SHIPSHEWANNA

I went to Shipshewanna with Tammy and a friend from our flea market here in town. It was really a long day, Tuesday. I was up before five am and we left Fort Wayne by 6. Shipshewanna is a 60 mile trip, we got there at 7:10....then had to wait until after 8 before we even knew if we'd get a space. Finally, at 8:30 they called our name.

I don't like the way they're doing it this year. We were setting up our booth while customers were pouring in. We didn't get everything set up until 10:30...who knows how many sales we could have made in that two and half hours. I bet a thousand people went by...I finally went over and started selling our scented salt crystals while Tammy and Annie finished up. In years past the spaces were given out at 7 and we had an hour to get set up before customers arrived.

We sold enough to make our expenses and some extra to replace stock we were low on. I keep hearing vendors boasting about taking in $1,000 to 1500 a day. That's not us! This t-shirt booth near us was selling t-shirts for $1.97 each...nice quality, plain, colored shirts. They had thousands of them and probably sold a thousand or more. Annie took 28 tiffany-type lamps...she sold three. A booth down the aisle had a couple hundred just like hers, but in three sizes...she only had the large lamp, selling it for $25...a good bargain. But the other booth was doing a brisk business, selling the smaller lamps for $17.

All the booths that were selling a lot...had products marked cheap. We know how they do it...we just don't have the money for the initial investment. Like the t-shirt guy....he bought a truck load of shirts...at fifty cents to a dollar each. The truck load cost him probably $5,000, but I bet he's gone through a couple of truck loads since May 5, when the flea market opened.

Another booth close to us had signs proclaiming everything was $5 or less. They were selling purses, totes, wallets, backpacks, insulated lunch bags, socks...and other like stuff. Their mark-up couldn't have been more than fifty cents to a dollar...but they tent was constantly full of customers. She told me she had to call and have two more people come in to work for her because she and her daughter couldn't handle it.

That seems to be the secret to making money at a flea market. Buy huge quantities and sell them cheap. A dollar mark up isn't much, but multiply it by a 1,000 sales and it adds up. The customer profits by getting it much cheaper than even at Walmart or Dollar General.

Tammy and I could do that with our scented salt crystals. We could sell it for a dollar profit and probably sell 500 to 1,000 bags...but we don't have the inventory to sell that much nor the capital to buy that much. Not to mention, we don't have a truck to transport that much inventory. All the big sellers bring in huge trucks loaded down...we take ours in a small van!

Back to our week. Or my one day. We took maybe a hundred crocheted towels...and they were flying off the rack. People were buying four or more at a time. I'm going to be crocheting towels all summer! This is one item we don't make a big profit on, perhaps a dollar per towel. Since it takes me half an hour to make one, I'm working cheap!

We've added Shea butter to our stock of products. We sold a few...not a lot. But we were selling ours for $4 for a two-ounce jar. Just down the aisle, a booth was getting $10 for the same size jar.! But where we had a small display of it...maybe 40 jars...he had a whole booth dedicated to it...hundreds of jars of different sizes.

I felt like a carnival barker. As people would walk by, I'd say..."hey, have you seen this scented salt crystals?" Nine out of ten would then stop and look and maybe half of them would listen to my sales spiel and once in awhile, someone would actually buy.

It started raining about 3 and people rushed out. It was okay with me, I was done! My body ached all over and I could barely stand up. I left for home a little after four...Tammy and Annie had to stay until the market closed at five. That's probably the only day this summer I'll be able to go up there, because once the heat and humidity set in, I can't take it.

It was easier, though, than working our booth at the local flea market. We don't get many customers there, so only one of work at a time...and have to cover the whole booth. I can't sit down and talk to customers there. Saturday, Tammy had to go to Indy and pick up her daughter at the airport...so I had to work from 9 to six...and it was hard!! And I only took in $20.

There is money to be made in the flea market business, but we're not making it. We barely make enough to cover our expenses, but it gives us something to do. It is more a hobby, so far, for us than a business. Yet, we have hopes that it will get better.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 16

My life was going good. I had a job I loved, a man I was crazy about and, as hard as it was for me to believe, he was just as crazy about me.

Then Tammy got sick. She had a cold and sore throat for which she had been to the doctor a couple of times and seemed to be getting better. Then the school called me at work and said Tammy was sick. She had seemed fine that morning. I picked her up about ten and dropped her off with my brother. He and his wife and baby had recently moved just a couple of blocks from us.

Loretta, my sister-in-law called me just before noon and said Tammy seemed to be getting worse, but she didn't have a thermometer to check her temperature. I went by my house and got my thermometer and went on to check on Tammy. Her temp was 101. I bathed her in cool water and got it down to 100. But it immediately went back up. I called the doctor's office and they said to bring her right in.

By the time the doctor saw her, her temp had risen to 102. In his examination, Tammy complained that her back hurt, her head hurt...and she was seeing double. The doctor said to take her immediately to the University Hospital in Ann Arbor...and to take her out the back door of the office. He said he suspected she had polio.

I was frantic. And scared to death. The doctor didn't even want her to wait for an ambulance, saying I could get her to the hospital quicker. When he left the exam room to make a call, I called Aunt Susie. She said she would be waiting by the road for me to pick her up. We made the fastest trip to Ann Arbor I had ever done.

In the ER, Tammy's temp was 103. They rushed her up to the fourth floor, where just a few minutes later her temp had climbed to 104. They wrapped her in an ice blanket and tried to make me leave the room, but I refused. Finally, the doctor said to let me stay if I stayed out of their way. I was holding Tammy's hand...it was the only body part I could reach with all the medical personnel around her.

The doctors didn't talk to me, but to each other. And the more I heard, the more scared I was. They discussed whether it could be polio or meningitis. From what they were saying, and from their tone of voice, I knew she was dying. All I could do, as I held her hand, was pray. Please God, don't take my baby, I pleaded, over and over. Tammy was asleep, I thought. Then the doctor tried to rouse her with no response. He said to another doctor, she's slipped into a coma...we can't wait. The spinal tap has be do done now. At this point, I was hysterical and a nurse pulled me out of the room. I begged and pleaded to be allowed to go back in and stay with Tammy. Finally, the doctor came out and told the nurse to let me go back in. Aunt Susie, bless her heart, barged right into the room with me and said to the nurse, just try to make me leave them. They let her stay with me.

Then, a miracle happened. That's the only way to describe it. As soon as the doctor did the spinal tap...even while the needle was still in her back, Tammy woke up and started crying. The nurse took her temp and it was down to 100. She was alert and got the number right when the doctor asked how many fingers she could see.

Tammy was sent to ICU and I was allowed to see her for five minutes every hour. Before I was allowed to see her, I had to put on a hospital gown over my clothes and wear a mask over my nose and mouth. Ater I saw her, about 9 p.m., the nurse told me I should go home. She said I could not go into see Tammy anymore that night because she got too "agitated" when she saw me and they needed to keep her quiet. I adamantly said I wasn't leaving and that the only reason Tammy got upset was because of the mask and gown I had to wear. The nurse was not nice about it and said if I insisted on staying, I'd have to stay in the lobby on the first floor.

By then Uncle Troy had joined us at the hospital and my brother had been there for awhile, as well as Avanelle and Phyllis. They didn't stay long because nobody was allowed to see Tammy except her parents...which was just me.

I was really upset, mad and crying when I told Uncle Troy and Aunt Susie what was going on. Uncle Troy went up to the ICU floor and talked to the nurses. Afterwards, he convinced me to go home saying they promised to call me immediately if there was any change.

After I got home, I called Mark in California and told him what was going on. He said to keep him informed. I sat in the corner of the couch beside the telephone all night and was back at the hospital by 8 a.m. and began the five-minute visiting ritual again. A little after noon, the nurse told me they were moving her from ICU into a private room on the isolation floor.

In isolation, I still had to be gowned and masked, and still was the only person allowed to see Tammy. Then at 8 pm. the nurse said visiting hour was over and I had to leave! Tammy remained in isolation for two weeks and during that time I was the only visitor she was allowed, except for my Mom and Dad. They came up the first weekend after Tammy got sick and the hospital allowed them to see Tammy once, gowned and masked.

After Tammy was moved into isolation, I was only allowed to see her during regular visiting hours. Since I had to work, and it was too far to go on my lunch hour, that meant I could only be with her from 6 to 8 pm every day. I left her crying every night. That was just hospital policy back then. They thought parents were a nuisance. I'm so glad hospitals have changed the rules and parents are allowed to stay with their children now.

On the day Tammy was released, I talked to one of her doctors and asked just what it was she'd had. He told me he wasn't sure. The only positive diagnosis was a severe kidney infection. I was furious and demanded to know why she was kept in isolation for a kidney infection. He hemed and hawed around and said, "she might have had meningitis or polio."

Even our family doctor, who was a D.O...Doctor of Osteopathy...couldn't get a firm diagnosis from the hospital. Back then D.O.s didn't have hospital privileges anyplace except a D.O. hospital. He said it was obvious that Tammy'd had a more serious condition than a kidney infection, that hospitals did not isolate a child unless it was absolutely necessary. And that the treatment she had received indicated viral meningitis, or even polio, but he was leaning towards meningitis.

