It all began on June 12, 2002, with MacKenzie Anne entering this world at 11:07 AM. She was perfect.

From Grammy...

What follows is a speech that Grammy was asked to deliver to a group of women in 2000

My life on the road began in early childhood. I don't remember the addresses, but I do remember the white house, the brown house, the green house, two boarding houses, a foster home, and the Capital Hill house-all by the fifth grade. For schools there were Daniel Bagley, Fairview, Stevens, and Edmonds. In February of grade five we moved to Snohomish. Five more moves before my senior year, but fortunately all in Snohomish so the schools remained the same. I think my mother preferred to move rather than clean.

My senior year my mother, step-father and brother moved into a one-room cabin on some lake property they had purchased a few miles out of town. With no power and no running water my one and only teen-age rebellion kicked in. I refused to move into the cabin. So they rented a room in a boarding house for me. I lived alone for a month or two until they tired of the rustic cabin life and moved back to town, this time into an apartment above a grocery store on First Street. It is now a lovely antique store. So, perhaps you can well imagine I had one goal in my life. I wanted to get married, have five babies and live in ONE house forever. I thank God that it was Earl, He brought into my life at that time.

We met his senior year. He went on to the University of Oregon. I had two more years of high school, but the letters went back and forth daily. I had quite a collection, which I only recently disposed of. The summer after I graduated he went to Alaska to work for a construction company and to play semi-pro baseball to earn enough for us to get married. When he returned in September we were married on his twentieth birthday, September 9, 1951.

A week later we were settled in our first apartment in Eugene, Oregon. We lived on $100 a month. Rent was only $26. We had an ice box, wood stove and No car so it wasn't all that difficult-until the first term ended and we needed to come up with out of state tuition for me to continue at the U. We decided it would be cheaper for me to drop out and have a baby, which is exactly what I wanted.

We spent our first anniversary, Earl's 21—birthday; in the hospital with false labor perhaps brought about by wishful thinking. Michael arrived four days later. And he was so much fun we decided we'd have another right away. So when Earl graduated in June Mike was 9 months old and I was 6 months pregnant. He had signed a contract to teach in a small town in southern Oregon. The day before the graduation ceremony he received a call from the Cleveland Indians asking him to fly back for a try-out. Up to this point I knew little about baseball other than his dad had played for the Indians for 10 years. I never even considered it in our future, how very naive I was. Off he flew to Cleveland, missing the graduation ceremony.

He called a day or two later with the news that he had been assigned to a Class A team in Reading. I thought, "That's not so bad", until he added Reading, Pennsylvania, not Redding, California. There I was in Eugene with a 9-month-old, 6 months pregnant, no car and no idea of what to do. My grandfather drove from Seattle. We rented a trailer, which we piled high and topped with about 20 of Earl's balsa wood airplanes. By the time we arrived in Snohomish the word "airplanes" could be replaced with balsa dust.

Shortly after I arrived in Snohomish Earl called from Reading, Pa. With the news he had been offered a job for the winter in Cleveland. I knew I could not be traveling in September when the ball season would end so when old family friends of his parents, people I had yet to meet, invited Mike and I to stay with them in Cleveland it made sense to accept their offer. In July we flew to Cleveland. The Jostis family met us at the airport and was very gracious to us. But it was very long 2-1/2 months before Earl arrived from Reading, just 23 hours before Carol's birth. She was 9 days late. Mike had been 4 days early. I wasn't about to have her until he was there. While we were still in the hospital a day or so later Earl arrived for a visit AND the news that Cleveland wanted him to play winter ball in Venezuela and play would begin in 2 weeks.

The doctor arrived about this time and I said, "Guess what? We're going to Venezuela." He said, "You're NOT going for 6 weeks." I cried for two days. Earl flew south, but not before we had our passport picture taken, me with a babe in each arm. And reservations made for the babies and I to fly to New York spend a night in a hotel, fly on to Miami and then to Venezuela as soon as the doctor said okay. I was absolutely terrified of the entire plan, but I was not staying in Cleveland any longer. God was looking after me, as usual. A few days before our scheduled departure Earl called from Maracaibo with the news that he had to come home for surgery. THANK GOD FOR HEMORRHOIDS.

He arrived back in Cleveland; we loaded up the car and headed west for an adventuresome trip to Snohomish. We nearly burned down one motel sterilizing bottles on a hot plate we had placed on a vinyl stool. Not a good idea! But five days later we arrived in Snohomish and proudly showed off the first baby girl born in the family in two generations.

