Aunt Mary and I would climb out of her bedroom window in the middle of the night and sit on the roof of the porch, we would eat pears from the tree that grew next to the house. we would lay back and look at the stars and talk, we were 7 and 16.

Mary was the youngest of 5, when her brother (Lionel Gebhardt) was in the service she use to joy ride in his car, at first everyone was mad at her for taking it, and then, becuase she was the only one that could drive, they all decided it was OK because they liked to ride around in it with her.  i was probabaly 7-9 and the sisters use to dress me up and put makeup on me and we would drive around town and wave at the the boys. Not many left because they were all in the service.

Like all sisters they were very close and had a lot of fun but... there were those times:

Aunt Gladys and Aunt Mary were downstairs fighting over some silly thing (don't remember what it was) they were chasing each other around the table while Grandma (all 4.5 foot of her) was doing her best to catch them, Aunt Gladys picked up a bottle of ink and threw it at Aunt Mary, she ducked and the ink well broke and  went all over the wall. All while grandma chased them with a yard stick.

The night they aired the War of The Worlds Uncle Lionel and grandma were listing intently to the radio show, the sisters were half heartedly listening to the show when they decided to make it real for Uncle Lionel, they put flour on the bottom of Aunt Marys feet and helped her walk on her hands on the head board so she could place foot prints on the ceiling of his bedroom. Oh boy was he mad after he got over the fact that it wasn't real. Mary was about 12.

One time when the girls were all fighting grandma sent them to their rooms, I went with Aunt Mary. The fighting did not stop because the doors were shut they was a lot of yelling between them (it sounded like a train) the next think I knew the door flew open and there was Aunt Gladys with a vacumn cleaner over her head. She threw it at Aunt Mary it hit the bed and bounced out the window.

A few days after her 19 birthday she took the money she had saved by walking to school instead of taking the bus and working at WD dept store and Lincoln National Bank and boarded a bus bound for Los Angelos-she wanted to be a movie star!

She lived at the YWCA when she met Uncle Roger (the love of her life who she is reunited with now) they were married right away.