Bill took me to his sister, Jane’s, on our honeymoon. It was fun to visit them. They both were working and I got to love Jane right away. Her interest centered on her husband and children.

The Myers family fixed us a small apartment behind the main house. Later in the year when we were expecting our first child, David, we fixed up the cottage next door. Bill’s sister, Mary (newly married) and Jim Vitale moved into the apartment. The family compound was growing.

While still living at Tuttle’s, we visited Columbia quite often. Daddy had moved his parents to an old house in Columbia to better care for them. Grandma Proffitt had a cow, Molly, who she loved and was known to kiss! Didn’t I tell you I loved animals? Once when grandma was sick, Bill milked Molly for her; he made a hit with her. She vowed she was the only one could milk Molly.

Even before this, when David was 6 months old we went to Columbia for a week for Bill to keep the store while Mama and daddy went to FL. David was so cute, mama didn’t really want to leave.

When Jeff was little, we were in Columbia, after visiting Grandma and Granddaddy Proffitt, I was getting him settled in bed. Trying to get him to say his prayers, we mentioned Granddaddy Proffitt. He said, “Yes, mama, but who made his feathers?” Granddaddy did have a handle-bar mustache.

The next year, after David was born, we were expecting Jeanie. As the family was growing, we dreamed of building a home, on farm land several miles away. Four years later, 1960, Jeff was born, we needed more space so rented a house, Portwood’s, closer to our church. Meanwhile, work was started on our home - Tuttle’s (named after people who had lived there years earlier. ) Building was a slow process - money-wise and time-wise. Finally, we moved into a very unfinished house when David was first grade age, 1962. Nancy was born that year. Now days, you wouldn’t be allowed to move into such an unfinished house.

I was so involved with children - which I loved - that I was hardly aware of what was going on. Some nut named Madeline, somehow, persuaded the US not to allow prayer in the public schools! I WAS aware when David was in first grade, of the Cuban missile crisis. Communist Russia, our enemy at that time, had a missile in Cuba to attack the US. President Kennedy put a Naval blockade on Cuba blocking incoming weapons, threatening that we would come and destroy them. Russia backed down. It was so hard to send David to school that day.

I need to tell about the children calling out at night that they were afraid. Whenever they did and I answered, “Just pray for God to help you.”, they NEVER needed to call out again that night; I wish the children remembered that. I think that was when we moved into the unfinished house when you could look up into the rafters.

After a long fun summer when Jeanie and David walked up the driveway to catch the bus to school, Jeff laid down face down in the dirt and cried. He wanted them home playing with him. They played in a big pile of dirt and built houses out of unused cinder blocks. Our black dog, at that time, had one white tip on the end of her tail - thus she was called “Snow Flake”. Once, we saw her on top of the cinder block house!

When they began Daylight Saving Time as an experiment, each county in VA varied in time. We could go to church ,then go to Columbia just in time for their lunch. Figure that out.

At Tuttle’s, we had a back yard garden. Three or four year old Jeff could often be seen bent over double picking and eating strawberries. Once he walked up the driveway, pulled over a stalk of corn and nibbled on the field corn.

David and Jeff bought day-old calves at the stock market (cattle auction) to raise for veal. Each morning they took a bucket with a long nipple on the side to feed the calves. They had them almost ready for market when during one night, big dogs broke down the fence and killed the calves. Not a good time.

David, probably age seven or nine, would go out to feed his horse. The back door would be locked behind him, we were still in bed SO he had a problem. When he asked what he should do, I jokingly said, “You could hoe a row in the garden.” Sure enough, one morning he was hoeing!

A magazine salesman came to the house and told me I needed magazines because what else was there to do way out there!

When Frances was on the farm one summer, she fixed drinks and snacks; we all took the children to Dogwood Dell in Richmond. This was outside in a park where they did drama for children - really special.

I just absolutely loved being a mother and doing what needed to be done for the children. There was a lot of conflict with differences in my ways and Bill’s backed up by so much family. Also, farming was just such a debt builder. Our house was really too expensive for us to maintain. Bill had to finally sell his machinery and look elsewhere for work. He tried several jobs including teaching.

Nancy, Jeanie, Jeff & David  
Mama gave me this settee      

Bill, Mary Ellen, Jeanie & David           House we built in Hanover, VA

Jeanie, David, Mary Ellen & Nancy, Jeff & Bill
Soon after we moved into our new house in Hanover, VA