In The Good Old Summertime

When we made our first move away from Chillicothe to Ft. Madison, Iowa, early in 1957, it was with the entire engineering department from Chillicothe and it was a consolidation with the one from Marceline, Missouri. Lots of young families and older ones, too, of course. Many of us bought homes in the same subdivision so people we had been friends with before became even better friends in Iowa. And we made some great new ones from Marceline. If I could have stayed one place from all the moving we did, Ft. Madison would have been my pick. It was a very good time of life, but I am not complaining about the rest of it, by any means. In the picture above, are the kids who lived on both sides of us. The Powers family had five children - 4 girls and an older boy. Next to us on the other side were the Edlens and they had Mark, a year older than Bill. What a darling pair of double trouble they were. In the picture, it is Jan, Sherry, Melinda, Bill, Kathy (she lived elsewhere), Tony, and Mark. Bill, Sherry and Mark and the little redbud tree we dug up on the hillside across the field from us. Redbuds are the Iowa state tree. It lived. OMG, they are soooo cute!

Ft. Madison is built on solid sand, I think. This was the end of our patio and the kids had tons of fun playing there with their cars, trucks, etc. Never a lack of playmates and a nice bunch of kids. Here are Sherry, Bill, Mark and I'm not sure who the little one with the cowboy hat and gun and holster is. I think this was such a great place for the kids to have spent part of their growing up years. How much simpler things were way back then. There were no organized sports teams - at least not for kids this age. We lived on a dead end street and there were quite a few games they organized themselves and played out there. It was a good time. (Click to enlarge)