Item Detail
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Gladden, Norma De Lee Vance
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1921-1962
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MSS 827
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Norma De Lee Vance Gladden was born July 20, 1921 to John Quinney Vance and Etta May Huffman in Monticello, San Juan County, Utah. When she was two years old, her family moved to Cederedge, Colorado, and they moved again several times until finally settling in Delta, Colorado, where Norma attended grade school and high school. After graduating, she worked by keeping house for several different families. On January 23, 1942, at age twenty, she married David Wheeler Gladden. He went into military service seven months after they were married, and shortly thereafter, their first son, Richard, was born. Norma went to Seattle to live with her sister for some time, and there she worked at Boeing aircraft with her sisters. After the war, the family moved to Durango, Colorado, where they lived with David's parents. There, their second and third children were born. They then moved to Tod Park, Tooele, Utah, where they had their fourth child. Norma died May 4, 1962.
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Part of the J. Allen Parkinson collection, this is a two-page typescript autobiography, located in the eighth folder of the collection, which is labeled, Biographies, GA-GU. The manuscript provides a few details of Norma's personal life. It describes her baptism, along with several others. The manuscript also related that Norma loved swimming, dancing, horseback riding, baseball, and football. It also relates a small account of how Norma met her husband, David: Norma had gone with her brother George to meet his fiance, and shortly thereafter, she met his fiance's brother, David. They courted for eight days, and two couples were married in the Mesa Temple, on the same day, which took Norma's family by surprise. The manuscript also provides a few details of Norma's also provides a few details of Norma's time working in Seattle with her sisters. When the family finally settled in Tod Park, the manuscript relates that the family would take vacations to visit Norma's parents on their way to Red Mesa, Arizona. As they drove, the younger boys were often afraid of falling because of how narrow and winding the roads were on Cliffside. The manuscript ends with Norma's gratitude for her health and strength, and for her twenty years of marriage. In addition to this manuscript is a three-page typescript autobiography of Norma, located in the second Hollinger box of the collection in the eleventh folder, which is labeled, Biographies, VA_VO. It provides much of the same information, though Norma does write a more extensive account of her trips to Sunday School conferences. She also writes about Mutual, that the parties would generally end with dancing and refreshments. In May of 1938, she writes that she held a party, and all the children played outside. She concludes by writing that she will be married for seventeen years on January 23, and they currently have five children.