Remembering Grandkids

I never sang much to the kids but did rock Nathan to sleep more than the others and always sang to him, "I love the dimples in your dimpled chin every twinkle in your eyes so blue, love every freckle on your turned up nose. I love everything about you."  Of course he was small and doesn't remember. Also I'd sing, "A tiny turned up nose, two lips just like a rose.  So sweet from head to toes. That little boy of mine." And when I was sure he was asleep I'd put him in his crib. He'd hold out his hand and say, "hand." And would want you to hold it 'til he fell asleep. So many memories of each one of them.

I'm sure Lindsay remembers us singing," You are My Sunshine". I made her and Danika a sunflower quilt. I am sure both remember, "Sweet Violets".

There was a young farmer
Who took a young Miss
Out back of the barn
Where he gave her a lecture
On horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had
Such beautiful manners
That suited her charms.
A girl that he wanted
To take in his washing and ironing
And then if he did
They could get married
And raise lots of sweet violets,
Sweeter than the roses,
Covered all over from head to toe,
Covered ll over with sweet violets.

Well I've rambled long enough. I love you all very much.

My Favorite Quotes

I love to collect short stories and quotes. I must print some of my favorite quotes:



It is more important to be kind than it is to be right.

Give people a bit of your heart rather than a piece of your mind.

Sometimes people disappoint you, and you just have to let it go, and love them.

He will not save any one without their wholehearted consent and cooperation.

You cannot do anything today to make God love you any more or any less.

Good examples have twice the value of good advice.

God never asks about our ability or our inability;  just our availability.

It's not where you live but how you live that's important.

What a great thing to be loved! What a greater thing still to love.

Some food is so soulful that the love content outweighs the fat content.

When you get too old for pimples, you go into wrinkles.

In spite of the high cost of living, it's still popular.

Isn't it odd that a being like God
Who sees the facade, still loves the clod
He made out of sod. Now isn't that odd?

Youth is never left behind us. It is carried always with us, gently in the heart.

Our happiness comes not from what is around us, but from what is within us. Not from what we have, but from what we are.

The cup most difficult to carry is not the empty one, but the one full to the brim.

Affliction and adversity bring disappointment and sorrow: But it is prosperity that is the most dangerous to spiritual life.

We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.

People don't care how much we know if they don't know how much we care.

Love cannot be whipped into the heart.

There is no right way to do a wrong thing.

Is the pleasure worth the pain?

Ephesians 4:2 Philips translation - Accept life with humility and patience, making allowances for one another.

The most important thing a father con do for his child is to love it's mother.

This time, like all times, is a very good time, if we but know what to do with it.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right.

You can't take your money to heaven but you can send it on ahead.

Matthew 6:15 - But If you do not forgive others their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses.

Ecclesiastes 5: 10 Clear Word - Whoever loves money never has enough. Who ever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.

Many people want to serve God, but only as advisers.

It's easier to present ten sermons than to live one.

Talk is cheap but you con't buy it back.

It's not how much you have, or where you are going,or even what you are. Rich is who you have beside you.

I have to live with myself and so I want to be fit for myself to know. I don't want to come to the setting sun and hate myself for the things I've done.



I must stop I have so many it's hard to choose and when will I ever have a chance to get you all to read them.

The Little Old Ford

Now Henry Jones and his pretty little queen
Took a ride one day in his big limousine.
The car kicked up and the engine wouldn't crank.
There wasn't any gas in the gasoline tank!
About that time along came Nord
And he rambled right along in his little old Ford.
He stole that queen and the engine sang a song.
And the little old Ford just rambled right along.

He swung around a corner and hit an old mule
and the blamed old thing just kicked like a fool
he kicked and he kicked and he kicked the wheels
but he had to quit kicking to save his heels.
If the power gets sick just hit it with a brick.
and the little Ford will ramble right along.

Now they ran over glass and they ran over nails,
They ran over pigs and puppy dogs' tails.
They bumped into fences and telegraph poles,
Ran over rocks and deep chuck holes.
If you break a tire just patch it up with wire,
And the little old Ford will ramble right along.