February 1954 came and spring training—no wives allowed. Since we knew he would be playing that season in Reading again (how we could be so sure of that fact I'll never know) we drove east to Reading, another adventuresome trip with a Snowstorm in Ohio. A truck had jack-knifed in the road, which closed all the roads, and there were no vacancies in any motel. The police came to our rescue and found a wonderful couple who took the four of us into their home for the night. Eventually we arrived in Reading, moved the babies and me into a row house and Earl hitched a ride to Florida with the club trainer in the old rickety team bus, a 1938 White vehicle. He has his own stories to tell about that bus.

We had wonderful neighbors who took me under their wing for the next six weeks—A LONG SIX WEEKS. The team arrived back in town in April and other wives and kids began to arrive. It was a wonderful summer. The kids and I never missed a home game. And then September came, the season ended and back to Snohomish we drove, planning to spend the months there until February.

We barely arrived when Earl received a call from Cleveland requesting that he play Winter Ball again, this time in Colombia, South America. Well, I had my unused passport from the previous year and I wasn't staying home alone again. It was a long flight to Barranquilla, Colombia (no jets in those days). We arrived about 7:30 P.M. in a very hard rainstorm, two hungry babies, badly in need of diaper changes to stand in a long line to go through customs. We were finally delivered to our very lovely apartment, which was on the third floor. The rest of the team lived on the first floor. It turned that I was the only wife bullheaded enough to make the trip.
The team had a cook and she sent up food for us as we had no stove, no hot water, and no washing facilities. Two babies in diapers that were soon trained. The British Consulate and family lived across the hall from us. Their three daughters were about my age and were a great help. Besides being good friends they took the kids and I to church every Sunday while the team headed to the ballpark. I got really brave one night and hired a babysitter (probably for the first time) and rode on the bus with the team to an out of town game in Cartagena. Turned out not to be a regular, run of the mill game. A fight broke out on the field and Earl was hit on the head with his own catcher's mask. He was stretched out on the field, blood spewing forth and total chaos prevailed. Eventually the police, with rifles drawn, escorted us to the bus and out of town. That was my first and last road trip in Colombia. Earl was given a tetanus shot to which he had a very bad reaction in the middle of the night. Luckily I have blocked the rest of that story from my mind.

But we did take a little fishing trip on an off day. Someone loaned us a small motor boat and off we went across the Magdalena River—the largest in Colombia-and to my memory it was larger than our mighty Mississippi River at its widest spot. From the river we entered the jungle through a narrow canal that snaked its way to the ocean. Appropriate reptiles, alligators, were on the sides of the canal; a small hut built on a curve of the canal—a couple children about the ages of ours in the hut with no clothes on—and no walls on the hut. We had to go very slow around the curve to keep from throwing water into their home. We finally emerged into the ocean, where these huge tarpons were all about. A fisherman' s paradise if he was in a large boat, which we most certainly weren't. Earl wisely decided not to fish and soon we headed back through the canal and into the river when the pin holding the motor to the boat broke. There we were drifting down the river, all four of us without life vests. As panic was taking over Earl managed to get the motor going again and we quickly made it to shore. That was my first and last fishing trip in Colombia.

February 1955 came and back to Snohomish for the kids and me and on to Florida for Earl for spring training. In April he was assigned to the Triple A team in Indianapolis. The kids and I loaded up the car and drove to Indianapolis where we lived until June when he was assigned to the Nashville team. We rented a huge old house in Nashville and really enjoyed three months there. Winter arrived and with it Winter Ball in Hermosillo, Mexico. As it turned out we spent the next two winters in Hermosillo and enjoyed it very much. There were five Americans on the team and their families. We became very good friends and ended up in several other cities together through out the following years.

At opening night in Hermosillo there were too many fans, and not enough seats for the players' families so we sat in the dugout with the players. Once was enough of that, too. We became good friends with a Mexican family that owned the local hobby shop. They were so nice to us and had children the ages of Mike and Carol, plus three more at that time. Two years ago their youngest son who wasn't born until several years later was transferred to Everett with McDonald Douglas. Fernando looked us up on the Internet. It has been great fun meeting Fernando and being able to return some of the hospitality his family gave us so many years ago. We are his family up here and see him often and hope to have his parents visit in the near future, their health permitting.

The second year we lived in Hermosillo a little stray cat moved in with us and when February 1956 arrived and it was time to head north. Fernando's parents adopted Little Gray Cat, which was quite a feat because Lauro did not like cats at that time. Little Gray Cat lived several more years and they have not been without a cat since. In 1956 Earl spent another spring training in Florida and it was off to Snohomish for the rest of the family. In April we loaded up the car and the kids and I drove to Cleveland where Earl had rented a lovely (expensive) apartment. We lived there six weeks until we could move into a house we had been promised.

