My First 56 Years

Another Year On My Own 2011 Life Sucks and Then...

2011-02-11T13:22:00.006-06:00

January 2011. Horrible cold creeps across the nation and seems to settle, as usual, in the Midwest. The center of my universe is Missouri, Saint Joseph, NW corner bordering Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Deep heavy snow covers the land and below zero temperatures reign.

January 10Th, fell on a Monday, Ice gleamed in the crevasse between the top of the little Geo Metro and the door opening. The sidewalk to the car was covered with a foot of snow and all around the car the drifts were non negotiable. I strained stepping through them as I made the way to the car and pulled and pulled on the door. It was 4:10 AM. I had to be at work at 5AM and I usually left at 4:30 AM to make my way toward the main road to get to work. But this morning the doors would not open so I traipsed back over the deep drift to the house to call work for a ride. Rides would not be available until my coworker and a supervisor could come in at 8:00 AM to offer rides to stranded agents who would have gladly turned back over in their beds and back to dreamland. 365 days a year, 24/7 we had to be at work no matter the holiday or weather if scheduled to work. I waited until 5:40 am, then made my way back to the comfort of the warm bed.

I woke up again at 8:40. No school on this dreadfully cold day. My son notified me that my work had called at 8Am. I jumped on the phone to see if it was Kelly calling offering a ride. I called the cell number and told her I was ready to go as soon as she could get here. I work a 6 hr shift, normally from 5AM to 11AM but because I didn't get to work that morning until about 9:30 I had to work the 6 hrs from that time to 3:30 PM or else receive a half point for being late.

I was a disgruntled employee at this point, another ride wasn't available to take me home until 4P when another employee arrived. I caught a ride with another employee instead thinking I would get home quicker but her radiator was leaking and we had to stop at a filling station so she could add more antifreeze. By the time I got home I was more than a little angry. The man I had been seeing worked in KS and I knew he had to come this way to get home. Time came and went and no sign of anyone. I thought he would surely stop by to see if I needed anything since it was the first big snow of the season.

I pulled up my social site I frequented since August of 2009. He was on later that afternoon and I pretty much let him have it. I told him I needed the walk shoveled and the door to my car realeased from its icy grip so I wouldn't have to work all day the next day too. The walk I could master but the door was unrelenting. The car was covered with snow, the broom left inside the car so I could sweep it off after work on the way home. No way to get inside the car to get it.
Tuesday January 11th, He came and said he had left a shovel at his other house for the residents inside, then went home to plow his driveway with the tractor. I was miffed that he thought of them, his family, after passing my house up.

After shoveling a path to the car, defrosting the driver's side door, and cleaning the car and around the car so I could drive myself to work, he came inside. He was tired, feeling weak, said he had been sick all day. He said he had to carry a hundred pound bag of sand up and down 4 flights of stairs at his work in Levenworth, KS. I kissed his face as he sat crumpled on the arm of my 5ft leather couch. I asked him why he didn't tell me he was sick in the first place? I love you's spoken then he left.
I got off work the next day, Wednesday the 12th of January 2011 at the usual time, 11AM. Grateful that he had come to help me the day before so I wouldn't have to stay all day. I got a call around noon. He was in the hospital. No one knew but me. He didn't want his family to know he was there. He had left me an e mail that morning saying he was going to the Doctor's office instead of going to work. Anytime he misses work I knew it had to be serious. He is the hardest working man I know, trying to juggle a full time job and his business, family and me all at the same time had taken it's toll and the ulcer he had been harboring had torn and he was bleeding internally.

He was supposed to be there for tests on Thursday, admitted on Wednesday. He wanted me to come and see him. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door to icy road conditions to make my way to the hospital. Once there I found the room easy enough and he was there lying on the bed with the TV on. He looked so small and thin. He was a tall man, 6ft at least. He was stretched out on the bed. Talking so softly barely audible. Still complaining of weakness but that the bleeding had stopped. He was hooked up to IV's, joking with me and the nurses. The nurse told him he would probably go home on Friday.

No one knew he was there but me. I felt all puffed up that I was the only one who knew his little secret, wondering what his family was thinking, but no one called to see about him except his daughter wanting a ride 4 blocks from school. She usually called him to come from Savannah to drive in to St Joseph a 10 mile drive to take her home from school which was a mere 4-6 blocks away. Dakota, my son, had been walking to school about 12 blocks from home then another 12 blocks back. He simply told her he couldn't and she didn't press him, said she would catch a ride with a friend.

Thursday January 13th 2011.

I waited to call his room because I knew the tests would take all day, colonoscopy and upper and or lower GI. He said he would call me when the sedatives he'd have to take for the tests wore off.
He called aproximately 4:30PM. I told him I was working on my website and had a few more entries and I would be there. An hour and a half later I noticed it was dark outside and the time was 5:40! Couldn't believe my eyes. I called him and said I was coming. He sounded weaker than he had at 4:30, so I said I would hurry. I got to the hospital about 6P and went to his room. Again he was stretched to his full ht upon the bed. His color was good and reddish pink but he said he was bleeding now as bad as before but he couldn't get anyone to listen to him. A male nurse came in and talked about the lab results and dismissed his pleas for help. I asked him how was he going to drive himself home the next day. He just looked so frail. He said he didn't know. He was too tired and weak to do anything. Another female nurse came in, he joked with her and I said I was going to go and that I would see him tomorrow. He said he would call before he left so I could be there if he needed any help.
The night wore on, the bleeding kept getting worse and again the male nurse was there to witness him vomit blood into a bedpan. Still nothing was done. He remembered 10PM rolled around and then he knew nothing.

He was awakened to his Doctor trying to cram a tube down his throat about 1:30AM after she was called when he coded. She walked in to a room of nurses and a crash cart filling the very small room he was in. He heard her say, "We're losing him!" And another nurse saying he "should be dead, he didn't have enough blood to keep a baby alive." He had lost all but a pint of blood. The papers he filled out on Wednesday when he was admitted included "Would you like to be transfused" and he thankfully signed "yes" to that other wise he would have died and nothing would have been done to revive him.
He was taken to ICU, Intensive Care Unit where he slept for 32 hours undisturbed. The nurse called his son and he was at his side.

Meanwhile I waited the morning of the 14th. Waiting for him to call me to go help him to his car or whatever he needed, hoping to see a stronger more recognizable version of himself that I had known and loved for over a year.

He didn't answer the phone in his room. I called the main number and asked if he had been released to go home already and wondered why he didn't call me if he was getting out earlier? She said he has been taken to ICU. I thought only family members would be allowed in there and wondered what do I do now? She said, "His son is here and would like to talk to you, please hold on and don't hang up, he is on his way to the waiting room now." I panicked and hung up since his "family" wasn't supposed to know that he and I were seeing each other, although I know they knew but it wasn't something for everyday discussion. He and his wife had been living separate lives but were still married.

I hung up the phone before he could get on and see that it was me calling. What do I do? I thought. I didn't know if he was alive, talking, dead? How could I find out since I wasn't a family member they wouldn't give me any information? I called the gift shop, couldn't send flowers or have anything in his room not even a phone. I asked if he could except a small card to let him know I knew he was there and that I still cared what happened to him. It said: "Get Well Soon" Love Darlene. I told them to give it him and not his son. No mention if any other family members were there. Since He wanted to keep this on the down low, didn't think he would want a lot of family in there.

I initiated the help of my neice, Susan. My brother Donald's youngest girl. She had no problems contacting his son by the social site and inquiring of his wellbeing then reporting it back to me. I read what he had written on his father's site and about collapsed when he said that on Sunday the "ventilator" had been removed and he was talking and joking again. Ventilator! He had been on a ventilator to keep him alive while in ICU! I had no idea it had been that bad up to that point. I finally got the courage to write to his son and ask how he was doing and if it would be alright for me to go see him? He said he had had more tests that morning so to wait until after 3P when he would be more awake. I left home at 3P and headed for the hospital. It took a very long walk to get to the ICU and find his room. He was awake and sitting up, still hooked to IV's. A nurse was there. I started to go back, thinking the nurse was a family friend or one of his daughters. He motioned for me to come in. He was very tall, seemed taller than he normally was. Sitting in a chair. He was pure white and swollen from head to toe. I was aghast at how different he looked from his normal, reddish tint, he had been taking Niacin, and his frail, thin features were now abnormally swollen, he looked like a giant, a big white giant. Then he told me about his ordeal, how he had lost all of his blood save for 1 pint and what he had heard the Doctor and Nurse say when they were putting the tube down his throat. He had fought them with all the strength he had. He told me I just missed his wife and daughters, his mom and his brother who had just left about 5 minutes before I got there. He said he would call me again when he got his own room.

Monday January 17th, 2011
He called me on Monday afternoon and said he was in his own room now. I went to the new room on Tuesday the 18th after work as he had instructed the night before, he said everyone would be at work and should be safe enough. The new room,which was a little harder to find this time, was on the 2nd floor, not on the third floor as it was the first time. There I found a pink faced, thin as usual man, looking healthy and calm. Ahh, what a relief! A site I had been waiting for 4 days to see. I had not gotten off work at 11Am as a caller refused to get off the phone so it was about 15 minutes later when I was finally able to leave work, so I was a bit late. When I got there he said his mother and brother were coming around noon time. He had tried to talk them into coming later in the afternoon, saying he was a bit tired and not up for company but they said they would be there anyway. I arrived knowing I would have to leave sooner than expected but was so good to see him looking like his old self again I didn't want to go. He was talking in his normal voice. Smiling and laughing, relieved he had made it through his ordeal all in one piece. He had air boots on his legs to help push the blood up through his veins and to his heart. He said he needed to go to the bathroom so I helped "unplug" them and he went to the bathroom. I kept a steady eye on the clock, it was 12P. I had closed the door but kept it open a crack. I heard voices outside and saw through the crack in the door it was a man with jeans on. I had been too late and was trapped. I yelled,"He's in the bathroom" although the bathroom had a door and would have not been a problem under usual circumstances. He came out of the bathroom staring into the eyes of his mother and brother and me fumbling to get out of the room. His mother saw me and introduced herself with a smile that soon faded into a small scowel when I introduced myself as Darlene. She had offered her hand and I shook the tiny white thing, said my name stupidly, looked toward his brother who did not offer his hand and said, "Gotta go!" I tried to laugh it off and he had a small grin on his face, not knowing what to say to them as I left, I just said, "See you later". His mom said he looked nervous, and the problem manifested as I passed by the Gift Shop and ordered a small vase of paper flowers and another card that I signed this time, "Glad you're feeling better" Darlene. Purposely leaving off the "Love" part since the other card had caused somewhat of a scandal. His mother told him to hide or throw away this card so his wife wouldn't see it when she came. He did. His wife hadn't spoken to him since July 2010. They had gone on vacation to Florida and invited him to come along assuring him she would pay for it. A free vacation he couldn't pass up so he went, leaving me here to sulk, since that was supposed to be a time for us to be together as we had in previous months without having to worry about her showing up or calling and yelling about me being there, yelling for hours at a time. Just constantly yelling at him for as many as 6 hours at a time, wanting yes or no answers from him, him promising anything to get the yelling to stop. She provided no affection, no sex, but since the divorce had never been filed by either one, she considered herself still his wife and that he shouldn't be seeing anyone else until one of them filed but no one made a move in that direction. He had a lot to lose, the properties, the business, his only means of income. He had lost the job in KS, being in the hospital then not being able to do any physical labor, barely able to get around on his own.

Three weeks and a few days later, not even a month after his release from the hospital, he went into a grocery store he frequented and was told by a clerk that he saw in the paper that morning, Wednesday, Feb 9th, that he was getting a divorce. He said, "Not me! My son, by the same name is,must be him!"

American Idol was in Hollywood on that day, and I was invited to go up to his place and watch it with him. I drove through the melted streets and headed north. I packed my Diet Pepsi in a cooler as I usually spent the night when I went up there. I got to the door and it was locked. That was unusual because when he expected me he usually unlocked the door, although I knew the code to get in. I used it. I came in, he was sitting in a chair in front of the TV and the show had just started. I took off my coat and sat down. He looked like he had aged 10 years. Sitting in his sweatpants was normal for him but he was so thin. Afraid to eat anything that would aggravate his healing ulcer, vowing never to go back to the hospital again. The phone rang, par for the course, it always rang constantly, either family or friends or new customers calling. He always had it on him no matter where he was. He went into the kitchen to talk, in case I were to blurt out something or cough or make some noise as to advise the caller he wasn't alone. He came back in and said his mother had called and saw it in the paper that morning too. He again told her it was probably his son and she said "No, it was his name and his wife's name listed" she had finally filed.

One Year Later

2011-01-13T12:27:00.003-06:00

It will be one year ago come Feb 6 when Kelvin was arrested. One week after that I filed for divorce and it was finalized June 3rd after last hearing on the same day. I received my court documents on the 7th of June last year. Has been a harrowing year for me. I have been trying to to keep up with the rent and utilities and sold my white Taurus last September. A good friend loaned me the money to buy a 1994 Geo Metro with over 200 thousand miles on it but it runs good and gets the best gas mileage. Learning to drive a 5 speed again after having the automatics for years took no real skill. Like riding a bike. Unfortunately Dakota turned 16 in October and have not the courage or patience to teach him to drive a stick shift.

I fell in love with a man I have been seeing for over a year now. We have spent a lot of time together, working at his place of business and riding all over the city on his motorcycle. Making love in various places including the woods, the car, his home, my home. Feeling like a teenager again just getting out of high school!

He went into the hospital yesterday. Internal bleeding. He underwent tests today to find out what the problem is. I was the only one he called to tell.

He has been separated from his wife for 3 and a half years and has 5 children all grown except for one daughter who is just a year younger than Dakota.

He is a workaholic. The day before he became ill I was mad at him since it snowed at least 7 inches or more and I was stranded. He didn't come home from his work in Levenworth, KS to check if I needed anything or any help. My sidewalk was full of snow, about a foot at least had drifted over and the car was frozen in place, the doors would not open and I had to call for a ride to work, working a full shift about 4 and a half hours later than usual. Need ing items from the grocery store and little cigars I have turned to now instead of the cigarettes I used to smoke. His favorite flavor is cherry so I bought him some cherry cigars and got turned on to them myself and haven't smoked a regular cigarette since.

I stopped chatting with him on my social page, yelled a little. The next day after work he came straight here and cleaned the walk, dug out from around the car, got the door to open, took me to the store and to the gas station where I buy my little cigars. When he came into the house he complained of not feeling well, felt weak. I hugged and kissed him and thanked him, told him I loved him very much. He went home and went to bed early.

The next day, Wednesday, he called me from the hospital after leaving me an e mail stating he was going to the Dr's office, very unusual for him since he worked constantly even when he had a bad cold he just kept going, never called in sick. I asked him if he called his family to let them know where he was and he said "No, just you." I told him I would come to the hospital to see him if no one else was there and he said no one else knew where he was. He wasn't telling anyone either. He was just so tired and worn out, weak. The temps here have been in the teens and below, this morning it was -2.

School was called off the last two days. Dakota walks to school since I usually work from 5am until 11am. Today, as cold as it was, school was back in session and he walked with his buddies. I asked him if he was warm enough, gloves, hat, two pairs of socks and two teeshirts under his sweatshirt. He said he didn't wear the extra socks. Stating he needed boots instead of the tennis shoes he had been wearing. I know he does. Just hoping I have enough money left over from the check to get him some new ones.

He was supposed to call me this morning when he got out of testing, colonoscopy. The Dr said he would be anesthetized. I tried to call his room twice. No answer. Was hoping a nurse or someone would answer the phone. I knew from previous nursing experience he would be in recovery for at least an hour if not two. It is after 1P CST. If anything happens to him I will not forgive myself for being so petty and acting like a spoiled brat. I have been spoiled by the last two husbands. I have never had to do any of the shoveling. Afterall I had a man to take care of that and keeping the car running and ready to go. I will sit and wait for his call telling me he is alright and ready to go home today or tomorrow. His father had colon Cancer and died a year ago in December on his mother's birthday.

A Newer Beginning

2010-07-24T21:09:00.003-05:00

On Feb 6th 2010 Kelvin was involved in a police chase ending 2 blocks from our house. He ended up going up over a post and hitting the police car who was chasing him for DWI. He continued to try to get away when the officer had his head in the window. A ticket for assaulting a police officer, DWI, and possessing a pound of Marijuana they found displayed in plain view on the back seat of the Jeep Cherokee he was driving. He was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

On February 17th I filed for divorce. Court date being set for May 3rd. I made

arrangements to have that day off from work. I waited in the hallway for my lawyer to arrive and when she did we talked over what to expect. I sat quietly in the courtroom, waiting for my name to be called thinking this would be it. The judge would grant me the divorce right then and there and restore my name of Dennis back to me.

My name was finally called and the judge opened a book with a yellow sheet of prison stationary from Kelvin. He had written to the judge stating I would not let him see Dakota and that I was withholding items he wanted and would not let his daughter, Vallie Rose, pick up his things. Actually Vallie Rose had come the week after his arrest in February and got most of his things except his clothes. He also stated that I had blocked my phone number so he couldn't talk to Dakota, which was another lie, I did not have my phone number blocked it was shut off by ATT for non payment. For this reason the judge set another court date for June 3rd. I had to wait another month to regain my freedom from a man I had been married to for almost 17 yrs and rarely saw.

On June 3rd after making arrangements to have that day off as well, the judge granted me custody of Dakota, my maiden name and his dog. I had to give the new bbq grill I had bought him for Father's Day last year, 2009 back, but after 12 years what condition would it be in? The lawyer brought that to my attention. Vallie hasn't been back to get his stuff since February. The Fourth of July was coming up so I told Jennifer she and Eric could "borrow" it for their cookout. Afterall the judge said daughter but didn't specify which daughter and Jennifer was his step-daughter.

I was behind on everything. I couldn't pay the rent, without Kelvin's help I was barely able to keep the utilities on. The brakes that Kelvin "had fixed" in the Fall of 2008 were a mess and I had to have the car fixed which cost me 500.00 the amount of March's rent which was 550.00 I couldn't pay. The rent check bounced and the landlord threatened to kick me out, and have me prosecuted.

I wrote him an e mail decribing my difficulties and he wrote back and said for me to pay what I could until the amount due was paid. Impossibilty since every month adding another 550.00 and I was still trying to figure out how I was going to pay April's rent with July looming and now going toward August.

I finally called Cable and had a bundle added to my account of phone, internet and tv. Much cheaper for all three then having separate bills. Still that is over 100.00 to one company, plus the title loan on my car, and the utilities and 3 loans I had taken out when Kelvin wouldn't help me with the rent the previous year.

Now I sit and wait, single and alone, trying to care for a 15 yr old boy in highschool, no car insurance, hoping the landlord doesn't come by or an officer elling me I have a week to get out with no money to rent a new place, Fall is approaching then Winter. School starts in about a month, the middle of August and haven't any idea how I will manage that.

I signed up for the food stamp program in April and receive 168.00 a month in food benefits but no cash to help with rent and bills.

I still have my job, utilities takes most of that and household supplies, gas for the car etc..

Not sure how this is going to turn out. I have sold my 55 gallon fish aquarium but when I deposited that to go with what I had left of my check I have 142.00 left and 20.00 left in savings. Poor and getting poorer in good old St Joe!

After The Storm Continued 2008

2010-04-22T16:45:00.003-05:00

In April of 2008, Jennifer had a Ford Taurus she gave to Kelvin when the transmission went out of it. He gave the Sable to Vallie who now lived in Arkansas with her new husband and two boys. He thought if they had transportation they would come and visit more often. Soon after the brakes went out of it and they were out of a vehicle again. Kelvin knows everybody and soon had the transmission repaired in the Taurus, gave the Taurus to me to drive and he drove the Cavalier. He struck up a deal with Lyle to buy a truck, which he really wanted anyway, that Lyle had bought at an auction which was a Dodge Ram, 2001. It was bigger than the Ranger. It also had an extended cab with a full seat and was a nicer looking truck than the 2003 Ranger he had bought and lost through repossession. In March of 2009 he had 3 wrecks in the truck, the last one totaled it. In order to get the truck from Lyle he needed 800.00 dollars down to take it home so he sold the Cavalier to a man who wanted the convertible. One week after he had it licensed, he drove it to Kansas City, drunk, and hit a parked car, totaling the Chevy I had had since 1996. I was so careful with it all those years. It was my red lifeline. Car repairs were expensive so I protected that little Red Chevy Convertible as if it was a precious stone from an expensive jewelry store. I was so sad when I heard what the man did to my little red car if not a little bit angry. Kelvin had sold the car for the 800.00 to buy the truck which he totaled, I had the Taurus which he had repaired and he again was without transportation. He now drives a little red Dodge Avenger with the money he had saved to get the truck fixed. The truck lies mangled at Lyle's lot on Garfield Ave.

Deaths of my Two Sisters, Audrey and Thelma and Brother Orville

2010-04-03T16:03:00.004-05:00

On Novemeber 5th 2006 my dear sister Audrey died at the age of 81.
On March 30th 2007 my dear brother Orville died and just last Thursday April 1st 2010 my dear sister Thelma died following her husband Bob into Heaven to meet him and her son Steven who passed away in April 1985.

Ice Storm December 2007

2010-01-14T15:11:00.000-06:00

Kelvin had been suspended for three days. He was so angry about it that he decided to quit that job and started another one in town, only five minutes away. This was a parts painting plant. Instead of making sewer lids and septic tanks he was now painting parts for plants such as Snorkel. Gas prices rose over 4.00 a gallon; in the long run we decided this job would be more economical. The pay was less and Child Support Division started taking more out of his check for Vallie when he had been in jail the first time before we met and his first wife, Diane, had been getting Welfare, Vallie was only 5 at the time. He also was continuing paying Child Support for Shelby at the same time. Student Loan started taking over 300.00 a month out of his pay check too. There wasn’t much left after that. He got paid every week instead of twice a week. I had to try and hold down the fort with my check alone. It wasn’t long before I got behind on everything, had to settle a couple of the credit cards, let the rest go. I tried to keep up the payments on his truck but by December of 2006 a tow truck driver came and took the truck back. Kelvin was beside himself with grief. He had always blamed me for everything that went wrong in his life including this downward economical slope. His buddy Lyle from the car lot offered him a blue 1995 Mercury Sable. He had been working for Lyle, washing cars and doing detail work at the garage when he got off work at 3:30 in the afternoons. He paid a small down payment and worked the rest off. It was a far cry from the new truck, the only new truck he had ever owned, which he had detailed with flame decals and embarrassing large silver “truck nuts” as they were called. He was so very proud of his truck. It was red, had an extension cab in the back where Dakota rode whenever we went anywhere as a family which wasn’t often. He took the guys he worked with to work and back and they helped with the gas when he worked in Gower. I on the other hand still drove the red 1992 Chevrolet Convertible which needed the top replaced. It had a tear on both sides at the base of the back window that tore a little more when the top was put down and then back up again. Even so it was a good car that got me where I needed to go.
While I was living on 20th street before Kelvin came home I had taken it to a car wash in town that was a full service car wash, fully automatic, washed, and waxed, dried the car. I was in line along with many other people as it was December and the weather had let up some and the sun was shining. Everyone pick that cold day to go to the car wash. As I was waiting in line the guy that worked there started to tell me something, then thought better of it as there was no place for me to go. There were cars in front of me and cars lined up behind me. When it was our turn to go through the open doors of the garage, I paid the money to the man and slowly proceeded through. The car rocked and rolled. The wind for drying was strong as a hurricane. Dakota was in the back seat with his Chief’s jacket on when he started crying and complaining he was getting wet. I looked and the back windshield had blown out, water was pouring in but you couldn’t go until the green light for “go” came on. He was a “drowned rat” I was wet and the wintry air came through with a vengeance.
I left and immediately sought a garage to find out where I could go to get the window replaced. I found a garage off Pacific, close to the Belt Highway. 320.00 Later I had a new window. Two days after that someone had sliced the top above the new window and tarp I had just paid to have repaired. I had to go back and have it sewn together. Other than that the top had no leaks and as long as I didn’t put the top down too much in the Summer time it was good to go.
December 2007 the ice storm hit. In order to keep the tree limbs from the tree I always parked my car under from falling on my car Kelvin, doing a good deed, moved the car across the street under two smaller trees that seemed less threatening which in turn both fell on the car, tearing massive holes in the top and tearing off the side mirror on the driver’s side. I patched these with masking tape, the large tree I had parked it under to begin with showed no extensive damage except for a few twigs and leaves in the space where the car had been.

Moving to Penn St Again August 2004

2009-12-18T13:31:00.001-06:00

Kelvin was fitted for his “ankle bracelet” within two days upon arriving at the little house at 1004 s 20thst. He could venture as far as 100 ft from the house so he was able to mow the yard and was granted permission to look for work. He found a job at the plant in Gower working with cement. I turned in all the wages between the two of us to Social Services and they said I would not be able to continue with the Food Stamp program.
By the end of July when things were settling and the bills were being paid I got a letter from the landlord that he had sold the house and I had to be out by the end of the month.
Kelvin told me things would be fine as we started looking for houses in the paper. One Saturday when we were both off from work we did a double take and circled around to check out a house available for rent on Penn St. It had a nice rectangle shaped living room, carpeting, large kitchen, big bedroom and a small bedroom for Dakota. On the East side of the kitchen there was a small laundry room and a door leading to a large back yard and patio. The rent was 3 times what I was paying with housing. I stressed and stressed about the expense but Kelvin assured me with the extra money he was making and my salary we would be fine. He was paid every two weeks but the opposite weeks that I was being paid so we had two weeks of pay coming in every week. We told the landlord we would take it and asked how soon we could move in. He said as soon as we wanted. We had to pay the first and last month’s rent, half the deposit and sign a lease. We started moving as soon as we got back home.
I was so excited; it was such a nice little house! The walls in the kitchen were tongue and groove wood paneling and the counter went all the way around. I needed counter space so badly. All the rooms were carpeted including the small laundry room. The walls were white except for a couple of walls in the kitchen that had green leaf wallpaper in place of the paneling.
The yard was magnificent. It was huge but no fencing which Kelvin remedied with a few scraps of fence and posts so Lassie could be free to roam the whole thing. It was the first time she would be free of that cable in three years. The neighbor to the North of us and to the East of us had privacy fencing making the job so much easier; there were only a few areas that were open and needed closed off.
By October of that year, 2004, we applied for and got a new truck for Kelvin, a 2003 Ford Ranger. The payments were 406.00 a month so again I had to figure out how we were going to be able to pay the truck payment, rent and utilities, four charge cards I had before Kelvin came home. The house was insulated and came with a window air conditioner in the living room plus we purchased a small one for our bedroom and was much easier to heat and cool than the last one. In the winter time at the old house Dakota and I almost froze to death trying to keep warm. Dakota’s old bedroom had to be wrapped in plastic so I had him sleep with me when the temperature got below zero. Lassie stayed in the basement in the winter time there, I would get up in the mornings for work, let her out then put her back in until I got home. It was very warm down there and cozy. I knew she was getting older and had bouts with arthritis. At this new place there was only a crawl space under the house where the furnace resided and the door was off the ground about a foot and kept closed at all times. We still had her dog house which I had filled with blankets but it tended to leak. It had to be really poring down before she would resort to going inside. When the weather was too cold and the snow was getting deep we would let her inside the house with us. She was well house trained and just slept in front of the big screen television in the living room.
On Wednesdays Kelvin got paid and I had those days off so I would get up early and leave about 11:30 to go to Gower and pick up his check after he cashed it and kept a hundred dollars or so for him giving me the rest to put in the bank to pay bills. I would then get paid 10 days later the following week on Friday. Everything appeared to be manageable until Kelvin lost his job.

Kelvin Comes Home After Four Long Years 2004

2009-11-22T17:24:00.001-06:00

After all the trips to Jefferson City and Tipton on Sundays, no matter the weather, Kelvin was scheduled to come home on Sunday, the 4th of March, 2004. Dakota and I made our last trip to Tipton to pick up his daddy. He had longed for his father to come home and Kelvin had vowed to be a changed man. Every Sunday when we were not down there he would call home to see how we were doing. He sent tapes of stories for Dakota to listen to on the tape player, even if he couldn’t be there to read to him this was his way to be able to read and bond with his son he had lost so much time with. Dakota was 9 ½ years old then. I had taken him to ball games and watched him play since he was 7. He had been in Boy Scouts for a year but there were just too many things that he needed a father for and I couldn’t continue taking him or help him with making a race car etc…
We got up early, about 4 AM that Sunday morning. I stopped at Speedy’s on Riverside road before leaving St Joe and heading East on 36 highway, to Chillicothe, then South on 65 to Sedalia then eventually Tipton. I liked the trip and the drive. I had my plastic bag of quarters for the vending machine, some pop to drink and a full tank of gas after leaving Speedy’s. It was a long drive. By going that direction instead of South through Kansas City I avoided traffic and the countryside was comforting. He pointed at the cows and a few horse and buggies that we met along the way as the Mennonites lived throughout the area. We traveled South past Marshall and other small towns, under the bridge and the South 435 traffic I had bypassed. The next town was Sedalia, home of the Missouri State Fair every year in August. Highway 65 had many crooks and turns, the traffic started to thicken now and the lanes spread out into four lanes of traffic. I stopped at a gas station at the intersection where I needed to turn East on 50 to go to Tipton to fill up the gas tank for the long drive back with Kelvin. Another 30 miles and we had arrived. Every time I had to remember the left turn off 50 highway in the middle of the small Missouri town that held my husband prisoner. Is it this one or is it down further? I consoled myself that this would be the last time I would have to remember that.
When I parked my car in the parking lot we got out and I had to try to control Dakota’s movements as he always tried to be the first one to cross the highway to the building where his father had been housed the last two years. The road was a busy one and there was a hill. I knew no car would be able to see a little boy darting across the wide two lane highway topping that hill. I had to lock the car, make sure I had my purse and the plastic bag containing the quarters and round up my son so he wouldn’t end up in a hospital (I didn’t know where there was one, Sedalia I’d guessed, thirty miles back West from where we’d come). We both got across safely enough. Once inside they said for us to wait there after using their “Magic Wand” over us. We sat in the chairs, there was a small waiting room, and they said they would send him out. We didn’t have to wait too long when we saw him carrying his sole possessions. He was dressed up in new clothes his Mother had sent him to go home, had a duffle bag of sorts and wearing a big grin on his face. He had lost so much weight, was tanned from mowing the “Yard” and running around the track several miles a day for exercise and something to do. He had read all the books they had in their library, had worked in the kitchen for a time, he was always a pretty good cook. Once he had everything done, papers signed, whatever was left to do, we headed for the parking lot. The first thing he wanted to do was go to the store in Tipton to buy some snacks. He hadn’t been in a real store for four years. He had always liked to shop, unlike most men. Going to Wal-Mart was a chore since once he was there he never wanted to leave until every aisle was searched from top to bottom, in case we ever had any money to buy anything we would know how much and where to get it. His mother had been putting money on his account there so when we left he had about a hundred or so dollars to spend. He was happy, easy going and best of all he was calm. We drove back the way we had come without a rise out of him. We talked and laughed. He didn’t complain about my driving or “Why did you go this way?” He was glad to be coming home at last.

Goodbye Aegis Hello USA 800 2003-2004

2009-11-12T21:19:00.001-06:00

After work every day I would go to Jennifer’s house and open the gate to the pool. Eric and Jennifer and Dan, Eric’s biological father, had built a fence around the pool with four to five feet high of wooden board fencing. I had a Rubber Maid chest full of the pool supplies I needed to keep the pool running as well as chemicals to keep it clean. I had bought a vacuum and various other items. I liked to stand there and watch the water whoosh out of the out take and into the pool, sweeping any debris that floated to the top. The humming of the pump was soothing and the sound of the rushing, swirling water was comforting. When I had back washed and was tired of sweeping the bugs and any leaves that still lingered on the surface I closed the gate and headed back home.
In January of that year I was told that I had lost my job at Aegis Communications Group and was receiving unemployment checks every week. The amount of the checks were more or equal to my regular pay check and I enjoyed my time off. I searched for but didn’t find another Job until July. Jennifer had applied to USA 800, a local call center, and was assured I would be able to get on there too since it was the same type of business I had been doing for the last 3 ½ years at Aegis. Callers would call the center for ads they had seen or heard on the radio and television as well as newspapers and we would screen them, taking the information and passing it on to the company they had originally called, which were our clients. I barely passed the typing course but was good enough to get hired. I had just applied for an extension with unemployment for another 3 months and due to school starting in September opted to wait and apply again in October. On October 17th I reapplied and was hired. The building consisted of an aged old apartment building downtown on the fifth floor. There was an old elevator that quit working off and on. Breaks were only 10 minutes long, it took 3 minutes for the elevator to rise to the fifth floor leaving 7 minutes for a cigarette break, 3 of which you had to use waiting for the elevator to come down, pick you up and rise to the fifth floor again. Then of course you had to go to the bathroom in that time as well, be back on the phones and take your calls without being over the ten minutes allotted from the time you signed out. These calls were easier to handle than the ones I had taken at Aegis. We had a few clients, not many then, and when call volume would go down a mandatory go home list was assigned. I lived alone with a nine year old boy then so I would get mad when they would send me home. Sometimes there would be a “Go Home List” that wasn’t mandatory, if you had your name put on it then you could go home and wouldn’t be charged any points against you. Points accrued when you just left early on your own without “call volume” being the reason, if your child was sick, you were sick or for some other reason than “the list” you would accrue a ½ point for leaving before your scheduled time off. If you called in sick and used your sick time then you wouldn’t receive any points, but if you didn’t have enough “sick” time to cover your shift and were gone the whole day you would receive a whole point. When you received 10 points it was cause for termination. Jennifer and I caught onto this very quickly and whenever they asked who wants to be on “the list”, we knew what they were talking about and made sure our names were on there. I couldn’t go as often as she could. She had a husband who worked making good money at the plant in Atchison, Midwest Grain, so she left me there a lot to suffer out my shift when all I really wanted to do was go home or to the pool and watch the water swirl around. She’d leave five minutes after she got there sometimes if they called “the list” right after we started. While she was there, we’d laugh and talk about the calls we were taking, some of them were really funny but on Sunday mornings at 5A when we’d work from 5A-1:30P, the pranks and the perverts would come out and disgust us to no end.
In January of 2004 we moved into a new building off Mitchell St, Mitchell Woods as it was called. No elevators and everything was on ground level. We had a huge parking lot in the back that was level and easy to get to in the winter time. This lot was eventually widened and made bigger to extend even further to the east and as the company grew a new addition was added to the building. Jennifer didn’t get to see the improvements they made as she quit in April of 2004, one month after Kelvin got out of prison.

The 18 Ft Pool 2002

2009-11-02T20:12:00.001-06:00

In the spring of 2002 I sold enough long distance service to choose from the various prizes they had for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ECT... I asked Jennifer which prize I should ask for and she said the 18 ft above ground pool with all accessories including an inflatable shark, beach ball and assorted beach towels. She said we could set it up in her back yard as she owned her own property while I was renting.
I was working one day when Sonya, the head of the communications group in the St Joseph area sat down beside and listened in on the call. She said she thought it was very good. I asked her about the prizes and when they would be given out. I told her I knew I had sold more long distance service than anyone at that time and I wanted the pool. She said she would consult with my supervisor, she told them to release the pool to me and that I could take it home that day. On my lunch break I called Jennifer and she had her husband, Eric, and his father, Dan, come by in the van and try to load it that day after work. The pools, the ladder, liner, were packed in a large box but the shark, beach ball and towels were loose and the shark was huge and inflated! We had a time trying to deflate it. It refused to go down easy. After awhile it bent enough to fit it in the back with the kids.
We dropped off the towels and shark at my house then took the big box over to Jennifer’s. We opened the box and took out the instructions. There were so many instructions and parts, rims, walls and the liner. Dan and Eric couldn’t rap their minds around the work that was involved. First they needed to dig out a level area; Jenny had told them where she wanted it, in the big back yard below the fenced small yard. This was the most level ground; they got the measuring tape and the shovels, the rake, and a level for exact precision. This took several weekends, and then came the sand and the leveling process began again.
By the first of July, 2 months after I had notified them the pool was up and ready to fill.
The pump and filter was made in one piece and fit on the side of the pool. It was virtually worthless and the algae began to grow. It was impossible to keep clean. I bought different types of algaecide, large 3 inch tablets of chorine and a vacuum. This was starting to run into large amounts of money which I wasn’t used to spending. Jenny and Eric helped out with the cost and I decided to call some pool places to see if I could get a used sand filter as we had had on the farm with the 24ft above ground. I called a place on St Joe Ave and a man said he had a used Jacuzzi sand filter that would be able to handle all the water and that I would need a pump he had just rebuilt. The sand filter was 120.00 and he would sell me the pump for 90.00. This was a great savings as we had priced new ones which cost more than a new pool. He came over and installed the set for free and I asked about a skimmer which he said he could order a new one for 35.00. He didn’t charge me anything for the installation. By the middle of August the water was sparkling clean. On September 1st Eric decided it was time to shut it down even though the weather was still in the nineties. We didn’t want to wait until it got cold to do it of course but it looked so good and I had waited all summer to see the clean clear water it was heartbreaking. I came over after work every day to check the pH and chlorine levels, back wash the filter and mostly stare at the water surging out across and around the pool. Finally I relented and switched the filter to Winterize and watched the water flow out of an old fire hose and down across the yard into a drainage ditch. I had bought a cover, between the three of us and the kids we were able to tie it down for the upcoming seasons.
By spring of 2003 I reluctantly began to unfold the cover and had to gasp at the ugly black water beneath. Limbs and leaves covered the top and had torn open a hole in the cover allowing the leaves and debris from the fall and winter to clutter throughout the pool. I started sweeping the water with a pool net which had an extension pole attached, stirring and filtering and back washing. I added shock treatment, tested the chlorine level and made the necessary adjustments. We filled the pool to the brim once the dark water started to fade to a pea green hue, started the filter and prayed a lot! By mid June it was ready.

