The earliest church I remember was that of the Church of God, Congregational, pastored by Elder Bonner. He and most of the people at the church were colored people. We won't call them afro-americans because I believe they were all Americans and some may have been descended from some of the island peoples. I won't call them black because very few, if any of them were actually black. The color was various shades of brown. Nearly all of them were nice, hard working people. Sister Creecy was my Sunday School teacher. She used to make soap in her back yard in the summer. I remember during the war we collected grease drippings from cooking and sold it to the local butcher to help in the war effort. Elder Bonner was the one that I helped to build a new outhouse for us out on Clements St.

When we lived on Union Ave. the woman next door to us was Sister Pamplin. One time when mom was sick she came over and seemingly out of nothing she cooked up a nice meal for us. She was probably the second best cook I ever knew. It was at her house that I first saw wheat bread. At first I said, "I don't want any of that dirty bread." Well I did eat and I liked it.The best cook is Mick's second wife, Ila. Sister Pamplin had a teenage son that was a drummer. He played for clubs sometimes. He did not bother us with loud music. One time he took me for a ride in his souped up car and we went 104 miles per hour on Brewer Road. That was a little scary to me. I guess he was only showing off his car. While we lived on Union Ave, which is just around the corner from where we lived on Cherry, our water supply for the house was in the front yard. It was a single pipe sticking up about a foot from the ground with a faucet. In the winter we had to let it keep running slowly to prevent it from freezing. One of my jobs while we lived here was to watch the bread mom had cooked and put on a chair in the sun in the front yard. I had to keep the dogs from bothering it. We went to Jackson and all the kids there were colored kids except for two families. Only one teacher was white and I believe she was the principal. Well, all in all, the kids were usually nice enough, but we did have a rather hard time of it. One time after school after it had rained for several days the Police would not let anybody go back down into the bottoms (that is what they called the area) because the houses were flooded. I forget where we stayed for the night, but we got to go home the next morning. As it turned out, the water had only come up into our front yard since we lived on the east side of the street and the Stony creek was to the west of us about a block and a half. When we went to Collet school, my brother Bill was rather large for his age and the other boys ganged up and would chase him home often. One day he got tired of running and stopped, turned around and with a quick jab he knocked one of the boys down. The others ran and did not bother him after that. We seldom remember what starts arguments, but on the way home from Collet school one day some colored girl and I got in a fight. She just would not let go and was really getting the best of me until my sister Deloris ran up and let her know with a few hits that she was not to bother her little brother. I went to school here once with a hole in my shoe wadding in the snow. When I went barefooted to school in the snow the teacher found me a pair of shoes. It was not just a matter of money, because we had to have ration stamps to buy shoes, sugar, meat, or much of anything else during the war.

We moved back out to Clements St, this time in the first block. Here we lived upstairs, and I had started high school. The stairs were on the outside of the house and were in very bad shape. Our preacher at the time was Elder Palmer. He came out to the house and looked over the job. While he was there he needed to find out how long the stairway had to be to reach up twelve feet to the floor above. He also knew I was taking algebra in high school and asked me to figure it out using the algebra I learned. I did that and he used my figures and the stairs fit good. I still remember the math but will not go into that here.

As the sub-heading indicates, we did live in the poorer sections of town and as it turned out, in many cases our neighbors were colored. Brother Curtis taught me how to use a hammer, and one very old guy on Cherry St. taught me not to make quick judgments about people just by their looks. He was ugly, but one of the nicest people I knew.

It discuses me that there are some people that call themselves Christian donate to the missions to help those that are in need, but the same people would refuse to sit next to a person of a different color on a bus. Some Christians say that the Bible teaches against mixed marriages. Even though I believe it is wrong because of other social reasons, I. a., problems with the kids not getting along, and other problems, but when the Bible says "Be ye not unequally yoked together", it is talking about believers not marrying unbelievers, not about race. How did we get to this subject?

When we lived on Union Ave, for several weeks during the summer each Friday evening mom would send me over to the house about a block and a half away to get some barbaqued spare ribs that were goat meat. They were really good and they say that cook never passed his recipe to anyone. Pity.

One day on Russell and Elmwood Sts (where dad died), while mom was washing dishes, I asked mom, "What is a headache?" She replied, "A pain." A few days later after stubbing my toe I came in the house and cried, "Mom, I have a headache in my big toe."

As I remember it, the very first vehicle I drove was a seven horse power bulldozer. It belonged to Russell Hance, my boss at the landscape job. Russ was also a neighbor and family friend to the Comptons. Russ used this bulldozer to level fresh dirt for his landscape customers. My first time on it I drove it around the yard at his house, but since I was not a licensed driver he would not let me drive it on the street. However, one day after we finished a job across town he had it and a 11 horsepower tractor to return home, so he had me guide the bulldozer while he pulled it with the tractor. We stopped at Main street to wait for traffic. He pulled ahead and I thought we were going to go across, but he stopped suddenly. I did not stop until I ran into the back of the tractor. It broke the starting pulley mounted in the front of the tractor and it took two weeks to get a part for repairs. Ouch. That is not the best way to make points with your boss. Later in the season we had a gardening job up northwest of town, about seven miles out. Russ had me drive the tractor and he drove the bulldozer. I guess he also had some landscaping to do up there. Since the tractor was faster than the bulldozer, I arrived there first and after waiting about ten minutes, the owner of the property asked me to start doing the job myself. Well, I started, but the job was cultivating the garden, and I did not get very far until the owner hollered, "Wait, you better wait until Russell comes." You see, I had plowed up about 30 feet of the corn row. I had previously told him that I did not know how. Russ did that job after he got there. On another occasion when we were working down in the lowlands near the river at the bend on Perrysville Road Russ told me to pull the weeds in a certain field. The rows were about 300 feet long. He left me there to do it and it was good thing he came back to check on me before too long, because when he got there he said "What are you doing?" I said "Pulling the weeds." He said, "Look, this is the ocra. That you have been leaving is a weed?" That day I learned what ocra looks like.

The next vehicle I drove was a panel truck. Mary Della let me practice with it while she was with me. It belonged to grandpa Morgan. He used it to travel around visiting his Churches in his district. He was the Bishop in the Church. I only went with Mary doing this a couple of times. Bill let me drive his chevy on a country road a few times while he and somebody else was in the back seat. One time he tried to trick me. After passing something he asked me to turn around and look at it. I told him I had to watch the road. I guess I passed his test.

My first car was a partnership ownership. Bill needed a car for his family and he did not have the downpayment, so we made a deal. I would make the downpayment and he would make the rest of the payments and take care of the car. I was to have it once a week on Friday. that deal worked out pretty good as long as the car lasted.

Shortly after I started driving, I drove to town, parked the car and went to a movie. After the movie I went out, caught the bus and started home. About halfway home I remembered the car, reached up and pulled the cord for stopping, got off at the next stop and went back uptown for the car. What a dunce. While we were living above a cafe on E. Main St. one night I parked the car out front and the next morning it was gone. I called the police to report it stolen and they said I would have to get the person whose name was on the title to report it stolen. Bill came over and we went to the station and when we reported it stolen they then told us it had been taken by the police because it had been parked in a no parking zone. We got it back after I paid the fine and towing charges. Why didn't they tell about the police towing it when I first called?

