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2. Susan Sharpe Leach

...teacher, author, scientist, adventurer, amateur photographer, volunteer

As the webmaster of the Leach/Sharpe genealogical website, this webpage will be an autobiography. As I age, memories disappear and I want to document them for myself and family members before the memories are gone. Although I have no children of my own, I hope my siblings, their children, and their children, etc. will learn more about me from my ramblings below. A quote from Louis Pasteur that I believe describes my life is "Chance favors the prepared mind." My preparation for success can be attributed to good genes from my ancestors, excellent role modeling from both parents and extended family, a good education with terrific teachers at all levels of my schooling, terrific support from my husband Jim and friends, and many opportunities I was lucky to encounter.

Born: 25 November, 1946 of Russell Leach (#3) & Helen Marie Sharpe (#4) at St. Ann’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.

(Married 1st: Greg A. Waggy, 23 June 1973 in Columbus, Ohio at Bexley Methodist Church; divorced October 1977; Married 2nd: James Floyd Snyder 18 June 1988 at 115 Oak Drive, Hebron, Ohio (Buckeye Lake summer cottage of parents).

 

Click on the images or names highlighted above to go to the web pages for (#3) & (#4).

 

[Siblings include: Terry Donnell Leach and Ann Dunham Leach]

 

1946 - 1950

Below: My Certificate of Birth.

My life began on November 25, 1946 at Saint Ann's Maternity Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. At the time I was born, my parents were living with my paternal grandparents (Charles Leach #5 and Hazel Thatcher #6) at 2321 Bexley Park Road (shown below). Besides Grampie and Grammie living there, their daughters... my aunts Dorothy and Jane, and Jane's husband/Uncle Dick Webster and young son, Cousin Steve, were also living in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below: Image 1: Envelope of baby announcement sent to my mother's sisters (Aunts Alma and Evelyn). Image 2: Outside of announcement card. Image 3: Inside of announcement card.

 

As a newborn, I weighed 7 pounds two ounces, and I was 20 inches long. According to my baby book, Dad named me "Susan" and Mom named me "Sharpe." I had colic (frequent, prolonged and intense crying or fussiness), so my parents (out of respect for the others living in the house), moved to a Fairport Avenue Apartment near the Depot in Columbus, where our family continued to live until 1951. Dad was an amateur photographer and took most of the photographs that are shown below of my early years. I was his first born and he absolutely loved taking pictures. In fact, as a young man, he wanted to be a professional photographer.

Below: Infant

Below: 3 months old with my mother.

Below: At about 6 months of age May 23, 1947.

Below Left : My mother with me. Center: 1st Easter, 4.5 months. Below Right: Summer of 1947.

Below: 1947 Easter card from Mamma Sharpe (Mom's mother).

Below: 1947: Easter card from Aunt Marie and Uncle Bob (Dad's brother). Image 1: Outside of card; Image 2: Inside of card.

Below: Pop-out Easter card from Aunt Amie. She signed the back, "Heaps of Love, Amie"

Below Left: 5 months. Right: July 4, 1947 (The little boy behind me is my cousin, Steve).

Below: 1947 Professional photograph.

Below: 1947 Birthday card from Aunt Jane. Image 1: Outside; Image 2: Inside.

 

Below: 1947 Christmas.

Below: 1947 Christmas card from Aunt Amie.

Below: The outside of my baby book. My mother kept meticulous records of my early days in this book. Also posted here are 4 of the many pages from the book.

Below Left: Silver cup given to me at birth by grandmother (Mamma Sharpe). Below Right: Baby jewelry.

Below 1st image: Bracelets worn at the hospital. 2nd image: Baby ring, a gift at birth from Schiffman's Jewelry store in Greensboro, NC., 3rd image: Baby bracelet from unknown person. 4th image: Chantilly silver baby spoon

 

Below Left: me with my mother. Right: Me with rabbit fur muff.

 

Below: 1948 June (19 months); me in wagon beside grandfather (Daddy Sharpe).

Below: 21 months

 

Below: November 25, 1948... my second birthday. I'm standing next to my grandfather (Grampie Leach) and cousin Steve. The rabbit fur muff was the present described below from Aunt Marie.

On my second birthday, I was given the following gifts: a musical lamb from Aunt Dorothy, a telephone and book from Aunt Jane, a dress from Grandma Leach, a fur muff from Aunt Marie, 3 books and 2 pair of pajamas from Aunt Alma, boots from Mama Sharpe, hankies from Aunt Evelyn, and a gown from Aunt Lucile.

Below: The photos are of my second birthday party (November 25, 1948), Steve is with me. On the back of the third photo, my mother had written "Susan on her 2nd birthday. Nite gown Lucile made her." Lucile was Aunt Lucile, Mom's oldest sister.

Below: These photos also appear to have been taken of my second birthday. There are two candles, but they are in a different position on the cake. I am in a different outfit than in the photos above.

 

Below: Circa 1948; about 2 years of age.

Below: With cousin, Steve Webster.

 

Below: 1948 with friends.

 

Below: Christmas 1948. Santa brought me three dolls... Little Lulu and two others.

Below: 2.5 years

 

Double click on the records below to hear me as I first began talking. The first record features are of me and dad. The second record features me and my mother. Both recordings were made about 1948 by Dad. Digital copies were made on 8 September 2005.

 

Below: Some of my toys. The monkey was my very first toy. Dad brought it to the hospital when I was born. The lamb "played Mary has a little lamb." I cuddled my dog and I loved to ride my horse around the house. I really didn't like to play with dolls very much, but one Christmas, I was given the doll shown below in the red skirt. Grammie sewed a suitcase full of its clothes for her. (I still have these toys and took these photographs in 2019)

 

 

Below: At about 3 years of age, I posed for a photographer.

On June 10th, 1949 Dad graduated from The Ohio State College of Law. At the graduation ceremony, family lore has it that I (thirty-one months of age), pointed from our seats in the OSU football stadium where the graduation took place and yelled "That's my daddy." (The photograph below was found among the possessions of Jane Webster ... Aunt Jane ... after her death).

My brother, Terry, was born June 12,1949 (two days after Dad's graduation). After his birth, he was very sick and had to be hospitalized. As a result, my mother and father took me (nearly three-years old) to live with my grandmother (Mary Gertrude Colerider #8) and grandfather (Terry Donnell Sharpe #7) in Greensboro, North Carolina. I stayed for six months. When Mom and Dad returned to Greensboro to retrieve me, Mom later told me that I insisted that she wasn’t my mommy, Mamma Sharpe was.

 

Below: Our family in 1949.

On one of our visits to Greensboro to visit Mamma and Daddy Sharpe after Terry was born, we saw our cousins Sandra and Mary Lue Long, daughters of Mom's oldest sister, Lucile. They lived in Columbia, South Carolina and were also visiting our grandparents at the time.

Below: These images were likely taken in 1949. Terry is a baby.

 

When Terry was first learning to talk, Mom told me he would mumble something and I would translate for her. She finally told me to stop doing that so he'd learn to speak more clearly.

Below: 1950: Terry was one and I was three. These pictures were taken in Greensboro, N.C.

 

After they moved out of the Bexley Park home, my cousin Steve, Aunt Jane and Uncle Dick lived in the same Fairport Avenue apartment complex in Columbus that we did, so the families saw each other frequently. I don't remember very much about living in the Fairport Avenue apartment other than hearing frequent planes go over the apartment and a large dirigible landing in a field near the apartments. In the autobiography I wrote in high school, I stated, "I can still remember waking up at night, thinking the trains were running right through my bedroom."

Below: January 11, 1950 with Aunt Dorothy and playing my record player.

Below: January 23, 1950: Terry and me.

Below: Summer 1950: Terry (14.5 months old) is running outside our Fairport Rd. apartment.

Below: Also at the Fairport Rd. Apartments, I learned to ride my tricycle.

 

On Sundays, we often went to Grammie's and Grampie's house. There, Grammie would fix a delicious roast or other wonderful meal. She was a great cook. Eating was often followed by a Sunday drive, and the drive was followed by sitting in front of the television to watch Lassie and the Ed Sullivan show. I remember my grandfather, as being very serious around me, putting me on his lap, and pretending to spank me. It was his way of showing his love. I was his first granddaughter. Grampie smoked cigars and all of his kids, Dad, Dorothy, Jane, and Bob spoked cigarettes. That was just the way it was back then. Grampie died of a heart attack on August 15, 1950. I would be 4 years old three months later.

Below: Newspaper article about Grampie's death. Grampie was a very important person in the government of Columbus, having been City Attorney and later, a judge.

Below: September 1950. Left: Me, relaxing. Right: My grandmother (Grammie) had lost Grampie just the month before. In the photo at right, she is shown with her three grandchildren, me, Terry, and Steve.

 

Below: My 4th birthday party, November 25, 1950. On that day, there was a huge snow storm, and it was the date of an Ohio State University Football game between the University of Michigan and Ohio State. The game became known as the Snow Bowl. According to the Internet, prior to the beginning of the game, grounds crews struggled to get the tarp off the frozen field with four feet of snow on top of it. During the game, the temperature was 10 degrees and winds gusted to 28 miles per hour. Meanwhile, I was inside our house with my friends, celebrating my birthday.

Below: 1950 Terry and me playing in the snow.

Below: November 27, 1950. As did most kids at the time, I loved to watch Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, and beginning in 1951...the Roy Rodgers shows on television. Of course, I had to dress the part.

Below: A sketch Aunt Dorothy made of me at ~4 years of age. Dorothy was Dad's oldest sister. She was a very talented commercial artist with the downtown Lazarus Department Store.

 

Below: 1950: I am 4 yrs, 4 months; Terry is 21 months.

 

During the years when we lived at the Fairport apartment, I had measles, chickenpox, and my tonsils removed. In quoting from the autobiography I wrote in high school English class, "I was getting to the ripe age of five when my mother enrolled me in kindergarten at Fairmoor Elementary. This seemed to be my weakest year, for if I didn't have the measles, I had tonsillitis. I think I attended only nine weeks all together. Towards the end of that year my father was called into active duty in the army. We were to go to Camp Polk in Louisiana, but first my tonsils had to come out. The doctor made arrangements with my parents to bring me in one early Monday morning. That day arrived all too soon for me. My mother packed my clothes and drove me to the hospital. Once there some nurses dressed me in a sort of white sack and put me in a room with four boys my own age (that part I didn't mind one bit!). Then they commenced to jab and stick me with needles. One for a blood test, and the others for heaven only knows what. By this time it was night time and I was hungry; but they said I couldn't have anything to eat. Before I knew it, it was the next morning and I was being pushed down the hall on a white table through one door, then another. Finally the moving halted and my eyes were blinded by a huge light. I saw a lot of people staring down at me; and then, a mask was fitted over my mouth and nose. I gasped for air. Suddenly the room started circling my head until I no longer could see, and in a few seconds was asleep. After a few hours, I woke up back at my hospital room with my mother at my side, and at first I thought it had all been a horrible dream."

Aunt Dorothy never married and lived with her parents until they died. She adored her nieces (me and later Ann... born in 1963) and nephews (Steve and Terry). Below are Steve, Aunt Dorothy, me, and Terry.

Below: I was telling the Lazarus Department Store Santa all I wanted for Christmas.

 

Dad had served in WWII prior to my birth. When in the service, he had gone to a lot of movies. He continued that practice after he was back home and married to Mom. Once we kids came along, he left us all at home while he went to the movies. Mom said that needed to stop and that's when he bought our first TV.

 

1951 - 1954

Dad was talked into joining the 37th Division of the National Guard in 1951 to earn extra money to support his young family. He reported to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin and the Korean Conflict exploded. He came back home and then back into active duty. The date for his enlistment was 8 November 1951. He was ordered to Leesburg, Louisiana. Mom took Terry and me to live with Mamma and Daddy Sharpe in Greensboro North Carolina. Eventually, Mom took us on a train down to Leesburg, where we lived for the duration of Dad's service. It was there that I attended 1st grade. I remember our yard being very weedy and bare. My best friend, Sandy Laile, lived behind our house and I ran through the yards to get to her house, hoping to avoid any snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, etc. that lived there. Sandy was also from Columbus and her dad Dr. Laile was a dentist in the army.

Below: Dad, Terry, and me in 1951. This picture and the two below were taken at Mamma and Daddy Sharpe's farm house in Greensboro, N.C.

Below: Left: Mamma Sharpe ( Mary Gertrude Colerider ) and Daddy Sharpe (Terry D. Sharpe) with Terry and me. Right: Mom, Daddy Sharpe and Terry and me.

 

Below: March 1951. It was Easter and Terry and I were examining our Easter baskets.

Below: My fifth Birthday Party with Terry November 25, 1951

Below: Terry and I are sitting on the front porch of our Leesburg, Louisiana house.

Below: February 1952; Terry and me.

Below: Terry, me and Mom.

 

Below: Terry, me, and our mother on May 30, 1952 just beyond Port Arthur, Texas at the Gulf of Mexico.

Below: Dad, Terry and me circa 1952

Below: Terry and me; docks in New Orleans.

Below: May 30, 1952 Terry and me.

Below: August, 1952.

Below: This was likely taken in 1952 in front of our Leesburg house.

 

My first grade teacher for the school year 1952-53 was Miss Moses.

Below: My class. I count 43 kids, 19 girls and 24 boys. Could the class have really been that large?

Below: My first grade photograph. I was always one of the youngest in my class with a November birthday. When I first started 1st grade, I was still 5 years old and wouldn't be 6 for several months.

Below: The first image below shows the back and front of my first grade report card. The second image shows the inside (grades) on the report card.

For school, my mother dressed me in dresses even though some other girls in my class were wearing "boy's clothes". I remember one day I got in trouble for talking too much in class and ended up standing in the corner of the classroom, counting the knots in the knotty pine boards.

Below: Mom saved this paper that I did in October 1952, at the beginning of 1st grade.

Mom sang in the army base choir and took us with her to practices. Our family was blessed in not getting diseases that we heard other were getting... polio, TB, and ringworm.

From the time I was quite young, Dad played records in the house. He loved music, and had a huge collection of classical, jazz, and show tune records. I never learned the names of the performers or composers, but I learned to whistle along with the music.

Below: Home of 1st Lt Leach and his family in Leesburg, Louisiana. It's hard to see, but some of the family are sitting on the porch in the first photo. The second photo was dated January 8, 1953.

Below: This photo was likely taken on our front porch in Leesburg.

Below: Based on Terry's and my ages, this was likely taken in 1951 or 1952 on a visit to our northern relatives.

Below: November 1952.

Below: Aunt Dorothy, me, and Terry ~1952.

Below: November 1952.

 

Below: November 25, 1952, my 6th birthday.

 

Below: Left: A letter I wrote to Mamma Sharpe, thanking her for my birthday card and money. Right: Mamma Sharpe's comment to Mom about my letter. Since I was in 1st grade when I wrote the letter, I'm sure I had a lot of instruction from Mom while I was writing it.

 

Below: Christmas 1952. The picture at right shows the doll that Grammie gave me and for which she designed and made all of its clothes on her sewing machine.

 

Below: Sitting on the couch in Leesburg with Terry.

 

Below: A family photograph circa 1952. It must have been near Christmas because Terry appears to be holding a Santa Claus statue.

Below: Dad with Terry and me 1952. (Photos by Mom)

Below: Mom with Terry and me. (Photos by Dad)

Below: The family Christmas Card 1952.

Below: The Sharpe family had its photo taken in 1952 or 1953. Front Row: Front Row: Lyn Bumgarner, Reed Bumgarner, Mamma Sharpe, Daddy Sharpe, Terry Leach, Susan Leach; Middle Row: Sandra Long, Lucile Long, Alma Sharpe, Evelyn Bumgarner, Helen Leach, Mary Lue Long; Back Row: Oren Long, Dr. John Bumgarner, Russell Leach.

 

Below: Easter of 1953.

Below: I appear to be about 7 years old and Terry about 4 in this photograph with Mom. We appear to be in front of the Leesburg home.

Dad was finally, discharged on 15 August 1953. and we moved back to Columbus.

Below: The date when these photos were taken is unknown, but we appear to be about the same ages as in the above photograph.

When we returned from Louisiana, our family rented an apartment at 121 N. Hampton Road and then another apartment at 2986 Eastmoreland Drive for a few years. The Eastmoreland Drive apartment was next to James Road Elementary School, which I would attend 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades.

 

Below: The back of the house at Eastmoreland Drive. The picture at left was dated April 5, 1955; the one at right is dated September 1956. I remember the giant caster bean that Mom had growing at the back porch in 1956.

James Road Elementary was on the east side of Columbus, and part of the Columbus Public School System. Restructuring of the school system during my 3rd grade year required for me and my classmates to attend a different school than James Road Elementary.

Every summer, Dad drove our family 500 miles to Greensboro to see Mamma and Daddy Sharpe. Mom packed sandwiches for the trip. I remember the delicious ham with butter sandwiches. The windows were down on the car because there was no air conditioning, and in addition, Dad was smoking his cigarettes. Dad listened to the radio until the music became so "twangy" that he turned it off. The roads were very curvy and I often felt car sick. But as time went on, road improvements including the West Virginia Turnpike made the trip more pleasurable for us all.

