Frances Louise Carter Vardiman Robinson, 1917-2000
b. Chariton County, Missouri; d. San Diego County, CA
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Photos:
Louise Carter - Teacher in 2 room school house.
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Content:
Age: 82
Occupation: English Teacher
State: Missouri, North Dakota, Illinois, Texas, Colorado, California
# of Children: 8 (6 lived)
See below for narrative.
Click on Photos to enlarge.
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Links:
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Louise's Parent's wedding photo Thomas
Franklin Carter & Grace Caroline Blanchet (2nd cousins)Married 1908
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Frances Louise Carter's Birth Certificate
born 30 August 1917
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Frances Louise Carter around 1918
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Grace Caroline Blanchet Carter holding son Leland Thomas Carter,
Louise's older brother, who passed away at 6 1/2 years old in 1918.
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1922 - 5 years old
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Carter Family Thomas Franklin & Grace Caroline Carter
Children: Anna, Louise and Frank
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1936 - 19 years old
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Frances Louise Carter went by "Louise" and loved to dress up!
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Louise & Phil's Wedding Photo 15
August 1940
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Phil & Louise Vardiman's Wedding Announcement
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Thomas Franklin and Grace Caroline Carter, Louise's parents about
1950
Grace passed away in 1962 at 77 years old
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Salisbury, Missouri (1917-1940)
Frances Louise Carter was born 30 August
1917 in Salisbury in Chariton County, Missouri to Thomas Franklin and
Grace Caroline Carter. She grew up next door to her future
husband, Phil Vardiman, who was two years older than her. Louise
attended teacher's college and after 2 years she moved to North Dakota
to marry Phil. She taught in a 2 room school house. |
Louise & Phil Vardiman Wedding Day 15 August 1940
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Louise & Phil Vardiman
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Left to Right: Louise & Phil, Molly & Miles Vardiman (Phil
& Ross' Parent), Emily & Ross holding daughter, June
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Fargo,
North Dakota (1940-1941)
Phil got a job working on the faculty at Fargo,
North Dakota University for two years. He worked in the veterinary
department opening up dead animals to find the cause of death. After he
had been there one year he sent for Louise and they got married 15
August 1940 in the church parlor in Fargo, North Dakota. Phil was 25
years old at the time and Louise was two weeks shy of 23. Unfortunately
none of the family members could attend because of the cost to go out
there. At that time the typical salary was $75-$100 per month! The few
gifts Louise received at her wedding shower before the wedding are the
most special gifts she’s ever received because the family didn’t have
much money and it meant a lot to her. (Interview of Louise Carter
Vardiman Robinson 25
July 1998 by Michelle Vardiman Fansler)
Kansas City, Missouri (1941-1942)
Phil and Louise lived in
Fargo for one year after they got married then moved to Kansas City in
1941 where Phil substituted at Kansas State University for a man who was
fighting in World War II. Phil taught, did research in veterinary
science and also did a lot of autopsy's of large animals. He was very
good at diagnosing what was wrong. A year later the man came back from
his end of service in the army and took back his position.
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Louise's brother, Frank Carter, fighter pilot in WWII.
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1944 Louise's brother, Frank Carter married Mary Campbell
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Frank & Mary Carter Family Carol Jean and Mary Ann
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Litchfield, Illinois Veterinary Practice
1942-1949
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House in town
123 East Union Avenue Litchfield, Illinois
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Larry in front of house outside of
town on Sherman Street off Route 66
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Litchfield, Illinois (1942 - 1949)
Phil and
Louise decided to go into practice and moved to Litchfield, Illinois in
1942. Phil was in his own veterinary practice for about nine to ten
years. "That was one of the best things we ever did." (Louise Carter
Vardiman Robinson, 21 April 1997)
The family
moved out of town to a small country house where Phil Vardiman had his
private practice.
The Vardiman family of
five lived in a relatively small house off highway 66. They had a big
yard with a cherry tree. There was also a storm cellar for storing
roots from the garden and to escape into when a tornado came. Phil
Vardiman had a large building in the back for his veterinary practice
with tables and cages. Litchfield was in a large milk producing area
and much of the milk was shipped to St. Louis and Chicago.
