Stories From My Life

Not exactly like her. There needs to be more white on her nose. But her tale was cropped and her ears were pointed. Goulda Nuppu (pronounced Nuppa) was a great dog. She was there through all of the Red Lion years and survived until the last time everyone one of the 6 members of my nuclear family were together. By that time my parents had moved to Fort Payne, AL and on Labor Day 1978 everyone got together for the first time since 1973 (when Mary Anne moved out) and the last time although we didn't know it then. During those few days together she suddenly blew up (her body was greatly inflated) and died. It seemed like she waited for everyone before going.

Windsor Manor as I remember it. All of us children went to Catholic school until the year I was in 3rd grade and Joe and I went to Windsor Manor Elementary. That year I had Miss Tyson and it is the year I realized that I never wanted to follow the crowd. I still remember when I had that epiphany (if an 8 year-old can have an epiphany). Playground where I had my epiphany. I realized that the largest group was always average and I didn't want to be average - I wanted to be exceptional. So my little 8-year old brain noticed that a small number of kids got As, and a small number of kids got Fs so I figured if I stick with the "road less traveled" I had a 50% chance of being with the high achievers. I also realized that there was a 0% chance if I followed the crowd. In 4th grade I had Mrs Fackler and I was completely out of control. I would do pushups in the back of the room, crawl up to visit my friends in front of me, etc... I really was a terrible kid, and in tha...

My Hometown Joe remembers something about Memorial Day that I do not. Apparently when we were Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts we would march in a Memorial Day parade. Both units were #29 - Pack 29 and Troop 29. We attended our meetings in the basement of a classic Methodist church building, something that my parents hesitated about because we were Roman Catholic and Catholics were persecuted somewhat in the 1960s. The Methodist church is the tall-spired building on the left of this photo. The building in the front is a bank on the corner of the town square. Main Street went to the left in this picture, Broadway up past the Methodist church. Joe remembers walking from the church, up Broadway to the library and then turning left up the hill to Fairmont Park where there was a monument to the fallen from Red Lion. It was during the Vietnam War so there were pretty fresh engravings from the recently fallen. Fairmont Park's monument to the fallen in war.

My college career began as a Psychology major at Mount Saint Mary’s, a Catholic school in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where I had been awarded a partial track scholarship (I was the last person signed and they ran out of money).  After one semester I moved to Louisiana where I was offered an academic scholarship. The purpose of this move was to be closer to the member/missionary (aka young woman) who had fellow-shipped me into the Church. I was to call Louisiana home for the next 8 years. I continued my studies at Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU), majoring in Business Administration and spending a full year going to school at SLU before going on my mission. This is the front of the Business School the home of  my first year at SLU. After my mission I changed majors a 2nd time (3rd major overall) and that would be my last change - Liberal Arts. It was the pre-law degree at SLU and was centered in the humanities requiring 3 semesters of philsophy, 8 of both English and H...

This will probably surprise most readers but I was actually inducted into the National Honor Society. It was probably an off year ;-) April 1977

My college career began as a Psychology major at Mount Saint Mary’s a Catholic college in Emmitsburg, Maryland where I had been awarded a small track scholarship. During that first semester I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which made for interesting discussions in my religion class. We had to read a Catholic theology book and write a book report about it. So with the help of the missionaries, I wrote a paper disagreeing wit the author’s points – points the professor had praised in class. To my surprise I received an A from the priest who taught the class. I believe I even received an A in the class overall. 

Growing up I had a number of jobs: occasional paperboy, lawn mower, snow shoveler, lifeguard, pool attendant, etc. but the best of these jobs was working at Mack's Ice Cream. Mack's Ice Cream counter today Just as I remember it The ice cream was made onsite in the basement by the owner, the son of the founders. Mom Mack, one of the founders, always sat in a back room and kept an eye on both the kitchen and the ice cream counter. They made 30-40 flavors in that basement long before Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors was ever heard of in our community. The owner of this store, Jimmy, was a year younger than me and trained at our store. He's the only kid I knew who had a new Mustang Mach 1 to drive. There was an older gentlemen (about my current age) who also dipped ice cream with us - I believe his name was Jim. He lived in the mobile home park immediately behind Mack's so he could walk to work. Adjacent to Mack's was a huge public pool, about the size of 6 typ...

