Retiring to Sweet Home Alabama

We returned to my "roots" when we retired and moved to our farm in the Curtis community, between Elba and Opp,AL. We bought 80 acres of my family farm in 1983 and started planting it in pines that year. Soon after 1n 1986 we had an 8 acre fish pond built on the property that was spring fed. In this photo you see some of our family who gathered at the site of the new lake and named it "Lake Lawrence" for my dad.

Next we bought an old frame house (roof had caved in!) from Mack Westbrook and he remodeled it for us before we moved it to the farm in 1987 to become our "cabin in the woods". We located the house to a spot overlooking the lake. A friend of my brother gave us an old mobile home he wanted to dispose of and in 1992 we had it moved to use for overflow guests to the farm during family get-togethers. This is where we chose to move in 1996 and live out our retirement days.

This is the front view in 1987 soon after the house was moved, and before the front porch was added. Later we enclosed the foundation with cement blocks. We used this place for our family to come on holidays for get-togethers.

In this photo you can see the back screened porch added to the lake house.

Tomorrow I will continue with photos of the farm and discuss the changes that took place after we moved to the farm permanently. We lived there from 1996 to fall of 2003, when we moved to Elba, 8 miles away.

Returning to Georgia after 22 years

We moved to 512 Ardmore Lane in Albany, GA in September 1990. You entered our 3 car garage from an alley behind our house. This was a very large house and much more room than we needed. It had a living room, dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, den with fireplace, 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 bathrooms, laundry room, and a huge den that had been added on (and this is where we lived most of the time). A covered patio was off the den and we had a big storage room beside the carport, plus a storage building at the back of the lot. And if this wasn't enough, we had stairs to the attic that was floored and used for storage. I kept the maid that the previous owners had and Lillie Mae came every Tuesday to help clean this big house. Her home was flooded in 1994 and we got to help her out some, plus a lot of other people less fortunate. We didn't have any flood damage. The only thing we didn't like about this place were the big pine trees. Pine straw fell like rain drops in the fall. We had a yardman who came every week all year long. Eddie cut the grass in the summer and raked pinestraw in the fall and winter.


Jim worked in Cordele at Sero Shirt Co. and I had a part time job with the Univ. of GA Cooperative Extension Service as Occupant Safety Coordinator for SW GA for the Governor's Highway Safety Office. I helped organize a Safety Program for businesses and manufacturing plants in Albany area and served as President one year. When I had to go to state meetings every 3 months, I would take James along since Jim was usually away on trips. James got to know the people I worked with and they called him my assistant. Our meetings were usually held at resorts such as Jekyl Island or Savannah, or in Atlanta.

We enjoyed going to Covenant Presbyterian Church on Lake Lorene and made many friends there. We went back in 2005 to their 50th anniversary and many of our friends had passed away, including our next door neighbor Lamar Stewart who was the retired High Sheriff of Daugherty Co. Once when we were at our farm in Alabama, Lamar called us to tell us that someone had removed a window and broken into our house. We hurried home to find the sliding door on the patio open and the house filled with mosquitos. They took electronic items including tv's, video players, radios, coin collection, and other items. I thought we were safe with the retired sheriff as a neighbor.


We made many trips back and forth to our farm in Elba, AL when we lived in Albany. In the spring of 1996, we decided to sell our house and retire early (we were 62 that year), and move to our farm. We sold our house right away and the people wanted to move in the next week. That wasn't possible since we had to find a place to store all our furniture until we could remodel the farm house. It took us about a month to get everything moved. We were leaving our 3,000 sq ft home and moving into a tiny, two bedroom cottage by a lake in the woods. We converted an old 2 bedroom mobile home into a guest house and lived in it for about 4 months. More about that tomorrow!

We lived in Albany for 6 years and had many friends there. The Marine base was on the east side of town and we loved to going to their fireworks displays on holidays. I had a great DAR chapter in Albany.
James had his colon removed while we lived there after over a year of severe kidney infections which were caused by a leakage of E. coli from his colon. He was in the hospital for 2 weeks and I don't think I left his side very much during that time. My sister Alice came and spent some time with us to help out.

South Carolina Low Country our next home

About 6 months of being the owner of a business real estate company in Dothan, Jim decided that this was not for him and he sold his franchise and started looking for a job back in the apparel business. In the meantime I was working at Ft. Rucker at the Army Safety Center. so we continued to live in Dothan until he found a job as Vice Pres. of Gilligan O'Malley Lingerie in Latta, SC. We chose to live in Florence, SC, about 30 miles south of Latta, so James would have a place to go every day. Jim lived in a furnished apartment for about 3 months while he looked for a place to live.