Phil and
Louise liked to go fishing at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Phil and Louise had a
total of eight children, six of which survived. They ended up with
three boys and three girls. |
Marfa, Texas (West Texas) (1949 - 1952)
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Larry & Billie in front of House in Marfa, TX
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Marfa, TX
Phil, Louise holding Steven, Billie & Larry in front
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Marfa, Texas
(West Texas) (1949 - 1952) Phil’s health was continuing to
fail and the doctor said they needed to get to a warmer climate so they
moved to Marfa, Texas in 1949 when Phil was 34 years old. So Phil decided to work
on his masters at Texas A&M. He bought a hay wagon and loaded it with
all the families possessions and hauled it behind their old willie
station wagon for the 1500 plus mile trip from Litchfield, Illinois to
West Texas.
Phil got a job at an
experimental station in Marfa, Texas while he was going to school for
his masters in veterinary science at Texas A&M. The experimental
station was on an old airport. There was a circular drive with a group
of buildings, an old barn, an office which was used for the experimental
station and two houses. One house was for the Vardiman family and the
other house was for Phil's assistant.
Hundreds of cattle were
dying at that time and autopsy's revealed extremely hard, yellow livers.
Phil did research to diagnose the problem. He began to identify all the
poisonous plants the cattle were eating out on the range as the source
of the problem. To help educate the ranchers on what the poisonous
plants looked like, Phil built "Poison Hill" as he called it in a garden
area in the middle of the circular drive which was about 50 feet in
diameter. He brought in dirt and built a little hill then planted all
the different types of poisonous plants that he had identified in West
Texas. When ranchers came over Phil would take them out to Poison Hill
and show them what the plants looked like so they could better protect
their Herfer and Long Horn cattle. Phil mixed up a concoction of
poisonous plants and fed it to some cattle a little at a time so they
eventually were inoculated so that if the cattle ate the poisonous
plants on the range they wouldn't die. Phil did his master thesis on his
research on the poisonous plants in West Texas. |
House in St. Louis, IL
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Louise & Phil 1955 in St. Louis, IL
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Vardiman Family in home in St. Louis, IL 1955
Back Row: Billie, Louise holding David, Phil holding Ann Lueece, Larry, Front Row: Steven & Mary Phil
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St. Louis,
Missouri (1952 - 1956)
In 1952 they moved the
family to St. Louis, Missouri where Phil worked for Ralston Purina as a
large animal veterinarian. On their way to Missouri Louise went into
labor and had to be dropped off at a hospital in Hays, Kansas where
their fifth child was born. The family lived with Louise's
parents, Frank and Grace Carter, in "Kirksville, Missouri for three or
four months to recover from Anne's birth in Kansas. [Louise] had a
blood clot in her leg." (Larry and Billie's comments at 2016 Family
reunion in Tucson, Arizona at Anne and Ted Kurtz's house.)
Phil and Louise purchased
a fantastic, beautiful house in St. Louis on Dale Avenue in Richmond
Heights. It was about one block from St. Lukes Catholic church. They
lived in that house for about three to four years. While in St. Louis their last
child was born, David.
The house was four stories
including the attic and basement. Larry has very vivid memories of the
house. It had a front porch with a big beautiful glass door with
beveled edges. Inside the door was an entranceway and to the right was
a settee and a place to hang hats. On the right beyond that was a
stairway leading to the second floor. Left of the entrance way was a
sitting room with sliding mahogany doors that opened and closed like
going into a drawing room. The ceilings on both floors were 14 feet
tall with very fancy wall boards on the floor and ceiling. In the
drawing room to the left was a beautiful ornate working fireplace with
white enameled columns. It had a metal cover to keep out the draft when
you weren't using it. There were also big old casement windows around
the room. Beyond that was a dining room that also had big sliding doors
between the rooms to petition them off. The dining room also had a
fireplace on one end and big windows. Off to the right of the dining
room was the kitchen or you could get to the kitchen from the front door
by going straight down the hallway. It was a gigantic farm kitchen with
a cupboard off to the side and white cabinets. There was a big screened
in porch in the back.
