Christmas cheer

I received the most delightful Christmas letter today from a friend with ALS. She is focusing on living, not dying. She's so thankful to be in her specially equipped home with home health aides and doing ordinary things we take for granted like attending church and shopping and getting her hair styled because she was in nursing care for awhile after aspiration pneumonia.

Her friends visit, call, send cards, bring gifts and send flowers, and her husband is with her.

Thanks for an uplifting message, old friend.

My summer of 1958, part 5

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 for the story about why I was living on my grandparents’ farm in 1958, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college.  The diary also covers problems with the water, my menus and cooking, disagreements with my grandparents and my social life. Transcribed from my diary!

I’d forgotten so much of this, and yet, not much has changed in my personal interests and activities and Grandma and Grandpa been gone for over 55 years—1963 and 1968. The signs were there in 1958 for my future career as a librarian, I just didn’t know it then. Even the topics of my publications in the 1990s when I was a librarian at Ohio State university—the journals and books and their stories—I was holding the raw material in my hands in 1958. "A Bibliographic Field of Dreams," AB Bookman's Weekly for the Specialist Book World, in 1994;   "A Commitment to Women--The Ohio Cultivator and The Ohio Farmer of the 19th Century," Serials Librarian in 1998; research on home libraries , spanning two farm family collections for the years 1850-1930.

The diary begins on June 1, 1958 with Grandma and I having a long talk—some of which I probably knew before. I recorded other conversations too personal to repeat. Who but me would remember now she had a baby named Glenn Oliver who died at birth?   I wrote down that Grandma and Grandpa met in college in Mt. Morris, Illinois, in the 1890s when both belonged to the same boarding club.  She was raised on a farm near Ashton, Illinois, and graduated from Ashton High School;  he was raised on a farm near Dayton, Ohio. Both had a financially comfortable life, being younger than their siblings, and enjoyed travel, reading and hobbies—hers was painting, his was bicycles. I’ve often wondered if he’d ever met the Wright brothers whose home and bicycle shop were in Dayton.  They were members of the same small religious group (German Baptist Brethren, later called Church of the Brethren).  They had gone their separate ways after meeting in college—she returned to the farm to take care of her sick mother, and he and his brother had gone on an adventure west, teaching school in the Dakotas and working as lumberjacks in the northwest. Because her father was able to support her, she told me, the local school board would not hire her as a teacher, but she continued with art lessons and “did the books” for her father’s numerous farms.

 
The farm home near Englewood, Ohio where Grandpa grew up, one of 9 children.

The boarding club where my grandparents met at Mt. Morris College. She is back row far left, and he is front row far right

I loved learning family history, and Grandma and I talked a lot that summer.  By attrition, sixty years later I’m the only one left in the family who keeps track. I have a genealogy software program, I’ve written several family stories I distribute to my cousins and siblings, a family cookbook, and in my own house, I still have many books and clippings and even some clothing that belonged to these grandparents.  There will never be another home for them since there is no one to pass them on to.
June 5: “After supper dishes I straightened things and cut a fresh bouquet.  Then I looked at old books, clippings and pictures until 11.  I sure found some interesting things.” (Grandma had a parlor for clipping articles out of her journals, and a large walk-in closet with special shelving for her journals dating back to the 1890s.)

June 6: “Grandma and I talked after dishes.  She still worries about Clare (son who died in WWII), whether or not she had tied him down.”. . . “Browsing the tool shed I found agricultural books over 100 years old, also an English grammar from 1850.”

June 24: “Mom came down about 3 p.m. while I was straightening Grandmas’s  magazines.  I drove our car to town  . . . I had a letter from Lynne. . . The water is fixed so I took a bath and read some journals and went to bed.”

Also in my diary are a lot of visits with the neighbors in the evening, especially the Jaspers (both of whom died within the last two years in their 90s), and I learned from their stories about their pasts and families.

Another interest still strong 60 years later is all the letters I mentioned in the diary. Going to the post office each afternoon, then opening my mail at the drug store was a special treat noted often in the diary.  I had several letters a week from my boyfriend who was attending classes in Minnesota, letters from college friends, and even a few from friends living just 20 miles away.

