00 - The Beginning

The first part of this history is taken from Dad and Mom’s accounts of the events of the time.

I was born on Saturday, the 11th of January 1969 on my fathers 35th birthday. I weighed 6 lbs and 20 ounces at birth and was 21 inches long (Dad said I ”came with nice smooth skin, slick and soft like rabbit fur”). My parents, Leona Lee Brown Olsen and DeWayne L. Olsen were living in Provo Utah, where they were attending Brigham Young University (BYU). They were both working on their bachelor’s degrees (Dad in accounting and Mom in youth leadership). The day before I was born (Friday) my parents had driven from Provo up to Murray to visit the Brown family and to visit the doctor (Dr. James Marchand). The doctor said that I (the baby) would not be ready to come for another two or three weeks. After their visit Mom and Dad arrived home that Friday evening and did not fill the car back up with gas (they had kept the tank full for three months because they new they would need it when delivery time came). Early in the morning the labor pains started. After a few hours Mom and Dad got up and called the doctor. The doctor said to come on up to the LDS hospital, which is in the avenues in Salt Lake City (SLC). After taking time to stop and get gasoline ($0.19 cents a gallon (Dad said $0.19 Mom said $0.27 (this was actually a big deal to them since they had spent all that time fussing over keeping the tank full (they were living on $50.00 a month and spent $25.00 a month on rent and the rest was for gas and food)))) they drove up to SLC. Mom and Dad finally arrived at the hospital and waited during the hours of labor. Finally the time arrived and they went into the delivery room and to have their firstborn son.

Mom’s journal said, “The time was getting closer for our first child to come into the world. It was the first part of January, a Friday. I had left school early to bake a cake for DeWayne's birthday, which was the following day. I put it on top of the fridge in a cake dish so that he couldn't find it. When DeWayne got home from school we went to Salt Lake to see the doctor and he informed us that we had at least two more weeks. That evening the ward clerks came to our home. DeWayne was the Financial Ward Clerk and was missing twenty-five cents, which couldn't be found, so he got some help from the other clerks. One of the wives and I went to the movies while the men did accounting. Around 1 a.m. I was awakened. I had a little pain and when I went into the bathroom I found I was spotting. I didn't think to much about it because we had just seen the doctor a few hours earlier. I went back to bed and slept for a couple more hours. At 6 a.m. the pains were harder and closer together. By then I knew I was in labor. I didn't want my baby to be born on DeWayne's birthday. I wanted him to have one of his own. Well, I woke DeWayne up and told him what was happening. He was elated to think that his first child would be born on his birthday. He went upstairs to call the doctor and was told to bring me in. By 7 a.m. the pains were 2-3 minutes apart and my water broke. The landlady came down and told us to get going. When we got in the car we were out of gas. We just hadn't filled up after having been in Salt Lake the previous day. We stopped for gas and I remember it was twenty-seven cents per gallon. We were finally on our way. We arrived at the hospital a little after eight and was immediately taken up to labor where I spent the next seven hours in very hard labor.

Dear Shaun,
I remember well the day you left your Heavenly Father to make your home with the Olsen’s. Dr. Marchand was there for me. When it came time for you be born you were turned face up. The doctor used forceps to turn your head. At three p.m. or thereafter, you were born - a son. What a wonderful birthday present for your Dad. We named him Shaun Marceal Olsen. Shaun, because we liked the name and Marceal after your grandfather Olsen. I spent three days in the hospital taking care of you and getting acquainted. You were so much fun to have around.
Love Mom

01 - Birth and First Year

Dad says that I did not fuss all that much in the beginning and that my fussiness came later on. Mom and I stayed in the hospital for three days. Dad said, “Mother was able to order all the food she wanted and had a three-day vacation. She said that was the only vacations she got. I would visit in the hospital and then go back to school”. On Tuesday, Dad took his new family back to their apartment in Provo. We lived in the basement apartment of the home on 8th North and 331 West. (As of this writing I am sure I have been past that home many times but did not realize that that is where I spent my first months). We lived there until Mom graduated with her degree later that year. As a baby I wanted a lot to eat and could not get used to settling down at night. Evening time was playtime. Mom changed my bath from mornings to evenings and that helped a little. After Mom graduated (I got to wear my Mom’s graduation hat and have my picture taken at the Provo apartment), Dad had five classes to go to finish his degree. They decided to quit school full time and they moved to Sandy into a home that Moms parents owned on 2nd North, 120 East. Dad finished up his schooling taking classes at night while working at the University of Utah in the accounting department (he worked there over 9 years).