Smash up the fenders, smash up the seats,
Twist it out of shape 'Til both ends meet,
Smash up the body and rip out the gears,

Smash up the front and smash up the rear,

Smash up the fenders and break up the tires,
Break up the lamps and cut out the wires,
Throw in the clutch and then forget to juice,
And the little old Ford will go to beat the deuce.
And the little old Ford will ramble right along.

Patch it up with a piece of string,
Spearmint gum or any old thing!
If the power gets sick, just hit it with a brick,
And the little Ford will ramble right along!

Three Monkeys

Three monkeys sat on a coconut tree
Discussing things as they're said to be

Said one to the other, Now listen, you two
There's a certain rumor that can't be true

That man descended from our noble race
The very idea is sure to disgrace

No monkey ever deserted his wife
starved her babies, and ruined her life

And, you've never known another monkey
To leave her babies, with others to bunk
Or pass them on from one to another

And another thing you will never see
A monkey build a fence around a coconut tree

And let the coconuts go to waste
Forbidding all other monkeys to taste

Why , if I put a fence around this tree
Starvation would force you to steal from me

And here's something else a monkey won't do
Go out of night and get on a stew

Or use a gun, or club, or knife
To take some other monkey's life

Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss
But, brother, he didn't descend from us

Strawberry Roan

While loafing 'round town, just spending my time,
Out of a job, not making a dime; a fellow stepped up
And he said, "I suppose that you're a bronc rider,
From the looks of your clothes.

You guessed right. And a good one I claim.
Do you happen to have any bad ones to tame?
He said, I've got one. He's a bad one to buck,
And he'd take a good rider, who's had lots of luck.

A bronc never lived or ever drawed breath,
That I couldn't ride 'til he starved plum to death."
Out in the corral, all standing alone,
Stood an ugly old outlaw called Strawberry Roan.

He had little thin ears that touched at the tip,
And a big 44 brand on his left hip!
He had little glass eyes and a big Roman nose.
An ugly old outlaw to the tip of his toes.

I lit in the saddle and doing my best,
We went up in the East and came down in the West.
He tossed his old belly right up to the sun,
For he was a surprising son of a gun.

There are plenty of broncs that I cannot ride.
There are some of them living. They haven't all died.
But I bet all my money that no man alive
Can ride old Strawberry when he makes that high dive!

Little Boy Blue

A favorite of Daddy's, though very sad was this one I found in a book of poems Lindsey gave me.

Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands.
The little toy soldier is red with rust
His musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair
And that was the time that our little boy blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now don't you go 'til I come", he said.
"And don't you make any noise".
And toddling off to his trundle bed
He dreamt of the pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our little boy blue.---
Oh, the years are many,
And the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

Aye faithful to little boy blue they stand,
Each in the same old place.
Awaiting the touch of a little hand.
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder as waiting there,
In the long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our little boy blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there!

And So Did I

A favorite poem Daddy liked to recite.

And So Did I

That long lank dude that sparks our Sue
Was at our house last night
And talk about having fun,
Well I thought I'd die outright!
Laugh, I am laughing yet,
I only have to think and then I go into a fit!
We went to supper and of course,
We had a dandy spread.
Sue trotted out the chocolate cake,
And Ma her fancy bread.
That long lank dude he stuffed himself
With cake, preserves, and pie,
Then drank sixteen cups of tea.
And so did I!

Most folks in love don't eat at all
But Jim ain't one of such.
He says that being in love made him eat
Just twice as much.
Up from his chair he staggered,
You could almost see him swell.
He'd ate so much how he got up
Is more than I can tell.
I saw him beckon Sue
She answered with her eye,
And off into the parlor sneaked,
And so did I!

They made for the old setee
In the corner by the door,
While I crawled in behind to hide
Where oft I'd hid before.
With Sue's steel hat pin in my hand
Ten inches long or more.
I heard him whisper," Sue,
Just let me kiss you once".
Sue cried Jim if you do
I'll get right up and run.
And then she giggled foolish like,
You know how young folks speak.
Before the parlor lamp is lit
And things are kind of dark.
Well Jim kissed her good and hard
And Sue yelled, "Oh! Fi!"
And jabbed her fist into Jim's ribs,
And so did I!

