Do you have brothers and sisters? What are their names? Who did they marry? Do they have children? Where do they live?

I have three sisters and four brothers. I was the baby and the one that they all called the "spoiled one".

Gladys was the oldest, born in 1924. I can't remember when she wasn't married. She was married to Thomas Brewer and they had one son Tommy Dale.She was a very successful career woman back when women stayed home and kept the kids. She had started to work at Southern Bell Telephone Company in Sheffield, Alabama. She worked her way up to Chief Operator with twenty five women working for her. Everyone called Thomas, "Big Tom" and their son " Little Tom". Tommy Dale was only three years younger than me and he lived with us until I was twelve and he was nine. He is more like a brother than a nephew. Big Tom was an engineer for the Southern Railway. He was a large jolly man but was an alcoholic. He was a good man until he would begin to drink and then he would be mean. She hid a lot of the things he did from the family but he was very abusive and finally after about twenty years she divorced him. She was so good and kind. Things were going really good for her, she had a great job, owned her own home, her son was married and she had one grandson when she found out she had colon cancer at the age of forty two. This was in 1966 and they didn't have all the treatments then that they have today. She took a lot of experimental drugs and worked for a year but after another year it took her life. She was only forty four years old and just as things was getting better for her, we lost her. She died just five weeks before my second daughter was born. One of the last things she did was buy an outfit for my baby. Of course then we didn't know if we were having a boy or girl and the outfit was blue, but my daughter wore it home from the hospital anyway and I still have it today. She is buried at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church Cemetery in Iuka.

Polly was born in 1925. Her name is actually Pauline but she always wanted to be called Polly. Polly married Buddy VonBoeckman and lived in Horn Lake, MS. They have one son, Michael. Polly stayed at home until Mike started to school and then she took a business course in Memphis and started to work at Kraft Foods, Memphis office. She worked there until she retired. Buddy retired from L & N Railroad. About ten or twelve years ago we noticed that she was beginning to be forgetful. Over the next few years her mind was getting bad and Buddy's physical condition began to fail and their son moved them to Huntsville, Alabama to be near him. She is now in a retirement home for Alzheimer patients and he is in a nursing home.

Elgen, Jr. is the oldest son. To me he has always been Junior. Junior married Lola Young and they have one son, Jimmy. Junior was in the Navy in WWII. He was an electrician by trade, working for the TVA and also the Union. He is a member of the American Legion and after retirement worked calling bingo for many years. Lola retired from the Tri-City Daily newspaper. They live in Sheffield in the same house they bought shortly after they married.

Virginia was born in 1928. When she was born Junior would say she was a little "darling" and it sounded like darter so the name stuck. Now only family calls her that but to me she will always be Darter. She told me that when she was born our grandmother Fell named her Lois Lile against my mother's wishes and that my mother changed it, but that her first birth certificate stated that name. Darter married Joe Schulte and they have four children, Gary, Wayne, Berry Ray, and Pamela Jane. Pamela is named after me. After her children were older she went to work at Brick School in Ford City, Alabama and retired as a lunchroom worker. Joe is retired from Reynolds Metals having worked for them over forty years when he retired. They also own a home in Bryson City, NC and spend a good portion of their time there in warm weather.

Auvie Dale was born in 1930. He had colitis and died in 1933 at the age of three. Mama had one picture of him and I have the original. He is buried at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church Cemetery.

Billy was born in 1932. He married Lillian Rhodes when he was sixteen and she was fifteen. I can barely remember but I know my mother was so upset. He quit school and went to work with my Dad as a mechanic. He and Lillian have three children, Billy Joe, Wanda, and Lee. Billy and Lillian attended the Pentecostal Church and Billy went to their school and was ordained as a minister. He was a minister at Iuka and Cherokee, Ala before moving to Horn Lake, Mississippi. He went to work as a mechanic for Bell South and worked there until he retired. He began to have problems with his memory and also walking. Doctors thought it was fluid on his brain and operated on him. It seemed to help for a few months but he is now in a nursing home in Southaven. He is completely bedridden. For a time I didn't know if he knew who I was and would he constantly cry when I was there, but the last time I went to see him he was happy to see me, didn't cry and hugged my neck and when I told him I loved him he smiled and tried to talk back to me. It breaks my heart to see him like this because he was the one I always depended on. I never in my life heard him say an unkind word to anyone and is the sweetest, kindest man I have ever known.

Kent was born in 1938. He was only three years older than me and we fought like all brothers and sisters do. Most of our time at home there was only the two of us. We were almost like another family! When I was fifteen he married Janet Weaver. They went to the home of the local Church of Christ minister to be married and of course I had to go with them! They had three children, Stanley, Richie, and Gwyn. Kent loved NASCAR. Nascar had just became popular and Richie was named for his favorite driver, Richard Petty. I still have his ticket stub where he went to Daytona and Richard Petty won the race. He had always helped Daddy and Billy since he was old enough to know what a wrench was. After he and Janet married he worked for several garages and finally went to work in Huntsville for J.C. Penney. He began to have black out spells and the doctors couldn't find what was causing them. He had one and hit a bridge and had one and a man had to jump in the car with him to keep him from hitting the window of a Chevy car dealership in Iuka. In 1970, he was driving home and he went blind. He was able to stop the car and an ambulance took him to Huntsville Hospital. There were no MRI's or Cat scans so the surgeon had to operate and found that he had a brain tumor. Part of it had grown into his brain and they couldn't remove it. They gave him six months to live and in six months he was gone. He is also buried at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church.

I don't get to see my living brothers and sisters as much as I would like but I know they are there and I love them very much.