1981- Gaston got arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was sentenced to 30 days in an Alcohol Treatment Center.

After he was there a week or so, Tania then 6 yrs old told me a devastating secret, that she'd been holding since she was 4. She told me that this 15 yr old boy (son of a preacher) that stayed with us for a few weeks, 2 yrs earlier, had raped her. She said to me that Kevin took off her panties and that he hurt real bad. He told her that if her dad knew, he'd beat her up because she did something bad. She was too afraid of her dad to tell me. We couldn't do anything to the boy, they had moved away. She spent 2 months in therapy.

1981- I had been living in this country illegally since about 1969. I heard a report in the news that President Carter was going to forgive anyone, for living here without legal papers, (green card) if they turned themselves in to the nearest immigration office. Well, I did. I was fingerprinted and told that they could deport me immediately, but they'd give me 6 months to marry the man I lived with for 10 yrs, so I could get my Alien Resident Card.

1981- I found a few volunteers and started a 4-H goat club "Udder Joy". We had all the kids in the county that took dairy goats as a 4-H project. I was an advisor for over 5 yrs.

March 1981- We got married by the same judge that made him go to an alcoholic treatment center for 30 days, for a drunk driving charge. He'd only been out of the center for a few days, so he was sober that day. Andre and Sandy were our witnesses. We had a small reception at our house.

We would attend AA meetings, but I was the sober one, not him. He would pop a few rolaids in his mouth and thought he was fooling them all, but he wasn't. He would get his book signed then head for the first bar he could find.

1981- He asked me to go pick up his check one morning, knowing I couldn't because I had a doe in labor, so he left for work the usual time. Later that afternoon, I received a phone call from a hospital in Toledo, asking me to go there immediately, my husband had been in an accident. When I got there, the first thing I saw was his chest. It looked like someone had drawn a picture of a steering wheel on it. The doctor told me he had a fractured breast bone and most of his ribs were broken . They couldn't operate and repair the damage yet, because he also had his heart and one lung damaged and he wouldn't be able to make it through the surgery. He had enough alcohol in him to die of alcohol poisoning. He was fighting the nurses to let him out of there, he wanted a beer. They had to strap him down.

He spent 2 weeks in intensive care and was let out of the hospital a week later, waiting for his heart to get stronger for surgery. I went to see the truck, and could not believe he got out of there alive. It looked like an accordion.

1981- About 6 weeks after the accident, Gaston had the surgery done. They put pins in to hold the ribs to the breastbone. He was in intensive care for 2-3 weeks. He didn't mind it at all, he told me it was better than going to court. (for drunk driving charge #2). He was in the hospital for about a month. He was told not to work for 6 months. His doctor told him that if the pins were to bother him he could remove them after it healed up.

He got himself a good, expensive lawyer and had him postpone the driving under the influence case.

I'd been going to bingo on Monday nights for a few years, but I had to quit going because he had all that time off from work and he was doing his favorite hobbies, drinking and fighting. I couldn't leave the kids home alone, even though Chantal was old enough to baby-sit at 15. He would go home and fight with them.

1981- Another Christmas from hell. This one was almost my last. Andre and Sandy were here for Christmas. He wanted me to give him money for a 12 pack of beer and I didn't have any. He would punch me in the nose while asking "give me money". I tried to hit him back but he got so mad, he stomped on my foot with his steel toe boot. My foot got all swelled up. It hurt so bad, I couldn't walk on it for a few weeks. He wouldn't let me go to the doctor or a hospital.

We still had a wood burning stove, and kept the hatchet by it. He grabbed it and threw it at me. It landed in the wall a few inches from my head. I was on the floor by then. He went and took the hatchet out of the wall, preparing to throw it at me again. Sandy went behind him and took it away from him. He went in the front room and picked up the Christmas tree, slammed it back down on the floor, breaking at least half of the ornaments, and left.

1982- He got mad at me one time, for some reason that I don't even remember, so I went in the Nursery and locked the door. He busted the door open and picked up a four week old baby goat by two legs and threw her against the cement building, just to make me mad.

1982- His court date was only a week away. He never complained to me that the pins in his breastbone were bothering him, and never acted like he was in pain. We went to see the doctor that did his surgery and he complained to him that he was feeling a lot of pain in his ribs. While examining him, the doctor noticed the big lumps on both sides of his neck. We told him that we knew they were there, that our family physician checked them out a few months before and said it was nothing to worry about. The surgeon told him that right now it was more important to check them lumps than worry about the pins. He admitted him in the hospital right away for a biopsy. The next day, the hospital called me to ask me if I wanted to be there when his surgeon gave him the result of the biopsy. I'd already been told that there was a big chance that he had throat cancer, because of his heavy drinking and smoking. I rushed over to the hospital so I could be there when his doctor came in.

As suspected, he had cancer of the epiglottis (the cover on the voice box that closes the windpipe when you swallow), and it had spread to the lymph nodes of his neck. He was going to need extensive surgeries, but first some chemotherapy and radiation was needed to try to shrink the tumors. He spent a whole month in the hospital. He was very sick from the chemo and lost all his hair. He was sent home to gain some strength so he could have the surgeries.

1982- In mid June, we loaded all the goats in our big horse trailer and went down to a town near Dayton to a big dairy goat show. We had a herd of 28 goats at the time. The kids and I slept in the barns like most people do at a show and Gaston was suppose to sleep in the van. When we were all sleeping, he and a friend decided to check out the bars in town. They both were pretty drunk before they left. They got back about 2:00 AM and Gaston decided he was hungry. He started kicking me to get me out of bed. He had enough strength for surgery that morning, believe me. The other exhibitors were all awake, with his usual cussing, half french, half english, nobody could sleep through that. A few of them came to my rescue. They told him that if he laid another hand or foot on me, he'd get the same treatment from them. He went to bed, and didn't bother me the rest of the weekend.

We won a bunch of blue and red ribbons and the Grand Champion Nubian trophy, against more than 150 Nubians. I was very proud, I had done a lot of work upgrading my herd.