As the big Trailways bus stopped in front of Scotty's drug store in Humansville, Josephine looked out of the window. The first person she saw was Ray Routh, standing in front of the Post Office. She blushed rosy red, remembering the stories she had told her cousins, about going with him. Well, she hadn't lied about his looks. He was tall, dark and handsome. Maybe it was an omen of some kind, because he was the first person she saw as she came into town. Oh! he was coming up to talk to her. Ray said he had missed seeing her around town, and had wondered where she was. Then he asked her to go to the carnival with him that evening. Of course, she said, "No", just as she always did when he asked her to go out with him. She was glad her brother, Clifford, walked up just then. He told her he had hitched a ride to town with friends and they all planned to go to the carnival that night. He said, "Our friends will take us home after the carnival."

At the carnival, Clifford and Josephine went into a booth to get their pictures taken. When they came out, Ray was waiting for them. He took Josephine's arm and said, "It is my turn to have a picture taken with you." She made a joke saying, "I guess if I did not break the camera that time, it will take another picture of me." After the pictures were finished, Ray held on to her arm and he said, "One way or the other you are going to walk around this picnic grounds with me." Josephine thought about it for awhile. Then she said to herself, "I will walk around with him. Then it will be the truth when I tell my cousins about the boy I have been going with." Out loud, she told Ray, "Okay, just for a little while though."

Josephine learned Ray was only nineteen, and not as old as she has always thought. She found herself having a good time, as they walked along talking and laughing. When he asked her to go to the movies with him the next Saturday night, she surprised him when she said, "Yes, I will go with you."

When she showed her family the pictures, they all teased her about her first boyfriend. Clifford said they looked like Mutt and Jeff walking together. She was barely five feet tall. Ray was so slim, he looked taller than the six feet he was. Josephine was not expecting Ray, when he showed up on Tuesday night instead of Saturday. He did not have a car and he paid his friend, Dale Hobbs, bring him. He was a little hesitant about telling her parents why he had come. Dale had told him that Roy Goodman had a big rifle and had threatened to shoot any boy that came to take his daughter out. Ray thought Dale was just pulling his leg, trying to scare him. But, he sure did not want to find out the hard way if he was or not! Florence tried to break the ice by asking Dale, "Did you come after the cucumbers I told your mother she could have?"

Dale laughed and said, "We didn't come after pickles, Ray came to see if Josephine would go to the movies with him tonight."

They went to the show. It was family night at the community theater in Humansville. The price of admission was one nickel. Everyone who could find a spare nickel went to the show on Tuesday nights.

Ray bought a car of his own the next week. It cost ten dollars. It was a 1927 Model T Ford. He paid five dollars down and was to pay the rest next month. The tires were so worn out, sometimes he had to fix flat tires all the way to town and back. One night, he had four flats. It was very late when they got home from the show. As she started to undress, Josephine heard her parents waking up. She jumped into bed with all of her clothes on. They never knew she had just that minute gotten home. That old Model T was a sorry excuse for a car. The next day at school, Josephine fell asleep in study hall. Her teacher woke her up and suggested that she sleep at night. Josephine was so embarrassed. She had always liked school. Somehow it seemed she just could not keep her mind on her school work. It kept straying to a tall, blue eyed boy, baling hay for the farmers nearby.

At night, after Ray bad brought her home; they sat on the hill, a little way from the cabin in the woods. They listened to the whipper-wills and talked about their future. Ray was ready to settle down. He wanted a farm of his own. They tried to figure out a way to get married as soon as they could. Ray said he would try to find a steady job. If he could, her parents might let her get married. Josephine reminded him that she was only fifteen. She wanted to finish high school before she married. It seemed so far in the future. All they could do was talk and dream of marriage.

Just as it seemed hopeless, a married couple they knew, Darby and Ruby Anderson, received a letter from his brother in Illinois. He bragged about his job in the oil fields. He said the pay was good and jobs were plentiful. It seemed like the answer to their prayers. Ray and Darby decided they would pool their money and go to Illinois. At first, they planned for Josephine to go on to school, and when Ray had enough money saved, he would come back for her. As the time came nearer for them to part, they wanted more than ever to get married. Josephine could then go with them. Ray tried to talk her into running off with him and lying about their ages. Then they could get married without their parents consent. Josephine said, "No, I won't do that, my parents have always been fair and honest with me. We will ask them first. Then if they still say, "No", I will do it your way."

Darby and Ruby went with them and showed Roy and Florence the letter from Darby's brother. They said they were going to Illinois, and if Ray and Josephine were married, they could go with them. They were all so sure the men could get good jobs in the oil fields there. Florence was dead set against the plan because she wanted her daughter to finish school before she married. Roy knew how headstrong Josephine was. He thought it would be better to give the young folks their blessing than to force them into doing something foolish. He finally talked his wife into giving her permission, against her better judgment.

Ray and Josephine were married on September 30, 1939, in the old courthouse in the middle of the town square in Stockton, Missouri. This was the same courthouse his parents were married in twenty years earlier. Ray sold his car to the same man he had bought it from. He got his five dollars back, so it did not cost him anything to drive the car all fall. Ray also sold a heifer he had. Darby and Ruby sold all their household goods, and the two couples were off to seek their fortunes. They went in Darby's one seated roadster. Ray held his new bride on his lap all the way.

