"Mom was born in 1915 in the little white house on Highway 48 near Wilfred.  She was the last child of Nancy "Jennie" Apple and Erastus Ray Montague.  Though Mom never mentioned it, Aunt Ethel (Vivian Lucile's only sister who lived almost 25 yrs after Lucile died) told me before she died that Mom was so tiny when she was born that her head fit in a tea cup.  She said she didn't know if Mom was premature or not, when I questioned her, but she must have been.  By the time she was born Grandma Jennie was 34 and mom was her 7th child and she had one miscarriage previously, so she was probably not in the best of health.  Mom was born without a sense of smell, with no tonsils and no tailbone, which would seem to indicate that she was premature. 

Mom said that she quit school in the 10th grade because, as in most small towns, there were the "have" and the "have nots".  Since Grandpa had skipped the county (because he got caught bootlegging), she had no money for clothes and had only 2 dresses to wear to school and she was ashamed.  She cleaned house to earn money.  She "hung around" with Aunt Iris when she was dating her brother, uncle Ken.  (by the time Vivian Lucile came along, all of her older brothers were gone and on their own).  She had a boyfriend that wanted to marry her and threatened that if she wouldn't, he would join the Navy and leave.  She turned him down, he joined the Navy and became a career officer in the Navy.  Aunt Ethel said he retired back to Sullivan after Mom died.  Mom mentioned that she many times regretted not marrying the boy, and she didn't know why she hadn't.  I don't know exactly when she met Dad.  They were married on December 17, 1931.  Mom was 16 and Dad was 25.

Dad (William Lynn Ratcliffe) had been married previously in 1927 and had a daughter, Billie Lee, who later changed her name to Leola.  Leola and her husband, Hubert Lucas, and their daughter Elizabeth and son James all live in Gary, Indiana.

Billy Noel, (right) my brother, was born December 25, 1931.  The depression was in full swing.  When Mom first became pregnant she had plenty of food, but at the end of the pregnancy Dad couldn't find work (he was laid off from Hudson Motor Car company in Detroit), and about all they had to eat was sweet potatoes and beans.  Mom said that when Billy was born at Mary Sherman Hospital in Sullivan he had apparently lost weight because of Mom's diet and his skin hung in folds.  When Mom went into labor Dad was at the Smokehouse in Shelburn playing poker.  I don't know who took her to the hospital, but Uncle Walter went to get a doctor who refused to come because Mom and Dad didn't have any money, so Uncle Walter went to the Sheriff and the doctor had to got to the hospital.  Apparently he was angry and gave Mom so much anesthesia the she couldn't help push the baby out, so the doctor jerked Billy out with forceps and left scars on his head.  Mom ended up with pneumonia in the hospital.

I was born August 28, 1934, at 8:30 p.m. in a rented house on Brick Street (Old U.S. 41) in Shelburn.  The house is torn down now.  I believe we were living there when Mom said they didn't have any money for coal, so we all had to sleep together to stay warm.  We lived with Grandma Jennie once in Shelburn, and perhaps other rented houses.  At times Dad would be called back to Hudson Motor and we would move to Michigan.  If there was an apartment available, we always rented one at 1126 Gray Avenue in Detroit, owned by Helen Larson and her husband.  Helen remained a good friend of Mom's until the Larson's moved back to Pennsylvania when they retired.  At one time we lived on Dickerson Street, near Grey Avenue. 

Sometime in 1938 we moved to a rented house behind Froggie's Tavern (left) in Farmersburg.  The house is now torn down.  Mom and Dad were having problems and in late 1939 or early 1940 they separated.  Mom and I went to live with Grandma Jennie and Billy lived with Dad.  I started the first grade in Shelburn.  Sometime previous Dad had been called back to Hudson Motor and he and Billy were staying in Roseville, Michigan, with the Donald Wence family who were from Shelburn.  Not long after Halloween Mom and Dad got back together and we all moved to Detroit with Uncle Lawrence and Aunt Frances and their kids in their car.  We were unable to get an apartment at Larson's at that time, so we rented the second floor of a house on Park Avenue (near what is now called the "Cass Corridor" in Detroit).  Billy and I attended Burton Elementary School.  Sometime after Christmas we moved to Larson's apartment house and we attended Keating School off of East Jefferson near the Grosse Pointe/Detroit line.  By the next Christmas we had rented a flat on Continental Street, which was across Jefferson Avenue from Gray Street.  By this time the Second World War had begun. Hudson Motor built a naval weapons plant near Center Line, a northern suburb of Detroit, and Dad was transferred there.  Uncle Lawrence was working at the Chrysler Tank Arsenal in Center Line and had built a home in Warren, an adjoining suburb.  We rented a duplex in Center Line in the Kramer Homes, a housing development hastily built to house war workers. I attended the last of the second grade and the beginning of third grade at the Kramer Homes School. Next, in November of 1942, we moved to a converted garage on East 12 Mile road in Warren.  At that time 12 Mile was gravel.  Today it is a four lane highway.  At this location we went back to a coal stove, outside privy and pumping our water.  Billy and I attended Warren Consolidated Schools.  Late in 1942 the kidney stones that the doctor said Mom couldn't have because she was so young finally destroyed a kidney and she had to have surgery to remove it at the Detroit Osteopathic Hospital in Highland Park.  

