The Love of My Life is Gone to be with Her Maker

On October 18, 2011, Janice passed away with her family present.

Janice entered the hospital in September. She was very short of breath and was having trouble with her heart valves.  Janice was transferred to another hospital, which is where she was scheduled for her heart valve surgery on September 14th.

It seemed like forever till she came out of surgery, but finally the doctor came out and said she had come through the surgery but she would be critical for a long time.  Well, she was, for a long time (21 days) then she finally came off the breathing machine and was breathing on her own.  She could be transferred back to the cardiac ward.

Well, she was there for 1 day and had to be sent back to the cardiac intensive care unit.  They had found her in cardiac arrest in the morning and had to revive her.  She had been out for too long and the tests on her showed no response.

After several days of no response, we let her go to be with her maker who she loved with all her heart and soul.

Ken Grove

My Life as a Teenager part 2

I am 14 now and if I wanted anything I had to pay for it. Snacks, clothes, my school lunches, shoes and my way into Teen town. So it didn’t take me long to realize I needed to have a job so I started baby sitting. At one time I had 28 different families I baby sat for. I baby sat any night of the week except Saturdays and that was saved for Teen Town. but if my mom found out I could baby sit on that night then I would have to miss Teen Town and baby sit. Those were terrible, terrible Saturday nights. But if I didn’t go nether did my Wonderful Husband-to-be. While I was baby sitting we would talk on the phone for hours. When I was at home and he would call me we could only talk for 5 min. I lived for those times waiting for him to call.

My mom sent me to town every Saturday to pay bills. My WH-to-be and I had it set up the time I would leave and he would meet me at the bus stop and get on the same bus I was on. So we got to spend all day together down town. I remember this restaurant we went to every week called the Ideal Hot Dogs. they had booths with the little juke boxes on the table. This is where we met our friends and exchange gifts for the different holidays. I remember one year for Valentines he got me a musical jewelry box and I got him a yellow v-neck sweater. To keep my mother happy I would always buy her something from town and take it home to her. This made it easier to ask if I could go to Teen Town that night.

I was freshman in high school and I was walking down the hall changing classes when a cousin of mine smacked me in the back with a book.. It hurt bad. The next day I could not walk I hurt so bad. I would lay on the floor and cry because it hurt. Like I said before my parents didn’t take us to the doctor. But after three days I got my mom to look at my back. I had a big lump on my tail bone as large as a baseball. She had a neighbor take us to the hospital and in the emergency room they lanced it. Infection shot out everywhere. Two weeks later I was in the hospital to have a poly cyst removed. I was in the hospital for a week. My younger sister, LMG, was in the hospital too. We were put in the same room. She was having her tonsils out. But do you know what?  Neither my mom or dad were there when we went into surgery.

to be continued.

Some News You Need To Know

To all our family and friends, from the Grove family in Ohio.

I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know what is going on in our family.

First of all, we have 5 great-grandchildren now. Two from Second Daughter’s daughter and three from her son. First Daughter’s first daughter got married in July. Wonderful Husband and I have been very busy remodeling our kitchen.

My sister Margie passed away last Friday, September 2, 2011. She went into the hospital to have hip replacement surgery. After some progress, they took her to rehab, then found her dead the next morning.

I am in the hospital now and have been for a week. My blood pressure dropped down to 30 over 17. I was bleeding again and when they went down in my stomach, it was filled with blood. They had to drain it and then they found two of my vessels dripping blood. They cauterized them and gave me six pints of blood.

I was one sick chick for a week! It is all caused from my heart. So, I have made the choice to have open-heart surgery.

I know it is very risky and I may not live through the surgery. But I can't go on living like this either. If I don't have it done, I won't be here this time next year, or less. My surgery will be later this week.

I pray God is with me and I ask for your prayers also. If I don't make it I want all of you to know that I love you very much. And if you haven't accepted Jesus into your heart, then please do.

