If you were to go to my Genealogy Pages, you would find that I am my own 5th, 6th, and 7th cousin, on my father's side of the family. I am just short of proving that my mother was my father's 6th cousin, so it gets worse I progress along?
Actually, I suppose, MY story kinda starts with my Father and my Mother.
Mom and Dad met while both lived in Texas. Back in the 1930's, mom's family lived in Rochester, Haskell county, Texas. Dad's family lived in Knox City, Knox Co., Texas.
Also in Rochester was the Charlie Hudson family. My grandfather, Ike Hudson, Sr., and Charlie were brothers who moved from Shuqualak, Noxubee county, Ms. back in 1888, to Hill county, Texas. Charlie was 18, and Ike was 16. They married sisters, Charlie married Mattie Pate and Ike married Carrie Pate. That made their children double first cousins.
Years earlier, my mother's father had gone to live with his uncle, Abe Greer, at Rochester. Maurice Durst grew up there, married, and established his family at Rochester. Although there was a time period that the family lived around Crosbyton, Texas, the family returned to Rochester.
My mother, Myrtie Mae Durst, attended the schools at Rochester along with my father's double first cousins. She told of how they were great friends, and ultimately met my father when he came to visit them. They kinda grew "sweet" on each other just about the time that the Durst family left Texas for California, 1937. They were apart for awhile. Mom told that Dad came to California only to "miss" her, as the family had moved back to Texas in 1938. Then, as things did not go well back there, the family again moved to California in 1939.
Mom and Dad "got back together" during that short stay in Texas, and when Mom moved along with her family "back" to California, she didn't think she would ever see my Dad again. But, in 1939, he joined the Pony Express Race from Nacona Texas to the World's Fair at Treasure Island, San Fransico, California.
Mom told of how one evening she was preparing to go to the movies with Bernard Ritchie, of Laton, California. It seems that Dad showed up, unannounced. So, Bernard went to the movies with Mom's sister, Everal.
Mom and Dad...she never did say if they went to the movies or not? Mom and Dad married at Selma, Fresno county, California on August 26, 1939. Bernard ultimately married Everal.
In June of the following year, their first born, a son, Charles, was born. They hauled to many rodeos, ropings, and ranch gatherings with a diaper hanging on the horse trailer. Then, they decided (not sure if it was agreeable or not with all involved?) to go to Texas and rodeo back there for a bit. While at one rodeo, the announcement came: All cowboys were to report for active duty or to the remount station at Ft. Reno, Oklahoma.
It was a very wet and cold winter. The baby developed pneumonia. A very wonderful thing happened while they were suffering thru that time, they had a guardian angel watching over them. The doctor who first saw "baby Charles" noted his physical condition and the condition under which the family was living, a small cabin which would get snowed in, the wife and mother left all day with the sick child while the husband was off to work for the Army shoeing, breaking, and buying horses. The doctor made arrangements, and they moved into a very nice apartment with the proper heating equipment. Mom always said she actually believed that the lady who had the apartment was the doctor's mother, but she never really knew for sure. Anyway, the baby received the finest of care, the mother was comfortable, and things looked up.
The decision to return to California was an easy one. My Dad said he'd come home and take his chances with the draft. They returned. It came to be that Dad was "4F" due to his feet, so he never did have to serve in the War, except for his stint as a "remount" employee. Selma, California was once more home. Then, in December of 1941, the second son, Lenard (who became "Tootie" almost immediately), was born. Now the family was almost complete, except that Mom really wanted a daughter. Bless her heart, she "almost got one, too". I was born in May of '43.
Born 1 1/2 years apart now there were three babies, all under the age of three. "Stair, step, and down", that's how my Dad described us. He also called us his "Two Jacks and a Queen."
Dad loved to tell the story how when I was born he went to a roping, and won every pot there that day. The fellows told him they were glad he didn't have twins.
During that period, Mom and Dad lived in a beautiful two story house which still stands outside Selma, California. The owners were Japanese who had to go off to the "camps". Neighbors took care of the property for them while they were "gone" and rented it to my parents. Dad made his living clipping cows and shoeing horses and mules during that time. On the side, he also traded horses, something he continued to do until he died. (Mom tried to get him to stop, but he kinda "hid" the fact that he was still doing that.) And, he rodeoed. The California State Champion Calf Roper for 1941 and 1942 was "Shorty Hudson", my father, all five foot five of him. Later he would say, "If I had been taller, I would have made a good calf roper."
