Smith Family - Laton Smith - December 2002 letter

This letter was sent to my Mother, Lorna Lee Triplett Winch in December of 2002  as a Merry Christmas letter. This letter reads as:

December 26,     '02

Greetings, Lorna & Myron:

     We received your appreciated Christmas Card which contained your note of concern. Not having heard for a long time from Florida or Ontario. For this and last Christmas we've not been able to mail thee usual greetings. Charge it up to getting older, I guess.

   Last year Mary had her occasional ""depression" that lasted some weeks in Nov - Dec. The "manic" portion is not there but a severe e let-down cripples activity and causes much of my focus on her care. Then, Easter Sunday, in the crowded church foyer she was jostled and fell on her left side cracking her shoulder and and femur. So, surgery and weeks of therapy delayed our return north until early August. Except I did spend June for business reasons in Simcoe while Mary was at her daughter's here in Titusville.

     We had three nice months in Simcoe and returned here October  31st. Then she had another "spell" but much briefer fortunately for then it was my turn!! Just a month ago getting out of the car in the garage I went blotto. fell face downward to the cement. With likely head injury they helicoptered me to a trauma center hospital in Melbourne 45 miles south of here. I thought it was diabetic low-bloodsugar but the ambulance people tested it and found it was in the normal range. I spent 5 days in that hospital and my face looked like it has been in a prize fight with me losing!

     So, a time of recovery since then and no Christmas cards outward again. And, do bad things happen in threes?? sister Janet (91) died from a severe stroke in May, 2000. Then brother Fred, also 91, died in late November AND our nephew (Janet's second son) died just 10 days ago, age 60. douglas Hoeft, a noted educator from Elgin, Ill. and long time member of the Ill. legislature had a routine carotid artery repair BUT then suffered a stroke. They slowly achieve partial recovery and he was on his way to his first therapy when a seisure of some type took Doug. My son (Donn) and daughter (Marcia) and spouses and Fred's 87 year old wife all attended the ceremonies in Elgin.

     They said around 1,200 attended the "viewing" on that Friday and over 2,000 at his funeral on Saturday. Many from Elgin but many colleagues from both parties attended. Doug was a noted achieverr in many areas but especially in education in education Illinois. Enough of those happenings!!

     Mary and I both hope to mark 85 in a ffew months and hope to continue our pattern of activity in Ontario and Florida. Itt has bbbeen an n intereresting life with many very interesting frieinds and relatives like you. what would it have been life if we had "known" each other 50 or so years ago??? I think it was about 1951 that my parents took a train to Cal. to visit aunt Ida. I wonder if they contacted you?

     Maacia (blinking electric did the double "a" as the little finger slept too long on that key!!) (I would really mess up a computer) and two second cousins are still working on a 300 page "SMITH" genealogy. A compilation of memory stories from a scad of descendants many of whom  have nevr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 met or knew the others existed!!! Pluss scads of pictures. The starting point  is Charles  M. Smith, my Civil War Grandfather. 1846-1897. I hope to be around to o read all the fibs I  told about myself!

     She has started to compile the Greene story and I'm not sure if she ever achieved E-mail contact with Myra or yourself???? I believe she said that she had tried quite a while ago. Anyway, if Myra had time to contact Marcia MacKinnon here is their lower case, revised address:                                           mackinnon @ cablerocket.com

There might be a  -  between

the "1" and "e" in "cable"

Or my pencil put it there by accident.

     We keep active with church contacts, Mary's daughter and son families close by, watching shuttles go up and land here (with sonic booms) (and straighten pictures on the walls) and with occasional visitors. Also, Janet's surviving husband (91) is 75 miles south in Vero Beach. We try to see him once or twice each winter. Bill was a Rochester boy whose mother ran a board & room house near the Mayo Clinic for patients. In the 1930's he [a] business manager for Henry Luce's Time Inc. Has lots of tales to tell about the publishing industry. At least as it was back then.

     Thanks to both of you for keeping in contact. And extend  my greeting to Myra and Brian. I assume he is still poking computers at Vandenburg?

*Becacame

(Okay, I'm 84 1/2!

From your sincere cousin

one or twice removed.

Layton

©All rights reserved by Pathways in Genealogy. 2018 - 2023. No part of this website/blog may be reproduced without the express written permission from the owner.