Let’s Get Acquainted

My Mother’s people were farmers. They settled in Iowa, but had homesteaded for a period of time in South Dakota. Dad’s people became shop keepers in Kentucky but had farmed in Virginia.

Mom was Lucinda G. W., born August 7, 1902, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Dad was Herod E. A., born October 3, 1900, in Pulaski, Kentucky.

As a young man, Dad went to Iowa with a friend and hired out as a farm hand. After several years, he got a job with Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, where he met, fell in love and married Mom. She had been trained as phone operator but was working in the front office of the phone company as an assistant to the bookkeeper. They were married in Mason City, Iowa.

In those days, a lineman’s job didn’t pay a great deal and the work was hard, especially during harsh Iowa winters. Dad quit his job at the phone company and they moved to Louisville, Kentucky.

Mom and Dad moved from Iowa to Kentucky and back to Iowa several times until Dad started working for the phone company a second time. He remained an employee of the phone company until he retired many years later in San Francisco, Calif.

The company transferred our family many times in the early years. Of my brothers and sisters, two of us were born in Louisville, Kentucky, one was born in Steubenville, Ohio, one was born in Beacon, Iowa, two were born in Spencer, Iowa, and two were born in Iowa Falls, Iowa. I was the oldest of three girls, and five boys.

Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins on both sides of the family were familiar people to us children as we grew up. Visits and family gatherings reinforced family bonds and we learned to adapt to the ways and traditions of those above and below the Mason Dixon line.. Many of them lived with us from time to time.