I bobbed down quick, he didn't see
For love you know is blind.
And then I started in with cord
His swell coattails to bind.
He'd on a new "Prince Albert",
For Jim was quite a card,
And for you knew a thing,
I had him tied up good and hard.
Then just as he was kissing Sue,
I jabbed him in his thigh.
He yelled and rolled in fourteen fits,
And so did I.

You must know Jim hit the ceiling
And the settee went there too.
Then round and round he dragged it
Like a mule hitched to a truck.
Til both his coattails tore loose.
Then Jim just cussed his luck.
The neighbors heard the yelling
And come rushing through the door
And stumbled over Sue
Who lay unconscious on the floor!
We soused her too with water
Then an argument arose
As to just what old animal had
Bit Jim through his clothes.
Ma thought it was a snake,
Sue thought it lightening from the sky
But at last they blamed it on the cat.
And so did I!

Songs Daddy Sang To Us

The following are songs Daddy used to sing to us.

Ham bones and gravy Chicken am good,
Rabbit am so very, very fine,
But give me, oh give me,
Oh, how I wish you would,
That watermelon hanging on that vine.

Another favorite was:

On a summer evening, when the sun was low,
Out to rob a hen's nest softly I did go.
And when I grabbed a chicken,
I heard her husband crow.
And then the farmer chased me with a rusty hoe.

Out in the corn field that's where I was found,
And oh the walloping he gave me,
Lying on the cold, cold ground.
He locked me in the stable with the sheep
And a dog that wouldn't sleep

By and by that mutt got tired of watching
By and by that mutt laid down to rest
By and by I jumped out of the window
And landed in a hornet's nest.

Good night my loved one, good night,
All those hornets were full of fight
I've got stings on my fingers
And stings on my toes,
When they got through with me
They lit on Fido's nose.

Oh say can you see it was my time to flee.
That dog he was angry the moment he spied me.
He chased me around the old barn lot
He chased me cross the prairie.
I've seen many dogs of his kind,
But none quite so contrary.

I heard his pants as he advanced
But I left mine behind me.

Other favorites were:

Mocking Bird Hill
Old Shep
When the Works All Done This Fall
Old Limpy
The Heart That Was Broken for Me
How Great Thou Art
And So Did I
Little Boy Blue
I Had But Fifty Cents
Strawberry Roan
The Little Old Ford

His very favorite song was The Love Of God.

Songs My Mother Sang

Mom never sat down and sang us songs as Daddy did. She sang and whistled as she worked. I remember this song she sang.

"Life's evening sun is sinking low
A few more days and I must go
To meet the deeds that I have done
Where there will be no setting sun.

Each day I'll do a golden deed
By helping those who are in need
I'll try to turn the night to day
Make flowers bloom along the way.

Another song I remember is Two Little Girls in Blue.

An old man gazed at a photograph
In a locket he'd worn for years.
His nephew asked him the reason why
That picture had caused him fears.

Listen he said and I'll tell you lad,
A story that' s strange but true
Your father and I at school one day
Met two little girls in blue.

Two little girls in blue lad
Two little girls in blue.
They were sisters
And we were brothers,
And we learned to love the two.

One little girl in blue lad
Won your father's heart
Became your mother
I married the other
But we have drifted apart.

Other songs she sang were:

Corn Bread and Butter Milk
Good Old Turnip Greens
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
After The Ball Was Over
Come and Dine
The Golden Bells
The Unclouded Day
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
On The Jericho Road

Grandma Grace Lawry

She first married Jim Helms who died from pneumonia after getting wet chasing away a neighbor's cows. I think they had three children. I only know aunt Nanny and Uncle Jim.

Grandma and Grandpa married and had seven children, Sadie, Mary, George (Dike), Jimmy, Bennie, Johnny, and Baby Charlie who died at infancy. I didn't know many of them. We did go to visit Sadie who never married and kept the home place, a forty acre place grandma and Jim Helms owned. I think they homesteaded it. Grandpa became blind some time before the last few children were born so they were desperately poor.

