Questioning the question mark

Every Wednesday morning for the last 4 years I've been logging my husband into ZOOM for his men's Bible study, but I have to write down the password. It's only 6 numbers, but for some reason it just doesn't come to mind. Yet on Wednesday I remembered my locker code for MMHS, Mt. Morris High School, which has been closed for years. The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. I wonder what else will pop up. I also wonder why that last sentence didn't need a question mark, because Facebook corrected it. So, I asked and Copilot told me "I wonder" questions are indirect and don't need a question mark. Did we learn that at MMHS? I've been doing it wrong all these years.

Jon Martin, class of 1957, obituary

Jon Robert Martin, 86, a Marco Island, Florida resident since 1994, formerly of Roselle, Illinois, passed away Saturday, August 23, 2025, in Cape Coral, Florida. He was born July 27, 1939, in Rockford, Illinois to Vivian and Robert Martin, now deceased.

Jon was a member of the Wesley United Methodist Church, Marco Island, Florida. He was the former owner and president of Martin Funeral Home in Roselle, Illinois for over 29 years.

He is survived by his companion of 13 years Nadine Thornton; two beloved children, Kip Martin and his wife Gwen of Fort Myers, Florida and Mitzi Sanders and her husband Todd Biddison of Cape Coral, Florida; one brother, Roger Martin of Mt. Morris, Illinois; eight grandchildren, Brittani and huband Ben, Sydney, Elysia and husband Stephen, Clarissa and husband Austin, Alexis and husband Jaen, Cassandra, Blake and Samantha; three great grandchildren, Kasen, Briella and Braxton; as well as a niece, Shawn and a nephew, Chad.

In addition to his parents, Jon was preceded in death by his wife Dixie Martin in 2012.

Memorial visitation Saturday, September 13, 2025 from 11:00am until time of service 1:00pm at his former funeral home, now Countryside Funeral Home and Crematory 333 S. Roselle Rd. (1/2 mile south of Irving Park Rd.), Roselle, Illinois.

Blast from the past--the fifties

Carol Samsel Hayes sent me a scan of what looks like some old photos of me in elementary school, and my high school freshman class photo. Carol is a cousin by marriage of my cousin and reader of my blog, Gayle. As I recall, we spent a lot of time together summer of 1953 playing cards and going to the pool and getting together with Doree.  Then Carol's family moved--maybe around 1954 to the Chicago area.  We reconnected about 10 years ago on the internet.

I remember that pale pink (lower left) coat with a little black velvet trim on the collar--was considered very stylish then.  I think I'm wearing a tan denim skirt I made for 4-H and "bucks" shoes--mine were a rust color (middle top), and I seem to have Steve Brinker in a head hold and am wearing jeans, so it must have not been a school day since we didn't wear jeans to school in those days.  You can see the old elementary school building which was torn down years ago. It must have been before school in the morning because of the shadows. Then there's a group photo of 7th and 8th grade girls, with Carol and Doree among them.

Carol's high school class reunion

My sister Carol died in 1996.  Recently her high school classmates were in Mt. Morris for a reunion--not sure why 64 is a special year, but perhaps someone was willing to organize it or someone could be in town who rarely visits.  So here is a photo of the group that met for breakfast.  If there was a larger group meeting, I don't know.

Elizabeth Warren’s minimum wage scam

Looking at the excellent stats in this article, I see I might have been making close to minimum when I worked in high school and saved enough to pay for my first year in college. But it was a gift, not a wage. I wasn't worth it. Someone had to take a chance. And I could get a 25 cent tip for a 10 cent cup of coffee in those days.

"The minimum wage prevents some of the least skilled, least educated, and least experienced workers from participating in the labor market because it discourages employers from taking a chance by hiring them. In other words, workers compete for jobs on the basis of education, skill, experience, and price. Of these factors, the only one on which the lesser-educated, lesser-skilled, and lesser-experienced worker can compete is price."

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-minimum-wage-shouldnt-be-family-wage?

I had many advantages as a low wage teen that others less fortunate might not have. My employers knew my parents; they knew my sisters;  they had known me since I was a toddler; they knew what our family values were, that I had been taught by my parents to be responsible, on time, and how to treat adults; they knew I was an A student (honor roll was published in the town paper) and could probably be trusted at the cash register (they didn't know how bad I was at math); they knew I could walk to work in snow or rain; they knew my school schedule including social events because their son was the same age; they felt a sense of responsibility to the community, their customer case. And I knew there were 10 other teens who wanted that job.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/your-first-job-real-costs-minimum-wage

Lucille Snodgrass, 1919-2019

I heard this week that Lucille Snodgrass,  the mother of my high school friend Nancy Snodgrass Falzone, had passed away.  She was living at Pinecrest in Mt. Morris, and we should all have a devoted daughter like Nancy—or even a good friend like my brother who visited her there.  Nancy and I used to ride horses together as children, so I remember Lucille and husband Bill who died in 1989 from their days on the farm on Mud Creek Road between Mt. Morris and Oregon.  I’d only seen her a few times in the last 50 years, but my memory of her is a sweet, beautiful, charming, classy gal who was a lot of fun.  I think her passing is the last of the “mothers” that I knew since the 1940s-1950s. I wrote this poem over 20 years ago,  after so many of the women I knew had died, although there were some, including my own mother, who were still alive.

