April 11, 1984
Dear Val,
Here is a short summary of me up to now!
I was born in a small western town in Montana (Roundup by name) and lived in a town called Rosebud from five years of age to 12, when our family moved to California by train. I had one sister (Kathryn) and two brothers - John (we called him Jack) and Donald, who you knew as Uncle Don. Jack was killed in an auto accident at an early age (40) leaving a wife (Phyllis), two sons and a daughter and a baby not yet born, who was a boy.
It is rather hard to put almost 74 years of living into a short summary, but I am trying.
My mother died when I was sixteen and a senior in highschool. A dear aunt (Jean) stayed with us for a couple of years and then went home to Montana and I became chief cook and bottle washer. I kept house for my dad and brothers and sister until I met "Bill Willingham" who I married in Yuma, Arizona. We had three children - your mother, your aunt Joyce and your Uncle Bruce.
He became ill in 1940, when Bruce was just a baby - and died in 1951 .
From then on (to summarize it) I worked, raised a family, remarried, got divorced. I retired as a full time worker at 65 in 1975, but worked for six more years until I was 71 .
If I tried a little harder this could become a full length novel, and fairly interesting too.
Hope this helps, Honey.
Love, Grandma