All that glitters is not gold, however; and when they got to Centralia, Illinois, not a job was to be found. Darby's brother did not even have one! After a week or two looking for a job in vain, Ray said to his wife, "I am going to hitch-hike home. You wire your dad and see if he will send you enough money to ride the bus home. I will pay him back when I get the money." "I will never ask my dad for money," Josephine answered, "I am your wife now. If you are hitch-hiking home, I will go with you. As long as we are together, it don't matter to me how we get there."

The next morning early, they started walking down the highway. They carried all they owned in an old battered leather suitcase. Ray had one quarter in his pocket. They walked for a long time before two old men picked them up. The men took them to St. Louis, bought them lunch and left them in the cafe. Ray had never been on foot in a large city before. He was worrying about how they would get back on the highway. Josephine asked the waitress which streetcar to take so they could get off close to the highway. They got on the one she told them to take and rode all afternoon. Ray had never ridden on a streetcar before, and he wanted to get off at every stop. His wife told him they had to go to the end of the line. It was almost dark when they reached the highway.

It was the middle of October, and the night was damp and chilly, They were walking fast trying to keep warm, when a truck driver picked them up. The next morning very early, he left them at Lebanon, Missouri. He wished them luck in getting the rest of the way home. After learning they did not have any money to buy breakfast, he gave Ray a quarter. They thought they could cut across from Lebanon and get to Humansville. It looked like the shortest way on the map. The shortest way is not always the best way, as they learned that day. The road they took was a farm to market road and most of the farmers went to town on Saturday. The only traffic on Sunday were local farmers driving a few miles to church.

After walking all morning, they were getting thirsty and hungry. They stopped at the next farmhouse they came to. Two nice old maids lived there and when they learned the couple had not had any breakfast, they gave them each a bowl of beans. The beans were not quite done but Ray and Josephine thought they were the best beans they had ever tasted. After thanking the two women, they walked on down the road. The handle on the suitcase broke and Ray had to carry it on his shoulder. He said he felt like throwing the darn thing away a dozen times. All that stopped him was the knowledge that all they owned was in the suitcase.

They walked all afternoon without getting a ride. At four O'clock they stopped at a little country store. Ray had run out of tobacco, he had been picking up cigarette butts along the road side, and rolling the tobacco into new ones with some paper he had. He spent the quarter the truck driver had given them for a can of tobacco and a sack of peanuts. He asked some boys at the store which way was the best way to get to the next highway. These boys thought it would be a good joke if they told Ray the wrong way, and they pointed in the wrong direction. Not dreaming anyone would play such a dirty trick on them, Ray and Josephine walked along the road until almost dark. When they came to the end of the blacktop, they knew they were lost. They walked along a creek bottom for awhile until they came to a house. They stopped and asked where they were. The family was just finishing supper. The man of the house told Ray and Josephine to sit up to the table and eat some gingerbread and milk with them. He said they were going to church services that night. If the couple would wait until the family was ready, he would give them a ride to the highway. The tired hitch-hikers were glad to rest awhile and eat the gingerbread they were offered. They were let off at the highway. After walking for several miles, Josephine sat down at the side of the road and said, "I don't care if I never get up. I am too tired to go on. My heels are covered with blister, the size of quarters". "As long as we are together, it don't matter to me how we get quarters", Ray teased her, telling her she should have taken his advice and wired home for money when she had the chance. Besides, he knew she could not keep up with him. He thought if he made her mad enough, she would get up and walk. He was right. She got up and said, "I can walk as far as you can and I will prove it if it kills me."

Ray was tired too. He stopped at the next farmhouse and asked if they could sleep in the barn. The farmer said he did not like hitch-hikers and told them to keep right on walking. Everyone had been so nice to them until now and they wondered what to do next. They walked a little way down the highway until they saw a group of three haystacks in a field close to the roadside. Ray said, "If we pull enough hay out of the middle haystack and crawl into it, maybe we can keep warm until morning." That is what they did. Roy slept on the outside, and every time Josephine woke up in the night, he was pulling more hay out trying to keep warm. No wonder he got cold. When they woke up at daylight, the ground was covered with frost so thick it looked like snow. They brushed hay and frost off of their clothes and started walking again. They walked fast, trying to put as many miles between them and the mean farmer as they could, before he discovered what they had done to his haystacks.

Breakfast consisted of some pears they found along the highway. Lunch was a drink of water. After walking all day, a man driving an old Model T truck stopped and asked them where they were going. Ray said, "We are headed for Humansville."

"Hop in," he said, "I am going to Flemington and you can ride as far as I go. You kids sure look tired."

After he had heard their story he said, "You must be starved, I will take you home with me and my wife will feed you up."

His wife cooked them a nice meal. After they had eaten, she put some medicine on Josephine's heels. The old man asked his wife if she would like to go for a little ride. "He might as well load these kids in the back of our truck and take them the rest of the way, hadn't we?" he asked.

That is how Ray and Josephine came back from their honeymoon, broke and tired, with sore feet. They were much wiser though. They did not carry a fortune in their suitcase, only their clothes. They still had their hopes and dreams however. They knew that "Someday The Sun Would Shine In Their Back Door" as the words in the song, Ray sang to Josephine when the going got rough.

They did not have a place to live that first winter. Grandpa Ed Routh said, "If Ray will pay half of the grocery bills and help me out wood to burn, you can spend the winter with me and Jewell." That is what they decided to do. The next week, Ray got a job, helping a neighbor, Josephine was left to spend her days with the old man who was a stranger to her. As the long winter days passed, a friendship and rapport developed between the young girl and this dignified old farmer. Josephine discovered he was a student of the Bible. He knew many of the stories by heart, and they had many discussions on the subject. She also enjoyed listening to the stories of his life. One day, she had a fever and was shaking with a bad chill when Ed came into the house. It was then she found out how kind and gentle this old man was. He gave her a dose of quinine, "Jest as much as will stay on the point of my knife blade." he said. Then he bundled her up in a quilt and then built a roaring fire in the wood stove. Soon she was feeling much better. Years later, Josephine thought of that day when he cared for her. That was the night she held his hand and knew his life on this earth was about over. He died as he had lived, quietly and without fuss, looking forward to seeing his Rhoda again.