June 11: “ I walked into town (Franklin Grove) to look at the library.  It is pretty nice for a small town.  I got the mail, had a wonderful letter and bought a coke.  Very nice afternoon.”

June 15: “After dishes I wrote letters, studied Spanish and read Good Housekeeping. . . After supper I wrote more letters and read to page 38 in Don Quixote, which I think is a very dull book.”

June 16: “I got a letter from [boyfriend] intended for his parents and one from [another boy I’d dated at Manchester].  I mailed 6 letters.”

June 23: “I walked into town and got 4 letters.  I read them in the Drug Store. . . wrote to Richard (son of Uncle Leslie and Aunt Bernice) after dishes and read and listened to the radio.”

I still do a lot of correspondence, now mostly by e-mail—some of the same people I visited with or wrote to that summer. In the 1990s, I compiled all the “real” letters I had from parents, siblings, cousins and friends and excerpted all the  items about the holidays from Halloween through the New Year and called it “Winters past, winters’ post.”  These letters recorded the ordinary events of our lives to the faint drumbeat of the cold war, the civil rights movement, space flight, the VietNam war, political campaigns, Watergate, economic growth and slowdown cycles, the rise of feminism, employment crises, career changes and family reconfigurations. On and on we wrote, from the conservatism of the Eisenhower years, on through the upheaval of the 60's, the stagnation of the 70's, then into the conservatism of Reagan/Bush in the 80s. National and international events are rarely discussed in these letters as though we were pulling the family close into the nest for a respite from the world's woes. When my children were about 35, I compiled from letters to my parents, all the cute, wonderful and strange things they’d done or said.

I also saved letters from others, and at various life events, bundled them up and returned to sender. Others did the same for me.  In 2004 four years after Mom's death I received a bundle of letters my mother had written to her cousin, Marianne in Iowa.  For about 30 years I saved all the Christmas/holiday letters we’d received from friends and family, and just this past year we said good-bye.

Sorting through old letters--again

Over the week-end I finished up my massive project begun a few weeks ago--rereading all the Christmas letters I'd saved since 1987, and running most through the shredder.  This is to save my daughter a lot of work somewhere down the road.  Some I just couldn't give up yet, so there are still a few in a separate pile.  Then I decided perhaps I should look through the greeting cards box--I also save cards for special events or special family and friends. Hard to believe it's been almost 17 years since retirement--but there were all the "Happy Retirement" cards from library and veterinary medicine staff.

About half way through I came across a very clever hand made engagement and wedding announcement for the two daughters of the Palenske family from Christmas 1961.  So that's why I'm here at the internet again instead of cleaning out files and boxes.  I thought I'd try to track down my college era friend. We weren't that close except for 1959 and 1960, and I suppose I was still exchanging letters with her and was added to the announcement list.  I don't think I went to the wedding--it would have been about 4 weeks before my first baby was due, and we were living in Champaign, a four hour drive to their home in a Chicago suburb.

What I found on the internet was very interesting and I think I tracked her down.  One newspaper article for an event gave an e-mail, so I've dashed off a few sentences.  Stay tuned.  The last person I found this way (my first piano teacher, Miss Tinklenberg, a teenager who taught all the children in Forreston) responded, "Who are you?"

Update:  Yes, I found her and am sending her the cute announcement of her wedding.  No, she didn't remember me.

Remembering Uncle Clare--Friday family photo

In sorting through the basket of Christmas cards and letters this week, I found one from my cousin Sharon who lived in a Chicago suburb when we were children.  She is the daughter of my mother's oldest brother, Leslie.  The letter was dated December 20, 2000. Our parents' brother, Clare, had been killed in WWII in October, 1944. I recall my mother saying he couldn't be a pilot because of a hearing problem, but was trained for photographic mapping.  He was an aerial engineer for the 24th Mapping Squadron of the 8th Photo Group, Reconnaissance (10th Air Force) which served in the China, Burma, India theater. Clare and a pilot in his unit were killed in an explosion when their plane hit a gasoline supply, through the stupidity of his commanding officer who insisted the men go up in a blinding storm. No one else in that unit lost his life and we only found out how Clare died when a great nephew, Steve, attended one of their reunions in the 1990s.

