Mac managed the maintenance of this important hunk of steel and concrete. It was the thinnest, scariest bridge I have ever seen. One little move of the wheel to the right or left was potential death by either a car crash or a dive into the muddy, racing Mississippi. The old bridge was blown up in 2004 after a new beautifully wide one was built just down river.
Mac and Lois got divorced. It was almost unheard of for anyone to get divorced in those days. But as charming as Mac could be, he was also an alcoholic. Life with him was no longer bearable.
Lois, with her Chicago nursing degree, went to work. She worked at the hospital, a doctor's office and for a few years she was the school nurse at May Green Elementary School. She worked the whole rest of her life. She supported herself and my mother. She saved money and left a small inheritance.
She was funny and eccentric. She enthralled us as children with North Dakota stories about getting shot with arrows by Indians (it was actually her vaccination scar) and walking to school holding a hot hard cooked egg to keep her hands from freezing. She then ate the egg for lunch!
Whenever I was sick, she did the sensible nurse thing and brought me a chocolate milk shake from Sunny Hill.
I miss her.