Question 2

When and where were you born?  (Describe your home, your neighborhood, and the town you grew up in.)

I was born on January 21, 1970, at the USAF Regional Hospital in Minot, Ward County, North Dakota.  My parents are Hyrum Arnold Hall and Nancy Hale Hall.  My dad was serving in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at the Air Force Base in Minot, North Dakota when I was born.  We lived at 104-4 Summit Drive (Minot AFB, North Dakota 58701).

I don't have any memories of our time there because we moved to Logan, Utah when I was 11-months-old after my dad completed his military service.  We first lived in Utah State University married student housing, known as the Triads (later called Aggie Village), but I still have no memory of that time.  My sister Annalee was born while we lived there.

Our next home was on 200 East in Logan, across from what is now Mount Logan Middle School (it was then Logan Junior High School), until I was three years old,  I only have one memory of living there and that involves me breaking an umbrella I'd been given as a gift soon after receiving it because my sister and I were using it to make a tent under some chairs.  My parents have a picture of me helping my dad irrigate our backyard, and love to share the story that I told my dad that I was an "irrigate."

We moved to 919 Hillcrest Avenue in Logan, Utah when I was three, and that is where we lived when the rest of my sisters were born.  Our house was initially pretty small, but my dad loved to do remodeling projects, and the three bedroom home later added a garage, a larger kitchen, a large family room, and an upstairs bedroom area used by my sisters and me.  I remember learning interesting things while going through all those remodeling projects:  (1) don't remodel outside walls during the winter, (2) how to use a level and a chalk line to make a straight lines, (3) the mudding process for electrical heat ceilings is a pretty thing when done by a master (Mr. Huppi), and (4) never, ever remodel anything unless you really love it (I didn't).

We had a nice backyard which included a large patch of lilac bushes along the south fence which my sisters and I used to play under like tents during the summer.  I was sad when one of our remodeling projects removed those bushes.  We also had a swing set that had a couple of tire swings that were set into cement (so we couldn't tip over).  We would play in those for hours, and fill them with water as part of our pretend.  We quickly learned that your bottom would get black after playing in them!

We also had a large honey locust tree which we used as a look-out and played in for hours as space ships, and other imaginary houses and modes of transportation to take us on journeys far and wide while staying in our own backyard.  Add to that a perfect-sized transparent apple tree (also used for many hours of imaginary play), gooseberry plants (for snacking), Bishop's weed (for plenty of doll playing adventures), an apricot tree (which we avoided because it was so sappy, and we hated the earwigs), a plum tree, and a raspberry patch.  We had a great fence between us and the neighbors to the north, the Brower family, which we climbed over often.  During one remodel, we got a tall fence and side gate on the south of the house which we used to stand on while pretending we were an animal farm or a fort.  We sometimes played "colored eggs" with the neighbors out front, and we used rakes to turn the fallen leaves in the autumn into "houses" (outlines of walls with "door" openings) which we would play in for hours.  Each remodel brought the house closer to the honey locust tree, and we could eventually climb from its branches onto the roof, and a few times we "escaped" outside through our bedroom windows, onto the roof, and into the tree.

We played a lot outside, but when we played inside it was usually with each other.  We would use stools and story books to make houses for our dolls, or spend time reading or rearranging our bedrooms.  I liked to organize my dresser drawers and closet, and loved having shelves built into the closet in both upstairs bedrooms.  We didn't have a lot of clothes or toys, but always felt like we had enough.

There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood over the years, but the ones we played with most were the Brower's.  They had kids that matched up with most of us, plus a few older or younger.  We would play cops and robbers and ride our bikes around the block (it was a big block because it included an attached church that had a great rock pile we would hang out in), play "no bears are out tonight", climb the Brower's willow tree house, and play in their willow tree branch teepees or their army tent every summer.  We could yell out our upstairs bathroom window and set up activities and adventures while inside (no cell phones back then, and no need to even use the phone).  They also set up a tarp "slip 'n slide" in their backyard in the summer that we all loved.

As far as Logan is concerned, my favorite spot to go was the Logan Library which was located on the North East corner across from the Logan Tabernacle.  I remember the smell of old books, the sound of dripping water from the old drinking fountains, and the room where all the kids books were!  I would curl up on one of the seats in the children's room and read while my dad would look for his own books elsewhere in the library.  I remember the sound of walking up the old steps from the doors to the main floor, and the old catalog system they used with the stamps in the book for your due date (no computers or scanners back then).  They had every Nancy Drew book I could ever want to read!

I attended Hillcrest Elementary from Kindergarten through 6th grade, before attending Logan Junior High School for 7th grade.  We lived a half-block away, and I would walk to school with my best friend, Danet Brower (now Larsen), and our siblings.  We could even walk home for lunch if we wanted, or bring our own.  I loved going to school and got along well with my teachers.  I only had one episode of friend drama, when a new girl, Robyn Bowen, moved in and thought I was a threat to her and tried to make trouble, but it didn't amount to much, and she later moved.  For most of my childhood, we had Primary on a weekday and I would wear a dress once a week to school so I could just walk across the street and go to Primary in the church chapel afterward.  I remember never feeling cold and playing outside in boots and a dress without any coat at recess.

Most of my friends were from my neighborhood and in my same grade, although I did have a few the year older and the year younger.  Our ward, the Logan 20th Ward (later the Hillcrest 2nd Ward), had a lot of girls my age, and only one boy (Jared Roundy).  We all remained pretty good friends through high school and even keep in touch as adults.

Church as center of our lives
Logan East Stake/Logan Central Stake
Dad's callings
Mom's callings
Dad's work
Mom's work
United Way
Sister fun

Question 1

What is your full name?  (Explain why your parents gave you that name.)

My full name on my birth certificate is Julie Hall.  When I married my husband, Darin Fred Duersch, I formally added Duersch as my last name and made Hall my middle name (in addition to being my maiden name).

My parents named me Julie just because they liked it.  (Julie and Jennifer were very popular names when I was a kid.)  But my dad likes to tease me that I'm named after Julius Caesar because I was born Caesarian-section.

I was the oldest child in the family and became the first of five children, all daughters.  My nickname was Julie Lou from a song that a family friend used to sing to their child ("Soolee, soolee, soolee lou...").  That became the first "boy" nickname in the family, and when each of my four younger sisters joined the family they got one too that went along with their feminine first names.

Interestingly, only one of us was actually given a formal middle name, but the rest were just given a first and last name like our mom and her mother who were only given a first and last name when they were born so that they wouldn't have too many names after they got married.  Later in life, my dad said he wished that he'd given all of us middle names in honor of some of our ancestors because taking your husband's name was only done as a cultural thing; on the records of The Church, our names always remain those given at birth.  Only one sister and I formally changed our last names to our husband's name when we got married; the other two kept their maiden name and only adopted the social convention of going by their husband's last name rather than making a formal change.

52 Questions in 52 Weeks:  Beginning My Personal History

In church today, for our 5th Sunday lesson, Bishop Althouse shared this resource with us to help us get started in writing our personal histories:  https://familysearch.org/blog/en/52-questions-52-weeks-writing-life-easier/.  I decided to do this electronically.