D.O.s might have been considered second-class, or even lower, on the medical doctor scale, but I am convinced that ours saved Tammy's life.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 15

In March, just a few weeks after the kids and I had moved back into town, my uncle Calvin and his wife, Jan, stopped by on a Sunday evening. There was a new bad auditioning at the M-bar and they asked me to go with them to listen to it. I got one of the teen-agers living downstairs to baby-sit for a couple of hours.

The band was not memorable, in fact I don't think the bar hired them. But...something memorable did happen that night. I met the man who would become my husband...and would be my best friend for the rest of my life.

I think I mentioned before that I knew most everyone who went to the M-Bar. Calvin, Jan and I were sitting at a table against the wall listening to the music. I was not in a dancing mood that night and was drinking cokes. When I looked around, this guy sitting at a table against the opposite wall was looking at me. Every time I looked his way, he was watching me. At one time we made eye contact, and I felt a thrill run through me clear down to my toes. I had never seen him in there, or anywhere else for that matter.

He was the best looking man I had ever seen. He only stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a muscular, slightly stocky build. Black hair. Dark brown eyes. Dark complexion. Unlike most of the men there who wore casual clothes, mostly khaki pants and pull over shirts, this stranger was wearing brown dress pants, white shirt with a skinny tie and tan sports coat. I asked several people if they knew him but nobody did.

A couple of days later I had a phone call at work. Fran, a girl I had gone to school with, worked at a local restaurant. She called and said this guy was asking questions about a girl he had seen at the M-Bar on Sunday night. From his description, she said it sounded like me. He asked her if she could introduce us, if it was okay with me. Of course, it was! Fran told him that I usually brought my kids into the restaurant on Saturday afternoon for ice cream and he said he would be there.

As it turned out, I was not able to go to the restaurant on Saturday for some reason or other. On Sunday, because it was an unseasonably warm day, the kids and I went for a walk. We stopped by to see Fran and I apologized for not showing up the day before. While we were talking, HE walked in. Fran was busy and didn't make it back over to my table. I guess HE got tired of waiting for a formal introduction because he walked over, pulled out a chair and introduced himself. He said, "I'm Joe Wussles, and I just have to tell you that you're the best looking woman I've ever seen." I blushed and my kids giggled, but I managed to stammer out that I was Lori Reed and these were my kids, Tammy and Buddy. He said Fran had given him my phone number and asked if he could call me sometime. Sure, I said. Then he left.

The kids and I started walking home just as it started to drizzle rain. We had walked perhaps a block when this blue car stopped beside us with two men in it. The passenger window rolled down...and I saw that Joe was driving. He asked if we'd like a ride home. I told him it was only a couple of blocks, that we were fine walking in the rain. He drove off...but drove by us at least three times before we got back to our house.

Later that evening, he called and we talked for only a few minutes since I was getting the kids ready for bed. An hour later he called back...and we talked for at least an hour. For the next couple of weeks, Joe called every night. He was a student at Eastern Michigan University there in Ypsilanti and was only in town through the week, going home to Highland Park every weekend. Since I didn't date or go out through the week, the telephone calls were our only contact for awhile.

Then, one Saturday night at the M-Bar, he walked in. I was shocked. I knew that on weekends he worked at his family's bar in Detroit. He sat with Carol and me for a little bit, then asked me if I would go someplace quieter with him. Of course, I would. For the first time in my life, I left the bar with a man. As we walked out, I could see jaws dropping in disbelief.

He said he had asked his mother to get another bartender that night because he had to get back up to Ypsilanti for something important. We went to the Bomber restaurant and sat there for four hours drinking coffee and talking and holding hands.

Except for our nightly phone calls, now even on weekends he called me from home, we didn't see each other. Then he asked me to the prom in May. He was substitute teaching at Lincoln High School and had to chaperone the senior prom. I agreed to go and as soon as I got off the phone, I panicked. What could I wear? I didn't own any fancy clothes. And I didn't know anybody who would know what a chaperone wore to a prom.

I ended up going to the local Goodwill Store and buying a frothy blue cocktail dress and had a pair of white heels dyed to match. Joe showed up in a black suit and was so handsome, I nearly swooned when I saw him. Later, he told me I was so beautiful that his heart plummeted to his feet when he saw me. We were already half in love with each other, but that night we both tumbled the whole way.

From then on, he stopped by my apartment every evening and got to know and love my kids. They soon loved him as much as I did. He still had to work at the bar in Detroit on Friday and Saturday nights, but every couple of weeks, Carol and I, or sometimes just I, went to his bar. My teen-age cousin, Alta, had gotten into the habit of spending Saturday nights with me, so baby-sitting was no problem.

One Sunday nightafter we'd been seeing each other for over a year, he called me. He said he was still at home and wouldn't be back to Ypsi for awhile. His semester had ended but he had signed up for summer classes. When I asked why he wasn't coming back, he was very vague. The phone call upset me. I thought he was dumping me. I didn't hear from him the rest of the week and I cried every night.

On Saturday, he called and wanted me to drive up Highland Park and meet him at his house. I was ecstatic! Although, I knew his mother and uncle from the bar, I had never been to his house, so I thought this might be a good omen.

Skipping a lot of details to keep this from becoming a novel, Joe and I left his house and went to a park. Sitting at a picnic table, he said he had something important to tell me but didn't know how to go about doing it. Just spit it out, I said...again thinking I was getting dumped. Then he told me he had epilepsy and the reason he hadn't gone back up to Ypsi was because he'd had a seizure the last Saturday and wrecked his car. When he called me on Sunday, he had just gotten home from an overnight stay in the hospital.

He said his mother had been nagging him to tell me about the epilepsy for months, but he didn't know how. He had been thirteen years old when he had a seizure during a basketball game and was diagnosed with grand-mal epilepsy. He was on medication and the seizures were generally well controlled, but he still had an occasional seizure. I assured him that his epilepsy made no difference in my feelings.

to be continued

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 14

The kids and I loved the new apartment. It was the whole upstairs of a two family home with stairs on the back of the house. We had a big living room. a small dining room, one big bedroom and a smaller bedroom. The kitchen was huge. The bathroom was small and had a stall shower instead of a bathtub. All the floors were covered with brown asbestos tiles. Every Saturday I scrubbed and waxed those floors and they were beautiful...for maybe two days.

The apartment was furnished with new, or practically new, furniture and appliances. The small bedroom had two twin beds and two small chests of drawers for the kids. My bedroom had a full bed, dresser and chest as well as two bedside tables. There were no closets but both bedrooms had wardrobes.

The elementary school was just a block from the house. Buddy was still in kindergarten, so I picked him up at noon every day and dropped him off at my grandmother's, just four blocks from our house. When Tammy got out of school, she walked to Granny's and I picked them up when I got off work.

Granny was about 73 years old and lived with her older sister, Aunt Dora. I worried about the kids being too much for them and constantly cautioned Tammy and Buddy to be on their best behavior. As it turned out, they loved going there and Granny and Aunt Dora fussed over and babied them, spoiling them rotten. When school was out, I had to make other arrangements. All day baby-sitting was just too much for Granny and Aunt Dora, no matter how much they loved Tammy and Buddy. So, they went back to Avanelle. Whatever would I have done those years without her!!

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 13

In January of 1965, we had the worst blizzard I've ever seen. I got up that morning, filled the stoker and got ready for work. Listening to the radio, I knew school had been cancelled, so I left everybody sleeping. There was probably six inches of snow in the driveway and on my car. The wind was blowing and snow was piling up in drifts over near the barn. I cleaned off the car and cautiously started out to work, a five mile trip, normally taking about 10 minutes.

The first sign I had that this was more than just a normal, heavy, winter snow storm was when I tried to go up a hill on Rawsonville Road, a couple miles from home. My car kept getting stuck. I'd back down the hill and try again..just to get stuck again. Several other cars were having the same problem. After three or four tries, I decided to turn around and go through Belleville and take the expressway in Ypsilanti. It was slow going, but I made it to the office after fighting the drifting snow for over an hour. Nobody was there yet. I unlocked the door, went in and called Al Kliemann, my boss. He told me we were having a blizzard, the office would be closed and I should go back home.

I called Carol and told her what the snow was like...and that I was coming home. She had been listening to the radio and said we would likely be snowed in for a few days, so I should stop and pick up milk and bread. I knew we were due to get a delivery of coal that day and had less than a stoker full left. So, I called the coal company and asked them if they would be delivering. Of course, they said no....that their trucks were stuck in the snow all over the place. I called Carol and told her.

I started out for home about 10 and at 11:30, finally made it to the little store just a mile from our house. I stopped and picked up the milk and bread and started down the country road to my house. I got maybe a fourth of a mile before getting stuck in a snow drift up to the hood of my car! With no other choice available, I started walking, wading through thigh-high drifts, in a dress and high-heels, long coat and scarf, carrying milk and bread.

I don't, to this day, know how I made it to our friends house, the one nearest ours. I lost track of how many times I fell down. I had left the road which had drifts over my head in spots, and walked and crawled through the fields where the drifts weren't as deep. I worried about getting lost. It was snowing so hard, I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. All I really remember is praying...and wanting to get to my children. Like a chant, over and I over, I asked God to please let me get to my children.