The next car was a 48 Chevy. I drove that car for several years. The first major repair job I personally did on it was to replace a broken leaf spring. We were living above the jewelry store at the time and we had room in the back for several cars to park. I pulled it into the back, jacked up the car with one jack and jacked up the rear axle with another, took off the broken spring and took it down to the junk yard and got a replacement. They sold used parts. I put it on and it worked fine for as long as I had the car. This was the same car I had when I went to Bible School in St. Paul, Minn. at the St. Paul Bible Institute. While I was there I stayed in a group home near the school. It was a sort of dormitory with just boys. We each had roommates. We did the laundry in the basement and would sometimes hang the clothes up to dry down there in the basement. One time I washed a red sweater with the rest of my clothes and hung them up. Later the monitor (He was the upperclassman that sort of ran the home) hollered up the stairs, "Who's pink undies are these down here?" Embarrassing, yes. I went down and told him they were mine and what happened. Since money was tight I certainly could not throw them out.

Another dumb thing I did while at Bible school happened while I was working at the Charles T. Miller Hospital as an orderly. My foot brakes went out and since there was not much traffic at night when I had to go to work, I drove with no brakes except the hand brake. I managed to get to work and back three days until payday and then got the brakes fixed. Why do we do such dumb things. During this time I had no accidents. Dumb. Perhaps the biggest repair job I did on a car by myself was to remove the head from a six cylinder and take it down to the shop and have the valves ground. As I remember it, the head was cracked and I had to go get a used one for this. I remember carrying it on my shoulder to the shop from the used parts store. Now, back to Bible school. While at Bible School sometime during my stay I went out with each of three different girls that happened to be roommates and they were all short. One 4' 11", one 5", and one 5' 1". Well one of them was my girl friend for a while and I taught her to drive. When she took her test she was told that she was the first person to pass a test on the first try from this examiner, and that he had been doing this for 7 years. However, when a group of us went out of town to a meeting we were all sort of just mingling after church and Louise took the liberty of borrowing my car. She took one of the local girls out for a ride. While turning the car around she backed the back wheels over a cliff with a 50' drop-off. A nearby farmer got out his tractor and pulled the car out. Later when she was telling me about it she said that it was a good thing she remembered to set the brake while the car was poised with the back wheels dangling over the cliff. I don't know what she thought when I told her that the hand brake works only on the back wheels. More dumb things happen.

Now back to my dumb things. While I was working at Olin there was a man there that was raising money for his local church and sponsored a pancake breakfast with sausage. They did this once a year and I had purchased their home made sausage before. I told him we would be there that Saturday morning, and even though Frances was sick and could not go and I worked 12-8 shift that day, I went home and got the kids and we went. It was a Saturday and it had been raining for several days, though it was not raining at the time it was still a little foggy. The church was about a mile north of the highway on a dirt road up a big hill. When I pulled into the church driveway I saw what I thought was a parking lot and turned onto it and went down into it so far the floor of the car touched the mud. woops. Well, I got of the car. I still had boots on. First I carried Kathy up to the Church and asked a lady there to watch her while I went back and got John Allen. We had our pancake breakfast with sausages and bought another five pounds of the sausage to go. The guy that had invited us had a VW and while one of the ladies watched the kids he took me down to the bottom of the hill where there was a wrecker service. Right at first I told the man he should bring the big one, but he did not. He took me back up the hill to the church and placed his truck in front of my car and pulled me out of the mud, stopped, unhooked the chain, and I drove around him onto the hard ground. He then got his truck stuck before reaching hard ground, and I then took him back to his shop where he got his partner and the big wrecker to come up and get the smaller wrecker. Well, no one got hurt, but that was not a good day.

One day I had occasion to get some used 4' by 8' 1/4" plywood and to haul it home I piled it on top of the station wagon we had at the time. No rope was to be found, so I tied it on top with some used wire. It even had some rusty sections. On the way home down main street the wire broke and the plywood went flying all over. I picked it all up and retied it. I was not far from home. Later a co-worker told me that he had seen the whole thing and that some of the wood flew as high as the telephone poles. Now this street is usually a busy street but as it happened none of the wood caused any accidents, but that was dumb to use wire for this.

While visiting Jack Wagoner and his family in Cable, Wisconsin I went out with him to help one of his parishioners do some wood pulping. We cut down small trees and loaded them onto a skid to pull them back to a loading spot so we could load them into a truck. These trees were not tiny, but were about the size for two men to lift onto the pile. On the way back into the woods to get another load the chain was being dragged on the ground and I stepped on the chain end. The hook went through the bottom of the borrowed boot I was wearing and drug me along. There I was hopping on one foot being pulled by the chain hollering "stop, stop." It could have been worse. Later back at the Parsonage we were using a saw with about a 20 inch blade to cut some logs up for firewood. With Jack Wagoner on one end and me on the other. Well, as it turned out, I was standing on some of the uncut logs and once while putting the log up into the saw, I slipped. My foot went into the moving saw blade. It cut my shoe and snagged the sock. I could easily have lost few toes but I did not get cut.

After this I went further up into Wisconsin to Superior. Here I picked up Marlene Thomas for the return trip to St. Paul. As it turned out, her mom wanted to go to St Paul with us, and there were three nursing students wanting a ride to St. Paul to go back to school. Well, we started out, with me driving, Marlene and her mother in the front seat with me, and the three girl nursing students in the back. After driving a while Marlene mentioned what I had been listening to for a mile or two. One tire was making a bumping sound. We stopped on the side of the road and looked at it. Since that was a not a good spot to stop we went about a half mile down the road to find a good place to pull off. After we stopped I opened the trunk. Well, as you know there would naturally be suitcases in the trunk. After all, what girl travels without her suitcase. I unloaded the suitcases, took out the jack and spare and wrench. I jacked up the car. The girls were waiting around watching. I then took off the tire and placed it against the car near three of the girls that were standing around talking. Now as I was about to put on the spare, the tire leaning against the car went BANG. Talk about five scared girls. Wow. I should have let the air out of the tire as soon as I got the jack started up. The tire was so worn I could feel the tube inside so I should have known to do this. Dumb.

Back when I was a kid, one time when I went uptown I went to the post-office and there was a revolving door. Now for those who do not know what they are, the door is mounted on a vertical axis in the middle and there are four sections that all move at the same time. The opening in the wall is never completely closed except for the moving parts of the door. One gets in and pooches his part of the door so that the part behind him closes the opening and the part in front of him becomes part of the inside. Well, I was playing in the door, round and round, and I got my leg caught in the door. They had to take the door apart to get me out. I was taken to Dr. Baum office and they determined there were no broken bones. A few weeks later I got a bill from the Dr.'s office for an O. B. case. I asked Mary Della, "What is an O. B. case?" She said, "What, what are you talking about?" I told her," I got a bill for an O. B. case and I do not know what that is." We found out later that Bill's Mary had gone to Dr. Baumgart for delivery of Lester and they got the bills mixed up. They teased me about that so much that Lester even called me dad a few times.

Did you ever misplace your keys? When I worked in the day-lab at Olin one of my jobs was to make up indicators. I had to use Alcohol for this and since it was the type that no alcohol tax was paid, we had to keep close inventory of it. We had to make reports 2/year to the state of Indiana. Well, one time while I had my keys in my hand after putting up the alcohol I was interrupted and had to wash my hands to do something else. When I dried my hands I put the paper towel in my pocket and threw the keys into the wastebasket. Well, I did not realize this until, after I got home I found the paper towel in my pocket and remembered how it happened. I called the lab only to find out that the waste baskets had already been dumped and there was no way to find the keys. I even got a visit from the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco agent on this one. Since my boss and I had to sign an inventory book each time some alcohol was taken out, he had to answer for it too. It is good the inventory amounts checked out like they were supposed to.

