Introduction

By the time I had arrived in the world and was old enough to know them, my grandparents Pierpont were retired and lived in the lazy little village of Chatham, a few miles north of my hometown, Newark.,  Neither of them lived very far into my adulthood, so my memories of them were mostly as a child.

Grandpa (William) Pierpont passed away in 1955 while I was in the Navy and Grandma (Lily) lived only until about the time our daughter, Melony was born in 1956. Their home was simple and my grandfather raised gladiolus to make a little money selling them on the Columbus farmers market.,  He had lost “the old home place” early in the Great Depression.,  A deficiency judgment had been taken against him as a result.,  They had very little of this worlds goods but always radiated peace and contentment.,  They were members and workers in the Chatham Methodist Church, just on up the road from their home.,  Across the corner to the south Roberts Grocery and filling station presided over the village as its only business. [Read more...]

My mother was born Grace Geraldine Sasser on February 12, 1916 in Newark, Ohio, the youngest child of Charles and Anna Sasser. Mother lived with her family “in the south end.” If you were from Newark, as I was, everyone there was pretty much categorized by the end of town in which you lived. “The south end” was always a workingman’s neighborhood with humble homes and narrow streets.

It is the smaller end of town so students in Junior High School went to Central as Mother did. My mother then went to Newark High. She had a quick mind and shared the Sasser family attribute of a saucy tongue. She did all right in school but dropped out at the end of the ninth grade. [Read more...]