The Land of OZ - Living in Kansas

When we were told that we were being sent to Fort Riley, Kansas from Germany, we had no idea what the area looked like. All I knew was how Dorothy described it in The Wizard of Oz; dust and cyclones. And we had lots of both!

We rented this small one bedroom, furnished house at 2120 Elm Lane, Manhattan, KS. We moved there in the summer of 1955 and lived there for 1 year. While living here, our son John Randall was born and when he was one month old, he died of "crib death". He is buried in the Manhattan cemetery. I went to work at Ft. Rucker later and we moved to Junction City, KS to be closer to Fort Riley. Looks like we needed to cut the grass in this photo!


This little frame, 2 bedroom house, was located 702 E. 9th St. in Junction City, KS. We bought just enough furniture to get by because we knew we would be moving to Atlanta, GA a year later when Jim got his discharge from the army in Sept. 1957. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you can see Ronnie and his little red fire truck. It was while we were living here that we heard a tornado passing over our town early one morning. And I thought immediately of Dorothy!
We met another army couple across the street from us from Galivant's Ferry, SC, and we have remained friends since 1957 and visit occasionally.
In 1974, on a vacation trip to Glacier national Park, we spent the night in Manhattan, KS and visited the cemetery for the first time since moving away in 1957. Manhattan is home to Kansas State University and a nice college town. Junction City was close to the army base and more of a military town. While living in Junction City, Jim and Ronnie flew to Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver, Colorado, for Ronnie to have the first of 3 operations on his eyes. The army would only let one parent accompany the child so I was left behind. The office where I worked was located in one of the older buildings on the army base and once was the office of General Custer! The horse stables were still close by. I worked at the Separation Center and typed up Jim's Discharge Papers, DD214, when he was discharged from the army in Sept. 1957. He was released a few months early in order to go to college in Atlanta, GA.

Tomorrow on my blog, we will be living in Chamblee, GA, a suburb of north Atlanta.

Our homes in Germany 1954-1955

While Jim was stationed in Wurzburg, Germany in the US Army, we lived in 3 different locations. The first place was in a small village of Vietschorheim, near Wurzburg. We lived upstairs in this large German house. We shared the bathroom downstairs with the Gootbrod family, and we ate our meals with the family: mother, father and young son. I remember there were no screens on the windows that opened wide, overlooking the Main river down in the valley. The family did not own a car; walked down the hill to the village or rode on the bus or trains to go outside the village. They rode bicycles sometimes. I carried a German-English dictionary with me at all times to learn to speak German. We had to heat our water to take a bath and sometimes I would take my clothes with me to the army base and get a shower at the recreation center. We didn't have a refrigerator or ice so had to go to the grocery store daily or eat out. We lived here from March 1954 until that fall.
With winter coming on we decided to get a place in Wurzburg. We rented one room in a big house and it contained a bed, stove and table. Still no frig. I remember how cold it was at this place. Luckily Jim got promoted to Sgt. that fall and we were able to get army housing in December. We chose to live in a German house the Government was using for Americans instead of living in a apartment on the army base. Our house was at 66 Zepplinstrasse. We lived downstairs and another military family lived upstairs. We still didn't have hot water but this time we had a refrigerator. We could heat our water by building a fire under the water heater which was in the basement. We took our laundry to the cleaners on the base. We had German neighbors and really enjoyed living in this big house. Our first son Ronnie was born when we were living here. We bought a car that winter - a new German Ford, which we used to take trips on week-ends or holidays. We returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1955 on the US Upshur ship and Jim was assigned to Ft. Riley, Kansas.



We have both gone back to Wurzburg at separate times and enjoyed touring the area where we once lived. A few years ago our son Ronnie went there to see where he was born and took pictures of our house. The US Government turned it back over to the Germans not long after we were living there.

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.