My grandparents lived in an old farm house. After the death of his parents, Daddy Sharpe had inherited the Sharpe Family home on Sharpe Road where he had been born. He continued working in town at his insurance business, but enjoyed raising a few farm animals and growing sugarcane and strawberries. Memories I have of visiting as a little girl include being able to collect fresh eggs in the hen house. One day, I reached in to collect an egg from a chicken's nest and there was a big snake curled up inside. That scared me "to death." I was careful to look before reaching into the nests after that.

There was a big tree in the front yard that had two exposed roots that were perfectly parallel. Terry and I pretended this was our parking area for our tricycle and wagon. Terry and I were fascinated watching Daddy Sharpe use tweezers to pull huge ticks from the fur of his two white dogs, Fluffy and Nelson (I think they were Samoyeds), and put the ticks in a jar of kerosene to kill them.

The farm house had a tin roof. When it rained, there was resounding noise of different pitches of clinking and tinkling raindrops as they hit the tin.

Mamma Sharpe grew both figs and grapes. Terry and I enjoyed both picking and eating the produce.

Every afternoon, the "grownups" made us climb the stairs to the bedroom to lay down, so they could take their naps. Of course at that time, there was no air conditioning and in the summer in North Carolina, it was hot. As I laid on the bed, I heard wasps buzzing at the screens. As we got older, Terry and I were allowed to stay in a downstairs room to play quietly when it was "nap time."

When we visited, Mamma Sharpe often invited other members of the family to join us for a huge meal. Several of Mom's sister's and their families came. I fondly remember the large dining room table set with china and silverware. There were even individual tiny glass salt receptacles at each place setting. I always thought that was really special. The meal often ended with homemade pies and homemade ice cream.

On some of our visits to Greensboro, we visited the Bumgarners at their house just down Sharpe Road. Uncle John Bumgarner, Aunt Evelyn (Mom's sister) and cousins Reed and Lyn lived there. Uncle John often had a large sweet watermelon for eating. We kids had seed spitting contests.

 

Below: Sharpe Farm House on Sharpe Road. Image 1: Front of house Image 2: Side of house.

Below: Mom, Terry, me, and Mamma and Daddy Sharpe in Greensboro North Carolina on two different visits.

Below: Me with Terry.

Back in Columbus, we continued spending our Sundays with Grammie and Aunt Dorothy. Sometimes our drive after lunch would be to the Union Cemetery in north Columbus to attend to the grooming of the bushes around Grampie's grave. Later on, Dad began his genealogy research and some trips were to more distant cemeteries of other ancestors.

Below: February 1953: I'm watching Aunt Marie and Grammie sorting something.

In September 1953, I began the second grade at James Road School. My teacher was Mrs. Adams. As I said earlier, our apartment was next to the school, so I had only the school parking lot to walk across to get to the building.

Below: My grade card from the second grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second image shows the inside and the grades.

 

I was in the second grade when I got my first dog... Buff. He was a new puppy, born to a neighbor's dog. He was very tiny, soft, and a great smelling puppy that cuddled to my shoulder when I first brought him home after he was weened. As a 7 year old, I thought Buff was the best dog in the world. But, Buff grew into a dog with his own very determined mind. He had his own idea of what it meant to be a male dog and that did not include being on a leash, wearing the sweater we bought to keep him warm when he ventured outside in the winter, or behaving himself in the neighborhood. He often ran away and he loved to chase moving objects. That included a boy on his bike who liked to kick at him.

Left: Photo of Buff dated Sept. 1956.

On one of our trips to Greensboro to visit Mamma and Daddy Sharpe, we took Buff. He was tied to a stake in the yard and we heard him barking loudly. We ran outside and discovered a king snake was teasing him. The snake was crawling in the grass, just beyond Buff's reach. My tiny grandmother took a hoe and chopped the head right off the snake. A short time passed and another snake did the same thing, This time it was a copperhead. I don't remember what my grandmother did, but that memory of my little grandmother taking charge has been with me all of my life.

 

Below: The second photo was dated 1955.

Sometime after September 1956, I came home from school to find Buff was missing. My parents explained that someone called and reported that Buff had nipped the paperboy on his bike and they had to get rid of Buff. I was devastated when I found out, and told them that if they had to get rid of Buff, they didn't need me around either. I packed up my Bible in a trifolded piece of cloth and ran away. I sat under a bush in the front yard until I got hungry for dinner.

 

In 1953, while in the second grade, Mrs. Adams took us on a field trip. I think it was to the Columbus Zoo. Mom volunteered to be one of the drivers. Without air conditioning in our car, we had the windows down. What we thought was a wild canary flew into one of the windows. We were all very excited. Looking back at the details, I suspect it was a male finch. That bird's visit was the most exciting part of the day.

Below: Our family car. As I remember it, was a green Plymouth. The back of the photo was dated: 6-13-1953

 

Below: Pictures from the field trip. The boy in the safari outfit is Terry. The adult is Mrs. Adams.

Also while I was in the 2nd grade, I joined the Brownies. Shown with me in the photograph below are many girls that remained with me in the troop for the next 10 years. Girls I can identify in this photo include: Carol Braun, Janice Wray, Cindy Sidle, and Karen Schuster. I am the little tan, "twerp" in the front row at the right of the photograph. I'm guessing that Sandy Laile, Sally Seckel, and Kathy Baker are also in the photo, as they were with me in the troop.

Below: More Brownie pictures.

Below: Brownie pin and ring.

 

Below: My grade card 1954-55 from the third grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second image shows the inside and the grades. In looking at this card, I see that my teacher's name was Mrs. "Auel." I have always thought her name was spelled "Owl." This is the year that I was bussed to another school. Somehow, the district had made a mistake since I lived right next to James Road.

Below: Class pictures from 3rd grade.

 

Below: Some of my drawings in 1954. Age 8 and 9

 

Double click on the records below to hear me singing Christmas songs in 1954. The digital copies were made on 7 September 2005. On the left record, I am singing a solo. On the right record, I am singing a duet with Terry. (The original records were created by Dad).

 

In 1954, I entered a Santa Claus coloring contest held by the Ohio State Journal. I won a silver dollar. There was quite a story about the coins given to the winners. They were more valuable than 1 dollar.

Below: A December 23, 1954 Ohio State Journal Newspaper article. The first image was of the front page of the newspaper, the other images are copies of page 10. I copied only part of page 10, which was extensive. I was listed as one of the many 8-year old girl winners.

 

1955 -1961

Below: I'm standing between my two best friends at Girl Scout camp at the time... Sheila Barrett and Sandy Laile. I was the runt of the troop and the tomboy. I could also be ornery. On one overnight camping trip, I put a crawdad in the sleeping bag of Janice Wray. I confessed about this crime to Janice at our 50th high school reunion.

 

When attending James Road School, during recess another student (Billy Mock) and I spent our time looking for unusual rocks in the gravel in the school parking lot. That was the beginning of my interest in rocks. Early on, I began collecting many things of nature. When we visited our grandparents in North Carolina, we learned that our grandmother also liked to collect things. She had pieces of petrified wood and quartz crystals she'd found on the farm .

Below: My grade card 1955-56 from the fourth grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second and third images show the inside and the grades for each grading period 1-6.

 

Below: Class pictures from 4th grade.

Below: 1955-56 School Days photo .

In elementary, I really didn't like to read. It was very difficult for me. Looking back, perhaps I have dyslexia. At any rate, Mom tried to get me some help from one of the other students. I don't remember the details, but David Sidel, the blonde boy with the crew-cut haircut in the above two photos helped me learn to read.

 

Below: Some of my drawings in 1955. Age 9

Our family eventually purchased a new home (our first) at 923 Enfield Road. In our new house, Terry and I had our own bedrooms. We had our own yard to play in, and Mom had her gardens. She planted a cherry tree and an apple tree in the back yard. She said the cherry tree was Terry's and the apple tree was mine. She harvested the fruit from both and made delicious pies. She also raised rhubarb and vegetables in a small garden. But most of her gardens were for flowers. The neighborhood consisted of all new homes and young families. Many of the families became good friends and stayed in touch years after they moved from the community... the Whitlatches, Donaldsons, Tenwaldes.

Below: Our Enfield home .

We belonged to the Eastmoor South Swimming Pool Association. Mom and Dad enrolled us kids in swimming lessons. I hated the lessons because they were always early in the morning when the pool was like ice. I managed to learn how to swim, but I was never very good. As I got older, there was one girl in my age group (13-14) that was an excellent swimmer. A contest, with ribbons as prizes, was scheduled to take place. I didn't want to complete, but no one else would swim against the girl. I was talked into competing. Of course, with only two of us racing, I got a second place ribbon. As shown below, the ribbon states: "Eastmoor South Swimming Championship Second Place" On a card on the back it says "Girls Breast Stroke 50 yards 13 & 14."

Below Two sketches Aunt Dorothy made of me in 1955. I was 9 years old.

We were watching television on a Sunday evening, September 9th, 1956 at Grammie's house when Ed Sullivan introduced a new singer... Elvis Presley. Terry (age 10) began going around the house playing his air guitar and singing, "You ain't nothing but a hound dog."

Below: My grade card 1956-57 from the fifth grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second and third images show the inside and the grades for each grading period 1-6.

Below: In April, 1956, I entered a Citizen Journal Newspaper Easter Coloring Contest and won a paint set.

 

In 1956, I was in the 6th grade. In quoting from my high school autobiography, "In sixth grade I had a 'ball.' This was our first year to write a class paper. I was made feature editor. My job was to write about the best sportsman of the month chosen by the class votes."

Below: My grade card 1957-58 from the sixth grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second and third images show the inside and the grades for each grading period 1-6. The last image shows special recognition. It notes that I was taking flute lessons and that I had been selected chairman of the Grade Six Hobby Show. I had Mrs. Adams for my teacher, the same person I'd had as my teacher in 2nd grade.

 

 

"Also that year we learned to square dance, and we had a few school dances. Around Easter our family decided to take our first trip to Washington D.C. and Williamsburg. We packed, got our school assignments, and were on our way. We stayed there a week and saw such things as Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, the Pentagon, the old town of Williamsburg, and everything that our time alloted for."

According to my high school autobiography, "At the end of 6th grade, the teacher gave out little graduation hats made of cups to the good sportsmen, athletes, etc. I received one for the 'girl most interested in science'."

Below: 1958 Graduation from 6th grade photo

Below: Promotion Certificate from the 6th grade.

 

In later years, our parents took us to many additional historic places, including Greenfield Village (Michigan), Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill (Kentucky), Monticello (Virginia), and Mount Vernon (Virginia). They also made trips to places to look at nature: Mammoth Cave (Kentucky), Luray Caverns (Virginia), Flint Ridge (Ohio), Ohio Caverns, Olentangy Caverns (Ohio), Lake Hope in Ohio, and the Hocking Hills (Ohio). Several times, we were taken ruby mining in Franklin, North Carolina. Mom had just as much fun as we did in finding raw rubies and sapphires. There we paid a dollar per bucket of mud that had been taken from mineral beds. We placed the mud in a screened frame and washed the mud through water to expose the minerals. On a trip in the summer of ~1962, I found a sapphire, rhodonite, and a few garnet crystals; Terry and Mom found rubies. Mom later had her ruby made into a ring.

Left: 1959 Mom, Terry, and me standing in front of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Home.

 

 

 

Below Image 1: The family is mining for gemstones in Franklin, N.C. Image 2: Mom's ruby ring made from one she found while mining in Franklin, N.C.

Below: Tintype from Greenfield Village.

Below: Image 1: Trip in 1958 was to Mount Vernon. (Photograph by Mom) Image 2: Trip in 1960. (Photograph by Dad)

Below: Left: August 1959 Luray Caverns, Virginia; Right: End of summer 1959 Lake Hope, Ohio.

I remember the trip to Lake Hope in pretty good detail. We stayed for about a week in a cabin. Our group consisted of Dad, Mom, Terry, me, Aunt Jane, and Steve. It rained some of the week and Dad spent time painting plastic birds that came in a kit. Mom spent her time sewing. We played cards, and when it finally stopped raining, Steve, Terry, and I rented canoes and had some races... Steve was in one canoe and Terry and me in another. As I recall, we spent a lot of time going left and right, not really knowing how to control the oars to go forward.

 

I was the oldest girl in the immediate neighborhood, and a tomboy who participated with the boys in many activities, including baseball and kickball games. Our cousin, Steve got Terry and me interested in baseball cards, and we made cards of ourselves. In 1957, I was a catcher on our team. The front and back of my card are shown below. The back of the card (2nd picture) gives the details of our "Giants" team.

I became the community babysitter. I was earning $.25/hour babysitting. When Terry got a bit older, he was earning extra money mowing lawns. Terry and I created a museum in the basement, displaying the many items we'd collected. We created tickets, as shown below, charging kids in the neighborhood 1 penny to buy a ticket. The emblem on the tickets were embossed from Dad's office stamp and changed to reflect the name of our museum.

Terry and I also went to construction sites and collected pop bottles left behind by workers. We took the bottles to the grocery for the deposit money. We also visited a "haunted house", one that was in disrepair with roofing shingles on the ground. We'd lift the shingles to collect young garter snakes to sell to our friends. We deposited our money into our savings. We used some of the money to purchase a tether ball apparatus. With our experiences learning to work for and save our money as kids, we developed very good habits that have served us well as we've aged.

In the winter, we built forts from snow. The photograph below shows one of our melting forts. The photograph was labeled March 4, 1958.

 

Below: In 1957, I must have participated in a school garden club. I don't remember this activity, but I saved this certificate.

 

Daddy Sharpe had a heart attack and died on September 19, 1957. Mom was 35 and had been very close to her daddy. After all, she was the "baby" of her family, with three older sisters.

Below: Daddy Sharpe's death announcement was printed in the Columbus, Ohio paper and Greensboro, North Carolina paper.

 

When Daddy Sharpe died, I was almost 11 and in the 7th grade. That summer, our family, Aunt Evelyn's family, and Mamma Sharpe went on a vacation together to Fontana Village in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. Everyone had a great time and it gave Mom time to be with some of her family. She was homesick for much of her adult life, living so far from her mother and sisters. All of them lived no less than 500 miles away in North and South Carolina.

 

On October 4, 1957, Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite was launched by Russia. That was the beginning of the space race the United States had with Russia. This was an exciting time. I would be 11 in just over one month.

 

During this time, Dad was working for the City Attorney's office in Columbus, Ohio. In 1957, He was appointed to fill the City Attorney position of Chalmers P. Wylie.

Below: Dad assumed the City Attorney position. Here he is surrounded by family... Aunt Jane, Aunt Dorothy, Grammie, Uncle Bob, Mom, Terry, and me. Dad is sitting at the same desk Grampie had as City Attorney and I now have in my office. Grampie had died seven years earlier and missed this event.

 

That November, Dad was officially elected City Attorney. Mom had become a politician's wife. She never really liked that position. She never liked being called Mom either. She wanted to be called Mother. I never made that adjustment.... which I regret.

Below: The 1957 campaign card advertisement with the family photograph.

 

Our Brownie troop evolved into Girl Scout Troop 272. We day-camped at Camp Ken-Jockety and overnight camped at other locations, attended regular troop meetings, and worked on merit badges. Cindy Sidle's mother was our leader. Other mothers helped out, including Mom. (Mom had been a Girl Scout when she was young.) Some of the badges, we worked on together by taking skating lessons, folk dancing lessons, and cooking lessons. Others we worked on independently. Most of my independent ones had to do with nature (Salt-water life, Rocks and minerals, Reptile and Amphibian, Insect, Mammal, Animal Raiser). On one of our week-long day-camping trips, our goal was to create a primitive camp in the woods. By the end of the week, we all had poison ivy.

Below: Girl Scout Handbook, Girl Scout knife and Girl Scout flashlight.

 

Below: Girl Scout scrapbook in which I kept track of badges earned and other important information.

Below: Drawings I did at age 11.

Below: May 30, 1958. I was 11.5 years old.

 

Below: In June 1958, Terry and I were creating our own puppets and putting on puppet shows.

 

Below Left: About age 12. Below Right: Unknown age.

 

A Special Event happened on September 21, 1958. The new terminal at Port Columbus Airport was dedicated. 130,000 people gathered to celebrate the event. Dad was City Attorney of Columbus and he was a special guest. Because of his position, Terry and I had the opportunity to place written memorials into a metal box in the cornerstone.

Port Columbus had first been dedicated on July 8, 1929 and was the first transfer point in the westbound transcontinental passenger service operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Transcontinental Air Transport, and the Santa Fe Railroad. My grandfather, Charles Leach, was the Columbus City Attorney at the time of that dedication and an important dignitary at that event. The information and images below this 1958 article tell the story. Three generations of Leaches were involved with the Port Columbus dedications, Charles, Russell, and Terry and Susan... I always thought that was pretty neat. Family history had repeated itself!

Below: Article that appeared in the newspaper on in September 1958, describing the special event.

As described in a news article, dated April 18, 1929, Charles participated in laying the cornerstone of the administration building of Port Columbus Airport. “At the ceremony, Councilmen Floyd F. Green, John E. Davis, Ralph Kempton, and City Attorney Leach expressed gratitude to the citizens of Columbus for their foresight in voting for the Municipal Airport bond issue last November. “

Below: Mayor James Thomas lays the cornerstone at Port Columbus Airport. The groundbreaking was April 18, 1929. The photographer was Myron Seifert. These two photographs are Courtesy of The Columbus Metropolitan Libraries Digital Collection.

