This is a picture of my great grandparents,  Granddad Joe Stobie & Grandma Lucinda (Anderson) Stobie. His parents emigrated to Canada from Scotland and hers from Ireland to Canada. I believe they had both moved to South Dakota before they were married. I think that is also where all 4 of their children were born. I guess you already know I was named for her & I found it interesting that in some of the letters written to her, it depended upon who was doing the writing how her name was spelled. Her father, George Anderson, spelled it "Sindey," an aunt who wrote to her, spelled it "Sindie," and I'm sure I saw it in another letter spelled "Sindee."

I don't have any pictures of her when she was young, but do have a couple of pictures of Granddad as a younger man. She was, of course, Grandma French's (Anna) mother and they sure looked like one another. This picture must have been taken after her heart had started to fail as she's sitting (outside) while Granddad is standing. She died several years (I can look it up if anyone cares to know) before Granddad. Since I've not seen any letters from her mother, I assume her mother died some time before her father did as well.

After she developed heart failure, she moved to town (Plains) and lived with Grandma & Pop. I'm not sure if Granddad moved in with them until after her death or not. He was back up at the Stobie Ranch when, while talking to a neighbor on the phone, he had a stroke causing him to drop the phone. The neighbor called Grandma French and she rented a horse to get to him. (Pop was working some place in Idaho at the time.) The snow was so deep in places that Grandma had to get off of the horse & break a path for it. I know that sometime after that he moved in w/Grandma & Pop and the kids were kind of afraid of him--I imagine he had some paralysis. I believe it was Herb who told me, tho, that Victor put a couple of wheels on a kitchen chair for a makeshift wheelchair which he used to get Granddad back & forth to the outhouse.

I've always thought it interesting that Grandma had a brother, Victor Hugo, and her husband's name was also Victor Hugo. That indicates to me that both Grandma's & Pop's parents must have been somewhat well read because, of course, Victor Hugo was a famous author before either Pop or Victor was born.

Now a couple of things that happened after I was divorced & we lived in that little 2-bedroom house across from Maplewood School.

I guess these were probably the most trouble the boys ever got in--one I was in the house, before going to work swingshift at Boeing, and the other I was at work while Helen, our wonderful babysitter was there. I believe that only Bruce & Blair were involved in the first one, but Mark was maybe involved as well. Anyway, they found partly-full buckets of paint in the garage and decided to use some old rags & paint the house, by dipping the rags in the paint & throwing them at the house.

I'm not sure who all was involved in the other one, but it caused some very angry neighbors who reported me to the police. Seems the boys were having a water fight in the backyard and managed to squirt the hose through the neighbors' bedroom window. They never did like me after that.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day again. I hope Miss Spring decides to stick around for a few days. I pulled a couple buckets of weeds--it's amazing how those beautiful yellow flowers show up in the yard after a couple days of sunny weather. Then, just to mock me, I looked out the window as I was eating dinner, to discover I missed one of those pretty flowers right in the middle of the front yard. The violets and trilliums are also in bloom--they are so pretty.