fifty years ago

Bill stood waiting about a mile away when this photo was taken.

Fifty years ago today, my husband Bill and I were just 200 miles apart when news broke of President Kennedy's assassination. Bill was a freshman at Hiram College in Ohio and I was .... a third grader in Detroit! (Our kids get a laugh out of that.)

November 22, 1963 was also a Friday, and class was suddenly interrupted. An early dismissal was announced; I don't remember if we were told of the President's death, or just sent home to find out. I had just returned to school because I walked home for lunch each day. My younger brother remembers coming home to find mom ironing, with tears in her eyes. Bill's experience is much grander.

He seems to remember being in his dorm that Friday afternoon. As funeral plans became public, Bill and a college buddy, Charlie, decided to be a part of history. The next day they got a ride to the Ohio turnpike and patched together a series of rides to Washington, D.C. Bill, Charlie and their driver rode through the night as Kennedy's body lay in repose at the White House. By daybreak, the trio pulled into Gettysburg, the battlefield awash in the dawn of November 24. Then it was on to D.C. where the wide-eyed young men were given a tour by their chauffeur: the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, White House and appropriately, Arlington National Cemetery. "Absolutely amazing," remembers Bill, seeing Washington for the first time as it prepared to bury the nation's Commander-in-Chief.

By mid-morning, the procession with a horse-drawn caisson carrying Kennedy's body left the White House en route to the Capitol where the President  would lie in state for 24 hours. Bill and his companions found a spot on a curb to witness history. "I will never forget the somber, rhythmic echo of the horses' hooves down Pennsylvania Avenue, seeing the flag-draped coffin and riderless horse," Bill says.

Afterward, Bill and Charlie's driver said, "I'm headed west, you guys want a ride?" Knowing they had classes the next day, they accepted and rode back to Ohio that afternoon.

Bill doesn't have an impetuous bone in his body, so I find it amazing  he gave no second thought to a 24-hour adventure. At the invincible age of 18, he probably didn't realize the magnitude of tasting and witnessing such an historic day.

I imagine the kind driver saw the bigger picture and the sacred role he played in walking a couple of Ohio boys through 24 hours of history.

they had dreams

I realized only today that Bill's parents, Joe and Elizabeth Haller, were married this day 70 years ago: August 28, 1943. I'm certain Joe and Lib had dreams. They must have looked forward to a life of fun and adventure, a house and jobs and children. They fulfilled all that and over the years had six grandchildren and now a dozen (#12 due very soon) great-grandchildren. Unfortunately, Joe passed away thirty years ago, just before our oldest was born. Elizabeth is nearly 97 and her memory is fading. She does not seem to remember Joe. That is very hard to witness.

My dear friend Grace was a college student on this date fifty years ago and went with her dad to hear Martin Luther King. She happened alongside Jackie Robinson and asked him to sign her program. She recently found that program while going through some boxes in her garage!

Joe and Lib, married 70 years ago. Martin Luther King's voice ringing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 50 years ago. You never know how a day in your life can carry great significance on down the road.

Let's live each day well!

courageous Captain Rostron

Arthur Rostron aboard the Carpathia, 1912

One hundred years ago tonight, the ill-fated Titantic struck an iceberg and sunk into the frigid North Atlantic, taking 1500 people with her. Left behind were 712 terrified men, women and children bobbing in lifeboats.

In a race against time and the elements, Captain Arthur Rostron of the RMS Carpathia came to the rescue. Although just 60 miles away and closer than any other ship, the Carpathia would take several hours to reach the freezing Titanic survivors.

Navigating icebergs on the moonless sea would be no simple task. The captain had to first consider the safety of his own passengers and crew. Navigation to the site, preparation for rescue and medical needs and countless other details needed immediate planning. Rostron's quick-thinking and correct orders to his crew saved hundreds of lives that night. Once his orders had been dispatched, Rostron was seen, head bowed, in prayer.

This editorial brought Captain Rostron to my attention. His memoir entitled Home from the Sea might be worth a read.

The Titanic is in the headlines today. But Arthur Rostron deserves a headline, too.

2.20.62 and other thoughts

The 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic mission snuck up on me; it was yesterday. Mom sat me down on the cold floor in front of our black and white television that day: February 20, 1962. I had little interest in watching a space launch since I was just seven years old. "You're going to watch this," she ordered. "Someday, you can tell your children and grandchildren that when you were just a little girl you watched the first American orbit the earth, ." And so I watched .

