Meanwhile I had another task to do, I had to find Darlene and I another place to live. The apartment that I had been staying in was too small so I needed something bigger. I had been renting month to month with the complex where I was staying and I was on a waiting list for a larger apartment. The one I got was going to be plenty big enough for us to stay. The apartment game with a garage so we could use it as a storage. Spring had finally came and before I knew Darlene had sold the log home back in Indiana.
The movers came and loaded everything including our car in the moving trailer. we had some essentials in my company van and we were off for our new lives together in Iowa. The apartment was nice with three bedrooms and a fireplace over looking the pool. This was going to be where we lived for a year until we found a house to buy.
Back a work I had hired an excellent mechanic. His job also included being a receiver and loader and facility maintenance. I also lucked out and hired two more people that I needed to sell on the routes. I hired a new branch administrator as well. Everything was falling in to place. The region was happy with the progress that was made.
During the next few months our business showed signs of growth. There was still a long way to go. I wanted to grow the business enough to add another route. By doing so would bring the branch some recognition. Everyone that knew me knew that it was something I strived for all of the time. So the job of helping my people make more money was my first goal. This would help to keep the employees in place. In doing so I was able to grow the business enough to add a route just as I had wanted. The branch was running like a fine tuned machine.
All the while growing the business, I had seemed to fix a major issue. I remembered when I first started with this branch they were loosing twenty-two thousand dollars a month for the five years that they were open. Well I got a call from the region that all of my hard work had paid off. The branch made a ninety eight thousand dollar swing in to the good, and it was tracking toward doing more each month.
The school year ended and it was time to get Melissa our daughter and bring her to Iowa. We got her enrolled in the local high school and she made friends quickly. She even got a job at the quaint little Italian diner as a waitress. This place had good food and was locally run by an Italian family. When you entered the place there were pictures of place in Italy and there was an eight track player playing Dean Martin tunes all of the time. Melissa worked there for only a short time before she found a job working at the Hy-Ve super market right next to the apartment complex. There she took her experience of working in the Italian restaurant and worked in the pizza shop. For a super market they had great pizzas.
Darlene found work too that year working for John Deere Insurance. She was a claims processor just as she had been back in Ft. Wayne with Etna Insurance. Darlene made friends fast too. So maybe this move was a good thing I thought. However I was wrong, after being in Iowa for a few months Darlene’s father died, and within a few more months her mother passed as well. Darlene was devastated. She would never show here feelings and she probably got that from her mother, she did speak her feelings after a time went by. To this day she recalls when she and her brothers and sisters became orphans.
