We went to North Bay in Ontario, Canada with Grandpa and Grandma KELLERMAN. I think that another couple, friends of Grandma's & Grandpa's, went along also. We stayed in white-painted cabins (not log). At this writing, I can't recall very much. I caught the first fish, much to Dan's chagrin (because I really wasn't into fishing. The camp's owner's name was George and he had a daughter named Shiela. I thought that was neat because the only time I ever heard that name was in "Sheila, Queen of the Jungle" comic books. I was a little infatuated with her, but she was older than me and didn't take too much interest in me.

I had my good ship, "The MARY ANN" (built by Grandpa Lloyd KELLERMAN), at that time and I got to take it out in the motor boat and let it go. I had a fishing rod and reel attached to "The MARY ANN" so I could let it out and reel it in.

I remember eating fish, maybe for the first time, in Michigan, though I wasn't wild about it. That's all I can remember right now.

I was in Michigan at least two times with the family and Grandpa + Grandma KELLERMAN and George and Betty COOPER. Another time, we were there and so were the BROWN's and BAIRDs from North Springfield Presbyterian Church [The church us kids were baptized and christened in- Paul]. They both had kids with boys named Bill (BROWN) and Bill (BAIRD). They were younger than me. (13yrs)

There is much more I remember about the trips. The campground was mostly stripped of trees, mostly scrub gorse and bushes. On the left side, was woods which ran along the Ausable River [near Lansing MI] where Grandpa fished for trout. The woods floor was covered with tall grass. The camp was an open spot; about an acre; right on the river. The river was mostly a foot to a foot and a half deep. It was great for wading and floating (tubing) up river. There was a small, grassy island in the middle of the river and it was much deeper.

There was a small walk-out dock on the right side and a spring water pipe at the bottom of the walk-down on the left, with a little box to store milk, butter, etc. At the top of the walk-down was a rickety old plank table where George used to shave in the morning. Cooper's pop-up trailer was next to the table; then our tent and then Grandpa's trailer. That was one side of the camp. The rest of the group was on the other side of the road coming into the camp.

We used to drive down the gravel road and walk out into the field to look for pine stumps and knots to burn for the camp fire at night. I remember the whole group sitting around the fire singing songs. It was in Michigan that Grandpa KELLERMAN showed me how to make a rabbit snare by bending a sapling down and tieing a rope to it, etc. I also remember walking in the woods down stream and finding a log and beating on it like I was sending messages. I guess that was after I started playing drums. That was also my last vacation, probably, that I took with the family because I was playing music and making money.

One day when I was fishing for chubs (big minnows) the Game Warden came out of the woods. I had my Grandpa KELLERMAN's hip boots on and was just doing what we kids had always done - fished for minnows. The Warden waded across the river and came over to me and asked me if I had caught anything and I said the chubs weren't biting. He asked to see my bait (I thought maybe he was going to give me a pointer) and he said "You better come into shore, son ! He informed Dad that I was fishing in a State Trout Stream with live bait, where only artificial flies are permitted. There was an old geezer trout fisherman in camp that didn't like kids and non-fishermen and he had informed the warden that "Those people from Akron are fishing illegally". The next day, I had to go into Grayling to court, which was at an insruance office with the Warden and a few other town officials. When I explained that I was fishing for minnows, they said. "Well, Don't do that any more" and let me go with no fine. After all the worry the day before - a big nothing as it turned out - But it's someting I can never forget.

This is Bill's younger brother, Paul: The family used to go camping on the Ausable River near Lansing, MI. for two weeks every other summer. Mom & Dad would wake us(my sister Marcia & I) up around 4 a.m. (having packed the car the night before) on the mornings we left for MI. We would still have our pajamas on. They would pile blankets on the floor of the back seat area so that it was level with the seat. Marcia slept on the seat and I slept on the piled-up blankets. Mom & Dad would wake us up again when we stopped for breakfast. We'd get dressed in the car and they'd take us into the restaurant eat breakfast.

