Lucy May Ives Memorial

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======MORE LIFE AFTER COMFORTDALE FARM======

Original: {{ :more_life_after_the_farm.odt |}}

Last Edited March 8, 2013

The latter part of 1974, I believed that the Lord was leading me to find a different church.  I talked it over with my kids, since they were currently going to church with kids that they had gone all through school with.  We said that we would visit other churches until we found where God directed us.   We visited  first the Tecumseh Assembly of God on Bidwell Street, since our neighbors, Noble and Myrtle Poe went there.  We never did visit any other church.  That was December of 1974.  They moved into the new church building on the corner of M52 and Rogers Highway in April 1975.  Even though the youth group sometimes had my family and the leaders kids in it, my kids offered no complaints.  That was a big change from coming from a church with a larger youth group that my kids knew well.  

Sue graduated from high school in 1975,  Nancy in 1977,  Dan in 1979 and Karen in 1981.  There was an open house for each of the graduates. 

All 3 daughters married in the same year, 1983 and Dan in 1988.

Little did I know that my life was about to make a drastic change.  My sister-in-law, Eileen Comfort, knew how lonesome that I had been for over 13 years.  She asked me why I didn't ask Gilbert Ives over for dinner, since he had lost his wife the year before.  I told her that I couldn't do that, but I might write to him, if I had his address.  He was working down in southern Indiana at the time. So when she saw him at church she asked him for his address.  It was about March 1985 that I first wrote to him.  He wrote back and wanted to know what happened to my husband and wanted a picture of me.  

It was May of 1985 that I flew to California to visit my brother, George, who lived in Escondido.  I hadn't seen him for a lot of years and it was so good to be able to visit with him.  He took me to see so many sights, such as  Tijuana, Mexico, the Wild Animal park in San Diego, a Mexican rodeo on Mother's Day,  Balboa Park,  Sea World,  ocean drives, and so many other places.  While there United Airlines went on strike, so we had to get my ticket home worked out. It was a highlight trip of my life up to that point.     

Gilbert and I wrote for a couple of months before he asked me out.  So when he came home for his son's graduation in June, he asked me out for dinner the night before the graduation.  We went to Hathaway House in Blissfield for dinner.  When he brought me home, we sat on my front porch and talked.  He asked me to the graduation and open house the next day.  In 2 weeks he came home for the weekend and we went to Hidden Lakes Gardens and the Cascades in Jackson.  He came home every other weekend and we would go out.  We continued writing, which turned into writing everyday.  One day as we were sitting in the swing on my front porch, Gilbert said that if he wasn't working away in Indiana that he would ask me to marry him.  It got pretty quiet and not much else was said.  The next letter I got from him he said that on the way driving back to Indiana, he thought about it and he guessed we could get married if I wanted to.  I have teased him many times about him never asking me to marry him. 

In early August I flew to Minneapolis for a class. He took me to the airport and he said that on the drive back, he was missing  me.  I had previously  promised my friend, Virginia Oatman that I would go with her to Carlinsville, Illinois, her hometown, which is close to St. Louis, Missouri for a few days around  Labor Day.  We went and had a good time.  I had gone there with her several times before.  On the way back we drove to Gilbert's apartment in Bicknell, Indiana to spend the night.  He said that he would fix breakfast for us.  When we got up, he had coffee, orange juice and brought out a box of donuts.