Below: This article appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on July 8, 2012. It describes the first flight at Port Columbus that occurred on July 8, 1929. Charles was on one of these two planes and no doubt met Henry Ford and Amelia Earhart.

 

At the end of elementary, my class was suppose to attend Johnson Park Jr. High School for 7-9th grade. But construction of the new school, Johnson Park, still wasn't completed, so we spent additional time at James Road School. According to my high school autobiography, "We did not have some of the classes such as physical education, home economics, and industrial arts because of lack of facilities. Also the teachers came to us, instead of us going to them. "

Also about this time, I was having trouble seeing the chalkboard in the classroom and had to get glasses for seeing distance objects.

Below: My grade card 1958-59 from the seventh grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second show the inside and the grades.

Below: Our class picture from the 7th grade at James Road School.

Below: My photo in the class of 58/59

Below: Johnson Park Junior High School Honor Roll from James Road School.

Below: Christmas 1958. Mom made Christmas skirts for herself and me, and stockings for Terry and me. Around that time, she also creweled strawberries on a sweater for me.

Below: 1959: Age 13 years 4 months.

Below: August 1959: Terry and me hiking up a hill. This may have been in the Hocking Hills.

 

1959: When I was 13 years old, our family was visiting Aunt Marie and Uncle Bob in north Columbus. Their neighbor's cat had kittens. I fell in love with one, and took her home. I named her Smokey because of her beautiful smoke gray fur. Smokey was an independent cat, and showed her affection only when she wanted to do it. She lived to be 17 years old. The photographs below were taken when Smokey was still a kitten.

 

Circa 1960, I had a lot of orthodontic work performed. Incisors and some molars were pulled and metal braces became a part of my life. I felt ugly and did not smile. I don't remember any of my classmates wearing braces. This was the most awkward part of my life. I was skinny, brace-faced, wearing glasses to see the classroom blackboard, and I was extremely shy.

Below: January 1960; at right I'm holding Uncle Bob's dog Fritzi, or it may have been Buttons. They had different dachshunds at two different times.

 

I don't really remember very much of my time at Johnson Park. But, in looking through my year books (I never throw anything away), I was reminded of some of my teachers: Mr. Altman: science; Mr. Frazier: math; Mr. Harriman: Orchestra; Miss Helsel: Home Ec; Miss Secrest: English; Mr. Hartung: typing; and Mrs, Hido: history. The yearbook shows that I was in the Orchestra and the Girls Athletic Association. According to the autobiography I wrote in high school, "In eighth grade at Johnson Park I had my first taste of lockers, bells, and running to class."

I'd taken up flute playing in the sixth grade and was playing in the orchestra at Johnson Park. We put on the production "Mississippi Melodies." Playing flute occupied time, but I hated to practice, so I didn't get any better at playing even though Mom and Dad were paying for lessons for me with Mr. Brobst at Capital University. I never did learn to read music. I continued doing things with my Girl Scout friends, but pretty much I felt like a loaner in school. My girl friends began doing things with boys. I was far behind in maturity for that.

Below: My grade card 1959-60 from the eighth grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second show the inside and the grades.

In April of that year (1960) I entered my rock collection in the Ohio Junior Academy of Science Fair. I didn't come away with any great honor, but I still received the certificate shown below.

Below: August 1960. It looks like I'd gotten a perm.

 

In November 1960, Dad ran for re-election for City Attorney. The family had its photograph taken for publicity opportunities.

Below: Dad's 1960 re-election for City Attorney pamphlet that folded out, was sent to voters. He was re-elected.

Below: In 1960, while I was still a Girl Scout, Terry was a Boy Scout. He would eventually become an Eagle Scout.

Below: The 1960 Yearbook cover.

Below: 1960 yearbook photograph.

 

Below: This Leach Christmas dinner took place at Aunt Jane's house sometime prior to Grammie's death in March, 1961. We kids (Terry, Steve, and I were sitting at a table in the kitchen). In this photograph beginning at left and winding around the table are Mom, Aunt Jane, Aunt Dorothy, Grammie, Uncle Bob, Dad, Aunt Marie, and Uncle Dick.

 

On March 22, 1961, my grandmother, Grammie, died of stroke. I was 14. My dad, who was the youngest child in his family was 38. He was now an orphan.

 

We continued to do a lot with Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Jane, Uncle Dick, Steve, Uncle Bob and Aunt Marie ... including sharing future Christmas dinners.

 

Below: March 25, 1961: Terry, Steve, and me posed for a photograph.

 

Below: My grade card 1960-61 from the ninth grade. The first image is the back and front of the card. The second show the inside and the grades.

 

Also, according to the autobiography I wrote in high school, "Ninth grade was the same mad rush. A few weeks prior to the Ohio Academy Science Fair I improved my rock collection and entered it in the school science fair. I won a superior rating and was chosen one of ten to enter the big fair. At this particular time the science fair was the Saturday before Easter. I received an excellent on my project, and our family immediately left for Greenfield Village where we would spend the holiday as planned."

Below: Science Fair certificate from Johnson Park and Science Fair certificate from the Ohio Academy Science Fair.

Below: The 1961 Johnson Park Yearbook cover

Below: Yearbook photo 1961

Below: The 1961 and first graduating class of Johnson Park Junior High School.

Below: Commencement Program from Johnson Park Junior High School June 6, 1961... cover and inside.

 

In 1961, all of us in our Girl Scout troop were awarded with the highest girl scout award, "curved bar". Our troop (272) received that award at the Lazarus Birthday Party for Girl Scouts celebrating their 49th Anniversary. Also in 1961 (August 8-14) our troop went by a chartered Greyhound bus to camp at Gettysburg Girl Scout National Camp (Rockwood) and sightsee in Washington D.C. and Mt. Vernon. According to the form I recently found inside a scrapbook, the chaperones were Mrs. Sidle (Cindi's mother), Mrs. Laile (Sandy's mother), Mrs. Schuster (Karen's mother), and Mrs. Wray (Janice's mother).

Below: News article about Curved Bar Award.

Below: Left: my Girl Scout sash with 14 of my merit badge patches. Middle: Front row, left to right: Cindi Sidle, Sally Seckel, Kathy Baker, Lani Robbins, Diane Skillman. Back row, left to right: Sandy Richards, Janice Wray, Sandy Laile, Pam Gordon, Karen Schuster, and me. Far right: Pin for National Girl Scout Camp (Rockwood)

Below: The Lazarus Party program announces our troop (272) was recognized as having achieved the greatest Girl Scout Honor.... Curved Bar.

Below: Left: Curved Bar Pin. Right: Other pins and a patch on the front left side of my uniform.

 

 

In the fall of 1961, I began high school at Eastmoor High School. I was now an Eastmoor Warrior.

 

Below: The Columbus Dispatch July 7, 1961 shows summer band practice for Eastmoor High School. We needed to practice because when school began we had football games. We needed to learn how to march, form our correct positions on the field, and learn the music we would be playing.

Below: My grade card 1961-62 from the tenth grade. The first image is the front of the card. The second image shows the back with the grades. I really didn't like or have the aptitude for French or Geometry. When the French teacher gave tests, he used the honor system and left the room to smoke cigarettes. While he was gone, students yelled out the answers. If I heard an answer that I didn't know on my own, I didn't put it down. As a result, my scores were lower than those who cheated. But, I knew that cheating was wrong and I wasn't going to do it. At the end of the year, I missed getting a B in French by a very small amount and that kept me off of the National Honor Society.

 

 

1962 - 1964

Being a member of the marching band with director Jerry Kaye as the director was a blast. I had so much fun, decorating the bus for away games with Charlene Strauss and practicing our 8 to 5 marching steps (8 steps to every 5 yards). The bus trips to the games were made exciting with Harriett Dupler leading the cheers and frivolity.

On February 20, 1962, we listened in the school auditorium to the radio announcement of John Glenn's first orbital mission around Earth in his Friendship I capsule. We cheered his success.

Below: My grade card 1962-63 from the eleventh grade. The first image is the front of the card. The second image shows the grades. My grades were much improved over those in tenth grade. I even made the honor roll for the year.

In early 1963, Dad was appointed Municipal Judge for Franklin County, Ohio. He ran for election in November and won the election.

Below: campaign bumper sticker and campaign match book cover.

Since Dad was a municipal court judge at the time I was taking drivers' ed, and among Dad's duties he presided over traffic court, Mr. Barr, my Driver's Ed teacher, sometimes sent me home with legal questions to ask Dad.

Below: Card stating I'd completed the Driver Education course, signed by Mr. Barr and Principal Harris.

 

In high school in addition to the band, I joined Student Council, Orchestra, Flute Choir, and Chorus. The Eastmoor Band and other musical groups competed in contests and usually did very well. Below are two medals I received by being a part of the band:

Mr. Kaye arranged for our band to have opportunities that were unique for high school kids. We had two different concerts in which we played with two renown trumpet players... Doc Severenson (band leader of the Johnny Carson's Tonight Show) and Raphael Mendez (trumpet soloist, arranger, and composer. )

As a result of being a band member at Eastmoor, I received a band letter. The letter certainly did not reflect my ability to play the flute. I was not good. The document that came with the letter stated it was for outstanding participation for the season 1962-63. (I was an enthusiastic member, who never missed a practice to my recollection.)

 

On May 16, 1962, Mamma Sharpe died of a stroke. This devastated Mom. She was now an orphan with her three older sisters living 500 or more miles away in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Below: Mamma Sharpe's Obituary

After Mamma Sharpe's death, Mom's family continued seeing each other whenever possible. One of our trips together was to the Tweetsie Railroad Theme Park in Blowing Rock, N.C.

Below left to right: Reed Bumgarner, Terry, Mom, Lyn Bumgarner, me, Aunt Lucile, Uncle Oren, Uncle John, and Aunt Evelyn. Dad took the picture.

For several summers, Mom, Aunt Evelyn, Aunt Lucile and their families met at Pauley’s Island, Edisto Beach, or Myrtle Beach for a week at the beach together. When we went to these beaches, we rented a large house where we could all stay. The house at Pauley's was right on the beach with an outlet at the back. I remember well, we kids would go with Uncle Oren to fish from a boat for flounder in the outlet. We caught many flounder and took them back to the house for dinner. Aunt Lucile was the chief cook for the fish, and they were delicious. Uncle Oren even had us kids use nets to catch the "minnies" to use for bait to catch the flounder. We also went crabbing with chick parts tied to string. Once, while we were catching flounder in the outlet, we lost track of the tides and we had to walk the boat back to the house in the few inches of water that were left.

At Edisto Beach, Terry and I found many fossilized bones and teeth laying on the beach.

Below: At Edisto Beach. 1st Row: Cousins Lyn and Reed Bumgarner , 2nd Row: Uncle Oren Long (Aunt Lucile's husband), Terry, Uncle John Bumgarner (Aunt Evelyn's husband), 3rd Row: me, Aunt Evelyn, 4th Row: Aunt Lucile, Mom. (The photograph was taken by Dad)

In the fall of 1962, Mom told me she needed to tell me something. I thought that was a bit weird and I began thinking perhaps she was sick or something. She had me sit down and she told me she was going to have a baby. Mom and Dad were each 40 years old. I was nearly 16 years old and Terry was 13. How was it possible that Mom and Dad were going to have another child?

Our Girl Scout troop remained active through our senior year.

We had many interesting assignments in high school. I will mention a few of the writing assignments here: I wrote an autobiography in English (which I have quoted earlier in this autobiography), and reports on the Civil War, the Second World War, and Civil Defense. I've kept many of the themes I wrote for honor's English. These reports and themes help fill one of my filing cabinets. Below are the covers of my autobiography and civil defense report.

At the time I was attending high school, civil defense practices were very seriously observed. We had drills where we went to hallways away from windows and curled our bodies over our heads. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. In the event of a nuclear war, our efforts in protecting ourselves in the hallways would have had little success.

 In my high school autobiography, I stated, "Because of my interest in rocks I would like to graduate from Miami University of Ohio and go into the field of either geology or archeology."

In November 1962, Dad ran for judge of Probate Court. The night of the election, we had a huge election party at our house with the crowd keeping track of the votes being counted on TV, cheering and groaning as the evening went on. It was a loud group of people that stayed late into the evening. I had a chemistry test the next day. I couldn't study for it. (Dad lost the election and continued on as City Attorney.) When I explained to my chemistry teacher (Mr. Buck) about the election party the next day and I asked him if I could take the test later. He didn't allow that to happen.

Ann Dunham Leach was born on April 27, 1963, and because I was 16, I could go into the maternity ward of the hospital to see her. My first impression was of this very tiny baby with no hair on her head and her hands wrapped in something. I thought her hands were covered because she was deformed. When I went into Mom's room at the hospital, I was crying because I thought something was wrong with Ann. I found out that her hands were wrapped in tissue to keep her from scratching her nose. Ann's arrival certainly changed our family's dynamics.

Below: Mom holding baby Ann and my cousin Sandra with her three daughters .

With a baby, our family needed a bigger house. Mom and Dad bought a new and bigger house on Severn Rd. in Berwick, a suburb of Columbus on the east side. An additional bedroom provided for a nursery for Ann. Terry and I became "built-in" babysitters. When Ann got a bit older, her favorite color was pink. I helped paint her bedroom walls pink.

My senior year, the school was planning to put on the musical "Annie Get Your Gun". I wanted to be in the chorus, but there was a requirement that you had to try out for the musical even if you were in the senior chorus (which I was). I decided for my tryout I would sing "Folks are dumb where I come from...." Charleen Strauss practiced with me to be my accompanist. On the day of the tryout, I found out I would have to sing in front of everyone else. I was too shy to do that and dropped out of tryouts.

It was November 22, 1963, the fall of our senior year, and I was sitting in a cafeteria study hall. The silence of the study hall was broken by someone wailing in the hall. We all looked at each other, wondering what was going on. Shortly thereafter, the bell rang for us to go to our last class of the day. I had English. We arrived in class, took our seats, and over the loud speaker we learned that President Kennedy had been shot. Our teacher proceeded to say that we would be having the scheduled test. Then, the loud speaker came on again and said the President was dead and we were all excused to go home. At one of our high school reunions I learned that it was Nancy Reed who was wailing in the hallway. She had been an office worker that day and was letting the teachers know what had happened ahead of the student announcements. I was to turn 17 on November 25th, 1963. I'd planned a slumber party for friends. Few came, and the only thing to watch on the television were stories about the assassination and Jack Ruby's killing of Oswald. The weekend was a very sad occasion on many levels.

Dad never really said much about his expectations for my school work. Mom just said "All we expect is for you to do the best you can." I never really knew what that meant, but I tried to do well in my classes. My downfall classes were French and math. I really did well in most others, making the honor roll the first six weeks of my senior year.

 

Below: October 1963, baby sister Ann was baptized at Bexley Methodist Church.

Below: Baby Ann December 1963. I was 17 years old and a senior in high school. Terry was 14 and in the 9th grade. Our parents were having to make a lot of adjustments to their lives.

I was in the senior choir and a member of student council both junior and senior years. The 1963 and 1964 yearbooks are shown below. The scanned photographs below those images are from the 1964 yearbook.

Below: Marching band .

Below: Concert band .

Below: Senior Choir.

Below: Student Council .

As a member of student council my senior year, I was selected to be the homecoming decoration committee chair for the dance. I have no memory of how that happened. I don't recall volunteering. But, I had to oversee the preparation of the gym with decorations including a light house that people would walk through, made of tissue paper flowers stuffed into a chicken-wire frame. The theme was "Harbor Lights." I'd borrowed Mr. Higbee's (the art teacher) keys to the gym and used those keys to get into and out of the locked gym. I carefully placed the keys outside the gym door, so I wouldn't lose them. After the decorations were complete, I went home. I didn't have a date. I wouldn't be going to the dance. (I never had a date until I went to college). Mr. Higbee called me at home and asked about his keys. I have never been so embarrassed. I told him where I'd left them. He looked, and someone had taken them. I never found out if the keys were found. All in all, the homecoming dance was a total disaster for me.

I was chosen to be an alternate to Buckeye Girls State by faculty members of Eastmoor. As an alternate, I never attended, but I considered it to be an honor to be selected. I was also selected to attend the mock Republican Presidential Convention held at Capital University. I did go to that event.

We were watching television on a Sunday evening, February 9th, 1964 at Grammie's house when Ed Sullivan introduced a British group... The Beatles. They had unusual hair cuts. Aunt Dorothy didn't like their appearance. But, they sounded pretty good.

Below: On March 28, 1964, I entered the Ohio Academy of Science District Science Fair and received an Excellent Rating. All those years, I had entered my rock collection into the Academy fair with no guidance from a science teacher. I now know (having been an teacher advisor for students who entered the science fair when I taught) there should be a scientific experiment involved with these projects.

Below: An Outstanding Achievement in Science Award for the year 1963-64. The award was signed by the principal, assistant principal, and my high school advisor. I do not remember receiving this award and can only assume that it was because I'd entered the District Science Fair with my rock collection in 1964.

Below: My grade card 1963-64 from the twelfth grade. The first image is the front of the card. The second image shows the grades. I assume I made honor roll for the year because my final grades were all A's and B's, but the card is not stamped with the honor.

