Our First Home - 1953-1954 in Elba, AL

This is begins a series of homes we have lived in over the past 54 years. We lived in this garage apartment on Smith Avenue in Elba for four months, from Oct. 1953 to Jan. 1954, when Jim was shipped to Germany - courtesy of US Army. I went to live with my Aunt Barbara Smith and Aunt Daisy Winston and worked at Dorsey's, saving my money to join Jim in Germany. I did not return to school at Troy State College in January.

This apartment had 3 rooms: kitchen downstairs, living room and bedroom upstairs. The garage was used for storage by the owner who lived next door. We didn't have a car so we didn't need a garage anyway. We spent our first Christmas here and had a Christmas tree upstairs in the living room. We were in carpools: Jim going to Ft. Rucker and I went the opposite direction to Troy State University. This garage apartment is still standing and is painted yellow now, but looks the same.

Fifty years later we met our former landlord when we moved to Elba and went to Elba United Methodist Church. She was Vivian Creswell in 1953. Her husband died and she remarried and was Vivian Lee in 2003. A lovely lady and every Sunday we would visit before church. She has a nice brick home about a mile from our house now, but recently had to go to the Elba Nursing Home. I wonder how many people our age remember their first landlord, and better yet get to meet them again 5o years later.

In March, 1954, I left Elba to join Jim in Wurzburg, Germany where we lived until July 1955.
Tomorrow I will show homes we lived in in Germany.

Happiness Retreat, Sunshine Camp and other camps

I have attended several summer camps with our son James over the years. Most have been sponsored by churches for adult mentally handicapped persons. One of his favorites was Happiness Retreat near Asheboro, NC at Camp Caraway, a Baptist Conference Center. Groups came from all over Eastern NC and stayed for 3 days. Each year there was a theme and we are pictured were getting ready to go to the "Big Top Circus" at the dining hall. A friend in the yellow outfit was laughing because we were having to walk through the woods to get to the party. I dressed up as the circus "fat lady" and guess what! I was unable to get under the steering wheel do drive to the party. I had on a wig and dark glasses and nobody could guess who I was, that is until James called me "Mom". I was the arts and crafts instructor at camp. I agreed to work at camp if I could stay in the air-conditioned conference center hotel instead of sleeping in the rustic cabins near the lake. James elected to stay in the hotel with me. This beautiful camp is in the deep woods beside a lake. I remember how good the camp food was.


Most recently we have been attending Sunshine Camp, held at the Methodist Conference Center at Blue Lake, near Andalusia, AL. They have camps in April and Sept for MR adults. We like to go in September. Here you see the campers gathered for vespers by the lake, and a photo session. Each camper got a photo to take home. James is in the center wearing his red Coke hat.

Several of his friends from his workshop were there with him. I am usually one of the camp staff. They have a full day of activities and in the evenings there's entertainment, i.e., dances, concerts, games, etc.

Here you see the campers walking by the beautiful blue lake. Sometimes there's a problem with the pesky lovebugs in September.

Jim doesn't like to go to camps with James and give up his comfortable bed at home. I give up the comforts of home to go to camp and help make memories for James and his friends. They need something to do for fun and to be with their peers and have a good time.

Once on a camping trip to Camp Caswell, NC, on the Atlantic Ocean, James and 8 of his friends won the talent show. They wore curly wigs and dressed alike (all black clothes) and sang "Turn your Radio On" - they were so funny. We enjoyed walking on the beach and looking for shells. He brought a big bag shells home and we put them in the flower bed to remind us of our trip to the coast.

Trip to Costa Rica in Feb. 1983

In Feb. 1984, I went to San Jose, Costa Rica with Jim and some others from Bali Co. for an anniversary of their plant in Cartago. We flew into the capital city of San Jose, circling the area several times spiraling down between the mountains to land. The natives on the plane began cheering because the pilot had landed on the first attempt! This was not a vacation trip but one filled with meetings with officials from Costa Rica at parties, dinners, etc. They were happy to have American plants located in their country. Click on the map to enlarge it and see where we visited.

We did manage to have some time to explore the area, play some golf on a course at the resort where we were staying, and visiting in homes of dignitaries in the countryside and on the Pacific Coast at Puntarenas. You can see we are dressed in summer clothes here. Back home in Winston-Salem, NC it was snowing. My sister Susan was spending the week with our son. They were "snow bound" for a couple of days. She was finally able to drive 25 miles to Greensboro where she taught nursing at University of NC at Greensboro. All the snow was gone when we got back to NC.

I'm pictured here with two Costa Rican ladies at a country club where we had lunch. In the background are large bougainvilla bushes blooming. They were every- where. I had never seen such pretty flowers. I knew they wouldn't grow in NC but when we moved to Elba, AL, I had to have one. That is until last summer when I threw it in the trash! I got so tired of watering it and it had big thorns that were always sticking in me. I decided I really did not want that bush.

You can see in the photo here how colorful the bouganivallas were in Costa Rica, often climbing    up on tops of houses.

