‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving’
‘twas the night before Thanksgiving and Marion was driving us to aunt Honor and uncle Bromley’s house in Cleveland, for the four-day Thanksgiving holiday. The Gregory clan of grandparents ‘E,’ and Eva (Ev-ah), their first-born Honor and Marion were from Gosport, Bromley was from down the road rival Franklin, while Esther preceded Larry Bird in French Lick. ‘E’ owned the poultry house in 700 population Gosport which was good enough to get his family through the Depression in rural elite style.
Honor went off to Ball State, bicycled around France posting articles for the Indianapolis Star and established her own advertising agency in Cleveland; paid two years tuition at Fenn College so Marion could be an electrical engineer. Marion went to work for P.R. Mallory in Nap-town with a critical industry deferment and in their eighth year of marriage Esther got permission from her Christian Scientist practitioner to have a baby, me on Marion’s 30th birthday, September 13th, 1943.
In the summer of 1950, ‘E,’ Eva, Esther, Cancer-Leo Cusp sister Sue and me relocated to Cincinnati and Marion’s new job in the engineering department of Baldwin Piano & Organ company. Shortly ‘E’ slipped and the C.S. practitioner couldn’t save him. Eva wasn’t taking widowhood well and a change of venue, Cleveland was the answer. Thus, Thanksgiving 1952 became the first of many holiday trips to Honor and Bromley’s home at the other end of the 3-C Highway.