Remembering Rose Ellen Part 3: A Timeline of Her Life ⬦⬦⬦ Rose Ellen:Birth to Age 6 1913-1919 My grandparents had more than their fair share of difficulties starting a family. Their first daughter, Virginia, was born on May 21, 1911 and died just a few days later, on June 4, 1911.  My Mother, Lou Ann...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Skeen: Part 2: Unraveling the story Many thousands of children deemed feeble-minded, idiots, morons and imbeciles were institutionalized from the 1920s right up to the 1970s. There were no services or support for parents and their children with disabilities in the community, no schools or therapy clinics. The prevailing belief was that...Read More

For many years, my brothers and sisters and I were raised to believe that our mother was an only child. We had just one aunt, on my father’s side of the family. No aunts, uncles, or cousins on my mom’s side. But that was not true. My mother had a sister that was kept secret...Read More