MY YEARS AS A TEENAGER

I just graduated from the 8th grade and would be going to high school in the fall. I will admit that I had two reasons for going to high school:  

1.  I went to socialize and
2.  I went knowing I would graduate and education is the only thing that cannot be taken from you. 

I graduated mainly because everyone said I would not do it. There were four siblings before me and I was the first and only to graduate from high school. I would have gone on to college but my parents could not afford it. I dreamed to be a designer of clothes or a dental assistant. But instead got married and raised a family. And that is the thing I am most proud of.

I started off the high school with my very best friend NS and we are still friends. We dressed alike that first day and shared a locker. The seniors came around selling tickets for the elevator.  Our school was four stories high and of course I bought one. It was only $.25 and a lot of my friends bought tickets, too. It wasn’t until I had to change classes, I was on the first floor and had to go to the 4^th, that I find out there were no elevators in the building. I was mad but it was my own fault.

My freshman year I met my wonderful husband. I went to Teen Town, a well-chaperoned dance. We would have a DJ or a band. And it was from 7-10 pm on Saturday nights. But I could not go unless I had my chores done and I had to have a ride to get there and get home. My dad took me a couple of times. It was for high school kids only. I finally learned to get my chores done and find a ride before I would even ask to go. I don’t think I sat out any dances. The guys would ask the girls to dance. Then once a night the girls had to ask a guy to dance. By that time I had my eye on this one guy. He was very skinny, not good looking, but I liked the way he danced. He never asked me to dance the rest of the night.

So the next week I could hardly wait for Saturday to come I got there and kept looking for him.  No, I didn’t even know his name. He got there and when it was the girls asking the guys to dance I went up and ask him to dance again. We did and then he asked me to dance a couple of more times that night. But after every dance he would go over to the side with the boys and I went back and sat with my friends. That’s when I fell in love. And it grew. You know how it is.  You get chills when you look into each other’s eyes, chills when he holds your hand, and that first kiss is out of this world. There is a lot more as I went through my years as a teenager.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD 3

My next older sibling is my sister MLC.  She and I were four years apart and we were best of friends. We had a funeral one time with our dolls. The dolls were left out in the sun and got cracked and the rubber on them melted. We felt sorry for them and had a little funeral over them. We buried them in our back yard.  MLC was the preacher and I was the mourning parent.

We continued to be close over the years. I would go baby sitting with her and play with the little kids she watched. Then she got a boy friend and I watched the kids while she talked on the phone all night. And you know what? She got the money! But I loved her and kept doing it.

We were so close that she would lie to our mother and I would swear she was telling the truth. My parents were very strict. We could not spend the night with any of our friends nor could our friends spend the night at our house. We were not allowed to go any place with out them knowing, and one day we got caught. I was with MLC and her friend MD and we were just walking down the highway when MD’s aunt came by and saw us, but we didn't see her.  When we got home mommy asked why we were on the high way and not the street we were supposed to be on. I knew by the way mommy reacted that this time I could not lie. So I told her before my sister could start with the lie. Mommy just said next time walk on the street and because we told her the truth we were not in trouble.

You know that is a lot like God. You have to be honest with Him, telling Him the truth, because you cannot lie to God. He sees and hears everything.

I was next and then there was my baby sister LMG. As you know in the beginning she was a thorn in my side when we were little. Then we became very close and still are. I loved my baby sister. I thought she was a doll. I was 4 years old when she was born. But we played together all the time and when she had friends over we all played together and the same with my friends. My sisters MLC, LMG and myself did lots of things together.

MLC would be our waitress in the morning for breakfast and serve us what we ordered. Then when we were done she asked to be paid, knowing we didn't have any money. So we had to clean the kitchen and wash the dishes. Next time she wanted to play waitress we said no way. We never got candy, only on Halloween and at Christmas.  I don't remember any of my birthdays. We never got cake either. So on our birthday, MLC would put a slice of bread on a plate then cover it with chocolate syrup and another slice of bread and cover it. She would put a candle on it then we would eat it just the 3 of us. It was so good.