A wonderful day You must be hungry Adam and Eve? In Hawaii just before the wedding Natalia with her new aunt and old uncle

Ancestry DNA says I'm only 25% Finnish which is only half of what I expected. To my surprise it shows 15% Irish/Scottish. The best news of all is I'm 1% Native American. The reason I call it good news is it confirms family legends, and something which I may have discovered.  Areas from which my DNA originates Mirium Smithers Teeter Look at this picture and tell me if my 2nd great-grandmother appears to be Native American. Current Percentages These are different than the 1st results we got back. As they refine DNA research and as their database grows, the percentages change. In the first calculation I was more Scandinavian, less Irish, and no Native American. There is an update to Ancestry DNA expected later this year. I wonder what that will reveal. If you have the money I recommend you invest in discovering your DNA - it's very revealing. From it I've learned that my ethnic and cultural heritage is very different from my biological heritage. E...

1962, I think What an adorable little girl. I'm guessing 1956 This photo is of 3 adorable children, probably looking at a Christmas tree Christmas morning. This is the banister of our Edgar Street home which lead up to our bedrooms and bathroom. The ages suggest this was Christmas of 1962, the last Christmas for my mother. Mary Anne would have been 7, the only one old enough to remember her. We didn't have a lot of interaction with her as she was 4 years older than me, and a girl on top of it. Joe and I were just babies, people she thought annoying as many girls do. She was our father's princess a name he would call her as he picked her up in the air and naturally she loved it. Once she told me that he only did that once after our father remarried. Apparently it upset our new mother. As the only girl in our new family, and the oldest she took a lot of abuse from our new mother. It started out by having her do everything around the house and once p...

As a child of the 1960s and 1970s I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and although part of me knew that it was fiction, I indulged myself enough to hope that these were examples of real families. Although these television families had their problems, they treated each other with kindness and respect and they loved each other. It was simple, wholesome, family entertainment that everyone could watch together. I remember that my father and mother enjoyed All in the Family starring Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton. It was the first television show in my memory that deviated from the template of families being respectful to one another, despite the problems encountered in each episode. I also remember the controversy surrounding the show. An aunt and uncle felt very strongly that this show was not healthy and refused to let their children watch it. Many families reacted similarly although mine wasn't one of them. 

My mission call from Spencer W. Kimball arrived on December 4, 1978 in my college post office box. As I read the call to the Belgium Brussels mission I wondered, “Where is Belgium?” and because this was a day before the Internet, I trudged through the rain to the university library where I found in an encyclopedia and the answer to my questions. My mission was mostly paid for through the generosity of one family – the Earnest Newsom family. I had managed to save about $1000, enough to pay for all the preparatory expenses but after that I was broke and it was the Newsoms who provided the $200/month necessary for me to serve. I received my temple endowment in Salt Lake on February 21, 1979 and entered the MTC the following day. I ended up staying at the MTC for 13 weeks because of visa problems. Because of my extra 4 ½ weeks in the MTC I had the privilege of listening to more General Authorities as they gave their weekly addresses. I also got to participate in a slide show for missi...

1976 Red Lion High Varsity Team My sports throughout high school were football, swimming and track. Although I loved the fall and winter sports, my true love was track. And I was pretty good at it, competing at a varsity level as soon as I was eligible. By my junior year we were setting records in relay events where they combine the distances of the two top throwers for a school. Steve Miller and I set the discus record my junior year at the Suburban Relays, a record which Scott Warner and I broke the following year. I also set the Dickinson Relay record in 1977 and was ranked #1 in the state for awhile. I had to settle for a 5 th  place finish in the state finals for track, a tremendous disappointment as I had been focused for over a year on being state champion. That same evening was my Senior Prom where I escorted our Student Body President Kathy Sentz and had to explain to everyone about my finish in the state meet. Everyone was kind, but I was genuinely disappointe...