Did I tell you about the time at Douglas school in the fourth grade when I made my pig-tailed friend made at me? Well, she sat at the desk right in front of me in school, and in those days before ballpoint pens, we used to have ink well in the desks, and we would dip our pens into the ink to write. One day I dipped one of her pig-tails into the ink-well. Now this was permanent ink, so it just would not wash out. She had to get it cut off. I did not really mean to make her mad; I just felt a little mischievous that day. Remember--You should think before you act. I wished many a time that I had not done that.

Mick, Curt and I used to have lots of fun, but one time while playing cowboys and Indians, out on Clements street, we got bored with that and started throwing eggs at each other. I do not remember throwing any, but I do remember while I was trying to get away from Curt, I ran around the corner of the house right into one Mick had thrown from the back of the house and it hit me right in the side of the head. Worst of all, it was a rotten egg. Wow. While we are on the subject of eggs, when we went to Elder Bonners church we used to get Easter eggs at Sunday School and while walking home after church I thought I would eat one. When I cracked it against my head I found out that even though it was colored, it was not cooked at all. Another mess. Was that the start of egg shampoos?

Now to segway from broken eggs to broken windows. One night while we were living on Russell I was about 6 and I went to look out the big window in the living room I pressed too hard and the window broke out. Lucky I did not get cut. Another time, when we lived across the alley from the East side Market, Curt and I were playing in the back yard. I must have made him angry, and I ran for the house, entered the back door and shut it just in time for the stick he threw at me hit the half door glass and came right through it. Speaking of anger, one time I got so mad about something that I threw a fit and got down on the front room floor and kicked the front door panel clear out. I guess we had, from time to time, a lot of anger in our family. I have not been trying to cast any particular slant on any of this, but as near as I remember it, this is the way it was. One event I do not remember but was told to me, is that while Dorothy Truax threw a rock at her sister Roberta, Roberta ducked and Curt, standing right behind her caught the rock right in the head.

Speaking of Curt., one night we got a call from his wife Polly. It was a cold night. Polly said to me on the phone, everybody is out, but our house is on fire. She wanted us to come over and bring some warm coats for the kids. We found something for them all, got in the car and went over. Their place was a mobile home that Curt had built a roof over the entire structure with the plan to complete it as much as he could before removing the trailer. Curt was barefooted and on top of the roof helping fight the fire. It was a volunteer fire dept and they had to haul the water in their trucks from over a mile away. We parked a safe distance away and put the kids in our station wagon with coats and blankets, and I helped the firemen fight the fire. They had a twocar garage near their trailer and it was starting to get burned. I told the firemen, that the trailer was too far gone, that they should concentrate on saving the garage. They did. Curt and his family lived here in the garage for a couple of years after that. When they lived down in Grape Creek they had another fire that destroyed their house. When it broke out Polly and Cindy had to push the airconditioner out of the window to escape.

Then there was the time that One afternoon we got a call from Polly asking for a ride to the hospital in La Fayyete, Ind because Curt had been in an accident. She did not think her car would make the trip. As I remember it, it was about 45 minutes away. Fran and I took her and the kids to see Curt. The kids waited in the waiting room. Bill and Deloris were there too. Mary Della too, I think. When we went into Curts room we saw that his head was so swelled it was a bit as his shoulders. After he was transferred to Lake view in Danville, two nurses were fired because due to the seriousness of his burns they refused to go into Curts room. The story unfolds like this. Curt was driving a truck making deliveries to different places. The town of La Fayette is a very hilly town. There was a car dealership at the foot of a hill across from a "t" in the road. The manager of the dealership was expecting a delivery and it was late, so he called the shipper and asked where his stuff was. They said it was on its way, and before the manager could say anything else he noticed a truck coming down the hill right at his store, with people milling around in front of the store and the truck was on fire. He told the shipper an quickly hung up and called the ambulance and fire truck. The driveshaft had come loose and broken the brake lines, and Curt was trying to stop the truck by sideswiping the telephone poles as he progressed down the hill. Well, the truck wiped out six new cars, but no pedestrians or other motorists were hurt. The gas tanks had ruptured and gas was on fire. As soon as Curt got stopped the manager of the store was there with a blanket for Curt as soon as he got out of the cab. Curt was on fire and he later said the worst part was not the pain, but the smell of burning flesh, knowing it was his own. The ambulance got there quickly and Curt was at the hospital equipped with a special burn unit very quickly. Most of the family did not really expect Curt to recover, but Fran and I never gave up hope. Curt had a long recovery, but he regained the use of all his muscles except not complete strength in one of his arms. We look to a higher power for strength at times like these.

"The Early Years"

The previous 5 parts of my life story have been written as "matter of fact" and did not deal much with how I felt about the events. This part will emphasize my feelings as I progressed through life. My earliest memories are those I spent with my dad. I remember him taking me for walks around the block when we lived on Russell and Elmwood. As I remember it, he used a cane to assist him with walking. I really enjoyed these walks. I also remember helping him with the bailing of the paper. Even though I was only 5, the way I helped him was, I would pass the new wire through the slots in the bottom of the bailer. I remember the trip to the park with Mary and De and we did have fun. I also remember the big lump and little lump incident, and the headache in my big toe remark. On the morning dad died I remember hearing him fall out of bed. That was a sad day for all of us. Dads dog named big boy then crawled under the front porch and would not come out. He stayed there for two weeks without eating or drinking and he died. I really liked the big lady across from us that bandaged my finger when I cut it playing with a tin can lid. Also I enjoyed the once a week silent movies that they showed in the empty lot next to her on the open air screen. Now for some reason most of the time I felt lonely after I started school. The times I spent with Deloris at home seemed to help, but I was sort of a loner most of my life. Nearly every time we moved the Truax family moved just down the street. We played with them quit a bit, and on a few occasions we would line up some benches in the front room and play church. Some of the kids would give speeches mostly making fun, I think, and we would sing some. When it came to praying and the alter call, though I really got into it and I remember shedding tears on more than one occasion. Deloris seemed to be my pal most of the time and when she left home at age 13 I was really lonely and even mad at her for leaving. I later got over that though. I enjoyed going with Bill out into the country and getting apples, but sometimes it was a little dangerous when there were bulls in the field. I liked school and never had a teacher I did not like. Some things I always looked forward to and was glad when they happened are, Grandpa's visits, Jack and Hazels visits, and of course, the spring because I got tired of the cold. I especially enjoyed it when Sonny, Jack and I would get to play together. This occurred on several occasions when Sonny lived on Bismarck Street. For some reason I do not remember playing with Mick much, but Curt and I had fun sometimes too. The one time I do remember playing with my brother Mick is on second block of Elmwood when we lived across the street from Ronnie Allhands. Curt, Mick and I were running around the house throwing rotton eggs at each other. Curt got me right in the head with one just as I was rounding the corner running from Mick who was coming from the other direction. This is the house Russ and Mary lived in at one time, mom and us kids lived in it one time and later when I went to work at Hall Freight Lines I loaned Bill the money to make a down payment on it for his family. He paid me back ok.

