Chapter 1

Prologue:  I’ve always thought I had an unusual life and I’ve always had a flair for writing. I’m not nearly as good as my sister Lisa and my daughter Stephanie as well as those who I worked with like Murray Edwards, Tony Hartzel and Tracey Friggle and I had a stroke in 2010 so some of my flair for writing and my energy is fading.  At age 65, I retired from working to write this book and take care of my then 88-year-old father.  My unusual early life is the main reason for this.  With regard to my adult life, it’s fairly pedestrian but I remember a of things I hope you find interesting. If this never gets published but is only something for my family and friends, that is good enough for me.  Diane’s mom has short documents that Mr. Brentrup’s family wrote and I find them fascinating.  So, I decided to write this.  I hope you find it interesting and I hope I don’t embellish anything but my grandfather used to say when we’d hear him tell stories differently than in the past, “I don’t want the truth to encumber a good story.”  Well, I want to tell both good stories and I want them to be truthful.  As truthful as I can remember……

CHAPTER 1 -- Growing Up through High School Graduation

First, to have this make sense, you will need to know some names.  I’ll put the names pertaining to that chapter at the beginning of each chapter and included links to a family tree.  Just click on the link and it will take you to the tree so you can see who is connected to who when you think, “now who was that?”  Also, you can click on these links at any time to see the family tree:  Luther Powers, Juanita Phillips Powers Donaldson, Patricia Embry Powers, and Diane Brentrup. 

Names and People

o    Powers and Wilson families

o   My great-grandfather Powers was named James Edward and he was married to Permilia Watkins Skaggs.  They had five sons and one of the was my grandfather Luther Almer Powers Sr.   He was called Almer.  The other sons were OD, Ira, Carl, and Tom.  After the boys were grown and James Edward gone, Tom sent his mother to the “poor house.”  Almer was so angry with Tom, he went and got her and she lived with my grandfather and his spouse Lula until she died.  And my grandfather never spoke to Tom again the rest of his life; my dad said he talked about him a lot.  My grandfather hated poor houses or nursing homes and refused to go into one on his own.

o   Now this part is legend to me so I’m not sure what is fact and what might have been “mis-remembered” through the years. My great-great grandfather was a politician and things went bad for him in politics so he left Kentucky, his wife, and one son.   My dad tells the story that my great-great grandfather and his brother (who were both lawyers) shot the governor but none of that is corroborated although around 1900 there was a “situation” where the election of the governor was contested and the person who lost was shot and then installed by the legislature 3 days before he died.  Sounds like a soap Oprah for sure.  Anyway, back to my family; after a few years, Powers’ wife married a Wilson and they had several children together.  We had a family reunion with the Powers/Wilson families when I was about 8, my grandfather was alive and he knew everyone there.  I did not know anyone.  The singular Powers in that family was my great grandfather. 

o    Grandfather Luther Almer Powers Jr.  and spouse Lula Duncan Powers

o   Lula was a Duncan and was part Jewish because her grandmother was a Jew who married a Gentile.  This was scandalous as you can imagine especially back in the day but Lula her family were all Baptists.   My grandfather and grandmother met while at Lindsay Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky after my grandfather returned from WWI.  Both of them received teaching degrees at this two-year college and both of them were certified to teach.  I believe they did some teaching at first but my grandfather became a grocery store manager and my grandmother a housewife. 

o    

o    My Dad’s and his siblings

o   Uncle JE married Phyllis and he was the only brother to my dad.  He was the oldest boy as my dad was the youngest child.  His children:  Brian, Scott and Beth Ann

o   Aunt Geraldine (Gerry) was the oldest child and she married her first husband Jimmy Fitzpatrick after WWII.  Her children with him were Larry and Denny. Her second husband was Dillon O’Neil Darby (DO) and her children with him were Duncan and Dillon (called Rusty).  Aunt Gerry and her 2^nd husband moved to Minnesota and took us in after Juanita left.  Dad went to school and Aunt Gerry looked after us. 

o   Aunt Margaret and Ray Conway.  Aunt Margaret had a boyfriend from Kansas who was killed in WWII.  They met at what my dad called “the galleries” where dancing and whatnot occurred.  Aunt Margaret and Aunt Vera met boys from Kansas.   Margaret then married Ray Conway and they had one adopted daughter:  Donna Carrol.  My dad said he used to go to the galleries and was told by Bill Lethem “this is no place for a boy” and gave him 5 cents for a malted.  My dad said he kept going back and kept getting malted’s.

o   Aunt Jewel and Harold Hicks.  Jewel was a civil servant at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio and Harold was in the Air Force when they met.  He went to Greenland during WWII.  She and Harold had three children:  Mike, Linda, and Pat

o   Aunt Vera and Bill Lethem.  Bill Lethem was from Kansas and met Aunt Vera at one of the galleries (a meeting place for GI’s and local girls) when Bill was training for WWII. After WWII, they married and moved to his hometown of Phillipsburg, Kansas.  She had four children:  Johnny, Beverly, Vicki, and Pete.

o   Aunt Lora Jean and Bob Thomas.  Aunt Lora and Uncle Bob took care of us a lot in Kentucky after Juanita left.  They had two adopted children:  Kyle and Kristi

o   My Dad - Luther Almer Powers Jr.  He was called “Sonny” until he married Pat and then was called “Luther”.  His 1^st wife was Juanita Phillips and his 2^nd wife was Patricia Embry.  I read what Juanita wrote in my dad’s high school album and it was pretty lovey-dovey.  She was very young when they married so probably some puppy love in that.  That is all I know about her younger years.  He married my mom (my step-mom), Pat, when I was about 5 and more about her later.   My dad was the youngest child by quite a bit; all of his sibling and their spouses have passed away.

o    Juanita and her family

o   Juanita Phillips (Powers) Donaldson – My birth mother Juanita was the oldest of seven children.  She and my father married while she was still in high school and they had four children:  Debbie and Phillip (both now deceased), Lisa and me.  After leaving my dad (and us kids), she eventually remarried and is still alive living in Florida with her 2^nd husband named Jimmy. 

o   Juanita’s Family - Father George Phillips and mother Lorraine Phillips.  Juanita had several siblings:  Velma, Janice, June, Evelyn, Alfred (Butch), and Teresa.

o   Patricia Embry Powers family

o   Before I start here, let me say that Pat was my step-mom but in my mind, she was my mom.  I have strong memories and fierce loyalty to her and her family.  Not that our life together was easy as I went from childhood through puberty through early adulthood.  But she was always there, always helpful, always a hard worker, always a good listener, always pro-Tim.   Plus, she was super smart. I loved that and I loved her.  Pat is no longer living. Her Father was Carl Embry Sr. and mother was Minnie Hendricks Embry.  From the first day we met them at their house, Carl and Minnie treated us like their grandchildren although we definitely were not. They were step-grandparents but they were great to us.  The first day we met, we came to her house on Sunday after dinner had been served and she asked if we had eaten.  My mom told her that we were fine and would eat when we got home.  Grandmother Embrey would have none of it. She started taking things out of the refrigerator and we had a meal fit for a king.  After several helpings, I was stuffed to the gills but she looked at me, smiled lovingly, and said, “is that all you want. honey?  Surely you would like to eat a little more.”  I could not have loved anyone more.  My mother had several siblings: Carl Jr., Freddy, Doug, Rodney and Buck, Beatrice (called BO) and Melvin Hockman, Judy and Bobby Hubbard, Verna and Elroy Biddle, Ginny, Mary. 

o    My brother and sisters (His, Hers and Theirs)

o   His:  Debbie – Deceased, Phillip – Deceased, Lisa and Tim

o   Hers:  Peggy and Sheila

o   Theirs:  Lou-Ann – Deceased, Rebekah

GROWING UP TO MY DAD’S SECOND MARRIAGE

o    Grandpa (Luther Almer Powers Sr.) and Grandma (Lula Powers). My father’s parents.  

o   Grandpa Powers was a taskmaster who wanted and expected things just so.  He didn’t have much patience for doing things incorrectly or out of line.  But since he didn’t work when I knew him, he’d come to take care of us or visit and would tell story after story.  I really admired him for doing that.  My dad tells stories and so do I. I don’t remember my grandmother as she died when I was very young.  But from what my aunts and uncles told me, she was a loving person who loved her family and who served as the center of the family.  Her and my grandfather moved around a lot before, during, and after the depression and she followed dutifully but with regard to the family, she was the center.  She graduated from Lindsay Wilson College with a teaching degree and taught for a while until she married and had children.  But she instilled the importance of education into her family and when they strayed (or tried to stray), she was recalcitrant.

o   Grandpa Powers was a World War I veteran and he went to France in what he called “The Great War.” After the War, he went to Lindsay Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky and received a teaching certificate.  He only had to attend for two years for that and my grandmother went to the same school and that is where they met.

o   He was a basketball star when basketball just started in Kentucky (in the early 1900’s) and he was told he would go to the pro’s after serving in the Great War but he got mustard gassed in WWI and that messed his lungs up for playing basketball.  He lived to be 78 but I never knew a time when he was healthy.  He never worked when I was a kid and he was kind of thin and slumped over and always coughing. 

o   After he got drafted into the Army, he became a runner who took messages to the front line.  He had learned to type at Lindsay Wilson college which helped keep him out the first lines. He said he learned everything they gave him in the army and that also kept him from becoming a front-line soldier.  He told me when I was young to learn everything the Army gave me because doing that kept him alive in WWI.  He said many, many of the boys who joined with him were killed and he would have been among them if he hadn’t become a messenger.

o   He said the process for taking messages to the front lines during that war was to send a runner from the commander managing the battle to the front-line commanders and then five minutes later send another runner.  He said if you ran into a runner coming back, you knew the message got through and you could come back.  He said one night he was in a group to send a message and he was the fifth of five.  He said he found the four ahead of him all killed as he took the message to the front.  He said he took that job seriously and did it well every time. He wanted to be known as a person the commander could rely upon.

o   He said that he was carrying a lot of gear during the war including gas masks and after a while, got tired of carrying it all so he and a bunch of his friends decided to lighten their load and get rid of some stuff they were not using.  One of the things he got rid of was his gas mask.  Soon after his unit got mustard gassed and obviously, he didn’t have a mask any longer so the mustard gas scarred his lungs for the rest of his life. 

o   After he was injured, he was transferred to a hospital in Europe and eventually sent back to the states.  They wanted him to go to Walter Reed for further treatment but he said “no” and returned to Kentucky.  There he competed his education, married, and started his life. 

o   I have a photo of him and an associate in their military uniforms and I’m sure it was fairly formal dress because they have baggy pants just below the hips in the thigh area and he looked very handsome and young.  He was always handsome I thought but my recollection of him is as an older man who carried a cane and was kind of hunched over with significant breathing problems.  That photo, which came from Aunt Margaret, was stunning to me.  I still look at it at time and I also look at the only picture I have of my grandfather and grandmother together for a formal portrait.  I’m sure glad they did that.   

o   He said he got a scholarship to play baseball at Lindsay Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky and that is how he paid his way through college.  He said he was pretty good but several of his bothers were better and they went on to play professional baseball some.  He also met his future wife, my Grandmother Lula at Lindsay Wilson and both were certified at teachers. My grandfather/grandmother married after a while and he worked while she stayed home and raised children (and probably helped raise grandchildren like me as well).

o   He had a good paying job running grocery stores for A&P and they would send him to underperforming stores to get them running better. He was working a store in Hazard when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the economy went into freefall.  He said he would take the money to the bank each day and then get the amount needed for the next day’s till.  One day he went and the bank was closed.  Finally, the bank said to come get your money if you had any in the bank and they gave pennies on the dollar until the money was exhausted. He said that he stayed with the company to close the store down, then lost his job.  He had a new car that he’d purchased but he sold that and started farming.

o   He moved a lot of times after A&P, living in Larue County, Kentucky and Hardinsburg, Indiana involved in farming.  He was going to buy a place in Indiana along Hickory Creek and had the bottom land planted in corn. My dad said the place was beautiful with a house in the hills above the bottom land near the creek.  My grandfather went to the bank to get the loan for the place and it started raining.  He got the loan, came back, and his crops in the bottom land were flooded from the rain and the water overflowing from the banks of the creek. My dad said all you could see was the tassel on the corn.  My grandfather withdrew from the deal at the bank and moved to Shelby County, Kentucky.

