Helen Scogings Leavitt

submitted by: Kentlee Baldwin


I'm writing about my Great Grandma, Helen Scogings Leavitt. Everyone I know calls her Granny. She was born on November 24, 1929. She is still alive today and is 94 years old. She went to school in Salt Lake City and she loved to sing. Her teacher started every day with a song. She only had one little sister and no brothers. Her Dad died when she was seven years old. He got an infection and they tried to amputate his leg to save him, but he still died. Granny said her favorite thing to do for fun as a child was playing Kick the Can at night with all the neighborhood kids on her street. They lived on Green Street growing up so everyone called her mother Green Grandma. Her and her sister also liked to play with paper dolls. They would cut a girl out of a magazine and then cut different clothes out to try on the girl and change outfits. Granny graduated from high school but she never went to college because her mom didn’t have enough money to pay for it.

She got married on April 9, 1951 to Dudley Leavitt and they had nine children. Their names are Bonnie, Carrick, Sue, Kathi (my Dad's mom), Berne, Valeni, Coby, Trieste, and Dolene. Three of those children came from Dudley’s first wife who died before he married my Great Grandma. She loved and raised them as her own. Granny told me that the most important thing in her life was to become a mom and raise her children. She always wanted to have a big family with many children because family is important and that’s what life is all about, and she only had one sister growing up and that wasn’t very fun.

Granny is always happy and never complains. She is tall, and I am also tall because of her. She is a very good cook. She is best known for her rolls. When I go to her house, she likes to send extra rolls home with me because she knows that they’re my favorite. I know that Granny loves me. She hangs my colored pictures on her fridge and keeps my school picture in a frame on her kitchen counter. She tended me when I was a baby until I was three years old, so we have a special bond. I’m glad that I got to live close and know my Great Grandma.