Wondering where my mom was during these times. She was sleeping she always slept late.

LMG and I would make pies out of clover. Play with cars in the dirt. The three of us would be outside all day. We did get to walk to the city pool in the summer but we’d better be back when mommy told us to or we would be punished.

As I said my mother was a late sleeper and when we went to grade school we got an hour and 1/2 for lunch break to come home to eat. Many times we had to fend for our selves because she was still sleeping and this was from 11:00 am-12:30 pm. My dad was working at a factory now and worked from 11:00pm till 7:00am.  So when he came home he would go to bed and sleep until around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. So all summer we were out side all day and in the winter we had to be very quite so we would not wake him up. I don't know how many times we got told to quit down.

That is about all I can remember about my life as a child. I will continue with my life as a teenager.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD 2

As I said before, I had four sisters and one brother.

My oldest sister, MJB, was born in 1933. I remember very little of her when we were all home. She worked at Franklin's Ice Cream store. When us kids went to the city pool to go swimming, we had to go right past the store. On the way home we would stop in and she would give us an ice cream cone. I remember one time we stopped in and we sat up at the counter and she ask us" What'll you have" and our baby sister LMG said loud and clear "Paps Blue Ribbon." Pabst was a popular beer at the time.

MJB had a boy friend and he would always bring her candy when he picked her up for a date. They would take me with them when they went out on a date. I really liked him. And I remember her wedding day she got married in our living room. Everyone was happy and full of food and drinks.

My next sister EMW was born in 1936 and I remember very little of her, too. I know she had 2 boy friends at one time. She did marry one of them. And her and her friend, a neighbor, would dress up in different clothes and take each others picture. When we were younger, there is 8 years between us, and when it would rain in the summer her and I would go outside and run throw the puddles. She went off to Indiana to get married. that is about all I remember of her.

Now for my brother WEM who was born in 1938. I would clean his room for him for 10 cents a week. It was mostly his socks he left on the floor. But I adored my big brother because he would play games with us girls. He would have us all lined up in a row beside the neighbor's barn and throw a tennis ball at us and we had to try to keep from getting hurt. He would always play ball with us. But we better do as he said or we were in big trouble.

We had a ditch in our back yard and daddy had built a bridge over it. It was where our toilet was. I would always look around for my brother before crossing the bridge because if he caught me on the bridge he would pretend he was going to push me in. I would hang onto the edge of the bridge with my toes.

I have always been afraid of the water. I remember one time my oldest sister slipped on the bridge and fell into the ditch. She smoked and no one knew it until then because her cigarette  floated on the top of the water. When the ditch would dry out we would play billy goat gruff under the bridge. When my brother was young and still played with cars, I would take his cars outside in the dirt and play with them. He never got mad at me and some times we would play on our kitchen table. It was that old white porcelain and WEM would draw streets on the table and we played cars on it. Other then that I didn't remember seeing my brother much as he was always out running around with his friend. But never got into any trouble that I know of.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD

I was born on June 18, 1944, on Father's Day. I weighed 11 lbs. 4 ozs. Yes I was a big baby. I had coal black hair and my mommy said the nurses put bows in my hair in the nursery. When I was born my daddy wasn't at the hospital he was at a bar somewhere. No I don't remember that.

I will start back as far as I can remember. I was only three at the time and mommy, daddy and I were over at one of their friends houses, and I got sick I remember when I threw up it was brown. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital in a white cast iron crib, and in isolation. I remember my daddy coming to see me and he had to talk to me through a window. He could not come into my room. When I got older and my heart started giving me problems. The doctors started asking me if I had rheumatic fever when I was younger. I didn't know other then the time when I was in the hospital. My mom had passed away by then and no one else could tell me.