The operation was scheduled for 9:00 a.m.  I can remember sitting in my seat at Warner School and watching the clock.  Of course I had listened to the adults talking and knew the seriousness of the operation and I worried that Mom would die.  We stayed at this location until March, 1945, when Dad & Mom purchased a small house at 28500 Wexford Street, down the road and 2 blocks off of 12 Mile.  Dad did some remodeling.  We stayed at that location until June, 1955.  Hudson Motor Car Company had been purchased by American Motors and moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Dad elected not to go to Wisconsin.  By this time he was 49 years old and could not find a good job, so they decided to move back to Indiana, where they purchased a small grocery store.  Dad died on July 7, 1969, of acute hardening of the arteries.  Mom's health by this time was gone and after a few years of troubles she sold the house and moved to Good Samaritan Nursing home in Jasonville, where she died of a burst aorta on August 20, 1973.

If there is one thing to be said about this family, both maternal and paternal sides, we have done our share of moving about.  From the time our ancestors came to Virginia and Pennsylvania, migrated to North Carolina, to Kentucky and then on to Indiana, right down to the present generation, we have done our share of relocating."  (and I the author of this site who has been somewhat of a gypsy myself will SECOND THAT !)

My Notes:  My Grandmother and Grandfather (William Lynn Ratcliffe and Vivian Lucile Montague) owned an old "country store" (left) for the last twelve or more years of their life, and coincided with the first 12 of mine.  The store, pictured left, was outside of Linton on a tiny paved road in the middle of nowhere.  I have very fond memories of it as it was my grandma's house (the store and their house were attached).  We got to to into the store once a day and pick out a piece of candy and a soda pop !  My favorite was Yahoo Chocolate pop.  They also had a Coke machine that you could pull the little glass Coke bottles from.  The gas pumps out front had the large round glass on the top and there was everything inside from shoe laces to porcelain salt and pepper shakers.  My grandma also didn't have an indoor bathroom, just an outhouse and a chamber pot, and I hated both!  I was scared of the outhouse because of spiders and bugs.  They had lightning bugs down there where she lived which we didn't have in Michigan that I ever saw, and I always remember them too.  There wasn't much room at their house and we usually slept on the floor in the living room and I remember lying there before falling asleep and listening to my mother and grandmother in the next room talking and smoking heavily.  Of course I don't remember what they were talking about.  Map above is of the Linton area, "click" to enlarge (I was born in Linton on a "hot and humid May night", according to my mom.)

Obviously we visited my grandmother's in the winter too, as we are pictured there in her back yard left; but I don't ever remember being there in the Winter or this picture.  We used to take baths in her wash tubs, they were laundry tubs that sat up high and were made out of cement, like the plastic one's you see in today's laundry rooms.  One kid on each side worked well.  She also had an old wringer washing machine that she didn't use in her "laundry" type room where the chamber pot was kept and where we took baths.  I think my grandfather had built on this additional room but he never went as far as putting the plumbing in.

They also had an old iron hand pump (picture below) outside that we kids would fool around with pumping the water out.  There were blackberry type trees on her property and she would pick them and make jam from them or we'd eat them with milk poured over them.  She had an old Aunt Jemimah (sp?) Cookie jar that I wish I had somehow gotten now.  I also remember burying coal in their driveway because I was told that coal turned into diamonds and I thought I was going to dig it up and be rich! LOL

The pictures of the old rusty hand pump below is at the store and when we were kids we used to play with it a lot, especially in the hot summers.  My sister Nancy bought the old pump from the man that now owns the property and she has it in her garden.  Right - my mom and grandmother and me and my siblings in 1969; four years before my grandmother died and this is probably the July my grandfather died and why we were there on this trip.

The old store stood for almost 25 yrs after my grandmother and grandfather died, (1969 and 1973, respectively) but it was recently torn down which was very sad for me.  A neighbor, next to the store, my sister and I met while there in the summer of 2001 had snapped some photos while it was being torn down and gave them to us.

My maternal grandparents' old country store that they owned.  I spent the first 12 yrs of my life visiting my grandparents at their store in Indiana and have VERY fond memories of it and them.  It used to have the old gas pumps out front, the kind with glass "Balls" at the top with the oil company's name on it.  They used to have a Coke machine inside where you pulled the little glass bottles from and a big meat slicer and lots of other things.  We weren't allowed to go into the store too often as it would bother my grandfather.  My mother took some pictures of it a few years before she died and the store was torn down.  "Click" on any to enlarge.
A side view of the false front and front porch	Looking at if from behind.	Front view from the street.
The side entrance we used to come into the house in back.	Another side view.	The old rusty hand pump we used to play with as children.
Looking out to the street from the store.	My grandmother used old tractor tires to plant flowers in, here is one that is still there.	Another view of the rusty pump we played with as children.