 My name is Marcia as you can see from the title. First some fun things. I enjoy swimming, reading,dancing,singing, walking,riding a bike,I like to knit, crochet,sew,cross-stitch,smock-stitch,some times I even draw and paint. I like to write, I keep a journal. I enjoy computers and I have three, this desk-top, a laptop and a hand held. None are brand names. I use the laptop to keep my journal, I use the hand held as my appointment book and address book. I get on the net and email with the desk top. Some of my hobbies are part of my page, my family history research is a good example, I am a Latter Day Saint, I have a link to my Church's official website. I love people and I like to meet new friends. I have been asked frequently what was it like to grow up not all in one place, until recently I had no answer for that. I have been married almost 4 years to a man who did more or less grow up all in the same area. I have discovered that you get family tradition with that type of up bringing, there are people you are "raised with" a term I am new to. I guess it means people you have known all your life, for me that only includes my immediate family. And my sweet spouse doesn't want to live anywhere except the familiar, it doesn't bother me to live pretty much anywhere as long as he is with me. I never got attached to places, just people. There are places I like but I don't have geographical roots, just biological roots. I guess that is the best answer I can come up with, but it has been decades in the making. 2001: I have planted a garden, last year we planted a peach tree, this year we are watching peaches grow. I am making my own clothes. I have a cute little sewing machine and my husband so impressed with my industriousness in making my own clothes he buys me fabric regularly. I get to choose the fabric. It is nice I have a whole new wardrobe. 2002: I discovered I can't work a garden anymore. My body can't get into those positions any more. I did begin the "Carbohydrate Addicts Lifespan Program Aug 2001. My beginning weight was 276#, Jan 2002 241#, I am charting it daily. I love dropping the weight. Before 1990 the heaviest I had ever been was 160#. I am a bargin hunter as is my spouse. If we can find it for less we like that. He likes to wait for sales. I was born Marcia Ann Wilbright, in New Richmond, Wisconsin. That was the last time I lived in Wisconsin until 1987. I was born 22 Feb 1957. At the time my Dad was in Korea and my mother was living with her mother. My dad was in the U.S. Army from about 1955- 1975 or so. He elisted at Rochester Minnesota, and retired at Lawton Oklahoma. I don't remember if my memories of my very young child hood are actually memories or stories my mother told about what happened in my child hood. I heard that my dad got out of the Army when I was just past a year old, mom said he tried being a FullerBrush salesman, it didn't work out. My mom caught the red measles from me while I was still in my first year. It turned out that she was about two months pregnant at the time. My sister Anita Elaine was born 20 Feb 1959. She was born with a large hole in her heart and cataracts in her eyes. The doctor gave my mother a special medicine to slow Anita's heart down. I am not sure of why it was necessary. It scared my mother, she would climb up on the highest chair she could find and put the medicine on the highest place she could reach, and then, when she had nothing better to do, would worry about what would happen if Marcia ever reached the medicine. Slowing a normal heartbeat that much would stop it. With the hole in her heart, Anita lived to be 5 1/2 months old. The 4th of July 1960, my sister Nancy Joy was born, my mother tells me that, I stayed with friends while she was in the hospital, these people brought me home and I heard I said "Is my babysister here?" According to mom, we sisters were inseperable for years. I was three when she was born. So she was only two when I was old enough to start school, mom said she cried all day until I came home from Kindergarten. Since I was a military dependent, saying I attended a lot of schools in my life time is redundant. But I may have attended a few more than the average because of a fact that I didn't find out about until after my father died. Mom said there was a "transfer me!" form. I'm sure it had a number but I don't remember what it is. Mom said that sometimes dad filed this form a month after he got to the new place he arrived at. Sometimes it was the day he arrived and once or twice he even allowed himself to stay for the entire rotation. This explains the three month stays in the various places. And the year that I attended three different schools in the same school year. I thought the Army was crazy, it turns out it was just my dad. There are no active military installations in the northern part of the United States. So I never had the opportunity to live near relatives. Most of whom live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. I