The Mothers of Our Childhood
by Norma J. Bruce
February 20, 1997

I have filed a report
and sounded the alarm.
We are missing the Mothers:
They're nowhere to be found.

Strong women disappeared while
I was living away.
Perhaps a moment ago,
a year or a decade.

Housewife, retailer, artist;
teacher, farmer and clerk.
Secretary, volunteer;
No doctor, lawyer, chief.

Velda, Gladys, Marian, Mildred;
Rosalie, Rita, Rose, and Ruth;
Alice, Hazel, Ada, and Esther:
Born during the century's youth.

Finish this list of Mothers
while I go look around.
No, the veil closed behind them;
they're gone. We are alone.

When I searched her name, I found her wedding announcement on a genealogy page for the Freeport Journal Standard:

“10 Sep 1938 : Miss Lucille Moore, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Irvin Roy Moore, North Henderson road, and William Snodgrass, son of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Snodgrass, Mt. Morris, were united in marriage this morning at 10 o'clock at the parsonage of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Mt. Morris, the pastor, Dr. C. H. Hightower, performing the single ring ceremony.
       The bride was dressed in a boy blue dress with Alencon lace jackette, and her accessories were navy blue.She carried a bouquet of pink roses.
       The attendants were Miss Betty Peterson and Ralph Satterfield of Mt. Morris.
       After the ceremony the bride and groom left on a wedding trip to Omaha, Neb., and Denver, Colo.The bride's traveling outfit was a navy blue taffeta ensemble with rust accessories. On their return they will reside with the groom's parents on their farm home near Mt. Morris.”

I know a little bit more about Lucille and Bill than the parents of my other friends because Nancy kept a book of memories, and when she was 69, she put it all together with photos, and made a number of copies, of which I am the owner of one. It includes a wedding photo.  Nancy wrote that her mom was born September 9, 1919, so  she  almost made it to 100—which seems to be pretty common in Mt. Morris.  In addition to working alongside her husband on the farm she also worked at the Conover Cable Piano Factory in Oregon, then later at the Mt. Morris Cleaners

She's finally put her family together

This is my high school classmate Ebba, and her family—in a puzzle which she has put together. She’s in the front row between grandchildren in a red sweater. [Facebook photo]

Wouldn’t it be nice if it were this easy!

 

Ebba's Jan. 6, 1964 wedding.  Jerry died in 2004. 

The class reunion blog has ended

It was time.  It was supposed to be just our 50th reunion blog for the Mt. Morris High School class of 1957.  Now we’re past 60 years since we graduated!  I really appreciate those who contributed stories and photos—Mike Balluff the class president is a great story teller--but recently it was being referred to as “Norma’s blog.” I figured it was time to close the diary (which I actually did in 2010, but I kept updating it so often, I finally went back to occasional posting as there was news).  Before I closed it, I pulled out the updates from 2010 and made them separate entries, mostly obituaries, making them easier to find. 

Facebook really made blogs obsolete, and Twitter is eating Facebook’s lunch, that said, I think Mt. Morris has at least 4 FB pages plus a webpage. Not bad for a small town of less than 3,000 with no high school or elementary school.  At this blog I write on approximately 15 topics, of which Mt. Morris, education, business, medicine, retirement, church, books, films, fashion, food, family, health, etc. are in there with what’s going on in the world.  There’s really a lot of variety also in the 1957 class blog, some funny posts and some sad.  And all the women were beautiful and the men all had hair!

 

September 22, 2018 class breakfast

Yesterday I cleaned out several boxes of negatives from our collective photo albums and found a bunch from the 1950s.  If I find anything pertinent (and someone who still develops b & w), I’ll back date them and add to the class blog.

Class of 1957 has another mini-reunion

On September 22 at 9 a.m. in the Campus Cafe, a few members of the Mt. Morris Class of 1957 met for breakfast. Marion, Ebba, Nancy K, Moe, Lynne, David, Sylvia, Norma, Mary Jane, Nancy F., Jean, Greeley. This class is fortunate to have a very active local committee—this was the third get-together in 2018. 

                                      

A very successful trip to Illinois

We had our fall Illinois Indiana trip this past week, celebrating my birthday there and seeing our cousins and siblings.

