Page 85 - Armstrong Bloodline - ebook_Neat

Marvin and Nora stayed in New Orleans until their divorce in 1965. Marvin had fallen for a Cajun women and
Nora went to live with her daughter Vada and her husband Lee in California where he was stationed in the
military.

After my parent's divorce was finalized, he married Margaret Hall and I did not see
him again until he and wife #3 came to visit me in Ellsworth when I was seven or
eight years old. I remember that I was living with my maternal grandparents at the
time and that he brought me a bicycle. I don’t know exactly what happened, but
apparently while he was in the area my mother or grandmother had him arrested
for nonpayment of child support (which he denied). As a result of the bad
experience described above, I can understand to some degree why he did not

Mom & me at Mendota State attempt to call or visit me again for several years. Sometime later, his third
Hospital in Madison, WI marriage soured and also ended in divorce.

In the meantime my mother had been in and out of the Mendota State
mental institution in Madison, WI where I and my grandparents would visit
her from time to time. Sometimes she would feel better, return to
Ellsworth, and I would live with her. Finally she met a man by the name of
Harris Grinde in Madison and they were married. A few months later,
during the summer following my freshman year in college at River Falls, WI,
Harris helped me find a construction job in Madison and I worked there for
the summer. It was during this period that we learned mom had a

cancerous stomach tumor. Her mom, her two sisters Dorothy and Delores, Harris Grinde, mom, Grandma Anderson,
and I were with her in her hospital room when she died on Sep. 1, 1965; a and sisters Dorothy and Delores
nd
couple of months after her 42 birthday. 298 & 299

It was a few months after my mother death that I next heard from my father. By this time I had already
decided to join the Navy and was surprised when he called one evening and offered to pay my way through
college. I was already committed to the military, but it felt good that he had at least made the offer.

I did not see or hear from him
again until 1971, after I
completed junior college in
Brooklyn Park, MN. At this time I
had accepted a position as a
Police Officer at the Federal
Building in downtown
Minneapolis, and was sent to
Independence, Missouri to the
Federal Protective Service Pina, Bunny Schaff, Wayne, Donald
Pina, me, Sean, Myrtle & Academy. As this was about half
Wayne – 1971 in New Hope, MN Jr., Myrtle, Donald Schaff, Peter &
Sean in New Orleans - 1973
way between Minnesota and
Louisiana, I called my father and asked if he would mind if I came to visit him. I subsequently spent an
enjoyable weekend with him and his new fourth wife, Myrtle, and we agreed to get together again when we
could. He and Myrtle later came to visit my wife and me in at our apartment in New Hope, Minnesota and
again later after we moved to Houston in 1973, where I worked as a Federal Investigator. In November 1973, I
had an opportunity to move into a new field – personnel management –and my family and I were transferred
to (of all places) New Orleans, LA. For awhile, we visited regularly with my father and his family. At the time, I

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