IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER 39

I am back in full swing with my health being back to normal. My DIL has her hands full with the sickness of her sister and family. Her sister works in her office and not being there really puts an extra load in the office because she keeps her office running well. But thank God all is back to normal.

I want to tell you something about my 2nd daughter and her family. She has four children two of the children are twins one boy and one girl. These are the grand children that are all tall and I have to keep looking up to talk to them. This information is now and I want to tell you something about then, back to her beginning.

My daughter sent me a card for mothers day that had a little chubby face holding a spoon in her mouth and when she called to ask me how I liked the card I laughed because she had no way of knowing this looked like her at the same age. She was my third child and in the last month of my pregnancy they kept me in the hospital for the whole month because they were trying to hold down her weight because I was diagnosed diabetic. They said she would be larger than the first two children which were 7lbs 1&3/4 oz and the 6 lbs 3 oz and sure enough she was 9 lb 4 oz.
When born she was like holding a doll because it took months for the other two to get to her birth weight. I had to wait until she was 8 months before I could travel to Guam with my three children so I stayed with my father in the house I grew up in. My 2 sisters were married and one wasn’t she still worked for dad in the restaurant. My brothers were married and didn’t live home so there was plenty of room for the kids who loved the steps and the banister in dads house.

She grew up to be a fine young lady and married a young man that wanted to be a priest.


The next picture is the rehearsal for her wedding. Here she is with Carl walking down the aisle and the next is with her sister helping her dress. This is in Virginia.

They came back to N.J. and my sister and husband had them stay on the boardwalk in Atlantic City where they wined and dined them for the weekend.

We visited in Ambridge Pa. where he was attending seminary and when he graduated from seminary we attended the service when he was admitted as a postulant. Carl read the scripture in the service. Then took a job in Alabama as an intern. Alabama was a beautiful place and there they learned how to prepare for st
orms coming off the ocean to the mainland. They stayed there several years and the Episcopal Church was going through a storm of its own with women priest and ordaining homosexuals. Carl and I left the Episcopal Church because that was more than we could stand. We joined a bible believing Assembly of God that did not believe in women anything in the priesthood.

Then they moved up to Tennessee and we went to see them dog and all supporting their decisions. We always traveled with our dog that loved to travel and most times she just stayed in her cage in the car.

As you can see the children are growing by leaps and bounds. We enjoyed our travels going to see them. I told you about one son in law in the Army and now one in the priesthood in the Anglican Communion.

My son attended the Baptist Church and I thought he was truly ensconced in that demonation. They were bible believers and he had a home group meeting at his house. We couldn’t be happier than to have all our children connected with believers. But sin crept in and broke our family bliss.

My girls home schooled their children and did exceptionally well with their schooling. I will tell more about that at another time. I have so much I want to say and trying to keep it in order is a bit perplexing. So until next time, I am Immigrant Daughter.

IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER 38

I believe I am back to normal and can go on with my story about my life. Carl and I spent most of our time in Arkansas at different times in our life. I talked about the first time move here to raised our children to go thru High School. They graduated and each went on to higher education. Only one completed the higher education getting a Masters Degree from TCU in Texas. She was our third child.

Carl was going to school also and when the kids started their higher education Carl felt he had to take a job and give it up his schooling for the second time. The 2nd child went to Monterey, Calif. For languages and instead of a degree she met her husband who was in the military. Now child number one went to school in Fayetteville, Ark. And he was so busy chasing girls, that he had to go to summer school and still never completed any part of school past high school and one year of college courses.

He always was a dreamer and jumped from idea to idea. He was the first to marry and she was the best thing he ever did for himself and he did settle down for a bit. She was supportive and she completed and continued her education to the finish. Shegraduated and went on to law school. He still is unstable because he committed adultery and has no feelings of regret. He told me I couldn’t have anything to do with his wife and I said oh really since when was he in charge of what I did. I told him he brought her into my family and because he wanted to drop out he couldn’t tell me what I could do. Consequently he chose to drop himself out of my life. I am convinced he is sick both physically and mentally and I encourage C to rid herself of him completely.