The second floor had four
bedrooms and one bathroom. The front room was a children's room that
looked out onto the street where you could see traffic and buses going
by. There was a wooden window seat that lifted up for storage. In the
back was another children's room which Mom and Dad painted the walls
black so the kids could write on the walls with chalk. The other front
bedroom had a fireplace as it was above the drawing room. The back
bedroom on that side had fancy cabinets and closets. The bathroom had a
big tub with a shower. The porcelain sink was from the 1930's or 1940's
and had a column as the base.
There was a very narrow
stairway with only one lightbulb from the second to third floor. It was
kind of creepy to go up the stairs but once you were in the attic it was
bright with lights and windows in the front and back. The attic had
sloping ceilings and was one big room. There was storage up there but
still plenty of room to ride a tricycle around on rainy days.
The basement had a coal
furnace with pipes running along the ceiling that you had to duck under
at times. There was a coal room and the floor was uneven. There was
also a back door that led outside from the basement.
"Dad often changed the
houses we lived in. Our family joked how we always lived in sawdust." (Larry
Vardiman, Glimpses of My Childhood, tape #1B) Phil didn't like
eating in the dining room so he cut a hole in the wall between the
kitchen and dining room about a foot high and made a table/bar
situation. Half the family would sit in the kitchen and the other half
in the dining room to eat but couldn't quit see each other. Dad did a
similar thing in another house in Pacific, Missouri with a pull down
table on a pulley arrangement.
Phil did the carpenter
type changes in the house and Louise did more of the painting and
papering on the inside. She wanted the house to look sophisticated and
wanted a patriotic theme in the front hallway. She had Larry, who was
in his upper grade school years, fifth-seventh grade, paint the ceiling
light blue and use a roller with a star pattern to roll on top. Then
they painted the walls burgundy or dark red with blue stripes running
vertically up the walls. We "ended up with a front hall that was very
unique with a patriotic theme with stars and stripes and red, white and
blue." (Larry Vardiman, Memories of My Childhood, tape #2A)
While in St. Louis, Phil
worked for Ralston Purina Company. He worked downtown at the veterinary
center before going to the Ralston Purina farm full time. He did
research projects with cattle. He got an idea from a Swedish man to
operate on a cow and cut a hole in the side of the cow and into the
stomach and install a pipe with a plug in it. He could insert feed into
the stomach and see how long it would take to digest food.
"I remember occasionally
helping dad when I was out on the farm when he would remove the plug
from that cow. Unfortunately the cow had built up a bit of steam from
the digestion and when he would remove the plug it would squirt all
kinds of nasty fluid out of the cow as well as all the gases and stinch
that came with it. Anyway that was quite an experience." (Larry
Vardiman, Glimpses of My Childhood tape #1B)
Phil also drove out to the
Ralston Purina farm for buckets of raw, non-pasteurized milk on
Saturdays. He would take three gallon buckets and put wax paper with a
lid on top. Some milk still spilled so the car always had a spoiled
milk smell. |
Moved to Columbia, IL
1956-1959
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John Deere Model A Tractor
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International Harvester Farmall H
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Columbia Illinois,
(1956 - 1959)
They got tired of living
in the city and decided to move out to a rustic farm in Columbia,
Illinois in 1956 where Phil did a lot of fixing up of the place.
farm was on 102 acres of land. Fifty of the acres
was full of trees and sinkholes and had a creek running through it. It
wasn't possible to farm that area but it was great for rabbit hunting.
The other 50 acres were tillable and Phil and Larry put in hay and
corn. Since Phil was still working full time at Ralston Purina Larry
did most of the farming. He learned a lot about repairing farm tractors
and equipment. "It was a real neat experience. Probably one of the
formative experiences of my life to be able to work on a farm like that
and to learn how to do things that you just wouldn't get if you were a
city kid." (Larry Vardiman, Glimpses of My Childhood tape #1B)
The land and two story barn were
o.k. but the house was in pretty bad shape. It was a 150 year old log
cabin that someone had put electric wiring in it that ran along the
ceiling and down to the switch box. The prior owners had used the
kitchen as a barn for their sheep or goats. The "first thing we had to
do was shovel out three inches of goat manure out of the kitchen. It
stunk to high heaven. After we shoveled it out, washed it down and
disinfected it then we painted it the color mom selected, pea green. It
looked pretty sad but it was a gigantic kitchen with a big farm table in
it." (Larry Vardiman, Glimpses of My Childhood, tape #1B) There
were only two bedrooms in the house. Their parents used one bedroom and
all six children shared the other large room. It actually had six beds
in it!