Sharon writes in December 2000: "I just finished gathering Steve's information, pictures, and letters from Clare and sent it off December 7.  I hope it gets there.  I copied the letters from Clare and the photos, just in case.  Leslie (Sharon's father) had at least 40 letters from Clare which I also loved reading.  I had no idea he had been stationed in so many places around the United States.  He was even out in Kingmore, Arizona, for awhile.  I told Steve how we cousins would walk down the hall to "Clare's room" and peek in and see the flag and the purple heart.  He was someone we wished we had known.  Gayle remembered that too. [As did I.]

I have one vivid remembrance of Clare visiting us in Chicago and giving me a stick of Dentyne gum.  I was 6 by then in 1944 and I remembered because of the pungent flavor of the gum.  I thought it was so good.  Then I read in his letters it really did happen and he even took a picture of Richard and me standing by the back door.  The negative had been laying in the letter for 56 years.  He told Leslie they didn't bother developing it because they thought it was too faint and maybe he could have it made up.  When I held it up I could see 2 little kids on it, so I took it in and sure enough it was Richard and I as we were that day with Clare. [I remember Clare visiting our family in Mt. Morris, so it may have been the same trip.]

Leslie wrote Clare in September, 1944, and it must have come back to him [my grandmother also had a letter returned to her that he never received]. It was with Clare's letters.  It must have been so awful. I said to our daughter I wish I could've been more responsive to it all then and she said, "You were just a child."  So I said to Steve if his children don't grasp it all right now, they will someday and your book (Steve was working on a book about Clare's life) will be there for them.

While I was copying pictures for Steve's project, I made up some extra ones for my cousins.  I'll get them off to you in the new year.  These pictures and letters make me feel like I didn't miss out on knowing Clare after all.  We enjoyed visiting with Howard in October and having him help me identify pictures, names and places.  Muriel also was a big help.  We noticed from my old pictures there had been 2 Marmon cars over the years with Charles and Mary (our grandparents). I asked Muriel how they got all that camping equipment in the Marmon for their trips out to Kansas and she said they strapped it to the running board.  Mary would prepare for weeks."  

Sharon mentioned that the camera store had been able to develop the glass plates that came to her from her father's collection of slides, movies, and negatives. He had died in November, 1999 in Arizona when he was 97. In the developed plates below, Clare is in each one, and the lower right has my mother with him. Although Sharon doesn't say, I assume Leslie took the photos since he isn't in any of the photos in the other plates.

Some of the developed glass plates from Leslie's collection sent by Sharon.

Our album of Christmas photos

Album of Christmas greetings.  College roommate Dora and her family

 Our project of looking at an album every evening is moving rather slowly.  We're not doing them in any order--so Thursday evening we did our September 2015 trip in Spain--Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Murcia, etc.  Then last night we did the album of friends made over the years who sent photos with their Christmas cards. If we have earlier photos such as high school friends for both of us—Dick Green and Duke Low for Bob, and JoElla, Sylvia and Lynne for me—I’ve included those too. But I noticed that there were no photos after 2008. So today I got down the box of Christmas letters I save (I have trouble throwing away the printed/written word) and pulled out the photos, writing on them which I should have been doing long ago and matching up to the letters.

So I also spent some time rereading the letters, but not as much as I thought I would. My eyes would sort of glaze over and soon the trips to Europe from Nelson Potter, Jr. and the grandchildren from Lakeside neighbors who were were 3 in 2008 and 10 in 2016, and the career changes of Marie Peterson’s son, the move to Colorado or Florida, and the pets who died since the last letter, and weddings of children and grandchildren and how they said good-bye to grandma, and the obituaries of the Crabbs all started to bunch together. It’s stirred up the memory of Mom and I going through all the letters and cards in 1983 that Grandma Bessie saved, reading them once, and then disposing of them or returning them to sender. Then I did it for Mom’s letters and cards in 2000 after her death, taking home all the letters (about 40 years) I’d written to them. So. . . I will probably shred the letters now to save my daughter that job.  I knew the people who had sent cards and letters to my mother and grandmother.  If I can’t bring myself to re-read the letters of friends who were fine in 2008 and now have Alzheimer’s Disease and don’t know their own kids, I’m sure I’m doing my daughter a favor by giving them a proper, respectful burial now.