Johanna Wahtola Andrew (Antti) Wahtola I'm told that being a Lutheran minister is a family tradition on the Rauma side. Apparently, or so the story goes, they were originally Germans who went to Finland to convert the heathens of the truth of Martin Luther's teachings. They would move into a community, start a church, and then be the lay pastor of that church. Whether that's true or not both of my father's grandfathers were Lutheran ministers. John Victor Rauma was a pastor in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and Andrew Wahtola was a pastor, also in Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, probably Barnstable. Andrew (Antti) Wahtola came to America in 1909 thru New York City, almost certainly he came through Ellis Island as a 34 year-old tailor. Whether he worked as a tailor in Massachusetts, I cannot tell although his eldest daughter, Martha whom I knew, listed her occupation on her marriage certificate as a weaver. His destination was Fitchburg where there was a growing Finn...

Many generations of my grandmother's family (the Rubes) lived in Grindelwald. It made building the family tree easier than might otherwise be. Once one looks at these pictures, it isn't surprising why no one left. Not bad huh? This beautiful mountain village is between Interlaken and Italy.  Can anyone say beautiful? Because many generations lived here, when I was doing research I found hundreds of names off of one microfilm. I believe it was Lutheran Church records although I'm not certain. Upper Grindelwald Glacier It was in reviewing the microfilm of Grindelwald I had some pretty inspirational experiences. Some names were repeated a lot, names such as Christian and Anna. There was a lot of back and forth of scrolling through looking for birthdays/baptisms, then scrolling about 18 years later looking for weddings. Then going forward looking for children of the couple. Many times I was about to record someone as a relative and feeling a strong impressio...

Baseball was my first love from the age of 6 until 15 or 16. Had I not choked at the District Track Meet my freshman year, I would have played baseball instead of track during my high school years. Memories of my younger years involved playing baseball all day long during summer breaks from about 5th grade through 9th grade. I played Little League from the time I was 8 until I was 15. My first year I played 3rd base because I was the only kid who could throw it that far. Usually the throws went about 20 feet too far the rare times I actually stopped a ground ball. Upon starting my baseball career our pitcher Dave Miller, a kid who lived in the neighborhood, came over to practice. He gave me a catcher's mitt and threw one ball. It struck me in the mouth, broke a tooth with blood everywhere. It resulted in many visits to the dentist trying to repair that truth. Eventually they capped it. This incident, before our first game, resulted in me being to afraid to swing for that whol...

Ugly was the best dog a boy could want.This picture is reasonably close to how he looked. All I remember is he had a lot of black in his face and his ears were not cropped. That probably means his tail was not either. Ugly was a big, muscular male boxer that we kept out-of-doors. I don't remember why but I think it's because he wasn't very well-behaved. Our 1st boxer, Nuppu (pronounced Nuppa) was a female, well-behaved and an indoor dog. She kind of spoiled my parents' expectation of a boxer's behavior. He was so much more active and "hard to teach" that my father built an A-frame doghouse (I think it had shingles on it) to protect him from the rain or snow depending on the season. In order to keep him warm in the winter old blankets were put in the A-frame. He seemed to endure them well, perhaps that A-frame functioned like an igloo - body heat kept the small space reasonably warm with a small opening to come in and out. The yard was different...

My earliest memories of my grandparents are of spending the night there. While I'm not 100% certain it seems it might have been related to my mother's illness and hospitalization. We slept upstairs in a wonderful bedroom. Most of the time we, Joe and I, played in the basement. I remember she had a blow up dummy that we could hit and it'd bounce back. I also remember riding a toy horse there. Grandma Slaughter visiting her family in the west My next memory of them was the Halloween when Joe and I had our bags full of candy stolen by some big kids. Inasmuch as I was 4 or 5, the " big kids" may have only been 8 or 9 - they would have seemed big to us. Naturally as little kids our hearts were broken so our father took us to our grandparents who more than made up for the candy lost; the way only a grandmother can do. Parent's wedding party. Aunt Pat is on the left in from of her father, Aunt Joyce on the right. Grandparent's home when I was lit...