Life is about happiness and tragedies. Everyone is happy sometime in their life. It is that happiness and those memories that make life go on. Even in those times of tragedy, you will always have the memories. With these memories come the stories of our life. I am telling the story of my mother.
Her name is Mary Jo Graff. Her maiden name is Korte. She was born on February 21, 1951. Her parents are Frank and Josephine Korte. At the time of her birth she lined on a farm in Florissant, MO. When she was about four years old her father decided to build a new house a couple of miles away from the farm. There were two houses on the farm and her grandma and grandpa Keeven lived in the other house. .
She was the fifth child born in the family and the house they lived in was getting crowded. By the time they moved into the new house they build her parents had a sixth child, a girl. They filled up the new house over the years. When all was said and done, she had three brothers and seven sisters. She was one of eleven. She was born a middle child and she felt she had the best of both ends. "When I wanted to feel a little more grown up, I"d play or just hang out with my older siblings. Then there were days when I wanted to be a kid again and play with dolls or make mud pies." .
Both of sets of her grandparents still lived on farms, so every Sunday they would go to their grandma Korte's farm for a big dinner. While her mom and Grandma cooked, her dad would play with the kids on the farm. In the summer she would spend a week or two with her Grandma Korte. Every once in awhile one of her seven sisters would stay with her too. Her Grandma would let her gather eggs in the morning, and she would be very careful not to break them. She is proud to say that she never broke one. She would also get to feed the chickens and the pigs. She said she really enjoyed the time she spent on the farm, but was glad she didn't live there.