My parents siblings

This picture of my parents and myself was taken in Springfield, Illinois. My father drove a taxi. mother stayed home with me. He was 41 and she was 20. They met in a nightclub in Chicago, where my mothers sister Helen, was playing a piano. I am quite certain I was not planned, at least not by them.
 The word of God says, "God knows us before we are ever in the womb."
 These two people were as different as night and day.
He loved to party, drinking and dancing the time away. Mother was straight off the farm, this was her first time away from home which was in the southern part of Illinois. She was born June 23, 1923 in Centrailia.

She was the youngest of four. Helen C. Hartman born May 15,1910~passed July 12, 2000.
 Fredrick David born March 22, 1915 ~Dec. 1, 1999.
 Merritt Dean born Feb. 19, 1920 ~Oct. 7, 1991.   Mother passed,April 21, 1985.
 They left this earth in reverse order from when they were born. The youngest first and the eldest last.
 I knew them all and was closest to Helen and Dean. Helen never had any children.
 Freddy had a son, Ted and a daughter, Tammy.
  Dean had three girls, Judy, Joyce, and Janet. I was an only child.

My father Earl LeRoy Berkey was the eldest of four. He was born Aug. 3, 1902 in Ankeny, Iowa.
 Retta born Dec.3, 1904 ~Oct. 12, 1914. Dorothy Mae born 1908 ~March 9, 1953. Donald born 1915~ Sept.3, 1930. As you can see from this record two of my fathers siblings did not make it to  adulthood
 Dorothy however had three daughters, Little Dorothy, Ramona, Betty, and a son she named after her brother, my dad. Earl . Dorothy was married to Newton Demeen Womack. I never got to know any of these people.