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ok, where was i? oh yes, grandma and grandpa... here's an interesting portrayal of a beautiful story as i have understood and put together details i've heard over the years......and as always, if my parents find that i have inadvertently falsified anything, they will let me know, and i will make corrections. My Grandpa Barker wasn't actually from the small town of Fairview. In fact, the genealogy of that part of the family is very difficult to decipher. We've figured out that he was from Ohio, and we know that town, and we know his dad's name, but after that, some things are kind of weird and hard to understand----------but i digress.... ...Grandpa Barker wasn't actually Mennonite either. The entire town of Fairview in those days (and largely in these days) was Mennonite. Or if not Mennonite they were the stricter version of Amish (you know the folks up north in horses and buggies? those are my cousins.) I don't really know the timeline of Grandpa'...

I called this an autobiography, and i seem to have mostly caught up my present day (with i'm sure some spaces that will later be filled), so it seems it is time to flash back. Since there was, though my memory of it is sometimes foggy, a time before my marriage, perhaps you would like to hear of it also. I will see if i might scoop from my memory a few stories that will glorify the Lord. And in thinking about it, i think it will not be difficult, since the Lord's glory is so easily evident. =) The Beginning Instead of telling you the beginning of me, i think i will venture before the beginning of me and tell you what i know of the beginning of those who came before me. My mother. My mother is, by genetics, 100% Swedish/Estonian. I say it that way because there is a small island that is part of the country of Estonia that my mom says is kind of "old sweden." The name of the island is Wormso (pronounced a little more like "vermsee"...well, sort of). My grandfa...

For as long as i can remember--within my marriage at least, my husband has had the burning desire to go to school. He started going a couple of times, and money would run out, or work would interfere--or whatever. But he LOVES to learn! And he's very very good at learning...way better than i have ever been. A couple of times when he had tried to go to school part time while working, it became evident to me that my husband's passionate nature (which i love!) made it very very difficult for him to put his all into both things....either he would be passionate about school and work would kind of be on autopilot, or work would take his passion, and school would suffer. If you know my husband very well, you might know that when i talk about his passion, i'm talking about an almost all-consuming preoccupation with the task at hand. When he gets started on a project, he'll stay up for days with little or no sleep or food completing the task. He has sort of the personality of a ...

I don't remember the exact turn of events, but we found out that we could get a two bedroom for not too much, and so Jen moved back in with us. We put what furniture we salvaged in storage., and at some point, we worked out a plan so that Jen wouldn't have to pay rent if she would keep up with the housework. The Motel provided maid service, but none of us were ever around when the maid was, and none of us really wanted anyone in there when we weren't home, so....so much for maid service. It's an old place. I think it used to be called The Manor apartments. The plumbing wasn't great. A couple times a month, we would be called and asked not to use water because our water was overflowing in the room downstairs. The furniture had been used about a hundred times before. And the walls were definitely too thin. But it was a resting place. And once again, i began to realize how the fire had freed us from things that were holding us back. And God did a lot of heali...

.......well, what now? The fire person walked us through everything and asked James a hundred questions to make sure he hadn't set the house on fire on purpose. As it turned out, James had been cooking some french fries or other greasy potato product in oil on the stove when Jen-pa called needing a ride home from work. James quickly turned the burner off and rushed off (french fries in hand) to pick up Jen. That's pretty much exactly what happened except the part about turning the burner off. That was actually when he accidently turned the burner under the hot oil to "high". The origin of the fire was obviously coming from that pan of hot oil that had apparently caught fire and ignited the cabinets. In chapter 7, i told you about the heroic man who resorted to firefighting by water hose. The fire man said that the fire was pretty much extinguished by the time the fire truck even arrived. And because of that man, the fire never left the kitchen. The rest of the house ...

ok, let's see. my mother-in-law would say we were just bee-boppin' along. everything is grand. you know poor priorities can get you in bad places. i don't remember all the details at this point. but i do remember that for some reason money wasn't coming in anymore like it had been, and well, that car that the Lord had allowed us through don and brenda....we had to give it back. this is one of my greatest regrets. but the Lord has ministered a great forgiveness to us through the body of Christ....and that's all i will say about that. during the time that we had that car, my friend meredith (you probably know meredith) had a wreck in her beautiful white nissan sentra (no fault of her own), and subsequently purchased her chevy tracker. meredith voluntarily provided my and husband and me transportation wherever we needed to go from november through march. that's just amazing! she has always said that her truck is God's truck. in march, we finally got to a place ...

My husband calls this journal the "warts and all version." Here's some more..... As a child, i was expected to be the first among my friends to get married and have children. As a child, i planned to have many children and to marry and start having them by age 20. When i was in college, i planned to be a great teacher and have a career and be successful--or move to Germany and be a missionary working with a church in former East Germany (but that part was before we decided for sure to get married). Anyway, the point is that lots of things change. This is a particularly "warty" entry because i don't talk about this stuff much. But i was going through my journal the other day and found myself horribly disturbed by the overwhelming concentration on a desire to have children. Like i said, i've always planned to have lots of kids and never even considered anything that would hinder that. When i was nineteen, James and i were planning to get marrie...