Our Trip to Las Vegas 2002

2009-10-10T17:59:00.001-05:00

In 2002 I had won the trip to Las Vegas by selling more long distance than anyone else. Jennifer and I went to East Hills Mall to the travel agency to pick up our tickets. We were flying Southwest Airlines and picked out a motel with the least expense. I had won 500.00 and Jennifer helped with the expense for the rest. The 500.00 paid for the air fare and the motel. I notified Aegis Communications Group that the time best for the both of us would be Friday the 11th of September. I arranged to have that day, the weekend, and the following Monday off, the day after we got back from the trip.
We arrived late Friday night with the time change and checked into our motel room. It had two twin beds, a small bathroom and a phone. There was a huge window but nothing to see but other motel rooms and the parking lot which we took a shuttle bus to and from the main hotel and the motel room. We called the guys back home to let them know we had arrived and were unpacking. I turned the TV on and watched the news and weather. It was going to be hot, hot, and hot in the 100’s. I noticed there was a pool but hadn’t brought a bathing suit since the travel agency had said she didn’t think there would be a pool.
We did a lot of walking to and from the main hotel and played a few slot machines.
We went to bed early on Friday thinking we would get a good night’s sleep then start walking the strip on Saturday.
We walked and walked from one hotel to the other. We hit all the big hotels; MGM was way down the southern end of the strip. It cost 2.00 every time we took a bus but sometimes if it was the same bus we took down the strip the bus driver would take us back without charging us. It was starting to get expensive so we decided to walk most of the time. Jennifer started getting blisters on her feet so we exchanged shoes. My feet didn’t hurt but my legs and my back was aching I could hardly stand. One hotel we went into I won 15.00 and put that money back into the machine but Jennifer who was sitting right beside me won 90.00! We used that money to ride the bus and eat on.
We decided to eat at the Rain Forest Café. It was so beautiful with wild animated animals, trees and a waterfall. The ceiling was decorated with stars and the moon. The food was expensive so we ordered a specialty platter for one and decided to share. It was 50.00 for that one platter, plus desert and the specialty glasses for our drinks we got to keep, they were 5.00 apiece. We bought souvenirs from the MGM gift shop for everyone.
The highlight of the weekend was the Legends. An Elvis Presley imitator plus other celebrity imitators performed. We sat at a table and had our drinks on the balcony. After the show we met “Elvis” and had our pictures taken with him. He was from Lee’s Summit Missouri and said he couldn’t believe we were from St Joseph so close to his hometown.
We wanted to see the aquarium with huge sharks at Mandalay which was inexpensive. It was enormous. It was like being under the ocean with glass all around, large sea turtles as well as the sharks, tropical saltwater fish, it was magnificent! It made all the aches and pains and blisters all seem worthwhile.
We visited New York and took pictures of the Statue of Liberty, rode the train ride at Excalibur and Caesar’s Palace. We saw a man on a bicycle who was taking passengers down the strip in a cart he pulled behind him. We got in and had him take us a few blocks so we wouldn’t have to walk so far. It always felt so good to sit down! It would be freezing inside the hotels but when you stepped outside the heat would knock you back so that you had to find another hotel to cool off and play the slots again.
On Sunday we were packing for home. We took the shuttle back to the main building and waited for the shuttle to take us back to the airport. I had 20.00 left and was a little sad that I didn’t win big. We had such a good time just the two of us. When we arrived back home I took the 20.00 and went to the River Boat in St Joseph on Monday and doubled it! I ran straight to the bank to keep myself from putting it back into the machines!

A Home of My Own 2001

2009-10-01T11:51:00.001-05:00

I had filled out an application at Housing Authority and was waiting in line for that to be approved. By the end of September I had received my approval in the mail. All I had to do now was find a house that they would approve of and a landlord that would accept. A two bedroom house for Dakota and me the limit was 425.00 for the rent. Anything over that would not be approved by housing. I looked in the paper every day with the help of my daughter. I saved my money so that when I did find a place I would have the first and last month’s rent and a deposit.
When I got home from work one day she notified me that she had found a house on south 20th street. It took us a while to find the house. The landlord was sitting in the kitchen with a pile of applications to go through. His son was outside painting the house white. It was a quaint old one story with a full basement, a front porch, a deck attached in back overlooking a wide spreading back yard. There was a hedge row surrounding the north side of the back yard and a short hedge in the front separating the street from the small front yard leading to the front porch.
I remembered the front porch swing Kelvin had bought me for my birthday one year that Jennifer had at her house. I thought about flowers and where I would plant them. This house would be mine, all mine. I filled out the paper work and talked to the man sitting in a chair in the large kitchen. I told him it would be just Dakota and I living there and how housing worked. In a few days Jennifer told me that he had called and the house was mine if I still wanted it. I couldn’t believe with all the applicants, with housing stipulating their rules that I had been chosen. Now all I needed was to pay the storage bill and get my stuff back home where it belonged. There was a stove already there, a gas stove, I had an electric counter top stove that I wanted to use but he said he wasn’t doing the wiring for 220 in the kitchen. I would have to use the small gas stove already existing. There wasn’t much counter space so I shoved the electric up against the existing counter on the north side of the kitchen for the extra space. I had a washer but needed a dryer; he had a dryer but no washer so that worked out for both of us. There was no fencing to keep Lassie inside the yard except for the hedge but on the East side to the driveway there was no hedge and on the South side there was a house with a family of kids, dogs, Rottweiler’s, at least four big ones and no fence in between. I bought a cable about a hundred feet and staked Lassie out in the middle.
There was a small shed in the back close to the driveway in the southeast corner with no door. There I stored the Sears Craftsman lawn mower, the weed eater and other various tools used for gardening. It wasn’t long the weed eater and hoe, a shovel went missing. I put the lawn mower under the deck and put the remaining tools in the basement. The lawn mower quit working so I had to go to the new Wal-Mart on North Belt that had just recently opened its doors and bought a refurbished, small red one. Easy enough for me to start and push myself. I no longer had Kelvin to care for the yard any longer. In the Spring I bought flowers, Petunias mostly, and planted those in the front of the front porch and the tulips I had planted the fall I moved in 2001 were starting to sprout up. I bought rose bushes to plant in the back yard. They refused to bloom and died shortly thereafter.
The cast iron lawn furniture I had had since I lived with Charles on the farm when Clyde was renting the trailer from us, (he had bought it for me instead of paying the rent one month as I had asked him to, it was the same price) I put on the deck, put an umbrella through the hole in the table and sat out there, ate breakfast, and watched Lassie play as much as she could to the extent of the cable. Dakota would throw a soccer ball high into the air and she would jump up and bat it with her nose. I felt so sorry that she had to be cabled but she wouldn’t voluntarily stay in the yard otherwise.
I worked hard at selling long distance for AT&T and won prizes. We had a contest in the spring of 2002 to see who could sell the most service. The winner would win a trip to Las Vegas! We had a map on the wall with little pegs representing our airplanes. So many sales equaled so many miles and the one to get to Las Vegas first won. I left everyone back in Denver and was in Las Vegas first so I won the trip for two taking Jennifer with me.

Dakota Gets a Taste of Baseball 2001-2004

2009-09-25T09:45:00.001-05:00

I was just remembering a day back in 2001 when my little 7 year old brought a friend home from school who asked me, "Is Dakota going to sign up for baseball this Summer?" I asked how would I sign him up and he said he got a slip at school to sign him up and it cost 55.00 to register him. I thought, "I'm rich, just got my income tax refund", I actually had 55.00 to blow on the kid.
We headed for the Church up the hill where they were taking registrations. They told us he would be on a team called "The Little Rebels", so I paid the man. On our way to get a glove, bat, ball, socks and shoes! They gave us a hat, and a shirt.
After the first few practices I thought he needs a new bat, yea, yea, that's his problem so went and bought a real cool, titanium bat, one the ball could make a real "zing" when he hit it out of the ball park!
He did hit it hard and got a few RBI's and a HR or two! Course the pitcher was a skinny mechanical robot thing that was set to throw slow balls. He laughed, I cried, everybody was happy!
One day I was sitting in the bleachers, our team was in the outfield. The ball was hit, up, up it went high over everyone's head and blam! It landed in the hands of one of our own little boys' glove! I shouted, "Way to go! What a catch!" A woman turned around and looked back at me and said, "That was your boy!" My son? Dakota? Dakota Blake?"
I jumped off the bleachers ran to the coach who was laughing so hard because we were ahead at this point, probably 28-5 or something, and I asked, "Was that Dakota that caught that ball?" He nodded, "Yea, good job!"
Still not believing my ears when the inning was over I asked Dakota while we were on our way to the concession stand to get a "suicide", that's a drink where all the drinks they had were mixed together in one cup. He said, “Yes, that was me!” My heart was bigger than the Grinch's when it grew and grew, well you know the story.
K-ball was so much fun, for me that is, that year. They only lost 3 games went to play for the championship and lost, sadly. It took 2 whole games. That’s how many you had to lose to be out of the championship game.
They played until August that year! Rain or shine we were there! I cried when it was over and couldn't wait until next year! Next year came and he was a little less enthused about being in summer baseball. We registered, 60.00 this time. Bought the gloves the socks, the bat glove etc… the game was over by June.
The next year I had to practically carry him to the games. He stood like a little weenie holding his legs together, hoping for ball four so he could walk to base. He knew if he got on, he could run the bases. The pitching machine was gone and the little pitchers couldn't hit the side of a barn, missing their mark by an arm or a leg, thigh etc… Starting to think he needed a bigger titanium bat!
One day his father actually showed up to one of the games and called me at home to say "Our son just got a home run!" Really! I can't believe I missed it! He had hit an in the ball park home run by tapping the ball, bunt, about 3 inches off the plate. The Ump cried, “Fair Ball!” He ran to first. He ran to second. The pitcher couldn't find it! The catcher couldn't find it. They finally found it, threw it to first! Dakota was on second and heading for third! He slid into home and won the game’s ball that day!

September 11th, 2001

2009-09-17T12:52:00.001-05:00

On 09/11/2001, Monday morning, I was getting ready for the Communications Group
I worked for, taking calls for companies, mostly a large credit card firm, helping customers make their credit card payments. I had never worked on a computer before and hadn’t taken a typing course since the age of 15. When I was hired in June of 2000 the girl working behind the desk in Human Resources told me to apply in a small room, not much bigger than a broom closet. The only thing I saw was a desk with a menacing-looking computer. I had taken the written application and they wanted to see how fast I could type. I went back to the Human Resources desk and told the girl, not much older than a teenager, that the only thing I saw was a computer and I didn’t know anything about computers and didn’t know where to start. She said she would set it up for me and said, “There, it is all ready for you just start typing the best you can in the allotted time. When you are finished I will check your time and let you know how well you did.” It took time away for errors. It was a story about a little girl who lived in Kansas with her Aunt and Uncle and her little dog Toto. When all was said and done I had typed 12 words a minute after subtracting the errors I had made. I was unfamiliar with the keyboard and wanted to slide the carriage over, but there was no carriage to slide. I was ready to walk out and never come back. To my surprise she said that didn’t matter for the work intended and I had a training session the following Thursday after I passed the drug screening. I was hired.
On this day 09/11/2001 I was rushing around getting ready for work. The Television set had the news as I always watched Good Morning America. They were going on and on about bombs and the Twin Towers. I paid little attention. I had to get Dakota ready for school and take him there. He was in the first grade at Hall Elementary. He had gone to Pre School for two years since his birthday was in October, whatever age you were the first day of September, even though he would turn six in October, he had to wait the following year when he was six in September to attend first grade. On the way to school he talked over and over about the bombing of the Towers in New York. I thought they were talking about the previous attempt some years before on the basement of the Towers so thought it being old news didn’t listen as carefully as I would have. In the car the radio blared constantly about the bombing and more information to come. I listened all the way to work and wished I had paid more attention when it was on TV.
Jenny had made the room as comfortable as she could, knew how I liked to tape my soap opera and Regis and Kelly during the daytime while I was at work. Everything I had owned was in a storage locker on the North Belt Highway. She set the VCR up and even had a small television set, twin bed and a night table for me and the things I liked to put there at night, a roll of toilet paper for blowing my nose, my nose spray and an alarm clock.
When I would get home at 5:30 I would rewind my shows and watch them, keeping to myself and out of the way as much as possible. It was crowded but comfortable. Her father-in-law, Dan, had been sleeping there but relinquished the room for me and stayed in a camper trailer in the back yard. Her son and daughter, Domenic and Kaitlyn stayed together in the same bedroom as they were under the age of five years.
I liked my new job it was so easy once I got the hang of where the letters were again on the keyboard. We mostly used the 10 key pads anyway so I didn’t have to use the letters much. When E mail became popular though, we had to start getting their e mail addresses too and boy, talking about hunt and peck! I was soon pecking with the best of them, using one finger on one hand and two on the other. I’d get some serious looks from teenagers who had typing and computers in high school. I was almost fifty years old and it had been a long time since I had sat in Daddy’s old Plymouth and typed out my stories on my most prized possession, the blue portable that Daddy had bought me for my birthday so many years ago. I cried and Daddy cried too. He had to go to bed to keep anyone from seeing him cry. He’d never want anyone to see him cry. I had never gotten anything for my birthday or Christmas that I had wanted because of the expense and never expected to get that typewriter. He had bought it in a second hand store in St Joseph when we lived on Johnson’s place a year before his death.

Dakota Takes A Fall 1999-2001

2009-09-08T13:21:00.002-05:00

One day when Chuck and I were in the living room listening to the stereo, Chuck was practicing his Karaoke performance for Karaoke night at the bar, we heard screaming and yelling coming from the basement. We rushed to see what had happened and Dakota was covered with blood. His father had been asleep on the cot that Chuck usually slept on, when he was awakened by Dakota screaming. He had fallen off the last three steps leading to the basement as there was no railing there at the time and hit his head on the raised concrete surrounding the floor jack. Head wounds bleed easily and his head was gushing. Kelvin couldn’t stand the sight of the blood and told us to take him to the hospital in my convertible. Chuck held him while I drove out of the garage. Dakota was starting to feel a little better and fondling the dashboard and poor Chuck’s hair, covering everything he touched with the red gooey coagulation.
When we got to the emergency room the receptionist/nurse asked us, “Can I help you?”
Dakota and Chuck looked like the videos from the Vietnam War we used to see on the television screen from the sixties. They had dried blood in their hair, on their clothes but Dakota was certainly the worst and it was obvious he was the patient. I just looked at her staring blankly back at me as if I hadn’t just brought in a victim from the Vietnam War and said, “He fell down the steps and hit his head, he needs stitches.” I tried not to scream at her. She said the Doctor wanted to put staples in his head instead. Dakota, by this time, was playing and getting drinks at the water fountain to the other patient’s horror and just plain being his naughty self, getting into places he shouldn’t be and having us, mostly Chuck, chasing him down the hall. He had long gotten over the pain of his fall and the bleeding had stopped. He still had a long gash in his head and would still need those staples. The problem now was how do we hold him still long enough for the Doctor to do it?
By the Grace of the Almighty the staples were in and we could breathe a sigh of relief. I told the Doctor I was still a nurse according to the State of Missouri and instead of bringing him back to have the staples removed I could remove them myself as I had many times in other patients at the hospital. They gave me a staple remover and pretty much said “Go for it”.
About a week later when I was sure the site was healed I had Chuck hold him and I proceeded to remove the staples. The first few came out easily enough but the last two were deep and uncooperative. After enduring the screams of my little son and the grunts and groans of my older son I finally got them out. A railing for the stair case was added after that episode.
One morning at 5A Kelvin came in and woke me to tell me he was moving in with David. Alone again and on the prowl for happiness I couldn’t find.
By spring of 2000 he confessed to me he had been dealing and selling drugs again and wanted to keep me out of it and safe by moving out. He spent the whole summer at David’s house before the DSF came and put him in jail. I knew I needed a job so I applied for a Customer Representative answering phones at Aegis Communications Group. By September the 8th of 2000 the court decided Kelvin needed shock treatment and sent him to prison for 12 years.
I had too many bills to pay and not enough money to pay them all. 7.50 an hour was the starting pay. I had the rent and the utilities to pay, credit card bills I had had since I worked at the hospital and my car payment to GMAC. Not counting full coverage car insurance. We had spent his paycheck, the savings, and my last check, all of Dakota’s change and money we had put in an old milk jug that Kelvin had promised him we were going to use to take him to Disney World, all to try and pay his way out of jail just to find out it was only for a few weeks of freedom before he went to prison anyway. I struggled all year to pay the bills and keep up the payments. In the winter between 2000 and 2001 I started to pay half the rent to pay the gas bills at the same time. By July 2001 the landlord decided that wasn’t going to fly and told me I would have to move out.
I borrowed the money for my gas bill from my mother-in-law, about 500.00 which she gave me with no questions asked. I rented a storage unit for my furniture and moved in with Jennifer and her family on September 8th 2001.

Mischievous Dakota 1997-1998

2009-08-30T14:21:00.001-05:00

When Dakota was two and a half years old his father picked him up and placed him inside the Blazer to go to wherever he went those days. I was outside on the patio getting ready to put the leashes on the dogs for one of our many walks to the park on 10th street. He started the truck and remembered he’d left his billfold in the house and slammed the door on the vehicle and went inside unbeknownst to me as I had my own agenda with the dogs. I had bought a little Shiatsu puppy from a breeder in Osborn after mourning the loss of the Pomeranian, Foxy who was never found after our trip to California. With our work schedules I was unable to potty train him properly so as he got bigger I had started leaving him outside in the fenced yard with Lassie. His name was Scruffy due to the long shaggy multicolored, buff and brown spotted hair all over his body. I looked up in time to see the truck lurch forward and head down the hill straight into the neighbor’s teal green Geo. The car was an exact replica of the one I had traded for the red Chevrolet convertible. I used to admire it from the window and missed my Geo Storm.
I stood wondering why he headed straight for the car as it seemed to be on purpose. I looked up and shaded my eyes with my hand to get a better view when I saw Kelvin come out of the garage with his mouth hanging open and knew immediately that Dakota had sent the car rolling down the street heading for Penn St.
The Blazer was pinned against the side of the Geo on the driver’s side heading South from 14th St. Kelvin ran to the truck to check on Dakota as did I. Dakota was crouched in the back floor board crying and waving his arms, sure that his Daddy was going to do him bodily harm as I was as well. Instead he told him to not to be afraid he was going to get him out of there. The neighbors came out of the house on the corner to see what the crash was about. The driver’s side of the Geo Storm was pushed in and the door wouldn’t open. Kelvin managed to separate the two vehicles. It was a young woman’s car who, like me, had adored her car but seemed to take the accident in stride and was very cooperative and understanding. The motor vehicle department sent Dakota a letter and said his license was suspended for 60 days! We got a laugh about that one since Dakota was only two and wondered if that would hurt his chances of getting a drivers license when he was sixteen.
There were other times that were trying with Dakota. He would run to the neighbor’s house on Penn street and play with the kids at an apartment building there. He had a Nintendo at home and discovered the phenomena was rampant in other kid’s homes as well. He was pretty good at it at the age of three . It was difficult for an adult to beat him.
There were times when we would turn our backs and he’d be gone. Kelvin would panic and call the police who would comb the area in their police cars, up and down alleys, every parking lot.
One day I was walking down the street two blocks over from our house looking in every yard and alley. There was no sign of him. I headed back home to find him in his father’s arms talking to a policeman who had found him in the lot a couple of blocks South surrounded by a high fence and guarded by a big German Shepherd. He said he was in there after climbing over the fence and playing with the big dog. He would climb trees and fences like he was born to a family of orangutans.
One day in the summer when he was 4 years old he disappeared and even the police couldn’t find him. I knocked on doors and walked and walked, Kelvin drove around and around the area. The police also drove around. No one had seen him. I finally stayed inside the house in case he were to come back on his own. I walked from window to window and door to door. It was a big house. It had three entry ways, one on the South side of the living room, one on the East side of the living room and one leading from the kitchen to the patio and the back yard on the North side. The last time I peeked out of the back door on the North side as a police car pulled up and the man said, “Isn’t that your boy there?” I looked and sure enough there was Dakota standing on the patio. I asked, “ Where did you find him?” He said “He came out of the play house.” He had been in the back yard the whole time, hiding.

Bullet Gets a New Home 1999

2009-08-23T14:57:00.001-05:00

When the court said Kelvin had to get a job so he could have his child support debited from his check we lost the Social Security Disability that I had automatically deposited into the checking account. I was earning between 200.00 and 400.00 on my own with Care Givers and had to pay the bills with that. That money only came in every two weeks. Kelvin got a job working for Defenbaugh Industries in Johnson County Ks. He got up at 4AM, picked up his friend David, the second husband of Kelvin’s first wife and soon to be ex-husband. They were the best of friends and together they drove the long distance to work every day. David was the driver and Kelvin was the helper, the man who hung onto the side of the truck. They drove all over the Kansas City area picking up trash in residential areas. They worked until they got done, sometimes coming home in the middle of the day. They were paid by job so the pay was the same and he earned a weekly paycheck. Before coming home on Fridays he would stop at the bank and deposit an amount into the checking account minus the amount he needed for gas and lunches for the week.
When I got the news about Care Givers and the lost wages there, in January of 1999, I stopped looking for work as a nurse and decided to be a stay at home Mom for Dakota. I had lost so much of his early years when working for the hospital and with no references now for nursing I was at my wits end on what kind of job I could get now. The only job experience I had was nursing.
The boarder in Savannah had raised his rates for the stable I had been keeping Bullet, my horse, from 75.00 a month to 100.00 a month. Kelvin’s Cousin Kyle had a farm south of Faucett Missouri and asked us to put the horse there free of charge. We had to fence off the property with hot wire or portable fencing. There was a large barn and a free flowing creek running through the property from an underground spring, that meant no more breaking ice in the winter time as it never froze too hard that the horse couldn’t break it with his hooves himself. I had a lot of experience with fence building from years past, knew what to buy and we started right away. When the fence was up and the battery was installed I contacted Mr. Duncan and he put Bullet in the trailer and hauled him for me for a fee of 20.00. We unloaded Bullet at the next farm’s driveway where the barn was after receiving permission. I kept the tack, saddle, bridle, halter, brushes and blankets in the barn as well. I kept up the vaccinations and gave them myself now but it was hard to find a Ferrier for his feet. Kelvin knew a bull rider from Oklahoma who could keep his hooves filed but he was always on the rodeo circuit and very hard to find. When he did come around he would take his pointed cowboy boots and kick Bullet in the stomach if he flinched just a little. I always held the halter and talked to him to keep him calm. That only made the cowboy angrier because he said I had babied the horse too much and that was making it hard for anyone to do any work on him. I hadn’t had any complaints before. In the winter time we bought hay from neighboring farms and piled it in the Blazer about 10 bales at a time. We would have to go as far as Savannah to get hay as farmers, again, were not keen on parting with their hay. Every year they would say it’s going to be a hard winter and they needed the hay for their cattle just in case. No matter how warm the previous winter had been or the forecast for the present year it was “going to be a hard winter!” Past experience told me they were probably right but what would we do without hay?
In the summertime the lush green pasture at Kyle’s farm was a treat he hadn’t been used to since Mr. Duncan had several horses boarding there and green grass was far and in between. He had fed hay most of the summer and small amounts of grain. Bullet was always slim and trim, not skinny, but the saddle would stay on after a couple of tries. Now he was in Horse Heaven and became so fat and greasy the saddle slipped around and riding was near impossible. Every few minutes I would have to get off and retighten the saddle, walk him around, retighten again, ride for a few minutes and do it all over again.
In August of 1999 I placed the horse in the St Joseph paper and sold him at a loss of 500.00.

An Old Blacktop Road 1998

2009-08-17T12:14:00.002-05:00

I usually worked from 2P until 10P when I was sent to this location. On this particular day I worked the day shift. At lunch time when everyone else was in the cafeteria I stayed on the floor waiting on new meds from the pharmacy to come for a new patient I had admitted. While waiting for the delivery another patient was out of Oxygen, her cylinder was empty and I was unsure how to take the top off and replace it on the new tank. After rolling the old tank to the storeroom and wheeling the new cylinder on the dolly we set the tank up and exchanged the top. I reset the gauge for the order for Oxygen flow just as the delivery of meds came. I had to count the medications and sign for them, start an IV on the new patient, which I hadn’t done in 7 years. The other LPN who came in to take over my shift at 3 P helped and together we got the line in her vein. The aide that was helping with the Oxygen had the tank ready and I finished my charting and gave report to the LPN. I drove home in the daytime for once. The sun was shining and I could see the winding turns on the old blacktop road. It was wintertime and the old route had no street lamps, the ditches were steep on both sides. One day they had assigned me to work back at the usual time of 2P-10P on New Year’s Eve. There was a lot of ice on the roads, the snow fell leaving 8 inches of the white slippery stuff everywhere. The newspaper headlines showed a car coming off interstate 29 to Northbound 169, sliding in a ditch and other such wrecks all over the city. I called Caregivers and said I wouldn’t work that evening because of the snow and ice. I didn’t want to try to make it to Stanberry, 50 miles away, on that blacktop road, and then try to make it home in the dark. We didn’t have cell phones and I wasn’t sure if Kelvin would come to rescue me that late at night when he always got up at 4A to go to work in Johnson County Kansas for Defenbaugh’s Trash Service. He went to bed at 7:30 in the evening and stayed there until he had to go to work the next morning. I worked PRN and that meant as needed. I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to unless I needed the hours. If you didn’t go to work when they found work for you too many times then they would give jobs to other LPN’s who would. It was hard for them to find LPN’s to go to Stanberry because of the distance. On Monday I got a call from Caregivers telling me I was fired because I had an aide set up the Oxygen tank for the patient while I was busy with the delivery man from the pharmacy. It was against their policy for aides to remove the top paraphernalia on the old tank and place it on the new tank. The patient just wanted her Oxygen and was happy when the supply of Oxygen came flowing through the lines continuously as ordered. The aide and I had congratulated ourselves on a job well done! I found out later that the aide, being afraid they would fire her, had told administration that she had told me it was against policy, and that she wasn’t supposed to do it. The nurse was the only one that could. I believe it was the long trip on New Year’s Eve on an old slick black top Road I refused to travel that cold snowy night that was my downfall.

Kelvin and Oxygen Tanks 1998

2009-08-12T12:35:00.001-05:00

In September of 1998, Kelvin got news that his step-father was in the hospital and was dying. The bone cancer had spread to his brain. They wanted to gather the family together so his family had purchased tickets for the plane ride back to Sacramento for him. He was to pick them up at the airport. He gathered his bags and was gone.
When he came back the relationship was strained even more and I stayed in the kitchen most of the time and Kelvin had set up cots in the basement for him and Chuck on opposite sides. Kelvin’s bed was next to the door leading to the outside and outside that door was a vestibule and steps leading straight up to the street. I slept in the big waterbed alone in the large bedroom. He came and went as he pleased sometimes staying out all night. One morning I couldn’t sleep. It was 6 AM and he wasn’t home yet. Soon I heard his Chevy Blazer pulling up to the curb outside the basement door. I went to yell at him and saw that he had been drinking which was no surprise. All his “buddies” had gotten back together again and he was on a down hill spiral.
One morning about 2AM I awoke to yelling and started to the basement to see what was going on. Upon entering the stairs I could hear and man and a woman’s voice so I started down and yelled, “What is going on here?” I could see a half naked girl and her boyfriend was wailing away at Kelvin on the bed who made no attempt to fight back and appeared to still be sleeping. He was using an old broom handle and was putting large red whelps all over Kelvin’s back. When I asked again what was he doing he said he came down the steps to the vestibule and opened the door to the basement and caught her, his girlfriend, in bed with Kelvin. Kelvin appeared to be asleep and only groaned when the broom handle slapped against his back repetitively. She constantly sang her song of nothing happened and continued to put her blouse back on. I told them to both leave and never come back and told “Linda” never to call him again. When they finally left and I could get Kelvin awake long enough to talk, he said he didn’t do anything and was asleep and too drunk to do anything anyway. She had come down the steps from outside and let herself in. I’m sure he unlocked the door for her because I had checked that the door was locked when I went to bed at midnight, Kelvin was already home and said he was going to sleep. Chuck said he didn’t know anything and had been asleep on the other side when she came through the door. He said he didn’t see anything and didn’t hear anything until her boyfriend, who had followed her there from the bar, came in and started yelling and looking for something to beat Kelvin.
They never called or came over anymore. The boyfriend kept leaving messages all over town that he was going to kill Kelvin and ended with a Malta Cocktail thrown at the motorcycle I had bought and on a different occasion set the roof of the Blazer on fire, inspiring a police cruiser to stop and wake us up one night to let us know his truck was on fire. The motorcycle was almost destroyed but he paid someone he knew to repaint and replace the wiring. It was as good as new. The police was able to put out the fire on his truck’s roof.
After the death of Emily, Caregiver’s had me back in nursing homes to work. Every nursing home had a different policy on what to do so every time I moved to a different home I had to get used to new policies and what was acceptable in which nursing home.
When I had worked those six years at Heartland we had respiratory therapy to come in and change-out the Oxygen tanks. We had some but little training on the big tanks in nursing school almost 10 years before but we as nurses had the nurses’ aides switch the tanks when they became empty or we called respiratory therapy. Mostly the patients that needed Oxygen were on Oxygen concentrators that used the room air and never had to be replaced just the amount of liters adjusted to doctor’s orders. Only the nurses could adjust the amount of Oxygen. In nursing homes they rarely used concentrators and we dealt with the large steel cylinders. One day I was sent to Stanberry which is about 50 miles to the north of Saint Joseph, on a long, winding hilly black top, North Route 169.

A New Beginning 1993

2009-08-10T19:54:00.001-05:00

The next two weeks were spent going to work, picking Kelvin up after work and going home to my trailer in Wathena. One evening after dropping Kelvin off at his apartment, I was sitting at the nurse's station getting ready for the evening's med pass, when a panicked Kelvin came off the elevator, stating," My apartment building burned last night and all my things are ruined!" His downstairs neighbor had been drinking and had gone to bed with a lit cigarette. The upstairs apartment above him, Kelvin's apartment, was smoke damaged. The fire had been contained in the closet where Kelvin had kept memorabilia such as pictures and letters from his mother. His clothes hanging in the closet were stained with water and the strong odor of smoke lingered on them, including his shirt he had gotten from his cousin Kyle, who had been in the Navy. Kyle had sent him a shirt from Singapore. It was a white shirt with blue Asian style designs on it and he was especially fond of that shirt. We had it cleaned and it was good as new. The firemen had gotten there quickly but deemed the apartment building uninhabitable. He had to find another place to live.
I didn't want to leave him hanging since he had no place to live, his family lived in Sacramento, California, so I told him he could live with me until he could find some place else to hang his shirt, so to speak. He thought about living with Kyle, now out of the service and settled with a new wife who was pregnant with their first child. I was hesitant in getting involved again so soon after the "fiasco" with Bill.
He never moved out and I liked having someone to come home to after work. He filled my head with tales of horror stories that were reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, action adventure. I should have listened and realized the things he was telling me were true, life experiences. I dismissed everything as I would after watching a television program, I could always turn off the set and go back to my real life and never think of it again, but this was a life he had lived.
He had a dog named Crusher. Crusher was a Pit Bull. He would only listen to Kelvin. He was a fighter and hated cats. He said he loved Pizza and would go crazy when Kelvin would show him a Pizza box. Kelvin took Crusher with him everywhere he went. One day he took Crusher outside, not having a fence around the yard and knowing his hatred for cats and other dogs, people etc, he had him tied up in the yard with a strong chain or cable. It was Summer time and in the summer in Missouri and Kansas the heat index can quickly get over 100 degrees and the humidity was thick as a blanket on a cold winter's night. It was 10:00 in the mornig when he put Crusher outside. The phone rang in the house. He ran inside to answer it. It was a buddy wanting to reminisce about the goings on of the previous night. He said he was on the phone for about 45 minutes. Off the phone, finally, he went back outside to get Crusher. It was already getting excruciatingly hot, Crusher was used to being in the house with air conditioning. He found his dog lying on the ground, barely breathing. He rushed him to the veterinarian's office. Crusher had died of heat prostration. The vet said because he was used to air conditioning, the period of exposure to the heat was more than he could bear. It was a long time before Kelvin could wrap his mind around the death of his best friend. He knew others who left their dogs outside all year round. They had gotten used to the gradual rise in temperatures or the sudden drop to below zero weather in the Winter time that the Midwest experienced. I had always kept Pebbles in the house when it was too hot or too cold. Our other dogs and cats were usually kept outside, Charles wouldn't allow them inside, but they had access to barns or sheds, trees that provided adequate shade. Kelvin lived in the city where it was hotter than the country, the heat from the buildings, pavement and cement kept the temperature at least ten degrees hotter or more.
In January of 1993 Lee ann, who lived in the trailer park by the Belt Highway, told us about the trailer in the park that was a double wide. It was very nice inside and out. There was barely a yard. It was 375.00 a month. I didn't know how I was going to pay that high of rent when the rent I was paying for the "cardboard" box I was living in was 175.00 a month, uncertain every month how I was going to come up with that. Kelvin said his disability check would start coming in March. We could use that to pay the rent and all I had to pay would be the utilities. It had central airconditioning, and a good furnace for the Winter. It was insulated and very warm.
While I was at work I got a call from Kelvin who said the move was done, and I just had to go to the new trailer when I got off work. It was so pretty. It still had the new trailer smell, new cabinets. A built in washer and dryer. No more laundromats for me!
In the Spring we bought roses and gladiolas for the scant yard. Kelvin built a fence around it for Pebbles.He spent his days planting the roses. We watched the flowers grow and bloom. A man he knew that lived in the trailer court worked for a construction company and helped Kelvin build a deck leading up to the front door. I bought a swing and he hung it on the deck for me.
In March he asked me to marry him one night, lying in the bed after love making. I questioned his sincerity of the matter due to the timing of the proposal. He said he felt as if I had saved his life the night of the apartment fire. If I hadn't taken him home to be with me, he would have been asleep in the bed. He couldn't go to bars anymore or get into any trouble due to his parole. The firemen said if he had been home he would have died of smoke inhalation. He said he loved me and didn't want to live without me ever.
　
　
　
　

Emily

2009-08-06T09:52:00.002-05:00

Whenever I needed to haul anything, I just put the top down and away I went. I bought the table and chairs at a second hand store called Charlie’s on South 6th St. Kelvin had the Blazer and what I couldn’t haul in my convertible he picked up in his Chevy Blazer. The new house was starting to look like home.
I passed my test at Care Givers and started to work right away. In September of 1997 I was assigned to care for a baby named Emily. She had been born in June and spent the first few months of her life at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. She needed tube feedings and to be catheterized every day. She was hooked up to a heart monitor. She had been born with Spinal Bifida. She had to be monitored carefully, at times she would turn blue and pass out. Although she was 3 months old she looked and weighed as a newborn. I’d take her out of the crib and place her in the swing. She liked the swing and would smile, then she would turn blue and pass out. I would simply pick her up and jostle her a little, this would bring her out of it but if she was a little slow coming to then I would have to give her mouth to mouth and put her on Oxygen.
As the months went by she got bigger and smiled more. She had toys and music players in her crib and liked to look at those. She slept a lot so while she was sleeping I cleaned the house and did the dishes; I even cleaned the microwave oven. I did mounds of laundry to keep busy while Mrs. Greene visited her mother in Savannah. My director of nursing said I didn’t have to do anything but watch the baby but to help out the mother I might want to straighten up the place while Emily was sleeping. I charted in a notebook and turned that in to Caregivers at the end of the week. I made phone calls to the Doctor’s office and gave her medications through her feeding tube. She had blonde hair and big blue eyes and a smile that lit up the room. One evening after work Mrs. Greene called me and said she, Emily, was having difficulty breathing and had made an appointment for her to see the Doctor at 1:00 PM the next day, Monday, August 16th, 1998. I was supposed to meet her at the hospital at 1:00 PM then stay at her house while she took the other children to the school for enrollment. They had been home schooled up to this point but thought they were well enough behaved now they could be trusted to attend a public school. They had bought a two story house, much like the one they were renting in Fillmore, but this house was in Mound City, just a few miles north of Fillmore. After all, the oldest hadn’t tried to burn the house down for at least a year now. He was fascinated with matches and had climbed the steps to the attic to try out his skills.
I had gotten up that morning on the 16th of August 1998 as I was used to getting up early to go to the house in Fillmore which was about 20 miles North of Saint Joseph where I lived. I got a phone call from Caregivers telling me not to go to Fillmore that day as the baby had died at 6 AM that morning. In the mornings she always had hard time breathing and the monitor would go off, then she would need suctioning. She would turn pink and ready for the day of tube feedings and catheterizations, suctioning etc… That morning when the mother went to the bedside she was dark blue and didn’t wake up or turn pink again. It always took about an hour for the ambulance to get there from Savannah even though Savannah was only 10 miles away.
I felt sick. I kept thinking I had to go and suction her out, a treatment of putting a tube
through her nose and suctioning off the phlegm and then inside her mouth, inside the tracheotomy until she was breathing easily again. Care Givers said, “No” not to go up there and disturb the family at this time. So I stayed home and thought of Emily’s little face and the musical toy she had clamped to her crib. I thought of her big blue eyes and blond hair and her sweet perfect little smile. The Doctors had said it was a miracle that she lived to be 1 year and two months old. They had thought she would never make it at all. Caregivers and Children’s Mercy had commended the family and the “nurse” who had taken such good care of the baby that would never walk or talk or smile ever again.