02 - Year Two

I grew and had my first birthday party with Uncle Lynn and Aunt Elaine. We had cake, which I made a mess with. Mom and Dad liked to drive everywhere and explore. They said that I liked going with them to see new things. When we moved to Sandy Mom got a job working at the telephone company. I stayed with a lady named Beverly Wintel. I later met Beverly after I was married and had some kids of my own. Of course I did not remember her but it was nice to meet her. Soon after moving to Sandy, Dad was called to be the counselor to Bishop Robert C. Swenson. On the 16th of Feb 1970, Grandpa Anthony Morelos Brown (Mom’s Dad) passed away. Mom always said that if I died in my youth, he would be the one that would come and get me and through my life I often though of him in this light. Also during this time Mom and Dad discovered that they were going to have another baby (Shannon). Grandma Brown (Nellie Weiler Brown) decide that she wanted to sell the house so we moved to a house in Sandy, just west of state street. We lived in that house for three or four years. This is the house that I have my first memories in. There were some people that live up the road a few houses by the name of Ewell. They had a boy who was my age named David. I remember spending hours at each other’s houses playing with the dogs, bow and arrows, hid and seek etc. Those were great days. Through the years Dave and I have kept track of one another and are still friends to this day. While we lived in that house, Sharlynn and Tanya were both born. I don’t remember those events, but I remember from pictures that they were there. Also during this time (1972) Grandpa and Grandma Olsen (Lorenzo Marceal Olsen and Pearl Nessen Olsen) sold their farm in Howell Utah and moved into a trailer park in American Fork, Utah. There are just a few memories of their home in Howell but I mostly know them from AF where they lived for 27 years until they passed away.

In September/October of 1973, we moved from Sandy to Kearns. I remember a lot about living in Kearns, we lived very close to the church and were able to walk to and from. We also lived near Moms sister, Sue and Paul Pearson. Their home was about a mile from where we lived. I remember walking to their house thought a weed-infested field. Sue and Paul’s kids were older than we were so we really didn’t get along much. I remember throwing things over the back fence of the Kearns house into the neighbor’s yard (we were not suppose to do that but we did it any way). One day we were playing in Grandpa Olsen’s canoe and discovered a huge black widow spider. I remember we ran around and screamed with excitement, fear and anticipation of Dad coming home to kill it (which he did fairly unceremoniously). The next-door neighbor kids were all older than we were. I do remember that one day they had caught a large catfish. It was swimming in a pool in their backyard. I don’t remember what they did with it. The boy that lived there had a room that was painted purple. From that point on I decided that when I grew up I would have a purple bedroom as well. It has never happened. There were two life-altering events that happed while we live in Kearns and they both happed at church. The first one was that I got a bloody nose and had to sit on the couch during class. I remember being embarrassed and disappointed that I missed class. The next one was having an ear-ach so bad that I cried. We had a dark brown fridge that I always thought was very ugly. Kelli and I went back to that house years later. It had not changed at all. It was interesting to fill in my childhood memory holes with a newer vision of the home we lived in. We only lived in Kearns for 5 months before the next move.

05 - Banida Idaho

I was five years old when we moved to Banida. Dad had bought a 160-acre farm 12 miles north of Preston. Banida is full of more memories than I can share at this time. It was a time of learning and growing. I helped my Mom and Dad on the farm and did chores and played a lot. Here is an excerpt from Moms journal, “One day DeWayne brought home six baby pigs…. Shaun helped with the feeding and when he was older his responsibility was to water and feed the sows. That was a big job for a young boy but he did a great job…. one time water was coming into the field where we had just baled straw. I had to do something fast so Shaun and I took the pickup and headed for the field. I put Shaun behind the wheel and I loaded up Straw. Shaun was only five years old driving for the first time. He kept putting on the break and I would go flying. He soon learned to do it more slowly, and of course, he could hardly reach the pedals. We did get the straw off in good time."

