I had to smile when reading this. Looking back to certain times with members 9f my family I can see how being the ultimate daredevil made them come alive.
I am so happy to hear from you :) We will return by the 4th! and have grandchildren for the weekend of the 11th - Not sure where you'll be but definitely let me know via email as it would be great to connect over a lunch or something!
It's definitely felt good to be alive this past year! Coming out of the valley and enjoying whatever God has for us :) ox
So good to hear back from you. I'm trying to get to learn this site as I have lots of stories, My kids want me to write them down and since I am the only person in my family still iiving here in Gillespie Illlinois, I am sort of the family historian, Our little berg (3100 people) does have a Hollywood connection though. It's the birthplace of Howard Keel who was a great star of 40's and 50's musicals and also had a role on "Dallas"
I may start writing stories to see how people react.
So far as calls, I am usually home at 7p.m. your time and I have a caller ID if I miss you. Love to hear
from you. Also, if I could get your e.mail I'd love to get wth you there. I'm always at the computer as I have a disease called vasculitis and COPD. I can't get out w/o an oxygen tank and they are a pain in the ass, so I stay home except to go out to eat locally or when my kids come home. I was noodling around on the computer when I came across that picture of you and "Ben" with your cute sunsuit and your picnic basket. I wished had been cast in that show but then i also realized that I'm two years older than Richard Thomas. so I would have to chasse after the girls that dumped him. Well considering how many that did, i'd have quite a few to choose from.
Well I have to go now, please let me hear from you soon. Bill
I am so happy to hear that your kids are encouraging you to write down your stories! This is what I began to do here. Although Substack is an ease-of-use format to write stories on, it would be very hard on your fingers to have to type them all out.
If anything it would be wonderful if one of your children would sign you up for a program/app called "Storii'." My youngest son signed my mom up for it last Christmas as a gift, basically to us! I believe he purchased the $99/year plan and she gets a call weekly. Every Sunday at 2p.m. (that was her day/time she picked) she receives a phone call from the company Storii asking her a specific question. Examples: "What would you say are your three best qualities?" "What is a favorite memory of your mother?" "How did you meet your spouse?" "What do you value most in a friend?" "Do you remember any songs your parents san to you when you were young?" "What things stand out to you about your childhood?" So many questions. Mom normally takes about 10-15 min. For us, this is an absolute gift as we hear her voice as her stories are captured.
My email is debtraceyphoto@gmail.com and you will have to forgive me with email as I'm slow there! It is a nightmare of junk mail that has me hunting for regular mail daily as I get rid of the junk. I try and set aside time to correspond there once a week.
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe many of us walk through the days in a sleep state. Good on you for doing the work and looking back and forth and then carrying on. I love your son's quote, "I have never felt so alive". Yes!!! Blessings xox
Oh I love Socrates! and that saying! You are so right! It is the spirit within to keep going. You can be physically paralyzed, yet it is the spirit within. Knowing God. Your purpose to live. It's a hard one in the world. The Devil wears us down, especially in a bad state of mind or physical challenge, yet I know it is possible to cling to God and see and feel life in the hardest of circumstances. Thank you for what you said. I have deeply examined my life and crave to walk forward (often obnoxiously if someone tries to hold me back with what I might consider trivial - i.e., "isn't that going to be hard?" or "unsafe?" or on and on) NO!!!! Keep going!! It was so wonderful (and a bit scary!) to hear Ian's story, but then to hear him say that! We are meant to live! God Bless you too friend. oxox
Sounds a life full of much. What else can we ask for. Taking in God's beauty and enjoying what we can. I really liked a man called Otto. Take care my friend
Yesss! Make it full! Take it all in! I have never experienced so much joy out of so much pain. It's hard to explain but I see life as not promised for tomorrow anymore. I truly see that "today" is so vital to live. Wasn't that movie a good one? So endearing and thought-provoking! I LOVED the mom of the new neighbors. The whole family. Each character, in the whole movie actually. Love you friend. ox
Whew. For a moment I thought I had lost touch. I decided to tackle the chore of erasing a million old e-mails dating back at least a year and accidently lost your two posts. I envy you being in Oregon now. It was always my hope to make a run through California to see my family members niece, nephew, grand-nephews, and daughter and son-in-law as well as my college roomie and one of my Air Force buddies. I then wanted to go to Burns Oregon where my parents were married. My Dad was a medical officer and took care of the CCC people working on all of the projects in the parks and woods. Then I wanted to travel up to Dallas Oregon to my childhood brother from a different mother Jerry Fenwrick. Jerry's mom worked as a nurse in my Dad's medical office and Jerry and i became like Siamese Twins from 7th through 10th grade when he moved to Oakland so his mom could care for his aunt who was very ill. Unfortunately Jerry passed away this winter. But even if he were still with us, I can't travel farther than overnight because i have to carry oxygen tanks or a machine with me.