Now when Sonny invited me to go to the Dailey Vacation Bible School at the Tabernacle, I was slow to make up my mind about it, but when Joyce Etcheson, his neighbor two doors to the south of him asked me to go, I said yes, and that Thursday I did go, and in the evening special services a week later, I repented and was Saved. My loneliness subsided. I also met Frances in the class the first day. This too, improved my feelings for life. I liked her right away. Now I will not say that I enjoyed helping Bill shovel coal, but I was glad I did it because it made me feel useful. When I would go with Mary and Russ to their place I would usually help in some way. I remember helping Russ and Mary move their barracks house to the 10 acres 7 miles north, off of Poland road. I helped him dig the well for the water. I guess this all helped me feel useful.

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"The Teenage Years"

I went to Church quit regular and when I went to high school we lived in the bee-hive most of the time. This was a 16 room building divided into apartments. One winter Curt, Mick, mom and I all lived in one room because it cost too much coal to heat the two room apartment we lived in. One day when we lived in the two rooms Russell came over and stayed all night. He slept in the big bed with me. During the night I rolled over and, with my arms stretched out, my elbow hit him in the teeth. The next day he said, “I’m not sleeping with you anymore.”

Somehow while we lived there I got a used bicycle. The paint was in bad shape so I got some paint and painted it. The body I painted killarny green but the fenders I painted strips across the fender with sunny yellow. I sometimes rode that bike to Church and one day after Sunday School was over I found that it had been stolen. What a bummer. When we lived in the bee-hive there was a big gully behind the house and one summer while mom was sitting out in the front yard I took an explosive device called a fusee that I had found on the railroad and placed it down in the gully on a rock, and while standing at the top of the hill I threw rocks at it. Finally it blew up and scared mom quit a lot. These devices were normally used by the railroad crew to place on the rail ahead of an oncoming train to give him some kind of a warning. Mary got married to Russell Powell and he went into the army and Mary went with him to West Virginia. When they came back they had a little girl named Betty. She was born early and she was so small that they bathed her with olive oil every day. They moved into the house diagonally across the street from us. This was my first niece. Later there were quit a few other nieces and nephews.

More about them later. The young peoples group at our Church was like another family to me. When the National Guard was activated in response to the Korean situation I went on active duty, and when we gathered at the C&EI train station to leave there were about 30 members of the church gathered to see me off. That was quit moving. Some of them were adults, but most were the young peoples group. I have a picture of the group somewhere. That train took 5 days to reach Camp Cooke, California. The trains hauling freight got priority so we switched over to a side track and stopped to wait on them several times. Sonny was also on the train. They made us shave even though we had no hot water.

Ouch! The first two weeks spent in California were miserable. It rained every day and we sometimes slept outdoors on the hillside. Most of the time the weather was nice, but sometimes the uniform for the day would include a heavy coat and in spite of the fact that we would travel up the mountain out of the clouds into the sunshine and it got hot, we still could not take off our coats. A lot of time was spent during the first few months getting up early and waiting in line for our meals, going out to the firing range and waiting for our turn on the firing range. Sometimes while waiting we would have classes.

They asked for volunteers to go to school for Radio operator. Well, I volunteered. They sent me to Field Wire School instead. This school was at Camp Roberts, Ca. While there we studied wire communication including switchboard operating and troubleshooting. I made the top grade in my class. They put my picture in the Danville paper about that, but they put another soldiers name on it. Mary insisted that they correct this mistake. They got it right the next week. When the school was over I went back to the unit in Camp Cooke and they transferred me to a line company and gave me a 30 caliber machine gun to carry around while we were on field operations. A visit to the battalion communications officer got me transferred to the battalion headquarters co. to be their switchboard operator. I was never very good with the rifle but I did qualify. One day while firing at the 500 yard target in the prone position I shifted my body during a series of eight shots and when the shots were counted my target had seven shots on the target but the guy next to me had 9 bulls eyes with eight shots. Well, I can't say I really enjoyed this experience in the Army but I guess it was good for me. Since my enlistment in the National Guard was nearly up by the time we were activated and the President added six-months to everyone's time in service, I served only about 10 months active duty. During this entire time I got only three letters from mom even though I wrote her at least twice a month. The first letter I got from her was to tell me she had gotten my income tax return and had cashed it to buy her a washer. When I got home following discharge and knocked on the door a stranger answered the door and told me that Pearl Potts did not live there anymore and they did not know where she had moved to. I had to call Bill go find out where she had moved to.

At discharge time I was paid 460 dollars mustering out pay and I packed my duffel bag and started hitch-hiking home. On the first leg of the journey I got to the center of Los Angeles in just a few hours, but to get out of town it took a long time. I wound up at the end of my next ride stranded out at a very small town about 2:30 in the morning. With all that money in my pocket I got quit nervous. I stopped at the all-night dinner that had a Western Union office and wired most of it to a bank in Chicago. Well, the next ride I got took me all the way to Lincoln Nebraska where Rev. Easterday was now located and I spent the next five days with him. One time while I was with him and his wife Grace downtown shopping we got separated from her and he asked me if I knew where she was. I told him I just saw her walk down the street and she “turned into a drugstore.” He thought that was funny.

He was planning a trip to St. Paul Bible Institute and asked me to wait and go with him to St. Paul. I did that. We visited the school and I later signed up for classes that started in January. Rev Easterday returned home to Lincoln Neb. and I hitch-hiked on to Chicago. That part of the trip did not take long. A few months before I got discharged there was a bus strike and the government and news people encouraged the citizens to pick up soldiers in uniform so it was not really hard to get a ride back then. That is, except for Chicago. There was no way anyone was going to give me a ride out of Chicago. I tried for quit a while. By this time the busses were running (they had been on strike) and I caught the Greyhound home to Danville. As I said before mom had moved and I had to call Bill to find out where she was. I stayed with her for a little while then, but I then moved into am apartment where De and Ed Lived. Another place I roomed for a while was the YMCA.

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"Bible School"

Most of the time between Oct. 1952 and Jan. 1953 I lived in the same apartment house with De & Ed. but not the same apartment. I took off to St. Paul Mn. in January. Now this is the middle of winter and while driving between Chicago and St. Paul, with snow on the ground, I woke up only to find a Semi rig coming straight toward me in my lane. I swerved off the road, down an embankment and right straight into the corn field. The stalks were still standing and as soon as I slowed up enough to turn, I turned and went onto the drive way then back up to the road and stopped before continuing. The semi just kept on trucking I did honk and I hope he woke up. I did not stop, but went on to Bible school

The apartment I was assigned to was an old, large house that had been converted to rooms for the students. My room mate was Jim. One evening during the first week I went out for a walk with several other students and I only wore a light jacket over my shirt and I felt pretty comfortable until they told me that it was 25 degrees out. It did not seem to bother me since it was also very dry. We did our laundry in a large room in the basement, and I washed a red sweater with the rest of my clothes, and hung them up to dry on the lines in the basement. The senior student that was in charge of the house later hollered up the steps, “whose pink ‘undies’ are hanging down here. Well, since I did not have many others, I had to wear them anyway.

The house was just around the corner from the school. Jack Wagoner was now a Senior in the school, and he and his family lived about next door. I visited them often during this semester. I got a job working at the Montgomery Ward mail order store about a quarter mile from the school. The arches in my feet hurt me from time to time and one time they hurt quit a bit while I was walking to work and I was even crying because of the pain. One of the girls from school noticed me from across the street. She had been walking in the opposite direction. Her name was Carlotta Rubish and some of the students called her Car Load of Rubish, but she was really a nice girl and did not deserve to be treated like that. I went on to work and since I was a little early I went to the Dr Scholl’s department and they sold me some steel custom fitted insoles with leather lining and that helped a lot.

