A twenty acre piece of property with 2,800 sq.ft. home with a two car garage. The home is about 70% complete. The outside is basically done, but only rough finished inside. It will require a lot of work. The house set back off the road about 250 ft. and had a creek running approx. 200 feet behind. This creek was the start of the Big Muddy River. The entire 20 acres is forest, with rolling terrain, except for about 3 acres semi flat in the right front corner where the house is located. We were too busy at work to get much done at home, but we asked Keith to come stay with us that summer and help out in finishing the house. You can see him and Casey here working on a picnic area we put in the back. 
But the first major project was to put in the concrete driveway (ranging from 12' to 30' wide and approx. 250' long). We tackled this in the heat of the summer with a 44 year old, out-of-shape man, and five kids ranging in age from 14 to 17 years old. We got it done. It took five days and a whole bunch of "when the going gets tough guys, the tough get going". The kids consisted of Pat, Casey, Keith, neighbor Rick Jones (Debbie's brother) and a friend of Rick's. 
We ended up (over a year and a half) completing the picnic area, putting in a lake, finishing the inside of the house, including a full master suite in the lower section, and two layers of decking in the back. I might say we were a bit proud of the place. 
Late that summer Mom, Hazel and Karen came out to visit and take Keith back. This gave us an opportunity to show them around southern Illinois and the Kentucky Lake area. The photo above with Frances, Bill, Hazel, Margaret in the forefront and Joe, Casey, Patrick, Karen, Keith in the background was taken at Crab Orchard Lake. It was almost a family reunion, just Jerry and Louise and their families missing.
Living here was where we became aware of Debbie. Her father Bill Jones lived approx. 1-1/2 to 2 miles SE of us and owned a large acreage including a lake. He owned considerable equipment and did a lot of dirt work for us, leveling off areas and putting in our dam and digging out the lake. Bill Jones always wanted someone to work with him and run errands - get him a tool, etc. and at that time Debbie at the age of 12 was his helper. At 6am when he showed up to work, Debbie was with him and we became friends. Whenever she had free time she would ride her horse over to our place, with her faithful dog trotting behind, and it soon became a regular Sunday event. Her parents seemed to have no problem, and she slipped into being our Sunday 'daughter' to our summer 'daughter'. Perhaps she was the daughter Margaret never had.
Jerry and Bev and family visited us briefly as did one of Margaret's nephews from Canada, and also Gordon and Irene. It was a fun place to entertain people.
We also bought another house - this time a fire damaged home in a nearby village Bellerive. Some of the roof and walls had burned out and of course there was a lot of electrical and smoke damage throughout. We offered Bill and Frances a full share of any profit if they would help with the cleanup, remodeling, etc. We did pretty well on that and made a fair profit. A four bedroom/3 bath house (approx. 2800 sq.ft) we bought as is for $22,000 and sold for $45,000. Not bad for an 8 week evening and weekend job. During that time good wages were $800 to $900 a month.
In 1976 we got more company - but this time a bit more permanent. Mom, Hazel, Keith, Karen and Cody and baby Jeremy moved back to Illinois. They stayed with us until they got settled. Karen and Cody bought one small house, Hazel and Keith another, and Mom another. (Mom later moved into a senior living apartment). Hazel, Keith Karen and Cody all found jobs. Cody at Precision Engineering, Hazel at the hospital, Karen at a funeral home and I don't recall what Keith did.
It was nice for Margaret and I to have some of our family closer.
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