There was no running water or
septic system. To go to the bathroom required a walk about a block long
down to the outhouse behind the barn. Phil put in a pressure pump
system for running water and a heater for hot water. Then he built a
septic system from bricks. Larry remembers helping dig the hole in the
ground and standing at the bottom laying bricks for the septic tank.
"It was kind of a strange way to live but that's the way my dad and mom
did it and it worked. They got it built into a nice home." (Larry
Vardiman, Glimpses of My Childhood, tape #1B)
When Phil and Larry plowed one of
the fields for the first time it was rather challenging as the weeds
were over ten feet tall in one area as that field had probably not been
plowed in over five years. They used an international club tractor
which was actually only a garden tractor with one plow. Since they
couldn't see from one end of the field to the other the "first time we
plowed that field the way we had to do that was dad got on the tractor
and started at one end of the field and I stood up on top of the tractor
and looked at the trees at the other end of the field and told him which
direction to head because he couldn't see even if he stood up on the
tractor… So I had had to stand up on the hood of the tractor and look
out across the field and see above the weeds in order to be able to plow
the first furrow straight. Once you got the first one in it was pretty
easy after that." (Larry Vardiman, Glimpses of my childhood, tape
#2B)
It typically took Larry about a
month to plow ten acres of land with the small tractor. There was a
steep hill behind the barn and the tractor didn't have enough power for
hauling large loads of hay and would buck up in front or slip in the
mud. "Grandma Mollie Vardiman was visiting one time and I was kind of
showing off and I popped the clutch a little bit and the front end of
the tractor went up in the air like a bucking bronco and she screamed
and about scared the daylights out of me from her scream but then it
settled back down and we were ok." (Larry Vardiman, Glimpses of my
childhood, tape #2B)
Phil later bought a John
Deere model A tractor with a big flywheel and two pistons. It made lots
of different noises depending on what type of terrain it was on and it
just kept on going. One year rain got into the exhaust pipe and into
the oil shortly after Larry had overhauled it in shop at school in
Columbia. When Phil started it up the oil was frozen and it burned up
the engine. |
House in Pacific, MO
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1960s
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Larry
High School Grad 1961
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1964 Louise and her brother, Frank at
their father, Thomas Franklin Carter's wedding to Mae Dugan.
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1964 Carter Wedding with Frank and Louise's families.
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Billie
High School Grad 1964
with Frank & Mae Carter
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Phil & Louise Vardiman Family about 1965
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1967 Phil & Louise in backyard in Pacific, admiring a mushroom
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Steve
High School Grad 1967
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Pacific,
Missouri (1959 - 1968)
Phil’s
health was getting worse so Ralston Purina gave him a job transfer to a
research farm near Gray Summit, Missouri. It was too far to commute
from Columbia so the family once again moved to Pacific, Missouri in
1959.
They
bought a house on a dead end street on the East side of Pacific up next
to limestone cliffs. It was close to a factory that made roofing
materials, toothpaste and cleanser using ground up limestone. It was at
the edge of town and in the woods.
Louise was working on classes one at a time
to finish up her BA and Masters through extension courses out of St.
Louis. Larry took a Spanish class with her in St. Louis about one night
a week.
Phil died from heart trouble on 23 February 1968 at 53 years
old. Phil and Louise had been married a total of 27 ½ years!
Louise needed to sell the house in Pacific,
MO and finish up her schooling quickly as she had no income and no
insurance. She may have received some social security checks for the
three youngest children who were under 18. Church people donated lots of
clothes which they kept in the attic and went through whenever they
needed something to wear.
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Cape Girardeau, MO in 1969
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1969 - Louise
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Louise's youngest son, David, a sophomore in high school, acted
as an Army Captain who did precision drilling of his troops in the play Annie Get Your Gun.
