Yoder Family Picture
This is a family picture of our immediate family taken at our parents 50th wedding anniversary celebration in December 2001. Our family is four boys and one girl plus our parents. Also shown in the picture are three daughter-in-laws and seven grandchildren. Rear row from left are Steve, Lacie, Jeramy, Debbie, Phil, Vera, Galen, John, Erica and Saralyn. Front row from left are Alicia, Joanne, Ed, Alex, Ellen, Mike and Bryan.
A little background
The five of us are all native Phoenicians, which was rare back when we were in school. Most of our contemporaries moved to Phoenix from other parts of the country. Our parents have lived in the same house since 1951, at the base of Shaw Butte Mountain in north west Phoenix. Our grandparents, Eli and Martha Kauffman, lived in the house next to ours on one side and when we were very young our great grandparents lived in the house on the other side of ours. Later several aunts and uncles lived in our great grandparent's house until the mid 1970s. Grandpa and Grandma Yoder also lived close by having moved to Phoenix while we were preschool age. In fact most of our uncles, aunts and cousins from both sides lived close by in Phoenix and we spent a lot of time with them.
It's a dry heat
As unbelievable as it sounds today, we didn't have air conditioning in our house until 1974. During the hottest part of the year my brothers and I spent a lot of time outside working on roofs for our dad's air conditioning business (A-1 Air Conditioning) so being at home in a house with a evaporative cooler didn't seem uncomfortable at all. Today no one would think of living in Phoenix without air conditioning, however when we were growing up most of the people we knew also had "swamp coolers".
Church
Another important part or our early life was Sunnyslope Mennonite Church. We went to church Sunday mornings and evenings (after Lassie and Ed Sullivan) and I believe Wednesday evenings until we were older. Most of our friends were from church instead of school, maybe because both our grandparents and quite a few of our aunts and uncles went to the same church. As an aside the picture was taken in the fellowship hall at Sunnyslope Mennonite Church.
If you click the previous link there is not much there, however I think the skate club outreach is pretty interesting. Another skate club article gives some more information.
