Exchange students

The first year Susan was in high school she went to Shawnee Mission North and loved it. Johnson County was growing and we had already added Shawnee Mission East. They had built Shawnee Mission West and we were assigned there. Susan had such a good time at North she did not want to change but Ray says when the bus goes by you go to the school it takes you. He had been writing stories about the American Field Service and we thought maybe if Susan and Sally had an exchange student it might be a help. (Our neighbor was going to drive their son to school for the next two years.) We applied. The committee came out to interview us. Everyone in the family was required to be there. We had a new dog since the last one had died of "sheer joy" on our front porch. This one was named Snoopy. We were all in the living room with the committee. Snoopy came in and played the piano (he liked to stand on his hind feet and play the keys) then he went over and threw up in front of the committee so we thought we had not made it. However, the committee thought we were interesting and passed us.

We rearranged the back two rooms with bunk beds. Sally and Cindy in one room, Scott in one by himself, (Steve was in college) and Susan and Ingrid in the other. She was required to have her own desk. When it came time we got Ingrid early. The American Field Service had always brought the students by ship and while they were on board had trained them about America. The European kids met in Amsterdam to board the ship. The ship blew a boiler and could not sail. They sent all the students to Paris and flew them to the U.S.

Ingrid arrived with only the clothes she had on so we went shopping and brought her a skirt and a blouse and a nightie and other things we won't mention. She loved her outfit so every day after school I would wash them ready for the next day at school. She was a delightful young lady and we all liked her. We could tell when she was getting upset as she always switched to British English which was the English she learned in school. Later I will tell you other adventures like on a camping trip being surrounded by Buffalo in Oklahoma.

We ended up having four students--Norway, Jamaica, Turkey and Argentina along with a temporary one from Germany. We enjoyed having the students and visited some of them later in their own countries.