It's Me! Oh, Yes it is!

OK, I'm back with some more files from the dark ages, LOL!  Dark, as in, black and white.............or red!  Or, I suppose some of the younger generation that reads this will agree that these pictures are from the dark ages, as in, "I want to be able to look back when we are old like you guys (ha, ha!) and have great stories to tell and loads of super cute pics of us in our younger days looking so spry and happy!"  Not that this offended me or anything................Liz..................but it COULD be true that we guys are GETTING older!  Life has a way of doing that to you!  :D

All joking aside......Liz, I really WASN'T offended!  I thought it was very sweet of you to want yours and Brad's life to be as happy as we have been!  I pray that for all of my children!  I'm sure you realize how blessed you are to come from a home where there was love.  I think part of that is due to our giving the LORD priority #1 in our home!  If you haven't realized that..........WAKE UP!  Because I'm telling you now.............if you want your home to be a success.........make sure you give the LORD priority #1 in ALL things!

And when you don't understand why things are happening the way they are...........just be patient and TRUST in the LORD with all your might!  It will be alright!

Now that I've preached to you a little bit, let me share some of my pictures from childhood.....some of my history BEFORE your dad!

I don't know much about any of the places mom and dad lived in the early days of their marriage, other than it being in Osgood, Indiana.  I know that mom was living with some friends of hers in Versailles, Indiana, a town nearby, when she met dad and they were married 3 months later on December 20, 1954 (2 days after your dad was born).  I came along 9 months and 19 days later on October 8, 1955!  I am 1 month and 21 days old in this picture from December 1955.  Dad was working as a mechanic at a gas station in Osgood, Indiana.  His boss was Ralph Schmaltz.  I don't know how it happened or what the circumstances were that brought them together, but I know we spent alot of time with the Schmaltzes for as long as I can remember until we moved from the area.  But, even then we or they would travel to pay one another a visit from time to time.  When we gathered, they were ALWAYS playing cards!  It slips my mind now what game they played........maybe Spades, or that might be one of the games they played.  I'm thinking too hard at trying to remember, so I can't tell you, LOL!

Does anyone think any of the grandkids favor me in this picture at all?

Here I am at 6 months old.....that would be in April 1956.

These 2 pictures are from the summer of 1956.  Dad was a Harley man!  I especially like the second picture of me sitting in a pot of water!  At least I'm assuming there is water in the pot!  :D

These pictures are from late summer to early fall 1956.  I included them so you could see that dad never changed.  But, mom looks different.  Maybe because she is so skinny!  Dad told me one time that she weighed 108 lbs when they got married!  I'm thinking the other kids in the pictures remind me of some of my cousins from Kokomo, Indiana where my mom's family lived.

1st birthday.  In the bottom picture, that is my cousin, Linda, who was from May to October older than me.  That is her mom, Marie Brandenburg, Uncle Hubert's wife, standing near me.  I cropped most of her off, not on purpose, however!

One of many Christmases with the Schmaltzes.  I think I am in a little red wagon or something.  That is Darren and Renee Schmaltz behind me.

Since I had a picture of Tim on the potty, I figured it only fair to include one of me on the potty, too!  This looks like it was taken when I was about a year old or so.

I almost skipped over this one.  This is my Great Grandma Whitest from my dad's side of the family.  The one thing I regret is not getting any family history from mom and dad.

How sweet!  Here I am holding my baby brother's bottle when he was a couple weeks old.  We were 18 months apart to the day.  I always thought we were 17 months apart, but he was born April 8, 1957, so that is 18 months.

I skipped this one from 1956.  I love the towel on my head in this one.  Do you ever wonder why you do some of the things you do?  I know now the reason I wrap a towel around my head after I wash my hair is shown in this picture.  Because it has always been done that way!  It's like the story of the lady cutting the ends off of her ham roast before putting it in the pan to bake.  Someone asked her why she did it and she said she didn't know, that's just the way her mom always did it.  When asking her mom why she did it she was told that her mom had always done it that way.  So, the lady asked her grandmother why she cut the ends off of her roast and her grandma's reply was that she cut the ends off because her pan was not big enough!  LOLOLOL!  I think that is hilarious!  So, girls, the reason you put your towel around your head is because that's the way your grandmother always did it!  :D

I would say this picture was taken sometime around my 2nd birthday because Joey looks to be around 6 months old to me which would put this picture being taken in October 1957.  He got mom's brown eyes and I got dad's blue eyes................and I just happened to think about Kara's eyes being brown..........I had always said she was the first brown-eyed person in our family, but that's not true!  I wasn't thinking about Joey's eyes being brown.  While mom's eyes were brown basically, most of the time they had some green to them, too.  But, Joey's are definitely brown!