Nancy and I shared our 49th wedding anndiversary with her brother and sister and her husband in her home town of Decatur Illinois. We went out to eat and had a really good time catching up. I took a chance and left the oxygen tank in the car and did Ok until i was faced with steps. Not good.
Then when we got home we noticed the cable people outside our property and we had no cable, TV, or landline phone service. We called the neighbor on Nancy's cell phone that is on ethernet roaming service and he told me that while we were gone a huge lightning bolt hit our sycamore tree with a teriffic explosion that rocked the neighborhood. My dad and I planted that tree in 1960 and it was the height and girth of a broomstick. Now it is over 40 feet high and 15 feet across. If it dies it will cost me a small fortune to cut down. But on the bright side, I won't have huge plies of leaves to mulch or get rid of in the fall. Sycamores have leaves the size of dinner plates and are a real mess in the fall.
I'm going to post here as often as I can so we can keep in touch. But because of my illness, I hace developed a complication called "trigger finger" in both hands. Without warning the thumb and fingers on one or both hands lock up and painfully freeze in place until the spasms stop and I can move them again. It usually happens if I am on the computer too long. But since it is my only outlet to the world, I use it a lot.
But Ihere is my phone if you'd like to call. No obligation on your part and I won't invade your privacy. but I would love to chat with you from time to time. I am always home and sometimes I even binge watch The Waltons from 10 pm to 3am and then some good shows on PBS until 5am. One of the perks of retirement. Anytime is bed time when time means little or nothing. My best wishes to you.
It is so nice to hear from you here and a beautiful way to stay in touch! We are still in Oregon at mom's and together we have adventured and also been building a very long fence that fell down on one side of mom's house. After dad passed, New Year's Day 2021, a big wind blew down another fence behind his workshop and my husband rebuilt that in the spring of 2021. We were dating and renting separate places when we were 20 and John helped my roommates and I rebuild a fence where we lived in Orange Co. that came down from a big wind (figuring it out along the way). Since then, we have been rebuilding fences or putting up block walls where necessary! ha ha! It's what we do! John just finished staining it today! I did much of the delivering of long wood boards and using the cordless drill to place several screws in along the way! I also delivered lots of sun tea :) Between this we have visited, caught up, ate good food, hiked Silver Falls, kayaked (or floated in the rain on the Silverton Reservoir) and attended a local Stampede/rodeo! Beyond fun! I know I wrote about some of it here :) I finally found a time to sit outside and catchup with correspondence!
I am amazed you have so much history here in Oregon and I'll have to look up those areas! I'm sorry to hear that Jerry passed away last winter :( and you weren't able to see him again. I hope you were able to stay in touch with him in other ways. Your parents were married in Burns, Oregon? That's so interesting and your dad's job as a medical officer very interesting! Were your parents originally from Oregon?
Happy Anniversary to you and Nancy! So glad you got out and very sorry it's a hard one with the steps. My mom's best British friend (and oldest) is really going through this as well and is in and out of the hospital. She also has COPD and was released today to go home, after a bad bout with breathing. It's her 86th birthday today.