Moving Out 1997

2009-08-01T13:06:00.001-05:00

We had been looking for a place to live since the landlord said his wife was going to evict us. Kelvin asked me to check out a house on South 14th St. It was a big house on the corner with a fenced in yard however, it was small but the dog, Lassie, a collie I had bought Kelvin after he sold Chief, the bulldog, was used to a small area and it was probably bigger than the small yard at the trailer court. We also had a tiny Pomeranian who used to dig her way out of the fence at the trailer court when finally, the day we were to live for California; someone kept her and didn’t bring her back.
We boarded the plane in December 1996 and headed for Sacramento. We stayed with his sister, Michelle, her boyfriend Larry and Michelle’s two children, Doug and Lindsay. We were there until after Christmas. They had an extra bedroom which did not have a vent so it was cold and the weather was rainy with a temperature at night and most days of 32 degrees, so much for sunny California. I kept in touch with Jennifer who stayed at the trailer for us and a neighbor watched Lassie. I asked if there was any sign of Foxy, the Pomeranian, and the answer was no. They even checked with the dog pound who said since the dog was a Pomeranian and teacup size she was probably stolen.
The landlord at the house on South 14th St said the place should be ready when we got home in January. He was completely remodeling the house, putting in new cabinets, paint etc… I told him I was going to be working at Caregivers Home Care Services when I got back and that Kelvin would be receiving a disability check which I had directly deposited into the bank account so I could pay the rent myself with that. There would be no more of the “cashing the check first and spending what he wanted” before paying the rent as he had done in the past. We settled on a rent amount of 410.00 a month. The house had one huge bedroom and a small bedroom for Dakota. The bathroom, which was remodeled, was large and was between the two bedrooms. The kitchen was narrow with new cabinets and counter tops. My stove was electric and he designed two twenty wiring to accommodate but said we would need a gas dryer on the back porch because he wasn’t paying to rewire that.
When we came home from California the house wasn’t ready yet so we continued to stay at the trailer until February of 1997. We moved into the big newly remodeled house. The dining area was between the kitchen and the living room. It was huge. We were no longer cramped and the china cabinet with all our precious memorabilia from over the years was placed on the south wall. I had sold my piano to an RN at Heartland Hospital in the summer of 1995; we had gone to World’s of Fun, an amusement park in Kansas City, there we had our annual picnic for employees of the hospital. She decided to buy it for 500.00 and picked it up the following the weekend. I was surprised when we got to the new place and there was an old upright piano there that the previous tenants had left. The landlord said we could keep it or get rid of it at our discretion. I decided to keep it and called a piano tuner to check it out. He said it would probably need too much work. I went to Lanham Music and bought another piano, a spinet, and put it on layaway there. The piano tuner said he would buy the old piano for 100.00 and came to pick it up when I was able to get the new one out of layaway. The new piano cost a little less than a 1000.00. Kelvin helped me with the last two payments. I was ecstatic when the van with my new piano came. I had it put in the dining room along with the dining room table and six chairs I had bought at a second hand furniture store.
I had traded the red Geo for a teal green geo Storm 2+2 coup, 5 speeds on the floor, sports car in 1994. When Dakota was born we had a hard time getting the car seat and baby strapped in. It was a hatchback and Kelvin got frustrated trying to get the car seat through the back hatch and strapping it in. It wasn’t meant for a car seat. I traded that one in for the convertible, red, automatic 1992 Chevrolet. I bought this car in the spring of 1996 from the same dealership in Platte City. They washed it and waxed it and had it looking like new when I went to sign the papers. I wasn’t real certain I wanted to trade my sports car but when they showed me how they had detailed it and it looked like new, only 35000 miles I decided to sign.

Beavis and Chief 1994

2009-07-25T16:47:00.001-05:00

Backtracking a couple of years to 1994, In the Spring of 1994 I bought Kelvin an English Bull Dog puppy. He saw an add in the paper that a lady was selling these dogs, show dogs, champion bloodlines, north of Savannah, MO. We went to see these puppies and I raked and scraped together the 600.00 for the asking price. It was a cute little fat puppy that Kelvin named Chief after the KC Chiefs. In the Summer of 1994 we had a family reunion at Donald’s house. Everyone came. We brought Chief with us since we didn’t have a “dog sitter” and couldn’t leave him at home for very long without taking him outside. Kelvin had fenced in the small yard but we were afraid someone would open the gate and he would get out or someone would steal such an expensive dog, so we took him with us. I was a little afraid of what Donald would say, but it turned out that he loved the dog and wanted one just like him. Everyone oohed and ahhed over the puppy, he was really cute. It wasn’t long that he grew up and took on the characteristics of his parents which were big and ugly. He slobbered all over everything and had a deep gruff sounding bark. We decided to take Chief and Pebbles to Bluff Woods to walk along the trails there, climbing steep hills, over the creeks and higher. Pebbles ran around like a crazy little dog while Chief was fat and lazy trying to keep up with us while Pebbles chasing squirrels and rabbits, never seemed to tire. On the way back down the trail Chief fell over and lolled his tongue out of the side of his mouth and couldn’t go on. Kelvin picked up the 70 or so pound dog and tried to carry him the rest of the way. I told him we needed to get him to the little waterfall where we could put him in the water to cool him off. He was afraid he was going to die as Crusher, the pit bull had years before. We got to the pool of water and Kelvin bathed him in the cool water. He seemed to perk up a bit but he carried him to the car just the same.
We finally got Pebbles to calm down and get in the car. Chief was fine after that but he had a bad habit of chasing cats, mine and others in the neighborhood. I told Kelvin I wouldn’t stand for that. He would have to do something. The neighbors next door had a full Persian cat that had had kittens and gave us one, a fluffy yellow and white one with a typical pugged face. He named him Beavis. We paid 50.00 for him and I didn’t want Chief chasing Beavis all over the trailer court and into the path of a fast moving car. Beavis had the habit of not using the litter box and I got tired of that too, made him stay outside except to come in and eat.
One day a man from Amazonia came and wanted to know if Kelvin would sell the dog. I didn’t think there was anyway he would give up Chief but I went into the bedroom where Kelvin was taking a nap and asked him. He said he needed the money for child support and yes he would sell him for the 600.00 I had paid for him in the first place. He didn’t come out to say goodbye he just laid in bed with tears in his eyes.
Later a lady I worked with at the hospital said she knew the man who had bought Chief and said he ran a puppy mill. Chief would spend the rest of his days in a small cage grinding out puppies. Kelvin was furious, I was too. I had never thought Kelvin would ever sell that dog! The man had come over twice to ask us to sell him. Kelvin had turned him down the first time and said there was “no way” he would sell his best friend. Vallie was still young then, she and Shelby would come over on weekends, put a leash on him and he would drag them all over the court chasing cats. They fell many times as he was too big and heavy for them to control.
One day Kelvin came inside and said the neighbor on the right side of us said he heard two big dogs growling and fighting with a cat that morning. The neighbor said he knew it was Beavis. The two dogs, the culprits in the melee, was a Doberman and a German Shepherd. We had had Beavis’s toenails removed on his front feet because he was to be a house cat so his defenses were limited. We had gotten him neutered when he was 7 or 8 months old. That was supposed to stop his urination in the house, after 3 weeks he started it up again and that was why we put him out. Kelvin found the remaining sections of Beavis’s body and buried them at the salvage yard where Kelvin had been working for the Baldwins.

Unemployment! Here I come again!

2009-07-19T17:09:00.003-05:00

When we arrived home the weather was chilly and the winter snow was starting to melt. I got my schedule for my new nursing job at the nursing facility in Wathena, Kansas. I had applied for my temporary Kansas license. I had three months that I could work there before I had to start gathering nursing credits to receive a permanent license. The credits were expensive and I would have to take a week or so off without pay to travel back and forth to Topeka. Sometimes they had classes in Falls City, Nebraska that would work for Kansas but I jut couldn’t afford to take the time off and pay for the credits. I decided to work there until my license expired and find work in Missouri, in Missouri the credits weren’t necessary as long as you attended In-Service meetings which the institution you worked for paid for and they were held during the daytime, I usually worked evenings so I had to come in during the daytime to attend the meetings or on my evening off. They would be held just one day a month.
At the end of my 3 month temporary stay in Wathena I had applied back at Citadel where I had worked when I first graduated nursing school. The administration had a new name but the facility was still Citadel.
In the Fall of 1996 we learned that Kelvin’s step-dad, Larry Higdon, had been diagnosed with Prostrate Cancer and it had spread to his bones and Lymph glands. The Doctors said this may be his last Christmas and wanted all the family to come to California to visit for the last time. Kelvin’s family wanted us to come to stay for the whole month of December. I didn’t know how I would be able to get that much time off but decided to check with the Administrator’s wife to see how much personal time I could take under the circumstances. I hadn’t been there but a few months so I knew it couldn’t be much. With much trepidation and dread I eased my way to the office at the end of the shift before I went home for the day. I worked the day shift there as I had always wanted to, the day shift seemed to be able to do more things, any parties etc were usually held during the day and the other shifts were always left out of pot luck dinners for the staff etc..
I waited for another person to leave the office and went in. I had my coat and my purse in my hands, sat down in one of the chairs. Before I could say anything she told me I was fired because the VA had sent a van to pick up a patient to take to the VA hospital in Kansas City and when they sent him home instead of back in the van the way he had come they sent him home in a cab. He, of course, didn’t want to go to the nursing home, he wanted to go to his home where he had lived with his daughter and granddaughter. The granddaughter was in school and not at home and his daughter was working in Cameron. He walked up the sidewalk to the granddaughter’s school and sat in the Principal’s office waiting for the granddaughter to get out of school and take him home and let him in the house which was locked. The granddaughter called her mother who called us at the nursing facility and wanted to know why her father was out wandering the streets when he was supposed to be at the home? I was outside on break, they came and got me since I was his nurse for that day. I spoke with the daughter and explained that we didn’t have anything to do with his taking the cab home instead of taking the van. We had sent him in the van, he should have been sent back in the van. She agreed with me that it didn’t appear to be our fault it was the VA’s fault and talked as if someone was going to be sued. She, however was nice to me and was glad I had answered her questions. Mr. Fox the administrator was upset and afraid of a pending lawsuit. I tried to explain that the daughter didn’t blame us, but he was mad and upset enough that he wanted someone fired over it and since I had been his nurse for that day he decided it would be me. I explained to Mrs. Fox, how was it my fault that the VA sent the man home in a cab instead of the van? I had sent him in a van etc… Anyway I definitely got the time off I needed.

We Attend a Luau 1996

2009-07-11T16:30:00.002-05:00

Kelvin had spoken to his mother on the phone about the situation. I had no job and he was doing odd jobs at a salvage yard for a friend of his on K Highway. She said she would send us the money while we were in Hawaii. Keith, Karen and Kelvin wanted to spend the money so we could go to a Luau in Hawaii before we left for home. I thought we should take the money and run with it to Missouri and deposit it immediately in the bank account. Everyone, of course, thought I was being selfish, including me but I was under a lot of stress. How were we supposed to pay our bills when we got back? Kelvin hadn’t paid the rent and we didn’t know how long the landlord would put up with that before setting us out on our ears. I had the utilities and the regular bills to pay, plus gasoline and groceries. He was supposed to pay the rent with his money. It had been a couple of months before I realized he wasn’t paying the rent, I think I found out when he actually told me he hadn’t been taking the check he was getting for disability up to the landlord’s office as he had been. He had bought an old van that wouldn’t run half the time just because his ”friends” in the trailer court needed money to buy, God only knew what. So we were out 200.00 that should have helped with the rent for another vehicle we couldn’t afford to buy tags for.
I relented and we spent the 125.00 she sent us to go to a luau. The parking lot was crowded. We found a place to park, Ray, Keith and Karen’s son, named after the rich uncle with the mansion looking outwards towards the volcano, Diamond Head, again agreed to watch Dakota. We sat at one of the long tables provided for the evening meal, which consisted of a roast pig that had been lowered into the ground with ceremony and cooked on hot coals and buried several hours earlier. We got there in time to see them raise the pig out of the hole and carry it on poles to the big tent where it would be cut up and the meat shredded to feed the tourists that had come to watch the native dancers on the stage made of grass and bamboo. They were dressed in the native costumes of Hula skirts and leas with bands of multicolored flowers adorning their foreheads and above one ear. The men had no shirts on but they too had leas around their necks and a large multicolored cloth around their waists. They sang and played ukuleles and talked of Don Ho. One of the foods that was prepared was poi. It was purple and slimy and had no taste whatsoever. It was, to put it bluntly, nasty stuff! I left the poi on my paper plate. The paper plates they had given us were so thin you could practically see through them. I got up to get another plate of the better food, the barbecued shredded pork and fruit. When I got back a strong breeze grabbed the plate of poi and whisked it away into the face of a fellow patron across the table from me. Karen laughed as did everyone else, including the patron who received the tropical slime. I was mortified and so apologetic that they laughed even more. I was not accustomed, yet, to the constant wind blowing and had not laid anything on it to keep it from blowing away. We laughed and had such a good time. It was one of the rare occasions when I was able to relax and be myself a little bit. Kelvin was being good for once. The tension of knowing anything could set him off was eased some but I was always on my guard to be embarrassed at any moment. He was good at embarrassing me along with anyone within earshot of his tirades.
The music was good, the costumes and dancing were colorful amid the many Tiki torches placed on stage. Now that was the Hawaii I had heard about on television and in magazines. We took pictures of the many statues standing guard in Waikiki, as well as bridges and the ocean front, the beautiful blue waters at the beach and of each other. By March 1st we were ready to head for the airport and greet the snowy and cold conditions of a Missouri winter.

Our Vaction in Hawaii 1996

2009-07-08T12:56:00.003-05:00

Nine hours later we were arriving at the Honolulu airport. Cheers and applause from the passengers arose when the pilot announced our arrival. Looking out the window I could see dark clouds and rain hitting the window. The ocean was obscured due to the weather and I knew this was a sign. I couldn’t believe it was raining on what I thought would be a sunny paradise. The images of blue water and palm trees were replaced by dark, windy and chilly conditions. After instructions were given to the passengers who wanted to stay on the plane to be taken to other islands, we were allowed to disembark.
Kelvin was still in a “drunken” snit and unapproachable. He haphazardly grabbed the bags from the over head compartment, I grabbed the diaper bag and my purse from under my feet and held the baby the best I could. The airport was crowded with people going and coming from unknown destinations from all over the world. I hadn’t met his brother and sister-in-law so I didn’t know who to look for and it wasn’t advisable to ask Kelvin. He said, “Here they are!” Showing his best side as he always did in front of other people so they would think he was the nicest guy in the world, when in private in front of me he showed a totally different side.
They met us with leis that were made from live flowers, very pretty colors of pink, blue and purple. They hung them around our necks and headed for the luggage conveyer for the rest of our bags.
We crowded into the car and off we went to their house. They lived on a nice suburban Ave, I couldn’t pronounce the name, or the city south of Honolulu. There were palm trees and flowers, even tomato plants with fat red tomatoes growing in neighbor’s yards, along with Hibiscus plants six feet high or more. It was so unusual to see in February where at home that time of year there was snow and ice and very cold weather. I foolishly complained about the rain and the cloudy weather and was shot down immediately by his brother, Keith, and Kelvin of course. “You’ve come during the rainy season!” In my head I thought there would be blue skies and warm weather, isn’t that why people took vacations in Hawaii for the weather?
It wasn’t long though, the sun came out and after a couple of days the 80 degree temperatures were back. I always hated the wind. It blew my hair and made it hard for me to breathe, so the tropical gusts that blew in Hawaii always chased me back inside. I wondered how in the world I was supposed to enjoy this place if I can’t stay outside longer than a minute.
We unpacked our bags in one of the boy’s rooms where we would be staying. They wanted to show us around the island on the weekend when Keith didn’t have to work. He worked for his uncle, Ray, who owned and operated a construction company there. He had fallen in love with the island in the early 1960’s when he had been stationed there in the Navy. Higdon Construction was born during that time. Most of the houses on Oahu had been built by his construction company and was deemed a millionaire. He had bought a single lot and built a new house, mansion really, with a “For Sale” sign of over 3 million dollars. He had a pool, three car garage, maybe four, a huge open kitchen, large dining area, living area with a white grand piano. Upstairs wound around to empty into a large bedroom, walk in closet and huge bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub.
The side of the “house”, facing Diamond Head, was a large patio that wrapped around to the driveway over looking the pool. This is where he barbecued huge steaks and ribs for the lot of us. Keith and the boys got into the pool, I had brought my suit but the temperature was only 50 degrees and I decided there was no way I was getting into that water. Dakota got in with Keith holding him. We had a good time, laughed about the extravagance of the whole thing. I know my eyes had to be as wide as they could get. I had only seen places like that in magazines describing movie stars homes. I couldn’t seem to get enough pictures of it.
We ate in the dining room on a very long expensive looking table under the light of a magnificent chandelier. I was terrified, Dakota was onerous as usual, and Kelvin was again on his best behavior. When we left we agreed to go out to a fine restaurant before we left for Missouri. Ray, of course, paid for everything. Karen, Keith’s wife, had told me not to be shy about ordering what ever I wanted, and reminded me that Ray was loaded and it wouldn’t be out of the question if I wanted say, steak and lobster. Which was what I had wanted, and couldn’t wait for it to be served. When Charles and I were married every year starting with the eighth year anniversary we went to Red Lobster and I always ordered the steak and lobster tail. It was always so good and expensive we could only do it on our anniversary once a year. I stuffed as much of the crustacean in my face as I could, not know how long it would be before I could taste that succulent meat again.
We stayed for three weeks with Karen and Keith and her two boys. I had walked almost every day to the Wal-Mart store to get more film and the pictures developed. I stayed to myself, feeling out of place with strangers. I spent a lot of the time in the bedroom ready to go home. Kelvin on the other hand spent his time with Keith going out to bars and carousing around with his cousins he hadn’t seen in a decade or more, which would have been understandable but he wasn’t supposed to be going to bars and drinking. He was mean and hateful when he drank and I was trying to “change” his ways so he wouldn’t have to go back to prison and leave me with all the bills and a child to raise alone. He was embarrassing and rude but of course only to me. He never let anyone else see that side so no one understood why I was afraid, or why I hated him going out and having his so-called, good time. I knew I would be the one who would have to pay for it in the end.
One day Karen took us to the zoo at Waikiki. I loved the zoo and was the animal nut I had always been. During that excursion we stopped at a nearby park to rest. Karen told me to look at a lady, she appeared somewhat well to do but she was keen on studying a nearby trash can. Karen said, “Look at her; she is going to eat that!” Sure enough I looked and the lady had picked up a half eaten ice cream cone that was in the can and started to eat it. Karen said she saw a lot of that, all the time in Hawaii. I had only seen things like that on television on police dramas about New York City and other big cities. Even though I knew it happened I hadn’t actually seen anyone eat out of a trash can before. When Charles and I first got married we had gone dumpster shopping for furniture and stuff people had thrown away, clean it up and use it for ourselves, you’d be amazed at the items people would throw away, but we never ate anything out of them!!
On the way home from the zoo and park Kelvin started to have one of his anxiety attacks that I had seen often but he wouldn’t let anyone see. Now Karen was driving and he was riding in the back seat with Dakota strapped in the car seat she had borrowed from one of her friends. Dakota hated being strapped in a car seat and from the first day home from the hospital he always had a fit when he had to be strapped into one. He would cry and whine and Kelvin would get angrier and angrier and between the both of them, being trapped in a car, with Kelvin bellowing obscenities and threatening to kill all of us at the same time, the baby first, then me or vice versa. Karen just kept driving in silence. I was embarrassed as he got louder and louder and so did Dakota. The rampage went on and on until we finally got back to Karen’s house. She said later, she had no idea Kelvin was like that. I told her he was always like that around me.
He and Keith went out and got drunk and didn’t come home until after 3:00 in the morning. I was closed up in the bedroom with Dakota, no one to talk to, feeling homesick. Karen had left me to go out with one of her friends. They had begged us to come to Hawaii to visit and that they would watch the baby so we could go out and enjoy ourselves, the only time we had a baby sitter was when one of her boys was told to watch him while we went to dinner with Ray and his wife Dolores, the time when I ordered lobster. Dakota was showing signs of a cold and the teenage boy who was watching him about died when he had to wipe his little nose. He said, “I will never watch him again, he has slime coming out of every part of him!”
We finished up our vacation by going to one of the nice beaches there. It was like a post card. My eyes couldn’t believe the beauty of the volcanic rocks and formations, and the bluest water I’d ever seen except on TV and magazines. The ever present wind was blowing as we set up the picnic table with all the good stuff you bring on picnics. Kelvin and the boys had boogie boards they bravely shoved into the ten foot waves, paddled out and rode back in on their stomachs. The sand would blow so hard it would rip the skin off of your legs, stinging and burning as it went. Dakota wanted so badly to be near his father he tried to walk out onto the hot sand and would get only halfway when a big gust of wind would blow and the sand would start its blasting. I’d run out and get him, put him on the grass on a blanket under one of the strange and twisted trees they had there. I couldn’t believe I was wearing a swim suit and sun glasses in February, the temperature was over 80 degrees. When Kelvin finally came back to the beach he would lie down and Dakota would crawl over him with no fear of retribution. I knew if I did that or even said anything to him he would tell me to “Let him the f--- alone!” So I always did, gladly.

Hawaii! Here We Come! 1996

2009-07-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

In February of 1996 my severance check consisted of a check for 1300 or so dollars for every hour worked. His brother and sister-in-law had been trying to get us to fly out to Hawaii to see them, of course we wanted to, but who could afford the trip? My daughter Jennifer worked at TWA in Kansas City at the time and she said she could get us tickets for nearly nothing, 50.00 for the two of us each to fly and Dakota could fly free. After making arrangements to have a job when I got back home we started making plans to go to Hawaii. They lived on the island of Oahu not far from the Honolulu airport. They would meet us at the airport and take us to their house where we would stay for three weeks. I brought 500.00 of the money with us and Jenny and Eric, her husband, would stay at our trailer and watch the pets while we were gone.
On February 21st we headed out. We were all excited and anxious for the trip of a life time. Kelvin was in a bad mood as he was most often these days. Anything could set him off. He’d started drinking with his new found friends in the court and had stopped paying the rent and used his money for other things we surely didn’t need. Jennifer had warned us to behave and act civilized on the plane because whatever we did reflected on her since we were using tickets that she had used her discount on, thus representing TWA. We had lots of bags, the baby, the diaper bag, my purse and I was expected to carry it all. If I asked him to help me with the bags he would go into a sudden rage. He did that a lot over nothing in particular except it afforded him his way whenever he wanted something. His drinking and drug abuse came back with a vengeance and nothing I could do or say could talk him out of it. Everything was my fault. His friends were right and I was wrong. Whenever he was with his friends he laughed and showed them courtesies that he never showed me. I was supposed to be the one he loved and had saved his life when the apartment burned and he had to live me in the trailer in Wathena. If I hadn’t met him where would he have gone? He had no friends as long as he wasn’t drinking or selling Marijuana. As soon as he started up again then he had friends coming out of the woodwork. I stood between him and the elements that he thought made him happy at the time and he resented me for it.
While waiting in the airport for the flight to board, women and children were supposed to get on first. I looked around and Kelvin was no where to be seen. The attendant kept looking at me while I was struggling with all the bags and the baby and I told her I was waiting for my husband. She said they were getting ready to board so he’d better hurry up. I tried to put the baby in my arms, carry the carry “on’s” with everything we would need to keep the 1 and a half year old content during the nine hour flight, my purse, the diaper bag all in my arms while looking around nervously for Kelvin. I knew he was somewhere and I was afraid he was in the bar. Knowing how he was when he was drinking I hoped I was wrong; it would be a long flight.
He finally showed up with a bad attitude and the enormous chip he carried nowadays on his shoulder. Giving me a dirty look he sauntered on the plane bare handed. We found seats together but he didn’t want to sit with me because he knew if he did he wouldn’t be able to drink the whiskey he had planned to order on the flight. He sat behind me in a middle aisle just behind me.
I sat with a black young man who had come from New York and was in the Navy, on his way to be stationed at Pearl Harbor. He played with Dakota who was being exceptionally good, trying to look at a picture book I had brought for him. He held up the picture book and looked directly at the Service Man and said clearly, “D’wanto read to me?” I was flabbergasted and the service man laughed and read to him for a little while. He said that he didn’t like Hawaii because it was too hot there. I couldn’t wait to be hot in Hawaii, the winters, especially in February, were brutal in Missouri. He said it hadn’t been his first time and always dreaded the trip, he had a wife back in New York and I think he said he had a child at home too that he would miss terribly. When Dakota said his first sentence on the plane I tried to get Kelvin’s attention to tell him his son had spoken his first full sentence but he just snarled back at me, telling me he didn’t care and to leave him alone. He was nursing a glass of Jack Daniels at the time and he and Jack didn’t want to be disturbed.

Goodbye Nursing Career 1996

2009-06-28T15:18:00.000-05:00

We took report and I started my rounds with the medicine cart. As soon as I finished we prepared for supper trays, putting in the necessary nurse’s notes etc. By evening rounds it was time to pass the meds again. When I got to the patient’s room, the sitter who was hired by the cousin to watch over the patient when we, the nurses and aides, were helping with other patients, asked for the patient’s evening narcotic along with her other medicines. We had had a meeting the week before when the new Director of Nursing had taken over the duties of Scotty, the former and now retired director. She had laid out the new rules for sitters. They would no longer be giving the meds to the patients anymore unless they were a qualified Med Tech or LPN. We had to give the meds directly to the patients now and the Doctor had said this particular patient was receiving too many narcotics and her liver would start to fail. We had to only give those narcotics when she said she was in a lot of pain and nothing else seemed to work. I went into the room and asked the patient herself if she was in a lot of pain and she sat straight up and said, “Not really”. The sitter was so insistent that I knew she had Tylenol ordered, and had it on her MAR page for several years so I gave her a couple of Tylenol. The sitter was so angry that I did not give her, the sitter, and the drugs to give the patient that she said she wasn’t giving the rest of her medicines again and that I could just give them from now on. I told her about the meeting and reminded her that she would not be allowed to give the medicines to the patient anymore due to the rules set up by the new Director. I gave the meds and continued my med pass to the rest of the patients. She had called the Cousin of the patient and angrily told her that I would not give the narcotic to the patient as she, the sitter, had asked for and the cousin went ballistic. She said she was going to report me to the new Director of Nursing. I didn’t know this that night and didn’t find out about it until the next day when I was getting ready to go to work. I received a call from the Director’s office to come to her office before reporting for work. I had no idea why. When I went to her office I knocked on the door and pasted a smile on my face, knowing this couldn’t be good. She said to “Come in and sit down.” I nervously waited to hear what could possibly be wrong; after all I had done nothing I knew of to require such a meeting. She said she had received a call from the cousin, guardian for the patient, and wondered why I hadn’t given the prescribed narcotic to the patient when the sitter had asked for it? I reminded her of the orders she herself had given only a week before and what the Doctor of the patient had said about not giving the PRN drug unless she absolutely needed it. I told her that the patient herself had said she wasn’t in that much pain and I also told her LPN that sits with her in the daytime had said she hardly gives her any narcotics when she works. I told her of the many instances when the evening sitter had asked for the patients narcotic only to find out she had been given the narcotic only an hour and a half before that by the daytime nurse. She was only ordered the drug PRN, as needed, and the order was for every 4-6 hours between them. I also told her of the suspicions that we, the nurses, had that the sitter herself was taking the medication or selling it on the street. Every nurse that worked with that sitter had said that. Nonetheless, she said I was suspended for four days without pay. I didn’t know what I was going to do for the missed money since I could barely miss one day without it causing a hardship unless it was a sick day that was paid.
On the day I was scheduled to go back to work the Director called me again and told me to come into the office before my scheduled shift. I thought “What now?” I hadn’t been there for four days what could I have possibly done this time? I was scheduled to go to the conference room on the first floor where the business offices were. There I saw a long table and other administrators sitting around it passing papers and talking amongst them. I nervously looked around at everybody who smiled at me as I sat down. The nursing director, whom did not smile came out and said I was discharged for giving the Tylenol to that particular patient and another patient, whose husband was a doctor and was present at the time of the incident and who told me to give the drug along with her other medicines to help her sleep better since he was staying the night in her room, otherwise she screamed all night and he was a busy Doctor and had to get up early the next morning to make rounds. Her actual Doctor had given us orders to do what ever her husband wanted and had an order in the nurse’s notes to that effect. I even called him to verify that it was, “Okay”, made all the notes in the chart to that effect but “They still didn’t think it was right”. The extra drug, which she had in her list of PRN’s on the MAR they felt, was contradictory to her scheduled drugs that were also given. I explained that her husband whom was authorized by her general Doctor to be able to add extra medications if he felt the need was in her best interest, said it was “okay” and that he just wanted her to be comfortable. He knew she was dying. Nothing I said seemed to matter. I started to cry and plead for my job that I had had there for almost six years. It was February eighth and on April 16th 1996 I would have been there for 6 years. I was coming up for evaluation and a raise. They had told us for the last six months that they didn’t know how the change from West to East hospital was going to affect the staff since there were 16 LPN’s and only 12 LPN jobs available. We had to reapply for the jobs we already had and we knew something was going to have to give. Many RN’s who had offices on the first floor and had been there for over 25 years had lost their jobs as well as their jobs had been done away with. These were Registered Nurses who were looking to retire in five years after 30 years of service. They were left with no benefits, no pension plans and no credit union where they had their savings invested. They needed to lose some nurses for the “Heartland in the 21st Century” plan that didn’t include certain jobs that were done away with; kitchen staff and housekeeping all took the cuts. We didn’t really believe the nurses’ would be cut as well. It was rumored any errors charted in the MAR would be dealt with harshly.
I went home crying so hard I couldn’t see to drive. Kelvin was sitting the couch and wondering what happened. “Why was I back?” One look at my face told him what had happened. We both wondered what we were going to do. The mark on my nursing record would simply say “discharged for medication errors” not “gave 2 Tylenol while following orders given previously by the Director of Nursing herself” or “while following Dr’s orders etc…etc..”
I didn’t know how I was going to be able to find another nursing job with that on my record and I knew I would have to list them as a reference. I applied for Caregivers, a Home Care service that hired out nurses on a PRN, as needed, basis to go into the homes of the elderly that wanted to be at home for their care and not live the rest of their lives in a nursing home. I also applied to a nursing home in Wathena Kansas, I had applied there when I first graduated from Nursing school but they were rude and didn’t pay as much as the Citadel where I had worked until April of 1990. My Kansas License was a temporary one for three months. After that I would have to go to In-service meetings for my credits every year. I would have to go as far away as Topeka, Falls City, pay for it myself, it was expensive, and be able to take the time off from work without pay. I decided I could use the temporary license until I could find a nursing job in Missouri, where all of that was not required.

1995-1996 The Winds of Change are Blowing

2009-06-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

My maternity leave lasted six weeks. I enjoyed staying home with the new baby and Kelvin was thrilled with his new son. He showed him off to everyone and by Christmas he got a lot of new toys. Being only two months old he couldn’t do too much at that time but he liked the pretty lights on the Christmas tree, the same tree Bill had bought me, and Kelvin decorated the outside of the trailer with multicolored lights.
I placed him in the swing and put the new toys in the tray in front of him. I breast fed as long as I could, about 3 months. Kelvin would bring him to the hospital every two hours, four, six, and eight. He would give him a bottle and put him to bed after that. When I got home close to midnight if he was awake I would feed him. He was usually ready by then for another feeding. Every two hours or so I’d get up and feed him again. It wasn’t long, as I said about 3 months, Kelvin had him so used to a bottle and he stopped coming to the hospital. I had a breast pump and pumped and saved bottles until management said I couldn’t do that anymore. I know that other mothers on different floors were doing that but the new Director of Nursing after Scotty retired, said I couldn’t use the refrigerator to store my milk bottles anymore. Others that I worked with thought it was gross, you would have thought I was doing it in front of them and not in the bathroom for privacy. It wasn’t long before I had no more milk to pump. I wanted to breast feed longer this time. When Jennifer and Chuck were born the Doctor had said at least the first three weeks to be sure the baby was getting enough colostrum and then after that it was up to me if I wanted to continue. Today they insist on breast feeding for the first year.
The year of 1995 went without incident. Dakota was getting bigger and learning to crawl, scoot and walk. He was pulling himself upon things. I was at work when he called me to tell me he had taken his first steps. I was afraid I was missing out on so much of his new little life! Being the “breadwinner” in the family I knew I couldn’t quit my job to be a stay at home Mom. It seemed like every day he was doing something new that I had to hear about second hand. I would take my vacations in June. I loved the weather in June; it was never too hot sometimes and certainly not too cold. This Missouri weather could never be predicted no matter how hard the weatherman tried. It would either be too hot or it would rain all summer.
I received a pin for working at the hospital for five years in April and pretty content on staying there until retirement. I knew where everything was, who to call when I needed information, I was the one everyone went to if they had a question. We had to learn a new system with computers which everyone groaned and moaned about including me. Learning the new technology was never anything anyone wanted. We wanted everything to stay the same but in Health Care everything changed and we had to be prepared to change with it. I learned how to put Dr’s orders in the “thing” and ask the pharmacy questions about an order especially if the script was nearly impossible to read. Some of the other nurses could never figure it out and I ended up doing mine and theirs as well. Getting comfortable after five years was a mistake because with changes coming so rapidly you could never get too comfortable. We had In-services meetings frequently about the hospital in the 21st century. We were told over and over how our jobs would not be affected and no one had anything to worry about. However, we were told that we would be trained on many new treatments and services even if our floors were not licensed to do them just in case we needed to be moved from one floor to another. At least we would be trained. I had already been trained to do IV’s the first year I worked there in 1990. I inserted 5 IV’s in the Emergency room at the East hospital then went back to work at West where the training was never used because we didn’t put IV’s in on our floor. I couldn’t have done it again if I tried without practicing for 5 years.
In February of 1996 I had given a patient 2 Tylenol, a patient who had had Tylenol in her orders for years as well as other narcotics. I had worked on one side of the center for three weeks when one evening the nurse I had been working with decided she wanted to change.