This was my dog, Snowball, a female Spitz.  She was a couple months younger than me.  I had her til I was about 12 years old.  She just disappeared.  We never did know if someone stole her or if she just went off to die at an old age.

I wonder what was so funny?  I must be about 2 years old or more.

The note on this picture says it was taken on Easter in 1958.  Looking at Joey with drool all down the front of him, I know exactly where his son got it!  Andy was constantly drooling!

 1961 - I look totally thrilled, don't I!

This is Easter 1962.  The dresses Kim and I have on were made by our Aunt Opal, dad's sister.

This was taken in 1964 when we lived in California.  How did we end up in California, you ask?  Well, dad was stationed in California when he was in the army.  He liked it and always talked about going on vacation out there.  In 1963 we did just that.  His intention was that if he found a job out there, we would stay.  On the Thursday before we were to leave to come back home to Indiana he found a job in a gas station.  So, we stayed.  We did not enjoy it at all.  It was a nice place to visit, but we didn't want to live there.  We stayed for 10 months before dad decided enough.  We moved back to Indiana..........however, not Osgood, Indiana.  We lived in College Corner, Indiana, which was near dad's sisters.  While working on these pictures, the thought came to me as to why we didn't go back to Osgood.  I would say that the main reason was that dad no longer had a job with Ralph Schmaltz.  So, now I am wondering if Mr. Schmaltz fired dad when he did not return from vacation, which would be perfectly legit, or is one of the reasons we went to California in the first place because dad would no longer be working for Mr. Schmaltz??  Was that the reason why he wanted a job out there?  Guess I'll never know this side of heaven!

1970.  Alot has happened between coming back from California to this house in Hebron, KY.  The house we were renting in Liberty, Indiana was a farm house and I think we got it rent-free because dad was keeping up the farm, I don't remember for sure.  But, it was affecting his health, if I remember correctly.  Anyway, some how he landed a job as a truck driver for Emery Air Freight out of the Greater Cincinnati Airport, which is located in Northern KY.  So, we moved to Union, KY in 1965 or maybe it was early in 1966.  That's where we met Bro. Ginn and family and attended the church he pastored, Big Bone Baptist Church.  We eventually ended up in a house in Hebron, KY.  These 2 pictures are taken at that house.  It was a very nice house.........until the tornado of 1974.  But that is another story for another time.  In these 2 pictures, I had gotten pretty heavy.  In 1971 I got a good case of the flu or something and lost 10 lbs.  I determined that if I could do that by being sick, I could loose more.  I believe I had just starting going with Tim, so that was probably the biggest motivation!  :D  I  lost 40 lbs total and looked great!  I joined the track team at school, too, and that helped tremendously!  Running laps around the high school after school every afternoon played a major part in my weight loss!  I kept it off pretty well, too, til the kids started coming along!  :D  The outfit I'm wearing in the bottom picture is a skirt and vest I made in home economics in 9th grade!  I was very proud of the outfit and wore it lots!

Well, just a few more pictures.  These are school pictures.  I have more somewhere, but didn't see them in my boxes, so they must be in a book somewhere.  They will just have to wait for another time!

 1st Grade

5th grade

Senior picture.  Graduation from Conner Sr. High School - June 3, 1973.....38 years ago!  WOW!  That was a few years ago!

And there you have it!  From the cradle to graduation.  A few other details would include details from my spiritual life.  I trusted Jesus as my Savior before we moved to KY in 1965.  Harold Haynes, long with the LORD, was our pastor at a Baptist church in College Corner, Indiana.  Mom, dad and I were all baptized at the same time using the baptistry at a Baptist church in Dartown, Indiana, I believe.  I'll have to confirm that.  I owe a lot of my Biblical education/knowledge to Bro. Ginn and Sis. Ginn.  I've not always lived the way I should live for the LORD and I know I have probably been an embarrassment to Him, but thanks be to God for His mercy and forgiveness!  Mom and dad were not happy that I was in love with someone who was not a Christian.  They liked Tim, but they were worried about what would happen if and when we married.  A legitimate worry!  Tim asked me once what I thought of his going to the seminary in Louisville and I told him I didn't want to marry a preacher........how foolish!  I'm sure that made the LORD laugh out loud!  It is no wonder that when the LORD was dealing with Tim to surrender to preach that he did not discuss it with me.  But, when he told me for the first time on our way to church the morning he had decided to accept the call and announce it to the church, I was elated!  Scared, but elated!  And to this day, I'm so thankful that the LORD kept dealing with Tim inspite of me!  While it is true that I didn't marry a preacher.............in God's eyes, I did!  Because once He begins a work in someone's life, He finishes it!  So, Tim was as good as being a preacher when we got married, even though he wasn't officially!  Praise the LORD!