Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 13, 2016 | Expresso - Faye Streeter

Transcript

September 13, 2016 | Expresso - Faye Streeter · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Faye Streeter.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was born here in Topeka, middle child.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I was born at Stormont, February 1st, 1958.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we lived at 1404 Bellevore Court, which, if you know I-70, if you get off on first street or get on 1st Street to get on to I-70, about two blocks west of that, in the middle of the I-70, was where our house was at.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: A year and a half later, the state came through, bought the house, resold the house.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's now in Carbondale, in good shape.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: From there we moved to 1203 2nd Street, across from Roosevelt Junior High.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have an older brother, two years, two days older than I am, in this house on 2nd.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only referral we have for it is 2nd Street.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: My brother learned how to ride a bike.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: He learned how to go to school.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: He walked to school.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Sumner.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: My sister was born there.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Two years and nine months younger.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I started having convulsions at the age of three, towards the end of May.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mom documented that one in my book.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Most of what I'm going to tell you is based on dates.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have all of my accidents, as they were called.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was an accident-prone child.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter what it was.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's just gonna be this way.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's just gonna have accidents.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh August of 61.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: How many remember the you in the parades, they have the antique fire truck?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Remember when it used to be at Gage Park?
• 2:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I took a nosedice off that thing.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I landed on my right side, scarred up and down, or not scarred now, but then I was, and the right side of my face.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: For two weeks or more, my mom was taking sand out of my body because it embedded.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was before play sand.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: About four years later, I was hit by a car.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I uh we were over on Kellum playing cards with my parents' friends.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: They had two kids.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were kids.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was an adult.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was seven.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were three and four.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that was when I used to layer.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right now it feels like it's 80 in here.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't change anything.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Back then I wore sweaters, I wore pants, and I was looking for my sweater.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't find it in the house.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Mom said it's out in the car.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Go check the station wagon.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have those anymore either.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I went out, checked both directions, no car, got my side of the station wagon.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We had sides.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: My brother sat behind the driver, I sat behind the passenger side, which was my mother.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: My sister sat in the middle, no seat belt, no car seat.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And no sweater.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I walked back over to the other side, looked both directions, went in.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I said, it's not out there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said, no, it's not.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Go check because you you were too quick, you didn't check the whole car.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I go back out.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I check both directions.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, get in my side.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: We found it in the house.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said, okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I get out, I look both directions.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: My memory stops at one step.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: My memory starts at looking up and seeing my mother and seeing a strange man.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The strange man was the one that hit me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: He called for about two years, I found out, to make sure I was okay.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was found by my dad in the middle of the street with my arms around my knees, crying.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have no memory.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh ambulance came.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember getting loaded in it, but I do remember trying to look out the window as we turned off at Topeka Boulevard onto 6th Street.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted to see what the view was like, like it would be any different than a car.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any memory after that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um they did x-rays and everything.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was scraped up on the right side again.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone up over the hood and back down.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Other than scrapes, there was nothing wrong with me.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can't find the article, but we're judging the speed between 30 and 40 miles an hour.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I don't know the man's name.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't thank him for stopping.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that was accident two, I remember.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: In 1966, it was an accident, but it was with a rock in my bicycle.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I did not have a convulsion at that one.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: My mom had miniature picket fences along the edge of the driveway to separate the driveway from her plants.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm riding up and down my driveway.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I went to dodge a rock.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Part of my bike dodged the rock, the other part didn't, and flipped my bike out from under me on top of the picket fence.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: My brother is in the garage.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we're peacemakers.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's laughing at me.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I need some help getting up.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're fine, you're fine.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, I need help getting up because my legs are tangled in the bike.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on a picket fence and I can't get up.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got up, got myself off, went to the front door, knocked on the front door.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: My mom came out and she said, What happened?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I have an accident.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Okay, no blood.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have not blood yet.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Get in the house, she grabs her purse, grabs her keys, grab the kids.