My name is Barbara Kroupa Ayotte Levine, and I have led a wondrous and adventurous life.
This montage of my facial portraits spans my first 60 years.
I was born in 1941, the eldest of eleven children, and we were raised by two wonderful parents on a cherry and dairy farm near Traverse City, Michigan.
This is the first photo taken of my whole family just after I completed undergraduate school. Our parents Frank and Leona are labeled A and B, respectively. We kids are numbered from 1 to 11 in age order, where I, Barbara, am Number 1 as I like to point out. There is a 19-year spread in our ages.
I have adopted a naming convention which I will frequently use to remind my readers of where each of us are in age relation to the others. Thus I am Barbara #1, and my siblings are Gary #2, Elaine #3, Mary #4, Lillian #5 (or Lila as she likes to be called), Frank #6 (or Frankie to distinguish him from our father), Leone #7, Liz #8, Walt #9, Dean #10, and Mark #11.
In 2022 as I am writing this introduction to my life stories, I am 81 years young and living in Southern California where I have spent the past 60 years of my life.
My undergraduate college years were spent at Michigan State University, where I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in 1962
I attended graduate school at UCLA, where I received my Masters degree in Electrical Engineering with a major in Control Systems. After working in the Space and Defense Industry for 29 years, I retired in 1991 at age 50. My husband Stan retired a year later (he is also an electrical engineer), and we have spent the past 31 years of retirement pursuing our many sports and adventures, and continuing our travels on this great planet.
To organize my life stories, I have divided my life into the following five segments.
1. 🍼 My Childhood Years: Birth to Puberty 👩🌾, Ages 0-12, 1941-1953
2. 👩🌾 My Formative Years: Puberty through Undergrad School 🧑🏻🎓, Ages 12-22, 1953-1962
3. 🧑🏻🎓 My Coming of Age Years: Grad School, 1st Marriage & Son 👩🏻🍼, Ages 22-29, 1962-1970
4. 🪂 My Glory Years: Single, Free & Lonely ⛵️, Ages 29-34, 1970-1975
5. 🥾 My Wonder Years: Life with Stan 🚣🏻♀️, Ages 39 and Up, 1975-Present
I have been writing my missives,* as I call my life stories, for the past couple of years. They are based on my memories, which are backed up by the nearly 200,000 family photos that I have digitized or taken since I retired over 30 years ago.
* A missive is a written communication or letter, especially a long one.
Memories: My memories of our years on the farm are augmented by those of my siblings. Sister Liz #8 gathered memories from all of us siblings, which she composed into a Memory Book as a present to our parents on their 50th wedding anniversary in June 1990. A few other memories have been added since then, including some from our mother Leona herself.
Missives: I started out composing my missives in emails and sending them to my now over 300 loyal followers. Earlier this year in 2022, I created this web site, and I have been adding my previously written missives and writing more missives for my site on a continuing basis.
I hope that you enjoy reading my life stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them and reliving my life in the process.
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