I have no idea how long I was in the hospital. When I got home my oldest sister MJB had gotten me a dollhouse and all the little furniture and babies to put in it. I loved that and played with it for all the time. Then a little sister came along. and I was getting older and LMG gave me lots of problems. She stabbed me in the back of the head with a pair of scissors because I wouldn't let her play with my paper dolls. Then one time she hit me over the head with a hammer when I wouldn't give her the swing I was on. But I will get even with her when we get older.

I am in kindergarten now and I remember the teacher giving us an assignment, we were to color a picture and when it was my turn I could go up and paint that same picture on an easel. I was so excited about this that when I got up to the easel I painted a completely different picture. The teacher was very upset with me for not following directions.

My mother came to my class one day for open house. I was so proud of her she was a beautiful woman. I went to greet her with the teacher. I remember the teacher asking me to do some thing and I said "Way do you always make me be the one that does everything, why can't someone else do it don't you see my mommy is here" and she said, “Because I know you will do it right.” Boy did I get in trouble when I got home for sassing the teacher. Back then if you got in trouble at school you were in more trouble at home.

My daddy built the house we lived in and I remember handing him the nails. We moved in and I celebrated my 4th birthday there. I lived in that house until I got married at the age of 18. We didn't have much, we were a poor family. My dad worked at the railroad, and mommy was a stay at home mom. There were 5 of us kids, 1 boy and 4 girls. The 3 older girls slept in one bed together, my brother slept on the couch and I slept with mommy and daddy. My daddy built on to the house when mommy was expecting her 6th child.

Every once in a while he would add onto the house, but by then the oldest sister got married. It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and our bathroom was out back behind the house. There was a pump in our back yard that we got our water. When my mother was expecting another baby, daddy built on. Two rooms in the back of the house and moved the kitchen to one of the new rooms and hooked our pump up inside the kitchen.

The only problem we had was that we lived on the other side of the tracks. Well it wasn't tracks just a street – Westwood. Everyone living on the west side of the street were considered white trash, everyone on the east side was in the city that made us living in the country. The roads were dirt, no streetlights and no sidewalks.
My dad drank a lot and I remember at dinnertime every Friday one of us kids would have to go down to the beer joint and get daddy. None of us liked doing it. I remember when it was my turn to go I went down opened the door and yelled in and ask if my daddy was there, and we would walk home together. It got to the point where daddy had to get another job. He worked in a factory, also, and used his money from the railroad for his drinking.

But we had love and we had to have an imagination. We played Tag, Kick the Can, Easy Easy Over, Lemonade, Red Rover, One a Cat, Money, and lots more games we made up. We played outside from morning till night.

Like I said we were a poor family. We wore hand me down clothes and took anything that was given to us. At the beginning of each school year we all went together down to the Board of Education and they gave us some new clothes for school. Us girls all got 2 dresses, a slip, 3 pairs of panties, 3 pairs of socks. a coat and a pair of shoes. Back in the 50's you could not wear jeans or slacks to school it had to be a dress. All of us kids went to the same school at one time.

We ate a lot of soups. Now when I say soup I really mean soup. Chili watered down, spaghetti watered down, all mixed together, potato soup also watered down. We had very little meat and daddy cooked Sunday dinners. He would go out and kill a chicken clean it and boil it. To this day I will not eat boiled chicken. That is the only way we ever had it, so he could make watered down noodle soup.

One day I ask daddy when we were havimg for dinner and he said stuffed round roast. I was so excited we were going to have a roast. When we set down to eat daddy brought his round roast out to the table and to my surprise it was a chunk of bologna about 12 inches long and stuffed with dressing. I was disappointed but it did taste good.

Every winter I would get strep throat at least once, some time 2-3 time. I am telling you this now because the doctors think it should be connected to the Hodgkin's. I also had the mumps, chicken pox and measles. I was given sulfa drugs, until I became allergic to it.

to be continued