o   In Shelby County, my grandfather had a dairy farm (he was a sharecropper).  He had land, a place for a big garden, and in the summer, there was a lot to do with daily milking, crops, sileage, hay, hogs, etc.  My grandfather had a heat stroke picking up rocks from a field when my dad was about 10 and my grandfather couldn’t work for a year.  Every morning, my dad would go into my grandfather’s room to get lined out on what to do; then he would do it.  This was a huge responsibility for a young boy but his family was depending on him to live.  They weren’t really making a living; they were just living and that is all they expected.  My dad had to work the farm and complete his schoolwork which his mom demanded.

o   My dad also told me that my grandfather liked to “imbibe” a little and one time he fell off a loading dock and broke his leg. I think my grandfather imbibed about twice a year and it used to worry my grandmother badly.  My grandmother tried to send dad with his father because he would not drink in that situation and my grandmother would not worry as much.  When my grandfather broke his leg, my father was running a bread route for a company and he said that route should take him about 8 hours but it took him about 12 hours because he visited with everyone. After his dad got hurt, he stopped working his bread route and started helping his dad and getting his own farm going.  He said he collected 100% of the money owed on the bread route and turned it into the company before leaving.  He said this was unheard of and the managers were very impressed and grateful. 

o   My grandmother died when she was around 60 and my grandfather lived into his late 70’s so after she died, my grandfather sold out and moved in with various children.  I remember that he lived with Uncle JE mostly but he lived with Aunt Gerry some as well.  But the bottom line is that he didn’t have a home of his own.  He did have a Rambler automobile and drove it everywhere while he had his fedora hat on.  He had the old timey hats that men wore and he wore one at all times while out.  He had a full head of hair until the day he died so it wasn’t due being bald.  My dad told me that my grandfather wouldn’t turn the heater on in the car because he believed it caused the vehicle to burn more gas so they rode around freezing all the time in the winter.

o   My grandfather used to come to his children’s houses to visit and stay a few days.  When my mom was in the hospital (having children or various surgeries), he would stay with us and take care of us.  The first time I remember him was at Kingswood. Kentucky. Me and my brother would be picking up sticks in the yard from huge trees around while he would tell stories to all of us.  He told stories about WWI, the depression, college, his basketball and baseball career, farming, his children, Juanita, etc.  My bother would start talking and I’d tell him to hush because I was listening to grandpa’s stories. He was a great story teller much like my dad is now and his stories would mesmerize me at a time without internet, three TV stations, and a serious lack of information.

o   My grandfather listened to the Cincinnati Reds play on the radio.  He liked the announcers and he especially liked a color man named Joe Nuxhall.  When they would sign off after a game, Joe Nuxhall would say, “This is the old left hander, rounding third and heading for home.”  He was hard of hearing so he used to turn the radio up loud and he listened to every game.  He chewed tobacco so he has a spittoon in his room so he could take care of the tobacco spit.  Uck.  He also had false teeth and he’d take them out and he had a hard time breathing because of the WWI mustard gas so he’s wheeze and breath out his mouth and with no teeth, it was a sight to see.

o   He lived through the depression and it affected him deeply.  He was careful about money and he was interested in living and not making a living, having money, and saving.  He died penniless and was just interested in the next meal; asking what is for lunch after breakfast was long range planning for him. 

o   He told me story about how he played basketball before WWI and he was told he would go professional and he probably would have had he not received the mustard gas injury during the war.  But you have to remember that playing pro baseball in those days was horrible; after baseball season you had to paint houses or something to make a living.   He said a story about a game played in where the score of the game was 12-5.  That was the final score and he said he scored all 12 points.  I wasn’t smart enough to ask why it was so low scoring but I guess that’s the way things were in the early 1900’s because I think they had some players play offense and others defense and they did not cross mid-court.  So, if you were offense, you never played defense and vice versa.

o   When my grandfather came to our house in Irvington, he had kind of given up on living so my dad and his siblings thought the best thing to do was to take him to a nursing home.  My grandfather was totally against nursing homes because his mother was put in what he called “the poor house” by his brothers and he went and got her out of there.  He thought nursing homes was another term for poor house and he didn’t want anything to do with that. Anyway, his mother stayed with him until she died and he never spoke to his brother Tom again after Tom put his mother in the “poor house.”  So, he was totally against nursing homes and made that very clear to all of us over and over. 

o   When they took him to the nursing home, my mom drove him and he asked her to stop at a café so they could get a cup of coffee.  She did not.  She took him to the nursing home where my dad and several of his siblings were present.  My mom said the look my grandfather gave her was horrible; like betrayal. She said she felt like Judas.  I believe he thought that his family was abandoning him; something he could not stomach.  So, when he went to the nursing home he yelled and yelled all day/night and the nursing home called and ask my dad and his siblings to come get my grandfather.  They did. I’m not sure where he stayed after that but soon, he had a massive stroke and died.

o   Grandma Lula Duncan Powers

o   My grandmother was named Lula and her maiden name was Duncan. Her mother was Jewish and her mother’s maiden name was Crady but she married a Gentile.  She was expelled from the family because she did not marry in the faith and never spoke to her mom and dad again.  When her parents died, she and her sisters regained their relationship.  Her mother died of a heart attack while with her sisters shopping in Louisville.

o   My grandmother was a taskmaster when it came to school.  My dad was going to quit school and work but my grandmother threw a fit.  She put all his clothes in a Kotex box from the grocery store and put them at the end of the road and told him if he wanted to work, he could quit school but had to get his own place to live.  My dad went back to school and graduated from Simpsonville High in Shelby County, Kentucky. My dad said she was not kidding around he liked to eat and was afraid of getting his “plate broke.”

o   Another time my dad bought a motorcycle so he could use it to get to school.  It was actually a bicycle with a motor on it.  His mom said he would “get killed on that thing” and demanded that he sell it.  He didn’t want to but she demanded it so he did as he was told.

o   My dad tells stories of my grandmother working in the garden in shoes with the top cut out of them because of bunions.  He said she was miserable because of them but endured because she had no other choice.  He said in the garden she had flat shoes but, in the house, she wore heels; not tall heels but short sturdy heels.  He said all women wore heels at that time.

o   My aunts used to tell stories about visiting their mother every weekend.  They said they didn’t bring anything to eat and were embarrassed about it later in life but as my Aunt Margaret used to say, “Oh, my mom was just so happy to see us it didn’t matter if we brought anything or not.”  Grandmother Powers was the center of the family and she really did love to see family members come to her house every weekend. They were totally welcomed.

o   My dad said that his siblings came every weekend (although they had to alternate weekends with in-laws) and they played Rook until the wee hours of the morning. But he had to get up and milk the dairy cows each morning which meant he had to get up at about 4:00 a.m. each day.  He said he lost his bed every weekend to the older siblings as he was the youngest and then when he got up, he’d have to step over people to get out of the house so he could go milk.  Anyway, his mother was the reason for the weekly family reunion.  She was so loving and such an inspiration to everyone so they just loved her and respected her.  After she died, his dad sold out and no more weekly family reunions!

o   Lula had a stubborn streak.  She respected education and wanted all of her children to at least graduate high school and more if they were able.  When my dad got married the first time, Juanita had not graduated high school and was going to drop out and be a wife and mother like her mother.  My grandmother told her in no uncertain terms that she would continue school and graduate.  She did.  When she was a senior, she was pregnant with my sister Debbie but my grandmother would not let her quit.  She didn’t and she graduated.  Later, after the divorce and her remarriage, she got a job in the Jefferson County court clerk’s office and she wouldn’t have even been eligible for that job without my grandmother’s insistence that she graduate high school.

o   I never knew my grandmother because she died when I was very little.  I understood that she died of a massive heart attack in her early 60’s.  My grandfather told us that she told him she didn’t feel good and was going to lay down for a few minutes.  When he went to check on her, she was gone. Heart trouble came from the Duncan side of the family (her side) and it was prevalent in that family and in my dad’s siblings.  My dad told me she had started taking medicine for arthritis and it was a new medicine and the dosage was high.  He told me in a few years they decreased the dosage significantly.  He thought the FDA was not as strict back then and drugs were much more trial and error on patients.

My Father’s Brother and Sisters

o   Dad’s brother JE and Phyllis Powers

o   JE might have stood for something but if it did, I never knew what and I’ve asked multiple times; I was told his name was JE.  JE died very young due to heart problems starting with a major heart attack while vacationing in Somerset, Kentucky.  I was a fairly young boy and never visited him during this time but learned about him this from relatives. After he got well, he picked up my dad and me in Meade County and went to Breckenridge County for an outing. His was the first car I’d ever ridden in with power windows and an ashtray in the back. I’d always thought of my dad as the center of the universe and he served in this role to his me and my siblings but when he rode with my uncle, my dad became the younger brother taking advice, asking vulnerable questions, etc.  I was really surprised at the difference.  Uncle JE worked at Olin chemical plant where my Aunt Gerry and my dad eventually worked and he had significant input into them getting hired there.  He eventually stopped working and started an accounting business.  After a while, he stopped doing that and went back to another chemical plant.  One thing I recognize about JE is that we look alike.  His face looks like mine and he was bald like me.  I remember being with Uncle JE and his family a few times at their house in Louisville.  One time we went with him to his Church of Christ church and, of course, there were no musical instruments but he was leading the singing and I guess they allowed tone instruments so you could sing on the correct key.  He blew that thing and I freaked out because I thought no instruments were allowed in that church.  When I got back to my dad, I asked him about it and he said it was “layovers to catch a meddlers.”  I still don’t know what that meant but it shut me up and that was his goal.

o   Mr. and Mrs. Hatfield – These were JE’s wife Phyllis’ parents and they kept me and Lisa quite a while and I understand Phillip stayed with Aunt Lora.   They were great people who treated us very well and taught us manners, took us to church, and taught us to sing.  I remember they were Church of Christ people but had an organ in their home and Mr. Hatfield would play it and we’d sing, and he would laugh and laugh.  Ms. Hatfield would read stories to us and they had fruit trees in the back yard and when they had visitors, we’d go out there some. I remember our dad coming to visit from time to time and we’d cry and want to go with him.  Our aunts were so impressed with our manners but what they did not understand was that Mr. and Mrs. Hatton were serious about teaching children manners so we followed their direction.  This was a great time in my life as I learned a great deal; this was important but not as important as our time with Uncle DO and Aunt Gerry but it was great and we were very fortunate to stay with them.

o   Aunt Geraldine (Gerry) and Dillon O’Neil (DO) Darby

o   Aunt Gerry met her first husband, Jimmy Fitzpatrick at the WWII galleries when Jimmy was training for WWII.  She married him and after the war, he became a Louisville police officer.  They ultimately divorced and I never really knew why.  She had two children with Jimmy: Larry and Denny.  I understood later that Jimmy was killed in a vehicle accident while on duty as a police officer.  My dad said he really liked Jimmy because Jimmy took an interest in what dad was doing and was like a big brother to him.  When they divorced, it was hard on my dad but you have to remember, my dad was just a young boy then.  Aunt Gerry remarried Dillon O’Neal (called DO) Darby; a chemical engineer who died of cancer in the early 60’s; they had two children together:  Duncan and Dillon Jr (called Rusty).  When Rusty was born, DO saw him one time before he died.  DO was in the hospital with late-stage cancer at the same time that Rusty was born.  My dad said that DO asked my dad to take him to the hospital but before he went in, he went up to see Rusty and hold him.  Then he checked in to the hospital and never got out alive.  DO was a Chemical Engineer; my dad said he got exposed to radioactive water in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during WWII.  He apparently got cancer once but beat it back.  When it returned, he did not survive.

o   We move to Minnesota after Aunt Gerry married DO and they invited us up there to help my dad get a new start in life.  This was after Juanita left but before mom was in the picture.  My dad always told me that DO and Gerry took us in when we didn’t have anything.  This was an important time for my dad and for us kids.  Uncle DO was part of an engineering company in Minnesota and according to my dad, he was a “wheel” in this company.  Dad told me he was a chemical engineer who helped design the atomic bomb and that he got exposed to radioactive water while working on that project.   He told me that Uncle DO and a group of people were in a space where radioactive water came in by mistake but that everyone in the room had died of cancer before Uncle DO.  Dad said DO was the last one to die who was in that room.  Uncle DO was a very smart man that my dad called a “genius.” 

o   When we didn’t have anything, and my dad had no direction, Uncle DO and Aunt Gerry took us in and helped us.  My dad went to college in Wisconsin at River Falls and one semester at the University of Minnesota and received a two-year degree in drafting.  He majored in mechanical engineering in college because of Uncle DO’s influence.  My dad said he had one semester remaining to complete his degree in engineering but after DO died, he had to quit and go back to Kentucky.  He and Aunt Gerry gave my dad an education that helped him later in life and he gave me and Lisa a place to grow up under Aunt Gerry’s care.  This was critical for us and so wonderful.  I appreciate this time so much and so does my dad. 

