Page 13 - Been There… Done That!

Been There... Done That!
CHAPTER 1
How I Survived My Youth
I was born October 15, 1943, the only child of Meryle Strange and Dallas Strange, in a rural farmhouse in Miller County, Missouri during what I was told was the worst storm of that year. It was absolutely country, as we lived in a two-bedroom tin-roof dwelling built by my grandfather at the end of a gravel road surrounded by open pasture. Unfortunately, the land was not suitable for farming and had little agriculture value except for grazing. We lived on top of rocks and the clay that didn’t let anything grow except grass. Like other houses scattered in that area, we were nestled on a plot alongside Bear Creek, like all the residents, some a mile or more apart, with the need for water, availability of fish and other necessities like preserving milk.
The story of my childhood is relatively simple. I was raised by my grandparents Sam and Della Tannehill until I was eight years old. That came about because my father abandoned my mom and me when I was three. He just went away and never came back. I sometimes say he went to the store for a loaf of bread and forgot where we lived. That forced my mom into the role of a working woman and my grandparents to serve as my parents for the early years of my life.
The thing I remember most from then was that our primary objective each day was getting something to eat. One memory is of my poor grandmother hoeing in the garden all day long in
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