Kathy and Julie Neal

by Ken Neal

May 2012

​I am writing about my daughters in one remembrance because most of my memories are of them together. After all, their mother and I had barely gotten used to Kathy Rene when Julia Lorraine came along.

​So for more than 50 years now, it has been “Kathy and Julie.’

​Kathy arrived nine months and two weeks after our wedding, only because February was a short month. I am reminded of my mom’s wry observation any time a baby was close to the wedding.

​“Well,” she would say when the aunts were clucking and counting months, “it never takes as long for the first one.”

         Kathy was an early college graduation present for me.

        We lived in an upstairs apartment at 910 S. Indian Ave. in Tulsa. That apartment house was on the site of the present parking garage at the current OSU hospital.

        It was Oklahoma Osteopathic Hospital in 1957 and our family doctor, Ivan Penquite, was chief of staff there.

​Kathy’s mom, Patty Jeanne, was not quite 20 and I was 21. Looking back now from the vantage point of 55 years, I realize we were all children together.

​Patty was an instinctive great mother and at 90 pounds and a bit over five feet, delivered a 6 pound, 14 ounce baby girl with ease. At least it seemed easy to me. In those days, fathers were not allowed in the delivery room but kept at bay in the waiting area.

       We walked out the back door to the hospital at about 6:30 a.m. and Kathy came bouncing into the world at about 12:30 p.m.

       Her mother and I were in the waiting room together and after a bit we decided we weren’t helping anyone and took off for breakfast! Patty never forgave us!    

Esther Bray and Granddaughters

Approximately 1965

Left to Right:  Beth Baldwin, Julie Neal, Cyndi Baldwin, Kathy Neal and Esther Bray

Kathy R. Neal - Letter From India

September 17, 2007

Today I'm wiped out after the weekend in Araungabad. I knew but had forgotten what an assault on the senses India is.

Araungabad is the starting point for visits to the cave temples at Ajanta and Ellora. The caves temples range from 200 BC to about 700 AD and are Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. They are a series of monasteries and worship halls, some very simple; others incredibly elaborate. At Ajanta they overlook a the horseshoe curve of a river and have more paintings. They are much more sculptural and intricate at Ellora. After they were abandoned they were overtaken by the jungle and lost. They were "discovered" in the mid-1800's. I kept
thinking that people had been pissing in them for thousands of years until I realized that what I was smelling was bat guano. These temple caves were on the short list of the new seven wonders of the world. They were beat by Petra in Jordan but it would be a close call for me. The most magnificent was carved from top to bottom. A photo is attached.

We were stopped by Indian families on holiday who smiled, asked where we are from, took photos of us, and offered us food. You'll see a photo of me with a sweet family who was having a picnic. We made the
mistake of asking a couple of LOSER guys who were obviously American where they were from then spent the better part of both days avoiding these guys. We should have known better from the "Bass Pro Shops" t-
shirts one of the guys was wearing BOTH days that he was goofy. When you're one of a handful of foreigners in a place like this it somehow seems impolite not to acknowledge each other.