The Eldest

My eldest aunt and uncle on either side were Meddie May Phillips Howerton Shipley and Lloyd Peter Balk.  Meddie was 21 years older than Mother.  Grandma couldn`t go to their wedding because she was due with Mother any day.  She was always such a youthful looking lady up into her 80`s.  She was a firm believer in Merle Norman cosmetics and sold them for years.  She was married twice 1st to Charley Howerton of the area in Arkansas the Phillips were from and had 2 sons.  They homesteaded in Wyoming early 1920`s.  He died there of a massive heart attack.  It was quite sometime later she married Frank Shipley.  He was a friendly guy.  We lived with them for a time when we first moved to Wyoming.

Lloyd left home young and lived away most of his adult life.  He served time in Big Mac for helping 2 other men rob a service station probably during the Depression.  The other 2 let him take the rap and he was the only one to serve time.  I remember him as a prodgical son who only returned  periodically.  His 5 sisters cleaned him up, filled his prescriptions, and he was off again.  He kept up with family happenings.  The $2 bill in my shadow box was a gift when I was born.  He walked the Florida beaches early in the mornings to collect shells as gifts for family members.  The shells from Mother`s apartment were some of those.  He was legally married 3 times, lived to be 100 but left no children.  Nephews went to Florida to move him to Guthrie when people kept stealing his SS checks.  He was not pleased with the move( they wouldn`t let him keep his junk at the apartment they found him) but made friends.  During one of Guthrie`s many floods Karen saw him on TV news hanging onto a barbed wire fence to keep from washing away.  He always thought of himself as a ladies man.  He could see or hear very little in his last days but enjoyed his beer and the company of a 30 something mentally handicapped girl that looked after him.