The Early Years
Fred Roberts, Sandra's dad, was "born country"
in Colorado, within sight of Pike's Peak. He worked on western farms
and ranches in the early 1900s and by World War II moved to the Chicago
region. It takes a tough man to be a roofer in Chicago, where the wind
chill drops to 75 degrees below zero and the summer heat and humidity
index hits over 110. This is where he raised his family of three girls
and two boys and keeps on listening to his country western music.
Sandra's mom, Shirley, added the influence of classical
music and the hymns and anthems of the church. Sandra was also a
product of the 50's and 60's schools with a wide exposure to rock and
roll music and its related dances. Dance experiences for many children
began in elementary school with various folk dances - the dance around
the May pole and the handkerchief dance. By high school, casual lessons
in waltz, Lindy (East Coast Swing), and cha-cha were incorporated into
the physical education program. A juke box often played 45s in the Rec
(Recreation) Room during the lunch period. Of course the students selected
the fast and loud rock beat and then put feet and body to the dances
- Twist, Swim, Freddy, Jerk, Pony, and others that the parents and teachers
didn't like. This was the era after Chicago's WLS-AM left country behind
and was rocking Chicago. Wolfman Jack was prowling and growling on the
newly transistorized air waves.
Sandra was a member of the award winning Crown Point,
Indiana, High School marching and concert bands and studied music with
Director Carl Smolik for nine years, beginning in 4th grade.
Growing up in northwestern Indiana, Sandra had experience
with both outdoor ice skating (on frozen ponds and flooded tennis courts)
and indoor roller skating. Later she would have a lot of fun traveling
around the country skating in various locations. She skated to the Beach
Boys music in sunny California and to those extremely fast Highway Fox
Trots in Unity, Ohio. When the rinks changed the music from traditional
dance skate music to heavy metal/rhythm and blues/rap, she hung up her
skates and went back to her roots - dancing to the country music she
grew up with.
Sandra moved around a little. OK, more than a little.
She even lived out in the far west for a short spell - between Mount
Rainier and the Pacific Ocean in Washington, (continued below)
Ron's part of the travelogue:
I remember those times. It had been a busy four months. Two states
trying to draft me and I was trying to draft Sandra (into marriage).
I won and Illinois won. Like many boys during those times, I was put
on the night train for Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the Home of the 101st
Airborne.
Sandra went home to our apartment in Clinton, Illinois. Since she
didn't drive a stick shift, our car would sit in the back yard for
a while. After a couple of months, the Army decided to send me out
to Ft. Lewis, Washington. All those planes to jump out of and they
gave me $100 and told me to find my own way to Washington. The map
suggested that Clinton was right on the way.
I called her up, told her to pack, and that I'd pick her and the
car up on the way by. We had just turned 19 and 20 and the car was
a well used 12-year old '54 Ford. Had to hold one door shut or tie
it. I'd drive 'til I was too tired to stay on the road. She'd give
it a try. I'd get woke up every time she had to shift. She would push
the pedals and I'd move the shift lever. We lived in the car and kept
the canned peaches cold in the back window. Sure missed hot food and
a bed on that trip. Two times she wouldn't drive. Along the winding
Platt River in Nebraska, the night fog was so thick we could hardly
see the hood of the car so we inched along by the Braille method.
The other time she balked was after a massive series of billboard
sized warnings about steep, winding, and long downgrades ahead. She
had managed to get us near Mt. Rainier, Washington, in the middle
of a winter snowstorm without snow tires or chains. I was elected
to drive the chute down from the pass. By the way, we didn't have
interstate highways all the way (over 2,000 miles), like we do now.
The car held up fine on the trip west, but once it got there it had
to be parked facing downhill so it would start the next time. If you
haven't had the experience, it goes like this. "Uh, the car won't
start." "OK. Release the hand brake." "You push,
I'll steer." When the speed builds up, the driver pops the clutch,
and prays. That works only after the morning tire check. The questions
for weeks was not, if there was a flat, but how many. If we had one
flat, we could put on the spare and drive to work. If two or more
were flat, we drifted the car down hill to the service station and
the guys would gradually get around to fixing them. Brakes went out
occasionally in the hills around Tacoma. Down shift and use the parking
brake quickly. Later, the gas peddle linkage broke, while we were
coming full tilt down into Denver from the mountains at night. Know
that we bought it for $50 in Illinois and later sold it for $50 in
Oklahoma. Not too much money went into the experiences, but it still
kept us broke. I was working full time in the Army for $120 a month.
The bailing wire we used to hold the exhaust system on was from a
bundle of newspapers we found in St. Louis one early morning. We were
so poor we had to avoid toll bridges. In those days, we got a new
tire for special occasions - birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas.
(continuation of Sandra's background) then moved to the
edge of the Wichita Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, where open range buffalo
grazed. Sandra eventually moved near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then
resettled in Garner, North Carolina. Besides living in more than a half
dozen states, she's visited most of the rest. She's vacationed in Mexico
and Venezuela. In Mexico she had to walk planks between the two sections
of the hotel on the 8th floor, where it split during an earthquake.
Sandra also spent some time hanging around the Mexican pyramids. In
Venezuela she drove from Caracas to the Columbia border - on unpaved
roads through the Andes Mountains and returned through the plains on
the edge of the jungle.
You ask, "Did she ever work?" She worked her
way through several colleges and ran her own business for over 20 years
in Oklahoma, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. She directed church youth group
programs for over ten years and chaired a local government planning
commission.
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