On Thursday we went to the lovely home of cousins Dianne and Frank for a tasty breakfast, after which we went hunting for the Nachusa Prairie Grasslands near Oregon and the bison (that adventure will be another post).  On Friday we drove to Dixon to see my cousin (once removed--my grandmother and his father were siblings) Chuck Ballard to catch up since college days at the University of Illinois, where he attended after a stint in the Navy. I think I last saw him in 1983, and we are both interested in genealogy. We had actually met a good friend of his when we were touring Ireland over a decade ago. Friday evening we had dinner with our Illinois siblings and spouses with a long chat afterwards.  On Saturday the members of my graduating class (1957) got together at the Campus Cafe across from the campus in Mt. Morris.  That afternoon we drove to Winnebago to visit with my cousin Judy Buffo, but as it turns out, that was her mailing address but she lives much closer to Pecatonica. so we drove around a lot in that area, and were just about to give up when I found a clerk at a gas station who had a smart phone and wrote down directions for me. We had a nice 2 hour visit.  I think I last saw her in 1996.

Early Sunday morning we started out from Mt. Morris  for Indianapolis arriving about 1:30 and had a good visit with our sister and brother in-law and our niece and nephew and dinner and dessert.

   

 

 

  

The most useful course in high school—Latin

Temperature to match 1954!

Today (and yesterday) in central Ohio we’re supposed to match the temperature records for 1954! I think it will be about 72, depending on where you are, and I hope to get out for several walks. We get our weather about a day after Illinois, so I’m thinking it was warm there too in November 1954. I was a sophomore in 1954 at Mt. Morris High School so I pulled out my school annual (white, padded cover, Mounder title in red, 1955) to see what was going on. Tina Kable would walk from her home on North Hannah, stop at my house on South Hannah, we’d walk up Main Street and pick up Kay Alter and Priscilla Drummond.

In the fall months we also stayed in touch the old fashioned way—through our school newspaper, The Hilltopper put out by the journalism class. By doing this group project they learned writing style, proofing for mistakes, how to paste-up pages, typing copy and running a mimeograph—probably not useful skills today, but teamwork is always important. I see names from Facebook like Bob Rawes, Donna Coddington, Ralph Dollinger. On a warm November day we’d all walk together after school on our way to Felker’s for a cherry coke searching for our names in the Hilltopper.

By November, the annual staff had already begun preparations of this book by getting advertisers, developing a theme, taking photos and planning the art work. I see some Facebook or email list members I recognize like Joyce Kinsley, Bob Rawes and Jerry Wallace. A promotional sign says the year book cost $2.75! That was a good buy—mine is 60 years old. There’s even a photo of my sister Carol (d. 1996) whose grandchildren are on Facebook so I can keep up with their activities.

I’m looking through the names of the varsity football team who played that fall and see a number of people on Facebook or local e-mail lists, some deceased (Jim Mongan, Phil Egan, Gerald Blake, Stan Messer, Don Satterfield, Pete Smith), and some who seemed to have dropped out of sight. The junior class that fall presented “One Foot in Heaven” on Friday, November 19. I see Bill Allenfort, who is still active in community theater getting a beard.

And there’s the student council learning the basics of representative democracy with cute freshman Carol Samsel and junior Murray Trout (deceased). The Council organized all the Homecoming activities, sponsored dances and provided the concession stand. They sent delegates to district and state conventions—sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

We did have professional lyceum speakers for assembly in those days, but also our in-house thespians provided entertainment. It was a big group—I see Jerry Wallace, Harold Hanke, Mike Balluff, Joyce Kinsley, Connie Frey, Sally Olsen, all of whom are on Facebook.

The fall of 1954. It was warm, and so are the memories.

Ladies' Lunch in Mt. Morris

A few ladies of the class of 1957 gathered for lunch at the McKendrie Street Cafe (at Pinecrest)on April 4 and we enjoyed some cake left from the fall class reunion.

Monday Memories, the class of 1958

Looking through this photo of the 50th class reunion of the class of 1958 published in the Mt. Morris Times, October 16, 2008, I’m reminded again how many friends I had in this class.  We moved back to Mt. Morris  from Forreston in March 1951, and Sandy Davies who lived a few houses away became one of my first friends.  I was in 6th grade and she was in 5th. In 7th and 8th grade I was very close to Doree Dumont and Carol Samsel.  We had great fun in the summer break—Doree’s mom had a summer house outside of town with a swimming pool. Carol was a lot of fun and we spent hours playing cards—her mom was terrific. Good snacks.   In High School, Carolyn Kielsmeier and I worked together as editors of the yearbook.  Connie Frey and I, although on opposite sides of the fence politically, have become friends through Facebook and are in an e-mail discussion group together. I dated a few boys from this class, but won’t mention their names.  Don’t wish to embarrass them. Several members of this class were also members of the Church of the Brethren and we were in CBYF together. Dick Butler and I are FB friends—although I don’t think he ever posts anything, as are Carol and Connie and Ken Duncan and Kay Egan and Rodney Miller. I probably couldn’t pick them out of a police line up today, but having the names in the article did jog the memories.

