When Patricia Mara was born on 14 December 1954, her father, Richard Mara, was 20 and her mother, Patricia Louise Eales, was 18.

Photo Album 1954 Patricia Marie Mara

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https://www.pikes.place/Fam/eales/1909-1980/1936-2018/1954

They celebrated Thanksgiving dinner a day later than usual and we enjoyed that today. 

I'm hanging out here for a couple of reasons. I have things I need to get done on the truck and RV. Albeit I'm not all that concerned anymore. The weather has gotten colder as it was in the '60s and '70s when I got here. But now I was only going up to 40s and down into the twenties at night. I ordered starlink roam for a reliable internet source. It arrives Monday. After that I could move on to warmer weather and I just might. I don't know. Problem is traveling is expensive. Every day is about $100 in fuel plus paying to stay somewhere that night. It goes through money fast. Right here. I'm fine and not spending money for a few days. I might hang here a little while. 

Today I had a wonderful "day after" Thanksgiving dinner with Terri at the beautiful home of Patty and Debbie and their family, Sophia and Giovanna.

I managed to pry some information about old-time recollections from Terri and Patty. Love these old stories.  This will set up the story.

When I was about 5 years old I recall mother and dad taking us through them and their family in Indiana. It was raining outside. We had just arrived and I walked into the house with the family and they removed my coat. I said I had to pee and they started to put my coat back on. I started yelling. No I have to pee. That was my first introduction to an outhouse. Lol. 

**Terry:**  

No, it was just you and me.

**Patty:**  

Tell the story. Okay, so when we were growing up… you know, we didn’t have no hot running water at our house or anything. We didn’t have a washer and dryer.

**Terry:**  

So every Saturday was going to the laundromat. Mom would wake Patty and I up at the butt crack of dawn before six o’clock in the morning.

**Patty:**  

That’s right, we’d load the car and she’d take us and drop us off at the laundromat to use every…

**Terry:**  

Washer and every dryer in the damn place.

**Patty:**  

Oh yes, yes! Oh… And then…

**Terry:**  

When Pat got her license?

**Patty:**  

Yeah, she stopped taking us, so Pat and I had to go ourselves. But remember how we’d say, “Oh, we could put this in together with this washer, we could put that with that dryer,” and then we’d go to the store next door and get us some milk and a donut.

**Terry:**  

Yeah. Yeah, yep. And then sometimes when Mom would say we could go to McDonald’s because they were doing that special or something—you got cheeseburgers for…

**Patty:**  

How much or whatever…

**Terry:**  

We’d buy an extra bag of fries to eat on the way home before we got home. Mom never did no laundry.

**Patty:**  

Nope. Nope. I’m telling you, and…

**Terry:**  

She sure didn’t do any ironing either.

**Patty:**  

No, it would take us—oh, and she did for the people she got paid for, because she did Rich’s dad and mom’s ironing. Um… I think it was Mrs.…

**Terry:**  

Is it McGuire? Not McGuire… McGraw? No, it starts with an M, I don’t know, but her husband had the worst perspiration, and you couldn’t get the smell out of his shirts. So when you ironed the shirts, it just… oh, that was awful.

**Patty:**  

But yeah, it would take us three to three-and-a-half hours to do laundry. Then we’d come home and we had to put it all away too. Isn’t that crazy, man?

**Terry:**  

Yeah. Finally in 11th grade we moved and we got a house that had hot running water. We had a washer and a dryer—it was awesome!

**Patty:**  

You moved from where to where?

**Terry:**  

We moved down the street, 3630 West 47th Place… wait, no—2325 West 47th Avenue in Gary. It was like down the road, but it was nice because it had a toilet and a bathroom.

**Patty:**  

Yeah, one bathroom for all six of us.

**Terry:**  

But hey, that was okay. You didn’t have to go out to the outhouse no more!

How cousin Pat Landed in Lawrenceburg TN

We bought this land back in 2000 because Debbie’s brother, who’d lived here his whole life after the family moved from Indiana, found a realtor and showed us the place. We didn’t actually build and move in until 2012. Robertson Builders put the house up. They had some model plans, and we picked the one with the big open master we wanted, but we changed a bunch of things: no quarter-round trim—I just wanted regular baseboards—and we had them put electrical outlets right in the floor so we wouldn’t have cords running everywhere. These days the plugs are all so huge they don’t even fit the recess anymore, but at least the outlets are there.

While the house was going up, we rented one of the builder’s duplexes in Lawrenceburg for about six months. We’d drive out with donuts for the crew—builds good rapport and you get a better house. Half the guys didn’t have teeth, just good ol’ Bubba boys, but they did great work. We even bought the tractor before the house was finished. I’d come out and mow the field while they were framing it up. They thought it was hilarious, this city girl on a New Holland tractor, but I loved that thing. Debbie never once drove it.

As for how we ended up way out here in the first place… I’d been living in Chicago and got completely fed up after the worst winter storm ever buried my car in snow. I said, “I’m done.” A girlfriend I’d worked with at Indiana University in Hammond had already moved to Salt Lake with her husband, so in 1980 I packed up and went west. Debbie was already out there, and by total chance we both ended up at the Federal Reserve Bank. I started as a computer operator, worked my way up to supervisor, then managed check adjustments. That’s also where I met Jared’s dad, Mike—we became instant best friends. Eventually his partner dragged us all to the Sun, the big gay bar in Salt Lake. I just went to dance, but that’s where Debbie and I got together in ’82.

We bought our first house downtown Salt Lake (I want to say 933 something, but neither of us can remember the exact address anymore). In ’87 we built a new place out in Kearns and lived there until 2011. Sold it, came here, and the rest is this house you’re standing in now.

Pat & Debbie and the Girls!

When we first moved here, the local paper came twice a week and landed right on the driveway. One day there was an article about the schools starting a mentoring program for kids who didn’t have enough support at home. That article sat on the kitchen island for weeks, maybe months, until I finally said, “I have to do this—it’s calling me.” So I called Steve, the coordinator, and he matched me with Adriana, who was in fourth grade at the time.

Her mom had died of a drug overdose, so she and her two little sisters were living with their stepdad. Then he got deep into drugs too, things fell apart, and the state took the girls away. Their aunt—mom’s sister—took them in, but she wasn’t any better. The minute Adriana turned 18, the aunt kicked her out. Adriana called and asked if she could come live with us. Of course we said yes.

When we went to pick her up, the aunt said, “Well, you might as well take the other two—they’re not going to be happy without her.” Just like that, she signed all three girls over to us with power-of-attorney and guardianship papers. Sophia was 10, Giovanna was 13 (almost 14), and Adriana was already 18. That was five years ago, and the girls have been with us ever since.

I’d already been in Adriana’s life for years by then—I was her school mentor, had lunch with her every week, and I was her safe person she could tell anything to. We’re still incredibly close. In fact, we gave her and her boyfriend a piece of our land down the hill (you can’t see their place from here because it’s on the other side of the neighbor’s cow field), and they’re building their life there now.

Around the same time, we gave another piece of land to Terry. We told her, “Come down here, we’ll give you property, start fresh.” It’s worked out beautifully. She’s happy...  though of course she still misses her kids terribly.