Birthday Linda.” The cake was on top of a white lace doily. Around the outside of the cake were four candles. The birthday girl was dressed in a pretty blue dress with a white silk apron on top. At the party are some neighborhood children. Two neighborhood girls that lived up the street were at Linda’s birthday party. One wore a pink dress and another a purple print dress. Another neighborhood girl in French braid pigtails came to the party. A brunette boy from the neighborhood wore black suspenders and patted baby Nancy’s head. Dennis, a brunette boy was a friend who lived across the street, wore white or gray suspenders. Judy and Tom Hodgkinson, are also at the celebration. (Judy and Tom are the adopted children of Donna’s childhood friend, Bulelah Hodgekinson.) Baby Nancy sat on the grass with Marie (in a pink dress) and Rich very interested in their little sister. Linda’s blonde brother Richard in a white shirt and black pants biting his left pinky finger. Linda tried to dress her new baby doll that she got for her birthday. Unable to dress the doll herself, she undressed the doll. With her naked baby doll, Linda tried to feed the doll a plastic toy bottle. Meanwhile, the children at her party skipped around in a circle.
Donna was the family hair stylist. She did a nice job of keeping her girls and herself up to date with the latest hair fashions. In the 50’s Donna Bagley (married name Pearce) gave her girls, Linda and Nancy excellent layered cuts that were fashionable in that decade.
She was a fun mom. She helped her youngest daughter Nancy turn daily chores into fun games and fond memories.
Donna and Linford’s oldest child, Marie Pearce was married in June of 1957 to LeGrande Fletcher in a Mormon temple. The couple was very proud that their daughter had chosen a man of the gospel and married for eternity in a sacred temple ceremony.
In July of 1957, Donna Bagley and husband Linford Pearce took their three children to Arizona for a family vacation. The picture is taken overlooking the Grand Canyon. On their trip to Arizona, the family visited the Petrified Forest, the Navajo Reservation, Grand Canyon, and visited with Linford Pearce's family. Donna Pearce, a talented seamstress and sewer, made those three orange dresses the females are wearing in the picture. The dresses are a happy flower print, with white rickrack around the collar and two lines on the bottom, and a thick white belt around the females waist. Donna Bagley looks stunning with her dark sunglasses, her brown curls blowing in the wind, and soft smile. Linda Pearce is sitting next to her mother, Donna. Nancy Pearce, sits at the far right. Both girls are squinting in the harsh Arizona sun. Linford and his son, Richard Pearce, are at the left. Their legs are angled towards each other. Yet, no one in the picture is touching... a very common trait noticed in most of the family pictures. Both males wear plaid, and Richard clutches a pair of small binoculars for better site seeing. Richard Pearce remembered being stunned at the crude way the Navajo's lived and the poverty of the tribe. Nancy remembers loving the Southwest design and thinking how fun it was to be dressed like mom and sister.