Riding Bullet 1995

2009-06-25T09:19:00.000-05:00

In 1995 around the month of July, I had missed my horses and was determined to buy another. Kelvin always read the paper and he looked in the want ads under horses for sale and said there was one in Savannah about 10 miles to the north of us. Anytime there was money to spend he didn’t want to spend it unless it was something for himself. When I got back from
Savannah with a broad grin on my face he knew it happened. I had borrowed the money from the Credit Union, 1500.00 and used my credit card to buy tack at UPCO, a saddle, bridle, long lead and a halter. I also brought brushes and other accessories. I had made arrangements with a boarder in Savannah to keep him there. The cost was 75.00 a month, he would feed, take care of his hooves etc… All I had to do was call him the night before I was going to come down and ride and he would catch him and put him in his own stall, a stall just for him.
He was a big horse, about 15 hands, sorrel with a big blaze down his face reminding me of Stony. It had been so long since I had ridden I was a little nervous about the height. The man saddled up the two horses and away we went. We walked at first but I told him I liked to gallop so when we had gotten to an area that it would be safe along the country road, he said for me to give him a little kick and without much coaxing he picked up speed. I noticed the saddle was getting loose so we headed back to his place so he could tighten it. When I started to get off the saddle came with me. He helped me down, walked the big gelding around in a circle so he would have to breathe and not “blow out” his barrel to keep the saddle from tightening as horses will do. I rode along a little longer and the saddle started to loosen again. He said the man he had bought him from kept him as a pet for the kids. He could do tricks i.e. if you dropped your baseball cap on the ground in front of him he would pick it up and hand it to you! He was very smart and knew it too, which isn’t always good, he knew he was bigger and stronger than me and had the saddle thing down to a science.
The man who agreed to board the horse came with a trailer and I wondered how well he would go into a trailer. He walked right up in there without much protest and we were on our way to his place in the heart of Savannah.
A few times a week I would call and say I was coming to ride the next day, but the man was always so busy he was hard to get a hold of sometimes. When I did, I would go the ten miles north and park the car. The horse would be waiting in his stall for me. I had blankets and the saddle and all the tack stored in a small shed, along with the tack for other horses he boarded. I’d put the halter on and clip the lead to the halter and lead him out of the barn fastening the lead to the gate. There I would brush him clean and comb out his long red mane and tail. After the blankets were placed behind the withers and the saddle was on, I would walk him in a circle the way Ann Morrow had told me to do when I bought Terre before tightening the girth. I couldn’t believe I still remembered how to tie a cinch knot but it all came back to me as if no time had passed. I was on my way across the yard and down the steep hill to an old railroad track that had since grown up in weeds and became a great place to ride until the path turned to gravel. He had his shoes on and I tried to get as far off the path as possible to keep a stone from being lodged around the frog of the foot. We never had too much trouble. We’d walk and listen to the birds and hope one wouldn’t fly out of the bushes suddenly and spook the horse. The path would eventually turn into dirt and then I could gallop a little. The saddle would always come loose but now I had gotten back into the rhythm of horse ownership and the needs that come with it. I would get off after about five minutes and tighten the saddle. He stayed long and lean. I didn’t have too much trouble with the saddle as long as he stayed lean. I rode all the way to the end of the dirt path which led to a big dirt road. There I could gallop as much as I wanted always keeping an eye for trees or bushes or hills that might cause him to spook. I decided to name him Bullet. The boarding facility was surrounded by “hot wire”, an electric fence, and every time he heard a small crackle he would jump and almost turn completely around under the saddle. He usually did this when we were at the boarding site before we left for the old railroad tracks. I mentioned to Kelvin one day that he had “shot out from under me like a bullet”.

Dakota is Born 1994

2009-06-25T08:49:00.000-05:00

The next few months my cute little figure ballooned into disproportionate shapes and I couldn’t believe I was going through this again! Every morning at 3 am Kelvin would wake up and start pushing and manipulating my huge abdomen trying to wake the baby. He succeeded most times; unfortunately, he woke me in the process as well. I tried to explain to him through gritted teeth that if the baby got used to being awakened at that time he would do so after birth. I would have to get up with him since I had the food. I had always breast fed Jennifer and Chuck and planned on doing the same with little Dakota. One night a little foot came crashing through my upper right side and the outline could be visualized without difficulty. Kelvin was amazed and this encouraged his nightly routine.
The other nurses had a lottery of sorts going to determine when the little bundle would arrive. I was trying to push a heavy medicine cart around the halls of the ward when I thought my back would literally break. My face was swollen and my feet were swollen along with fingers and hands. I just wanted the day to come when I could go back to being my old skinny self. During a Doctor’s appointment I asked how much longer he thought it would be and if he thought I could be induced. He said if nothing had happened by the 21st of October to come in on that day and he’d see about inducing me. He said he thought I was “ripe enough”. I called the girls at work and gave them my news, happy, relieved, and scared all at once.
My best friend Genelle won the “lottery”as she had guessed that particular day but was in Maryland visiting her sister. Everyone thought we had planned it that way. I had no idea what day anyone had picked. I made arrangements with the Director of Nursing to be off for the 6 weeks of maternity leave. I made a bag to take with me and sat in my “nest” and waited.
On October 21st, Friday, I went to the hospital to start the procedure. The rules were lax and Kelvin was able to stay in the room with me the whole time. It was a pretty bedroom, not called a birthing room at that time but I think that is what they call it nowadays. Jennifer was allowed to stay there too and they laughed and talked while I screamed. Then just when you thought it was all over and the baby was taken to be “cleaned” and weighed, came the sawing feeling of thread through cardboard as the Doctor worked his magic at episiotomy.Then the afterbirth pains, which were as bad if not worse than the real thing. His cousin Janet, who played the part of new grandmother as Kelvin’s mother couldn’t be there, video taped the whole process. Dakota weighed 7 lbs 15 ½ oz and was 18 inches long. His head was, of course, cone shaped and huge. His shoulders were wide with a long torso and short legs like his father. He was pink and wrinkly as most newborns were. I asked if I could hold him, afterall I had just gone through “hell” bringing him into this world and everyone had already had a turn. He was warm and soft and I expressed that sentiment through the familiar chattering of teeth so often accompanying childbirth. I asked for a blanket and they brought me a nice warm one. It was about noon when all was said and done. Floy Mae and Mary Ann came to honor the occasion and to hold the baby as well.
A nurse came in and said I needed to go to 2nd fl Centre where I worked, to the “bridge” where a baby shower was prepared for me but she didn’t want me to go, I had just had a baby not more than 2 hours ago and she didn’t think I should leave my bed just yet. I knew if they had prepared a baby shower for me and I didn’t show up there would be Hell to pay later when I went back to work for real. It was scheduled for 2 o’clock. Knowing the hectic schedule they had on the day shift I knew that would be the only time between feeding lunch and supper, med passes, treatments etc so I had to go. I finally got the nurse to take me down in a wheel chair. I was bloated and tired, embarrassed of how I looked but knew they should understand giving the circumstances. They had a huge sheet cake with little blue bootie decorations, bells and such, and presents. I was so tired. I tried to be up beat and smile and tell them how much I appreciated the thought and knew it was time consuming. They seemed to be bored with it all by the time I got there and said they had to leave to do other “chores” before it was 3 o’clock when they were to give report to the next shift and go home. They seemed to think I should have been more delighted and enthusiastic about their wonderful jester. I really was in awe that they would think of me since Shelby’s Grandmother was the one who had been the main instigator of the shower, I just didn’t have the energy.

Hello Dakota! Goodbye Cheyenne Hope 1994

2009-06-23T13:25:00.000-05:00

The rest of 1993 went by without incident except at Christmas time, Kelvin had went to the new Walmart on North Belt highway and put a faux leopard jacket on layaway for me. He had it down to 10.00 left to pay and got antsy and didn't want to wait until I got paid on Thursday, December 1st so I could give him the 10.00 to pay it off. Another friend in the trailer park had a boyfriend who was visiting her there that day while I was at work. They were talking about Christmas trees and how he, the friend, was wanting one but didn't want to pay the high prices they were charging at the grocery store on Mitchell. Kelvin mentioned that when he was younger he used to steal Christmas trees from the parking lots of stores and sell them for 10.00. He also mentioned he needed 10.00 to get my jacket out of layaway and didn't want to wait for me to give him the money for my own gift. The guy said he'd give Kelvin the 10.00 he needed if he could "obtain" a tree from the store. Kelvin agreed and had the tree in the Geo, took it to the guy's apartment, took the 10.00 and went to Walmart to get my jacket. Unbeknownst to Kelvin there was another guy in a yellow station wagon who was at the store at the time of the theft and saw him leave with the tree. He followed him to the trailer park to get the address of where we lived, and waited for Kelvin to come back to inform the police. By coming home first he led them right to our door. When I got home from work after 11:30 that night, Kelvin called me from the police station and told me what had happened and that he had been arrested. I was to call a friend, Mudbone, as he was called, to get the 75.00 he would need to bail him out. I was so furious I told him to stay there and rot as far I was concerned. Mudbone or another "friend" went to the station to get him out. I understood why he did it, I guess, but I was not in the mood to listen, since he was still on parole and I was not about to watch him go back to prison. The judge actually laughed about the incident and let him off with a small fine and even mentioned a time or two when he was younger himself, "walking off" with a few Christmas trees. Nothing more was said about it but I found it hard to wear the jacket I had loved when I had seen it in the store and mentioned to him that was what I had wanted for Christmas. I didn't want it that way. I had been living such a sheltered life for the first 40 years, albeit an honest one.
In January of 1994 Kelvin talked about his two girls, his oldest daughter Vallie who was eight years old and his youngest daughter Shelby who would be three years old in May. His brother who lived in Hawaii, working for his uncle who owned a big construction company on the island of Oahu, Keith, had two boys. He had always wanted a boy and found it unmasculine not to have one, wondered if I could still bear a child at the age of 40. I would be 41 in April and had thought I was through with all of that when Charles had his vasectomy after Chuck was born. I thought of how cute and cuddly a newborn would be, afterall my baby was 14 years old and would be 15 in October. My darling baby girl had graduated from highschool in 1991 and would be 21 in February. I was starting over with a new life, new husband, and living in a new place far from the farm and Kansas. I decided I would like to have a baby but I couldn't gaurantee him a boy, after all that was for his sperm to decide. I stopped taking "the Pill" and by March my menstrual cycle had stopped. I knew I was pregnant because I had always been regular, and when I had decided to have Jennifer and Chuck, those pregnancies started out the same way. I bought a pregnancy test and hurried home to take it. It took forever for the results but when they finally came they seemed opaque and illegible. I showed the stick to Jennifer and she thought it was unreadable and negative. I knew what I knew and that was that. I threw the test in the trash, disappointed and certain of the results no matter what it said. A couple of hours later, I dug it out and looked at it again. Lo and behold a pink line was visible and I indeed had the proof I needed. I called Jennifer and gave her the news which she promptly said " Oh, My God!!" it was more of a gutteral sound of dread and " What have you done!" at your age! Chuck was happy and always wanted a little brother. I had two names picked out, after going through all the objections of my spouse and family, Dakota and Cheyenne Hope. He, of course wanted the middle name to be Ray after his biological father who had died in a car accident in 1967 on Mother's day, I wanted the middle name to be Rain. Cheyenne Hope I thought was pretty for a girl and the Hope part came after my favorite character on Day's of Our Lives which I had been watching since 1983. I had a crush on Alan Thicke, even though his late night talk show, Thicke of the Night, was a horrible show, I thought Alan thicke was the most handsome man since Paul Mccartney and watched anyway. He had mentioned his wife, then, Gloria Loring, was on a soap opera called Days of Our Lives. Unfortunately it came on at noon at the same time All My Children came on, but I was getting tired of waiting for Jenny and Greg to get together on that show so I thought I would check out the competition on Days. She, Gloria Loring, Liz on the show, was very pretty and could sing like a bird. I was totally facinated, gave up Children and have not missed an episode of Days since. Gloria Loring and Alan Thicke parted ways shortly after his show died, and on Days she went to prison, never to be seen again.
Due to the fact that he had produced two girl children I had little hope of producing a boy so concentrated on little Cheyenne Hope. We had both boy and girl clothes and I was reminded daily of the promise of a boy. When I had my sonogram sometime in the summer of that year, I was lying on a gurney between Kelvin and the lady doing the sonogram, she asked us if we would like to know the sex of the child and we eagerly said, "Yes!" I have not understood the "waiting to be surprised" theory a lot of husbands and wives take on the subject. If you find out now, before the baby is born, you'll know what colors to buy and what name to call "it" and you can stop calling "it" an "it" and use the terms He or She.
I held my breath and when she said it was certainly a boy and quite obviously so, I thought Kelvin was going to jump over me and impregnate her! I'd never seen a man so happy, except when Chuck was born and we had to be surprised because they didn't do sonograms then, Charles almost passed out but that was another time and place. I, on the other hand felt as if Cheyenne Hope had died, even though there had never really been a Cheyenne Hope except in my mind. I laughed and reveled in his happiness. We went to Walmart and picked out a onesey that read, "Daddy's Boy" across the front. He immediately called his Mom in California and his brother in Hawaii to tell them the news.

The Honeymoon 1993

2009-06-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

Kelvin's sister, Michelle, came through the line to "congratulate me". She whispered in my ear," I feel sorry for you." She knew of Kelvin's temper first hand when he didn't get his way what a little 2 year old he turned into. Finally the line got shorter and for the most part everyone was happy. The crowd thinned and his father Larry gathered everyone who was in the wedding party together for pictures. He kept hurrying us along because he thought it was going to rain any minute as it had been for the last 2 1/2 months. " Hurry, before it rains." and "lets get these pictures taken , it's hot out here". Over and over he took the pictures with Kelvin and I on a Harley Davidson motorcycle that one of his friends brought per Kelvin's request, in front of the fountain, in front of the cake, which Kelvin shoved into my mouth with a little more force than I thought was needed. When all was said and done it was time to take that last walk down the paved pathway to the teal Probe to make our getaway to Letterman's. When I looked up, everyone was gone and Kelvin was giving me orders to help pick up stereo equipment. Everyone had left us. Here I was in my white wedding dress and veil with stereo speakers under each arm, trying to not to get dirty. I asked why we, the bride and groom had to do this and he said because everyone else had left. There was no one to wish us off or throw birdseed, or clap as we got into the car. After the equipment was loaded into Grant's car, we finally were on our way.
We got to Letterman's and the party was starting. We set ourselves down in the back in the corner above the dance floor. The tables were aligned together so that they made two long tables. We danced with each other and apart with friends. When we left it was midnight and the rain came in sheets, slowly at first then harder and harder until it slanted sideways. We headed home to grab our suitcases and change clothes for the trip to Branson. The rain beat steadily on the windshield while the wiper blades frantically made an attempt to whisk it away. By the time we had arrived in Kansas City, the visability was nil and we had to pull over. He had seen a vacancy sign from I29, he pulled over and got us a room in one of the shabbiest motels I'd ever seen. It was an emergency so he paid and we were led out to the parking lot to a row of doors under an awning. It was not the ideal room for a bride and groom to spend their wedding night but it was dry and it had a bed. The mattress was lumpy and had springs popping up everywhere. That was where we spent the night and the next morning we rose and headed south for Branson. It had been a long time since I had been there. I don't think Kelvin had ever been there. His mother, Wanda, and his father Larry were staying at the Cloud Nine motel at the same time. His mother's cousin Janet and her husband Grant also were coming. Michelle and her boyfriend Larry had headed back to California after the wedding.
The cabin we chose was cabin number 5. His mom and step dad chose number 9 and Grant and Janet were up the hill from them. Cabin number 5 was on the banks of Lake Tanneycomo. There were men fishing including Larry, I saw a boat called the "Queen" sailing up and down the lake with tourists standing on the upper decks waving at the tourists on the banks. I told Kelvin I wanted to go for a ride too. After we put our things away and Kelvin served me breakfast in bed of bacon and eggs, orange juice and biscuits with strawberry jam, we headed into town. There were many antique shops and gift shops downtown. The whole town had an early 1900's feel. The shop owners dressed for the part! We found our way to the edge of the lake to where the "Queen" was docked and bought our tickets. While we waited for the ride I bought a captain's hat and other souvenirs to take home. We were very happy, and Kelvin kept his cool.
On the way back to the car there was a man with a horse and buggy giving rides up and down the street along the lake shore, so we took a carriage ride and Kelvin took my picture and I his before, during and after the ride.
We visited with his mother, Wanda and his step dad, Larry. We even visited with his cousin Bill who owned the resort. There was a swimming pool, so we went swimming and lazed around until dinner time. We went to the outskirts of Branson to a super market there and bought necessities we needed. We cooked in the kitchen and ate on the deck watching the lake lap the sides of the bank, the occasional fish jumping and splashing in the distance.
The following day we went to an amusement park called , Silver Dollar City. The same park that Charles and I had spent our last 20.00 in 1977 after wrecking the car and getting food poisoning, spending several hours in the hospital etc..The place had changed considerably since then. The rides were more of the World's of Fun type with roller coasters, log rides, haunted mansions etc. The old mine ride was gone. That had always been my favorite. They still had the train with the fake train robbery and story line. When we left we headed for a 100 ft tower that Kelvin wanted to climb. I had told him in no uncertain terms that I had a fear of heights and could no way climb up and see the "scenery from up there" as he had put it. I got half way to show him I would try but froze and couldn't get back down. He rescued me and laughed at me and teased me all the way back to the cabin.
When we talked to his mother she and Larry had decided to go to a trailer sales park to buy a double wide trailer to park on property they had bought down there to retire on. They took us to show us the property where they were going to put it, where the plumbing and sewer lines were to be set up and which direction it would face. Grant, Janet and Larry and Wanda left to go get the trailer while Kelvin and I stayed home and enjoyed the rest of our honeymoon.
On Sunday afternoon we packed everything and put the suitcases in the little red Geo wagon to make the trip back to St Joseph.
　

The Wedding Continued 1993

2009-06-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

The day came with the threat of stormy weather overhead. Dark billowing clouds threatened the sky and I prayed as I had never prayed before that the rain wouldn't come until after the ceremony. I had an appointment with the hair dresser on Lafayette street. I wanted to leave my hair down with some body and a little bounce, a curl here and there. My hair was a dark blond color. I had ordered the white tuxes from the formal shop on Frederick Ave for Kelvin, Chuck, and Madison. Vallie too, was to be in the grooms party for her dad. She was to be the ring bearer. She not only had a white tux with a teal green boutoneer but she also wore a top hat. She looked like the Mad Hatter in Allison in Wonderland. She had big blue eyes and long blond hair that had never seen a scissors since the day she was born, the day before Halloween in 1986. I had a ring bearer's pillow I had bought at Ambers for her to put the rings that Kelvin had bought me and the ring I had bought for him. My ring was a marquee diamond with small diamond chips surrounding the 3/4 carat marque in the center. The wedding band had small diamonds across the gold band in the middle. Kelvin's band matched perfectly. They had been seen and purchased at a pawn shop on the Belt Highway, Pony Express. When businesses can't think of a name for their business they usually go with The Pony Express, since that is what St Joseph is most known for, that and Jesse James who was killed here. The house he was shot in was moved from the Belt Highway to 12th and Penn St where they charge visitor's to see the hole in the wall where he had been shot in the 1880's. His picture is hanging on the wall at 11th and Charles St museum, of what he looked like in the coffin at his funeral.
My hair appointment was scheduled at 3p. I sat there and got beautified for about 2 hours. It was getting closer to the time to leave for the park. So far the clouds yielded no rain. I was at home alone trying on my dress when Mary Ann, Jenny and Floy Mae came over and exclaimed how nice I looked in my size seven white lacey gown and my veil. They helped me with the necklace which refused to stay put so that the pearl stayed in the crevass below my thyroid gland. It kept sliding cockeyed to one side no matter how hard I tried to readjust the thing. The pearl earrings went into my pierced ears without too much difficulty but threatened to irritate the holes that hadn't had earrings in them for several years. The veil went on and Jenny and Mary Ann and Floy Mae went to the park to wait with other family members. Friends from the hospital I worked with were there and sat on bleachers on the bride's side of the fountain in the hot sun, it was above 90 degrees, and family and friends of Kelvin's began to gather on the left side.
The time came, I walked out onto the deck Kelvin and his friend and neighbor had built for us, stepped gingerly down the steps and walked to the gate to get into the Ford Probe. His sister Michelle and her boyfriend Larry helped me into the back seat. I asked where Kelvin was and how he was doing, not really believing he wouldn't walk out on me and not show up.They said he was nervous too but he should be at the park in his white tuxedo, bow tie and all. I waited at the end of the walkway waiting for the music to start. I instructed Brandy, who was also dressed in a frilly teal dress to take the basket with the rose petals and start walking down the path throwing petals around for me to walk on as I made my way to the fountain. She sat down and refused to cooperate. The more we tried to make her get up and do as she was told the more stubborn she became. Jennifer tried, strangers tried, there was no way she was going to take that basket and walk with it. Pam and Madison had a little girl a little older than she was so I begged and pleaded for her to take the basket and throw the petals as the music was starting to play. She said she would be glad to do it and the procession was on its way.
Kelvin was waiting for me along with Jenny and Vallie and the minister. We stood in front of the trellis, the roses had bloomed and the fountain was shooting water up out of a fish's mouth and making loud gurgling sounds. The sky had cleared and the hot sun shone brightly in the sky. We said our vows after the minister and when he said, "you may kiss the bride" Kelvin's kiss lingered on and on until I had to pat him on the back several times to make him let go. Everyone laughed and we headed to the groom's side of the fountain, the right side now, and stood in line to wait for visitor's, family and friends to shake our hands and congratulate us on our special day. Charles was there to my surprise, and gave me a big hug and a kiss for the last time. He and Deanna had gotten divorced about three months after the wedding on the farm in a gazebo that took the place of my swimming pool. One day when Kelvin and I had been at the main post office at 8th and Edmond St, Charles was there and said that he had stayed home from work one day when his back had gone out, called into work, when Deanna woke up and saw that he was still there in bed beside her she exclaimed, "What are you doing still here?"She insisted he had to go to work. He said , " I can't, I told you my back is out and I can hardly move." She didn't care, it turned out while Charles had been at work she had been seeing a man she had met at the bar where Charles had been managing the pool games. It was obvious to me and Kelvin and anyone else who he had told the story. It finally dawned on him.
She had several children from the five previous marriages. They were all young children. Charles had wanted another child after his vasectomy he had had after Chuck was born. He loved those children as if they were his own. The youngest was 2 years old and he called Charles, Daddy. Charles had asked me for the number to the lawyer's office I had gotten off the television ad and they filled out the papers as I had. Before Kelvin and I had married he tried to persuade me to go back to him and I had kept my distance. Before I had met Bill and was at the end of my rope, I was in my little red Geo at the end of the street where I lived in Wathena. I flagged him down on 36 highway as he was going on his lunch break. I was crying and begging him to take me back, I just wanted the pain and agony of living alone, all the male suitors I had hopes of keeping around for more than an hour, to stop. I was done and just wanted to go home, back to the way things were. He just laughed and said he had to go, he wanted to go to the diner where Deanna worked in Wathena and propose. We had warned him that every man in the past that she had married, all five of them, she left for the next one that came along. He said he and she had talked that over and she swore that would never happen again. So I continued on surviving, then on April 18th 1992 I met Bill and thought I was done. It was finally over, I was in love and I'd never have to look back.

A Wedding in the Summer 1993

2009-06-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

We started making preparations for the wedding. We had set the date for July 9th 1993. Jenny and I went to a store called Ambers beside East Hills Shopping Mall on the Belt Highway. They had all kinds of wedding supplies. We bought fake flowers for making teal green bouteneers for the guys lapels and I sorted through many flowers I would use to make a bouquet.The color scheme was white and teal. My favorite color was green, and teal was a mixture of green and blue. I had called the Parks and Recreation Dept. for the use of Civic Center Park for an outdoor wedding. It had a huge fountain in the center that would be shooting high cascades of water over a garden of beautiful roses that would be in full bloom at that time of year. There were roses all around the park and the trees in the Spring had pink and white blossoms bursting out all over them.
This way I wouldn't have to go to a florist and buy flowers however, I did gather as many rose petals as I could find from my own roses. Kelvin had gotten bags of them given to him from florists as well. The plan was to have a basket full of the rose petals and have little Brandy be the flower girl and walk behind me spreading the petals on the walkway as I made my way to the altar in front of the fountain to stand beside my husband to be. There was a white trellis behind us with climbing red roses that would be alive and blossoming and smelling up the place with their sweet perfume. It sounded so lovely.
I bought my wedding dress in the Spring at Deb's. It was prom season and they had many formal gowns awaiting the arrival of skinny teen age girls, giggling and laughing and saying, "What are you going to wear,no, what are YOU going to wear!" Here I was looking to buy a wedding dress, shaking and scared of the possibilities of my new life with someone I hardly new and what I did know gave me little comfort. I was determined to have my wedding and live the rest of my life happy and secure, knowing I'd finally done it. I'd captured a man! A younger, handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes, whom I thought needed me and the security marriage gave us both.
The closer the date got the more frantic I became. I had chosen bride's maid dresses in a dark teal green color. They shimmered in the light. My daughter loved hers. Thankfully she paid for hers. I had asked LeeAnn to be my Maid of Honor but when she found out she would have to pay for her dress she said "no" and didn't show up for the big day. So much for best friends. I had found my wedding dress at Deb's, it had lacey sleeves and puffy lace at the shoulders . The bodice was beaded with sequins and the skirt was satin. It came to just above the knee. It was the most beautiful dress I'd ever seen. It was white. The veil I had bought at a wedding store downtown St Joseph that was owned by my previous landlady who had owned the trailer in Wathena. She sold me a beautiful long veil with netted material and a band with sequins and pearls. We put it on layaway. I found a necklace with a lone pearl hanging from the chain that settled at my throat and earrings to match.
His family was coming from Sacramento and Kelvin had invited some of his "old" friends to be there. The invitations were bought and sent out. We were to spend our honeymoon in Branson. He had a cousin Bill that owned a motel of cabins there called Cloud Nine that he said he would make us a deal on. We had asked for cash instead of presents since we already had everything we needed and didn't need a toaster or blender, we already had those things.
Kelvin's cousin, Madison's wife Pam, said she'd love to be a bride's maid and would happily pay for the dress. The wedding had cost me several thousand dollars already. I bought things a little at a time with the help of my daughter. I called a gal in Savannah about the cake. I told her I wanted a 3 tier white cake with teal green frosting. It was a beautiful thing when it came time on the day of the wedding to pick it up! It was decorated with teal green roses and leaves. I had purchased a topping for it, a garter that Kelvin would take off of my leg and throw it at the men waiting in a bunch to catch it. My bouquet that I had made for myself was white and lacey with teal green flowers in the center. Jenny showed me how to do it from a program we had watched on television and many books we had bought. She had a hot glue gun, we bought the plastic holders and after a few burns we had a marvelous bouquet and several others for the groomsmen and Jennifer and Pam. It was so much fun planning the wedding and going to stores looking for just the right thing to accent this or the other. Again I was very happy and was starting to come back to life.
Then came the rain! It rained and rained and rained all through June and areas were started to flood. It rained all week long the first week of July and they even announced in the local news station about the wedding at the park that was to take place at 7pm. We had a local dentist who worked at the church across from the park, start ringing the church bells at 6pm. It was going to be glorious! The dentist either forgot or set the timer for 6 am instead of pm, either way there were no bells. The evening of the 8th there was a continuing storm that felled a tree at the park and of course it fell across the walkway leading to the white flowery trellis where we were to take our vows. Kelvin stayed that night over at Madison's and Pam's apartment building, I thought we shouldn't see each other until the moment I met him at the makeshift "altar".
He called and told me about the tree and that he was working with the parks dept and Madison and Kyle to get it removed, cut up and out of there before 6pm. I had bought tapes of wedding songs that his cousin Grant would play in a large stereo system all around the fountain. He was in charge of the music. His sister's boyfriend Larry, had rented a teal green Ford Probe, a type of sports car. I was to ride to the park in that and at the end of the ceremony my new husband and I would walk back down that wide cement walkway with onlookers cheering and throwing birdseed. At that time there was a myth that rice caused birds to fill up and explode upon impact after eating the tasty rice grains so no one was throwing rice at weddings anymore. We would ride off into the sunset to Letterman's, a bar that was licensed for dancing, with a big dance floor and a band or DJ playing old songs from the sixties and seventies and some newer ones for the younger crowd.

A New Beginning 1993

2009-06-18T20:12:00.000-05:00

My First 56 Years

2009-06-13T16:06:00.000-05:00

I wasn’t at work more than an hour when a nurses’ aide came to the nurses’ station and told me a man was waiting on the bridge to see me and he had a rose in his hand he wanted to give it to me. The “bridge” is a walkway above Eighth Street that connects the main hospital to the geriatric wings. I got up and was sure it was Kelvin. I had already decided I wasn’t ready to see anyone for awhile; the pain of losing Bill was just too much for me to handle. I got up and met him in the door way of the bridge and he handed me the rose. He wanted to know if I would come by the apartment after work and he would have a steak dinner waiting for me. I hesitated but thought how good that really sounded because when I got home I would not eat anything and would just watch the shows I had taped and go to bed. I finally agreed and said I would.
I got off work after a typical night, tired and looking forward to a meal at Kelvin’s. I climbed the stairs to the upper floor and knocked on the door. He had been waiting for me. He said he was glad to see me and offered me a plate with a large steak and said the baked potato was coming right up. We talked and laughed. I hadn’t had reason to laugh in a long time. Kelvin had a good sense of humor. We talked about his mother in California and how he had hitch hiked all the way to his Grandma’s house in Saint Joseph from Sacramento, California. He had many exploits before ending up in the apartment he was in now. He couldn’t work but had filed for disability because of his leg. He described how he had been turned down and had to go to court, when finally he brought his Doctor to court with him who told the court if he does any physical labor for long periods of time he would eventually have to have the leg amputated. He had Kelvin show them his scars and told of the bolts and screws he had to put in his knee and above the thigh to keep it a working and useful limb. When Dr Smith got through talking he was granted disability and back benefits.
Kelvin couldn’t drive of course; he had had his license taken away when he had had his accident. He had been drinking and suicidal. His ex wife was flirting with other men and had made it plain that she no longer was his wife and wanted him to leave the bar because no men would talk to her while he was there. He was mad and left the bar, drunk and lonely. He was driving about ninety miles an hour when he slammed into the telephone pole on Karnes road, then another before the truck turned over in the ditch. He went through the windshield and started crawling out of the ditch and into a cornfield where he collapsed. He said the paramedics had to revive him numerous times before he got to the Emergency Room at the hospital. The Doctors said they may have to amputate the leg because it was crushed and unrepairable, but if he would sign consent they could do experimental surgery and try to save the leg. He was emphatic to say the least about not cutting off his leg.
We talked and reminisced about what had been going on in our lives up to that point. He had a daughter with his first wife. They had named her Vallie after his Grandmother. He also had a daughter, Shelby, from his girlfriend he had after he and his first wife Diane, divorced. He had been using and dealing drugs in those days and had spent two years in a state penitentiary. He informed me he had just gotten out of a halfway house in Kansas City. His mother had sent the money for him to move into the shabby tiny space he called an apartment. The living room was not bigger than a closet and the kitchen was half that size, room enough barely for one person to slide into. I asked him if he would like to see my trailer in Wathena, Ks. He said he wasn’t supposed to go over state lines. He was still on parole. He decided to go with me anyway. I showed him the big kitchen I had and the Angora lop- eared rabbit I had in the spare bedroom. He didn’t seem to mind the poodle as Bill had.
Kelvin was kind and big hearted. He was funny. He’d discovered at a young age that he could make money selling Marijuana and that was the drug of choice. He had been caught one night at the very bar I had been frequenting almost daily now. He had been caught possessing with intent to sell and he had been sentenced to four years in prison, two in and two out. He had vowed to never smoke again and never ever to sell. The last thing he wanted was to go back to the state penitentiary.

MyFirst 56 Years

2009-06-10T21:18:00.000-05:00

As Christmas drew nearer I tried to look forward to opening presents and Christmas dinner. I had met a man who was handsome, blond, and tall. We played pool at the bar and by the end of the night he needed a ride home. I suggested he come home with me so I wouldn't be alone. We spent time together getting to know one another and as the days passed and two weeks or so went by he decided to move in with me. He’d take me to work and keep the car. He was always there to pick me up at the end of the night. One day my girlfriends at work decided to go to a restaurant bar to get something to eat and I had Randy meet me there. Everyone later remarked how good-looking he was and broad shouldered. I was starting to get happy again. Christmas Eve he picked me up from work and told me he had some bad news to tell me. Someone had "broken into my trailer and stole some Christmas gifts from under my tree and my VCR!! I was absolutely heartbroken and devastated as the main present that I had wanted to give Chuck, the Nintendo, was gone! I started searching through the rooms to see if my leather jackets were taken, crying as I went. I started searching through the rooms to see if my leather jackets were taken, crying as I went. I was broke and could not afford to replace the Nintendo. It was Christmas Eve and did not believe there would be any left. I went to Wal-Mart and they had one. I bought it and borrowed the money from Clyde promising to pay him back out of my next paycheck. I just couldn't believe someone could be so low as to take Christmas presents out from underneath my tree. I looked to Randy for support but he just said to quit crying and that it could have been worse.
On Christmas day we had Christmas dinner at Floy Mae's house. Mary Ann and Clyde were there. I told them what had happened and that is when I asked Clyde for the ten dollars I needed to cover the cost of the Nintendo. It wasn't long before Randy and I stopped getting along and he moved out. I really wasn't that attached as I had put up a sort of impenetrable shield since the fiasco with Bill. I had gotten my Glamour Shots back and decided I would take them to Bill's work at noon to show him whether he liked it or not. I opened the door where he and his co-workers were playing cards. I told him I had the pictures and he was going to look at them since I had bought them for him in the first place. He didn't seem interested but casually looked them over and tossed them aside one by one. The other guys sitting there perturbed that I was interfering with their card game shoved them over which felt like a slap in the face. I was the only one talking. He didn't utter a sound. I picked up the pictures and slid them back into the yellow envelope and left. I sat in the car crying my eyes out, went home and got ready for work.
On the 28th of December I was doing laundry at the Laundromat I went to on St Joe Ave. There were kids getting into everything and some were crying, some with no supervision, they had wandered in from the street to use the vending machine or to get change. I was bored and tired of the noise. While I was waiting for my laundry to dry I decided to head over to Ninth Street where my friend was staying. The one I had been seeing earlier in the summer when I wasn't sure if I was going to stay with Bill. I had brought my pictures to show him. I climbed the stairs and entered the building. There were more stairs to climb and when I got to the top and knocked on the door there was no answer. Sadly I started down the stairs, when I got to the bottom there was a large mirror on the right side of the stairs. I was always self conscience of the way that I looked no self esteem and no confidence. I stared at the woman I hardly recognized in the mirror when a man started limping down the stairs. He was using the handrail for a crutch as he made his way down. I asked him about the boys that lived in the apartment upstairs and he said they had moved out in October. He was living in the apartment next door now. I just started blurting out everything about Bill and Randy and how I had my Glamour Shots taken for Bill and he would hardly look at them. I couldn't believe how good they had turned out and that the woman in those pictures was me, I wanted to show them to everyone! Even my Director of Nursing was impressed; she had her pictures taken too! I was going to be forty in April and was going through some kind of midlife crisis. I couldn't believe that forty years of my life had gone by and I had done nothing but struggle. I wanted to see how the other half lived. I had been watching television as long as I could remember and I saw all the fun stuff that they did, talked to people who had gone here, there and everywhere and I felt stuck in a rut and was slipping further down. I wanted out of the life I had led so that I could start over and do things right and all I could seem to do was things wrong and deal with the pain as it came. There was a lot of it.
The man's name was Kelvin. He was tall and blond with blue eyes and broad shoulders. He explained his limp came from a car crash he had had a few years ago when he wrapped his truck around a telephone pole, several as it turned out and it was a miracle he was alive. They, the Doctors, had wanted to cut off his leg but he insisted they try something to save it, so they experimented and after a few bolts and screws his leg was saved, he just had to get used to the pain of everyday use and the limp. His hair was cut in a mullet; it was long and trailed down his back below his shoulders. He was more than happy to look at the pictures, he laughed and made me laugh, something I hadn't done in a long time. I told him I was a nurse at the hospital and had to go to work that very day. He said if I would come over when I got off, he would fix me a steak dinner with a baked potato etc. I was so lonely, and hungry, since Bill left I had lost at least ten pounds and hadn't been taking the time to eat or felt like it. When I went back to the Laundromat to get my clothes I started having second thoughts. After all I had just met this man, although that had not stopped me before but for some reason I was having these uneasy feelings about, "Here I go again!"
I went home, got ready for work, and started my evening shift at the hospital.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-10T20:54:00.000-05:00

