When my mother was 18 in 1937

 I was born in 1948 about 11 years after this. So, my mother married my father in 1946 when she was I believe 27 years old and I was born when she was 29 years old and my father who was born in 1916 was 32 years old when I was born.

However, when my mother was 18 being the youngest of 3 daughters her father left her mother and she to fend for themselves financially. My mother's older sisters were already out working in the world and I'm not sure both were married yet but likely her older sister was already married at that time in 1937. I knew both my aunts and my mother's mother helped raise me from the time I was born. Just before I was born my mother's mother had a stroke around age 60 and became a somewhat different person than before. For example, she was a skinny nervous person before the stroke and after the stroke she gained weight and wasn't a nervous person anymore and more calm when she took me on as one of my caregivers from birth.

She had raised three daughters so had never raised a male child before but how she helped me was she insisted I grow up to be a gentleman. So, she had me trained to say: When I grow up I want to be a gentleman." So, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would say at age 4 like a parrot: "I want to become a gentleman when I grow up."

Now that I'm an adult I realize that she didn't consider her husband who left her to be a gentleman the way he conducted her affairs in life. So, the disappointment she felt at her own husband of her children she sought to correct by turning me into a gentleman. So, in some ways I was trained to be "A Scottish Gentleman with the behavior of a Scottish or English Lord". So, I'm seeing that in the main she succeeded in training me to be noble in all my ways. So, I'm very grateful to my mother and Grandmother for this kind of training.

Also, I became a "Ladies man" in that I always respected women including my mother and grandmother and all women I met and in my own mind always saw myself like being a knight in Nobleness in the way I protected all women I knew or met or were in obvious distress and needed my help.

So, my grandmother and mother succeeded completely in turning me into a perfect Gentleman. Also, I grew up to be 6 feet 5 inches tall so often in order to create order in any situation all I had to do was to not smile in certain situations and people would naturally settle down with someone as large as I am present who was not smiling. So, my size and attitude often would protect the people around me including all women present.

So, my mother went out when she graduated High School and began to financially support her mother and herself. I think at first she worked in a company that manufactured women's purses and shoes but by the time my father and she got married in 1946 she was working as a telephone operator for the Bell Telephone company before Bell telephone was broken up through anti-trust laws which broke up the Bell Telephone monopoly later.

So, I will be forever grateful to my mother and grandmother for training me to be a gentleman which served me well in Church and in College and after College in myriad ways and also helped me function around very wealthy people successfully as well. To be a real gentleman opens many many doors that would slam in the face of men who are not gentlemen and trained in this way. So, my mother and grandmother groomed me for success in every way  in life and for this I am eternally grateful to them both.

By God's Grace