There were so many pretty birds in Costa Rica. I came home with several stuffed parrots and Maccaws, and a variety of pottery birds. This parrot hangs in our laundry room looking out the window. He is outside by the banana bush in this photo.

Coming home through customs in Miami, we were in a very long line. A customs agent walked through the line and motioned for us to follow him. I thought "what have we done" but when we got inside he said we wouldn't have to wait to go through customs. I don't know how he picked us out of the crowd! Jim told me they sometimes do that for people in business clothes.

Daughters of the American Revolution

Here I am standing beside Constitution Hall, the DAR headquarters building in Washington, DC. This was taken in the early '80s when my sister Christine and I attended the DAR National Convention. Last year I received my 25 year certificate. Time goes by so fast. I joined the DAR when we lived in Winston-Salem, NC.

I was given an old family history of the Smith family written in 1903. Chris used information in that book to trace our ancestors back to Samuel and John Smith of NC. We both joined the DAR using Samuel Smith as our Amer. Revolutionary ancestor.

When I learned that my Smith ancestor was buried north of Winston Salem, Jim and I started spending week-ends looking for his grave. One weekend we found the old Smith graveyard underneath GA Power lines in Reidsville, NC. This led to other "discoveries" in the area concerning my Smith line.

When I attended the DAR National Continental Congress, I stayed with Chris near Mt. Vernon, VA. We took the Metro to downtown D.C. to the DAR meetings during the convention. It was an exciting time and we enjoyed all the events. It was fun meeting people from all over the US, all with a common bond. The meetings were very patriotic and I remember Gen. Douglas McArthur's widow, Jean,was an honored guest at one of the meetings. Several of my DAR Chapter members from NC were at the meeting and it was our turn to sit in the "box" above the auditorium. I felt like royalty sitting there.

 For the banquet, we were all dressed in formal attire. Chris and I drove her car to the train station in Alexandria, boarded the Metro to get downtown and walked about a block to Constitution Hall for the big event. Going home late in the evening meant walking thru homeless people sleeping near the sewer vents where steam was coming up, and waiting to get on the Metro. There were stares when people saw us all dressed up in our long formal dresses, getting on the subway. We didn't mind; we were having a good time.

Thanks to Chris for all her genealogy research, I now have 9 more Amer. Rev. soldiers in my line. She has one more than I do. She attends DAR meetings in Salisbury, MD and I am a member of the John Coffee DAR Chapter in Elba/Enterprise. This chapter was started in 1961 by Miss Eunora Farris, the sister of our Aunt Ethel (Mrs. Drayden)Smith. We have 55 members in our chapter and I have served in several offices and currently am registrar. We meet several times a year and always have interesting meetings. I am very interested in preserving historic landmarks and making our country a better place to live. Jim's interest in genealogy has helped him learn more about his ancestors and he has joined the Sons of the Amer. Revolution chapter in Enterprise.

Five Weeks Later -

This photo on the left was made July 27th and entered on my blog, along with a message that I was starting on a weight loss program (of my own) and that I would have my picture made at this same place once a month. I had sorta forgotten what I said and today someone who reads my blog reminded me. So... I am posting a photo on the right, made this morning in my "working in the yard" outfit. And I might add 11 lbs. less. I noticed that my pants were not so tight in the waist this morning. I am 4 lbs from my first goal of 15 lbs by October 3rd - our 54th anniversary.

A trip to the Dr. for my annual check-up and lab work was the main reason I set up my weight loss plan. I needed to lower my blood sugar (and I have it in a good range now), lower my cholesterol (HDL had actually increased but the bad one was too high), and get rid of my big stomach! The only medicine I take is Plavix and that's because I can't tolerate aspirin and having had 2 mini-strokes, I must take Plavix.

Here's my plan and I've been doing this faithfully since July 27: Walk at least 30 minutes a day. I go walking at 6:15 a.m. almost every day with my neighbors, at least 5 days a week. Eat healthy foods - no junk food.
A friend was wanting to lose weight and she and I are in this together. In the beginning for the first 2 weeks, I followed the WW program on my own. I was eating the right foods but the
portions were too big. My friend had been on the South Beach Diet and recommended I try that. The first 2 weeks on the diet were very restrictive. I missed fruits and my oatmeal and cereal.

I made it thru Phase 1 and now I am adding back foods that are allowed on Phase 2. I haven't missed bread, pasta and other high carb foods. I have plenty to eat and have not been hungry and this is the 5th week I've been on my healthy food plan. I have lost 11 pounds since July 27. It has come off slowly: 1/2 lb at the time mostly. And some days I gain 1/2.

Papa and Mama Smith

I have such good memories of my mother's parents, Oswald Cole and Bessie Jewel Mayberry Smith. I was the first grandchild and mother had brothers and sisters younger and still living at home when I was growing up. I was "special" when I went to visit them.


