"My story" by 807Wheaton

Since I've been retired I have been working on my genealogy. This hobby fits in perfectly with my interest in history and love of travel, especially road trips and wandering through cemeteries.

My Dad bought a farm in SW Michigan when I was two years old.
He had always wanted to be a farmer and after serving in WWII he bought a 90 acre dairy farm.
My mother raised pedigree boxers and had her kennels on the farm.

My Dad was drafted immediately after Pearl Harbor. He was 25 years old. After his basic training he was sent to Chico Army Air Base in Chico, California.
In the year 2000 my husband and I went to California and traced some of their adventures. Chico just always held a mystique to me and I wasn't disappointed.

My Mother also went to Chico, California and got a job on the Army Air Base there as a secretary.
When we went to California in 2000 we went to the library in Chico where we were able to research the history of the base. It was begun immediately after Pearl Harbor and was a very dismal place. My Dad did not like it there and my mother loved the area. Of course, the Chico we saw in 2000 was really nice. There were big mature trees and lovely neighborhoods.

As you can see, my Dad won out on where to live after his time in the service. He bought a 90 acre farm and all the things that went into making it a dairy farm.

This picture is in the living room of the farm house. Look at the deep windows. Each wall was constructed of bricks made in 1861 from the clay at the bottom of the hill from the house.
It never got hot in that house in the summer. This is me at about 5 or 6 with Andy, one of the boxers my mother raised for her hobby.

This is a picture of my mother's parents and my mother as a baby.
My grandfather was born in Cleveland, Ohio and my grandmother was born in Chicago, Illinois. My grandmother's parents were Irish and Swedish and my grandfather's family was from Oswego, NY.

My father's parents were both from Groningen in the Netherlands. They each came with their parents as young children to Michigan.

How lucky can you get? This is where I went to school for kindergarden through second grade. We had seven different grades in this school. One teacher taught all of us. There were five students in my class. I could see this schoolhouse from my bedroom window.