This is Saturday night and I just took a walk outside on this beautiful evening after supper. “The Meadows” where I live is an Assisted Living Home for the elderly. There is also a Care Center connected to the Meadows. My daughter, Carol Soldwisch, has worked here for 30 years as Head of the House Keeping Dept. I see her almost every day and it is so nice to have her close by if I need help. She takes me shopping every week. Betty lives in Waterloo and works in the Community Bank. She is so good to come visit me almost every week and comes to help me often and helps me keep my computer going plus doing lots of other errands for me. Last week she shampooed the carpet in my apartment and it looks so nice now. I am looking for Bill and Dianna to visit me in July. They are planning to leave Hawaii on July 6th. I am looking forward to having a big celebration for my 92nd birthday in July. I love it when all our family gets together for any celebration. We always have such a good time! If anyone reads this and I haven’t seen or heard from you in a long time and you want to talk to me you can find me at “The Meadows”in Shell Rock, Iowa.
My Father was a Methodist Minister in Iowa for many years. My parents were Rev.and Mrs. J.W.Bearse. Dad was a Minister in Walker, Clarence, Brandon, Rowley,Melbourne, Parkersburg and Shell Rock. Remember Lois (Bearse) Neal?
To continue with the second page of my last blog I had just finished telling you about Carol and Bill’s families. Now I will give you a little history on our daughter, Betty. She was born on August 29th, 1950. She was born in the Waverly hospital and was such a little doll. She was such a good baby too!! Her brother, Bill, was born the year before on March 27th, 1949 so I was a busy and happy Mom taking care of two little ones. Carol was always a wonderful help to me except the time she was supposed to be watching Betty and I was washing clothes in the back room and pretty soon I heard someone falling down the stairs. I think Betty hit every step on the way down. It was lucky there was no damage to Betty or the stairs. Another time when Bill and Betty were older they were outside playing and Betty came running in the house yelling that “Bill fell out of the Hay Mow in the barn!” I ran down to the barn and he wasn’t hurt since he fell on a pile of hay. I had to laugh at him because he looked so funny with hay sticking out of his ears, nose and mouth he looked like a scare crow. Needless to say they had been warned that the Hay Mow was a dangerous place and I think they learned their lesson. It seems to take lots of bumps and bruises to grow up. Luckily there were never any broken bones.
To continue my story about Betty I think she was a great addition to our happy family. She was lucky to have an older brother and sister to take her places and do things together. They loved to play school and Carol was always the teacher. Bill said one time he would like to have been the teacher sometime. Betty graduated from High School in 1968. She decided to go to Ellsworth College in Iowa Falls, Iowa.She took a one year business course. Their program at Ellsworth was to go to school for 6 weeks at a time and then work in an office 6 weeks. They did this all year long and by the end of the year Betty had lots of “on the job” training. She got a job in an office in DesMoines right after she graduated from the business course. She had a nice apartment in Des Moines and had two nice room mates. After she had worked in Des Moines a while she decided to see if she could visit her Aunt Dorothy in Hawaii and get a job over there. She asked one of her room mates, Lyn Lupkes ,to go with her. Betty loved it in Hawaii and found a good job over there. We visited her over there several times and then eventually we got a message that she had a Hawaiian boy friend and they were going to get married ! I went over to the wedding and met Frank for the first time. I liked him real well and also enjoyed meeting his folks. ( I forgot to tell you that Dianna gave me her wedding veil to take to Betty for the wedding. I had it on a hanger and carried it thru the air-port and into the airplane and I got lots of attention. The stewardess was very nice about hanging it in a closet so it would look nice when I got to Hawaii.) It was a beautiful church wedding! Betty was a beautiful bride and became the wife of Frank Gamundoy. Galen and I loved to go over and visit Frank and Betty. When their first daughter, Leah, was born we went over to visit and get acqainted with her. She was a doll! We always felt welcome in their home and we also visited Galen’s sister in Hawaii. Betty and Frank were so happy when their son, Matthew, was born. We went over to get acquainted with him!. We always loved to have Betty and Frank come and visit us in Iowa!! I remember one time they came for Christmas and Leah was about 4 yrs. old and she said, “Grandma, where are all the leaves?” She had never seen trees without leaves before. They also loved making snow men and angels in the snow. Betty had another cute little baby girl, Alana, and when Alana was about 5 years old we got a sad call from Betty telling us that Frank wanted a divorce. We were happy that Betty wanted to move back to Iowa and it was so fortunate that there was a nice house available for her to move into. Bill and Dianna were sorry to see them leave Hawaii, but Bill was so glad they would have a nice house in Shell Rock!!. I think Betty and her family have really enjoyed being back in Iowa. Betty had lots of friends and relatives to welcome her back. We really enjoyed having our only grandson living close. Matt loved going out to the farm with his Grandpa Neal. Matt has always been such a help to all of us! He is a very good carpenter and such a help! I will tell you more about all my grandchildren in the next blog. I think Betty and her family have had a very happy life being close to us and to her sister, Carol,and family. Betty was fortunate that she has always been able to have a good job and is so talented. She is so good at interior decorating and has always been so good at decorating. She has helped me decorate my apartment and recently she helped Carol decorate her home. It looks like a new house inside!. Bill will be surprised when he sees his old home place on the farm! (Bill just called me on the phone. He always calls me on the week end to check up on me! Nice to hear his voice!) The next blog I will continue to tell about all the grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren! Stay tuned to hear more about my favorite people, MY FAMILY!
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