It could have been a "toss up" as what my father loved the most: horses, his family, a good horse race, his family, horses, his family....! A man never lived that loved his children as much as my father. A man never lived that loved his life with horses as much as my father. What he loved more than a good horse was a good horse that could run. The man was known for his matched races at rodeos. He lost few.
As we children grew up, we were blessed to have parents who demanded that we display manners and respect. That training has paid off many times in my life, and I am grateful now for my father's insisting that we say "Yes, Sir", "Thank You", "Pardon me", and all those little things that sometimes we forgot, but was immediately reminded of. We were welcome to go anywhere they went. We grew up going to ropings, rodeos, and races. We grew up with a horse trader for a father. We grew up knowing we were loved.
Mom, wanting to establish some "roots", bought our first home in Salinas, actually, in Prunedale, in 1950. They had moved to the coast after Mom developed Valley Fever. At that time, they owned and operated the Bell Cleaners in Salinas, CA. Prior to that, they had owned a cleaning shop in San Juan Bautista and one in Riverdale, CA. I was about four years old when they owned the San Juan Bautista cleaners and I started school in Riverdale, so I was probably six when we lived there. Mom worked inside the shop, and Dad picked up and delivered the clothes. He continued to shoe horses and most likely traded some horses, too, during that time.
We children were raised "on the coast", Salinas and Watsonville is what we called home for many years. Mom's family resided "in the valley" at Laton, where they had settled when they came back from Texas. Dad's family remained in Texas, where we would visit every year of so until it became longer and longer between visits. Dad's father died in 1941 and his mother died in 1948.
In 1953-4 Mom traded houses and we moved "over the hill" to the Watsonville side of the foothills outside of Salinas. Hall Road was home for several years. I don't remember the exact year, except that I entered the sixth grade at Hall District Grammar School. Tootie was in the eighth grade there, but Charlie started high school at Watsonville Union High after finishing the eighth grade at Prunedale.
It was in this time period that my father made one his "famous" trips to Texas to get horses. He came home with a little mare that could not be ridden on the ranch. Marge Bailey B was her name. A little stocky bay mare, actually at that time a filly about four-five years old. She had bucked every cowboy on the ranch in Texas off at some point and they didn't want to keep her to use on the ranch. Dad and Mr. Brown made a deal, and we kept that mare for eight years, retiring her at age of 13, she was returned to the Brown ranch at Throckmorton, Texas.
Margie was the dream horse. Dad heeled on her, roped calves off her, and raced her on the parimutuel tracks, all the while we kids rode her in the Jr. rodeos. That little mare could turn the stakes like nobody's business. My cousins all learned to ride on her, too. We used her in the "string" of the "dude horses" when we ran a riding stables, putting those who did not know anything about riding on her because she would take care of them. Put on a pair of spurs, and you would "eat dirt." That was the problem back in Texas, they all rode with spurs!
Dad started us out "from day one" on horses. Many stories could be told of all the fun we had horseback, but I can't remember them all. My brother, Charlie, being the oldest, was always winning the stake races and horse show events at the rodeos at a very tender age. He won a pony race at age of five at Livermore during one of the rodeos there. Tootie became a professional trick roper at age of five. He did that until about age of 13 when he out grew his pony, which he "gave" to me. Tootie worked with me, and I learned to trick ride off that pony when I was 11 or 12 years old.
I was one of those "incubator babies"....under five pounds at birth. At age two, they tell me, I weighed all of fourteen pounds, still wearing baby dresses that Aunt Neoma made for me from scraps at the tailoring shop she worked at in Texas. One of the stories I always heard about me was one day some friends came to the house for the first time, and I, at about age two, was sitting in the middle of the floor, when they came in. Apparently, due to my size, they thought I was "just a baby" and when they approached me, I jumped up and ran away, startling them. I stayed small for a long time. At age of twelve, I weighed sixty-eight pounds.
I was twelve years old when I started riding my father's race horses. I had already been rodeoing in the Jr. rodeo nine years, as my first rodeo was at age three. Dad didn't allow me to rope until I was about ten, but I did all the other events, including calf riding. I think I was maybe ten years old when I made the National News on one of the News Reels that they showed at the movies back then. I had bucked off a calf, but my hands were hung up in the rigg'n. This resulted in me being drug all over the arena, with that calf stepping on me just about every jump. The news cameras had picked it up with the opening of the gate! Shortly after that, we started getting phone calls from Dad's family in Texas, they thought he was nuts for letting us kids do "those dangerous things." Although Mom and Dad hadn't "told" anyone about that, they had seen it at the movies.