Some of my favorite staff members at Eastmoor in addition to Mr. Kaye, were: Mr. Condit: biology. Mr, Barr: drivers' education; Mrs Pryor: English; Mrs. Glessner: history; Mr. Pursell: problems of democracy; and Mrs. Mahoney; senior advisor. I took two years of biology from Mr. Condit. He was a great teacher and I had a "school-girl" crush on him. In biology class, Pam Gordon and I were partners in a pig dissection. We named our pig, "Hamlet." I found that when I took zoology my freshman year at Miami U. Mr. Condit had prepared me well.

Mrs. Pryor had us writing theme after theme. She believed in rewriting and rewriting. At the time, I thought that was so much work, but now looking back on my writing career, I realize the importance of her teaching.

One of the last papers I remember writing in high school was titled "My Philosophy on Life." My introductory sentence was, "In this paper I would like to state my beliefs towards the subjects of the creation, the soul, our infinitesimal being and purpose, predestination, life after death, and Christ and god." This 11- page typed paper ended with "Although God has permitted us to know quite a lot about nature, I don't think that man will ever know what God, heaven, or the soul really is, or what comes after death. When we actually die, then perhaps we will become acquainted with all the answers to the questions which have distressed the minds of men since the beginning of time." I was very proud to have received an A- on the paper.

I bought my lunch in the cafeteria every day and sat with my girl friends, but I often felt totally invisible as they talked about social events and boy friends.

 

As graduation approached, we ordered senior photos, name cards and graduation announcements, and prepared for our exit to the new stage of our lives.

Our high school baccalaureate took place on June 7, 1964. The front and back of the program are shown below;

Graduation took place outside on the football field. The choir and band participated in the ceremony, so I like many others were moving from place to place, sitting with the graduates and then with the performing groups.

Below: Left: Commencement Program; Right: Graduates Left to Right: Pam Henry, Charlene Strauss, me, Sandy Laile, Pam Gordon.

Below: High school diploma.

 

After graduation, I went to an orthodontic appointment and informed the dentist that after 5 years, I was not going to wear braces any longer. Either he could take them off or I would. I got Mom and Dad to agree that I wouldn't be going to college with braces. The dentist took them off, and I could smile again.

As a graduation present, I was very fortunate to be invited by Aunt Dorothy to go to the 1964 New York World's Fair with her. The trip was just for the two of us. We flew to New York City, one of my very first experiences flying, and we stayed in the "Big Apple." I do not recall the name of the hotel where we stayed. We saw the Rockettes, shopped at Macy's Department store, and saw many other of the city's spectacular buildings, as well as what the fair had to offer. I distinctly remember that we did not go to the United Nations because Aunt Dorothy did not want to do that. I wish I'd kept a journal of all that we saw, but I didn't.

When we returned from that trip, I began working for the City of Columbus Recreation Department as a playground leader at Pinecrest Elementary. I worked with two other play ground leaders to keep the kids in the neighborhood busy with crafts, sports, and special events. Dad had found me the job, and it was ideal since I could be outside all day.

In September 1964, I entered Miami University as a freshman. Miami was on the semester system. At orientation, we were suppose to declare a major. I had no idea what I wanted to be. Mom said I'd be a good teacher. I chose my specialty as science. I guess I would be an science education major. My roommates were Harriett Dupler and Sandy Laile. They had both graduated with me from Eastmoor. I'd known Sandy since the 1st grade. Both chose Elementary Education as their major.

Below: Harriett Dupler, me, Sandy Laile

We lived in Ogden Hall in a "triple", corner room on the first floor, right next to the Beta Bells, which tolled every 15 minutes. Back in those days, girls had "hours"... ie. a time in the evening when we had to be in the dorm. The guys did not. We'd be in our room at night and we could hear the clack... clack... clack of the wheels as boys on their skateboards went down the steep hill adjacent to our dorm room. The dorm was an experimental one that year, with both freshmen and upper classwomen. Ogden had previously been a dorm for boys. There were gang showers and the bathrooms had urinals as well as standard toilets. Being extremely shy, I took my showers in the wee hours of the night. Someone decided to put goldfish in the urinals. Cleaning the tanks was easy... catch the fish in a net, flush the toilet, let the urinal fill back up with water, and put the fish back in.

Studying for me was very important, but I couldn't study with a lot of noise. So, I 'd put my hairdryer on my head to block out the noise, and study in the room.

I went through the process of going to social sorority rush in 1964, but I did not pledge to any of those that offered me membership.

I attended the Methodist Church, sang in the choir, and sometimes helped out with the young kids. Harriett was very involved in the church. We both pledged into a sorority at the church. Harriett remained very active, I really didn't.

 

 

 

1965 - 1968

Below: March 1965, my roommates Harriett and Sandy and me standing in front of Ogden Hall.

 

Below: During the second semester of that year I received recognition by the National Society of Cwens at Miami University for outstanding scholarship achievement shown for my first semester on campus.

Below: April 1965 in Mom's and Dad's home.

Below: April 1965

That summer (1965), I went back to Pinecrest Elementary as a playground leader. I'd taken a class in softball at Miami to meet one of my team sports requirements, and I put it to good use on the playground. I recruited an entire team of high school girls to represent the playground and we were in a softball tournament with other playgrounds. My girls were only a few years younger than me and very talented track and softball stars. As I recall, we won the city competition. At one away game, we beat the other team 52-0. The girls on that team had played dirty, hitting our runners in the stomach as they approached bases. At the end of the game, they chased us off the field, throwing rocks. We all piled into Dad's station wagon that I was using to transport the girls to and from games. We rushed away. Imagine a station wagon with at least 10 high school girls and me piled in, rushing away from a playground as rocks are being thrown.

In fall of 1965 Miami switched from semesters to trimesters. I was rooming with Sandy again. We were now sophomores. Harriett had decided to room with her cousin. I cannot remember the name of the dorm where we lived. I went through social sorority rush again. Sandy had pledged Kappa Delta freshman year. I chose to pledge Sigma Kappa. That was a big mistake. Sandy was so upset that I didn't pledge her sorority that she quit talking to me. We'd been friends since 1st grade and now she wouldn't talk. I couldn't take it and moved out to room with a sorority sister, Cathy Hines.

As a sorority pledge, I was required to go to study table every evening in the sorority suite (we didn't have houses), where we would sit at tables and study. I couldn't concentrate. People were smoking and the smoke was in my eyes and nose. I tried smoking, but after 1 cigarette, I quit. I choked and the taste and smell were terrible. I asked if I could be excused from study table since my grades were good. I had the highest average of all of the pledges. They excused me. I went back to studying in my dorm room.

I continued working hard in my classes, many of which had labs. I later figured out that when I graduated, I'd actually had enough lab hours for another major. Of course, labs didn't count in hour calculations. My course work included as many biological and geological science classes as I could fit into my schedule. I avoided foreign language and math as I'd learned at Eastmoor, I didn't have the aptitude for those subjects.

I was asked by Dr. Winter, my Zoology professor from 1964, to be his laboratory assistant for the school year 1965-66. (I'd had two years of biology in high school with Mr. Condit and was very prepared for Dr. Winter's course my freshman year and received an A). So, I worked in the lab with Dr. Winter and his grad assistant (Gary ?), doing dissections with the students and earning $1/hour. Some of the students in the lab classes were older than me. Gary asked me to go to a Count Basie performance with him in Cincinnati. Count Basie was a totally unbelievable American jazz pianist. I was so excited.... a real date and Gary was so cute, but I felt he was so much older and much more mature than I was. Of course, I wasn't legal to drink at dinner because in 1965, I was only 19 or 20. We went to dinner and the concert and I had a great time.

One day, neither Dr. Winter nor Gary were going to be able to be in the lab. Dr. Winter asked me to teach the class alone. The topic: male genitalia of a fetal pig. I did the teaching with a great deal of "red face." But, I got through.

 

Below: 1965 Sigma Kappa Sorority photo and lifetime membership card.

In the summer of 1966, I was a playground leader at Scotwood Elementary. For part of the summer, I dated the other playground leader, Tom Gronick. On one date, we saw the movie "The Graduate." He kidded me about my wanting to learn to scuba dive. I'd told him I really liked oceanography.

During the school year 1966-67, I was rooming with Harriett again. We were juniors. I was informed that I could room in the honors dorm, but I wanted to room with Harriett. I think we were in Minnick Hall. Because of my high grade point average, I was chosen to be a SPER. Below is the certificate for that honor and a patch I wore on a camel skin jersey jacket. SPERs were upper classmen who had a leadership function in the dorm. I don't recall what that function really involved.

Below: I do not recall what the Inner Residence Council was, but perhaps it had something to do with being a SPER.

Below: October 6, 1966, I was inducted into Kappa Delta Pi, an Honor Society in Education.

Below: I went home for Christmas and posed in December 1966 with my little sister for Dad to take this photograph. Ann was 3 years old. I was 20.

Below: On January 19, 1967, I was initiated into the Biological Science Honorary Phi Sigma Society. Below is the certificate and the outside and inside of the initiation banquet program. I served as the Vice President of Phi Sigma 1967-68.

 

Harriett had been dating several fellows throughout her years at Miami, but one in particular... Jay Hanke.... was her favorite. On one occasion, Harriett fixed me up with a blind date. All I knew is that he would meet me in the living room of our dorm (Minnick). I went to the living room at the designated time and sat down in one of the plush chairs. Only one guy was in the living room. I recognized him from one of my classes, but I didn't know him well. We began talking and we realized he was my date. He was in a band, and that night his band was playing. So, I went with him to his performance.

Below: I'm wearing my Sigma Kappa sweat shirt.

 

June 1967, Terry graduated from Eastmoor High School.

Below: Terry's senior picture from high school.

One Saturday night in October 1967, both Harriett and I had dates and didn't return to the dorm until just before hours. When we opened the door to our room, we found that it was filled with wadded New York Times newspaper pages, floor to ceiling. We were tired and had decided we'd take care of the problem the next day and sleep somewhere else that night, but we were told by someone with authority that we had to clean up the mess that night. The newspaper was a fire hazard. As we began removing the wadded pages and folding and stacking it to take up less space, we discovered small paper cups of water had been placed on the surface of everything... the floor, the beds, the desk, etc. , and the paper had been placed on top of the cups. So in removing the paper, we had to be very careful that we didn't knock over cups. After we'd cleaned up the mess, we discovered two pair of shoes had been left on the floor by the culprits who had "decorated" the room. We thought we knew who the culprits were, so we tied the shoes to the exit sign outside their room with a note that said "Save your souls." Also attached was a schedule of the church services for the next day.

One very snowy evening, Harriett and I decided to go for a walk. We kidded that we'd like to walk home because we were homesick, but giggled that wasn't very realistic. So we walked over to the Western Campus. Western was very hilly and the new, glistening snow on the hills and trees was stunning. We began throwing snow balls at a bridge, eventually playing a tic tac toe game. We were having a great time. A tall, black fellow with a British accent joined us. We talked for awhile and decided to climb one of the hills up to the Western Campus cafeteria and borrow some lunch trays. Next, we each sat on a tray, linked our legs around the person in front, and slid down the hill. Of course, there was no directional control, and I think at one point, we were going down backwards. All three of us were laughing out of control. Once we'd tired of the "traying", I'm sure we returned the trays (although I don't recall that memory), and Harriett and I walked back to the dorm.

The second semester of our junior year, Harriett and I were to student teach. We got an apartment in Mount Healthy, Cincinnati with a third girl who would be student teaching at the same school as Harriett. My student teaching was to take place at Wyoming High School in Cincinnati. I was suppose to teach high school biology, but at the last minute, the teacher I was assigned to said he wanted some time off from student teachers. So I was assigned to the Junior High courses of science with two different cooperating teachers. Mom and Dad had provided me with a car to get to Wyoming H.S., but it had many mechanical failures and it wasn't dependable. Harriett offered me her Peugeot. She said she could get a ride to her school with our third roommate. Harriett was a lifesaver, but I didn't know how to drive a stick shift. Jay Hanke came to the rescue. He taught me how to drive a stick shift on ice the day before I needed to report my first day to Wyoming.

I was student teaching a biological science class with a wonderful teacher (Marie King), who didn't really want a student teacher either. She had me spending most of my time grading papers in a large work room for teachers. The other course I was teaching was physical science, with a very unenthusiastic fellow. Physical science wasn't my favorite science. It was at that time that teaching didn't really look like the career I wanted. I didn't like spending all that time grading papers. I began thinking about what I could do next.

Below: Roommates while student teaching. ?, me, Harriett Dupler.

 

During the summer of 1967, I was a playground leader at Berwick Elementary. I walked to the job. This was my neighborhood's elementary. I remember rolling Dad's lawnmower to the school field to make a softball diamond for my girl's team. At every playground, there was always a ball field for boys baseball games, but never one for the girls. We either had to share the field with very tight schedules, or as I did that summer, create our own field.

In fall 1967...our senior year, Harriett and I were roommates again. We arranged to live again in the same triple room on the first floor of Ogden, where we'd roomed our freshman year. I had been told again that because of my high grades, I qualified for the girls' honors dorm. But, I preferred to have Harriett as my roommate. Our third roommate was an art major, named Joyce, who was never there... not even at night. We never knew where she was, but we covered for her when there were surprise fire drills.

Terry was a freshman at Miami U. that year. He pledged to the fraternity Theta Chi.

At Christmas, both Terry and I went home. Our family's Christmas card is below. Little Ann was growing up.

Below: Sometime after the photograph of Ann was taken for the Christmas card, other professional photos were taken of Ann. She was very cute and very photogenic.

 

In January and March 1968, Dad was experimenting with his photography and sent me pictures he'd taken of Smokey.

It was this year (1968) that Harriett fixed me up with Jay's brother, Myron Hanke. He was older that we were, attended a different college, and was really handsome. He agreed to be my date to the sorority formal. I was so nervous prior to introducing him in the receiving line at the formal dance that I could remember only his name. I blanked out on the names of the sorority sisters. This was another very embarrassing moment in my life, but typical of my memory of names throughout my life.

Harriett was an extremely tolerant roommate. For the graduate credited entomology class I was taking, I needed to collect and mount insects. I captured a mating pair of large click beetles, put them into the cyanide bottle to humanely euthanize them, and pinned them to Styrofoam, positioning their legs in such a way that the mount would look good when the insects hardened. In the middle of the night, we were both awakened by a scratching noise. The pinned click beetles were scratching as they crawled in place on the Styrofoam. They were both very much alive. Harriett never complained.

I really wasn't a very active member of Sigma Kappa, but I did represent them in the chariot race. The guy who pulled me gave up at the end of the race and let go of the chariot. I went crashing down the track. Most of my friends senior year were GDIs (God Damn Independents)... ie. not social sorority girls, and who lived in the dorm. We gals had a "ball" playing bridge. The great part of that exercise is we would play for an hour or two and then all study. The grade points of all in the group went up. The last term of my senior year I got a 4.0

Below: 1967-68.

Below: On March 28, 1968, I was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, an honorary in recognition of high attainments in liberal scholarship. Below are the certificate and news article listing the 91 initiates in March 1968.

Below: My Phi Beta Kappa Key (front and back) and coaster

I graduated on April 21, 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in Education with an Emphasis in Biology 7-12 grade (Cum Laude), general honors degree.

Below: Miami University's 129th annual commencement program. Note, the drawings were likely done by Ann who was 5 in 1968 and probably very bored with the ceremony. The second image is the inside. I've highlighted my name in red. Aunt Dorothy attended the graduation, although she was disturbed that Sargent Shriver would be speaking. Aunt Dorothy was a Goldwater Republican.

Below: Miami University Bachelor of Science in Education diploma

Below: Mom and Dad at my Miami University graduation.

Below: The next two images are my grades from Miami U. My final accum was 3.559. I had received 3 Cs in college: 1 in human physiology, 1 in art, and 1 in golf. Human physiology was a very difficult class and there were many pre-med students in that class. I took art as a pass/fail course. That course was drawing and I was in a class with art majors. The C in golf is because I had forgotten the test date and didn't know the golf terms. My senior year I took a graduate course in Entomology, which did not count in my accum. During both my sophomore and junior years, I took additional science classes during the spring term. I liked the smaller classes, field trips, and relaxed schedules.

 

So, now I had a degree in education, but I asked myself, what would be the most exciting thing I could do next? Spending a lot of time grading papers certainly wasn't what I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to be an oceanographer. I applied to graduate schools at Duke University in North Carolina, University of Miami in Florida, and the University of Hawaii, and I took the graduate record exam as part of the entrance requirement. Duke said that they couldn't accept me for some reason having to do with housing women on their research ship and my undergraduate grades weren't high enough. The University of Miami rejected me because my GRE score wasn't high enough. Hawaii said come ahead. Well, that was great, but I didn't have any money. They offered me a research assistantship in oceanography.

Below: April 1968.

I was very daring at that time and decided to take U of H up on their offer. It was either late August or early September 1968 when I flew to Oahu knowing no one and not even knowing for sure where I would be sleeping the first night. But, Aunt Jane had a bridge friend who had a daughter living in Oahu, and it was worked out that I could sleep on her floor the first night. On the plane ride to Oahu, I became friends with a guy who agreed to drive me to that girl's apartment. He lived on Oahu, had a car, and was exceptionally kind. My first impression as I stepped off the plane was of the aroma of the plumeria flowers on the trees. The smell was exquisite. At the time of my arrival in 1968, the Oahu airport did not have covered airplane exits that took you to the terminal. You just stepped down the steps and onto the island. That first night I slept on the floor as a party went on around me.

