My daughter Rachel tagged me so here goes - hope "senior moment" don't kick in too much :o)
1997 - John and I were living in Fort Myers, he was working as an architect and I was one of several secretaries at the church we attended, First Assembly of God. The owner of another architectural firm hired John for much less than he was making for the other firm with promises that John would receive BIG bonuses periodically during the year. Those promises were not fulfilled so while visiting my mother in Tallahassee John went to the Department of Health to meet with officials over the design and construction of medical clinics, he was the architect on a medical clinic in our area. While visiting with these men he found out that there was an opening for an architect. He filled out an application and started working for the department in October. As a result we moved to Tallahassee, which was our 2nd time to live in this wonderful city. John's responsibility as an architect was overseeing the design and construction of new or remodeling old health clinics throughout the state. I teased him and said now he can jerk people's chains instead of getting his chain jerked!! hee hee hee I was hired by the Department of Insurance as a secretary in the bureau of Agent and Agency Licensing and later worked for the Bureau of Fire and Arson Investigations as an Administrative Assistant, which I really loved. At the insistence of my mother we moved in with her for a year which turned into 7. In 2004 we bought a house across the street from her house, the 2nd home we had ever owned. We renewed some old friendships at our former church but in 2001 we joined another church where John became an elder and active on the Missions Committee until his passing June 3 2005.
20 Years ago - 1987 - NOW I have really to start thinking. . . . Danny and Joel were living out on their own in Tallahassee, Rachel was living in Palm Bay so that left John and I, and Peter-John and Rebekah still at home. John was working for an architectural firm, Clemmons & Rutherford and I was working in the House of Representative as a secretary. We had built our first own home in 1984 and enjoying it very much. Old friends in Indiana started talking to us about moving there so John could help build a small Bible College so in September of 1988 we sold our home and moved to Indiana. We moved into an 80 year old Sears and Roebuck Fabricated Farm House heated by a wood burning stove. There were "3" bedrooms upstairs none of which was very big but one was really small. We designated it to be Peter-John's room - he said "that's a closet!!" We were living on the church property which was 52 acres partly planted in corn and the property was bordered by state forest. We enjoyed living in the country and was some of the happiest years of my life but ended in a great heart break. I'm happy to say though I still have friends from that community.
NOW 30 YEARS AGO, oh my, memory don't fail me now 1977!!.
Background Information - in November 1974 we had moved from Lexington KY to Miami, actually Naranja, FL to be part of a church ministry. Now that was a real cultural shock - Christmas lights on Palm Trees???? Our pastor moved to Tallahassee to pasor a church there so in July 1976 we moved there too.
Now to 1977 - we had all 5 kids in a Christian school so I had to go to work for the first time in 14 years. I was excited and scared at the same time. I was secretary to Eloise Harbeson, Director of the Tallahassee Community College Library. We rented a house at 801 Laurel Street (thanks Beka for remembering the address). I don't know if this happened exactly in 1977 but Rachel and Danny worked at a McDonalds not far from our house. By the way this is back in the day when they were timed and had to get your meal to you QUICKLY!! Any way, they were walking home one night from work and as they passed a fenced in yard a dog started barking and Danny started running saying " FEET DON'T FAIL ME NOW!!" He says he really wasn't afraid though. John was an elder at the church and working for an architectural firm called Barrett, Daffin and Figg. I think this was the same year that a friend from Naranja, Al Donaldson came up and stayed with us for a few months while he got a mechanic business going and before moving his family up. We used to go to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream treat and one of my favorite flavors was Pralenes and Cream. Al liked it too so he bought half of one of those big containers and brought it home for us to enjoy. I believe this was the same year that Danny and Rachel were the first "graduates" from Covenant Christian School.
We had a German Shepherd puppy during the time we lived here. I had made a batch of yeast rolls and had the bowl sitting on the floor register to hurry the rising process. WELL the puppy must have decided that they smelled good uncooked so he ate the dough - we had a MESS as a result!!
That is all I can think of right now but this exercise will probably bring many other memories to mind. I can think of lots of things that don't fall into this time period so I'll have to try to write them later.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Committment
I plan to continue writing about my life growing up and my adult life but tonight I need to write about something else.
