August l975

Here is a picture very similar to the first
place we lived after we got married.



The actual location is now just a field
of yellow flowers and some trees.

We don't know what happened to the trailer we really lived in . Anyway, I have been on the lookout for a while now for a place that was similar. Billy and I both think this looks quite a bit like it.

We had a window air unit in the front room...so in the hot summer time we slept on a pull out couch in the front room. During this time Billy was a senior at the University here in Little Rock. I worked 5 hours a day
at an elementary school in the library.
Billy worked nights from 4 - 12 p.m.
He was a janitor and night watchman
at Arkansas Power and Light. After
the cleaning was done he had time to study
til he closed up at midnight. And there I
would be at home waiting... It was a good
year in many respects. Hard in the way
the first year of marriage is hard. But we were
happy.

We lived here about 13 months. Its just the first of 23 places
we have lived since we got married.

Very soon we will have our 34th anniversary!!!

second house

ok


this is not really the house. when I first decided to do this project a few months ago
I realized that the first two places we lived after we got married aren't there any more
and that we don't have any pictures of them. 33 years ago we didn't have a camera and
at the age of 19 I wasn't thinking 33 years into my future about if I would ever want a photo of either of these places.

So, this is not the house but it is very similar. The trim on the house was black. The porch is similar and the yard surrounding reminds me of the second place we lived after we got married.

That year 1976 we were 19 and 21.....we were sooo young. Billy had just graduated from the University at Little Rock. We were happy and still pleased with being married but it turned out to be a hard year financially. After College Billy got a job at a used car lot. It was just to be for a while til he got a Good Job....being a college graduate we were sure that a Good Job would come
soon. So, after a while...working at a used car lot he realized that in order to really do a good job selling used cars he might have to be less than honest. Since he did not consider this an option....he tried his best to sell used cars and be as honest and he could....however, it seems those
two concepts don't work well together. He realized that pretty soon he was going to be let go
so he jumped ahead and quit. In the meantime I was working 8 hours a day at a private daycare.
I really hated it. Not the kid part. I loved the kid part...but I found that I had little in common with the people I was trying to work with and I found out that the director was involved with
the owner of the daycare...and they were both married to other people...so the stress of this
at my tender age caused me to quit my job also.
So, there we were...jobless.... really young.....not knowing what we were doing!!
it was scary and tough!

We both signed up to work as substitute teachers for the county school system. So each day we would wake up and hope the phone would ring for us to go to work. Some days we both worked.
Sometimes, only one of us and sometimes neither of us. On the long cold winter days we both stayed home....we cuddled up in bed and watched tv. I remember feeling very content on those days. I wasn't one bit sorry to be married even if it was hard.

At some point during those months Billy decided he wanted to pursue more schooling....
in order to maybe be a preacher. We began to plan to move to Mobile for him to attend
a seminary there. We moved at the end of June 1977.

HOUSE SITTING

This is a place we lived for about nine months. It was a sort of house sitting thing. It is the biggest place we have ever lived. It was roomy and centrally located for stores and friends. I really liked it.

It also had a pool in the back and the kids swam almost every day that summer. It was really fun for them. In fact we all swam and enjoyed our time in this house very much.

We lived in this house on our first furlough from Mexico. It is across the street from Billy's dad's house and so was a perfect place to live and be really close to Papa during that year. Jordan was one and Ty was 8 weeks old when we moved in here. Aubrey was in the 7th grade. It was a comfortable house and the bonus was that a group from the church we attended that year paid our rent and filled the house with furniture.
We were blessed in this house...

After the Hurricane

We lived here august 1977 to Feb 1980. Belle Fontaine, Alabama
This pic was taken after most of the surrounding trees were destroyed in a
hurricane. We did not stay in this house during the storm. I'm glad!
This was a summer cottage that belonged to some people from Michigan.
They would come down to Mobile, Alabama once in a while for summer vacation.
There was actually a nicer, larger house on the property, too. Anyway, the house wasn't
in that good of shape and we got to live in it for a year just for making repairs...later they
charged us $50. a month for rent. But after the storm, we tried living here a little longer
eventually had to move though because the roof leaked quite a bit after the trees
were removed from the roof. the owner tore it down sometime later. I think I have
another pic of this before the storm but they other pics are in storage...I might add another
later.

a really bad experience with a house trailer

Today I was thinking about a place that we really only used...not really lived... for about six weeks. It was 31 years ago...when we decided to leave Little Rock and move to Mobile in order for Billy to go to a Bible Seminary. Since he also needed a job...he took one with a small church outside of Mobile as a Youth and Music Minister. The pastor there told us they

would find us a place to live while we went home and packed up to move to Mobile.
I thought a lot about what they would find for us and had some excitement about it

even though someone else would choose the place.

When we arrived I was simply horrified. The place was a house trailer of the smallest variety.

You wouldn't believe how small...and how dirty and inadequate it was. We decided to make the best of it even though we couldn't even fit the few belongings we brought into it. We cleaned and scrubbed and put up some contact paper over some really bad parts...only to find that it had some serious plumbing problems. They were insurmountable plumbing problems!!

The only thing we knew to do was to look for something else on our own. After a couple days we found a place much larger although maybe dirtier...and since it was really dirty and needed some repairs we got the place for really cheap.

Then we moved...... the man who had found the trailer for us had hurt feelings that we didn't like it. I don't think he really got over it.

more on the house Billy grew up in....

There are many things I like about this house....one is the back yard....

there are lots of birds that love to hang out especially if there is a feeder

full of seed....or hummingbird feeder. Squirrels and rabbits hop around

most mornings and there is an abundance of trees to shade and give color.

The second thing I love is the kitchen counter....with a bar around it for

easy serving of food straight from the stove. Its a cozy spot and especially

nice on a cold winter day.

It is a small house....too small for us really....yet we have spent a lot of time here

and this is a place we love!