Wow! 50 years! Half a
century! And I’m even older than that! Amazing! It seems like
yesterday when we were walking down those halls. I got married
Feb. 1, 1959 to a guy from Vale that I’d met at a dance out
there on the very day he’d enlisted in the Army, and he
re-enlisted when we got married. We spent most of the first 3
yrs. at Ft. Knox, Ky. where my daughter, Cindy, was born on New
Years Eve of that year, and my son, Brad, in Sept. ’61. We were
also at Ft. Rucker, Alabama for a short while (my least favorite
place in the whole world, I think). It was hot, humid, and every
kind of bug you can think of lived there! Brad was a baby and
got sick from the water, I guess, then they both got measles. I
was never so glad to be back in good old South Dakota. We lived
in Rapid and Sturgis where we ended up getting divorced.
I moved to Phoenix and
lived with my folks for about a yr. before marrying someone I
had met in Sturgis. He was a store mgr. and we moved to
Bloomington, Mn., eventually to Iowa and lived in Knoxville,
Indianola, Ames, and after another divorce I settled in Des
Moines, and have been here since ‘83. When we have a cold snowy
winter like we have had this year, I wonder why, but I’ll
probably be here the rest of my life or somewhere near because
Brad and his family live about 40 miles from here in Knoxville,
Ia. He and his wife have 5 children, 4 boys and 1 girl, ranging
in age from 5 to 16. Cindy and her husband have two daughters
ages 6 and 12, adopted from Korea, and they live in the
Minneapolis area. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I
would have 7 grandchildren from my two kids, but I’m sure glad I
do.
Over the years I worked
in the store my husband managed, and we moved here to buy a Ben
Franklin, so I had my hand in there, too. When I first moved to
Des Moines, I had an over the road job selling lamps and
lampshades, and drove all over the Dakotas, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Michigan., Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, and the eastern edge
of Wyoming and Montana. I drove about a hundred thousand miles a
year, and it was the most fun job I ever had. Stayed in a motel
4 nights a week, and never had to wash a dish (I have a kitchen
now cuz it came with the house!), make a bed, or clean a toilet!
What woman wouldn’t love it?! But all good things must come to
an end, and I became a Registered Rep with Prudential. I finally
retired from there in 2000, put my cat, Bud, in the car and took
off for Washington and Oregon to visit my brother, Steve, and
youngest sister, Penny.
So what do I do with my
time now? Big changes. I finally decided to remarry-we’ll have
our fifth anniversary Aug. 30, 2008. He was a firefighter in Des
Moines for 45 years and had his own TV repair business. He has a
daughter in LA, so we go out there-most recently in Oct. 07. And
yes, Bud, still goes along! We visited my cousin, John Kenoyer,
in San Diego, and then drove to Phoenix where one of Verl’s
grandsons is a chef in Scottsdale. His other 2 grandsons live
here in Des Moines, one engaged, and the other has a daughter,
age 2, and a son just born in Nov. We do get to the Hills once
in awhile. We had a family reunion in 2005 and stayed in a lodge
in Hill City, and I always visit my cousin, Linda Kenoyer Burge,
but I never run into anyone I know from school.
When we lived in
Bloomington, Mn. Cathy Schummer and Billie Ritchel both lived
there for awhile, and we got together a couple of times, and
Betty Dodson came to see me once when I was at a family reunion
at Vale. That was really a surprise and a lot of fun. And I
stopped in the shop to see Joe when he was still there. Over the
years, he’s been the one reliable, steady source of info even if
he is nuts! It was always fun to see someone from the old
days.
When the kids were
young, I did a lot of sewing of garments, curtains, drapes, etc.
Now I’m into quilting, belong to the Des Moines Area Quilt
Guild, and take lots of work shops cuz I’m still not sure what
kind of quilting I want to do, but I’m leaning more and more
toward the art quilts. I guess I just love all the
embellishments they have now-paint, fancy threads, beads, foil
and stuff you’d never think of! I also still read a lot, and I’m
president of United Methodist Women at my church, and do other
volunteer work. I’ve never been politically minded, have always
been registered as an Independent, but I was so disgusted with
the current state of affairs, in my dotage I volunteered for the
Obama campaign and was the precinct captain at our caucus
here-pretty fun stuff. Also, this person who’s led a pretty
sedentary life, and never been in a gym until 2 years ago, works
out 4 times a week! But what do you know, it really works! Blood
pressure’s down, liver straightened out, glucose levels are
where they’re supposed to be. Isn’t it strange where life leads
us?
Favorite time of life
is every morning I wake up!!
I have lots of good
school memories-it’s hard to pick just one because I always
loved going to school from first grade on. But it was fun to go
around with the Jobs Daughters and wake up the music teacher by
singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning! I always remember that
last study hall of the day when Mr. Woodle would leave for a
smoke and some of us would go sit on the girls rest room floor
for the rest of the hour-you’d think we’d have been able to find
a better place than that!! Also, wearing those crinolines that
we starched with Knox gelatin so our skirts would brush both
sides of the desks as we made our way down the aisle, and the
crinkly sound they made.
I’m really looking
forward to seeing everyone again.
