w/ love

Gam always tells me, "To be in love is the most wonderful feeling you can ever imagine."

 

50 Year Reunion

Can you believe she is the same age of all of these people.  She looks like the cruise director on a Senior cruise

Florence

My full name is Florence Elizabeth Gammenthaler.  I was named after Florence Nightingale.  A nurse that did alot for the nurses making it easier for the nurses, during the crimean war in the early 20's.  My husband didn't like the name of Florence so he asked if he could call me by my middle name, I didn't mind, but my mother didn't like it.  Bill was the one who started calling me Beth.  All my relatives called me Florence.  

Growing up I loved doing anything in sports, baseball, football, swimming, tennis...Tennis most of all.  Thats what I wanted to major in college, but the college my parents sent me to didn't have a P.E. program for girls so I majored in public school music.   

Favorite Participating Sport: Tennis

Favorite sport to watch: Baseball

Favorite Foods: Potatoes, I love potatoes.  Cheesecake.  I like any kind of fish, but especially Lobster.  Shrimp is my favorite.

Favorite Country Western Singer: I love Roy Clark.  He's probably not the greatest singer in the world, but I like him.  Its probably because of his sweet face.  He has a baby face and a sweet voice.  He's a southern boy.

Favorite Candy: Lemon Drops, lemon cookies, anything with lemon.  I also like black licorice. I think my favorite licorice is "good and plenty".

Favorite TV show: At the present time its "Doc Martin".  I also like watching the old westerns.

Favorite Movie: "Gone with the Wind".  I like true stories, or biographies.  Real things that really happened.

These were in a book Gam kept in college

Bomo and Papa

Bomo and Papa

My husband Bill was born on April 27th 1918.  

Bill as a baby

His father, William August was a school teacher, he taught woodwork.  His profession was a pattern maker.  When there is a part of a car that needs to be made out of metal it first has to be made out of wood, as the pattern.  He made patterns, it was very intricate work.  And then he taught wood shop in the high school in cleveland.  He was very loving, a very sweet wonderful man.  

Papa, Bill, and Virginia

His wife was Margaret Laura.   She was very possessive of her children.  I called it "she had a jealous streak".  She was very difficult to get along with, where her husband wasn't.  I can't say anything negative but she had a jealous personality. 

 They only had two children, Bill and then Virginia who is four years younger than him. Bill and Virginia were very close.

 Bill and Virginia used to take Ballet, and other kinds of dance.   Bill's mother wanted her children in show business, but his father didn't.  He would have rather seen Bill become a ball player, he didn't go for that show business stuff.

Bill, Virginia, Bomo, and Papa

Bomo, Papa, Virginia and Bill

Bomo and Bill

She adored her son, and he really loved her too.  He wrote a song when he joined the air force, about his mother it started, "remember mom when I was a little boy how you played with me..." and when on and on about how much he loved his mother and dedicated it to her because she was having a going away party for him.  They say if a son loves his mother he makes a better husband.  She showed for sure that she loved her son more than she loved her daughter.  She would make virginia cry over the dumbest stuff when she was a little girl, but not her Bill.  Virginia would admit her mothers faults, but not Bill.  He would never say anything about his mother, even though he could see it, he would never say anything.

Bomo

 

The depression

 Living in world war two, everything was rationed.  You culdn't get butter, because everything went into the war effort.  A lot of women became welders and would build airplanes.  Everyone was making money, well thats what pulled us out of the depression.  Everyone was working.

The Depression...I was in my teens, nobody had any money at that time, but then the war broke out and everyone had a job.  Roosevelt was the president and he got us out of the depression.  It took the war to get us out of it, but roosevelt did it.  I still think he's the best president that ever lived.  He put in Rest stops, improved roads.  He just got jobs for everybody, but the war had a lot to do with it.  I guess if it hadn't been for the war, I don't know how we would have got out of it.  All of the boys wanted to get in the service because they wanted to protect our country so Hitler couldn't take over.  They had the draft, but they didn't need it, all of the boys wanted to protect our country from Hitler.    The congregation couldn't give us any money, because noone had any money.  My uncle had a farm nearby, and my other uncle had a farm.  We were sure nervous we would have to move in with them.  The congregation only brought in $90.00 that year.  My mother had two rentals from her father that helped us get through and the congregation always brought us food from their farms and gardens.

We had been going a while, not very long, maybe a couple of weeks.  I came out to my car and the tie was there, hanging on the rear view mirror.  When he came out to the car I said, "you put your tie there." He said, "I'll tell you what that means, that means you belong to me."

I was glad he did because I was already interested in him by that time.  He wasn't about to let me go.  He did that too becasue there were alot of soldiers there all around, he was afraid I would get interested in one of them.  But I didn't, by that time I was interested in him.

Love Letters

The General was quite the romantic.  Gam said that he used to write her love letters and poems all the time.  here are a few of them.