Today my pastor's (Steve) message to our congregation basically was on commitment. He read scripture in II Kings regarding Elijah and James 5. He pointed out 3 things that he needed to destroy (and that we need to destroy in our lives).
1. Baal (which means lord, possessor, controller.)
2. Asherah (sp?) was the wife of Baal and she represented sexual immorality and Elijah hated it. He spoke to the sexual immorality we have today, pornography, especially on the internet, and the hold it has on so many people, even Christians; and the seductive things on TV. 3.Jezzebel (which mean - no commitment).
Elijah was able to destroy 400 prophets of Baal but yet he ran from Jezzebel. He pointed out many things/situations in todays society where people do not make a commitment; people living together unmarried as one example as well as many others. Then he brought it home to the congregation "where is your commitment to the church or more importantly to the Lord?"
To what and where are we giving our time and our resources? Are we praying every day? So much more was said but I can't write it all here.
(I listened to Dr. Charles Stanley before going to church and his message was don't put off committing to the Lord, then this afternoon I read Tony's (my son-in-law) blog of August 17 and he wrote about the need for more commitment in the church, i.e Body of Christ. Do you think the Lord is trying to tell us something??)
Steve's message spoke to me as I have been trying to hear/know what the Lord wants me to do. My whole life was supporting my husband and taking care of family; since John is now in the presence of the Lord I am on my own and need to know what He has for me. This is a new and different, and in a way lonesome, path for me. John and I always agreed on things together, now I don't have him to look to or lean on - I am having to learn how to look and lean only on the Lord. I need to seek more earnestly to know and hear His voice.
Today my pastor's (Steve) message to our congregation basically was on commitment. He read scripture in II Kings regarding Elijah and James 5. He pointed out 3 things that he needed to destroy (and that we need to destroy in our lives).
1. Baal (which means lord, possessor, controller.)
2. Asherah (sp?) was the wife of Baal and she represented sexual immorality and Elijah hated it. He spoke to the sexual immorality we have today, pornography, especially on the internet, and the hold it has on so many people, even Christians; and the seductive things on TV. 3.Jezzebel (which mean - no commitment).
Elijah was able to destroy 400 prophets of Baal but yet he ran from Jezzebel. He pointed out many things/situations in todays society where people do not make a commitment; people living together unmarried as one example as well as many others. Then he brought it home to the congregation "where is your commitment to the church or more importantly to the Lord?"
To what and where are we giving our time and our resources? Are we praying every day? So much more was said but I can't write it all here.
(I listened to Dr. Charles Stanley before going to church and his message was don't put off committing to the Lord, then this afternoon I read Tony's (my son-in-law) blog of August 17 and he wrote about the need for more commitment in the church, i.e Body of Christ. Do you think the Lord is trying to tell us something??)
Steve's message spoke to me as I have been trying to hear/know what the Lord wants me to do. My whole life was supporting my husband and taking care of family; since John is now in the presence of the Lord I am on my own and need to know what He has for me. This is a new and different, and in a way lonesome, path for me. John and I always agreed on things together, now I don't have him to look to or lean on - I am having to learn how to look and lean only on the Lord. I need to seek more earnestly to know and hear His voice.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
A little about me - part I
My birth name is Sharon Lee Fausnaugh born February 1, 1938. I was born at home, a farm house, in Pickaway County, Ohio. My Dad farmed with my Grandpa Fausnaugh on one of three farms which Grandpa owned.
When I was about 3 years old we left the farm life and moved to Columbus. We lived in a two-story double on the corner of Fourth Street and Hinman Avenue. My Dad worked for a meat packing company for a few years and then got a job as a mechanic with the transit company in Columbus. Back then the public transportation was streetcars which had tall poles hooked to electric lines and ran on tracks down the middle of the streets. There was a peddle that the engineer pushed down to give power to the streetcar. The streetcars couldn't turn around so there was a steering mechanism at each end of the car - the conductor simply went to the other end to go back in the direction he came from. Of course the streetcars gave way to buses which were also electrically powered; eventually gas buses replaced the electric powered ones.