The night we moved into the house a tornado came down our street. We were the only ones on that block that could get out of their driveway the next morning. Six days later Earl and I were watching the ten P.M. news on TV and learned that he had been sent down to Indianapolis. We spent the next two months in Indianapolis; survived a flood that covered the first floor of the apartment house we lived in. Luckily we had a second floor apartment. In June we were in Cleveland for the rest of the season. Back we went to Hermosillo for the winter and in February 1957 spring training was in Tucson, Arizona, and families could go, too. In April Earl joined the San Diego baseball team at their spring training in Ontario, California.

I decided I would return to Seattle to visit our families and show off the kids. I dropped him off in Ontario and headed north. We left very early in the morning to avoid the freeway traffic. I had been driving over two hours when I spotted the road sign - 99 South. I was almost to San Diego. I managed to turn around and headed back to Ontario where we met Earl for lunch. He was a little surprised as I should have been around Sacramento but anyone who has driven with me knows I have very little sense of direction. How I ever end up at my desired destination is always a mystery.
From there we went to San Diego in the Pacific Coast League. That was a wonderful place to live, before the huge migration of people arrived there. Then it was back to Seattle for the winter. We bought a hobby shop on Roosevelt Way and Earl commuted back and forth from Winslow.

We found someone to manage the shop and in February 1958 went back to Tucson and then to San Diego once more. Earl had a great season and in the middle of a pennant race Cleveland recalled him causing much commotion in San Diego. The fans were irate. It was a strange experience to see the name of xxxxxx on the front page of the San Diego Union on every street-corner. He flew off to join the Cleveland club, and I being seven months pregnant with our third opted to drive to Seattle. Earl joined us the first of October and Randy was born on the 15th. During that winter Earl was sold to the Chicago Cubs.

In those days players had virtually no say as to where they were going and negotiations regarding salary were non-negotiable. You signed your signature on the dotted line or you stayed home. No one was allowed in camp without a signed contract and it was to your advantage to arrive on time. Spring Training 1959 was in Florida that year so the kids and I stayed home until April when we drove to Chicago. Earl had rented us a house before the team left on the first road trip. So I drove into Chicago, found the house, and located the landlord (he lived next door). He gave us the key and I asked him for directions to the airport as the team was arriving home about 2 A.M. He looked at me like I was crazy for even thinking of driving to the airport at that hour. Didn't stop me. But, I did put Mike on a pillow in the front seat with a hat on his head and a cigar in his mouth. He loved his part in the charade and I felt safer. Many times through the seasons we made the early morning runs to the airports. I'd always get Mike up first, put his robe and slippers on him and then get Carol and Randy ready. All set to go but where was Mike? He was fast asleep under the dining room table.

We loved Chicago. What a treat to have all day games! Wrigley Field was the last hold out for installing lights. Life was almost normal with dinners at six instead of 11 or midnight. We always went to the home games so the kids stayed on our schedule. We spent two seasons in Chicago and a couple of months in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville was a fun place to live also. Back to Seattle for the next winter. In December 1960 the newly formed Los Angeles Angels, owned by Gene Autry purchased his contract. This marked the beginning of what I call "The Glamour Years.”
We spent 1961 spring training in Palm Springs. A very memorable event was Dwight David Eisenhower coming up to Earl to tell how much he had enjoyed following Earl's dad's baseball career. We attended a party at one of Bob Hope's homes. He wasn't there, but three of Bing Crosby's sons were. There were only about twenty of us and it was a real dud of a party, but it was fun seeing the house.

During a golf tournament at Indian Wells I rode in a golf cart with Edie Adams. I don't remember too much about her, but I'm impressed each time her name is used in one of the crossword puzzles I do daily. There was a dinner party with James Garner. He pulled out the winning raffle ticket with our name on it. .. we got a box of steaks. A dinner party hosted by Walter Winchell; my stepfather was most envious. He never missed Winchell's Sunday night newscast during the war. And dinner parties at Gene Autry's house a beautiful place. I remember the gold records hanging on the walls, the very beautiful multi terraced yard with a large swimming pool on one of the levels. Earl remembers the extremely plush carpets and the extremely well stocked bar.

Unfortunately, Gene had been imbibing long before we arrived. He met us at the door and soon after sat in his chair and went to sleep. His wife Ina was a wonderful hostess and saved the party. She died a few years later and I hope his second wife is as helpful. I rode up in the elevator at Dodger Stadium with Pat Boone. Marilyn Monroe was in the dugout with the team just 6 days before she died. We wives participated in a style show at Dodger Stadium. I still wear the sweater I modeled that day. The dress was too small even that day, but they insisted it was my size. Never wore it again. All were very glamorous events at the time.