It was a great treat to drive up to see Aunt Sadie and to see her Model T Ford. She bought it new and kept it all her life. She lived at Bronson, Kansas. 'We always stopped at the "Dime Store" in Iola. Daddy always bought us a small gift. Aunt Mary lived near by. They had three girls and they were the cousins we knew best from Daddy's family. Two of them are gone now. We enjoyed sitting by the fireplace with popcorn and home made apple cider. The "secretary" I have belonged to Aunt Sadie, Daddy's oldest sister. Mom didn't know where she got it but had it when she and Daddy were married,on September 30, 1927.

                                             AUNT SADIE AND HER MODEL T

I remember it in Aunt Sadie's living room. She lived sixty miles away and we visited her at least once a year. She kept family pictures in the secretary in the house where Daddy grew up. Aunt Sadie taught school in the same school she and her siblings attended until they needed someone who could teach music. This really hurt her and she always had a rather bitter attitude toward life. It was a very hard life on her forty-acre farm where she raised cows, etc. and hired out the farm. One year she picked out enough black walnuts to buy a couch for the living room. Unless you've ever picked out black walnuts, you can't imagine how long that took her (Daddy used to send me a pound every year----delicious in pumpkin pie!) Sadie had four rooms built on to the original house. (one room with a shed kitchen. I'll always remember her kitchen with the big enamel stove with a warming oven. There was always a cot by the window by the stove. So cozy! Heated with wood.

 I never knew either grandparent. Grandma died when I was an infant.

Grandpa George Lawry

We never knew much about Daddy's side of the family. Cousin Oscar said he walked from Roanoke, Virginia, carrying the wooden tool box Aunt Sadie gave to Lloyd. At his death Kathy gave it to Delbert. It was burned when Delbert and Ellen's house burned down at the time of Cynda's wedding. Daddy said his father was Pennsylvania Dutch. His wife died and I don't know how many children he had.

Chapter 1 Part 4

                                                             JE'SUS VEGA

Je'sus mother died when he was born. He was mostly raised by Alicia and Anna (sisters). His stepmother was very young and had a baby just eleven months younger than Je'sus. His father died when he was twelve. He lived with Chinto and Juanita and their five children. A neighbor brought the Adventist message and about one half of the children accepted.

He then stayed with Anna and family and went to academy in San Juan. The principle told him about Madison. Chinto helped him some, Alberto gave him an old suit and he arrived at Madison with three dollars. He could read English but couldn't speak it. That's all the help he ever got. He graduated with lab and x-ray credits.

When he returned, I took the train from Oregon where Teresa, David and I had been staying with my parents.  We got to spend a lot of time with Viola and Harley Witt and family. We came before Je'sus did and we visited Bob and Pat. While there David had what the doctor said was an ear ache. We came on to Collegedale and David got worse (he was having seizures by this time and spent two weeks in the hospital with meningitis). We took him to Thompson's Children's Hospital in Chattanooga.

                 DAVID, KIETH AND TERESA VEGA WITH THEIR GRANDMA LAWRY

The college told Je'sus he had to take more classes than he thought, David was sick, got better but it took two years to be potty trained, etc. Je'sus was discouraged and we moved to Puerto Rico to be in charge of the lab at the Bella Vista hospital. A doctor there encouraged him to go back to school. He had his GI bill to use so we went to Nashville and he earned a Masters Degree in Biology.

We went back to Madison where he taught at the academy. Theresa started first grade there. Before the year was up they needed him in the lab so he went. The doctor who encouraged him to go to Madison still encouraged Je'sus to go to Loma Linda. He applied and was accepted. We bought a better car loaded all we could in it and took off!  It was 1961 and we had Eric, one year old, Keith, two years old, David, five years old, and Teresa, seven years of age.

