In The Beginning

I was born on November 7, 1946.  My parents had been married just a bit over a year.  They had met at a dance in Boulder, Colorado in 1945 and my father, Jim Smith, announced to a friend that he was going to marry that little dynamo named Dorothy Brines.  Dorothy already had a little girl who was about three years old.  That was my sister, Joan, whose father had been killed in World War II.  She used to say, "When we married Daddy."   I always knew she had a different father but was not sure of what it meant until I had children of my own because she was always my sister in all ways one could be a sister.

This is a picture of my parents before they were married.  My dad was from Pueblo, Co and my mother from Boulder.  I think this picture was taken in Pueblo at his parents home.

My mother, Dorothy Irene Brines Smith

Joan Elaine Sutherlund and Suzie

I was born in San Diego, CA where my father was stationed with the US Navy.  We were there only 6 months after I was born and then we moved to Boulder.  We were a very transient family and made many moves.  That may account for the fact that today I love moving and I love the change.  Now that I am old and plan on living in this same house until the end, I worry about becoming bored and antsy about wanting change and wanting to move.