Our vacations were basically going from Ohio to Wisconsin and when we did that we always visited all of our relatives. My mother’s side of the family had – I have two uncles and three aunts, so we visited them and all their children and when we lived in Wisconsin they were our immediate family that we would go back and forth with so…We did that, that was, you know, if we were going on vacation we always drove back to Wisconsin.

Well, we also go – my sister-in-law and brother-in-law lived in Eau Claire and there is a university there and they both taught at the Eau Claire State University in Wisconsin, and we would kind of go – that was more on the west coast and then we’d go over to Green Bay and we kinda did that, but now since then they have moved to New York to White Plains, New York, and they have three boys and so we kind of keep in contact with them. Right now one of their sons is in Santa Barbara and the other one is a graphic designer in what’s called Mount Pleasant which is outside of White Plains, New York.

I don’t know, when we were having youngsters and we grew up we went to a family camp, a church family camp. I thought that would be a good thing for all of us to do, you know.

The thing that stands out in my mind is that I know I didn’t feel good one day and they were doing canoeing and Jim and the kids went but not until later did they tell me, “Oh my gosh, we almost drowned, mother!” because you know you could tip over the canoe very easily and things like that. Sometimes we’ve taken our families now on vacation. Our son got married and when they got married they decided they were getting married in Portland, Maine, so that that was kind of a family vacation.

I am not used to going on family vacation with Jennifer and Leo and Amani and Alisa, but…I think she was two so she wasn’t too bad yet, you know, in a car for like 10 hours and then John was just here this weekend and he said, “Do you remember when we went we just started from Columbus, it wasn’t half an hour and Amani had to go to the bathroom!” I said, “Yeah, I think I remember.” I laid the law down after that I said, “Okay, its one-stop shopping! Bathroom, food, gas, everything, otherwise we’ll never get there!” (Laughing)

50 Years a Barber Shop Quarter Singer

Because of Jim’s eye problem I do most of the driving and that sort of thing. He drives around town and he’s a loyal barbershopper in the Fostoria and the Findlay groups. The Finley group is here and I remember he and his mom and I would go and listen and they kind of disbanded it but he has continued to go to Fostoria, Ohio and this year will be his 50th year of continued membership in the Barbershop Quartet Chorus.

So Fostoria, Lake Plains Barbershop Chorus, and their headquarters I think are in Racine, Wisconsin. They have an annual show which is April 14th this year, and we always try and, as a barbershopper wife, you just do that and we have a lot of relationships with some of the barbershoppers through that.