The surgery didn't stop the diabetes and in 2007, Irene lost her left leg above the knee. The second surgery was quite a blow. It hurt her but it also hurt me. I felt like I failed her but I couldn't stop the diabetes. I took care of her for four years from the time she was released from the hospital. I lifted her in and out of bed until I got to the place when I couldn't lift her any more. I called Susan to come help me, and after she was there four or five days she said, "Dad, you've got to do something else. I can't do this either."

It was then we took her to the Clarke County Hospital. She was there a month before I took her to the Nursing and Rehab Center which was then north of town. I went to see her every day. The last day, Susan and I were out there from about 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. when Susie said, "Let's go home and have supper," and I agreed. We had been home about 10 minutes when they called to say Irene had passed away. I kind of think she was waiting for us to leave.

That called for a lot of changes in my life, although I had already begun cutting back. Through the years I had been involved in a lot of organizations and held offices in many. I tried to quit being a Soil and Water Commissioner, and they asked me to stay on so I still am Soil Commissioner, which I have been since 1955.

I dropped my membership in Rotary two years ago and joined the Masons in January 2008. In 1996, I wanted to resign my presidency in the Historical Society, which would have ended 16 years in that position. They accepted my resignation on the condition that I continue in a lesser position. So I became vice president and have been vice president through several presidential terms. The current president is Don Dunbar.

I am still a member of Clarke County RC & D (Resource Conservation Development), and I am still with RC & D at Creston but no longer president. We are responsible for a 7 county area for which we put on programs for farmers and do research. When I quit as commissioner, I asked Mary Klein to come to the meetings and learn all she could. I am glad she was elected in my place because she is very good.

I have been Commander of the Woodburn American Legion for two years. Within the last couple weeks the lady who chairs the committee which plans the 4th of July celebration, Karon Keefe-Dunbar, called and asked, "Would you guys like to be the Grand Marshall of the 4th of July parade?" Every year they select a person to be the Grand Marshall but this year they decided to give the honor to all the veterans of Clarke County. I told her I thought we would, and it will happen — all the veterans of Clarke County will be honored.

I have also become an advocate at our Southern Hills Specialty Care Center. I am one of nine people who go to the Nursing home to visit with the old people three hours each month. We have reports to fill out and a meeting once each month. I love being involved with the program.

I am still pursuing my hobby of making rock jewelry, and doing the rock work that is involved. I don't go rock-hunting but work with the rocks I've got. There are 400 different kinds of rock and at one time I could name them all. I hate to admit I'm beginning to forget some of them now, but the reality is I am 90 years old and we lose some of our abilities through the years. I don't hear as well as I used to. I go to the Veterans' Hospital in Knoxville, where they gave me two hearing aids. I walked in, they put the aids in my ears, and when I walked out I could hear the cars going by, I could hear myself walking on the sidewalk, I could even hear myself breathing. It was strange. But my hearing is getting worse. I can visit with people. I don't always hear them but if I can see them, I can read their lips.

But it doesn't interfere with my rock hobby. I buy the rocks in bulk, four or five pounds in a bag. The procedure is: I cut them in quarter segments with a rock saw, put a mark of them and a pattern. I mark around it and saw it out with a diamond edge rock saw. This is an interesting saw. You can put your hand against it while it is running and it won't cut your hand. This has been the danger of working with the usual saws. The warning has been, "Don't get your hand against the saw because it will cut you." This one won't cut you.

Diamonds are the hardest things on earth, so they will cut the rock. You don't see the diamond in the saw. It is pressed into the steel, but you can hear it cutting. There is a little holder I put the rock in, start the saw and start cutting. I grind it around to the mark, fasten it to a stick to hold onto so I can shape it. I have to be sure I will have time to finish when I begin because once I start, I have to go clear through the process. The reason is, the diamonds will cut the rock as smooth as can be, but if I shut off the saw in the middle of the process, the saw will waver and make marks on the rock. If I've stopped, when I start again, I have to go back and cut out the saw marks. Sometimes it takes two or three hours to cut through the rock but I don't dare stop.

I make bolo ties like the one I am wearing, and I also make settings for belt buckles. I haven't gone to any shows to display them. I sell them just as people come to the house and see them. They can buy whatever they want. I don't want to make a lot of things and hang them up because they just hang there. I would rather people would come and choose the rocks and settings and then I make whatever they have in mind.

I wanted to pass this art on to somebody else. I advertised in the paper for someone who would be willing to come to my house to learn it. I would  like to teach them how to do these things, because if I don't, when I die my hobby will die with me. So if some young person could learn it, I wouldn't charge to teach them. Their only expense would be to buy their own material. I might have a prospect. This winter I had a big deep freeze in the basement with lots of food in it. I didn't need it so I got rid of the food, cleaned up the freezer, and advertised in the paper to sell it. A family northwest of Osceola came to see it. They had a young boy 12 or 14 years old, and when they came to see the freezer, they saw my rocks. They showed an interest in the boy's learning to do what I do. They may come back this spring.

In 1995, I started to build grandfather clocks. I have built 26 so far. I sold four of them, two I gave to the Lacelle and Osceola churches for their auctions. Tom Murr bought one in Osceola for his church in Norwood. Of the other 20, I gave Irene one, each of my children one, then I started with my grandchildren and gave every one of those a grandfather clock. They all just love them. I have one at home for a grandson who hasn't picked it up yet, and when some people came to visit, they saw the one I gave Irene. They wanted one, so this year I have two more to make. One in white oak will be for those people, and I will make a walnut one for friends in Minnesota who have a daughter in Angola, Indiana. They brought Lois back to visit me last fall, and she said, "I want you to make me one." I love doing it. I don't want to quit.

