I did a Google search for Paul Aloys Breidenbach, and this came up! The pic on the right was on the Purdue Engineering web site. The one on the left was the actual yearbook picture for 1950 (Debri). Dad was 27. He went to Purdue after the war. We found the yearbook in the hall closet.


Paul Aloys Breidenbach - BS 1950

They are doing a "Hero Tree" at work for all those who have served and/or are serving in the military. I put this picture on the tree. I just stumbled across it about two weeks ago in a photo album of Dad in WW II. This picture is awesome--Dad in his WW II uniform and Grandpa Al Breidenbach in his WW I uniform. Uncle Tom told me Grandpa Al was quite proud that he could still fit into his uniform! The picture is taken at the M Street house in Bedford circa 1944. Dad would've been around 20.

This photo album has lots of neat pictures of Dad in it. It is a treasure.

I wish I could've shared it with him but he never talked about this stuff.

I'm proud of you, Dad --Love, Susie

This time of year is still hard for me. I was looking at pictures of Brown County, Indiana, that I took when I went with Mom in October '05. I remember that day very well. It was beautiful. We decided to go to Brown County State Park after our trip to Nashville. We drove all way through the park to places I'd never been--Strahl Lake and Ogle Lake. Mom was very patient while I took pictures. :-) Again, I cherished this time of year with Mom. We always had our day together to Nashville and then usually on to Bloomington. We would be planning our trip by now. Of course we would have to work around her hair schedule--one week a perm, the next week color, etc. :-) Seems like she went every week for something. I wonder if I will ever get over this feeling in October. Still, this year, October is just not the same. I used to love it. Now I'm just kind of numb. I bought some of that candy again--the Brach's Mellowcremes that Mom got me started on. A lot of times our trips to Nashville would end up at Osco in Bloomington because they always had that candy. I still feel very empty inside sometimes. I miss my Mom and Dad.

Susie

I finally got rid of some stuff in the freezer. Mom used to make her own spaghetti sauce and I loved it. It was perfect. There were some little containers of it in the freezer and I kept thinking I might use it someday...but it got to the point where it wasn't really usable, so it was time to throw it out. It probably would've been hard for me anyway to eat it. Another thing she had was persimmon pulp dated Oct. '06. There is a persimmon tree in the neighbor's yard and they always told us we would have whatever we wanted, so Dad would go up there and gather persimmons. Then Mom would make pulp and pudding. There were at least two of these in the freezer in little butter containers. I don't know how to make her persimmon pudding. I was never a big fan until recently and it was pretty good. She'd make 2-3 persimmon puddings a year. Again, I thought I or somebody maybe could use it someday, but it was all iced over and probably not any good. So out it went along with the spaghetti sauce. When I was little there were two persimmon trees up there, but now there is just one. Why it still bears fruit, I don't know. We did finally eat some of Mom's stew meat the other day. There is still meat in there. I'm not a big meat eater but we will probably try to use it.

Cleaning out the hall closet again. I found a photo album with just pictures of Dad in the army and WW II stuff that I'd never seen. Sad that he never showed it to us. Why? I would've loved to share these memories with him, but he never talked about it. Maybe it was an unhappy time for him. Maybe this was a photo album his mother made. There were pictures of him in his uniform with his brothers. Also found some pictures of when Tom and Bud were at St. Meinrad. I actually found a picture of both of my grandmothers in it--there are very few of these. Pretty neat that both of their sons were at the seminary at the same time. It looked like they had all gone down to visit one time. I don't know if this was after Mom and Dad were married or not.

Found some pics of Mom hanging out with her friends. They seemed to like to go swimming a lot! Pictures of them at lakes and beaches. I remember that Mom loved to swim. Dad never knew how to swim and he told us his mother was afraid to let her sons go and so they never learned how. I remember Dad taking me to the pool and he would practice swimming in the shallow part. This is a nice memory--just me and Dad doing something together. He still was never comfortable in deep water. I love swimming, too. Mom took me to lessons when I was little so I learned how.

I wish I could talk to them sometimes. I still miss them very much.

Love,
Susie