The next morning, I walked to campus and looked for ads for apartments. I found one that looked promising. It was at the bottom of the hill from campus. I was interviewed that day by one of its occupants. The apartment had four others living there. Irene, Elaine, and Ilene were Japanese Hawaiians, Karen was Portuguese Hawaiian, and they were looking for a fifth roommate. They were all working gals and they were looking for a mature roommate. They'd interviewed several girls and chose me. I became the haole roommate. (Haole means a non-native Hawaiian, especially those of Caucasian ancestry). The apartment had two bedrooms. I would be sleeping on the couch in the living room. Later in the fall, Ilene moved out and Ali, a former Belly dancer from Iran, moved in.

Left: One of my roomates: Karen Farar. I'm at the bottom right of the photograph.

I went to campus that first day, met with the oceanography staff, and was told that I would need to take a test that would be used to decide placement in the classes. The test was 1/2 hour of each of the following disciplines: math, chemistry, geology, physics and biology. I scored well in geology and biology and OK in chemistry and physics. But my math skills were poor. It was decided that I would be taking precalculus and chemical oceanography the first semester. I'd also be doing research with Dr. Tom Clark at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at Coconut Island at Kaneohe Bay.

I loved Hawaii with its natural tree fragrances, friendly people, and gender ratio: 7 guys to every gal. Remember, I never had a date in high school and only a few in college. I was ready to experience a different life where no one knew me and I could be more outgoing.

Below: A poem I wrote in October after I'd arrived in Hawaii.

Below: October 1968.

Just prior to my 21st birthday (Nov. 25) , roommate Karen fixed me up with Danny, a Samoean Hawaiian. He and I went snorkeling and he speared fish. I left my purse with my wallet and gold watch that Mom and Dad had given me at graduation from Miami in the trunk of his car. When we returned to the car, we found that the fabric top of his car had been sliced and my wallet and watch were gone. Inside the wallet was all of my identification. I had to call Dad and have him get me another driver's license.

Both of my classes were scheduled to be in a.m. Then I'd hop into an international van with other students, and drive to the other side of Oahu where Coconut Island was located in Kaneohe Bay. After Dad got me another Ohio license, I was able to get my Hawaii drivers license and become the driver.

 

My routine was to grab two tuna fish salad sandwiches from the school cafeteria after classes, meet the others, and drive. Once we arrived, we'd park, blow a shell horn, and be transported to the island by a person that heard the horn and came from the island to get us in a boat. My research was dissecting Nehu, the bait fish of Aku (tuna). I wanted to see what Nehu were eating. Nehu are anchovies; many are quite small. I was examining these fish under a microscope and identifying tiny organisms they'd eaten. The Nehu were preserved in formaldehyde. Breathing formaldehyde probably didn't do wonders for my health, but at the time, no one seemed concerned.

Below Left: Three Nehu that I preserved in plastic resin. The ruler at the bottom of the photo shows the size of these fish. Below Right: A poem I wrote while under the influence of formaldehyde fumes.

 

One of the guys in my Chemical Oceanography class was Walt Dudley. I had an instant attraction to him. We became lab partners. We'd meet at the lab late into the night because the equipment use for the experiments was limited. As we waited for equipment results, we'd listen to a radio station that played 24 hours of the Beatles and we made drinking glasses from empty Michelob glasses. We used a diamond saw to cut the necks off of the bottles and phosphoric acid to etch wax we'd dipped the glasses into. During the time I was in Hawaii, the Vietnam War was escalating and guys were being drafted. Walt knew he would be drafted, so at the end of the semester, he dropped out of school and joined the Army as an officer. He was stationed in Germany. He later returned to the University, earned his Ph. D., and at the time I am writing this, is a professor of Oceanography on the Big Island of Hawaii and author of the book Tsunami.

My parents and I were corresponding by letter very frequently, and I could keep up on what was happening at home. Ann was growing up and Terry, at Miami U. had joined the Men's Glee Club. Smokey was still as independent a cat as always.

Below: Images of Ann and Terry that were taken in December 1968. The image of Smokey was from 1969. Dad, as always, was the photographer.

Below: These were additional photos taken in 1968 of my siblings. The one of Terry was taken in April. It appears that he is on spring break. The one of Ann shows her in dancing class.

 

1969 -1970

I decided to take Scuba Diving at the Y.M.C.A. There were only two of us girls new to the Oceanography department and we both signed up to take the class. We were the only girls in the class and the guy students tried to make it difficult for us. In exercises where we had to throw our masks into the water and then retrieve them, the boys would retrieve our masks and throw their masks to the other end of the pool. When we had a drill to swim on the bottom of the pool, turn on tanks and take a breath through a regulator, and continue swimming, they'd tighten the tanks valves so we couldn't open them. But, it spite of all of that, at the end of the classes we took our ocean dive at Hanauma Bay and became NAUI certified.

I went out with a guy named Tom who loved to surf. He took me on a date to the beach, put me on a very large surf board, and showed me how to paddle out. I didn't get very far from the beach when I caught a wave, going back to the beach. I was on my belly facing away from the beach and swallowing a great deal of water as I laughed. That was my first and last surf ride.

I met another guy, Rob, in Church. Each Sunday, I'd take the bus to downtown Honolulu to the Methodist Church. One Sunday, this really handsome guy sat down right behind me. He was sitting alone. At the end of the service, I fiddled with my purse and he saw me do that. We started up a conversation and he asked if I needed a ride. The rest is history. Rob was an officer in the Navy. We went out on several occasions, but it was pretty evident that he had a gal back home. So we were just friends, having a good time. The movie Tora Tora Tora was being filmed at the time on Oahu, and he took me to the base to see the cardboard US planes all lined up on the runway... props for the movie.

Down the hill from campus was a bar called the Blue Goose. One night I met a very good looking fellow there, a sergeant in the Air Force named Bob Swisher. He and I ended up dating for many months until he was discharged from the service, completed his bachelors degree in business, and returned home. He called me Snookins. I have no idea why. On one of our dates, we went to an event where Hawaiian dancing schools were putting on an all day Hula dancing exhibition. While we sat on a blanket in the grass, admiring the dancing, we saw half chickens being grilled nearby by Hawaiian men dressed in native dress. This was my first introduction to Huli Huli chicken. The chicken was soooo delicious. At night, from our seats on the blanket, we watched fireworks. That was a truly special day. Once while I was still in Hawaii and when Bob was back home in Florida, I received a dozen long stemmed roses, with a note that said, "Love, Bob." At the time, I was dating several Bobs, Robs, and a Ron. I called the florist to see who had sent them. They were from him, the one I really cared about. We loved each other, but the timing for marriage was never right. After I left Hawaii, I visited him in his home town, Fort Piece, Florida, met his family, and we have corresponded ever since, mostly at Christmas. He never married.

Below: The recipe for Huli Huli Chicken.

Below: Happy Birthday message that came with the flowers from Bob.

At Christmas 1969, Mom, Dad, Terry, and Ann came for a visit. They stayed at the Reef Hotel on Waikiki Beach. Ann was 5 years old and wanted a Christmas tree. We found a tree being discarded by someone in one of the university dorms and we decorated it with paper ornaments for their hotel room.

Below: The family's arrival in Hawaii. I made the leis, following instructions from my roommates.

One evening, we went to dinner at the Le Rounde Restaurant and we took one of the fellows I was dating. His name was Rob. I don't recall his last name. The restaurant pivoted so that it made a circle and all of the skyline of Honolulu was visible.

Below Dinner at Le Rounde

Below: Ann at unknown age. This looks like a school picture. She may have been in first grade. That would be ~1969.

 

At Christmas, I helped out with other research projects that were being done at Coconut Island because people were going back to the mainland for the holiday. One of these projects was for Dr. Clark. I agreed to feed his hammerhead sharks smelt while he was absent. The many ~2 foot long hammerheads were retained by a net from escaping into the bay. The smelt were stored in a walk-in freezer. To feed them, I simply filled a bucket with the frozen smelt, heaved the bucket full into the netted area water, and the shark frenzy commenced. One day when I entered the freezer, I screamed because there were huge, long frozen eels stacked like cord wood floor to ceiling... all facing out. They looked like they were smiling at me. Apparently, a research vessel had returned with the eels to study.

Although my lab grades in Chemical Oceanography were A's, my final exam score was so low that my average in the class at the end of the semester was a C. I got a B in precalculus, so my average was 2.7 for the semester. I knew that I had to get my average at least up to a 3.0 the next semester. But, I would be taking even more difficult classes, so I decided to give up on Oceanography and walk across campus and see if the Entomology department would accept me.

I was accepted with a temporary research assistantship from the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association. The scholarship was later extended until my graduation.

At the end of the first semester, I moved out of the apartment with the gals, moved into the dorm on campus, and I began taking entomology classes. I set up my schedule so I could be done with classes by 11:00 and take a bus to Waikiki Beach to sit in the sun until 2:00. Then I'd return to the dorm, take a nap, dress for dinner, and after dinner do my research. My research lab was in an old wooden building on campus. One night, I was working in the lab and decided to walk across campus to an outside coffee machine. On the way, under some lights I was surrounded by a swarm of mating termites. The termites were crawling inside my clothes, in my hair, and all over my body. I rushed back to the lab, turned off the lights, stripped, and shook out my clothes. When I'd dressed and turned the lights back on, I saw termites dropping their wings, and crawling all over the floor towards the corners of the room. No doubt, I'd added to the eventual destruction of this wooden building.

The other grad student who was working for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and working in the same lab was John Leeper. He'd lived in Hawaii in his youth and was quite familiar with the plants and animals and all things Hawaiian. We became good friends and he had me to his apartment for fried bananas and other Hawaiian delicacies. He also took me on expeditions to find petroglyphs that were engraved on the walls of some caves. John is now a professor of Entomology at the University. I also went with some friends to other petroglyphs and made rubbings. I was, and still am fascinated by the drawings of the ancient Hawaiians.

Below: Group of friends getting ready to do rubbings and me doing a rubbing.

Below: Six petroglyph rubbings I made on linen cloth with a black crayon. The second petroglyph below is the one I am rubbing in the photograph above. Note: These petroglyphs were not small drawings, they were each several feet in length.

 

My suite mate in the dorm, MaryAnn, and I decided to fly to Kauai one weekend. I'd never been there; she had. Being college students, we planned on spending as little money as possible, but seeing the sites. When we arrived on Kauai, it was raining. We began walking to find a car rental. On the way, a car that was actually a refurbished hearse stopped and the guy inside offered us a ride. When we told him we were on our way to a car rental, he told us we'd picked a busy weekend ... the weekend of the international outrigger canoe races. All of the hotel rooms were gone, as were most of the cars, but he had a friend. Well, back in those days 1969-70, trust was more easily given. We trusted this guy. His friend had a new hotel, that would eventually, I'm sure, become a dive, but it wasn't even opened yet; so we were the first in it. Our car rental from another of his friends was also difficult, but we found a stick car that I managed to drive. We stayed on the island for two days, wearing our bikini bathing suits on beaches we visited, and living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When we returned to campus, we used her military privileges (she was a "military brat") for me to purchase a ukulele. She and I played duets in the dorm.

At sometime while I was in Hawaii, I wrote the following statement and later made a poster in calligraphy.

 

One of the courses I took was called "Immature Insects." As part of our course work, we were required to make an extensive collection of larva, caterpillars, maggots and other non-adult stages of insects. That was quite a task. As we made our collections, we took the individuals into the lab and using detailed identification keys to classify our finds. I saw one of my classmates had a very interesting larva and I asked him where he found it. He said it was a mango nut weevil larva. All I had to do is collect mangoes, cut into the nut at the center of the fruit, and I was likely to find some weevil larvae. Well, I did that and was successful. But I also discovered something else. I am allergic to mangoes. They are related to poison ivy. I ended up visiting the campus infirmary with hives inside my mouth, ears, and every other place hives can be. Medicine and time cured the situation.

Below: Meanwhile back in Columbus, Ohio on April 27,1969, Ann was celebrating her 6th birthday. I missed it.

Sometime in the spring or summer of 1969, my parents purchased a cottage on Liebs Island at Millersport, Ohio. Letters from home informed me that Dad had purchased a boat and dock and Terry enjoyed waterskiing on Buckeye Lake, while Mom created gardens around the house. Ann and Mom liked to use inner tubes to cool off in the lake on hot days. The cottage was used as a way to get away from the city to enjoy the summer. Dad commuted back and forth, while the rest of the family stayed in the cottage. For several years, Terry became a life guard at one of the lake beaches.

Meanwhile back in Hawaii, I continued taking courses and working on my research.

 

Below: Certificate showing that I belonged to THE HEXAPODS, the University of Hawaii Entomology club.

One of my entomology courses was "Principles of Insect Pathology." We learned about a fungus called Metarrhizium that is a lethal insect pathogen. I wrote the following poem about it. I have no idea what the motivation was for writing the poem.

 

Thanksgiving weekend, as a birthday present to myself, I flew to Maui. I took a limo tour with people I did not know and it rained the entire time. So, we saw very little from inside the limo with steamed up windows. For Thanksgiving dinner, I ate food from a vending machine. I quickly learned that vacationing by yourself is not fun.

My research project for the Hawaii Sugar Planters association was to breed Lixophaga flies. Their maggots are parasitic on the grubs of the weevil, Rhabdoscelus obscurus, which is a pest to sugarcane. The weevil is native to New Guinea and was first observed on one of the Hawaiian islands in 1865. In 1910, John Muir successfully introduced Lixophaga sphenophori to Hawaii. He had collected the flies from Port Moresby, a low elevation area of New Guinea. The flies had been doing a good job controlling the beetle for many years, but overtime they were inbreeding and became less effective. My job was to mate the flies that were established in the sugarcane fields of Oahu "called Field flies" with flies that had been recently collected from several different elevational locations on New Guinea, including Wau. I raised both the beetle grubs and adult flies. My mating project showed that if mating occurred, the offspring in the crossbreeding experiments were not viable. In dissections, I found dead larva were inside the crossbred female flies. In examining the fly adults, there was little difference between the two populations. But, in my"Immature Insects" class, I was learning about fly maggot identification. The structural shape of spiracles (openings through which air enters the trachea) are often used to identify species. So I looked at maggots. I found that the posterior spiracles, mouth hooks, and cephalopharangeal skeletons were different between the Lixophaga sphenophori individuals and the Lixophaga recently collected in New Guinea. The flies were not the same species. These discoveries and the data from my study became my masters thesis. Below are images scanned from my thesis.

Image 1: Rhabdoscelus obscurus adult weevil; Image 2: Rhabdoscelus obscurus larva; Image 3: Rhabdoscelus obscurus larval remains with Lixophaga sp. maggots emerging; Image 4: Two Lixophaga sp. pupa removed from a Rhabdoscelus obscurus pupa.

Image 5: Lixophaga sp. pupa inside the skin of a Rhabodoscelus obscurus and its cocoon; Image 12: Adult Wau Lixophaga fly; Image 13: Adult Field Lixophaga sphenophori fly.

I had avoided taking math all through Miami University, and now in order to complete my thesis and earn my Masters Degree, I had to take Biometry... statistical analysis for biological data. I learned how to use a slide rule the night before the exam. As I was studying just before the exam, I wrote the following poem.

I aced the Biometry exam; I know not how.

When I did the oral presentation of my thesis to my committee, I did it from the back of the room with them facing the screen where I presented slides. Being very shy in front of people, I was much more comfortable doing it this way. After I showed the slides and did the oral presentation, I approached the front of the room to answer questions. As I recall, there was only one question. What are your plans now? I explained that I was planning on returning to Ohio. I think they wanted me to stay and continue research.

Below: My grade transcript from U. of Hawaii. My accum at Hawaii was 3.4

I graduated with an MS in Entomology on December 20, 1970. I did not go to graduation. I believe I had returned to Columbus by that date. At any rate, I had no family present in Hawaii to see me graduate, so I saw no point in going to the ceremony.

Below: University of Hawaii Master of Science degree.

 

Below: I'm wearing a lei after returning from Hawaii, and I'm holding Smokey. She doesn't seem at all excited to see me, but at least she let me hold her.

 

After I graduated from U. of Hawaii, my professor Dr. John W. Beardsley, Jr. published my research and drawings in a paper: The citation is Waggy SL, Beardsley W. 1974. Biological studies on two sibling species of Lixophaga (Diptera: Tachinidae), parasites of the New Guinea sugarcane weevil, Rhabdoscelus obscurus (Boisduval), Proc Hawaiian Entomol Soc 21: 485-494. At the time of the publication, I was married to Greg Waggy, thus my name was Susan Leach Waggy.

I've often wondered if my newly identified Lixophaga has been given a scientific species name. I recently discovered that in 1981 Dr. Hardy (one of the professors on my committee) named a Lixophaga...Lixophaga beardsleyi. I suspect he named my discovery after Dr. Beardley, but I don't know for sure. I could find no additional online information.