                       THE VEGA'S ON THEIR WAY TO LOMA LINDA, CALIFORNIA

While at Loma Linda I finally had to learn to drive. My mother tried to teach me in my teens but I had no interest. With Je'sus in school and all, I had to learn. The Oldsmobile was automatic and that helped a lot. Je'sus rode his bicycle to school. (I hear that Danika and David skateboarded to school and to work!). It is hard to believe they are living where we lived so long ago.

They hadn't completely finished the new hospital when we left. They tore down the old original before we left. Lola Fay took classes in it. We spent eight years there. Four years in medical school and four years internship.

When we arrived a friend was leaving and he could have taken his job at a very good salary by working every weekend but he chose not to work on Sabbath. He could also come home evenings and be with the family. Instead he worked part time as a lab tech and for the first four years he got $200.00 per month from Puerto Rico. That's why we went to Puerto Rico to pay it back. He lost the GI bill by going to Peabody.

Later, Lola Fay and girls came to Loma Linda where Lola took Physical Therapy. We had lots of good times together, us and our four kids and her and her two. In the Oldsmobile, we would go to the desert and camp or to the forests. Twice we went to the mountains for a white Christmas. His niece Ruth from Puerto Rico stayed with us a year. Dino and Fay settled there and we enjoyed them and Gracella came and fell in love and married there.

Je'sus finished in 1969.  We shipped our stuff to Puerto Rico.  We found this used Cadillac, drove to Kansas to visit my family, stopped in Florida and visited Donna and Bill. We stayed in their camper and watched the first shuttle to the moon. Then in our motel in Miami on TV we saw them land.

I am glad we spent time in Puerto Rico as the kids got to know their Spanish heritage and learned to speak the language and to know and love our other family and you know the rest of the story.

GO BACK TO CHAPTER 1 PART 3

Chapter 1 Part 3

In winter we got books from the library and Mom would read to us in the evening.  Daddy worked at the alfalfa mill. Mom and the boys raised lots of vegetables and we sold them door to door. Mom picked four hundred quarts of wild blackberries one summer; we canned some and sold some. We lived in a tiny two-room house and a screened in back porch. I had my cot there during the summer. That year we lived in the two rooms. Delbert, Bob, and I slept in one bed and Daddy and Mom in the other. I was in the eighth grade. Next year I went to Enterprise Academy with Vera and Viola.

Grandpa Reeve built another room on the house. Daddy worked at the alfalfa mill. We couldn't get the 1933 Pontiac over those muddy roads so had to trade it for another Model A Ford. We didn't have a radio until Delbert bought them a battery operated one in the late forties.

We got electricity just before I was married; in fact Je'sus Vega put in extra outlets for them. We had a pump and an outhouse and a happy childhood!

                                                     
After academy I worked at the Boulder San in Boulder, Colorado. I worked in the diet kitchen an enjoyed it very much. Then Delbert and Ivan had a problem at EA and left money there that couldn't be taken out so I went back to EA for a year. Mostly because my boyfriend, Clayton, and best girlfriend, Lillian were there. I took sewing, music appreciation, voice and piano. It was all  a very big waste of time and money as I didn't do well in anything.

Then I went to Joplin where Vera was teaching school and stayed with her and looked for work but couldn't find anything. Friends of hers were going to Madison College to visit and let me ride with them. Lillian and Clayton were there. The people I came with got sick and couldn't go back so friends persuaded me to enroll at Madison. It was a self-supporting college so I could work. I took household arts. After two years I met Je'sus Vega. He was taking Lab and X-ray. I changed to nursing. Two years later we became engaged. Je'sus spent that summer colporteuring in Texas and Mexico. (We met some of the same people when he was stationed in the army at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas.)

That summer I stayed at home in Kansas. We were married that fall September 14, 1952, at our little church in Thayer, Kansas. Irene and Etta helped me plan the very simple wedding. I borrowed the dress and veil. Someone tore the veil during the wild drive Delbert took us on before going back to the house. Daddy bought a pretty three-tiered cake at the bakery for seven dollars. Daddy gave us one hundred dollars for a gift (we bought a refrigerator with it). Lloyd gave us a set of dishes and someone a table cloth. Vera and Tommy gave us two nights in a motel near them in Carl Junction, which we enjoyed and appreciated very much.

