| 20 | Autumn | 04 |
|---|---|---|
| Linda White Box 311 Cheyenne, OK 73628 | Richard's Family
| Dale's Family
| Virginia's Family
Elmeda's Family | Garland's Family | Ed's Family News from MOnta | Bill & Mary | Announcements |
Joe Elder 813 SW 63 Oklahoma City, OK 73139 |
| Volume 14 | of the family, by the family, for the family | Issue 1 |
| The cost is $2.00 per year (mailed). If you have an e-mail address, Joe can send you a newsletter via e-mail for free. So send him your e-mail address and save money. The news needs to come to Joe or me, Linda White. If you have any suggestions let us know. We will publish the newsletter four times a year. The deadline for your news to reach either Joe or me will be the 1st day of each new season i.e. June 21, September 22, December 21, March 21. The newsletter should be out a week later, give or take a day or so. We won’t send out reminders, so be sure to mark your calendars now. If we don’t have to send out reminders, we can keep the prices lower. Linda White, Editor | ||
Richard's FamilyWe have fared well through the hurricanes so far. Ivan went mostly to the west of Greenville, but some people on the west side of Greenville were flooded by Frances. We're on the east side. Looks like there's at least one more to go, and wouldn't you know it, the next one's name is JEANNE!! Mom now has her house for sale in Altus. We don't know when these houses will sell, as the market there just isn't very good. Mom says she's now "retired" from mending and alterations. She's spending her time going through physical therapy for a groin strain. She's actually not sure of when or how the strain occurred. She just knows she has a hard time sitting down for a long time. The lot for Sharon's house has been graded. Now that the hurricane rains are passing by, maybe the builders can lay the foundation. Weather permitting, she should be moved in by Christmas! We recently toured a house under construction that has a floor plan like Sharon's house. That really helped us get a good visual of the layout and size of the rooms. She'll be watching out for the bears out there--for real! There are bear sightings in that area. She's informed her cat that he can't go outside by himself. I say "never mind the cat" - watch out for yourself! Cecil is now a full-time security guard on 3rd shift for a while. The job is at a Mitsubishi polyester film plant in Greer, not far from where we live. It's not as boring as it might sound. He's looking into attending real estate school here in Greenville in October. The night job will allow for that and won't interfere with church activities. Also, he'll enjoy having plenty of daylight during which to practice golf. He dreams of a career on the seniors golf tour--yes, he really is that good. His current handicap is 2.4, but from history, I know he'll be able to lower that some. I mentioned "seniors" tour. Alas, it's true--Cecil and I both turned the big FIVE ZERO this summer! People say we don't look it; of course that makes us feel better! Seems like I am always tired and/or sleepy. I've been working quite a bit of overtime, so that results in fatigue. Also, I have moderate obstructive sleep apnea (that means I quit breathing in my sleep). I'm pretty good at using my C-PAP machine and I'm cutting back on carbs, but I need to get to bed earlier. Or do you think that the fatigue is from turning 50?! What do ya' think? Otherwise, all is well for us. Take care, Dale’s FamilyWhat a busy world! Hello my dear family. Life is certainly busy, too busy for my Watts blood. That isn't meant to be a cut, I am sure I am slower than most and Ron, my husband would second that comment. However, I do know what is going on to some degree lately. That is progress for me, you would just have to know the circumstances and I am not a short story person so I'll spare the details. Just trust me on this one. I have so many exciting things to say I just don't know where to start this time. My sister Gailia and family are home from China on a two year leave. Brandt is teaching at a Seminary in TN until Dec. while the family lives about and hour and a half commute into Arkansas. They have just closed or about to close on a new home there. The one they currently own is just a bit small and Brandt's mom will be living with them. So they want to ensure enough space for them all. Nathen will be enlisting and serving in Virginia Beach, Marie (Whitney) is attending public school, and Amber is being home schooled. They have been told to just be cautious of culture shock as they readjust back to the states. Loretta is working in Payroll, Cashier, Accts Payable, and just about all the time it seems at the Motel in Aspen. She loves it, they love her, and the bonuses are really nice. I think I may have written about her trip to Hawaii they have already sent her and family on haven't I ? Heather and Megan are checking out colleges. Heather is taking the first semester as a correspondence and may start this fall elsewhere. I