In 1961 we bought our first house in Anaheim, our first furniture. The house was located directly between Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. We had only nine days that summer when we were without houseguests. One weekend there were 23 of us—5 totally unexpected. My brother is notorious for little surprises. During that summer Earl's two nephews, Barry, 11, and Brian, 9, just 12 days older than Mike, moved in with us for a year. Carol still holds a grudge since we subjected her to 4 boys for a year. She did receive more than her share of teasing. But it has been very gratifying to receive letters from Brian through out the years always thanking us for the best year in his childhood. He has lived in Europe for 30 years now and he and his family were wonderful tour guides when we went to Amsterdam last year.
We spent ten years in the Anaheim house, a record by a long way for me. In 1963 Earl was sold to the Philadelphia Phillies. He learned of this transaction as he was driving home on the LA freeway and listening to the sports news. He went to Spring Training in Florida once again. We stayed in Anaheim until school was out, then packed the car and drove to Philadelphia. We spent that summer taking in all the historical sights we could find. Then it was back to Anaheim. During the winters he did a lot of substitute teaching. At last his teaching credential was used.
He finished his baseball career with the Seattle Rainiers in 1964 and 1965. He was sent a contract for the 1966 season. With a lot of advice from me it was decided that was the year to retire. The next five years he worked in the computer business. In 1969 our little bonus, Julie Anne, arrived. Carol was delighted to have a sister at last. What a joy to experience a more normal way of raising a child.

In 1971 Earl accepted a position on the development staff at Claremont Men's College. So we moved 40 miles north to Alta Loma, now known as Rancho Cucamonga, where we purchased our second house. After four years the crowds began moving in and all the orange grooves we had been surrounded by disappeared. It was time to come home to Washington. He accepted a job as Director of Development at St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma and we purchased our third house, this time in Gig Harbor. We lived there for eight years until he took a job in north Seattle. I was working in Tacoma at the time so we settled on Auburn as a halfway point for one year. That was 17 years ago.

We still have the Gig Harbor house and may retire there someday, but with each additional year here in Auburn it gets harder to think about ONE MORE MOVE.
"Life on the road" could have been much easier and a lot less exciting if I had been like the average player's wife and stayed put, only spending a couple of months each season in the home city. But I felt a family belongs together as much as possible.
We are extremely fortunate and only by the grace of God our children have survived and thrived. All are college educated, three graduating with honors. All have great jobs and wonderful families. We attended a reunion of retired Major League Baseball Players about six years ago and I was a rarity, a first wife.

Baseball is still good to us. We've had several cruises. Earl had to "work" six hours during each week for which we received first class accommodations. We receive many invitations to golf events and reunions and old timers’ games. One special occasion was the year Earl's dad was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. That was in August 1975. Most of the family attended the event in Cooperstown, but as we were in the midst of moving up here I opted to wait. Each year after that his dad attended the annual induction ceremony and we accompanied him in 1980. It was most impressive.

We were also invited to attend the 1994 opening day ceremonies for the new Jacobs Field in Cleveland. Earl participated in the ceremonies to display his dad's retired uniform in the right field stands. After the pre-game ceremonies he was escorted toward his seat through the tunnel. President Clinton was about to make an entrance and the secret service delayed everyone under the stadium until after the president had completed his wanderings. Earl arrived at his seat after the second inning much to his disgust.

It amazes me that after 34 years of being retired Earl still receives fan mail regularly. It's amusing when the letter starts out, "You were my favorite player." And you know a child wrote it.

Would I trade all those years of moving about? Never! It wasn't always easy, but the joys and adventures were wonderful and have given us lots of great memories. I thank God for them all. A few words about the past 17 years may be in order. As I said earlier we never intended to stay here, but we found this such a warm welcoming community we just haven't gotten around to leaving. I had been working in an upholstery shop in Tacoma for 11 years. I decided to quit. I applied for a business license with the intention to do a few simple part time jobs such as throw pillows and window seat cushions. But while visiting the Design Center in Seattle one day I ran into a designer I had worked with in Tacoma for the past few years. Without a word he showed up at my house the next week with a huge truck full of furniture to be reupholstered. That was 13 years ago, the beginning of a very booming business. He still brings me too much work, but he has interesting clients and works with beautiful fabrics, so I cater to him. One of his recent clients is the fellow who invented the board game, Pictionary. It was neat doing work for his seven million dollar house. And I'm grateful to all the many people of Auburn who have entrusted their furniture to our care. Earl gave up his computer business to help me. I love telling everyone he works for me. People ask when I'll retire. I got such a late start at this "second life"; I'm still enjoying it so who knows how long it will be.