 

1971-1973

I returned to Columbus and was able to purchase my very first car with the money I'd saved from my research assistantship, a brand British racing green 1971 Camaro. I planned on living with my parents until I could find employment.

Below: My Camaro parked in front of Mom's and Dad's Severn Road, Berwick home.

I began looking, with no success, for a job using my new entomology degree. The only thing I found was a newspaper ad for a job in Reynoldsburg to carry a tank of pesticides on my back to spray tomato plants. I didn't want that job.

I also applied for a job advertised in the paper working with Dr. John Minton, a cancer doctor who was doing research at Ohio State University. After explaining my skills in microtechnology for my Hawaii research, he offered me a job helping him with his research. I would be drawing blood from cancer patients and studying the antigens produced by their blood cells. I would need to be available around the clock to draw the blood. Other work would involve working with patients' insurance, and that would be where my salary would come from. Although this job sounded interesting, I didn't want to work with dying patients, be on call at any time day and night year round, and make so little money. In addition, Aunt Dorothy had cancer and I was witnessing her declining health. That was a depressing situation. I turned down Dr. Minton's job offer. Ironically, several years later, I had his daughter as a student at Hastings Junior High School.

So, with no other choice of a job, I did a lot of substitute teaching and reconsidered teaching full time.

I got a call to substitute at South High School, and they wanted me to sign a contract to teach full time. Something told me to put off signing the contract. The school was rough. It was a mix of black and white kids who really hated each other. There had been no discipline from the previous teacher, who'd quit. I tried to establish some. Many of the kids rebelled. I made the biggest rebel, a very large black student, my sergeant at arms. His behavior reversed. One day, there were four fires in the school; one was the hornet's nest hanging in my classroom. I'd left my door open when I left for the day because the janitor was right across the hall working and I thought he'd be in my room next. That was a dumb move on my part. The next day, as school was coming to a close, the teachers were warned to exit the school as fast as they could because trouble was expected in the parking lot. I got into my new car, just as it was surrounded and rocked back and forth by some students. I drove at a "crawling speed" out of the caged parking lot to the only exit and drove home. Once home, still shaking, I told Mom and Dad what had happened. Dad took me to school in his car the next day. At school, I told the principal what had happened to me in the parking lot and he smuggly stated, "It's too bad you went to college for four years to find out you can't make it as a teacher." I told him, I'd gone 6 years and not all of the schools where I'd subbed were like South. I told him I'd stay on until he'd found me a replacement. He said I could consider that my last day. The next day, Aunt Jane drove me to South (which she had attended as a student years ago), so I could return the teacher's editions I had. Aunt Jane couldn't believe the school her alma mater had become. I knocked on the classroom door and several of the students came running out into the hall, asking me why I'd quit. I told them I wasn't getting support from the office. They were begging me to stay, saying I was the first teacher who seemed to care. I asked the new teacher if they'd offered her the job and she said they had. I warned her to take some time before she signed a contract.

I went back on the sub list for the rest of the Columbus Public School System. One day I was called to sub at East High School, an all black school. I have never been treated with so much respect as I was that day. The boys held the door for me and called me Miss. Their sweet behavior was genuine.

On the last day of the school year, I subbed in a high school where some of the boys were playing with knives. As one of the boys was holding his knife, he told me they'd raped their last sub. I responded with, "If you've done it once, all the fun is gone, isn't it?" I was bluffing on the outside and shaking on the inside. The classroom had a phone and I called the office. I told the principal about the knives and he came immediately to the room. He opened his enormous black hand palm up toward the boys and said, "Knives boys!!" They handed him the knives, and there were no more issues that day.

In the summer, I enjoyed going with my parents to Liebs Island at Buckeye Lake. I did some fishing during the day and one evening I decided to do some fishing for catfish with Dad at night. To do this kind of fishing, he used a trot line. A trot line is a line with hooks attached at intervals that was placed out into the open water from the dock. Dad made bait by creating a dough with cornflakes and peanut butter. He molded the bait around each hook. After he’d completed that task and he’d positioned the line in the water, we sat on the dock and held onto the line, We could feel the catfish striking. That night, we also watched a meteor shower and Dad told me that was the first one he’d ever seen. That was a very special night I spent with Dad.

I really needed things to occupy my time. Beginning in 1971, Mom, Ann, Aunt Jane, Polly Viets (Terry's girlfriend), Linda (Steve's wife) and I decided to do ceramics. We met a lady who had a kiln in her basement and provided ceramic workshops. The lady ordered already molded "green clay" for us to work with. Our family getting together in this way was fun. We made things for ourselves and to give to others. A few of my "creations" are shown below.

In 1971, I did a lot of creweling and cross stitch ... pillows, a clock, a bell pull, and a wall hanging of butterflies that I designed.

 

Sometime in the early 1970s I saw an eagle someone had made from seeds. I decided to make my own version using sea oats and other seeds I could find.

That summer, Bob invited me to visit him and his family in Ft. Pierce, Florida. I liked his parents very much. His mother drove me to a few schools to look for possible teaching jobs and even gave me a pink coral ring. I could tell she liked me. His dad took me fishing one day when Bob had to work. I stayed in the guest house for about a week. Bob and I did a lot of boating and visiting beaches. But, eventually, I needed to get back to Columbus.

Below: Bob and me when I visited him in Ft. Pierce.

I returned to Columbus. It was August, and I still didn't have a time teaching prospect for the upcoming year.

Walt Dudley and I had been communicating by letter, and he invited me to visit while he was serving as an intelligence officer in the Army in Worms, Germany. So I got my passport and flew to Germany on September 1st.

Below: 1971 passport photo

.

This trip was one of the very lowest points in my life. Walt and I had a good time, but we encountered some very evil people. We attended an outside Oktoberfest where long tables were lined up, bratwursts were served, and beer was the beverage. We were having a great time. Our waiter looked a lot like Joel Grey when he played the master of ceremony in Cabaret. That was a downer; I think he put something in our beer. I was suddenly overcome with feeling very ill. I started to walk to one of the outside bathrooms and suddenly someone put a cloth over my nose and mouth. I later guessed that it must have been chloroform. I passed out for an undetermined period of time. When I became conscious, I found myself of the ground with numerous men surrounding me. I was being gang-raped. I willed myself to pass out. I think they left me for dead. When I resumed consciousness, I was being helped to dress by a young German man. He was so kind. We couldn't communicate since I spoke no German and he spoke no English, but I kept repeating "Mercedes Benz." Walt's apartment was above the Mercedes Benz dealer. This good Samaritan walked me to Walt's front door. I entered the apartment to find Walt passed out on the bed with a gun under his pillow. He had also been drugged, had looked for me when I didn't return from the bathroom, and went back to his apartment, hoping I'd return. The next day we compared stories. Then, he took me to the Army base to be medically checked out. Later we met his friend and went to France for a short trip. While on that trip, I got a call from Dad that a job had opened up at Ridgeview Junior High School for a science teacher. I flew home on September 9th to begin my teaching career.

Dad also told me that Aunt Dorothy was dying of the cancer she's been fighting. I never got to see her again. She died on September 12th 1971.

In order to live closer to Ridgeview, I rented an apartment on North Street (near High Street) and moved out of the Severn Rd. house with my parents. My landlords were the Berlins (parents of one of my students). My apartment was on the 3rd floor.

In 1971, I taught 6 classes of 9th grade physical science with ~ 30 students in each class and was an auditorium study hall supervisor with another teacher. That year I was also chairman of the department, advisor of the science club and coordinator of the science fair.

Mr. Decatur was the principal. He was wonderful, very supportive, and a great guy. That year I had about a dozen kids who just didn't want to be in school. They were all in my 8th period class with about 18 other kids. These 12 were trying to make my life and the quality of learning for the other students miserable. One day I had to immediately stop teaching, and support a student as we walked down the stairway to the nurse's office. Steve (the student) told me he was on sopers. I didn't know what that was, but I now know it was a recreational drug. He was high. He'd begun licking his desk top and drawing attention from the other students. Those were my clues that something was very wrong. When I returned to the classroom from the nurse's office, some of the kids had tied all of the equipment on the lab tables together with string and turned the hose to the distillation tube on as full as the water would go. The tube was about to explode. From across the room, I yelled for one of the kids to pull out the tube. He did. The water blew out of the tube, all over me, and now my white blouse was transparent and my hair was dripping. The kids were laughing. Soon the bell rang and I announced that the next day things would be different for that class. I had no idea what I was going to do. But, as I was walking out of the school soaking wet, the guidance counselor, Mrs. Maxine Russell, spotted me and asked what had happened. I told her about the kids and she asked if I wanted the problem kids more spread out among my other five classes. I said no, I'd like it if the good kids were spread to my other classes and the problem kids were all left in my 8th period class. By the next day, she had changed schedules. When the 8th period class began, the kids all looked around and saw who was left in the class. I announced to them that class was going to be different than the other classes in how I would teach. It would no longer be a lab class, it would be a demonstration class. One day, as I was making the rounds in checking the room, I found the paper below. In later years, I ran into several of the boys from this class at Max and Erma's Restaurant and they apologized for the way they'd behaved. One had even dated my sister, but he'd never told her that he was in this infamous class.... he was too embarrassed, he said.

 

During that first year at Ridgeview, by the time I began teaching my 5th and 6th classes of the day, I was very bored and it was difficult to keep track of what I'd been telling them, so for 1972-73 , I asked for a second class preparation. Mr. Decatur assigned me to teach a few classes of 8th grade health science.

At the end of the 1971-72 school year, I decided to go back to Oahu and take a few classes. I missed "THE ROCK", aka Oahu. I ended up auditing a few classes and having a good time with new friends, going to hotels to listen to bands and dance and frequenting beaches. On one beach visit I met a guy who had a lot of friends that he wanted to fix up with my friends. I ended up dating his friend, Greg Waggy.

Below: Back in Hawaii. The mumu had been given to me by Karen Farar, one of my roommates when I arrived in Hawaii in 1968.

 

In April 1972, Terry graduated with a BS degree in Business from Miami University. At the time he graduated, he was dating Polly Viets, who he'd had met his senior year. If I remember correctly, she was a freshman.

Below: Terry's senior picture from Miami University.

I returned to Columbus from Hawaii to begin the 1972-73 school year and Greg and I continued our correspondence. On Spring Break, I flew to Oahu to visit him and shortly thereafter, he proposed. I made a very big mistake in my life when I accepted his proposal. I didn't really know Greg and I later found out that nearly everything he'd told me about himself was fictional.

In 1972, I found a very interesting image of a grasshopper in a magazine and decided to see if I could draw it with India ink.

 

Below: Two pictures of Ann. She looks to be about age 7.

Below: Ann's school pictures in 1972 and 1973, and 1974.

 

Below: Quilt I made circa 1973. I creweled the pattern and then quilted it.

Below: Easter 1973

In 1973, I decided to introduce a unit on Oceanography to the 9th graders. The kids definitely enjoyed the topic. They seemed to enjoy hearing about some of the experiences I'd had in Hawaii and California.

Below: I'm showing some Ridgeview girls my diving equipment. This photograph was published on February 9, 1973 for the article below that appeared in the Columbus Public Schools Intercom Staff Newspaper.

Below: Top and bottom portions of a newspaper article that appeared in the Citizen Journal on February 17, 1973.

Below: Article that appeared on the March 1, 1973 in the local newspaper, The Booster.

Below: Ridgeview Junior High School picture as a teacher in 1973. Back in those days, everyone dressed up to fly. I wore this dress on the United Airplane flight I took to visit Greg in the spring. I remember several people thinking I was a stewardess on the plane because my dress had the same United Airline colors as the airline stewardesses.

While I was in Columbus teaching and Greg was in Alaska as a corpsman on the Coast Guard Cutter, he sent me pictures of himself.

Below: The photo at left was dated October 1971.

Below: May 1973 aboard the Jarvis Coast Guard Cutter.

Left: Engagement picture for the newspapers.

Below: Wedding announcement that was sent to family and friends, and the engagement article from the Columbus Dispatch newspaper, dated December 3, 1973. Note, until I met Greg's parents and his mother asked me why the announcement said that Greg's dad was a doctor, I did not know that Greg had lied to me about that. Later, Greg admitted that his father was not a doctor, but he said his dad sometimes helped a vet and was called "Doc." I don't know whether that was true, or not.

Below: The teachers at Ridgeview had a wedding shower for me.

In mid June 1973, Greg flew to Columbus, as did his family, and we were married on June 23rd at Bexley Methodist Church. Prior to the wedding, Terry had contracted Guillain-Barre and was in a wheelchair because he had lost his ability to walk. When the wedding took place, he was just being able to walk again. He was to walk Mom down the aisle. I think she helped support him as they walked. The reception was held at the University Club in downtown Columbus.

Below: The Marriage Certificate and Marriage License.

Below: Greg and me in the church.

 

Below: The wedding party: Front row left to right: Flower girls: Greg's niece and Ann; 2nd row: Bride's Maids: Lyn Bumgarner Emory (my cousin), Linda Webster (Steve's wife), Pam Gordon (Maid of Honor and high school friend), me, Greg, Best Man Greg's dad, and ushers ?, Terry, and Steve. 3rd row left to right: the minister and another usher ?.

Below: Flower girls, maid of honor and bride's maids with me.

 

Below: The Leach family at the wedding: Left to right: Linda Webster, Steve Webster, Aunt Jane Webster, Uncle Dick Webster, Great Aunt Bea , Dad, Mom, Terry, Ann, Me, Greg, Uncle Bob Leach and Aunt Marie Leach.

 

Below: The Sharpe family at the wedding: Left to right: Aunt Amie Garlow, Terry, Dad, Ann, Mom, me, Greg, Uncle Oren Long, Aunt Lucile long Aunt Evelyn Bumgarner, and Lyn Bumgarner Emory.

Below: Dad and Mom with me before the wedding.

Below: Mom with me after the wedding ceremony.

 

Below: Sacramento Bee newspaper and Sacramento Union newspapers dated June 24, 1973. Note: Both of these articles repeated the lie that Greg's dad was a doctor.

 

After the wedding, we borrowed Dad's station wagon and drove to San Diego where we got an apartment in National City. Greg was stationed as a gate guard on the base. Later, we moved to Chula Vista. While in San Diego, I tried to get employment as a teacher, but without success. We needed money. Greg was a private in the Coast Guard, and I was not employed, so I started applying for any job I thought I could do. I worked for a short time at the Navy base as a cashier in the recreation center. I was making coffee, re-setting bowling pins, and keeping track of the cash box. That job didn't last long because Greg got jealous of another guy and started a fight. I quit the job.

 

1974 -1977

Below: Greg and me. The location where these photographs were taken are unknown.

In the summer of 1974, I was hired to be a teacher with San Diego Academy, Scot Institute for Neurological Development. I developed a 6-week oceanography unit for the elementary aged students. Also in 1974, I tutored ten learning-disabled students in reading in San Diego, and I was hired through a newspaper ad to read books about Freud onto tapes for to a doctoral student who was blind.

Also at that time, I purchased an underwater casing and underwater strobe for my camera. Highlights of living in San Diego for me were going to La Jolla and using the camera to take images of anemones and starfish in the tide pools, and in 1974 taking "Physical Oceanography"at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California. Much of the information that I learned in this course, I later was able to use in the oceanography book I wrote for 8th graders.

Left: Anemone that was living in a La Jolla tide pool.

One day, Greg and I collected a large purple jellyfish that I wanted to film. We took it home in a bucket and put it into the bath tub. I climbed into the shallow end of the tub and put the jellyfish in the deep end. Then I began taking photographs. The jellyfish, not adapted to live in the fresh water, began releasing its stinging cell nematocysts into the water and I was being stung. I quickly took images and got out of the tub. Unfortunately, when the film was developed, it was black and white. I never captured the vivid purple colors even with all of my efforts.

 

In 1974, Greg and I did the freehand image in India ink below together. I did the mug and he did the cat. Our drawing is on the left. The card we were using as a model is shown on the right.

 

In 1975, Greg was discharged, expedited by help from Congressman Wylie. We drove back to Columbus, where we got an apartment at Chateau du Nord, on the north side of Morse Road. Smokey came to live with us. I began substitute teaching. Greg began working as an assignment clerk for the municipal court system in Columbus. Dad had found him that job.

Mom, Dad, and Ann moved from their Severn Road home in Berwick to an Upper Arlington condo when Ann was about to be in 6th grade. That was ~1974. They enrolled her in Fishinger Elementary in the Upper Arlington School System and the next year she would attend Hastings Junior High School as a 7th grader.

Below: Image 1 1974; other images were taken in unknown years, but they appear to be when she was in junior high school. She may have been in high school in the 4th image.

 

An opportunity to teach at Hastings Junior High School in Upper Arlington came up for me, and Greg and I moved to 1256 Francisco Road, north of Henderson Rd and West of Kenny Road. Our deed is titled April 21, 1975. We paid $42,000 for the house. I used $10,000 I'd received from inheritance from Aunt Dorothy as a down payment.

Below: Our Francisco Road house.

I began teaching with a fantastic team of enthusiastic and experienced teachers: Vicki Thomas-English, Tom Haueisen-Math, and Tom Williams-History. We worked so well together! The chair of the science department was a wonderful lady, Fran McCullough. When I wanted to write an oceanography book for my students, she was in full support and made sure I had all of the stencils I needed on which to type the document.

