Life Story of
Stephanie Baxter Benkovich
I was born in Mountain Home. I
was born the youngest of 4 children to Russ and Carla Baxter. My oldest sister is Danielle, followed by my brother Todd and then
my other sister Jennifer, then me. We lived in Mountain Home till I was around
3 years old, then we moved to Dingle. My Mom’s mom, Florence , lived
there. I think we lived with her for a little while when we first got there,
but then we moved into the little yellow house on the corner of the road up to
the cemetery. We lived there till I was about 5 or so. I remember that we moved
before I started school because I never go to get on the bus there and I was
very upset about that. I remember that while we were at that house, I decided
one day that I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I couldn’t find
the raspberry jelly, all I could find that was red was ketchup so I used that.
I ate the whole sandwich while my siblings gagged. A few years later I decided
to try it again just to see why I ate it, it didn’t taste as good the second
time around.
When we moved there, my Dad decided to build a house. So we
all helped. There is a picture of me when I was 3 or 4 hammering on the garage.
We moved into the house before it was done. If I recall, there were no windows
and no glass sliding door on yet. We got most of it done while we lived there,
but something’s were not done till we moved back to Mountain Home 11 years or
so later.
We lived behind my Grandma Ream. There was some big pastures
in between our houses. There was a big old barn, lots of trees that we built a
tree house in, some old grain silos, and a little wooden shed we all called the
Skunk house, a little swampy stream with a big fallen tree that we called “the
ship”, an old one room cabin, a chicken coop and a big sandstone rock about 6-8
feet in diameter that we called Snake Rock. My siblings and I spent a lot of
our time outside playing when we were young. Since we lived next to Grandma, we
also got to play with my many cousins whenever they came to visit. My mom was
one of 8 kids, so I had a lot of cousins. The one I played with most was Lane,
he was the oldest of Foster and Sharla kids. We were only a year apart and we
played all the time, sometimes Jennifer would play with us too, but mostly it
was just Lane and I. There was a big pile of bricks by the Skunk house that we
used to play with a lot. We would stack them and restack them to make whatever
we wanted.
The bus driver lived almost next door to us, but we lived
down a long driveway. The bus would have to go past us and then turn around and
head back into Montpelier were we went to school. When we would see the bus
drive by the first time, someone would yell “Bus going South!” and if we left
the house right then and ran all the way up the driveway, we would usually just
make it there by the time the bus came back around. I can only remember missing
the bus one time and I think I chased it down and got on the stop or two after
mine.
There was a great big field between our house and the main
road. Every so often, we would drive our little red pickup truck in there. Then
we would get out my Dad’s old army parachute he took from the army. I think
they were just going to throw it way. The strings were cut so there was no
harness or anything. We would tie the strings to the back of the pickup truck.
At the very top were some vent holes and so the game was to grab onto those and
let the parachute lift you up. Of course we were all chicken and as soon as it
got more than a foot of the ground, we let go. I remember one time, one of the Lloyd
twins was over playing with us, and one of them held on and went at least 20
feet in the air. We were so worried that he would let go and fall, but the
parachute came back down and he was fine. It was very scary though. I remember
one time after we moved back to Mountain Home that we took that parachute out
to the Bruno sand dunes and had fun having it drag us up the dunes.
At some point my Grandma went on a mission to New Mexico, I think.
While she was gone and with her permission, my dad took on the project of
remodeling her house. He completely gutted the inside. There was only newspaper
in the outside walls as insulation. No wonder her house was always freezing. There
were bats that were living in the attic. The upstairs walls were filled with
bat poop. At least 4 – 5 feet deep. I remember that one time as we were
knocking down the walls and a bat flew out. My dad got the shop vacuum and
sucked it up. Then to kill it, he took it down to the truck and started it and
but the vacuum up to the exhaust.
When my Grandma got back from her mission, she got the
choice at which house she wanted. The one she had been living in, or the house
that my Dad built. She chose the one my dad built because she was getting older
and the other house had 10 steps you had to climb just to get into the first
floor. So that means that we got to move into her old house. I remember being
so excited because I would get to paint my own room, unfortunately for me, my
only paint choices were white or off white.
My best friend growing up was Monica. She lived down
the road at the end of the pavement on the way to Bear Lake. We used to play
together all the time. When we got into middle school and high school, we weren’t
really friends anymore.
After my sophomore year at high school, my parents and I
(Jennifer had just graduated and joined the Marines and Todd and Danielle were
on their missions I think) moved back to Mountain Home so that we could be near
my Dad’s dad. He had lost his wife and was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.
I was so excited to move, by that time I
hated Bear Lake. I didn’t have any friends and was stuck in a rut. I was so
glad when we moved, I thought that I would finally get to be the new kid that
everyone wanted to be friends with. Unfortunately for me, we moved to a town
with an Air Force base, so there were kids coming and going all the time. I was
not special, but I loved it there and made some great friends that I still keep
in contact with today. Most of them are my friends from Drama. I loved drama in
High School! Our teacher was terrible, but we all had a blast together.
After I graduated high school in 1998, I went to college at
Idaho State University in Pocatello Idaho. I was too lazy to apply for any scholarships
or financial aid, so I had to pay my own way. I didn’t have enough money to
start the fall semester, so I worked and started in the winter semester. I
enjoyed that time off of school so much that the summer after college, I decided
not to go back to school. A decision that I now regret. I wish that I had at
least got my associates before I dropped out of school.
That first summer after college I spent in Jackson Hole
Wyoming working at a restaurant as a breakfast cook. My friend Monica was
working there as a waitress and that is what I thought I would be doing too. I hated
being a cook, I had no idea what I was doing. After a month or 2 I was demoted
to kitchen help. Soon after that I quit to be a Certified Nursing Assistant at
the local nursing home. I stayed in Jackson Hole till around November or
December of 1999. I went to Disney World with my friends Ann and Tonya from High School the week of Thanksgiving and also my 20th
birthday.
Then I moved to Boise Idaho and became roommates with Ann. I tried to go to Boise State, but halfway through the semester, I got
sick for a week and when I came back to class, it was midterms. I did terrible
on several subjects so I just decided to drop out. I worked at St. Luke’s
hospital as a CNA. I started out on the oncology (cancer) floor, but then after
about a year, I transferred to Labor and Delivery. I LOVED working there, even
though I worked nights (7p-7a) it was great!
In August 2001 I decided to be a live in nanny. I had a very
strong desire to go to New York.
to be continued...
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