Reclaimed Memories

hy did I undertake this rather extensive treatise, which has occupied my thoughts and most of my spare hours since May 1, 1991? Primarily because our sons have requested that we do it, for the sake of their descendants. Then I thought how much it would have meant to me during my fifty years of research on my own roots, if I had had something written by my grandparents that would have made them come alive for me. My last grandparent died when I was four months old, so I have no memory of any of them. I have always regretted that I did not ask my parents more about their early lives, when it would have been possible to have done so. Our grandchildren have all known us, but perhaps those two babies born last year, our great-grandson and our great-great grandson, may someday read this and be grateful that they had an ancestor who left them a picture of a different world than that into which they were born.

I started typing my memoirs with the decade of the sixties. At almost eighty-four years I could not think that I would get much more than that done. We had taken the five oldest grandchildren north with us at different times during that period. I wanted to help them recall their memories - those things we had enjoyed together - during those month long vacations.

I had a few much corrected typewritten pages written when Joy, my daughter-in-law, suggested that I should get a computer. I could not believe that at my age I could learn to use a computer. I will always be grateful for the encouragement the family gave me! Alter my initial struggles it has been a real joy to me and I am fairly well satisfied with what I have produced.

This is not reproduced in the order in which it was written. The decade of the sixties, where I began recording is where it would be if I had started with my "Earliest Memories," and proceeded from there. Some of my frustrations with learning the computer are reflected in those first pages, written in May.

This is for you, my grandchildren.

I hope you will find it interesting enough to read and that it will put questions in your mind that you would like to discuss with us. Please read it with a blank piece of paper in front of you. Put down the things that you are curious about and we will enjoy elaborating on them when you visit.

Keep in mind that sixty-five years of this account are also Pop Troy's memoirs. We have had a very unusual life. Pop Troy was finishing his college at the same time Marion was in college and Howard and I were in college one year together. Pop Troy and I sat side by side in every classroom during our Theological Seminary days and he only beat me a little in grades in one or two subjects. My ego was salved when the homiletics* professor remarked in class, "Mr. Brady, you are going to have to watch out, or you might become known as the husband of Mrs. Elizabeth Brady."
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* Homiletics - The science of the composition and delivery of a sermon; the method and art of preaching.