Oregon Street Kids
Is Dedicated To:



Mom & Dad

My mother had been in the hospital for over three months.  Although
she had become weak and frail, she still had that fire and vigor that
made her my mother.

Mom called all us kids together and told us it was time for her to go
home.  We all knew what that meant.  Mom did not want to die in a
hospital room.  She wanted to go home and die on Oregon Street in
the house where she lived with her husband for most of their fifty
years together and where she raised five children.

We put mom's bed in the living room.  She could look out and see the
front porch and Oregon Street through the glass front door.
Mom died the next day.

When mom had been well, she loved to set out bowls of milk on the
front porch for the cats in the neighborhood.  When I was a kid,
there were always cats hanging around the front door.

There hadn't been any cats hanging around our house for a long
time.  But on the day mom died - there were two cats
on the front porch.

Call me crazy, I don't care!  But I believe those two cats were angels,
and I believe they were sent by God to take my mother home to heaven
to be with my dad.

Now that mom and dad are gone and the house has been sold - I believe
it is time to tell the story of that house at 117 East Oregong Street and the
parents, neighbors, and kids that made Oregon Street the most
wonderful place in the world to grow up as a kid!


Carl "Butch" Wessel & Mrs. Wessel
Jimmy Adkins
Larry Polk

And The House That Once Stood At
117 East Oregon Street