| In September after we graduated I married Don Atkins (class of 1947). I was hell-bent on becoming the best farmer's wife Marion County had ever had. I learned all about tractors, mowers. putting up hay, gardening and canning. All this time some of you guys and gals were off to college learning all kinds of neat stuff including how to drink beer. I never learned about that because we couldn't afford it.
In January of 1950 our first child was born.......followed by 4 others in 6 years and 22 days. Then we had a sixth angel in 1959. That's the only sad part of my story. We lost our little son at 19 months from Sleeping Sickness. Strange how you never feel like life is "perfect" again. That's enough of that.
Some years later I went to work at Western Printing as a proof reader. I guess all that diagramming of sentences and spelling lessons paid off. I moved on up to Customer Service. The plant closed and I went back to being a full time house wife. I worked a lot with 4h kids and fairs and finally decided I might as well get paid for my efforts.
I got my real-estate license and had loads of fun selling.....especially to young people just getting started. Then I had a chance to buy a new Real Estate office (Prestige Realty). I got my brokers license and worked my tail off making that office the best in town. I like to think I succeeded. Don quit farming and got his license and we opened an office at the new Mark Twain Lake. I picked up a few college hours at night.....don't know if it did any good or not. we made a buck or two and sold the business to our youngest daughter and she is doing better than we ever did.
We're retired now We enjoy our boat on the lake in the summer and spend 2 months each winter in our condo on South Padre Island, Texas.
P.S. We had 6 kids, 13 grandkids and, the last time I counted, we had 8 great-grandkids.
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