My Godparents
My godparents were
Uncle Ed (my Dad's brother)and my Mother's cousin Joanie Peters. I've already described the shy quiet, tall and lanky Uncle Ed Reimer. So now it's time to try to describe Aunt Joanie, the daughter of my Grandpa Ganzer's sister, Helen.
Uncle Ed, me and Aunt Joanie
Joanie was younger than my parents and she was a pretty woman. I was the flower girl in her wedding and her husband was kind of a skinny bug-eyed guy that wasn't very attractive. They looked like an odd couple and they truly were.
Aunt Joanie & me
I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Joanie lost her marbles at some point. I was told that it was a drug addiction that started with sleeping pills followed by "pep" pills (what they called them back then). Or maybe it was the other way around, but the pills screwed her up.
She ended up having 3 children, a boy and 2 girls. As she went into her downward spiral, her son had to get his sisters off to school (her husband was at work) and she became a neglectful mother. There were stories of her sitting in front of a mirror for hours trying on different wigs. Then there were the stories of her buying dogs and treating them better than her children.
It got to the point of her wandering the streets in her nightgown one night and her visits to Tinley Park mental hospital on and off. I don't know what happened to her but it was a real shame.
I remember visiting her house and I liked her children. We never kept up with them after a while so I don't know what happened to any of them.
Joanie & Baby Judy
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