Getting back to my mate Carl, I attended many destroyer sailor’ reunions with him and Carl was asked at different times to lead them in the prayer service while tossing a wreath in the water in memory of those who died. I have pictures of the last reunion of the U.S.S. Howorth, DD 592 that was held aboard the U.S.S NORTH CAROLINA, OCT. 18, 1994. There were not many living at that time of the original crew. Here is a picture of the five originals including Carl. Carl was on the Howorth when the torpedo hit.
They always had tours on ship for the visitors that day the only thing wrong with that the young men had never served aboard ship and couldn’t answer the questions of the visitors on the tour. This was right up Carl’ alley. He enjoyed talking about the ship to whom ever would listen. As this was this last reunion so I remember it well.

Here are pictures of Carl giving information of the ship to the guide and others of the inside if the ship. Carl loved answering questions. I think what impressed me the most was the semi fore flags and Carl knew each one and could read and give messages so fast. He said that is something you never forget. The next time you see a ship with flags on show them are saying something.

Short but sweet about my sweetheart. Until next time, I am Immigrant Daughter

IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER 37

It has been over a week since you’ve heard from me. I am still under the weather and have gone to the doctor to see if they can tell me why my ankles stay double in size and why I can’t get rid of the cough I have. I do not have a fever I am just uncomfortable and sort of ache and just wish I felt better. The sun is shining today but not too warm as yet. I want to thank all my blogging friends for wanting me well.

Well this has been too long even with going to the doctor. My DIL drove me because I did not trust driving myself with my blood sugar being so erratic going on swings I couldn’t handle. I know having lived with this disease 56 years not to put myself in a car driving. When I get out of wack it takes a long time coming back.

The doctor gave me an antibiotic that lasts five days. Boy whatever it is doing I am getting rid of quite a bit of phlegm that is relieving the vise grip from around my chest.

They took blood for other tests that I will have to wait until next week to hear. Later a call came through that I did not recognize the number so I didn’t answer it and when it wouldn’t quit I finally picked up the phone but they hung up before I could say hello. After what seemed like a couple of minutes the same number called and I answered to find out it was the doctor's nurse wanting to tell me my blood sugar was 47 while I was there. Now you have to realize that I went to the doctor because my blood sugars were erratic, I had a cough with tightness in my chest, no fever, but felt lousy and she calls to tell me my blood sugar was low at 1:30 in the afternoon when they did the test. I really felt like hanging up on her but I listened as controlled as I could by telling her yes I knew because I had my machine with me and knew it was low. We went looking for a fast food after leaving their office this was about 3 in the afternoon.

I have to tell you I never get colds or headaches and hardly ever welcomed a day in bed so to speak, so when I tell you I felt lousy you can just look at me and tell. I get my flu shot every year and I am fairly healthy, except for being an insulin dependent diabetic for 56 years. So when a nurse calls to tell me my sugar was low six hours earlier it was hard not to be sarcastic to say oh REALLY. You can tell by my writing I am feeling much better and I know for sure I am on the mend because I can think and type. Now you know more about me than you probably care to.

I will pick up telling you more about Carl and my life together that lasted 58 years.

It doesn’t look like at this point I will be going back to N.J. for my birthday in June because my third sister wants to come here to see me. My DIL is too busy to take time off at that time anyway and E (my sister) and I have birthdays five days apart in June. We had to work together in the restaurant and are on the same wavelength and it will be good to have her here. I have to tellyou I attribute her long life (87) to having herself a Manhattan every day at four p.m. She and her husband never missed a day and many times we shared our birthdays together, husbands included, in New York City seeing some stage show and eating out in a nice restaurant.

One such restaurant was a small place run by all retired, out of work, opera singers. And as they worked they would be singing and when it came to their time to sing they would stop serving and sing it was wonderful. The place was called Asti’ in N.Y.C. Carl and I had many such surprises given to us by my sister and her husband. I am so thankful the Lord has given me many such memories of his love for me.

Getting back to my sisters’ visit it will be good for me in other ways when she comes we can play pinochle and talk at the same time. Two-hand is not as much fun as three or four hand playing but it is better than none. I like to play cards.