I remember my first race clearly. Dad was pony'n me onto the track, leading Margie off another horse, when he said to me, "be sure to hold that horn when you start off." My comment to that was, "what am I gonna hold my stomach with?" Dad laughed and so did I, but I was kinda nervous. Well, when they said "go", I just turned Margie "loose"....she out distanced those other horses by several lengths. From there, I went on to riding most every horse he had in those races, and in time, fulfilled my "goal", that of riding on a parimutuel track. I did that in the summer of 1971 at Winnimucca, Nevada.
To appreciate what I had to ride at that time, I must tell you that Margie would run four races a day, four days in a row at the county fair. A short "cowboy" race, a "quarter mile flat saddle" race, a "1/2 mile flat saddle", and then, the relay race. Charlie usually rode the relay race because he was tall and a natural athlete, riding one horse around the track, then dismounting and jumping on another, riding that one around the track, and again, dismounting and jumping on the final horse. Dad usually held Margie for the finish, as she loved to run and could get out so far in front of the others that they couldn't catch up before the race was over. During the fair, they had a rodeo on Saturday night. After running during the day on the track, Margie would carry either my brothers or my Dad in the roping at night. One year, as I remember, one brother won first and the other won second in the calf roping on Margie, while my Dad placed in the team roping on her, this after running in the morning. But this was "old hat", as several rodeos found my father taking his run on his cattle and dismounting, changing over to a flat saddle and leading Margie to the starting gates for the race that they had to hold up on because Dad was up in the roping.
Time flys while your having fun. My last race of my "career" was when I was twenty eight, a divorcee, with a son who was three/four years old. Paso Robles, California was the location.
What kinda sticks in my mind about this race meet, besides the fact that I almost killed myself, was that one of Dad's old time friends, Slim Pickens, was there. We had arrived a day early, and while standing beside the truck, I noticed this long Cadillac drive in. Out stepped this really tall guy, and I thought he looked somewhat familiar. Then I heard his voice, "Hey, Short-Stuff!" I recognized that voice from all the t.v. and movies I had seen that he had been in. I had grown up hearing all kinds of funny stories about what went on down in Selma "in the early years" with Dad and Slim, but personally never really knew him, except maybe as a very young child. Those two men acted like silly kids for a bit, they had me laughing just watching them. Slim ponied me the next day down to the starting gates. I was honored that he did that. I heard that his daughter was a jockey in her own right, riding on tracks that I only dreamed of.
Back to the end of my riding race horses! I grew up riding my father's horses, I was never in any danger as all of his horses were "broke" horses, or he wouldn't keep them long enough to use them. If he couldn't rope off them and run them, he had no use for them. At this point in my life, I was just "coming out" of a bad marriage, and was just "getting back" to life. I made a mistake that weekend, I accepted all rides, not just my Dad's horses. Saturday had gone well, I had won all but one of the races that I rode, and that one I ran a second. Sunday came around, only to find that some of the jockeys did not show up and they needed extra riders. It didn't pay all that much, but I figured "why not?" They came and asked me if I'd ride a 1/2 mile, I told them I would, and they said I had to hurry down to the stands, as the horses were already there.
Down in front of the bleachers were all the horses entered in that race. They directed me to this giant Thoroughbred horse, I forgot his name, but I remembered it for years? So, I was given a leg up, and as soon as I landed on his back, he reared up, I slipped off over his rear. I got up, and they threw me back up there. He reared up again, I tried to hang on, but slid off. About the time I was gonna tell them I didn't care to ride this horse, someone in the stands yelled, "Get on him, sissy!" The third time was a charm, he remained cool, and then I found I didn't have a pony horse, I had to get this horse to the gates all by myself. A stronger horse I never rode. He didn't actually fight me, but it took so much outta me just getting him to the starting gates. When the gates opened, that horse actually "broke on top", which means he was in the lead, and held it until the first turn after the straight-a-way when every muscle in my body collapsed.
