Gail Brooks

My 7 siblings and I were raised in Grafton, Wisconsin which is a bit north of Milwaukee. A large family is in constant motion! I don’t know how my parents managed to keep us all fed, clothed and in the right place at the right time much less have time to work. It was crazy but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Okay, so maybe there were couple of times growing up that I would have liked my own room or fewer ‘hand-me-downs’. It may not have been perfect, but the fact is we had it pretty darn good. Our parents loved us! I married a Maniac (aka: person from Maine) and we raised 3 great children. They were all born here in CA. We moved to Maine near family and yet as each graduated from high school they migrated back to CA. What are parents to do! Move? Yes! And that’s what we did. We sold everything, packed-up and followed them back to CA. We didn’t want to just see the kids once or twice a year. We wanted to be part of their lives; and as it turns out, our grandchildren’