When I stumbled into the neighbors yard, I was frozen. I had lost one of my shoes on the way. I was covered with snow. And absolutely at the end of my endurance. I fell down at the edge of their driveway and couldn't move another step. Luckily, one of the girls was outside and saw me. She called to her mother for help, and they carried me into the house.

From their house, I called Carol as soon as I was able, and told her what had happened and that I would be on home as soon as I thawed out. They gave me a change of clothes...jeans and shirt and a heavy jacket, boots and mittens. One of the girls went with me. It was an adventure to her. Surprisingly, the field between our houses was relatively clear but he roads, in front of her house and in front of mine...we both lived on corners...were deep and treacherous. At my house, the snow in the front yard was drifted up past the top of the front door. Yet, on the side at the kitchen door, the snow was only a few inches deep. The snow from the side yard was all piled up against the barn, making it look like a giant snow mountain.

When I went inside, as frozen as I was, I had to laugh at Carol. She had panicked. She had closed the doors off the kitchen, had all the electric stove burners on, and all the kids snuggled up in blankets and quilts on the floor! The temperature must have been 90 degrees in that kitchen!

I told her all that wasn't necessary yet. At least until we ran out of coal.

A little while after I got home, Dick and Johnny showed up, checking up on us. Their car had gotten stuck about a mile from the house and they told us that after they dug it out, if possible, they would be back for us. When I said I was sure we'd be ok even after the coal ran out, Dick mentioned that electric power already was out in several areas.

Now, Carol and I were really scared! With no electricity, we'd have no heat at all after the coal was gone. And there was no way to conserve the coal...as long as the stoker was full, the furnace ran at the same rate regardless as the termperature. The kids thought it was great fun. Even after we opened up the doors off the kitchen, they still wanted to "camp" in the kitchen.

A couple hours later, Dick called and said they could not get their car out and had walked and hitch-hiked back to Ypsilanti. Now, we knew they couldn't help us. Shortly after that, Avanelle called to check on us. I told her what our situation was and that I didn't know what we'd do if the electric went out. Then Uncle Speed called and said to get ready, pack for a few days, that he and Jim, Avanelles husband, were coming to get us. I tried to talk him out of it because it was just too dangerous. But he said...get ready...I'll be there.

And he was, about two hours later. They had a pick-up truck with the bed loaded down with as much heavy stuff as they could find to give them added traction, and had driven the last three miles across fields. They could only get within a quarter mile of the house. The drifts were so deep the kids couldn't get through them, so Speed and Jim made two trips carrying the kids to the truck. The first trip, Carol went with them, carrying Ricky, Speed and Jim carrying Jacky and Sheri. The second trip, Speed and Jim carried Tammy and Buddy, while I carried or rather, dragged, a trash bag filled with our clothes. We were crammed into that pick-up like sardines. Jim was driving. Carol, Speed and I smashed together on the seat, with all five kids in our laps. Even going across the fields was treacherous. We got stuck several times and Jim and Speed had to dig us out, with Carol and me helping to push the truck. It took us over three hours to get to Avanelle's house.

The storm stared on Thursday and didn't end until Saturday. Avanelle's house was crowded with all of us, but she acted like it was an ordinary visit. The kids loved it. I was back in the bedroom I'd occupied earlier when I lived there, and Carol was given the girls room. Supposedly, Tammy and Buddy were to sleep with me, and Carol's kids with her. Avanelles kids were to sleep on the pull-out couch and the living room floor. That was our plan. But, the kids had other ideas. Soon, the dining room floor was covered with quilts and pillows so the kids could "camp" just like they'd planned to do at our house. It was a great place to be snowed in. The three of us women went through pots of coffee while the kids drank gallons of hot chocolate. With eight kids, five of them six or under, there were many squabbles and tears. Time-outs in separate bedrooms kept us all sane.

I was worried about my car. I called the police and told them that I had abandoned it in a snow drift...and where...they said abandoned cars all over the place were being towed so the plows could get through the roads and that cars from the area where mine were, would be towed into Belleville.

On Monday, Jim took us home and drove me into Belleville to find my car. I worried a little that there would be an exorbitant towing charge and I wouldn't be able to get my car. But it didn't cost me anything. Actually, our electric never went out, and the coal company delivered a load of coal the day we went home.

I told Carol I would never go through that again. I was going to find an apartment in town for me and my kids. She was welcome to move with us, if I could find one big enough. But she said she would rather remain in the country. Since the lease was in my name, I called and made arrangements with the landlord for her to take it over. During the next two weeks, Carol used my car to go to the Welfare and make arrangements for help with the rent. utilities and groceries. I found a really nice two bedroom furnished upstairs apartment on Hamilton Street and my kids and I moved into it the first of February. I gave Carol all my furniture, shared the dishes, pots and pans, and linens with her. Still, I felt terribly guilty about leaving her stuck five miles out in the country with no car and no telephone. She was lucky that she had Johnny and his friends to help her out. Within a few weeks, one or more of them managed to get a telephone put in for her and gave her an old car. We remained good friends and the kids and I often visited her back at the farmhouse. But we were glad it was now only a place to visit...not to live!

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 12

When I brought Tammy and Buddy home from Indiana, they were thrilled with the new house we had. It was in the country with nearest neighbor at least a quarter mile away. There was a big barn that they weren't supposed to play in...but did. They still shared a bedroom, but had their own twin sized bed. We soon got into a routine again.

I'd get up in the morning, get us all dressed and drop them off at Avanelles on my way to work. Then school started. Tammy was an all-day first grader and Buddy started kindergarten. The school bus came by around 7:15 every morning, so I go up and got them fed and dressed and on the bus before I had to get ready for work. I worked from 8 to 5...so had arranged with the family living closest to us to baby-sit. The kids got off the bus there and I picked them up when I got off work. They really liked the new babysitters. I say plural babysitters because the family had a couple of teenage girls that absolutely adored Tammy and Buddy. A lot of nights one or both the girls would cut across the field and beat us to our house....sticking around playing with the kids while I prepared supper. Life was good! We still didn't have much money...living from paycheck to paycheck, but we were happy and content. On weekends we still went to see Granny, Avanelle and Aunt Susie, but through the week we were content to stay home evenings.

Then, in October, one Saturday, we stopped in to see one of my old girlfriends from highschool. It was de ja vu....Carol and her three kids were living in a small three room apartment with no electricity, no money, no car....and no one to help her. Her husband had left them high and dry for another woman. What could I do? I couldn't leave them like that. So, I helped pack up their few belongings and took them home with me.

Tammy and Buddy moved into my bedroom with me, giving Carol and her kids their bedroom.
Eventually, we were able to get a couple more beds...one for my room and one for Carol's. Actually, the original plans were that Carol and I would share a room, with all five kids in the other room. That didn't work out, though, because the kids just wouldn't go to sleep.

Now, Carol stayed home with the kids while I worked. Her oldest, Sheri, was in kindergarten with Buddy. Then Jacky was a year younger...and Ricky was only a year old.

The arrangement was perfect for me. The money I saved on a babysitter more than covered the cost of the extra groceries. And Carol cooked! When I got home from work, a hot meal was always ready for me. I thought it was perfect for my kids, too. They didn't tell me until years later that they hated it after Carol moved in. Tammy said Carol was mean to them...not physically...but always yelling at them..and at her kids. She had migraine headaches and the noisy playing really got to her. I knew that...and knew she often had to go lay down in her darkened room. I didn't know how unhappy my kids were, particularly Tammy.

Most weekends I would hire one of the neighbor girls to baby-sit and Carol and I would go the Pub bar in Ypsilanti on Friday and sometime Saturday nights too. Or rather, every Saturday night and sometimes Friday. Neither of us liked to drink, usually sticking to coke...but we loved to dance. And since I knew nearly everybody who went there, it was perfect for us. Her father even was a regular there. He was the one who had told me where she was living in the first place.

Carol began seeing Johnny, a man she had known for a few years...a friend of her ex-husband. Johnny introduced me to a friend of his named Dick. I can't say Dick and I ever dated. Mostly, we met him and Johnny at the bar and danced with them. Usually, they never stuck around very long. Sometimes they'd drop by the house for a couple of hours at a time. For a few weeks...perhaps a couple of months, I was infatuated with Dick. But that wore off, and we became just good friends. I knew both Dick and Johnny had been in prison for breaking and entering, but both assured us they were reformed. Yeah...right!

One day at work, I got a call from Carol. After school, Buddy and Jackie went out to the barn to play...and came back and told Carol there was a "buncha stuff" in the barn. She went out to check...and found tires...lots of them...cartons of cigarettes...lots of them...and various other things from gas stations. She was laughing about it...but I panicked. We had no doubt about how the stuff got in our barn.

I called Dick at work and told him I was asking no questions, but there was a bunch of stuff in my barn and it better not be there when I got home or I was calling the police. And, when I got home, the barn was clean. When I saw Dick at the bar later that week, he tried to apologize. Said he didn't take it there, Johnny had. Then Johnny told Carol the opposite. I told Dick I didn't care who took it there, but I was not having stolen goods on my property nor around my kids. And, furthermore, if he was still doing that kind of stuff, then I didn't want him around me and my kids, either.

