Grandma Schindler and the Cornelius family

You were probably too young to remember Grandma Schindler but she loved you dearly.  When you were born she was already very frail and in bad health.  She was always smiling or laughing and she would giggle when you did something cute.

My mother was born Vivian Lucille Cornelius on February 18, 1917.  She was born in Prescott Arkansas to Arthur T Cornelius and Ruby Stoudt Cornelius.  

Vivian had a younger brother, Burrell and a sister, Linnie Jane.  

Vivian, mother Ruby, Linnie Jane and a cousin. Notice Vivians' short leg

During her first year of life she had measles, pneumonia and Typhoid fever  and it settled in ball of her thigh bone in the hip.  This stopped the growth of her leg for a time. She spent time in The Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children where she had several operations and then a plate placed in her hip.   As an adult she had one leg 2 inches shorter than the other and walked with a limp.

When Vivian was 13 or 14 her father, Arthur T,  got in trouble for writing bad checks and he abandoned the family.  This was during the Great Depression and men would roam from place to place looking for work.  They would walk form town to town or even sneak into empty railroad cars and jump off at the next  stop.  

To help support the family, my mother who was 12 or 13, got a job working in a candy kitchen.

One day as she and another young girl were moving a vat of peanut brittle, the other girl slipped and upended the whole thing on Vivian.  They took her to the country doctor and he just ripped the hardened candy off of her which left her with deep scars on her arms and chest. 

In spite of her scars and her limp she was a beautiful Lady.  And probably the strongest woman I will ever know.  She married Conrad during the war and sent him off to eventually go to Germany.  During that time she wrote 1-2 letters EVERY day to him.  The letters give the unique glimpse of life in the 1930's and early 1940's.  When he left she was pregnant with Barbara and when she was born she sent pictures and stories of the baby to her Daddy.

When many of the men were in the war overseas, the women had to assume their jobs.  In those days most women did not work so things changed dramatically.  Vivian went to Secretarial School and then worked as a bookkeeper and stenographer for the Director of The Red Cross while Conrad was overseas.  She lived in an apartment with several other women and made her own clothes and even hats!