The prompt today from Tweetspeak, a poetry site, was "Things Invisible." Those letters and cards were invisible in the guest room closet, stored on the top shelf in a green basket. I didn't have to think about them.

Things Invisible Poetry Prompt from Tweetspeak
Old Christmas letters, cards and photos.
The basket was in the closet for years.
Invisible since placed there.
Visible only when I added more.
Then things became invisible again.

I took it down from the top shelf.
Sneezed a little from the dust.
Struggled past the seasonal clothes,
ornament boxes waiting for next year,
Wrapping paper, sacks, and ribbons.

Sisters, brothers, aunts, and parents.
College roommates, business partners,
Lakeside neighbors, cruising colleagues,
In-laws, cousins once or twice removed.
Nieces, nephews, her cats and his dogs.

Babies born now twenty eight,
Businesses launched now closed.
Pintos and spaniels at Rainbow Bridge.
Career changes, tenure, promotion,
Divorces, weddings, and Alzheimer’s.

Trains across the Canadian Rockies,
Ships around Alaska’s glaciers,
Log cabin in the Wisconsin woods,
Hiking and biking through Arizona.
RV parks in Florida, cello concerts in Michigan.

A fall off a step at his son’s home,
Hospice now for sister Barbara,
Chemo recovery, tests are good.
How long has it been since we saw you,
Let’s get together after New Year.

My old bones pause on the step ladder,
Old memories folded together.
Blending 2016, 2010,
1987, thirty years.
Things become invisible again.

Christmas letters—I love them

Some people make fun of Christmas letters, the ones from friends you hear from once a year, but I love them. Monday we caught up with friends in Texas who had lived in Columbus only one year during a recession and her company transferred her here. He worked briefly for my husband (so it was probably 1994) while trying to find a job. When we visited San Antonio 20 years ago his former employer gave us a tour of the city. Their darling little pre-school boys whose school photos we got every year are all grown up with careers, homes and one is married. Hardly seems possible.

Now instead of school and sports we're reading about the frailties of their parents, assisted living, and Alzheimer's. Janice writes of her dad: "On one of his more lucid days he told me he was going to sit right there in his chair until God came to take him home. Amen." Praise the Lord, he still knows what is important and eternal.

Today I got my first Christmas letter from cousin Barry and his wife Rose Anne. We’ve connected on Facebook, although didn’t know each other well.  I’ve only met her once, in 1993 at a family reunion.  But from the photos of the grandchildren, I’ll need to be updating the genealogy database. Another Christmas letter (hand written) from cousin Sharon in Canada included photos of the homes of our ancestor in Lancaster, PA.

Thursday Thirteen—where our friends are traveling according to their Christmas letters

Our Christmas card for 2013 was a painting by my husband of Colorado in the snow.  His card paintings are always so lovely, some people collect them. However, I can’t find this year’s card, so here’s last year’s, the little museum at Lakeside, Ohio which used to be a Methodist church.

I always enjoy hearing from friends and family at Christmas—cards and letters on paper, some actually handwritten. E-cards are OK, but don’t excite me too much.  That’s the direction many are going—it saves time and money.  Many of our friends are retired, so they carefully plan their resources and time around travel. This isn’t all, but they were on the top of the pile.

1.  John and Sue in Washington went to the hospital, both of them, he in January and she in December—hoping for a healthier 2014 with possibly a trip to Ohio in May.

2.  Gayle and Bill’s grandchildren went off to college in Colorado and South Carolina.

3.  Howard and Betty went to Istanbul and other interesting places in Turkey to be awestruck by ancient ruins. Also New Hampshire and Maryland for family visits.

4.  Martti and Riitta of Helsinki probably hit the jackpot with Copenhagen, Thailand, Rome, Kuusamo (Finland), Sardinia, Spain (liked it so much they bought a home there), London, Nashville, and finally traveled here to Columbus to visit us in December. And we’re so glad they did—we had a wonderful visit.