think she has it narrowed down to two now. Meagan is a business type female, so we will wait and see. Robert still does the maintenance work at the motel where they live. Both the girls were in Borger, TX this weekend visiting with our Grandma Dixon (Robey). She has been very ill the last year with a rare very slow growing cancer. She is now in the last stages and suffered a stroke 9/10/04. We are all in a holding pattern. I know they really appreciated the time they were able to have with her. Bruce has no butt! I think he has worked his off! No not really. He's just that way, you know like the energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going and going....Robbie is the same way. Between Bruce's real paying place of employment, he takes care of his own home, he's currently still building that porch. Daddy tells me it is larger than originally planned. It is about I believe something like 8' or 10' x 20' Nice, yes? He has also helped Daddy some with moving and some mowing. And helped Curtis pick out a new truck - or maybe it was Curtis showed him the nice truck! Since that worked so very well, Curtis showed him a nice four wheeler, it worked too. It doesn't run in the family. I showed Ron a nice piece of furniture this past Sunday. It didn't fly at my house. Daddy tells me he and Frances moved from Little Mexico to Trainsville. He never realized so many trains ran through Hardin and so near them! He is hard of hearing so it doesn't bother him near as much as it does Frances, especially at night. I worried about them with so much rain down their way, but he says it's great. They are up on a small hill, even have a concrete drive. For you that don't know, for Hardin, that is upper crust of living! Frances broke her foot just before the move so she's been slowed even more, but maybe that has been good for her back. Daddy does have the trailer skirted and lawn mowed, it is looking good. Starting to look and feel like home. He did admit it was much harder moving the trailer than just the belonging in the house. With tie downs, securing things, taking it all out and putting it all back. He feels he has accomplished a lot until he looks in the garage! But we won't go there. Especially as he doesn't want to. My family is doing well also. Ron is still my anchor, he seems never to change. He has told me he would attend the next reunion with me. This year was over a few hours before I realized it would be, so I felt rather sad to see all leaving so early. I missed my talk with Jessie and need still to write her. I was looking so forward to it. And so many of you others were not there. I did however love being able to share my son, Neil, with you and you with him. I am so very proud of him and very blessed to have each of you in my family. I really do love you all. Also, next year, I hope you will be able to meet my daughter, Cheri'. She is my treasure. She is looking forward to moving to Texas and sharing and apartment with Neil this next year hopefully before spring. I must go for now, so many other things pressing. I think I have covered everyone. Uncle Pete, I hope you are doing well as of this letter. I think of you very often. Your wonderful bear hugs and dog sandwiches. I'll write later. All my Love, I knew there was more to say! Ron found we three girls had been talked about in the reader's digest. Slightly altered of course, he can see us very clear. It goes like this . . . There were three sisters, Karen which is 96, Loretta which is 94, and Gailia which is 92. They all live together. One night Karen draws her bath. She puts one foot in the tub and pauses. "Was I getting in the tub or out?" she yells. Loretta hollers back, " I don't know, I'll come up and see." She starts up the stairs and stops. She shouts, "Was I going up or coming down?" Then Gailia sitting at the kitchen table having tea listening to her sisters, shakes her head and says, " I sure hope I never get that forgetful." And knocks on wood for good measure. Then she yells, " I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door." I do love my husband, and he does know me well. We three girls are a lot alike, and would have no problem living together. But he does scare me at times when he talks like this! Yet I think all three of us see the humor. All of our children see our likenesses even though we are not together very much and live thousands of miles apart! On another note, I have talked to my Grandma Dixon about a time when she was 9 years old. She relays a day when one of her older sisters pottied out in the field, used leaves to clean with and got stung by an asp type of worm. Her mom put snuff on the sting. Out of being a source of irritation to her sister, it became a joke of sorts. NOW, when we were younger do ya'll remember the old tractor sitting beside Grandpa Watts' driveway we played on? Sure you do. One day Gailia and Bruce were fighting over the thing; as Gailia stormed off toward the house to complain to Grandma Watts, Bruce weapon