So we begin and end this chapter in Sterling with forks in the road.


When mama was twelve...the family stories go...she went to West Branch.

She didn't want to get adopted.

The girls, mama's sisters stayed with Betty.
Everything was going to be okay.

So as families have to do sometimes, there was moving around.

And mama says she was "lucky."


When she remembers lucky she still cries a little bit because there seemed to be angels too, not just cards-lucky-in-the-air.

Click on the photograph to get to Mama's West Branch