This little girl, born 15 months and 5 days after her older sister was as different as night and day. She was an effervescent, charming child from the moment she graced the world with her presence. Always smiling and always laughing or performing for us she filled our lives with so much joy. It seemed like one continuous giggle some days, but what fun we had then. She was so full of spit and vinegar,  so much like her mother in personality it's almost scary. But there was a reason for her stubborness. She would need it in the days to come, tho little were we aware of it at the time. As the days went on we discovered she was ill a lot of the time. She suffered so much from chronic upper respiratory and allergic problems that we nearly lost her twice before she was two years old. She spent many days and nights in the hospital with me by her side............praying for her to recover and come back to us. It was that fiery spirit that kept her going even in the days when the fever was so high, she couldn't even blink her eyes. But fight back she did and she was soon well enough to bite a hole in the oxygen tent to let the staff know.............she wanted out. And she was well enough to go home......................until the next time and there were many of those. She is still with us today and still the life of the party. Her life is troubled from some very painful teenage experiences but she will survive beautifully, I have no doubts about that.
Laura was a tom boy, the exact opposite of her delicate older sister. She loved to be dirty and spent more time in the mud puddles than out of them. We  ran fast to catch the little squeaker before she tracked the mud into the house...........and sometimes we just didn't make it and we had little black Laura tracks on the living room carpet. She got more food on her than in her tummy at the table it seemed but she was well fed and she looked it. I recall one incident where the two girls had little blue bowls of spaghettios to eat for lunch. They were eating, I thought while I was at the kitchen counter doing something else. I turned around to look at them, both giggling hilariously with the bowls upside down on top of their heads with the spaghettios in their hair. What a mess.................but what fun they had. Needless to say, we later had a chat about food going in the tummy not on the head. She was such a comical little character that when she was about 2 we were trying to get her to repeat the alphabet for us. She did beautifully until she got to the letter U. She would never say "u", she would say, "Laura" and then giggle and run away. What a charmer. When it came time for school and first conferences, the teacher, who had also had Cathy, looked at us and said, "You do realize that this is not the same girl Cathy was?" Of course we did, and the report was not quite as favorable as Cathy's on an intellectual level. However, the teacher reported that Laura was such a joy to have in class because she was always smiling and happy. Laura was a good student...above average. She, like her sister loved to read and they being so close to the same age were read to every day by me, from the time they were little. All of our children prefer a good book to television. Laura graduated from High School and did not go on to college. She is employed as a factory worker but makes good money and she is happy there. We can't all be rocket scientists or Doctor's, some of us have to be the laborers and she, as well as the other members of our family fall into that category.

Laura's High School
Graduation Pictures.

1995