March 20, 2011 I wish I had dated each page, before I used it. Dream from night before: my engagement ring was so tiny but it was all Harold could afford to give me; they just didn’t make any ring any bigger or better than mine. Through the years it wore thin and finally broke so Harold said he would get me another one. I told him no, that I loved my little diamond so we agreed to keep it in another setting and had it set into a black onyx ring. So we had the jeweler to put my beautiful little diamond in the middle of the black stone. That was my anniversary gift that year; so the plan was as we could afford it every 10 years we would add another small diamond onto the black one; but we never got around to it. I kept it in my jewelry box and one weekend Jean was visiting and she and her husband or friend were going to a special dance and she borrowed it to wear. She forgot to take it off and then later was doing a flower bed at my house on Bardstown Road. It was under my bedroom window out front side of the house. She lost the ring there. Last night, after never finding the ring, I dreamed I was digging in my flower bed at that same spot and found my ring thirty one years later.
We have our ups and downs good days and bad days, but all could find a good laugh after awhile. But there was only thing that all three kids did together was be ? and if one had the children they would all get in, all would be bedlam but again we could laugh about it later as the kids got older we would have to count noses on the weekend to see how many extra biscuits to bake or how many would be there for lunch or supper. Their father had a garage and on week ends sometimes week nights he would bring some strange people to stay over so he could get parts the next morning to get them back on the road.
I have had carnival workers, preachers, you name it; we had them but he would say there was a little bit of good in everybody and he knew that we were safe and God would watch over us. We made friends that we stayed in contact with for years because we took them in and gave them food and lodging until he got them on the road again.
One couple from Indiana spent a weekend with us and she stayed with me at home while they worked on the car. So by the time they got home with car I told Harold what he couldn’t wait to tell me. I knew she was my first cousin. Her father and my father were brothers. I asked who she was before she married – she was a Shoupe. I said I was too; so who was your father Oddie. Who was yours? – Leonard. So they were brothers and we didn’t all go to grandmas at the same time. They had moved to Tennessee which is where they were coming back from to there home in Indiana. Her father was my Uncle Oddie, who was a Church of God preacher that handled snakes. He had a big family and they never traveled with the children the older ones took care of the smaller ones and they would go away for a week at a time for revivals and not many people had cars back then either. I guess that’s what my aunt meant when she said honey your family is rich. She meant my parents always with us or us with them, if mom and pop go so did we and that’s the way it was.