I went from the classroom directly into the workforce at Sigmamotor, Inc. in Middleport in the secretarial/accounting/data-processing field, where I was employed for 8 ½ years. In 1967, I married Robert Walter from Middleport who also worked at Sigma.

In 1970, we welcomed our son, Rob. He now lives in Rock Hill, SC and is an engineer for Black & Decker in Charlotte. He married Lisa Brady from Albion and they have two great boys, Bradley, age 10, and Bryan, age 8. Rob has carried on the family love for camping and hunting and he also loves fishing. Unlike me, he has a beautiful trophy deer hanging on his wall as well as a 12# large mouth bass trophy, while I have only five deer in my whole hunting career! His sons both have the love of hunting as well, with Bradley bagging his first deer just after his 10th birthday. Thanks to his Dad, Rob is now the proud owner of the 1966 Olds 442 which we had acquired in 1967.

In 1973, our daughter Shelly was born…in 1974, our daughter Cynthia was born…. and 12 days into 1976, our daughter Rhonda was welcomed. We had a great little family of six! Our lives were filled with baseball, softball, car-pooling, church functions, and we always, always had extra kids around!

Also, in 1976, Bob became unemployed so we both sent our résumé’s out and decided whoever got hired first would be the one to work outside the home while the other one took care of everything at home. That is when Bob became “Mr. Mom” (Buffalo News ran an article on us) and I started my career with Akzo Nobel Chemicals, which lasted almost 28 years, until they decided to relocate to Mexico. I thoroughly enjoyed my diversified job that included accounting, inventory control, ISO document control manager, as well as Network Administrator with a bit of traveling in the states.

Shelly lives in Berea, Kentucky. She has nine children (only 1 set of twins) and two stepdaughters -- Haleigh 12, Salvatore 9, Michael 7, Micheala and Avah are 6, Joseph who is 5, Christina and Ella each 4, Destiny 2, and the newest, the twins Cadence and Wyatt who were just born June 19th. And yes, she and her husband Aaron have a bus!

Cynthia lives in Rock Hill, SC not far from her brother. She is married to Richard Korff and she has daughters Katelynn, age 13, and Emilea, age 9 (from her first marriage), and Zachary who just turned 5. She works at Vulcan and her husband works in welding for a construction company.

Rhonda, my youngest, is married to Ken Howard. She is the manager of KFC in Rock Hill, SC. which ranks top in the 13 stores in that franchise. She and Ken have a son Jade, age 12, and a daughter Marisa, age 6.

So are we busy, yes. There are 18 grandchildren!!! We rent a lodge once a year in the Smokey Mountains for our annual get together and Bob and I go south as often as we can. We have really been blessed!