MY LIMB ON THE FAMILY TREE
When I got my first edition of Family Tree Maker genealogy software, it said when creating a family tree, you should start with yourself. So, applying that advice to my blog, I’ll start with my story. I’m the youngest child of Kermit Winfred Larew and Mildred Elizabeth Churchwell Larew. I was born June 10, 1957 in Denver, Colorado. My dad was 41 when I was born, my mom had turned 34 two days prior. My brother Kermit Dean was almost 12, my sister Kimberly Mildred was 9. My mom had delivered a stillborn baby boy in August, 1954. He is buried in Babyland at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
1957 - Kimmie, Kermit, Willa Jean & Dean
I had a good, Christian upbringing. My dad knew the Bible better than some pastors. My mom – like her mom before her – was a prayer warrior. My dad was a carpenter, and my mom was a nurse’s aide in the newborn nursery at Denver General Hospital. I remember asking my sister one time if we were poor; we never went without a meal, and my folks each had their own vehicles for transportation, but we lived in a very modest home and rarely took vacations. My sister and I both attended to Silver State Baptist School. Putting me and my sister through Christian school had to have been a strain on their finances, I am so grateful they were willing to make the sacrifice.
My dad loved the outdoors. He
went hunting every fall with my uncle Calvin Churchwell and a friend from
church; when my brother was old enough, he joined them and then my
brother-in-law, Derald after he and Kim were married. I remember the time Kim was pregnant with Micah and she and Derald, Jr.
were staying with Mom and me while the guys were up hunting. We got a phone call and Kim answered it (remember land lines?); she sounded
upset, so my mom insisted on taking the phone. Derald had been driving his truck up to the campsite with another guy, my
dad and Dean were in the truck behind them. Dad had apparently just said that Derald was getting awfully close to the
edge, when there the truck went, over the edge, rolling down the
mountainside!! Dad stopped and
they got out to see how they could help. Derald came scrambling up the hill, leaving the other guy to fend for
himself! I think Derald got
some playful ribbing after that. Thankfully, neither guy was injured.
Some of my best memories with my dad were when we were fishing. Dad, Mom & I would go up in the mountains, pitch a tent near a stream and Dad & I would start fishing. My mom didn’t like to fish, so she would take up a few magazines to read. Whatever we caught, Mom would fry up for dinner – the best way to eat fish in my mind, is fresh out of the water!
1965 - Dean, Mildred, Willa Jean, Kermit, Kim
If you look close, the painting on the wall by Dean is of
Kermit's old panel truck and a tent;
we were camping as a family and
a friend painted a picture from a photograph
(I sure wish I still had that painting!)
I also remember helping my dad around the house. One time, I crawled into the trunk of the car to hold the wrench while my
dad, who was under the car, installed shock absorbers. Another time, Dean and I helped him put wall paneling up in the upstairs he was finishing off for Dean. He gave
me a flashlight and pencil and I got into the rafter area, they held up the
paneling and I used the flashlight to see where the framework for the
opening was and drew the outline with the pencil onto the back of the
paneling. I could hear Dean
suggest to Dad that he just nail the paneling in place with me back there –
typical big brother!
Dean and I had chicken pox at the same time and were stuck at home for
awhile. I remember we saw a
squirrel out in the yard, Dean went and got some walnuts and he showed me
how to hold real still with my palm out with the walnuts; sure enough the
squirrel came up and ate out of my hand.
Both Dean and Kim got married in 1966. Kim and Derald Gautier were married on June 6; Dean and Diana Stoutenger were married July 2. So, at 9-years-old, I was the only child at home (no wonder I was spoiled!). After Derald left for Vietnam, Kim came back home to live with us. I remember riding with her one time in her 1946 Plymouth after a rainstorm, she drove through a fairly large puddle and water splashed up through a hole in the floorboard and got my shoes wet! We had a good laugh over that.
1967 - Kermit & Mildred's 25th wedding anniversary
Derald & Kim Gautier; Dean & Diana LaRewMildred, Jean, Kermit
I graduated from high school June 2, 1975. My mom always said that the vacation we took after that was my idea, since
I’d be getting a job and we might not take a vacation together for a while
after that. My dad had never been to Carlsbad Caverns, so that’s where we went. We took a day-trip down to El Paso, Texas and on into Juárez, Mexico. We had fun haggling with the street vendors for our souvenirs in
Juárez.