have a unique point of view from other people who were born in the "north". I was educated mostly in the south, so I heard the history from the southern perspective. It was eye-opening when I finally did hear it from the "yankee" perspective. All of my birth family was born in and mostly lives in the north. I tried that for a while, but it was emotionally painful. The people in the south seem to be more personally open. I became accustomed to that and I have not been comfortable in the north since. I dated a lot through out my life. I married more times than I am comfortable talking about. I have two children. My daughter, Emilie Joy Henschell, and my son, Jason Kenneth Timothy Matz. I was not raised with religion in my life. Mother had a Bible of course, most people who are not completely opposed to God do have. Mother was raised Methodist, Dad was raised Lutheran. Dad refused to go to any church after he was required by his mother to go the religion classes and be "confirmed". Mom wanted to go, but she was not comfortable going alone. I felt a big emptiness in my life, it really gnawed at me on Sundays, I felt like there was someplace I was supposed to be, I just didn't know where. I investigated many churches. I attended the Pentecostal services at the military chapel, I atteded the Protestant services at the same location, the Catholics, the Church of Christ with friends and I did join that one. I checked out the Baptist when I was again living in the U.S., I didn't find what I needed until I was 23. When I was finally in the U.S. again, my dad settled us in Cumberland Oklahoma, quite a distance from Lawton, where Ft. Sill is. I graduated, something my dad said I would never do. In this painful period I did get pregnant and have an abortion. My mother threatened me, she told me if I didn't abort it, I would have to quit school because she wouldn't babysit while I was in school. I only had one year left to finish. The child would have been due in August of 1975. After I graduated from High School my dad moved us again, to Durant Oklahoma, I worked for a while in restraunts, I married James Dunn, we were together for 3 months, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. While I was serving in Millington,Tennessee I met Lyle Henschell. I dated a lot there, but when I became pregnant I knew exactly whose child she was. He didn't believe she was his, and he told me to abort the baby. I refused, I told him that we were a package deal, me and the baby or I was leaving. I should have left but I'm very stubborn and I learn lessons the hard way. He married me in October. Emilie was born in April. I was very naive' and I won't go into Lyle's problems but he threw me out one evening before Emilie was 10 months old. This was in November 1978, he came to get her to celebrate Christmas with her, and never brought her back. I didn't see her again until she was 18 months old. I missed her first word, first step ........ I had custody until a week before her third birthday. During the heartbreak of custody with Emilie, I was dating an Air Force service member who was a Latter Day Saint. LeRoy Matz had converted from Catholic, but didn't tell his family who lived a thousand miles away. We were deciding to get married, he told me he was Catholic and I began taking religion classes so we could get married there. That didn't work because I had been married before and Catholics don't acknowledge divorce. He introduced me to the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I listened to and participated in the discussions. I was baptised a week after I met the missionaries. A month later I married LeRoy Matz, he was helping me with the emotional stress, he baptised me into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and ten months later,he gave me a son. Jason was born a month before the last custody battle, I asked for this court date because I wanted permission to remove my daughter from the two county area, out of state. I was trying to move and take her with us. The Air Force moved us, but we lost the custody battle. When we got to Oklahoma Jason was a month old. He learned to walk and talk there. I had pictures on the wall with Emilie in them, he learned early that he had a sister, he asked me a lot about her. He knew her as well as he possibly could. LeRoy and I were married for 6 years, he was ill and had physical problems associated with it. I moved several times. We ended up in Weatherford Oklahoma so that he could finish college. He convinced me to finish too. After all the moving around. Jason and I finally moved back to Weatherford Oklahoma. I had been in charge of my father's funeral in Minnesota April of 1989. I put Jason in School in Weatherford August of 1989. October of 1989 my dad's mother died, I couldn't attend the funeral. I was depressed and needed medical attention for it. I received this in December of 89. I was doing better, Jason's behavior improved. My sister Nancy,visited us for our birthday's 20 