Peggy Tidwell Tyler

by Peggy Tyler

 

I was born in Twin Falls, Idaho January 8, 1948, to Dorothy Emma Newton and Frank Alton Tidwell.  I was the second daughter of three:  Sharon was four years older than I, and she died at age 23, two days after giving birth to a son.  Robyn was six years younger than I.  I have two brothers: Steven Newton and Jeffrey Frank.  Steve was born 15 months after my birth, and we were always very close and remain close to this day.  Jeffrey was the youngest son.  My dad was previously married to Dorothy South so I had a half-sister named Shirlene who died while I was young, and a half-brother, Allen Hackworth.  They lived with their mother so I never got much opportunity to get to know them. 

 

Allen lived with us for half of his sophomore year and all of his senior year of high school. Because I was young, we didn't really know each other.  I feel sad that I had an older brother and sister and didn't know them.  

 

I had a great childhood.  We had so much fun playing games on the lawn at night —statues, no bears are out tonight, kick the can, kissing tag.  Steve and I use to roller skate a lot.  We used to take Dad's new cardboard boxes and build tunnels all over the basement. Steve and I would roller skate, play house, monsters, cowboys and Indians, and Flash Gordon.

 

Steve helped me build model airplanes too.    We were very close to my mother’s side of the family.  My cousin, Merri, and I put together musical plays and invited the neighborhood kids to participate and observe.  We would sing and dance.  Our stage was the garage, and we would put a blanket up across the door for our curtain.  I loved getting together in Mona, Utah with all the cousins. 

 

Grandpa Newton would take us for rides in the wheel barrow.  We would go with him to the chicken coop, but I was always scared of the chickens.    I remember grandpa cutting the chickens heads off so we could have chicken to eat and the chickens would flop around without there heads.  It was not a pretty picture.   I lived at 1602 East 3115 South  Mount Aire Acres.  That was in Salt Lake City.  I lived there until 9th grade. 

 

I attended Libby Edwards Grade School and Evergreen Junior High.  We moved in my ninth grade year to Holiday, Utah.  There I attended Olympus Junior High for 1/2 year.   We then moved to Orem, Utah.  I attended Lincoln Junior High for the other 1/2 of the year.  I eventually made some good friends and loved my high school years — at least till the 11th grade.  Dad moved us again in my senior year to Midvale Utah. 

 

I attended Hillcrest High School.  I hated my senior year.  I didn't know anyone.  I was not a forward person, so I had a hard time.  I cannot remember having any good friends.  I still communicated with my friends in Orem and we would get together occasionally.   After graduation from High School, I went to Ephriam, Utah to attend Snow College.  I loved it there.  I met my sweetheart, Sidney Ercanbrack.  When he left on a mission to the Eastern Atlantic States,  I began working at Signetics Corporation in Orem.  After his honorable release in March,  we were married May 16th, 1969, in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.  

 

On Feb. 10, 1971, we were blessed with a son, Sean Reed Ercanbrack.  When Sean was about 13 months old, we left BYU and moved to Hastings, NE and Sid began work at the US Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center NE.  On July 24 1972, we were blessed with another son, Cory Alton Ercanbrack.  A third son, Adam Ray Ercanbrack joined our family on March 9 1975, and our fourth son Lance Thomas was born Sept 19, 1976.   

 

We moved to Enid, OK in 1977 where Sid began a new job — a pilot program that eventually was taken over by Oklahoma State University.  He was the Sheep Specialist there.  He traveled all over Oklahoma visiting farmers and helping them with there sheep problems, and he wrote news letters, etc.  As a family, we would sometimes travel with him in the summer as he made these visits.  The kids enjoyed that time together.  On July 2 1978, we were very surprised to welcome into our family a little girl, Heather, to join all those brothers.   

 

When the kids all were in school, I decided to go to work.  I began as a nurses aide at Saint Mary’s Memorial Hospital.  I worked there several years and then decided to go to Northern Oklahoma College to get my RN degree.   I graduated Suma Cum Laud in 1986 and began working as a labor and delivery nurse at Bass Memorial Hospital in Enid, Oklahoma.  That year will be remembered as a wonderful accomplishment but also as a heart-breaking, life-changing time, as my husband of 17 years was killed in an automobile accident two months after I graduated.  We buried him in Roy, Utah as I knew I would not stay in Oklahoma because all my family was in Utah.

 

When the kids school year ended in 1987, I moved us all back to Roy.  I met another wonderful man, James Curtis Tyler, at a church dance.  We were married Feb 2, 1988 in the Salt Lake LDS temple for time, after a four-month courtship.   He had five children and I had five, so we really had our hands full — two 16-year-olds, two 15-year-olds, two 13-year-olds,  two 12-year-olds,  one 10 and one 8 year old.

 

I worked as a nurse in a doctor’s office part time but then decided to quit and stay home.  I was very grateful to be able to do that.   I have served in various positions in the  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints: primary president, teacher, pianist;  young women's president, advisor, and teacher.  In the Relief Society Organization I was a councilor, teacher, secretary; In the ward I have been the choir director and church pianist.   We have 16 grandchildren, and at present I serve as secretary in the Relief Society.  Jim and I have now been married 18 years.