Life Lessons - A Memoir of S. Scott Dean

By Scott Dean

Life Lessons - A Memoir of S. Scott Dean is a recollection of the author's life experiences with insights into what he learned on his journey. After the passing of his first wife and with six young boys, he remarried. With his new wife and her nine children, they added one more daughter. There blended family of 16 children, 8 boys and 8 girls became an important part of his life. Now permanently disabled with a rare disease, he has written about his life's journey and the many wonderful experiences he encountered along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Dean
• Release date: Aug 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223121909

Book preview

Dedication

To all my children and posterity, I leave my unconditional love, my faith, my love of God the Eternal Father and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and hope that you choose to accept the power of the Holy Ghost to guide you through life’s growing experiences. Learn well, gain understanding and wisdom, and bless the lives of those around you. Life is too short to waste on distractions, petty disputes, gossip, contention or conflict. Actively seek to see the good in everyone you meet. I have. Everyone is a beloved child of God. And we all struggle to overcome our life’s challenges. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we succeed. In the end, we learn and grow, we become stronger. Embrace and love all people for we are all brothers and sisters. Enjoy all of the wonderful creations our God has placed here on this earth for us. Be strong enough to admit mistakes, apologize, forgive, serve and love one another. Don’t be afraid to pray or study scripture. Remember that we are spiritual children experiencing a physical, mortal journey. There is nothing that we have done that has not already been resolved through the Atonement of Jesus Christ if we are willing to accept this gift into our lives. Focus on the positive in all you do. You will find that any challenge can be overcome through God’s love. He does love you, and so do I, always and forever.

Pomona, California

I, Steven Scott Dean, was born in Pomona, California on March 6, 1957, to Bessie Anne Lambert Dean and Gary Lee Dean. The first child and son of the young couple and first grandchild for both sets of grandparents. Due to my mother and her younger sister, Noreen, both wanting to use the name Steven for a boy, I was given the middle name of Scott. So, Steven Scott Dean was born in March 1957 in California, and Steven Charles Steadman was born in April 1957 in Utah. I went by Scott and he went by Charlie for a while, although by the time we were teenagers, he was Steve. Families always find a way to work things out,

On January 18, 1954, my parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time they were married, both my mother’s family and father’s family lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. My mother was just 18 years old (born October 13, 1935 in Salt Lake City, Utah) when married and a Senior at East High School (SLC). She finished her high school education in California after being married and moving to Pomona where my father received his first job after graduating from the University of Utah as a Pharmacist. My father was born on August 12, 1931 in Ogden, Utah, and had graduated from Ogden High School, Ogden, Utah. My mother’s high school diploma was granted by East High School.

My mother almost died in childbirth with me - almost bleeding to death - but she survived. I think that was part of the reason she was so adamant about doctors and hospitals all of the time - from her own experience. She trusted doctors and hospitals but was skeptical of alternative health practices. She had a very good doctor throughout her life as she faced many health challenges.

While living in Pomona, my father served as a medic in the U.S. Army. They made him a medic because he was already a pharmacist. Camp Pendleton was his base, I think. He never saw any action in a war zone, as the Korean War was winding down.

We had a cat that was missing a tail, whose name was Snooks. It lost its tail in a slammed door. While I don’t remember having the cat (I was very young), I remember my mother telling me the story. Years later, when I was 8 we had just moved to the house on Nye Circle, I met our next-door neighbor’s youngest daughter who went by the nickname of ‘Snooks’.

My parents had a newspaper clipping of a picture of a white-blond, curly haired toddler sitting on a curb. He is shirtless with his face and belly covered in melted chocolate ice cream, sharing what’s left of his ice cream cone with the neighbor’s cat. That was about as close as I ever got to being a celebrity.

On December 13, 1958, my brother Robert Lee Dean was born. After his birth, doctors told my mother that she should not have any more children due to the high risks to her health.

murray, Utah (1959-1964)

My parents moved back to Utah before I was 3 years old, buying a house at 5758 South 920 East, Murray, Utah. It was a simple rambler with a nice flat yard ready to be improved. The house was located one house away from a farm with a pasture raising horses.

Although my mother had been warned after Bob was born not to have any more children, she had a dream in which her Grandpa John Rowe (her mother’s father who had died in 1956) came to her, holding a little red-headed baby girl in his arms. She felt strongly that there was someone else that needed to come into our family. My parents decided to have one more child.

My sister LeAnne Dean was born March 12, 1960. A cute, redhead baby girl had joined us. I’ve seen pictures of my brother and I, taking turns holding our new baby sister. The photos were staged since we are sitting on a couch with an assortment of stuffed animals arranged around us.

We lived on a neighborhood street that ended at a pasture with a wood-rail fence. The family who owned the pasture were our neighbors, the Shaw’s, although their house faced onto 900 East street. Their children were already much older and some had already moved out.