My sister, Linda Sue, was born November 27, 1943 and my Dad was drafted into the Navy that same year. He left 6 months later, May 1944, for California where he was stationed for the rest of his tour. He was able to come home a couple of times during the war and we used to ride the streetcar to the Union Train Station on the north side of Columbus. It was a huge building and very exciting to see all the trains coming and going. It was wonderful to see my Dad come up from the tracks in his Navy Blue uniform carrying his duffel bag. He used to sing "Bell Bottom Trousers" to me; other songs from that time were "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile", another one was "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. . . . "
Due to gasoline being rationed and the expense of keeping a car my parents had to sell it. There wasn't a streetcar access to the grocery store, so my mother would put my sister into the buggy (we didn't have such things as strollers back then) and I would walk with her to the A&P Grocery Store, which was one of the grocery store chains then, about a mile from our house. Mother would put some of the groceries into the buggy with Linda and carry what she could in one arm; the buggy was too big for me to push. We did this year round so many times in the winter it was very cold and even icy sometimes when we made the trek; one time the store manager was kind enough to drive us home. My grandparents or my aunts and uncles couldn't help us out very much.
Many food items like flour, sugar and meat were rationed so a family had to apply at a designated place to receive a book of stamps to use toward purchasing rationed food. If an item required 1 1/2 stamps you were given a little red token as change. We were allotted a number of stamps according to the size and ages of the family members. When you ran out of stamps you had to reapply for more.
To help with the cost of living we had a couple of different ladies live with us at different times. One lady, Mrs. Wilson, who happened to be a cousin to Judy Garland. and she had a baby daughter and was a very nice Christian lady; she and her husband didn't believe in fighting but he fulfilled his duty to his country as a seebee, a construction unit for the military. Since they were "conscientious objectors" she didn't think I should sing the Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition song. :o) Another lady was Bertha McKay. She and her husband were friends of my parents before the war. She had a son, Mac the same age as my sister. Mother received $125.00 per month from the military which was her only income so this had to cover rent , which was $27.50 a month, food, electric and coal for heat in the winter, clothes and transportation on the streetcars. No telephones then!! Postage Stamps were 3 cents and then we had airmail stamps which were 6 cents. We would mail letters to Daddy on special paper and envelopes which were very very thin and send it airmail.
I don't remember this but my mother tells me that one year at Thanksgiving, my maternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Kirby, wrote to mother and said if she could get to Circleville, Ohio on the bus they would meet us there and take us home with them. We had to walk 4 or 5 blocks to get the streetcar and ride to downtown Columbus then we had to get off and walk about 6 or more blocks to the Greyhound Bus Station. Mother had to carry Linda and a suitcase and I walked beside her. (You couldn't fold up the buggy to take on the bus.)
Then there were the air raids. Every so often we would have an air raid drill at night. A VERY LOUD siren would be blown and all the lights were turned off. The black out wouldn't last too long, but it was a little frightening. Also every family who had a family member in the service would hang a little blue flag in a living room window. The flag would have a star for each family member on it, so we had one star on our flag.
During this time I started to school, the first grade - didn't have kindergarten or preschools then. The School year started after Labor Day and was dismissed for the summer before Memorial Day. They had a different system then; you had to be 6 by September 1st or you couldn't start in the fall, however if your birthday was after that you could start in January. Since my birthday was in February I had to start school in January of 1944. I had to walk 3 blocks down my street to Southwood Elementary School. Mother walked with me the first few days but then I walked it by myself along with other children, a little boy named Johnny walked me to school. Since I started school in January I had to go through the second half of the first grade from September to January; starting the first part of the second grade in January, 1945.
My Dad was discharged from the Navy in January 1946. He was able to go back to work for the transit company and retired 25 years later. Since we didn't have a car he bought a bicycle to ride back and forth to work which was several miles away.
There was a bill called the GI Bill established so men and women who had served during WWII could get assistance to either buy a house or go to college. Daddy and Mother bought a house in Obetz, Ohio in 1947.
When I was about 3 years old we left the farm life and moved to Columbus. We lived in a two-story double on the corner of Fourth Street and Hinman Avenue. My Dad worked for a meat packing company for a few years and then got a job as a mechanic with the transit company in Columbus. Back then the public transportation was streetcars which had tall poles hooked to electric lines and ran on tracks down the middle of the streets. There was a peddle that the engineer pushed down to give power to the streetcar. The streetcars couldn't turn around so there was a steering mechanism at each end of the car - the conductor simply went to the other end to go back in the direction he came from. Of course the streetcars gave way to buses which were also electrically powered; eventually gas buses replaced the electric powered ones.