If you can imagine a bunch of spegetti flapping in the wind, you could see my legs and my arms. The only thing I could control was my fingers. I dug my fingers into that horse's mane and had "the ride of a lifetime". The horse "broke down" but did continue to run. The other horses passed me and here I came, with my legs and arms flapp'n in the wind, pulling up the rear. The race was over, and this horse continued to run. As I passed the other jockeys who were pulling up their horses, I yelled out, "help!" To this day, I don't know which one of the guys rescued me, but whomever it was, I am forever grateful. That jockey had to bring his race horse along side me, grab my horse's bridle and then stop both horses, and he did. A crowd arrived just about the time that wonderful jockey got my horse stopped, and hands and arms reached up, pulling me off the horse. I tried to tell them I was ok, but had lost control of my muscles, when "they turned loose of me", and I crumpled like a wet dishcloth on the track. I could not stand up.
Dad kept saying, "get up, people are watching." I'd say, "I can't stand up." Finally, I was assisted to my feet, when, again, they turned me loose. The same thing happened, I crumpled. Dad was more concerned, I think, about what the "others" might be saying, as he again said, "get up, people are watching." Finally, a golf cart was brought out and I rode it back to the barns. At this point, I told my father that I didn't think it was too smart for me to be riding, as I had a son who needed a mother. Dad informed me I could quit after the NEXT race, as I wasn't gonna quit "a loser." We "discussed" this for a bit, but I finally agreed to ride "Ol' Blue" in the quarter mile flat saddle. I had a bit to rest, and we did win that last race. So, I got to "quit a winner."
For every action there is a reaction. I went from not having any muscles to help me stand up to "frozen muscles" that didn't want to bend. I paid for that weekend of "fun" by being so stiff that I could not walk up stairs at work without great effort, nor could I sit down in a chair without going "plop", as my legs would give out after bending "just so far". I lived thru it. I have relived it a time or two with others who were in attendance that day, when we get to reminiscing about "the good old days". In some ways, it almost seems funny when retold, but I can guarantee you it was not all that funny while it took place. Only the Good Lord knows why I wasn't killed that day, how I managed to hang on is beyond me.
I was still roping and riding around home, but never ever regretted giving up my jockey's life, really. Ever now and then, I can imagine the wind in my face, the excitement of waiting for the gates to open, the rush one gets by riding a really good horse, getting all he has to give outta him. But, life goes on, and other things begin to take priority.
Then, my life was to change again. One night I went roping with Dad and met the man I was to marry a very short time later. I met Danny on September 19 and we married on October 27, 1972. Can you believe we "waited" to marry? Dad always said we had to get married so we could get some rest! Every day was a repeat of the day prior: To work at 8am, off at 5pm, get the horses ready, go roping, go dancing, go eat breakfast, get to bed by 2am. We roped a lot, probably had more fun dancing, and then, like in the movies, didn't want to part, so we would go eat breakfast before Dan would go back to his home and we would start "all over" the next day.
At that time I was working "in the man's field" as a Frame man for the telephone company. Danny worked for "the other telephone company" as an installer/repairman/construction guy. One of the things he had stated was that he had never kissed a Frame man before! Another was, when a friend asked at a roping, was that he wasn't ever gonna get married again. [So much for the plans of mice and men.]
Danny rodeoed several years after we married. I went along as the one who drove, fed the horses, did the chores, etc....all the things that a "good little wife" would do. We raised bucket calves two years and did alright with that. We bought this little farm and continued to work for the telephone companies. Only occasionally did I rope, as now was the time for my son, whom Danny had adopted after we married, to ride and rope. I was the typical "4-H" mom, I helped raise all the lambs and goats, made sure the kid made it to the fairs and the Junior Rodeos.
Thru the years, my Dad would always talk about getting another horse that could run like Margie could. He had a few that came close, but there is only one "Margie". Or, I thought so until last year. Danny bought a mare and brought her home. I walked outside and looked at her and almost cried. There stood "Margie". No, she wasn't really Margie, but she was built like her and had those same "kind" eyes. And, she was "broke to death"...just what I needed to rope off, something I didn't have to "ride", I could "just rope", as the mare already knew what she was doing. And, that mare can "fly" outta the box after a steer. I enjoyed using her until I had to let her "retire" until the birth of a colt which was born March 20, 2000. When she comes back into use, I won't be riding her, my husband will. I have a colt that Danny worked with for a year and a half here at home in our arena that he had bought me at the horse sale over on the coast.