in hand shot her in the behind with his B-B gun. What was the treatment you ask? That's right - snuff and a band-aid! So now I ask some of you wiser ones than I; What in the daylights does snuff do? Virginia’s FamilyAll of us are doing very well and have had a great summer. The kids planned a wonderful 75th birthday celebration for me on August 22. The celebration was held at church following the morning service complete with a special made beautiful cake, decorations and other refreshments. The whole congregation stayed for the party and others came later. I received lots of beautiful cards and happy birthday wishes. Roger came from Chicago and my good friend of 46 years came from Desert Hot Springs, California! All the kids did way too much but they always do too much for me. Otherwise, just the summer work has kept me busy. Barbara and Dennis are OK - busy as usual. Dennis is working for a contractor who makes and installs potato cellar doors and has been very busy as the potato season is here and the cellars have to have doors! Barbara is volunteering every Monday morning at T. J.'s school in his first grade room. Roger has finished his 3 year elected office as grievance chairman and is flying more - mostly to Dusseldorf, London and occasionally to Japan. Shannon and Kenneth are fine. Kenneth is the most dedicated employee - he does what-ever the job calls for and then some and also helps his Dad a lot on the ranch. Shannon is now working at American Title and Trust Company and just loves it - a good change from banking which she did not like as well. T. J. is in first grade and is such a good little student and will be 7 in November. Jordyn has started pre-school at the Day Care Center. She was enrolled with the 3 year olds and was too far ahead of them so she is now taking the 4 year old class. She was 3 in May! I decided it was time for a change, so with a lot of help from Dennis and Barbara we have stripped the old ugly dirty wallpaper off of 3 bedrooms and the hall - such a tedious, time consuming job and prepped all 3 bedrooms, hall and the bathroom for painting. The painters finished about a week ago and just yesterday we had new carpet laid in the bedrooms and the hall. Roger came last Friday and has been doing a lot of electrical work such as installing some ceiling fans, new lights in the bathroom and all new wall switches and numerous other jobs that I simply can't do. The living room is a mess as we really haven't moved back into the "new" rooms completely so slowly but surely we are getting it all back together. That is all the remodeling I am doing right now and will get to the living room next spring and the kitchen is on hold for an undetermined length of time. I feel very good about what we have accomplished and it looks like I have a new half of a house! Love to all, Elmeda's FamilyI have an “almost” routine, going to the senior center to eat 5 days a week. Joe’s mother in law and I go together. I may not like all their food but I get a wider variety than I would fixing it for myself, plus I don’t have to eat the “left overs”, it gets me out of the house and being with other people. I still make bonnets for ladies that have lost their hair because of cancer treatments. There are several styles; I do two of the simple ones. I also sew up scraps into little quilt tops, mostly baby quilt sizes, some larger for older children that are ill. I just do the tops someone else finishes them and distributes them. Last summer at the Watts cousin’s reunion; I was startled to learn I was the oldest one there. It was good seeing so many of you there. Two of you brought items to me that I had bid on during the auction! My grandson John is still in Iraq but due back in the USA soon. He and his wife Ashly will be living near San Diego. Love, Here in Oklahoma City it has been both an eventful and an uneventful summer depending on your perspective. Some people tell me that we live a boring life. Most of the time there is plenty of excitement for me. Rachel is now a junior in high school. She bought her own car to drive to school, and she is currently running on the cross-country track team. In June she spent a week at one of the local Camp Fire camps. She is with their equestrian unit. Later in June she went to Denver with the other kids at church to attend a youth conference. Before they left for home, they went on a white-water rafting trip. She is looking forward to the first frost so she can quit mowing both of her grandmother’s yards. At the old Fort Reno there are some actors to represent people that were at the fort in its earlier days. Rachel has volunteered to be a guide that will escort people thru the different exhibits. They usually have a good turnout with different periods represented from the buffalo soldiers thru the Germans at the prisoner of war camp during WWII. John is currently still in Fallujah, Iraq serving with the Marines. There have been several of his friends killed, one of his closest buddies was