On Thanksgiving 1992, I had fixed baked beans from scratch. It took about three hours to cook the beans, I added bacon and onions, barbecue sauce and brown sugar etc… they looked magnificent! We took them over to his mother's and she baked them for another hour because they were cold. They of course turned to mush and tasted terrible. I already felt she thought I couldn't do anything right and that proved it. I had tried to tell Bill that the beans turned out that way because they were already cooked and that extra hour or so in the oven did them in. He wouldn't hear of it since of course his mother was the best cook in the world and it just wasn't possible! They tried to teach me canasta and I thought how hard could it be I had been playing cards all of my life since I was 10 years old and usually caught on quickly. I couldn't figure that game out and was always slow in my choices of what card to play. His brother and girlfriend were there and had this pitiful, sappy look on their faces as if I were too dumb to live. I couldn't wait to get out of there.
We went to my sister, Floy’s house in South end. We ate and laughed in an entirely different atmosphere. Everyone was laughing and telling jokes. I breathed a sigh of relief when the day was over and we headed for home in Wathena. It was cooler then and the trailer was tolerable.
Over the few months we had gone to various grave yards to see the monuments he had engraved for the monument company where he worked. We went as far as Plattsburg, and the little grave yard at bluff woods. I had visited him at his work several times on his lunch break to say Hello before I went to work. The whole time keeping the secret of the photographs that should have been arriving any day.
The Friday after Thanksgiving I was at work and at the end of my shift I called him as usual to find out where I was supposed to pick him up. It was my weekend off and we had planned to go to Metro North in Kansas City to see the Christmas lights. His mother said he wasn't home. I called the bar on Belt Highway; they said he hadn't been there. I called my friend and his, LeAnn at the trailer court. She said she hadn't seen him either. I was so mad and angry I could have spit nails. I had been looking forward to that weekend off and spending it with Bill, it was Christmas time and I was so happy and content with our relationship. He even bought me a Christmas tree and helped me decorate it about two weeks before. It was early for Christmas decorating but I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and he too seemed happy. We hardly argued anymore. The whole month of November was filled with love and contentment. After setting up the tree I sat on the couch and he laid his head in my lap just looking at that tree.
On Saturday Morning after not finding Bill on the previous night, I started calling. I called and called and no one knew where he was. I called the police dept to see if he'd gotten picked up for driving on suspended license, I was the one who drove him where he wanted to go because he didn't have a car or a valid driver's license. Nope, he hadn't been picked up. I called the hospital and again called his mother thinking he had to go home sometime. She would say, "I'm sure he's alright, don't worry about Bill he does this sometimes".That led me to believe that he had called her and told her he didn't want to be found, especially by me. I went to the bar and spoke to a guy we played pool with and he said," I think he's fooling around on you because during the week when you're at work he brings in another girl and plays pool with her". I was absolutely sure that wasn't the case because "I was his girlfriend and I knew Bill loved me." That line of thinking was shoved to the back of my mind, even though my gut instinct said it was a possibility.
All night Friday night and all night Saturday night I cried and ached and screamed. I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep, I held on to the pillow that he had slept on and muffled the sounds, thinking the neighbors in that trailer court probably thought someone was being killed. I drove to houses of friends of his where we had gone to play cards, they all said they didn't know where he was and hadn't seen him. I told them what the guy at the bar said; the looks on their faces told me more than I wanted to know. Still I denied and cried some more. I called his mother's house time and again and she'd still say he wasn't there. She said he'll call you if he wants. In other words, "stop calling here!"
On Monday I knew that he had to go to work and I had to go back to work too. I showed up at the monument company at noon. He was playing cards with his buddies at work and would hardly look at me. He told them he was going to talk to me outside. I asked him, “Well what happened? I spent my whole weekend off looking for you!"
He said," Over the last two weeks I found someone else and had been seeing the both of you at the same time. She knew about you but you didn't know about her. I was trying to decide which one I was going to choose and I chose her."
I said," You've been with me for seven months and you were with her for two weeks and you chose her?"
He said he was sorry and that they got along really well and didn't fight as we had been doing. I reminded him that we had been getting along really well for about a month now, feeling settled, happy. I asked him about the time I was laughing and joking at the trailer when we had finished making love. He said he was such an" asshole". I asked him if that was what he meant. He conceded that it was.
One day when I came home from work I noticed that he had been there and took his coffee maker. The tears started afresh as someone who has just lost a loved one to death and the death kept happening over and over again.
I tried to take back the items I had spent on him at the little gift store in Wathena, 200.00 worth. They said their policy was no returns on layaway items but I was so distraught and they could see the anguish on my face and inside my soul. They sympathized and returned my money.
I had bought the Nintendo Game machine for Chuck for Christmas. I couldn't wait for him to open it! It was 249.00, he had been waiting 2 years for it to come at Christmas but Charles and I could never spend that kind of money on one child when we had two to buy for. This was going to be the year!!
When Bill left me I finally decided to pull myself up by the bootstraps and go on. After all there were more fish in the sea right? I went to the bar and called in more frequently at work. I stayed from 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon one day and didn't leave until closing time at 1:00 o'clock in the am. I had a friend I had been playing pool with call in for me from the bowling alley next door telling them "I had fallen and couldn't get up" or something to that affect.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

Charles was the husband; he was supposed to know everything. I got so tired of expressing my opinions and have him smirk at me as if he was appearing to listen but didn't care how sensible my ideas were, he was going to do things his way. That usually proved to be costly and when he found out his way wouldn't work he'd try my way. I’m talking about car repairs. Jenny and I would be able to hear certain a new rattling in the car, but Charles was deaf in his right ear and he couldn't hear anything. He said, “When they get loud enough for me to hear them I will do something about it!” He did this one day when he was driving to St Joseph, when he got to the 28th street exit the front wheel fell off. He finally got the car under control enough that he could pull over and make a change.
I told Bill I wasn't getting rid of my "sissy dog" as he called him. He resented the fact that I had to check on him and make sure he was cool enough and had enough water in the summer time. Pebbles was used to staying inside. I didn't have a fence around the yard at the trailer so I had to keep him tied up outside. The summers in Kansas and Missouri were extremely hot exceeding 100 degrees often. The humidity is thick as paste. We stayed at his mother's central air conditioned home in St Joseph on weekends, usually at night when his Mom and Dad weren't there. I got off work every other weekend.
At this same time bickering and petty arguments exploded between us, due to the heat and living conditions and just plain not getting along. We always got over them quickly enough. I was in love and had my head in the clouds most of the time. The next door neighbor in the trailer court was asking me questions one day when Bill was there and he slipped his arm around me to show that I belonged to him. I was so unbelievably happy.
Cooler weather finally reared its ugly head around September and by October it was time to shop for Christmas. I always had to put presents on layaway. Bill liked Indian and wolf memorabilia so I stopped at the roadside gift shop outside of Wathena across from Fleeks Market. They had snakeskin belts etc. I put all my things, about 200.00 on the counter and expressed my desire for a layaway account. I made my deposit and went away with the feeling that this was going to be the best Christmas ever! I drove to Wal-Mart on North Belt Highway and put items away for Jennifer and Chuck.
The Glamour Shots photography came to St Joseph that fall so my friend Lee Ann and I went to East Hill’s mall. I sat for several hours getting makeup and trying on different costumes. I begged Lee Ann to not tell Bill as I wanted the photography sessions to be a secret until I got the pictures back. Lee Ann lived on Gibson Drive in a trailer court in St Joseph. Bill introduced her to me as one of his friends. On Sundays we'd go to her trailer and watch the Chief's football team play. I hadn't been much of a football fan but she and Bill and her boyfriend really got into hooping and hollering every time the Chief's got the ball or something good happened. I tried to understand it but the game went so fast with very little explanation of what was happening. The announcers figured if you're watching then you already know the game. Bill tried to explain some of it to me but it was hard to explain and watch at the same time. I got so I just watched and started to figure it out on my own and waited until commercial to ask about anything I wasn't quite sure about. This seemed to work out better. Slowly but surely I started to get the jest of the game and started to look forward to Sundays. Monday nights too eased its way into my life, soon I became a die hard fan and wouldn't miss a game.
In the eighties there were the Royals games and Charles and I would sit for 3 hours and watch the Royals destroy every team they played. I was crazy about baseball and when the Royals won the World Series in 1985,beating the Toronto Blujays and before that the St Louis Cardinals for the Governor's cup, the crying and screaming for joy lasted until April of 1986.All Hell broke loose and the Royals were barely in the playoff's each year after that. We hardly watched another Royal's game.
When I figured out football in 1992 there wasn't any other game that could come close to the excitement. The Chief's was a good ball team and won a lot of games. They won the Super Bowl in 1970 but hadn't been able to win one since, however the excitement was that they came so close almost every year!
With the small fights and disagreements Bill and I shared we got along for the most part. One day I was at the bar and Bill and I were having one of our "squabbles" when a cute young man I was playing pool with offered me a ride home. We ended up at his apartment and he introduced me to a buddy of his. When the buddy left he told me his problems
with dating girls and I told him my problems. We got close and it was nice having a man's point of view. He lived in an apartment house close to the hospital. When I'd get off work during the week I'd find little notes on my windshield under the windshield wipers telling me to come up. He lived in a run down apartment building just a couple of blocks from the hospital.
I'd go, against my better judgment. We laughed and reminisce about all the things that had gone wrong from day one in our lives. He was crazy about some girl that had dumped him but he was thinking about taking her back etc... I filled him in on the goings on with Bill and me. I told him about the Glamour shot pictures I had taken and thought it was taking a long time to get the proofs. I was telling him about all the items I had bought for him at the little gift shop in Wathena. I finally confessed that I probably shouldn't see him anymore because I knew that I loved Bill and didn't want to do anything to mess that up. He said he was going to ask that girl to marry him anyway.
I had gotten my proofs and was excitedly showing them to everybody. It was going to be another couple of weeks when I would be able to get the whole package I had spent over 200.00 on. The pictures were so good I couldn't believe how they had turned out and I couldn't wait to show them to Bill.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-06T14:52:00.000-05:00

In June of 1992 my family had a reunion at Sugar Lake. Sugar Lake was a small community on the Missouri side of the river south of Atchison Ks. There were cabins and RV's on both sides of the paved road leading to the lake. The family was set up at the park. All kinds of food were displayed on the picnic tables; Kathryn and Audrey, Mary Ann and her new husband David, Clyde and Floy Mae, Donald, Bobby and all their children and their children. Some of the nieces and nephews and Chuck as well were swimming in the roped off section of the lake. Bill and I were there. I had a hard time convincing him to come but he seemed to have a good time swimming with the family and eating and getting to know everyone. I was wearing a one piece bathing suit that showed off my figure. My long blond hair was tied up in a clip leaving a small pony tail. Bill and I went in the cold water and I was freezing but I laughed harder and smiled more than I had in years.
Donald thought it was disgraceful that a newly divorced, 39 year old, could act and dress so outlandishly. The water being cold and my breasts were standing at attention, the only parts of my new-found body that hadn't lost weight. I was high on love and having the best time of my life since I was a teenager. Thelma and Robert were there too but as far as I know there was no comment from them.
Floy Mae and Ronnie suggested that Bill and I show them the area of Bluff Woods that we had told them about, the Pine Tree and the rope so Bill and I jumped in my little red Geo and showed them the way to Bluff Woods. We took the long path around. Floy Mae wanted to see the little water fall I had told them about. When we finally got to the bridge, Floy Mae climbed down the bank on the north side and made her way to the little pool of water and sat down. There were some silvery minnows as well as tadpoles and frogs she was commenting on while Bill and I and Ronnie watched from the bridge. We were laughing at her and smiling and kissing before we rescued her from the muddy bed and headed for the hilltop to the grand old tree. She was out of breath by the time we got there not realizing how high the climb was and how much farther we had to go. Once there we showed her the view down below of the traffic, cars looking like ants scurrying along the roadway gathering food for the winter. The old Pine tree standing there proudly as it must have for a hundred years waiting for our return. I showed her the initials Bill had carved in the dead tree along the path to the rope. One big push and it would have toppled over.
Sadly we headed back down and parted ways in the parking lot. When we got back into town we headed for Wathena so I could change my clothes. Off and on over that summer I had talked about "staying together forever" just as the carving on the tree said but Bill assured me in no uncertain terms was he ever getting married. He was so afraid I was going to get pregnant, even though I assured him I was on the "pill" and I had no intentions of getting pregnant again, not at my age! I was suddenly free of those ties and hardships and I never wanted to look back again. Every so often I would hint about us getting married. Tempers flared often about that and other issues that were so petty. We found ourselves arguing more and more. He didn't like to go shopping as most males don't but he liked to fish. Ever since I was a child, Mama and Daddy would take me fishing with them. I had to be sooo quiet and not run along the banks, “It will scare the fish!" I had to sit for hours on the sandy shore and watched ants as they tried to climb up my legs and I was constantly swiping at the flies. The smell of rotten fish that other fishermen had left on the banks, some gutted and others just left there to die, and the cleaning and gutting I had to help with, did not make me a huge fan of fishing.
He'd insist and so not to make him mad I'd go and try to sit quietly but after fifteen minutes I couldn't stand to watch him sit there not getting a bite when he could be holding me and paying attention to me. He’d usually relent and we'd go home. Chuck would come with us sometimes but he couldn't sit still either.
On Friday nights at the hospital when I was getting ready to go home from work he'd call me and tell me where to meet him, usually at the bar where we’d met, or at a friend’s house. I was very possessive and jealous and sometimes it would be at a friend's house that was female. She was married and had several kids but he had told me when he was growing up he'd had a big crush on her. He'd play with the kids, but when it came down to acknowledging that I had two children, although Jenny was nineteen and Chuck was twelve, he acted as if he didn't like children and always had an excuse why we couldn't go places together as a group. Bill liked his alcohol and his "smokes" and he knew I didn't approve of his drinking and smoking, especially around my children. We fought all the time about that. His father is an alcoholic but had been sober for many years and continued to go to AA meetings. As a nurse I knew the gene was inherited and told him so, but he emphatically denied he was an alcoholic. Isn’t that the first sign? I also had a little toy poodle I had "inherited" from the divorce and he hated "poodles" too. His name was "Pebbles".He was a little white poodle and I kept him groomed myself. When Charles and I moved to the small house in Troy after the big two story house on Pottawattamie road, when Jenny was 10 and Chuck was 6, 1983, I placed an ad in the Troy newspaper that I would clip poodles for 10.00. I had been clipping Nicole for years and Lucky too, we always needed the extra money so I figured I might as well get paid for it. I also taught piano lessons as fast as I was taught by Lois. I had a few students that came every week but when we moved to Highland people stopped coming. I had one student who was getting pretty good at it and I feared he was better than the teacher but his mother said she was having a hard time getting him to practice. His brother on the other hand would not practice at all and wouldn't try that hard. They just wanted to get the lesson over with and go home to play. I knew the feeling, I had a hard time getting Jenny to practice too and when her first recital was over piano playing was ended for her. Charles and I fought constantly about making her practice, he thought she shouldn't have to if she didn't want to, I on the other hand thought she would thank me later in life. I finally gave up and stopped teaching and going to lessons myself. When you are alone in a matter it's hard to fight against so many, and as I said everyone always agreed with Charles.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-05T13:38:00.000-05:00

Bill was tall and gangly, at least 6 ft and weighed approximately 150 lbs. reminded me of Alan Jackson, a well known country singer. I had gotten into country music when I worked in the laundry room as a nurses aide at the nursing home in Highland Ks. Every time I'd go to the basement to do laundry a radio was there and it always had country music on. I tried changing the channel every time but after a while I started listening to the music and found out it wasn't my Mother's country music anymore. It had the same beat as the music I had listened to in the sixties. When I was a senior in high school I listened to a country music station, KUSN, which is where I had met my DJ friend who went by the name of Jimmy Links whose real name, was Harold. He lived in Wathena Ks on a farm with his Mom and Dad. I had gone out with him once to the Pizza Hut when Daddy was still alive but Mama and Daddy didn't trust him, as well they shouldn't have, because I had asked him to take me to the prom and he stated he couldn't go because he had to work. I found out that he had been talking to many other girls on the phone besides me and had gone out with those girls too.
When Charles and I had started dating and had been dating for about six months, I had gotten a phone call from,"Jimmy" aka Harold and he asked me out. I broke a date with Charles and went out with Harold instead. We went to the movies. He gave me a choice to stay with him or go back with Charles. I wanted to stay with him but family intervened and I decided to stay with Charles. I’ve always wondered what my life would have been like if I'd gone the other way.
Harold told me(he never let me call him that) he had married a girl after Daddy died and while I was going with Charles, but that she had cancer and would be dead by Christmas. It sounded fishy to me even with my naiveté and my sisters told me he was lying so I believed them. When Charles and I lived on north fifth St and Jenny was 2 yrs old, I was working at Sammy's Drug store on tenth. Harold came in to the store and saw me there. I asked a bit sarcastically "How's your wife?" He got a horrified look on his face and his eyes welled up with tears and said, “I told you she had cancer and died around Christmas time in 1971!" I could tell he was telling the truth. He didn't even know who I was at first. When I brought up his wife a kind of grey shadow slid across his face.
Bill and I went everywhere together. We went to Bluff woods. This was a conservation area full of forestry and high bluffs. There were paths and creeks to cross. There was a short way up the bluff that was straight up or you could go the long way around across wooden bridges and by crossing a rocky creek. While standing on the last bridge that covered the creek there was a small waterfall to the right cascading down the embankment making a small pool of water about 1-2 ft deep.
Green fronds of plants and algae were everywhere. There were rocks to cross to get to the pool and little tadpoles swam about looking for the many insects that landed in the cold clear water. We climbed up and up until we saw signs leading us to the Pine Tree. The pine tree was huge, reaching up and up several stories above the bluff. Young, thin, and agile Bill proceeded to climb to the top. He was explaining the magnificent view to me and I so wanted to see it but with my acrophobia I knew I'd never see what he was seeing. I couldn't even get up to the first limb! I picked up a pine cone from the many that were scattered about and read the sign on the tree dedicating that site to someone who had died. I always wondered if they had died climbing that same tree to the top as Bill was doing now and begged him to come down. He led me to a path that led to a huge rope that swung out over the bluff and through the many trees growing there. I wanted to swing and he helped me to get over myself as it were and after several minutes of getting up the nerve I jumped from the side of the hill and swung back to his waiting arms. He helped me up the embankment and held me to steady me for the climb back to the path. Once there he found an old dead tree, scraped the bits of bark off it and proceeded to carve our initials. He made a heart around:
B S
+
D D
4 ever
When Charles and I divorced I went back to being Darlene Dennis again. We went back to that tree many times that summer and took Chuck with us one time. Unfortunately he took after his mother and was afraid of heights too. Bill had to help him down the bluff and put the rope in his hands but I can't remember if he ever jumped or not! I’ll have to ask him! The rope swing finally was too rotten to use anymore and I think the parks department cut it down for safety's sake.
The summer was long and hot and the air conditioner in my trailer didn't work. Bill was used to air-conditioning and he couldn't stand it there. We stayed over at his nice cushy house in St Joseph when his Mom and Dad weren’t there. We watched movies and he'd show me his room. He’d turn on his television and he'd try to get me to watch the sci-fi channel. One favorite of his was "Dune".I couldn't make heads or tales out of it, mostly because I wasn't interested. All I could think about was him. He was eight years younger than I.I had lost a lot of weight and could wear short shorts and tight jeans with the best of the younger crowd. Everyone couldn't believe I was 39 and turning forty the following April. His mother knew. She didn't seem too keen on the idea of him seeing me. After Charles' mother I could take just about anything a mother could throw at me. She and Bill's father did seem to like the fact that I had more in common with them than Bill; I brought over a VCR tape of Red Skelton I had bought. They loved the old shows as much as I did.
One day we were at his house alone when he put in a tape of Beauty and the Beast. I thought it was the most beautiful Disney film I had seen and I cried at the right moments and laughed at the right moments. It wasn't long before he took me in his arms and kissed me there on the couch in the living room. He stopped the tape and we went upstairs to his room.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-05T13:37:00.001-05:00

There was a trailer court in Wathena Ks called Gaslight Acres. It was on the south side of 36 highway just as you were leaving town. There were trailers on both sides of the street. I stopped in at the office and talked to a lady named Phyllis who owned the court with her ex husband and said that trailer number 9 was available. It was a long brown trailer with two bedrooms and a cute little kitchen facing the street. It had a window air conditioner that I found out later during the heat of the summer, didn't work. There was cold air coming in through the outlets and every crook and cranny which were many. It was more like living in a glorified cardboard box. I moved with the help of Phyllis' ex son-in-law who only had an SUV-type vehicle so he had to lay my new refrigerator on its side, breaking the icemaker motor in the process. We set it upright, the refrigerator still worked but the icemaker would only work if you bought the ice yourself and put it in the icemaker drawer.
Jenny moved in with me. She was still fighting Lance for custody of Brandy. She had met a boy at the Pizza Hut, you'll remember, named Neal. Neal had a fast little sports car and Jenny was thrilled. Charles had met a girl, yes I said girl, at the Casey's General store in Wathena and was well on his way to being in love again. She was 26 years old and had been married five times already and was in fact engaged to someone else when they met. She would agree to marry, then when someone else came along she thought she liked better she'd get a divorce and move on to her next victim. I had asked Charles what he was going to do if she did that to him. He said, “We’ve talked about that and we are both so in love and happy that that's not going to be a problem!” They were married in the spring of 1992 at the farm. I had to sell my pool to make room for the gazebo she wanted and they were married in the gazebo. His friends from work warned him and I tried to warn him but he wasn't listening to anything I had to say, our amicable divorce went out the window when he met her. Whatever Deanna said was straight from God's mouth. I wasn't allowed on the property I had paid for with my student loan money that wasn't supposed to be spent on anything but schooling, a student loan that I am still paying on by the way, and she absolutely hated Chuck! She had six children of her own. She’d tell Charles to beat him for this and that and he would without question. He beat him with a stick once and when it broke he picked up a piece of tin and whaled away with that. I had told the judge at our divorce hearing but he said that was another case for another time but if I wanted to file child abuse charges I could. Charles openly admitted it in court in front of the judge. Chuck didn't want to pursue it and I didn't to go to court again so I made him promise to never let it happen again or I would. He promised, as he had promised years ago in Denton when he knocked me down and proceeded to stomp me in front of Jenny when she was five years old. He never did that again. About three months into the marriage Deanna had met a tall good looking man in a bar and was instantly in love and had the idea that he would marry her if she left Charles, so she did but he didn't.
I had met a man in April of 1992.I liked playing pool and had a pool table at home off and on. In the basement of the house in Denton we had a pool table. My brother Bobby came over on my birthday, either the 24th or 25th birthday. I know I had bought Terre on my 24th birthday so I don't remember if it was that day or the next year, anyway, we played pool. Mary Ann and Floy Mae came to show him the way up there. I remember laughing and having a good time.
Charles had been somewhat of a pool shark and could beat the pants off anybody. We used to go to Mary Ann and Bobby's trailer. They had bought some land south of Agency Mo. Bobby, Mary Ann's husband, was a builder in his spare time, just something he liked to do, he had built a room onto the trailer so they could have a pool table. On the weekends we would go down there and play pool and cards and eat dinner. When They divorced they had to sell the property. So they sold to the conservation dept. They had peacocks and chickens and ducks and geese. There was a big pond out back on the south side of the property in the woods they kept stocked with fish. They liked horseback riding too after we bought our horses so they bought two horses, Star and Solomon. Star was a big quarter horse and Solomon was a small palomino that wasn't broke as well. Charles had been riding him one day to break him in for Mary Ann when he reared up and rolled over on him. He wouldn't go to the Doctor even if we had had the money to pay for one. He had a few cuts and bruises, it wasn't very long, maybe a couple of hours and he was right back up there, in the saddle ready to go again. Mary Ann treated Solomon as a pet. He was a friendly horse and he was pretty. Star on the other hand was a good riding Quarter horse. She was "fine broke" as they would say. I liked riding her because she would respond the same as Terre. One day when we still lived in Denton we put Terre in the trailer Charles had made with her picture drawn on the side and drove to Mary Ann’s. We all went riding all over the countryside. Clyde had rented the old farm on 116 where I had spent the years from five to fourteen. We were so glad that the farm was back in the family. The old well down at the barn where we had to haul water in 2/12 gallon buckets on each arm had gone dry. So Clyde had to move again. Charles and I stopped over there with the horse trailer and I got to ride my horse all over the property just like I had always wanted to do when I was a little girl. When Mary Ann and Bobby were married in 1962 there was a furniture store called "Old Man Jackson's" that advertised to give away a pony to anyone that would buy a whole living room full of furniture. Mr. Nickle, Bobby’s father, was going to cosign a loan for them to get the furniture they needed. They were going to give me the pony! But Mr. Nickle said there was no need for a whole room full of furniture, they were moving to a trailer in Dearborn and they only needed a few things. I waited with my face pressed against the glass window pane and waited and waited for the arrival of my new pony. I was nine years old. They finally came back, no horse trailer, no pony.
I had met Bill after work at a bar on the Belt highway. I thought he was cute and we danced to the music. I was very naive as I hadn't done anything my whole life except be married and trying to survive the upsets that life threw at us for twenty years. I trusted too much and sympathized too much. He had long blond hair and blue eyes and straight white teeth he flashed every time he looked my way. He was an Alan Jackson look a like.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T23:19:00.000-05:00

I thought about everything we had been through the last twenty years.
The constant fighting, knock down drag out fights, meaning I was the one being knocked down and dragged out. When we lived on north 5th St when Jenny was 1 ½ years old I walked to the social services office and showed them the huge black and purple bruise on my thigh and begged them to give me a place to live for me and my daughter. The bruise on my face had almost healed. They said we had to be separated for at least a year before they would consider helping me. I had no place to go. Mama and Kathryn wouldn’t take me in as we had Kathryn, when Marvin had kicked her out I had said, “Sure, you’re my sister, you can come and stay with us.” No questions asked, but when I needed a place to stay, I was told “Go back to your husband.” Everyone sided with Charles, even though I had the bruises to prove it. I hated that he had taken me away from my home, even though I had made it clear on that day, September 17th 1971 that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get married. I was getting “cold feet”. We had fought on that day too. I felt like he dragged me up the sidewalk to Leslie’s car where he and Della were waiting to take us to the court house. I had said almost every day of our married life, “I want to go home!”
I came in from the pool and stood in the kitchen. I looked around at the dark, musty, earth home that couldn’t be made into anything it was not. With all the money on new walls and ceiling fans and even the fireplace we had built with the rock we had brought back with us from our vacation across country. Each rock had a story to tell. This is the place where we saw this or that. This is a part of the slate that I slipped on in South Dakota, leaving a five inch scar on my buttocks. It was a massive fireplace. Each rock was a different hue of gold, black slate and yellow limestone, and sparkly silver granite. The chimney was at least 5 feet across and climbed through the ceiling, through the attic and sprouting through the shingled roof to the outside, to show everyone who passed by that we had a big fine fireplace inside. I did love that fireplace. It wouldn’t work. We bought an Earth Stove insert and only then were we able to have a fire to heat the house in winter. We didn’t have a furnace. The fireplace still looked magnificent even with the gold and black stove hidden inside its massive jaws.
I told Floy Mae when she over before I told Charles. I think I was waiting for someone to talk me out of it. No one did. The more I thought of the years and now the massacre of the cats, even when he knew how I felt about hunting and killing helpless animals. To kill for food was one thing but to kill those cats when they didn’t do anything to anybody was more than I could take.
Charles came into the kitchen while I stood there with tears and anger on my face knowing I was going to tell him for the hundredth time that I wanted a divorce and actually mean it this time. He just said, “Not that again!” I had seen a commercial on television about sending off for the paperwork to a lawyer in KC. They’d send the paperwork for fifty dollars and you fill out the papers yourself. Then put them before a judge to sign. The divorce could not be contested. All parties had to agree. I signed the papers and Charles signed. Chuck would stay with his father and continue his routine of catching the bus and going to school. I wanted the transition to be as painless as possible. His father hollered for Chuck to come in and tried to humiliate me in front of our son. “You know what your mother is going to do? She’s divorcing us!” Chuck just said “Why?” He went on and on about how STUPID I was which he always did. That’s why I went to Nursing School to prove to everyone, especially him, that I knew I wasn’t stupid. I got the best grades, honor roll, working at the hospital, not as an aide this time but as the aide’s boss, the nurse at the desk. Helping Doctors with treatments, orders, admitting patients, discharging patients, pharmacy orders etc... Not counting the med passes and lives I had saved through Heimlich maneuvers, calling RN’s from other floors when Doctors wouldn’t listen to me when I knew a patient needed to go to the ER. That patient would have died that day. Other nurses asked me how I knew what to do, how I knew to call an RN to assess the patient and talk to the Doctor. They said they wouldn’t have thought of that. They said they would have gone with the Doctor’s order he gave in the first place. The orders over the phone were that the patient had a cold. He sent me to the pharmacy to get a bottle of robitussin. When I got back the patient was worse, her blood pressure was high and she had pink mucous coming out of her mouth. I had called the Doctor twice already and gave him the vitals, told him I thought it was a pneumothorax but he just said, “Why are you getting so worked up over a simple cold?” That’s when I picked up the phone and called for RN support to confirm what I already knew. The RN said to get the Doctor back on the phone; she didn’t care if I’d already called him twice or ten times. The patient was going into respiratory distress and she was going to die if we didn’t admit her to Heartland Hospital East. I called again and he was more than a little perturbed but I told him to talk to the RN in Charge. She handed the phone back to me and said, “Alright, I guess we’ll have to admit!” I filled out the forms and called for an ambulance. He called back about an hour later and said she was doing fine and they were bringing her back. Charting, charting, charting…
Our divorce was final on December 17th 1991. I had left the property to him and in return he would allow the swimming pool to remain where it was. We would have an amicable divorce. I could still come and see Chuck whenever I wanted and I would continue to keep the pool clean.
I told Clyde he had to move out of the trailer I was going to move in and fix it up. That way I would still be on the property but out of the way with my own driveway and my own light bill. Charles agreed to help me but instead he almost burned the place down installing an electric heating system that ran along the base of the wall. The plug shorted out. Ronnie and Floy Mae were there in the house. Ronnie shouted, “Hey! The trailer’s on fire!” Big billowing flames were shooting out of the west window facing the driveway. Somehow they got it out. I was stubborn and continued to stay there until it got too cold. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay there without any heat. I decided to look elsewhere for a place to live off the property.

2009-06-04T14:12:00.000-05:00

Jennifer looked so nice in her cap and gown, blue, when she graduated at Wathena High School. I couldn't believe so many years had gone by since she rode Terre to the neighbor's house to get a phone number so she could start kindergarten. She had a new baby and was getting married in June!
I made the arrangements with city hall in St Joe so she be married at Krug Park in northend. The roses were starting to bloom in the rose garden where the gazebo stood overlooking the lagoon. On the weekends people would come to feed the big carp and goldfish, turtles and the ducks. When she was 2 years old we took her to the park to feed the ducks. A big muskovy grabbed her little belly and pinched her hard with his beak. She was trying to feed him bread and that was the thanks she got! It left a dark blue bruise on her fat little 2 year old self. I thought the ducks would be tamer than that.
Everyone started arriving, chairs were set around the path of the roses. We had bought Jennifer a beautiful white lacy gown for her 8th grade graduation in Highland. I thought she looked so perfect in that dress. We had bought it at the Paris at East Hills Mall. When the graduation was over I told her that dress would be perfect for a wedding dress! I didn't realize that day would come so soon. Her future mother-in-law was a seamtress and sewed costumes for the Sweet Adelines a singing group she sang for around town and Missouri theater etc.. She said she thought the dress was perfect too and added some beads and other material to make it look more "wedding-like". She added see through lacy sleeves that came to a point over the top of her hands. We bought her a veil and her mother-in-law to be, fixed her hair and added pearls to her hair which she wore up in a bun with long curls trailing the sides of her face. They did a little dance when she shook her head. She was the prettiest bride! I wore a pink dress and my long hair down. Charles dressed in a grey suit and tie. Chuck also had on a suit and tie, he was 11 years old. Everyone came down the sidewalk leading to the gazebo where they were married under the decorations and ribbons we had placed there beforehand.
Three months later we learned how mean and cruel Lance was in his words toward others and his actions. He had been seeing other girls while Jennifer was pregnant with Brandy and had another little girl the same age. They went to court for custody of Brandy. Lance's mother worked for the Power and Light company and Jenny worked for Pizza Hut. Long story short the grandmother got custody and Jennifer had to pay child support! Lance didn't get custody but he lived with his mother. Lance had a criminal record. Jenny had a new boyfriend Neal. We didn't have any money for a lawyer but Jenny had one. They had two.
They worked out a visitation agreement before the divorce was finalized. When he had her and it was time for Jennifer to pick her up, they would conveniently not be home so Jenny couldn't get her back . She'd always take her there on time, then at 6'oclock on Sunday evening she would go to to the house to pick her up, they wouldn't be home. No matter what time she came back they would not answer the door even though the car would be right there in the driveway. She told her lawyer about it and he would do something but they ignored everything. When she finally did get her back one weekend she refused to let them have her and kept her hidden for awhile until one Christmas eve she started feeling sentimental and took her to see her father who promptly took the child and slammed the door in her face and vowed she would never see her again.
Clyde moved onto the property that year and lived in the small trailor. It was barely livable but Clyde was used to living by the seat of his pants and made it comfortable enough. He was a good renter and Charles liked having a friend around he could talk "guy" stuff with. Clyde had several rifles, something I would never let Charles have because I loved all animals and hated to see them eaten by lions on the Discovery Channel or hunted down in cold blood by people that could get their meals elsewhere and hunted for sport.
I had several cats on the farm. They kept the mice out of the feed. We had a pig and some goats. Charles even bought me a lamb for my birthday. One day I was hanging clothes out on the line as I still didn't have a dryer that worked anymore, I noticed that old Sam wasn't there to grab at the clothes or play with the clothes pins at my feet. I started asking questions and Charles just guiltily avoided them. I started asking those same questions of Clyde since he and Charles were so buddy buddy all of a sudden. He just laughed and said he and Charles had used all the outside cats as target practice and all the cats were dead. I thought he was joking at first but the more questions I asked Charles about it the more guilty he looked and sounded. I was shocked and horrified that he could do something like that to my pets. They weren't hurting anybody. They ran looseon the farm and only came up to the house to be petted and of course to see if there were any scraps from yesterday's dinner. I wasn't allowed to feed them,you see, only the one that stayed in the house which we didn't have anymore. Old Sam, who really wasn't that old, was really the only one that stayed close to the house. I would throw him some scraps if I had any, and he would reward me by playing with the clothes pins and tormenting me while I tried to hang up clothes.
I was sitting at the pool's edge one day thinking and decided I would tell Charles I wanted a divorce.

2009-06-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

In May 1991 Jennifer was getting ready for graduation and her wedding in June to Lance. Brandy was 6 months old. I had been watching her in the mornings while Jenny went to school. She got out of school at noon and drove the car home. She watched her from then on. I had to be at work at Heartland Hospital at 3:00 and left around 2 or 2:30.
Floy Mae had moved south of us in a small farm house. Her son, JR, was born in September of 1979 a month before Chuck. We had gone to the Doctor's office at the same time. JR was Chuck's best friend. They walked to each other's house and rode bicycles back and forth. Floy Mae had a dog that was part pit bull. I had my cats and we had King, the German Shepherd. Charles had always told me when we moved to the farm because there was enough land, 12 acres, that I could have as many cats as I wanted as long as they stayed outside. We brought home a part siamese cat and named her Sheba. She was so pretty with the markings of a Siamese and big blue eyes.Charles let me keep her in the house. One day I ws sitting on the deck of the pool just watching the water swirl around when Sheba came running to me and wanted me to follow her to an old junk pickup truck and in the front seat she had had 6 little kittens. I patted her and congratulated her her but she still kept "asking" me over and over to come look. She cried and meowed constantly. Charles would say, " What's wrong with that cat?"
Not long after the birth of the kittens I noticed JR coming down the road on his bicycle with the big pit bull running behind. I told Chuck to meet him and tell him to take that dog back home, and that that dog was not welcome on our property. He did but the dog would not go back alone. Charles was working on a car when Sheba came looking for me again. She looked at the pit bull and he looked at her. Suddenly the pit bull grabbed her and started to shake her by the neck. I screamed and JR grabbed him , we tried to get him to let go. He finally did. She ran off to the shed east of the back door of the house. I ran to her and checked on her. She'd seemed to be alright Charles was yelling about the kittens being in the front seat of the truck, the mess etc.., so we took the kittens out and put them in a box. We put the box in the shed with Sheba. She didn't seem interested in them anymore. They were screaming at the top of their lungs. I put each one next to her so they could eat. Sheba would lick them but she kept getting up and pushing them away.
The next day she was letting them eatand seemed to be better. Slowly the kittens started to dieone by one.One week after the incident with the pit bull, I noticed Sheba was hiding alot. There was a "cave" of sorts between the house and the poolwhere the water pipes went into the house. I found her hiding in there.I pulled her outand looked at her big blue eyes. I noticed they weren't blue anymore! They were green!I ran into the house and called the vet in South St Joseph and explained the whole ordeal. Their advise was to get her to the office immediately, I was scolded for not bringing her in as soon as the attack had occurred. I explained that she seemed to be doing better and was starting to feed and pay attention to her kittens after a few hours. Charles had a cardinal rule that no money was to be spent on pets for vet services so it was out of the question to immediately go there. On this day, looking at Sheba, and knowing there was something wrong set the fear of God in me. Jenny and I put her in a box and jumped into the car. She was screaming bloody murder and trying to climb out of the box.I was trying to drive and Jenny was trying to hold her still.We pulled up in front of the veterinary clinic about 20 minutes later. We got right inand placed her on the cold chrome table. She lay there motionless when the Dr came in to look at her. I could tell by the look on his facethat the news was not good. Suddenly he started giving CPR and i fell against the wall and slid down in tears. I just got scolded againfor not bringing her in sooner.He said when the dog shook her she still had another kitten inside. The shaking caused bleeding and she was slowly bleeding to death the whole week after the incident.
The vet looked up after he'd finished CPR and told me she was gone. The memories were so fresh. She had tried so hard to tell me about her kittens.How, I had followed her to the truck. She had climbed on the seat and purred and cleaned them. She was so proud of her accomplishment! She just couldn't get enough of telling me about it. She would follow me around the yard and meow, and lick the kittens , she'd put her paws around them as any mother would do to hold them close.
The devastation I felt was overwhelming. I could hardly see to drive home. I was crying so hard and Jenny too.
I told Floy Mae never to bring that dog over to our house again. They loved that dog. I ould never understand how anyone could love a dog so big, mean and ugly. He finally died a few years later of old age. They were devastated too, but he didn't die in the cruel way that Sheba had. No one grabbed him up and shook him until he bled to death, a slow painful death that took a week. I felt so sorry that I didn't take her to the vet sooner, but I knew Charles would never hear of it! They said they could have helped her if only I had brought her in sooner. She had the kittens to take care of, she was eating ans seemed to be back to normal until I saw those green eyes! All the kittens eventually died. She stopped caring for her beloved brood in the first 24 hours. Charles said ,"Let nature take its course."