The Shaw’s pasture had a little natural stream running through it. I was aged about 5 or 6 then and Mom would worry about me going to play in the pasture, as there were large horses wandering around. I’d crawl or climb through the fence and wander around barefoot (and shirtless on warmer days). I can still feel the cool water of a small stream with the squishy mud squeezing between my toes. The stream was perfect for me as it was narrow and flat. The soft muddy bottom of the stream occasionally had a leech or two (I still hate leeches), but for the most part it was nice, clear water. I loved it there, and remember it with immense fondness. I’d catch tiny guppies, tadpoles, frogs and minnows (that’s how I identified them). It was like my own private nature reserve.

At first my pasture visits were a secret - my mother thought I was playing in the sandbox in our backyard. Once my mother realized where I went, she worried about me being around the horses. She called Mrs. Shaw, who reported on my activities by looking out her back window. After a while, my mother and Mrs. Shaw realized that the horses and I got along just fine. The horses were well accustomed to my being there. A couple of them even let me pet their legs or pat their noses. When I needed to be home sooner than I thought I did, Mrs. Shaw or one of her children would come out to send me home.

I recall having only one negative experience related to my beloved pasture. It happened near the end of summer. The little stream was not as deep as usual and I found a little guppy lying on its side, dying. I didn’t want it to die, so I managed to scoop it up with both hands and filled my hands with water. I hurried home to get help with saving its life. But before I could get home, walking in the cement gutter in front of our neighbors house, the water in my hands had all leaked out and the guppy flipped out of the hands, landing on the concrete. I recall clearly the panic I felt that it was suffering and I felt helpless. I didn’t want it to suffer and I stepped on it to kill it. This moment was traumatic and I didn’t tell anyone. This was my first experience with guilt, and it also taught me to cherish all living creatures.

We had a nice flat yard. I remember when we first got the house, my dad did everything by hand for the yard and lawn. He bought a piece of chain link fence, and made a frame using some two by fours. He then tacked the chain link to the frame, and looped some rope into the chain link. Then he’d have Bob and I sit on the makeshift sled and he’d drag us around the yard. It would break up the chunks of dirt and drag out the rocks from our yard. I loved this, helping my Dad. And it smoothed out the dirt so that he could sprinkle grass seed. It was fun to see the small grass blades grow and the thousands of blades become a thick lawn. My Dad was a genius!

It was at this time in my life that I learned that I could get rid of my nightmares by having intentional dreams of my own choosing. My favorite dream was one in which I was an eagle, flying above the neighborhoods all around. I would memorize the streets from above. For some reason, mapping areas and knowing how to get places has usually been very easy for me.

As I got a little older, I was allowed to walk along our street and back, and soon was going for walks around the blocks in our neighborhood. It wasn’t long before I could describe where the streets all went in our entire neighborhood between 9th and 13th East streets. This ability to remember places has been with me ever since.

My parents joined a bowling league in the early 1960’s. My mother would pile pillows down at one end of the hallway in our house and practice bowling. We learned not to go out into the hall when Mom was practicing. Some nights I remember falling asleep to the thump, roll and oomph of Mom’s bowling ball. Mom and Dad loved bowling together. They’d get pretty involved in Murray City activities, too, since the pharmacy Dad worked at was on State Street near Vine Street in the middle of Murray’s old downtown.

My formal education began at Cottonwood Elementary on 1300 East and Vine Street. For kindergarten and first grade I had the same wonderful, kind, understanding teacher: Mrs. Ivy. She helped me learn and feel safe. By the way, my favorite part of kindergarten was the milk and graham crackers rest time, when we had a snack and laid on our small blankets for a short break. My other memory of these first two years was that Mrs. Ivy’s daughter was in my class and I was certain that she was the cutest girl in our class. Since I moved on to second grade, I assume I succeeded in the academic portions of my education.

I spent my second-grade year at Cottonwood Elementary. By this time, I often walked to and from school. I even took different routes to expand my world. This is also the year that I remember having positive and negative experiences.

My most positive experiences at school involved having a great teacher and understanding librarian who together encouraged me to read and learn as much as I could. I finished the required readings for the class in early Spring as my teacher allowed me to work ahead on my own. When finished, she arranged for me to get books from the library. The librarian would help me find books that were more difficult each time I visited for new books. By the end of the year I was reading a couple of grades above my level. As I recall, I had read over 200 books that year. This was the beginning of my life-long love of reading. And I thank both of these women for their inspiration and kindness in helping me.