I can't believe that a lightening bolt hit your Sycamore tree! and the story of your tree is amazing! I pray it's not been completely killed!! Despite the mess they are stunning trees, especially in the fall! I believe it was a Sycamore that I photographed a young girl in on my website several years ago. Also, our first home had a street with trees that had what our oldest son called "prickle balls" (when he was a tiny tot). Perhaps Sycamores? I don't know. He would collect them in his pockets on walks. We would get home and he'd open the back door and throw them on the patio, near our big tree that eventually had a tree-house in it. One day, my husband, John, scratched his head, looked up at the tree and asked "where do these horrible balls come from?" "I keep stepping on them!!!" The tired mom I was I didn't realize and John kept stepping on them barefoot! Our youngest son kept importing prickle balls to our backyard where no tree existed with them! Ha ha!
You planted that tree with your dad the year I was born in England. I always forget about those terrible summer storms in the East!
I am so sorry about the trigger fingers in your hands! I understand that a lot. I have bad arthritis and have lockup issues myself - especially in my big toes. They are a mess and it's very, very painful if I dare to do a ballet-style pointing stretch of my toes. I can get into lockup trouble! I would love to have a phone call, perhaps every month? We can arrange a time that's best! When I get home I will know my new babysitting schedule as soon as our youngest son heads home! He's very, very busy working with the mentally disabled and climbing when he's not working. I've been told he's coming for a visit right after we get home around the 3rd. Maybe a Monday or Thursday evening call when my husband is riding his bike!
I'm sending my best wishes and prayers back to you and Nancy from small-town Sublimity, Oregon and looking forward to staying in touch! Thank you, also, for the subscription! You didn't have to do that! God Bless you Bill. oxox
P.S. That movie I mentioned in this story, "A Man Called Otto" is a good one. I've enjoyed all of Tom Hank's movies and this one is no exception! It's hard, endearing, funny and makes one think about what living is all about. ox
So glad that you are enjoying Oregon. Well my father's story is an intersting one., and somewhat later mirrors the life of Mary Ellen Walton Curt Willard on 'The Waltons" My parent were born and raised in the Gillespie Il. area and were grade school sweethearts, After Dad graduatied from med school and completed his residency he joined the National Guard and had an opportunity to become a medcal officer at the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in Burns, Oregon in the 1930s. In 1935 he asked my mother to marry him and she said yes. She and my Dad's mother ( my grandmother) took a train from St Louis to Burns Oregon and they were married in the Catholic Church there. Later they retuned to Illinois where Dad started his medical practice aand Mom became a housewife and mother to my sister in 1938. Dad stayed in the National Guard and was on his weekened duty at Ft. Leonard Wood on January 7th 1941
I have his group photo of ll the members of his Medical Unit dated January 6th 1941
After training all over the US for 18 months he left San Obsipo Ca, for New Guinea, Borneo, and the Philippines where he was when the war ended. He returned in late September of 1945 and resumed his practice, building his own medical building in 1950 . I ws born in 1949.
Though my pareents stayed married until my mother's death in 1982 i t was far from a happy marriage. Mom was seriously bipolar. At that time psychiatry did not have a good underestanding of how to treat it and she had all sorts of things used on her including shock treatment which is now comsdered not only ill-advised , but barbaric. Mobeem was in the hosptial for three years after my birth. I lived with my dad's parents and I was very close ot my grandmother. I was holding her in my arms when she passed away in 1977 and my oldest daughter Angelique is named after her. I have told my girls many stories of my grandmother and they have gone many times to the taven that she and my grandmotherr built are ran from before World War I to her death. Mom was in and out of mental hospitals all of her life until we finaally placed he in the nursing home in 1976 because she was becoming violent and my father, having been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease in 1971, could no longer control her.
