My Story

Try D-1My Story

I loved growing up in Chapel Hill! Back in the forties and fifties it was a very safe village with many opportunities, especially because of the University of North Carolina. Actually, the University was Chapel Hill! Even at a young age, I had the run of the town on my bicycle (as long as I was home by the time the street lights came on!) Reading was always one of my favorite pastimes. I also had my own stories claiming space inside my head. Walking around lost in another world often resulted in my not looking where I was going. More than a few times I banged my head on one of the red, white, and blue Barber Shop poles on Franklin Street. When I was eleven, I had a job telling bedtime stories to my neighbor’s two children for ten cents a night. As these creative youngsters preferred original ones, I was daily racking my brain to come up with a new tale.

Although I was excited about going to college in Greensboro, I cried when I graduated from my wonderful Chapel Hill High School! After graduating from college I married my high school sweetheart, Murray. We spent our first year of marriage at Parris Island,
S.C. (where the Marines changed his name to Roy.) He was finishing his last year of service before coming back to graduate from UNC. It was my joy to teach second grade in the Depot School on the base that year.

Roy’s occupation with Duke Power Company kept us in the Piedmont areas of North and South Carolina. We, as well as our three children, loved calling both Carolinas home. Thirty years ago, we put down roots once again in our beloved Chapel Hill. We were happily involved with family, church, Bible studies, golfing, and many other things. It was quite a shock when, in our fifty-third year of marriage, Roy had a heart attack and went to be with the Lord. After a year I downsized into the house my parents had built when they downsized in 1955. It required an enormous amount of work to make it into the home it is today, but I am thrilled to be here! It is right in the middle of all the traffic, businesses, runners, cyclists, and students yelling to (or at) each other—not anything like the fifties! As a wonderful bonus, my whole family is not too far away.

I am still racking my brain to create children’s stories. However, for over forty years my heart’s greatest desire has been to share truths from the Bible which can enable us to live as healed, whole people.