Talk about a money grab, almost every character in this story, myself included were driven by money to some degree. The Fontaine's were trying to get something for nothing and the Perrier's were trying to keep it. The Fontaine's were trying to break Evelyn Fontaine Perrier's last will and testament so they could get some of the money that went to the Perrier family after her husband was declared mentally incompetent five years after her death. They claimed that Joe pushed her into the raging river. Her body was never found.
    The judge and his staff were paid from court costs calculated by the day so they had no reason to have the trial end quickly. The jurors were paid a stipend for each day, most of whom were unemployed and needed the money. The lawyers were paid by the hour for preparing and presenting their cases so naturally they dragged the trial on as long as possible. Only the two families were interested in a quick trial.
    If the last witness had been first, the judge would have to have ended the trial on the third day, although there was a definite reason the last witness was last. As it was the trial began in mid January 1931 and didn't end until mid April after nearly eighty witness had been called, about equal number for both sides. The judge always had some excuse for being late, always took a long lunch break, and the defense and prosecution made sure that it took at least a day for each witness. If they failed to do so, the judge would recess the trial till the next day.
    A letter from the court requesting my presents as a potential juror began my involvement with the case. I was dismissed because I knew one of the lawyers, but after hearing all the rumors about the case, I decided to listen to the entire trial with the hope of writing a story I could sell. Like many people during the Great Depression, I needed money.
    I had moved away from home two years before, but as a matter of survival, I was forced to return home after the factory where I worked closed. By going to the trial each day, my dad could bank the coal stove and save some fuel during the day while the house was empty. I ate my noon meal at the soup kitchen. The house would be cold when I got home and it was my job to restart the coal stove. I wrote on every square inch of my note paper and when I rewrote my notes, the original was used to restart the fire.
    After reorganizing the fractured story presented by the witnesses into a coherent whole I tried without success to sell the story partly because the complete testimony was printed each day in the local newspapers.  My manuscript was passed from one family member to another, each editing some part or offering a different approach. The following was my final rewrite.
    Evelyn and Joe were strong minded, egotistical, money conscious people drawn to each other like moths to a flame. They had a fiery relationship of love and hate. They were always arguing about something only to be followed by a torrid make up. It was no different on the day of her death.
    They had walked to the 'Swamp', it really wasn't much of a swamp, a short distance from their home which was near a bend in a large river. They both enjoyed sitting on a bench they had placed near the end of a point of land from which they could watch the sun rise or set as the case maybe over open water. Further from the water they had placed several picnic tables, between what few trees there were, to encourage other people to enjoy the place.
    To the north, about thirty feet, the river could not be seen because the 'Swamp' was created by a thin vertical clay layer about five feet high which prevented the 'Swamp' from draining directly into the river. The small creek that created the 'Swap', came from the south, flowed through a culvert under the road, that ran in front of their home, and then from the 'Swamp' it flowed east parallel to the river until it made a small water fall to join the river. From an airplane it would have been obvious that  the 'Swamp' was nothing more than a small sand pit covered with about three feet of water formed by an old bend in the river that had deposited the sand behind the clay layer as the river carved a new path. The farm land to the east and west ended where the wet sand would not hold the weight of farm animals. From there to the open water only small bushes and a few small trees along with cattails and the like grew.
    That day they were arguing about how to reinvest Evelyn's inheritance, money was the most frequent reason behind their arguments. Joe had made the last reinvestment decision against Evelyn's wishes and she knew he was wrong but he would not admitted it and she would not let him forget. She had made money on the previous reinvestment, but he was so sure he knew a way to make more, but it didn't.
    First one would walk around the bench arguing their point while the other sat, then they would trade places. This time they were very heated and they could be heard a long way off causing the few people present to move further away from them. Joe had sat down and she was walking around the bench. As she walked around toward the tip of the point she walked to the end and this is where the story differs between the two families and what the jury had to decide. According to Joe and his family, when he heard the roar, he jumped up and ran to catch her, according to the Fontains, he pushed her into the raging waters.
    Prior to that instant a very unusual event had occurred. Up stream the river divided into three branches, each of the three water sheds had heavy rain fall, not enough for anyone to worry about, but no one anticipated that the surge of water from the three branches would all converge at the same time eroding the base of the thin clay layer holding back the 'Swamp'. The event didn't occur until after the flood waters had passed. That is when the five feet of water and sand behind the clay layer was not balanced by the high water in the river and it burst through the weaken clay layer with a roar and the tip of the point slid down into a swirling mixture of sand and water. The event created a new bend in the river and a new sand bar and during that instant, Evelyn disappeared.

