Hi and Velda Lovell had spent nine winters as snowbirds in Mesa, Arizona. In January 1979 they decided to go to the Rose Parade instead. The tour included a stop at Knott’s Berry Farm, outside Anaheim. Gayl came along — she was a registered nurse and, as Velda put it, the wives were always expected to guard their husbands’ health.

While the party was waiting for dinner at Knott’s Berry Farm on New Year’s Day, Hi suffered a stroke.

Gayl knew what to do. Paramedics were called and Hi was taken to Anaheim Hospital, where he spent five days in intensive care. Gayl called her brother Perry Lovell, who drove through the night from Livermore, California, with his wife to be there. When Hi was stable enough to travel, he was transferred to a Livermore hospital, where he spent another eleven days. From there he moved to a Bay Area facility that specialized in stroke rehabilitation, where he learned to walk again and regained partial use of his left side.

Hi and Velda were able to return home to Idaho Falls on February 13, 1981 — Velda’s birthday.

Norman’s memory of the event is less precise on dates — he recalled it happening sometime in the 1960s, which likely reflects a conflation with Hi’s earlier accident near Palisades. The Velda Lovell History documents the 1979 date explicitly.

Norman does remember the rehabilitation: Hi worked with a board and pegs, picking them up and moving them, and that image stayed with him. He describes Hi as “quiet, humorous, very spiritual” — a man who could tear up saying grace at Thanksgiving. The stroke changed things, but Hi lived for years afterward, dying on October 10, 1982, after collapsing at the Salt Lake City airport while returning from a trip to Michigan with Velda.