Where do we go from here......by Grandpa

How about backing up and talking a little about our goals, our thoughts and our feelings.
I stated earlier that we were "two dumb and happy people starting out on a new adventure", but it went beyond that. It was our first and maybe our last chance to really change our lives and possibly the lives of others. We had our five year plan. We both agreed that during the next five years we would do whatever was necessary (as long as it was not illegal, immoral or indecent) to achieve our goals. Not only for us, but everyone around us.
I would like to say that we were able to do it - but alas we 'failed'. It took us seven and a half years and was not a 'total' success - but about 90% of what we wanted. And we found it was not a 24/7 job, it was a 24/365 job!
Let's look at the company. We were a minority stockholder. Bob Reeves had 40%, Don Geary 40% and Margaret and I had 20%. Bob had the title of President and Don was Secretary/Treasurer. I was Vice President/CEO and Margaret was comptroller. We later let Harold Roffmann, Mt. Vernon City Engineer, in at 5% for drafting and preparing our building prints free. This left Bob 38%, Don 38% and Margaret and I with 19%.
It was an unusual set up, with Bob holding the title of President in name only, he wasn't allowed to do anything without my approval.
We lived in Paducah at first, then moved our trailer to Mt. Vernon and at first had the two room office, hired one office girl (Dee Smith) and got up to five motels quite quickly. From this point we took off like a rocket.
I was almost running night and day, Margaret likewise. Her main responsibility was bookkeeping, bill paying, payroll and the taxes, profit and loss statement, bank balance and supervising the reports that came in from the motels. We went from our two room office to a four room office and eventually built a 10 room office and warehouse (more about this later). The office staff grew from Dee to a total of nine girls.
Margaret helped me with my pending development projects and helped prepare complete feasibility studies and projected profit and losses for the lending companies. She even flew to Oklahoma City once to secure a loan we needed for a motel in Midwest City. I guess what I am trying to say is that Margaret did a beautiful job at every endeavor and she was a very large part of our success. I could not have done it without her. Thank you, Margaret, very much.

Back to our five motels and growing. We were building as fast as we could obtain financing and buying existing locations. At the same time, our franchise group known as CW were building several motels of their own. So we met with developers, viewed sights all over the country, viewed potential motels for sale, provided the necessary paperwork to apply and secure the loans, supervised the construction of the various motels, ordered the furniture and installed it, interviewed and hired the managers, and basically ran the total operation of the company. Time seemed to be running together and after all these years, we both have problems in coming up with exact time lines of the various motels, but I believe that after the first five motels, we went to 15 motels in the next year alone and had three more under construction. This would be by December 1973.
At least half of my time was spent on the road working on new locations and expansion. I had one motel in California in the works - Rohnert Park. At this time my brother Bill got interested in the promotional side and went with me a few times, and got involved in our west coast expansion. He must have left poor son Cliff to handle the repairs at his Radiator Shop by himself.
Bill came up with a couple of investors which produced properties for us in Vallejo, Calif. and Battle Creek, Mich. He and I checked out sites from Spokane, Washington, down through Oregon, California and Nevada.
Bill, with Frances, Joe, Casey and Patrick, moved back to Mt. Vernon to help out in the main office. He became my maintenance supervisor, controlling all the major changes we made to existing motels and the maintenance of our own properties.
He was a lot of help and we enjoyed Bill and Frances and the boys being close. It was then that Frances and Margaret started their sharing Thanksgiving and Christmas. We would always have them together, and they took turns in being the 'chief cook and bottle washers'. more later.