Annie: We had wonderful times. I can remember one fabulous trip we had up in Michigan with the kids. Where am I talking about, Lou?

Lou: Blamey Park.

Annie: Up in Blamey Park, that area.

Lou: We’d fly to California with them, and we’d drive. We have driven across the country many, many times with the kids. That was before seatbelts you know? You had a big playpen in the back of it. We always had a big station wagon and put down the back seat and the back end of it where they could play.

Annie: And Florida. We’d take the older kids to Florida, before we had too many children. Yeah, we’ve had some wonderful trips together. Now, did you hear about the plan of our 60th wedding anniversary going to the outer banks of North Carolina? Does that sound good to you? Everybody will be there. (Phone ringing, audio cuts out/in)

Annie: Mike had the measles when he was a little child and we didn’t know what was wrong with him. I mean all of a sudden I saw that his mouth was full of measles, so I was pregnant for Lou-Anne and she’s a rubella baby.

In those days they didn’t’ know about these things and so she was born prematurely and she had all kinds of problems. This is the one that is calling us now and she’s a dear little person, but man, she had webbed fingers, she couldn’t speak properly, and we were at the doctors constantly.

She had pneumonias…oh; you can’t believe what she went through. A terrible, terrible time, but she’s a wonderful little person. She’s about 4’ 10” and she was married and has two children, but she and her husband have divorced and she just is a happy, happy person, but man she had a tough time. We spent a lot of time together, believe me. She would have been one of our downsides because that was really a tough way to go during her days. You might know about these things? It was really a tough time. The rest of the children were all healthy people, but she was one who was – she was our second child and just the dearest thing in the whole world and she checks on us every day.


Annie: Oh yeah! We are. Don’t do anything bad or you are in trouble! That’s the same thing we’ve found with all my brothers and sisters because we’ve stayed so close so that nobody dare get out of line because you’d be in real trouble with everybody else, really and truly. Really a pressure.