The summer of ’49 Fred enjoyed being back in Michigan with Waive and their six children where they spent several weeks with Waive’s family, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles.  One week Fred rented a house on lake Michigan where they walked on the sand dunes but, coming from Florida, finding the water too cold to go swimming.  Fred also went to see his son Dick from his first marriage.  He had written his ex-wife a few times about seeing his son who was at this time a year older than Barbara and she agreed.  Things went well with the meeting and Fred brought his son Dick back to meet the rest of his family and to spend some time with them.  Dick fit in very well with the family, getting along with Barbara, Sue with Barbara telling Morris, “that Dick is as crazy as Sue.”  After a couple of weeks, Fred announced that Dick would be coming back to Florida with them. Barbara wrote a letter to Morris about the news asking, “I really don’t know if that’s bad or good, do you?”  In time they would learn the answer to that question.  

After spending several weeks with Waive’s family in Michigan, Fred took the family to see his parents, the Junion’s in Wisconsin who Fred hadn’t seen since marring Waive thirty-two years before.  Fred was a little apprehensive about seeing them to say the least.  Instead of staying with family, he arranged to rent a cottage near where his family lived and then spend time visiting them.  Barbara and the children were puzzled about them saying they were “Junion” instead of “Junior”, but Barbara attributed this to their northern accent.  Fred becoming a Baptist minister didn’t set to well with the Junions who were all catholic, so Fred generally avoided the subject but there was a noticeable tension that Barbara commented on writing, “I hate it here, all it is Catholics and beer.“, of course being Baptist, Fred and Waive did not drink.  The tension mounted until something happened and Fred cut their visit short announcing they were returning to Florida.   What happened was not something Barbara would write about telling Morris in her next letter that she would tell him the reason when she got back.   

Updated: 12-27-2021

1949 Morris