Introduction to the memoir, "Rooted in the Rock" by Pattie Martin Macurdy.  Link to the full stories: https://pattieremembers.wordpress.com/

Born on the day of the stock market crash in October 1929, Pattie grew up on a farm in Tennessee. At her high school graduation, Pattie was sixteen and too shy to give the valedictory speech. At age twenty, she graduated from Murray State College in Kentucky, with a degree in Elementary Education. Pattie found employment teaching first grade at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle and married one of the many young pilots there. She thrived on military life, moving from place to place around the world. Pattie dreamed of someday living alone in a southern college town. In 1985, she moved to Gainesville, home of the University of Florida, where she lives the dream and writes her memoir stories.

Pattie’s stories describe growing up without electricity or indoor plumbing, in a community called Standing Rock Creek, losing a brother in World War II, living in Japan and Spain as a military wife, losing a son to HIV contracted through a blood transfusion, and pursuing interests in birding, art, music, literature, and photography. Her stories touch on politics, religion, and various other absurdities such as elderly romance. Readers will laugh, cry, and relate.