A chapter from “An Artist’s Story,” the life story Lee wrote in his eighties. In his words, as he wrote them.

Over the years Lois and I have kept up with many old friends that were made when we lived on Brewer Rd. in Rankin. Today as I write this most of them have passed on or moved away and we find that we are the “old ones“. We were reminiscing today about who was the oldest in our church household group that we sort of lead, and what do you know it’s us. Ha! Ha!

It wasn’t always this way, when we lived on Brewer Rd. we were much younger 25 or 26 there abouts.

We had lots of energy and stamina. We often took the children camping. We had a large old smelly tent we took to places like Ludington State Park, Onaway State Park, Mackinac Island and most other State Parks. We liked to go wherever we could hike and swim.

Every once in awhile we would try and get together as a whole family but this was hard to do. We never started the habit of having an old fashioned reunion. I wish we had however it might have been a small one because there were few relatives around. Bud and Allen were living some miles away but after we returned from the war we would visit one another.

I remember Lois taking Kenny to see Lucy during the Second World War when Allen and I were gone. She decided to take the train to Lansing where Lucy lived.

She packed her things and Kenny’s in an old suitcase and got a ride to the railroad station in Flint. Kenny must have been 4 years old. She went up to the ticket window and mistakenly asked for a ticket to Saginaw instead of one for Lansing. They got on the train on time and headed west. When they got to Durand the conductor very nicely helped her get off and transfer to the only north bound train that went to Saginaw. The train consisted of some very old cars that looked like the 1800’s century.

There was an enlisted man aboard and that’s the only other passenger. He was very helpful and played with Kenny as this old train slowly made it’s way to Saginaw.

Kenny especially enjoyed going to the men’s room because he could see down through the old stool and look at the railroad ties go by. What fun and the soldier didn’t seem to mind.

When Lois and Kenny disembarked from the train the sign on the station said “Saginaw“, she knew then that someone had made a mistake. She got on the phone and called home to tell them they were in Saginaw and not Lansing. A short bus ride got them home safe and sound.

Lois felt that she was not sure that Lucy quite understood what had happened nor did she really believe the story about going to Saginaw.

Kenny was happy though with his train ride. He kept telling everyone that, “He went to Sageena “.

When Kenny was very young and just starting to talk he would make up his own words for most anything. It was fun to listen to him make up words and you had to work out a translation for most of what he was talking about. For instance whenever he heard an ambulance go by our corner he would yell, ” AMBE - BLETS -NUTS“, he used this word until he was well into his threes.

Kenny was perhaps a year old and whenever he woke from his nap he would play quietly until someone would realize that he was awake and come to help him from his crib.

One afternoon while I was away in the Service in 1945 Lois had an unexpected visit from an old friend from her past. He had stopped in to say hell-o and to see her new baby boy who she thought was still sleeping. This old friend was one of her admirers who quite often would stop at her counter at the Home Dairy when she was a young waitress there.

Lois was very surprised to see him and somewhat flustered but she invited him in to see her charming baby boy. She excused herself and went to the nursery to bring him in to see her visitor and to her great embarrassment Kenny had been quietly finger painting the wall over his crib using the soft warm stuff from a full diaper. Lois was so embarrassed that she promptly said good-by to her old friend and spent the rest of the day washing down walls and giving Kenny a good bath.

Lois later related this story to me in one of her letters and I secretly had a good laugh. I am sure that Kenny got his artistic talents from me. He was a good artist even then! Ha! Ha!