At the camp site, we slept in Dad's large Army tent...one that had a heavy metal aparatus that held metal poles to support the top of the tent and similar metal poles, vertically, that held the corners. Floor space probalbly measured abt. 8' x 8'. We all slept on Dad's army cots.

The Ausable River was crystal clear and full of trout. It was Grandpa KELLERMAN's favorite fishing site.

Accompanying us were also, the BROWN & BAIRD families, friends and fellow Springfield Presbyterian Church members, as well as, Grandpa & Grandma KELLERMAN and their friends, the COOPERs.

The campsite was covered with tall grass. We'd set up the tents on top of the grass so it would create a soft floor. We'd put our sleeping bags on army cots.

A large portion of the site was mowed for parking cars.

Every day, Dan, Bill and I would take a large coil of rope, walk across the road, scramble up the incline, search for a rotted stump, throw the rope around one of the rotting pine stumps, pull it out of the ground and drag it back to the campsite to let it dry in the sun. We'd clear a large circle of grass down to the dirt, place the stump in the middle of it. At night we'd set fire to the stump-of-the-day and have a large bonfire with which to roast hotdogs and marshmallows...a favorite passtime.

We had plenty of fresh fish for dinner, as Grandpa was an avid fisherman. I remember the pancakes Grandma & Mom used to make on our little COLEMAN stove. They tasted like no other pancake ever could. Delicious ! The river was ice-cold and I never liked to swim in it...it hurt too much...but it was a beautiful site and I could sit and watch it flow by for hours on end. I'd always pick wildflowers for Mom to put on the table every day.

I also remember the small wooden dock. At the portion of it that was next to the riverbank, Grandpa & Dad built a small "refridgerator"...a metal box that had holes in the bottom so that the cold water could keep whatever we placed in the box, ice cold. It had a metal top to it, on which we'd place a large stone so that the animals couldn't get to whatever was inside it.

We used to fish a lot with the older men.

We would always go into Lansing to visit "The Trading Post"...a small store that sold all sorts of touristy Indian-made things like Birch Bark Canoes, small Tom-Toms and Tomahawks. We'd always buy at least one of each every year.

I was 15, though for all of my life I was under the impression that it was 1964...??? But when I scanned our family photos, on the ones from that trip, Mom had written 1963...?

This was my most exciting trip...I was old enough to appreciate it ! I was always extremely excited when we got in our car and headed west. It meant we were headed into the Cowboy and Indians part of our country. I watched SO many TV Westerns while growing up:

• Range Rider,
• Roy Rodgers,
• Gene Autry,
• Kit Carson,
• The Cisco Kid,
• Disney's Spin & Marty
• Disney's Corky & White Shadow
• Sky King
• Rifleman
• Doc, Miss Kitty, Sheriff Matt Dillon, Dodge City...arrrrgh, the memory loss...
• Bonanza

So actually going to those places was a dream come true.

I wanted to know more about the Paternal side of the family...the one I rarely saw. The West has ALWAYS been of VERY special interest to us. Knowing that Dad was raised on a farm out there, we wanted to know more about the area. We followed Route 3 across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois...don't recall just where we first camped. We stopped in Hannnibal. Missouri to visit the Samuel Clemens home...Becky Thatcher's house.

Next we stopped in Council Bluffs to visit with Uncle Floyd & Aunt Minnie CONRAD_ROTH, Dad's youngest brother and their two daughters, Donnna & Cathie. They all lived on a farm outside of Council Bluffs. A LARGE hill went up the back of their property. At the top you could see the whole valley. It was a magnificent sight.