o   Phillip stayed in Kentucky with Aunt Phyllis while me and Lisa went to Minnesota with our dad.  While our dad went to college, he worked at a car wash and gas station.  He said that Uncle DO told him to quit that job because he wasn’t making enough money.  Uncle DO said, “hell boy, I make more money in per diem when I travel than you do working.” My dad never stopped working because he wanted to do his part but Uncle DO paid for his education and Aunt Gerry took care of me and Lisa.  

o   My dad eventually went to Louisville and got Phillip to bring him to Minnesota.  He said the interstates were not completed then so it was quite a trip.  He said he got a flat tire in downtown Chicago and the spare was flat as well.  He stopped at a bar and went inside to get help.  He said he was the only white person in the bar but was nice to the bartender to called a friend to come help him.  Got the tires fixed and they were on their way!

o   My dad used to go fishing with DO and said he didn’t like fishing at all but DO sure did.  He said he could not understand how a person so smart was so enamored with fishing but he was.  He said they had a boat that my dad would carry on the top of DO’s car and take it out fishing.   Then when winter came and the lakes would freeze over, DO would get an ice house, put it on the lake and go ice fishing.  My dad said that when DO got sicker, he still wanted to go fishing but at the end of the day, my dad would have to clean the fish because DO was exhausted. 

o   I don’t have many memories of Minnesota although I remember it as a good time in my life.  I do remember chasing Lisa down the stairs and she fell and hit her head.  She bled like crazy and she had to be taken to the physician for stitches.  The scar was present for years and every time someone would mention it, I’d get blamed.   The scar is hardly noticeable now and my dad said it can’t be seen at all because she has had “lots of work done.”  Maybe.   

o   I also remember when Duncan (Aunt Gerry and Uncle DO’s oldest) got his weewee slammed by the commode lid.  Apparently, he was big enough to see his older brothers pee standing up so he wanted to do it.  Somehow the lid came down and got him.  When DO got home from work, Aunt Gerry made him show DO the injury. Duncan couldn’t have been older than two when this happened.  It was awful but showing your weewee when you are two is probably not that bad to do but thinking about the incident makes me hurt even now.  

o   When DO became sick and knew he would soon die, he told my dad to get his papers and burn them but to not look at them.  My dad did burn them but of course he looked and my dad said, “it was like me looking at a foreign language.  I had no idea what these papers were much less why they would be important,” but burn them he did.  After DO died, Aunt Gerry who had a tiny baby, came back to Kentucky for the funeral.  Aunt Gerry’s son Larry and dad took the train back with DO’s body and then came back to Minnesota to get the house ready to sell.  My dad and his dad both brought their cars to Minnesota and each brought back Aunt Gerry’s books in their car; my dad said the weight of the books caused them to be over the weight limit of the mover and would cost them more so they decided to bring them back in their own cars. There was only room for each of them sit; she loved reading and had a world of books of all kinds.  When Aunt Gerry moved back to Kentucky, she moved in with her sister Aunt Margaret and eventually bought the house that Aunt Margaret and Uncle Ray had. Ray would build a house, live in it a while, then sell and build another.  This time, he sold the house to Aunt Gerry which was good for everyone.   Subsequently, JE helped Aunt Gerry find work at Olin Chemical and she worked there until she retired.

o   During the time in Minnesota, even with three children, my dad had quite the social life.  He was trying to keep his grades up, he had the three of us, and he had a job.  But after Juanita, he’d swore off long-term relationships at that time.  From what I can surmise, he wasn’t looking for Ms. Right but Ms. Right Now.  At college he met a girl from the Pacific Islands. She was the daughter of the island ruling class and my dad said she was very smart. But she was dark skinned so she was ostracized by other students because they considered her an American Indian.   She and my dad were not romantically involved but he was dyslexic and a slow note taker so she traded her notes for him taking her to dances. My dad was not a dancer but the agreement was that he would dance the first dance with her.  He did.  After a while, she no longer needed him to take her to dances; others found out about her heritage and her dancing ability and, according to my dad, she was beautiful so plenty of suitors after a while.  

o   After a dance with a different girl, he and another couple headed back home and decided to cut through an Indian Reservation because my dad was low on gas and he thought they would make it. They didn’t.  They ran out of gas about ½ way along and needed help.  So, even though it was after midnight my dad decided to walk to get help.  He said it was winter and he only had a short jacket, gloves, and a wool hat, but he didn’t get cold probably because he was moving that fanny. When he walked out of the reservation, he went to the house of his friend’s father (the friend that was with him) and the dad had a wrecker.  That dad was not too happy about doing so but drove out there to fetch them because his boy was in the car.  My dad had three blankets in the trunk as part of his winter preparation and he got them out and had the three passengers huddle together in the back seat and use the blankets plus each other to stay warm.  My dad said he rode with the father out to the car with a can of gasoline.  The father put the fuel in while my dad checked the three people he left to make sure they were ok.  They were.   My dad said the boy rode home with his dad and he took the two girls home; getting them home about 3 a.m. 

o   Another time my dad was joining a beer party at a river across from Wisconsin.  I think my dad, because he was the oldest, was helping organize the party and perhaps even purchasing the refreshments.  During the festivities, the police showed up and my dad swam across the Mississippi river to avoid police arrest and the nightmare that would ensue when Uncle DO and Aunt Gerry found out that he was (a) at a beer fest and worse (b) that he helped organize and purchase alcohol for it.   My dad successfully avoided arrest as there were plenty of others for the police to nab.  It worked!  Also, the Mississippi was a narrower waterway than it is in the south; this was more of the headwaters of the Mississippi so not all that wide. 

o   Dad had a girl named Lois Jane after him in college but he told me that he swore off having a serious relationship with women.  He said her dad had a big farm but made a lot of money clearing the highways from snow and ice; apparently, he had a contract with the Minnesota highway department.  Dad said she was not a student and a little older than students but she went to the parties in search of a husband.  They were dating some, “heing and sheing” some, and she wanted it to go further.  They apparently, went on vacation together in the Panama Canal although he told me this story when he was 91 and he gets a little mixed up so not absolutely sure this is true.  After DO died, she wanted to marry dad and came to Kentucky twice after he came back to try and convince him to marry her but he would not and she went back to Minnesota.  He said she got a little stern during her last visit about marriage but by that time, he was dating Pat and said it was not going to work out.  He said she ended up marrying John Colter, his best friend in Minnesota.

o   After leaving Minnesota, my dad and Aunt Gerry bought a farm in Meade County, Kentucky where my dad still lives.  That farm was 330 acres which is fairly big in Kentucky.  I remember my dad said that he figured 10 cows per acre and when I was in Texas, it was 10 acres per cow!  But my dad only had about 70 mother cows because much of our land was woods and not available for pasture.  Eventually, Aunt Gerry sold her part of the farm in little “farmlets” of about 5 acres plus a bigger part with the farmhouse.  Dad kept the rest and bought a little more so he has about 220 acres or so. 

o   Aunt Vera and Bill Lethem

o   Me and Lisa went to Kansas after Juanita left and while Pop was trying to figure things out.  I remember eating potatoes at the supper table and Uncle Bill Lethem kept asking me questions while someone else put more potatoes on my plate and he said, “what is wrong boy.  Don’t you like Aunt Vera’s cooking?” I really did like her potatoes.

o   During that time, Beverly and Vicki took me to a Rodeo in Phillipsburg.  I guess that was high entertainment for small town Kansas and it was a great time for a little boy.  I was taught about properly wearing a cowboy hat and acting like a Kansan.  I remember I had to go to the bathroom bad and I finally asked if I could go and Beverly laughed and laughed about that.  I wasn’t laughing; I was about to pop. She took me and I sure was glad to get there.

o   The Lethem’s lived on a rented farm and they raised wheat mainly and fed cows at a feed lot.  I was around for harvest time and I remember wagon loads of grain after it was combined.  The place where they grew that wheat was a rented farm and the house is still standing today as Diane and I visited it on our way to North Dakota. The house and the farm seemed so much bigger to me when I was little that it did when I visited later. There were four bedrooms in house; parents with their 4 children, Uncle Bill’s brother Bob, plus me and Lisa but this arrangement was only temporary until Pop could figure things out. 

o   Uncle Bill and Aunt Vera met during WWII at Fort Knox. They had dances for the military guys and local girls at “galleries” which were just meeting places.  My dad said he used to go to the galleries and Bill would give him a nickel and say, “you go somewhere else; this ain’t no place for no boy.”  My dad said he went to the galleries every chance he could get because they gave him money to go somewhere else each time. He said he would usually get a milk shake somewhere; he had it all figured out.  After the war, Bill and Vera married and moved back to his home in Kansas.  They lived on a rented farm but he owned land in Nebraska, had a motel, and a feed lot.  He died in his early 40’s of a heart attack and afterward, she moved into town at Phillipsburg, Kansas until she died.  She was having a heart procedure and she died during the procedure.  Bill and Vera’s daughter Beverly also had a heart attack and struggled for years finally dying in 2018; her husband is Mike Davis.  Bill and Vera’s daughter Vicki married Larry Patterson an ag county agent who also farmed. He passed away as well.   Bill and Vera had two brothers as well but I don’t remember them very much.  Their names were Johnny and Pete.  Johnny died some years ago but Pete and I have corresponded over the years growing closer as we’ve aged.

o   When I was 14, Aunt Vera showed up in Kentucky to visit us.  She brought two of her friends with her:  Harv and Betty.  They had a great time learning about Kentucky and our farm.  I remember them talking about our narrow roads and how many cows we had.  Harv wanted to get some Kentucky moonshine to take back with him so my dad talked to some folks and found some.  My dad is a tee-tootler so this was quite a story.  I never knew my dad to take a drink or be around anyone who drank but he enjoyed Harv so much he decided to try and help him.

o   When I was 16, we visited Kansas and stayed at Aunt Vera’s house in Phillipsburg.  We went to Harv and Betty’s farm and I remember Pop had a Coors beer.  I do not think he even drank any of it but seeing him with a beer shocked me.  They showed us all around and we had a great time visiting with them and learning how they farmed and what they did.  They initially built a home as a “dugout” on the side of a hill but my dad said it was nice inside and several years later when something happened to their house, the moved back into the dugout.  Several years after we left, I learned that Harv was killed in a tractor accident.

o   When we were in Kansas, my cousin Johnny was showing Pop his farm in Nebraska.  Apparently, his grandfather had a farm that was flooded when the state formed a lake by damming the Republican River.   They gave him another farm nearby the lake and gave him irrigation rights.  When we were there, Johnny had cows on rented land which was being solely used for grazing and raising cattle.  Several years before, Johnny came across person with a flat tire on a highway and Johnny stopped to help them.  He was hit by a car and lost one of his legs below the knee.  He had a prosthetic leg which he could walk well on but had trouble after that and died young.

o   The family was all K-State fans since that is the Ag school in Kansas.  Many of them were K-State graduates.  They wouldn’t even say the name of the University of Kansas; they would say, “that other school in Kansas” like it was evil.

o   Aunt Margaret and Uncle Ray Conway

o   My dad always said that Aunt Margaret was more like his mother than any other of his sisters.  Aunt Margaret took my dad to get his picture taken when he was young and he was all dolled up in a suit.  Every time Aunt Margaret talked about that she said my dad was “so cute.” My parents and I visited her one time when I was on Air Force leave and it was pretty late when I got to her house.  I went up to the door, knocked, and ask if we could come in and visit a while and Aunt Margaret said, “well of course.”  That was Aunt Margaret through and through.  She was almost offended that we even had to ask.  Of course, we were welcome any time. 

o   She met a boy at one of the galleries before he was deployed to WWII and my dad told me he was her boyfriend but he got killed during the war.  She subsequently met and married Ray Conway.  

o   One time after our mom left, we were staying in Valley Station near Louisville with Uncle Ray and Aunt Margaret when I decided that me and Lisa needed to go out and find out mom; I was only about 3 and Lisa was a year younger.  I suppose we thought she was lost and looking for her way back home.  Off we went and we got about ¼ mile from Dixie Highway which is 4 lanes with no median; a high traffic area. We evidentially walked along the railroad tracks and they finally found us near Dixie Highway.  They asked us what in the world we were doing and I told them, “We are looking for our mom.”  This story spread to dad’s brother and sisters quickly and it made them so sad.  My dad said that we could get whatever we wanted after that.  They felt sorry for us and I evidentially used the situation to my advantage.   I was a born schmoozer so that was a great advantage for something already in me.