Shortly after she was committed, I left for the Air Force. She and my sister died within two days of each other in 1982. My Dad passed on New Years Eve of 1990 shortly after Nancy and I and our kids headed back to San Antonio after spending Christmas and his birthday with him. We had a great time and he got to see the girls one last time before he died. I still remeber him sitting in his wheel chair, looking at the girls playing in the snow and saying to me 'Bill they are so precious". That was the last time we spotke
Afterr driving all day and night, we reached San Antonio at 7 AM. Just as I opened the door, the phone rang. I wasn't going to answer it but Nancy said that it might be a client so I picked up the phne. It was my Dad's nurse telling me that he had died in his sleep aboout 5 hours ago. So we repacked the clothes, put the dog in a kennel, and flew back the next day.
Well , I'm going to call it a night as Nancy and I just got in from St. Charles Illinois after my youngest daughter's wedding. Two down and One to go. Marissa and Luke finally tied the know after 6 years of living together and remodeling a house. It was a simple JP wedding with just both parents as witnesses. They are planning a receptiion with their sisters and friends at a later date since many of them are all over the world and not all could attend at this time.
Hope to talk to you soon. I am usually home after 8 Pm my time and 6 yours as once or twice a week, Nancy and I go out to eat. But most times I'm home either on the computer or watching a movie, and she is in our living room on the TV or talking with the gitrls or her family
Hi Bill, we are on the eve of a long trip home! I apologize for the delay, but we have been jam-packed busy and now wish we could stay longer! Never fun saying goodbye :( Your life story brought me tears :( I'm going to copy and paste this last correspondence into my word program and write you back on email - it will take me a few days to settle in once we arrive home Thursday evening. We are going home to company as well - so hang in there with me! Thank you for writing to me and telling me your story. Congratulations on your daughter's wedding and God Bless you and Nancy. ox
I had to smile when reading this. Looking back to certain times with members 9f my family I can see how being the ultimate daredevil made them come alive.
Yes!! I think when we dare greatly it can be the most we feel alive and we never forget it. Love you mom. ox
Hi Deb stopping to say hi and well done.
Sounds like you and yours are doing some wonderful living!
((I'll be in SoCal Aug 4-12th... If you're back home maybe we can finally connect?))
Hi Dear Jody!
I am so happy to hear from you :) We will return by the 4th! and have grandchildren for the weekend of the 11th - Not sure where you'll be but definitely let me know via email as it would be great to connect over a lunch or something!
It's definitely felt good to be alive this past year! Coming out of the valley and enjoying whatever God has for us :) ox
Great! I'll see if I have an email for you....
Dear Debbie;
So good to hear back from you. I'm trying to get to learn this site as I have lots of stories, My kids want me to write them down and since I am the only person in my family still iiving here in Gillespie Illlinois, I am sort of the family historian, Our little berg (3100 people) does have a Hollywood connection though. It's the birthplace of Howard Keel who was a great star of 40's and 50's musicals and also had a role on "Dallas"
I may start writing stories to see how people react.
So far as calls, I am usually home at 7p.m. your time and I have a caller ID if I miss you. Love to hear
from you. Also, if I could get your e.mail I'd love to get wth you there. I'm always at the computer as I have a disease called vasculitis and COPD. I can't get out w/o an oxygen tank and they are a pain in the ass, so I stay home except to go out to eat locally or when my kids come home. I was noodling around on the computer when I came across that picture of you and "Ben" with your cute sunsuit and your picnic basket. I wished had been cast in that show but then i also realized that I'm two years older than Richard Thomas. so I would have to chasse after the girls that dumped him. Well considering how many that did, i'd have quite a few to choose from.
Well I have to go now, please let me hear from you soon. Bill
Hi Bill,
Hope you're having a good day!
I am so happy to hear that your kids are encouraging you to write down your stories! This is what I began to do here. Although Substack is an ease-of-use format to write stories on, it would be very hard on your fingers to have to type them all out.
