Our Tree House

By this time, Bill and Ginger Francis had visited us in Johnson City quite a number of times. They still drove from Ohio, which was quite a distance. Not too long after this time, they retired and moved to a place in Virginia, at Harrisonburg, which was much closer. They continued to visit us from VA until they could no longer manage the driving. The exact timing I can no longer remember, but the general sequence quoted here is correct. In 1977, they came to see us and our children were very happy to show them the tree house we had built in our maple tree in the center of our back yard. It was a house where Steven and I even slept one night and we were very proud to have a place like that. Of course, we also went to the new place we had purchased at Fall Branch in Washington County - just to show them.

Oconaluftee Indian Village

In October of 1977, I was invited to give a seminar at Western Carolina University in the Chemistry Department. Since it was on a weekend, our whole family decided to go together. We stayed at the home of a colleague, and on Saturday we went to visit the Oconaluftee Indian Village and Museum at Cherokee, NC. We saw how Indians lived in the area many years ago. There was a demonstration of how canoes were made by burning out the center, several restored buildings, and many other exhibits to explore. Our kids were very happy and had a great time walking along the village river which had a lot of trout!

The Young meet the Old

At the end of our summer vacation on the Cape in 1977, we went to see Sister Anthony at her retirement convent near Boston. I believe this time was the last time we saw her and she was almost 100 years old. With us were Shari’s kids, Doug and Laura. Sister Anthony was still quite energetic and tried to talk with all the kids, asking them questions. It was quite amazing to me that she was still interested in meeting and chatting with the very young of the family. Of course, there were no common interests between them. In fact, there was really no subject I could think about on which they could converse! Is life always this way?  We took a picture together but, as we did not have an automatic  timer, Janice and I had to take turns getting the picture. The last picture was taken in front of Janice home. We have very few pictures taken there, especially with Janice’s parents.

Our Family Friends

Betty and Boris Franzus became our family friends soon after we moved to Johnson City. Not only did Boris and I work on a number of research projects together,  both Betty and Boris loved to watch movies which were of interest to our two children. Many times they would invite both Margaret and Steven to see a movie with them. For example, I remember that they took our kids to watch “Star Wars” and they all enjoyed it very much.

In the summer of 1977, for the first and only time, the Franzus’ came to visit us on the Cape. We were happy to show them around and to let them experience what our summer vacations were like. We visited all the places we knew in the area. This was one of the few times we were able to get some pictures to remember and celebrate our lifetime friendship!