o   I remember that Ray was a plumber and Margaret worked outside the home also.  Ray came and got us kids from the farm one time and took us to Louisville.  He took the long way through hill and dale and we went through hills and narrow gravel roads and told story after story.  He laughed and laughed and was so much fun to be with and so good to us kids.  Ray and Margaret could not have children of their own but had one adopted daughter, Donna Carol.   

o   Ray was an alcoholic and dad said he was like another person when he drank.  He said Ray was one of the most fun people to be around he ever met when he was sober.  I will agree with that; he was always fun to be around as far as I remember.  One Sunday, Aunt Margaret and Donna Carol showed up at our house and I thought they were just visiting but my mom told me later that Margaret left because Ray was drinking and being mean to her. I think they wanted to stay with us a while but evidentially, mom and dad talked them out of it or didn’t take the hint they wanted to stay; I’m not sure which.  When Ray got put in a hospital to dry out, my dad was with him and he said Ray saw little green men as he went through DT’s.  Ray was sober for several years but then went back to drinking; alcohol is a tough disease I suppose.  Ray was a plumber by trade and had a good business.  He would build houses with his brothers, live in them a while, then sell them.  He did well. 

o   Aunt Lora Jean and Bob Thomas

o   Aunt Lora and Uncle Bob were very important in my life; like Aunt Gerry they took us in when we needed it.  When we went back to Kentucky after DO died, Lora lined up a baby sitter for us but the baby sitter fell asleep so me and Lisa went out the front door.  I was about 4 and Lisa was 3.  Lisa got in a wagon and I was pulling her across a busy 4-lane street in Louisville.  A school bus stopped to let us cross safely but the bus and 18-wheelers and cars were honking and honking at us.  Lora was called at work by neighbors who saw us and rescued us.  Lora came home, found the sitter still sleeping and summarily fired her.  I just remember the vehicle drivers waiving at us to get out of the road and the neighbor fetching us to their house.  It’s a wonder we didn’t get run over. 

o   Later, Pat found that we had lice in our hair so she went out and got the medicated shampoo to kill them then her and Lora washed all bedding, all clothes, etc. to eliminate the infestation.  No telling where we got them but Lora said it was probably from the baby sitter who fell to sleep on the job.  They washed everything in hot water and somehow, Lora’s girdles got washed and when she took them out of the dryer, they looked like doll clothes.  Shrunk city.  She had to go to the store and get new undergarments to wear to work.

o   I remember laying down on the floor to watch the Wonderful World of Disney and they had advertised it was in “living color.”  I told Aunt Lora this and she said they only had a black and white TV so it wouldn’t be in color.  I told her, “Yes, it is, they said so on TV.”  It wasn’t obviously and I was devastated. 

o   I remember me, Lisa and Phillip being outside playing in the sandbox and Phillip was riding a toy tractor with pedals and a chain to the back tires.  Now THAT was a good time and I’ve seen photos of the three of us there.  Finally, I remember Mom and Dad dating during our last stay with Bob and Lora.  I don’t remember much but I do remember that they bought a lawn mower for dad’s 27th birthday present!  What a thing to remember!

o   Phillip got his first pair of pants with back pockets and he announced to me, “I can beat you up, I have back pocket pants!”  He was so proud of those pants and he felt so grown up.  Not bad for someone who was two. 

o   Lora had an electric organ that had the notes labeled on it and a music book that had the notes labeled on it as well.  I matched them up and worked on playing that song for several days.  After a while, I got pretty good and Aunt Lora came around the corner and was applauding.  She said that was wonderful and she was so proud of me.  I suppose that should have started a love affair with music but alas, I did not have the time or our family the money for musical instruments plus I really had no talent for music so that was the last time I actually played anything.

o   Aunt Jewel and Uncle Harold Hicks

o   I never knew that family very well but Aunt Jewel retired as a civil servant at Wright-Patterson AFB and Uncle Harold was in the Army Air Corps and he enlisted before WWII, then left after one year.  When the war started, he was immediately recalled.  He was a radio operator in Greenland and, according to my dad, he relayed messages to and from Europe.   Dad said that he got married to Jewel before getting recalled for the war and he was in a little while after WWII and was stationed in Texas.  When he left the Air Force, my dad said he worked a milk route around the Dayton area.

o   Aunt Jewel and Uncle Harold came to visit us when I was in the Air Force and we were stationed in California; our son Chris really took to Harold and they were soon good buddies.  Later in my Air Force life, I was on an aircrew that took an airplane to Wright-Patterson for refurbishment.  Uncle Harold had passed away by then but Aunt Jewel met me at the crew debriefing area.  I told my crew I’d see them when we flew back commercially after the weekend.  She took me all over Dayton to visit areas, see her friends, visit Harold’s grave site and eat.  She took me to eat every 2 hours and at the end, I could eat no more. 

o   Dad had a relationship with Harold and Jewel’s son Mike who was often at the farm when dad was young and there was only a few years difference in age between Mike and dad. My dad is also close to Lynda, Harold and Jewel’s daughter, and frankly, I think she is one of his favorites.  She lived in France for a while and then came back to the states and worked in hospitals and dad said she was a hospital administrator.  

o   I have become closer to Lynda in the past few years.  We went to a family reunion about 30 years ago when I first remember talking to her.  She had retired from hospital work and was back in Dayton taking care of her mother and was working with children in school for whom English was a second language.  These children came from several different cultures and so there was several languages being spoken.  I asked Lynda if she spoke all those languages.  She laughed and said, “How would I?”  I asked her how that worked and she said that children are amazingly talented at picking up languages and she would use contextual clues and show pictures and say the word.  Or she would use physical things like “pad and pencil” and make everyone say the word.  Fascinating. Lynda spoke French fluently so she had an ear for such things.  Lynda continues to talk with me and Diane fairly often and she calls dad to chat with him about how things are going.  They talk like old friends which I suppose they are.  Lynda came to get my dad and took him to Dayton before Mike died so they could visit and my dad said it was a great time.  Lynda also came down to watch dad for a week while, me, Lisa, and Rebekah went on a cruise to the Greek island.  And we saw her and her brother when Diane, Steph and I went to a University of Cincinnati v. TCU football game.  It was freezing cold with blowing snow during the game and we had tickets near the field but to get there, you had to walk down 100 steps.  Lynda was bundled up like a gordita and I don’t think she enjoyed it much.  We were all bundled up too but enjoyed the game and the visiting immensely. 

o   Dad told me lots of stories and he and Mike Hicks doing things together in the summer time and I think he and Mike were pretty close.  My dad was a little older but being the youngest child and Mike a child of one of the older children they were cousins for sure but did things together when they were young like brothers.

o   My Fathers First Marriage; My Grandpa George and Grandma Lorraine Phillips

o   These were Juanita’s parents and my grandparents and I knew them when I was very young so don’t remember much.  I met them a few times afterward and it was always awkward when I was with them even as a child after the divorce.  My dad used to say those visits made us confused and hurt us more than they helped.  We stopped going so I think he cut us off to minimize the future damage.  George was from Meade County, Kentucky but during the depression, he could not find work as a young man so joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (the CCC) that President Roosevelt started.  He was building roads in eastern Kentucky when he met Grandma.  I understand that he was not a popular choice with Grandma’s father but they married anyway.

o   My dad said that Grandma Phillips’ family was from the Kentucky mountains.  My dad had a hard time remembering her parent’s names because he called them Mr. and Mr. Hunt. They had a house above the Big Sandy River but they didn’t have a bathroom but instead had a privy high above the hills down to the Big Sandy river.  He said the privy had a seat to sit on and take care of your business but then your business dropped a long way down the side of the hill and into the Big Sandy River.  Uck.  Poor people had poor ways I guess.   Obviously, that does not happen any longer.

o   My dad said that several groups of people used to make moonshine in those hills and dad was watching them and wanted to go up and see them operate.  He said Mr. Hunt told him, “boy, don’t even look at those vehicles.  You will be gone in a couple of days but I have to live here and I don’t want any trouble.” 

o   He said one time that a group from Oral Roberts had a tent revival and Grandma Phillip’s grandmother, known by my dad as Mrs. Hunt, was “cured” of diabetes at this revival so she threw her insulin into a fork of the Big Sandy River.  Obvious she got sick and was taken to the hospital where she refused to take her insulin because she told the hospital staff she had been cured by faith and her diabetes has been cured; in just a matter of time, she would get well.  Ultimately, a preacher from the Oral Roberts group came to her hospital bed and told her that she was healed but still needed to take her medicine; it was just God’s way of testing her faith.  She took it and then got well.  Scared the family half to death.  My dad said he took Ms. Phillips to see her mother and he said it was quite a trip.  Grandma Phillips was a talker and a worrier and she talked the entire time. 

o   Grandpa Phillips was an alcoholic and I think this was widely known and I think it was a main reason Grandma Phillips was hard on him; not sure if one caused the other or not.  But one story I heard was that their church was on Long Run Road and it was Grandpa Phillips’ job to fire up the heater to warm the church up before church started.  He started the fire but the heater ended up burning the church down.  I’m not sure how that happened or why.  He built a house above Long Run Road and the siding was built out of ammo boxes from Fort Knox.  I’m not sure how well that worked but I can imagine that the house was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. For work, my grandfather supervised a group of people who worked paid parking lots in Louisville.   According to my dad, he would sometimes drink up his paycheck so Grandma Phillips would go get it to make sure they had enough money for groceries and such.

o   There were many rumors about abuse during his drinking episodes but I don’t have any first-hand knowledge about any of that.  I don’t really remember him when I was young and when I met him later in life, he had quit drinking.  My dad took me to visit him and Grandma when I was in the Air Force and I’m not sure why he did that but he told me, “These are just plain people who you need to know.”  He was very considerate about the whole thing but when I returned, I was more steeled than ever about loving the family I knew already especially my step-mom Pat who raised me, put up with my antics, and knew all my history but still loved me. 

o   When I visited them, Grandpa Phillips was mostly bald with just a little gray hair in the back and one the sides; I look just like that now!  He did not talk very much and mostly rubbed the little bit of hair he has much like I do now.  Be advised, Grandma Phillips did most of the talking and my dad said that was normal. I remember during that visit that Grandpa Phillips said to Grandma Phillips “we have plenty of money if you’d get off that pile of money you have put away.”  Grandma laughed and said they did not have any money put away for anything.  Grandma Phillips did not work but totally controlled the family; she was hard core.  I remember that she talked all the time and she was hard on people; but it was probably warranted, given the situation. 

o   After Grandpa died, Grandma Phillips sold her house and moved to a house in Louisville.  The property on which her house sat was being sold by the square foot based on its proximity to Louisville and its location east of Louisville.  Lisa and I visited Grandma Phillips in her Louisville home for a meal when I was in my early 20’s and there were only three of us there and she made enough food for twenty-five or so.  I never ate so much in my life.  We visited with her for several hours and it was very interesting for me as she shared pictures and photo albums to catch me up on things.  I believe I only saw her once or twice more in her life; I was not trying to not see her, life intervened and I just never did see her much.  I truly believe she loved us kids and wanted to do right by us but she found herself in an awkward situation and could not reconcile it.

o   Juanita’s Brothers and Sisters

o   Juanita’s sisters (and my Aunts) are Velma, Janice, June, Evelyn, and Teresa.  The only son was named Alfred but called Butch.  I don’t remember any of the sisters although dad told me that Janice took care of us after Juanita left.  I do remember Butch and I remember he was an artist and he did fabulous paintings.  I have a vague memory of a woman at church who wanted one of his paintings and he said he would get it for her.  When my dad’s marriage ended with Juanita, most of the association with the Phillips family ended.  I do remember talking with Janice after I was in the Air Force as she married Teddy who, like me, was in the Air Force.  I remember having a few meals with the family and Juanita’s house a few times but my memory is vague on most of this. Her brother divorced once and many of Juanita’s sisters divorced as well; theirs was not a strong nor stable family.