We bought a beautiful 2 story colonial home at 2408 Mosswood Dr in west Florence, just a short distance from I-95. There was snow on the ground and moss hanging in the big oak trees was covered with snow. James thought the house looked haunted and called it a witch house and wouldn't get out of the car to go inside to check it out! Three bedrooms and 2 baths were upstairs and downstairs we had a big family room with fireplace, dining room, study, small den with TV, kitchen and breakfast room, laundry and half bath, and attached to the double carport a long storage room and workshop.

We bought the house from some people from Maine. They didn't rake the leaves; just spread them all over the yard and planted vegetables everywhere in little gardens. It took us a long time to get the leaves raked up and grass planted.

The summer after we moved there, I decided to go to Frances Marion University and work on my Master's Degree and get a teaching certificate. I was surprised to pass the Graduate Exam to enter college. I did my practice teaching at South Florence High School in the spring of 1989. I started teaching 7-8 grades in September 1989 at Moore Middle School.

The second week of school, we were dismissed early one day so the school could be converted to a hurricane shelter - Hurricane Hugo was coming! It was a beautiful day and we just couldn't believe bad weather was headed our way. But it came late at night. We brought mattresses downstairs to sleep in the hallway in the center of the house. Jim and James went to bed and went to sleep. I stayed up to watch for the storm and when it struck, I have never been so terrified. The big oak trees were bending over and our neighbor lost many trees in his yard. We were lucky just losing some roofing over the carport. Our house was plastered with green leaves, looking as if we tried to camoflauge it. Florence was hit hard and we were without electricity and water for about a week. Trees were down everywhere and we couldn't get out on the streets. Nobody had phone service so we had no contact with the outside world for a few days. Our TV station was off the air but we had battery radios.

We enjoyed going to our condo at Myrtle Beach, just 69 miles east. We also had relatives in NC and SC that we enjoyed being with. The Amtrak train came through Florence and James enjoyed going to the train station to see the train when it stopped to load and unload pssengers.

In the spring of 1990 Jim learned that Gilligan O'Malley was going to close their plant and he started looking for a job close to our farm in Alabama. He got a job with Sero Shirt Co. in Cordelle, GA and we chose to live in Albany, GA and moved there in the summer of 1990.

Let us go unto Dothan (that's in the Bible!)

We moved from Haleyville to Dothan in the spring of 1987. We rented this house in Grimes community near the Dothan airport. It was located at 401 Lingo Road at the end of the street. We only had one neighbor close by. The house belonged to a lady who had to move to Baptist Village assisted living. The house was well maintained (I think we were the first renters) and had a big orchard in the back with lots of pecan trees, which we enjoyed. We were not too far from Elba and enjoyed going to the farm on week-ends.

The landscaping was beautiful with lots of blooming shrubs. Here I am pictured with James in the front yard.

We were living here when our calico persian cat disappeared one night. Pupoki (Poki for short) liked to sleep on top of our car in the carport. We think she was "catnapped" since the carport was near the street and people were always turning around in our driveway at the end of the street. She was a beautiful cat and we spent about a week driving around looking for her. She came from Hawaii as a kitten and a neighbor in NC gave her to us when they had to move. They told us that Pupoki meant "cat" in Hawaiian.

Moving to the Free State of Winston (Alabama)

In the fall of 1985 we moved to Haleyville, AL in Winston County. Winston Co. was called the Free State of Winston because they tried to secede from the State of Ala. during the Civil War.
Jim went to work for Kayser Roth Corp. when he resigned from Bali. I had never heard of Haleyville. We rented a house for 3 months until we bought a large house near the Bankhead Forest and the Sipsey wilderness area - 6 miles from Haleyville.

(http://www.lightinside.org/bike/sipsey_wilderness_area.htm)  This house  had so many features such as a commercial stove and built-in appliances in the kitchen, all kinds of electrical gadgets available from Ala Power, marble floors in bathrooms, big garage with separate garage door openers, storm shelter underneath one side of the house, and much more. A small catfish pond was at the edge of the yard. The large 5 acre yard was beautifully landscaped and we had to hire someone to take care of it. A red barn was used for storage. We felt lost in such a big house with so many rooms, but this was the only house we could find to buy when we moved there. We moved in during Christmas week. Ron, Cindy and Elizabeth came from Texas for Christmas, and Bill came from Columbus, OH. It was snowing the
night the arrived and was a very cold week.

I became interested in the history of Winston Co. and I helped research and write a history of the county and Phil Campbell Jr. College wrote a musical play from this history for an outdoor drama about the Free State of Winston. It was performed the first time in the parking lot of a grocery store in the county seat of Double Springs. For the past several years, it has been performed at Looney's Tavern amphitheater in Double Springs www.archives.state.al.us/emblems/st_drama.html

I must go see it again some day to see if it's anything like the original one we wrote. We got to know the sister and brother of Pat Butram who was on Green Acres (the farmer, Mr. Haney). Most of the industry of that area was building mobile homes. We were there only 8 months when Kayser Roth announced they were closing the Hayleyville plant. This was a shock for this small town and Jim agreed to stay on to assist in closing the plant down. In November someone wanted to buy our house and we moved into a rental house and stored much of our furniture until Jim finished his job and looked for employment elsewhere.

