My parents never had a lot of income. Dad was an orderly at a charity hospital, and mom was a unit secretary in the same hospital. I have never figured out how they did it, but we three kids never suffered, although we didn’t have a lot of extras. We never went anywhere very far, just the 50 miles to Tell City IN to visit my grandmother Rothgerber, and 60 miles to Harrisburg IL to visit my two aunts ruby and Susie. These trips were planned well in advanced and saved for. We did take a trip to Texas in 1950 to visit my uncle Gordon. I found an old notebook after their passing that had the expenses of that trip in it. The total was $51.00. This included two motel bills of $4 and $5. I remember the date, because on the way back the news of the Korean war broke.
When they decided they were going to retire, they spent several years living only on what they would get from social security. This must have been a great training session for them. because when they retired, they did a fair amount of traveling. They went to Paris, and my dad to his dying day never got over the Follis Bergere. They went to Rome to see the Pope. They flew to the Holy Land. When my dad got off the plane, he looked around and said, “What the hell are they fighting over?”
I wish I knew their secret.
