him, as I was born in 1990. After several years, my Grandma moved back to Overton. She lived there for about ten years. Most of my memories of Grandma are from here! We would often go and visit her, about once or twice a year. She was only six hours away! Grandma would always make us yummy food! We loved reading with her and she had a lot of great children’s books. She loved, loved, loved dogs and owned several cocker spaniels. Two that I remember were named Janie and Molly. Grandma missed Grandpa very much. I remember one time she was scolding me for something, and she said, “Do you think that your Grandpa up in Heaven is very happy with you?” I must have been about 6 years old! She really just couldn’t wait until she could be with him again.
When I was about thirteen, so in 2003 Grandma Rhea got really sick. She had stopped taking care of herself and was almost completely blind from diabetes and was in the final stages of kidney failure. It was then that my mom and her sisters all worked together to clean out her house, sell it, and moved my Grandmother in with my Aunt Jill. All three of my mom’s sisters wrote a lot about how hard it was to take care of their mother. All three also wrote that it helped to strengthen their relationship with her as they served her during some of her hardest and loneliest times.
Grandma Rhea lived with my Aunt Jill and her family for several months. Aunty Jill had a hard time with Grandma because she worked hard to get my Grandmother to loose weight, and to try and get her to live healthier. Everyday was a battle over what she could and couldn’t eat. She didn’t really want to join in on Jill’s family’s activities. She just wanted to listen to movies in her room. Grandma was at her sickest here. Then she moved out to our house in California. I remember that it was so hard on my mom, and Grandma faced new challenges here. my mom had the youngest children. We were probably the loudest house, and my mom was so busy balancing taking care of her mom and us. She was always so tired and worried about Grandma. Then she lived with my Aunt Michelle. My cousin Eli, Matt and her husband helped my Aunt Michele so much, but it was still hard work. She almost fell down the stairs several times, and all together gave up on dieting. After ten months of living with her daughters, my grandma decided that she wanted to take her girls on a special vacation to thank them for their care. She also invited her sons to go with them. They went to Hawaii! All of my mom’s family was hesitant, as she was so sick, but my Grandma really wanted to do it. On the second day there my Grandma passed away, a few days before her birthday. The night that she died, my mother had a dream that her Dad, and several of my Grandma’s deceased loved ones came. They were walking on the beach and didn’t say anything to my mom. An hour later my Aunt Jill came and into the room and told my mom that Grandma had passed. I as well remember waking up in the middle of the night and I had a strong feeling that Grandma had passed away. The next day my cousin Mandy, my Aunt Michele’s daughter told my siblings and I, as she was babysitting us. We all miss Grandma a lot, and I have learned so much from her example as well from my Aunts and Uncles!
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