05 - School Years

In the fall of 1974 I started kindergarten (5 years old). The bus picked me up in front of the house in Banida and I went all day, every other day. We spent Christmas that year at Grandma Haffen’s home in St, Gorge (Grandma Brown married Guy Haffen sometime after Grandpa Brown Passed away) with Kathy and Bill Randall (Kathy is one of Moms sisters) and other family members. I remember that his trip was very exciting. Chad and I received the same gifts for Christmas, which was a helicopter with a control on that that wet round and round. While we lived in Banida Dad bought some dairy cows. They were kept on someone else’s farm and we would ride over on the tractor every morning and evening to milk them. I was able to spend a lot of time with my Dad, which I enjoyed very much. I attended school in Preston at Oakwood elementarily through second grade (my Mom was the bus driver for part of the time I attended school there). At the end of first grade, the high school was putting on the musical the King and I. They needed some children from the elementary school to be part of the royal family. Mom had me try out but I did not make it the first time. Mom was pretty insistent that I get a part in the play. We went home and we practiced and practiced and then Mom arranged for another audition. We met privately with the director, I sang my song to him and he gave me the part. I remember being very nervous and excited. We practiced with the high school kids and I remember enjoying the whole affair right from the start. The high school kids were very nice to us and I thought that the girls were pretty. This is when my love of singing, dancing and acting was born (actually I had always sang and danced for family home evenings and for grandparents etc. This was just my first stage program). I did not make the play in time to get my name in the program but at least I was in it. I was the little boy the stands up and walks over to shake Anna’s hand during the “Getting To Know You” song. In the middle of second grade I was baptized by my father in the Preston Stake Center. I remember the day it was cold and I was the last one to be baptized. A girl that I went to school with was first then there was another boy and I went last. I remember that they had me stand dripping wet and cold by the side of the font while someone said the closing prayer. The dressing room was a funny round room with thick pink, or blue carpet (I don’t remember which). Zane was born while we lived in Banida.

08 - Moore Idaho

It was the fall of 1977 and I was just starting the third grade (8 years old). About 2 months or so into it we moved to Moore Idaho. I guess the cows had overrun their space and Dad needed more room to build up the dairy. The house we rented was totally filthy. It was so dirty with old dirt and buckets of who knows what all around the house. After a few days we had it cleaned up and I started school in Arco. I really did not like the move since I had some good friends in Banida but such is life. Soon after we arrived in Banida Regan was born. I went to a friend’s house. The pigs were farrowing (having babies) and I was suppose to go over during the night to check on them but the man of the house went over by himself and farrowed the pigs (I thought that this was especially nice of him). The Moore house was a wonderful place to live as a young boy. There was an irrigation canal that went past the house and we would spend hours playing in it. It wasn’t often full of water and usually only had a trickle of water or it was dry. We were very close to the mountains and I spent hours and hours hiking in the sagebrush hills. My sisters were my best friends and we played and played. I learned the art of torture and practiced it regularly on them (which they remind me of to this day). I also had responsibility of mixing and feeding the calves milk, feeding and watering the pigs, helping dad with the milking and later feeding he bum lambs (lambs whose mothers could not take care of them or had died). We lived in this home for two years and then we moved again.

10 - Lost River

In the summer of 1979 Mom and Dad sold all the dairy cows and bought a farm on the Last River. I was 10 years old. The farm was about 5 miles or so from the farm in Moore. There were 160 acres of running room. The big Lost River ran right through the center of the property. It wasn’t often full of water and was usually a lazy trickle. We would walk up the field with our inter tubes and float the river right down in front of the house. It was still cold water in the summer so I always ran to the bathroom and got in a hot tub of water. Most of my memories from Lost River I will save for another day however there are a few I would like to highlight. Some time while we lived there Kent and Dianne Marsden came to live with us. Dianne is Mom’s sister. They had 7 kids and we had 6 thus the house was very full. I don’t know exactly how long they stayed but it was at least 6 months. Dad bought 1000 head of sheep and we spent a lot of time chasing them since they were always out. In the summer of 1980 we hired a sheepherder to run the sheep on the Palisades Reservoir (about 150 miles away). I would go with Dad every other week or so to check on them. Towards the end of the summer, the sheepherder did not do a very good job of watching the sheep and they had become scattered all over the mountain. It was time to bring them home for the winter. Dad and I hiked all over the mountain several days with Grandpa Olsen rounding up the sheep. This was a very good time with my Dad and with grandpa. It was rainy while we were there and I remember the three of us sleeping in my 3-man tent and the thunder and lightening crashing all around us all night long. Little did I know that that would be the last summer with Dad before he went blind.

Soon after Kent and Dianne moved I turned 12 years old and was ordained a deacon. Right after this was when Dad lost his sight. Little did I know back then what that would mean for him and our family. Mom worked nights and farmed during the days. Dad went to Boise to the blind school to learn how to get around without his sight. This was a very trying time for all of us. After that time I spent a lot of time being angry with my parents. It was during these years where I was trying to find my self and who I really was and where I fit into the picture. There was a very large tree in the farm that was probably 100 feet tall. I would climb to the very top of that tree and sway back and forth in the wind and think. That was my favorite place to be. No one else could get up there so it was my personal place. I helped Mom and Dad farm but I was not very nice. I wish now that I would have spent those times with my Dad in happy conversation and friendship. Instead I spent my time being angry and feeling sorry for myself. Oh how I wish I could have lived those years over or had those years back but they are gone and lost. It took me many years to realize what I had given up and many years before I was a friend again with my Dad. This happened after I had moved out and had a family of my own. I am sorry Dad it took me so long to come around. I need to tell you that I love you with all of my heart and love and appreciate the things you have always taught of working hard and of honesty and integrity and especially of your testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. I appreciate and value your friendship and I have grown to appreciate all that you and Mom have done for me. I have also begun to understand the sacrifices that you went through to keep us happy and to shelter and teach us. Thank you both I will be eternally grateful.