On one occasion, after walking home from elementary school, I found no one at home. So I cleaned out my lovely red plastic lunchbox, made a cheese and mayo sandwich, left a note for my Mom, packed up and headed out to visit my Dad at his work. I had crossed 9th East at the crosswalk (waiting for the lights and looking both ways), walked past the stores, crossed at the four-way stop, walked along the grass of the cemetery (the correct side of the road for pedestrians), passed the milk plant, and was just leaving the dirt area of the milk trucks, when I was surprised by car coming into the dirt behind me. They pulled up on my left, the front passenger’s window down. Are you alright? Where have you been? My mother was upset (worried) and a neighbor had driven her to search for me (with my brother, sister and the other lady’s kids). I explained that I was going to see Dad at the Pharmacy, like I wrote in the note. She expressed concern that I would become lost. So I described the route from our house to the pharmacy in detail. She was surprised that I knew it. My note, preparation, route knowledge and successful journey to that point did not change the outcome. I got in the car and was taken home. I was seven at the time and in second grade; quite capable of a stroll to visit my father - or so I thought.

Cottonwood Elementary is where I learned to love school. Kindergarten and First Grade were great since I had the same teacher both years: Ms. Ivy. In Second Grade is where I learned to love reading. I completed reading all of the books in the reading program in class early, so I was encouraged to get books from the library to read on my own in class for the rest of the year.

I loved waking home from school, exploring different routes. Taking walks and exploring has always been a favorite of mine. Solo walks help me recharge, sort out life and deal with negative experiences, like the bullying I first encountered in second grade. Over my years of grade school and junior high school, I usually had only a few friends. I loved sports but while I was competent in most sports, my size was used to exclude me more often than not.

I have always been small for my age, rather innocent and quite naive in the ways of society. I tended to be more literal and less conscious of social subtleties. And I was also quite happy being alone, doing what I enjoyed, and didn’t make friends easily. I never really understood how to make friends, although I learned how to be friendly.

It wasn’t long before I became a target of bullies. Starting in second grade, I lived with bullying for several years at different schools, but over time learned how to deal with it. One thing I learned in second grade was how to avoid bullies once I knew who they were. I was blessed with an ability to run faster than most kids and combined with problem-solving and safest-route identification skills, reduced my encounters with bullies. Also, bullies usually didn’t seem to like to hang out in libraries or seen by teachers or administrators. I’ve come to learn that anyone that is a bully is really a coward unable to resolve their own issues. Attacking others is a false hope of feeling better about one’s self, but it never works.

Anyway, starting my third grade year at Cottonwood Elementary, I was nervous about bullying. I finally told my teacher about some bullying that happened. I remember I was taken to the Principal’s office. For me, this was a very stressful experience. I don’t recall the meeting, except that his name was Mr. Burningham, a very tall man (for me, anyway). He was very kind and not scary as some kids had said. For the remaining weeks before I moved away, he would greet me in the halls and I had a reprieve from bullies.

Salt Lake City, Utah (1964-1965)

My parents decided to move to a new house at 2145 Nye Circle in what is now Cottonwood Heights. They sold our house in Murray in the fall of 1964. Because the new home would not be finished until early Spring 1965, we moved into the basement of my grandparents’ Lambert house in Salt Lake City (1826 South 2100 East). From part of November through February during my 3rd grade year of school. By March we had moved into the Nye Circle house.

For me, staying with my grandparents was a lot of fun, but it was also different as I learned new rules about what I could do and not do. My grandparent’s house had been built during the Great Depression on land received from my grandmother’s parents, who had lived next door. My great-grandmother Rowe (known as Grandma Sweet Roll as named by my brother Bob) spent time with us, too. To me she was sweet and full of love.

Salt Lake City had developed far past where we were staying, so no pastures... but there was a large, grassy backyard, some trees to climb, and an elementary school with a large park.

Dilworth Elementary was an old multi-story school with lots of stone, stairs, and wood. Much different than my previous school. This school had an elegance to it that I enjoyed. It wasn’t as openly lit, but for me, it was a really cool place to go to school. I remember the teachers being accepting and very helpful with a new third-grader showing up in the middle of rehearsals for the annual school Christmas Choir presentation. But it was the massive (in my mind) library that won me over. All those books!

Another fond memory I have is that my grandma Lambert, who worked as a top executive’s assistant, brought home a mechanical adding machine to do some work. She taught me how to add columns of numbers using the machine and I was fascinated by it. I remember trying to figure out how the machine worked. I think this was the beginning of my love of machines, which became a life-long enjoyment of learning how technology, and especially electronic devices, worked and could be used to make life better.

For the few months that we lived with my grandparents, I have fond memories of growing closer to aunts, uncles, and cousins. Especially to my grandfather and my uncle Rick (my mother’s brother).