My sister, Linda Sue, was born November 27, 1943 and my Dad was drafted into the Navy that same year. He left 6 months later, May 1944, for California where he was stationed for the rest of his tour. He was able to come home a couple of times during the war and we used to ride the streetcar to the Union Train Station on the north side of Columbus. It was a huge building and very exciting to see all the trains coming and going. It was wonderful to see my Dad come up from the tracks in his Navy Blue uniform carrying his duffel bag. He used to sing "Bell Bottom Trousers" to me; other songs from that time were "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile", another one was "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. . . . "
Due to gasoline being rationed and the expense of keeping a car my parents had to sell it. There wasn't a streetcar access to the grocery store, so my mother would put my sister into the buggy (we didn't have such things as strollers back then) and I would walk with her to the A&P Grocery Store, which was one of the grocery store chains then, about a mile from our house. Mother would put some of the groceries into the buggy with Linda and carry what she could in one arm; the buggy was too big for me to push. We did this year round so many times in the winter it was very cold and even icy sometimes when we made the trek; one time the store manager was kind enough to drive us home. My grandparents or my aunts and uncles couldn't help us out very much.
Many food items like flour, sugar and meat were rationed so a family had to apply at a designated place to receive a book of stamps to use toward purchasing rationed food. If an item required 1 1/2 stamps you were given a little red token as change. We were allotted a number of stamps according to the size and ages of the family members. When you ran out of stamps you had to reapply for more.
To help with the cost of living we had a couple of different ladies live with us at different times. One lady, Mrs. Wilson, who happened to be a cousin to Judy Garland. and she had a baby daughter and was a very nice Christian lady; she and her husband didn't believe in fighting but he fulfilled his duty to his country as a seebee, a construction unit for the military. Since they were "conscientious objectors" she didn't think I should sing the Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition song. :o) Another lady was Bertha McKay. She and her husband were friends of my parents before the war. She had a son, Mac the same age as my sister. Mother received $125.00 per month from the military which was her only income so this had to cover rent , which was $27.50 a month, food, electric and coal for heat in the winter, clothes and transportation on the streetcars. No telephones then!! Postage Stamps were 3 cents and then we had airmail stamps which were 6 cents. We would mail letters to Daddy on special paper and envelopes which were very very thin and send it airmail.
I don't remember this but my mother tells me that one year at Thanksgiving, my maternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Kirby, wrote to mother and said if she could get to Circleville, Ohio on the bus they would meet us there and take us home with them. We had to walk 4 or 5 blocks to get the streetcar and ride to downtown Columbus then we had to get off and walk about 6 or more blocks to the Greyhound Bus Station. Mother had to carry Linda and a suitcase and I walked beside her. (You couldn't fold up the buggy to take on the bus.)
Then there were the air raids. Every so often we would have an air raid drill at night. A VERY LOUD siren would be blown and all the lights were turned off. The black out wouldn't last too long, but it was a little frightening. Also every family who had a family member in the service would hang a little blue flag in a living room window. The flag would have a star for each family member on it, so we had one star on our flag.
During this time I started to school, the first grade - didn't have kindergarten or preschools then. The School year started after Labor Day and was dismissed for the summer before Memorial Day. They had a different system then; you had to be 6 by September 1st or you couldn't start in the fall, however if your birthday was after that you could start in January. Since my birthday was in February I had to start school in January of 1944. I had to walk 3 blocks down my street to Southwood Elementary School. Mother walked with me the first few days but then I walked it by myself along with other children, a little boy named Johnny walked me to school. Since I started school in January I had to go through the second half of the first grade from September to January; starting the first part of the second grade in January, 1945.
My Dad was discharged from the Navy in January 1946. He was able to go back to work for the transit company and retired 25 years later. Since we didn't have a car he bought a bicycle to ride back and forth to work which was several miles away.
There was a bill called the GI Bill established so men and women who had served during WWII could get assistance to either buy a house or go to college. Daddy and Mother bought a house in Obetz, Ohio in 1947.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Family Visiting
Rebekah and fmaily, Rachel and Peter-John and family are here and we are having a great time.
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