Beth Hatch: So Hewlett Packard decided to expand out to Colorado Springs. I liked California because we always went every weekend. We'd go a new place and explore it everywhere, so that was fun. But I never felt like that was a home.
Scott Jensen: Mountains and...
Beth Hatch: Yeah, it seemed just like, more home. So I said, sign us up. So....
Scott Jensen: It must have been an exciting time.
Beth Hatch: It was!
Scott Jensen: I mean, Air Force Academy was a brand new thing then and...
Beth Hatch: Yeah. Beautiful.
Scott Jensen: And again, so everything's going so well.
Beth Hatch: Yeah.
Scott Jensen: Family's growing, you live in a neighborhood with a lot of good friends. Dad is an electrical engineer at Hewlett Packard, but his love is for flying.
Beth Hatch: Yeah.
Scott Jensen: So he and a coworker bought a Cessna 140, and kind of took the wings off. And it spent a whole winter, as I remember it, with the tail sticking out of our garage as they were working on-
Beth Hatch: Putting out new fabric
Scott Jensen: on the wings, and...
Beth Hatch: Yeah.
Scott Jensen: But it seems like a lot of the free time outside of the engineering world the love was for flying.
Beth Hatch: Oh, anytime he'd get a chance he'd love to go out flying. And I didn't mind too much because I just didn't ever want to go.
Scott Jensen: Yeah.
Beth Hatch: Yeah, he loved to do that. And he had that little side thing that he... what was the deal? They'd take....
Scott Jensen: The way I heard it, is that, kind of to pay for gas money for the plane they'd go out and take aerial photographs of ranches. And then they'd drive around later and sell them for 20 bucks or something. And that would pay their gas. I don't know if I have that right.
Beth Hatch: Oh yeah, that's right. Oh, I forgot that. Yeah, that's right. They did do that, didn't they?
Scott Jensen: And then things changed at some point. You're pregnant with number seven.
Beth Hatch: Oh, yeah.
Scott Jensen: You get a phone call as you're about to serve dinner.
Beth Hatch: The guy said, "We're calling to get details of your husband's death." And I said, "What are you talking about?" And it was just weirdest thing, you know?
Scott Jensen: Yeah.
Beth Hatch: You know, he realized and then he said, "Well, I'm just doing my job." I remember that, and I just hung up. It was just weirdest thing, you know?
Scott Jensen: Yeah. That's how he passed was piloting this plane. Being seven months pregnant with your seventh child.
Beth Hatch: Yeah, I just remember going out running down the road.
Scott Jensen: Life's just gonna be so different now.
Beth Hatch: I just remember this cute lady in the ward coming and she just came in and hugged me. But one good thing, you know, being pregnant, I had to focus on six other kids, you know? Well, I'll tell you, if hadn't have been the people in the church and helping so much and all the support I had, I don't know how I'd ever made it because they just stepped in and took care of and helped me in every way. Dennis was in the ward, and he fixed our teeth for free. You know, everybody was just wonderful. So it was just like I had all these helping support hands.
Scott Jensen: Well, and your kids have turned out okay.
Beth Hatch: Oh, Amazing!
Beth Hatch: So, you know, how could you have done any better than that?
