Ford liked bottle tops for a collection too. But I didn't. So I gave him all I could find. We stopped collecting them after a while.

We both liked our trading cards. All the kids liked to trade cards. It was one of our most fun things to do. We liked the Old Maid card game and Tinker toys. I had a Hootenanny game to make designs with from Knowlton & Bennett, a store in Urbana.

My dollhouse furniture collection grew and grew. Grandmommy sent the dollhouse. It was white, like our house at number 113. Daddy put that number on the door of the dollhouse. Aunt Dorothy sent the wonderful sink and refrigerator and stove for the kitchen.

I had a jeep that Ford loved. It was a real model of a real jeep. I was very proud of owning it, for Daddy rode on a jeep when he was away.

I had a tool kit with all the tools-child-size screwdriver and pliers and everything else. I had a peg set that I used to concentrate on a lot of the time while making letters.

We went to California to see my Daddy when his ship was stationed at Long Beach. I was almost three years old. It was January in 1945. I took along my soft rose-colored rabbit that I loved. He wore overalls and had nice cuddly velvet skin.

It was a long trip, and I walked up and down the train almost the whole time. Mommy sat and talked to people. She still didn't feel very well from the fall she had on the ice in December.

But we were both so happy to see my Daddy. I wore my red sailor hat and my blue and white sailor blouse with a skirt and my white gloves, and I carried my little red patent leather pocketbook.

I ran all over the ship. Daddy played with me and made more funny drawings for me. He always made them to be like a dictionary, to explain things in a funny way like a comic book. He carried me piggyback too.

One of the other officers was our friend, Ralph Sorvig. He was very good to us. One of the crew had a pin made for me out of a piece of metal. It was my name, "Linda."

We were there for a few days and we went to the beach. It was my first time at the ocean. In Urbana, we didn't have any water near us.

It was foggy and damp but I took off my shoes and socks and walked in the wet sand. I saw a seagull. I said, "There's the dove with the olive branch!" Mommy and Daddy read the story of Noah to me lots of times and I always stopped them to talk about the dove. They told me it was not a dove, but a seagull with seaweed in its mouth.

We visited the stores near the beach. I rode on a merry-go-round, and Mommy and Daddy watched me. Then I wanted to go home to see Donna, my little friend. I was lonely for my white house.

We met all the officers and the men. Daddy explained how his job as communications officer was a very busy one. We had dinner on board the ship.

When we left him, I looked back from the train to see orange groves. I asked Mommy about the trees with all the oranges, and learned how they grew. I loved to eat oranges, and there they were growing on the trees.

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