Duplicating materials and computing student grades were performed much differently when I began teaching than by the end of my teaching career in 2000. Each oceanography book page had to be typed on a mimeograph stencil. Mistakes in typing had to be corrected with a special fluid. The mimeograph stencil was then put into a machine that had to be turned, forcing ink through the stencil onto paper. I was also using dittos at that time. We typed on the white sheet of the ditto, with a blue sheet beneath. To correct mistakes, the error on the blue sheet had to be scraped off with a razor blade and the correct letter was retyped onto the white sheet. Dittos were messy and the blue ink got onto our hands and clothing. Grades were calculated by human computation. There were no calculators or computer software to do that function. It all had to be done manually.

Vicki Thomas and Debbie Brushaber, another Hastings English teacher, and I carpooled to work. I became Debbie's assistant coach for the gymnastics team. I knew nothing about the sport, but the school was desperate for an assistant coach. When Debbie became pregnant with difficulties and couldn't coach, I became the head coach. I was so out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, the girls on the team were all taking gymnastics lessons and knew what to do. I scheduled the competitions, drove the girls, and supervised what I could with my limited knowledge. I was certainly glad when the season was over.

Meanwhile, in the school year 1976/76 Ann was a 7th grader, and she was extremely shy. Having moved to a new school (Fishinger) the previous year, she didn't know many kids. They already had their longtime friends. So Ann would begin each day in my classroom before homeroom hanging around with me. She eventually developed more self confidence and didn't come to my room at the start of the day anymore.

In March 1976, I served as a member of Hastings Jr. High's committee on "Individualism."

In the fall of 1976, Greg and I went with the rest of my family to the Hocking Hills to see the changing leaves.

Below: Left: Mom; Right: Ann, Mom, and me at the Hocking Hills.

In our home on Francisco Rd., Smokey was with us and we adopted the daughter puppy of Debbie Brushaber's dog Mocha. We named our puppy, Cocoa. I think Cocoa was a shelty mix-breed. She was very intelligent and bonded closely with me.

In 1976, under an old shed on our property lived a stay cat who kept having kittens. Our neighbor, Marge, and I adopted the mother, Opal. Marge, put a heating pad on her porch to keep Opal warm in the winter. Opal kept getting pregnant. Finally, we timed it right to get her spayed. In her last litter, was a very sweet male that I adopted. We called him Tiger.

Below Left: Opal and her kittens in the shed; Right: Tiger.

Below: Baby tiger

 

I began refinishing old furniture I'd been given or purchased. I'd strip off the old finish, stain the wood, and put Deft on it. I refinished furniture into the 2000s.

Below: Some of the furniture I refinished: Dad's old record cabinet, Grammie's chest of drawers and dressing table with stool, one of two end tables given to me by Aunt Marie, and a chest of drawers I purchased. Not shown is a Jenny Lind spindle bed that I also refinished.

In 1976, I had to have Smokey euthanized. She'd lived 17 years, but had developed feline leukemia in her later life. She is buried under an apple tree in the backyard of our house on Francisco Road.

Below: Hastings Junior High School picture as a teacher in 1976-77.

Prior to the beginning of school year 1976/77, I found out that I would be having Ann as a student. I talked to the principal and counselors and told them that wouldn't be a good idea. They switched an entire "house group" of kids to another team of teachers so she would not be in my class that year.

During the summers 1975-1977 and fall 1978, I taught several different classes at The Center of Science and Industry in downtown Columbus, Ohio. For one of the demonstrations, I talked about and fed an electric eel. In July and August of 1977, I taught three workshops: Discoveries for preschool-K, Science Builders for Grades 1-3. and Beginnings for preschool-K.

Below: My 8-year certificate from the State of Ohio Department of Education to teach comprehensive science in grades 7-12 from 1977-1985. Since I began teaching in 1973 and taught until 2000, I must have had a previous certificate and ones that followed, but I do not know where they are.

January 1977 proved to be very eventful for everyone. Ohio experienced an energy crisis due to a shortage of natural gas. The schools were closed for an extended period of time. We teachers met with the students once a week to give them packets we'd created of work to be done at home. The packet I created dealt with weather. The kids collected and analyzed weather maps and other weather data. Since the power was turned off in the school buildings for an extended period of time, everything in my classroom aquariums died. When I returned, the soft corals I'd collected at Christmas on a trip to Naples, FL. died. The first day back, I emptied and cleaned the tanks. The soft corals were too large to flush down the toilets, so I wrapped them in paper towels and placed them into the bathroom wastebasket across the hall. I taught that day and totally forgot about them. The next day, another teacher told me that Bob, our janitor, had found the white and pink round forms in the wastebasket and got sick to his stomach. He thought they were aborted fetuses.

April 30, 1977, Terry and Polly Viets were married. Terry had met Polly when both were in line to board a flight to Europe. Both were going to be singing abroad with Miami University groups. Terry was in the Men's Glee Club and Polly was in the Choraliers. They were instantly attracted to one another. They dated 6-7 years before marrying.

Below: Polly and Terry's wedding. Left to Right: Three unknown girls, Polly, Terry, Ann, me.

Later in 1977, Greg located me inside the house and told me his mother was on the phone and she wanted me to get on a phone line, while he was on the other one. When I got on the phone, she said, "Greg has something he wants to tell you." Greg confessed to me that he had not been paying the bills. He had been driving home at noon from work and removing all of the bills from the mail so I wouldn't see them. We were behind on our house payment and car payment, and the phone had been disconnected at least once. I asked his mother and father to come and help him move to their home in California. I couldn't trust him, and I was afraid to live in the house with him. He had a gun and I suspected he was taking drugs. I moved in with Mom and Dad for the time being. I paid Greg to leave. He thought he was entitled to what he estimated was half the equity in our house, $3,000. He used the money to buy a new El Cameno truck. He packed the truck with his things and he and his parents drove to Sacramento. I never did find out where Greg was spending all of our money. I filed for divorce, appeared in court, and changed my name from Susan Leach Waggy back to Susan Sharpe Leach. After all was settled, I moved back into the house with Cocoa and Tiger.

Below: The newspaper announcement of my divorce to Greg.

One day in the mail I received a tax bill from Ohio. The bill said that Greg and I had lied on our Ohio tax form claiming we had a child. Greg had taken the deduction. I was a fool and hadn't read the tax form before he sent it in; I'd just signed my name. So I was as liable as he was for his lie. I called the tax office and told them the situation and that his multiple lies were why I'd divorced him. He was now living in Sacramento, California. I admitted that I'd signed the tax form without reading what he'd claimed and would pay half of the fine and interest, but I gave them Greg's address and asked if they would please attempt to get the other half from him. If they couldn't get it from him, I would pay the full amount. I never heard back, so I guess he paid up.

Another day I came back from teaching and my next door neighbor Marge Batcheck came to the door. She told me that there were two men in suits and ties who were looking for me. She said they looked very official. All she said she told them is that I was a teacher and I was teaching at the time of their visit. The men later returned and said they were there because Greg told them I had forged his name on an IRS refund check. We had overpaid the IRS and a check was written to both of our names. Greg said he wanted me punished for the forgery and that he'd never received any of the money. I admitted that I forged his name because if I'd signed my name and then sent it to him, I'd have never seen the money. I signed his name, sent him his half, and had Dad, who was at that time a lawyer with the Bricker Law firm, write Greg a letter to accompany the check. So I had proof that Greg got his half. The men then informed me that Greg committed perjury when he said he didn't get his money, and they could pursue that. I asked what the penalty for that would be. They said a fine and possible jail time. I asked them to tell Greg those consequences, but I wasn't going to push for that.

Not long after, I wrote a check from my new account at the Huntington Bank and the check was returned for insufficient funds. After the divorce, I'd closed the joint account that had Greg's name on it and went to the Huntington Bank and opened a new account. Greg got into that new account and withdrew money and my check bounced. To withdraw the money, he convinced someone at the bank that they had earlier cashed the IRS return check with his name forged by me. Dad again worked with the bank and the IRS to get the money deposited back into my bank account.

That was the last contact I had with Greg except for a phone call I received at 3:00 am a year or two later telling me he was a cross country truck driver and had found religion.

 

The three of us (Cocoa, Tiger, and I) had a great time. We shared a green Lazy Boy recliner each night while watching TV. The pets laid on either side of me and tried to push the other one away to get more of my attention. Both followed me throughout the house, so I was never without company. Tiger was an inside/outside cat. One day, I opened the sliding door in the kitchen and Tiger ran in holding a live rabbit's neck in his mouth. Cocoa saw Tiger and chased him until Tiger dropped the rabbit. I caught the rabbit, put it out the front door and separated Cocoa and Tiger.

Cocoa learned that when I was mowing the lawn, she could put her tennis ball (her favorite toy), just on the line of the last lawn mower cut and I'd have to pick it up and throw it when I made my next cut. She repeated this trick over and over. She put the ball just in front of her feet when she wanted me to play ball in the house. Her second favorite toy was an old white sock I called it her "socky".

 

Below: Hastings Junior High School picture as a teacher in 1977-78.

 

1977 was the year I completed the first edition of the book I titled, The Ocean Environment. The book was dedicated "To all of my students, past, present, and future." The first edition was printed on a memograph machine. I redid the book in 1990 and 1992. With each printing, I had enough copies printed so that each student had his/her copy during the duration of the unit study. Below are the 1977, 1990 and 1992 editions.

As teachers, we were encouraged to take additional college courses. In September 1977, I took an Ohio State University class with another Hastings teacher... "Discipline in the Classroom." Between 1977 and 1986, I took additional courses at Ohio State University. Some of these included "Teaching Oceanography through Lake Erie Studies" (1978 March), "Career Development" (December 1979), "Educators in Industry" (June 1981), and "Reading" (1986).

In June of 1977, I taught a seminar for Columbus Public School teachers titled "Teaching about the Oceans."

 

1978 -1979

Below: Hastings Junior High School picture as a teacher in 1978-79.

On January 27, 1978 in the middle of the night... the house shook, winds howled, and Cocoa, Tiger, and I were frightened. Tiger dove from the top of the bed to under it. We didn't know it, but a blizzard was taking place. The next morning after things had quieted, I opened the front door, but couldn't see out. Snow was drifted as high as the top of the door. I got a snow shovel from the garage and began shoveling. It took me a very long time to get the sidewalk to the driveway and the driveway shoveled. Then, where the driveway met the road, I had to deal with ice. Once I'd finished the chore, I vividly remember standing at the doorway with Cocoa at my side. I was drinking something warm and thinking that I was going to be just fine living alone... look what I'd just accomplished. About that time the snowplow came down the street and deposited a pile of ice and snow at the end of the drive.

Below: January 28, 1978.

At left: A Teacher's Salary document stating that as of June 12, 1978, I will be making $14,539.00 for the 1978-79 school year. At the time, I had a Masters Degree, two years teaching experience at Ridgeview, and two years teaching experience at Hastings, plus a lot of substitute teaching experience in the Columbus Public School System.

Below: Picture from the 1978-79 Hastings Junior High School yearbook. In this competition of donkey basketball I actually had a donkey to ride. Another year, I was on an ostrich, dressed in Aunt Dorothy's horse back riding outfit.

During June of 1978, I took a 3-hour course at Framington State College in Framington, Massachusetts called, "Bringing the Ocean into the Classroom." That course simulated me to further develop labs for my classroom.

It was around this time that I became interested in joining the Columbus Ski Club so I could participate on softball and volleyball teams. The ski club was holding social meetings, having parties and other fun events. It was a great way to meet people. I ended up dating several of the guys I met through the club. I dated Harry Hershey July through September of 1978. Harry was a science professor at OSU. I kept a diary of sorts back then and read that we went to the 4th of July Parade, played softball, saw movies ("Meatball", "The In laws), went dancing at the Hilton, shared dinners and lunches, and attended an Arlington-Worthington Football game. I also dated Tom Brymer, an engineer from Burgess and Niple, and a friend of Harry. Tom and I played a lot of competitive volleyball on the same team for the Ski Club.

In the summer of 1978, I went with the ski club on a houseboat trip to Lake Cumberland, and in 1980, I went with them on a white water raft trip down the New River in West Virginia.

The co-ed Columbus Ski Club softball teams consisted of men and women playing equally during the games. I was a left-center outfielder. At one game, I could see a heavy hitter guy swinging the bat and getting ready to step up to the plate. He was looking in my direction. I was already playing really deep, but as his hit the ball, I started back peddling. As the ball reached me, I jumped as high as I could and the ball fell snuggly into my glove. I threw it toward the infield and our team made a double play. The guy who'd hit the ball and thought he'd hit a home run was cursing in disbelief that I'd caught the fly ball.

At the end of the 1979 season, I received a trophy for MIP. Two different seasons when I played with the ski club I broke my little fingers. One was when catching a line drive and the other was when I called for the ball and a guy came down to catch the ball inside my glove.

Below: 1979 Most Important Player award trophy.

I also began playing volleyball and softball on teams with other female teachers in the Upper Arlington Recreation Department league.

As explained earlier, I had aquariums in the classroom for saltwater fish and invertebrates. For several years, when visiting my parents at their Naples, Florida condo, I'd been collecting for the aquariums. I'd keep the animals in a bucket of seawater with an aerator to keep the water oxygenated while in the condo. On the plane ride home, I'd put the bucket and aerator in a carry-on and put it at my feet on the plane. Back then, there was never any issue with my bag being checked or rejected for flights.

One Christmas, I was visiting my parents in Naples and walking the Vanderbilt Beach, collecting shells and anything interesting. I picked up a pen shell. A small octopus was clinging to the inside of the shell. I placed the shell in my water bucket and took it up to the condo, where I kept the octopus alive by aerating the water and feeding it live coquinos. After a few days, the octopus crawled out of the bucket. Despite how much we looked, we couldn't find it. About a year later, Aunt Evelyn was visiting Mom in Florida and opened the drapes to find something dried on the glass sliding door. Upon seeing it, she said, "Look someone swatted a big fly on your window." It was the octopus that had crawled across the room, climbed the window, died, and dried out.

Below: Article describing my oceanography classes. It discusses my creating mini units.

 

I developed Mini Units because I'd collected so much information and made so many collections of things having to do with the ocean, that I decided to use all of the items and allow the kids to make choices about what they wanted to study. Each unit was self-contained with information to read and interpret, and questions to answer. Some units involved watching filmstrips and listening to cassettes, others involved conducting a lab exercise, examining and identifying specimens, or reading a number of National Geographic and other science articles. For some mini units, there was a cigar box containing a collection. Mini unit topics included "Ocean and the World Ecosystem", "Ocean Frontier", "Man uses the Ocean", "Ancient Oceans", "Sea Monsters", "Early Explorations", "Bathymetric Features", "Sea Floor Sediments, "Island Formation", "Ocean Basins", "Trenches are Deeep", "Treasures of the Deep", "Saltwater Aquarium", "The Coral Realm", "Help Shark", "The Drifting Beach Sand", "Careers in Oceanography", "Introduction of the Sea Lamprey to the Great Lakes", "Marine Microfossils", "Sponges", "Estimating Population Size", and many others. I kept adding to the number of unit offerings as I kept collecting information and artifacts. Eventually, there were 46 mini units to choose from. As a student completed a unit, he/she would choose another available unit that sounded interesting.

Below: Examples of cigar box collections: Image 1: Corals; Image 2: Sharks teeth; Image 3: Microfossils; Image 4: Ohio fossils; Image 5: Ohio rocks

Below: Students are using collections to answer mini unit questions.

 

At the beginning of October 1978, I began dating Paul McGowen, who worked at Owens Corning Lab in Newark as a scientist. Like me, he was an avid volleyball player in the Columbus Ski Club. He lived in Granville, but had a rooming house on the OSU campus that he was fixing up to rent. I helped somewhat with that project. One of our dates was to see the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Graceland Shopping Center theatre. Prior to going to the movie, we'd gone to a party, had some drinks, and were running late. While nearing the theatre in his car, Paul changed lanes quickly and I didn't think he'd make the light. I looked at the yellow light all the way through as we traversed the intersection. A police officer stopped us and said Paul had run the red light. I was afraid the officer would smell alcohol on Paul's breath. But he didn't, and he didn't site him for an unsafe lane change, which Paul had done. Paul was to appear in court for running a red light, which he had not done. So, I took off a day from teaching to appear as his witness that the light was yellow when he went under it. While in the court room waiting the trial, I overheard the officer asked by another one if he remembered where he was exactly when he made his observation. He couldn't remember, so he said he'd just make something up. The case was thrown out because it was my word against the officer. When I later told Dad that the officer had lied on the stand about where he was at the time we went through the intersection, Dad was quite upset and wanted the officer's badge number so he could report him for perjury. But, I don't recall Dad ever doing anything. The "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was quite a sight to see. The audience was involved in throwing rice, confetti and other things at key points in the movie. They were reciting all of the lines and many were dressed in costume. That show had kind of a cult following. I broke up with Paul at the beginning of March 1979, but we had some infrequent dates after that.

I started dating Harry again the second week of March 1979. Later that month he took me to see "Saturday Nite Fever."

