The Power Structure in my Family

By this, I mean between my Father and Mother. Which was strongly shaped by the Depression and WWII. And by developments within the RLDS church.

The economic movement, at rhe time, was away from Small Business toward Big Business, and the Global Economy. This made the LDS stronger since they were a Big Business already, and caused the disappearance of the RLDS, who had no awareness of the huge change that was going on.

I will start with my Father. His father was an Irish immigrant and an itinerant farmer, failing on farm after farm. His mother was from an Italian family who had some money. Evidently, grandfather seduced grandmother. Grandmother Smith had a good head for money and supported my Father financially. This pattern of the dominant wife would continue when my father married.

Now my mother, where the record was clearer. Grandmother Sanford was an English immigrant and a strong believer in the RLDS church. She dominated her husband and was responsible for there move from Boston to Nauvoo, Illinois. They considered themselves superior people, which is what attracted my father to them. He married there daughter, Mildred. Who was not very smart, but domineering,

My father was from Ft. Madison, Iowa just across the Mississippi River. Mom and Dad went to live there, in a house owned by Grandmother Smith, where I was born, in 1936. Dad had become interested in Photography and purchased a Photography studio, but it was not making any money.

Then WWII happened, Dad made lots of money, and we moved to a better house. He became active in the RLDS church and used that connection to get tires for his car. We were moving rapidly up in rhe world.

In 1947, when I was 11, we moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. A beautiful fruit-growing little town, where Dad bought 2 acres on the River and moved a house there.

We called it Windy Lane.