Then on Monday, Carol again called me at work, laughing. Dick had come to the house and picked up a TV set he had given me. He told Carol to tell me I could keep the stero set he gave me because it was not "hot." From then on, Dick and were just speaking acquaintances. He ended up remarrying his ex-wife. A couple of years later he called me from the jail in Ann Arbor. He had been arrested for stealing stuff from the furniture store where he worked. A plea agreement he was working out included him telling who had everything he had stolen. He said he wasn't putting my name on the list, but because we had been friends, I might be contacted by the police to see if I had anything he had given me. Thank God, I could honestly answer that I did not have, had I been questioned. The stereo that I'm sure Dick was referring to had worried me enough that I got rid of it shortly after Dick took back the TV set.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART11

Tammy started kindergarten when she was just 4...not turning 5 until October 1. We were living with Avanelle in Ypsilanti at the time. After we moved to the little apartment in Denton, I still dropped the kids off at Avanelles on my way to work and Tammy got to finish kindergarten where she had started it.

The little apartment had only been meant to be a temporary place...until I could find something bigger and better that I could afford. We only lived there a few months before moving into the downstairs of a duplex on Martz Rd in Belleville. The apartment was huge...living room, two bedrooms and kitchen and bath. Any one room was bigger than our entire apartment on Denton Road.

It had one major drawback....it was heated by a coal furnace with a stoker, in the basement. I had to fill the stoker twice a day, morning and night. And, it was unfurnished. Again, I scoured auction sales and cast-offs from relatives and managed to get everything we needed. It did have a stove and refrigerator furnished. My first day there, I turned the oven on to bake some cornbread....and a horrible smell filled the house. I had cleaned the stove before using it, I thought...but missed pulling up the bottom of the oven. When I checked to see what was smelling....I found a roasted nest of mice! It took me forever and many washings with lysol, oven cleaner, comet...to get that odor out of the stove.

Mom and Dad had come up over the Fourth of July and taken Tammy and Buddy back home with them. I moved into the house the following weekend. It was much easier running around scrounging furniture without having to worry about them. I had made a deal with my sister, Mary Sue, to pay her the $15 a week that I would have to pay a babysitter. That way I helped out with school clothes for her and the other kids at home.

The day I was cleaning up the smelly oven, I had visitors. Mark's sister and her boyfriend. I know they thought I was not very friendly because I stayed outside talking to them. I sure didn't want them in the house with that odor! They were disappointed that the kids were not home and only stayed a few minutes. I felt badly because I really liked Susan and would have liked to have them come inside and have a longer visit....under other circumstances.

I went to Indiana and brought the kids home the second weekend in August...so they'd be home for Buddy's birthday. This became an annual thing. The kids would go to Mom and Dad over the Fourth and stay about six weeks.

The first couple of weeks they were gone, I missed them so much I was miserable. Then I got used to them being gone...and enjoyed the freedom. During the six weeks I'd make at least one trip down to Indiana...I couldn't stay away from them for six long weeks! Then, the last week before I went to get them, I'd dread them coming home. That sounds terrible, but by then I had gotten used to being able to go out at night with my friends without worrying about getting a babysitter. Don't get me wrong...I still wanted them to come home, I just dreaded giving up the freedom I had without them. Once they were home, it didn't take long for me to get back in the groove with them...a day or two at the most, where I could not imagine my life without them.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 10

I'll back up a little bit tonight..remember when I said I bought an old car for $50? Here's the story of how that happened.

Mom and Dad came up to Ypsilanti for a weekend over Memorial Day and took Tammy and Buddy back home with them. This would have been in 1962, so Buddy was not yet three and Tammy was four. My week's vacation was the week after the Fourth of July, so I took a bus to Indiana. A trip that took four hours by car was eight hours in a bus! The whole week I was there, I was dreading the bus trip back home with two little kids.

I really enjoyed the week. It was the longest stretch of time I had spent with my family since I left home when I was eighteen. Tammy and Buddy loved it there. Mom and Dad lived in the country and the kids could...and did...stay outside all the time. Besides that, my kids loved my brothers and sisters who naturally spoiled them rotten.

On Saturday night, I went to an auction sale with Mom and Dad. The kids and I were leaving the next day. Not long after we got to the auction, Dad, who had been hanging outside with some friends, came in and said he wanted to show me something. I followed him outside, and he showed me this car that was going to be auctioned off that evening. Dad and his friends had looked it over and said it was in pretty sound shape. I only had $25...just enough for bus fare home for me and the kids. Dad said he would bet it wouldn't sell for anymore that $25. It was a green Plymouth, ten years old and had over 50,000 miles on it.

Dad went in and talked to Mom and said if I could buy it for the $25 I had, they would come up with enough to get me back home. So when the car went up for auction, Dad bid up to $25 on it...and won the bid. On Sunday, I had to call my boss at home and tell him I'd be a day late getting back into town...because I had bought a car and had to wait until Monday to get the title transferred and license plates. This cost me another $20 plus $5 for a tank of gas.

The car seemed okay, but Dad still worried about me driving it 200 miles while we still were not completely sure of it. So, my brother, Jimmy, who was 17, decided to go back with me. He had been going back and forth for a couple of years anyway, spending a few months at a time with me, hitchhiking both ways.

We had no trouble getting home. The car ran like a dream...that time. I kept it for a year...when on the way home, on another weekend trip Indiana, it threw a rod. I was still able to coax it home, driving ten and fifteen miles an hour all the way from the Irish Hills to Ypsilanti...roughly a normal one hour trip, taking us over 4 hours.

The summer of 1963, just after I had coaxed that junker back home, I traded it in on a 1962 Chevy with 5,000 miles on it. I kept that car for a little over a year, trading it in on a brand new 1965 Chevy.

Oh, I paid Mom and Dad back the money they had loaned me to buy the little junker car, at $5 a week. I was really proud of that little car, even named it Bessie, and was sad to see it go when I had to get rid of it.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 9

We shared an apartment with Avanelle and her three kids for only about a year or a little less. Our apartment was the whole downstairs and it had a living room, kitchen, dining room, laundry room and three bedroom. My bedroom was in the back off the living room with its own outside entrance. In theory, Tammy and Buddy shared the room with me and Buddy usually slept with me, but Tammy slept with Mary and Debbie in their room. Avanelle had her own room. Gary Dale, Avanelles oldest child, slept either on the couch or on a rollaway bed in the big, central dining room. I think he was the only one not happy with the arrangement.

That Thanksgiving, Avanelle and I decided to cook Thanksgiving Dinner and invited our entire family, including my parents and brothers and sisters from Indiana. That was the first big dinner I had cooked...or helped cook, since I had left home...and it was a tremendous lot of work. Luckily, Avanelle was a super cook and liked to cook. I was a mediocre cook and got out of it whenever I could. Still...I helped with all of it. While Avanelle was at the work the night before, I made pies...apple, pumpkin, chocolate, lemon, butterscotch, and cherry as well as a cake. When the day was done, Avanelle and I both just crashed. We were exhausted. But, for both of us, it was exhilerating. It was the first big dinner we'd either ever cooked...and we had fed 26 people!

Once, for another dinner we held for the family...Avanelle had to go somewhere and told me to make the dumplings for the chicken. Now, I had made chicken and dumplings before...many times. So, I got out the cannister of flour and mixed them up...and mixed and mixed.....I could not get the dough to thicken. I kept adding flour from the cannister...and mixing....until I finally got the dough barely thick enough to drop spoons full into the chicken....but it melted...just melted!

I met Avanelle at the door when she got back...nearly in tears. I told her something must be wrong with her flour...it just would not thicken into a dough. When she went into the kitchen to check, I thought she was gonna split a gut laughing. Seems she kept her powdered milk in a flour cannister...and I was trying to make dumplings with it!

In March or April, Avanelle got married and even though she and Bob said the kids and I were welcome to stay there, I felt they needed privacy...and Bob needed to bond with her kids...so we moved.

I found a little apartment in Denton, just a few miles from Ypsi that I could afford. It was just three tiny rooms and a bathroom. The bedroom was so small, the bed took up the entire space. Tammy and Buddy got the bedroom and I got the couch.

For some reason, Tammy and Buddy got it in their heads that we needed a man...or rather that they needed a Daddy. It was probably because now Debbie and Mary had one. Anyway...our apartment was behind a small store. One Saturday afternoon I let them go over to the store to get a candy bar each. When they came home, they had this man with them. The story went...Tammy was five and Buddy four....when he saw them alone, he asked if they needed help. Yes, they said. What are you looking for, he asked. A Daddy...they answered. Then they went on to tell them how pretty their mom was and that she really needed to find a daddy for them. So, he followed them home to meet their Mom! Now, I was in Saturday cleaning mode...still wearing pajamas...hair not brushed...no makeup...barefooted...wielding a mop when they walked in with this stranger! I had never been so embarrassed. He got a big laugh out of it..while explaining to the kids that he already had a wife and children of his own.