A few times I would go with a group from the school to the missions in Minneapolis to hold services for the homeless. I did not do any of the preaching on these outings, but I did help with the service and sometimes passed out leaflets and invited people in the area to come into the service. They would often ask for a handout but one time I did give one of them a dollar and he walked past me and I turned and saw him take out a handful of bills and wrapped it around them and put them back into his pocket.

Mr. French was the dean of boys and he was a kind and able person. He taught the speech class that dealt with the preparation of sermons. I delivered only one sermon during the class but I passed the class. The sermon dealt with the love of God and “In the beginning was the Word” passage as well as the passage that dealt with the fact that He was tempted in all points as we are. One of the stories Mr. French liked to tell the students dealt with the fact that when he attended the school he was much older than the other students and one night after he got ready for bed his room mate took the glass of water containing his false teeth and set it out of the window onto the roof and the next morning his teeth were frozen in the glass.

As I said before I visited Jack and Wanda often. They had a little girl named Wauneta Sue and I taught her how to tie her shoes. She grew up and the last I heard she was a missionary in South America. The school was the St. Paul Bible institute which is one of the schools sponsored by the Christian and Missionary Alliance and they emphasize missionary work. Every year the school would put on a large production called world missions night. The senior class president would usually do much of the organizing for this. This year Jack Wagoner did this.

In order to tell this part of the story it will be necessary to review with you the practice the Israelites had concerning the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a large tent that was moved from place to place during their wonderings. In the middle of the Tabernacle there was a separate curtained off area consisting of two parts. In the one part the priest would offer up the sacrifices that were brought on a regular basis and the blood of the animals was sprinkled on the alter. Most of the priests were not allowed in the second part. Only the High Priest could go in there, and then only once a year. On the day of Atonement which was the tenth day of the seventh month each year, the High Priest would enter into the other compartment which was called the Holy of Holies.

He would make a sacrifice for his sins and for those of the people. The point is, the priests acted as a go-between God and the people. In Mathew 27 verses 50 and 51 we read, “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;”

We understand this to be the time when man no longer needs to have a man as a go-between him and God. We can go directly to God through Jesus. As the story on stage progressed, in the audience which was a crowd of 10,000 the lights were turned low and at the time, the curtains had been rigged to open very fast from the top to the bottom, and as they parted in the middle to reveal the inner room to represent what happened in Mathew, an accident occurred. There was a short in one of the lighting fixture connections and a great spark nearly lit up the stage. This was not planned at all, and no one got hurt, so it was an effective end to the show. Jack was my friend and Wanda had been my Sunday school teacher so I was really quit proud of the whole presentation.

On two occasions while visiting at Jack and Wanda’s I baked chocolate cakes. The first I baked from scratch. Some of the direction needed to be explained to me, but it really turned out good. The second one I baked from a mix and it was so hard it could have been used for a paving brick. After school was out I helped Jack and Wanda move to their first church in Cable Wisconsin. It was a small town of 250 people and there were 5 churches in the town. On the way up while I was driving and pulling a two wheeled trailer, as I rounded a curve three deer ran out in front of me. The smallest and last of the three turned somewhat while in the middle of the road and slipped, and the white fur flew, he got up and went on. It was all I could do to keep from hitting him, but I did miss him.

This was Another scary moment. I stayed on at Jack and Wanda’s house for a few days and while there, one day we went out with one of his people to cut wood pulp. Jack loaned me a pair of his rubber boots to wear since it was very wet in the woods. The trees were felled and trimmed a little and they were small enough for two men to pick up. They were dragged by tractor to a skid and piled onto it to get them out of the woods. After unloading the skid onto the truck the skid was taken back into the woods to get another load. One time while returning to get another load I was walking behind while the chain was being dragged behind the skid and I stepped onto the end of the chain and it caught my boot. There I was with a chain hook pulling on one foot and a tractor pulling the skid. I was hopping on one foot and hollering “stop, stop”. Luckily he stopped before I fell. It did put a hole in Jacks boot, though. During one trip back into the woods the tractor driver ran into one of the trees and the top half of the tree fell and narrowly missed hitting him in the head as it fell.

This Jack was a fine man, but this day he and I were both idiots when it comes to safety. He had some logs of wood in the yard and nearby the wood was a belt driven buzz saw about 20” diameter with absolutely no blade guards. I helped Jack cut some wood. He would hold one end of the log and I would hold the other end. We would pass the log onto the saw and it would cut it in two. While doing this I was standing on some previously cut pieces and I slipped. My foot went into the saw blade cutting the top of the shoe and it also snagged my sock, but it did not cut my toe. Another scary moment, for sure.

Most of the girls at school lived upstairs above the classrooms and there was one room in which three short girls lived. I never saw their room, but one of the girls was 4’ 11”, one was 5’ and the third was 5’1”. When I first went to Bible school I was engaged to Frances, but I called on the phone and broke off the engagement. Neither of us was angry at the time (I think), but we were both upset. During my stay at Bible school I went out, at one time or another, with each of the three short girls. One was the country’s most prolific tom-boy. Her father did plastering, both the old fashioned way and also he put in wallboard & finished it. He did good work. I saw some that he did on his place one time during a visit. Her name was Louise and her best girl friend was the assistant dean of women who happened to also be a student. She went with Louise and I to visit Louise’ family’s old homestead. We drove 50 miles on dirt roads that were State highways. During the trip the Chevrolet had a flat. I changed to the spare and before we could get that one fixed we had another. We stopped and borrowed an air pump from a nearby farmer. I had the tools with me and I patched the tube but I had to fix the pump before I could use it. It was tiring work. Before I could get it pumped up a truck came by and the driver asked if he could help. Louise’s friend stayed with the car and they took Louise and I down the road with the spare to the nearest gas station which was about three miles. Their air supply was another hand pump. That was all they had and while I went in to get some drinks for the three of us, Louise pumped the tire up and when I got back out I had to stop her because she put in way too much air. She had it up to 50 pounds pressure. She did have some muscles. For a while I went to church with Louise at the non-denominational church. A few times the old Chevrolet would not work and I walked the 4.9 miles to church while she got a ride with other members. After church I got a ride home.

I only took Barbara out a couple of times. She was the blonde of the group. I do mean blond. If I told her shoes were manufactured on the moon she would have believed me. We once went to her church together and I took her out to the carnival. We had a good time, but did not continue seeing each other.

Marlene Joyce Thomas was the brain of the three. Her dad was a city commissioner for Superior Wisconsin. One time after I made a trip to see Jack and Wanda in Cable Wisconsin I left there and drove up to Superior to get Marlene to return her to Bible school. As we were fixing to leave I found out that her mom was coming along and she had three nursing students that were returning to St. Paul Minnesota to go back to school. It all added up to her, her mom and three girls in the back. On the way back one of my tires started making a noise and Marlene suggested I check it. I told her I had been listening to it and we stopped and checked the tire. I told her we had to change it, but we needed to find a better place to get off the road. We went about a half mile to a driveway and pulled off. Now, whoever heard of girls traveling without suitcases. I had to remove all the luggage from the trunk to get to the tools and spare. I got the tools out and jacked up the car and removed the damaged tire from the car and leaned it up against the car, while all the time the girls were standing close by talking. after I removed the spare and just as I was placing it onto the lugs, the damaged tire blew. Bam. It really scarred all the girls. We made it back to school with no further incidents. Marlene and I went to a Lutheran church a few times. She went there regularly and was in the choir. She was intelligent and she counseled me some even though she was several years younger. I knew I did not love but I did enjoy her company.

