Grandma Bass

Jared and Grandma Bass

T.J, Grandma Bass & Sunny

Kyle, Grandma Bass & Jessica- This is a funny pic. We had been visiting with her for about and hour and I wanted to get some pics so I told Kyle and Jess to go stand by grandma. When they got up next to her she looked over at Jess and said, "Well whhhooo are youuuu?" It was soooo funny we were cracking up.

This picture was taken in Aug of 2007. We had went to visit our family in Fl.

I am trying to use my blog as a journal as well. For Christmas I am trying to put together a book for my siblings that will be a short life history from each of them as well as little stories I have from different family members. I called my grandma Bass today to check on her and some how we got on the subject of retirement and she told me this story.

She started out telling me why my Great, great grandpa Bass had bought the dairy. He (Clint Bass) bought the dairy because he wanted his sons to move closer and work together. My grandpa Bass (Walter Van) was working in Orlando, Fl. laying pipe underground. He moved to Kissimmee, Fl. to work on and help run the dairy. My dad, as a teenager, helped on the dairy as well. He helped service the cows and take care of them. Vance, dads brother, helped out as well. He had wanted to be a vet. I have often heard my dad speak of loving working on the dairy and wanting to be a vet.

After the dairy had started operating. Clint would let different people come on the land to use it and camp. He didn't mind who used it as long as they didn't do anything illegal. (If I remember correctly my grandpa Bass was very good at doing illegal things ) :) My grandma Bass (Margie) had the idea one day to charge people a nickle to use the property. She got together with Clint and they went down to 1st Capital Bank and got a loan to turn the property into a Campground. The campground did really well for years.

The dairy slowly started losing money- come to find out years later - the man that was delivering the feed would fill the silo 3/4 full and take the rest down the road and resell it to someone else. Soon the dairy was making little money and they decided to sell. The dairy was sold to T.G. Lee- they are still selling milk today.

Grandma Bass decided she couldn't be with out a job and went down to the local five and dime to get a job. After working there for a few weeks one of her friends walked in and asked what she was doing working there and Margie told her she needed to make money somehow and her friend told her to go apply at the county. Grandma Bass went down to the county that day and was hired on to work for the school systems in the accounting department. This was right around the time that books were being converted over to computers and the county had hired a man to do the job. Well, he did a terrible job and lost all the information. Grandma was asked to fix as much of the problem as she could and when she had done this they decided she had a permanent job. The head accountant would come ask grandma to do things he couldn't figure out. She realized real quick she was a great asset! She worked there until she retired. She retired a year before Grandpa Bass died. She retired so she could spend time with him, as she knew his health was failing.