Jim was born in San Diego, California.  His Father, Jim Sr, and Mother, Doris, were both born and raised in Nebraska.  They moved out here in the early 1940's.  Jim grew up in Pacific Beach then in his early teens they moved to East San Diego.
    Betty was also born in San Diego.  Her Father, Al, was born in Mississippi and her Mother, Bee, was born in Minnesota.  They met in Washington, DC during the war years.  Al was in the Navy and was transferred to San Diego in 1945.  As a child Betty traveled all over the country as Al was a career Navy man.  She lived in San Diego, Long Beach, San Pedro (all in California), St. Paul, Minnesota and Washington, DC.  These were all due to Al's frequent transfers.  They ended up in San Diego at the end of Al's military career.

    Jim has three brothers, Frank and John (twins), and Tommy, actually Thomas but we all call him Tommy.  They call Jim, Jimmie.  As a child he loved the beach, fishing, boating and his best friend was Paul.  He also spent some time in the Boy Scouts.  When he was 17 he met Betty at a church youth group meeting.
    Betty has two sisters, Carol and Dorothy and a brother Rob, actually his name is James Robert but has always gone by his middle name.  As a child Betty traveled a lot and was in more schools than any one child has a right to be.  Sometimes two in one year.  Finally in 1955 she was in San Diego for good but that didn't stop the school changing.  She was in parochial school for 5th, 6th and 7th.  Then public Jr. High for 8th.  On to a public high school in 9th and surprise, surprise she finished all four years in the same school.  Her best friends were Joanne and Sharon who she went to parochial school with in grades 5 to 7.  She was 14 when she met Jim.

    Jim and I were both in high school when we met, only problem was we were in different high schools.  He went to a city school and I went to a county school.  Thank goodness for our church youth group otherwise Robert, Stephen and Margie wouldn't be here and that would be a great loss for the world.  (I'm just a little bit biased.)
    We started dating a very long time ago, in 1959.  Back in the days when girls wore dresses and both boys and girls got dressed up to go on a date.  We dated for four years before we were married in 1963.  Jim graduated from Crawford High School in 1960 and Betty graduated from Helix High in 1962.  I was 18 and Jim was all of 21.
    In 1964 I started working as an LVN for Children's Hospital of San Diego, CA.  Jim was then working for General Atomics.  Our son, Robert, was born in 1966.  Shortly there after Jim went to work for Rohr Industries and I started working for Pediatric Medical Group.  During the years that followed we joined the Convair Rockhound Association (CRA) even though neither of us were employed by Convair.  My Dad, Al, was employed there at the time and he and Mom were active members.  We enjoyed camping and had just left a camping club that we had belonged to for about seven years, the Forester Rovers.  When we joined the CRA it was as guest members and that meant we were supposed to contribute something towards the Club, as in volunteer for some position.  Well, I had been writing the club newsletter for the Rovers so I volunteered to be the editor of The Tektite.  I am still doing this today, some two or three eons later :)
    When Robert (then known as Bobby) turned eight we all joined the Boy Scouts of America.  He as a Cub Scout and Jim and I as adult volunteers.  I was a Den Leader at first and soon found that was not my calling.  I am not at all talented in the arts and crafts area.  I am much better at editing, or managing so I soon found myself volunteering to be the Committee Chairman.  (In those ancient times we still could use the term "chairman", now of course you have to be "politically correct" and say "chairperson".)  I served in that position for Pack 1210 until Bobby was 11 and we started Troop 1210.  Jim was the Scoutmaster and I was, you guessed it, the Committee Chairperson. (We must now be PC.)  We stayed in these positions until 1981 when Jim gave up the SM position to the former Cubmaster of Pack 1210 and I became the Unit Commissioner for the Pack and Troop.
    By this time Robert (we could no longer call him Bobby.) had already earned the rank of Eagle Scout.  The first for this troop.  He stayed with the Troop 1210 until he moved away from home after college.

    Jim and I are still active in Scouting.  We do  Eagle Scout Project counseling and work as administrators and first aid at the annual Desert Pacific Council Scout Fair.  We never learned how to "just say no".  Jim received the Silver Beaver Award from the San Diego County Council BSA about 1988.  I received the award in February 2001.
    About eight years ago I became interested in genealogy.  Jim's Mom and Dad had passed away and we were suddenly aware that we knew very little about their families.  Jim had thought that his paternal Grandfather, Matthew Schneider, had died when his Father was a young boy.  When we were going through his parents effects we found a photo of Jim Sr and Matthew when Jim Sr was an adult.  That was the  start of a journey that we are still on.  We found out that Grandpa Matthew didn't die until October 1942.  Jim was a baby.  We had started digging and we are still digging.  So far we have found a few "Sirs", some explorers, a plantation owner, a Senator or two, lots of public servants of one kind or another, a Knight who was beheaded for coming to the aid of a deposed Queen who herself was beheaded, and our very own saint - St. Gilbert of Semprigham, his "Saint Day" is February 11th.  It's not on the calendars but it's now on ours.
    In September of 1997 I was diagnosed with Fallopian Tube Cancer.  Thank the good Lord above and my gastroenterologist, Michael Bennett, who didn't like the abdominal pain I was having,  it was "in situ" which means contained in the organ of origin.  It had not spread when it was found.  Even so this had a major impact on my life.  It think this is what gave me the impetus to leave a job that was making me very unhappy.  After five years I was still in remission so we decided to go on with our lives.
    In May of 2001 we had been in Las Vegas for a few days and on the return trip we stopped by Temecula to visit our son and his family.  They just happened to mention that a house down the street from them had come up for sale, also I had noticed that one on the corner of the street before theirs was also for sale.  I had fallen "in love" with this house the first time I saw it on the way to Robert's home.  We made arrangements to view both of these homes and ultimately made an offer on the corner house.  Now we had to quickly sell our home in Mira Mesa and figure out what we were going to do with the rest of our life.  I had to retire that was for sure and Jim had to make a decision as to whether he wanted to commute 100 miles a day or what.  The decision was really obvious.  He also retired so here we are five months later in our late 50's and retired with a new home.
    The new home in Temecula was actually 30 years old.  The wiring as we found out was amazing.  Wall switches didn't work anything, ground wires had been cut, the kitchen exhaust fan had been installed with the packing material still in place and the motor mounted in the transportation position, not  the working position.  It has a pool, which we were not looking for and now we had to find out how one of those works as well as get a cover installed for the safety of our grandchildren and the neighborhood children who might be tempted to visit when we are travelling.  The insurance company cancelled our insurance without telling us because a very old live oak tree was hanging over our beautiful spanish tiled roof.  Easily taken care of by hiring a tree trimmer.  The previous owners were heavy smokers and had cats.  Our family is highly allergic to cats and the house reaked with the stench of old smoke.  We had it completely repainted and the floors tiled and carpeted.  It is now beautiful.

    Now here we are, retired, in our late 50's with a new home and our son and his family just around the corner and four houses away.  We couldn't ask for anything more at this time in our lives.
    The tree finally got trimmed, we had the chimney checked out by an "official Chimney Sweep" but he did not wear the hat.  We still are not brave enough to have our first fire but we have had our first Christmas here.  It was nice and quiet.  So much had happened to us this year that I sent out a Christmas letter with my cards.  I am not in the habit of doing this.
 
 

Last updated on 1/23/2002 11:31