He gently chided me on letting them go to the store by themselves...and I explained that we lived so close, with no streets to cross...besides, knowing the owner who ran the store...that I felt it was perfectly safe. And I could watch them, out the window or the door, all the way there and back. Yet...I never let them go to the store alone again...hard telling who they'd have brought home the next time!

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 8

A little background about the times I'm writing about. I was a teenager...coming of age...in the 1950's. Of all the decades I've lived through since then, I'm glad the 50's was my decade! Times were so much easier...and well, just gentle, then. We never locked our doors...even when we left, much less when we were at home. We never lost our car keys because they were always in the ignition sitting in the driveway...or on the street. Gas was about twenty cents a gallon. My first new car cost less than $2,000. I paid it off at $80 a month for two years. Full insurance coverage on it was $45 a year. I spent between $5 and $10 a week for groceries for three of us. And got two big bags crammed full!

You could buy a three bedrom, one and half bath, ranch home for $15,000. If it was brick, you'd pay $18,000. At that time, in the real estate business, to qualify for a house, we figured one-fourth of your income for payment, taxes and insurance. Few people could buy a house if their monthly debts were more than a car payment. People working at the automobile factories only made about $2.00 hourly.

When I was living with Avanelle, I was making...take home...about $48 a week...she brought home, from Ford Motor Co. about $20 more than I did. I often thought about giving up the office job and going to work in the factories...but my uncles threw a fit. Darvin and Lee were so protective of me....they said it was no place I should be working. But then, Avanelle and Jean, Uncle Speed's wife...both worked there and how bad could it have been?

Television sets were only black and white...and little screens in a big box. 19" was a big screen...then they came out with 21"....then they came out with 19" portables...but still only in black and white. Microwaves were unheard of until the mid 60's. A woman selling real estate in our office got one. Everybody in the office had to go see it...and drink a cup of coffee reheated in the microwave and eat a rubber hot dog cooked in it.

Back to cars. They were huge. Three people could fit easily in the front seat...and four adults in the back seat...or a whole buncha kids. I've taken twelve of us to the drive-in movie in my car. Me and Phyllis in the front seat...with a couple of kids between us...and a crammed back seat. A typical night at the drive-in was me, Phyllis, our three kids, her three younger sisters, and Avanelles two girls and sometimes her son. The drive-in was cheap entertainment. It might cost me and Phyllis $1.o0 each...and the kids were free. We always popped popcorn at home and took it as well as our own pop. And we always had to go an hour before the movie started so the kids could play on the playground equipment just in front of the screen. We also took blankets...because it would get so hot inside the car, we'd all end up sitting on blankets beside the car. The downside to cars back then was they didn't last very long. About 40,000 miles they started falling apart...and were junk by 80,000 miles. Men, like my Dad, learned to do their own repairs.

We didn't have a McDonalds or Burger King...or Wendys. We did have several drive-in restaurants...Roy's Squeeze-in...Big Boy...and a hot dog stand....and a few others. When the kids...teens...went "cruising" they drove through all the drive-ins. Over and over. Last time I was in Ypsi, Roy's Squeeze-in was still there...but a take-out only...and the hot dog stand was still there, too. Tammy and Buddy loved the hot dog stand. I tried to save enough money to take them there a couple times a month. I could get each of us a hot dog and root beer for $1.00. Tammy and Buddy got a kick out of watching the guys....and the carhops there were boys...run. They didn't walk to the cars. They ran ..to take your order...ran back to turn it in...then ran back to the car with your food...and ran again to pick up your tray when you finished.

In the homes, most of us didn't have carpeting. All the floors were tile or linoleum. I always rented furnished apartments. The first thing I'd do when I moved in was go to the dime store and buy plastic curtains for all the windows and an oil-cloth for the table.

Once a week the kids and I would go to the laundromat...except when we lived with Avanelle and had a wringer washing machine. I preferred the laundromat, though....didn't have to hang clothes outside on the line when it was cold...or in the house when it rained. Everything had to be ironed. We didn't have permanent press clothes until probably the late 60's. For some reason, I usually always went to the laundromat on Thursday after work. Usually we'd go to Aunt Susie's for supper and stop at the laundromat on the way home. Then on Saturday, after the weekly cleaning...sweeping, mopping, dusting, polishing furniture...I'd iron. Tammy's dresses, Buddy's pants and shirts...my clothes for work. Well...okay....that was always the plan. It seldom worked out that way, though. By the time I'd get the cleaning done, we were ready to go visiting...Granny, one of the uncles...Avanelles, Phyllis....and various friends. Subsequently, I always had an ironing board set up somewhere...in the living room or in the kitchen...then every night I'd have to iron our clothes for the next day.

When I started this I thought I'd write about the fun I had with my kids...but I'm finding I can't remember specific incidents. Oh I can remember the trips to the zoo, to the amusement parks...to the carnivals...to the lakes...to the drive-ins...but the day to day living is harder to recall. I remember us singing a lot to the radio....at the top of our lungs. I remember us laughing a lot. I remember crawling around on the floor and playing horsie...and hide and go seek. For some reason, Tammy always thought I'd never find her under the bed....and Buddy was easy to find...just follow the giggles.

Although my kids were the most important part of my life...I still had other parts. My job took a biggest part of my time. I didn't really date very often, but I loved to dance. I had some girlfriends with whom I'd go out at least once a week...either Friday or Saturday nights. I'd get a baby-sitter...usually one of my cousins...and after the kids were asleep, I'd pick up one or more of my friends and we'd hit a local bar that had a band and a dance floor. Sometimes I had to scrape...even cash in pop bottles...to get enough money to buy one beer. But one was enough. I seldom sat down...dancing every dance all night. The bar I went to most, and was most comfortable at, my uncle Calvin was the bartender. I never had to worry about unwanted attention or advances from men. They all soon learned I was there only for the dancing...and heaven help one who disrespected me. Calvin kept an eagle eye on me all night. In fact, I was at the bar with Calvin and his wife, Jan, the night I first saw Joe...in 1965...across a crowded dance floor. I didn't meet him that night...but we made a lot of eye contact...enough that the next day he was asking everybody he saw who I was...and finagled an introduction, finally, through a mutual friend.

to be continued.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 7

Shortly after Martha moved out I bought a junker car for $50. This made life a little easier for us. I no longer had to walk to work nor depend on someone else for a ride in bad weather. Also, both Phyllis and Avanelle moved out of the River St. apartments. So, I, too moved. I might mention this exodus was because the building became infested with cockroaches.

Tammy, Buddy and I moved to a house on Michigan Avenue, surrounded by used cars. The house had at one time been the office for the car lot. It was perfect for us...clean...no bugs...good furniture, and cheap...same price as the River St. apartment. It had a big living room...big...well...huge, actually...middle room with the bed on a one step-up landing. Strange! Through that room was the kitchen...with a normal sized stove and refrigerator...as compared to River St which had small compact built ins. The bathroom, just off the kitchen had the usual accoutrements...plus, my first ever....a shower over the tub with a plastic curtain surrounding the tub. We only lived there a few months until I bought the house on N. River St ...that I lost because the people I bought it from defaulted on their mortgage.

Tammy and Buddy loved the new apartment. Because we were the only tenants in the building, I didn't have to keep shushing them when they played. But, they missed their cousins. And I missed my convenient built-in baby-sitters. Now, I took them every day to a lady who took in several kids to watch, for $20 a week. There they had a big yard with all kinds of play equipment as well as other children their ages. We still visited often with Avanelle and Phyllis...and various aunts and uncles as well as Granny. On weekends, we were seldom home during the day, but I still kept to a pretty strict routine for Tammy and Buddy. We might eat supper at home or at Avanelles...or Aunt Susies...but I made sure we were home in time for their 8 p.m bedtime. I had read, in various child-raising books, that children thrived on routine. And that was something I tried to maintain all their lives.

It was during this time that I took on extra work. I met a man through the real estate office who wanted a book-keeper...just to keep records of all his income and outgo. The job was easy, only consuming an hour or two each week. John would give me all his receipts and cancelled checks and I just had to record them and organize them for his accountant at tax time. For this, he paid me $10 a week...which seemed like a fortune at the time. John had his finger in many pies. He bought real estate, he bought up land contracts (the owner whohad sold his house on a land contract would in turn sell the land contract to John for a cash discount.) Because I was in a position to find such contracts, he also paid me a bonus for each one he purchased. I worked for him for two years, until his death.

After John died, my boss gave me a $10 week raise that made up for the income I'd lost. Now I was up to $60 a week....take home about $48. Plus, after much hassling Mark I began getting $117. allotment again....which had stopped when he came home from Labrador. Guess he didn't tell them we weren't living together...and the money I was supposed to get for spouse and children went into his paycheck. Life was good.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 6

Just a week after Tammy, Buddy and I moved into the apartment on River Street....after our two week stay with Nick and Helen...on Friday after work I decided to go visit my uncle Lee and his family. What a shock I got! Lee had left his family for a woman he met at work. His wife and kids had been living alone for several weeks. She didn't drive and they lived in the country in Sumpter, several miles from Belleville. It was a two mile trip to the nearest little grocery store. Which didn't do them any good. They had no money. The electric was shut off for non-payment. They were nearly out of coal for their coal cookstove. And Martha had a pot of soup beans on the stove that they had been eating for several days. She kept it hot so it wouldn't spoil.