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

We got used to the idea in the next few months. Charles had had a vasectomy after Chuck was born and we couldn't have anymore babies. The idea of a cute little bundle of joy was starting to grow on us. The Grandma and Grandpa insignia however did not.
We returned from South Dakota that weekend with a baby ring made with Black Hills gold.
Her due date was November 12th but in 1990 a due date just meant the baby could be born two weeks before or two weeks after the due date.
The evening of November 12th I was cleaning the cabinets that Charles had made in the kitchen and Charles was doing some wood working on some cabinets he was making to sell.
About 9:00 pm Jennifer sauntered out of the bedroom and announces she is in labor. I looked down from my chair, terrified of heights and trying not to fall.
She tells us in no uncertain terms that her future mother-in-law had informed her that it was now time for her to tell me .She had been on the phone with her for several hours that night and all the things that a daughter should be telling her mother she was telling Lance's mother.
I asked her how long she thought she had been in labor and she said,” About two hours “but her back had been hurting all day at school.” I asked her how far apart were her pains and she said, about ten minutes! “I then proceeded to fly around the house and throwing my arms up into the air screaming at Charles, “Get a box and start tearing up newspapers this girl is about to give birth!" We lived about twenty miles or less from Heartland Hospital. We had a long gravel road to traverse with deep ravines on each side. We rushed her into the car and Charles, me and the "little Mother" and Chuck crammed into the car along with her bag and Charles drove about 90 miles an hour down that gravel road to Blair toward 36 highways.
We turned east on 36 and headed for Wathena not caring about the highway patrol or any city cops that always traveled that highway. Fortunately we didn't see any. They would have appeared as a blur if we had and they probably couldn't have caught us if they had seen us.
We arrived at the hospital. Charles parked in front of the doors at Heartland Hospital West in the emergency room parking area. A burley security guard promptly approached us to tell us we couldn't park there. We jumped out of the car and seeing my very pregnant daughter opened the emergency doors and found a wheel chair for her to sit in. She was in a good deal of pain the whole way in the car, we were all afraid we wouldn't make it. As a new nurse I had very limited training in birthing a baby, none actually. I sure didn't want to test my knowledge out on Jennifer!
Charles moved the car and met us on the 3rd floor, the maternity ward. As soon as the emergency nurses saw us come in they ushered us up the elevator to the 3rd floor. They said she was close to delivery when we got there. About an hour and a half later we had a new granddaughter! She named her Brandy.
Lance didn't show up until later even though it was eleven thirty or so by then. We decided to go and let her sleep and come back to see her in the morning.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T09:16:00.000-05:00

From July 1989 to October 1989 I studied for the State Boards. I had a book I bought from the nursing school that helped you study for the big test. By October I felt I was ready.
On October 22nd we traveled to Topeka, about one to two hours away from Wathena.
I arrived very nervous but feeling prepared. The room was huge with rows of tables and chairs.
They greeted us and warned us that looking in any direction other than our papers would get us kicked out of that room and we would have to wait three months before trying again.
When everyone was settled and the signal was given to start, I started with the first question and when I had finished with the entire test I couldn't believe how easy it was. I thought, “anyone off the street that hadn't spent ten months in nursing school could have passed that test!"
When we were finished with the test we were instructed to get up from the table and go outside and not to return until everyone had finished their test.
The others started filing out and some remarked how easy the test was and some said how hard the test was. Everyone got a different test. I was starting to worry that maybe the test was harder than I thought it was. It could have been full of trick questions; we were told there would be some.
I worried and second guessed myself all the way to January 1990.I received my results in the mail, then. I tore open the envelope and saw that I had passed!
After informing the members of my family and shouting and doing a little dance, I called the nursing home where I worked and told them the news, after all they had promised all the nursing students they had hired would get a .75 raise if we passed our Boards. The administrator had hired three of us from the school in Atchison and did not expect all of us to pass the first time. Our raise consisted of a thin dime. We started looking for new jobs.
"Tall" Lisa went first. She started at a nursing home on 18th St in St Joseph. That left two of us left from the school.
Having our licenses transferred from the state of Kansas to Missouri was no big deal. I called the Missouri Board of Nursing and they made a quick call to Topeka and verified I had passed the Boards, All I needed was to send them 50.00 and wah lah a few weeks later I had a board certified license to practice nursing in the state of Missouri. Up until that time I was a GPN, a Graduated Practical Nurse. Upon our graduation we received permits to practice.
On March fifth my nephew, Floy Mae's son Brian, and his wife had twin baby girls. After visiting and oohing and ahhing over the twins, I left to go and stopped at the HR, Human Resources, office at Heartland Health Medical Center, formerly known as the Missouri Methodist Hospital where Jenny and Chuck were born. I submitted my application for a nursing position there. The only reason I didn't choose to go with Heartland in the first place was because the starting pay was 6.47 an hour and we had been promised upon passing the state boards we would be paid 7.75 hour which they reneged.
Two or three weeks later I received a call from the nursing director on 2nd fl Centre about coming in for an interview.
The interview went well and I was scheduled to start April 16th.
I gave my notice to the nursing home and began my nursing career at the hospital.
Jennifer started working at MacDonald's in St. Joseph where she met a nice looking guy who worked with her named Lance. Yes, I said Lance. He was tall and good looking with broad shoulders. We went there one day when she was not working. He came in to order. I nodded my approval, what mother wouldn't like to have her daughter meet a Prince Charming named Lance. She was in love but only a junior in high school. She was seventeen after all and it was bound to happen sooner or later.
It wasn't long before she kept complaining of being sick so we took her to Belt and Mitchell to the Med Clinic.
When we lived in Highland and she was seeing the boy from Sparks, Jason, we had a "flare" up of sorts. I had worked all night at the Highland nursing home and was sleeping when Chuck came in and woke me. He said, “Jason’s here".He had this weird look on his face so I asked him, “Where’s Jenny?” He said that she was in the basement. Jenny was 14 years old at the time.
I didn't like the sound of that so I jumped out of bed and headed for the basement.
I found them putting on their clothes and thought in horror of the view that her little brother, who was eight years old, had just been given.
It was winter or early spring in 1987.the temperature outside was at or below freezing. I ordered Jason out of my house and never to return. In response to that he asked me if I would take him home because of the cold and Sparks was four or five miles away. I told him in no uncertain terms he could walk home and freeze to death as far as I was concerned.
We headed to the woods where Charles was cutting wood. He was none too pleased to hear the news about his little
girl!
On this day in 1990 here we were at the Med Clinic waiting for the antibiotics for the flu symptoms she was exhibiting.
I was sent into the cubicle with her and to my astonishment they were doing a pregnancy test! The look on her face told me everything I needed to know. We paid the bill and I escorted her out to the waiting room to her father.
In the car I broke the news to him, through tears and yelling a few chosen obscenities!
.
　

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

We spent most of our time at the Payless Cashways hardware store in Elwood, Ks just three miles east of Wathena. We bought the paneling and the sheetrock. We bought insulation for the attic. We tore the walls down that had been put up for additional bedrooms that we didn't need. We opened it up and tried to make it as homey as possible. Unfortunately it was like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and no matter how much we tried to fix and clean it always looked like an old storage shed made out of cement.
We found a swimming pool that was 24ft round and four feet deep with all the accessories, in the paper and put it up outside the back door. Charles dug the dirt out with a shovel and made it as level as possible. We tried to help him with the walls and liner and the rails but as usual all parts were thrown and scattered helter skelter. Just like the tent he tried to put up in Branson. Charles' temper got the best of him. Chuck tried to help him but he just yelled at him and then I tried but I could never do anything right as far as he was concerned. Charles was a perfectionist, if he couldn't do it his way then it didn't get done. The pool was finally up and the water was as clear as it could be. It was my job, I made it that way, to keep the chlorine levels and the ph levels where they should be. We only had to buy "shock treatments" when the weather was bad and it rained a lot. We had a skimmer and a sand filter. It had a white fence around it and a small aluminum deck with a walkway around the top about a foot wide. I loved that pool! On July fourth we always had a barbecue and family would come and we'd play volley ball or badminton and swim in the pool.
In the wintertime the water pipes would freeze and Charles would have to dig up the line and thaw them out. The well was way down the hill passed the field next to the barns just outside of the "swamp" area where the beavers had built a dam. We went through more water pumps. It was hard on the pump to push the water up hill through those narrow pipelines.
Clyde wanted to move into the trailer that was on the property so we rented it to him for 110.00 a month which was what he had been paying in town for an apartment. He always like the country and was a good renter.
In the fall of 1990 Charles and I went to the Black Hills of South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore. It was beautiful but an early ice storm caught everyone unawares with no snow tires or chains. Going up and down the hills and around curves was a challenge but Charles was always one to take chances and never feared when it came to driving. We had a van then and took it up through Iowa and across South Dakota. The tall pines and forest there called to us so we pulled over on the way back from Mt Rushmore to get a better view. I went ahead and tried to stand on a slate flat rock but I started to slide and couldn't get stopped. I called, “Charles!" He came running but by the time he got to me I was wrapped around a tree. The drop was about ten feet if I had fallen. Somehow he'd gotten me down but my pants were torn and blood was running out of my left hip where the hide had been torn as if by a knife. We headed back to the motel and I examined my wound. I was more concerned that I had ripped my good pants.
We headed back home the next day but we had to drive slower due to the weather and it took more gas than we thought. We went south on 16 to rte 2 into Nebraska. This was a narrow strip of road but according to the map and Charles, it was the fastest way back to Northeast Kansas.
When we got home we went to an appliance store and bought a new stove and a refrigerator we put on credit from AVCO financial group. Charles made the new cabinets and we bought a new counter top from PayLess. I was still working as a GPN at a small nursing home in St Joseph and Charles worked at the Truss co. We both got paid every two weeks but we got paid opposite weeks so we had a paycheck every week just like we did when we worked at Friskies’ in Elwood in 1981.
That Christmas I had been paying on a new set of diamond rings for myself since every set I ever had I had to hock. I decided since it was Christmas I would continue paying on them in January so I could take the money to buy the kid's presents and actually get Charles a present too. We had a joint checking account so we were both using it to buy presents. I wanted a new coat that I had seen at Kmart and actually pointed it out to Charles so he would know which one I wanted and I also wanted one of the new Red Devil vacuum cleaners so I could keep the house cleaner. It just looked so dirty all the time. It was dark even after he put in a new picture window in the dining room.
Christmas came and I opened up my first present from Charles. A few family members were there but when I opened the present I was so disappointed to find an old pink coat that Jennifer, now 17, didn’t care for either. I was a lot heavier then and that big old bulky pink coat made me look like Baby Huey! I stuck my hand in my pocket and found something in the pocket. I knew without looking it was my rings that I had not planned to get out of the pawn shop until January so we'd have enough money to get through Christmas. I knew I owed over two hundred dollars on them and now we were broke! I tried not to show my disappointment when what I really wanted was that vacuum cleaner and I knew there were no more presents for me from him and now no money to buy one. I felt so miserable that we had to continue to live in that ramshackle house that refused to come clean when you didn't have the right equipment or the money to tear it down and do it over right, which is what it needed. Over the years I just wanted to go back home! I had told him that the same day we got married and he said "No!” I told him when we had been married just two weeks. For 19 years our lives had been one disappointment after another. I always told him if he went back to Nebraska St he would see the skid marks I left with the heels of my shoes when he dragged me up that sidewalk to Leslie's car to take me to the courthouse. I was mad at him that day for being late again and I told him I didn't" think I wanted to do this".Sadness and disappointment was all our marriage had added up to for 19 years. Moving and moving from one house to another trying to run away from our problems or each other.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

I started nursing school the 21st of July, 1988. Some friends at the home started at the same time, Shirley and Patty, who were about ten years older than me and a young friend, Julie. We rode down taking turns driving the cars but they decided I drove recklessly or I didn't have a nice enough car. I had a blue Ford Fiesta that was falling apart and it was so small we had a hard time fitting everyone. The red, maroon, Mercury was headed for A-1 auto salvage because it wouldn't run again even after the new motor when the timing chain went out etc...
We would ask each other question for the test we had every day. We had to study every night for five hours. They told us we would gain about twenty or thirty pounds. I gained thirty five. I weighed 124 lbs when I started and got fitted for uniforms and weighed almost 160 lbs by graduation in May of 1989.The first ten weeks we had tests every day but after that we had our "fly up" ceremony when we got our caps. We were very proud. I was on the honor roll and those of us that made it were in the Troy newspaper for the whole county to see! I kept my grades up into the high nineties to make sure I made the high honor roll. There was an honor roll and a high honor roll. There was competition between the girls so that encouraged us to keep the grades high. We had one male in the class; I can't remember his name so I will call him Dave.
We learned to build a human being from one single cell to the hair and skin. Learning the intricacies of the heart and valves, arteries and veins was the hard part but I was so fascinated I ate it up! I thought this is what I was born to do. We learned to figure drop factors and at the end of the year we drew blood from the other student nurses. I didn't have a partner so I got to draw blood from the Director of Nursing. After several of the students also had drawn blood from her for practice I thought she would pass out! During our clinicals we went to the hospital in Atchison to observe and pass medicines alongside the nurse there. When we were studying Obstetrics we got to watch a cesarean section and newborns being circumcised. We practiced doing treatments on patients with wounds. Older folks do not have the fat under their skin so the skin tears like tissue paper. Diabetics especially have to be careful because they do not heal as well. We did our clinicals in Dr's offices and the nursing home there.
When I would come home at five o'clock after being up at that time in the AM I had told Jenny and Chuck to make sure Midnight, the poodle we bought to replace Lucky, was inside the house because she would wait for me to come home all day and would run out into the driveway as I came home. One day I drove home and pulled into the driveway, hit the remote for the garage door and drove inside. When I went into the house Midnight wasn't waiting for me to pick her up as she always had been so I said, "Where's Midnight?" Chuck said, "Jenny let her out!" I knew without looking she would be lying there in the driveway, and she was. I had run over her when I stopped to open the garage door. She thought I was stopped and getting out but I only stopped long enough to open the garage door. Charles buried her somewhere on the property; I don't think he even told me where he had buried Lucky.
The house in Highland was so well insulated that in the winter time the only way to tell if the wind was blowing was to watch the trees sway through the big "picture" window. The snow would fall and the trees would be covered. I think it was the only time I actually liked to watch the snow fall. It was easy to keep warm. There was a square wood stove in the kitchen that Charles cut wood for and Jenny and I and Chuck would help load it. We didn't need to cut all year round like the big house in Troy. At night the furnace would take over if the temperature would go below 60 degrees so we didn't even have to get up in the middle of the night to stoke the coals when the fire went out.
One day when it was raining especially hard the creek started to rise and I couldn't find King. I knew that he was getting older now and the vet in Highland had prescribed some pain reliever for him for his arthritis. I'd squeeze some out of a tube and he would run and play as he always did. This day I looked out of the picture window and saw King floundering around in the creek bed trying to hang on to the sides with his toenails. I hollered at Charles and he ran out into the blinding rain and picked him up and carried him to the foyer to dry off. He was still afraid of storms after all those years. We never did figure out why he was out there.
We still had our rabbits. Sometimes they would get out of the cages somehow and King would chase them all over the yard, killing as many as he could. We'd gather as many as we could and fix the cages. We still had problems getting them to breed. The males would go through the motions but the females would fight them off most of the time. When copulation would take place the females would rarely be pregnant or they would kill them right after birth. We finally sold all of them.
Another friend of Charles' had ferrets, a male and a female. I had had ferrets before and I really liked them. But these were so wild every time you would stick your hand in the cage, the female especially, would grab onto your fingers and hang on. Once they were out of the cage they were friendly and we would bring them into the house and let them play with cat toys or dog toys. They were very funny to watch and easy to hold once out of the cage. I had wanted to breed them and sell the babies but after getting my fingers bit to the bone so many times we gave them away. Chucky had a pet rat we kept in his room in a cage. He loved that rat but he wouldn't take care of it. The feeding and watering of the rat went to me of course. He too got so he wouldn't let you get the water bottle or the food bowl out to add more to it. He would jump up onto your hand and start biting like crazy. I’d checked the water bottle and it was always full of water. Chuck refused to hold him anymore because of the biting. One day he came outside with tears in his eyes holding his pet and said it was dead. I checked the water bottle and the ball had gotten stuck and no water was coming out. All the time I thought he had water, he couldn't get it out. That’s why he was biting. He was drinking the blood from our fingers!
Another pet I was especially fond of was our guinea pigs. We had two. There was a movie out at that time that had a funny looking creature that was real cute until you gave them water and then they would become really mean and vicious.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

In March of 1987, Jay told us that his wife worked at the nursing home in Highland. He said they were hiring. I had been looking off and on for a job to help out with finances but I didn't have any experience working outside of the home except that short month I worked at Henry's hamburgers on Lake Avenue when I was 16.I also worked at a restaurant on King hill doing dishes in 1970.The owner made me clean out the refrigerator that had a short in it. Whenever you tried to clean out the bottom of it you got an electrical shock. She complained I wasn't cleaning it one day and I told her it shocks me every time I touched the bottom of it. She got mad and started cleaning it out herself not even flinching when I knew she was getting shocked. She was the one that told me, “Be careful it'll shock you".I pretty much told her what she could do with her refrigerator and her dishes I could never got clean enough for her and quit. Charles had told me he didn't want me to work, back then women stayed home and the men worked. He also told me if I would marry him he'd quit smoking which he did after ten years of marriage. One day cigarettes went up to 62 cents a pack and he didn't have 62 cents. He was a little shaky for a couple of days then he was done and never smoked again.
I went to the nursing home thinking the only thing I was qualified for was doing the laundry or working in the kitchen. Mrs. Fritch was the administrator and said she was going to put me on the floor working as a nurse's aide. I had never been in a nursing home before and was shocked to the core when I found out what goes on there. The other nurses and aides were shocked too when they found out I didn't know anything about getting patients up in the wee hours of the morning and passing trays and feeding people that couldn't feed themselves. They complained right in front of me about how they couldn't believe Mrs. Fritch would hire someone off the street without any experience. They weren't shy about hurting my feelings or the patient's feeling when cooperation was unheard of, whether they, the patients, could help or not. Most of them could have done more for themselves but as a payback for their hatred of being there, they wouldn’t. The place stunk, and so did I when I'd come home in the morning after working all night. My only hope of getting through it all was the promise of going to CNA classes in Atchison, then to CMA classes, then it was off to LPN training , as a nurse.
I was miserable. I’d go to work at eleven o'clock at night and get off at seven in the morning if I could get out on time. Somebody always needed help getting the heavier patients up but we were not allowed to work past the allotted time scheduled. “Sorry, Got to go" was always heard right when you were in a compromising position with a patient. They didn't care if you dropped someone or not it wasn't on them they were off the clock.
I'd come home and stink to high heaven just as Charles was leaving for work. The kids were already off to school. The yellow bus would come and pick them up at the driveway and take them to Highland school. They hated changing schools from Troy. I hated it too because Troy was such a good school. Chuck had made a lot of friends there. He even had a girlfriend on the old bus he used to ride! He was in kindergarten at the time! Jenny was popular in Highland but Chuck missed his old school and wasn't comfortable with the new kids. He did get the lead in the school play playing Joseph in the Christmas play. He had a singing part and would not show us his singing ability at home. He wanted to surprise me at the play. Imagine our surprise when he sang in a booming voice very unlike a first grader. He was so good and not a bit shy! Everyone clapped so loud! We had to buy him a robe for his costume and he had a staff. I don't remember who played Mary.
I thought in the beginning I could come home and sleep until noon and still be able to watch TV and do my housework just like I had before I started working. After a few days I started to wear down. I was a nervous wreck and short tempered. After about two weeks I couldn't take it any more and started to sleep until three pm. It would be no time and it would be ten o’clock. Everyone else would be getting ready for bed and I had to stay up and get ready for work.
One night I begged Charles to let me quit. I sat in the car and cried and cried, I didn't want to go back there and face all those poor people who had no choice but to be there. I started getting better and better at it and the other nurses and aides said I was the best nurse's aide that worked there. I started CNA classes that lasted about a month and a half, got my certificate and then later I started CMA classes, certified med tech, I learned of LPN classes starting in July, of 1988.Mrs. Fritch paid for the CNA classes and the Med Tech classes but the LPN classes I had to get financing from the government. A Pell grant would pay for it and I wouldn't have to pay it back. They allowed us to apply for a student loan as well in case we needed gasoline getting to Atchison etc. That, we had to pay back but we didn't have to pay it back until after we graduated and had a job working as a nurse. I notified the home that I would be quitting to go to nursing school. I wanted to be a nurse, because at the home the nurses sat behind the desk and wrote in the charts and they didn't have to be out on the floor lifting heavy patients and doing dirty laundry or cleaning the patients. They would go into a room and call for an aide to clean up in room so and so. They pushed a medicine cart around and took their time, while we were going crazy trying to get done before the allotted time when we were scheduled to go home.
I got paid one time a month about 400.00 clear. I paid the bills for the whole month with that check and we bought groceries and gasoline and whatever we wanted with Charles' check he got every week. For once we were actually living comfortable.
Stony got out again so I called the man, the horse trader in Highland we bought him from, and he came and got him. I was sad again but I couldn't keep chasing him and putting him back in so that an hour later he'd be out again. Silver would get out too but I wasn't going to sell him like I had Red without Charles' permission.
Jenny would go out and get him and put the bridle and bit in his mouth and jump upon Stony, bareback and ride whenever she felt like it. She would put Chuck on his back and lead him around but every time she would turn a corner he would fall off. Our little cowboy never got the hang of how to ride, and showed absolutely no remorse. He rode his bicycle after a couple weeks after his fall into the dirt and seemed content with that. I’d talked Charles into having a vasectomy after Chuck was born because we thought a boy and a girl was enough. Children were expensive and we didn't have insurance anymore.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:53:00.000-05:00

I believe the name of that movie was "Gremlin's".I had all these rabbits in hutches out back behind the tool shed so instead of buying regular guinea pig food I fed them rabbit food since I had bought rabbit food in 50 lb sacks. The guinea pigs started acting funny and I noticed bleeding coming from the rectal area. I called the vet in Highland and asked him what the problem was and he said rabbit food doesn't contain vitamin C which rabbits make continuously just as humans do but guinea pigs don't and have to have it in their diet every day. I lost both guinea pigs due to my ignorance.
Clyde and Mary Ann and Kathryn would come up some weekends and we'd have them walk up to the bluffs to a cross that a man had planted there. It was high in the hills and overlooked the Missouri River. Clyde and Mary Ann smoked and were having a hard time climbing the hills! We were laughing at them while they were huffing and puffing and complaining they were too old for this! Clyde bought a three-wheeler and a cart that we pulled behind it and used that to haul food and supplies so that we could have a wiener roast. King was getting older but he happily followed behind until he got so worn out he could hardly follow us anymore. We picked him up and put him in the cart (or wagon) so he could ride.
When we still had Stony, Charles and I would ride the horses across the way to Mr. Spark’s old dilapidated two story house that he and his wife lived in during the spring months, and then they would go to New York in the summer months and spend winter in San Francisco. His wife hated that house. It didn't have plumbing and they had to use an old outhouse that didn't have a door. One day while we were riding and King was following behind us we went through their drive way to get permission to go on their property to see a place everyone in the county called The Little Grand Canyon. We knew that part of the Little Grand was on his property. He said he didn't care but his wife was in the outhouse at the time with no door and flew out grabbing her pants and panicking because she was afraid of dogs. King ran right up into their yard and about gave her a heart attack. We were told from then on we could come on the property with the horses but King had to stay home. We didn't know how to keep him home; we didn't have a fenced yard. We’d yell at him to stay but he loved to follow along behind the horses so we just didn't go up there any more. We learned later that she, Mrs. Sparks, had died. By later I mean several years later. Mr. Sparks died too, a few years after that.
After we sold Stony the citizens in the county would come on Sundays and bring their horse trailers and tie the horses to the wood fence next to the yard by the road. They’d saddle up their horses and go on trail rides through the hills and bluffs. We only had the one horse now. Sometimes we'd take turns riding and walking and one of the trail riders would give Charles a lift and they would double up. We rode across creeks and through water I didn't think Silver would go through. He’d see the other horses go and he'd want to follow them. He didn't balk too much. I wish I had known about all the trails when I still had Stony.
At Christmas time I invited about 18 people to come for Christmas dinner. On Christmas Eve the jets went out of the stove in the kitchen. I was panicked and called John Whetstine, Big John, and he told me to call the hardware store in Highland of it was closed but I got the name from Big John and the guy was willing to meet me at the hardware store. We bought the supplies we needed and I seem to recollect Big John said that we could charge it to their account along with a faucet for the kitchen sink. The guy from the hardware store came over and fixed it for us and showed Charles how to fix it; in case there was a next time.
We had the usual fan fare, a large turkey and stuffing, homemade, green beans, sweet potatoes etc. We watched the trees bend without any noise heard from the inside of the house. The Christmas tree was decked out in front of the big picture window. Presents were opened and everyone took pictures of everything that was opened. I loved that little house that seemed to loom out of the woods like Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s cottage, surrounded by the bluffs of the Missouri River.
In the spring of 1989 I graduated from nursing school. I was having a hard time believing I was actually a nurse and was scared to death to actually put my talent to work. We had a job fair from all the hospitals and nursing homes on both sides of the river. I wanted to work for Heartland Hospital in St.Joseph but they only wanted to start out paying 6.47 an hour and the nursing homes were offering more. I wanted to go with the one that paid the most so I signed on for a nursing home in St Joseph. They started out paying 7.00 and hour but promised to give us raise of .75 when we received the long awaited license showing we’d passed the State boards.
In January of 1989 a man that Charles worked with in Wathena said they had an earth home plus twelve acres of land they would take 1000.00 down on and they would go to the bank in Wathena to see that the rest would be put on payments. We had always wanted our own place. We would have plenty of land for the horse and we thought an earth home, a home surrounded by earth on three sides, would be easy to heat. We went to see it and thought how much fun we would have fixing it up and making it our own. We decided to go for it and I used my student loan to pay the 1000.00 down and got all the paper work together so we'd know just how much we needed to pay each month.
We were moving again. I was still in nursing school and had to take myself to and from school in the yellow station wagon we'd bought from Decker’s. , since we lived in Wathena now I couldn’t car pool with the girls from Highland anymore. One day I got as far as Troy on seven highways when the car broke down and I had to walk. Fortunately some other girls I went to school with were on their way to school too and picked me up on the way down. At the end of the day when we were headed home I noticed the car was gone. They took me home and I called Charles who had been named foreman at the Truss Co then and he said he didn't know anything about it. I called Davies Oil Company and he had driven by and saw the car sitting there and took it upon himself to two it back to the station. He charged us an arm and a leg to get it out. We tried to get Decker's to take the car back since it was a piece of junk every since we bought it but they said they wouldn't do it. I think A-1 came and took it off our hands after that.
　
　
　
　
　

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

One day Jenny was taking a long time to come home from school. She was driving the newest car we ever owned and I was very fond of that little car. It was red and had a tape player. I had rediscovered country music. I had bought several tapes and was trying to convince Charles how country music had changed since we met in 1970.Who am I kidding, I loved that little car. While I was waiting for her to get home and pacing the floor, the phone rang. It was the Doniphan county Sheriff's dept. The officer said Jenny had rolled my car about three times on 36 hwy. She had gotten too close to the graveled shoulder and over corrected. He said she was fine and her "companion" was fine as well. She wasn't allowed to see that boy from Sparks and was forbidden to see him anymore. My perfect little car on the other hand was lying in a cold ditch.
When Charles got home we took her to the hospital in Atchison Ks to have her arm checked out. She said she and "the boy"(no names please) were arguing over the tape player. During the roll over she ended up in the back seat and never knew how she got there. Her arm was fine, to her dismay, she knew we were mad, to put it lightly, about the car and the fact she had disobeyed us by having him in the car with her in the first place.
The officer at the scene called Davies' Oil Co to tow the car to our house. Charles was able to fix some of the damage to the body but the engine was totaled. We managed to buy another engine from A-1 auto salvage in Elwood. It took several months before we got the bill paid to have them put in the engine. We had the "new" engine about two months when one day Charles took it out of the garage and drove about five feet. This horrendous crashing noise was heard like breaking glass. It only took a few calls to find out the timing chain in those types of cars is only good for 50,000 miles. The timing was off and long story short all the rods broke into a thousand pieces, so long little red Mercury.
The horses kept getting out, no matter how many times we fixed the fence. They would push against the hot wire, shiver and shake then push a little more until the wire broke. Across the bridge they would go. In the beginning before they knew they could go across the bridge we would come home and look off into the distance in the bluffs of the Missouri river and see a red dot and a white dot, knowing those was our horses. It was such a good feeling knowing they were getting fed. There was a creek running through the property. All we had to provide was a mineral block. We’d bring feed to them only when we wanted to catch them to ride. I remember the long dirt road that wound around to Eagle Springs, and up the steep hills to a point where you could see all four states at the same time. Everything looked so small from up there. The dirt was so fine and Mr. Whetstine, who was county commissioner at the time kept it graded to a fine powder. He, and some other farmers in the county had farmland and cattle to get to back there and had to keep it passable. The other citizens in the county that didn't have land or livestock in that area were less than pleased that their tax dollars was paying for the grading. He also pushed through the increase in taxes to build the cement bridge that replaced the old iron bridge that collapsed in the flood of 1984.There weren't any houses out that way except the house we lived in that he owned and the old two story house way up the hill across from us owned by Mr. Sparks. His family established the town, Sparks, that was named after them.
Eagle Springs was on one of the turns on the dirt road. The natural spring that fed that area sometime over flowed across the road, there was a natural spring fed pool on both sides of the road. On the south side of the road was a swimming pool that was filled with mud, a chimney that was all that was left of a huge hotel that used to stand in the 1950's.Male residents in the county would have their "lodge meetings" there. The story goes that some of the wives happened to stop by one evening and caught their husbands in an "unflattering" light, so to speak, and a fire was started. The hotel was burned to the ground and never rebuilt. It was said to be a grand hotel. The chimney bricks and the thin peeks of cement from the swimming pool was all that was left. The trees and weeds, cattails, frogs and snakes took over the spring and the area became a swamp.
One day Jenny and Chuck and I were riding bicycles along the road. We had gone passed Eagle Springs and up the hill and around the next bend. We turned around to head back home because the next hill was too steep for us to climb or push the bicycles. Jenny headed out first and then Chuck. Chuck always hated for anyone to get ahead of him so was hurrying to catch up and pass her. They headed around the bend toward Eagle Springs and I was at the rear. I suddenly heard a loud cry and knew Chuck had slid in the loose dirt just around the corner out of my site. I hurried to get to him and there he was, and there his bicycle was about ten feet north of him. “I slid on my face! I slid on my face!” He was crying and I looked him over. When I couldn't see anything wrong with him I started to laugh and Jenny came back and started to laugh too! Chuck though wasn't laughing and refused to ride his bike home. He pushed it all the rest of the way home.
Jay, the friend that Charles made at his new job in Wathena, had found a baby raccoon and was treating it like a pet. He had nursed it back to life when its mother had been killed. It was so cute and tame. They called her Bandit of course and gave her to us when it was old enough to eat on its own. Jenny loved that raccoon. We carried her on our shoulders and walked her on a leash like a dog. I’d carry her down to Wolfe river and sit under the bridge while she played in the water. She didn't seem to like the water much. Charles made a cage for her in a hollow of the biggest tree in the yard just south and west of the house. She was starting to get bigger and when she turned 7 months old she started to change. She came in heat and would growl and threaten us whenever we would get near the tree. That made us sad that we couldn't pet her or play with her anymore. One day we went out to feed her and give her water. Her cage had been broken and she was gone. We knew King would chase her off and there were always "coon" hunters with dogs yelping and barking all night while she was gone. We were so afraid the dogs would find her.
About six months later we noticed King's dog food had been tampered with and started to get suspicious but were not willing to hope. When we came home one night from one of the kid's programs there was Bandit on the front porch waiting at the door. Jenny ran over to her not heeding a single warning I gave and started petting her. Bandit jumped and played and made ratty noises, clicking and playing with toys. We laughed so hard! She was scratching Jenny's legs to shreds climbing up on her but Jenny said she didn't care it was so good to be able to see her and touch her one more time. We knew we had to let her out and that would be that. When we did she never came back again.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

We had two dogs, Lucky and King. Lucky ran and played and stayed in the house just as his mother had before him. He would sit and beg and so cute, he too was one of the kids. Charles built a barn for the chickens and ducks we had acquired. We dug a hole and put black plastic tarp down so it would hold water. The hole was about three feet deep and three or four feet across. We had straw in boxes for the chickens to roost and a tall fence around the perimeter of the east side of the barn. When the small pool would get dirty we'd have to drain it and add more water. We had to do this often.
Two weeks after we moved Lucky was missing. We looked and looked and couldn't find him anywhere. I was worried about the cold weather, an ice storm had developed and the temperature had dropped to thirteen degrees. It was getting colder still.
We were selling rabbits and had made rabbit hutches on the south side of the tool shed just east of the garage at the end of the driveway. A family in Sparks, (a town so small if you blinked you'd miss it) the town of Sparks was at the junction of seven highway and thirty six highway), came by to buy some rabbits and we told them about our little poodle, Lucky. He said his neighbor had "acquired" a new little black poodle around the same time we lost ours. We got in the car and headed to Sparks.
We walked up to the little blue house the people told us about. I anxiously knocked on the door. They were sitting in the living room watching T.V.A little black poodle was sitting in the man's lap. I said, “Lucky?" He jumped out of his lap and ran into my arms! I told them I was worried about him being outside in the terrible cold weather and that I was glad he at least was inside where it was warm. He had never been outside for any long length of time before. They said that they saw him down by the new bridge and thought he was abandoned. They didn't ask us if he was our dog they just took him, knowing there was a little red house not more than an eighth of a mile away. We took Lucky home and he never got tired of licking my face the whole four miles it took to get home.
One night someone came by and dropped a mutt dog off with long hair, a Benji type dog. I didn't want to keep it but Chuck and Lucky like him. Lucky and the "rag dog" played constantly, running around the yard at top speeds, barking and jumping on one another, having a high old time.
The light meter was inside the yard and the light man had to drive into the driveway to get to the pole to read the meter. I was inside the house one day when I heard a horn honking outside. I went outside to se what was going on. The woman sitting on the passenger side of the car said, “I think we just ran over your dog!” I just laughed and said, “They play in the yard all the time." They seemed so sober so I looked in the driveway and there lay Lucky. I hollered at Lucky and he didn't move. I went over to pick him up. He was limp and I was still disbelieving my eyes, I kept saying "Lucky" What's wrong with you?” His neck just lolled and I finally came to the realization that my little dog would play no more. I was devastated. I rocked him and cried and laid him lovingly on the trailer in the back of the tool shed by the rabbit hutches. In when Charles came home I couldn't speak. I just cried and cried. Charles could hardly get out of the car without asking me over and over "What the Hell is the matter with you?" I drug him over to the trailer and he said, “What happened?” I tried to tell him but every breath I took was racked with sobs. I finally got my story out.
We filed papers with the court in Troy and explained to the judge that the dogs weren't in the road; they were in their own yard. The man representing the REA, Rural Electric Association's defense was, “We run over a lot of dogs".The judge sided with them.
We went back to the lady in St Joseph that bred Nicole in the first place, we told her we couldn't take the pain any longer and wondered if she had any toy poodles for sell. She said she had an older black poodle that was a tiny toy. She said she would sell her for twenty five dollars because she was ten years old. In our grief we bought her anyway.
Her name was Midnight. Her hair was more grey than black but she was house broken. She didn't do any tricks. I cared for her but she just wasn't Lucky. She wanted me to hold her all the time.
I decided I needed a job. I was so bored with staying home all the time doing housework. I had a regular routine and certain days I did certain things. The house was so clean you could eat off the carpet. Charles had had a fever of 104 degrees one day and couldn't go to work. The wind chill was forty below zero and I insisted he stay home. He was supposed to run a trencher that had no cab on it out in the open field. Frances Gordon the boss and Kansas senator was in Topeka and would not be back for a day or two. I called his wife, Virginia, and explained why Charles couldn't come to work. It was not for trying, Charles kept crawling out of bed and insisted he had to go or Mr. Gordon would fire him. Virginia just said if he couldn't go he couldn't go. When Charles felt like going back to work, about the same time Frances Gordon came home from Topeka, Mr. Gordon didn't understand why Charles didn't go to work under such conditions and Charles told him off and quit. He had been bullying him the whole time he had worked there and was fed up.
He found a job in Wathena Ks about twenty miles away. He was working at Truss Company there making trusses for houses and driving a big rig across a few states to deliver them. A man he was working with and became best friends with, Jay, told him that his wife worked at the nursing home in Highland. It was 1987, March. We had two vehicles then, a 1982 Mercury Lynx and a 1972 Chevelle that Mr. Gordon had given to us for a song to make sure Charles had transportation to get back and forth from work when we still lived south of Troy. Jenny was fourteen at that time and Chuck was eight years old. On Jenny's fourteenth birthday, February 12th, we cleaned out the garage and had a birthday party for her with punch and friends from their new school in Highland. She was starting to notice boys and liked a boy from Sparks. Charles taught her how to drive the Mercury; it was a stick and a small car. She got her permit but was only allowed to drive to and from school. She was allowed to stay after school for drill team practice and drive home when she was done.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:15:00.000-05:00

