He has lived a very blessed life – great family, great friends, good jobs – and there is nothing he really would change. But if he could then he would run for Congress again. Charlene and him made many great friends during that 1978 campaign.

The first night he met great grandma was at a teen-age dance. He was a junior, she was a freshman.  She went to an all-girls school, and he was in an all-boys school. Other attractive girls were stuck-up, and sold on themselves. Grandma was kind, had a great smile, and was easy to talk with. They dated more than five years before getting married, and He never doubted she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and

He has many favorite childhood memories. One of them was winning the city softball championship as a 7th grader. Another was when the great boxer Jack Dempsey came to his house.  Another great memory was going to St. Louis for the first two games of the 1942 World Series between the Cardinals and the Yankees. He had a very good childhood.

He was fortunate to have great parents and great teachers. Role models were abundant. It wasn’t all positive that made him the person he is today.

One of the hardest moments in his life hat was when Ashley Brooke, daughter of Charley and Diana, was born dead at nine months. That is the saddest memory in my entire life

-- a real challenge to a person’s faith.

He grew up in a great upbringing in a middle-class neighborhood in St. Joseph, MO. With his loving family. He was born September 21, 1932.

My great grandma and him had talked about starting a family while they were dating, and they both ready to start a family when they got married. It was about a year before Great Grandma got pregnant with the twins.

He doesn’t have any regrets about high school. They were good year he was valedictorian and student council president his senior year. Some of his closest friends are people he went to high school with.  

His parents were not “helicopter parents.” They trusted him. And he was told not to smoke or drink, to study hard and make friends with other people. Politeness and courtesy were always stressed.Their Catholic faith was very important. They would always attended Mass as a family, and they passed that down to their own children. They tried to pass the same values on to their children.  He has no problem with the rules he was given as a kid growing up.

He role model would be his father, Harold M. Slater. His dad always had time to explain things to him, to teach him about football, softball and other sports. More importantly, he taught him about life – how to live it, how to enjoy it, how to help others. (This President Harry Truman in the picture with my great great grandparents and great grandma and grandpa and uncles.

He has been pretty content with his entire life. He was fortunate to have a good family, good friends, and good jobs. One of his professional early goals was to be editor of the News-Press, and he achieved that when he was 40. He wanted to be part of a family. His greatest part of being content was within the family. He has been fortunate to be blessed in many ways, and he has no real regrets.

Life was much simpler. He was born in the Depression, with a lot of people unable to find work, and the United States became involved in World War II shortly after hr started grade school. As he was growing up cars were unlocked, houses were unlocked. Alcohol may have been a problem fore some, but there was no drug problem.

Segregation didn’t have any great impact on him.  It was just an accepted thing when he was growing up. He had a number of young black friends.  They didn’t go to school together, they were not allowed to swim in the city pools, attend the best theater in town, they were expected to sit in the back of the bus. As a young kid growing up, he really didn’t give much thought to segregation. It just seemed to be apart of life, that no one seemed to be complaining about it.

It was pretty much a carefree world for him growing up. They always had a group together, whether it was for a ball game, ride bikes, to go to a movie, or just to hang out. He loved to be around his friends and do things with them.

At 84, he has lost some of his closest friends.  About two-thirds of his high school class has died. Some of his high school class gets together the first Monday of each month for lunch and to have a few beers. He still stays in contact with some of his class mates through email.

My Great Grandpa record stuff so the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren can recall visions of their own childhoods.   It’s also fun for Great Grandma and him to look at some of these old videos and recall those days.  He also wrote an autobiography for the family, so they would know  about their family and the lives they lived, and have been blessed to have.

The biggest impact on his life was getting married and having children. The whole universe seemed to be brighter. Graduation from high school and college, getting a good job, meeting new people, are all important – but nothing compares with marriage and becoming a parent.

They have been very fortunate. He always wanted to visit the Holy Land, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Hawaii and go through the Panama Canal. They have been able to do all of these. Great Grandma and him have visited 49 out of 50 states. They have never been to North Dakota and they have gone to 25-30 foreign countries.

He has done everything on his bucket list besides going to Russia but he will have to pass on that. Life has been good to him. And he will leave this world without any great regrets.

He is absolutely content with his family relationships. Everyday he prays for peace in our world and in our family. It’s great to see our children get along so well, and the cousins all enjoy each other. We have been blessed with a great, loving family.  I hope we have more opportunities to get everyone together.

They have lived in the same house for 60 years. Great Grandma saw this house and decided she wanted to live here. She hasn’t changed her mind. We moved here in October 1956,  it’s been a gathering place through the years for many friends and the family.

He has very many proud moments in his life. Each time one of his children was born, each time they had a new grandchild, each time they had a new great-grandchild. Nothing ever tops new life.

He doesn't really have any big regrets. Life has been good to him. He's made mistakes, but he always try to look forward and create better lives for our family and others.

His advice to teenagers is to have a strong faith in God. Don’t do anything that would embarrass your family. Study hard, don’t settle for just doing enough to get by, be honest with yourself and with others, pick the right kind of friends, create friendships that will last a lifetime, treat everyone with respect, smile a lot, never go to bed angry at anyone, set goals for your life.