When we first married Bill worked for Chrysler building vans in Fenton, Missouri. Some hard economic times were rapidly approaching our young family. By the time baby number two was born, Bill had been laid-off from Chrysler and he was doing odd jobs to supplement unemployment.
A family friend suggested he go to work in line construction and complete lineman training for a card. So, in the early '70s, he was a groundman rapidly finishing his classes and becoming a lineman. Traveling from job to job, it was hard to say where he would be going for the next job. Sometimes the job was close enough to drive, sometimes he lived out of the back of a camper and sometimes he lived in old hotels. It was kinda hard for us both, me with a baby and a toddler and him on the road.
In the summer of '82, he went to work on a job building new lines here at the lake. We were able to stay in the Green Cabin with the girls for weeks. It was a wonderful summer, the girls played in the lake everyday and when Bill would come home from work we would jump in the boat and go water-skiing. Bill was incredible on the water, he could salom ski and make it look effortless, he could pull the girls up on his shoulders and water-ski all over. Back then there was no boat traffic and no wave-runners to worry about.
On a rain-out day, Bill drove over to a local RE and applied for a job. Powers to be called the week before I graduated from Jefferson College, and one week later we packed our belongings in our old Ford pickup with cattle racks borrowed from my Uncle Floyd. We must have looked like a traveling comic show, but we were on top of the world - we were moving to the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks!
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