    Great uncle Hiram was Evelyn's grandfather's brother and since his legacy to Evelyn was a common cause for their arguments the prosecution went into great detail about Evelyn's relationship to 'Uncle' as Evelyn called him in order to establish that Joe was jealous and therefore had a motive to kill Evelyn.
    Uncle was a colorful character, very likable, very helpful, but he had a very strong wanderlust. From the time he could walk, he spent every available moment exploring. He just had to see over the next hill or around the next bend. Several times before he graduated from high school he would be gone for three or four days because his exploration took him farther from home than he realized. As a result he learned to live off the land, hunger is a strong motivating force. He became an excellent marksman and learned how to fish. He found a six foot hard wood limb that became his walking stick, it also served as a fishing pole. He kept a length of line and a hook in his bed roll along with a pan and a spoon.
    His father gave him a brand new rifle for his eighteenth birthday, his brother gave him a hunting knife. Both realized that he would never be a farmer. Uncle told his father to give his share of the farm to his brother because he didn't know when he would be back and he left the next morning.
    Uncle literally walked across our country. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing. He could repair or build almost any thing. As a result he made many very fast friends very quickly. He could tell stories about his adventures for months without repeating himself. His travels took him around the world. He spoke seven languages and could write fluently in three of them. Unlike the rest of the family he never wanted wealth, but it found him against his will. He would give his money to who ever needed it whenever he had some. In the process he helped create the fortunes of many people and they did not forget. In fact, he was such a character that anyone who met him even briefly, never forgot him. They would swear that they could recognize him walking over a hill a mile away. These same people would bend over backwards to help him should their paths ever cross again.
    Because of his life style he needed very little and wanted even less. He was a large man and walked very fast for long periods of time, thirty miles a day on level ground was nothing. He used boats, horses, and mules when needed, but he gave them away when he no longer needed them. Most people would force him to take something in trade.
    He had been sick many times and the last fever forced him to return home after more than thirty years of wandering. In his last years he used trains and boats much more often. When he returned he still had his rifle and hunting knife, but a different walking stick and bed roll. He also had one additional possession, a large hump top sea chest. His sister offered him a second story bedroom over looking the river which could be seen from a comfortable rocking chair. He was quite content, even his wanderlust left him.
    He was no sooner settled than the mail began to arrive, how it found him was anyone's guess. He wrote several letters each day and received a like number, but arthritis in his writing hand quickly prevented him from writing and this is how his relationship with Evelyn began. Evelyn had a very good hand, all her teachers praised her writing. Evelyn stopped by one day to find no one at home and left a note on the kitchen table. When her aunt read the note, the precision and clarity of her writing sparked a thought in her aunt's mind and the next time Evelyn came to visit her aunt said, 'Evelyn why don't you write Uncle Hiram's letters for him?' Evelyn liked the idea and went to uncle and asked him if he would allow her to write his letters for him. He said yes almost before she finished her question. As uncle's eye sight began to fail, she read his letters to him as well. In the process she learned several languages as well as geography.
    Uncle never discarded the letters he received, he dropped them into his sea chest. Evelyn was surprised how heavy the sea chest was when she tried to move it once. The top had four wide straps that held uncle's few clothes in place when the top was closed. The walls of the sea chest were thick, but the top was very light, how could the top be light and the chest heavy when it contained nothing but letters, a fact that puzzled her, a puzzle that would be answered later.