In March, Ray rented a two room house in the woods, about a mile from his grandpa’s place. This house made of native lumber, sawed at a local sawmill. Ray had to clear a road to the house, so they could move their belongings in. The begged and borrowed enough household furnishings to get by. Their bed was borrowed from his dad, Luther. Because they did not have any bedsprings, they sewed tow sacks together to make a straw tick. After filling this tick with straw, they placed it onto of the bed slats. An old cotton mattress, donated by Grandpa Ed, was placed on top of the bed slats. It did not matter if their bed was lumpy. They were happy to have a home of their own, at last. Ray worked all day in exchange for an old table. Florence gave the couple two wooden kegs, full of dill pickles. These kegs were used as chairs. The curtains were made of flour sacks, bleached white, and trimmed with colorful print ruffles torn from an old skirt Josephine had.

She did not know much about sewing and cooking. She learned as she went along, by trial and error. One day, Josephine tried to make some bread. She did not keep the dough warm enough, and it didn’t rise all day. Ray was due home any minute, and she didn’t want him to tease her about her failure, as he had all the others. She quickly took the whole mess outside, and buried it behind the smokehouse. The next day, the weather turned warm, and the dough began to rise. Ray noticed the little white balls rising out of the ground. He called Josephine out, and asked her, "Did you ever see any toadstools growing around here that looked like that?". "No," she said, trying to keep a straight face, "I never did." It was many years before she told him the name of the strange fungi he had found that day.

On May 3rd, 1940, while visiting her parents, Josephine went into premature labor. The baby was not due for two more months. Ray was sent for the doctor. Before the doctor arrived, a tiny two pound baby boy was born. Florence was wondering what to do when the doctor walked in the door. He gave the baby to her, told her to rub it with warm oil, wrap it up, and keep it warm. He told Ray to find a little box and line it with a warm blanket and hot water bottles. Florence only had one hot water bottle, so Roy went out the trash and found some nice flat whiskey bottles. They filled these up with hot water and made a warm bed for the tiny baby. After caring for the new mother, the doctor left saying, "The baby wouldn't survive a trip to the hospital, so if it is alive in the morning, come to my office, and I will give you a book on the care and feeding of premature babies." Ray walked to town the next morning, and the doctor gave him a eye dropper with a long rubber tube on it and the promised book. He also told Ray to buy a thermometer to keep in the box, to be sure it was warm enough at all times. The book said a premature baby needed mothers milk to drink. Florence was still nursing her last baby, so she boiled a little of her milk to feed her new grandson. She worked the rubber tube on the eye dropper down as far as she could in the baby's throat. He was too weak to swallow by himself. It was due to the patient care given him by his grandmother those first few weeks that Roy Edward Routh owed his life. Feeding him drop by drop every few hours, she soon had him gaining weight. The day he grabbed the eye dropper with his tiny hand and sucked on his own, was a red letter day for her. He lived in the box for the first two months of his life. He was then cared for like any newborn baby. When Ray came home from work, he always asked, "How is my little Sonny boy?" This nickname stuck and he was called Sonny, until he went to school.

Ray and Josephine lived in the little house in the woods until Sonny was seventeen months old. By then, nobody would have guessed he was such a tiny baby when he was born. He had dark brown eyes, fat cheeks, and yellow hair that turned up in the back like a drakes tail. His eyes always had a gleam in them that alerted his mother when he was thinking of some mischief to get into.

In June of that year, 1941, Luther and his second wife, Alice, had a baby boy. They named him Junior Guy. Luther’s daughter, Ruby, said the day he was born, "That is all Dad and Aunt Alice need is another mouth to feed." Ruby left home soon after Junior was born, to work on a dairy farm near Stockton. Lois had stayed much of the previous summer with her brother, helping Josephine with the housework and the demanding needs of her premature baby. Lois then left to work for a neighbor, taking care of his blind wife. Lois didn't make much money, she got her room and board furnished. In September, Ray took a job working on the farm of the Stockton banker, Claude Davis.

The war clouds were gathering over Europe as Hitler continued his war of conquest. Ray was registered for the draft. He was not called that year because he had a small child and was working on a farm. After Pearl Harbor, Josephine's older brother, Clifford, enlisted in the Army Air Force. He was soon shipped to Africa, and spent most of the war there. Roy Goodman traveled around the country working on army bases and munitions plants. He received a medal for that work. He had been too young to be a soldier in the First World War, and he was too old to enlist in this one. Florence stayed at home and kept the home fires burning. With a smile on her face, she was wise enough to let him go do his part for the war effort. She gave birth to her next baby on the first day of the new year, 1942. They named this son, Robert Anslem, keeping the name of Anslem in the family.

Ray and Josephine had a tough time that winter trying to live on the salary of twenty dollars a month. When they learned they would have another baby in May, they saved for the doctor's bill in advance, so they would be sure he would come the eighteen miles to the house. Josephine picked up several hundred pounds of black walnuts to sell, and used the money to buy new clothes for the baby. Her daughter, named Dorothy Mae, was a Mother's day present, born the 11th of May, 1942. She was a quiet baby, she seldom cried, and she had sky blue eyes and a fringe of golden hair around her bald head. Josephine couldn't wait for enough hair to grow, so she could make a curl on top of her head. Sonny was fascinated with his new sister, he called her, "My Sistoo", because he could not say Dorothy. He thought he was so grown up, he called himself, "Daddy's little man."

