Jan. 7, 2019

Fact: I remember that we lived in at least 13 different places while I was growing up and mom and dad lived in at least 14, as I lived in mom and dad's house with my brother Bill and his wife Louise while I was a Junior in high school so I could go to the same high school for all 4 years.  This is counting where ever we lived when I was born and the at least another 12 places I remember living in after I was four.  The first place I actually remember living was in Wolfdale, then we moved to a farm where blind people had lived and mom really had a job of cleaning, then to the road by Log Pal (that is where we had the monkey), then we lived in two different houses on Wayne St., then we moved to Strabane, then to Grandpap Spragg's farm, then out in the country out of Washington, then to Berthel Ave., then to Wayne St. (Mom and Dad bought this house and owned it until they retired, but did not always lived there. I think most of the time some of the family lived in it then.) We also lived in the alley off Baird Ave., and then on Baird Ave., then back into the house at Wayne St. We lived there when I got married, but Mom and dad still moved.  LOL.  They also lived in Bridgeville, the year I 
stayed with Bill and Louise
Memories: It was at the Morningside school house that Mrs. Stevenson was the teacher and I was in first grade that they learned that I was deaf in one ear.  They never knew if I was born that way or if a childhood disease caused it.  I remember that we had a cow named Toby that we rode, or at least Johnny and I did.  She moved several of the places with us.  At the log pal house a monkey came with it.  The only way the people would rent it was if the monkey stayed.  If it got in the house the first place it went was up the stairs and would slide down the banister.  He would take my doll baby and wrap it in it's blanket and take it up in the tree with him.  The monkey was the one who found out Bayardie had head lice.  Mom seen him picking something out of Bayardie's hair.  We also had a pet ground hog when we lived at Grandpap Spragg's.  Dad had shot the mother for meat and seen that she had been feeding a little one, so he dug it out of the hole and brought it home.  We feed it with a baby bottle and when it got bigger he lived under the house.  I remember taking oatmeal out in a pan to feed him and when he would start to eat I would pull it back from him.  This went on until I made him mad and he came after my toes.  I learned you do not want a mad ground hog coming after your bare toes. 
Reflection: I never felt that I was hurt in anyway from all the moving we did.  I think if you were shy that may have been different, not that I was real out going but I always seemed to have friends and I was not the only one in the family that lived with someone else as Bayardie stayed with Aunt Daisy and Uncle Ward the year we were at Grandpap Spragg's so he could stay in Trinity too.  I am so Thankful to have wonderful memories. I will be posting some pictures along the way to and I hope I do not ramble too much and not sure I will never repeat myself or get out of order, so it will be what it is.