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updates from the last post are as follows: that pictures of my grandparents is probably from about the time my grandparents got engaged (they were engaged for 3 YEARS). my mother denies any memory of the proposed nick name of "Shelly" ok, so, now on to childhood........ from the time i was born until the day i got married, i changed permanent location 23 times. no, that's not a typo. so i tend to remember my childhood in terms of location. sometimes i get the order mixed up a little, especially from the earlier years. Let's start in Chicago. Chicago is where i was born. And it is my understanding that it took less than a year for my parents to decide to escape the big dirty city and find someplace else to live. And i know that the first 4 or so years of my life were spent in Grants, New Mexico; Seattle, Washington; and Houston, Texas. I think the order was Chicago, New Mexico, Houston, Seattle, then back to Houston. Here's what i actually remember: In 1979, i was ...

Please keep in mind that most the stories i've told thus far are just as i've heard them---or as i remember hearing them. Obviously i wasn't there. So this entry is new because i actually get to join the story this time. My parents were married on September 22, 1973. I was born on September 18, 1975. I was a pretty big baby--9 lbs 1/2 oz. And that was sort of the old days in that the doctor didn't have sophisticated means of determining the gender of the baby, so he told my parents right up until the day of my birth that i was going to be a boy. He could tell that by my broad shoulders. ha! fooled him. Then when i was born, he told my parents that they should name me Bertha....since i was so big. I don't think that was very nice. I know that my dad prayed for a "little girl just like her mom." And i was a little girl--just like her mom---well, not so much. But i really like my mom if that counts. =) They named me (in case you thought you knew my name but r...

Well, since, i wasn't around then, and i haven't heard any of the stories in a while, i asked my parents to retell the story of their engagement for me. That was like 4 months ago. Today, my mom responded. I'll just have to fill in from what i can remember for my dad's side. Well, if you've been reading, you know that my dad has just gotten saved and that he is going to church with my Uncle Chris. It's 1972, and my dad is 26/27 years old. He has told me in the past that he kept noticing my mom, but he was afraid to ask her out because he had her mixed up with another girl who was only 16 or 17 years old, and he didn't think that would be appropriate. Here's my mom's side. It was summer-fall of 1972. We met at church, it’s a little sketchy. I remember him standing in the lobby and he said “hi” as I walked by. I had seen him around, but I didn’t know him and so I wondered (to my self) why he said hi to me. (I had no interest in him.) I remember ...

My dad, while in Chicago, went through a LOT. Betrayed trust--by family and other. Disillusionment. Bereavement. He was pretty down. He had tried a church or two--searching, but was disappointed. Daddy was working as a driver's license examiner for the City of Chicago. I'm not sure exactly what that entails, but i know this part of the story. Daddy was at work one day, in some public building where people get their licenses renewed and such...when he saw a man wearing a little button on his jacket. Daddy says the small button looked like it was about a food wide instead of the half inch or so that it was, and it read "Jesus is Lord." Daddy's searching heart couldn't let that go, and he stopped the man and said, "Young man, i sure hope you mean that!" Well, the man wearing the button didn't wear it half-heartedly, and he sort of snapped to attention and told Daddy, "Yes sir, i sure do!" And thus began a conversation that was divinely...

I told you that Daddy was born to a Mennonite family and community in Fairview Michigan. He was raised in the church and taught many things. ***A Little Info on the Mennonite Church*** I am told that there are 19 branches of the Mennonite church, ranging from the Amish (the people in the horse-n-buggies) to the most liberal branch that doesn't look much different than your average Baptist church. The most of what i can understand about Mennonite beliefs is that they are against worldly things. For instance, Mennonite men do not wear ties (a rule many other men would love to adopt, i think) because ties are too worldly. Some Mennonite women dress very similarly to the United Pentecostal women who we see around here....with long hair and always wearing a dress and so forth. And in conformity with the scriptures that talk about a woman's need to wear a covering on her head, Mennonite women wear a little covering made of netting on top of their buns on their heads.*** Daddy w...

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...