Going Home to LakePoint Days

Lake Point Days 2019 conjured memories for me, a former Lake Point kid. This little farming area located in Tooele County Utah celebrated 165 years with the celebration. Pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who settled in the Tooele Valley were organized on April 24, 1850 into a branch of the Church by Ezra T. Benson. By mid-1854, E.T. City had been established in the area and then renamed Lake Point in 1923.

No, I didn’t live there way back then. My family moved to Lake Point in the Spring of 1957 when I was almost 14 years old. As a typical teenage girl, it was the worst day of my life. I had to leave all my friends, my school, and my comfort zone to move to a place where there might be a hundred families. It seemed like the whole town consisted of cousins, except to us of course. I was miserable and determined not to like it, no matter what.

I lived in that community for another six years and I learned to tolerate and even enjoy my associations. In July 1963, I moved about 15 miles south to live with my new husband in the  metropolis known as Tooele, Utah, population 9,000.  I’ve lived a lot of places in the ensuing 56 years, but this day I returned to enjoy the yearly celebration of what I consider my hometown, now numbering close to 2000 people.  These days it has some of the nicest, most spacious homes in Tooele County.

I’ve looked forward to this for several months. Firstly, I agreed to be a vendor selling my books. I’ve written two books about my family, who has been part of the Lake Point community about 60 years. My family was well thought of. I didn’t even hesitate to believe there would be an interest in reading about the Broadheads. The night before the celebration, I had a sobering thought realizing my mentors, friends of my parents, people for whom my sisters and I babysat, are at least one generation removed from me and I’m 76 years old. The people I hoped to see and visit would be close to 100 years old and the children I babysat wouldn’t be recognizable.  The people inside all those beautiful homes wouldn’t know my family at all.

I set up my booth and prepared to merely enjoy a pleasant day outside and hopefully visit with a few people about my book; I did just that.

One couple told me they had an appointment to look at a home for possible purchase and were early. They saw the party and decided to check it out. They asked my opinion about raising a family in LakePoint. I told them as a 14-year-old narcissistic kid, I didn’t like it at all. However, as an adult who has raised a family, I see the benefits of raising children in an area like Lake Point.

A few people recognized me and the reunion was pleasant. I sold 11 books and with each book, I took the opportunity to tell people about my life in Lake Point. It was an occasion to reflect about my parents who loved me and kept me safe. I recalled five younger siblings who drove me crazy and at the same time reminded myself that all but one has passed on. I remembered feeding mink on a neighboring ranch to earn a dollar, pulling weeds to work off incidents of bad behavior (the equivalent of taking away a cell phone these days), playing tether ball, feeding chickens, gathering eggs, using a wringer washer, hearing my Dad recite the poem “The Face On The Bar Room Floor,” and listening to my Mom sing “Slow Boat to China.”

It’s interesting how I’ve gone from being a dramatic 14-year-old having the “worst” day of my life in LakePoint to being an old philosophical matron relishing one of the “best” days of my life sixty years later. I think I’ll go to Lake Point Days next year.