I was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania the day after the Korean armistice was signed (29 July, 1953), and am the daughter of an anesthetist (father) and a prison deputy warden (mother). My mother was 100% Lithuanian; my father is Lithuanian and Siberian. My father served in both the Navy and the Air Force. I have five sisters, one brother, one stepsister, two half brothers, and two half sisters. My family moved a lot when I was young. I recall having lived in 25 places before we moved to Fort Payne, Alabama in 1967. My parents divorced; we lived with our mother a while, and then my father won custody of me and my 5 siblings. He had married a 19-year-old divorcee. She (my step-mother) brought one child with her to the marriage. They had four other children plus the six of us by my father and mother. My father decided to move to Paducah, Kentucky, and I stayed three months with them; I was in my senior year of high school when we moved to Kentucky, and was engaged to a boy from Fort Payne, Alabama. He came to Kentucky, married me, and we went back to Fort Payne.
I finished high school and started classes at a junior college. I worked for Mrs. Propst, the head of the English Department, who was in charge of getting the school accredited. I took dictation (shorthand) from the heads of all the departments, typed up the dictation, and handed the typed documents (300 pages) back to Mrs. Propst. She told me later that all of the department heads believed I was a genius because I was able to do that (I was about 19 years old). My first job after the work study job was doing tax returns for Curtis Tax Service in Fort Payne. I did all the individual, farm, and small business tax returns. Ms. Curtis did the corporation and partnership returns. I worked for Curtis Tax Service for several years. I also worked for a carpet store, kept books, went to homes and businesses, and gave estimates for carpet and vinyl installation jobs. I had that job for about four years. My...