    Evelyn was status conscious by the time she could choose her own clothes. She had to have the best, the newest, the most fashionable. Her hair and make up were impeccable. She was average in stature and looks with a small, but very clear voice. She enunciated and projected her words so well she could be understood across a crowded room. She was not athletic, but very graceful. She did most things very well. She developed an obsession for wealth over the years. She had to have nice things, as she called them, about her.
    After her grandfather retired from farming, her father's wealth steadily increased, so much so that he stopped farming and created a bank. His business sense was a newly found gift. It seemed as if everything he touched turned to gold. He married the daughter of a wealthy land owner about a year after he took over the family farm. She was a very likable woman, but she was very demanding and fortunately for him his income always stayed ahead of her demands, so family life was very congenial, but almost always money centered.
    Evelyn had a bank account at age ten and quickly learned about compound interest when the time came. She did odd jobs for her dad at the bank and by the time she graduated from high school she could do the books for the bank. Bookkeeping and accounting were a snap for her. She became the chief financial officer of the bank two years after college graduation, Uncle died the year before, his health failed very rapidly during the last year. He left his bank account to his sister and his sea chest and all of its belongings to Evelyn. Two strong men carried the sea chest to her bedroom, she removed his clothing and there it sat. She didn't go through the letters until after she was married.
    Her cousin's father bought him a car and the two of them became one of the first college commuters. They drove ten miles to the next town to college four days a week and that allowed her to continue to read and write uncle's letters. School work was easy for her, much credit had to be given to the education she received by reading and writing uncle's letters as well as her work at the bank. She knew arithmetic, bookkeeping, accounting, French, Spanish, and geography as well as her instructors.
    She knew all the right people in town and they knew her. She thoroughly enjoyed her status and position and if anything threaten it, she would be all over it like a duck on a June bug, she protected it vigorously. She was a member of all the right organizations. She could talk about many topics and gave talks to selected groups. Obviously, she was in demand for almost every social occasion and it was no wonder that she blew Joe off his feet. He couldn't believe the capabilities of this woman. The only thing that disturbed Joe when he learned about it was her preoccupation with money. Why it disturbed him is a mystery, so was he. Talk about two people being a like, they only differed on where and how they would spend their money. She gave up her bank job the day after Joe purposed so she could spend full time on planning their wedding. What a wedding it was, a gala event for the whole town, but she didn't spend one cent of her own money, daddy did.
    A year after the wedding she finally sat down and sorted Uncle's letters by person by date and then proceeded to read the letters he had put there before he came home. She was pregnant and had a lot of spare time. Sadly, she aborted a week later. After she recovered emotionally, she proceeded with the reading of the letters. She was surprised to find bank account books in three of the letters, the accounts were opened by people uncle had helped, in his name with large opening amounts, but had not been updated since. When she wrote letters to each of the banks she was again surprised, the donors had continued to add small amounts over many years making each account a small fortune in its own right. Each of the banks hoped she would leave the money in their bank after they put her name on the account and she did until she recovered. It took several months before she could think about it rationally and of course Joe didn't help the situation, he was always trying to tell her what to do with the money.
     In order to clear her mind she returned to Uncle's letters, finished reading the last of them and turned them over to the local historical society which was a bonanza for them. Several members consolidated the letters into a book and it was a publishing success. The society never lacked for funds after that. She couldn't make up her mind about what to do with the empty chest, she still could not figure out why an empty chest was still so heavy.
    One day she was idly wiping out the chest when she noticed that the inside bottom of the chest was much higher than it should be compared to the thickness of the walls. She didn't think much about it before, but there was a small offset all away around the bottom of the chest like it might be a bottom tray and sure enough when she press against the off set on opposite sides and raise her hands, it came with her hands. She almost passed out when she found neatly stacked twenty dollar gold coins filling the entire bottom of the chest. Slowly, she put the tray back and closed the top, lay on her bed and tried to think. She didn't know what to do, she would have to wait for Joe to come home.
    Joe knew what to do, the next day two strong men carried the chest to their truck and took it to the bank. The bank employees transferred the coins to several protective cases and placed them in the vault. Between the three bank accounts and the gold plus their own personal assets they were now very wealthy and the arguments increased.
    The find also explained two things that had puzzled her. First it explained why the chest was so heavy and second it explained a story Uncle told her, the ending of which seem trivial, but now was monumental and the cryptic letters he received from someone in New Orleans. In one letter completely out of context, it said, 'Ace, duce, tray.' Another said, 'Did you get to the bottom of it, yet'. A third, 'You need two hands to raise it up'.
    During his travels through the mountains following his penchant to see what was around the next bend, uncle found a middle aged prospector unconscious, his legs were badly bruised, but no broken bones, his mule dead. He must have dove to get out of the way when he heard the rock slide coming, but the mule was not so lucky, it was hit by the bulk of the slide.
    Uncle set up camp not far away, made the prospector as comfortable as possible, wet his lips with water, and waited. While he waited he explored the valley the prospector was going into when the rock slide hit. Using the prospector's pan he quickly discovered why the prospector was there, he had discovered gold. Uncle followed the small stream, checking every smaller stream joining it. Before the end of the next day he discovered the mother lode. When he returned to camp the prospector was regaining consciousness. Slowly, uncle nursed him back to health, but he still could not walk. The prospector told uncle where to go to find the next town and where to go from there to file a claim. By then uncle had panned enough gold to buy a mule and supplies.
    The first thing uncle did was to file a claim using the prospectors map, but he filed the claim in the prospector's name not his own. Since he was in a mining town he could sell his small amount of gold without starting a gold rush. When he left he made sure no one followed him, he returned, and stayed with the prospector until he was able to establish the gold mine and when every thing was under control his wanderlust returned and he had to leave. The prospector was dumbfounded when he discovered that uncle had placed the claim in his name and swore he would pay him back some day.
    Well, that day came on uncle's return home. When he got off the boat in New Orleans who should he run into but the prospector waiting for his nephew. The prospector would not hear of it, he had to come and stay at his estate at least for a while, which he did. Uncle turned down all his offers to split his wealth and refused all gifts. He finally condescended to accept the sea trunk and train fare home.

