Forty Five Years
It is hard to believe that it has been 45 years since we got married. And it has been 45 wonderful years. Oh, there has been ups and downs as we went along the way but most of all the deep understanding love we have for each other was made in heaven. She is my soul mate, my lover, my reason for living, and all that too. As I was listening to the radio the other day this song came on that fits the occasion perfectly.
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Then
I remember trying not to stare the night I first met you
You had me mesmerized
Three weeks later under the front porch light
Taking forty five minutes to kiss good night
I hadn't told you that
I thought I loved you then
Now your my whole life
Now your my whole world
I just can't believe
The way I feel about you girl
Like a river meets the sea
Stronger than its ever been
We've come so far since that day
And I thought I love you then
I remember taking you back
To right where I first met you
You were so surprised
There were people around
I got down on one knee right there, I didn't care
And I thought I loved you then
Now your my whole life
Now your my whole world
I just can't believe
The way I feel about you girl
Like a river meets the sea
Stronger than its ever been
We've come so far since that day
And I thought I love you then
I can just see you
With a baby on the way
I can just see you
When your hair is turning gray
But I just can't see how
I'm going to love you more
But I said that before
Now your my whole life
Now your my whole world
I just can't believe
The way I feel about you girl
Like a river meets the sea
Stronger than its ever been
We've come so far since that day
And I thought I love you then
And I thought I love you then
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So on that wonderful day, July 26, 1964, we started this lifetime of love. As we go on from here we continue to love each other until our dieing day and beyond.
I love you my dear
Gerald
A little history about granddad knoll. He was forty seven years old when he married grandma and I think she was eighteen and had a child 18 months old from another man. This shows that he had compassion as in those days to have a child out of wedlock was a no no. They lived on a farm north of Bloomington Kansas and were blessed with nine children. She accidentally cut herself one day and got blood poisoning and past away at the age of thirty five. This was very hard on granddad and with nine children from eighteen years old and down to a baby a few months old. What is really sad is that the County decided to take the kids away from him and place them in different homes in the area. Some of the boys went to farms where they could help with chores and others were placed with relatives and the baby was adopted by a family north of Alton Kansas.
This was during the depression and times were hard. Granddad was working the farm and also working for the WPA a program which put people to work from the government. He would walk around eight miles to work on the Dam just west of Osborne Kansas. When grandma passed he was off work for a couple of days for the funeral. When he went back to work they was going to dock his pay and when the other workers heard about it, they threatened to go on strike so they paid him for those days he was gone. The pay wasn't that much but that was all that was available.
Just recently I heard that when mom graduated from high school he walked from Osborne to Downs and back for her graduation. This is twelve miles so it shows his love he had for his family.
Even though I was very young when Granddad Knoll came to live with us I remember him dearly as a quiet man who read his bible daily and a very proud man. We had just move into the house on 5th street in Osborne when he came to live with us. Some of what I write about I remember and some of it are stories I have been told by my mom.
When we moved in, there was just an outhouse and no inside plumbing. Dad added on a bathroom and I remember I tried to help even thought I was quite small. After it was all completed it was so great to be able to not have to go to that old outhouse out back. Well Granddad knoll wouldn't use the inside plumbing he still made that trip out back. So Dad had to tear down the old outhouse because he was afraid that in the middle of the night granddad would slip and fall and freeze to death on those cold snowy winter nights. Granddad wasn't very happy about it but he started using the inside bathroom.
One night after we had gone to bed, Mom heard granddad and it sounded like he was crying. She asked dad if he knew why granddad was upset and he didn't recall any reason. So the next morning at the breakfast table she asked him what he was crying about. He said, "I wasn't crying I was just laying there and finally got the meaning of that joke I had read the day before." He was snickering and it sounded like he was crying.
I remember as a child the old trunk that he had with some of his keepsakes in it. There was a lot of old family pictures and an old kaleidoscope which had the double pictures and when you looked through the lens, it was as if you were there. This was a great adventure to go through his trunk of memories. He even had this razor sharpener which would sharpen a double edged razor blade.
After he lived with us for a while he moved in with Maxine and Alvin until he past away in 1950. I must have been around 7 years old and I remember Dad and Mom discussing if I was old enough to go to his funeral. They decided it would be the right thing so we went to say our goodbyes. I remember they explained that granddad wasn't there and that he was in heaven. He looked like he was just sleeping there in the casket. I think it was a good thing for me to be there, since then I have been able to except a loved ones death even if it is hard to let them go.
The Knoll family has always been and still is a very close knit family. I can remember as a child they always would at least meet once a year and sometimes more often. There would be Holiday times together with this enormous spread of home made foods of all kinds. I can still see in my mind this wonderful event of family visiting and stuffing ourselves with that special food. They would take turns having these get togethers at each others house but I think we met more times at Uncle Harvey and aunt Marys house.
I know that many times if you just happened to drop by to see Harvey and Mary, Harvey would always invite you to stay for a meal. Aunt Mary may be in the middle of preparing the meal and Harv would tell her to set more plates on the table. I always tried to argue with him to no avail and had to stay for dinner. They always open there house to anyone who happened to come by.
I remember when Harv an Mary lived on the farm just a mile south and a few miles west of Osborne. One time we were there when they were making soap. They had butchered some hogs and were rendering the fat in these big cast iron pots to make soap. As a young child this was amazing to watch this process.
We visited them many times on the McKinney farm taking in all the things of running a farm. Milking the cows, feeding all the animals and of course some more of those wonderful meals. Harv decided to take us duck hunting at a nearby pond where he knew there was several ducks. I was the only one who had a shotgun and we carefully creeped up behind the dam and peaked over it. The ducks took off flying away and circled around over head. They were flying quite high but I tried one shot and to our dismay I hit two ducks and they landed at our feet. I thought Harv was going to beat his stub off with excitement. (Harv had lost his hand in a combine accident many years ago.) When we got back to the house he had to brag to everyone about what a great shot I had made.
I remember the times we went to Uncle Anthony and Aunt Joann's farm. We would help with the chores or go hunting, but of course some more of those delicious home cooked meals.
These are just a few of many memories that are engraved in my mind of the many Knoll reunions and meetings. The Knoll family to this day still get together at least every other year. I just returned from the Colorado reunion last week. We all had a wonderful time visiting and playing games. But most of all it is great to see the love everyone has for each other. Very few families have this closeness that they do. As we get older and have lost some of our love ones we still meet and we know that they are with us in spirit. And we are all looking forward to that large Knoll reunion up in Heaven.