Below: Middle age Tiger

 

As mentioned earlier, around this time, Ohio State University offered a credited class titled, “Teaching Oceanography through Lake Erie Studies.” The course was taught by Dr. Vic Mayer, Professor of Science Education and Geology, and many invited speakers. After hearing the speakers, we were to develop an activity for kids that involved what we'd learned about the Great Lakes. If Dr. Mayer liked what we developed, he would arrange to have us paid $50 and the activity would be included in a project he was developing, funded by Sea Grant, and titled "Oceanic Education Activities for Great Lakes schools (OEAGLS)." He liked my activity and requested that I write additional activities. The activities were published for the first time ~ 1983.

Below is a prototype of a game board I developed.

In 1979, I had a very good student teacher named Jack Smarto, who developed a lab using rocketry to collect weather information..

Below Left: Hastings Junior High School teacher picture in 1979-80 school year. Right: Photo that appeared in the 1980 yearbook.

One day in the spring, I was standing at an Upper Arlington inservice meeting, eating a donut and drinking a cup of coffee, when Carolyn Farnsworth, a science teacher at Jones Junior High School, asked how I felt about teaching at Jones in the fall. I almost choked on the donut. No one had told me I was being transferred to the other district junior high school. I was devastated. I loved the team of teachers I was working with at Hastings and I did not want to move. Declining enrollment dictated that I (as the low person in seniority) would be transferred. I shared this information with all of my classes. I had wonderful classes of students that year. They listened to me and were sympathetic to my situation. One student in particular had become a close friend. We remain friends to this day. Her name... Becky Johnson. I attended her wedding and we send each other Christmas cards each year. Today, Becky is a wife, mother of two girls, and a grandmother. Before retiring, she was a nurse at Riverside Hospital in Columbus.

Below Left: Becky's photo as an 8th grader in the 1980 Hastings Yearbook.

The year I found out I was being moved from Hastings to Jones, I was taking a career education class that involved decision making. I decided to look for another job. I applied to the Richmond School District in Virginia. They were looking for someone who would be a district-wide oceanography teacher. The job would entail developing my own curricula and teaching kids of all ages about the oceans from a remote classroom, where I would have multiple aquariums to stock and maintain. I'd meet with local fishermen and fill my tanks with fish they collected. The job sounded very interesting. The Richmond School District arranged a flight for me to be interviewed. I really considered whether I wanted to move that far from my friends and family and decided not to take the job. I would go to Jones and make the best of it.

In April 1979, Harry took me to a Judy Collins concert. He invited me to his house for dinner; I invited him come to my house for dinner. At one point, he introduced me to his parents. In May, he took me to a Paul Anka concert. He called or we saw each other nearly every day that month. On May 25th I had a date with Tom Brymer for pizza, drinks and a movie..."Alien" (this was the scariest movie I have ever seen). I continued dating Harry throughout June.

In July 1979, the Sharpe family met for a reunion.

Below: The Sharpe Reunion. Labeled are Terry, me, and Ann. Dad is on Terry's left, Polly (Terry's wife is behind Terry), and Mom is directly behind me. Mom's three sisters Alma Sharpe Garlow, Lucile Sharpe Long, and Evelyn Sharpe Bumgarner and their husbands (Spencer Garlow, Oren Long, and Dr. John Bumgarner) are in this photograph, as are my first cousins Mary Lou Long Hampton, Sandra Long Henson and her husband (Don Henson), and Reed Bumgarner and his 1st wife. At least two of Sandra's three daughters are in the photograph: "Little" Sandra, and Elizabeth. Also, at least one of Mary Lou's two sons, Craig is in the photograph. Dad has his hands on Craig's shoulders.

Below Left to Right: Our immediate family: Terry, Polly, Mom, Dad, me, Ann. (Polly was expecting Charlie).

In the summer of 1979, Mom and Dad were taking a boat ride around Buckeye Lake and found a property for sale on the lake. They purchased the land, which came with a cottage. At closing, they discovered that the two ladies who were selling the property were Hazel Thatcher Snider and Rebecca Thatcher Fenner. They were selling the land after their brother (Austin Thatcher) who had owned the land died. At the time of the purchase, the family connection... that Austin's father was the1st cousin of Russell's mother, Hazel Thatcher (#6), was unknown. Austin had built the home in 1955; the address is 115 Oak Drive, Hebron, Ohio. Mom and Dad then sold the Liebs Island property, after first renting it out.

On August 26, 1979, I joined a group from COSI who were going to the Bahamas to scuba dive. The trip was to Andros Island and it was organized by International Field Studies. The cabins we stayed in were very rustic and at night I discovered huge cockroaches prowled the ceiling and walls and fell onto the people in the bunk beds. I witnessed that from a top bunk. From that moment on, I slept with a sheet covering my entire body all night even though I was roasting. By day, we snorkeled and some went scuba diving. The water was pretty rough, so I opted to only snorkel. We also toured the Bahaman villages. As the days went by, we learned there was a hurricane brewing and we would probably have to leave the island earlier than planned. The native Bahamans began boarding up the windows on their houses and lashing small planes to trees. As I was one of the COSI group without a family (spouse or kids) back home, it was decided that I'd be on the last of the two Field Studies plane trips off the island. While waiting at the air strip for the Field Studies plane to return from its first trip, I witnessed military families leaving with household items and dogs on leashes and birds in cages. Things were getting serious. When the plane came back for the last group of us, it was getting dark. We managed to fly back to Columbus on September 1st with the storm clouds following us. Hurricane David caused great damage all along its path. I later developed a teaching unit about Hurricanes David and Frederic, another 1979 hurricane that affected the same area.

Below: 3 pages of the 7- page lab.

 

During the month of September, I continued dating Harry. We saw the "Muppet Movie" and "Sound of Music with Frank O'Hara." In October, I was seeing a lot of Harry, but I was also asked out by Rich Gomez, Ken Button ( microbiologist at the Dublin Water Treatment Plant), and Steve Whitt. In November, I still was seeing Harry, but Ken, Steve, and new guys (Chuck ? and Cary Koppert) were calling for dates.

On November 13, 1979, I became an aunt for the first time. Charles Russell Leach was born. Terry and Polly had their first child. Having no children of my own, my nieces and nephews and their children are like my own children and grandchildren. Charlie has always been a very special person in my heart.

Below: Charlie's birth announcement and a baby picture.

In December, I was receiving calls from Harry, Chuck, Carey, and Steve. Most of my dates that month were with Chuck.

 

1980 - 1983

In January 1980, I spent a lot of time dating Chuck. But I also had a date with Tom to see "Annie" and a date with Steve to see "Kramer Versus Kramer" and "Shelly Jacobs." I also received calls from Harry and Paul McGowan.

In January 1980, our Red Bull team was bumped up to the "A" division because we'd won the "B" division the year earlier. Again, we were sponsored by the Red Bull Inn. Below were our stats.

Below: Images of me playing in a game.

Below: Trophies for Upper Arlington Recreation Volleyball Championships. Image 1: 1978-79 B Division Champs; Image 2: 1983 A Division Champs; Image 3: 1987 A division Champs.

I continued to play softball and volleyball with women's teams in Upper Arlington, a Hilliard Ohio woman's softball team, and co-ed volleyball and softball teams with the Columbus Ski Club. Besides the injuries mentioned earlier playing co-ed softball, I sustained some injuries playing on the women's teams. In one softball game, I was running to first base and got tagged by a ball thrown by a shortstop. It hit me in the jaw and knocked me flat. The squad was called, but I was alright. My last game of softball with the Upper Arlington girls was played in 1995. I was 39 at the time. One of our young players waved for me to round 3rd base and go home. The catcher was standing on the bag. I didn't think I could make it, but I charged the bag anyway. My rubber cleats hit home plate and I did a summersalt. I was safe, but I landed on my wrist and broke it. Despite my effort, we lost the game.

Below Left: Another Volleyball team... "NICE UP". Right: Plaque won by at Cincinnati Volleyball tournament as a member of the Columbus Ski Club elite club.

Below: 1980 family photograph. Left to right: Polly, me, Terry, baby Charlie, Dad, Ann, Mom. This photograph was taken in Mom's and Dad's Kenbrook Hills home.

Below: In 1981, Charlie was a two-year old explorer.

Below: Charlie as he was growing older. The years are unknown.

 

Also in the summer of 1980 , Kathy Seall (an Earth Science teacher from Hastings) and I attended our first National Marine Education (NMEA) conference. It was held in Salem, Massachusetts. There were workshops, field trips, and opportunities to meet other educators at all levels who were also interested in teaching about the oceans. One of the field trips we went to was whale watching. We went on a boat to see humpbacks. It was an awesome experience. At one point, a humpback appeared right in front of where we were sitting. It had come from the left. At the same time, another approached from the right, one from under the boat, and one headed toward the boat. The four whales were chasing fish to the center of their circle and feeding. This conference would change our teaching forever. Almost every year from 1980 until 2006 I attended the conferences.

Below: Ceramic plate given to attendees at the 1980 NMEA Conference.

My animal family continued to entertain me and keep me from being lonely. They both followed me throughout the house.

In 1980, I was teaching two classes of 9th grade physical science and two classes of 8th grade earth science. I really didn't enjoy teaching the 9th graders. I was teaching the less challenging course to students who didn't really value science. Many were cheerleaders and football players. A few weeks into the new year, a new student... Dan Rudmann ... was put in my class. His family had just moved into the district. It didn't take me long to see that Dan really didn't belong in my class. He was very bright and should have been placed in the more challenging class. His career ambition at the time was to become a meteorologist. When I talked it over with Dan about me having him moved to the advanced class, he said he liked my class and wanted to stay. He was my saving grace. He "got" what I was teaching, understood my jokes, and we connected. Dan later invited me to his college graduation from Kenyon College. Today (2024), Dan (DVM, PhD, DACVP, FIATP) is a husband, father, and an ACVP board-certified investigative and toxicologic pathologist and translational medicine scientist with over 20 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry experience in drug discovery and development. He recently joined Charles River Laboratories as a Senior Veterinary Pathologist from Flagship Biosciences, a clinical tissue image analysis company, where he was Vice President of Program development. Dan and I communicate at least once a year at Christmas.

Below: Jones Science Fair winners in 1981. Dan Rudmann was one of the winners at the science fair with his project. In the back row, he is the 3rd boy from the left.

During class time with the 8th graders that year, in addition to teaching astronomy, meteorology, and geology, I was teaching a unit on oceanography, using the book I'd written in 1977, as well as original labs. Many of the labs were inspired by my yearly visits to NMEA conferences each summer.

Below: Yearbook photograph.

I submitted an article to Ohio Schools, a magazine created by the Ohio Education Association. The article was published on October 31, 1980. After the article appeared in the magazine, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from a teacher in another school system in Ohio who wanted some advice on beginning an Oceanography unit in his school.

Below: 1980 Ohio Schools article.

 

Around this time, I drew a nautilus and had note cards printed.

Below: Note card sample.

For several years I taught both 7th grade Informal Life Science and 8th grade Informal Earth Science at Jones. At the end of my first year teaching at Jones, I'd been asked to teach in the Informal Program by the Informal Program District Leader, Marilyn Reed. Informal Education had been taught at the elementary level in the Upper Arlington Schools for some time, but now it would be offered to students as an alternative to the contemporary education that had been taught at Jones. The focus of this ideology is the student rather than the discipline. I agreed to the offer to teach in the program and thought it would be an easy transition for me in teaching science. My first informal teaching team for the 8th grade included Bruce Brombacher, Jane Hubbard, and Wayne Wookey.... all outstanding, dedicated teachers.

For the 7th graders, I developed self-contained labs with topics from which the students could choose to work independently. They could study a variety of living creatures and biological processes. I developed contracts to determine the amount of work that should be completed in a designated amount of time to receive a particular grade. Some of the creatures in these studies included paramecium, bacteria, tree leaves, planarians, bread mold, yeast and brine shrimp. Some lab titles included: Binary Fission, Asexual Reproduction, Breathing, Gases and Leaves, Carbon Dioxide, Excretion, Pigments, Membrane, Bread Mold, Photosynthesis, Testing, Fission, Antiseptics, Observing, Growing, and Pollution. Students were also developing crossword puzzles and word searches, as well as doing scientific newspaper and magazine article reviews as part of the contracts. At some point, I did not feel I was getting the quality of work or use of time I wanted and decided to try a reward system. If students were on time to class, they received 2 artificial dollars. If they used their time efficiently and turned in quality work on time they received 3 more artificial dollars. They could spend this money to buy a ticket to a movie shown during lunch period in my classroom at the end of about a month. I called the artificial money, "froggie bucks." The movie was called a "froggie flick." After introducing the artificial money and movie reward, the quality of student work noticeably increased.

Below: Two and three dollar images of "froggie bucks" and a "Froggie Flicks" movie ticket.

On January 28-29, 1981, I did a workshop on "Marine and Aquatic Education" for teachers held by the Department of Education State of Ohio at Capital University in Bexley, Ohio. I showed teachers "The Walleye Game" that I'd developed for the OSU Sea grant project that was titled "Oceanic Education Activities for Great Lakes schools (OEAGLS).

February-March 1981, I conducted a 4-week long seminar for 7th grade students at Ridgeview Junior High School on "Oceanography". Parents at Ridgeview had contacted me to teach the seminar after school.

Below: Article that appeared in the February 1981 Upper Arlington Career Ed Newsletter Kaleidoscope. The article includes a discussion of the 115 page oceanography book, 38 individualized mini units used in the 8th grade oceanography unit, and the fact that all seven developmental areas of the career ed model are addressed.

On February 10, 1981, I addressed the need in my classroom for a Marine Science Center by writing a project proposal.

On March 7, 1981, I was a presenter at the Science Education Council of Ohio Annual Convention; My presentation was, "Oceanography for Landlubbers."

Below: Upper Arlington News article from March 4, 1981, describing the "Landlubber" presentation I would be making at the SECO convention.

In my classroom, I displayed the poster below showing beach sands from around the world. A string pointed from the sand sample to where it was collected. I had collected many of the samples myself, but I also gave students extra credit for bringing back sands from their Christmas and spring break vacations. The teachers also knew of this project and they brought me sand too.

Below: A June 12, 1981 letter from the Upper Arlington City Schools Special Education Services department recognized me for my dedication to the provision of quality education for the special ed students by individualizing my program objectives for those students.

 

Ann graduated from Upper Arlington High School in June of 1981. Early in her high school career, she had been on the drill team, but she quit that activity to become a swim team timer.

Below: Photo of Ann in high school.

 

In July of 1981, I traveled with John Zahara to Oahu, Hawaii. We'd been dating for awhile and it was fairly serious. I'd been out with Vicki Thomas for TGIF at a bar in Worthington when John and I met. We continued dating for about five years, off and on. I also saw him as my optometrist. My mother also had him as her optometrist.

 

 

On July 22, 1981, Carrie Jane Leach was born. Now I had a nephew and a niece. Carrie was born with spina bifida, but has thrived throughout her life in spite of it. She is a very determined lady and doesn't let her handicap take over control of her life. In Middle School she was a cheerleader, and the lead in her senior year production of Oklahoma.

Below: Carrie as a new born and at about 1 year of age.

Below: Me and baby Carrie.

Below: Carrie as she was growing older. The years are unknown.

 

Below: Article that appeared in the Upper Arlington News on September 23, 1981. The article discussed the Kiwanis donation to my classroom. Tracy Argo and I are standing in front of the marine science center. The aquarium immediately behind my back held 130 gallons of salt water.

Below: The Marine Science Center in my classroom. This area had originally been a storage closet area.

In October 1981, I was a guest lecturer at Bexley High School for high school students. The topic: "Careers in Oceanography."

In 1981, I served on a committee for Ohio State University on creating a more efficient student teaching experience.

 

Below: Article that appeared in the December 1981 Upper Arlington Career Ed Newsletter Kaleidoscope describes in detail the Kiwanis' donation to my classroom.

 

Below left: 1981 photo that appeared in the Jones Yearbook. Right: 1981 photo also for school.

 

The summer of 1982, Kathy Seall and I attended the National Marine Education Association convention in San Diego, California. We'd participated in workshops and field trips to collect information for the oceanography units that we both taught at our respective schools. We also participated in all of the social events and met people that would become good friends.

Below: Article that appeared in the Upper Arlington News October 6, 1982.

In 1982, I submitted an article to the Science Education Council of Ohio Journal about what I was doing in class with oceanography. The article, titled "Sea Searching...Land-Locked Style was published in Volume 1 Number 1, pages 1-7. A scanned copy of the article is below the scanned cover of the journal.

On September 10, 1982, I met Joe Scott, a criminology professor from OSU, at "Macs and Ermas." I had gone to the bar/restaurant to celebrate TGIF with Vicki Thomas. I began dating Joe. In 1983, I was dating Joe and still seeing John Zahara, and Jerry McDonald (a guy from New Albany).

Below: Photo that appeared in the Jones Yearbook 1982-83 . Right: 1982 photo, also for school.

I had a bee hive in my classroom in 1982 through at least 1983. The bees could enter and leave a wooden box through a tube that penetrated one of my classroom windows. The kids and I enjoyed watching the workers building the honeycomb and filling it with honey. Bill Preston, one of the shop teachers, provided me with the queen and set up the hive.

1982-85 I was an elected member of the Board of Directors of NMEA (National Marine Educators Association).

 

In 1983, the OEAGLS project was published. A brochure was developed, from which teachers could order activities that had been created and tested by teachers.