Mom got pregnant shortly after the wedding. In the fall they settled into a small Air Stream trailer on the Bible college campus. They socialized with other couples and remained connected with these friends throughout the years.

Thanksgiving that year was to be a special occasion. My grandparents and uncle were coming for Thanksgiving. A friend of my uncle was also coming along for the trip.

As they traveled east through Pennsylvania there was another situation taking place that forever changed the family.

A semi truck driver picked up a 19 year old hitchhiker. The driver was in need of sleep so he let the 19 year old drive. He too fell asleep while driving. The truck crossed the median and hit my grandparent’s car head on. Everyone in the car died on impact or in the moments thereafter.

There was a knock on the door of the trailer and Dad was informed that there was a phone call he needed to take. The phone was in the administration building on campus. Dad hurried to take the call and when he came on line the state trooper said, “Guy McIntyre, Edna McIntyre and John McIntyre were killed in an accident. What do you want done with the bodies.”

Dad went back to the trailer, accompanied by staff and friends to break the news to Mom. When they gathered in the trailer Mom asked if something had happened to her Mother as she had been dealing with physical issues. Mom would recount the story but did not talk about the emotional impact. Twenty three years old and pregnant, she was overwhelmed.

An historical snow storm hit Pennsylvania shortly after the accident and travel became impossible. Finally, Mom and Dad were able to travel to “home” for the process of planning a funeral for three. Ten days later the funeral took place. The heavy snow accumulation prohibited access to the cemetery so the actual date of the burials was unknown. It was a common custom at the time to have professional photographs of the deceased in their caskets. We were shown the pictures from our early years.

I believe that Mom shut down emotionally and rewrote her family history. She removed the negative details of her parents and deified them along with her brother. I do not recall any conversation with Mom where she spoke of anything that was not the perfect childhood within a perfect family.

From Dad’s perspective, he had been married and widowed. He fought in a war for five years. This new beginning had taken an unexpected tragic turn. His concern was his wife and unborn child. He enrolled in the belief that he had to make up for all the trauma by keeping Mom happy.

A move to an apartment was made and my brother was born. Dad graduated and was called to be a pastor in Virginia. The family settled in to a different physical environment and Dad worked hard to grow the church numerically and spent time to improve the church building. They became friends with a family who had started attending church. It was a friendship that has endured to now as we are still in contact with the children.

In 1954 a major hurricane hit land on the east coast. At the same time my grandfather was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, was hospitalized and passed within a few days. Dad traveled to the funeral alone because Mom had recently lost a baby girl five months into the pregnancy. A blood clot settled in the umbilical cord and cut off the oxygen supply to the baby.

I was born in 1956. Within a few weeks the family moved to West Virginia to start a church. Conditions were not right and the stay there was brief. A church in Maryland asked Dad to become the pastor and we moved. We were about 30 miles from where he grew up and I spent time with my grandmother. She was my safe place and protector. My aunt and uncle and cousin lived next door and I enjoyed spending time with them.

From Maryland we moved to Louisiana. There was a small group of people who wanted to officially organize as a church. We made the move only to find out that the facts did not align with what had enticed Dad to make the move. After two months Dad called his cousin who had a trucking company and he sent workers and a truck to move us to Delaware. For the next year Dad worked for his cousin as a truck driver. He was gone most of the time.

Mom’s mental health was understandably damaged. She was not capable of being a good mother. There were times when she was out of control emotionally to the point that my brother would call my grandmother for help. She would walk the two miles to the house and stay with us until Mom settled down.

The next year a church in upstate New York needed a pastor and Dad accepted the opportunity. We moved there in the early 60’s. The church was extremely rule driven. It is hard to imagine that people were evaluated by the clothes they wore, the books they read, whether they regularly attended church and many many many more rules.

In 1963 the church had a vote to determine if they wanted Dad to remain as the pastor. They did not. Around this time my sister was born. Dad collapsed under the pressure of the public rejection and stayed in bed until he could reengage.

Dad looked for a geographical change thinking that the legalistic environment in the denomination would be different in other parts of the country. A church in Idaho asked him to become their pastor. We made the move during summer leaving Pennsylvania on a Monday morning and reaching our destination on Saturday afternoon. We arrived with a packed station wagon that had a carrier on top and a Uhaul type trailer.

A few weeks later I finally understood the magnitude of the move. I grieved because I didn’t know when I would see my grandmother again. I did not know how to process the emotional environment which existed in the home.