Year Two - 1968

We last left our story with my mother a newly divorced woman around eighteen years of age. She was working at a manufacturing plant in Marshalltown, IA and her newborn son (me) was living with her parents in Kansas. She also lived with her younger sister. My mother met and began dating a man named Don Frohwein. He also worked at the manufacturing plant (Marshall Manufacturing.....what a creative name!). Don Frohwein was around eighteen years old too. He was a farm boy from a neighboring town. His family owned a farm in a rural area about ten miles out of town. He worked at the manufacturing plant and on the farm. Then he was a Navy reservist on weekends as well.

Don and my mother (Kathi) began dating and things heated up fast. I returned from Kansas and the three of us moved into the Frohwein family farm. Shortly after that, Don was informed that he would be going into active duty with the Navy and they stationed him in Charleston, SC. Well, the whole romance of the officer and gentleman thing must have taken hold.....Don Frohwein and my mother were married and we all prepared to move out to South Carolina for a year.

But, before that happened...it seems that I had had very little (none) visits and connections with Dave Presnall. I guess with me living in Kansas and then the rural farm, there were few chances for me to hang out or bond with my biological father. And in learning new words, I had started to attach "daddy" with this new man, Don Frohwein. A call was made around this time from Dave to my mother.....without much emotion or fanfare, Dave suggested that he would not object to Don Frohwein petitioning to adopt me as his own. And so it was.....

One of my earliest memories is one where I was sitting on top of a large desk. There was a man there who asked me if I wanted this Don Frohwein person to be my father.....and I think I remember a reply in the affirmative. Much paperwork and a shake of the hand.....and my last name officially changed to Frohwein.

We settled into housing on the base there in Charleston. Many pictures were taken of me on cannons and at the beach. A new family had been formed.