4.  Jim and Jerry were in Michigan, Lake Wales, Tampa, Sarasota, North Carolina, and had some time in the hospital.

5.  Sandy and Alec went to Scotland and Charlotte NC.

6.  Rich and MaryAnn were commuting between Lakeside, OH and Bloomington, IL,  with visits to Piqua and Cincinnati, Ohio.

7. Bob and Janet went to Springfield, IL and visited the Lincoln Library and Museum, also Florida, a cruise to the Greek Islands with a stop in Turkey, then Rome, 8 Mediterranean Islands, then to Columbus, Ohio, and Pasadena, California for family visits.

8.  Sylvia and Dave clocked some time in Reno, NV, and Amarillo, TX.

9. Frank and Dianne also went to Springfield, IL to see the sites, and South Carolina as well as local trips to festivals in Illinois.

10. Linda visited Zion National Park in Utah, Catawba Is. in Lake Erie, Hilton Head,  and The Cove in Ashville, NC which she says was the highlight of the year.

11. Helen went to New York City and said the Christmas decorations were outstanding.

12. Eleanor’s plans to travel to South America were cancelled, but she’s thinking perhaps a vacation place in a warmer part of the country may be in her future.

13.  Jan is planning a trip to France, with 3 days in Paris and a river cruise.

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Thirteen, check here.

Not everyone has snow

But this is a lovely, if stylized, memory of Christmas as it probably never was.  I saw it at Flyover Culture on Facebook, which has the most beautiful photos of our country.  And promotes the conservative values and culture which I admire. We do have a light dusting of snow this morning and I’ll be meeting with friends of 30+ years for coffee.

Yesterday we got a note inside a Christmas card updating us on a small family we haven’t seen since Christmas 1965.  They were renters of the apartment in our duplex where we lived in Champaign, IL.  When we waved good-bye to them and their little daughter, I didn’t know we’d still be in contact almost 50 years later.  Except we aren’t. Until this year, the card simply had a signature.  Somewhere along the way the husband’s name was dropped from the card, then we got one photo card years ago with mom, daughter (now grown) and her husband.  The note reports the daughter’s daughter has just graduated from college.  However, the note which updated us, was intended for someone else and got in the wrong card.  Sigh.

Quietly bringing in New Year 2012

A very lovely New Year's Eve. First we attended a wonderful jazz concert at UALC which featured the works of Henry Mancini--always a nice walk down memory lane since he did so many movie and TV themes. Then a worship service with communion led by Pastors Dan Clark and Brodie Taphorn. We saw many friends from years ago that we miss now that there are three campuses.

Then we came home, put on some quiet music, had dinner, and I set out the little cardboard mailbox with all the Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year cards and letters and we took turns reading through them aloud--it took about 90 minutes. We had, of course, read them when they came through the mail slot or were handed to us, but this time we actually discussed them and noted things we'd missed. Usually I tape the return address to the card if the names are rather common or duplicative, but I missed one. Neither of us seem to know which "Jim and Becky" sent that card. . .

Wayne and Marie (housemate from the U. of I. in the 1950s) still get the prize for most travels and activities, but I think Marilyn Ford won for biggest family photo--almost 40 children and grandchildren in her photo. I got out the church directory from 1978 and she and Jack had 4 children in that photo. Gayle's Thanksgiving letter usually leads the pack, and we think there will be a few yet to come this week. My brother called instead of sending a card--they've gone to e-mail, which is difficult since my husband doesn't do computer stuff. We really treasure the hand made and artistic efforts--we seem to know a lot of artists. I didn't do a Christmas letter this year--maybe this will inspire me. . .

Dear Mom and Dad, December 22, 1980

1980 has not been one of my healthier years. I went to the doctor today and had chest x-rays and blood tests. My chest is clear, viral bronchitis, he says, and gave me an antibiotic to keep it from becoming pneumonia. I get my glasses in a week, and that will be a relief. If life begins at 40, I'm in trouble.

We received your Christmas packages safely, and they've been put under the tree, to be felt, shaken and poked by two eager kids. We've been reading the nice Advent book and calendar Joanne gave us at breakfast.