We took the bus back to Madison. Our first home was an expandable army trailer at the trailer court, with one toilet, showers, and a washhouse for all in another trailer.  He was called to the Army and we moved to Fort Bliss, Texas.

We borrowed three hundred dollars from my parents to buy our first car. Neither of us could drive so the man at the car lot drove it to our house. Je'sus had a few lessons from a friend at Madison. Then little by little he learned. We lived there one year and met many wonderful people, some in Mexico. Even watched them make tamales.

David was born while we were at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. From there Je'sus was sent to Germany. Teresa was 1 ½ years old and David was 3 months. I spent the time with my parents who had already planned to spend two years following fruit harvest in Washington and Oregon.  We had many good times with Viola and Harry and their children.

In Germany Je'sus met a doctor from Loma Linda who said he could go to Loma Linda if he went to SMC so his credits from Madison could be accredited. So when he came home we met at Southern Missionary College. He spent one year in Germany.  At SMC Je'sus needed more credits and David got sick.  Je'sus became discouraged and we went to Puerto Rico.

We only stayed one year in Puerto Rico. Keith was born in our Bella Vista Hospital. In those days we couldn't drive all way to Chinto's house. We had to walk about two miles. We also walked to church and caried our good shoes when we visited them.

CLICK TO GO BACK TO CHAPTER 1 PART  2

CLICK TO GO TO CHAPTER 1 PART 4

Chapter 1 Part 2

We lived with Grandpa and Grandma in Buffville for a while. Daddy and Uncle Pete made a living by driving to Joplin, Missouri, to buy fruit and vegetables to sell door to door. The landlord moved another house to replace the burned one and we moved back there. The first thing I can remember, ever, was there. I remember talking to Daddy and I think we were dressed for Church.  We did have a new Model A Ford. Daddy paid $600.00 for it. They made a platform of something and a bar that slid under the back of the car so they could haul more baskets of fruit.

Later we moved north of Altoona to a big old farm house and I remember a big empty silo. One Christmas Aunt Lola, Uncle Derral, Donald (his brother), Aunt Fay and Uncle Les, Aunt Jessie and Uncle John all came and had a wonderful fun time.  Some of the guys, in the night ate a pie and said it was Santa. They also tied some of the men's clothes in knots. 'We didn't have a tree but Mom gave me a small rubber doll. We had lots of hard Christmases. Daddy saved dimes so we would always have a little something at Christmas. To this day I have to have a little hard Christmas candy at Christmas. No one likes it and I have to throw most of it out, but it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

                                   LLOYD, DELBERT, HAZEL, OPAL, BOB, BEN

We later moved back to Buffville. Grandpa and Grandma still lived there and a few other families and Fred's Store. We had a cow and sometimes Daddy would let me ride her when he took her to the shale pit for water. Bob was born there. We called him Bobby Bill as they couldn't decide what to call him-Bobby or Billy.We lived several places after that.

We never knew we were poor. Daddy worked anywhere he could, Hoeing corn or other farm work. Even on WPA awhile. After high school Lloyd was at the CCC camp (Civilian Conservation Corps).

We had a happy childhood, enjoyed our cousins and aunts and uncles coaxing us to visit. We also enjoyed wonderful family get togethers. I had many cousins I loved but I was closest to Uncle Pete and Aunt Osa's family. We went to church at the home of friends in Neodesha. We never had a preacher, just Elder Jones from Fredonia. Daddy was not an Adventist but usually went to church with us. Our other aunts and families that lived close were not Adventists at that time but did join later.

                                                    BEN AND HAZEL LAWRY

Our happiest times were when we got to spend the night with each other. Vera and I were the same age and Viola a little older. Delbert and Ivan were about the same age and Leo a little younger. To me it was more fun at their house. We got to ride home in the back of the pick-up truck, go after the cows (which we enjoyed more than they as they had to do it all the time). We played in the water barrels, at the spring, and in the creek. Slid down the calf shed roof ate watermelon in the patch, climbed trees, and sometimes Aunt Osa would make us molasses taffy.

