While in Midland, we were fortunate to be able to attend the Manire Family reunion. It was always held somewhere in Texas or Oklahoma, so this was the only time we went. My mom and dad were there too. Bertie Sue Manire Lind was my father's mother. Darren, Chris and I, with Duane on my lap, are in the front row, and Mike is in the top row, about middle, peeking between two men. I am happy to have a lot of Manire family history. Two years ago, the daughter of one of my father's first cousins (he's in this photo too) found me on Ancestry.com and she and her husband came here from Texas to visit. What a treat that was. When we met, we had a lot of the same family pictures, and it seemed like we had known each other all of our lives. 
Horseback riding at Fort Davis.
Chris had a newspaper route, delivering The Midland Reporter Telegram.Here's Chris giving Duane a ride on his bike.
This is the family portrait that we used for our Christmas card in 1984.
Duane's second Christmas. Darren (or was it Chris?) told me a (sort of) funny story that I don't remember ever knowing about. By this time, I felt comfortable letting the three boys stay without me for short periods of time. One time around Christmas when I wasn't home, Duane was standing by the Christmas tree and he started giggling. He told the boys that it tickled. After he did that a time or two, big brothers investigated and found that there was a Christmas bulb missing from one of the sockets. Duane was sticking his finger in the socket and getting a bit of a shock. To him, it tickled and he thought it was funny. Chris immediately took a bulb from a spot higher on the tree and filled that empty socket.
I wish I remembered the name of the lady who babysat for me. She lived across the street from us and she had a trampoline in her back yard. Oh, what fun the boys had on that!
Darren and Duane at the park.
I was really torn emotionally about leaving Texas. Although I had missed family and friends in Pennsylvania, I loved my job, I loved my church, I had some really close friends, and I really now felt at home there. Maybe it was something from my Grandma Lind's genes, but I was happy in Midland. However, I trusted God to work it out, because.....
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| Here's the little Texan sitting on our front porch. |
After five years in West Texas, I had finally made lots of new friends and was settled in the best job I'd ever had. However, Mike, Chris and Darren never really liked it that much. When my father's cousin, who lived in Texas, found out that we were moving to Midland, she said, "Midland! Why, there's nothing there but mesquite bushes, sand dunes and oil derricks!" Well, she was pretty close to correct. The guys loved to fish, and we had to drive over two hours to find a lake to fish in, and then there were no trees to sit under, just a few....yep, mesquite bushes. The boom started to slow down and the economy wasn't as fantastic as when we first went there. We had kept our mobile home in Pennsylvania, and so we made the decision to come back "home." In later years, Duane wanted to return to Texas, but he never did. After all, that was "home" to him, at least if you define "home" as where you were born. So anyway, here we are, all loaded up in a U-Haul truck and trailer, on our way back to Pennsylvania.
"We know that in everything God works
for the good of those who love him."
Romans 8:28
I finally remember the name of the babysitter who had the trampoline in her back yard - Mrs. Denny!
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