My first oops of the day

Ok, so I got sidetracked and didn't finish my thoughts yesterday.......sheesh, it is tough to get old!

Anyhoo, got to thinking about my father while I drifting off to sleep last night. It's so sad that we know so little of what our parents were like before us. To top that off, dad was a very private and quiet person.

Born at home on a small farm near De Kalb, Missouri in 1912, dad's parents wanted to name him Tyrel Frank Spencer....an uncle was sent to St. Joespeh (the county seat) to register the birth. Must have been a long walk, because he transposed the first and last names on the birth certificate! So dad was forever after a Frank. The 2nd of 5 children born to Benjamin Franklin Spencer and Edith Spencer nee Keller. The first was a girl that was fatally injured in her early teens. Then in dad followed by his brothers Kenneth and Ralph and the "baby" of the family Vanita. Dad never shared much of his growing up with me, but I do know that one of his earliest memories was as a toddler, running in fear, holding his mother's hand, across a furrowed field and over his shoulder seeing their house burning to the ground! We never went anywhere after that, without breathing a sigh of relief when we got home and the house was still there. Understandable.

I'm quite fuzzy about what went on next, but do know that sometime in the late teens the family picked up what was left and with all of their belongings (and themselves) in a boxcar, moved to the mountains of Colorado.