Chapter Six--the family expands to fill the home, and other considerations
Hindsight often, and it certainly does in this case, gives a much more accurate assessment of a set of circumstances and subsequent decisions that play out as actions that eventually lead to yet another set of circumstances. For a few weeks right after my discharge I attempted several employment scenarios with very limited success.
This, looking back on it, was a lot like the Big Spring time. Maybe, at that point, I just needed structure. Maybe being able to function outside of the structure of a job, having a schedule to meet and quotas to fill and having lots of help with decisions, requires a good deal of maturity, which I probably had not attained at the age of 23. I had experienced four years of marriage, four years on military bases working a somewhat rigid schedule. I had taken on the responsibility of three small children. But, did all this add to my maturity or did it contribute to my confusion and indecision as to what course to pursue. Time was of the essence.
I chose the familiar, at least to me and not necessarily to my wife. I had experienced Dallas as a child and as a high school student. I somehow knew that there was money to be made, jobs to be had and that we could indeed survive. So, we went to Dallas, found work and rented a place to live and raise the kids. Carolyn did her job well and without much fanfare. I look back on it now and know it was a hard time for her. Three little ones, and soon another was on the way.
First was Richard, born at the Chanute, AFB hospital in Illinois, Nancy, born at the hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas because Shepard AFB did not have hospital facilities for maternity cases and Randall, born in the base hospital back at Chanute. By the time Amy came along, we were out of the service and she was born in a Garland, Texas hospital. By the time Russell was born, we had migrated to Wylie, Texas and he was born in the little hospital there. Five small children and some were in school already.
During this period, from 1960 to 1965, we lived in several rent houses in several small towns and I worked at Collins Radio Company as a general maintenance technician and Carolyn kept the home front. I tried several things, attempting to extricate myself from the factory. I briefly sold organs for a music company, sold automobiles, or at least tried and eventually wound up preaching for a small country church in north Collin County. This led us to Neodesha, Kansas in 1965. I do not know for sure whether it was that I had a call to preach at that time, or was it a job that I was able to do fairly well at and it was not factory work. Only God can know that for sure, but I feel like He blessed us in the work there and helped me to grow in a spiritual sense and to see other possibilities.
Hindsight, again, comes into view here. We must have had a great gift of faith in those days. We walked by faith and certainly not by sight. We did not have any money in savings, as it seemingly took every cent we could raise just to get along month to month. However, we went to visit that little church in south east Kansas because I had answered by mail a preacher-wanted ad in one of the gospel papers. We drove up there from Wylie and they hired us that Sunday afternoon for a salary of about a half of what I had been earning in the factory. Carolyn and I had agreed, in the car as we drove behind one of the church families on the way to their home for lunch that day, upon a figure that we would accept. That was the figure they offered later that afternoon. We had some good times in that town, but before two years had passed trouble was a-brewing, religious trouble, church trouble. And I quickly tried to learn to sell insurance.
This, looking back on it, was a lot like the Big Spring time. Maybe, at that point, I just needed structure. Maybe being able to function outside of the structure of a job, having a schedule to meet and quotas to fill and having lots of help with decisions, requires a good deal of maturity, which I probably had not attained at the age of 23. I had experienced four years of marriage, four years on military bases working a somewhat rigid schedule. I had taken on the responsibility of three small children. But, did all this add to my maturity or did it contribute to my confusion and indecision as to what course to pursue. Time was of the essence.
I chose the familiar, at least to me and not necessarily to my wife. I had experienced Dallas as a child and as a high school student. I somehow knew that there was money to be made, jobs to be had and that we could indeed survive. So, we went to Dallas, found work and rented a place to live and raise the kids. Carolyn did her job well and without much fanfare. I look back on it now and know it was a hard time for her. Three little ones, and soon another was on the way.
First was Richard, born at the Chanute, AFB hospital in Illinois, Nancy, born at the hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas because Shepard AFB did not have hospital facilities for maternity cases and Randall, born in the base hospital back at Chanute. By the time Amy came along, we were out of the service and she was born in a Garland, Texas hospital. By the time Russell was born, we had migrated to Wylie, Texas and he was born in the little hospital there. Five small children and some were in school already.
During this period, from 1960 to 1965, we lived in several rent houses in several small towns and I worked at Collins Radio Company as a general maintenance technician and Carolyn kept the home front. I tried several things, attempting to extricate myself from the factory. I briefly sold organs for a music company, sold automobiles, or at least tried and eventually wound up preaching for a small country church in north Collin County. This led us to Neodesha, Kansas in 1965. I do not know for sure whether it was that I had a call to preach at that time, or was it a job that I was able to do fairly well at and it was not factory work. Only God can know that for sure, but I feel like He blessed us in the work there and helped me to grow in a spiritual sense and to see other possibilities.
Hindsight, again, comes into view here. We must have had a great gift of faith in those days. We walked by faith and certainly not by sight. We did not have any money in savings, as it seemingly took every cent we could raise just to get along month to month. However, we went to visit that little church in south east Kansas because I had answered by mail a preacher-wanted ad in one of the gospel papers. We drove up there from Wylie and they hired us that Sunday afternoon for a salary of about a half of what I had been earning in the factory. Carolyn and I had agreed, in the car as we drove behind one of the church families on the way to their home for lunch that day, upon a figure that we would accept. That was the figure they offered later that afternoon. We had some good times in that town, but before two years had passed trouble was a-brewing, religious trouble, church trouble. And I quickly tried to learn to sell insurance.
posted by David R. Snow at 9:28 PM
4 Comments:
Hey Poppy! I love reading your blog. I don't know if it just mood swings because I am pregnant, or what, but I cried while I read this post. Is the reason y'all are forever lecturing us because y'all did it the hard way, and you are trying to spare us from it? Keep posting...I love you!
Yes, Ashley, we made a lot of decisions, all having consequences, some consequences we might have liked to avoid if we could have only seen what the future had in store for us.
However, it has been our life so far. We have lived it and what you see is the result of that living to date.
Looking back, there are a few choices that I would just as soon not to have made, but I savor the experiences we've had together and I look forward to many more days, months, years of the joy of being fortunate enough to be able to share my life with a such a caring, considerate and loving person.
Yes, I guess we do try to share the wisdom of our experiences in hopes of giving you a heads-up on future problems that could result as consequences of the choices we see you making--not because we want to run your life, but because we have probably been there and done that, or have seen enough examples of it through the years that we have learned some things that have a potential to work for good and some things that will surely work for naught.
My motherboard crashed and actually burned, so I have been offline for awhile. What a terrific surprise to come back and find episodes 4, 5, and even 6 have arrived! I, too, enjoy your story very much, and I get the added bonus of learning more about what Susie was doing all those years that have always been pretty murky for me. As for early marriages, they must run in the family. Did you know Susie's Grandma Wilhelmina married at 14 and had 5 children by the time she turned 21? And, even so, it seems to me that this whole family has turned out to be pretty much OK.
Betty:
I hope that tuning in to our blog chapters did not clog up your computer and cause it to blow up.
Keep those cards and and letters coming.
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