When we went through San Bernardino we could smell the salt in the air and we knew we were getting close to the ocean. We had left I70 and were on I- 40 soon to be headed for I- 5 and on our way to San Diego. We wanted to go to the famous zoo there and to Sea World. As soon as we got to the KOA camp instead of going to sleep first as we should have, we went straight to the zoo. We were tired and cranky and didn't realize what an undertaking the zoo would be. We hadn't seen much of it considering the size and everyone was so tired. We took a million pictures, as we had all across the country, but when you're tired things just don't seem so great as you have imagined them. We wanted to go to the wild animal park but we knew we only had so much time and we were really starting to count the pennies. We had given the money we had pooled together to Bobby at the beginning of the trip and he controlled the major finances. We kept extra money we had left to eat and do the things we wanted to do. There was a boat that would take people out into the bay and we all agreed we wanted to do that. First we wanted to see Sea World. We slept that night and started for Sea World the next morning. It was wonderful! We saw everything we could and I had earrings made from oyster pearls we caught in a lagoon. We went inside an aquarium and saw lots of sharks from various sizes. We couldn't believe how big some of the sharks were. There were shows with Walruses, one was even named Clyde! We had tried to get our brother Clyde to come along on the journey but he wouldn’t. We thought how we would tease him about that walrus when we got home!
When it was time to go home I was sad and hated to leave California and the sea gulls that seemed to be everywhere. We had gone to the beach one day and spent all day there. We all got terrible sunburns and by the time we got to Flagstaff Arizona to see the Grand Canyon I started to peel. My face was coming apart, literally. I didn't want anyone to see me and did not want to go to the little store at the KOA campground in Arizona because of my face and the fact there were Indians camped nearby. I had never seen Indians except in westerns and was a little uneasy. They were dressed out in their "Indian finest" and looked like any Indian tribe you'd see on T.V. It was a gimmick I'm sure but still, with me looking like a lizard and everyone running off and leaving me at the store, getting lost and so forth it was no wonder I was ready to cry when I finally found my way back to the trailer. Bobby was bright red. He never tans. His skin is as white as snow, and always burns. I couldn't believe I was so sun burnt! I never got sun burnt this bad at home and I hardly ever peeled. The sun in California is brighter and hotter than at home. Without the humidity that we have at home we couldn't tell it was that hot. The ocean made it seem cool and it was only in the eighties. At home our July's are hot and humidity so thick one could slice it with a knife.
We took the southern route back home. After seeing the beauty of the Grand Canyon at sunset with the hues of pink and orange surrounded by steep crevasses we headed home through New Mexico, more Indians, then through Texas and back up through Colorado where we stopped in Colorado Springs to visit the Gorge with the bridge only big enough for very brave cars to traverse. We got out and decided to walk across; it seemed the safest thing to do, unless you have acrophobia like Mary Ann and me. I got as far as the middle and held on.that was not one of the finest pictures I'd ever taken I can assure you, with a little prodding and pulling Charles got me off the bridge and back to the trailer. We headed home in pained silence and headed back on I- 70, across Kansas and finally to Kansas City so Bobby could pick up his paycheck. He worked for the Burlington Railroad. I counted the money I had left. Mary and Bobby were starting to worry about the money we had spent but when everything was counted I had 20.00 left. They were broke! We had to loan them money for gasoline to make it the rest of the way home. When he got his check cashed he paid us back.
When we walked into their house trailer that night, Kathryn and Clyde were there to greet us. We laughed and told stories of the time we had. We couldn't wait to get all the pictures developed.
Moving to Highland was no easy feat. We had the truck loaded down and had no horse trailer to move the horses.
we weren't looking forward to loaded him anyway. We started moving in November while the weather was still good. I rode Stony while Jenny was to ride Silver. I got a ways ahead of her and couldn't understand what was taking her so long. I finally decided to go back and check and she was walking alongside Silver holding the reins and looking a little disgruntled. I asked her what the hold up was and why she was walking instead of riding and she said, “He started acting up and bucked me off!” He seemed to be limping slightly so we figured he had a stone in his foot. We lifted his foot and checked but couldn't see anything but that didn't mean he didn't have a stone bruise some where. We waited at a house where 36 hwy met the graveled road we had been traveling on. The man who lived there had a horse trailer and agreed to load the horses to our new house in Highland. We were looking forward to riding the distance but it was a long ways and I don't think we would have made it. It was about 15 miles away. Charles had come back to check on us and helped load the horses. While we were waiting for the bridge to be finished and we could move by way of the main highway we put up a hot wire around the north side of the driveway. There was a lot of grass there. With two horses though, it didn't take long before it was depleted and we had to search for more. The neighbors said we should let the horses run loose in the hills because that was what they did with the cattle. Unfortunately the cattle would not cross the bridge. The horses didn't either until they discovered they could. They started getting out on a daily basis and every evening when Charles got home we went up and down “7” highway looking for them. We’d catch them by the halter and I'd ride one and Charles would drive with one hand and pull the horse alongside with the other.
We told Whetstines about the problem and they said they had some property just south and to the east of our house that was supposed to be land that sits. Tall brome grass, ideal for horses, grew there. They said if a government man came snooping around we'd have to get them out of there. So we put up the hot wire and put in the horses.
When Nicole had had those puppies we had given one to Mary Ann, Pierre, and we kept one too. We called him Lucky to keep him safe. After Suzy killed Casey we gave her to someone from the paper after we had put in an ad.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:08:00.000-05:00

their choice. The bedrooms were really small.Between the two outside bedrooms there was a large room. We were told this was a sewing room. The bathroom was off of that room. It was tiny but it had a bathtub and a shower.
The cockatiel I had traded the love birds for died when one day I had been practicing piano and Chuck was playing in the kitchen of the old house with Suzy, she was the Pekinese that we had gotten to replace Dusty when he again followed the ditch and was lost. After three weeks of searching and not seeing hide nor hair of him we gathered the worst. One day I heard this scratching on the door. When I checked it was Dusty! Dusty appeared to be fine and we were glad to see him.
Chuck and Suzy were playing in the kitchen. She always got excited when she was around the bird. Chuck asked her if she wanted to see the bird and took the bird out of the cage. Casey was the bird's name. Casey was very tame and would walk on your fingers, using them as a ladder. Casey was afraid of the dog and fluttered off Chuck's finger. Suzy jumped up and grabbed the bird. Every bone in Casey's body was broken. I came into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about and found Casey on the floor by the washing machine. I was so mad and crying, I took the broken bird to the barn where Charles was working. I told him what Chuck did. I don't remember much about it I was so upset. Chuck tells me he got a whipping but I just blocked out everything.
We got another cockatiel and we place him in the sewing room. This bird just wasn't the same as Casey. He wasn't as tame and would fly all around the house. I couldn't catch him long enough to hold him still to clip his wings. He wasn’t Casey so I didn't put forth much effort to train him. One day a Jay bird was flying around outside and the new bird was screaming at the top of his lungs. He could see the jay outside flying by the window. I heard a crash, when I went to investigate; the jay had flown into the window, which was closed at the time, and the bathroom door which was open. Landing head first into the side of the toilet!
Dusty had developed some kind of disease and no matter what kind of loving care I gave him he died in the big barn. I never knew what was wrong I just thought I would encourage him to eat soft foods, force feeding him if I had to. He kept coughing and gagging. He acted like he had a sore throat. He spit up a lot of clear phlegm. Since it wasn't green I ruled out infection. I had been riding Stony and Silver always got upset when we'd take one of the horses out and leave the other behind. We think Silver stomped him and killed him but we don't know if he was already dead before that or not. He was out of the barn and in the lot with Silver when we found him.
We also got to go on vacation with Mary Ann and Bobby and their family. We planned a trip to San Diego in July of 1985 before the move to Highland in December. They had bought a fifth wheel trailer. It was very nice with all the amenities you would need. The kids, Chuck, Jenny, Connie and Kelly rode in the fifth wheel and Bobby, Mary Ann, Charles and I were scrunched up in the front seat of the pickup. The pickup was new but it only had a six cylinder motor. The fifth wheel was huge for the little truck to pull. We drove all the way across Kansas on I70 through the mountains of Denver Colorado. The scenery was so beautiful. We stopped at KOA campgrounds on the way. I picked up pretty rocks I found in every state.
In Utah we stopped because there was "hill" that had a path leading up from the road to the top. We talked Bobby into stopping so we could climb. Everyone got out and Charles and I started to climb, and climb, and climb. I have always been a little frightened of high places after I grew up. I didn't notice how high it was until I heard Mary Ann yell for me to look at her and smile! I turned around and there were these little ant people staring up at me with tiny cameras! I sat down and it was awhile before I could stand up again. Charles had already made it to the top and Jenny wasn't far behind. I forced myself to keep going because I knew I'd never get the chance again in my lifetime. When I got to the top it was just a thin line between the edge and about a thousand feet below to the ground. Charles was skimming the top carelessly without a care in the world! Now I had to figure out how to get back down. I slid some on my behind but the ground was rocky and sandy. I couldn't endure the pain of that exit, so I planted my feet and walked down.
It was a hundred and ten miles from Green River Utah's gas station to the next station the sign said so we had to fill up the truck there. The land was really pretty .The hills were made of rock and had a pinkish cast to them. All you could see for miles and miles was desert and rock formations.
I can't recall the name of the next town, 110 miles from Green River but we stopped there and got more gasoline. Going up and down the rocky mountains in Colorado was slow going and it took a lot of gasoline.I70 would take you up sometimes 10 miles before you could come back down again. Mary Ann made Bobby take it slow all the way sometimes not going more than 2 miles an hours. She thought of the worst, what if the trailer somehow became unhitched from the truck etc... It was a fifth wheel and it wasn't like it was connected to the truck with a ball and a hitch.
We traveled through Nevada and stopped at a KOA camp in Las Vegas. We unleashed the truck from the trailer and decided to go to the Hoover Dam just outside of Vegas. The road leading to the dam was narrow and steep. Mary Ann who is also afraid of heights couldn't take the experience much longer so we headed back to the camp. We drove through Las Vegas at night to see all the lights and Charles and I stopped at the little gift shops along the old strip. The new strip wasn't what it is today, I don't think they were finished building it yet. It was over 110 degrees Farenheight. There was air conditioning in the trailer, Thank God. The heat would drive you back as soon as you opened the door. We waited until evening to check out the campsite. There were swings and merry go rounds for the kids to play on. Connie and Kelly took turns to see who could make Chuck fly off the of the carousel type go around. Charles and I rented these go carts and drove them around the park. That was fun. There was a man with a guitar singing in the shade of a big tree by the concession stand. I thought surely he would be famous some day. Maybe he is; I don’t recall his name.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-04T08:02:00.000-05:00

She was trying to come home without the dogs chasing her off. She had been gone for a week. We found her mangled body behind the barn. Her cat collar with the little bell still attached to her neck. I had heard the combine running around the field a week before. I thought I had heard a shrill scream but thought it was my imagination.
Charles had talked to a farmer's wife north of Troy and told her about the puppies and Bobby. She said if we wanted to give her away she would take her. When she came to see Bobby we gave her to the woman and said our goodbyes.
Charles wanted another horse too. We saw in the paper a man had an Arabian gelding he'd sell for 250.00.The horse was green broke but like red before him he showed considerable affection for Charles and he wasn't leaving without the grey Arabian we named Silver. They loaded him in the trailer with the help of some kind of prod. They delivered him to our home. Stony was thrilled and Silver reciprocated. Every morning early he would ride the "silver glider" before he left for work. I, too, attached a very long lead and practiced turning him in circles. Around and around I made him go. First he would go one way and then the other. I’d stand in one place and pull the lead, about twenty feet long, one way or another. He would go one way easily but the other way he reared up and didn't want to go. We figured his wolf teeth in the back of his mouth needed filed and that was probably why. Even after his teeth were floated he still didn't want to turn that certain way. With many weeks of this training and Charles riding him every morning he was safe to ride and Jenny even rode him. He was so smooth to ride you could hardly feel any jolt at all, even while trotting. Terre had been "five gaited" but even she didn't have as smooth a ride. I still preferred Stony because he was fine broke and neck reigned like Terre. Like Red, I couldn't ride him and Charles didn't like riding Terre or Stony. Neck reigning meant that just placing the reins against the neck opposite the side you wanted to turn. If you wanted to turn right, you pulled the reins to the right and the rein on the left side of the neck would signal the horse to turn right and vice versa. Red and Silver had to be turned with each reign.
We enjoyed our little house, it was easier to heat and we didn't have to cut wood every weekend. One weekend we put Stony in the back of the pickup we had with stock racks, no problem. Silver wouldn't go in the truck no matter how hard we tried. We wondered how the man got him in the trailer when we bought him and that was when I remembered they had used an electric prod. I had always heard one could not use a cattle prod on a horse, they could die instantly. We didn't have one but by the time we finally got him in the truck and got the tail gate up I'd wished I had had one! Charles couldn't get the horses to do what he wanted because he had no patience and always depended on me to do the job. Charles was a lot stronger than me. Together we managed in time to get them to the parade in Troy. We rode them in the parade and Stony was used to the noise of loud honking and of course they put us behind a fire truck that blew its loud horn every block. Silver jumped with every noise. Charles was riding him and he wasn't worried about it. It took awhile to get him back in the truck but it seems like we had help this time with the more experienced horsemen at the parade. It was just too much work, so we didn't go again. We sold the horse trailer Charles had made for Terre with her picture drawn on the side of it and painted when we had sold Terre and Red.
In March of 1984 we had gotten word that Steve, Thelma’s youngest boy who was 22 years old then had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Omaha Nebraska where he worked as manager of Godfather's pizza. He was late for work and ran out without his helmet. He had always promised his mother he would be careful and never go without his helmet and he had kept that promise until that day. He was a block from his work when a car pulled out of his driveway right in front of Steve. He had slammed on the brakes and skidded, hitting the car flying over it and landing on his head. He was on life support when his brain started to swell. The brain stem gets squeezed and shuts off the involuntary reflex that keeps the heart beating and the lungs breathing without you having to remember to do it. They removed his life support on Sunday and the wreck happened on Friday. We headed for Nebraska for the funeral.
It was a very sad time in our family. Thelma had lost her youngest son. She and Steve did everything together. Her husband, Bob, was working then and she was retired. Steve still lived at home and he was her best friend. We went home with heavy hearts.
It was getting more difficult to keep up with the rent payments. The rent at this house was 125.00 a month. The highest rent we'd ever had to pay. There was a little house in Highland in the bluffs of the Missouri river. It was surrounded by hills and about a mile east of highway 7. The Whetstine family owned it but the flood of '84 destroyed the iron bridge over Wolf River that you had to cross to get to the property. There was a back way from the town of Fanning but it was a dirt road. When it rained it was a deep muddy mess. They wanted us to wait until the new cement bridge was finished before they rented it. When the bridge was finished they called and said we could move if we were ready. We notified our current landlord we were moving. The rent in Highland was 175.00 a month but it was so much closer to his work at Gordon's construction company. It was the nicest place we had ever lived. The yard was huge. There was a little creek in back. Charles built a little bridge across it. The house had an attached garage with a remote control. It had a foyer that opened to a carpeted living room, a huge picture window that had three paned glasses to keep out the cold. It not only had a furnace that ran on propane but it had a square wood stove in the kitchen we used most of the time and only used the furnace if the temperature went below 60 degrees. This way we didn't have to get up in the night to rekindle the flames and add another stick or two of wood.
There was a deep cistern and they had told us they couldn't remember a time it ever went dry. If it was a really dry year it might get low but tell them and they would bring us water to put in it. You had to step up a step to get in the kitchen. It was carpeted too with "indoor and outdoor carpeting".The kitchen was modern with solid wood cabinets and a double sink. The bedroom was not real big, but much bigger than what we had. There were three other bedrooms so the kids had
　
　
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My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:52:00.000-05:00

We fixed that though because we couldn't afford to buy that much feed. Charles built a fence from the barn to the edge of the front of the property. It didn't take very long and the grass was so short it couldn't grow. I started leading him down the ditch alongside the road. He couldn't be trusted to stay in the yard like Dandy. It had been hard to get the farmers to part with any of their pasture, even when we lived in Denton we offered to rent some pasture from them and no one would. Every year they would say "It's going to be a hard winter!” No matter what kind of winter it was, it was always going to be a hard winter. Those two years it was a hard winter with allot of snow. When we still had Dandy, it wasn't a very hard winter but we had snow on the ground. Dandy was so slow and acted more like a dog than a horse. Charles put Chucky on Dandy's back. He was supposed to lead him around and get him used to riding. Dandy was so easy going that he thought Chuck would be alright letting go of the lead. As soon as Charles let go Dandy knew he was free! He took off and headed across the road. Chuck fell off into the ditch filled with snow! I about had a heart attack. I’d never seen that horse move so fast. Terre would never have done that. We got the horse and Chuck got up and walked across the road towards the house. It was hard to get him on the horse after that. Our little cowboy we couldn't wait for had no interest in horses or wearing a cowboy hat etc. We couldn't get as attached to that horse as we did the others.
One day we saw that there was an oval above ground swimming pool in the paper, cheap! We bought it and Charles prepared the ground and went to work putting it up. We had a big sand filter and a skimmer, all the accessories we needed. When we got it up and filled Charles built a big wooden deck around it. It was so pretty and the water was so clean, the liner made the water the water look blue. We had to watch Stony to keep him from leaning over the side and getting a drink.
We invited my family over one Sunday for a barbecue on the deck and swimming. Everyone including Bobby and Barbara, Clyde, Mary Ann, Floyd Mae and Kathryn were coming. They had spent all morning cooking and getting ready to go. We were all excited about them coming over; no one came over any more. While we were waiting we had decided to go to Rockport north of St Joseph to check out something we had seen in the paper about horses. Thinking we would only be gone an hour or so, we left. We didn't realize how far away Rockport was from St Joseph! It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when we got home. No one was there yet. I called to let everyone know we were home and everyone was mad and said they weren't coming now! Barb had made fried chicken and potato salad etc not counting what everyone else was going to bring. Everyone always follows Clyde and he said he had to go to work on Monday and he wasn't coming so late on a Sunday. So no one came. I was so disappointed and felt so stupid to leave when we had planned a barbecue. We didn't realize Rockport was sixty-five miles north of St Joseph. It took us over an hour to get there, plus time there and another hour and a half back. We couldn't get anyone to come up there and see the pool and the deck again.
We had several rabbits in hutches down by the barn. In the summer it was close to 100 degrees. The rabbits were getting too hot. They would not move around as they usually did. I realized what was happening and carried them to the pool. The pool was four feet deep and I could barely reach over the side but I held those rabbits one by one and slid them back and forth in the cool water and revived most of them. One rabbit gave a scream and died of a heart attack in my arms. These weren't your every day ordinary rabbits. There were white ones and some that looked liked Siamese cats. They all were named after Disney characters from Bambi. I didn't have any luck breeding rabbits. They killed their young soon after birth if they were ever pregnant at all. It gave new meaning to the old saying” breeding like rabbits".I didn't know what they meant because we sure couldn't get those rabbits to breed. I always wanted to sell bunnies at Easter. But every time I thought they were due, there wouldn't be any bunnies to sell. We always bought books for every critter we had. We followed the books to the letter as far as housing, nesting materials, breeding boxes, sexing-males and females, when to put the male in and when to take him out. We followed gestation timetables, the whole rigmarole. Very seldom would we have little bunnies to sell for Easter.
One day Charles went to St Joseph and brought home a beautiful collie named Bobby. I don't know why she was named Bobby. We didn't name her that. She was so pretty. He said he knew I had always liked Lassie and brought her home to me. I brushed her hair and the kids played with her. King thought he had died and gone to Heaven. When it came time for her season we took her to Wathena where there was a man who had a collie just like her only male. He kept her for a week until the "deed" was done. Sixty three days or so later a litter of seven was born. She didn't seem too interested in lying down and letting them suckle and I complained to Charles about it and he just said" let nature take its course." The puppies cried continuously and were practically screaming at times. Slowly one by one they began to die. Bobbie’s teats were full of milk but every time they would latch on she'd get up and move so they couldn’t. I began to prepare the lactating milk that we had left over form the calves and tried to hand feed them. They were either too weak by this time or there was something wrong because they would not eat. I didn't have a bottle except the big bottle for the calves. That, of course, wouldn't work for their small mouths. When they were born they were active and fat and fluffy. Finally there was only one left. Bobby would whine and be so protective of this last one. She licked him constantly and kept him so close to her. One day I heard something outside the door on the front porch. She had had the puppies in the barn which was quite a ways from the house. I checked the door to see and there was Bobby with the last puppy. It was dead and she had licked all the hair off of him trying to stimulate some life into him. It was so sad. She whined and kept pushing the puppy toward me as if I could bring him back to life.
Bobby would chase and kill the few chickens I had left. We started tying her inside the barn but the chickens would try to get the dog food out of her bowl King and Bobby would join together and chase my white Angel cat away from the house. Charles wouldn't let me have a litter box in the house so I had to let her out. She met her fate in front of a combine.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

The water bed was so big and the room was so small we didn't think we'd ever get the bed in there. The old house was huge; this one was so small we didn't really know how we were going to get all our furniture to fit. The biggest room was the kitchen. The bathroom was small; only one person could use it at a time.
At the old house Della's Charlie's family had an old farm house and inside it was an old upright piano. Not unlike the one Orville's wife Betty had when we lived in Wallace. He said we could have it if we could get it out of their house and home without destroying it. We did, and Jenny started piano lessons in 1981.We took her to lessons every week on a Saturday. She had a piano recital and she was done. I started taking piano lessons from her, and then it wasn't long before I started taking them from a teacher at the music store in St Joseph. We had to sell or give away that old piano when we moved and bought a used piano that had 10 less keys than a full sized piano. It was missing just a few keys on both ends, keys I was assured I'd never use. It turned out they were right. We placed the new shorter version, a spinet, yellow piano in the living room with the pretty bay window. When the kids were in school I played the piano all day until they got home. With all the practice I got quite good and they were amazed when they would get off the school bus and hear me playing classical music that Jenny hadn't gotten to in her John Thompson beginner piano books. There were five books from first to fifth and the beginner elf book plus a primer. I had a recital too. Mary Ann and Floy Mae came along with Jenny, Chuck, and Charles. I believe Della came too. I didn't quit after my recital and continued my lessons with a teacher at Lanham Music co. Her name was Lois. I really liked Lois a lot. Charles didn't like anything I did including crochet. He’d get mad when the lesson ran long, which it often did because like me, Lois was a talker. Sometimes my lesson wouldn't start until it was supposed to be over and Charles was ready to go home. He’d shop at the new Wal-Mart store, the one that bought out Wool co, on Frederick Avenue and the Belt highway.(later it moved from that location and they built a super Wal-Mart store on north Belt highway on the way to Savannah.)He didn't have much money to spend and it got boring to just walk around for a half hour. He’d come to take me home and find out I hadn’t even started yet.
One day when he was growling about how we had to spend money on gasoline and 5.00 for the lesson, he backed out of the driveway and ran over a white kitten I had named Miracle. It was a kitten that Angel had had not too long after we moved there. She had had a few the night before and I had prayed that she would have one pure white one like her. The next day she had one more and sure enough it was exactly like her! I thought what a miracle! From that day on she was known as Miracle. I couldn't believe when we heard the sickening bump and looked out the window of the car little Miracle was lying in the road. It was like God loaned her to me for a little while just to take her back a few weeks later.
On Chuck's fourth birthday in October of 1983 I bought him a twenty inch bicycle with training wheels and it wasn't long before Charles took them off and Chucky was riding all over the yard. Jenny, at ten years old, learned to ride too. She had a 26 inch bike that Charles had put together from frame up. We used to go to the iron recycling place in St Joseph and buy bike parts, the frame, handle bars etc.
The house had a wall furnace and was worthless for heating that little house unless you stood right in front of it. Even then there was barely enough heat coming out of it to feel. Charles rigged up a wood stove and opened a window for the flu to go out. This caused a back up, as the draw wasn't that good and sometimes the house would fill with smoke. At least we were warm most of the time.
There was a huge barn on the property where we stored our "leftovers".I contacted a man in Highland who sold horses and bought a dun colored horse. I rode him and didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary, He was big and an orange color with a white stripe down his nose. We bought him for 500.00 or less and I rode him almost every day. He stayed in the back yard and in the barn at night. Charles fixed the barn to have a stall. I don't know why he stayed in the yard like a dog. I don't think we had him staked out. We had learned our lesson in Denton. We had tried to tie out other horses and they would fight the rope and get rope burns on their legs. These were terrible friction burns and slow to heal. When we let him eat along the roadside ditch I'd have to go with him and lead him around on a long lead connected to his halter. This would take a good part of the day.
I needed to go to Troy one day to get my driver's license renewed. Charles had to have the car to go to Highland to work so I saddled up Dandy and away I went. The only problem with Dandy was he had to be swatted with a stick to keep him going. That was the longest four miles of my life! He’d start then he'd stop. He wanted to stop and grab the leaves from the trees and eat the grass in the ditch alongside the road. I found out later that he had been owned by someone who had trained him with spurs so all the kicking and switching I did was like a fly pestering. I put him in the paper after that day. A lady said he looked like a horse she used to have a long time ago. She bought him and I complained to the man in Highland I had bought him from so he introduced me to Stony. Stony was a registered Quarter horse. He had been in shows and was blood red with a big long blaze down the front of his face. He was beautiful. He was sixteen years old but he was so shiny and frisky everyone thought he was much younger. Stony rode very well except when I pushed down on the stirrups and pulled back on the reins he would tuck his head under and come to a full stop. I don't know how many times I almost went over his head. I called a few people who would know about this behavior and several people said the same thing, that he had been a barrel racer. It didn't take too long to retrain him, that when I push down on the stirrups and pull back on the reins that just meant stop. I had learned to ride from the best, meaning Terre, who taught me everything. Terre and I learned from each other and what I didn't know she did. She could understand everything I said and did in the saddle. Stony was easy to ride and Jenny would go out and put the bit and bridle on and climb upon him bareback anytime she felt like riding. The people who owned him before was giving him a five gallon bucket full of oats every day and he was so greasy and fat it was hard to keep the saddle on tight enough.
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:29:00.000-05:00

He was a young dog not more than a year old but fully grown. He was afraid of storms and would whine and bark until we'd get up and let him inside. We’d put him in the mud room at the entrance to the hall below the stairs. Very well behaved, he never soiled the house. Although we never tried to house break him. He was an outside dog, someone had trained him well. When the pigs got out again all I had to say was, “Bring ‘em in King!' I'd wave my arms wide and he knew immediately what I meant. As soon as they would see King they would come out of the high weeds and come to investigate. Pigs are very curious animals and were not afraid of anything. King would bark and they would come to see and he'd lead them to the pig pen. His tail would wag and his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth like he was saying," What else do you want me to do?” Herding pigs was much easier when King was around!
Now that we had a place with pasture I, of course, wanted another horse just like Terre. I knew Terre was special and it would be hard to find another horse like her. Nicole was grown now, the puppy that Charles had bought for Christmas in 1977.She had had a litter of puppies and we gave one to Mary Anne. She named it Pierre. When the puppies were being born I could see that she was having a hard time so I boxed up Nicole and took her to the veterinarian in Troy. I had called him first because it was late at night and he said he would meet me at the office. I drove as fast as I dared to the office and had to help him deliver the puppies by cesarean section. I had never helped deliver anything before but he assured me all I had to do was rub them down as soon as he handed them to me. I rubbed like mad, stimulating stimulated them, and soon I had about six little full blooded black poodles in the box along with an unconscious Nicole. We had taken her to the groomer's who also bred dogs and she was bred by a very small toy poodle. Nicole was a toy poodle too but not really small like he was. It took forever for her to wake up and the puppies wanted to nurse. I called the vet and he said to keep stroking her and encouraging her to wake up. Finally she did to my relief. Nicole was treated as one of my children. She was very possessive of me and our family as well as her box. Everyone that came to visit knew to stay away from that box. She was well trained and usually did what she was told, hardly leaving my side.
I found a palomino in the paper. The prices of horses had gone up considerably and you couldn't find a well trained horse like Terre was for 350.00 anymore, let alone one that had been in horse shows. Mr. Hodges said he had a palomino that he had gotten from an auction up north where the wild horses were gathered by the government. He said he was green broke but he had the same markings as Terre. He was a gelding, very thin. We thought we could fatten him up on grain and pasture grass but he was still thin.
After we had taken the hogs to market and had one butchered, safely tucked away in the freezer downstairs we bought another hog and made the mistake of petting her. She’d roll over and begged to have her tummy rubbed. Charles kept telling me not to make a pet out of that hog because she was going to have to go to market or butcher sooner or later. She didn't act like the other hogs. She acted more like a dog.
The more I thought about that horse the more I wanted him. I don't remember how much Mr. Hodges wanted for that horse I just remember that it was 25.00 more than we had. I had called a dog breeder in South St Joseph that the first breeder had said wanted Nicole. I didn't think I could do it, but I thought I would just go down and talk to her anyway. Her name was Mrs. Henderson. I brought Nicole in and she wanted her and said she would give me the 25.00 I needed for the horse. I didn't want to give up my dog. A dog I had treated like my child for 3 years. I didn't see any other way if I wanted to buy that horse so we put her in the fenced in yard to go to the bathroom and when we left she barked and followed us as far as she could along the fence as we drove away out of the drive. I started to change my mind, she couldn't believe we were leaving her. I couldn't believe it either.
I gave Mr. Hodges the money for the horse I would later call Golden Boy. Golden Boy turned out to be more trouble than he was worth. Every time I would get to a certain area in the pasture he would buck me off. I’d get back on and do it again and he would do the same thing every time .His back bone was so thin that it hurt him every time I rode him bareback. I had sold all the tack when I sold the horses and hadn't bought a saddle. Ace Williams had died and we didn't know anyone else that used tack. We finally found someone in the paper that had a used saddle, so we bought that. All the feed and hay and supplements didn't seem to help him gain weight and all the horse wanted to do was stand by the fence and stare at that pig! He stay all day and wouldn't move from the fence. The pig too seemed to like his company and they touched noses and seemed to be talking to each other. I finally figure out that the horse needed wormed and he seemed to gain weight but never as much as I thought he should to be normal. I don't know how long he had gone being infested before we got him, We didn't have him too long and we sold him too. I was never that attached to him and cursed myself to this day for selling my dog for that horse. Later we found out who had her about five years later and dropped by for a visit. She still remembered me after all that time and whined and cried and I cried and held her. The lady wanted 100.00 for her and we didn't have the money. It hurt even more the second time I had to go out that door without her one more time. The lady said she could tell that she was my dog, but she wouldn't just give her back to us. I’m sure she bred her over and over and made plenty of money with the sale of her puppies.
Chucky was a year old and started to walk around and around from the living room through the dining room into the kitchen and the hall and back to the living room again. It seems he was afraid to stop because he knew if he didn't keep going he would fall down. We took plenty of pictures. Jenny and I would give him a bath in a plastic bathtub on the kitchen table and he would splash all the water out onto the floor. Jenny thought he was so funny and cute. His hair was blond and curly and Charles wouldn't let me cut his hair, Everyone thought he was a girl when we went to town and I got tired of telling them "He's a boy!"

