Ok, the next few are some Army stories

BACK GROUND

As you probably already know, my life changed at the age of 11 when my mother passed away and about 9 months later my dad married Della Parks.

My sister Jean came down from Lansing in January for a couple of months to keep house for us. In February dad and I were in an auto accident and my jaw was broken in 4 places and my tenth were knocked loose. I was in Foot Hospital for a week and it was decided to move me to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor to try to fix my jaw and teeth. My jaw had already started to heal so they had to break it again to put it together right. So with braces on my teeth and my jaw wired shut and a bandage around my head, I came home with a bandage around my head and one missing tooth on the left side, which I could fit a straw thru to receive liquids. My menu consists of baby food, warm milk, grape juice, water that vegetables were cooked in and eggnog. I couldn’t stand the eggnog so my darling sister Jean took out the nutmeg and added chocolate, yum.

Then Maxine moved in with her whole family to help dad out for a couple of months. She said: that’s not how eggnog is supposed to be made and she took out the chocolate and put nutmeg back in (oh woe is me).

Then somehow, somewhere, someone decided dad needed to hire a house keeper.

A friend of mom in town knew of a school teacher from Lake City who needed a summer job. I had no idea this was happing but suddenly about the end of May we had a live in housekeeper.

Now, please understand, mom and my sisters, who mom trained, made breakfast which we ate as a family. Made our school lunch’s. Washed and ironed our clothes. Suddenly Bob and I had to make our own breakfast, school lunches and if we wanted our clothes ironed we could do it ourselves. Bob was in high school so he ironed his school clothes. I decided I didn’t care if they were wrinkled or not.

Generally, thru the summer we made our own sandwich for lunch and Della cooked supper and sometimes warmed up leftovers for lunch the next day.

Some time in late July Bob came to me and told me that dad was going to marry Della. I was horrified. I told him dad wouldn’t do that to mom. But I never said that to dad. It took me some time to make peace with myself with that. I was in 4H and was preparing to take a calf to show at the fair, they set their wedding for the middle of fair week. They told me to go ahead and take my calf to the fair but that didn’t seem right to me so I didn’t go.

Thru high school Della and I had our ups and downs, most of that was my fault and I begin to realize that every time, dad got put in the middle of it. After I graduated from high school I received some money from my brothers and sisters and I used that to take a couple of classes at Jackson Community College. I found a job parking cars at a lot in Jackson for 50 cents an hour. I worked over time and Thanksgiving and Christmas days. Then in January Della took me aside and told me that most young men my age would want to be out on their own by now.

I didn’t know where I would go but after much consideration I decided to join the Army and find out what I was made of. I wanted to join the Air Force because I loved being around planes but Bob had joined the Air Force and I didn’t want to do what Bob did, I wanted to be my own man.

The thing that still bothers me is that I didn’t tell my dad beforehand. I left him at the age of 69 with that big farm and nobody to help him. But Della was happy.

More to come about the Army……..