The frame of the picture is made of wood from the barn. Picture was painted by Bill Chilcoat's mother, Pauline. Sam and Fern's son Glenn Trotter now has this picture. [Update: Glenn was killed in a car crash in Prescott Valley Arizona April 13th 2013, and his daughter Erin now has the picture.] Fern said that as a teenager she would sit in the hay mow window swinging her feet and looking out over the Arkansas country side. [Conway] Fern's dad built the barn.
Sam and Fern had gone on a long trip in their motorhome. On the way home Fern said let's go by the old place out in the country near Conway Arkansas. A man was out in the yard and Fern explained that she had lived there as a teenager, and asked if she could look at the old place. She took a pic of the barn. The man gave Fern a piece of the wood siding from the barn. Sam tied it to the roof of the motorhome and took it home. After they returned home to San Diego, a neighbor lady said she would paint Fern a picture from the snapshot. Time went by and the neighbor hadn't started with the painting. One day the neighbor [Mrs. Gilmore] told Fern she was moving to Las Vegas. Fern said she wanted the snapshot of the barn before they left. Everything was packed in boxes for the move and the lady had no idea where the snapshot was. Fern was heartbroken. A few years later Sam and Fern were on their way home from another trip, and stopped by their former neighbors house in Las Vegas. Surprisingly the neighbor had located the snapshot. After Fern told Bill Chilcoat the story, he had his mother Pauline Chilcoat Johnson paint the picture shown here, and Sam made the frame from the wood that came from the barn.
Sam passed away in 2008 at age 90. and Fern passed December 18th 2016 at age 95. My mother passed on May 22nd 2004 at age 90.