When Dorothy was nine months old, the family moved to a farm in Cass County, Missouri. Ray would earn twenty-five dollars more a month. Oh! the things they could buy with all that extra money, They lived in a remodeled milk house. It was cozy though, and they put colorful linoleum on the cement floors and pretty curtains at the windows.

One day, Sonny and Dorothy were playing in an old chicken house and they disturbed a nest of bumblebees. Sonny came running into the house. Even though he was stung himself, he said, "Oh, Mommy, go get sistoo quick!" When Josephine saw her little girl all covered with bumblebees, she knew they could sting her to death. She was so frightened. She tried to be calm and not excite the bees in any way. She told her daughter to stand still. Then, she slowly brushed all of the bees off of Dorothy's arms and face, all the time fighting the impulse to grab her and run for the house. After the bees were off, she slowly walked to the house. Then she checked the child over and was relieved to find only a few stings. It was then that Sonny showed his mother all of his stings. She told him he was a brave and unselfish boy to think of his sister first.

Josephine was very unhappy when she learned she would have another baby in a few months. She was so young, only eighteen, and she already had two children, she thought that was enough. It was on the last day of December in 1943 when the doctor was called. He came alone. His nurse was sick with the flu. Ray's sister, Jewell, was sent into the children's bedroom to keep them out of the way. Ray helped the doctor deliver his second son. He also gave the new baby his first bath. Josephine just had to laugh, as tired as she was, to see this big man trying to bathe such a little baby. He did a good job, and soon the baby was wrapped in a blanket and placed in bed beside her. As she looked at this baby, the one she had thought she had not wanted; he opened his blue eyes wide and looked right at her as if to say, "I am here now whether you wanted me or not. What are you going to do about it?"

Josephine knew then, what ever happened, she would love him just as much as she did his brother and sister. "He has a twinkle in his eye." she said when asked what she would name him, "that reminds me of Tom Sawyer. I think I will name him Tommy, if Ray doesn't have any objections."

"Why don’t we name him Tommy Joe then?", Ray asked.

"I think a better name would be Tommy Ray.", she replied.

Jewell came into the room to see the baby, and she said, "I think Tommy Lee is a pretty name. I am going with a boy named Lee."

When Florence heard about her new grandson, she said "Since Tommy was born on his uncle Clifford’s birthday, why don’t you use his middle name, Eugene?"

They just could not decide on a middle name for Tommy. That is why he went through life without one. When he was grown up, and was in the Air Force, he was known as Thomas No Middle Name Routh.

Tommy developed pneumonia when he was two months old. This was considered a serious disease at that time. The doctors did not have all the antibiotics they have now. They were experimenting with a new drug, sulfa, that was discovered during the war. In the hospital, Josephine sat and looked at her baby, struggling for his breath under the oxygen tent. She was thinking of the time before he was born, when she had said she did not want another baby. Was she being punished for that thought now? "Oh, Lord" she prayed, "Please don’t let my baby die. If I have a dozen more babies, I will never say I don’t want any of them."

It was a few days before they knew he would live. Soon, he was smiling at all of the nurses, and they spoiled him rotten. When they got him home, Ray and Josephine did a little spoiling of their own. He had pneumonia three more times before he was four years old. Tommy never was as sick as he was the first time, because a new miracle drug, Penicillin, had been discovered.

The government wanted men to go to Alaska, to work on the AlCan highway. The pay was so much more than Roy Goodman was making in the States, he wanted to go. If he signed on, he could not come home for at least nine months. He talked it over with Florence and they decided he would go. He stayed home for awhile and fixed everything up for winter. He did not know until later, how well he had fixed everything. He had been in Alaska several months when he received a letter from his wife, telling him they would have their eighth child in March. They had four boys and three girls and they hoped this baby would be a girl and even the family up. If it was, they decided her name would be Estella Marie. Roy was still in Alaska when he received the telegram telling him the baby was a girl, born on March 17th, 1944. He wrote Florence and told her because, the baby was born on Saint Patrick's day, he would call her Pat. So Pat she became, and except for the family, very few people knew her real name was Estella.

Ray was notified in June that he had been reclassified and was to take his physical examination. He left Josephine and the children with her parents while he was gone. Roy had come home from Alaska and they had saved enough money to buy another farm. This farm was eighty acres on Turkey Creek, with a five room house. The house was old, and the plaster was crumbly in places. Tommy picked at the plaster and ate it. Roy said he had to re-plaster the whole house after that visit. He called his grandson, 11 Atomic Tommy, because Tommy demolished all of the plaster on his house.

Lois had gotten married two years before. She and her husband, Obie Floyd, had a little girl, Janice. Ray and Josephine went to visit them before they went home to wait for Ray to be drafted. The man Ray worked for had arranged for him to be deferred until the crops were harvested. He seemed to think he could demand more and more work from Ray. one day while they were cutting corn, the other hired man said, "Why don't we just enlist and get it over with?" Ray replied, "I will if you will." They threw their corn knives in the creek and went to town that day and enlisted in the army. They did not tell their wives until they got home that night. The women were not very happy, because they had not been consulted about the plans. Ray had passed his physical in June, and he was sure he would be leaving soon. He sold his car and borrowed enough money for them to live on until he got his first army paycheck. Josephine was settled in the upstairs rooms of her parents house until she could find a house she could rent.