My first 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:22:00.000-05:00

She called the sheriff and they were sending a car out. She apologized and said she'd call them and tell them it was a false alarm. They came out anyway and I brought Chuck into the house to show them he was ok and that my husband had the car at work. They said they would still have to write up a report because a neighbor had called to complain. They also told me that our little Pekingese was walking away from the house as they pulled up. His name was Dusty and the dog pound gave him to me because he was blind. They were having a hard time selling him and it was getting near the time to put him down. I asked Chuck if he wanted to take a ride in the police car to pick up Dusty. We climbed into the back of the police cruiser and there was Dusty lost, thinking he was going home and instead he was getting farther away.
When we first got Dusty Charles and I took him to Manhattan where they have a veterinary training facility to see if they could restore his eyesight. They said "no" that this was a common ailment in Pekingese dogs because the eyes tend to bulge out and get covered with dust and other particles in his environment. They are more prone to infections. They told me to keep eye drops in his eyes and to keep them moist. Dusty didn't seem to mind his dilemma except for the occasional times he would get lost, he was a happy dog. Chucky and Dusty were inseparable. Dusty was so cute, blond or buff as dog owners would say. Short legged and long with a big feather tail. He had a massive overbite and his teeth would appear as a snarl when he was just sitting. He would sit and beg for treats and was semi house broken, it was hard to tell because Charles wouldn't let me keep him in the house long enough to find out.
One Saturday morning Charles and I woke up and there was smoke coming through the vent in our bedroom. I told him to get up and go down to the basement and fix the damper, as he usually had to do when the wind would blow and the smoke would go back into the heating ducts instead of out the chimney where it was supposed to go because the damper would get stuck and not open. He got up and headed to the hall outside the door and I could hear him yelling, “Jenny! Jenny!"I said "My God, what’s the matter?” He said, “The hallway is filled with smoke and it's coming from Jenny's room!” I jumped up and hollered for Jenny and she came up the stairs wrapped in a blanket, rubbing her eyes. She simply said “What?” He made it into her room where the smoke was so thick and greenish, he couldn't breathe or see but he knew there was a window on the east side of her room, just across the room the room on the west side was her bed, On the bed was an electric blanket. He opened the window and the smoke went out so he could see what started the whole thing. He looked at the bed and in the middle of the bed was a big black hole. The electric blanket was curled up in the middle of the bed. He unplugged the blanket and noticed some wires were broken. Jenny always curled up tight in a fetal position when she slept.
I asked Jenny why it was that she happened to be up at 6 o'clock in the am on a Saturday when there was no school. She said she had a dream that if she didn't get up the big black hole in the middle of her bed would swallow her up, so she got up. She didn't know that there really was a big black hole in the middle of her mattress. He poured water in the middle of the mattress and carried the thing down the staircase and out the front door. As soon as the air hit that mattress it burst into flames, right in the middle of the front yard! We thank our lucky stars every day that Jenny had the insight to get up on a Saturday morning when there was no school. We always thought that old house was haunted. She believes a ghost warned her.
We were always "seeing" forms walking down the stairs when we were in the front room watching T.V and our eyes would be diverted to the staircase. I wasn't the only one that would comment on the outlines of forms of people going up and down the stairs. They must have been friendly because nothing bad ever happened that would leave one to believe an "evil" spirit lived there. If anything, the warning that Jenny got to get up when her bed was burning on a day she would normally have slept until nine or ten o'clock was a good sign we had nothing to fear and we were very grateful "they" were there if indeed "they” were.
We had bought decorative paneling and wood paneling to improve the looks of the place when we first moved there. It needed clothes and items hauled off that the previous renters had left there. We made many improvements on the property since we moved there. One day Mr. Finney came over to see the inside of the place and saw all the improvements and decided to raise our rent from 50.00 a month to 80.00 a month. That angered us because we paid for all the improvements and the labor we did by ourselves. Plus all the hard work of cutting down trees every weekend and cutting and stacking firewood just to keep warm in the winter! So we said we were moving.
We said goodbye to the place in 1983.We loved the varnished oak staircase that curved at the landing and spilled out into the hallway, the big bathroom upstairs and the half bath downstairs in the kitchen, the big dining room where we had had Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner that Kathryn had to fix that year because I had the Flu and couldn't get off the couch. I had always fixed the holiday dinners but I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything that year. I cried and apologized, Kathryn fixed dinner that year without a complaint! I could hardly eat anything. Everything was so delicious looking and I couldn't bear the thought of trying to keep any of it down.
We found a small house on the same main road just east of the big house, south of Della and Charlie’s. We’d sold the cows and the pigs. The chickens got eaten by foxes and weasels. Jenny was 10 yrs old and Chuck was four. We brought King and Dusty and a pure white cat named Angel. We had a cockatiel that was born a month before Chucky in September of 1979.We had a 10 gallon fish tank. In it we had an albino catfish that was about 10 inches long.
The living room had a bay window that looked out toward the road. The rooms were small. It had two bedrooms. Jenny and Chuck had bunk beds that Charles had made and the other bedroom was so small! We had a water bed that we had bought in 1981 when we were both working at Friskies. Charles started making water bed headboards in his spare time.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

We both put applications in at the plant.Charles' brother Richard and his second wife Carol were living with us. They had children of their own. Carol and Richard watched Chucky and Jenny when she came home from school. We both worked at Friskies Foods from Aug until about a week before Christmas. We made 250.00 each every week. We went to auctions and bought antique furniture, tables etc… We were exhilarated for that few months, high on financial freedom for the first time in our married life. But when the bomb was dropped, the exhilaration of that high deflated as a lead balloon. The bills kept coming in as usual and the income was gone. Charles had to find something else more permanent. Carol and Richard moved out and I was back being a stay at home mom again.
We searched the want ads and Charles said a state Representative, who later became a Kansas Senator, in Highland that had a small construction business needed someone to run back hoes and a trencher. Charles had never run any of that type of machinery before. He always said he could drive anything, so he applied and was hired. It was slow going at first. Mr. Gordon, the senator's name, was a rough boss but not entirely unfair. He made him work the fields digging trenches for farmers no matter what kind of weather it was. Driving from Troy to Highland every day and sometimes on Saturdays was starting to get old. The gas prices and increased and because of the current President, there were long gas lines at the pumps. Ronald Regan became President after that and things got better. We watched the hostage crisis on T.V. President Regan hadn't taken office much more than a month after swearing in and the hostages were released. We watched the Winter Olympics and saw the United States beat the Russians in hockey. The gas prices came down and all was right with the world. We saw President Regan's attempted assassination and James Bradley being carried away on a stretcher after taking a bullet meant for Mr. Regan.
On my twenty ninth birthdays Kathryn and Clyde came. We had a pool table in the basement and Charles and Clyde played pool while Kathryn and I stayed upstairs planning the dinner and playing the kids. Kathryn was working for the Calvin Center, a senior citizen haven for older citizens. They planned meals and games for the elderly much like the place in South End that Mama liked to go except it was called the Wesley Center. She had told Jenny that if she would learn to ride her bicycle she would give her 10.00.Jenny always got scared and as much as she would have liked to have had that 10.00 she couldn't balance. We didn't exactly live on a flat surface. Chucky was getting older, about two years old and Kathryn doted on him as if he was her own. She had doted on Jenny too, but with Chucky now the baby he got most of the attention. Jennie showed some jealousy and we used an eight millimeter camera to make a film of Kathryn trying to teach Jenny how to ride that bicycle. She pulled Chucky around in an old Flyer wagon while King jumped up and licked their faces.
On this day with Charles and Clyde being best friends now, in the basement playing pool I didn't understand why they wouldn't let me go down there. Clyde was his rude crude self but it bothered me why Charles was starting to act just like him. Finally Kathryn said she would talk to them and find out why I wasn't allowed to play pool too. When I went down there everyone yelled "Surprise!” I hadn't had a real birthday party before. They had a tablecloth over the pool table and a sheet cake decorated with a farm and animals on top. I’ve kept those plastic farm animals in my dresser and still have them to this day.
Every weekend we would go to the woods below the property and around to cut firewood to fill the coal room in the basement. One especially cold day, the wind chill index was forty below zero. I had my steel toed shoes on that I had had to wear at the plant. When the steel got so cold it froze the toes even through two layers of socks. Kathryn and I would pick up the wood and throw it into the truck and then stack it. Up and down, lifting the heavy wood that Charles and Clyde had cut into two foot lengths give or take a few inches. My back was broken and Kathryn complained too. I finally told the guys that all they were doing was using a chain saw; they had the easy part, so they told me to run the saw and see if I still thought their job was easier. The saw only had a ten inch blade and was light enough but standing in one spot cutting the limbs and the brush off the tree that the guys had felled and not moving my feet, staying bent over all that time was no fun either. When we had gotten the truck filled and headed home to warmth, my feet were nearly frozen. My back ached and I was so tired. We’d scrounge up something to eat and say goodbye.
Della, Charles’ sister, knew how to crochet. I only knew how to knit because my girlfriend at Faucett showed me on a sleepover at her house. Della was determined to show me how to crochet as well. I was delighted to learn and once she started there was no turning back for me. Della started showing signs of impatience. She let me finish a doily she had started and when I couldn't seem to get it right she finished it for me.
Della and her husband Charlie went to Las Vegas in the summer of 1982.I went to Wool co, a new store that had taken over a department store called Community. I went to Wool co and bought some yarn, a crochet hook, and a beginner book to teach myself to crochet. It wasn't long before I was making doilies and Afghans. One day I was making a doily and Chucky was outside with King playing. He was three years old then. The gravel road called Pottawattamie that we lived on was hardly ever traveled and most days not one car would go by. The mailman would come, of course, every day but that was all. King, like most dogs hated the mailman because he was always fooling around with the mailbox and King knew that was our box and shouldn't be touched by anyone but us. On this particular day, I was in the dining room and Chucky was outdoors just playing. There were big windows all around the house and the curtains were sheer and pulled back so I could see him. I heard King barking frantically and looked out of the window and saw Chucky in the yard and King following behind. I thought I heard a pounding on the door at the mud room but didn't see anyone but the baby and the dog so I continued with my work. I had assumed the barking was because it was about time for the mailman. A few minutes later the phone rang and it was a neighbor who had said she drove by and didn't see a car. She thought there was no one home.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

In October of 1980, Chucky was walking and Halloween was on its way. We decided to have a Halloween party at the big house. We invited his family over and bobbed for apples and wore masks. We had the place decorated with black and orange crepe paper and had it hung and twisted together from the ceiling and over doorways. When the party was over and we began to take the decorations down, Chucky was sitting in the floor and the crepe paper fell down and covered him! We laughed and he laughed so we grabbed the camera!
One morning early, Kathy and Lester came to visit about 9 am. We were barely up and I was starting to fix breakfast. They had about four children at this time and I didn't have enough food to go around for all the hungry faces that were peering up at me saying "I want some cereal!” I had to put off fixing breakfast, hoping they would leave soon since we hadn't seen them for a long time, we really didn't have that much to talk about. Charles, of course was outside with Lester puttering around in the garage. We didn't have a car at that time and we were borrowing Della and Charlie's Toyota until we could get our car fixed or another one bought. We went through so many different vehicles it was hard to keep track. Chucky began to cry, I knew it was because he was hungry. I couldn't believe Kathy hadn't fed those kids before she brought them over. Jenny, too, was wondering where her breakfast was, she knew I was getting ready to fix breakfast for them as I had done every day. I tried to console him, I picked him up and carried him around, and he would just get madder and want down. I sat him down on the floor, which ordinarily made him happy. He liked crawling around when he wasn't walking. He just threw a fit and screamed so hard and through himself backward on the floor in a tantrum I had never seen him throw before. I ran to him to see if I could quiet him when his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out. He started turning bluish. I picked him up and ran outside on the porch and yelled for Charles. We apologized to our guests and jumped into the Toyota and headed for Sister's hospital in St Joseph, about twenty minutes away. He was awake and crying and I had Jenny keep an eye on him while we drove at lightening speed, the only speed Charles drove, I told her to keep him awake and not let him go to sleep. By the time we got to the hospital he was already laughing and acting normally. They said they couldn't see anything wrong with him and told us to take him home.
We never had any episodes like that again, we didn't see Kathy and Lester again either. I fed the kids and felt much better, now that they were gone.
We had a big Christmas tree in December and in January we bought some baby calves at a dairy farm in St Joseph. We had to feed them with a bottle. We wrapped the shed where we had kept the hogs in plastic. The temperature was 13 degrees. Charles had been outside in the shed and played with the first (after all the warnings he had given me about making pets out of the livestock).He pushed the calf and the calf would push him back. That calf was so cute. The next morning when I went down to bring him the bottle with the special formula just for calves, I found the little calf was down and wouldn't get up. We had a station wagon and Charles put him in the car and listened to him moo all the way to Atchison Kansas, the only vet hospital that would take him. They hooked him up to all kinds of I.V.’s. He had Pneumonia and died the next day. We lost about two more calves after that one until we bought a little bull calf we named Billy. Billy was a black and white calf that chased me around wanting that bottle. We bought bolus tablets, huge pills that you had to blow down their throats with a sort of plastic pipe to prevent diarrhea in small calves. Billy thrived and soon we were feeding handfuls of feed that we had to force down his throat. Very messy job but we soon had him weaned from the bottle. He still would ram the side of my legs as a calf would when trying to bring his mother's milk down from her teat bag. This was cute until Billy started getting his horns, then it wasn’t so funny. His horns came in long and sharp and he was getting bigger every day. We had a couple of calves that were bigger and already weaned and they taught him to eat the new grass that was coming in for spring. One day when Billy weighed about two hundred pounds or more I couldn't find him anywhere and Charles was working or sleeping I don't remember now, When Charles came home or got up I told him I had been calling Billy's name and he was no where to be found. It was getting dark. Charles was outside with a flash light looking all over the small farm for him. He finally shouted, “Here he is!" He had fallen into a large hole and was covered by some type of junk left by the former renters. Charles climbed into that hole and picked that heavy calf up and carried him out of that hole. I couldn't believe he did it! I was so glad to see him. Charles said he could hear him bleating like a goat! I ran and got the bottle since he wasn't completely weaned. He sure was glad to see that bottle! Charles covered that hole up and Billy never fell in again. As Billy got bigger and his horns got longer, he never got over his bumping me; we took Billy, reluctantly to the stockyards and sold him. He was enclosed in a pen with other cattle and mooed as loud as he could when he saw us drive away. We’d already sold him at an auction so there was no turning back now. I felt so sorry for Billy. We had him "cut" so the only thing left for him was to wait to get fat and, he’d be gone. If we had left him as a bull someone might have wanted him for breeding, but we were having a hard enough time with him, and his horns, the way it was.
In the summer of 1981, A&P went on strike. For at least a week Charles had to go to work and hold up a sign. They don't pay you, of course to picket their store. Kovac’s employees were picketing their store in south end at the same time, Retail Union workers. The workers lost their battle so the 9.00 an hour Charles was making being in the union was going to be reduced to minimum wage which was about 3.50 an hour. We told Mr. Paul we couldn't afford to take such a pay cut, but that was our choice. Charles had to quit his job and look for something else.
Della's husband, Charlie, worked at Friskies, a dog food plant in Elwood Kansas at the time and said they were hiring temporary employees for Christmas. The job would last for 3 or 4 months and that was it until we could find something else.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

In the fall of 1979, Mr. Meng had told us he was going to plant corn in the pasture and all around the house. He'd asked us what we were going to do with the horses then. I had no intentions of getting rid of the horses at that time. I wondered what we were going to do. I knew he wouldn't be planting until spring. Every bit of space was going to be planted, there just wasn't anywhere on the property with enough room. There was a big aluminum barn but no place for stables. The selling of the horses was inevitable.
Four months later in April of 1980 Charles told me about a big 2 story house, (three counting the full attic and four if counting the full basement.)It was setting on about four acres. There were out buildings where the people before us had chickens and pigs. The fences around the property needed mending. There was a porch around the house. The inside had hardwood floors and a wooden banister leading to the upstairs where there were big bedrooms and a full bath. The downstairs had a huge kitchen and a half bath by the door leading down some steps to the back yard and the out buildings. It had a huge dining room and a moderately sized living room. We explored the property and decided to rent it at 50.00 a month. The basement had a full sized freezer that was owned by the people who had rented before us and they couldn't get it out. Not sure how they got it in, in the first place. There were big trees in the front yard and at the end of the driveway, a garage. The house was South of Troy on Pottawattamie road. Also in the basement was a huge furnace that had been used for coal and a room off to the side for coal storage with a chute from the outside leading into it. We had brought our German shepherd with us, and bought a malamute from the dog pound. He was real pretty and had one blue eye and one brown eye. We thought about the horses and how they could have moved here with us, but we didn't know about the place then. How sad that only four months later we wouldn't have had the problem of pasture, and where to put them if we'd only found this place sooner.
The furnace had to be heated with wood since you couldn't buy coal anymore. We had to cut wood all year round, every weekend Clyde and Kathryn would come over on Saturdays and we'd go out into the woods and cut wood no matter how hot it was or how cold. It could be ninety degrees outside, common for this area if not hotter in the summertime and forty below wind chill in the winter time. It didn't take long to burn through a room full of wood if the temperatures dropped that cold. There were ducts that ran from the furnace to all the rooms upstairs and down. Sometimes if the wind blew just right the damper would blow shut and the only thing coming up through the vents was smoke. When that would happen Charles would go down to the basement and open it up and the smoke would go out and the heat would come in.
We did some exploring east of the house and found a creek and woods where we used to go mushroom hunting in the spring. Charles built a swinging bridge, just like at The Little Ozarks fishing lake. Its expanse went from one side of a fifty or sixty foot across ravine with a ten to fifteen foot drop below. Clyde wasn't afraid to cross it and I liked to cross it but Kathryn said "No way" was she going to cross it.
We bought chickens and checked for eggs every day. We bought lighting, "won't lay without false lighting".Those chickens wouldn't lay I don't care how much lighting I gave them. Not every day anyway. We bought some shoats and put them in the pig pen, but every morning they would be slaughtered by something. We bought the pigs for 20.00 each and every time, no matter what precautions we took for their safety they would be dead the next day. Clyde gave us 40.00 to buy two shoats for himself and we were supposed to raise to butcher. Those ended up dead too. Chickens were being eaten alive by pole cats trying to pull them through the fence hole that was small enough for them to get through but not big enough for the fat hens to be pulled through so they would eat them where they were. I was especially mad about a fat hen we'd bought from a man in south end St Joseph that had laid over a dozen eggs. The eggs hatched and about 13 little yellow chicks were following her around the next day. After we found the dogs covered in blood and Jenny screaming her head off when she had gotten off the bus and caught them killing the last little pig, (we had been over at a neighboring pond fishing when we knew she would be getting off the school bus and headed home) We loaded the dogs up without a thought of how happy they were about their most recent kill and took them to the dog pound in St Joseph.
We bought some little piglets that were only a few days old from a farmer in St Joseph. They were pink but would grow to be big white hogs. The farmer didn't think we could raise them and that they would die, but I filled a pan with powdered milk, some egg yolks and molasses, a little bread. Boy did those little pigs go to town on that! We got information about how to raise them from the local vet and the feed store in Troy. We had about six of them. Charles' dad used to live in West Virginia on a farm where he had to turn boars into gilts. We bought the Betadine and they caught all the boars but one and cut them. We wanted to keep one boar and raise pigs but the three females had other ideas and wouldn't let the boar breed with them. They got out and I had to go across the road to the neighbor's and ask if he would help me catch them. The thing with pigs they don't herd like cattle. Everyone goes a different direction. Finally they would come back and we'd run them into the pig pen and try to fix the fence where they had gotten out. The little chicks would go through the fence and the pigs would gobble them up like chocolates. The mother hen would cackle and cackle calling her babies back into the chicken fence but it wouldn't be long before they were going through the fence and the whole process would start again. Every chick got eaten by those pigs. A weasel l finally got in and ate that fat old hen too.
I planted a garden in the big garden patch to the north of the house. To the south of the house and north of the pig pen I planted the biggest and fattest tomatoes. I had so many tomatoes that I threw a lot of them over the fence into the pig lot. I made ketchup. It took 24 large tomatoes to make one pint of ketchup. It tasted more like barbecue sauce. It was the best ketchup I had ever tasted. I made homemade bread that tasted like cake. That didn't last long when Charles found it!
We bought another German shepherd. He was a full blooded German shepherd, not half coyote like Lady was. He looked like a police dog you would see on television. He was mostly black and sleek and shiny.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:05:00.000-05:00

The old man came out and asked “What do you want little girl?” She told her she needed a phone number to give to her teacher because we didn't have one. She got the phone number and rode back home.
Waiting for the school bus was a harrowing experience. I had gone over with her what side the doors on the bus were. We weren’t sure which direction the bus would come, east or west, so I went over the if's, and's, and buts of each situation. The bus came from the east side ,Jenny was waiting at the mailbox and the bus stopped. I could see her contemplating which side she could go on so I yelled from the living room door,” Go On!" Unfortunately the bus driver thought6 I was talking to her so she started to go on. I yelled,"Wait! "And to Jenny I said ok Go On. Again the bus driver started to go. So I yelled louder, “I’m not talking to you I’m talking to Jenny, You’re going to run over her!” Halfway down the hill the bus stopped and Jenny finally got on! I told that teacher about it and she got an earful. The bus was a long yellow bus and Jenny was so small she would have never seen her.
During the months that came and went Charles built a fence around the yard. We had two of them, one in the front yard and the other was in the back diagonal from the garage next to the shed. All around the property was a cornfield that the man down the hill rented from Mr. Becker our landlord. He was the man who always had an excuse to come up and complain about the dogs and the horse, whatever he could think of to complain about. He made me nervous because as I said Charles worked nights and I was alone with Jennifer all night while he was gone.
Those maples were so pretty in the fall. We wanted to build a barn to store hay in the winter with stalls for the horses. We went down the hill to the woods, scouted out the trees we wanted to use. Mr. Becker (his name was Bob too) had told us what trees we could cut down. I saddled up Terre and brought rope, tied one end to the horn of my saddle .Charles would cut them down, strip the branches off and Terre and I would drag them up the hill. These logs were 14 ft long and about 4-6 inches across. We never would have been able to do it without Terre's help. We didn't have a truck or a chainsaw either. He used an ax. It was pretty slow going at first. We finally got the frame up. We went to a wrecking company on 6th St and bought corrugated tin for the roof and 2x4's for the rafters. In no time it was up and ready to paint. On the side of the barn on the yard side facing east he made a window with double doors so Terre could look through. The barn was painted red with white trim. The first time it rained hard the roof leaked through the previous nail holes, the material bought was used of course and we hadn't really thought it through! So we bought black roofing material to go over that and we made an opening in the roof and bought Green see through fiberglass to let the sun shine in for light.
Terre got used to me getting up at 6o'clock for our morning ride. One morning I didn't get up that early and she unlocked the gate and took herself. She was so smart and it didn’t seem to matter what kind of lock he fashioned she could unlock it and go the neighbor's house to the north of us, that’s where I always went to ride. I’d bring the bridle and prepare for the long walk over. She was pretty happy being loose and free as a bird and wasn't too happy about being caught. She’d finally relent and I'd slip on the bit and bridle, find something to climb up on and off we'd go back home.

My First 56 Years

2009-06-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

I woke Charles up and told him the news through tear filled eyes. I had watched the horse trailer leave down the driveway with our beloved horses, and thought "Oh God, what did I do! “Charles woke up half asleep. He’d been sleeping all day from working the night before. It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the time he usually awoke, and said," Did you sell my horse too? Did you sell Red?" I told him yes and that the guy, a Mr. Pohl from Wathena, gave me 900.00 for both horses. Although that was more than we paid for them, the cost of feed, time and labor, not to mention the love and fun they gave us could not compare. I told him the bills were getting to me and I didn't know what else to do! He was sad and disappointed for awhile. There were things we needed from the store so we climbed into the 1972 Datsun and headed for town.
We headed back about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. We pulled up to a stop sign at 9th St and Olive, close to the 36th hwy bridge we needed to go back to Kansas. An old green station wagon with early New Year's Eve celebrators whizzed right through the stop sign and hit the front end of the Datsun on the driver's side. Chucky, the new baby, flew forward and the little plastic car carrier we had him strapped landed into the floorboard under Charles' feet. Jenny had cut her mouth and I hit the dash with my shoulder. Chucky was knocked unconscious and bruises across his forehead. Charles picked him up under my protest, because I knew you weren't supposed to move someone until the paramedics got there. He said, “You think I'm just going to let my son lie there! “It was a good thing he did because I don't think he was breathing until he was stimulated by his father's touch. He started to cry and we waited for the police in a neighbor's house close by.Several people saw the vehicle and told the police conflicting stories and no one got a full license plate number. The police said they were headed over the bridge to Kansas, out of their jurisdiction. The haunting memories of when Jenny was a baby about 3 months old came back when the same thing had happened, except we were in an old green station wagon and the other car was a grey Datsun. We were leaving K-Mart and on the North Belt highway coming to a stop at the intersection of Gene Field road. We were talking and Jenny was strapped in a plastic carrier just like Chucky. The straps were attached to the middle of the front seat. The light had turned yellow and Charles was proceeding through when he saw the change and stopped. We were part way through the intersection at that time and I told him the book says if you're part way through the intersection before you can get stopped that it was alright to go ahead and go through. After a brief hesitation he continued through. The man and his wife in the Datsun saw the brief hesitation and thought we had changed our minds and were going to stop anyway; he was in the turning lane and tried to turn left onto Gene Field road. We were heading south, he was facing north. The impact turned the Datsun over and the straps that were holding the carrier to the front seat broke and Jenny and the carrier went flying into the front floor board. She had hit her head on the dashboard, just like Chucky, and had several bruises across her forehead. The police gave us a ticket for running a stop light, I tried to tell the officer the light was yellow, but he said he had several witnesses that said it was red. My shoulder hurt and my arm hurt so badly from hitting the dashboard I thought sure it was broken. The EMT's put a neck brace around my neck and an air splint over my left arm in case it was broken. We went to the hospital. I was more worried about Jenny. They wanted to x-ray Charles' knee as it had been jammed against the dash and he was limping around on it pretty good. He refused to let them touch him and just wanted to be in the examining room with me. We asked about Jenny and they said they find anything wrong with her and were bringing her down to us from X-ray. She cried and cried. I didn't think she'd ever stop crying. That was what scared me so much, she hardly cried unless she was hungry.
Now here we are at the intersection, in some stranger's house making phone calls. This time it was our Datsun that was totaled out and the other guy with the green station wagon was headed to Kansas, never to be seen or heard from again. Chucky had the bruises across his forehead, Jenny was crying but she was alright. We refused to go to the hospital this time. After all we'd been through this before. Now instead of paying the bills we had to buy a car. Every time we had any extra money our car would break down and we'd have to use the money for another car or parts to fix the old one. We did have car insurance, but this time it wasn't our fault. We used the horse money to buy an old Volkswagen bug. They were so easy to work on and we had experience from owning one before.
Mr. Pohl had promised if he still had the horses in March when we had our income taxes back, that we could buy the horses back. When March came went to see them at Mr. Pohl's ranch north of Wathena, Ks. Terre and Red were side by side eating grass under a tree in the middle of the pasture. I whistled and they came running. They recognized us and came running up the hill. Terre was so fat and shiny. She was starting to lose her light coloring and you could see some dark gold peeking through the loose hair. I started to cry, Mr. Pohl wanted more money for them than we had. He had broken his promise that we could buy them back for what he gave us for them, which was the understanding in December. The horses whinnied very loudly and didn't understand why we didn't let them out. They ran back and forth in front of the fence. It was heart wrenching the pain I felt as I was sure Charles felt too. They wouldn't let us go to the fence, they had other animals in the corrals there between us and was afraid something would get out. It was just too painful to get any closer, so we turned and back home. We never saw them again. Later We saw Mr. Pohl in Wathena a few years later and he said he'd remembered us. He said he sold Red to someone in Texas and Terre had gone to Lee's Summit Mo for trail rides. I had sold Terre also because she was going to be 13 years old in January,(no matter what month a horse was born in the Spring you always counted January first as the birthday).I was secretly afraid she would get old and die and I couldn't watch her die. We had bought her at nine years old, on my 24th birthday in April 1977, Sold December 31st, 1979.

My First 56 Years

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school. They said they "couldn't turn that bus around on a dime! “That’s when Charles got the gravel and we assured the school there was plenty enough room to turn that bus around. They picked Jenny up at the front door after that.
We had a well but the lines were not connected to the house so for the next few months we had to fill the cistern up with water we paid a gas station in Wathena, Ks to haul. It cost 9.00 for 1000 gallons that would last us a week. They kept upping the price and ended up charging us 15.00 for 1000 gallons. The driver, Eugene, was an old man who had heart problems and he said they were trying to get out of the "hauling water business".I told him they couldn't wean us from it, we needed water. He said it was too hard on the one ton truck with duel axles. Charles and I went to Payless Cashways in Elwood Ks and bought big black drainage pipe and pvc pipe to run from the well to the cistern. We had the water dept of St Joseph to test the water and they said we would have to put one gallon of bleach in the water every time we added water from the well to the cistern. We just had to remember to remove it afterward to keep the bus or anyone from running over it. This worked pretty well. It took a lot of water when I had to do laundry. I had a washer and a dryer now and the laundry room was in the bathroom. In Bendena I had a washing machine but no dryer. We lived there in the winter time and I had to hang the clothes out on the line. They would freeze dry and as soon as I brought them inside, they would thaw out and be just as wet as they were when I hung them out. I’d wring them as best I could but you could never get the water out enough. I started hanging them in the furnace room until we ran out of propane.
I was four months pregnant when I rode Terre, four miles away, to Troy to get her shots for the year.Sleeping sickness in horses was going around and they had developed a vaccine that we gave her at least once a year in the spring before mosquitoes became too bad. We’d worm her and got distemper shots too. Terre was always pretty good going away from the house but going home she knew where she was going and was headstrong going back. This is a common problem with horses. I was supposed to make her walk back home, but I was tired and she was so strong. I let her run on Mosquito Creek road, the back way and the closest way home. I had my purse wrapped around the saddle horn. Terre was going about as fast as a horse could go, about forty miles an hour. I had to "saw" the bit in her mouth to start slowing her down about a half mile before we got to the turn we needed to make. Charles was out riding a motorcycle he'd bought and just happened to be on the dirt road off Mosquito Creek road where I needed to turn. Jenny was on the back with her helmet on. I told Jenny to get down and trade me places. I rode the motor cycle and Jenny rode Terre slowly and at a walk all the way back home. No matter how high strung she was feeling at the time if you put a child on her back she would always go slow and easy. Jenny just sat there and sung a little song. We could see her head bobbing up and down, still with her helmet on and singing. I was worn out! We went back and picked up my purse, everything still in tack. I let her run because it was really hot that day and the wind felt so good.
When we got home it wasn't long before we saw girl, horse, and helmet coming up the driveway, still singing. She met us outside close to the house and we took the tack off the horse and rubbed her down. Jenny refused to ride Thunder anymore so we put him in the paper and sold him to another family with another little girl. I think they wanted a pet more than they wanted a pony to ride.
I was inundated with bills as usual. Charles was working for 9.00 an hour now at the A&P store. That was pretty good money for 1979, 1980 around the area. We were still over our head in bills. In the fall of 1979 there was a land auction and the house was sold to Mr. Meng who paid 101,000 dollars. All the farmers told him he paid way too much money and would have to farm the "heck" out of it to get his money back or make any profit off the land. We liked the property. Charles had painted the house and we bought boards and made shutters for around the windows and the big picture window in the front room. Those shutters with diamond shapes cut out in the middle really dressed the place up considering what it looked like when we first saw the place.
Charles and I would go out into the pasture when Jenny was in school after he got up from working all night and saddle up the horses and ride and pretend we were cowboys and Indians. We had to grow up so fast we never had a chance to play as friends. We had cowboy hats and he had bought a pistol and a holster he had strapped to his hip. We sure had a lot of fun with those horses. If one of us would ride without the other, the horse left behind would whistle and
neigh until we got back.
As I started to get bigger my riding days were over. Terre and Red were getting harder to catch. In the Fall Mr. Meng would combine his corn or milo whatever he had planted in the spring on about four acres on the north side of the pasture, then we would leave the gate open and Terre and Red would have all the corn or milo grain plus the stocks to feed on all winter, plus the pasture. They always stayed fat all winter. Coming for them with a bucket of feed didn’t interest them that much anymore. Charles seemed to lose interest in helping me with them anymore.
October 24th was my Doctor’s appointment. Dr. Dumont had said, “You sure are ripe!” Do you want to go to the hospital? I can give you something to induce the labor. You could have this baby by 6 o’clock tonight!” I was tired of being pregnant. I was as big as a house and I was anxious to meet this child that had been kicking my sides and below my ribs so I could hardly breathe. There were no sonograms to determine the sex of the child and I had clothes for both boy and girl. The extra bedroom south of our bedroom was where the new baby would sleep. There was a closet filled with baby dresses, all frilly and cute, boy’s clothes too. We pictured a little boy dressed in a cowboy hat and blue jeans, boots and toy guns at the hips and a little holster, just like his daddy had. We wanted a boy this time because we had a girl. Two seemed like the perfect number, one of each. I know Charles wanted a boy, I did too for him but I think deep down I would have liked to have had a little girl to dress up in those frilly outfits I had in the closet. We thought for sure it would be a girl because we wanted a boy so bad this time.
We were going to go to K-Mart after the Doctor’s appointment but when Dr. Dumont told us to go to the hospital now, at 5 o’clock to have the baby by 6 pm. Charles asked me if we could go to K-Mart anyway. I don’t remember what we needed that was so important but Charles was always building things and always needed screws and bolts, hinges or something for the car.
We went to the hospital afterward and I was induced. This time it was much easier. The nurses were so much nicer this time They had me hooked up to a fetal monitor this time and listening to the baby’s heart beat kept my mind off the pain. I could always tell when a contraction was about to start by listening to the heartbeat slow down before I even felt any pain. I’d say, “I’m getting ready to have another one!” After about 3 hours, with Charles in the delivery room, the baby popped out and Charles said, “It’s a boy!” He then almost passed out. I thought I was hungry because I wasn’t allowed to eat anything before delivery. I started the shaking that accompanies delivery. I couldn’t get warm. They gave me plenty of blankets and ordered me a cheeseburger but could hardly eat it when it came. The birthing took longer than they thought because Chuck, like Jenny, was upside down. Instead of being born around 6 o’clock he came at 8:20 pm. He was 21 inches long and weighed a little more than Jenny did at just under 7 lbs. Jenny was 18 inches long and weighed 6.9 oz.
When I was able to come home after a day in the hospital, (unlike Jenny I had to stay in the hospital for three days) I looked at the little dresses and frilly things and I felt like my little girl was gone. We named him Charles Alan after his dad. The middle name was different but we didn’t want him to be a junior.
I’d lay him on the bed and just sit and look at him. When he was a month or two old I’d sit him in his little plastic carrier and sit him in the big picture window so he could see his big sister Jenny get off the school bus. He’s smile and laugh when he’d see her walk up the walk to the house. I’d sit him on her lap and she’d play with him for awhile.
We had a big apple tree in the front yard and I’d send Jenny or Charles out to pick apples and I’d make a homemade apple pie or brown betty. Charles had gotten an A&P cook book from the store and I made all kinds of things out of that cookbook. Homemade pie crusts and all!
In November and the first part of December I wanted to ride again. It was hard for Charles to get interested in the horses anymore. I needed help catching and saddling Terre. She was a big horse and I needed to be sure the saddle was tight. After Christmas we saddled them both and rode all over the pasture. We had such a good time. On December 31st I sold both horses to a man who bought and sold horses and lived in Wathena, while Charles slept.

My First 56 Years

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On August 16 1977 we were living all cozy and comfortable in our little house in Denton, Kansas. Charles was sleeping after working all night at A&P.I was doing various housework and watching television when a broadcast came over and said ELVIS PRESLEY DIES AT AGE 42.I knew how much Charles and his best friend Lester had idolized The King of Rock-in-roll. I was a Beatle fan myself. My sisters Mary Ann and Kathryn also had posters up in the bedroom at rte 116 of Elvis. I was young then only five years old. About the time we moved to rte 116 Elvis had joined the Army and not much was said about him that my young mind remembers. As I got older the "British Invasion" took over and I was crazy about the Beatles. Floy Mae was crazy about them too. My mother's sister, Phylena who lived in Utah sent Floy Mae a Ringo Starr doll. Ringo was her favorite. We watched the Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles came to America in February of 1964 much to Daddy's chagrin. We screamed and cried and made Daddy nervous so he went to bed.
When I heard the news about Elvis I went into the bedroom to wake Charles up to give him the news.Groggy and unfocused he asked me several times what I had said to make sure he wasn't dreaming. It was a sad day and although I hadn't really given Elvis much thought I started to miss his music. They played everything he had ever sung from the fifties on. Everyone turned their car lights on and listened to melancholy verses of Kentucky Rain etc. It was hard to keep a dry eye .I started remembering a few of his movies.The few I hadn't seen. Between the ages of five and ten I just thought there was too much singing and not enough plot. Most people just wanted to look at him and ooh and ahh over his good looks. Charles was mostly interested in the girls, Ann Margaret, to name one. Every radio station played his music and the news broadcasts were all on every TV station. The more I listened, the more of an Elvis fan I became but it was too late, Elvis was gone.
Another favorite we watched on TV was Charley's Angels! We both loved Farrah Fawcett. Her hair was just so messed up all the time and it was beautiful. We knew she was married to the Six Million Dollar Man in real life. How great would that be to be so rich and gorgeous? We bought the "rug" with Farrah's famous bathing suit poster on it. If you rubbed it back and forth her hair would do a little dance!
We started watching baseball games.Kansas City Royals had a good team and they were winning a lot of ballgames. I remember there was a contest to name the ball team. They had previously been called the Kansas City A's or Athletics. I’m not sure now. People wrote in and gave their thoughts and opinions on what the name should be and at the end of the contest the Kansas City Royals were born. The Kansas City A's became the Oakland A's or Athletics. We’d sit around Sundays and watch the games.
On Saturday nights I watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat. Fantasy Island was a favorite as well. The Bob Newhart show, the first one with “Emily” and “Howard” the airline pilot. Those shows kept me occupied at night when it was just Jenny and me. I’d always watch the ten o’clock news and go to bed.

My First 56 Years

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paycheck. Davies' Oil stopped bringing propane without some money down. We covered ourselves with blankets and huddled in our beds upstairs. One night, during a full moon, we could see shadows of owls on the walls of our bedroom thru the bedroom window. They were flying around the house and roosting in the limbs of the pine trees in front yard, south of the house. We had a litter of kittens a cat that we kept outside had. I wanted to bring them inside because of the cold and snow, but Charles said we couldn't. The next morning they were gone. The farmers said owls eat small animals including kittens. I was so mad at Charles for not letting me bring them in. Jenny played with them and I liked them too. They were so cute. Charles took after his dad on that score. No cats in the house. His sisters Gina and Diane were allergic to cats and milk. They weren't coming over in the middle of the night to see if we had any cats in the house! When Charles and I were first married and living around the corner to them, a cat kept hanging around their house. It was a pretty cat, gold and white, and no matter how hard they tried to get rid of it, it kept coming back. I’d asked Charles if we could take it because they were going to do something horrific to it but he said "No".Charles and his brothers took the cat and threw it off the thirty six highway bridge to the rocks below. They said they had meant to hit the river but missed. I was so sick and disgusted that any human being could do that to a small helpless animal that was just hungry and wanted a place to stay. It didn't bite or scratch, it was a loving cat that would let you hold it in your lap and purr contentedly not knowing what trusting people would mean.
In the spring Charles found another house just south of Troy Ks. It was a lot closer to his job in St Joseph. It had two big ponds and plenty of pasture for the horses. It was a mess. the last people that lived there had left clothes and food in the refrigerator, garbage everywhere. Charles promised me he would stay there after he got off work and clean it up before we moved in if I would agree to move. I had just found out I was pregnant with our second child. I was so happy. It had been six years since Jenny had been born and I finally decided to get off the pills and try it again. The last time I had been pregnant I had such a hard time with the labor and the cost of having a baby was so much I didn't see how we could afford another child. Floy Mae was living next door to Kathryn and Mama and Ronnie was still working at the stockyards. They knew I was scared with my first baby and Floy Mae told Kathryn that no matter what time I called and said I was ready to go to the hospital Kathryn was supposed to get Floy Mae and she would go there with me for support. On February 12th at about 3:00 in the morning I awoke with the worst back ache ever. Dr Dumont had first said the baby would be born in January, and then at my six month checkup he said he didn't think it would be January after all and was going to shoot for February. Charles' mom said it would be born on February fourteenth. As I said it was 3:00 am when I woke up and the back ache and the pains began. I woke up Charles and he called the hospital and I called Kathryn. Floy Mae didn't have a phone at the time. Kathryn was mad because I woke her up and said she wasn't telling Floy Mae anything because she wasn't going over there in the middle of the night and waking them up. I'm scared, Charles wasn't allowed in the labor room in those days so I was alone. I fought the pains and decided I changed my mind and would not have a baby after all." I don't want to do this!"
The nurses and the Dr told me otherwise. I screamed and fought the pains; Dr Dumont told me if I would stop fighting them I could get this over with. They finally had to put an oxygen mask over my face. It took longer too because Jenny was turned upside down. Instead of being born face down like most babies, Jenny was born face up. She was born at nine twenty am on February 12th 1973.They took me back to my room and I slept until five pm that day and only woke when Charles came in after he'd worked all day at Artesian Ice. I wasn't looking forward to going through that again but this time the rules were different and Charles could not only be in the labor room with me but he could be in the delivery room too.
We moved to Troy that spring of 1979.The house had central air conditioning and heating, hardwood floors and a large kitchen. The driveway was 1/4 mile long and was not graveled. Charles had bought a truck from Della's husband Charlie. It was a 1963 Chevy pickup with 3/4 ton. He hauled gravel from the quarry in St Joseph and Savannah. Finally it was done. The school bus didn't want to go all the way the driveway to pick Jenny up, however. In the beginning of her first grade year at Troy she walked all the way down the driveway and another 1/8 of a mile south on the road to the corner where the bus would pick her up. I complained to the office at the