Other than those three girls I went with only one other. That is except for the one formal dinner that I took Pat Hessler to. She knew at the start that we were just friends. That other girl was Muriel Peterson and she was my partner in band class. We practiced together a lot and played in the band together. I could not handle the trumpet to get good music out of it so they gave me a French horn and I did quit well with it. We did a concert only three days after they started me on the French horn. The fingering was the same as that of the trumpet. During the third semester at the school Muriel invited me to go with her to her home in Valentine, Nebraska for a visit over the Easter Holiday. We rode with some other students going there. Muriel had a 15 year old brother that was running a 600 acre ranch. It was his girl friends family’s ranch and the dad had had a heart attack and had not yet recovered. We went over to the ranch a couple of times and he tried to teach me to rope, but all I got out of that was a rope burn on my neck. Muriel's mom and dad were both school teachers and they went to the Assembly of God church. One time I wrote her a letter at her home and addressed it to “Feb. 14, Neb.” She got it.

For about 6 weeks during the school semester I taught at a home in the evening at the good news club. The students were mostly kindergarten age and the class was about 45 minutes long. About 12 students attended and there was one little girl that kept getting up out of her chair and wondering over to the window and showing numerous other signs of not paying attention. When I tested the class, though that girl could answer nearly every question correctly. You just don’t know what their little minds are absorbing.

The Bible school would send out some students to the local churches during the summer to teach at their Daily Vacation Bible School, and I got paired with another guy and we went up into northern Minnesota to teach at a small church for the two weeks. We met at the church and we went with a local farmer to his home not far away. His drive way was a quarter mile long and narrow. The trees were close to the road and very tall. When we got to his house we saw a lake behind it. We did a little fishing there. One Saturday while there it started raining and the next morning the road was so muddy we could not drive out. We just got ready for church and then the farmer took the canoe off the top of the car and put it into the lake. My partner and I rowed across the lake to the neighbors house and they took us to church. The farmer and his family crossed in another boat. One night during our stay I was awakened during the night by a teenage girl hollering and running down the hallway in her pajamas. She was yelling “there is a bat in my room.” I just grabbed a blanket and went and caught it and told her to open the window and I put it out. No big problem but not dull.

The third semester I lived in a different apartment and my room mate was Bob Roberts. He helped me get a job at the hospital where he worked. I worked 11-7 shift and went to school 8-12 so there was not much time for studying. While I was working at the Charles T. Miller hospital on the night shift my brakes went out on the Chevrolet. I still had the hand brake and I drove to work on the snow part of the time, for three days with no foot brakes. That was a foolish thing to do for sure. Bob was a Junior and he did a lot of the preaching at the missions when we went to them. He was also a sharp dresser and a smart young man. While I was in Bible school granddad wrote to me on a couple of occasions but I could not read his writing so I sent them home to mom so she could interpret them for me. He wrote left handed and I just could not make it out. Bible school was a good experience but I decided I did not want to become a preacher so I only went three semesters. I worked at Western Electric for a few months while staying in the new school apartment. When Western Electric went on strike during the summer I started home, but before I got there I learned that the strike was over and went back. Before long I decided that my life was still lonely and I could not imagine me living it much longer without Frances. I turned in my two weeks notice at Western Electric and when that was over I headed for Danville.

Back in Danville I remember Mom, Curt and I lived in an apartment about a jewelry store on North Vermilion Street. While in the Army I had a watch that I lost in a fox hole only to go back two weeks and several rains later and I found it. I could not get it to work, and at home on north Vermilion St. I put the watch up in the kitchen cabinet. Curt found the watch, I told him it did not work, but he wound it, shook it, and it worked fine for him. The apartment was heated by steam heat generated by the Illinois power company and piped by the city into all the businesses in downtown Danville. There was a chimney in the front room that we did not use and it was papered over. On one quiet Sunday afternoon mom and I were the only ones home and we heard a strange noise. It seemed to be coming from the inside of the wall. After a while it got a little louder and we saw a hole in the paper and a bird peeking its way out from behind the paper. Now that was strange to us. I caught the bird in a towel and put him out the window. To go out the back of the apartment we had to go out a door and down a long straight flight of steeps. Just across the alley was the back of a furniture store. Frances and I had started making plans to get married so I keep an eye out for discarded furniture. I picked up a very old gas stove with the oven at eye level and four burners. It was probably Bill that helped me carry it up the stairs. I also found a discarded old cabinet we used for dishes. These two items Frances and I later used. Next chapter. Early married years.

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The Early Married Years:

After I returned from Bible School Fran and I made up and were starting to make plans to get married, but I could not agree on a date until I got a job.

I got a job as a bell-hop at the Wolford for a while, but that only paid a dollar an hour plus tips. I would look for a job in my off hours, so my strategy for looking for work was, I would pack a lunch and wear the clothes I expected to wear on the job that I was applying for. Perhaps it was on Wednesday of that week that I applied at F. L. Jacobs. I got an interview right away and they told me to go to the Dr.'s office for a physical. Before I left they asked that if I passed the physical when could I start work. I said, "today." Well, I passed it and returned to Jacobs for the 4-12 shift that very day. I called the hotel from there and told them I would not be in any more. They wanted to know why I had not given the a two week notice. I told them that the wages were the reason.

At Jacobs we made parts for the M-1 rifle, some type of rocket housing for the navy, and we also made the mechanism to operate the roof for the hard top convertible for the Chevrolet Impala. I worked as a machine welder for the M-1parts. My step brothers wife Dorothy Potts also worked there . After a few months, though I got laid off and in a week I was working at the foundry for General Motors in Tilton. In the meantime Fran and I set the date for the wedding to be on a Friday night, June 24, 1955. Joyce Etcheson had married Marshall Cox and Joyce was the matron of honor and my friend that would neverlet me beat him at chess, Austin Lindley was the best man. Austin and Hazels son Cliff was the ring bearer and the preachers daughter Susan McGarvey was the flower girl. I asked for and got one afternoon off from work, so on that Friday the 24th of June in 1955, Fran and I started a new life together as husband and wife. They tell me there were candles across the front of the church and some flowers somewhere, but I did not notice them. I was nervous. Without detailing our relationship together these nearly 50 years together I can truthfully say that I have never regretted that day. I still can't imagine life without her.

The work at General Motors was hard, but my emotional state was definitely improving. Fran and I went together to find an apartment. We preferred the Oak lawn area and when we did find an apartment I thought we could afford the lady would not rent it to us at first because we were not married. We told her of our plans, so she did rent it to us. About a week before the wedding we started moving a few things into the apartment. I moved in the stove and cabinet I had picked up and somebody gave us a front room chair and we moved that in. Our apartment had two rooms on one side of the common hall that we used as the bedroom and the front room. The kitchen was right across the common hall, but the bath was also a common bath. By that I mean, there were three other apartments on the second floor where our apartment was and the people from all four apartments used the same bathroom. The common laundry was on the main floor. The day before the wedding. Mr. Compton and I moved Fran's bedroom stuff in. It has been 48 years and we are still using the bedroom furniture he parents gave her. The mattresses have been replaced a couple of times.

We did not go on a honeymoon until several years later. When we did, we went to the Wisconsin Dells. We did enjoy it and one remarkable thing I remember about it is that, on the way back we pooled our resources to buy a cup of coffee for the driver-me. That was 35 cents. I thought that was a very high price to pay for a cup of coffee.