o   When Stephanie was about 10 years old, we went to Juanita’s house east of Louisville.  She had a painting of herself behind the couch and I asked, “where did you get that photo of Steph.”  She told me it was not Stephanie but herself.  I always thought Steph looked like her mother’s family but after that, I figured I was wrong.  Steph had ridden with Lisa who arrived earlier than me and Steph was on the couch being one of the Phillips’.  She said, “Dad, where have you been hiding these people all my life.”  The entire house got quiet and every eye was on me.  I’m not sure what I said but it was an eerie moment and it sounded in my head like a klaxon was going off.  I’m not sure if she was coached to say that but I am sure that Steph never saw those people again.  Was that wrong?  Probably.  But I had a mom, her family was my family and she had raised me, put up with my antics, and her family was good to me especially when I didn’t deserve it which was probably often.  Diane’s family was also stable and so Steph had two stable families to help her grow up and I thought that was enough.  Juanita eventually endured some financial hardships and more instability which made me think my decision was the correct one.   

o   My Sister Deborah Lu (Debbie)

o   I was too young to remember any of this so I’m writing what I was told by others.  This was a horrible situation.  Debbie was my older sister and when she was about 2, she had pneumonia with a pretty bad cough but she hated taking her medicine so Juanita was not sure if she gave it to her the morning before she died.  Juanita totally blamed herself and stressed about this badly.  Juanita was cooking lunch after church for the family when Debbie began to choke.  I don’t know if she was trying to eat something or what and I’ve never been told because it hurts my dad to talk about. Even today, he gets emotional and it still hurts him. 

o   My dad and others rushed her to the hospital in their car but by the time they got there, she had died.  The hospital said she died from congestive heart failure resulting from pneumonia. I heard that Grandpa Phillips drove while dad tried to keep Debbie breathing.  When she would stop, he would smack her on the bottom to get her breathing again.  Finally, she stopped breathing and he has always struggled with the idea that she died thinking he was spanking her.  I don’t know any more details but as a parent, this is difficult to write.  This was an extremely emotional time for everyone involved and I believe it was integral to Juanita’s and my dad’s divorce.  Debbie dying, Grandma Powers dying 6 months prior, post-partem depression, and the guilt all doomed the relationship most likely.   

o   As a very young child, I saw pictures of Debbie in her coffin.  I remember she had a toy animal in the coffin with her and I was told it was her favorite toy.  I only saw these pictures one time and I don’t know why anyone would take such a photo and why someone showed them to me; a young child.  But I do know I was glad I only saw them one time.  If anyone has them, I don’t want to see them again.  My dad said after Debbie died whenever one of us kids got a cold, had a cough, or got sick, that he and Juanita were super stressed.  I can imagine what a toxic environment that must have been. 

o   I always told Diane that if our oldest child, Stephanie, died like that (and she is an adult now so that did not happen thank goodness), I would not be worth shooting. I think part of that is what happened to Juanita.  I think part of this is being a parent and having feelings about Stephanie I did not know were in me before she was born.  After she was born, I had significant feelings of protection and love that I did not know I had inside me.  I didn’t really like children until I had one of my own.  Stephanie, for me, was my Debbie.  I wanted to protect her, love her, prepare her for adulthood, and be a major influence in her life.

o   Juanita and Juanita leaving Us

o   A lot of this I know from others but I’ll tell it as I understand it. 

o   One day when I was about 2, Juanita left.  I mean left.  I never saw her again until I was a few years older and then maybe three times until I was in High School.  I saw her when I graduated High School and I remember one of her sisters stopped me and said, “Tim, this is your mom.”  I was gracious of course but I was thinking, “I have a mom and her name is Pat.”  Juanita was my birth mother for sure but the hard duty of raising me was left to Pat and I had and still have undying loyalty to her for that.  I told mom what I had thought about the “mother” comment and she beamed; she was so proud and so honored. 

o   When I was about 6, we went to stay with Juanita and I asked her why she left and she said she just had to.  I asked her what happened and she said nothing bad happened; she just needed to get away.  She said she started seeing a psychiatrist and I asked if that made her well.  She said when her and the psychiatrist started talking about the same things, she got better. Whatever that means.  When we got home, I told my dad all about this and all three of us were acting out and my dad said we were never going back there again because it just made us crazy.  He was right about that. I can’t imagine how I would have reconciled that while going through puberty.  Much of my life, I didn’t reconcile it.  I just pushed it back, buried it, and tried not to think about it.  My life in the Air Force gave me an opportunity to avoid all that and I loved it and flourished.

o   Anyway, back to the juicy story.  My dad said he and Juanita didn’t have words, didn’t fight, didn’t argue; he had no indication that she was thinking about leaving and didn’t know why she did.  She just took my grandpa’s car and left.  Things were not “trackable” like they are now so a cash world, no receipts, no cell phones, no internet, no cell phone camera’s everywhere, so Juanita was hard to find.  She took my grandpa’s car and left and I understand they did not find the car for months and then only because it was impounded after being in a parking garage a long time.  Using the license plate, they figured out who owned it and tracked my grandpa down.  My grandpa Powers had to pay $150 to get it out of the impound lot around 1960 and he was upset!  My dad, somehow, finally tracked Juanita down as she was staying with her aunt in another state and they agreed to meet but when he showed up with the money from the sale of equipment, etc. she refused to talk with him and I think he blew a gasket. I don’t imagine this was a good time for either of them.  Can you imagine coming into your house and finding your spouse gone with no word, no excuse, no reasoning and no way of knowing if she was all right.  That would make me crazy.  And my dad was a dairy farmer with three kids without a mother and also having one child and his mother die.  I’ll bet that made him crazy also.   My dad told me that he hired an investigator to find her and that is how he tracked her down.  He figured her mother and maybe some of her sisters knew where she was but no one told him.

o   My dad told me several times that before he sold out of his farm situation, he offered to buy Juanita a house if she would come back and just take care of us kids.  She refused.  This I cannot understand and it haunts and hurts me today.  It hurt even more when I became a parent and could not understand how anyone could abandon a child.  After hearing about her refusal to just come back and care of us, it fertilized bad feelings that were already in me.  As a young child I had no idea any of this was happening but as a teenager and young adult I became aware of these things but still cannot understand.  There must have been more to the story:  mental issues, marital issues, infidelity on someone’s part, something. But no one has said anything for sure so I just don’t know for sure even today; I’ve heard stories but I do not know for sure.   

o   When my dad’s mother died that probably hurt Juanita deeply.  My dad said that his mother served as a surrogate mother for Juanita teaching her how to grow up, be a wife, grow a garden, raise children, and keep a home going.  Juanita and my dad married before she graduated high school and she was pregnant with Debbie during her senior year so she was a very young mother and wife.  Debbie dying probably also hurt Juanita deeply.  I never talked to her about this but I can just imagine as a parent that this would be a horrible and devastating event.  I know Juanita blamed herself to some degree for Debbie dying and without my grandmother to lean on, she was probably lost.  My dad was working on the farm and that kept his mind occupied (those are his words) which was therapeutic.  Juanita was not so fortunate.   

o   To be sure, my dad was hard on Juanita.  I’ve heard this from many people including my own dad.  He wanted the house kept clean, the kids kept up with, everyone nurtured, and everything perfect. After his mother died, my grandpa lived with them and my grandpa was a complete taskmaster.  Everything was his way and that was the only correct way.  One time, my dad and his dad when out to buy a car and they came back with one.  Juanita didn’t know they were doing this and had no input on the purchase.  I can imagine things like this were problematic; I know this was a different time but if I did such a thing, I can just see the look on Diane’s face and it would not be good look.

o   Juanita’s sister Evelyn and a farm workers wife came and took care of us for a while after Juanita left but Evelyn was just a teenager and the workers wife had her own children so couldn’t give us full time care which made dad the primary caregiver.  This had to be a tough time for my dad.  He didn’t know where Juanita was, he didn’t know what happened to their marriage, he was just bewildered.  My grandfather was very upset that she took his vehicle but I can just imagine the interaction between dad in his early 20’s and his father in his 60’s.  Probably wasn’t too favorable about Juanita.  To his credit, my dad never spoke badly of Juanita to me, ever.  This is amazing to me because if I were in the same situation, I would have badmouthed her to my kids no doubt.  My dad finally found where she was living and by that time, he’d sold his equipment and animals and settled up with everyone and brought her half of the remaining amount.  She agreed to see him and discuss their situation but when he arrived, she changed her mind and refused to talk with him.  He said he was trying to do the right thing but she refused to see him and he said he “lost his religion” that day but dad did the right thing and gave her part of the sale of equipment and livestock to her.  I think he blew a gasket during the interaction and ended up spending some time in the cross-bar motel for a night or two.  Was not a good time but I can just imagine how he felt, how he hated the situation, and probably hated what she had done.  Plus, if there was someone else involved, he was probably very upset.  This would have upset me.  When Diane and I married, I told her I could just about forgive anything except infidelity and that would be unforgivable.  I’m not sure this was the situation but regardless, it was a tough time for my dad and us kids.  I am sure that my dad loved her and could not understand what she did.

o   I’m not sure exactly what time of year Juanita left but I believe it was summer time because dad said that Juanita’s sister Evelyn stayed with us until she had to go back to school as she was only a teenager.  Janice said to my dad, “I don’t know how Juanita did this with you working all the time.”  As an aside, he worked like that every day of my life until I went into the Air Force. Never said hardly anything to us except giving us instructions on work to be completed.  Now he doesn’t work but talks all the time; it’s like a person I do not know!

o   My dad said that after Juanita found out he was going to marry Pat she called and wanted to give their relationship another chance but he said, “there was too much water under the bridge” for that to happen.  Plus, Pat was in a family way before they married and he said that he and mom had a connection that could not be severed. 

o   Lisa choreographed a visit for me and Diane with the Phillips family when Steph was one.  We had the supper meal at Juanita’s house and afterword Juanita said she felt bad and wondered if she has poisoned everyone with the meal. Diane and I told her we felt fine.  Diane and I took Steph outside and she was playing on the swing set. She was going hand over hand along the top but we were holding her up because she was so little but she was wild as heck and unafraid of anything.  At that moment, I thought to myself, “I can’t imagine leaving Stephanie.  How could anyone leave a child.”  Right then, I could have gone my entire life without seeing Juanita again.  I know that is bad to say but it is exactly what I was thinking.

o   Lisa coordinated another meal when Steph was about eight.   Steph went with Lisa to Juanita’s house and we got there later. Of course, Steph was holding court as she does and when I got there, she said, “Dad, where have you been hiding these people all my life.”  The entire family was in the room and it got very quiet as they all burned a hole through me.   There was a painting of Steph on the wall and I asked Juanita, “where did you get that photo of Stephanie to paint that?”  Juanita said, “That is not Stephanie, it’s me.”  I told her I wanted that picture whenever she was ready to let it go.  Juanita said she would.  Lisa has several photos of Juanita when she was young and she looks exactly like Stephanie did when she was little. 

o   When Steph was about thirty, Lisa brought Juanita to Texas to visit.  Me, Lisa and Juanita were supposed to go to the Botanical Gardens in Dallas together but when it came time to leave, Lisa said, “why don’t you two go ahead.  I don’t feel good so you two just go.”  Choreographed and planned like that.   But we went and it was super awkward.  I couldn’t resist I guess, so I asked about her leaving and I remember her saying, “That is painful to think about and I feel badly about it.”  I think about why I said that now and I’ll bet it was painful for her to think about. She probably just wanted a relationship with her son and not have to go back into those dark days but I couldn’t let it go.  When Lisa and Juanita left Texas, I went “into a cave” as Diane says and I didn’t talk for a month until Diane said, “enough.  Talk to me.”  I did.  This is still very difficult to me to talk about.  As a parent, I can’t imagine doing what she did to us and it affects me still, I guess.  Even writing this book and remembering these events is painful.  As I write this, my daughter is in her 40’s, me and Diane are in our 60’s, and this is still a painful time even though my dad, my dad’s sisters and subsequently Pat and her family loved us, cared about us and tried to make everything as normal as possible for us.  Diane has been wonderful about all this.  She pulls me out of my funk and she asks great questions and listens.  She doesn’t understand because she never encountered this in her life but she loves me and she listens patiently.

o   Lisa asked her the same thing and Juanita told her, “Your dad had a great family and I knew they would take care of you.”  She was right about that.  My dad was the youngest child in his family so his older siblings were in a situation where they could help.  Juanita was the oldest in her family so they couldn’t help.  Plus, my dad came from a great family and they closed ranks and helped him (and us) immensely.  Juanita’s family were not in the same shape so she was definitely right about that. 

o   Juanita subsequently remarried to Jimmy Donaldson and they had one child named DD.  Jimmy managed sewer plants for cities I learned at our one visit when I was about 6 (he may have done other things) and Juanita worked at the Jefferson County (Louisville) Courthouse. I learned from Lisa that Juanita started gambling on boats that were on the Ohio River in Louisville and “lost everything.”  I’m not sure what that means really but they had a nice house east of Louisville and now they live in Florida.  Lisa and her children visit Juanita periodically and I think that is great.

