Death Brings Secrets

By Michael W Schmidt

The life of a women who grew up always finding the light at the end of each tunnel of darkness that she had to endure. Continued to learn from mistakes that changed each phase of her life. Knowing that she had to keep secrets along the way was the path she chose to keep people that she loved from being harmed or embarrassed. Her choices were not always the correct choices and every time she make a bad decision, she worked through it and lived on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728325057

Michael W Schmidt

Michael W. Schmidt, the third child of Peggy Shoemaker Schmidt, grew up in a small Wisconsin town. He loves the outdoors, especially hunting and fishing, and has been a Wisconsin hunting safety instructor for over twenty years. He has two sons that he is very proud of, along with two gorgeous granddaughters, a handsome newborn grandson, a beautiful loving wife, and two adoring stepdaughters. He graduated from MATC Technical College and owned his own business for twenty-seven years. He wrote this story because for five years after losing his mother, he started to have dreams and questions on her spirit that had passed through his body. Then night after night, something kept telling him to write the story. He had no idea how to tell the account. But the dreams kept coming until after ten years of the same dream, it was time to at least try to tell his mother’s story. It has taken him five years to compile some facts and dates. Over the last fifteen years, sharing the past with his two brothers has been one of the highlights of his life. We all try to get together a couple of times a year at a location to relax and relive our mother’s journey!

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Copyright © 2019 Michael W Schmidt. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  08/29/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2506-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-2505-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019912776

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1    First Secret Unfolds

Chapter 2    Aunt Nora

Chapter 3    Vacations Kept Secrets

Chapter 4    Moving Back

Chapter 5    Final Move

Chapter 6    Mother's Spirit

Epilogue

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank my loving wife for all her encouragement and help with all the research of family history. I also want to thank my two brothers, Jim and Roger, and my sister, Debbie. Most of all, I want to thank Mom and Dad, whom I miss very much. Having family is the most important part of life in which I have been truly blessed.

I know that God has special plans for each of us and that some people do not believe. I was never much for religion because most of that is man-made. I have always been spiritual, and I know that God’s spirit is in all of us. What we do with that is what is important, that is, how we treat our fellow man and family. Mom’s kept secrets were to protect people, and it ended up being a blessed gift for us in our later life.

PROLOGUE

It was a cool spring day in April 2003. Time was short. My mother was gasping for every breath, dying of lung cancer at a young age of seventy-one. My father, brother, sister, grandchildren, and I were are at her bedside. The doctors didn’t even think she would make it through the night on Friday, and this was already Sunday. They didn’t get all of the cancerous tumor out of her lung, and this time it was terminal. They could not understand why she would have wanted to hold out so long. In a semicoma and with her family by her side, she did not want to end without having some kind of closure, and no one knew what that was.

Some very interesting secrets that she had kept her whole adult life came to the surface the last days of her life. It was all coming to light, and these longtime mysteries that she kept told the story of how a girl growing up in the South had to keep certain secrets just to survive the times and to make sure her family was safe. Even after her death, her spirit continued to show that she wanted to open up and let her family in on all the secrets that she had been hiding.

CHAPTER 1

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FIRST SECRET UNFOLDS

IT WAS A SUNNY and warm afternoon with a light breeze blowing in a small town in southern Wisconsin. It was an early summer in 1965, and school was out. I was outside with my brother Jim, who is one year older than I am.

I was a normal highly active ten-year-old. The excitement of not having school and enjoying another fun-filled summer was running through my veins. Jim was much more subdued and quiet, while I was rather loud and rowdy. My parents always thought that I was very hyper and could never sit still, especially in church for one hour. I received quite a few smacks on the legs for not remaining at rest.

This particular day I was enjoying one of my favorite pastimes, climbing the Macintosh tree that hung over the top of the garage. What I liked so much is that I could get on the garage roof, and with the heavy branches and leaves, I had my own little fort. I would always go up there when I wanted to be alone or just enjoy the fun of throwing a green apple at my brother as he passed by. He did not care much for climbing the tree. He would rather play army with his collection of coins. He would line up the dimes and nickels and take on the pennies and quarters. I thought that was a little goofy, but he was always good at saving money.

This day, I called to Jim. I’m climbing the tree. Do you want to climb with me?

I will as long as you don’t throw any apples at me.

Ok, Jim, I won’t throw any apples.

So up the tree he came. And we were having a fun afternoon when our dad, Russ, came home from work. Dad was a short man with his hair combed back, as he was losing most of it. Although he was not tall, he was a very strong man with a deep voice, and when he told someone to get something done, they’d better listen up.

Shortly after he arrived, our mother, Peggy, opened up the back screen door. Boys, come in here.

I thought, That’s strange. Dinner won’t be for at least another hour. Did we not finish a chore that we were supposed to do? That’s not good. That means we get our butts tanned.

One time Jim and I didn’t pick up sticks as well as we should have. Dad walked us around the yard, and for every stick he would find, he would ask, What’s that? Then he’d tell us to bend over and pick up that stick, which resulted in a belt strap across the behind. This is how our generation, the baby boomers, were punished.

It seemed to work rather well, as Dad very rarely ever had to spank us. Just the threat of