From Floyd & Minnie's we drove through Kansas to get to Comstock, Custer Co. Nebraska to visit dad's old homestead, to see Curt & Dorothy DOWSE & Milly ROTH and family and attend a ROTH Family Reunion. Comstock was a dusty little hamlet. Population 170. Two bars, one attached to a small restaurant. No grocery store (you had to go to Sargent for groceries). The woman who owned the restaurant/bar was selling the establishment and had closed it for the 4th of July. We talked her into opening it. She grumbled all day about having to open it & work on a holiday, but she made more money in that one day than she had made in a normal week. A Town Hall, wherein we had our reunion meals. There were two ROTH families represented: Descendants of Richard Edgar & Minnie Ann DURHAM_ROTH, Dad's parents, and his brother's, William Bradley & Katherine SULLIVAN_ROTH. There may have been DURHAMs & SULLIVANs there. I mean, there were so many ROTHs I had never met before, I couldn't possible have gotten to know them amm in two days. Both sets of ROTH families filled the small stage for family photos. The town staged a small parade and I do mean small: It was a bit comical...I don't mean to belittle them, it's just that the town was SO much smaller than most cities and certainly smaller than even my suburb of Akron community, whioch was named Ellet. One "drill team", men wearing red fezes, did formation riding on three-wheeled mini-bikes. It would have been over in 15 minutes if the parade participants hadn't gotten to the other end of town and turned around and came to their starting point. There were the 4-H kids, several people with fancy costumes riding magnificent horses with fancy saddles. One "float" depicted the once-a-monthly bath: a guy wearing longjohns sitting in a steel bath tub. Another float was a large collection of farm tools displayed on several large plywood pieces. Also on display around town were some old, old locomotives and threshing machines.

Our two families filled the Town Hall. We also had other picnic meals in the Town Park in back of the Town Hall. There were the usual swings amd there was a large, old "merry-go-round"...human-powered, that I had ridden on when I was 3 and 11 (two previous trips to Comstock)...it was still there, though spruced-up with a new coat of paint. It brought back some fond memories of those previous trips. We camped in the Comstock Campground, a "primitive" campground...no water or electricity, but it was right next to the Middle Loup River. We did some swimming. The water was "up"...must have rained upstream...at one point, there was a large tree stuck in the middle of the river. The river was becoming deeper, so we couldn't keep from letting the current carry us downstream. Marcia was being sewpt away so I held on to the tree I mentioned earlier and quickly linked hands with Bill, some other cousins, and Marcia. We pulled MArcia and each other back to shallower water. That was a particularly harrowing and frightening experience...one I do NOT wish to repeat..EVER ! I returned to Akron with Mom & Dad. Oh, yeah, while in Abeline, Kansas, we stopped to visit an old western town. We took a ride on a stage coach. Before we left, Bill set Dylan up on the back of one of the horses...Dylan was SO small and the horse was SO HUGE....Dylan became frightened, so Bill pick him off swiftly. We also stopped in Nebraska to visit the Willa CATHER Museum. She wrote several books on what life was like in Nebraska in the 1800s ("My Antonia" being one of them). Bill bought two paintings by a local artist. We gave one to Dad & Mom...it showed a small prairie woman wearing a bonnet, bending down to plant (or weed) something in her garden. It looked SO MUCH like our grandmother, Minnie Ann ! (Debbie gave it to me after Bill died in 2000)

From Comstock, we visited: The Badlands, Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons. We'd also stopped at Wind Cave, Wall Drug Store...and also to check on the Crazy Horse Monument...I think that by 1964 they had the proposed extended arm bulldozed flat.

Saw lots of buffalo, pronghorn antelopes and prairie dogs, as well as some elk in the distance. We camped in the Tetons. Mom had always wanted to camp by a rushing brook. Thought the sound of it would lull her to sleep. We found one that was about 18" wide. It was crystal clear and bubbly and filled with rainbow trout. A fisherman's paradise. Flowing down the mountain. To get to the camp site, we had to drive down an incline. We were about 12 feet from the stream. The sound of that bubbling stream was resting. We got to sleep with no problems whatsoever. Our neighbors were a young couple who were camping in a tent that was on the ground. Our rig had two, queen-sized beds that were on tracks that slid into a trailer...so we were up off the ground. About 3 a.m. our neighbors awakened us and warned us to move the trailer because the stream was flooding and it was about 8 foot wide and growing ! The water was as high as our trailer hitch. Dad & I and several other campers pushed and pulled the trailer up the incline onto higher ground. We were so lucky. That cured Mom of ever wanting to camp by a rushing stream again...