I could not leave them there, so I helped her pack up their clothes and took them home with me...Aunt Martha and her two children, Toby and Karen. Toby was 13 and Karen was just 6. I lived in a small apartment...one huge studio-style bedroom, living room and kitchen. We were crowded, but we made do. The studio style bedroom had two full beds and a couch that made into a bed. The living room couch also made into a bed. My kids and I slept in one bed, Martha and Karen in one and Toby on the couch. A couple weeks later my brother, Jimmy, also came to stay with us. We still made do.

I worked and Martha stayed home with the kids. Then after a couple of months, Martha started getting help from welfare and she moved into an apartment in the same building. At this time, both Avanelle and Phyllis had apartments in the building, too.

The previous winter Tammy and Buddy had both been in the hospital in Battle Creek with bronchial pneumonia. I was so worried about them getting sick, I kept them inside all winter. That was no problem with all the relatives living in the same building. I don't think they left the building from November thru Feb. Actually, this was more due to us not having a car probably. My car tore up not long after Martha moved in. I had to walk to work, about two miles. No easy trick in high-heels. But we were all in the same boat...none of us had a car. Not Avanelle, nor Phyllis nor Martha.

The kids loved it there. Tammy and Buddy loved their cousins and always had someone to play with besides just each other. And, between us, we always had plenty of food. I was the only one working, Phyllis and Avanelle were on welfare also...or what was called ADC...Aid to Dependent Children. Believe me, there were many days I was tempted to quit work and join them, but just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Even though it sounds like we were one big, happy family, we still had our own apartments...mine was on the second floor, Phyllis was on the first floor, Avanelle was in the basement and Martha's was around back with its own separate entrance. Yet, we could and did, go back and forth all the time. It was nothing for me to end up with Debbie in bed with me and Tammy and Buddy....or go bed by myself because both kids were staying with Avanelle.

Martha only lived there a year. She decided to go to Lexington to be near her family. It was hard saying good-bye to her and the kids. But, she was not able to work...she had epilepsy and had to do what she thought best for her them. Avanelle and Phyllis and I with all our kids went to the bus station with them the day they left. Seeing them get on that bus was hard...both Martha and I, as well as our kids, were bawling our eyes out. Thank God for Phyllis and Avanelle. I only saw Martha a few times after that. When I went to Prestonsburg about once a year I would often stop to see them, if I could find them home.

I can't describe how angry I was with my Uncle Lee. He was Mom's brother and had always been around all my life. He was always available to take me anywhere I needed to go when I was a teenager. He taught me to drive. I cried on his shoulder when I had a fight with a boyfriend. I felt more than anger...I felt betrayed. He had been a constant in my life...and always seemed to adore his wife and kids.

Lee loved me, too. I had no doubt of that. The day after I moved Martha and the kids in with me, I went to Lee's apartment and confronted him. Of course, his girlfriend was there, too...and I said some pretty unpleasant things to both of them. Eventually, after Martha left, Lee came around to see me and we kinda, sorta, patched things up. I still loved him...just not as naively as I once had. I even grew to like Syretta..after he married her. I will say one thing for him. When he was married to Martha, he was a "good-time joe". Always joking and kidding around, seldom serious about anything. He worked every day...but yet his family never had much beyond the essentials...what he spent his money on, nobody knew, but it sure wasn't his family. After he married Syretta, he changed completely. Always serious, seldom joking and kidding around with anybody. They both worked and saved their money and bought a big old farm house and spent all their time and money remodeling it.

Once when he and I were alone on his front porch, he tried to explain to me about the Martha episode in his life. They had married when he was 20 and she was 16. They had two kids...but he said he had never grown up. When he fell in love with Syretta, he said, all of a sudden he wanted to be a man, not a boy playing house. My reply to him was that even though I understood what he was saying, it still did not excuse him walking out on them and leaving them with nothing...not even food to eat. Look at those two, I said pointing to Tammy and Buddy playing in the yard...By the time I was 20, I had two kids...was a single mother by 21. I'm just 24 now....and they are my life. I could quit working and go on ADC and be home with them all the time, that would be the easy way. But that's not the way I want to raise them. Working and worrying about baby-sitters is no picnic. They have forced me to grow up. I can't understand why your kids didn't do the same for you.

Lee said I'm not saying what I did was right...I know it was wrong. All I can do is ask forgiveness...from Martha, Toby, Karen and God. And you. The others have all said they forgive me...can you? Of course, I answered...but forgetting is altogether a different thing. We never again discussed it...and my kids and I were frequent visitors to his home until he passed on.

LIFE WITH MY CHIDREN PART 5

ok....this will no longer be in chronological order. I'll just write about things as I think of them.

When Tammy and Buddy were very small, we didn't have a K-Mart or a Wal-mart. But we did have an Arlens Department Store ...similar to K-Mart in prices. I didn't make much money, so a shopping trip to Arlens was a big treat.

The week before school started, I'd take both kids to Arlens for new school clothes. They always started school with one new outfit and new shoes. And they got a new outfit with summer shoes for Easter. Otherwise, the local Goodwill was my store of choice. Both kids were just as happy to get new clothes from Goodwill as from Arlens....and the clothes were usually better, too.

At one shopping excursion to Goodwill, along with Avanelle and her two girls, Phyllis with her daughter...as well as Aunt Susie and her youngest, all the kids were excited. It was May, so we were looking for summer stuff....shorts, sandals, etc. We had told them to pick out what they liked. Those six kids were like locusts! This particular day, Goodwill was having a $1.00 bag sale. Everything you could get in a bag for $1.00

When I went through the bags Tammy and Buddy had filled, I found clothes too big for them..too small for them....and too fancy. My aunt and cousins were having the same problem. We went through the bags and took out the things we didn't want...but the kids did. There was a lot of bargaining, bribes and tears...from the kids. What I remember mostly though, is the laughing. Us adults. When Avanelle's youngest put on a bra....Phyllis's girl put on shorts, a couple of shirts and a dress....all at the same time. At the end, we walked out of there with a bag of clothes for each child and each one looked like it was Christmas!

When we got to Avanelles, we had to have a fashion show. That's when we discovered that the three youngest girls...Tammy, Suetta and Debbie...had walked out with new shoes ...which we had not paid for. I couldn't feel too badly about it because Tammy had left a better pair there. Still, all three got a paddling and a lecture about stealing.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 4

We didn't face crises every day. Tammy, Buddy and I had a lot of fun together, too. They were the sweetest kids in the world and loved their Mommy! Yet, they were completely different. Tammy was a needy child....she needed a lot of affection and attention. Buddy didn't. He'd get in my lap for perhaps five minutes and cuddle...then he was squirming to get down. Tammy would sit in my lap, cuddling, for a half hour and when I'd put her down, she'd cry.

We had a routine for weeknights and seldom varied from it, especially after they started school. Supper was at 6...bedtime at 8. But they stretched that 8 rule every night. oh, they'd be in bed, but reading one book to them was never enough...or telling a story. They each had to pick a book...or I had to make up a story for each of them.

Weekends were a different story. Even when I began dating again, I saved either Friday or Saturday night for Tammy and Buddy. In the summer we'd go to the drive-in...usually with a car full of cousins. One Saturday night we all fell asleep....woke up at daylight! And had plans to go to the zoo that day...Sunday. We all went to home...slept about three hours and left to go to the Detroit Zoo. There was three cars full, supposedly following each other. But I had to stop and buy gas and Phyllis didn't stop....she and Avanelle kept going. So, after I left the gas station, I told the kids to keep an eye out for the cops...because I was going to drive like crazy trying to catch up with them.

Sure enough, I got pulled over and got a speeding ticket. When I asked the kids why they didn't tell me...their answer was that I didn't tell them to tell me when they saw a police car...just to watch for one.

We had a great day at the zoo....and Buddy and I got burned badly. This was before sunscreen. I bought hats for us but they only protected our foreheads. Tammy didn't burn...she just got darker.

Buddy had a speech impediment until he had a speech therapist work with him in the first and second grades. I was the only person who could understand him...even though Avanelle eventually could. When we went to the bank on Saturday, this teller we always went to would give Buddy a quarter for saying ...truck. You can imagine why.

Tammy started school when she was four...turning five the first of October. Buddy was really upset because he couldn't go to school too. This was the first time they had ever been separated. Of course, I was working...but Avanelle said every day Buddy would stand at the window watching for her and ask every half hour when is Tammy coming home...and on nice days, she'd have to take him and Debbie...her youngest was the same age as Buddy...walking down to the school to meet Tammy. Then Buddy was a happy child again.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 3

After we moved in with Avanelle our lives improved considerably. Both financially and socially. Avanelle and I had always been close. Her sister, Phyllis, and I were inseparable as kids and Avanelle was always close by. As we got older, Avanelle and I became closer. So, this was perfect. It was like living with a sister. We got along perfectly. Her kids loved mine and vice versa. I didn't have to worry about baby-sitters, because Avanelle volunteered to keep them since she was home anyway....at first. After a few months, she went to work at Ford Motor Company on the afternoon shift. She kept the kids during the day, we had a baby-sitter from 3 to 5...and I was home with them in the evenings.

