Elm City years meant all the business of raising a family. We moved David’s pony, Spark from the farm to Elm City. Bill added onto the house two small bedrooms, a small bath, utility room, a nice screened in porch, enlarged our bedroom and den including a fireplace. There was a whole lot of brick to clean and use again. The children made a big to-do about cleaning them - I think we paid a penny a brick. David was able to help Bill with a lot of the work.

The big shop was what Bill loved about the place and he added a little red barn there. Most mornings, Spark was at the window looking for David to come feed him. David spent many Sunday afternoons with a friend who came with his horse to ride together. Once when David had a new “leather” jacket, Spark actually tried to hide behind a tree.

Jeanie, Jeff and Nancy all were involved in the school band which meant attending many parades and concerts. Jeanie and Jeff each received awards for their piano music. Jeff pursued music even in college and is still very involved in music. He collects instruments and is in bands. Probably the best decision he ever made was joining the Air Force. He learned all about computers which led to his life’s work.

In fact, when he returned home from the Air Force, Jeff had no trouble getting a job. One of his customers, Rawls & Winstead, hired him to create a Web-based application to automate their unattended fueling stations. This helped them to know if the pumps stopped working or if they ran out of gas. This was recognized and published in a business magazine. Bill, who serviced computers, was amazed at all he knows.

Jeanie was always a conscientious student and did well and she was active in girl’s organizations at church. Somehow this was a good “lead-up” to marriage and home-schooling nine children. Each child’s life is sincerely rooted in their Christian walk. I could write the rest of my story on grandchildren but will try not to!

Nancy, as well as interest in music, was very much interested in sports. She played basketball and especially excelled in running track. Once she ran a Marathon of twenty-six miles plus! Actually, Bill ran quite a bit with her, locally, in 1980. She would often want to skip a meal to go running.

After Bullet died, Clem, raised on the farm, was given to us. David and I had watched and laughed our heads off at Red Skeleton so much, David named her after “Clem-ca-diddle-hopper” one of comedian Red Skeleton’s characters. Later, when David lived on his own down Sleepy Hollow Rd., he named his dog Ichobod. We did like unusual names.

About 1970 Hilda and Bud Holster moved to Elm City to our street. A daughter, Ruth Ann, had a horse in her back yard which led her and David being friends and dating. After marrying other people, they were finally married each other in 1998.

Bill had a small backyard garden which he enjoyed. Before he planted the garden, he cut or dug up the roots of about fifteen trees. This led other church people to asking him to cut their trees. We used the wood in the fireplace. Once when coming home with a load of wood on the trailer behind the car, the trailer came unhooked and passed the car! Luckily no other traffic was involved. When the trailer hit the ditch all the wood landed in a field. David and Ruth Ann were the ones who came by and helped him.

David mowed lawns for neighbors and David and Jeff worked in tobacco. In those days, they walked through the fields and picked each leaf that was mature. It was hot, messy work and the boy’s cloths were so sticky and slimy, they had to be washed each day. Later, Nancy helped to put tobacco leaves on sticks to hang in a barn to be cured. Jeanie did babysitting for a neighbor who has Cystic-fibrosis; coming home from college to the little girl’s funeral was very hard on Jeanie.

Besides babysitting for a neighbor, Jeanie often sat with Dr. Putney’s grandchild. Dr. Putney was in our church and such a good doctor - so easy to talk to.

Usually, on Saturday, Bill and the boys were outside working in the yard or shop. David had bought a 1929 Model “A’ which he rebuilt. One morning, I went out to the shop and found David sitting beside his car dozing! When I took him to the doctor, he had Mono-nucleosis; the doctor said we discovered it early enough it caused no damage but he had to quit sports that year. That antique 1929 car bothered me; that was the year I was born!

One summer when Nancy was working at the beach, she went to the pound and picked up a dog. His license tag read 007 SO she named him Spy. She spent a lot of time training Spy. But we laughed when Nancy first brought Spy to Elm City, our dog, Clem, actually stuck up her nose and looked away!

When Nancy got married and had Spy with her in an unfenced place, Spy was run over by a car and both legs on one side were in a cast. That dog could still walk but Bill and I agreed to keep spy while he recovered. Sad to say, after the accident, Spy was deaf. All was changed - she finally had him put to sleep.

When David got older, probably was driving, he sent Spark back to the farm and Jeff bought a small Shetland pony. He was not a nice looking creature but Jeff did seem to enjoy him.

Now that I mentioned animals, I must mention Nancy’s black rabbit that she named Kissinger. It had a cage right outside her bedroom window. One night some dogs were jumping up trying to get the rabbit; to our alarm, Nancy went out and brought the rabbit inside.

Once, Bill put up an electric fence close to the ground to keep the rabbits out of the garden. Clem had lived through this before so she just gaily jumped over it whenever she wanted to. Poor Spy got shocked and was really afraid. Years later, when we did have the yard fenced in, Bill put one of the old electric fence stobs at the edge of the garden to keep cars from turning into the garden. When poor Spy saw that old stob, shivering, he hid in the barn!

Cats are a sad story. Our female cats weren’t neutered so there were kittens galore. Our neighbor’s cat died so she gave us her old “half used” can of cat food. Well, that cat food caused our cute little kittens to die.

Somewhere along the way, we claimed a stray calico we named Seven Toes. Not realizing that there aren’t male calico cats, we called Seven Toes a male. At that time, Bill was adding onto the house and the attic was opened to the outside. Someone went into the attic one day and exclaimed, “Seven Toes just had kittens up here!” What a surprise. Somehow that cat and I were buddies. When she had kittens again, she tried her best to get in the den and sit in my lap!

With so many cats we all agreed to give some of them away. Bill and I were delivering them to a black man who wanted them. Tipsy jumped out of the car about two miles from the house. About three days later, she walked into our back yard; she was a good companion. I remember picking green beans with her sniffing my fingers as I picked.

Soon after Bill and I were married, a stray dog came to live with us. He followed Bill every where he went. My second graders read a story about a little duck named Sonny who didn’t do the usual duck activities. As the children read “No, no not Sonny” over and over, we had to name the stray “No No” when we realized she was a female.

While Bill and I were away on a week-end trip, Nancy tried to call the house; it sounded like someone would pick up the phone and not answer. She tried this several times. Then being puzzled, she called Jeanie who had the same thing happen when she tried to call. They alerted our trusty neighbor, Martha Smith. Well, she asked another neighbor, Greg Farmer, and they entered the house with Greg’s pistol drawn! Not a sign of anything wrong - quite a mystery. The rest of the story - we found this out a long time later. A neighbor across the street had a new cordless phone that kept ringing but no one was on the line.