After the death of my father (1953)

This is the time in my life when things become very jumbled. My sister who was in nursing school at St Thomas in Nashville had to drop out and come home to help mom. To this day I have not heard a negative word from her about that even though I know it was very disappointing to her.

Shortly thereafter she was to marry the man that was her lifelong partner until his death. He turned out to be my surrogate father. I followed him around like a puppy dog even when I was in high school. While in Vietnam I sent him a Fathers Day card. Although not a man of wealth and schooling, he was a great man of wisdom beyond his years. I still miss him to this day.

I was in the first grade at Ethridge Elementary School with Mrs. Cole as a teacher. I loved that lady. It turned out I had her again in the 6th grade. For the first time in my life I turned out to be the teacher's pet. But I am getting ahead of myself. In the first grade her daughter, Carolyn had pigtails and sat in front of me and I continually pulled her pigtails.

One day my mom came to school to get me and said that we were moving to Florida. Where was this place called Florida? I knew that she, my sister, and John (my brother in law) needed jobs. They had heard there were plenty of jobs down there. Well we moved to Winter Haven, FL and must not have been down there very long because I don't remember much about it except a little horse race board game that I continualy played by myself.

Next in the series, we move back to Lawrenceburg