Happy Birthday Eldest Sister...40º

Sending you love and Happy Birthday Wishes, Loraine, on your 87th Birthday...Thinking of you with fond memories and wishing you a happy day with family and friends. Below is a short excerpt from the essay I am writing about you in the essay titled "Siblings."

Loraine, my oldest sister, “Sister or Rainie” that’s what we called her. Being 15 years older than I, she didn’t play with me as a sibling so I remember her always as a mother – a grown up. She married Steve Smith at age 17 when he was home on leave before heading to the battle fields of WW II. Loraine was the brainy one in our family as well as a dreamer. She was a voracious reader, and writer. She had beautiful penmanship and wrote long beautiful letters and stories. Her hand written journals were lost in a fire when Steve and Loraine’s century home burned to the ground in 1998. Loraine is very opinionated, a lifelong democrat and for many years wrote a column for the local newspaper called “The Flip Side,” where she freely expressed her side of the issue.

Below are a couple of photos from her childhood with Barbara and George and our parents Blanche Parkin Ashton and Joe (Elmer Isaac Ashton)...Hugs To All...OWAV:)

Loraine, Daddy, George and Barbara

Loraine, Mom, George and Barbara

Loraine holding son, George