History of Burton Family—Carolyn/Nancy K/Ellen, Social Security and Medicare, and Gary

 

                 Janice, Hortense, Nancy K Burton

I don’t have many images of my geneology copied and saved on-line or even as physical photos.  I was looking on FamilySearch and found some pictures that my cousin posted.

Mom talked about having ringlets when she was young.  Now I know what she looked like.  

The Burton Women

Nancy K/Hortense/Martha/Ellen K/Janice

 The Arthur Burton Family 

Hortense/Arthur/Martha

Janice/Ellen Kathleen (mom)/Arthur (dad) Nancy K

These were taken at the same time.  I think my mom was pregnant with me at this point.

I’ve written about Afton WY before.  Mom grew up there and we spent every summer there for years.  There were horses there—although I only got to ride once.  Dad asked the neighbor (a few homes down) if we could.  He said yes and I got to go with him up the side of the mountain on horseback for about an hour.  

Grandma always had a garden.  Vegetables and (what I remember the most) 3 long rows of raspberry bushes.  She would tie a drying cloth around our middles with a quart jar pinned to our stomachs.  Directions were to eat as much as we wanted and then fill up the jar before coming back inside.

For the first few years, there were horses right next-door, we would feed them green grass through the fence and often we’d pull up (one at a time) 5 or 6 carrots as a final treat.

It was then that I realized horses are fickle mammals, as soon as the treats were gone . . . so were they.

The other thing I remember doing was having picnics with each other.  Leaves for plates.  Tiny carrots and tiny snap peas for dinner.  

I don’t remember ever going somewhere special when we were at Grandma Burton’s home.  We loved poking around in the attic and reading the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books—and the hundred or so Reader’s Digest magazines.  They were thick for a magazine about 8” by 5” and filled with short stories about rescues and adventures and biographies.  My favorite parts were the “Humor in Uniform” and “Life in These United States.”

Which brings up a break from the subject:  Better Homes and Gardens magazines used to have a funny essay called “The Man Next Door.”  It formed the context for my short essays . . . written for me . . . about how I saw the world . . . and about how I saw my part in it.  

Mom used to buy subscriptions to magazines:  Better Homes and Gardens, National Geographic, and Reader’s Digest magazine.  The first time I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn it was a condensed book that mom bought.  The condensed books were offered with usually 4 different novels.  Sometimes I liked one of the choices—sometimes none.

Today, though, all that history gets thrown behind me in a critical way.  Brent is retiring on 30 June 2026 and so we need sign-up for Social Security and Medicare.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal except I’m waiting for back surgery and everything gets funneled through different insurance shoots.  Not sure how long it’s going to be before Medicare will pay to get my surgeon to fuse L4 L5 S1 together as one. 

 

A last thought.  I’m not volunteering at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary any longer.  Here Nathan is communicating with Gary the Goose.  She was very old and had lots of health problems with the meds to go with them.  No one was really sure how old she was—she was surrendered as a pet who was no longer wanted.   Her arthritis was bad—it hurt her to walk.  At the older Busch campus I would pick a particular type of grass that she loved.  As soon as she heard my wagon wheels rolling along the dirt road, she would start to honk until I appeared and offered her a treat.  At the new Busch the grass is not the same, her enclosure is bigger with about 20 other birds, and new is never better when you’ve become accustomed to your old home.

The staff of animal care and hospital decided that it would be kinder to put her to sleep rather than make her continue as she was.