While in Lost River Mom gave me a horse for my birthday or Christmas or junior high graduation I don’t remember which. I spent a lot of time with the horse. It was not very well mannered and one time during the rodeo finals where I was showing it and it bucked and almost kicked another rider. All of my friends owned motorcycles and I want to be like them and I wanted a bike. So one day I sold the horse to someone without telling my parents and bought a motorcycle. This probably made my Mom very sad since she loved horses and this one was the first foal of her horse. I have only ridden a horse a handful of times since then. The motorcycle was a Honda Trail 110. It was not a dirt bike like my friends had and the kids teased me a lot saying it was a girls bike but I loved it still the same. I spent hours and hours riding in the hills and in the fields. I rode that bike until I was 19 just before my mission. It ran a bit after my mission and I gave it to Zane and Regan.

During the summer of 1984 (I was 15 and Van Hallen had just released their 1994 album which I loved and my parent hated) I got a job working out at the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Craters is an 88 sq. mile volcanic lava park with many neat things to see and do 17 miles from Arco. I am sure that my Mom and Dad could have used my help on the farm that summer but they probably let me go just to keep me happy. I had just received my driver’s licenses (I had been driving for years since I was on the farm and drove tractors and trucks on a regular basis, this was just when I was able to drive on the roads legally). There were five other youth that got jobs there as well (two from my ward) and two from town and one that lived at the park. We decided that each of us would drive one day a week to cut down and share gas expenses. We had been going for about a week and we seemed to be late every day so everyone drove very fast (my parent’s don’t know about this yet so they will find out then they read this the first time) upwards of 100 miles an hour. This was very exciting to be going that fast. The first day I drove, I took the family station wagon. It was huge beast with a powerful engine. I was driving about 95 miles and hour and the car was shaking like crazy. We were laughing and having a great time and I piped up and said, “hey this is the first time that I am driving without my parents in the car”. The car got very quiet and we made it to work in record time. This of course was a very unwise and foolish thing to do and we were very blessed to have not gotten killed. We did slow down to the 80’s after that. I have never gone 100 mils an hour again (in a car). We worked all summer long and hauled 22 sq. yards of asphalt (that’s 4-5 dump trucks full) from the edge of a volcanic crater down the hill about 125 -150 yards in wheelbarrows. We also built a walking path around another crater that has a bronze spike driving into the wood railings with our names on it. They also allowed us to spend some time in the park learning and exploring areas that normal people were not allowed to see which was truly a neat experience (that is where I learned to love spelunking or caving). During this summer I fell in love with Jendi Bledsoe (at least I thought it was love back then). She was on the work crew with us and we spent a lot of time talking. She was going to be a senior and I a sophomore. We remained friends all that year until she married right out of high school. I was disappointed but happy for her.

While in Lost River I started working for other farmers in the potatoes fields and in the summer of 1985 (16 years of age) I worked as a full time hired hand for the Von Jensen family. The Jensen’s had a girl my age named Carolyn (my next love I thought). The Jensen’s were in our ward and when they approached me to work for them I was elated. I thought that this was going to be the best summer because I could spend it working, earning money and spending time with Carolyn (besides they offered to pay me $3.50 an hour which was a lot of money then). That summer I worked hard, I moved miles and miles of sprinkler pipe, drove tractor, hauled hay and potatoes. In my time of I helped mom farm our own farm. Again I could have been much more help at home if I had been in tune to the needs of our family. My summer with Carolyn was cut short when she got a job working for a doctor in town grooming and training his horses. I was a bit disappointed about that but it turned out for the best. I still saw here once in a while and we still had some fun times together. That summer I finished up all the requirements for earning my Each Scout award. The only thing that I had not done was the paper work. I finally did that and received my award just before my 18th birthday in Pleasant Grove.

That year there was an overabundance of water (which rarely happened) and they let the water rush down the Big Lost River (it was called the Lost River because the water flowed out into the desert and then just disappeared when it hit the lava flows creating a underground river) in torrents. The water destroyed our irrigation systems and we were unable to effectively water the crops. Then just before harvest time the hail came and knocked what grain had grown off the stocks. It was time to move again.