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I came from a very disfunctional family, after my Dad died  when I was 3,and my brothers were 2 and 6 My mother`s mental illness went totally out of controll. She felt like her world had collapsed, She loved him so very much she could`nt imagine life without him. She blamed us and would hit us and tell me to get out of her sight, that I`d ruined her life and because my Dad spent so much time with me,[his little princess] she said I stole time from her that she could have spent with him. She said She wished I`d never been born. It was pretty much down hill from there.

She started drinking,leaving us home alone and bringing men home "uncle" somebody ! There was never any food ,

milk was powered, we ate cerial when we had it, my grandmother came once in a while and brought bread, jam and

and then there was all ways lard and sugar sandwiches!Yummy!!!

After she had spent the insurance money she found a shy ,quiet man who never dated, she met him thru his sister.

Two weeks later they ran off and got married, came home ,told us we were going to stay a couple weeks with the Aunt`s and Uncle that raised her. We did`nt know them. I was scared to death that it would be an awful place,[as

if things could be worse than we  already had lived thru.

We were put in the car with the few clothes we had ,and off we went. My little brother was hugging me and crying, I had always protected him and saw that he ate weather I did or not. I was 41/2 then ,he trusted me to always be with him

I hugged him,wiped his tears and told him this was going to be a great adventure !

Altho I was shaking in side.

We finally arrived, and I could`nt believe my eyes ! There was a big farm house, flowers all over, fruit tree`s ,big

red barn and every animal you can imagine !

My Aunt`s, we were to call them Aunt`y, Aunt Kate and Unkie. They each took ahold of our hands and lead us into this unbelievable big,house that smelled like cinnamom and fresh bread and it was so clean! The first thing Aunty said was,Ed get the buckets and the wash tub and pump a bunch of water !  These babies need a good scrubbing!!!

And scrub she did, she put the tub by the wood cook stove filled it up and got the home made soap,I could`nt  remember when the last bath we had was.

Then we ate supper, real food .Chicken, gravey, veg ,.biscuits all we could eat and MILK !! Right  out of a real cow !

After dinner my Mom left, without saying good-bye. The two weeks turned into over a year of good food, love hugs ,scoldings and never once being hit. We ran and laughed and rolled in the grass down the hill into the

cherry orchard. WE sat in the trees and ate as many cherrys as we could, then we`d run to the barn to see what Unkie

was doing. we feed chicken, gathered eggs, feed he pigs, and watched while the milk magically came out of the cows. On occasion Unkie would turn a teat at us and squirt milk at us, we`d run screaming and giggling to Aunty would yell 

out "Ed, stop that ,you`ll get it in their eye`s ! and she`d wink at us.

We even got to go to the State Fair ! We`d never seen anything like that. All those people, animals and all knds of wonderful things and best of all I got to sleep in the hay beside Unkies prize pig !  I thought maybe this is what Heaven is like,,as I closed my eyes and went

to sleep’

It`s really hard to express what this experience did for me. But it ended too soon. they came back and got us and the

joy was gone. Funny how kindness and warm  arms can help even in memories. When   things got real bad, I,d hide and think of my days in the sun. I still love old farms and barns and animals. my Mom refused to let us see our Aunts

again, because they told her she was`nt doing right by us.  When I was 10 I found them again, we stayed in touch until they died.  God bless them and people like them, they never could have kids of their own, so raised and

spoiled my Mom and then took on us wild ones.          lonnie