If anything it would be wonderful if one of your children would sign you up for a program/app called "Storii'." My youngest son signed my mom up for it last Christmas as a gift, basically to us! I believe he purchased the $99/year plan and she gets a call weekly. Every Sunday at 2p.m. (that was her day/time she picked) she receives a phone call from the company Storii asking her a specific question. Examples: "What would you say are your three best qualities?" "What is a favorite memory of your mother?" "How did you meet your spouse?" "What do you value most in a friend?" "Do you remember any songs your parents san to you when you were young?" "What things stand out to you about your childhood?" So many questions. Mom normally takes about 10-15 min. For us, this is an absolute gift as we hear her voice as her stories are captured.
My email is debtraceyphoto@gmail.com and you will have to forgive me with email as I'm slow there! It is a nightmare of junk mail that has me hunting for regular mail daily as I get rid of the junk. I try and set aside time to correspond there once a week.
Take good care!
deb :)
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe many of us walk through the days in a sleep state. Good on you for doing the work and looking back and forth and then carrying on. I love your son's quote, "I have never felt so alive". Yes!!! Blessings xox
Oh I love Socrates! and that saying! You are so right! It is the spirit within to keep going. You can be physically paralyzed, yet it is the spirit within. Knowing God. Your purpose to live. It's a hard one in the world. The Devil wears us down, especially in a bad state of mind or physical challenge, yet I know it is possible to cling to God and see and feel life in the hardest of circumstances. Thank you for what you said. I have deeply examined my life and crave to walk forward (often obnoxiously if someone tries to hold me back with what I might consider trivial - i.e., "isn't that going to be hard?" or "unsafe?" or on and on) NO!!!! Keep going!! It was so wonderful (and a bit scary!) to hear Ian's story, but then to hear him say that! We are meant to live! God Bless you too friend. oxox
Sounds a life full of much. What else can we ask for. Taking in God's beauty and enjoying what we can. I really liked a man called Otto. Take care my friend
Yesss! Make it full! Take it all in! I have never experienced so much joy out of so much pain. It's hard to explain but I see life as not promised for tomorrow anymore. I truly see that "today" is so vital to live. Wasn't that movie a good one? So endearing and thought-provoking! I LOVED the mom of the new neighbors. The whole family. Each character, in the whole movie actually. Love you friend. ox
Whew. For a moment I thought I had lost touch. I decided to tackle the chore of erasing a million old e-mails dating back at least a year and accidently lost your two posts. I envy you being in Oregon now. It was always my hope to make a run through California to see my family members niece, nephew, grand-nephews, and daughter and son-in-law as well as my college roomie and one of my Air Force buddies. I then wanted to go to Burns Oregon where my parents were married. My Dad was a medical officer and took care of the CCC people working on all of the projects in the parks and woods. Then I wanted to travel up to Dallas Oregon to my childhood brother from a different mother Jerry Fenwrick. Jerry's mom worked as a nurse in my Dad's medical office and Jerry and i became like Siamese Twins from 7th through 10th grade when he moved to Oakland so his mom could care for his aunt who was very ill. Unfortunately Jerry passed away this winter. But even if he were still with us, I can't travel farther than overnight because i have to carry oxygen tanks or a machine with me.
Nancy and I shared our 49th wedding anndiversary with her brother and sister and her husband in her home town of Decatur Illinois. We went out to eat and had a really good time catching up. I took a chance and left the oxygen tank in the car and did Ok until i was faced with steps. Not good.
Then when we got home we noticed the cable people outside our property and we had no cable, TV, or landline phone service. We called the neighbor on Nancy's cell phone that is on ethernet roaming service and he told me that while we were gone a huge lightning bolt hit our sycamore tree with a teriffic explosion that rocked the neighborhood. My dad and I planted that tree in 1960 and it was the height and girth of a broomstick. Now it is over 40 feet high and 15 feet across. If it dies it will cost me a small fortune to cut down. But on the bright side, I won't have huge plies of leaves to mulch or get rid of in the fall. Sycamores have leaves the size of dinner plates and are a real mess in the fall.