    Joe was, pardon the words, an average Joe. He had no exceptional abilities except for one, he instinctively recognized a good investment when is saw it. His life followed nearly the same path as Evelyn except his family had been in the banking business since they came to this country and he lived in the college town so he didn't have to commute. He was not an outstanding student and struggled to keep his grades up high enough to graduate. Like Evelyn, he did odd jobs around his father's bank and after graduation he was the chief loan officer of the bank. Again like Evelyn, he was not athletic, a good dancer, but not outstanding. He also was a member of the town country club and knew all the right people and belonged to all the right organization. He was not a good speaker, so he was seldom asked to do so, but he sponsored and hosted many events. Many organizations tried to enlist his help with fund raising activities, some were successful.
    It was during one of those activities that Evelyn swept him off his feet. Many well know people had been invited, one was a wealthy banker from Mexico who could not speak English and his aide and interpreter fell ill at the last minute and could not come. He came anyway and was like a fish out of water. He had great difficulty trying to get people to understand what he wanted and needed or even who he was. The hosts, including Joe didn't know what to do, it was already very embarrassing. Evelyn noticed the discomfort of the people around him and came over to see what the problem was. Evelyn had been in several of the same classes with Joe in college, they knew each other, but they were not friends. Neither had dated during school or college they were too preoccupied with money and neither attracted the opposite sex.
    She could hear the banker talking as she approached and immediately answered his questions and the two of them launched into a long conversation while the others stood there dumbfounded. Joe could speak French, his family's language, but not Spanish. He and the others waited patiently. Finally, Evelyn began to translate what he said so the others could understand. Evelyn stayed with him and the situation returned to normal.
    During dinner the banker and Evelyn sat across from Joe and his father and after the usual pleasantries the banker began to ask questions about banking, loan losses, accounting, cash flow, etc. Not only did she translate the questions and answers, but she also told of her experiences at the bank, she was perfectly comfortable with any topic of discussion. Joe could not believe what he was hearing and he made a point of getting her to dance with him. She declined several times, but Joe finally managed to get her into a position where she could not refuse. He had enlisted the help of another hostess, he convinced her to dance with the banker from Mexico, leaving Evelyn alone.
    The following week Joe drove to her family's bank on some pretext and managed to visit with her father for a few minutes hoping to get the chance to ask her to go to dinner with him. He could not believe his good fortune when her father invited him to have dinner with them at their country club. She couldn't refuse to dance with him and agreed that he could come and visit her at her home. Thus began the courtship of Evelyn.
    It was not a story book romance, they talked about business, they seldom touched one another except when dancing. There were no words of endearment, no kissing or hugging that didn't happen until after they completed the financing of a project that was too large for either bank to handle alone. Both had been instrumental in getting their fathers to agree that it was a good deal and after all the signatures were applied to the contract they happened to meet in an empty hallway and embraced. After that they were very formal when with other people, but when they were alone they were very passionate. Both would return home sweaty. After one very passionate evening when both ended up nude, she pushed Joe away so she could cool off, he jumped up and said, 'I guess I had better propose. Will you marry me?' Without hesitation she said yes and pulled him down on to her. They didn't sleep that night and had a lot of explaining to do the next day when both were late for work. The arguments began the very next date only to end passionately.  From then on until their wedding the people around them would claim the temperature increased by ten degrees when ever the two of them met.
    Both fathers were afraid their arguments would hurt their bank business because during the arguments they frequently accused the other for causing the events of their love life in order to cast more blame on the other or to bolster their point that they were right and other was wrong. After each argument the grape vine was very busy, but contrary to the fathers fears the gossip didn't effect business. Many new customers and some old customers asked that Joe or Evelyn handle their business, a fact that bewildered both fathers.