o   Juanita is still alive but my relationship with her is non-existent.  I don’t want a relationship, I don’t feel the need for a relationship but as I get older, I ask more questions and want to know more about her marriage to my dad.   But to get more answers than I have I’d probably have to ask her and I think neither she nor I want that.  I fear the feelings of abandonment, confusion, and hurt will return and I don’t need that.  I have my own family and my dad to think about and that is plenty for me.   I’ve talked to my dad and I’m still not sure what happened between them but he said they didn’t have trouble and never talked about anything being wrong.   That is a problem.  He is for sure a difficult man to talk to and he was especially difficult when he was younger so I’m confident that was integral to the “not talking” issue.  I think his mother being gone and his dad being such an influence was also integral. 

o   Grandpa Powers was telling a story about her leaving and he said, “if she was in a fiery crash, I wouldn’t put the fire out or rescue her.”  Damn.  Imagine hearing that when you were in the first grade.  She took his car when she left but moreover, she left all of us and Pop in a lurch.  I think it left Grandpa in a lurch also because she was the woman in both of their lives and they both depended on her. 

o   My uncle JE and my dad never said a bad word about Juanita.  Ever.  And later, neither did Pat.  But my aunts and my grandpa Powers sure did.  I believe my aunts and my grandpa taught me to hate her although I don’t believe my aunts intended to do so; I just think my aunts, like me, couldn’t believe anyone would leave her children but moreover, my dad was the youngest child, a hard worker, a good provider, and a good person and they couldn’t imagine him being left like that. They closed ranks around him and helped him all they could until he met Pat.  Pat (or mom) squared me away and helped make me the man I am today.   The best characterization was from my sister Lisa who said “that Juanita was her mother but Pat was her mom.”  Indeed.

Pat’s Family 

o   Great-grandmother Southerland

o   The only living grandparent, when I came into the picture that mom had was Grandma Southerland; Grandpa Embry’s (mom’s dad) mother.  Somehow, because one of her grandchildren couldn’t say “Southerland” she became Grandma Sutty. Grandpa Embry built her a little home on the side of his shop and it was little bitty but good for one person.  She had a little chihuahua dog that barked like crazy and scared me half to death.  Grandma Sutty was known to be a little mean so we all stayed away from her.  She liked to imbibe a little as well.  However, she took a shine to my brother Phillip and took him in, gave him goodies to eat, and sought him out every time we were there. 

o   My dad said one time Grandma Sutty asked him to get her a fifth of whisky to drink and he quicky obliged but he asked her, “Ms. Sutty, why are you allowing me to do this when you have grandsons who would be happy to get this for you.”  She said, “You don’t drink so I don’t have to worry about all of the whisky getting back to me.”  

o   Grandpa Carl Embry and Grandma Minnie Embry

o   The first time we visited, we got there on a Sunday after the Sunday meal was completed but Grandma fixed our entire family something to eat and as a 5-year-old kid, that was a great thing; I’d never been treated like that before.  I hope I minded my manners but am not sure about that.  Grandpa Embry was good with his hands and could build anything or do anything. 

o   He owned a grocery store in Oolite which was a town below Battletown that was subsequently taken by a rock quarry; it was a town owned by the quarry.   My mom told me that their grocery store had the post office in it like you saw in the old “Green Acres” TV show; it was the center of town!  She also said that because they had the grocery store, she ate a lot of candy and didn’t brush her teeth so had to get false teeth when she was in junior high.  Oolite, by the way, is a type of rock that was being quarried and it is the Greek word for “egg.”  My grandfather worked at the quarry as well and when the town of Oolite was taken by the quarry for mining, my grandfather bought a place several miles west of Battletown.  On this land, he built a two-story house, a shop with a place for his mother to live, and two hog houses for farrowing pigs and storing materials.  He built much of this with ammo box exteriors which I’m assuming he got from Fort Knox. 

o   My mom told me that when he wanted to get amorous, he could come in, take a bath, and get ready.  Mom said that grandma knew exactly what that meant.  My mom also told me he was a womanizer although I’m not sure if that meant flirting or something else.  She told me that right before she died but I didn’t ask questions because I did not want to know more.  

o   One time my dad had a piece of equipment that needed to be fixed and it needed to be welded but we didn’t have a welder.  But Grandpa Embrey had one and he knew how to weld.  When my dad got there, my Grandpa has his house coat on and was drinking a beer…..probably not his first either.  My dad told him what he needed and out to the shop they went. My grandpa didn’t change clothes to go out and help him but started welding with his house coat on with a beer in his hand (and several more in the outside refrigerator).  He started welding and caught his housecoat on fire several times of course.  He got finished and told my dad, “Hell, I’ll just tell Minnie the moths are bad out here. 

o   My dad told me a story that he took Grandpa Embry to look at a disk at the local dealer location and when Grandpa got the price, he wasn’t going to pay that so he got a little book out and a measuring tape and measured the equipment, wrote notes down, and rode home with my dad.  When my dad talked to him, he just uttered minimum responses and wouldn’t really talk.  When they got home, grandpa went into the shop and started working.  A week later, my dad went back and saw that grandpa built a disk just like the one he saw for sale.  He cut the metal out himself, connected the mechanical parts, did the welding and cutting, installed the disks, and painted it.  My dad said it was much stronger and better than the one for sale at the dealer and it was a lot cheaper.  He said my grandpa was so proud, he was beaming. 

o   Grandpa Embry was a hog farmer and he had a farrowing house for newborn litters and then a feeding area for hogs they were getting ready to sell.  The entire farrowing house had board floors where we walked and where he fed the sows and managed the litters.  He had a bunch of copperhead snakes around his house so we’d always find snakes in the farrowing house and around his place.  But if a snake got near the sow, they would kill it so he didn’t worry about them much.  Even through the snakes were copperheads and very venomous, the sows would win that battle so the snakes stayed away from them. 

o   The snakes were bad around my grandpa’s house and we were always on the watch for them.  Grandpa found one in the basement of the house one time and dad and Uncle Bobby killed several while building fence on Grandpa’s place.  I remember Uncle Bobby said, “Luther, there is a snake, let me get him.”  My dad was afraid of snakes so he jumped the fence before Uncle Bobby got there.  But Uncle Bobby found the snake and killed him.  We saw dozens of copperheads on that farm.  After Grandpa died, Uncle Bobby enlisted my dad to help him tear down the hog farrowing houses that Grandpa Embry built.  They took one board of the floor up and there was a den of rattlesnakes under it.  My dad and Uncle Bobby burned the farrowing house down instead of tearing it down. 

o   I remember one time we were visiting and I thought that Phillip, my little brother, got paid by grandpa for doing some work (which he didn’t) so I went into the house and demanded to know if he was paid.  In front of everyone.  I had no filter obviously.   My dad snatched me up and took me down to the farrowing house and I thought for sure he was going to whip me good because I deserved it.  But he didn’t.  He just talked to me very seriously, told me how and why that was wrong, and made me apologize, which I did.  Now as a parent, I believe he was shocked and embarrassed that his son would say such a thing in front of others.  It was a teaching moment I will never forget. 

o   One very memorable thing about my grandfather is that on one hand, all his fingers we cut off around the knuckle area.  Didn’t make a bit of difference in his ability to work and really, I didn’t even know it except to look at him.  I learned that he had cut these fingers off in a shop accident and was very worried about “Minnie” thinking bad of him for doing that.  My mom said he had his hand wrapped in a towel until Minnie found out and made him go to the doctor.  When I first saw that, I was thinking he’d had an accident while working at the quarry but I learned that he did this at home in his shop.  I am pretty sure that liquor was involved.  I also found out that the fingers on this hand were strong!  He would pinch us kids whenever he got the chance and he could pinch hard so I was always pretty wary of him. 

o   I remember that Mom told me that Grandpa Embry told Grandma Embry, “Minnie, it’s later than you think” a few months before he died.  He got up one morning and was sitting on the couch about to go out to work when he let out a scream and then went silent.  My grandmother called a nephew just down the road then called the ambulance but he was gone.  This was a very sad day in my life.  My Mom was walking to the house from the barn when she said she heard a man grown.  She looked around and saw no one but it was unsettling for her.  Then she learned that the moan she said she heard was about the same time her father died.

o   I remember that all of us went to Grandma’s house after he died but before the funeral to be with her.  There must have been 30 people there and we spent the night laying on “pallets” on the floor.  Grandma got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and she was crying.  I was just a little kid but I went in to check on her and she hugged me and said, “I love you honey.”  Oh man that meant a lot but I should have been hugging her and telling her that I loved her….. but that’s just the way she was.  Wonderful.  The Zeitz’s from up the road called and wanted to know if I wanted to come up and play baseball with them on the day of his funeral, I told my dad I wanted to go play rather than go to the funeral.  He said, “Let me tell you something. That is not your grandfather in that casket.  He is alive and kicking in Heaven and he’d totally understand you not coming to the funeral.  So do I.”  So, I didn’t go.  My grandmother died some years later when I was in the Air Force.  I visited her when she was in the hospital but she was not conscious so had no recollection of my visiting.  I was not able to go to her funeral because of my service but I really mourned her.  Still do.

o    Aunt Beatrice (BO) and Melvin Hockman

o    BO and Melvin Hockman had no children of their own.  When my mom divorced her first husband one of the conditions was that their children (Peggy and Sheila) could not live with her and my dad.  So, they went to live with Aunt BO and they did that from the time of the divorce until Peggy graduated high school and until Aunt BO died.  Sheila lived with her until Aunt BO went into a nursing home a few months before she died.  Sheila is mentally challenged after having epilepsy and seizures as a child so she stayed with her Aunt BO and subsequently in Bowling Green to be near her sister. 

o     Aunt Judy and Bobby Hubbard

o     Aunt Judy and Bobby were close to mom and thus close to us as well.  They took care of us when needed and they were always ready and able to help us.  I remember we were at Aunt Judy’s the day President Kennedy was shot and killed.  A neighbor came to the door and told her to turn the TV on because President Kennedy had been shot.  He wasn’t yet pronounced dead so we watched that part in real time. Later, we watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald and the mele that ensued.  That was quite a time for a little boy only 6 years old.  Bobby helped my dad a lot on the farm and on Grandpa Embry’s farm after grandpa died. 

o     I remember one time my dad and Bobby were fixing fence on Grandpa’s place and I was on the road beside the fence where my dad told me to be when Uncle Bobby said, “hey Luther, I see a snake down here.  Hand me a bar so I can kill him.”  My dad, scared to death of snakes, jumped out of the fence row and onto the road and handed Bobby a bar.  Bobby dutifully killed the snake.  When I came back from the Air Force on leave, I was helping my dad haul hay and Bobby was there helping also. He said, “Tim, I’ll bet you will be happy to get back to the Air Force where you can drink some beer instead of hauling hay.”   I don’t know about the beer but I do know I was ready to get back.

o   Aunt Verna and Uncle Elroy (Herb)

o   Aunt Verna and uncle Elroy (who we called Herb) were as close to us as any of mom’s family.  Herb was close to my dad and when Herb passed, it really hurt my dad.  Verna always worked as a house cleaner and uncle Herb worked in several places. They had four children Mike, Gaye, Susie, and Janie. Mike and Gaye passed away but Susie lives beside my dad and she takes care of him and loves him like a saint.  Susie’s husband Larry Joe passed away but her son Ralph is really helpful to my dad. Ralph takes care of the farm and the few cows that dad still has, and the equipment, makes fires, and checks on dad every night. He is a good boy that does a lot of good and my dad appreciates him greatly.   Dad does gripe though that Ralph uses his shop to work on his “junk” which are really vehicles he is working on.  He sold Ralph 5 acres of land behind his mom and dad’s trailer with a life estate so Ralph will get it when Pop is gone. 

o   When I first met uncle Herb, he was living in Ekron, Kentucky and we went over there pretty often to visit because that’s what families did back then.  I loved going over there because everyone was so nice to us, and cared about us.  Verna was nice to Mom and I liked that a lot.  Many of mom’s siblings judged her for divorcing, but Verna, whether she judged or not, was in mom’s corner.   Mike was the oldest of Elroy and Verna’s children; a year or two older than me. Gaye was the second oldest and she was my age and in my grade in school.  Gaye took up with a young man and became pregnant at age 16, they married and he joined the Air Force as a B-52 gunner.  When they returned, Gaye got sick with cancer.  She beat it back once then cancer returned and she died early in her life. 