We did not want to have kids right away, but after about a year we decided it was about time, but things did not work out as we had planned. We did start shopping for a home and we found a place just one block from our apartment. It was a five room frame with bath and half basement at 105 Ohio Street, with a garage in the back. Since I was a veteran I got a GI insured loan and only had to pay 2% down. We made the deal and on the 24th of December the man from the real-estate co. came out to the plant where I worked and got me to sign the papers. We moved in on the day after Christmas.

For a few years we continued to go to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church and nearly every Sunday we would go up to Poland road and get some of Mary's kids, go to the fair Oaks and get some of Iva's kids and grandkids, and go out west of town and get some of Bill's kids and take them to Sunday School. One time we had 18 kids in that station wagon. I remember all of the older ones and a few of the younger ones. Gladys' Johnny and Christy were so cute, and Christy would not shake hands with the preacher. Every time he offered to she would just slap his hand.

De and Eddie had divorced and she had married Roy Edmond. Curt married Polly and they lived in our area for a while. Curt, Roy and I would sometimes help each other with our home remodeling projects. I helped Roy replace a floor in his house, Curt, Polly and the kids came over for a cook out one day and at the time I used sugar in my coffee but he did not. We both had our coffee on the table out in the yard and he picked up the wrong cup. After one swig of it he spit it out and he said it almost made him sick.

Later we got to looking at the way the back porch boards were rotted on the outside of the wall that had been built to enclose it and I told him we needed to tear out the middle part of it to make a cement floor for the laundry. He helped me tear out the back porch then and there. I later rebuilt it with a concrete floor so the house would not shake when the washer ran. Over the years when Curt and Roy would help each other they tried to see which one could steal tools from the other without getting caught, but neither of them ever took any of my tools.

One evening while at work I got a call from Mrs. Compton. I knew right away something was wrong because she almost never called me. She was at the hospital with Frances. She said that Frances had been hit by a car and they took her to the hospital to get checked out. Since she was being taken care of I saw no need to leave work. After work I went over to the hospital for a while to see her. She was released the next day. I learned later that while Frances and her dad had been shopping and that while Fran was crossing south Vermilion Street with the green light some man from out of town ran the red light and hit her with his car. It struck her in the left hip.

After being released from the hospital she had a little problem walking, and as time passed she developed a swelling in her hip. A several trips to the Doctor we were told that they needed to cut the swelling part out to relieve pressure from the muscles. We checked her into the hospital at St. Elizabeth's hospital and they did operate. Her leg was much better after that but it never did completely recover to its original condition.

I cannot say for sure which time this happened, but on one occasion when Fran was in St. Elizabeth's hospital she are some very greasy spaghetti and meat balls and it upset her stomach so much that I complained to the Hospital and the DR. The Dr. said the nurses had also complained about the food and he ordered a special diet for Fran. Even though Fran was released from the hospital she was so sick that for about 6 months I had to do all of the cooking for the two of us. It had to be no grease at all, I think they called it a bland diet. It was a good thing this happened before the kids were born.

Just a few months before he was scheduled to retire, Fran's dad went into Lake View Hospital and they tried to heal him but they were not able to. He was just too sick. Our kids never even got to meet either or their granddads. He never got to meet either of his grandkids. He would have been so proud of them if they had. I remember that before Fran and I were married I walked with Mr. Compton up to Harding Drug. As it was the custom in those days, every drug store had a soda fountain in it with a coffee bar, and while we waited for the prescription to be filled they would serve a free Coffee o or soda. Mr. Compton also liked to smoke his cigars but he would not smoke around the women.

One day shortly after lunch I got a call at work from Fran. She said Johnny had reached up and picked up a bottle of dog shampoo and that he had drank some of it. She first called the Dr. and the Dr. told her to make him throw it up. Otherwise he would have to go to the hospital and get his stomach pumped. I told her I would be right there. I was working in the day lab at this time, and as I went to get my coat to leave my department head was in the office and wanted me to do something else right away. He said "don't leave." I told him what had happened and he said "go." Well, while I was on the way home Fran talked to the Dr some more and he told her that I should make Johnny drink some strong salt water. He told her how much salt to put in, so when I got home I put him into the bath tub and held his nose and poured the stuff down him. Without getting graphic, the results were good and we did not have to take him to the hospital.

It must have been around 1967 that one cold night while we were all asleep I woke up with a bad headache and it woke up Fran and she had a headache so we checked the kids and they both had headaches. There was no other explanation for this, so I told them to all get dressed. I called Mrs. Compton who was now living in Tilton. We all went over to her house and spent the rest of the night. I don't think we had a dog then. Early the next morning I called Curt for help. He went with me and we found a friend of his that just happened to be a furnace engineer. We caught him before he left for work. I asked him to check out the house that day because we suspected carbon monoxide gas. I did get to work that day even though I was a little late. The furnace was fixed while I was at work (I had given the man a key) and I went and picked up the family after work. We thanked Mrs. Compton for putting us up for the night. After Mr. Compton died, Mrs. Compton moved to a small house in Tilton. While passing from the front room to the kitchen you had to walk close to the kitchen stove, and as Johnny would pass the stove he would reach up and put his hand on the corner burner. We repeatedly told him not to do that, but one day he did it right after his grandma had shut it off. Well, he did find out the hard way that time. It burnt his four fingers. Several years later when Mrs. Compton's house needed painted I agreed to help Melvin paint the house. We got the paint and I would take Johnny with me while I would work on it. He just had to get into the act, so, by this time, since he could reach the bottom two feet of the siding, and since it was latex paint, I let him do what he could reach from the ground. He did a pretty good job. Melvin never got around to helping at all.

We would often have Christmas dinner at Mary Della's house out on Grape creek road and this one time we planned for Fran to cook the turkey. However, this time Fran had the privilege of spending Christmas in the hospital, so who cooked the turkey? It was me, and I must say, it turned out quit good. Now, I did get a lot of advice and I did some reading, but I did it myself. One time Mr. Phipps, the dry cleaner on E. Main St. that went to our church gave us a little cocker spaniel and he gave Mary Della the brother. The two of them looked almost identical. They were black cocker spaniels. When we would go and visit at Mary Della's we sometimes took Mike with us. The two dogs got along well, so much so that they would sometimes work together in an effort to corner the chickens that got out of the pen. We kept a pan of water on the well for the dogs and that one summer the pan was often moved from the well and spilled so Bob accused the neighbor kids of messing around with the dogs water. However, after closer observation we observed our dog Mike carrying the water bowl over under the tree to the shade and he dumped the water and laid down on the wet ground. Bob had to apologize to the kids for blaming them. That dog Mike was one of a kind, for sure. His brother was named Tater.

Speaking of Taters, one time when Mary and Bob lived in Westville they had a basement with a pump for the well and when the pipes sprung a leak I went down there and in order to fix the leak I grabbed a Potato, finished breaking the pipe, and jammed the potato onto the pipe. This stopped the leak long enough for me to find out how to shut down the system to fix it.

Just another of the many uses of potatoes. Now, back over to their house on Grape Creek road I remember that Mary and Bob had a new well drilled and they had the water pumped into the kitchen, but they still had to go out back to the outhouse for their personal stuff and Mary asked me to put in some plumbing for them. Bob helped me with the drainage part. He dug most of the hole for the septic tank and did most of the drain work, but I installed the piping from the kitchen to the bathroom for the lavatory, stool and shower. They were glad when that was done. She did pay me for the work. There was a water heater in the system.

