They have two daughters. The older one, Ginger, lives near them and the younger one, Jamie, is in the Air Force, stationed in Germany. She is married to Josh and they have a five year old daughter, Anna (who I have never met!).
Jamie and Josh recently found out that they were being transferred in October to Hill AFB in Utah near Ogden. I believe this is the first time Jamie has lived in the states since Anna was born in New Mexico.
When we were in NC, we were a little surprised when Richard and Alice told us that they were thinking of moving to Utah to be near Jamie and her family. They had just returned from a three week visit with Jamie in Germany.
Since Ginger has a good job and it would be hard to leave it, she will be staying behind. I think it will be a difficult adjustment for her not to have her parents close by. She has never lived far from them and in fact, it has only been in the last two or three years since she moved out of their house. But, I think Ginger will be fine and I’m sure there will be lots of visits.
In the last week or so, Richard has told me that they have decided that they will definitely be moving to Roy, Utah with Jamie and Josh. They already have a truck scheduled for moving and they are already packing. They will get the truck on October 10 and will be on their way by October 15.
Roy, Utah City Hall
Is that snow?
At first my thoughts on the move were, “Good, now we’ll see them more”, but then I started thinking of how much I’ll miss them when we visit NC.
I’ve always enjoyed seeing Richard and Alice. When he was in the Navy, I visited them in Pensacola, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Norfolk, Virginia and later, in North Carolina when he was out of the Navy. They lived in several towns there. I think they moved more often after he got out of the Navy!
When Charlie and I were living in Virginia, I drove the 2-1/2 hours to North Carolina just to spend the day with Richard. I’d go down there every month or so when he had a day off of work. He worked for the Department of Corrections and his hours were long. Then he had several days off before starting another long shift.
Richard and "Susie Q", Ginger's dog
Sometimes we’d get together with my sister, Jean, and go to lunch. Alice was working at Walmart then. Most of the time we’d go there to meet her for lunch.
Richard also took us to the “Cow Café” a few times. It was a little diner-like restaurant near the local dairy company that Richard had driven for several years earlier. They had “real” milkshakes, hamburgers, chili, etc. All the food that people aren’t supposed to eat anymore. But, it was fun to splurge once in awhile, even if it meant salads the rest of the week to offset all the calories and guilt.
Sometimes Richard came up to spend time with me in Virginia. I had been trying to reunite with our Aunt Etheleen, who had lived in Norfolk all of her life. Over the years we had written letters and she sent me pictures, but I hadn’t seen her in a long time. She had been married to our uncle, who had passed away years before.
Since we were living in Virginia Beach, I could visit her and her youngest daughter, Joan, our cousin, who I had not seen since she was a baby.
When Aunt Etheleen was sick and then hospitalized, Richard came up a couple of times and we visited her in the hospital. When she passed away, he came up and went to her funeral with me. I was glad that we had made the effort to reconnect with our aunt before she died.
One January I drove down to South Carolina, where my mother was living. I took her down to Florida to visit her sister. I stayed for a couple of days with them and then started for home. It started to rain. As I was driving north, the weather had not been as nice as it had been in Florida. The rain there had turned to snow and ice. Although the interstate was pretty clear, it was icy in places.
As I got into North Carolina, the traffic stopped up ahead. Since Richard knew all of the short cuts, I called him to see where I should get off of the interstate and come to his house.
He gave me directions to get off of the interstate and take some back roads to get to his house. Of course, the road I took had not been plowed and it was a little precarious driving on a road that had one set of tire tracks before me. But, I got to Richard’s house safely.
We sat and visited for awhile and then I drove home that afternoon.
So, not having Richard there to visit when we go to North Carolina again will really seem strange. He’s just always been there. I do hope they like it in Utah. This will be the first time that they have ever lived anywhere west of the Mississippi River. They won’t have the humidity, which I’m sure Richard won’t miss.
I was curious about Roy, Utah, so I looked up some information:
Roy was settled in 1873, twenty-five years after Ogden. On May 24, 1894, a post office was established. Businesses in Roy were limited until the early 1940s. A gas station, a couple of grocery stores, a café, and a lumber yard made up the modest business district. However, Roy developed rapidly during World War II. Roy housed many of the workers and personnel from adjacent military installations, including Hill Air Force Base, the Navy Supply Depot (now the Freeport Center), and the Defense Supply Depot.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.6 square miles, all of it land. Roy is six miles southwest of Ogden, bordering Hill Air Force Base on the east and the town of Hooper on the west. The population is about 32,000.
Roy has quite a bit of rain in spring, autumn and winter, but very little in the summer months. I think Richard and Alice might miss the rain in the summer. Maybe not. The average rainfall in Roy is about 21 inches. July is the hottest month, December is the coldest. During the summer, temperatures can sometimes climb into the 100s, (but, it a dry heat) while during the winter, temperatures can sometimes be in the negatives. Brrrr......Snow is Roy's most common type of precipitation, although it does receive a certain amount of rain in spring and autumn.
This is a big move for Richard and Alice, but they do want to be near their granddaughter and I’m sure that that is one of the biggest motivations for the move. I’m also sure that Jamie knows that she will not see her parents unless she goes to North Carolina to see them. With her job, that wouldn’t be often and Anna is growing up fast. So, why not bring them along with her? Good idea. I think it’ll work out fine for them.
More later...........
No comments:
Post a Comment