Greendale

Soon after graduation on October 2, 1954, I married Lee Meyer,
I had been engaged to Lee during my senior year in high school and
was looking forward to spending our future together.

I was fortunate to be a Mom and homemaker for the first 13
years of our marriage and enjoyed being home with our family. I
had time to garden and sew, and our home was always busy
revolving around family life with 5 children and school activities.

It finally seemed like a good time to try going out into the work
force to see if I recalled any of the secretarial skills I had
studied in school. I worked in the Hales Corners area in several
starter jobs and finally in a bank which I thoroughly enjoyed. Lee
had gone into police work and after several years on the Muskego
Police Department he applied for a job with the Wisconsin
Department of Justice with the stipulation that he could choose a
location farther north as he was a hunter and fisherman and
always enjoyed the beauty of the north woods and thought it would
be a good place to continue to raise our family. We liked the
Appleton area and as we like small towns and the country we moved
to New London. The children seemed to adapt to the change and
for a while we really were back basically to family activities as we
left relatives and friends behind. We bought a house in town and
an old farm consisting of approximately 81 acres in the country.
We spent weekends in the country exploring the land and grilling
out. Eventually creating a pretty large garden. It was fun to be
drawn close together again. Needless to say we did make wonderful
friends but our family always remained close. I stayed home again
with the family for about a year and then went to work at the
hospital in New London as a unit clerk and approximately a year
later moved to the medical record department where I became a
medical transcriptionist which I loved. Many times Mrs. Sandstrom
would pop into my mind and I knew she would have been happy to
see me using some of the skills that she had taught. Four years
after our move north we had a home built on our land in the
country. We all loved living out there but it seemed that all too
soon our family was starting to leave home, going off to school, or
getting married. It was hard being away from relatives and old
friends and we were always glad when they came up to spend some
time with us. We did big 4th of July cookouts with a hayride down
country roads for a lot of years and by then we had grandchildren
which made them even more fun. Through the years our family was
blessed with good health and we had much to be thankful for.

Lee was eligible for retirement from the Department of Justice
with the years that he had accrued in Muskego and it seemed like a
good time to move on to a new venture. Over the years we had
dreamed of one day owning and operation a supper club or
restaurant and had spent a good deal of time with friends who
were in the business trying to learn as much as possible. This
seemed a good opportunity and I left the hospital and Lee and I
bought a supper club called "Lee's". It was a wonderful experience
even though we both agreed we had never worked so hard in our
lives. We met a lot of wonderful people who were added to our list
of friends and learned a lot. Our children worked with us whenever
they were free along with their spouses and oujr youngest daughter
and oldest son were actually part of our work force. The
grandchildren were quite young at that time and they referred to
the restaurant as "the party". We had some pretty special family
Christmas celebrations there. I will always appreciate the work
staff and owners when I go out to eat knowing what a difficult job
they do to please the customer.

After returning to a more normal life style where 8 hour work days
seemed like a breeze I returned to the transcription position and
Lee went to several supervisory positions because he felt he was
too young to retire. We eventually sold the house and some of the
land in the country as suddenly, with the children moving on, the
house was just too large for us as our family of 7 became 3 and we
then returned to New London.

I tried over and over to do this biography and couldn't think of a
thing of interest but in looking back I saw a blur of happiness and
years passing just too quickly.

After our youngest daughter married we had a number of years on
our own enjoying the children and grandchildren. I have 10
grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. It is absolutely
wonderful.

In 2001 I lost the very special man in my life and 5 years later
our oldest son. I have wonderful memories but still many tears.

I continued to work and actually just retired on July 31,2009. I
finished my first week of retirement (which seems like a vacation)
and I am hoping the remainder will be as pleasant. I am looking
forward to time being spent with my family, (I am back to living in
the country next to my daughter on the land we originally
purchased up here, one of my very favorite spots) I love flower
gardening and will try to get better at that. I have many good
friends to enjoy, like to read, cook and loads of other things that
I have not taken the time to do in many years.