Monday Memories—before I was born

In the fall of 1939, important things were happening, and these little kids started first grade in Mt. Morris, Illinois.  It was in their 1952 Mounder yearbook as a memory. I have two cousins in this group, and can recognize almost all of them, although I wasn’t born yet when they started school.  That’s how it is in a small town.

Home again

Back from our Easter trip to Illinois. We met many new people. Like the two policemen, young, handsome and polite, who gave us a $130 ticket near Greenfield, Indiana, and the fine crew of good old boys who rescued us with a tow and tire repair near Danville, Illinois. Got to see the inside of an auto repair shop that was established by the owner's grandfather in 1924.  But great service!  If you’re ever near Danville and need help, call Carnaghi Towing and Repair, Tilton, IL.  Don’t ever ignore your “check tire” light.  Get it up on a rack and look for nails causing a slow leak.

We spent Wednesday evening with my husband’s sister Indianapolis, then went on to Illinois and spent Thursday through Sunday with my sister. We had a nice visit with my cousin Dianne. The ladies of my high school class had a breakfast at a local restaurant, while my husband was having breakfast with a group of men from the Church of the Brethren in Leaf River.  We had dinner with my brother and wife Saturday evening at La Vigna near Oregon. On Easter Sunday we attended services at Trinity Lutheran and had a nice Sunday brunch in Polo at LaBranche which is an extension of the facilities at the White Pines State Park.

On the trip I finished reading "Maisie Dobbs" for our May book club.  I'm not crazy about detective genre, but this was very interesting. Enjoyed it a lot. This is the first in a series, and I just might try another one.  It used to be that I would get car sick if I tried to read in the car, but that doesn’t bother me now.  Also started (audio) of the infancy narratives of Jesus by Benedict XVI and also liked that. I've probably read those dozens of times, and never found what he did.

Prom dress code

I was a bit surprised to see this in a prom dress code (Utah?) in 2012:

"Strapless dresses are prohibited unless a jacket or shawl is worn. 'Plunging' necklines are prohibited. The backs of dresses should not show more than 1/3 of the back (directly below the armpits)."

Have they looked at a Bride's Magazine lately? Or at a 1956 prom photo?

Junior Prom, May 1956, Mt. Morris, Illinois

Friday Family Photo-Old Friends

Tina moved to Florida in 1956, but has returned to Mt. Morris for class reunions where we saw each other for our 55th. She met her husband in high school in Miami, and they've been married I think, 54 years. We met for lunch in Mt. Morris.

Yearbooks and Annuals

I don't know what generates the ads on the right side of my screen on Facebook, but this morning noticed one for yearbooks. I have my four high school yearbooks, The Mounder, from Mt. Morris High School in Illinois, two Illios from the University of Illinois (I was married by the time I graduated and couldn't afford one for that year), one from Manchester College, The Aurora,  in Indiana, and three from Mt. Morris College, Life, 1929, 1931 and 1932, my uncle Clare's, my mother's and my father's. The college closed in 1932 and merged with Manchester. We also have my husband's yearbooks, The Arsenal Cannon from Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, a school that was larger than the town of Mt. Morris, and Tech's memorial yearbook for the first 50 years. One of the best things about yearbooks is reading the crazy stuff people wrote in them!

The dying young maple tree

This morning on my walk along the lakefront at sunrise, I stopped at a memorial tree, about 15 ft tall, dedicated to a young man who had died at age 20, over 20 years ago. Those types of memorial plaques are sad to read and I always think of the parents and siblings, who may still note the special days. "This year he would be 41," or "I wonder if he'd be married and bringing his children to Lakeside."

Unfortunately, the tree was dying too. I think it is a combination of our dry weather this summer, and over mulching. It had the "volcano" mulch style instead of the donut hole, so what little natural watering we've had through rain couldn't get to the roots. This tree still needed gallons and gallons of water each day to survive. It was born and bred in a nursery, not particularly hardy like the "volunteers" I see growing up through the boulders that were brought in to protect the shoreline.

Last Friday classmates from my high school graduation class gathered on the campus (the college closed in 1932, but it is still called the campus) to dedicate a tree to memorialize our deceased class members and friends. Over the years, many of the trees have died, and last summer a terrible wind storm took down many. A few words were spoken about each person and an original poem written for the occasion was read. What a nice idea. I hope to have some photos soon to put on the class blog.