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Mary Phil
High School Grad Dec 1968
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Ann Lueece
High School Grad 1970
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David
High School Grad 1972
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Cape Girardeau, Missouri (1968-1972)
Louise chose a teaching college in
Cape Girardeau to be able to finish up her masters and teaching
credential quickly so she could bring in some income. She and the three
youngest children moved during the summer of 1968. "It took the entire summer to move, one trailer load at a time, many trips between Cape and Pacific."
Email from David Vardiman 17 November 2010.
Mary Phil (age 17)
attended her senior year in Cape Girardeau, Ann (age 16) entered her
junior year and David (age 14) started Central high school there. Louise must
have done her student teaching in Cape Girardeau.
Conversation between Michelle Vardiman Fansler and Jeannette Vardiman 17 November 2010.
"We lived in a rental of a college professor in north Cape, until Mom could buy a house for us. I went to summer school and hated it! I bummed around the summer of 1969 and I believe mom decided I need to go live with your father and mother
(Larry and Jeannette the next summer) as they were moving to Colorado.
Following graduation, mom (Louise) got a job teaching 5th grade at a
small town south of Cape, Scott City – Ilmo, MO." Email from David Vardiman 17 November 2010.
"Mary Phil finished high
school in her Sr. year in December of 1968 and went to college for a semester. She ran away with the circus in the fall of 1969, no really she did, just ask her. She got married to a George Campbell and they moved to London, Ontario, Canada. They moved back in with us in our new home in Cape the summer of 1970 or 71." She divorced George and
eventually joined the Air Force.
Email from David Vardiman 17 November 2010.
Ann graduated from high
school in 1970 and was taking classes at the local junior college in
Cape Girardeau. Larry and Steve went to college with Ted Kurtz at the
University of Missouri in Rolla. Larry knew Ted from band and Steve knew
Ted from engineering classes. Steve brought Ted home for the holidays.
Ted and Ann got married spring 1972 before Louise moved to Fort Collins,
CO. Ted & Ann moved to New York near Ted’s parents and sent maple syrup
for Christmas. Ann took a course in modeling in New York and dyed her
hair blond for a little bit.
Larry was married to
Jeannette and their first child, Michelle, had been born two weeks prior
to Phil’s passing at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Kelly was born
there in December 1969.
Louise displayed a pickled rattlesnake in a jar
for years in her homes that David "caught the first time I was in Colorado. Your mom and dad (Jeannette & Larry), you
(Michelle), and Grandma Lou and I drove to Colorado the summer of 1969 to allow your dad to interview for graduate school at CSU. We camped the whole way and it was a Loooong
trip with so many of us in one car. The girls slept in the car at a rest
area near Fort Hays, KS and your dad and I slept on the picnic tables.
We then camped in Poudre Canyon for almost a week and we loved the
mountains. I remember all of us listening to the car radio while camping in Colorado when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon (July 20, 1969) and did his first walk on the moon. We took a hike and I found this rattlesnake crossing the
road. I am not sure if I spent more time running from the snake or the
snake from me, but I had a bigger stick in the end, gee I miss that
snake, wonder whatever became of him?"
Email from David Vardiman 17 November 2010.
Larry and Jeannette moved to Fort Collins,
Colorado in 1970 for Larry to complete his Masters and PhD at Colorado
University and the family lived in student housing for a little bit.
It was a 2 bedroom condo with the bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. David lived with Larry and
Jeannette’s family for the summer of 1970 between his junior and senior
years in high school. David slept on the couch downstairs in the main
living area. David graduated from Central high school, Cape Girardeau, MO
in 1972. Conversation between Michelle Vardiman Fansler and Jeannette Vardiman 17
November 2010. |
Fort Collins, CO
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David in front of Louise's one bedroom house in Fort Collins, CO
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Louise holding grandson, Tony Alonso July
1975
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4 April 1976 Louise with son, David
and daughter-in-law, Debra
"Debbie" Jo Clarr on their wedding day
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Louise married John Robinson 23
Oct 1976 David & Debbie right front
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Fort Collins, Colorado (1972-1999)
"Steve and I moved mom to Fort Collins, CO in the spring (May/June) of 1972. Steve and Barb were also moving and so we loaded their stuff onto the truck and Barb and Steve drove their car behind us on to Colorado. I had a high school friend join harvest crew with me (Jim Restameyer) and he rode along with me until we both were dropped off in Salina, Kansas to take a bus on south to Altus, OK and meet up with J.L. Thompson my first year working with his harvest crew."
