Notes from conversation of Nida Donaldson with Susan Bradley Dorrough, May 1987
During the spring of 1951, Nida Bradley and John Donaldson both belonged to the ward choir of the Wasatch Ward, Salt Lake City. The choir practiced weekly, but had planned a break for the summer. The choir director decided to have a party to end the year and asked John to be on the party committee. John, a widower, said that he would be happy to help but that he didn’t want to go to the party alone. The director told him he could ask a single lady like Sister Bradley to come with him, telling him that he’d never find a more talented, alert, beautiful woman. Nida and John went to the party separately, but at the conclusion the director said, “You men escort these ladies home. It’s getting dark.” John obliged and walked Nida home.
While at church the following week, John invited Nida to come to dinner on Friday evening. When she told Doris, she got very excited. Nida had a nervous chill before he came to pick her up. They had a good dinner and went for a ride. When Nida returned home, Doris asked if she had any more chills. She replied, “No, I’m burning up.”
John had a home on Roosevelt Avenue. His daughter, Beverly, was married but his 15 - year old son, Jack, lived with him. At the time, Nida had a basement room in the home of her cousin Doris Hiller and her husband Clyde on Browning Avenue. When Nida moved there, she wanted to pay Doris rent, but Doris had said that no flesh and blood of hers was going to pay rent to stay in her house. Nida said she’d have to move then, so Doris relented and agreed to accept $25 a month. Nida ended up actually paying $50.
John started calling Nida during the evenings to see if she was doing anything. They frequently walked around the neighborhood and had dinner together most Fridays. They found that they really enjoyed each other’s company and had common goals. After careful consideration and prayer, they decided to marry in November.
On a walk, they saw a remodeled home where the double windows in the front had been taken out and replaced with nice large windows. The Donaldson home’s windows were much smaller, but John said that the change would be a good thing to do with his house. He hired a carpenter and had a new fireplace put in, changed the windows on the front and the side of the house, and changed the woodwork in the living room. Nida found a fabric print that she liked and used it to recover a chair and ottoman, and then used the print for the color scheme of the living room.
John and Nida had new carpeting installed, bought a new sofa and chair, and got a new bedroom set, placing the other one in a basement room for Jack to take with him when he married, along with his mother’s china and silver. They also remodeled the kitchen with new cabinets. Nida cashed in the war bonds that she had purchased at Auerbach’s during World War II to pay for the new furnishings.
Nida went on a purchasing trip to New York with other Auerbach’s buyers. They changed planes in Denver at midnight on a Saturday night and then arrived in New York City at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. That first Sunday Nida freshened up and went to church. The other Auerbach’s buyers looked for her to go to breakfast, but she was gone. On future Sundays in New York she started taking them to church with her. While in New York, she enjoyed looking at interior decorating ideas in between the demonstrations that she was scheduled to attend.
Everything was completed before November. A temple divorce had been granted and the home was ready. John and Nida were married in the Salt Lake Temple on November 2, 1951, by Elder Harold B. Lee.
They determined to work together in helping John’s 16-year old son Jack. Nida did not want to take his mother’s place but wanted to be supportive. At age 19, Jack left to serve a two-year mission in the Eastern States Mission.
Nida described John as the perfect husband. He seemed to know what she wanted to have done. If in question, he would “pump” it out of her. On Saturdays they would go over the grocery advertisements together before he drove her to work. He would then do all of the grocery shopping and cook dinner, or he would check on a place to eat and a movie to enjoy after he picked her up from work. John worked at the Salt Lake County Hospital as the budget director, but since he had Saturdays off, he enjoyed doing things for her.
During the Korean War, Nida’s son-in-law, Bob Sorbonne, was called into the service. The government had paid for his dental training and he said he owed something to the government. John would drive by the Sorbonne home every night to check on Betsy and the children and would help with food.
After seeing a lady with a sick husband, Nida wanted to learn how to drive. She called “Student Drivers” and took lessons after John went to work because she wanted to surprise him when she was ready to take the test. She passed the written test and then Betsy would pick her up at 5:30 a.m. and take her to practice driving. John began to have more health problems and with the extra strain, she decided to postpone taking the driving test. After he passed away, she took more lessons and was able to get her driver’s license.
When they were dating, Nida was aware that John had pain in his back when he was sitting in a car. In 1957, the pain became severe, and after being examined by specialists it was determined that John had a tumor. The tumor was removed on Dec. 20, but the cancer spread .
During the next year John was able to return to work at the county hospital, being able to leave as needed as his health failed. Eventually the Donaldsons got a hospital bed for their back bedroom and doctors, who really liked John, made house calls but rarely sent bills. After Christmas 1958, John was not able to return to work.
John was admitted to the LDS Hospital at first, but was moved when the county officials said he could go to the best room at the county hospital. During the hospitalizations of his last winter, Nida would leave Auerbach’s about 6:30 and take a bus to the hospital to visit him and would then take a bus home alone.
In January 1959, Nida had three weeks vacation time accrued. She took it and thought she would have to give up her job to care for John. The doctor and John talked, and the doctor told her if she did not go back to work that she would probably die before John did. The doctor told her to get a neighbor to come in.
Nida arranged for Rosa Reynolds, a neighbor for whom they had provided rides to church and other places, to come and stay with him. It worked out well for Rosa, who was able to earn entitlement to Social Security and was provided with dinner each night. Nida would be up at 5:30 a.m. each day, organizing food and medications. Jack would come and help Nida with sponge bathing his father and changing his sheets before Rosa arrived.
On Sunday morning, April 20, 1959, Nida had bathed John in bed while Jack was at priesthood meeting. She sat down to visit with him and he told her how blessed he felt to have had her—a wonderful wife and mother, a spiritual person, and a respected woman in the business world. He asked her to go on Monday and buy cemetery lots and arrange to have the grave of his first wife, Reta, moved. The next morning, Doris and Clyde Hiller took her to purchase the lots, with Mrs. Stewart of Auerbach’s providing the money. Mrs. Stewart said she had been wanting to do something to help but had been unable because Nida was always one step ahead of her.
When the Hillers dropped Nida off at home, she found that John was hemorrhaging badly. The doctor that he liked best was able to come and stop the bleeding. Nida stayed on a stool beside him as Jack lay on the couch. The doctor returned at 10:30 p.m. and John said, “I’m still here.” At 2:00 a.m., April 22, 1959, as she held his hand, Nida heard him draw his last breath.
Nida felt that John would have gone sooner, but with Jack on his mission, he didn’t want to worry him. The cancer seemed to be held in check until Jack returned, and then everything flared up.
In May, Jack married Shirley Graham and they lived in Salt Lake City for a shorttime before moving to California.
Nida continued to work at Auerbach’s until retirement age. She put her whole heart into her church callings. She served as Spiritual Living Teacher in Relief Society for many years and spent a great deal of time preparing for each lesson. She also loved her calling as Jr. Sunday School Coordinator and held this position with enthusiasm while in her sixties.
The week after retiring, Nida had a hysterectomy and immediately after recuperating from surgery she went to work in the Salt Lake Temple. Her first day at the temple was Dec. 7, 1965, and she worked for six months as a receptionist. She was at the temple three days a week from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The following June, she was made an ordinance worker, learning everything verbally. She prayed hard and was able to learn quickly. In a little over a year, she was made assistant supervisor and a year later she was made supervisor for the morning. She never let anything interfere with her temple work which she performed faithfully for over seventeen years.
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