The time seemed to fly b,y and soon, too soon, she was kissing Ray goodby before he got on the bus at Stockton. She wondered how in the world she would get along without him. The children were so young. Sonny was only four, Dorothy was two, and Tommy was not even a year old yet. No doubt about it, she would have her hands full. Four nights later, she dreamed she heard him coming up the stairs. The dream was so real. When she woke up, she looked around, expecting to see him. When she told her parents about the dream, she said she was sure it would come true. Roy laughed at her. and said she was kidding herself. Dreams did not come true. The next morning, before anyone was awake, she heard footsteps on the stairs. It was Ray coming home, just as she had dreamed he would. Ray said, "I didn't pass the physical this time because my wrists are swollen and out of joint from shucking so much corn by hand. I guess they think I can't hold a rifle with them. They don’t know my wrists will be all right if I don't shuck any more corn. Now we don't have to worry about me being drafted any more."

They were worse off than when they had walked home from the honeymoon. Now they were in debt, out of a job, and had three children to care for. Would they ever get the farm they wanted?

The next week, Ray heard about a farmer, Lee Edge, that was looking for a man to work for him and his son, Parley. They lived on the river bottom south of Stockton. He learned that they wanted a man to work for them for two dollars a day, and they would let him farm twenty acres of land on shares. They would furnish the machinery and half of the seed. Ray had to furnish half of the seed and all of the labor. He would get half of the crop. The wages he would get for his day labor would be enough for the family to live on, until the corn crop was ready to sell. Lee said, "If you want to, you can keep some cows of your own, and I will furnish feed for them. Josephine can raise as many chickens as she wants to, and she can keep half of the chicken and egg money."

When Ray told his wife about the job, he said, "I think we can make some money there. The only thing, the house is dirty and needs painting and papering. I know you can clean it up though."

Josephine was so tired of cleaning up dirty tenant houses. She tried to be cheerful, she knew Ray was enthusiastic about this job.

It was a cold and rainy day in March when the truck carrying their furniture turned into the lane leading to the tenant house. Before it reached the house, the truck stuck fast in the muddy ruts. They used a tractor to pull it out. Josephine was dreading the thought of going into the little four room unpainted house. She remembered how Ray had described it to her. She squared her shoulders and walked in. What a surprise! Somebody had painted all of the woodwork and papered the walls with pretty paper. She forgot how tired she was and soon had a fire going in the cook stove. After the rest of the furniture had been unloaded, Ray gave the driver of the truck a silver dollar, all the money he had. He said, "I have been saving this dollar for many years. All the luck it has brought me has been bad luck, maybe my luck will change if I get rid of it."

They had never worked so hard in their lives as they did that year. Ray worked all day for the Edges and then worked until the wee hours of the morning on his crop. His corn was coming up and looking good, then the army worms moved in and ate it up. He borrowed money to plant again. Josephine was very busy too. In addition to the housework and tending to the children, she raised two hundred chickens. She also did the evening chores when Ray was late coming in from the fields. Ray borrowed money to buy a milk cow. He bought a heifer calf every time he had enough money and fed it milk. In this way he hoped to build up a dairy herd.

That spring, Billy Routh was thirteen and he came to live with Ray. He helped Ray with the crops and Josephine with the chores. Lee and Parley hired him to work for them when they needed extra help. He always hurried doing the chores, so he could listen to his favorite radio program, "Sky King" on the battery operated radio. Billy lived with them off and on, until he joined the Army,

As the hot summer days went by, the corn grew tall and green, Ray was sure it would average seventy bushels to the acre. Josephine did a little mental arithmetic, 20 acres at 70 bushels to the acre, that would be 1400 bushels of corn. Corn was selling for two dollars a bushel. Their share would be $1400. Even after paying Lee what they owed him, they would be rich!

It never pays to count your chickens before they hatch, as her Grandma Blocher would have said, because it started to rain. It rained and rained, leaving behind a rain drenched world. The Sac River began to rise. Soon it was running muddy and wide across their cornfield, the corn that was to make them rich. All they could see was the top of the corn tassels sticking out of the water. A years work and all their hopes and dreams were under the swirling, waters of the river. The water was lapping at the corners of the yard by nightfall. Josephine was afraid to go to bed that night. Ray assured her the water would not come any closer; the house was built far enough up the hill to be safe. She put their clothes beside her bed; so she would be ready to dress the children and run up the bluff with them. Just in case he was wrong

The next morning, they could see that the water was receding, A few days later, as Ray and Lee were checking their damaged corn, Lee said, "I have been farming this river a good many years and I have found out that I can always get my money back from the same place I lost it. All I have to do is plant again the next year."

Ray replied,"That is fine for you to say. You’ve had some good crops through the years. I am wiped out. I owe you for the seed corn for planting this crop twice. I would have to borrow more money to plant next year."

"I will tell you what I will do." Lee said, "I will carry your debt over and lend you enough to plant again. You can earn enough money by days work to feed your family this winter."

When Ray was talking it over with his wife, she tried to cheer him up. "We are young," she said, "and we still have our cow. She is paid for now. We have all of the yearling heifers and they will soon be old enough to breed. I think I will be getting a lot of eggs from my pullets now. I think we will have better luck next year. We are better off than when we came here."

