Tyler and Katie Conger Family

I suppose if it is a family blog, then more than just Candace should be writing. I thought I could start by telling you a little about my family. My mom is Lynette Kachelmeyer, daughter of Freeman Case. Since I have talked with most of you I have started my own family. I married my husband Tyler in June of 2005, and we are currently living in Provo Utah while he finishes school at BYU. He will have a teaching credential for Technology and Japanese, and if anyone has suggestions for places where teachers make decent money and can afford to live, we are keeping our eyes open. For now I stay at home with our little girl Peyton who was born last year on December 26- poor girl, but I also have a teaching degree from BYU which I am sure I will put to use at some time. Aside from that, there is not a whole lot of exciting business going on with us, just the day to day trying to finish school, work, and raise our little family.

Levi Freeman Case - from Uncle Gordon's website and Viewpoint

(The original birth certificate for Freeman Case listed him as George Case, apparently Maggie named him for her older brother George Spencer, then changed it to the name he grew up with: Levi Freeman Case. His birth certificate was modified to reflect his proper name when he joined the Navy in 1942.)

Born in Long Beach, California, Levi grew up in the Los Angeles Area, surrounded by his father's and his mother's brothers and sisters. Levi Freeman (“Freeman”) followed in his father’s and his father’s and his father’s footsteps in the building trades and became a lather in Los Angeles. During the depression, building activity dwindled, and several parts of the Case family in southern California supported themselves by making and selling on the street, Cases' Texas Tamales.

Following the lead of Freeman's grandmother, Sarah Percy Black/Spencer of Decatur, Texas, much of the Case family were active members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Los Angeles after they arrived from Texas. Through the church activities, young Levi, who went by his middle name Freeman, met Alys-Mae Barkwille. Alys-Mae and her mother were a moderately successful professional singing act, and Freeman tried to accompany them on his guitar and sing along, but he turned out to be slightly tone-deaf and gave it up (ah, that's where I get it from (yes, this is a note from Candace)). He finally did marry Alys-Mae July 22, 1933 in South Gate, CA. Alys-Mae quit the singing act and joined the Case family tamale business.

Freeman and Alys-Mae separated in 1941 and divorced in 1943. When the Second World War broke out, Dad joined the Navy, and was a Carpenter's Mate 1st Class in the Pacific Fleet.

During the War, Alys-Mae cared for their children when she could afford it, and at other times we were with friends or relatives. We were cared for, for a while, by Flo Case, daughter of Dad's brother Deward. In late summer of 1944, Leighton and I were placed with Ione Stellway in Bellflower. My mother was convinced Mrs. Stellway was a relative of the Cases, but I have not been able to place her in the family--maybe she was Deward Case's wife's mother/sister/aunt(?). A few blocks down the street, our brother Eugene Case was living with--I think--our uncle Deward Case.

1945. When WWII ended, Freeman returned to the lathing trade and lived for a short time with his 2^nd wife Lucille in Lemon Grove, CA in a trailer-home parked on the George and Ida Mae (Case) KRAFT property. Leighton, Eugene and I were all there at one point, bedded down in the Kraft home. Next door was Dad's sister Hazel, her husband Walter Meyer and their sons. The marriage to Lucille did not last too long . . . I was sent to live with my mother, while Leighton and Eugene stayed for a while longer.

Freeman later married a war-widow, Helen (Culka) ALLEN, and took on supporting her four children and his three sons. For a time, Freeman, Helen and her children Loretta, Larry, Collette and Barbara, and Freeman’s Leighton, Eugene and Gordon all lived in a small home on Bliss Street in Compton, CA—a very full house. It quickly turned out to be too crowded, and about 1948, his 3 boys moved to Hayward, CA one at a time to live with their mother and her husband Richard Shrank.

Helen and Freeman had one child, daughter Lynette Sue CASE.

They were avid fans of Monopoly, and when Canasta became popular, they shifted to that card-game, playing for decades almost every weekend with friends and relatives. Dad and Uncle Deward were quite close during that time. We went surf fishing together and their hobby for a while was brewing home-made beer—long before the advent of micro-breweries. Freeman Case retired in 1972 and moved his family to Apple Valley, CA. Helen Case died in 1981 after a five year battle with melanoma cancer.

Lynette CASE married Larry Kachelmeyer--yet another carpenter. Lynette and Larry have two daughters: Emily Ann Kachelmeyer (Watts) and Katie Lynn Kachelmeyer (Conger.)

Freeman developed "minor" prostate cancer at 75 and Alzheimer’s disease about 1989. Lynette’s husband built an apartment over their garage for Freeman to live in after he developed Alzheimer’s, and he lived there until he died in 1992.

Where is Everybody?

Come on folks -- I can blog all day long but wouldn't you just grow tired of me? I am certain you would! Besides, you can just check out my other blog http://candacesalima.blogspot.com if all you wanted to do was hear from me.

What's everybody up to these days? Fill me in ?

Lives, loves, marriages, births . . . give us the deets!

Here's the view from a friend of mine's back window in Oak City, Utah.

Kinda wanna makes you sigh and settle back on a chair on a big ol' wraparound porch.

I'm hosting a contest on my blogspot. So check that out please.

I'm also auctioning items off via that same place to raise money for my mother.

Just a note if you're trying to sign up for the blog and can't. You have to have a Google username and password. So go to www.google.com and create a username and password. Then you accept this invitation and begin posting.

In the meantime, if no one else posts I am going to inundate this site with BYU football stuff. Now, you wouldn't want that, would you?