My father was born in Romance, Missouri which is in the southwestern part of the state. I know very little of his early history but I do know that he came to Seminole, OK during the oil boom of the mid to late 1920's. He worked for Magnolia Oil which later became Mobil Oil and retired in 1948. We were than living at 357 W Strother St in Seminole but moved to an acreage eight miles north of Seminole before I started the first grade. Our address became Rt 3, Box 300, Seminole but we didn't have a zip code; they had not yet been invented! Our phone number was 2011-J-1 and it was an eight party line. This meant that you could hear any of the eight parties talking if they were on the line. It always made a click when someone picked up the phone so you were careful to not give away any juicy tidbits. You could always say to the others to get off the line and then you could hear another click when they hung up. You identified your ring by the length of it. the options were 1-4 short rings or 1-4 long rings, hence, the eight phone numbers were 2011-J-1, 2011-J-2, 2011-J-3, 2011-J-4, 2011-S-1, 2011-S-2, 2011-S-3, and 2011-S-4. Ah, the good old days.
My mother was born in Wakeeney, Kansas which is located in the northwestern part of the state and had a population of less than 400 in the year that mother was born. I know nothing of her early childhood but neither of my parents got past the eighth grade in school. My mother was 19 and my father was 35 when they married. During preparations for my father's funeral in December, 1960, I overheard a discussion of another child but it was evidently born dead and was never discussed. No one that I know seems to know the particulars of this, only suspicions.
I have no memory of either Ed or Pearl. They both died in 1945, Ed in Germany during the battle at Remagen Bridge during WWII and Pearl later that same year from surgery complications and infection. Ed was single and Pearl left a husband with three children of age 4 or younger. All of my grandparents except for my mother's mother had already died when I was born. Her name was Anna Epperly but we all called her Granny-Annie.
Therefore, Glenn and Betty were the only siblings that I knew while growing up. Betty was 16 and Glenn was 22 when I was born so they were more like an aunt and an uncle. In other words, we did not grow up together and I saw them rarely. I saw Betty more than Glenn because he was in the Air Force and had extended tours of duty in Bermuda and Guam. When he was stationed in San Antonio or Dayton, Ohio I did visit him. He retired in the 1960's and remained in San Antonio with his wife and son until his death in August, 1988. Betty lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Texas so I visited her more often. She died in March, 1985 and left two daughters, Paula and Pam.
Most of my memories growing up were pleasant but looking back, I can say that my life lessons were learned and not taught. I am sure a lot of this had to do with the age of my parents (43 and 58 when I was born) but I must also take some of the blame for maturing late due to a lack of self-discipline. Could really use the chicken and egg analogy but why fret over the past. It too was covered by the Sovereign Grace of Almighty God and happened for a reason. Some one has well said: "We are too soon old and too late smart". Amen to that. I will cover my parents and siblings in more detail in future posts. Stay tuned.
Gal 5:22-24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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