Cottonwood Heights, Utah (1965-1982)

I was baptized in the Cottonwood Stake Center building on my 8th birthday because of the ward we had been in before we sold the  house. For third grade I went to three separate schools. Cottonwood Elementary, Dilworth Elementary (which had the amazing library that was one of the reasons I grew to love books), and finally Bella Vista Elementary in the neighborhood where our new home was built.

Bella Vista Elementary was a new school at the time. My first day at the school, I met my new teacher, Ms. Pulsipher. When she introduced me to the class with Class, this is a new student. His name is Scott Dean, the entire class responded with an Oh no!. I was crushed, but this kind teacher immediately made me feel better and definitely part of the class. She leaned down to me and said, They like you, you are the sixth Scott in our class. She then had the other five Scotts stand up. Each Scott had a nickname to help classmates know which Scott was being addressed. The class welcomed me and I had a good experience with Bella Vista third grade classmates and teachers.

Except for another memorable experience. It involved a group of girls helping two of the girls to catch my friend Ronnie and myself. We were both small for our age (most kindergartners were about our size) and these two girls thought we were very cute, kissable-cute, and they organized to chase us and catch us. During lunch and recess, Ronnie and I had to run out the doors and evade the girls. We split up and evaded capture until the bell rang. We had to get back inside safely. This went on for a few days. One day, the girls had a new plan and I was caught by five girls, including Cindy. They had been lying in wait with the double doors to enter the school. Just as I thought I was safe to enter, they burst out of the doors and pinned my arms and legs against the rough brick wall. And then Cindy puckered up and moved in for a kiss.

At the time, I knew that being kissed by a girl would be a fate worse than death. I managed to get my right arm free, and just before her lips could cause some sort of unimaginable damage to me. I punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. The other girls were shocked and stepped back, letting me go. I escaped into the safety of the school’s hallway and headed to class.

It wasn’t long before I was sitting in the principal’s office and my mother showed up. The principal asked me to explain what had happened. I described how I had almost been kissed by a girl and that I was lucky to have escaped the horrific attempt. I remember he smiled. From there, my mother took me home. After a day or two, she took me to Cindy’s house. The two mothers had worked it out so that I could apologize, which I did. I even felt bad about hitting her. A few years later, I had changed my mind about kissing girls, and as I recall, Cindy was actually quite cute herself.

During my time at Bella Vista I enjoyed physical activities, especially baseball, touch football, basketball, and sprinting. I was the fastest sprinter at the school (ribbons to prove it) and I have always loved to run. Gymnastics, however, was not a favorite - I had injured myself with being taught how to do a flip. I had landed on my neck and had a frightening experience with numbness. I was fortunate that the injury did not cause any long term problems for me.

I did well in academics during my time at Bella Vista. In 3rd grade I wrote a letter to my mother. This was an assignment to inform our parents on how we were doing in school. My letter essentially informed my mother that I had learned everything there was to know. Apparently, my self-confidence was sufficient, to say the least.

My teachers were exceptional. Ms. Shelton in fourth grade helped me discover my artistic talents. In fifth grade, Ms. Fluckingear taught me to excel and even worked with a sixth- grade teacher, Mr. Ball, so that I completed fifth and sixth grade math during my fifth-grade year. I learned, however, that this caused a problem for the teachers. They were both told that this was not allowed - letting a student work ahead of schedule. When I was told by the principal that I would not be allowed to continue with sixth grade math during fifth grade, I was devastated at the idea, yet it really didn’t matter. I informed him that I had already finished the course work. He was surprised and I recall that my teacher grinned. But this episode has remained with me throughout life. Individuals need to be allowed and encouraged to excel as they can and not be locked into a setting that inhibits their opportunities to grow.

In sixth grade, my teacher was a veteran teacher, very good and exceptional in helping me learn. At first, she allowed me to do some independent reading during math time (since I had already done it.) Soon she encouraged me to help classmates that were struggling with math assignments. As I look back on this, she was inspired to help me learn to teach others.

I must admit however, that I was involved in one activity early in my sixth-grade school year that was probably not ideal, but it did have the result we wanted. Ms. Zimmerman loved her coffee and cigarettes. Of course, she was not allowed to smoke in class, but she did bring in a mug of coffee in the mornings. Now many of us in her class had been taught that coffee was bad for you, so we came up with a way to help her not drink coffee. We added some dark brown paint powder to her coffee for three days in a row. After the third morning, she quit bringing coffee to class.

A very positive, yet profound experience from sixth grade was that Ms. Zimmerman arranged for us to follow the Presidential elections in class and to mimic the political process. She divided the class into two political parties (Democrats and Republicans), and we were given assignments related to how our government works, how the election process works, and so on. I was assigned to be the Vice Chairman of the Republican Party in our simulation activity. The Chairman and I devised a plan to win the election for our Presidential Candidate. Within three weeks we had convinced (and possibly bribed with lunch desserts) everyone in our