"My little Chevy", [he has a "real name", Skipa Star Splash] a milk-white palomino gelding, just turned five years old in March. Because the mare couldn't be used, Dan "let me" use the colt to heel off of one day at the roping in Tulare. I don't believe I have ever rode a horse that was so much fun to ride. That colt may not do anything on his own yet, but he will do anything you ask him to do. I started placing in the ropings, not serious money, but enough to make me get excited about the possibilities of this colt.
Then, at the age of 56, I did it. I won the roping when it counted. I won a beautiful belt buckle. One of the nicest things happened that day, almost every man there came to say congratulations and I felt like they were happy for me, too. It feels good. It makes me remember "who I am". It makes me appreciate my Mom and Dad and my husband who spent so many hours on this colt. This little horse was not yet five years old when he carried me to the "buckle".
Yes, there are better ropers out there. They "get" to "run the road", and winning is "old hat" to them. I could not be happier except that my Dad had to see it from heaven, as he died in 1995.
My father is with me every time I go out to the corrals. Every time I pick up a rope, I am with my father. When I ride across the flat farm ground surrounding us, I remember how he would get those horses in shape by "working" them along the farm roads, seldom going to the race track except to run a race. I have a place near my home that I take my colt to, I walk him along, break him into a slow lope, then ask him to "give me more", then, I just "turn him loose". My little Chevy is learning how to run, he has discovered he has another speed. Someday I may need that speed if we draw a fast steer, and we will be ready.
Where was my mother while all this was taking place? Mom was most usually "in the stands" when we kids were active in the rodeos and races. She had gone to work as a bookkeeper "just to earn enough for a new refrigerator". Mom never stopped working. Her house was not spotless, but so close to it that one could not believe that I am her daughter! I'd rather be out building a fence than to be inside doing housework.
We moved from Watsonville to Hanford in 1963, back when an unmarried daughter went wherever her parents went. I transferred with the phone company back then as an operator, you know, "Hello, Central?"
Mom took a job as a bookkeeper for D.O. Kinney, and later kept his books at home while she worked for Ralph Green Insurance. She always enjoyed Little Theater, as did I, and we spent a lot of time with that group that became the Kings Players. An opening came up at the school credit union, and a couple of fellows Mom had met at the Kings Players urged her to move into the position of Credit Union Manager. As board members, they recruited her. She spent many years as the manager of that Credit Union. Then, we thought she had retired. Not my mom, she took on the job of the manager of the Church of God Credit Union. We didn't think she would ever retire, but she finally did. A few years later, Dad became ill, Mom became a cancer patient who did not take time for her own convalescing, she took care of my Dad until she just couldn't do it anymore. Dad kept having those "mini strokes", gaining a little, then losing a bit more, gaining a little, then losing a bit more.
Danny offered them space here on the farm for their double wide trailer. They moved to the farm, at the end of the road. We thought they would stay, they thought they would stay, but, my mother's "gypsy" moved them back to Watsonville for a few months, then they moved back to the farm after Dad became more ill. I helped when needed, but it became too much for my mother to do, and Dad had to go into a convalescent home. He never really came home after that. We would bring him home "to visit", but one day, he announced he needed to "go home", he was tired. We realized then that time was running out. It was a hard year, and Dad died in February of 1995, on my son's fifth wedding anniversary.
Mom struggled for a bit, but rebounded beyond all expectations. She had another round of cancer treatment and "sailed thru it" just fine. She moved to Kingsburg, having sold her home to my son and his wife. We lived thru two more years of treatment, getting weaker and weaker. Then, she insisted on moving back to Hanford. After trying to share a home with first her grandson and his family, then her sister, she found "the perfect" apartment just up the street from the hospital and doctors.
While my father was in the last stages of his illness, I "got hooked" on genealogy. I prepared a big chart with all the information I had at that time and we hung it next to his bed at the "hospital". The nurses would make over that chart, asking him questions and making him feel important. Most of the time he didn't relate to what was really going on, and one of the hardest days was when I walked into his room with my son. Dad visited with Hud, called him by name, and then asked, "How's your mother? Tell her I'd like to see her sometime." I was standing right next to Hud when this happened. That set me back a bit. But, on the Saturday before Christmas of 1994 I walked into his room and had a real visit with my father, the last time it was to be possible. We talked about the chart on the wall, he gave me some more information, and then, he asked, "Can that horse you have really run?" At that time, we had a young horse that could fly...but he didn't have a good mind, and we got rid of him quick! My Dad told me that we could make a lot of money with that horse when he "got out", he'd work him and I could ride him. What a man, even in his last days his thoughts were of running horses.