Once we started to get some molasses (they made their own) from a container outside the kitchen but someone or something had the lid off and a poor chicken had gotten into it. She was a sad sight but we rescued her and washed her off so she was as good as new. Once we begged to stay up till midnight and Aunt Osa let us, but it really wasn't that exciting.

They made their own molasses. They squeezed the juice in a big mill run by a mule walking round and round. Then they boiled the juice in a large pan about 3 x 10 with three divisions over an open fire until it was of the right consistency. Aunt Osa would pick wild mushrooms and fry a whole skillet in butter. Yum, Yum!

Daddy always smoked a pipe. But gave it up and joined the SDA church when I was in seventh grade. We attended meetings in Chanute and he became a believer.

When they were first married he went to the Methodist church. Mom would go with him and he would go with her. Lloyd didn't much like that. He never did accept Adventism, but after Jane Ellen was born when he looked at her said, “There has to be a God", so he and Aunt Kathy became Baptists.

                                                      BOB, OPAL, DELBERT

When I was in seventh grade we packed all we could in a trailer hooked to our old model A Ford and started for Popular Bluff, Missouri. Uncle John and Aunt Jessie lived there and daddy could work in a greenhouse where he worked. Lloyd drove us. I remember him saying as we drove out of a service station, "If a fly sits on this load we'll never make it." But we did!

Lloyd didn't stay but went to Dallas, Texas, to some cousins and did well. He worked at several jobs then got on with Braniff Airways and stayed until he retired.

We stayed there that winter. We shared a house with Jessie and John, Leland and LeRoy. Tom was born that year. Delbert, LeRoy, and I went to school there (interesting to me, here in Collegedale I met and became close friends with the lady, Thelma, who ran the greenhouse back in Poplar Bluff and her sister was married to Uncle John's cousin).

That Spring Mom and Daddy decided to follow the fruit harvest (John and Jessie had done it.). We started out picking strawberries and went on up to Michigan to peaches, pears, apples, and grapes. Mom was really fast at it and the rest of us did what we could. I had to start school in Hollywood, Michigan.

While there I got my first perm. The curlers were on long electric cords. We got a different car and headed back to Kansas. Guess they did pretty well. They bought an eighty acre farm.


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Chapter 1 Part 1

Grandma Reeve, Edith May Lewis, was born in De Moines, Iowa, on July 19, 1877.  At a young age, her mother, Nancy Jane Swan Lewis went to take care of her parents for ten or twelve years.  Edith and her father, John Henry Vreland Lewis, were not allowed to go.

Her father came to visit his sister in Tennessee.  While there he took sick and died. He is buried in St. Elmo's Cemetery at the foot of Lookout Mountain. Aunt Lola and Aunt Fay (Reeve) Prowant looked it up when visiting Donna and Bill near Chattanooga, Tennessee several years ago. Many of us cousins have visited his grave.

Grandma went to school in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1891. She visited the Chicago World's Fair in 1892. She had three sisters (Jenny, Ella, and Ida), and two brothers (Frank and Charles). Charles was a state senator from the thirty-eighth district in California. He also owned several drugstores and became wealthy. He lost it all during the depression. He visited the family in Kansas when my mother, Hazel Reeve Lawry, was young.

My grandpa, William Urbin Reeve (always called Urbin) was born in Nicoma) Illinois, in May, 1875. He had two sisters and two brothers (Ida, Edith, Ira, Leslie, and Ivan).

Grandma and Grandpa met during his days of delivering milk where Grandma worked. They were married on May 24, 1895, in Canton, Illinois. Three of their children were born there (Alma, Zenella, and Robert). Robert only lived a few days.

In 1902 they moved to a farm east of Altoona, Kansas. Four children were born there (Orval (Pete), Hazel, Jessie, and Fay.

After moving to Wickes, Arkansas, more children were born (Lola, Dolly Fern, and Leslie). Dolly Fern lived less than two years. While there Grandpa Reeve was Justice of the Peace for that area. He performed marriages, etc.