o   Mike was a little wild and he had a 55 Chevy that his dad bought and fixed up for him (this was the early 70’s so a 55 was not that old then) and he was out and about riding with my step-sister Peggy and others when they had a head on collision with another vehicle.  I heard they were on a gravel road and just could not stop. Peggy got cut up pretty badly and she had facial healing for some time after that. Nobody was seriously injured but I saw that car in Uncle Herb’s garage and it was destroyed.  

o   I was bicycling with Mike around the distilleries in Ekron which were only storage for already distilled liquor and I hit a pothole and wrecked my bike and skinned my face BAD.   I yelled “I killed my face, I killed my face, “and Mike laughed and laughed!  I didn’t laugh because I was hurting badly and I went back to the house where Aunt Verna doctored me up.    Mike went into the Air Force and was a mechanic on airplanes and came then came back home after his stent in the Air Force.

o   Uncle Herb and eight Verna moved from Ekron and I remember them living in Louisville right next to the Ohio river. Then they came back when my dad and Herb bought a gas station at Midway.  My mom, my dad, and Aunt Verna pumped gas and uncle Herb worked on vehicles as a mechanic. Eventually they stopped selling gas and only did mechanic before closing the station.  Then uncle Herb bought a trailer and moved it onto land that my dad owned.  Now Diane and I own that land but Aunt Verna had a life estate on the land and stayed there the rest of her life.

o   Uncle Herb was a vehicle man and he knew how to fix stuff and he also knew how to make vehicles beautiful which he did often.  Uncle Herb became a significant member of the local of the Ekron Baptist church, became a deacon and was one until he died.  I remember when he first got saved, we had a picnic at our house (and maybe we were still building on the house, I can’t remember) but we were outside and Uncle Herb opened a can of soda and it sprayed all over him.  He said, “That makes me mad, that makes me mad.”  I thought he might lose his religion right there but he maintained! 

o   Mom used to tell stories about letting Herb comb her hair when she was a young child and Verna was dating Herb.  She said she wouldn’t let anyone else brush it except Herb.  He was gentle and nice and she liked and appreciated him throughout her life.

My Dad

o   My dad was essentially a farm kid and most of the stories he tells of his early life are dairy farm stories because he spent a lot of his formative years doing dairy farm work. 

o   He has dyslexia and sees everything backwards even now.  When he went to elementary school he was diagnosed as “retarded” and his teacher told his mother he could not learn.  His mother, who was also trained as a teacher, taught him herself and taught him to convert his dyslexia in his head so learned how to translate; a technique he still uses today.   He’s very, very smart and not at all retarded.  He said he reads slow and as he gets older; the converting gets harder and more frustrating.  He said his dyslexia didn’t hurt him on the farm doing farm work and didn’t hurt him at work in the chemical plant because the dials all made sense to him and because he understood how everything worked there.  Plus, the education he received in Minnesota courtesy of DO and Aunt Gerry made a huge difference in preparing him for this type of work.

o   He graduated from Simpsonville High School in 1952 and he was not an exceptional student but the fact that he graduated at all was a testament to his mother, her belief in him, and her work with him.  Plus, he had to milk over 100 cows every morning before school and after school plus all the farm work that had to be done so it’s a miracle he even graduated!

o   My dad loved his mother very much.  He got a lot of direction from his father of course and he worked beside his father every day but he says he is much more like is mother.  I think she counseled him fairly often and he relied on her for that.  He was the youngest and one of only two boys so they relied on him as well.  He said when he went out to milk every morning, he would come in from milking and she have made breakfast for him.  This was a country breakfast on the farm so biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs, buttermilk and coffee.  He said it was one of his favorite meals.  He also said that when his dad had a heat stroke and could not work for a year, he and him mom would talk and talk each morning.  He talks about this time with such emotion.

o   I don’t remember any of this but I just imagine when his mother died that it really hurt him.  He was in his early 20’s and it was a tough blow.  His mother died 6 months before Debbie so his world kind of fell apart during that time. He said that his brother and sisters would all come to his mom and dad’s house every weekend (alternating with in-laws of course) but all that stopped after his mom died.  His father had a farm rented but sold out and moved in with his children.  So, this was a rough time for his father, his siblings, his spouse, and him. 

o   My dad said that Juanita was the oldest child and that his mother became a major influence in Juanita’s life teaching her about being a wife back in those days, how to care for and raise children, how to cook, how to garden, etc.  He said when his mother died, it hurt Juanita badly.

o   My dad told a story about him and Larry Darby working on a farm and using a tractor that had a hand clutch.  My dad decided to let Larry drive and he got mixed up on the clutch and ran the tractor through a fence.  My dad said he snuck back to the barn to get the fence repair tools so he and Larry could fix the fence.  He was afraid his dad would find out and whip them both.  He got the fence fixed and never told his dad until years later and when I heard the story, I was about 10 and it was the first time my grandpa heard it.  When my dad said, “I had to get the fence fixed before my dad found out and gave us a whipping.”  My grandpa said, “It’ a wonder you didn’t get a whipping.”  Just hearing about it made grandpa upset and he was in his 70’s then.  I think if he could have, he would have disciplined my dad right then.

o   When my dad was about 12, my grandpa had a heat stroke picking up rocks out of a field and was out of commission for a year; most of the early part of the event, my grandpa was in bed.  My dad took over the role of key worker on the farm but he said he was working from the neck down.  He said every morning he would go into his father’s bedroom and get his daily orders.  They had about 100 cows to be milked, milk to sell, winter feed to get in, burley tobacco to grow, strip, and sell, a few hogs, etc. and he was the key worker.  The family depended on him and I’m sure other family members helped as well but he was key.  This era gave him great confidence in his ability to negotiate, work hard, talk to people, and succeed.  It also gave him the ideas of using a motorcycle and quitting school; ideas that is mother squashed. 

o   He told me a story about he and his friends from school taking a flatbed truck from Shelby County to the state high school basketball tournament in Lexington.  That was probably a 90-minute trip then and they went after the morning milk time and before the evening milk time.  He said everyone who went with him was a dairy kid and all of them had to be back for evening milking time.  He said they went; they watched the games in the old Memorial Coliseum where the University of Kentucky Wildcats played and then got back before milking time. He said he had three in the cab with him and a half-dozen more in the back of a flatbed truck.  There were no restraints or handholds on the flatbed and some of the boys hung their legs off the back.  Man!  My dad was too young to have a driver’s license but he said, “farm kids didn’t need one.”  Can you imagine?

o   He also told a story about taking an outhouse from the principal’s house at his school and moved it out into the middle of the street.  He said this was great fun and just a prank but one of the boys in the group confessed to the prank and named the co-conspirators.  Dad said they would have totally gotten away with it if that one friend hadn’t blabbed.  He said they didn’t get a huge penalty but had to help clean the school for a time.

o   My dad said he got invited by his girlfriend in High School to a wedding in a nearby town and it was the first time in his life he’d been in a Catholic church and he said it was fancy, ornate, and beautiful.  He said he’d never seen anything like it so he was rubber necking to see everything while walking down the aisle.  His girlfriend stopped to genuflect, pay respects and such and he stumbled over her in front of the entire congregation attending the wedding.  He said he was embarrassed but his girlfriend was even more embarrassed so they hurried into a row and sat quietly from then on.

o   He told me that he and a girlfriend who was Church of Christ faith got serious and got to talking about marrying.  She let him know that he’d have to convert to Church of Christ, gave him the steps to do so and basically expected it.  He always thought it was her family that put her up to this but he got upset and broke it off with the girl.  I’m glad he did; otherwise, there would have been no me!  He said he told her, “well, good luck” and that was the end of their relationship.

o   When he was farming, my dad was working at the top of the silo as they were putting sileage in.  That silo was about 100 feet tall.  Apparently, there were doors at the top and he was up there getting a clog cleared.  He said this was normal and he disconnected the blower parts until he found the clog and cleared it.  Then a boy got on the tractor and cause the silage arm to hit him in the back and knock him off the silo.  He said each section of the silo had some metal bolts sticking out where they tightened the silo together while it was being built and he tried to grab on to each one to stop his fall.  He said he couldn’t hold on but they did slow his fall.  He said he landed on some soft hay at the bottom of the silo.  He said on both sides of where he fell, there was farm equipment that would have hurt or killed him if he had fallen on those.  He said one of the boys came over and said, “is he dead?”  Nope.  He got up and sat on some equipment a few feet away from the silo but eventually, was taken to the doctor and he had 8 broken ribs.   They put a wrap on him and said, “No lifting for 2 weeks.”  He said he still had to milk cows but got help from relatives, neighbors, and his dad to do the job.  After 2 weeks, the doctor said he could lift a little but he’d already been doing that so he just resumed during everything. Tough farm boy!

o   My dad told me about a cousin of his named Ronald that came to visit when my dad was about 8 and they got into trouble a lot but Ronald made everything sound so good so my dad did things he knew he shouldn’t.  The first thing he did was to put chickens into a barrel where they suffocated.  These were baby chicks that were under a heat lamp so they could stay warm early in their life.  He said he put about 50 chicks into the barrel and then they decided to get them out.  He said he guess they just wanted to see if they would all fit in the barrel and they did.  When they took them out, the ones on top were still alive but the ones on the bottom suffocated.  His dad whipped him good for that. Then Ronald talked him into taking a blind horse for a ride. This was fine until they decided to ride that horse across a “river.”  Not sure it was actually a river or a creek but whatever, it was swollen because of recent rains and the result was two boys crossing a body of water on a blind horse.  I imagine the idea scared his mom and dad significantly and he said he went to a neighbor’s house and called his mom and dad to come get them.  When he got home, his dad gave him another whipping.  He said he knew it was wrong to do but his cousin made it sound so good and fun that he did it anyway.  He said they crossed the creek with this horse all the time but the creek was running high because of recent rains and very dangerous but they took the blind horse anyway.  My dad said that the cousin was banned from returning to the farm for long stays.  He was supposed to stay all summer but got shipped back home and only returned for short periods of time and he was on a very short leash each time he returned.

o   When he was a young person, some friends of his went out water skiing and he went along with no intention to ski.  He was just there for the “fellowship” but he wouldn’t say that that meant exactly; I think it meant imbibing.  Anyway, his friends egged him on to try water skiing and eventually he went along with it.  So down in the water he went with the ski’s on and his hands on the rope.  They sped the boat up and he was doing fine.  Then they swerved the boat to make him go over the waves, he lost his balance, and down he went.  Although he crashed, he would not release the rope.  So, under water he went lower and lower until the boat stopped and he kicked his way back up to the surface, rope still in his hands.  He said he nearly drowned and when he got back in the boat, he told his friends that no way he was ever skiing again.  And he didn’t.  He told me that he was not wearing a life jacket or anything like that so his life was truly in danger.

o   I’m not sure exactly what age he married but I believe he married at age 18 when Juanita was about 16.  Juanita was obviously not out of high school but my grandmother made her stay in school until she finished.  As I said earlier, she was married and pregnant with Debbie while she finished her senior year of high school.  When her and my dad married, she lived with my dad’s mother and father for a while until they got a place of their own.  During this time, my grandmother taught a young girl (a kid really) how to cook, clean, raise a garden, be a wife, and be a mother.  Juanita took to this training very well and loved my grandmother very much. 

o   After my grandmother and my sister Debbie died, Juanita obviously struggled.  Losing my dad’s mother was a significant loss, I am sure.  Losing a child was even worse.  My dad said that he was working so hard on the farm that he was able to escape the pain and horror of it all.  Juanita was all alone in the house with us kids and was unable to escape.  My grandfather was without a spouse at this time and was a significant influence on my dad and was probably in the middle of his life during this time.

o   After his sold out of the dairy business, because he couldn’t do that and take care of us kids, he began to sell milk and other assorted products on a route while us children were sent to various places to live with his sisters and brother while he tried to sort his life out.  He said when he left this job, he had to collect from all his customers and he went door to door and collected from each one.  The manager told him that no one had ever quit with full collections before and said if my dad every wanted to return he could.

o   My dad told me when I was born, I could not digest any food and the hospital staff was very concerned about me.  Finally, they figured out that I had no connection between my stomach and my intestines so they had to make one.  Pop said he thought they just stuck a rod down my throat and make a hole but when he says that he laughs and laughs.  When I was young, I did not laugh because I was totally embarrassed by the thought of this event.  But when I got older, I didn’t care as much since it was fixed and I was fine.  Anyway, the hospital staff made an opening and things began to work like they were supposed to.  After I was born, Juanita got to leave the hospital but I had to stay a while for the surgery, for the healing, and to make sure everything worked as it should.   It worked and I came home!  But my dad said I wasn’t two weeks old and he already had to sell several head of cattle to pay for my extended hospital stay.  He said he was not sure I was worth that cost. 

