Friday, August 09, 2013

A Family Story - part four

I left off where?  I believe it was about the time that Marion and George got married.  That was 1955 and happens, also, to be the year that I was born. 
Marion
According to their wedding certificate, George's two sons were the witnesses, so I would think that they were at least 18 years old at the time.  George and Marion moved in with George's father, Mr. Marshall, and for a time so did George's two sons and Marion's son Paul.  Paul would have been 10 years old at the time.  It must have been quite a crowd! 
Two Marshall houses.  I remember visiting the family at this bottom one.
At some point George's sons moved out and on to lives of their own leaving Marion, George, Mr. Marshall and Paul.  I, of course, was very young and don't remember much about those years.  I remember visiting once in a while and remember Paul living there even after George and Marion had a child together.  It was shortly after that child, Peter, was born though, that Paul left to live with his father.
Mr. Marshall, Marion, and Peter
Peter was born in 1961 with Down's Syndrome and a host of other conditions that go with it.  The doctor told Marion and George that he doubted that Peter would live past two years.  Peter was doted on by Marion and family and all that focus on him, no doubt, was a major reason that Paul moved out.
Paul with Peter at the house in Morse Shores, East Fort Myers FL 1966(?)
After Paul graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Army.  At about the same time, Marion, George, and Mr. Marshall decided that there would be more opportunities for Peter in Florida.  They sold the house in Connecticut and bought property first in Cape Coral, then in Fort Myers, FL.  Marion's father (my grandfather) and his second wife followed them south.  It was in a neighborhood called Morse Shores that Peter grew up.
George, Peter, Marion 1984