I'm not sure my children or grandchildren are very impressed by my witness to history but it's special to me. I had a mother, a 1960's traditional homemaker, who thought higher and broader than some. She didn't send me to pre-school, nor was kindergarten offered in the public schools, so she accidentally schooled me at home until I was nearly 7. Mom taught me to read as she hung clothes on the line. She had a crazy curiosity about everything, showing me that learning - and life itself - was an adventure.

Mom drove us all over Detroit, Michigan, our home for 15 months, exploring Polish bakeries and meat shops and other wonders that were foreign to a southern family. She traded her amazing southern friend chicken for homemade meatballs with our Italian neighbor, Mrs. DiPasquale, who spoke no English. Mom bought ice skates for herself and me and we learned to skate alongside teenagers playing ice hockey: the national sport of Detroit.

Look for the wonder in ordinary days and adventure in your neighborhood and share it with a child. It holds the makings of memories and relationships.

Pearl Harbor

More than 2,000 Americans perished seventy years ago today when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I remember it being a Sunday from the stories my mother told me. She was 16 years old, and the news came over the radio as Americans returned home from church and ate lunch. Television news was a decade or more in the future.

Growing up, I was curious about my mother's younger years. I cherish those conversations because Mom's been gone for many years. That December Sunday was horrific for the entire country and of course the world. Because of the events in Europe, most Americans knew that the bombing of Pearl Harbor signaled the beginning of full U.S. involvement in World War II.

Pear Harbor changed the lives of most of Mom's classmates, then juniors in high school. With few exceptions, the boys would become young soldiers upon graduation. They would be flung east and west: to the south Pacific or stationed in Europe, and many would die.

Viewing this time through the lens of the controversial Vietnam era, I couldn't comprehend how thousands of teenaged boys would risk their lives in war.

"It was a different time, with so much at stake. Nearly everyone understood that our country's survival hung in the balance. Young men - and women - saw it as their duty to serve their country," Mom said. "They just went."

shots on the New

For several years now we noticed it: an imposing stone fortress of sorts on a bluff overlooking the New River in southern Virginia, just off I-77.

"We should stop and see it," we'd agree as we sailed up and down the interstate. Commanding a view in both directions of the meandering, majestic New River, surely the shot tower played a part in the Civil War.

So coming home from Charlotte this week, we scooted off to see the tower. And were we surprised. A Mr. Thomas Jackson built the shot tower in the early 1800's. Seventy-five feet tall with a 75-foot shaft below, the 150-foot drop was used for producing lead shot for musket rifles. Molten lead was poured from a kettle at the top, which formed lead balls as they fell and landed in a kettle of water below. The shots were retrieved via a horizontal tunnel from the river's edge. Fascinating!
This meant solid lead and firewood had to be carried up the tower by hand and by the sweat of some determined men.

In googling more info on all this, I read that the New River is the second-oldest river in the world. You might want to go see it sometime.

Gratitude challenge day 3 - I'm thankful for the wonder of history and the men and women who built this amazing country.

                                                                        

                                                                                         Bill loves the mountains ... this is
                                                                                               a perfect photo of him!



road buddies

Do you know this place?

It's incredibly amazing!

And I made a quick stop there with my road buddies this week.

The Grove Park Inn

in Asheville, North Carolina.

If you can't stay there, at least park, walk through

the lobby, notice the fireplaces tall enough to walk into

 and see the stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In two years the Grove Park Inn will turn 100.
Might have to plan a stay.

What would St. Patrick think?

St. Patrick. He had it right. British-born, he was enslaved in Ireland, returned to England, and eventually went back to Ireland to minister to the Irish people. He responded to God's call on his life; what must have been a difficult task.

Today is the date of St. Patrick's death. This is what was inscribed on his breastplate:

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ before me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I wonder what St. Patrick would think of all the cartoon-y, shamrock-y. pot-of-gold-y elements of a day named for him?

another courthouse

My friend Dove commented yesterday that there are other beautiful courthouses in Ohio, including the one right here in Delaware. So I pulled up a couple of photos I shot last spring. Indeed, it's a beauty and is still a fully functioning courthouse after 153 years. And this is only the back view!

Do you have a favorite courthouse?

a courthouse

Throughout the midwest you'll find courthouses,

most dating to the late 1800's.

I'm always surprised at the grandeur 

of these buildings.  

Even in the smallest, most rural county seats

such as Hartford City, Indiana,

it seems an attempt was made to make the courthouse

the town's crown jewel.
On Saturday we passed through Hartford City on our way home
from celebrating Katie's birthday.
The courthouse was stunning to me,
illuminated and rising into the cold Indiana dusk.

