Trips with Grandma and Grandpa Thomas

PHOTO: Bob and Faun McDonald, Bill and Christie Thomas

My Thomas grandparents made a trip to Ohio every summer to visit Grandma’s relatives, and they always took me with them. We drove the old highways — Grandpa didn't like to drive on the interstate — and we stayed in little roadside motels, which are pretty much extinct now. Once we got to Ohio, we stayed at Aunt Faun’s house. She was my grandmother’s favorite cousin, and she and her husband lived in a farmhouse a few miles outside of London, Ohio. Aunt Faun and I had the same birthday, and we sent birthday cards to each other every year until she died. Aunt Faun's husband, Bob McDonald, was a gentle giant of a man. He was so calm and soft-spoken that it was hard for me to believe he was a prison guard. 

I got this picture from Google Earth. I believe it is Bob and Faun's house (as it looks today).

One of the memories I have from those trips was when Aunt Faun asked Grandma if she thought it would bother me to sleep in the bed where Bob's mother had died. (I guess that had happened since our last visit.) Grandma must have said it would be okay, because I did sleep in that bed that night. (Come to think of it, I slept in Grandma's bed where she had died, the night after her funeral. Of course, I was a grown woman by then.)

Another memory from one of our Ohio trips was that I went with one of Aunt Faun's nieces and a friend of hers on a car ride to Columbus. They were teenagers. I don't remember why we were going to Columbus, but what I do remember is that they stopped and picked up a young man who was hitchhiking. I don't know how old I was at the time, but I was old enough to know that it was not a good idea to pick up a hitchhiker.

Another relative we visited was Grandma's uncle Earl Parker and his wife Flossie. They lived in Waverly, Ohio. Uncle Earl was a judge. 

I don't have any pictures that we took of Uncle Earl. This picture of Aunt Flossie was taken at their house. I remember us sitting in the back yard in lawn chairs and Aunt Flossie spotted a 4-leaf clover. Grandma made a comment that Aunt Flossie could always find 4-leaf clovers. (That's another odd little snippet of memory that's stuck in my head all these years.)

I also made at least one trip with Grandma and Grandpa up to the Mackinac bridge and across the upper peninsula of Michigan to the straits of Sault Ste. Marie where we watched a ship go through the locks from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. (I'm pretty sure we went over into Canada once, too. It was easy back then. You didn't have to have a passport or anything.)