My father – John Thomas Mitchell – I never knew my father. I know more about him now than ever before. More about that in a later post.

My mother – Doris Eujean Wattenbarger Mitchell – Many stories to tell about her in later posts.

Me – Thomas Eugene Mitchell – apparently named using the middle names of my parents.

My grandmother – Edna LaVaughn Sargent Wattenbarger – a monumental influence in my life and my development into the person I am today.

My grandfather – George Warren Wattenbarger – some of the family say that he spelled his middle name Warrn – but most of the documents I have discovered spell his middle name Warren.

My grandfather – Grandpa to me – was the pastor at the Methodist mission church in Bunch. However, to this day, people who knew him called him “Doc” Wattenbarger. It seems he provided medical care for many people in the area as well as spiritual care. I am fairly confident that he had very little or no formal medical training, but I do know that he had close relationships with a doctor and a pharmacist in the closest little town. My guess is that both the doctor and the pharmacist were content to advise him in providing medical care to the folks in and around Bunch rather than having to go to Bunch themselves.

I will always remember a cough medicine that he provided for me as a young child – a chocolate flavored sulfa concoction that to this day completely turns my stomach when I taste certain kinds of chocolate – especially in chocolate pie. I also know that my first experience with penicillin was injections given to me by my Grandpa.

And I will never forget my grandparents providing lunch for the entire congregation of the little church following Sunday morning worship. I am still very fond of having a beef roast and a pork roast prepared in the same pan – just like my Grandma did in Bunch for those Sunday lunches. A number of years later I inquired what was so special about cooking them together that way, and she responded by telling me that was the only pan she had that was big enough – but the combination is absolutely delicious!

The Sallisaw Creek ran just behind the church and the house. I don’t remember this one event, but I know that my Grandpa baptized me in the creek – a story that I have heard often enough that I almost feel like I remember.

Bunch is divided down the center by the railroad tracks of the Kansas City Southern Railway. The church and the house and a few other homes are on one side of the track, while the main feature on the opposite side was the general store and post office. In the next post I will talk about how this led to my fascination with passenger trains and my current love of model trains. I still plan to build a layout that re-creates Bunch as I remember it – probably in N-gauge.

More to follow . . . I very much hope that some people who read these posts will join in this community conversation. I would love to read the stories of your beginnings.