Connie Lee Slaton

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196980334/connie-lee-slaton

Dad was a welder at Olin Matheson in East Alton, IL, for years. Towards the end of his career there, he accepted a supervisory position.

He also had a welding shop at home. I remember many nights helping him in the shop, and sometimes we would go somewhere to weld something too big to bring to the shop. (One of the pictures is of me is standing by his welding truck.)

We did a lot of work for Carl Wilson, a well driller in Staunton. Sometimes in the summer I worked for Carl for a few weeks. It was hard work, but he paid good.

Dad was in the Occupation force in Japan after the war. I have several pictures of him in Japan. I asked him several times, he never wanted to talk about his time there. PFC 866th Engineer Aviation Battalion.

Dad's sisters were mostly old enough to be his mother. When he was born, they filled out the birth certificate, as Pappy Slaton could read, but not write. They spelled it wrong, putting Slaton instead of Slaten, which is where the name change came from.

Dad was named after his Uncle - Constantine Washington Slaten.

Dad turned 90 Friday, Dec 23, 2016. He did the same thing he does every Friday - he went bowling

Before my dad's funeral, lots of people came by the house. I heard my mom telling someone the guy that married them was a Justice of the Peace, a Doctor, the County Clerk, and he had his own lab and ran the blood tests himself. My dad's sister Dixie married my mom's cousin Archie Putman. My mom went with the family to Kentucky to see Archie. My dad looked out the window, saw my mom, and said "that's the prettiest girl I ever saw. I'm going to marry her." The next day he asked her to marry him.

Dad made a garden every year. He did most of the work by hand. Occasionally the neighbor would stop by and use the tractor with the Roto-Tiller on dad's garden plot.