We decided to move to Dothan, to be close to our tree farm in Elba, AL and Jim bought a commercial real estate franchise to sell businesses. He had a real estate license and thought he would try his hand at selling real estate. So in the spring of 1987 we moved to Dothan, AL.

Heading back south - to North Carolina

We moved to Winston-Salem, NC in 1979 and built another house - this time a cedar, California contemporary style in a wooded area (on a hillside) in a new subdivision called "Hunters Ridge". Our address was 161 Hunters Ridge Road. This was a "fun" house and had several levels. We had 3 bedrooms upstairs and one in the day-light basement, 3-1/2 baths living room, den with fireplace, kitchen, dining room and and breakfast room on the first level.



We had a large wooden deck across the back overlooking the deep woods. We ate many of our meals on the deck. We built the den around a large tulip popular tree on the right side.








I took a class to learn to make stained glass and created these windows at the front door. The first one was fun but then I had to make another to match and that was hard to do. These made beautiful shadows on the hall wall in the evening.






Our builder Mike Wrege installed a basketball goal over the garage as a present for James. Here you see him playing with his older brother Ron who was visiting from Texas. James' room was over the garage on the 2nd floor and he had a small den off his bedroom.

We were living in this house when Bill graduated from East Texas State University in Commerce, TX. in 1980. The following year Ronnie and his wife Cindy both graduated from Stephen F. Austin Univ. in Nacogodoches, TX.




While living in Winston-Salem, we bought a 3-bedroom condo on the first floor at Pelican's Island at Myrtle Beach, next to the Dunes Golf Course. We rented it during the summer months and then we enjoyed going there in the fall and spring. We enjoyed going to the beach when we lived in Florence, SC about 69 miles from our condo. We sold it when we moved to GA later.

Living in Minnesota- short summers, long winters

We moved to 2418 Sheridan Hills Curve in Wayzata, MN in May 1977 when Jim was promoted to Vice-Pres. of the Women's Apparel Div. of Munsingwear. We bought a split level house on top of a hill. Lilacs were blooming everywhere and smelled so good. We left Bill and Ronnie in Texas in college. Wayzata is located on Lake Minnetonka and I loved shopping in the village beside the lake. Jim worked downtown Minneapolis at Munsingwear Corporate Headquarters. Summer was great and the leaves began to turn in August. I remember the first October we were there it started snowing while I was inside a shopping mall and when I came out, my car was covered with snow. That first snow was exciting. And then it snowed, and snowed, and snowed until about April. In the photo above, James is waiting for his school bus to come. He was at the end of the route and traveled a long way to Crystal, MN to school. They never missed a day because of bad weather. The roads were plowed before daylight each morning.


Downstairs on the right was the living room, dining room, kitchen and den on the back and large screened porch. Going upstairs were 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Then from the ground level you go down some steps to the garage and the "mud room" and laundry. Then you go down steps to the basement and there was a Swedish (3 open sides ) fireplace, a study, a playgroom, and my sewing room - and the big oil furnace.
The big, insulated 2 car garage was great in the winter. Didn't need air conditioning very often. Our big oil furnace was so nice in the winter. The snow never melted in the winter - just kept packing up. In this photo it was about 3 ft deep. On the left of the photo you can almost see the driveway. I traded with my neighbor - I mended his winter Eddie Bauer down jackets and he plowed our driveway with his tractor.



Our first winter in MN was one of the coldest on record. Here you seen Jim on top of the kitchen roof trying to chop away some ice that had built up in a shady place. Single digit temperatures were not uncommon in the winter.

Minneapolis is a great city. The quality of life is very good. We learned to cross country ski, eat Swedish food, and loved traveling in the state. Sailing was a big pasttime on the many lakes (when they weren't frozen over). We only lived there 2 years and Jim was ready to head back south. He was traveling to Texas and Mexico much of the time we lived there and never got used to the cold. James and I adjusted and really enjoyed living there. We had great neighbors and our first Christmas they had a big Christmas open house to introduce us to Scandinavian foods - and they were great! On our 25th wedding anniversary they took us to a restaurant in Minneapolis to celebrate. I think they just liked to hear our Texas accents. I went to Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey's funeral in St. Paul in 10 degree weather. A few years after we left MN, our son Bill went to work there for a TV station in St. Paul. We left MN in the summer of 1979 after James graduated from Cavenaugh High School (special education), and moved to Winston-Salem, NC where Jim became Vice-Pres. of Bali, a Div. of Hanes. We wanted to be closer to his parents in Harrisburg, NC since his father was not well. He had heart problems and died in Feb. 1983.