I don't know when this picture of the Stobie family was taken, but it's obvious that they're all adults. That's Victor & Ruth on the love seat; behind them (l to r) Chris, Victo, Peg & Herb.

Mother was 8 when Victo was born and she remembered being out at the Ranch several times as Victo & Herb were small--old enough to be outside w/o adults, but not old enough to go off by themselves.

One time as Mother, Anna May, Victo &  Herb were playing in the haymow, Herb got closer than planned to the edge of the hole where the hay is thrown down for the stock, as he slipped through, Victo said, "there he goes." Fortunately there was enough hay below to give him a soft landing.

Another time when Herb was a toddler &  they were all playing in the barn, he told everyone to be quiet because "he thought he heard a 'hougar'."

Those are about the only 2 stories I remember hearing about them as kids, because the French family moved to Washington when Mother was 12 .

I had almost forgotten, but Victor was a very small baby, evidently a preemie; as he only weighed about 3 pounds. Grandma Stobie lined a cigar box with cotton and kept him very close to the wood stove, sometimes he would sleep on the oven door.

A sad part of their lives was that Ruth was schizophrenic and had to spend much of her life in a mental hospital. The kids were all grown before there was medicine available so she could live a normal life. One of the things I always admired about Victor was that he kept the family together and that even though many friends (and even some family members) encouraged him to divorce her,  he still loved her and stayed married to her.

Ruth and Fern were sisters. Now I know this is taking a little detour, but their last name was Aemissiger (I think that's spelled correctly) and their parents both died leaving several children behind. I remember, Ruth & Fern, of course, and they had a brother John, a brother Nick and a sister Martha. There may have been more (Robin, if you read this, please let me know). I don't know how they ranged in age, but Fern was about 12 at the time. Grandma & Pop, by this time, had their three children, but agreed to take Fern as a foster child until someone wanted to adopt her. They never legally adopted her, but she was part of the family from then until she died several years ago.

Once when Grandma was here, I was having a rather hectic time with the kids. Grandma told me to enjoy them, they'll be gone too soon. I never vocalized it, but my thought was that how could she know what I was going through, she only had 3 children, plus an older girl to help with them! Little did I know that she was right--they did grow up too fast, as are my grandchildren doing now. The other thing is that taking on a mourning, orphaned girl just as she's about to go into puberty must not have always been fun.;<) They surely loved each other as much as any mother & daughter can. She was also well loved by Pop, Anna May & Mother. I'm sure the same was true of her and Jim, but of course I barely remember him. I do remember reading somewhere, though that she came and stayed with Pop & Grandma for awhile after learning of Jim's death.

 In the first picture Fern would have been about 14 & Mother about 2, sitting on the porch with Granddad. The 2nd picture of her would have been taken some time in the 1990's after her husband, Kirwin had passed away and she was living in Washington State to be closer to her daughter, Sue and her husband, Paul.

Okay, by know you know that the pictures didn't load in exactly as I'd planned, but it's after 10:30; I got up at 4:45 this morning and am driving to Portland and back by myself tomorrow, so I'm not going to spend time trying to rearrange them--nor am I going to tell you any more stories tonight--I'm going to be "hitting the hay" very soon! A fun thing, though, is that I will be having lunch with my friend Brenda Corrie, who is on our Relay for Life team. Her daughter, Teresa, goes to our church and is also on the team. Brenda is a survivor and has actually been on the team longer than I have and we've gotten to be friends so I'm looking forward to seeing her tomorrow!