DARIN NIELSEN: My name is Darin Nielsen. I'm here to interview my mother Jeannene Nielsen and my father Brent Nielsen. Let's start with you, Mom. Tell us where you were born. And when you were born.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: I was born in Overton, Nevada. 1944.
BRENT NIELSEN: I was born in Logan, Utah, 1942.
DARIN NIELSEN: Mom, what would be one of your favorite childhood memories?
JEANENNE NIELSEN: Just being able to play and run with my friends, and we could walk all over Overton because it was a very small town. And there was a ditch across the street that I loved to go swimming in with my friends. And that was my best childhood memory was just swimming in the ditch.
DARIN NIELSEN: Dad, how about you?
BRENT NIELSEN: Oh, favorite childhood memory, the one thing that comes to mind is: Dad liked to fish. We were running the tractors at at the mouth of Blacksmith Fork Canyon, and we would see the fish truck when it went up to plan, and dad would say, "Shut 'em down." And we'd go home, get our fishing poles and we'd get the canyon and see where the tracks pulled off the side of the road. And we knew that's where they dumped fish. I remember, I would drive a D Ford CAT out farming. And I was barely old enough to be able to reach the brake pedal on the one side, pull the lever back, hit the brake pedal to make it turn the corners. And I remember being on the tractor awful early in life. It wasn't hard. It was fun. I enjoyed it.
DARIN NIELSEN: Okay, well, let's transition. Can you describe the moment when you first saw or held Jill, who's your oldest child?
JEANENNE NIELSEN: I loved her. I've loved all my kids. And when you see them for the first time, it's really great. She was a pretty good child. But when you were born, she was a little jealous, I think. And do you remember she cut your finger off in the door when you were trying — she was trying to hide or you are trying to hide?
DARIN NIELSEN: Playing Hide and Seek? I have a vague memory of a door, and my hand and not feeling well. But I would have been two years old or younger.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: We had just moved into our new house.
DARIN NIELSEN: Do you remember the first time you held Jill, your first child?
BRENT NIELSEN: No, I don't remember the first time. All I know is the only time that she was in the mood to have a delivery is when it was milking time to milk the cows.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: That's very true.
DARIN NIELSEN: All the babies came during milking time.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: Either morning or night, it didn't matter when.
DARIN NIELSEN: Do you have any funny stories about your children?
BRENT NIELSEN: Got the one that isn't too funny. It's more serious.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: What's that?
BRENT NIELSEN: I'm out milking the cows and I go out to feed the cows. I go around into the hay barn that's got 250 ton of hay in it. And there's Becky out there lighting matches to see if the hay burns. She said she didn't remember getting kicked in the rear end all the way back to the house. But I know that's what I did.
DARIN NIELSEN: I do too because I witnessed it. I was milking cows. Saw you leave the barn, looked out the window and saw you holding her by her coat and kicking her with every other step, which is the first time I've seen you use corporal punishment in any way. Caught my attention, like I wonder what she did?
JEANENNE NIELSEN: Well, we had to put chain locks on our doors to keep her in the house because she'd run away and she ran away one day when I was at Relief Society. Had her in the old church on Third South in the nursery and that she ran away from the nursery and Lila Lee found her standing out in the middle of the road in front of her house when she went home from Relief Society.
DARIN NIELSEN: That's quite a distance. So this next question is one that's a little deeper. How did becoming a parent change?
BRENT NIELSEN: Well you start thinking about the future and taking care of the family and more responsibility with trying to raise children and teach them what they should and shouldn't be doing.
DARIN NIELSEN: I think most parents worry about all their kids.
JEANENNE NIELSEN: I do.
DARIN NIELSEN: Regularly. Right?
JEANENNE NIELSEN: I worry about a couple but I ... I'm proud of them anyway. I think my kids have done pretty good. One thing that I really enjoyed about Brent was how his family always got together for all of the holidays, and that's the best time in my life is when my kids come to see me.
