Wednesday, August 6, 2008

the craziness

The kids all go back to school in just a couple of weeks. The last two weeks of summer are always crazy between my daughters birthday (which is Monday Aug. 11 she will be 15) Hair cuts, new school visits (my daugher starts high school this year and my youngest son starts Junior high and this is my old sons senior year!), dental appointements before school starts and then the last minutes making sure everyone really has everything!! CRAZINESS!!!!!


I still dont have a job but I am sorta looking forward to a few weeks of having the house to myself. But I want a job sooooo badly!!!!! Most of the jobs I applied for out at the air force base do not close until the end of next month, so I am really hoping I get one of those but I also applied for some jobs with Disney, mostly in chicago..I am really hoping to move my family in the next five years! PlEaSe!! lol

more of my family

My dad Charles Rhoades.
My great grandmother Mattie Hamilton as a little girl

Monday, July 28, 2008

more family photos

This is myself Laura, my mother Sheryl and my sister Jenny taken in Germany 1976-77. We lived there for almost 4yrs.


Keys and Hamilton families. My great grandmother Mattie Hamilton and my great great grandmother are in the back second from the left. the woman sitting in the front is my great grandmothers aunt Laura I believe. This was taken in the early 1900's in Texas.



My Great Grandfather James Austin, he was Mattie Hamliton's husband, a dairy farmer in Abliene, TX. I believe this was taken in the 1930's.











My Dad's Aunt Irma James (I believe thats her first name) and her husband. Sometime in the early 1920's. Hannibal, MO.



my dad Charles Rhoades as a kid, sometime in the 1940's-50's in Hannibal, MO.









Monday, July 14, 2008

People across the street

Across the street from our house is an old duplex. It has been a rental for as long as I can remember. What is interesting is to watch how the quailty of people who have rented that place has slowly declined...sort of an illustration of how the neighborhood has fallen. The lastest group are loud (very loud), stand in the street all the time, let their kids run eveywhere, curse loudly constantly, constantly parking in front of our house taking our only places to park our own cars and there is always a steady stream vehicles coming and going. They have lived there since November and the cops have been there at least once to twice a month and having twice arrested someone. The most recent arrest was Saturday.

I have absolutely no problem with people being poor. Hell I was on WIC with all three of my kids and right now I am on Medicad for my children while getting through college and while I am currently unemployed after graduation and looking for a job. I understand completely about being poor and down on my luck. My as my mother says, soap is cheap and good manners are free. I hate to see this neighborhood falling into the cracks of society and becoming another Ghetto. The worse part is that just a couple of miles away are homes worth 1/2 a million dollars!!! I was noting to my mother that we dont see the cops driving down our street anymore unless its to make an arrest across the street or last year there was a shooting 6 houses down. Otherwise we rarely see them. When we first moved here, a cop came down our street once a day. I figured they all moved over to the expensive neighborhoods. It pisses me off because my mother works for te IRS she makes a good living as a secretary and has supposed this family by herself since my father died and my husband and I have been in college. She deserves the police protection just as much as anyone, so does the old lady, the other older couple and several others on this street who have lived here 20+ years but when suddely people, like the people across from us move in we all become...unworthy even though we are law upholding citizens.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Irma Duran and Warren James

My great great grandparents on my fathers side from Hannibal, Missouri. taken in the early 1900's. My father always said we were related to Jesse James since my fathers family is all from Pike county in IL and Hannibal, MO. Not sure if it is true though.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Copy of my Grandfather's honorable discharge from the Army


I thought this was really cool. I never knew my Grandfather Herley G. Perkinson had been in the army, only that he was in the Air Force. Apparently when he rejoined he joined the Air Force. My mother told me he served in WWII, Vietnam and such but that he never talked about it. When he passed away my mother said when she got his military records, pages and pages of his service records where blacked out. I really wish I had gotten to talk to him.

Shirle June


Shirley June, my grandma Garretts little sister who died after two months. Not sure exactly when it was taken but my mother believes it was around 1926.
A Sleeping Beauty picture. I thought this was really unusally because I had thought by the 1920's this practice had stopped. But at the time I believe Hannibal, MO was still mosting a small river town.