My mother became too ill to live alone. Her greatest fear was of being "sent away". I had promised her that she would never be sent away. My husband stepped forward, he told me I had to do what I had to do, and that he would assist anyway he could. I went to live with my mother. Actually, she didn't want that, but yet, she did. We did have some good times those last months, we visited, became more aware of life and the art of "giving space" while sharing it. I took my computer to Mom's and worked on my genealogy "stuff" a lot. We had doctor appointments "right and left". My family came thru for me, as they would relieve me for a day and a night ever now and then. My mother had three grandsons who each gave one night a week to sit and visit, and to aide her. Those three young men were ages 30, 29, and 27. This woman was loved. Mom's sister-in-law, Lula, aged 82, would come and sit and visit with her, relieving whomever had relieved me over night. I would arrive around noon and Lula would go on to her bowling...she could still out bowl me at that time. My brother and his wife did everything they could to help us out, too. This was a family effort. This what my mother wanted, this is what my mother deserved. Her friends came to visit. A beautiful sight, two ladies who had shared their youth, sitting there holding hands, crying, praying, and laughing, yes, laughing. Others came to visit, some, too late, as Mom had entered the last days of her life, yet, they "had to come", they had to tell her how much they loved her. I thank the Lord for each of those persons who came to visit my mother during those days.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning, January 17, 1999. The sun was shinning thru the window in her bedroom, warming her as she finally let go and joined her savior in heaven. My brother, Charlie and his wife, Jean, the Hospice nurse and myself were with her. We made a few phone calls and my cousins came to be with me, we went for a walk while they did whatever they had to do. Then, my husband took me home. He saddled my horse. And, I roped, and I roped, and I roped.
My mother wanted a daughter. Well, she got one, kind of. She bought me the finest clothes she could afford, dresses from the nicest dress shop in Watsonville. I wore Levi's and boots. Mom would tell me I shouldn't wear "shoe boots 'n legg'ns" to town, but I did. I played baseball, I played basketball, they wouldn't let me play football. For my fourteenth birthday, I received a piano. I had lessons. I still play like a second year student, but I still have that piano, too. Mom bought me my first set of oil paints. I may not be famous, but I "ain't bad". So, she did get a daughter who can play the piano and who can draw/paint, oh, and I can bake a pretty mean pie, too. I learned from my mother how to do that, from scratch.
I like to say I have lived the best of two worlds. I had everything a girl would ever want, sometimes even if I didn't want it, and allowed to enjoy the other side, that of a "tomboy". My husband says that I live up to my "Gemini" personality, that he wakes up with a different wife every day!
Along the way, I became a rodeo photographer. It began while my son was going to the Junior rodeos, then, when I was going to retire, at the ripe old age of 47, I "took it up in earnest" when I started to travel with the California High School Rodeo bunch from District 6. What fun that has been. I tell all that I had it made. I enjoy kids and get to be in the atmosphere that I grew up in, the rodeo arena. And, on some days, make a few extra dollars. I now shoot barrel races and team ropings as well as rodeos. I enjoy what I do.
Self taught, I became a not too bad computer nerd. Well, nerd, maybe not, but addicted, yes. Using the computer, I have made many contacts while searching and researching my family trees. From some of those contacts, I have made some very fine friends. Those friends helped me get thru those tough times while I was at my mother's home. I say, "Thank you, friends."
I have one goal left. Just prior to my mother's death, I came upon some information that indicates that she may just be my father's sixth cousin thru the Greer lines. I will find that proof. I may have to do some traveling, but I will prove that Abraham Greer, who married Martha "Maggie" Kinny in Tenn. 1825 is the man I "want". I believe that he, Abraham, was a son of Asa Greer. My mother's grandmother, her father's mother, was a Greer, daughter of Francis Marion Greer, who was born 1833 in Gallentin county, Ills.
Well, there is much more I could tell, but this is how it came out, so now, you know a bit about me and how I came to be who I am. If you are interested, you can see photos of me and my brothers and giggle at how we dressed back then. I have put these photos on other pages so this page would load faster.
Remember, don't take life too seriously, as nothing is forever. Enjoy while you can, and tell your family often that you love them. Tell your friends, too, it means alot to know you are loved. "God so loved the world..........." Hey, God loves you, and so do I.
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