and 22 Feb. While she was here and we were riding in her car, she drove past the cemetary here in town, she said "Jason, pick one!" Jason complained, I called her down for it. She apologized. Later she told me, as she was leaving town, she felt a prompting to go back and tell Jason good-bye. She thought that's silly, I'll see him again. Inside of a month Jason was dead. I was pretty much a puddle for a long time. I couldn't walk through a store by myself, I couldn't stand holiday decorations. The year before when my Dad died, it was two months before Father's Dad. I couldn't handle Father's Day in 1989 and in 1990 I couldn't handle anything. I couldn't stand to be alone. Life was too much, I have never been "suicidal" I just wanted it to all go away. Lots of people came into my life at various points. I met Lannon Smith, about a week after Jason died, he tried to make me smile. He made sure I wasn't alone during the first holidays with out my son. James Stansbury came and talked with me in May, that helped a lot. I met Bill Bixler in July. He made sure I didn't have to go into the stores alone too. He proposed in August, we were married in Feb, 1990. Stayed that way for 5 years. He got me through the worst of the grieving. Just after my son died, I visited a lady who had told me earlier about her own son's death, she is a hairdresser in Weatherford. I just went into her shop and sat down to wait. She was busy and she had others waiting. The receptionist asked if she could help me. I told her I just want to talk to Donna, she pointed out that Donna was very busy. Donna looked up from the spiral perm she was completeing, she saw me, she said I'll be done here in just a minute. When she finished, she came over and sat with me and asked what she could do for me, I just started to cry and asked her "when does the pain go away?" She said softly, it never goes away, you just learn to live with it. That really helped me, because you can't go around with a sign tatooed on your forehead that says, my child died in a fire, don't mention fires or dead children around me. You just have to learn to hear it and go on, and it doesn't happen over night or even in a month or a year. To give a good living example, while I write this, it has been 9 years since my son died, and I am crying and there are still tears in my eyes to remember the details. Donna was very right, it never goes away, we just learn to live with it. I married a man I loved for 10 years, he didn't know me even after all that time, so a month after we married, he asked me to leave and divorced me. I had my second back surgery right after that in August of 1996. I recovered at my sisters and my mothers homes. I moved back to Oklahoma, I worked for a while as a receptionist. Then I heard from Lannon Smith again. He asked me out, I accepted. He made a cute comment about snatching me back to Weatherford for the weekend, I yelled NO, he said he thought I liked Weatherford. I agreed and said, "don't take me home for the weekend, if you take me home, bring all my stuff with us, because I don't want to come back here." So he did. We found out we don't have enough in common to be more than friends, I met Darrin Matz within a month of being back in Weatherford, for me it was Love at First Sight. We were married 25 August 1997. We have been married 3 1/2 years and it just keeps getting better. Life hasn't been easy for the whole time. But together we are strong enough to deal with the hard times. Adding this in 2001, we are about to celebrate our 4th anniversary. Darrin is happy and we are doing very well. I didn't know marriage could be like this. He trusts me and I trust him. We have just spent three months of enforced time together. He had been laid off from his job for 3 months. That could strain a marriage. I have heard the quip "for better or for worse but not for lunch". I don't agree with it. I miss his company because I loved having him here with me all the time. He is very affectionate and demonstrative in private. It is the first time I have had this much fun being married. In Regard to 9/11 As you have read, I was raised an Army brat. When I graduated from H.S. I enlisted in the Marine Corps. For me what happened on 9/11 besides being horrifying and heart rending, it made the rest of the country as PATRIOTIC as I have always been. I joined D.A.R. {Daughters of the American Revolution}because I wanted to have a place to be where I could dress in patriotic colors and say the Pledge of Allegience and sing the National Anthem at least once a month. I am the recording secretary for my Chapter. It is now 2004. I have been married to Darrin Matz 7 years. Instead of taking "vacations", Darrin buys us furniture. We are finishing paying off a nice couch and will start on a nice queen size bed.
My husband, Darrin.
My family is listed on my genealogy pages: so here's a list of some of my friends (no where near complete)
Katherine Wintersnight,
Page design by Katherine Wintersnight of |
