MEMORIES

by Karen Plemons

I was born in September, 1940. I remember when the war ended in 1945. My brother, Darrell, a neighbor, and I were beating on pots and pans, walking up the sidewalk to a small park next to the police station. We lived in Collinsville, Illinois.

I only had one brother. My family and I lived in a duplex. My Grandpa and Grandma Evans (my Mother's folks) lived on the other side. My Grandpa died a month after I turned four. I only had one Grandma till she passed away in 1966. My Grandpa and Grandma Reed had passed away before my folks married. They had lived in Grand Chain, Illinois, about fifteen miles from Cairo. Grand Chain was Dad's hometown. If you blink, you'll miss it.

My Dad had one sister left in Grand Chain. She and her husband were my favorite Aunt and Uncle. He also had a niece and her family. We used to go down there on weekends once in a while and always a week in the summer. When I was in junior high, I wanted to move down there. The school was so small I knew that I'd make cheerleading. Of course, I didn't get to. I never made cheerleading, either.

My Dad was the assistant postmaster of the Collinsville post office until he retired in December, 1965. My brother became a letter carrier in 1957, and in 1969 he became a postal inspector. He and his family moved to Minnesota. He divorced in 1987 and transferred to St. Louis so he could help with our folks. He made his home in Collinsville, Illinois and retired in September, 1988.

The first eight years of school, I just walked out the back door, up the alley, and I was at school. My high school years, I walked a block and a half to catch a bus, but not the school bus. We were only a mile away and that wasn't far enough to ride the school bus. I remember going to football and basketball games and the football coronations. I didn't get to go to the prom. You had to be a junior or senior. I was dating a boy two years older. He didn't get to go to his either. I ended up marrying that boy after his three year hitch in the Air Force. It lasted eleven years. Two good things came out of it; my daughter, Tracy, and my son, Scott.

We had a house built and moved to Troy, Illinois, in September, 1969. The kids’ Dad and I divorced in March of 1971. In May of 1975, my boss introduced me to his neighbor, Harold Plemons. First time I ever heard of that name. Harold had just divorced and was raising three of his four kids. The oldest one was in the Navy. To make a long story short, we married on November 10, 1978. The kids and I had to uproot again and move back to Collinsville. We had a teenager in every year of high school. That was something else. In 1981, they gradually started getting married and moving out. My son went into the Air Force in September, 1982. That just left Tracy. Harold thought she had become a permanent fixture, but in August 1985, at the age of twenty-three, she took a teaching position in Ocala, Florida, where she still is. After almost seven years of marriage, we finally had the house to ourselves.

I started babysitting in March, 1982 and was quite content. In May, 1985, I got the sister of the other one. Harold always said he was moving back to Alabama when he retired. I thought I could talk him out of it, but, boy, did I get fooled. My folks died seven months apart in 1989; one in May and the other in December. Harold retired April 30, 1990, and we put the house up for sale four months later. I gave up my babysitting the end of August, 1990. We didn't sell the house until September, 1991, and moved down here to Hartselle, Alabama, on September 28, to Harold's old home place. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I lived in Illinois for fifty-one years. We left his four kids, five grandkids, and all our friends. Since then, only two kids and their spouses, and two grandkids are left in Illinois. One daughter moved to Cartersville, Georgia with her three boys. The other son lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. We've been here eleven years, but I'll never call it home. My heart belongs in Illinois.

Between Harold and I we have six kids (three boys and three girls) and six grandchildren (four boys and two girls). Harold was brought up in a family of seven kids (six boys and one girl). Of course, I only had one brother.

Something I forgot; there were seventeen of us girls that ran around together in high school. We're a little scattered but most of them are in Illinois. Once in a while, when we go up, we get together for lunch or dinner. It is fun. In October of 2003, we will have our 45th class reunion.

In this story you see how I became part of the Plemons tribe. - Karen Plemons, Hartselle, Alabama