11.Being a Wife and Mother

In 1963, Jim Eggleston and Yvonne Knittle got married. At their wedding they seemed to meet many of the people who we are still friends with today. They met a man named Raul Perez at our wedding; he came with a relative from Florida. After speaking with Raul for a long time the day after their wedding they found out a lot about his life. Raul was able to leave Cuba, and go to Florida. He left his family behind in Cuba. Raul's one brother was a communist member; this caused many problems for him when he tried to leave Cuba and enter the United Stated. For years he was never allowed to return to visit; when his parents passed away, he could not go back for their funerals. After many years and still remaining in contact, they still speak about how they met. “After many fun years with our friends we decided to settle down and start a family”. In 1964, they had their first daughter. They named her Deborah Jane Eggleston. After, two years had pasted and a lot of work with their first child we had another daughter named Lynn Marie Eggleston. “Since Jim’s salary was not very high at only ninety five dollars and military reserve pay at only seven dollars a week it seemed like he was putting in a lot of work and we were not getting very much in return.” Being at home with her daughters raising them most of the time it became hard not seeing her husband much. With a mortgage payment of seventy two dollars a month it seemed like they were living off of nothing. They did not seem to have much money to do much more than live off of what they had. Since my grandma had a job before she had two daughters, she had to take years off of work to raise them. “This turned out well and I am glad that I decided to do that.” All through the sixties and even into the seventies she stayed at home. She enjoyed watching her daughters grow into young women and loved teaching them and helping them through some of the toughest years. After years of being a stay at home housewife, she decided to go back out and get a job.