The Nannies and HennyPenny

I've three favorite pets in my life. One was a little goat named Nanny I had as a kid. She thought she was a person. She ate everything. Nothing was safe from her appetite not even clothes on the clothesline. I had another goat as an adult also nammed Nanny. I had a chicken I called Henny Penny. She followed me everywhere in the yard and if I sat she would fly up into my lap. She would peck on the kitchen window to tell me to come out to see her. She'd lay an egg right by the door so I wouldn't miss it.
Painting by Olive Walker "Couple" 11"x14" oil

Burying the Gravy

I cooked for over 200 people for two years at the Overton Senior Center. When I left they gave me a plaque that read "to Olive Walker, the Best Cook in the State of Nevada" a white leather purse, and a large crystal vase. I love to cook but didn't do well in the beginning.

My first cooking experiences started when I was ten years old in Napa, Idaho. The family was thrashing wheat in the field. Mother decided I would be more useful making dinner and sent me in to cook up the chickens we'd killed and plucked. I peeled the potatoes and fried the chicken up nice and golden brown. I boiled the corn on the cob and then started the gravy. I put the flour in the grease but when I poured in the milk I didn't stir fast enough. The gravy got all lumpy. I was so embarrassed of the gravy I hurried and took it outside and buried it with a shovel before any one could see it!

That same year I made a cake from the recipe off a Crisco can. I forgot to put in the Crisco. It was hard and dry but we ate it anyways.

Rupert Idaho

I was born in Rupert, Idaho. My Grandma Ella May Dockstader also lived there at 501 Second Street. She was a midwife delivering over 500 babies in her home, including me. I went to grade school in Rupert. We lived there until shortly after my bother Curtis Russell Christensen was killed. I was about eight years old.

Around the age of eight we moved to Napa, Idaho to a 80 acre farm. It had a beautiful home and my mother had a wonderful flower garden as big as our vegetable garden. We had cows, sheep, chickens, alfalfa, wheat, an orchard of fruit trees and sugar beets. When were harvesting sugar beets we'd throw the beets on a truck bed. I was too little to toss them up so they had me drive the truck. Daddy would put me on the seat and tell me to stay with in the rows. At the end of the row Daddy would jump in the truck and turn it down the next row.

What's in a name?

My maiden name is Olive Ella Christensen. Christensen is Danish. My grandfather Fredrick Christensen was born April 2 1880 in Frederickshavn, Hjorring, Denmark. Fredrick's wife, Anna Safrone Andreasen, dad was from Denmark and mother from Sweden. Anna was a first gerneration American born in Box Elder Utah. My father Gilbert Marinus Christensen(photo) was first generation American on his fathers side.

I had a few nicknames growing up. I was small and very thin with white hair and they called me "midg" short for midget. At times I was called "Olie" short for Olive. At school my friends would call me "Chris" because of Christensen but my favorite nickname was by my brother Gilbert. He would call me "PollyWog!"