The war ended that year, and Clifford Goodman came home from Europe in 1945. He had escaped serious injury. He only had one wound, a piece of shrapnel had hit him on the head, and he received the purple heart. In 1947, he married Rose Elderbrook, the school teacher at Liberty School that year. Rose lived with the Anderson family, not far from the Roy and Florence, and had gone to Stockton High School with Dale, Myrna and Francis Goodman. Roy and Florence were on the Liberty school board, and they had to interview Rose for that job. After Clifford and Rose married, he went to College on the G.I. Bill. He later re-enlisted in the Air Force, and stayed in the service until he retired. He and Rose raised five sons, Ronald, Jerry, Donald, Darrel and James. They lived many years in San Antonio, Texas, and live there still. Clifford earned his Masters Degree at night. After he retired from the Air Force, Clifford worked for the state of Texas, and retired from there, too.

Roy and Florence went into the dairy business with the money they had saved while he was working in Alaska. He re-plastered the farmhouse and enclosed the porch to make a bedroom for them. He hauled sandrock from the old forty and laid it up on the north and east walls. It did not look like the same house when he finished. He continued to add improvements as the years went by. It seemed like he was always finding something else he wanted to do to the house.

Lois and Obie had another baby girl, named Joyce. Lois hung up her stocking on Christmas eve, 1945 and she got a daughter. Ruby married a man from Stockton, Loren Fox. They went to Colorado to live the first few years, after their marriage. Later, they moved to his mother’s farm near Stockton. They had two sons, Larry and Gary. After moving to Kansas City, Ruby and Loren separated and she raised her sons alone. Jewell also married a man from Stockton, J. D. Simeral. This was not a happy marriage, and they soon divorced. Jewell married Winton Hargis a few years later. They lived in Iowa a few years, then they moved to Kansas City then on to Greenfield, Missouri. Winton is a trader and trucker there. Jewell has been an assistant nurse for Dade County for many years. Their children are named, Jeann and Blain.

The second year Ray and Josephine sharecropped on Sac River, he was flooded out in June and he replanted, hoping for a late frost in the fall. The crop was late, but he made enough money to pay Lee off and buy another cow. They decided to stay another year.

As Sonny marched to school that fall, carrying his lunch in a lard pail in one hand, and his Big Chief tablet in the other, he left his mother, sister and brother in tears. Josephine did not want him to grow up so fast. Dorothy wanted to go to school with him, and Tommy was crying, because they were. When his daddy asked him what he had learned at school that first day, they were surprised at his answer, "The world is thousands of miles around and I have a girl friend. Her name is Carolin,e and she is in the second grade," he said, "and my name is Roy, not Sonny, and I want everyone to call me Roy, from now on." Josephine thought, he is growing up much too fast.

Then he told his grandma his name was Roy, Florence said, "I will try to call you Roy, but I am afraid I will always think of you as "Sonny" in my heart."

The year 1947 started out very promising. Their corn turned out very well. They cleared over $1,200 on it. They were looking for a farm to buy. Their heifers all had calves and they were milking several cows. Josephine was selling enough eggs to buy all of the groceries. Could it be? Maybe this would be the year they could buy a farm of their own.

Dorothy was a happy little girl that fall. She was only five, but the school needed another pupil to keep the school open another year. She was allowed to go. She learned to read almost immediately, and it was amusing to hear her. She could not pronounce the letters L and R, so she read, "Wook Jane, Wook Dick, see Jane won, see Dick won." Lee would catch her on the way home from school, just to have her read to him. The teacher said, "I am amazed that Dorothy is doing first grade work at the age of five. Maybe one of the reasons is because she is the only pupil in the first grade."

Josephine was expecting her fourth child in December. True to her promise when Tommy had pneumonia, she tried to be happy about this baby. She hoped it would be another girl. Dorothy wanted a sister to play with. In October, her last baby, like her first, came much too early. Ray thought if he could get Florence to come and take care of the tiny little girl, she would live, as Roy had. Even Florence could not perform another miracle, and the baby lived only twelve hours. When she was asked what she would name the new baby, Josephine turned her face to the wall and said, "I just can not bear to name a dead baby. It will never hear it's name called." She regretted that decision later, when they bought a marker for her tiny grave, in Alder Cemetery. They had to have it inscribed, "Baby Routh, October 22, 1947."

Ray bought a small farm near Humansville, late December of 1947. They left the children with Josephine's parents, after spending Christmas day with them, and moved the next day. They were tired, but very happy when they picked the children up that night, took them home, and tucked them into bed. At last, a home of their own. Ray would not ever have to work as a hired man again. They worried about the mortgage they had on the farm. With a lot of hard work, and a little good luck, they could pay that off in no time at all. Such optimism is the stuff dreams are made of.

In July, their dream turned into a nightmare. Ray was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. Fifteen minutes after his arrival, he was on the operating table. Later, sitting beside him waiting for him to wake up, Josephine was wondering how on earth they would ever pay all of the bills. Ray opened his eyes, he was confused, he didn't know the operation was over. He said, "Josephine, promise me that if I don't make it, you will see that all the kids get an education. I have always regretted that I didn't stay in school longer. At least, try to get them all through high school."

"Don't worry about them, you can see to that job yourself." she said, "It is all over and you are fine. The doctors got your appendix out before it ruptured." Ray did not believe her at first. After he felt the bandages on his side, he knew. Then he began to worry about all of the bills too. She told him to quit worrying, and rest and get well. He was lucky to be alive.

Josephine tried to do all the chores by herself. One cow was hard to milk. She had just had a calf, and did not milk out clean. This cow developed mastitis. Soon she was dead. They had been offered two hundred dollars for her a few weeks earlier. Oh! why hadn't they sold her then? They sure needed the money.

