Carolyn Crofts

The winter of 1937 was a bad winter with lots of drifting snow.

Mom was expecting their fourth child the middle of February. Dad was worrying about the weather and was concerned that the doctor would not be able to get to our farm to deliver the baby. He took Mom into Burley to stay with our Aunt Luella, who is our dad’s sister. Mom delivered Carolyn on February 16, 1937.

To see mom and his new baby daughter, dad had to walk from the farm in Emerson to Burley because they were snowed in and the roads hadn’t been plowed yet.

Dad brought Mom and Carolyn home on March 3. The older children were very happy to have mom home because they really didn’t enjoy dad’s cooking.

Just before Christmas the year before Carolyn was 4, dad and mom wanted to go Christmas shopping. The older children were in school and this lady offered to tend Carolyn. While Mom and Dad were gone, Carolyn decided that she wanted the scissors. She had seen mom put her scissors on the top of the cupboard. Carolyn got a chair and climbed up on the cupboard to reach the scissors and fell off. When they got home, Carolyn was crying and after a quick examination Mom knew that the collar bone was broken. They took her to Dr. Dean in Burley, and he set the bone and taped her arm to her side. The doctor told mom to keep it taped for two weeks. When they removed the tape and the arm was hanging down it was very painful for Carolyn. She was very unhappy most the holidays.

Carolyn was educated at Heyburn Elementary School, then Junior High and High School. She was always good student. While in High School she joined the marching band and played the trumpet. She was very talented. Carolyn was President of F.H.A. and a member of the National Honor Society.

After High School graduation Carolyn was interested in some field of medicine. She decided to go to Idaho State University at Pocatello. She thought that she might like pharmacy. She changed her mind and after one semester she transferred to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. She transferred to B.Y.U. for her junior year and took classes to prepare herself for physical therapy school. After graduating from B.Y.U. she was accepted at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. It was affiliated with U.C.L.A. She received a seventeen-hundred-dollar scholarship to help with tuition. She did her internship in the Los Angeles area, and later worked there.

Carolyn decided that she would like to purchase a car. The salesman was Louis T. Calvo and they fell in love and were married on August 9, 1963. He was deceased in March 1972.

After Louie’s death Carolyn had an opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia to set up the physical therapy department and provide training. While working in Saudi Ariba she met William Waghorn who was from England and working as an Electrical Engineer on a new hotel that was being built. They were married April 18, 1981. They were later divorced, and she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to help care for her father.

While living in Salt Lake City she worked at LDS Hospital in the head trauma department. She retired after working there 13 years.

After retirement she was a docent at the Utah State Capital, helped with the Olympics, and as a docent at the University of Utah Art Museum.

Carolyn had a great love for reading, classical music, and the arts.

Her best friends were her sisters, nieces, and nephews.

She passed away peacefully at her sister Georgia Paskett’s home, on May 30, 2020.