After Wilmer and Nettie were married, they stayed at our place for a little while. They took the mumps, then Bob got the mumps and then all the kids, except Ken. Keith only had them on one side though. Lois worked in town, so I phoned to tell her not to come home. She got them anyway and phoned me to come and get her. I didn’t get the mumps, as I had them when I was young. They all had to stay in bed. I would put Ken in bed with his father, when I went out to do the chores. It was in February, so I had to shovel a path out to the barn and out to the road. It bothered Bob more that I had to go out and do all the work, than having the mumps.

One Mother’s Day sometime after we had hydro, I had gone to church and the family (Wilmer, Nettie, Lois, Henry - a whole gang of them) was at the house when I returned. I was worried about feeding them all and walked right past a new electric stove they had bought me for Mother’s day.

Lois and Henry came to the farm almost every weekend. One weekend, Bob, Sharon and Kevin disappeared. I found them on the back step hiding, because they had sneaked carrots from the garden and were sitting there eating them.

              Sharon, Kevin, and Bob Rosien

On those weekends, Henry and Don and Keith would go groundhog hunting. They would drive the roads, shooting groundhogs in the farmer’s fields. One time they were between Douglas and Kelly’s Corners, parked on the shoulder and aiming across the hood of the car, (very illegal) when an OPP pulled up. All he said was, "Boys, I think you should go home."

For a while, Lois and Henry and Wilmer and Nettie were living in Pembroke. One time, I went in to Nettie’s for lunch. Nettie phoned Lois and said that I was there for lunch and to come over and have some tomato soup with us. After lunch, Lois said the soup was very good but not as good as mine. Well, Nettie and I laughed, as I had made the soup and brought it with me to Nettie’s.

In 1969, Bob and Carolyn were just married and came for a visit. The family was all there and I asked a few people in and we had a small party for them. Afterwards, I would visit them in Perth Road and Bob would get out all his socks for me to darn. He would put them away for me because Carolyn wouldn’t do them.

When I lived on Bonnechere Street in Renfrew, Don and Ivy came for a weekend. They left Bev with me and went out Saturday night. In the morning, a tablecloth was laying on the table, and I asked Don, "Where did that come from?" He said, "Ivy was up dancing on the table and they had to take the cloth off, so we brought it back with us." Yeah, sure!

Don told me that when his kids all left home, he was going to change the locks on the doors. I said something to the effect that he shouldn’t do something like that, and he said, "Why not? When we left home, you sold the house and moved."

When Don and Ivy came to visit in Eganville, Ivy and I would get into a game of crib right away like we normally did. While Don slept on the couch, Ivy kept winning. So I decided we needed to change chairs. She refused, and we decided to arm wrestle for it. We were laughing so hard at one point that Don woke up and yelled, "What the hell is going on?"

One time when Keith and Ruth were visiting, Keith was doing some sweeping, and he pretended to sweep the dirt down the floor register. Ruth said, "What are you trying to do, sweep it under the rug like your mother does?" Needless to say, I went after her with the broom. Another time I was sweeping the patio in front of the trailer, and Ruth must have said something, because I remember going after her with the broom again.

Keith was always going on about my coffee cake, saying it was better than Ruth’s, that she didn’t get the little yellow flecks in it like I did. I always said that mine tasted exactly the same as Ruth’s, because I had given her my recipe. One time when I came to visit, Keith asked me to make some coffee cake. When it came out of the oven, it was about one inch thick and sooo heavy. I don’t know if anyone ate it but I sure didn’t. Keith never said anything about Ruth’s coffee cake again. Ruth tried to say that I did it on purpose.