The corn crop was a failure, and Ray was not able to put any hay up. What would they feed their livestock? They would have to have a sale and sell all of the cows it had taken them so long to accumulate. After the sale, they still owed all of the hospital bills and $1500 on the farm. It would be many long years before they would be free of debt again.

When Ray was able, he began working as a hired hand again. This time on a dairy farm. They thought they had struck bottom, nothing more could possibly go wrong. Not so, Roy had to have his tonsils taken out, adding to the debts. Then Ray began to have recurring fevers at night. The next day after these fevers, he was so weak he could hardly get through the day. After blood tests were taken the doctor said he had undulant fever. There was no cure for this disease, Ray would get shots twice a week to slow the progress of the illness. He did not tell Josephine how serious the disease was. He did not want to worry her. "She knew though. She had read in the paper that Henry Ford had spent millions trying to find a cure for undulant fever in time to save his son, Edsel, who had it. He had failed, and Edsel died. Josephine never told Ray she knew. She did not want to worry him.

One day in town, Dorothy told her grandpa that it was her birthday. Roy Goodman gave her a quarter and when he found out her birthday was not until the next week, he called her, "A little Blond Golddipper. "Every time he wanted to tease her, he told the story about how she had dug, a quarter out of him and it was not even her birthday.

Luther's wife, Alice, went to the doctor and he told her, "If we don't get you in the hospital and get your blood pressure low so we can operate on that goiter, You will die." In town that day, she bought Dorothy and herself an ice cream cone. Alice made the remark that if she was going to die, she might as well eat what she wanted to. The next day, Ray was notified that Alice had died in her sleep. Dorothy assumed the ice cream had something to do with her death. She was afraid to eat ice cream. She thought she would die too! Josephine explained to her that it was not the ice cream that made Alice die. Dorothy would not eat ice cream for weeks

That summer, a little dog came to live with them. One morning, Tommy opened the door and there he was. All of the children fell in love with the black and white dog. They learned the dog belonged to an old couple that lived a few miles east of them. Every time they came and got the dog, he would run off and come right back to play with the children. Finally, the couple told Tommy, "If old Jack wants to live with you that bad, we won't come and get him anymore. He can be your dog." When the family moved to Kansas, Jack went with them.

Tommy started to school that fall. The previous winter, while the older children were in school, his mother had taught him to play with cards. When the teacher asked him to count for her, Tommy stood up and began, "Ace, deuce, trey, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, and king." Then, pleased because he knew how to count, he sat down.

The teacher said, "I never heard a pupil count like that before."

Roy and Dorothy were so embarrassed because all of the other children laughed at their little brother.

In 1949, Ray moved his family to Wellsville, Kansas. He had a new job on the farm of Dr. Thorn. Ray was so weak, he could only carry one bucket of feed at a time. He did not know how long he would be able to keep this job. He did not want Dr. Thorn to know how sick he really was, so he went to Dr. Naylor to get his shots. Dr. Naylor got in touch with Dr. Thorn and asked him if he knew of any new medicine that was being used to treat undulant fever. The next Sunday, Dr. Thorn brought out a recently developed drug, Aureomycin, from Kansas City. He said, "I don't know if it will work against undulant fever or not. It is very effective curing Rocky Mountain Fever. If you want to take a chance and experiment with it; I will leave it here."

"I don't have much to lose." Ray replied, "I will try anything at this point." He had to take two treatments before his blood tests came back negative. He was cured! They had found a new use for Aureomycin. Now it is only used to treat animals.

It was a bitter cold night, five degrees below zero. Ray banked the roaring fire in the big coal stove and they went to bed. In the middle of the night, Jack pushed the door open to Ray and Josephine's bedroom. He jumped up and barked very loudly in Ray’s ear. Ray was angry at the dog for waking him up. Then he smelled smoke. The house was on fire! He shook Josephine awake and they ran into the children's room. It was so full of dense black smoke they had to feel their way. Josephine woke Dorothy up and told her to run to the car. Then she ran to help Ray get the boys out. They were almost overcome by the thick smoke. They were closer to the stove than Dorothy was. Ray wrapped Tommy up in a blanket and carried him to the car. Josephine roused Roy enough to walk him out too. They met Dorothy running back into the burning house. She had to rescue all of her dollies. As they looked back at the house, they saw it was not blazing yet. Ray and Josephine went back in and put on some clothes. She could not find her dress, so Josephine pulled on a pair of Ray's overalls over her nightgown. The legs were much too long; so she rolled them up a few times. They took the children to Jess and Gladys Haney's house. They called all the neighbors on the party line and they came and helped put the fire out. The entire wall between the kitchen and the children's room was burned out. It was due to the quick action of the neighbors that the house did not burn to the ground that cold night. If Jack had not barked and woke Ray up, the children would have burned to death, before the fire spread to their parent's bedroom. Was it destiny that sent old Jack to live with them? Whatever the reason, they were all forever grateful to that little dog. A few years later, Jack vanished, as mysteriously as he had come. Josephine let him out early one morning and he was never seen by them again. Had he decided to find another family to live with? Ray drove for miles around, looking for him. No one had seen a little black and white spotted dog. They always wondered what had became of old Jack. He was indeed man's best friend.