June 7-10, 1975
As far as I know, this is the last photo taken of my dad
My dad died suddenly at age 59, on July 27, 1975. After my dad died, my uncle Doug Williamson helped me get a job at Gates
Energy Products, manufacturing rechargeable battery packs. It was good money, and the work wasn’t bad, but I didn’t want to work in a
factory forever. I always
admired those people who knew what they wanted to do and got the education
they needed to do it. My mom
suggested L.P.N. school, and since I had no better idea, I pursued it, but
got expelled 2/3 of the way through.
In March of 1978, my mom married her high-school sweetheart, Harold Nuttleman. After her retirement from Denver General Hospital in November of that year, she moved permanently to his farm in Eastern Colorado.
After I was expelled from LPN school, I decided to
try to find my own path, but what did I want to do? I liked to travel, so I started to look at Want Ads to see what was even
available. I found an ad
involving some travel, and applied and got a job at Automotive Testing
Laboratories out on Colfax in Aurora. They contracted with the E.P.A. to test auto emissions on vehicles in
different locations across the country; I worked in the data entry
department.
A few months later the travel started when I was part of the team sent to
Houston, Texas for a 6-week assignment. We drove down in groups. The
cars we drove down served as our transportation as well as loaner cars while
we had someone’s vehicle, usually for 3 or 4 days, for testing. The company put us up in apartments; there were three women on our team and
we roomed together. After we
all arrived, this guy came to our apartment to arrange transportation groups
for the three shifts we would be working. I had seen this guy once before at the office in Aurora. He was in the car testing area painting baseboards. I remember thinking he was kind of cute. At our apartment he introduced himself, his name was Craig Hoffmann. Since he & I would be working the same shift, we carpooled
together. Our team worked six days a
week, off on Sundays. We would
work together, eat together, and hang out at the apartment pool
together. Craig & I would
hang out together and drink wine and talk; one evening Craig asked if I’d go
for a walk with him. We walked
along the railroad tracks. I
wanted to hold his hand, but he had just gone through a bad break-up and
made it clear he
“just wanted to be friends." Well, that was disappointing but, okay, we could just be friends.
Over time, our friendship deepened. On our day off, a lot of our team would carpool to Galveston Island and
spend the day at the beach. I
remember my 21st birthday was very special; we drove to Galveston
Saturday after work. Craig
& I enjoyed the warm water and the beautiful starry night. Our group was headed to a hotel for the night (separate boy/girl rooms),
but we got separated from the other cars and didn’t know what hotel it was
(and no cell phones then), so we just parked on the road by the beach and
slept in the car.
On our first official date, after a day at Galveston we drove back to
Houston to go out to dinner. I
was red from the sun; as we walked up to the
restaurant Craig said when we got back to the apartments, he wanted to take
my picture to send to his mom. I was going to crack a joke and say, “So you can show your mom that the
girl you’re dating is a red-skin,” BUT I didn’t say “dating,” I said “going
to marry!” Oh Lord, bury me
here under the sidewalk!! Craig didn’t say anything and we had a nice dinner, ignoring my major
blunder!! Little did we
realize it would prove prophetic! After our Houston assignment, we were sent to the Washington, DC area.
A few weeks into that
assignment, Craig returned for the beginning of his senior year at Colorado
University-Boulder, and a few weeks after that, I was sent back to Aurora to
replace a data entry girl who was fired. By now, we were getting pretty serious about our relationship. We talked about our faith and the Bible (he was raised Catholic, I was
raised Baptist), children and other important topics. In October, 1978, Craig proposed and I said yes. Things moved quickly then; he graduated from CU with a degree in Chemical
Engineering in December and got a job at Abbott Laboratories in North
Chicago, Illinois. He moved to
Illinois in January where Abbott provided an apartment while he found
housing. He found a cute
little 2-bedroom house for rent that was owned by an Abbott employee and
soon moved in; Abbott paid for the movers and much of my belongings were
included in the move. I was
teased about letting my stuff go never to see any of it again! Craig flew home to Colorado in May to go through graduation ceremonies,
then returned to Illinois. He
drove out in July for our wedding on July 21, 1979, a ceremony with a
Catholic priest and Baptist minister co-officiating. We then loaded up a trailer his dad sold him with the rest of my belongings
and we were off on our adventure into married life!
July 21, 1979
In Illinois, we moved into that cute 2-bedroom house. Our landlord and landlady, Frank & Mary, were great landlords and next-door neighbors. We put our many wonderful wedding gifts to good use. We decided to go on a short honeymoon, and utilize our new camping gear. We had a nice time, but if I had it to do over again, I would NOT tent camp on my honeymoon!
