Mom was born in Sullivan County, Indiana during the depression and I remember what she told me about how poor they were.  One thing that has stuck in my mind is that her father used to walk along the train tracks to pick up coal to heat their home.  She mentioned other things too; that they moved around a lot.  They lived all over Sullivan County at different times and after or during the war (World War II) her father got a job up in Detroit at the Hudson Motor Factory.  They'd live up in Michigan in Warren and then would move back to Indiana whenever her father got laid off.  (Getting laid off was common practice back then, and the workers were essentially out of work and money (not many unions back then). At one time they lived behind "Froggies Tavern"; the house was behind Froggies', but has since been torn down.

Her parents (my grandparents) had a very "tumultuous" relationship to put it lightly.  Apparently there was heavy alcohol use as well as physical abuse.  Bill and Lucile even went so far as to get divorced but later remarried (go figure).  Obviously it was a relationship that was based on co-dependency as well. 

From what I gather, my grandmother, Vivian Lucile (she went by Lucile) was "sickly" all her life.  She was born without a sense of smell, a defective kidney and was missing a tailbone.  She joked, that since she was the last of seven children born to her mother (one dying at ten months, and another being miscarried or stillborn, I forget which) she was "made up of scraps".

Lucile my grandmother) also suffered from migraines, an affliction this author has unfortunately inherited.  Lucile was married by the age of 16 and had her first child at 16/17, Billy Ratcliffe, my mom's brother. 

Mom thought that grandma got married so young as to help her mother out (Jennie Apple Montague) who was also poor and hadn't had any support from her husband for years.  (Jennie Apple Montague and Erastus "Ray Montague had lived separately for the last several years of Jennie's life and received no support for the last two children left at home at that time, namely my grandmother, Vivian Lucile and her older brother, Kenneth Ray Montague).  Erastus Ray Montague was living on the Wabash River keeping up a "camp" when he was murdered over a poker game/money.

So my mom was born into a very poor almost desperate environment imbued with alcohol, physical abuse and codependency.  From stories mom told me, I guess grandma was always sick in bed and eventually became addicted to pain killers, etc. for most of her life.  I knew her until I was 12 years old and have nothing but fond memories of her, and that she was so very small and almost skeletal thin.

My mom's dad, Bill Ratcliffe was born in Indiana, but his father, Peter Lynn Ratcliffe was born in Christian County, Kentucky, about 300 miles south of Sullivan County, Indiana.  My mother was also born in Sullivan county, and I, the author was born one county over, Greene County, in Linton, Indiana - (my mother was visiting her mother when I was born, a hot and humid May night)).  I believe Peter Lynn Ratcliffe came to Indiana from Kentucky in search of work in the coal mines that had opened up.  Histories on the areas that I have read also cite the fact that southern Indiana was settled mostly with people from Kentucky, I saw several similarities on a recent trip to both locations, in the Summer, 2001.

My mother met my father at a "night club" in Terre Haute, Indiana, this was about 30 miles or so, north of Sullivan County where she was raised.  My father was from Vermillion County, Rossville, Illinois, about 50 miles north of Terre Haute.  I guess they met "briefly" at the night club, and the next day, or weekend, I don't know which, my mother was driving somewhere, going north, and my father was coming to see if he could find her, driving south and they saw each other.  My father had a convertible at the time, so I am assuming he was easy to spot - talk about fate.

I don't believe my mom and dad "went together'' more than 3-6 months before they were married; but I could be wrong about this.  This picture is taken at my grandmother's house, Vivian Lucile and William Ratcliffe.  (I think).  Billy Ratcliffe, his wife at the time and his daughter, Dawn Marie, are also in the picture.

They were married for two to three years before any children came along, and from what I've heard, they started having "problems" right away.  My father wasn't the marrying type, at least at that age (he was 24 and she was 22) and he still liked to go out, with other women too.  Mom said something about why she didn't get pregnant right away, I can't remember, but it was something physical with she or my father, and wasn't a conscious choice.  Why she stayed with him I'll never know.  After she started having children in 1959, she had all four of us right after one another.

My father worked construction, so we moved around a bit before finally settling outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  My dad got a job as a lineman with Detroit Edison and worked out of Ann Arbor.  This was a very good job at the time and he ended up working for them most of his life.

Like my grandparents, my mother and father had a very "tumultuous" relationship.  They were married for 24 years and divorced around 1979.

My mother was a secretary for a number of years in South Lyon, Michigan.  She loved to garden, was very "crafty" and also started working on our family history, to which I am very grateful.

Barbara Ratcliffe sometime in 40s, on Wexford St., in Warren, MI near Detroit