Michael Devereux and Lane Gustafson Devereux

00:03 My name is Michael Devereux. I am 63 years old today is the 26th of June 2011. Where in Houston Texas and I am talking to my wife Lane. I'm laying Devereaux. I'm 60 years old, it's June 26th. We're here in Houston and I'm talking to my husband Michael Michael. We are going to have our 35th wedding anniversary this December and thinking back those 35 years. Did you ever expect your life to be what? It's been like no.

00:40 What did you think I was a different? I thought it would be something different like what different I thought I didn't think I would ever leave Saint Louis. Number one. I never gave a thought to being married this long. I never gave a thought to being this old, even though I realized I was going to be this old. I never

01:09 Just always wanted to be as happy as I am but never expected to be all that's nice. Thank you. You're welcome. When we got married, we had kind of an unusual wedding. What do you remember about our wedding? I remember getting invited to my birthday party and when I got there there were a bunch of people and there was a minister and you said we had to get married that's not exactly three of us. Didn't know that's not true. We had a surprise wedding at the Buell Street Pub, which was owned by a friend of mine. It was in Soulard in St. Louis.

01:48 We had both been married before obviously, I you know this but can't we have both been married before and

01:54 I really didn't want to get married again and we had gone to a movie The cousin Cuisine that the French version and we came out of that meeting and we said what can we do to make our friends go nuts and we decided on a surprise wedding and we decided we would have it at the bar where we met.

02:16 And invite all our friends to my birthday because it was December. My birthday is the 28th of December and that's what we did and we walked in and everybody else surprised and I said why yes it is, but it's not a surprise for me. It's a surprise for you all because here's our Minister and we're going to get married.

02:37 That is what happened at is. I remember that part of it and we got great wedding presents for you got smoking tobacco. It was great men's aftershave it was right all kinds of presents for you. That was great.

02:52 Since that time when we got married, we had one child my my daughter Alexandra who you adopted and then we had our son Nick several years later, but you have other children in your lives. And when I met you, that was a source of a lot of pain for you. Can you tell me about your other children?

03:15 Yes, I can I'm going to tell you about 1, okay?

03:20 I've been married before and we had a child and when shortly after we had the child our marriage broke up and he broke up in a very bad way.

03:31 And the end result of the breakup was my ex-wife and my son went away. They went to the first Idaho and then they kind of disappeared and I had no contact with him. I had from the time he was 6 months old till he was 3 I had no contact with him. He came and spent two months in the summer with me when he was three. And after that I had no more contact with him. I'm not sure why that happened but you know for a long long time for 30 years 34 years. He was gone from our lives are though. He was a big part of it still because I remembered him and and I would

04:13 Wonder what was going on and hope that he would someday somehow turn up and lo and behold you did one day. We were was Nick that actually did it because he made us join Facebook. He's at join Facebook and I'll talk to you which actually never happened but in the course of joining Facebook, we ran across a group called.

04:36 Devereux without an A and we look there and by golly the picture of the person who is administrator the group. I recognized even though it was not a full face photo is being my lost son. So we got contacted him and we've been kind of writing we've run up and see him a couple of times. We have to climbing beautiful grandchildren children two daughters two young ladies, and it's wonderful.

05:03 I know that that's a really happy moment in your life. Do you have any other happy moments in the last 35 years you'd like to tell about?

05:14 Well, yeah, there's there's all kinds of them being this both of our children.

05:21 There's the fact that you're still here and there, you know when you got sick, I wasn't sure that that was going to be actually happened. We've got rid of all of her children in a good way in a good way. Yeah in a good way.

05:39 You know, there's been many happy moments. Like I said, I didn't ever expect to be this happy. It's been one that has not been one. Joyful ride, but all in all I think that we are both very content and pleased with who we are and where we are.

05:55 Well, I am content and please.

06:02 When you think back to yourself as a 2829 year old man when we met and we married.

06:10 What to do for see for yourself as a career

06:16 I want the time we met I was a photographer for the Saint Louis police department, and I had hoped to continue in photography as a career. That actually doesn't work as well as I wanted it to and I got into writing.

06:35 I never expected to be in writing and I actually never expected to be working for oil for an oil company.

06:45 So there you are.

06:48 I didn't have any expectation of doing anything. Actually probably that's been part of my problem on my library. I really never had any.

07:00 I've had goals but never any objectives. Why do you think that is?

07:06 Bathroom training

07:09 In what way I think that?

07:14 My my parents

07:21 My parents and I really

07:28 Never got to the point of being a parent and child and I never got to the point of being a child where I could ask them questions and get directions from them and they never got to the point of being a parent for me.

07:43 So I was kind of left to my own devices and

07:46 I made it up as I went along without.

07:49 Directions was there anyone else in your family besides you and your parents? And yes, I have two brothers and a sister. My sister is about 5 years older than I am. My brother's are four years older than I am and they are identical twins and I was obviously the baby of the family much younger than any of them and my sister being

08:13 Older and female didn't make us clothes and my brother is being older and twins, you know, they were sufficient unto themselves. So they really didn't need a little brother hanging around so I kind of went off and did my own thing.

08:28 What kind of effect do you think that had on you as a father and a husband?

08:34 Well my intent and I've told people this my antenna as a father, you know, I didn't know how to be a father. But what I felt was all I had to do what I started out by making sure that anything my parents did I didn't do

08:52 Which inelastic me okay up until the point I was an adolescent on my kids were adolescents because when I was an adolescent I left home when I was 14 to go into a Catholic Seminary and I was born for 4 years at which time my father when I'm the one of the wise things he said to me one of the few wise things he said to me was you've been gone too long and I'm not going to try to be a parent anymore. And I said, okay, it's a good deal for me.

