"There was always this great discussion in my family of 'oh, you're just like so and so, or you look like so and so, or you act like so...' and you did feel very connected to this larger body of people, dead and alive, you know, and whenever we'd get together in a group with my aunts and uncles there was always discussion of 'oh grandma used to do this, or somebody does it just like that' and that continues to this day."

"...my mother lived for her children.  She loved her children and her grandchildren...she was never happy without them.  When she had her children around her...and my father loved his grandchildren too, but he was always sort of gruff about it but he loved having them on the farm and they would follow...all my nieces and nephews would follow right behind him out to the barn.  He loved that but he would never show it...but my mother loved having her brood all around her...like a mother hen."

"With my interest in family, the more answers I got the more questions I had.  I think that's where I got my interest in history."

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"...my mother had three children, two boys and a girl very quick together.  This was about two years from the time they were married.  Then about four years later she had twin girls, then some years after that she had me.  I was seven years younger than the twins.  So I grew up with alot of people in the house around me and by the time I was actually old enough to start remembering things the older boys were gone because they had joined the army and the Korean War was going on.  The oldest was James Thomas, or J.T., and he died a couple of years ago.  The next was a boy named William Spencer, and both of those were family names.  Then the oldest girl was Georgia Katherine, and the twins were Doris Marie and Dorothy May."

From Top Left: Billy, Katherine, J.T., Dorothy May, Doris