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Older brother, younger sister.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: We get in, she drops them off at grandma and grandpa's.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We go to the hospital.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have three nurses, two doctors, my mom holding me down while they give me a shot.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember anything after that.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: The stick nicked the bone, it went through.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lovely, it's about gone.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I did not forgive my brother.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I got even with him later.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I have while we were on 2nd Street, the lady that lived next to her house, she had a daughter that used to babysit us.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she would round up the kids when there wasn't anything going on, and we'd go over to Roosevelt and we would play in the yard.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much the playground, but just out in the yard, just having fun.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we were playing hide and seek, and all of the classrooms had air conditioners, and I had a row of shrubbery down in front to keep the kids away from the windows and the air conditioner.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, those are good hiding places.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So her and I hid behind the bushes, and they couldn't find half of us, so they called us in, and I thought I stepped out from under the air conditioner.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hid a blood vessel in the corner of my head.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the pain, and I don't remember anything else.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um I kind of remember my mom, but I don't remember anything else.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: They ended up, they just did a butterfly band-aid.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um she pitched the tow, she pitched my clothes, she pitched her clothes.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The gal that was baby would babysit us, she pitched her clothes.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that was another, that one was truly another accident.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: The bike, not um.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: At second, after my sister was born, my parents thought the house is not big enough.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was technically only a two-bedroom.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: We had the attic, it was an airplane bungalow, and they're not big enough up there for three kids and all of their stuff.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they decided to put the house on the market and they were looking, couldn't find anything they wanted in town.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So they found some ground out in Jefferson County.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I now live northeast of Reese's fruit farm.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, well, the house sold too fast.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's still ours is still being constructed, so we rented.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started school in the rental at Sumner.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh don't remember the rental at all, but I do remember walking to school across Topeka Boulevard on 3rd Street and stopping at the mom and pop grocery store.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: My brother and I would rob our piggy banks with 50 cents, and we'd fill up the little penny candy with the bag.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We never came home with candy, and on the alley on the other on the south side of the school at Sumner was an ice cream parlor, which my mom used to skip school for and go there and eat ice cream.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we got an ice cream coat because it was hot, we had to have something to go home on, and uh never had any problems with that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: House finally was done, and we moved out to where I'm at, address of Grantville in 1963 in September, October.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to get to our place, we took old 24, which, if you're used to the current 24, the access road on the south side, that's the original 24 highway.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the railroad tracks used to be on that same level going to Lawrence.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I was there, born before that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: K-4 was 75 highway going up and over.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Meredyn Road was gravel because that was our only way to get to our house was taking the east and west gravel roads or the north and south.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh while I was there, um had the bike accident, and uh, how many of you remember the Schwin bikes with the banana seat?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: See, I'm really aging it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um friend of mine in my class got one, and uh, she brought it down to show us it was her birthday gift, and each one of us she gave a ride to, and it was my turn.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not funny.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm riding, and the last thing I remember is the bikes going like this, and I don't have I don't remember anything.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And mom said, Well, you walked up the yard, you walked off the road and in up the yard, and and I asked you what happened, and you said you had a bike accident.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I messed up her bike, it was two days old.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so finally, at the age of 11, Dr.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Crouch, older one, he said, we've got to do tests.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So they sent me to Minigers, which I will I can't do that anymore.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um on 10th Street.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: There used to be a bed and breakfast on the south side of 10th across from the cemetery, big three-story building.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's right next to the AAA.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was where Minigers used to do tests on their residents.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they sent us through a side door down to the basement into the northeast corner room.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole room was not maybe three-fourths the size of the women's bathroom down here.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It had a bed, a two-way mirror, a chair in the corner, and they said, You sit here talking to my mom, you get up on the bed.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my mom had to get me up on the bed.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um about that tall.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh remember the old uh telephone operators with the wires?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was along the edge of the bed, and they put this mud stuff in.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't tell us what they were doing.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: They just said, you cannot talk to her, you cannot touch her, you cannot get out of your chair.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I start crying.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, You need to be quiet and shut up.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So they laid me down, stuck the wires in my head, and I'm thinking, they're putting wires in, I'm gonna get shocked.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And mom told us, don't ever play with wires.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they closed the door, turned the light out, and I started crying harder.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they're talking to us through an intercom system.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't help.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty minutes later, they came in, pulled the wires out, said you can leave now.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Took her forever to get that mud stuff out.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And two weeks later, found out I was actually having convulsions.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were not accidents, they were convulsions.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they put me on phenobarbital twice a day, um, which, if you were a drug addict, I used to hang out with a few.