Email from David Vardiman 17 November 2010.
David graduated from
the Cape Girardeau high school in 1972, Larry and Jeannette hooked David
up with a Colorado based harvesting company the summer before his senior
year in 1971 and Louise with a teaching
job in Fort Collins, CO starting fall 1972. David worked harvest crews every summer to pay
for college from 1971-1974.
Middle Photo: Louise taught 7th grade English at
Heritage Christian School in Fort Collins, CO. By that time Larry and
Jeannette were renting a house at 501 Columbia, Fort Collins , CO. Larry
was attending Colorado University and working as a research assistant.
He was also in the Air Force reserves once a month. All the Vardiman
kids worked their way through college. Louise lived at Larry and
Jeannette’s house the summer of 1972 while they took a trip to Illinois
to visit Jeannette’s family in August. When Larry and Jeannette's family
got back Louise had found a cute little one bedroom house that she moved
into. It had a lilac bush outside the front door.
Right Photo: Mary Phil married Lupe Alonso. They were stationed in London, England for three years. Tony was born in England in 1975. Louise went out to visit them in July when Tony was 6 months old. She was in England during the 4th of July and literally wore a revolutionary outfit including a hoop skirt to celebrate the American holiday.
David rented a basement
room while attending college at Colorado School of Mines from his future wife's parents in
Golden, CO while she (Debbie) was away attending Illinois Wesleyan
University in Bloomington Illinois, majoring in education and minoring in music.
She graduated the spring of 1976 and did her student teaching in Golden,
CO. David and Debbie met when she came home for the holidays. David
stayed at Louise's house a lot on weekends and holidays but it was only
a small one bedroom place so he probably slept on the couch.
Conversation between Michelle Vardiman Fansler and Jeannette Vardiman 17
November 2010. "Debbie and I were engaged in the summer of 1975 and I went to work with Amoco Minerals in Prescott, AZ, my first summer in the industry."
Email from David Vardiman 21 November 2010 |
Robinson House in Red Feather, Colorado
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Louise & John Robinson
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Louise & John Robinson
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Vardiman Family Reunion 1987 in Colorado
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John & Louise Robinson with Phil & Louise's Children minus Mary Phil
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John & Louise Robinson with Phil & Louise's Grandchildren
minus Tony
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Louise remarried in 1976 to John Robinson. They were married 23 years until his death in 1999. John and Louise Robinson built a house in Red Feather, Colorado and
lived there for many years. In the winter they traveled in a 5th
wheeler down to Texas by the Mexican border. They lived in a nursing home in Fort
Collins, Colorado near the end of their lives. |
Charlotte Russe Pie by Louise (Larry's Favorite)
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Charlotte Russe Backside of recipe card
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Charlotte Russe Recipe (Click on image for printable copy)
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Wedding Gift to Michelle Vardiman Fansler from
Louise |
Chicken and Dumplings
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Grandma Lou's secret for Chicken and Dumplings:
1. Use Canned Chicken Broth in crockpot instead of water.
2. Use Canned Chicken Broth in separate pot on stove for dumplings instead of liquid from crockpot as that's a bit greasy. |
1997 John & Louise Robinson visiting San Diego, Ca for Great Grandsons' dedication
Back Left to Right: Larry, Jeannette, Michelle, Victor, Spencer
Sabine(Laura's dog), Laura, John, Kelly, Louise holding Carter, Daniel
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Louise passed awayy 17 February 2000
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Louise spent the last year of her life at her oldest son, Larry's, house in San Diego County, CA
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Sunset Memorial Cemetery in Pacific, Missouri
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Sunset Memorial Cemetery in Pacific, Missouri
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San Diego, California (2000)
Louise spent the last year of her life living at her oldest son, Larry's, house in Santee, San Diego
County, California.
Written by Michelle Vardiman Fansler
compiled from interviews of Louise Carter Vardiman Robinson and Larry
Vardiman's Glimpses of my childhood cassette tapes |