09:17 And it wants but but but

09:25 I tried to be nice to my kids to give them the direction. They didn't that I didn't get I probably didn't succeed as well as they wanted or as well as I wanted I probably was a lot more overbearing than they wanted me to be inserting a lot louder than anybody wanted me to be but life is you you have the. Yet.

09:45 I think about the night that Nicholas was born and he was born at home. So it was a different environment than a normal birth today. And after everyone is left and the only people at our house were you and me and Alexandra and the baby you did something with Nick. Do you recall what that was?

10:09 Talk to him. I introduced him to the world in the universe. I remember that yes indeed that came out of a book on home. First thing that you had and said that book said it was important to let the newly-arrived spirit know where they were so you had to tell them the plan of the universe edit editor and I did I don't know if that helped him or not. I don't know if he knows that I think it was a really beautiful moment. I really appreciated you doing it. Anyway, I didn't know that now it's true and when I used to work as a volunteer at the hospital with the babies I used to do that. I used to tell them where they were and it was because of you.

10:55 I appreciate that. I'm impressed because again, I've got that out of a book that you brought home about on birthday with your boys. I wasn't really a fan of me and you know, you one of those things you've had a habit in our lives of of coming up and saying what we're going to do this and then all of a sudden it happened and you know, I was always kind of surprised but I remember when you saying we were going to have the baby at home, I went kind of nuts because I didn't want to have the baby at home. I was rather scared of that.

11:26 New dinosaur. Okay. I don't really recall you objecting. What did that mean? I just blocked it that the that means that means you just bought that you wanted a n n i n o u explain your rationale and that you would had Alex in the hospital wasn't a good experience and and I can understand that. I had gone to the hospital experience a couple of times and

11:57 I did I don't remember it, but I don't particularly get thinking with pot. I mean, I don't know if it would not positive.

12:05 I don't remember it but you know, you've presented a reasonable picture and the doctor was reasonable and said, you know if there's any if there's any sign of a problem you going back to the hospital and you agree with that and I said, okay, I'll go along with them. But what did you feel about the home birth after it was over?

12:27 It was okay.

12:29 I mean if your suggested doing it again, I would have been more manageable to it, but I would have had the same concerns.

12:36 And it wasn't it wasn't the homebirth. It was the possibility that something could go wrong.

12:45 And I don't

12:48 One of those situations that I don't want to have to live after like you riding on a roller coaster is actually nothing wrong with you riding on a roller coaster unless

13:00 The ride hurt you and at the end of the ride, you've had a lot of fun but end up a quadriplegic. I'm the one that has to take care of you at that point. I don't want to do that. And so I tried to prevent those kind of problems by intervening first. You really have a thing about roller coasters don't you think that if you live with someone who has had how many bones spinal vertebrae fractures from sitting that you tend to kind of worried about excessive gravity?

13:34 Enforces and velocities

13:37 Well, I would say that in our in our marriage you have probably been a force for reticence and conservatism and I have been more of a force for forging ahead. Do you think that's true? I think that that's absolutely true.

13:56 Call Damn the Torpedoes Full Speed Ahead.

14:00 Which works sometimes but sometimes you run into torpedoes.

14:07 What can I say so overall house? How do you see that in in 35 years of marriage? Where do you think we've ended up now? Do you think we're still in that type of relationship where you're the conservative one? And I'm the more Wild Spirit one.

14:32 Yeah.

14:38 Yeah, you you're more adventurous than I am. I think you're more comfortable with the status quo in you're more comfortable with moving into a different situation and it's not that I don't like moving into a different situation it just that I'm really comfortable with the status quo. I don't think that's one of the reasons that we're where we are day is that you taking the risk in and you know, I would have been I would have been happy and I will be happy sitting in a chair reading a book.

15:16 You know.

15:18 Yeah, and you go out and do more.

15:21 Sultan, so if you hadn't met me you might still be in St. Louis working at the police department or someplace similar shorts their beloved in Soulard.

15:33 I don't think that you know.

15:37 I assume if I hadn't met you I would have met someone else. I would have married.

15:43 And maybe not been into it. But you know, I I was I had found a home in Soulard. Tell them I was happy and life was good.

15:52 One of the things that I forged ahead on that you were very reluctant about was adopting Victoria and we had 16 years of raising Victoria with her mental health problems and her issues and she's not living at home anymore. When you look back on those 16 years. How do you feel about the decision we made?

16:26 Well

16:31 It was probably one of the dumbest decisions we've made I thought that at the time I I I still think it is Victoria brought a lot to our lives you expended Christmas for 19 years. She she did bring laughter and and she got us doing things that we might not have done trying to take care of her and then I'm getting rid of the Girl Scouts and

16:54 She did bring things to our lives, but you know, I

16:59 And and you credit her with with your return to health which you know, I'm not willing to do but okay Victoria has been you know, Victoria has been a burden and it's been a burden for a couple of reasons. Number one. She does have problems. I don't think I've helped her problems. Any I don't think that that

17:25 I don't think I was ever necessarily mean to her. But I'm sure that if she would have had a wish I could have wished for a kind of engine with her father. She would have done that. She probably still does it so, I don't know that I helped you. I don't know that I was a good father to her. I don't know that I was at a good parent Downey about you either. But certainly I'm not sure I was a good parent to her.

17:49 Dragon well, it surprised me to hear you say that because from