If you’re a certain age … or a connoisseur of big-band music, you’ll no doubt recognize the chant: Pennsylvania 6-5000! It was the phone number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in Midtown Manhattan, once the largest hotel in the world. And it was the hotel Mom and Dad chose for their honeymoon in 1952. By all means, give it a listen: They were married on November 4, 1952, while Dad was on a three-day leave from his service with the Army….
Some dark reading this month – and I don’t mean we had a light bulb needing to be changed. The third book, though, is all sweetness and light. Book 1: The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill You’ve probably seen – or at least heard of – the movie. I can promise you: The book is better. Because the author was there. The intricate planning and excruciating work that went into digging tunnels (yes, plural) are described in fascinating detail. Wouldn’t…
This is the first time our family tree has pointed me to an episode of Dateline. Oh, how I wish it weren’t so. At first, the name Harry Kirk Dansereau caught my eye. (You may remember Marie Antoinette Dansereau from this family story. Her half-brother Edward was Harry’s father.) After the name caught my eye, his obituary utterly charmed me. Harry’s grandchildren wrote his obituary together. They told of his birth in Baltimore, and education in New Hampshire, Maryland, England,…
It’s pumpkin-carving time! But not everyone is adept with a carving knife … or scythe. (There are photos online with people using power tools …) Mom learned the hard way that unfinished business is not acceptable when it comes to Jack O’Lanterns: Unfinished Business I’m going to write this with a brushthe outraged pumpkin on the pagewith one eye only and half a moutha loaf by his sidewith the knife engaged Finish me up he crookedly criesan ample nose and…
Giving my dear husband a hard time about the pronunciation of German surnames is one of my great joys in life. Gary, proud of his heritage, always responds quickly, firmly, assuredly. That is, until we came to his great-great-great grandfather, George Tuchscherer. Give it a try – how would you pronounce it? Gary says it’s do-SHARE. What? How in the world do you get do-SHARE out of Tuchscherer? Gary simply shrugged and repeated: do-SHARE. The great-great-great grandson was tickled when…
It’s been challenging to decide whether to include this poem Mom wrote in 1976 in a blog post. It was a turbulent time in the nation, despite the flag-waving Bicentennial Celebration. Current and ongoing news stories about violence against women and the reaction of a wink and a shrug by some provided the nudge I needed to share this: a dialogue on values during a forced entry get out of my houseshe screamed about herself as she was being raped…
What stories will be revealed as I go through this bag of receipts? The clear plastic bag was in among the family archives we brought home from Mom and Dad’s house in 2021. With the initials M&D written on a card in Dad’s handwriting, I expected it to be filled with his parents’ paper memorabilia. It was soon clear Dad labeled the bag to show it contained odds and ends from his long life with Mom. And it was meant…
In this 2004 poem, Mom remembers her youngest child’s return from the hospital as a newborn in 1964 and again from serving overseas in the Marines. Homecomings Soon after you were bornyour Father took your brothers sister berryingyour Grandmother steadied the housefor your homecoming and for the berry pickersthe two of us took off to bed after the admiration partyand the blueberries went into piesa succulent sleep in a hot ovenon a summer afternoon Years later on another summer afternoonwe…
Leo and Minnie Wagner waited a long while for a son. They’d married in 1909 and settled down on a farm a few miles west of Gary’s ancestors here in southern Indiana. Minnie was a Mehling. In our family tree, she is Gary’s first cousin, twice removed. By 1922, Leo and Minnie had five daughters. That July, though, a son was born. Think of the love and care Andrew Matthias must have received from all those sisters! The next year,…
I came across this poem in quite a roundabout way. A few days ago, it occurred to me that I don’t have stress dreams anymore. Really, that “I’ve got a final to take but didn’t even attend any of the classes and can’t find the classroom” sort of dream. Or, “it’s time to go on stage, and I really meant to memorize my lines, but hung around backstage playing cards instead.” Gone. All gone. Seven years ago. What a coincidence;…