After Bill’s schooling, he was offered a job doing computer service for Honeywell - he was very pleased. This would mean several months of school in Boston.

Leaving our boots behind with mama and daddy in Columbia, Bill, the children and I struck out for Boston for Bill’s Honeywell training. Honeywell furnished a list of places to live; we chose a home in Bellingham, MS and had to rent furniture. Bill and I slept in the living room on a sofa-bed, the girls had a double bed and the boys only had a mattress on the floor. We had only on old wringer type washing machine and a close line. It didn’t seem hard at that time. The children rode the bus to school; but it was March already and Jeanie felt the teacher resented having a new student so late in the year. They sang a song “The People in Texas, They are so Strange” - that didn’t help at all. But the children did well in school.

One of Jeanie’s school mates told us about a little mission Baptist Church that met in the basement of a community building. Tom Hathcoat was the mission pastor and did a good job. It was a small group with a good spirit.

One of the children’s friends had a dog to give away - Cindy. Nancy was outside calling Cindy once, a little girl came up saying, “I’m Cindy.”

In the morning when the children were getting ready for school, the radio was on. I remember, “These Boots Are Made For Walking”. Evidently, we hadn’t rented a TV. When they came home from school, my snack for them was often “bread crumb and raisin” cookies. They were good.

A bus from church drove through the neighborhood picking up people. We decided to ride the bus also. When Cindy, the dog, tried to follow the bus, we spayed “ammonia” on her - sounds mean now!

Speaking of leaving our boots in VA, we even had snow Easter and several other times.

Across the street from us was a young couple with two small boys. She was so friendly and welcoming and kept Nancy when I was in a spot. Once I sliced the top of my foot on the screen door, she kept Nancy while another took me to ER. All was fine. But as a young married, I wonder if I ever thanked them enough.

When school was out the end of June, we rented a cottage on Silver Lake. It was furnished. That was a fun time. Jeff and Nancy would run down to the lake to fish before breakfast! The land-lord next door let us use their boat. Bill and the children really enjoyed it. Often Cindy would swim out to join them in the boat. They caught a lot of fish which made good meals.

At night, when the children were in bed and Bill was in school, I would play Scrabble by myself!

Of all things, after we moved, I was called for jury duty in Dallas. And the only time we were audited was right after we left Dallas. Luckily, we had stored all our important papers in a locked closet in the Dallas garage. Our good neighbor, Dorothy Hood, got them and mailed them.

One couple in our little Mission Church was Hoyt and Shirley Huffman. She played the piano and he was our Sunday School teacher. We visited in their home and have exchanged cards through the years. To our surprise, a Christmas card sent to them received an answer from Texas! They had moved down to be near a divorced daughter and help with her children. What a change, but they seemed content.