Uncle Vearl and Aunt Iva bought the property right next to Mary and Bob's place and the land was covered with many small trees. I went out and did a lot of the tree clearing and since they were full of stickers I did get a few scratches. Their son-in-law Howard laid out the stakes and aunt Iva herself dug the footings for the foundation. They had a house built there. By this time most of their kids were grown so they did not need a large house. I believe this was the only house they ever bought. The rest of the time they rented. The house passed on to Sonny after Vearl died and Iva could not live alone anymore.

After a couple of years of trying, we began to think we could not have children, so we considered adopting. We went to an agency but they required that to qualify Fran had to have a Doctors report as to her health. Doctor Shafer was her Doctor and he reported that her health was not good enough to raise any kids. We let that go for a while, but now think of the following.

Our faith played an important role in our lives, but I would like to also emphasize the importance of riends. Fran had a very dear friend named Kathryn Nixon. Her husband ran Barkers shoe store in town. Mrs. Nixon and Fran had some long talks together and from these talks Fran lost some of her very negative ideas about sex that she had gotten from her mom. Well, needles to say, things were better and she got pregnant. She went back to the Doctor and when she was about five months pregnant she asked the Doctor if her health was good enough to have a child. The Doctor said, "Now's a fine time to ask that."

It was on a Saturday night in June of 1961 that her water broke and the doctor told me to take her in to the hospital. It was not until Tuesday on June 6 that that stubborn kid decided to show his face. The doctor spent several hours there at the hospital waiting in the doctors lounge on that Tuesday. I do not remember a whole lot about the night John Allen was born, but I know I was glad about it and when the doctor carried him out of the delivery room and I saw him before he even got cleaned up.

A child in the family does change things for all of us. I had enjoyed the company of the nieces and nephews, but this one was our own to have and to hold and to train. One of my greatest pleasures was to read to him. We started this even before he could understand any of it. We also sang to him, but when I sang the song "The Old Rugged Cross" to him he cried. I guess that was because of the minor key. Since I was now working at Olin and changing shifts each week it was hard for Fran to handle him and still try to keep the house quit so I could sleep during the day.

At Olin I had finally gotten a job that I enjoyed. It was sort of like a lab Technicians job. We would run tests on the chemicals used in the process and on the cellophane during the process and after it was finished. Our responsibility was to the whole process including inspecting the finished product before shipment, but the inspecting was done by the senior people in the department. During my first week there I saw a man working in the part of the lab that was called the day lab and I liked what he was doing. I said to myself that that was the job I wanted, and in about 5 years I had that job.

The standard solutions analyst was the name of the job and that is what I did. I would make up all of the solutions used throughout the plant to test the product or process. The primary acid was by far the most difficult to make because it had to pass some very stringent tests. It was the acid that everything the plant was based on. One of the chemists in our group told me that the potassium dichromate that I made using the book only as a guide was more pure that that we received from the national Bureau of Standards.

We continued to go to the Alliance church for some time, but we later started going to the Pentecostal church on Logan avenue. When we went here we had a Chevrolet car and we had been having trouble with it. There was a hill behind the church and Fran said that she wished somebody would push the car over the hill. Well, one new years eve Fran went to church and I stayed home and while the watch service was going on somebody stole the car. We found it the next morning with a dead rabbit in the back, the back of the seats slashed and the radio bashed in.

One of the assistant inspectors at work was a lay preacher by the name of Joe Hudson. He was a friend and when he started being the pastor at a small church nearby I we helped him clean up the church and I even preached one time when he was sick. When John Allen was about 5 he had a piece to say in the program, I think is was on Easter and when it was time for him to say the little speech he would just not say a word. After the service Joe's mom asked Johnny to say it and he still would not. She offered him a nickel to say it and then he rattled it off like he had to. He knew it alright, but he must have needed an incentive. I taught him to say disodium ethylenediamine tetracetate when he was less than three, so we knew he could say that little piece.

Now when it was about time for Kathy to come along, we took Fran to the hospital on Fran's birthday but that was false labor, but on Feb. 7th it was real and another bundle of joy filled our lives. We named her Kathryn in honor of Fran's friend Kathryn Nixon. I picked out the middle name Lynn because I thought it sounded good. With the tongue being on the "n" at the end of Kathryn, it is but a slight change to go to the l sound. Kathy had three of us to read to her. By now I really had to be careful not to make a mistake when I was reading because John Allen would correct me since he had memorized nearly all oft some of the books we would read. These kids really brought joy to the both or us.

We started Johnny going to the First Baptist day school because we did not like some of the things being taught in the public schools. We started going to the First Baptist Church, but I began to miss a lot of church. It was a large church and I guess I did not feel comfortable going to this church. One Sunday morning we dressed Johnny in his new pants and started out to go to church and the car would not start. We did not have another, so since we were all dressed up for church we just walked around the corner to the local Nazarene church. On the way John Allen kept running ahead more that I liked for him to. He fell down and tore his new pants. I had told him several time to stay with us. When I caught him I spanked him (not hard). We went on. One of the proudest times in my life was, while going to this church they had a contest among the kids. They were to write an essay about their father and Johnny's essay was picked as the winner and on Fathers day I was picked to be "Father of the Year." I still have the new Testament they gave me to commemorate the event.

Another proud moment I had involved the Methodist church down the street from us. Kathy had been out playing and she accidentally threw a ball through a large basement window of the church. Now, I am not bragging about her sports ability, just the fact that she came home and told me about it. I scolded her for her carelessness, but I was also quick to point out to her that I was pleased that she admitted what she had done. Well, I started going to the Nazarene church quit regular, and Fran and the kids went to the Baptist church.

You might think that all of the loneliness would be gone from a person that had such a joyous family, but it was not. When Kathy was about three I took a weeks vacation and left mom and the kids at home, and went to a Christian retreat with three other men I did not even know. They were from different churches in the area, and the four of us (I rode with them) went to a place called The Kiamichi Clinic down in Arkansas. At this gathering there were over 5,000 men, all gathered together to attend classes during the day and church at night. Some of the preachers that spoke were very experienced, but some were giving their first public sermon. The men were from many different protestant groups. Mostly we were to praise the Lord and learn. No one was allowed to shave or wear a tie. The only women there were the cooks. They did good too. While there I lost nearly all of the loneliness and I figured out why. No matter what happens or where we go, there are people out there that we may not even know, but most Christians do care about other people. When I got back home I had a picture taken in moms front yard with me holding Kathy in my left arm and Johnny in my right arm and my beard right in the middle.

This story would not be complete without me mentioning Fran's little cousin Barbara Ann. We would sometimes baby sit for her while her parents both worked. She was a beautiful little blonde. One day right as I got home from work she had been across the street playing at a friends and right after I stopped and got out of the car, as soon as I got to the sidewalk, Barbara started to run across the street to see me. Just as she started I heard a vehicle coming and I yelled at her, "STOP!" She froze in her tracks just as a pick-up truck drove by. I went over and picked her up and we went to the house with both of us crying. I tried to explain to her I was not mad at her, but the truck was coming. I guess she understood.

Parents like to tell you about cute things their kids say, so I guess I will relate two of them here. We had a clock in the front room that was not running and I could not get it to run. Johnny studied it a while and told me that "at least it is right two times a day." Another time while I was reading the Readers Digest" Kathy asked me what I was reading and I told her. She said "I can't read it and I can't digest it." Food for thought--we need to listen to the little ones for two reasons. They need to be heard and, believe it or not, we might learn something.

Next chapter
"The Turbulent Years"

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