I'm going to post here as often as I can so we can keep in touch. But because of my illness, I hace developed a complication called "trigger finger" in both hands. Without warning the thumb and fingers on one or both hands lock up and painfully freeze in place until the spasms stop and I can move them again. It usually happens if I am on the computer too long. But since it is my only outlet to the world, I use it a lot.
But Ihere is my phone if you'd like to call. No obligation on your part and I won't invade your privacy. but I would love to chat with you from time to time. I am always home and sometimes I even binge watch The Waltons from 10 pm to 3am and then some good shows on PBS until 5am. One of the perks of retirement. Anytime is bed time when time means little or nothing. My best wishes to you.
Enjoy your time in Oregon and your family. Bill
Dearest Bill!
It is so nice to hear from you here and a beautiful way to stay in touch! We are still in Oregon at mom's and together we have adventured and also been building a very long fence that fell down on one side of mom's house. After dad passed, New Year's Day 2021, a big wind blew down another fence behind his workshop and my husband rebuilt that in the spring of 2021. We were dating and renting separate places when we were 20 and John helped my roommates and I rebuild a fence where we lived in Orange Co. that came down from a big wind (figuring it out along the way). Since then, we have been rebuilding fences or putting up block walls where necessary! ha ha! It's what we do! John just finished staining it today! I did much of the delivering of long wood boards and using the cordless drill to place several screws in along the way! I also delivered lots of sun tea :) Between this we have visited, caught up, ate good food, hiked Silver Falls, kayaked (or floated in the rain on the Silverton Reservoir) and attended a local Stampede/rodeo! Beyond fun! I know I wrote about some of it here :) I finally found a time to sit outside and catchup with correspondence!
I am amazed you have so much history here in Oregon and I'll have to look up those areas! I'm sorry to hear that Jerry passed away last winter :( and you weren't able to see him again. I hope you were able to stay in touch with him in other ways. Your parents were married in Burns, Oregon? That's so interesting and your dad's job as a medical officer very interesting! Were your parents originally from Oregon?
Happy Anniversary to you and Nancy! So glad you got out and very sorry it's a hard one with the steps. My mom's best British friend (and oldest) is really going through this as well and is in and out of the hospital. She also has COPD and was released today to go home, after a bad bout with breathing. It's her 86th birthday today.
I can't believe that a lightening bolt hit your Sycamore tree! and the story of your tree is amazing! I pray it's not been completely killed!! Despite the mess they are stunning trees, especially in the fall! I believe it was a Sycamore that I photographed a young girl in on my website several years ago. Also, our first home had a street with trees that had what our oldest son called "prickle balls" (when he was a tiny tot). Perhaps Sycamores? I don't know. He would collect them in his pockets on walks. We would get home and he'd open the back door and throw them on the patio, near our big tree that eventually had a tree-house in it. One day, my husband, John, scratched his head, looked up at the tree and asked "where do these horrible balls come from?" "I keep stepping on them!!!" The tired mom I was I didn't realize and John kept stepping on them barefoot! Our youngest son kept importing prickle balls to our backyard where no tree existed with them! Ha ha!
You planted that tree with your dad the year I was born in England. I always forget about those terrible summer storms in the East!
I am so sorry about the trigger fingers in your hands! I understand that a lot. I have bad arthritis and have lockup issues myself - especially in my big toes. They are a mess and it's very, very painful if I dare to do a ballet-style pointing stretch of my toes. I can get into lockup trouble! I would love to have a phone call, perhaps every month? We can arrange a time that's best! When I get home I will know my new babysitting schedule as soon as our youngest son heads home! He's very, very busy working with the mentally disabled and climbing when he's not working. I've been told he's coming for a visit right after we get home around the 3rd. Maybe a Monday or Thursday evening call when my husband is riding his bike!
