I dedicate this book to Grandma and Papa.

Preview audio:

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My grandma, Pamela Marie Linsner, was born October 20, 1946 at St. Rose Hospital in Great Bend, KS. She weighed 7 lbs 6 oz. She was the fourth of 8 children, but the first daughter.

She lived on a farm with her mom and dad, plus her 7 other siblings. Her family home had 3 bedrooms with no indoor plumbing or electricity. All 8 children took baths on Saturday night one by one in a round tin tub with water from the windmill and heated on the stove inside buckets.

My grandma remembers she first got electricity in the early 1950s.

For breakfast her family typically had bacon & eggs, or a large pan full of oatmeal, or skillet sized pancakes. The usual lunch was egg salad sandwiches, or fried chicken with mashed potatoes & gravy. Dinner was usually roast beef with mashed potatoes & gravy, and green beans that they had canned themselves.

Her greatest fears as a child were tornados, the boogie man, not having enought to eat, and not having clean clothes to wear to school.

When my grandma attended 1st through 8th grade, they couldn't wear slacks or shorts to school. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts and bobby socks (if you had them).

My grandma's mom drove her to school every day. Her mom drove an "old flivver". When they had to go over a low water bridge after rained on the way to school, her mom would stop the car on one side and rev the car as fast as she could, and "hit the water and hope she'd make it to the other side."

In high school, my grandma participated in glee club. For a glee club concert, she had to have black heals, but she didn't have any. Since she had to have them, her mom found a pair of white heals, and painted them black. It was great, until during the concert people started looking at my grandma and then down at her shoes. When my grandma looked down at her shoes, she realized the paint was coming off. It was a very embarrassing experience for her.

For fun as a kid, my grandma used to walk in all directions of the farm up to 2 miles away to go fishing, see if she could get a cookie from a neighbor, or just to explore. One Christmas my grandma, at 10 years old, walked a mile out in 24 inches of snow to go get an evergreen tree to be the family's Christmas tree. She forgot something to cut down the tree with, so she broke off a branch and took it back home with her, nearly dying on the way. That tree is still there today.

Her first job was right out of high school at an automotive parts store as a book keeper.

She worked there for about 6 months prior to getting married (that comes later).

My grandma never got to drive a car to high school because her family was so poor.

Her father got her an old car running for her that he found in a ditch. An animal had died in it so she had to drive it with the windows down because of the smell.

Elvis was just becoming popular when my grandma was in high school. During her high school years was the end of big band music and the beginning of b-bop. A popular dance of the time was called the twist to a song called the Peppermint Twist.

My grandma remembers that during her sophomore year, square toed shoes were in fashion. Girls ratted (teased) their hair and wore skirts and blouses. Boys rolled their t'shirts sleeves.