On a warm, sunny, lazy summer Sunday afternoon, what better to do than daydream away about how to make life better for yourself and your family. That is as long as you stay within your monetary limits.

But certainly not my husband, as he is browsing through the newspaper and sees a farm for sale. Living paycheck to paycheck is for the birds! So…..why not purchase a farm large enough to make a living for our family?

My husband had grown up on a farm and although my father owned several farms, I knew little about farming for a living. Never to be deterred by obstacles, when I wanted something, I bit onto his idea as if it were mine! Continue reading

So this is how it all begins. My sons-in-law Tracy Drake from Salem, Ohio and Terrell Smith from Lawrenceville, Georgia decide to go fishing with my son-in-law Joey Wedding from York Center, Ohio.

All of my family had come into the area to attend my parents, “Levi and Mary Etta Rockhold”, reunion. My sisters and brothers, their children and grand children along with me and my family, came from Florida, Georgia, New York, Montana, Kentucky, California and all over Ohio.

Remember, my parents had thirteen children! Our Rockhold family scattered far and wide!

At this reunion, Tracy, Terrell and Joey, who seldom get together, decide to go fishing. And……where is the best fishing around York Center? The abandoned “Rockhold Stone Quarry” that I grew up beside of! Being spring fed, it filled with cold clear blue water and is now a good size deep lake.

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He was running ahead of me as fast as his little two year old legs could carry him, from my farm milk house, to the porch of my home. Getting there ahead of me, he picked up a potted flower, quickly turned it upside down, the plant fell out on the ground.

He reached in the soil, pulled out a fish worm, held it up and with sparkling eyes and the happiest smile, that only my little grandson could give, he said, “GOIN’ FISHIN’ TONIGHT”!!!!”

After a big rain, as I was driving past his home, he was sitting by the ditch that ran along the road, with a stick and string tied to the end, fishing in that water filled ditch! Continue reading

As a teenager, without knowing why, I meandered through the big crusher building of my father’s stone quarry, past the big engines and on to the far side where my dad and some of the workers were standing around watching as Sam Manley was turning a crank tightening up a large log chain.

I was still a few feet from them, when I yelled, “Get back, that chain is going to break!” They all stepped back a little, Sam stopped turning the crank, the chain broke with a cracking sound and snapped back toward the men!

No one ever asked me how I knew or even let on they had heard my warning. The only important thing was no one got hit by the chain.

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CHAPTER I “OLD DOC”

We called him, “Old Doc.” he had delivered each of my parents’ babies and I was number twelve. His son “Young Doc” had delivered each of my baby girls.

“Old Doc” and my father had been best friends for many years. It was after I was five years old and moved from the big home on the corner of Byhalia, Ohio, along with my older brothers and sisters, to the house beside my father’s fourth and largest stone quarry in York Center that this all changed.

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