Pat Dumas:  

After completing nursing school in 1972, I married, worked first in a psychiatric hospital in Reedley, then moved to Arkansas and worked in a county hospital. I loved both jobs but quit when we started having children. All my kids are grown now. My two oldest have their Master's degrees and my youngest will be starting grad school soon. We are all very close, talking almost every day. There isn't anything I've done in my life that I have tried harder to do than to be a good mother. My father just recently passed away, but until then, I went to Chowchilla frequently and visited our old haunts. It was a wonderful time to grow up and I'm grateful to all of you for making my life interesting and fun. I think we all share a special bond growing up in the time we did. I remember leaving the house in the morning and coming home for dinner, never having to worry about anything but who I could find to play with. We never locked our doors, even on vacation. Our fun was found with each other, no video games, cell phones, or computers to distract us from learning life's lessons, sometimes the hard way. We knew every one in town...Expand for more