I graduated from high school in 1942. I loved dances in high school and went to most, if not all of them, I’m sure. I loved to dance. All through school I loved music, and always sang in the choir. I played sports, and was good at all of them. I often had solos in school plays, was captain of the soccer team and usually won in races. I had good friends: Mary Dickens, Ann Worth, and Betty Blum were my best friends. Betty and I loved to sing together after school. I remember how we would harmonize. Mary Dickens’ family was very wealthy. She was a close friend both in elementary and high school. She became blind, so I was her eyes and we were always together. I went with the family to their relatives in Plainfield, Wisconsin, to Chicago when Mary had to see the doctor and to the summer home on the lake. We kept in touch all through the years, until she fell down the stairs and died in 1956.

Ann Worth and I were so much alike and had such fun. She attended a local college so we were able to be together after high school. During the war we went to USO dances together but always felt so sorry for the service men because they were so lonesome, homesick and would show us pictures of their girlfriends and families back home. I introduced Anne to Alan Thwaits – whom she married and we remained in touch throughout our lives. She died of cancer in 1996. Such a gentle friend, Doris was my oldest sister. As I told you she went to work after high school with Standard Oil. She met a man named Gary through our cousin Mavis and she married him, and then divorced him. She loved being with my children, would visit, play games and really was such fun. But then she married Bruce who was an alcoholic and died because of it. Doris became one too and died in a nursing home at the age of 62.

Jeanne was shorter than Doris but very attractive. Here again she met Chuck Radke through our cousin, Lois. I was just feeling close to Jeanne the year before her marriage but never really felt close after that. Chuck was difficult to know, and they seemed to feel uncomfortable around Warren so we never saw much of them. They had four children named John, Butch, Sharon and Jane.