Robert Kline:  

I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska. As a young child I was raised in Fairbanks with my brother Fred, my mother and father. My mother comes from a founding family of Fairbanks and was well established in the community. We moved to Seattle and then to Lake Sammamish, WA. Living on the lake was the best part of my childhood. We had lots of freedom in the outdoors, school activities and a very loving home. Great memories!! The hardest part of my childhood was the day my mother married her second husband and moved us to the farm in Oak Harbor. Our mother didn't realize what she was getting into till it was too late. My mother's husband turned his paycheck (for years) over to his older brother to pay for the farms bogus mortgage. Mother had to work to support myself and my brother. We felt like free labor. Since we weren't "blood" we were considered second class citizens on the farm. We weren't allowed to participant in after school sports or events because we had to get back to the farm chores. There was very little, if any, love in the home for my brother or myself on that farm. Mother had to turn over our inheritance from our Grandmother to her second husband to keep the farm. One of the saddest days was the day my mother passed. We were planning to free her from the farm. The plan was to move her in with myself and my wife when she returned from the hospital but we were too late. Mother didn't want to die in Oak Harbor and we hope and pray she is in a happier place. As you can tell I have no good memories of that farm i...Expand for more