Bio: Jule's American Grandma & Grandpa

Today is my birthday.  I am now 37 years old.  I've always thought that birthdays should be more about the person who GAVE life than the person who was born.  So today I'll tell you a little about Jule's American Grandma and Grandpa.

On days where I have not much to report, I'll be writing some very short biographies about people in Jule's life here in America.  This is, again, for her memories much later on.

My mother, Nancy, was born into a family of nine children.  She's somewhere in the middle of those nine.  Her father (Lloyd) was a WWII veteran who was wounded in battle, but continued on after recovering to help liberate Auschwitz.  He later became a forest ranger.  Her mother (Johnnabelle) stayed at home with the children, of course.  The family struggled to make ends meet.  My mother saw some of the worst of times as a child.  She began working at age 14 to help the family with expenses and didn't stop working until about seven years ago.  Her work ethic, as well as the poverty she endured as a child, made her a great mother.  She made sure that I would never be hungry or cold, that I would have a good education, and that I would be protected from the evils of the world.  She wanted to make sure that I had a better life than she did.  And she succeeded.  Today she spends her days in retirement with friends and, mostly, fishing on the Eleven Point River where Jule went fishing earlier this year.

My father, John, is the oldest of three boys to my grandfather J.R. and grandmother Marie.  (Well, my grandmother's name was really Thelma, but I didn't know that until after she passed.)  My grandfather was a farmer, so my father grew up around plants and animals.  My father is a Vietnam War Veteran.  He met my mother while they were both working at Southwestern Bell, a telecommunications company that was large in the 1970s.  They married and I came along a few years later.  He went to college and got an accounting degree when I was young.  He then began opening businesses.  He has done well in business, so he has been retired for many years.  He still does the accounting for the one remaining business, but he spends most of his time traveling and having fun.  You've seen pictures from Jule's weekend at my father's.  Lots of fun things to do up there.  When Jule leaves, I'll be living up there part of the time.