Carl taught me how to play cribbage a game they played aboard ship with a deck of straight deck cards and a long board with holes in it that goes all around the board twice that is called a pegging board that is used to keep score. It is a lot of funbecause it makes you having to count the cards from your hand that count up to fifteen and laying them down for two points for score. Its complicated but fun. Carl was easy on me so that I could learn. I never won in the beginning but after I learned I was able to challenge him and won my share of games and then he wouldn’t want to play any more.

I really never read novels much but when they started to made movies out of some of the stories by James Michener. Carl peaked my interest with a part not mentioned in the movie and wouldn’t tell me the rest of the story, but directed me to read it for myself. I then got hooked in reading. I only read what I had to in school because I had sports to keep me busy. Carl learned early in life to read everything in sight and was knowledgeable about many things. He taught me many things about reading to form my own opinion and not just rely on what others say about something. I can tell you for sure our children received their smarts from their father. He knew how to spell words without looking them up. I use to tell him he was my walking dictionary and so thankful the Lord gave him to me.

Carl was a shy introvert and I was just the opposite. When he worked for pharmaceuticals companies and had to attend conferences that had parties we had to attend he use to say he hated to go because he never had anything to say. I alwaysencouraged him to start the conversations by asking people what hobby interested them or something about themselves then he could just sit back and listen because people love to talk about themselves. Sure enough he told me that really worked because he didn’t need that crutch anymore. In his later years boy did he like to talk and it was hard to drag him away.

I see I carried on a bit much about CM but for me that is easy, so I had better end it here until next time, I am Immigrant Daughter.

IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER 36

I talked about our living in Arkansas. We lived in Arkansas more than any other place in our married life while our kids were growing up. We moved from New Jersey when our kids were still in school. We our moved South because of the problems New Jersey was having in the school system, with kids sniffing glue and smoking pot. New Jersey was considered going to the shore when the people came down to their summer cottages on the weekends from Philadelphia and New York City.

My brother was working for IBM Service Bureau in Little Rock and told us Arkansas was at least 2 years behind the New Jersey Schools. He was having a hard time filling his employee rooster with capable people. In the East everything moved at a fast pace and in the South everything moved at a slower pace. I myself had to learn to slow down. I was always the last person to get my food and the first person to finish eating. My family use to kid me about eating too fast. They had a name for me gobble guts. But when you had to wait on customers while trying to eat you learned to eat fast to eat it while it was warm.

I was one that could look at something to be done and do it no matter what the job within reason. I could do it, always wanting to be kept busy. The job that sales people hated to do was putting the merchandise back in stock but I sort of liked it because it kept me busy. I was not a person that would stand around just participating in small talk. When I worked in the Chicago area for Motorola at coffee breaks and lunch most of the time I walked instead of sit and talk. They use to love to talk about their husbands and one day one of the ladies remarked that I never said anything about my husband. I told them I didn’t have the problems like those women at the table did, my husband loved me and I loved him and our private life was just that… private. They revealed too much of their private lives and rarely said anything good.

1982 this was our second move to Arkansas, our children were grown and the picture above was taken on our porch that was attached to our Mobile home. We uprooted our life to come down to Arkansas from Chicago because our son asked his dad Carl to come and help him in the produce business manning the office keeping things in order. But my son was not really meaning that and his dad was most unhappy because every time he questioned a transaction our son would comment; “you just don’t know the business”. So it was easy for Carl to say goodbye.

Carl loved to ride the lawn mower and he enjoyed tinkering with it to keep it running. He put in vegetable garden and a smallorchard of fruit trees. I had to learn how to can once again and I have to admit that is not my thing and I like the canned fruit in the store better only because I grew up with it. He had more than enough to keep him busy and we watching our grandson grow up. Here is a picture of our grandson as a little farmer.


I am taking a pause here because I am having a bit of difficulty thinking and writing it down. I have a terrible cough it a good thing you can’t hear my voice it is very raspy and sort of hoarse and I think every bone in my body hurts.

This is the next day and its not much better. I am not one who can lay in bed. I hate it sometimes but that is the way it is. My DIL calla me every morning to let me know she is leaving and to make sure I am awake, most times I am. I will end this here so she can post for me. I know the Lord won’t give me more than I can handle but I do feel, enough now. Until next time, I am Immigrant Daughter.