I was born on October 12, 1949 in Waupaca,   Wisconsin to Dr. George and Mrs. Margaret (Peggy Porter) Farquharson.  In those simpler times, October 12th was always Columbus Day, no matter what day of the week it fell on.  When I was five years old my daddy took me to downtown Waupaca, showed me the flags on every flagpole, and told me that the flags were flying in honor of Mary Farquharson's birthday.

I was the second oldest of four children.  My older brother, Phil has wonderful photos of our growing-up years on his site. http://www.cg-squared.com/philfarq/  He has been my inspiration throughout this past year or two of web-building efforts on my part .  Thank you so much, Phil,  for all of your help!  Phil lives in San Diego where he is a computer wizard and studying some really gneiss stuff (doing graduate work in Geology) at San Diego State University.  Rock on, Phil!

Fourteen months after my birth, our sister, Leigh was born.  Although we have always been very dissimilar in appearance and interests, Leigh and I were inseparable (and sometimes insufferable, according to Phil) when we were little. He had a way of rolling his eyes in a very pained way when speaking about "The Girls" to our mom.  Although we are separated now by 1400 miles or so, the distance could never diminish the deep love we have for one another.  Leigh lives in Milwaukee with her husband, Tom Joost and their son, Tommy.  Both Leigh and Tom are very successful insurance agents in the Milwaukee area.

Last but never least, our brother Jim Farquharson was born on January 29, 1953 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.  Jim's full name is James Hopkins Farquharson, and I have always called him "Hoppy".  He is the world's greatest Green Bay Packers Fan and is also a devoted University of Wisconsin Badgers fan.  Hoppy has retained the legacy family Badger football season tickets since the death of our mother in 1979, and in all those years, he has missed only two home games.  He is my long-distance phone counselor during all Wisconsin sporting events, and always keeps me updated on breaking news during the off-season.

Our dad died in 1955 from polio, leaving our mom a widow with four small children.  We were ages 9, 5, 4, and 2.  Jim, who had been born with club feet, suffered a severe head injury several months before Dad's death and was recovering from brain surgery in Madison at that time.  So, needless to say, Mom had a very difficult job ahead of her.  However, the life she gave us was better than that experienced by most of my friends in two-parent families.  For Christmas this year, my kids (Amy & Joel) had our old family movies transferred to video tape.  I have recently begun converting these beautiful videos to .mpg clips.  Click below for a "sneak preview" of what lies ahead.