    I will say almost nothing about the trial because in was long and boring, but at least I had a warm place to spend the day. At the end of a day when the details of their sex life had been presented in great detail the reporters caused a stampede. I always remained seated until the rush to get out the door was over.
    The last witness had to persuade the defense lawyers to put him on the stand. They finally agreed when several of the other witnesses who were present at the 'Swamp' on that day said they would be willing to testify that they saw him get out of his truck and walk toward the picnic tables. He testified that as he walked from his truck toward the picnic tables he had the best angle to see Joe and Evelyn. Most of the other witnesses said that they had not seen what had happened because they had been walking away from Joe and Evelyn and only looked back after the roar by then only Joe was standing on the point.
    The last witness lived far enough away that he did see the local newspapers and wouldn't have know about the trial if he had not made a special delivery to the local hardware store, the same as he was doing that day. His truck blew a tire and he was walking toward the people at the picnic tables to ask for help. He could hear Joe and then Evelyn the moment he turned the engine off, so he was watching them as he walked. He stopped walking when he heard the roar, he saw Evelyn disappear and said Joe was still sitting. Like everyone else, no one moved for a short time. Joe ran to the sloping tip but didn't go further because he started to slide. When he regained his footing, he stood looking at the water for a short time, then he turned and walked back to the bench and collapsed, covering his face with both hands.
    Joe never recovered, he progressed from shock to grief to depression to insanity. Joe's father got power of attorney in order to handle Joe's affairs when it was apparent that Joe could not take care of himself. It was shortly thereafter that he learned of the details of both their wills. Both wills gave very specific instructions, there was nothing vague about them. Certain people were to receive certain properties, most of little value, and small amounts of money, the large bulk was to go to the surviving spouse and if no surviving spouse then to the family of the last survivor. The Fontain's claimed that that was not Evelyn's intentions, but the wording of the will was very clear, if she died first Joe was to get almost everything and then it would be determined by Joe's will. When the grape vine learned the details and eventually, the Fontain's, the money grab began.
    The trial did settle two things. It made it possible to declare Evelyn dead, putting her will into effect and put an end to the Fontain's claim that Joe pushed her to her death. But since Joe was not yet dead, Joe's estate could not be settled, it was placed into a trusteeship and so the legal wrangling continued.

    The story is fiction, but there are some things in the story that are alike and not alike to the current conditions in our country, like the families too many people are obsessed with things and money. Unlike the two families, as a nation, we are deep in debt, both public and private and that is our 'swamp'. We created our 'swamp' because unlike the two families we did not use sound business judgement and were willing to believe lies, and like the Fontain's, we wanted something for nothing.
    The bursting of the thin clay layer is a symbol of an as yet unforeseen event which is sure to come if we don't try to prevent it. What most people do not understand is once it starts we cannot stop it, but we may be able to prevent it, if we change our life style. We do not need half of the things we have and money by itself will not solve our problems, we must use our money wisely. If we are not willing to change our life style and give up some now, we will surely lose it all.

