This picture is one of over 200 that I scanned today from the 1956 to '61 era. It is from the Christmas of 1957. I can't think of any thing I could be doing that would give me more pleasure than working with these old pictures. While we had some of the slides printed over the years at Sam's Store, etc. over the years, this is the first time in many, many years that I have seen most of them. While we have "happy memories" of these years, the pictures help me realize the extent of changing economic conditions. We were able to maintain a pretty high standard of living with a nice home and new 1956 Pontiac station wagon. I worked with Nursery stock in addition to my job with SCS. Elaine also did some "outside" work in addition to a lot of sewing and working with hand-me-downs. We also got more help from Grandparents than we even recognized, at the time.
Our 5-bedroom house had a full, unfinished basement but that didn't keep the kids from spending a lot of time down there. (Note the little basketball basket mounted on the old headboard). We even provided housing for several Concordia College boys in upstairs bed rooms. We had a coal stoker in the furnace in the basement that heated the house. While it worked with a thermostat, we cut a lot of dry oak wood to supplement the coal. We just hand-fed the blocks of wood over the stoker burner. Elaine's folks helped us cut the wood with a buzz saw and we used my folks truck to haul it into town. I hope that young parents today will be able to look back with as much pleasure as mine.
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