First I will talk about Papa Smith or "Bunch" as he was called. I never asked him how he got that name. I wish I knew. He was a very smart man and loved to read. He was a farmer most of his life and grew cotton and corn mostly. He was called the "watermelon king" in and around Elba. He always had a ripe melon to celebrate July 4th. In the 1940's, he farmed with a mule and never used a tractor. He always grew enough food in their garden to eat in the summer and they canned enough for the winter. Then he would gather the extra vegetables and take to others. He was a very devout Christian man and loved to read the Bible and go to church. He had a big leather suitcase he kept Bibles and religious books in and would stand on the sidewalk on Saturdays near Stokes Haire's drug store in Elba and sell his Bibles and books. Papa Smith had several brothers and sisters and he was very close to his youngest brother, Drayden, who had Smith Bros. store in Elba. Since Papa Smith didn't own a car, Uncle Drayden would provide transportation for him when he needed to go someplace that he couldn't walk to or in bad weather. He never got angry and always had something good to say about people. One thing that stands out in my mind was when I was 9 or 10, I was visiting them and went with him to take cotton to the gin, using the mule and wagon to get there. He gave me a quarter to spend at the 5&10 store and I bought a Captain Marvel funny book. He lectured to me all the way home about the "evils" of those books and gave me some religious books to read when I went home. I didn't see anything wrong with my funny book and kept reading them! He loved to go fox hunting and had a horn he blew to call his dogs. I learned something about him when I began to study the geneaology of our Smith ancestors. That his ancestors were Quakers, coming from NC to AL. I really think that influenced his upbringing and why he was such a devout, pious man. He never wanted material possessions; just food and a roof over his head. He liked to move around a lot and they lived in several homes when I was growing up. The last several years of his life he took care of Mama Smith who became an invalid due to several health problems. He was a great cook and only cooked and ate healthy foods. No junk food in his house! He had a heart attack when they were visiting my parents one Sunday and he never recovered from that. Died of kidney failure 21 Oct. 1956 at Opp Mizelle Memorial Hospital. I truly loved Papa Smith. He made me feel so special.




Mama Smith was always "old" to me. Maybe it was the way she dressed and she never went anywhere. Always stayed at home and cooked and took care of the house. She was a very quiet lady, with a soft voice. She wasn't very talented; not a very good cook and couldn't sew.I do remember her chocolate cakes with the thin chocolate icing. She just went about her daily life of looking after people. There was always an old person staying with them; somebody who needed a place to live and somebody to take care of them. I remember "Aunt Lou" and "Aunt Pink". They both died when I was young. It was many years later before I knew their relationship to our family. Mama Smith liked to play board games and dominoes with me. Our favorite was "Uncle Wiggly". She would play it over and over. She would let me read her daily journal that she recorded events of each day; who came to visit, the weather, etc. I wonder what ever happened to her big stack of journals. She was 90 years old when she died 30 Dec 1976, after spending several years in the Elba Nursing Home. She went there soon after it opened in the 1960's and really liked living there. In the summer she and other residents would gather in the big dining room and shell peas and butterbeans for lunch. I can't imagine that going on in the nursing home today.

The Gilmers Have Two Eagles

Our sons, Ronnie and Bill, both earned their Eagle Badges in Boy Scouting while in high school. They both spent their summers working at the District Scout Camp Dierks near Broken Bow, OK until they started to college. They are both great cooks and learned these skills on camping trips. I've never forget the day Ron was given his Eagle award at our church in Paris, TX. The boys and I went to Sunday school and Jim was coming later to church to take part in the ceremony. We kept waiting for Jim and finally decided he wasn't coming. Poor Jim! He was at home searching for his car keys and guess where they were! In my purse.... I had picked them up by mistake and didn't realize I had them. After that day, we always have a  spare set of keys at home. So that's why Jim isn't in this photo: Nell Gilmer, Ron Gilmer, Scoutmaster Lawrence Wade, Dr. Jim Semple and Ronnie, receiving his Eagle Scout Award in Paris, TX in 1970


I looked for a photo of Bill getting his Eagle award but this was a time when we made slides instead of photos and I would have to look through a lot of slides to find him getting his Eagle. For his Eagle project, Bill did some work at the church. I don't remember all the details of that project.


But do I ever remember Ron's project. When we moved to Paris in 1967, we were fascinated with living in the Southwest and all the history of the area. I learned that the founder of the Chisholm (Chisum) Trail was buried in Paris, Tx and started searching for his grave. I found it in an overgrown family cemetery at the edge of town. I suggested Ron get some help and clean this historic cemetery for his Eagle project. Again my photos are all on slides and I don't have one to post here. It's been over 35 years since he did this project. I wonder if you can find that cemetery now. There is a Texas historical marker at the cemetery with this inscription: " BURIAL SITE OF JOHN S. CHISUM (1824-1884) CATTLE BARON WHO MOVED HERDS FROM EAST TO WEST TEXAS AND INTO NEW MEXICO AND FOUNDED ONE OF THE GREATEST CATTLE SPREADS IN THE WEST."



Jim and I have both worked with boy scouts; I was a Den Mother and Jim was an Asst. Scoutmaster. Our son James was also in Boy Scouts when he was younger.