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    My wife was a feisty, very determined, very very stubborn woman. Karen was stone faced, she rarely showed any emotion. She was the middle girl of three. She was always the biggest child in her class. Until seventh grade, she was a head taller than the rest of her classmates and at least half again heavier. Her childhood was less than ideal and that is a gross understatement.
     Her father played a significant role in her less than ideal childhood. He was lecherous, very lecherous. He fathered a child with the wife of his son from a previous marriage while his son was over seas during the second world war. That act broke up two marriages and left great animosity among the family members. How many illegitimate children he fathered is unknown.
    Both parents were alcoholics which left little money for food or other necessities. They lost their home and their furniture. After her parents divorced, her father did not give them any support money.
    She could not or would not recall much about her childhood. But one story she did tell indicated that the sisters were abused by their father and his friends. Her father would take the sisters to his fishing camp along with some of his friends.
    During one trip Karen stood in front of her sisters and told her father if he and his friends didn't leave them alone she would tell the police. She never told any more about what happened and the story never changed when she retold it.
    The only other story she told about the fishing camp trips was that she learned to fish and she liked to fish, but she never fished again. She would dig her own worms, bait her own hook and she would sit with her legs hanging over the edge of a small bridge across a small stream and she would catch, clean, and cook pan fish. Again this story never changed when she retold it.
    She never told me how she did it, but one time she found her father playing poker with the sheriff in the county jail after the friend of the court told her mother that they could not find him in order to make him pay child support. From that day forward, she had little respect for our legal system and the way our courts handled children. She also became a 'black and white' person, for her there was right and wrong, no in between, no gray area.
    Her father would take the sisters with him on his accounting trips. He did books for businesses along the old US 27 bus route from Mt Pleasant to St Ignace. He would register as 'Mr and Mrs and family' at the local hotel and put the sisters in one room and he and a woman (a different one in each town) in another room.
    The women he chose were not very sophisticated and many times they would enter the hall half dressed when he went to check on the sisters. The sisters didn't understand what they saw at the time, but they did later.
    It was during these trips that Karen learn to love the Straits of Mackinaw. When her father got off the ferry to go to St Ignace she would stay on the ferry and ride back and forth between St Ignace and Mackinaw City the rest of the day until he came and made her get off the boat. When he stopped in Mackinaw City and didn't go to St Ignace, she would persuade him to buy her a ticket and she would go ride the ferry by herself.
    Many times the only meal of the day was onion soup. The sisters slept on the office floor where her mother was a bookkeeper. Later, a small family owned restaurant gave them one meal a day. Later still, the sisters were sent, most of the time separately to live with relatives. They had a very large extended family and still do. For a brief time they were in an orphanage which was followed by foster care. Again they were separated and for many years they never saw one another.
    When Karen was old enough to baby sit, she did so and put her money in a savings account, it was not safe to keep it at home. It took many years for her to save two hundred dollars. Then her father talked her into lending him her money at interest, a loan he never repaid. She would never have anything to do with him after that, but it changed Karen. She would never lend money to anyone and she became very frugal. After we were married, I quickly learned that if we were saving money to buy something it had to stay in our checking account because if she put it in our savings account it would never be withdrawn.
    When she was fourteen, Karen learned her legal name was Carolyn, not Karen. That was when she had to have a certified birth certificate to obtain a work permit. She worked in the kitchen at the Central Michigan College cafeteria under Clarence Tuma who was then in charge, a man she greatly admired. He later opened his own restaurant The Embers. In later years when we ate there Clarence would come to our table and the two would update each other on themselves and their families.
    Clarence was an excellent cook and he taught Karen how to cook and how to run a kitchen. Karen became an excellent cook and her biscuits and pie crust ranked right up there with the best. I never ate any that were better.
    In churches where she was a member, she often worked in the kitchen . She would become very upset when the other people working in kitchen with her did not do it like Clarence had taught her. There was only one way to do things in the kitchen, the way Clarence taught her to do it.
    Karen was not an exceptional student, but she was good enough to be accepted at Alma College and she developed very strong ties to the college. She used the money she had saved and then worked two jobs while going to college. She also borrowed money and many people gave her money so she could go to college. She was determined to graduate and she did. When we moved to Alma, she felt right at home. We took full advantage of the Alma College offerings.
    After graduation she taught first and second grade in two different schools in the Grand Rapids area. We will never know if she would have been successful because we were married before she was tenured and she quit teaching.