I do everything I can to take my mind off my loneliness. Irene and I had 62 years together and it is hard to fill the vacant spot she has left in my life. I am writing to a friend in Kansas City, which kind of breaks the monotony. She is a very good friend and I don't know what might come of that. I am 90 and I don't know what age she is, but she's not 90. I had a bad experience discovering there are people who take advantage of widows' and widowers' loneliness. I fell for one of their scams and became involved in correspondence with someone in a foreign country. The blow came when they wanted a great deal of money. I had to change all my identifying numbers to get rid of them and learned a hard lesson. But I learned.

I only have two sisters left of my original family. Both are younger than I. One lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, the other in Indianapolis, Indiana. This winter the one in Lincoln broke her hip. She is out of the hospital now and doing pretty well. The one in Indianapolis fell and broke her leg, so she had surgery and they put a rod in her leg. Both of them keep telling me, "Don't you fall down." I assure them I will try not to.

I have a large family, which helps with my loneliness. Irene and I had five children. Our oldest, Nancy Lee, died at birth. She was stillborn in 1947. We had a service for her and she is buried in the first Babyland west of the road at Maple Hill Cemetery. Susan was born in 1948. She and her sister Kathy married Miller brothers, Ed and David, so they had the same last name. Susan had three boys: Mike, Robbie, and Justin Hogan.

Our son Ted was born in 1950. He served in the Army in Viet Nam in 1986-1987. When he came back, he lived with us two years, then we moved to town, and he took over the farm. He did that for several years but said that wasn't the life for him. He wanted to work a certain number of hours in the day and be through for the day. That isn't farm life, so he took other jobs. He worked on what is called the Saint Road between St.  Louis, Missouri and St. Paul, Minnesota.

He built all the bridges on that highway. Ted was married several times and his friend, Sue Shields had a little girl, Cecelia, whom he adopted and they are very close.

Kathy was born 1952, and had Michelle, Jackie, Kyle Richey, and two step sons, Tyler and Jeromy Shell. Jackie had a little girl she named Adriana after me. It made me very happy to have a great-grandchild named for me.

Mary was born in 1957, on December 26, Irene's and my wedding anniversary. Mary Conway had three children, Arlo Shuman, Vanessa, and Stuart Conway. All told, I have six great-grand-children.

I live by myself, but I have a companion living in my house. One of the girl's boyfriends gave me a plant. It was 2 1/2 feet tall when they gave it to me. That plant grew around the window, up the wall, I made a little "bridge" for it to cross a gap, and it has grown 50 feet long in 2 1/2 years. It is quite a show. People have been asking me if I am going to cut it down. I tell them, "No, I am going to let it grow." It might crowd me out of my house, I don't know.

And I have wonderful memories. For 17 years, Irene and I went to our Army reunions. There were 195 soldiers and their wives when we began going and at the last one, there were just ten left. We were losing five to ten soldiers every year, and we voted not to have any more reunions. I sure miss that. We started in 1984 and stopped in 2001. The last one was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but we had gone to St. Louis, Missouri; Tampa, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; Topeka, Kansas; Seattle, Washington; Helena, Montana; and Cleveland, Ohio. There were a few in the Midwest. We went to Minnesota two times, and Wisconsin once. I drove to all of those but two. When we went to New York, we flew out of Des Moines and flew to the one at Geiger Field, Washington. We would go for five days during which we had parties, dances, luncheons and banquets. We had a good time enjoying just being together. We had been through some rough times as the US took back the islands in the South Pacific. That made us feel very close to one another. I really do miss our get-togethers.

color rode on that color bus here and in Washington, D.C. There were 30 people on each bus, and that was the way, when we went somewhere, they could easily tell if somebody was missing.

We went to the Des Moines airport on the 10th, went back to the hotel about 10 P.M. and were instructed to get up at 1 A.M. We had breakfast, boarded the plane, were flown to Washington, got off the plane, and onto a bus. Those buses were home base. We had dinner on the bus; we would go see the sights and get back on the bus. About 12:30 or 1:00 in the night of the next day, we started for home. We didn't get here until 4:30 in the morning.

There have been three more flights since then. I don't know if they have covered all the veterans of WWII or not. We are losing about 1400 to 1500 veterans a day out of 15,000,000 that were in WWII. I am proud to have been in that war. We were scattered all over the world, and we stayed until we had the job done. A lot of people don't realize they would surely not have had the liberties we have now if we had left it undone. We didn't finish in Viet Nam, but I didn't think we should have gone there in the first place. I wasn't in favor of the war in Iraq, I wasn't for it. I think there could have been another way to go about it. It is costing us billions and billions of dollars and I was opposed, but I didn't have anything to say about it. Nobody asked me.

That trip is something I will remember the rest of my life. Another was last January when my two great-granddaughters, Michelle Miller and Jackie Phelps, put on a party for me at the Methodist Church in Osceola to celebrate my 90th birthday. Sixty people came to visit. We had a wonderful time, the most wonderful birthday I have had in a long time. I got 65 cards and letters. I didn't know I had so many friends. They came from everywhere. A lot of them came to the party at the church. They asked me how much longer I wanted to live and I said, "As long as I can." "How long?" I said, "Another ten or fifteen years — I don't mind." Then they asked, "What do you want to live for?" I couldn't quite answer that. I want to live just because I want to live, I guess.

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Last Revised December 14, 2014