CHAPTER 12

The New House

1962 was a busy year. In January, a basement was dug just east of the old farm house which was built in 1863. Living arrangements, partitions, plumbing, kitchen cabinets, and a fire place were done and we moved in. The old house was torn down and the upper part of the new house was framed in weather tight before bad weather.

Late that fall, I went with Burr, Jeff Nelson and Glen Sharp deer hunting in Wyoming.

Dick graduated from high school in May of 1963 and started learning the sheet metal trade and was accepted in the Union as an apprentice. He worked in and around Kansas City.

Dick and Patty Dourty were married on June 18, 1969. Donna Jean Bronson (Jack's child) was born on August 23rd. Shortly after Jack moved his house back from highway 50 (he had Andes and Roberts put a pre-fab house on his basement not long before). Highway 50 was to be made into a four-lane, limited access road. The Family moved in with us until just before Christmas when the upper part of our house was finished enough for us to move upstairs.

Todd Cox was born on January 21, 1965. In February, Gale Bronson asked us to keep Patty, his daughter, because she did not want to live with either her mother or her stepmother. She was then a freshman in high school. In the spring, Jack and Carol moved back to their own house and Dick and Patty moved in until they found a mobile home near Greenwood, Missouri.

In January of 1966, Burr and I drove to Florida with a small trailer and visited with Marion and Lottie at Pinellas Park. In October, we took Pat to Graceland College Homecoming. It was just forty years since Burr had been a student there.

By special permission of the Holden School Board, Pat was allowed to graduate with only three years of high school attendance. She left to work in Warrensburg and soon got married. Also in 1967, Dick was drafted into the Army and spent a year in Viet Nam.

The highlight of 1968 was the open house for our 40th wedding anniversary which was arranged by our children at our house and it was well attended. Also, Jack had gone to night school while working for Andes and Roberts and had spent full time in 1967-68 school year at the University in Warrensburg and graduated in June with a B.A. in education. He found work in the Job Corps as a teacher and the family moved to Clam Lake, Wisconsin.

Barbara went with us in 1969 to Piano, Illinois where she got information on the Bronson and Wildermuth families for her records. Then we went to Steven's Point, Wisconsin to visit Jack, Carol and family, who had recently moved there. This trip was made in our new 1969 Ford camper "Mini".