Then to Gordon, NE to see Uncle Levi & Aunt Edna, their two boys, Marvin & Richard, their families and daughter, Janice and her family.

We rode horses at Levis farm in Batesland, S.D. LOVED that ! {:-)

Next was Casper, Wyoming to see Aunt Ruby & Uncle James IRETON & son, Don TEMPLAR, son from Ruby's first marriage to Keith TEMPLAR. Marcia was fascinated with the chickens at Aunt Ruby's...we had to stop her from visiting the hen house every ten minutes, looking for eggs..."honey...you have to let them alone for a long while, or they won't lay any eggs"...{:-)

From there we drove by Bear Lake in Utah. It was a crystal clear, blue lake nestled on top of the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City. We first viewed the lake from above coming down off the mountains. The last stop was Uncle John & Aunt Mildred ROTH_SPRINGMAN, their daughter, Edith, and son-in-law, Bob and their four girls, Bonnie, Sharon, Sandra and GayLynn, in Murray UT.

I fell in love with the Tetons...our favorite "baby" sitter, Jeanette WOODLING, worked at Jenny Lake Lodge during the summers. The water in Jenny Lake was SO crystal clear and COLD ! Jeanette used to watch us when Mom & Dad went out for an evening. She was an extra in the movie "Spencer's Mountain". She took us up to the site where Spencer built his "dreamhouse" the summer after they filmed the movie...that was a rush ! In the movie, there were two adult swans gliding along the lake when viewed from the Dreamhouse site...When we got there in August, there were many goslings following their parents ! I was so enamored by The Tetons, I decided that that was where I was going to live the rest of my life. But what 16 yr-old has a say in that particular instance? I WANTED to stay there. I told Mom & Dad I could get a job as a busboy at the Jenny Lake Lodge where Jeanette worked and that she could keep an eye on me ! I pleaded and pleaded, but to no avail. I was CRUSHED ! I actually threw a tantrum...16 yrs. old and tantrums? NOT a charachter building exercise...I was much ashamed after I got home, but at the time it was CRUCIAL THAT I LIVE OUT THERE !! [I eventually spent 4 summers (1968-1971) in Maine and a year and a half in Wolfeboro, N.H. (1972-73]

At Mt. Rushmore, we took a photo of the Indian who welcomed the vacationers. He told us to look for him in the new movie "How The West Was Won"...yeah, sure...try to pick him out of the hordes of Indians who attacked the railroad builders ! But in later years when viewing the movie, I owed that Indian an apology. He WAS in the movie ! Several scenes !! He was also the Indian, in later years, who was "The Weeping Indian" in that T.V. commercial about how we are ruining the environment !!!

Wind Cave was a fascinating place. So beautiful. We'd had to wear sweaters because the tempeature was so much cooler than the air above ground. The guide would turn the lights of in one grotto and turn on a blacklight..the colors of the minerals were so spectacular.

The trip back to Akron and our Every-Day-World was always saddening. We ALL wanted to stay out there.

It was 25 years since we attended our last Family Reunion. Too long a time.

I travelled out with my brother Bill, Debbie and Dylan, who was only 3 yrs. old. Mom & Dad drove their car and Dan & Nancy drove out in a large RV trailer with Bridget. Our "Caravan." Once we all got to Council Bluffs, Dad, Mom & I went to the Omaha airport to pick up Marcia, who had flown up from Naples, Florida. We added Uncle Floyd, Aunt Minnie, their daughter, Cathie, her husband Charlie nd their kids: Andrea, Brian and Alyssa to our caravan. We then drove to the Comstock Primitive Campground. It was a bit nippy the day we arrived at the campground, but we got settled. I had a small circular tent of my own in which to sleep. Mom, Dad & Marcia stayed at Curt & Dorothy DOWSE's home. Bill & Debbie had their own tent.

