Harriet Emily Malin

  Note:  I included this post because, even though I didn't spend a lot of time around my grandmother, I knew about her faith and in my mind and heart, she was a strength to me.  I've tried to supply you all with a copy of her autobiography, which gives much more detail.

My grandmother, Harriet Emily Malin, among her YSA friends in Kamas UT in the 1880's

And this is how I remember her.

As a young wife and mother, my grandmother had to manage alone when Grandpa was called on a mission to the East.  She was expecting another baby and it wasn't easy, but she totally supported him.

My grandparents moved their family to Southern California during the 1920's for my Grandpa's health. I never knew him in this life. He died at a fairly young age, when she was 50.

Her sons, Paul and Wes, had worked for a nurseryman in the Eagle Rock area during the Depression. The boys couldn't afford college and began to try their hand at growing plants on then own.  As their widowed mother, she was concerned about their futures.  In a dream, she could see the then-agricultural San Fernando Valley filled with homes.  She knew they would all need landscaping, so she encouraged her sons to move forward.  Pack Brother's Sherman Oaks Nursery, the only nursery in the Valley,  provided plants for most of those new homes as they came along.

 When my dad, her youngest, went on his mission to Germany, Grandma Pack was alone.  Uncle Paul suggested she move back to Utah and work in the SLC Temple, so she did. ( I visited her in her small apartment right by the Eagle Gate in 1955.)  Their she enjoyed the company of her Kamas friend, Lizzie Callis, wife of Apostle Callis, who kindly included her in their circle of friends. After 30 years Grandma retired from the Temple, and her co-workers gave her a gift of money.  She bought a gold/onyx ring with it and she always wore it with her wedding band.  After Grandma died, Aunt Claire gave me the ring.

Once Grandma retired from the Temple she lived with her daughters, Aunt Claire and Uncle Ralph in Anaheim or Aunt Berta and Uncle Burnie in Sacramento.  She was moved to a facility near us in her last months, where my Dad visited her daily.

A staunch democrat who supported John Kennedy when he was a newcomer, she was intelligent, educated, and had great faith and a twinkle in her eye. She attended BY Academy as a young woman. In her later years she was always busy with something, crochet or other hand work.