I had an hour for lunch, and got in the habit of running home at lunch time...it was just five minutes from my office. One day...a Thursday...Avanelle and I were sitting in the kitchen eating lunch when we heard a blood-curdling scream from Buddy. We both ran...and found him dangling in the wringer washing machine with his arm through the wringer upto his shoulder. I quickly unplugged the wringer...and Avanelle...with unusual super-human strength, pulled the wringers apart while I pulled his arm out. I rushed him to the ER. The doctors said it appeared to just be badly bruised.

When I went home for lunch the next day, Buddy complained about his arm hurting...but seemed ok. About 3, Avanelle called me at work and said he was running a high temperature. I called our doctor and he said to take him to the ER right away. Which I did...and he was admitted to the hospital with an infection in his arm.

On Saturday, the specialist my doctor had called in....told me he was in critical condition and most likely would lose his arm. He ...the specialist...talked to me several times that day, and had me sign forms for amputation. Then, the hospital said, since Mark and I were still married, they could not perform the surgery without his father's signature, also. I had tried to call Mark already without success. The hospital called the Red Cross and they, too were unable to get hold of him. In the meantime, the doctors were saying if they didn't amputate by Monday, it would be too late and Buddy probably would not make it. I was frantic. I didn't want him to lose his arm...but I sure didn't want him to die. The choice was easy.

Finally, early Sunday morning I got hold of the duty officer at Mark's base in California who happened to be a friend of Mark's. When I asked how I could get hold of Mark, he said Mark lived off base with his wife...and they were in Mexico for the weekend. I went berserk! I said I didn't know who he was living with....and didn't care...but I was his wife, living in Michigan...and had an emergency with his son. I demanded to speak with his Commander...but the duty officer wouldn't put me through, saying he'd take care of it...but he knew there was nothing they could do until Mark got home from Mexico late Sunday night.

Mark didn't get home from Mexico until late Monday Night....and contacted the Red Cross who had left messages for him. He did sign the papers and the red cross called the hospital. But, by then the crisis had passed. For a few days, it was touch and go as to whether Buddy would live or not. He had blood poisoning...but Thank God, he made it through. The skin...clear down to the bone, died in about a four inch square on his upper arm and the doctors took skin from his thigh and grafted it onto his arm. He was in the hospital a month.

I had a problem with the hospital. Back then, they thought parents were a nuisance. We had to observe visiting hours. I could go up at lunch time and feed Buddy...who was just four years old...and then go back from 5 to 8. Even when he was the sickest, in Intensive care...I couldn't stay with him. It was frustrating. The only phone we had was in the dining room....and on a short cord. I was afraid to go to bed, fearing I'd miss a call from the hospital. Avanelle and I took turns sleeping on a pallet on the dining room floor to be near the phone during the crisis episodes....the days waiting to find out if he'd live....and then the days following the graft surgery.
Believe me, I spent hours on my knees imploring God to let Buddy keep his arm..then to let him live. God, once again, proved faithful and Buddy came home nearly good as new....with a great big scar on his arm and thigh!

One thing stands out in my mind about Buddy's hospital stay. I was there one afternoon when they had to clean his arm. The nurse said it was very painful for him and would be helpful if I could hold him while she cleaned the sore. Bravely, I sat on the bed with Buddy in my arms...cuddling and kissing on him while she removed the bandage. He was screaming. I was crying. Then, I took one look at that open hole...and fainted dead away!! It was only the second time in my life I had fainted...and the other time was when Buddy was just a year old and had to get stitches in his face....where he had hit the back of the car seat on a sudden stop when another car ran a red light. He hit the seat hard enough it broke a spring...that split his cheek from his chin up to his eye socket...and then from his eyebrow to his hairline.

Anyway....the nurse called another nurse in to help her ...I was only out momentarily...and managed to again hold Buddy in my lap....being especially careful to keep my eyes everted from his arm! From then on, they never cleaned the sore when I was there.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 2

Margaret Tammy..age one

Today, I'm going to backtrack a couple of years....back to my life in Battle Creek, Michigan and the first time I found myself on my knees, asking my Lords' help with a situation I could not handle by myself.

Without going into detail, I found myself a single...separated...mother of two babies. Tammy was two and Buddy was one. Mark was in Labrador and his family was in Grand Rapids, while mine was in Ypsilanti/Belleville. I was totally alone. When he left, we made the decision I would remain in Battle Creek because I had a good job with an insurance adjusting firm. But shortly after he left I began hearing tales of his infidelities and had to deal with that heartbreak. During that winter, from October to March, Tammy was in the hospital three times with pneumonia/bronchitis and Buddy once.

I had a live-in baby-sitter. A sixteen year old girl whom I took in after her parents kicked her out of their home for delinquency. In April, Alice got married and I had to find another baby-sitter. Answering an ad in the paper, I met a girl my age when we were both checking out the same baby-sitter...and both chose her. It was perfect for my kids...a small farm, a stay-at-home mom with two small kids of her own, just on the northern edge of Battle Creek.

Jane, the other gal I met and I became friendly. One thing led to another and we decided to move in together and share expenses. We rented a big three bedroom apartment. I had no furniture of my own except cribs for Tammy and Buddy. Jane was living with her parents...so they furnished the apartment for us. I paid the first month's rent and Jane paid the required one month's deposit.

For two months everything was great. Jane and I were very compatible. She had one child, a little boy about 9 months old. She worked at a local restaurant and had varying shifts....most days a split shift. When she worked evenings and weekends, I kept Robby for her. It was no hardship...he was a sweet baby whom I quickly came to love.

Then, one day a visit from her ex-husband made everything come crashing down. He showed up on a Saturday, while Jane was working. Now, she had warned me that he was not allowed to see the baby and to never let him in the house. But, this day I was in the bathroom when he knocked on the door and Tammy opened the door and let him in. I demanded he leave....when he told me I was a fool. He had legal papers with him...showing Jane had been served with child custody papers. His story was that he was trying to get custody of Robby because Jane was unfit. He said she was a prostitute and the nights and weekends she was supposedly working at a restaurant she was instead plying her other trade....a high-priced call girl. He further said I would be subpoenaed as witness....as to hours Jane actually spent with Robby.

When Jane came home, I confronted her. She admitted everything. I told her that I couldn't take a chance with my babies and would find another place to live the first of the month. She was very nice about it, very apologetic about misleading me.

The following week, I saw very little of Jane, a few minutes here and there. Then on Saturday, I went to work, for four hours, as usual, dropping Tammy and Buddy off at the baby-sitters. At ten a.m. I got a call from the child welfare office...telling me they wanted my children. Panic-stricken, I asked why...and the social worked told me she had visited my apartment that morning, and I could not keep two kids living in a vacant apartment. I explained it was not vacant when I left for work that morning...and she snottily said..well, it is now! I immediately told my boss I had an emergency and had to leave.

I went to the apartment...and the social worker was right. Jane had moved out...taking everything except my cribs and our clothes, which were thrown all over the floors of mine and their bedrooms. She even took the refrigerator for which I had paid half. I sat down in the middle of that vacant place and cried. Scared to death. I could not lose my babies. They were my life.

After I pulled myself together, I went out to the farm and picked up Tammy and Buddy. Because I had a good relationship with my mother-in-law, that was where I went. Grand Rapids was only an hour away and I was sure Margaret would help me.

When I got there and explained the problem, Margaret was very sympathetic as I knew she would be. But, Aaron, her husband, was a different. I asked them to keep the babies for two weeks...when I would have enough money saved to rent another apartment for us. At first, Margaret said ...great, she'd love having them. Then, Aaron, who Mark had always said was a mean drunk...had other ideas. He told me they'd be happy to keep the kids....forever! If I left them for two weeks, he'd go to court and get custody of them!

Completely devastated, I put Tammy and Buddy in the car. Margaret was crying. So was Susan, Mark's sister....and me and the kids. Margaret kept saying she was sorry but had to do what Aaron wanted. I hugged her and said I understood...but my kids would never again be in her house. That was the last time we ever saw her.

Leaving there, I had no choice but to go home...to my parents. So, I drove to Sumpter...and to my surprise, mom and dad had moved and I didn't know where. I went to Aunt Susies and she said they had moved to Indiana two weeks ago. The kids and I stayed with Aunt Susie that night...but it was obvious we couldn't stay there. They had a small three bedroom home with five kids. Saturday night, not being able to sleep, I got up and went outside. Sitting on the steps, I prayed.

Lord, I said, I know I haven't been a very good Christian, but I know you love me and my kids. Father, I have nobody else. I need a place for us to live and a job so I can support us. I'm asking for your help and trusting you.

There was more, because I spent a good hour there praying and crying. The next morning, Aunt Susie said Mom and Dad may have paid rent for the month and had not taken everything from the house. So, I decided to check it out and see if the kids and could live in their old house for a couple of weeks. Mom and Dad had left an old coal burning stove in the kitchen and a couple of old mattresses and bedsprings. The place was desolate...but I thought, it might do for a couple of weeks...at least we'd be warm and dry.

