Every parent is faced with at least one of her kids running away from home once in a while.

      We had for kinds and with the exception of the youngest, they all ran away at some time. The youngest didn't intentionally run away, but left by mistake when he was very young and got lost.

      Allen, being the oldest, was the first one to go. I don't remember if he was angry about something or what the reason for leaving was. But one cold day he decided he'd had enough of living here. He bundled up in his wnter jacket, probably helped himself to a couple candy bars and left. From the window we watched him go. He got as far as the front yard, where he stood for a long, long time, and finally deciding he was both cold and hungry, he turned around and reluctantly returned to the warmth of home.

      Mike was the perennial runner awayer. We lost count of the times he decided to leave, writing a note to tell us he was going... "I have left to the trane".... "You are mean to me so I am leaving, the farthest I;m going is to Debbys".... He never intended to stay away very long, and was always back in a reasonable time, mostly when it became close to meal time.

      Diane had a disagreement with her father once, which was her reason for leaving. She walked, ran and hitchhiked to a girl friends house, which was 10 miles away in the next township. Getting worried after awhile, we began calling around to all her friends and found her at last safe at Helens' house. I think i was the one chosen to go pick her up.

      I was always a mother hen when it came to watching the kids closely, but when Jeff was around 3 or 4, I came into the house for only a few minutes, and when i went back, he was gone. I checked the next door neighbors house, asked people coming from downtown if they had seen him. Nobody hadn and though i called and called, he just wasn't found.

      Finally my senses came alive and I head someone crying and yelling about 2 blocks away. I followed the sound across the street, across a small field, (road and RR right of way), down a sandy bank, across the railroad tracks, up the opposite bank, across a large field, about one block across, over another street, up what we called "The Rocks" which was on a slant up from the street, over the top of the rocks and found him in a little place between two walls of rock. It had been raining and he couldn't get up the grassy approach to the upper rock to get on the way home.

      All he said was that he had followed our dog there, and "I saw a lady" as he could look to the south to where my mother lived.

      How do parents ever survive to old age??????