from Perryton, Texas. They had plans to do some hunting and fishing when they returned. He is scheduled to be back in California around the 11th of October. John’s wife, Ashly, is moving to California in late September so they will have a place to live when he returns. She has already signed a lease on an apartment that is close to Camp Pendleton. Carol is still working as a nurse and is putting up with whatever life dishes out. Her mother has injured her knee and is starting to require some attention. Carol volunteered to repaint her mom’s bathroom and picked out some light blue and some white. I was able to get most of it done while Carol was at work and her mother was visiting a friend. We are currently rebuilding her mom’s kitchen chairs one at a time. Her dad wrote on the bottom of a few of them that they were rebuilt in 1982. I am still working as a draftsman. Luckily work is close enough that I can come home to eat lunch. I tried my hand at a metal project a few weeks ago. I made a headache rack and some tie-down rails for my pickup. I never thought about making one until I needed to tie down some stuff and didn’t like the store bought rails. I think that I saved some money and made a stronger than normal rail. We tried to have a garden this year. Amongst other things we planted were green beans. The spring rains didn’t come until the end of June. Strange but true… the beans didn’t even come up until after it rained the first of July. Then the sun baked them before they matured. I have never before been able to pick baked beans directly from the garden. One of Carol’s cousins and her family came and stayed with us over a long weekend. Their daughter was in a softball tournament here in Oklahoma City at the National Softball Hall of Fame. Carol’s Aunt also was with them and she stayed with Carol’s Mom. I think that her mom enjoyed visiting with her sister. We went to Chicago the first week of July to visit some of Carol’s relatives. Carol’s mom went with us. The person that we spent most of the time visiting was Carol’s cousin that was on hospice. Her cousin died last week at home. Rachel and Carol drove to Chicago and I flew up there on Tuesday night after my cousin’s funeral. Lloyd flew home from Chicago for our cousin’s funeral and we flew back together. When Carol picked us up at the airport, we were able to take Lloyd back to his truck so he didn’t have to worry about getting a taxi or catching a ride in the middle of the night. Rachel and I were able to act like tourists. One day the weather was exceptionally clear so we went to the top of the Sears tower. Another day we visited the Museum of Science and Industry. We spent all day in there and still didn’t see everything. The submarine exhibit was being moved so we missed out on that part. Maybe next trip we can visit a couple of other places. We had wanted to see the John Deere museum on the way home but didn’t have time. We did however stop at the Arch in St. Louis. We had hoped to go up to the top, but the line was too long. The line to get into the pavilion was over an hour long and the tickets for the elevator were already booked out several hours ahead. We attended my Aunt and Uncle’s 50th anniversary and enjoyed seeing a great number of relatives. After the reunion in Childress and then visiting with even more relatives in Oklahoma and Illinois, I think that we have met our quota of visiting this summer. Joe, Carol, Rachel, John and Ashly All is well in Idalou-Lubbock. It's kinda of boring here, work, home, so not much to report. Work is exciting but it can turn into a real job now and then. Had alot of rain first half of the year but it has been getting dry now. It is hard to tell the difference between dryland and irrigated cotton this year. Hopefully these guys will get a good price this year. I am glad that my income don't depend on the weather. It has been a green and cool summer, I bet that we only had a day or two that reached 100 degrees. What I did for summer vacation: In June, we took a little trip to St. Louis for a vacation. Something way off of the beaten track for us but was very enjoyable. We did the tourist stuff, the arch, the boat tour, Budweiser, stuff like that. Also while there, we visited with Lowell Louis Comer in Collinsville, Illinois. He was in the Navy with my dad and is the Lowell that I was named after. Ben has passed me this summer in height. He is now six foot, or was when I wrote this, but still skinny as a toothpick. If you are in this area, watch out, Ben is driving now. Dianne is doing fine. Her dad had a knee replaced in August and is also doing well. Update your mailing list, Katie and Michael Crump's current address: 3107 E CR 7130 Katie will be 21 on November 15th, send her a card. (E CR stands for East County Road) Lowell Garland’s FamilyNo news at this time Ed's FamilyNo news at this time News from MontaNo news at this time Bill & MaryNo news at this time Announcements
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