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I didn't do drugs because I had the phenobarbital.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um because it makes you sleepy.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they would use that as a downer to get come off of a high if they had to go do something.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was on it for 11 years.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I came off of it, Dr.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Crouch, bless his heart, usually released his patients at 18 years of age.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: He kept me till I was 22.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, You've done well.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You've you can move on.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Here's another doctor you can take and go see.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was Dr.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Palmberg.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I talked to him.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've been going to him about six months, and I talked to him, I said, Is there any way I can come off the medicine?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me check and we'll see what your history is and we'll go from there.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said yes.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Six-month withdrawal program.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Few months into it, I seen the roaches and other stuff coming down the wall.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Never had any on me, but I could see them on the walls, and uh so that was just I'll never do drugs.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the one blessing out of that, I got to enjoy my mornings.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've never had a morning where I could get up before sunrise and watch the sun come up.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do mornings so much anymore.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm usually at work at six o'clock before sunrise, so I miss those, and I'm on the west side, so I can't see them out the east window because the Capitol blocks my view.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's why I had convulsions, I don't know, other than he was preparing me for something.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when I had them, I had no physical control over my body.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh an example, most of them prior to the age of 11, I don't remember, other than three or four.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: But there was some that mom did not bother to record.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: She said I couldn't because she said we didn't know if we were gonna bring you home.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she has blocked them out.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've asked her, she has no, no memory now.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I would the old black, white, black and white TVs.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was telling Connie about this.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: You go to turn them off and it'd come down to a screen and you'd have the dot.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what she was talking about.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big gap in age here.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was doing dishes, the old chrome chairs.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would say like this, but they had a big back, and I'm under tall, if you hadn't noticed.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um my feet stuck out the back, and I was on my knees doing the dishes.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is the first time I realized I had no voice.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could stand at the sink and look to the right, and not quite as far as Patty is from me was our utility room.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I can hear myself hollering.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: My sister is on the counter, two feet away from me.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: She's drying dishes, not paying any attention to me, hollering, asking for help.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And mom just happened to look up and it didn't get to that white dot.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I stand up, my legs are behind the seat, my front of my waist is in front of the back of the okay.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it again.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, we got rid of those chairs.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just went back there, chair and all, and missed the stove.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a small kitchen.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and mom just happened to turn as I was going back, but she couldn't stop it.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a convulsion.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: The chairs came across my thigh, and he's Dr.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Crouch at that time said I should have snapped my legs in half from dead weight hitting against it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: But that's when I realized I have no voice to holler and ask for help.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not know that before.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but several years later, I have my younger sister has four kids.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Her youngest one is 25, and when he was about 18 months, two years old, he had to, he, him and my or my sister and her three youngest kids were living with me out there, and uh he had to go to the restroom.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I picked him up because we have a wall-mounted toilet.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's the main one in the house.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like a regular toilet.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I cannot reach the floor.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: It sits high.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew he couldn't get himself up, so I picked him up, went in the bathroom, and the doorknobs have an edge like this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I turn and I hit my elbow on the doorknob.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I instantly got the most queesiest feeling ever.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I God gave me voice.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was holding this child.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Christopher, yeah.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Aunt Faye's gonna have to sit down.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you to be scared because it's gonna be okay.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I said, once I sit down, I might go to sleep, but it's gonna be okay.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the last thing I remember.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I did sit down.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do remember that, but I don't remember anything after that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we were playing, and his two older siblings were in the other room, and they came down after some time and couldn't figure out where we were at and what we were doing in the bathroom so long.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when they seen it, me laying on the floor.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: They ran next door because my parents lived next door.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And about 15-minute time lapse.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And with this convulsion, I was out maybe a minute.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was 10-15 minutes.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they came up just as I was starting to wake up, and mom said, It was so cute.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your head was in his lap, and he was just petting you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, she said, okay.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I uh recouped in my bed and slept for several hours, and he does not remember, but I tell him, you need to take care of me.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he just laughs.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: But uh when we moved out there in fall of 63, Lake Perry was being did not get built until 1964.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh, oh, I am a kindergarten dropout.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We did Sumner, started in August.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: We moved out there September into September, 1st of October.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: They did not have kindergarten.