Chris, the Sunshine of Carol's Life

My first full-time job after graduating from Moline High was at the Augustana Book Concern in Rock Island. Vendla Solmonson, a good friend from church, got me a job in her department handling the subscriptions for Sunday School lesson material for all the Lutheran churches in the United States. I made a dollar an hour to start with and stayed until December 1966, a month before Chris was born. Eilene Peterson, a very close friend of mine, also worked at the book concern, so we rode to work together every day. I’ve known Eilene since we were pre-schoolers. She lived behind our orchard and, as kids, we ran back and forth between our properties to play everyday. We’ve managed to keep in touch and stay close to each other throughout the years and get together whenever we can. She and her parents, Oscar and Jeannette, and her brothers, Melbert and Bill, were good neighbors and close friends of our entire family. I married Donald M. Boney on July 3, 1965, when I was twenty-six. Chris was born January 27, 1967. I always thought that to have a child was a very precious gift. Chris is, and always has been, the sunshine of my life. He makes each of my days on earth special just by being who he is: kind, sensitive, successful, loyal friend, creative, and loving. He has enriched my life in more ways than I can count and has always made Charlie and me proud. I divorced Don in 1972 after seven years of marriage. I was thirty-three and Chris was five. Don passed away on June 13, 1988, after battling cancer for many years. He was always a good father and supported Chris in all his endeavors. Chris can always be proud of his Dad’s accomplishments. While Don was serving as a Navy Corpsman during World War II, he was awarded the Purple Heart in 1944 for injuries he received during the Invasion of Iwo Jima. He also received the Silver Star while serving as a Navy Corpsman during the Korean War. Chris and I moved in with Mom after his father and I divorced. I worked at the Moline Daily Dispatch newspaper and at Franciscan Hospital before starting at the Rock Island Arsenal in 1973. I worked for the Department of Defense, first as a secretary, and later as a budget analyst. This is where I met Charlie. I was his secretary, but didn’t get to know him on a personal level until we both attended a dinner-dance in January of 1975. We sat next to each other and he asked me to dance. It was instant love and we’ve been together ever since. We were married in Berne, Switzerland on April 30, 1976, and spent two years overseas.