In 1951, Ray decided he would never save enough money to pay his debts, working on another man's farm. He thought he would try construction work. He began working for Constance Construction Company, in Lawrence. He worked for them over twenty years. He moved his family into a farm house, south of Baldwin, Kansas, just until he could find a house closer to Lawrence. Ray worked on many of the sewer lines and finished concrete on a lot of the sidewalks and streets of Lawrence and in the surrounding towns. He also worked on many of the new buildings on the campus of Kansas University. He had given up his dream of owning a farm of his own. He concentrated on the job of paying all of his debts and educating the children. They went to school in Baldwin. And, yes, all of them went on to high school, as Ray had been determined they should, years ago.

Roy enrolled at Kansas University; then changed his mind and joined the Air Force instead. Dorothy thought she wanted to be a nurse. She went to Osawatomie and worked at the State Hospital for two years. While there, she took training to be a practical nurse. She decided she did not want to be a nurse after all, so she moved to Kansas City. After trying several other jobs, she went to work at Hallmark Cards. She attended Junior College at night and earned many college credits that way. That helped her advance in her job at Hallmark. She is interested in many hobbies and is very busy at her career. Tommy was the first of the children to marry. He married his high school sweetheart, Patricia Salisbury, on November 18, 1961. Her parents, Donald and Teresa, lived on a farm several miles west of Baldwin. When he asked his parents if they would give their permission, so he could get married, they told him he was too young. He said, "I don't see how you can tell us that when you were both under age when you were married."

Ray answered him, "We are speaking from experience. If we had listened to our parents and waited until we were older, maybe we would not have had such a hard time making a living."

When they were married, Tom was almost eighteen and Pat was sixteen, to be seventeen on the 12th of February. Tom joined the Air Force soon after, and Pat was left with her new in-laws to stay until he completed his basic training, at Lackland AFB, in San Antonio, and was able to visit with his uncle Clifford and his family while there. She was almost a total stranger to them, but they felt they knew her much better, when at last, she was able to join Tom, in Wichita Falls, Texas. It was there their first baby was born on the 13th of June, 1962. He was named Douglas Edward. Tom and Pat stopped in Baldwin, to stay two weeks, on their way to Duluth, Minnesota. Douglas was only four weeks old then. Oh, how proud his grandparents were of their first grandchild. He had deep blue eyes and very little blonde hair

Roy served the last two years of his enlistment near Nashville, Tennessee. It was there he met and married, Dorothy Taylor, on July 14, 1962. Her parents, Walter and Margaret "Rene", lived in Nashville and Dorothy had spent all of her life there. Ray and Josephine’s second grandchild, a girl, was born in Nashville on May 28, 1963. Her parents named her Teresa Renee, and they called her Renee. She had twinkling blue eyes and a sunny smile. She was bald when she was born, when hair grew, it was blonde.

Doug, could walk when he was nine months old. Renee could talk at about the same age. Their great grandpa, Roy Goodman, said, "If the next generation develops as quickly as this one, my great-great-grandchildren will be born walking and talking. Wouldn’t that be something to see?"

On a cold stormy night in Duluth, Minnesota, Tom and Pat had their next baby. A girl this time, named Nancy Lynn. She was born on the 24th of January, 1964. She also had blue eyes, but she had long black hair. This hair fell out and was replaced with light blonde hair in a few weeks.

When Nancy was a few weeks old, Tom moved his family hack to Baldwin. He was sent to Libya, Africa. He missed seeing his two little ones grow and develop for two long years. Pat rented a small apartment in Baldwin, from Billy and Navis, and went back to school, in the mornings. She got a few more high school credits. It was one way to keep busy on the long days and nights, while Tom was away. When he came home, Tom went to work for the Power and Light Company in Lawrence.

Roy and Dorothy had another girl, born December 2, 1964. They named her Bretta Lee. She was in a hurry to come into this world and she arrived a month early. She began having trouble breathing almost immediately after birth, and was rushed to another hospital, before her mother even got to see her. This hospital was equipped to handle premature babies with breathing problems. Bretta weighed a little more than most babies born prematurely and this was in her favor as she struggled for her life. She had a few ounces to spare, before she got better and began gaining weight again. Bretta was just opposite in coloring from her sister, Renee. Bretta had a darker complexion and dark brown eyes and hair.

When Roy was a boy, still at home, he always said, "If I ever have a son, I will name him Troy Edward." He was beginning to wonder if he would ever get a chance to use the boy's name he had picked out. On May 8,1968, Roy telephoned his parents and announced very proudly, "I have a boy this time. Of course, we named him Troy Edward." When he was reminded that Doug’s middle name was Edward, Roy said, "I picked the name out first." Troy was a black haired and dark brown eyed baby.

Roy worked as a welder for many years and then he went to work at Firestone Tires. Dorothy also worked when she wasn't taking time off to have her babies. On October 2, 1971, a sweet baby girl joined the family. They named her Kimberly Jo. She was everyone's darling, with her sparkling black eyes and blonde hair. She was a tiny little girl for the first few years. She started growing, when she started to go to school, how she loved school.

Ray and Josephine lived in that "temporary home" near Baldwin for twenty-one years. After years of struggle they paid all of the old debts and life was much better for them. Ray bought a mare, named Babe, and a saddle. He was always happy when some of the grandchildren or nieces or nephews were around, so he could take them for a horseback ride. Billy bought a team of ponies and a little wagon for them to pull. He left them at Ray's place in the country. Often they would take a wagon load of children for a long ride on Sunday afternoons.

In May, 1972, Ray had enough money saved to buy a new mobile home, at last. When they found the one they wanted, Ray bought it, They parked it on a farm eight miles south east of Lawrence. Thirty three years after Ray had promised Josephine, "The Sun Will Shine In Our back door Someday." It did!