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| 925 S. Elmwood, Waukegan, Illinois 1979 |
Not long after we returned from our honeymoon, I got a job at Montgomery Ward. All my income went into savings, and we lived off of Craig’s income. We were saving up to buy a house, and one Sunday in 1981, we talked about perhaps in six months we would have enough money in the bank for the down payment on a little house to call our own. Craig made the comment that when God was ready for us to have a house He would drop it in our laps. That was not far from what happened! That very night at church, our Sunday School teacher, who was a lawyer, said he’d heard we were looking to buy a house. We said, no, but he told us his law firm was handling a divorce and the last piece of it was the selling of the house, a 3-bedroom tri-level. This was in 1981, when mortgage interest rates were running around 17%! He told us we could assume the VA mortgage of the seller at an interest rate of around 8%! We told him we’d think about it. We went and looked at the house and liked it – 3 bedrooms, 1-½ baths, detached 2-car garage, great neighborhood, nice fenced back yard. We called my mom to see if she would give us a loan, and she said yes, so we began the process of buying our first home!
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| 2616 Brnot Ave., Waukegan, Illinois 1981 |
Craig had been encouraging me to pursue a degree. I looked into the local community college and registered for the one-year Drafting program. I graduated in 1982, and got a job at a fluorescent light fixture manufacturer. And then, two months later I found out I was pregnant! My boss wasn’t thrilled, but I worked until 2 weeks before my due date. Our daughter, Theresa Elizabeth, was born April 10, 1983. She was a beautiful pink baby, but soon I noticed her hands and feet turning purple and about that same time the doctor said he didn’t like the sound of her cry and told a nurse to have a pediatrician look at her. Once I was in my hospital room, the doctor told us that both of her lungs had collapsed; apparently, she inhaled meconium – prenatal poop – and had a 50/50 chance of surviving. At 4-hours-old, she was taken to a Special Infant Care Unit at another nearby hospital. I was released three days later and we drove to the other hospital and I got to hold her for the first time! She was jaundiced so she had to stay one more day, but it was a joyous day we brought our baby girl home! Three years later, we welcomed Kellie Jean, on April 16, 1986. Our daughters have brought us so much joy.
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| Theresa Elizabeth Hoffmann 9 weeks old |
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| Kellie Jean Hoffmann 10 weeks old |
It was around this time that I began my genealogy research. All the research my dad had done was in a large shirt box. When he died, my mom gave it all to his older sister, Lois. I asked her if she still had it and she did, but hadn’t really done anything with it. She was happy to give it to me, and I was thrilled to receive it! Most of the contents were scraps of paper with Dad’s handwritten notes. There were some family records, a transcription of an old will, and other odds and ends. This was before there was such a thing as home computers or the Internet. I used Family Group Sheets and typed in information on Husband, Wife, and Children – Birth, Marriage, and Death dates. I figured out my own organizational system and started filling binders with these pages.
After 16 years in our tri-level, we decided it was time for a bigger home for the four of us. Friends recommended we check out Kenosha County, Wisconsin, just over the state line from Lake County, Illinois. We found a nice half-acre lot in a mid-sized sub-division just 1.5 miles from the state line, so Craig’s commute to Abbott wouldn’t be much worse. We moved in just before Thanksgiving, 1997.
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| 3330 108th Place, Pleasant Prairie, WI 53158 |
Our daughters got married in 2012, one month and one day apart, Theresa & Michael Andresen on May 19 and Kellie & Steve Bessette on June 20; our anniversary is July 21 – see the patterns? May, June, July; 19, 20, 21!
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| Michael & Theresa Andresen May 19, 2012 |
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| Kellie & Steve Bessette June 20, 2012 |
It’s been an amazing 41 years. We’ve vacationed in 11 countries; Craig got his private pilot’s license and we’ve enjoyed jaunts around Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin; and we bought a Fifth-wheel RV after retirement and are enjoying U.S. travel.
God has richly blessed us all along the way; even in our lowest times, we have felt His presence. Another legacy of many of my ancestors is a solid relationship with their Creator and Lord, Jesus Christ. God does not have grandchildren; it is up to each individual to seek His face and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I hope you have made that decision. God’s family tree is innumerable; to Him be the glory.
NEXT: MY LAREW FAMILY TREE
Jean
ReplyDeleteThanks for setting up this blog and sharing all of your gendology information.
Reading your family information brought back great memories of your mom & dad and all of the fun we had at family gatherings!
Strange how older brothers always try to get rid of their younger sisters haha!
Love
Kathy
I need to make a correction here about the hunting trip I referenced. Derald was not driving the truck, Rocky, my dad's friend from church, was driving his truck and Derald was his passenger. Dean was not riding with my dad; he had just started a new job and couldn't go hunting that year. So it was Rocky who rolled the truck, not Derald! mea culpa!
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