We went to a tree farm this year and cut our tree. I wouldn't say it is quite like the TV commercials, but it was fun. There was a roaring fire at the barn, and lots of jolly people around.

We've had a few holiday get togethers. A neighbor had an open house, and the art league had a pot luck dinner, and the AIA had a reception (but I was sick) and the office party is tomorrow, but I may not be able to go. It will be a lovely affair--dinner at the hotel in the Ohio Village, a 19th century reconstructed village which is a nice tourist attraction. They have carolers in costume and everything is deorated like the last century.

Sure wish my mommy was here to make me tapioca pudding.

About to go to press

You would think a person who can churn out 5-6 blog posts a day, keep track of 11 blogs, and write other, non-web related things could at least put together a Christmas letter before December 1. Our cards have been ready for about 3 weeks. I wrote the letter on my lap top up at the lake, but we'd brought the printer back to Columbus, and I couldn't get a wireless connection, so when I got home, I e-mailed it from the kitchen to my office, copy and pasted it into word processing, and I think we're good to go to Staples this morning. My husband did a special watercolor--and I didn't like it. I'm his biggest fan, and biggest critic. So he substituted a wonderful painting from our Alaska trip in 2001. But the original one may show up next year. When he photographed and printed it to 4 x 6, it looked fabulous. Sometimes reducing a painting hides the little defects. I thought about offering to send one to some blog readers not on the list, but realized we'd only made 200, and who knows how many read this regularly enough to see the offer. Thousands? Ha.



This is a photo of the painting on this year's card, not a scan, so you're seeing a bit of the mat, plus I've had to reduce the whatevers to get it to load--it was too large. And the letter--well, it was the most uninspired, boring thing I've ever written--"we did this, then that, and so on." Blah, blah. So you're not missing much if you missed the list. I must say, I have friends who do some incredible things--both in travel and service. We used to get photos of the children, now it is the grandchildren. Sometimes it's a pet with no people at all!

I don't think anyone will beat Marie and Wayne's Christmas letter. Marie and I became friends living in McKinley Hall at the University of Illinois 1958-1960. We haven't seen each other since graduation in 1961, but have continued to exchange Christmas cards over the years. I still have the baby pictures of her kids. I'm always worn out by the time I finish their letter, but in 2008 I think they are going to out-do even Nelson Jr., the valedictorian of my high school class who is married to a librarian and is a Professor at the University of Nebraska.

This year Marie and Wayne had

2 more grandchildren--twins--since last year's letter

5th wheel camper Nomads mission project in Florida

summer in their cabin in the Northwoods boating, fishing, etc.

two trips to London to visit their daughter and grandchildren there

month long trip to Glacier, Yellowstone and Black Hills

2 weeks in South Africa as a birthday gift from their daughter and SIL in London--safari, national parks, history--the works

volunteering at the Northern Illinois Food Bank

ministry to the homeless through the Holy Casserolers

visit from their London family for Christmas next week

Really, even with a trip to Italy in June and a mission to Haiti in February, we look pretty stodgy compared to Wayne and Marie. Still, we're so very grateful to hear from far off friends at Christmas. I love Christmas letters and catching up, even though some people make fun of them. Isn't there a song to spoof* the Christmas letters? Our church is having a special "Blue Christmas" service for people who are having a hard time being joyful or thankful.

We know a couple who lost their daughter in October. It's going to be a tough time--worse than the day-to-day grief--getting through this. I've been there and remember. Holidays can be pretty awful when someone is missing--especially a child. As an adult I probably didn't spend more than 10 Christmases with my parents, but this time of year I miss them a lot. Probably will do a Monday Memory tomorrow about Christmas 1945, if I can scrape up the memories.

Time to head for Staples. Times's a-wasting.
---------------

*Looked it up--Ray Stevens' album

"Well, we still live in the double-wide,
but Bubba's added on,
A bass-boat shed and a workshop,
and new flamingoes for the lawn,
We took down the front yard tire swing,
now that Junior's in the pen,
But it looks like a happy new year:
they moved him off death row again!