The next day was the Reunion in Comstock. It was incredible ! So many ROTHs in one place. I didn't get to talk to them all in the two days of the reunion. We all had a family talent show. Several cousins played guitar and sang, some played the piano. They were good musicians. I didn't bring any music with me and I've not been able to memorize music, so I didn't play the piano. Should have, but didn't. Instead, Dan, Bill, marcia and I sang ? & "Coney Island Baby" Barbershop style. It was well received...Dad & Mom were very pleased ! {:-)

There were several family photo albums. I wasn't so "into" genealogy back then, so I didn't think to study our family history. We only had two days to visit, so Mom & Dad talked to as many relatives as they could. We talked to cousins, but didn't know even half of them all. So we mostly talked to Levi's & Floyd's kids and their families. We did meet another Bill ROTH, son of Millie ROTH. He and his family still live in Comstock (2006)...my new computer's floppy drive isn't working, so I can't access my ROTH GEDCOM. I believe he is descended from Fred & Meda Virginia ELLIOTT_ROTH, my grandfather's brother.

From there, Dan & his family trekked on to Yellowstone. While there, they experienced very LARGE forest fires. I drove to Akron with Mom & Dad. Bill, Debbie & Dylan were in their car. we stopped at a motel and heard of the devastating forest fires in Yellowstone on the T.V news. We were all extremely worried about Dan & his family. We had no way to contact them. we didn't hear from them until we got home. They called and said that they were OK. No injuries, but their long-awaited trip to Yellowstone was suddenly cut short, so they returned home.

I took several rolls of photos, which are included in my ROTH Family Photo CD.

The trip was only 3 & 1/2 hours long, so we didn't have to get up quite as early as we did when going to Michigan or to Nebraska. We'd have our normal breakfast and leave in time to have our lunch at a restaurant about halfway to Milesburg.

All but one of Grandpa KELLERMAN's brothers and sisters lived in and around Milesburg. Uncles & Aunts: Clarence & Clara TURBOTY_KELLERMAN, George & Maude KELLERMAN_MORRISON, "Buck" & Julia KELLERMAN_SPICER, Bob & Irene KELLERMAN, and Bob & Dorothy KELLERMAN_DAVIDSON. Buck SPICER, George MORRISON and Bob DAVIDSON owned grovery stores.

We sometimes stayed @ Buck & Julia's in town, but We mostly stayed with Kenneth "Pappy" & Margene SPICER_HOLDERMAN (Buck & Julia's only child: daughter) and their three kids, Sam, David ("Cotton") & Susan. They lived in a house that was within walking distance of "downtown" Milesburg. The Milesburg School system always had a summer crafts program that all us kids would attend. My favorite craft was one using lengths of colored plastic. Each strand was about 1/8 inch in width. We'd weave different colored strands into key chains and necklaces for the girls.

Buck & Julia's grocery store was a short drive outside of town. Maude & George's store was in Milesburg proper. I recall having to drive...or ride rather...a short distance to get to Bob & Dot's store. Grandpa's brother & sister-in-law, Bill & Elsie KELLERMAN lived in Ohio for a time, then moved to Wooster, Ohio.

I spent most of my time with Sam & David. Marcia spent hers with Susan. Uncle Buck had a cabin on the hill in back of his grocery store. Marcia & I would spend several nights there with Sam, David & Susan. He also had a small tractor used to mowing the yard. Sam & David would detatch the mower and connect a small cart onto the back of the tractor. We three would go for rides on trails all over the mountains. I LOVED those trips. Some of the trails would lead to small cabins belonging to renters. We'd stop and talk to them if they were at home.