Hardy and Marie had five children: Wanda, Charles, Ann, Jim, and me. We shared a family, but the gaps in our ages meant that we did not share exactly the same childhood. Wanda was leaving school while I was beginning it, and Jim arrived about eleven years after me.
Each of us knew our parents at a different stage. Each saw the drought, the separation, and the moves from a different vantage point. Those shared experiences eventually led to five separate lives.
Now that Wanda, Charles, Ann, and Jim are gone, I am the last of the five. I want to preserve their individual stories as well as the memories we shared. They were people with lives of their own, not simply names in my family tree.
SIDE STORIES FROM MY LIFE