    She had a problem with teaching because she thought every child should be able to understand what she taught and she spent too much time trying to achieve that goal to the point of exhaustion. She taught in a low income area and over a third of the students were not ready for school when they entered kindergarten, but the school system accepted them. That upset Karen. She became very upset when she had to hold some back, which she had to do because they were not ready for the next grade. Their previous teacher had passed them, knowing they were not ready for next the grade. That upset her even more.
    She was going to go back to teaching after our children were in school, but when she did the calculations on what it would cost compared to how much she would earn, her net income came to $.50 an hour and she never taught again except when our local school system needed a sub. Instead she began to help other teachers and students, she would listen to children read and correct them, help them write stories, help them draw, and she would read stories to them.
    It pained Karen to watch a left handed student write backwards and upside down. She could teach a left hander to write left handed because she was ambidextrous. Sometimes she would forget when she was writing on the blackboard and would write first with one hand and then the other and her students would say, 'OH', disrupting the class.
    She especially enjoyed singing with her students. She had a good voice and taught them many songs. Later, she did the same for her Girls Scouts. One of her favorites was 'The Ash Grove'. She would sing it at almost any time for no reason at all while she was doing something around the house.
    During the last ten years her COPD slowly got worse, her breathing became labored and she stopped singing, I missed hearing her sing.
    She had a beautiful hand and her calligraphy was excellent. She liked to draw and to paint, especially trees. She liked all types of needle work and to macrame. She made many dolls, she loved to put faces on dolls, it was almost a passion. She crocheted many blankets for children, most still have them. She did all these things until the neuropathy in her hands slowly caused her to give them up. She had constant pain in her hands and feet even though she could not feel anything touching them, the result of high blood sugar.
    One day while hanging our laundry to dry she noticed that every time she raised her hands above her shoulders they would go numb, but she refused to see her doctor to find out what could be done.
    I told her she had to do something when she went to set down her embroidery hoop to answer the door and it went with her. She had sown it to her fingers and never felt it. She had carpel tunnel and thoracic outlet surgery in the hope of preventing the nerves going to her hands from being pinched, but she never regained her previous dexterity and she slowly stopped doing some of her favorite activities. So she increased the amount of time she spent on Girl Scouts, an activity she did for 33 years, on helping students, and on reading, she loved to read.
    Karen had white coat syndrome, her blood pressure would go up forty points simply by walking into any medical facility. She didn't like going to her doctor, even less into a hospital and even less into a nursing home. She would rarely visit a friend in a nursing home and when she did, someone had to go along. She told me many times she didn't want to die in a hospital and she didn't want to go into a nursing home even to recuperate.
    School and church were the two stabilizing institutions during her childhood. She supported both with intensity and at the same time she was very critical of both when they did not provide the support to others as she had received. She would tell those involved in no uncertain terms that they were not meeting her standards and she would work to get them to improve.
    She often pondered why she had received so much help and her sisters didn't, but she could not answer her own question. Many people helped Karen and she helped many people. She didn't help others to repay a debt, it was her way of life. The people who helped her, taught her the most important things in life: sharing, caring, and concern and that is the way she lived.
    My long time friend married one of Karen's extended family. He lived in Lansing and I would visit him when I went to visit my dad. At the time, I lived in Mt Pleasant and Karen lived in Grand Rapids and we met in Lansing. We started dating in September of 60 and were married the following June. During that time I would write a letter one week and she would write a letter the next week because neither of us liked phone conversations. During that period in time both of us wrote more letters than we did the rest of our lives.
    Fortunately the computer was invented and I like email. I began to write much more, but Karen couldn't learn and didn't like to use the computer and seldom wrote.
    I didn't marry her because she was beautiful or for her money, it was because I quickly learned that she was a sharing, caring, and concerned person. Her sharing, caring, and concern vastly outweighed her faults and as a testament to that fact I can count the bad days on one hand and have fingers left over.
    Thank you Karen.

Below is the poem K ask we use on her memorial card, it was one of her favorites

          I, Am With You Alway!

To those I love and those who love me

When I am gone, release me, let me go.
I have so many things to see and do.
You mustn't tie yourself to me with tears.
Be happy that we had so many years.

I gave you my love, you can only guess,
How much you gave to me in happiness.
I thank you for the love you each have shown,
But now it's time I traveled on alone.

So grieve a while for me if grieve you must,
Then let your grief be comforted by trust.
It's only for a while that we must part,
So bless the memories within your heart.

I won't be far away, for life goes on,
So if you need me, call me and I will come,
Though you can't see or touch me, I'll be near.
And if you listen with your heart, you'll hear
all of my love around you soft and clear.

And then, when you must come this way alone,
I'll greet you with a smile and 'Welcome home'.

                  ~author unknown~

   She requested some dandelions on the card above the poem, she loved dandelions.

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