When my mother, Hazel was about 18 years of age they moved back to Kansas in three covered wagons. This was in about 1924. They invested in the Petite homestead a few miles out of Thayer, Kansas. The house there was a Sears Roebuck pre-cut house.  Mr. Petite's daughter, Mrs. Frank Perkins, and family lived next door on a farm. They only lived there a short time as farming was not Grandpa Reeve's thing. They sold it to Orval and Osa who moved up from Arkansas when Viola (she was born on September 12, 1925) was about six months old.

                                                              HAZEL REEVE

In a letter from Uncle Les Reeve---He said that when they moved back to Kansas they had comfortable beds in each wagon which Grandpa Reeve made in his black smith shop. They were three weeks along the way. They picked cotton on the way while in Oklahoma. They had a pet squirrel and a pet dog with them.

I remember my mother saying that one problem was there were no restrooms along the way. (From Derral Reeve's book, they stopped in Oklahoma and picked cotton for two weeks. So it must have taken three weeks to travel the three hundred miles from Wickes, Arkansas to Thayer, Kansas).

Grandma became a Seventh-day Adventist in her youth. Seems she never lived near a church but Aunt Fay said she gathered her children together every Sabbath morning and studied with them. In Arkansas they went to a community church. Grandpa was a Dunkard but as far as I know he never went to church. In his very last years he gave up his snuff and gave his heart to Christ.

Les said grandma insisted they move back to Kansas so the children could get a better education. Alma and Zenella had already moved back to Kansas and married. Jessie was a secretary. She worked at Enterprise Academy. Fay, Lola, and Leslie all attended the academy there. Jessie met Uncle John Borton while there and married him. Aunt Fay went to western Kansas to teach church school. While there two brothers, her students, lost their mother. She later married their father, Uncle Les Prowant. The two boys were Donald and Derral. Derral went to Enterprise while Lola was attending. They married. (Uncle Leslie Reeve went on to Madison College and became a nurse where he met and married Aunt Helen Lamberton Reeve from the state of Washington. He served in the Air Force then returned to attend Loma Linda and became a doctor. He was the only one of the family to attend college.

After selling the farm to Orval and Osa, Grandma and Grandpa moved to Buffville. Grandpa Reeve went to work at the brickyard. All the people who lived there worked at the brick yard. There was a small store and a rooming house. My father stayed at the rooming house.

                                                              BEN LAWRY

Uncle Les told me this in a letter---He said that Mom and Aunt Lola delivered milk to the boarding house and Daddy began talking to them and then walked home with them and then would sit on the porch and talk. Les and Lola would crawl under the porch and listen, 'till Daddy caught them once.'

Mom and Daddy were married on September 30, 1927 . Daddy had been married before and had a son, Lloyd, about 9 years of age. His mother was raised by strict grandparents who wouldn't let her go out much. She really liked a faster kind of life than Daddy liked. Lloyd told me he tried to bring her back, but she did not want him. Later she was very sick and came back to his family. My mother said she sat and talked and cried with her and she told Mom she was thankful Mom could care for Lloyd. She died. Mom and Lloyd were always close. Daddy was eleven years older than Mom.

We lived in Buffville until the brickyard closed down. I was born there. We then rented different places and Daddy did whatever he could find to do, mostly on farms. Of course it was the depression years and no one had much.

We lived in a farm house near Buffville when Delbert was born. Daddy and Grandpa were in Colorado harvesting broomcorn at that time. Lloyd had to go to the neighbors in the middle of the night to call the doctor when Delbert was born. Lloyd said they got ice from the ice man and made ice cream a lot. Grandma Reeve was staying with them while Grandpa was gone. I guess that was why my mother was never crazy about ice cream and Delbert weighed twelve pounds. Mom said when Daddy came home he had a red beard and when he kissed me I said "stick you me" and he shaved it off.

                                          LLOYD, DELBERT, AND OPAL

That house burned down while we were all away. I was bare foot and my shoes burned up. All the neighbors could save was a cedar chest Lloyd had made at school; in it were Delbert's baby clothes which were too small for him. I believe Jane Ellen has that chest now.


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