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they tell me that's what's wrong with me.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um we did first through fourth at Meriden, fifth and sixth at Ozaki at the middle school, and uh we had a cool teacher, English teacher, Mr.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Allen, and uh he would take us and we would the whole class and we would walk across the bridge on 92 Highway to the other side of the lake, and the buildings were still there.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to walk the streets that were not starting to flood.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there was still stuff in the store buildings, and so we would walk over to the cemetery.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I'm under tall.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The water was up to the middle of my shins, walking through the cemetery with the stones.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: We would pick out a name, we'd pick out a store building, and we would write a report, and we'd get graded on it, and water just coming up.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we left there in 73 to come back to junior high, or 72, come back to junior high in the old high school at Meriden.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh buildings are gone, but they remind me, and Connie couldn't relate to this one.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I lost the name of the show.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: James Gunsmoke.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking Dodge, but that was part of thank you.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: The old store buildings had the wooden floors, so did the store buildings at Ozaki.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were very cool.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really cool that they still had the stuff in it, but just aging there too.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I told her I would tell you.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I got to sophomore year in high school, I don't remember anything in my junior year or my over to Ozaki playing dodgeball.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I and a gal in my class were running for the ball at the same time.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember anything until I except running and then the locker room waking up.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: We had hit head on.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: My glasses went this way, and they were shatterproof, but they shattered.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have a scar over my right eye.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh went to the hospital.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: They called mom up and she had to take me to the hospital and check me out and make sure I was okay.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: They said we don't think it was a convulsion, but we can't guarantee it.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I have learned to this day that he will only give you control over what you need to do when you need to do it.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't need my voice all of the other times.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I only needed it when he was about two.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: To comfort him, I got my voice.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've used it to talk to them.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not gone far, but it's it's talked.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was baptized as a child at St.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: John's Lutheran February 22nd, 1959.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Baptized here June 28th, 2009.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I quit going to church my junior year, and I had gone to church with these kids since we moved out there.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when we got to high school, we had three schools: Semen, Perry, and Meriden.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was the only Meriden child.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The bulk of them were mostly Perry, a few from Siemen.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: But that's when the cliques formed.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you're just learning to deal with your own changes in your body and everything else, that you feel isolated and there wasn't any comfort.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I finally I asked mom, I said, Do you have a problem if I quit going to church?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Are you sure?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Okay.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So quit going to church.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: When I moved back out there, I moved in town for 10 years and did not like.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I sorry, people, I do not like the city of Topeka.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's too noisy, there's too many people, there's too many cars.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Grantville proper has 325 people.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can handle 20, 320.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Altogether, if you have the address, it's like 1,500.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I like that.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I like the country life.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: We had 30 head of sheep.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: We had 30 chickens.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: We had 15 geese.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: We had uh we raised a calf, of course, a lambs.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we didn't eat the lambs.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'd raise a hog every year.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'd that was our meat supply.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: We would get milk from the neighbors, real milk, not this stuff in here.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: You'd get cream and you'd make homemade ice cream every weekend in the summer.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And ours would churn to butter.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was good stuff.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't, I couldn't take it.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them if I could move back out, and they said, No, you're doing okay.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: My brother got to move back home, got to keep his house key.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: My sister's moved back home twice, got to keep her house key.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had my house key taken away from me when I moved.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the middle child peacemaker.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but when dad retired from Santa Fe, they said, Do you want to come out and house it?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: My lease was about up anyway.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so they moved to a log cabin 25 miles west of Branson.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, beautiful area.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Great fishing.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: You could catch gar taller than me, it would hit the ceiling.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: It tasted so good.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so was there one year?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Was the year halfway through the second year?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Mom calls up and she said, We decided we're gonna stay.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to buy the house?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I bought the house.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Three months short of three years, she called me up.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I got some bad news for you.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're coming back.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: I put them in the basement.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: They sold the house, build a berm home next door, which actually was a blessing in disguise because they've dad's had uh a few many strokes, mom's on oxygen.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: They both smoked, and uh he quit.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: She kept going um issues with her dad, caused a nervous breakdown, and she just couldn't quit when she knew she should have.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's on oxygen.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's handy, they're next door, it's one level, she can get around.