o   During the time my dad was married to Juanita, he was a dairy farmer who milked 100 cows a day.  He had 130 in total but a few of them were dry for whatever reason usually related to having calves.  He had two people working for him on the dairy helping him farm.  One was an alcoholic and dad said he had to carry the money to the wife so they could pay bills and once in a while, the wife came to him needing groceries so dad would go to the grocery and pay the bill.  Then when time came to make payroll, my dad would deduct that amount from his pay.  The other person was a previous convict but was on a work release program with my dad.  My dad said he told him if there were any problems, he would be gone but there were never any problems.  He said the parolee was the best worker on the farm and was completely trustworthy.  He said he went to prison because another fellow accosted him in a bar and wanted to fight.  Dad’s worker refused but the guy jumped on him so the worker decked him, they guy hit his head on a wood stove, and died.  He subsequently went to prison but did well there.  He did not drink and worked very hard but my dad said that if he had caused any problems, just one quick call to the prison and he would be gone. 

o   My dad did not own the 600-acre farm he worked.   The people who owned it had several funeral homes and they bought the farm as an investment.  They had two children and my dad was friends with one of them in high school, but neither of them was interested in farming so they made a deal with my dad.  If he stayed there for 7 years, he would be able to buy half the farm.  When Juanita left, that made fulfilling the deal impossible so he sold his cattle and equipment and left.  He told me the farm cost $300 an acre which was a heck of a lot of money then but now they are selling that land by the square foot with big mansions being built on the old farm.  He said there was a small creek that meandered through the farm and now there are covered bridges over it going up to the mansions.  My dad is tight as tree bark so he laments the opportunity cost of foregoing that deal.  The mother of the family that owned the funeral homes told him, “Hell boy, there are hundreds of women who would take you and your young family on especially knowing that half the farm is yours in a few years. Don’t be silly.”  She also advised him to go down to “Pauline’s” the local house of ill repute to take care of his immediate needs.  My dad said she talked to him very clearly and with a few choice words, told him leaving was a huge mistake.  But he told her his mind was made up and he was moving on.  I think part of it was that he was young, heartbroken over his spouse leaving him, and bewildered about his children. He would have never met mom and had Lou-Ann and Rebekah which is something to think about but forgoing that opportunity is still on his mind today.

o   My dad got hired on at Olin chemical plant in Brandenburg when I was about 5 after returning from Minnesota.  He learned about the opening from his brother JE who was a “big wheel” there and his sister Gerry also worked there.  He went for an interview and had to interview with five separate managers. The last manager he saw said, “I see here that you are divorced” to which my dad answered yes.  The manager then said, “It’s my opinion that a person who is divorced shows a flaw in character.”  He didn’t know any of the details, he just spouted his opinion and it made my dad mad as hell.  He said “I lost my religion that day.”  Evidentially, he lost it a few other times as well but he told the guy he didn’t know what in the world he was talking about, didn’t know any of the details, and a few other things he wouldn’t tell me (but I can just imagine).  He went back to the HR office and told the person managing his case about what happened and he said, “I guess I messed that up.”  About two weeks later, Olin called him in for a physical so he could go to work.  There, he found that the manager he’d had words with gave him the highest rating of any manager he met with.  Amazing!

o   My dad made me and my sisters promise that we’d never send him or mom to a nursing home.  Mom had a bad seizure about 2 years before she died and her heart kept racing then slowing down as it showed on the heart monitor.  The hospice staff came in and my dad got mad as hell.  He said there was no way he was signing a do not resuscitate document and they needed to do whatever was necessary for her.  He was ultra-loyal and a great husband.  They eventually took her out of ICU to a regular hospital room but the physicians said she was on so much medication that they weren’t sure what was causing the issues.  They decided to take her off everything cold turkey and then put her back on after she detoxified.  During this time, one of us kids or dad was with her every moment.  She went through detoxification like stories I’d heard about people coming off of alcohol. She saw things that were not there, she was mean, she talked to people who had been dead for years, and she told us to “watch out for that dog on her bed” when of course there was no dog. I stayed with her several nights but one I remember she was ultra-nasty to me saying mean and awful things but stay I did.  Lisa got there about 7:30 am to relieve me and I packed up my bag and was fixing to leave when Lisa said, “why are you going so soon, don’t you want to talk?”  I told her no and I left.  Amazingly, when my dad arrived, mom snapped out of the trance and talked to him like normal.  She treated Rebekah the same as well.  But the rest of us, not so much. 

o   After they got mom’s medication stabilized, dad said he wanted to take her home.  The physician said she wouldn’t live through the trip but dad said she was going home so he signed the “against medical advice” document and home she went in an ambulance.  She lived two more years after that.  Dad was right.  She could not walk, but used a wheel chair, could stand as long as she leaned on something.  I remember coming home getting in around 7:00 at night and her standing at the kitchen sink leaning on the counter doing dishes.  I said, “what in the world are you doing.”  She said, “Use it or lose it honey.”  She had a dish washer and lots of people to help her but it wasn’t about the dishes, it was about her doing them.  During this time, my mom never improved but her condition worsened and as my dad aged, he had to get care givers in to help him.  He asked me to buy the farm so he would have enough money to care for mom. He already had enough money for mom if she lived 20 years but I bought the farm anyway.

o   Mom died in October of 2020 and it was both tough and a relief for him.  We all hated to see her in that shape and to be truthful, that wasn’t our mom.  She wasn’t living; she was just alive.  But being in the home was better than going to a nursing home and I am glad we never did that.  And I will never do that to my dad either no matter what.  No.  Matter.  What.

My Mom

o  I know she was my step-mother but Pat was our mom and that’s the way I’ll refer to her from now on in this book.   She was as smart as anyone I ever knew; she could play piano from ear never reading music, she could speak in public, she taught Sunday School, she could cook without any recipes, she raised strawberries, cucumbers, and peppers to sell, she could do anything on the farm, and mostly, she had faith in me when there was no cause for it, she worked hard and harder than any of us on the farm and she had a good heart.  She was one of the best things that ever happened to me.  I could talk to her about anything because she was so sensible and knowledgeable and present.  Plus, she would talk when dad was quiet most of my early life.  She was easy to talk to, knowledgeable, sensible, and sensitive. She loved me even though I was hard to love. 

o  I was a pretty bad kid when I was growing up and I think my sisters will co-sign on this.  I did things (and got in trouble) that my younger sisters knew they should not do. I think my sisters learned from my mistakes and learned what the always do’s and never do’s were.  You’re welcome sisters.   Anyway, my mom corrected me, talked to me, lectured me and had high expectations of me.

o  I got in an argument with her one day when I was about 7 and I decided to sit on a rock at the top of the hill on our farm at Freedom.  When my dad got home from work, mom said, “your son it sitting on a rock at the top of the hill.”  He came up there to see what the deal was.  He talked and talked to me and I told him I didn’t want her as a mom any more.  After Juanita left I had several people in my life serving in the role of “mother” so I figured she could go like the rest.  Since she wasn’t my mom and I was throwing out all of the inflamed talk that a 7-year-old could do.  My exasperated dad finally told me, “Timmy, she is just the best I can do.”  He was trying to say anything to get me calmed down, off the rock, and back toward the house.  I sat there a minute, shrugged my shoulders, got off the rock and went back to the house.  I guess that satisfied me but I really think I was hungry and it was supper time.  He loves telling that story even today.  

o  Mom came to the marriage with baggage be advised.  She was married (although separated) with two children when she met my dad.  She married the first time around age 14 then moved to Florida with her husband and they started a family.   Her first husband was older than her and he was hard on her.  She said she used to hide money in the window shades and when she was pregnant, he said he was going out to find a younger woman. I suppose he did find younger women which broke my mom’s heart because she was just a young girl herself, pregnant, in Florida separated from her family and her support system.  Back then, there were no cell phones and there was no internet.  Long distance phone calls were expensive so for her, not available.   Can you imagine the newness and the loneliness she experienced?  She separated from her first husband and took the girls back to Kentucky on a train where she stayed with her mom and dad.  She told me she had no money and nothing to eat or drink on the train trip and it was horrible for all three of them.  

o  When she returned to Kentucky, she began working at the “Brandenburger” restaurant close to where my dad worked at Olin chemical plant.  She said many times she thought my dad was a “cad” although I’m not really sure what she meant but she used that word over and over.  Every time he came in, he asked her, “how about going out with me for a steak dinner and a show.”  She said “no” for six months.  He would only stop in the restaurant when he saw mom’s car there and he would play “Strangers on the Shore” on the mini-jukebox they had at each booth so she would know he was there.  He would ask her that same question each time just to irritate her.  Then one day he asked her the same steak dinner/show question and expected the same “no” response but to his surprise she said “yes.”  Unfortunately for him, he’d just taken Lisa to the doctor and only had two dollars left to spend.  He told mom he had to go home, take a shower, etc. and would be back to get her.  He went to Louisville, to get ready, filled his car with gas at a gas station that Uncle Bob Thomas owned and asked Uncle Bob if he had any money.  Uncle Bob had two more dollars so my dad had four dollars total.  He picked up Mom from the Brandenburger when she got off work, they loaded into his car and he started driving.  Then clearing his throat, he said, “I’ve got a confession to make. I’m a little short on money.  How about a hamburger and a movie.” To his surprise, she said yes so, they got a hamburger and saw a drive-in movie titled “Mighty Joe Young.”  After the date, he followed her home because he was afraid her car would not make it but, of course, that is just a story he told to be gallant.  He wanted to see where she lived and be known as a good and caring guy.  When they got to her house, he asked her if she could show him around Meade County the next day because he didn’t know the area very well.  She did and they fell in love during this and future dates.  They had a lot in common with him being divorced and her being separated and both with children.  They loved just driving around and talking and they did this many times during their life together.

o  As I wrote earlier, mom was still married to first husband and had two children when she started dating my dad.  Many of mom’s brothers and sisters believed that she could go back with her first husband and try to make it work.  Mom said she, her ex-husband, and their two children were going to the Louisville airport to fly back to Florida but they passed dad on the highway and she decided not to go to back to Florida. She told me that she knew she loved my dad and wanted to be with him.  Subsequently, she became pregnant with Lou-Ann, my half-sister. But she was still not divorced. Her ex-husband agreed to a divorce but with conditions:  their children could not be raised by my dad and could not be raised in their household.  So, Peggy and Sheila were raised by my mom’s sister BO and her husband Melvin due to the divorce decree.  BO and Melvin had no children so they welcomed this opportunity.  After the divorce was granted, they got married on August 19^th and Lou-Ann was born in December of that year.  So, she didn’t have much bargaining power being in a family way with another man while still married.  Scandalous even now! 

o  Aunt BO was a great aunt and a great person and she took the responsibility for raising Peggy and Sheila seriously and confidently.  She had no children of her own so this was something she wanted.  But my step sister Peggy said to my sister, “My mom chose your dad over me.”  I’d never considered that before but it was true.  Peggy was in the same situation me, Lisa, and Phillip had been in since Juanita left.  That is devastating to think about but true. Several of my mom’s brothers and sisters thought that dad married her so she could take care of dad’s children having abandoned her own two children.  That is a harsh thought but I can now see their point.  Peggy and Sheila would come to visit us for a few days at a time but the whole situation was awkward.  And awful.  But I wasn’t in mom and dad’s shoes so it’s hard for me to say what was right and what everyone was thinking.  There is probably more to the story that I don’t know and don’t really want to know.  But I do know this:  Dad and mom marrying was a great thing for me.  My mom and I fought often and that had to be hard on her but she was good to me.  Always.  She corrected me when I was wrong, she made me work hard, she provided good counsel to me, and she was fun to be around.  I loved her.

o  In the first few years they were together, dad made mom make decisions because he said she just didn’t feel confident in doing so.  But she became great at doing so and he loved to say, “I created a monster.”  She started making decisions, she worked hard, she was careful about money, she made our home nice, she started teaching Sunday school, took the girls to piano lessons, encouraged all of us, starting driving a school bus and took her GED getting the highest grade the superintendent had ever seen before.  My dad says, “She was a lot smarter than me.”  Yeah.  She was out of his league too.  He definitely outkicked his coverage on that.