On February 15, 1977 my family and I moved into the house I still live in. This house has seen lots of life over the last 36 years. If these walls could talk, oh the stories they would tell.
My first husband, Roy, and my three oldest children and I lived in Richmond. Roy had been hired by the Indiana State Police the previous July. He had to go away to for sixteen weeks to the Police Academy. He came home to spend the weekends. When he went away to the Academy I was four months pregnant with our third child. I had 3 1/2 year old daughter, and a 1 1/2 year old son. It was a long sixteen weeks without him at home during the week. We enjoyed the weekends. I would pick him up on Friday evenings and take him back on Sunday evenings, so I could keep the one car we had. The drive was about an hour and a half each way.
When he graduated from the Academy, he was sent to a State Police Post about an hour from us. Now we knew where we would be living so we could get our house put up for sale and begin looking for a new house. Selling and purchasing a house takes a little while, so he continued to live away from us. He was working swing shifts with six days on and two off. At least now he had transportation to and from home. He was living at the state police post during his work week and coming home on the two days off.
In the middle of December, I was at home with the kids when I went into labor. I got in my car and drove with them to my husband's mother house, about a half hour away. I called the State Police Post and left a message for him. I told them I needed to contact him because I was getting ready to have the baby. He made it in time for the delivery. He was home for a day or two and then went back. My mom came to stay with me for about a week to help out.
Well we got our house sold quickly, and we had forty-five days to move out. Luckily, we found our house couple of weeks later, they were willing to let us in on the day we had to move out of our old house.
Now that brings us to February 15, 1977. That morning a moving van pulled up to our old house. The men came in and loaded our possessions into the van. We go into our car, loaded up our children, our youngest was two months old by then, and started out for our new home. Before we got to the house, we stopped at a fried chicken place and got a family meal and drinks. We drove the rest of the way to our new house.
Inside the new house was completely empty, the moving van wouldn't be there for a while. We had a blanket in the car. We spread the blanket out on the floor and set out our picnic meal. We put on young son down on the blanket. Our little family had our first meal in our new home. We were all back to living in the same house as a complete family again.
Three years later my husband died in a line of duty accident. That's a story for a different day.
Sadly, we never had a family picture taken, but here is the three children a few months after we moved into the house.
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