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I have uh figured out a few things, not all.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I may have had the convulsions, so I could see how I was taken to how well I need to take care of others.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: My parents, my friend Marge, and uh sometimes I have too much voice, sometimes maybe not enough, but uh it's it is what he has laid out for me.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I used to have a series of car wrecks, and I figured out after the last one, he was trying to get he was using those to get my attention, and I was not listening.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when I mowed my yard, you know, I talked to him, I thanked him for a beautiful day so I could mow the yard, whether it was overcast, windy, a little chilly, but that got really good when I turned 30.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did not need to layer after I turned 30.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could use a pair of shorts right now, and uh, but I was invited to a Sunday school class, and I went to that, and just a few months prior to that I had one more wreck, and I was it was winter, it was in January, and I got made it to the highway.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm two miles east of K4, two miles north of 24, and uh K4 is the straightest, or 39 to K4 is the straightest, so I thought I'll take that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Started down K4, it was a little slick, so I slowed down to about 15, 20 miles an hour.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you get north of Reese's and the hill goes down.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went slower because I knew I had to make the band to get on the on-ramp to get on 24.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I got down real slow, made my bend.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: The car thought it was gonna go this way.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: It went east, it went north, I ended up on the ditch on the same side as Reese's fruit farm, and uh could not get out.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Gentleman stopped a couple of minutes later and said, Can I give you a lift somewhere?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And just as he said that, she turned Mrs.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Reese turned her porch light on.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: I knew her because she taught my sister kindergarten.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: They started kindergarten the year my sister started.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh didn't like that either.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I said, Take you can take me up there.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Does she know you?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes, she does.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure she knows you?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes, she does.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, We'll check when we get up there.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he make her driveway's just as steep as mine.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: He makes it up no problem.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: She comes out the door when she sees the car lights, and I get out in front of it and I holler at her and I tell her who I is.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's yeah, come on in.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Okay, I'll see you later.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I go in, she loans me her phone book and her phone, and I call a toast service, and we talk.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: She's she was, well, she's with him now, um very devout woman.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought the only Bible there ever was was a King James.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know there were multiple versions of this.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this was back in 03 when this wreck took place.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she said, you know, you're gonna be recorded in in my Bible, and I said, I am.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Yeah.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she showed me a daily Bible.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that happens on that day, she records it in the spine or on the edge of the book.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I got put in her book.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Have you ever seen one?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I said, didn't even know they had them.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: We went to church, we took her Bible to church, we brought it back home, we put it on the shelf, never took it off.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I would pick it up and I would look through it, and then I'd look out the window, see where the watch for the tow truck driver, and I'd close it, and then I'd open it again.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'd set it down and I'd go over to another window and look.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd look for it.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: She had put it back exactly the same spot.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: She always kept the Bible.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: She had it didn't move from there unless you were actually going to do something.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Later that week, he came and got me out.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I went home, I stayed there.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um when the weather cleared, I went in town, went to the Christian bookstore that was on Kansas Avenue, found me the exact Bible.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have been, and I got it, where did they go?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: January 18th, 2003, and I have been reading it ever since.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2009, two days before Sunday, when they did a kind of an altar call, I read your Psalm 119, 105 through 106.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous scrubs.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: That became my verse.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: That Sunday, I put my name on that green slip, and I got baptized.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's what stabilizes me.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: My grandparents on my mom's side used to listen to Christian music.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lawrence Welk.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've gotten used to that.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love the big bands.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Pericomo and Satchmo.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh now the only thing I listen to is Christian music.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: I used to turn past the dial.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's on it.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're not supposed to do stuff at work, but you know, you kind of do it because it just automatically does it by itself.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's Christian music burned on my computer, so my headphones are on.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: The only place I can't quite get it is in my parents' car when we go on vacation because they only listen to country.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I turn it when I'm driving to Christian music.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's whatever channel I can get, depending on where we're at.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when they it's on for five minutes and then they're turning the dial.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing I'm taking away from this is that no matter the circumstances, you physically may not have a voice, but you have a voice.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's God.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You just tell it to Him in your mind, and He will then speak whatever you need spoken and give it to you when you need it.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then I just realized this a few months ago that my convulsions, I think, was just my way of preparing being prepared to take care of my parents as they get older.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thank him for it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not exactly everything I had to go through.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't really want to be hit by a car, but there was a reason, and that was it.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, that's my story.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.