I left to go see the landlord. On the way, I stopped at my friends, Nick and Helen. Helen had been my best friend when I lived in Sumpter. After hearing my tale of woe, they invited me and the kids to live with them until I could get back on my feet! Talk about an answer to a prayer!
Nick even took his pick-up to Battle Creek and picked up my cribs and belongings.

During the two weeks we stayed with them, I found a job working for a real estate office in Ypsilanti. The first of the month, when I got my allotment check, I rented the same apartment Mark and I had started our married life in...where we lived when Tammy was born. I have always been eternally grateful to Nick and Helen. I think they, literally, saved our lives. Had we moved into that old house, who knows what would have happened to us.

to be continued.

LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN

My son wrote a loving tribute to me on my 70th birthday. It got me to thinking and remembering those child-rearing years. Like all mothers, I made some mistakes...I wasn't a perfect mother. But, I wanted to be..and did try to be. My older two were only 10 months apart and kept me hopping. I was a single mother to them for most of their childhood and we had a lot of financial difficulties. Usually, by Thursday, my cupboards were, literally, bare. WE had a standing invitation for supper at my Aunt Susie's anytime I wanted to go...and I took advantage of that most Thursdays!

I worked in an office from 8 to 5...and was usually home by 5:30 when I'd rush around getting a meal on the table for us. We ate a lot of hot dogs and vegetable soup and mac and cheese. Supper was usually over by 6...and that was my time with my kids. For two hours, I concentrated on them, playing, cuddling, talking about their day with the baby sitter or school. After they were in bed at 8, I did the dishes, ironing, or whatever needed doing,..then reading or watching TV... getting in bed myself sometime between 11 and midnight.

For a few years, my weekly take home pay was $40. Out of that, I paid $15 rent, $15 baby-sitter...and the other $10 had to cover everything else...food, clothes, laundry, gas, medical, etc. my ex was in the Air Force, so I did get an allotment for child support...$80 month...which went for car payments. Our entertainment was cheap...usually visiting family and in the summer, taking a car full of kids...mine and cousins...to drive-in movies.

When the kids were 3 and 4, I bought a house on a land contract. My boss gave me a bonus one year of $100 and I used it for a down payment. I was so proud of that house! It was a little story and a half white frame with aluminum siding, two bedrooms upstairs, living room, dining room, kitchen and bath plus a small den off the living room downstairs, a little sitting front porch and a decent size yard. my payments were $80 month and since I'd gotten a $10.00 weekly raise, I could just barely afford the payments and utilities. My uncle went to auction sales and found furniture for us. We lived there for 18 months...and I got an eviction notice, suddenly! Seems the people I was buying it from had a mortgage on it and were not making their payments so the bank foreclosed on them.

I was heart-broken! Of course, the bank offered me a chance to buy it from them, but I couldn't raise the money they required down. With no money for a deposit plus first weeks or months rent, I was scared. I didn't know what I was going to do. One night, I went into Tammy and Buddy's bedroom after they were sleeping, and climbed into bed between them, cudding each up against me. I laid there and prayed and cried as despair filled my soul. "Lord, I need your help. I'm at my wit's end, here. We have to be out of this house in two more days and I don't have any where for us to live, nor any money to rent a place for at least another month. What can I do, Lord, to provide a home for these two kids that You have given me? I'm placing our lives in Your hands, Father. I've done everything, looked everywhere, talked to everybody, that I can think of and haven't been able to find us a place to live."

The very next day, my cousin Avanelle, called me. At that time, the kids stayed with a baby-sitter across the street from her...and we had gotten into a habit of stopping by her house for a few minutes every few days when I'd pick them up. Anyway...she called and said she had talked to her landlord and he had said it would be okay with him if I moved in with her and shared the expenses. We had discussed this back when I first got the eviction notice, but because she was a single mother with three children of her own, not working, and on welfare, she was afraid of what would happen to her benefits if I lived with her. But, that day she said she had also called her social worker and got the okay from her. Since welfare had been paying her rent anyway...they would just cut their payment in half.

Talk about a load being lifted off my shoulders! All I could do was say, Thank you, Lord! He had come through in my darkest hour. And...thank you, Avanelle!

to be continued.

ANOTHER DAY

Well, my 70th birthday day is nearly over...bedtime for me. It was a good day....had phone calls from my three wonderful kids and some of my lovely grandkids. Plus a sweet, loving tribute from Joey on his blog (the6bennetts.blogspot.com)

My son, Buddy, gave me a Smartphone cellphone which I have had fun today figuring out how to work. He put me on his family plan and he and Joey, my youngest, are going to share the costs...Thanks Boys!

Now, let me ramble a little bit.
As a child in Kentucky I went to church every Sunday with my grandmother (Granny)whom I adored. My parents seldom went on Sundays...but we always, as a family, attended tent meetings...church revivals held by visiting evangelists in a tent. The Sunday dinner, held the last day of the revivals was the best part for me.

After we moved to Michigan when I was 13, I still took my brothers and sisters to church every Sunday. In Romulus, we rode a church bus from our project on Middlebelt Rd. into Wayne. It was there that I accepted Christ as my Saviour when I was fourteen. My cousin, Phyllis was my constant church companion both in KY and Romulus. Phyllis could never sit through an alter call. As soon as the Invitational hymn started, with tears streaming down her face, she was at the alter. Not me...I was taking Jesus at his word. Once was all I needed.

Then in Belleville, we walked the two miles each way. Many Sundays my siblings refused to go if the weather was bad...but I seldom missed, along with my best friend, Helen. Helen had a younger sister who could sing like an angel and the pastor wanted her to sing every Sunday. She was so shy, the only way she'd sing was for me and Helen to sing with her. Now I'm the worst singer...I can't carry a tune in a bucket. Helen was fair. But Ruby's voice soared. So all I had to do was mouth the words...and the church thought I was a good singer. Ha ha.

As I was raising...(or rearing to be correct) my three children, I was a sporadic church-goer. In Michigan, I would often take Tammy and Buddy to my grandmother's church. Then when I married Joe Wussles, I joined the Serbian Orthodox Church and for a few years, we never missed a Sunday service.

I divorced, remarried, and moved to Bremen, Indiana. ~There my husband Steve and I started going to Community Gospel Church. Again, for a few years I seldom missed a service or bible study...often holding the bible studies at our home. Then I opened a restaurant, and the church had problems...our Pastor, whom I loved, left. After Pastor Bob left, I never again attended Community Gospel ...and have been a sporadic church goer ever since. I did find a church here in Fort Wayne and a pastor I loved. Again, the pastor quit. I still attended most Sundays...until my health became a problem....my coughing was embarrassing and since our church is so small, it disrupts the service. I still go there occasionally...when my coughing is under control.

I believe every family should go to church. I believe every child should be raised in the Church and taught about our Lord. I believe in my salvation. I KNOW that, like Paul, to depart this body is to be with the Lord.

All parents should encourage their children to take part in after-school activities...sports, music, drama, something...that builds character and self-confidence and teaches them commitment. I also believe all children should attend Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. That not only teaches them about the Bible in a fun way, but also teaches them values and gives them a sound foundation for the rest of their lives.

SEVEN-O

It's after midnite...so I'm officially 70 years old. Actually, I was born about three in the afternoon onthe 25th.

My children and grandchildren have feted, gifted and loved me. I am so blessed!

A few random thoughts. I supposed some people would think it strange...odd...that I could be so happy on my 70 th birthday...doesn't that make me officially old? Well, let me tell you...not many people in my lineage have lived to see 70. My family has not been known for longevity. On my Shepherd side, I think Uncle Troy, who was 78 when he died, was the oldest. His father, brothers, sister, grandfather, for several generations back, all died in their 60's. On Granny's side...Fitchpatrick...Granny lived to be very nearly 82. She died just a month before her birthday. She had one sister, Dora, who lived to be 90...all the rest of her family died in their 50's and 60's. Dad was 67, Mom was 69 just six weeks before she died. Oh, there was one other person...Grand daddy's sister, my great aunt Polly...lived to be 90 something.

As I look at this...and recall all those I knew who died younger than 70...I think the Lord for allowing me reach this great age. With granny living to 82, Mom to 69, me to 70 plus...and my birth father lived to 84....there's hope for longevity for my children and grandchildren...so I'm celebrating!

Now I just have to find someone to plant all these flowers for me! I absolutely love flowers...and the perennials will be here to enjoy for many years, if I can get them in the ground.

TAMMY

Tammy had appointment with the ENT...Ear, Nose, Throat...specialist today. He said he doesn't think it looks bad, but is sending her to Indy for a "fibro-optic" test on her throat. fibro-optic...that's what she said. He further said it is entirely possible that her throat problem is caused by her stomach...and suggested she make appointment with her gastrologist. She laughed and said everytime something is wrong, the doctor blames it on her stomach....which nobody will try to fix. We all feel better and are more confident that the test will be negative. After all, I'm sure this doctor sees enough bad ones to recognize it when he sees it. Praise God...and thank you all for your prayers.