I'm sending my best wishes and prayers back to you and Nancy from small-town Sublimity, Oregon and looking forward to staying in touch! Thank you, also, for the subscription! You didn't have to do that! God Bless you Bill. oxox
P.S. That movie I mentioned in this story, "A Man Called Otto" is a good one. I've enjoyed all of Tom Hank's movies and this one is no exception! It's hard, endearing, funny and makes one think about what living is all about. ox
Deb
So glad that you are enjoying Oregon. Well my father's story is an intersting one., and somewhat later mirrors the life of Mary Ellen Walton Curt Willard on 'The Waltons" My parent were born and raised in the Gillespie Il. area and were grade school sweethearts, After Dad graduatied from med school and completed his residency he joined the National Guard and had an opportunity to become a medcal officer at the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in Burns, Oregon in the 1930s. In 1935 he asked my mother to marry him and she said yes. She and my Dad's mother ( my grandmother) took a train from St Louis to Burns Oregon and they were married in the Catholic Church there. Later they retuned to Illinois where Dad started his medical practice aand Mom became a housewife and mother to my sister in 1938. Dad stayed in the National Guard and was on his weekened duty at Ft. Leonard Wood on January 7th 1941
I have his group photo of ll the members of his Medical Unit dated January 6th 1941
After training all over the US for 18 months he left San Obsipo Ca, for New Guinea, Borneo, and the Philippines where he was when the war ended. He returned in late September of 1945 and resumed his practice, building his own medical building in 1950 . I ws born in 1949.
Though my pareents stayed married until my mother's death in 1982 i t was far from a happy marriage. Mom was seriously bipolar. At that time psychiatry did not have a good underestanding of how to treat it and she had all sorts of things used on her including shock treatment which is now comsdered not only ill-advised , but barbaric. Mobeem was in the hosptial for three years after my birth. I lived with my dad's parents and I was very close ot my grandmother. I was holding her in my arms when she passed away in 1977 and my oldest daughter Angelique is named after her. I have told my girls many stories of my grandmother and they have gone many times to the taven that she and my grandmotherr built are ran from before World War I to her death. Mom was in and out of mental hospitals all of her life until we finaally placed he in the nursing home in 1976 because she was becoming violent and my father, having been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease in 1971, could no longer control her.
Shortly after she was committed, I left for the Air Force. She and my sister died within two days of each other in 1982. My Dad passed on New Years Eve of 1990 shortly after Nancy and I and our kids headed back to San Antonio after spending Christmas and his birthday with him. We had a great time and he got to see the girls one last time before he died. I still remeber him sitting in his wheel chair, looking at the girls playing in the snow and saying to me 'Bill they are so precious". That was the last time we spotke
Afterr driving all day and night, we reached San Antonio at 7 AM. Just as I opened the door, the phone rang. I wasn't going to answer it but Nancy said that it might be a client so I picked up the phne. It was my Dad's nurse telling me that he had died in his sleep aboout 5 hours ago. So we repacked the clothes, put the dog in a kennel, and flew back the next day.
Well , I'm going to call it a night as Nancy and I just got in from St. Charles Illinois after my youngest daughter's wedding. Two down and One to go. Marissa and Luke finally tied the know after 6 years of living together and remodeling a house. It was a simple JP wedding with just both parents as witnesses. They are planning a receptiion with their sisters and friends at a later date since many of them are all over the world and not all could attend at this time.
Hope to talk to you soon. I am usually home after 8 Pm my time and 6 yours as once or twice a week, Nancy and I go out to eat. But most times I'm home either on the computer or watching a movie, and she is in our living room on the TV or talking with the gitrls or her family
Hi Bill, we are on the eve of a long trip home! I apologize for the delay, but we have been jam-packed busy and now wish we could stay longer! Never fun saying goodbye :( Your life story brought me tears :( I'm going to copy and paste this last correspondence into my word program and write you back on email - it will take me a few days to settle in once we arrive home Thursday evening. We are going home to company as well - so hang in there with me! Thank you for writing to me and telling me your story. Congratulations on your daughter's wedding and God Bless you and Nancy. ox