So many little jewels in our great country.
I love discovering them.

Blackford County, Indiana:
established 1838 
2010 population: 12,766
Courthouse completed: 1895
entered on National Historic Register, 1980
(Wikipedia)

to school and back

Hi ho, hi ho, off to Indiana we go. Or went. It dawned on me that we've packed kids off to college a total of 15 times in nine years. What an outlandish load of clothes and shoes, shampoo and toothpaste, books and crammed-full crates.

It's typically 90 degrees or higher every move-in day and this one was no exception. Katie and I get silly on these drives. We sing. We laugh a LOT. We take pictures. She would want you to know these are NOT HER sunglasses.

Katie's cute red-headed roommate, Maria, welcomed us warmly.

Well, how else would she welcome us?

 To reiterate: it  was over 90 degrees and their dorm has no air conditioning.

Don't they look like big-girl juniors? Cuz they are.

(I kind of wish I could live in a dorm again.)

It's always a little hard to leave my girl; I get a little twinge of mom sadness, but my pragmatic husband reminds me how much she loves Taylor U and will have a great year. Alright, ok, I'll quit being sad. See? She's not sad!

We left campus in Upland, Indiana (pop. 3900 plus dogs, cows and horses) and headed east over even less-populated roads. Following a detour, we found ourself on "Road 600 North" in eastern Indiana. Rising in the distance sat this building, which I guessed to be an old schoolhouse-turned-barn judging by the newer sliding metal door.

And I got to thinking.

If it was indeed a school say, 120 years ago, what boys and girls attended?

How far did they walk to school? Where did their teacher live?

Do their great-great-grandchildren still farm this land?

They were farm children, raised on a land that still produces corn and soybeans. 

Every time I drive here, I am awed by such simple beauty of the tidy farms.

Did any of the students from this school go to college

and maybe end up in Chicago as an attorney or doctor?

Or did they follow the life path of their parents, working the land?

Don't know why I wonder about very old places

and

people I never knew whose lives have been lived

and

whether the children minded walking two miles to school

and

what their mothers packed for lunch in their metal pails.

Or

if they wondered

if another mother might drive by their school

in 100 years

and think about them.

But I do.

The Help, part 1

                    

Kathryn Stockett has a winner. She wrote the New York Times #1 bestseller, The Help. I waited to borrow a copy on a list of at least two dozen at our local library and nearly missed this treasure, except my daughter-in-love Jenny  encouraged me to read it.

The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's. "Skeeter," a main character, is a young, white college graduate whose coming-of-age opens her eyes to the deplorable treatment of the black domestics in her circle of friends and family. Her growing conviction leads her to interview a number of maids, "the help," and write their stories in hopes of publication. Skeeter's ride is not an easy one. She's shunned by lifelong friends, and must win the trust of the suspicious domestics.

Fifty years removed, many of us didn't experience or don't remember the struggles of the civil rights era. But I remember. There was a person in my life who made it her business to help me remember. She was my Skeeter.

In my next post, I will share.

in and out of jail

the Delaware, Ohio county courthouse, built in 1858

So I spot a blurb in the paper: "tours of the old jail during this weekend's arts festival. 2:00- 4:00 p.m."

I know few share my enthusiasm for a jail tour. No matter. Bill and I got in line. The jail, which sits behind the Delaware County courthouse in the heart of Delaware and houses some court offices, has caught my eye for the past 20 years. Every time I drive by I say, "oooooh, I'd love to see inside that jail." And today I did.

Built in 1878, the building not only housed up to 16 prisoners, it also was home to the sheriff and his family. Yes! His wife and children. And I met one of them: more on that in a sec.

Incredibly, the massive limestone structure served to hold local law-breakers until 1988 when a new county jail was built as a lawsuit from the state was threatened on our county. Originally, males, females and even juveniles were all locked up here together. Until the early 20th century, laws protecting juveniles didn't exist.

The cells are horrifically 19th-century. Little more than a dank hole with a fold-down metal 'cot,' cold limestone walls and an iron-bar door. A stainless steel commode sat at the end of each row of cells: no privacy whatsoever.

White-haired Marjorie Rutherford sat in a folding chair in the shade outside the jail. She regaled visitors with her memories of her 87 years in Delaware, including her childhood spent in the living quarters of the jailhouse. Opening a little box on her lap, she held out beaded necklaces made by inmates for her and her mother. She remembers her father, the sheriff, giving money to a prisoner to walk young Marjorie into town for ice cream!

I imagine everyone's town has jewels of its history waiting for the telling. And what a treasure I discovered today.

Marjorie Rutherford