My mother was born near Odessa, Russia and her family immigrated to the US at age 10. I have a book written by our parish priest called From the Steppes to the Prairies, which discusses the migration of German peoples from Germany to Russia to the Plains of the the Dakotas. Katherine the Great, when she was Tsar of Russia, opened up vast lands along the Red Sea to German farmers. She did this for two reasons. One was to form a "White" barrier between the fairer skinned Russians in the north and the "darker" skinned folks to the south. At the turn of the century however, as the nationalistic Bolsheviks came into power, they didn't appreciate having the Hun on their land so they commenced to raid and burn out the farmers. About this time, the US offered homesteading in the Dakotas to immigrants so many of these German peoples migrated from the Red Sea area to America. The family of Lawrence Welk, who was my mothers third cousin, were involved in this move as well.

My dad's great-grandfather migrated from Germany to Wisconsin several generations earlier. His dad was a Wisconsin dairy farmer but my dad got a job working on the railroad in Dickinson North Dakota, the town where my maternal grandmother had moved after my grandfather died. My dad met my mother where she worked at the "Beanery" in the Dickinson railroad depot.

During the depression, my dad lost his job with the railroad so he went back to his fathers farm in Wisconsin where I was born in 1936. Shortly thereafter, my dad got his railroad job back and we moved back to Dickinson.

I have two brothers and a sister, Pat is married to Betty and they have 5 children, Chuck is married to Marilyn and they have 6 kids, and Bernie is married to Troy Clark and they had 3 kids.

My brother Pat has developed a very extensive family tree of our family reaching all the way back to Russia and Germany and showing all of our cousins, nieces and nephews etc etc. Eventually I hope to expand on this family story to include specifics including dates etc from his work.

In 1966 at age 30 I was married to Joan Thrush. We had two beautiful children, Kim was born in 1967 and Rick in 1969. We had 10 pretty good years together. Joan was a very good mother and the kids were bright and happy. Unfortunately in time things soured between us and we were divorced in 1976. Prior to getting married we leased a house in Arlington, VA with an option to buy. As such we were able to have our wedding reception in our new home. A couple years after being married we bought, together with Joan's folks, a lake cottage at Blue Ridge Shores, a private lake community near Louisa VA. A couple years later, Joan's folks built a retirement home at the lake so we sold the first cottage and Joan and I bought a small farmette nearby. After living in Arlington for about 5 years, we sold that house and bought a new one in the fashionable Mount Vernon area of Alexandria, VA. Shortly after that we traded in our farmette for a bigger place in Lousia and built that into a small horse farm. Throughout our marriage we spent most weekends at the lake and at our "farm". When we got divorced, Joan got the house in the city and I got the farm in the country. When I left my job with the Navy department in 1979, I moved to the farm in the country.

When Kim graduated from high school in 1985, she moved in with me at the farm. She always had enjoyed the life in the country and had many good friends there. Initially she worked with me in a used furniture store that I had opened and later in a restaurant I had opened. After the restaurant failed she went to work for the sheriff's department as a dispatcher. After several years at that she became a secretary at the middle school in Louisa and later she got a job in the Clerk of Courts" office where she still works now. In (?) she bought a house near the farm in Louisa. Kim was married in (?) at which time, they built a large new home. She got divorced in (?) and has never remarried (yet). She now lives in in her house with her grandmother, Verl Thrush, and is very active in Louisa civic affairs.

After Rick graduated from high school in 1987, he attended Virginia Tech and received a degree in Computer Science. Upon graduation from college he got a job in Arlington and he lived with me in an apartment I had rented there for one year. Later he got his own apartment and then bought a house in Arlington. He was married to Heather in (?). In (?) he was transferred to Charlotte NC. After working with his original company for about 10 years, he left them to join a friend in business. The business did very well and a few years later they sold the business for a very healthy profit. Rick got a MBA from Duke in (?) and now works as a computer systems manager for Bank of America. Rick and Heather had their first baby, George, in January 2002 and Rebecca was born in March 2004. They now live in a beautiful lakeside home in Charlotte.

In 2001, I married my beautiful wife Tessie but that is a story for another section.

Date of this draft: 3 February, 2005

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