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McClure Christmas
2004
Several things have
changed in the McClure Family this year. The troubling times of past
are over and I have a new life. My four children are all
doing well. I have been able to see them frequently this past
year. We had a Florida Vacation together and then this
Thanksgiving we had a great time together. I feel great! I am
learning ballroom dance and love it. My 65-year-old body is
ticking along very well. Until August I was walking two miles
and lifting weights at the health center nearly every day. I
really enjoyed the exercise. As I said things have changed for
this 65 year old man...
Leianne and her husband
Mark still live in New Orleans with their two children.
Amy is now 11 and Zack is 9.
Amy is busy with girl scouts and swimming. Zack loves
to play baseball and has joined the chess club in his school. He and
Amy are in the school band, he plays the drums and Amy plays the
clarinet. They changed schools last year and have settled in
nicely. They have met many new friends. Leianne is spending many
hours a day driving them across the river to school but she is
pleased with the new school.
Lucinda is still in
Pennsylvania at Lehigh University, with her three children. Will is
15, Melissa is 13, and John is 11. Will had a great football season
this year. He is going to school at Bethlehem Catholic High
School. Will is also in Boy Scouts. Melissa is playing
volleyball, and she has been drafted by an AAU team in Philadelphia
to play in state competition. John had a great season in
baseball. He is a very good pitcher. I spent some time in
Pennsylvania this year and enjoyed seeing my grand children excel in
their activities.
Mike and his wife Cara
moved to Ohio late last year.
Lauren 14 is still living in Texas, Cody, 10, Jason, 9, and
Rachel, 2 years, have adjusted to the cold weather.
Cody and Jason played soccer this year. Mike has worked a lot
on his new home this year.
Tim
and Alice Ann sold their home in Little Rock and purchased a home in
Pine Bluff. Tim is finishing up his medical school and is now doing
rotations at Jefferson Regional Medical Center- Pine Bluff. They are
expecting their first child in June. They still have their two
dogs, Larry and Dale.
...starting in August. After a failed marriage that legally ended in
May of this year, my children thought I should take a vacation and
move from Paragould. I
visited each of them and was gone for eight weeks. I was considering
moving closer to one of my children as I was approaching my
65th year, old age.
That two months was a great time that I spent with my nine
grandchildren, making plans for retirement near one of my
children. I could live
in Pennsylvania in the summer and the winter in Louisiana.
As all
of you know by now I spend a lot of time on the Internet and one
night in late July, while in Pennsylvania, when I had nothing to do
I clicked on the personal links. First time for everything,
and it was quite interesting.
So late the next night when all were asleep, I checked it out
again. After about an
hour I bated my hook. I
posted my best Sunday-go-to-meeting picture that was six years old,
mostly black hair and a leaner looking slim picture, and my profile
telling my best attributes.
Well it was fun to read the responses, so I made a three-fold
posting, not just one personal page, but three. As a poor student of Miss
Mobley’s typing class, I spent a lot of time trying to answer
E-mails and make phone calls. Fun!!! Fun!!! Some of these ladies
were…
…Prescience!
On these personal sites you
have to use a user name, a different one on each site. Well by now I had forgotten
one of my user names, and the E-mail was stacking up. But there was a Tennessee
lady (10 O C, her user name) who had prescience. She had sent me five E-mails
and when I did remember my user name and checked that site, I found
her, and she was the one.
After several days of talking on the telephone I agreed to
meet her and her mother for dinner and ballroom dancing in
Memphis. She and her
mother are accomplished ballroom dancers.
Two
weeks later after a second date, we decided to get married. Her
brother who is a Lutheran minister, lives in Chicago and was not
able to perform the ceremony on Labor Day weekend. He suggested that we take a
pre marital course offered by her church to make sure we were
compatible, and we did.
We passed the test with such flying colors that her pastor
suggested that he marry us on the spot and we said “ I Do”,
September 22, 2004.
We
have six children – my four and her two- 3 boys and 3 girls. She
also has three grand children, plus three brothers, and seven nieces
and nephews. We will
renew our wedding vows on December 31, 2004, and we are asking all
our grand children and nephews and nieces to be in that ceremony.
Her brother will officiate.
Her
name is Bonnie Ann, a Tennessee lady, graduated from West End High
School, Nashville in 1959, and Vanderbilt University 1963, BS in
Nursing. She obtained
her master’s degree from University of West Florida. Bonnie Ann served in the
Navy Nurse Corps for 30 years and retired as a Captain in 1992.
Her
husband died in 2000, they were married for 28 years. He was also a retired Naval
officer and they settled near his hometown, in west Tennessee. I have met many of his
family members and they are a very fine group of people and have
accepted me in to their family.
Bonnie
and I have visited each of our children and met all the immediate
family members. We have
been too busy to E-mail our friends. Please forgive us. We invite
you to join us for our “formal” wedding ceremony, which will take
place at Faith Lutheran Church, Collierville, Tennessee, at 2:00 PM
December 31, 2004, with a New Year’s Eve reception at our home.
We
will be living in Bonnie’s home on Lake Woodrun. We have a large home and
guesthouse. We invite
you to visit us. She
and I both love dinning out and the theater. We have season tickets
to Theater Memphis, Orpheum Theater and Germantown Community
Theater. We are going
to DeSoto Family Theater December 13 to see Miracle on 34th
Street. If you like
theater or dinning out we would like for you to join us some
time
Yes, I
am now taking ballroom dance lessons, learning how to be a Lutheran,
and loving ever minute of it.
That is all the news from Lake Woodrun, where all the women are strong, all
the men are good-looking and all the children are above
average!
We
will keep you and your family in our thoughts and prayers. I ask
that you do the same for our family as we enter the New Year. Here’s
hoping that you all have a wonderful Christmas and new year filled
with many joys.
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