2015 Week 31: Birthdays and Memories

It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone Upland . . . for me anyway.  I spent most of it at the computer learning a new program that will help organizing and manage my writing projects.

Michael had a health or robotics related appointment almost every day. An MRI has narrowed the pain issue to several damaged vertebrae. Still looking for relief solutions

On Tuesday morning's walk I was able to get a picture of the bronze at the Memorial Park. It is rather hidden. I wonder how many know about it.

Slowly but surely I work at digitizing old photos and documents. Several treasures showed up lately. Cousins send me Hoyt-related photos, perhaps because I am the oldest of the siblings and therefore the archivist. I was especially happy to see this one Mother has been missing for some time now. And just in time for her birthday.

Rita and Lynn

 I posted all these oldies on Facebook.

Seventy years ago

 Wednesday, July 29

Happy 94th, Mother!

Drinking mate (2010)

 Happy 18th, Skye!

Last Sunday, Skye and I had fun together on a birthday shopping trip.

Thursday, for TBT I posted more treasured oldies. I especially like this one that proves I was always drawn to books.

Lynn and Rita

Grandma Hirschy with Alan and Ivan

Aldo, #3 sibling is missing in this post. I must find one of him. (Hmmm... perhaps a middle-child problem?)

In the evening Mike and I went to visit Mother and joined Alan, Sharon, and boys for dinner at Bob Evans, Mother's choice.

I've grown to expect nephew Daniel's bear hugs. He'd almost forgotten, but got off his motorcycle and ran back for the promised abrazote.

Daniel, Alan and Sharon arrived on their motorcycles

Sharon, Alan, and Mother

After a short visit at Mother's place afterwards, we began our hour and half road trip back home, stopping in Marion for one last visit with these two lovely girls. They were due to fly back to the Basque Country the next day.

Irati and her cousin Marta

Friday, Michael had a meeting in Muncie and then delivered his masterpiece to the Indiana State Fair for display in the sculpture section. He's also hoping it will sell.

Serenity

Other members of the family have been very busy this week as well. Stephan posted the following pics:

The ice sculpture on the left was for a rehearsal dinner. Don't know about the other one.

The sand sculpture was for the Dublin Irish Festival in Ohio. He enjoys these summer events playing in the sand with fellow carvers.

Looks like father and son enjoyed being on the same work crew for a day job in Tennessee.

Sam and Malachi

Saturday Michael was gone from 5 AM to midnight, all the way to Madison, WI, to learn about the Tormach CNC machine recently acquired for the robotics team.

I spent several hours helping Kayla. After three years in Matthews they moved to a new rental in Upland. My part seems to be to help clean the old place. This time I was able to get the fridge put back together correctly.

"Just one picture before I go home. Guess I'll take the rest of my Ivanhoes' salad."

The rest of the weekend events will wait till next time.
Did anyone notice who's missing from my weekly photo journal?

2015 Week 28: Remembering & Celebrating

Lots of remembering and lots of celebrating this week.
Expect many photo collages.
Also lots of rain this season--flooding, lost crops, damage.
Strange weather patterns. It is pouring as I write.

So how did we celebrate the 4th--Independence Day?
We joined Leah's family in her back yard.

And watched the guys create fire-art and the kids (or young at heart) at play.

They extended the holiday another day because they enjoy fireworks so much.

But we stayed home Sunday evening to watch an exciting soccer game. Can't help but feel sorry for Japan though. They put up a good fight.

Monday was a catch-up day. One accomplishment--a third album of  Benson Sculpture Park  photos.

Tuesday morning walk--only two of us again. Fun conversation and sights along the way. (My walking partner is far more photogenic than me.)

Wednesday, I posted the fourth and final album of the Benson Sculpture Park and  the following on Facebook:

I was just reminded that Grandma Hirschy would have been 127 today, July 7th.When she died at 96 she had 43 great grandchildren. She sent them birthday cards with $1 bill as long as she could. When she could do it no longer, she had someone do it for her. She also wrote and kept track in her diary, and toward the end told someone what to write.

Thursday, on Leah's adopted birthday, I posted another memorable photo .

Here's what she said on Facebook:

Feb. 4th was the day I was born.The day an unwanted pregnancy became an unwanted baby abandoned never once being touched by a mother's hands or looked on by a mother's eyes BUT TODAY that child was officially wanted. A mother hugged and kissed this baby. A father and Mother and a brother WANTED this baby !! Today is my favorite day,the day I became part of a family. A day I was wanted, loved. 

Today is my ADOPTED birthday heart emoticon

In the afternoon, three grands came to visit. I noticed right away that Elijah has finally surpassed me. This is now the last of many measuring sessions. He achieved his goal. In no time we will all be looking up to him. 

The little ones have a ways to go, but can already run faster than Grandma.

We saw different kinds of mushrooms on our walk. Don't know much about them. Any edible?

Before the day was over and after both of us had said goodbye to the young uns' we each were babysitting, we snuck off for a special Mother-Daughter dinner at Payne's. Leah needed to eat well, stock up before the midnight fast began.

Friday, Leah's dreaded oral surgery--one almost penetrating the sinus cavity, and three wisdom teeth. I posted these on Facebook and she had many praying for her. The procedure itself was the quickest and easiest in her long dental journey--over before she knew it! However, the recovery is not as smooth. 

So, where was Michael all day--8:00 AM-midnight? At the PhyXTGears shop. Not Yet, the robot, is living up to its name, not quite ready for the big competition coming up next weekend.

Fortunately Mike could sit most of that time and avoid some of the pain that plagues him.

Saturday he was gone again, where he's been most of the week. I'm sure you guessed it.

I kept busy with Saturday chores (including getting ready for a Sunday family get-together!) until it was time to check out Chef Steph's catering at a special welcome for friends who live and work in SE Asia. (BTW, the food was delicious.)

Sunday we celebrated Leah's Adopted Birthday.

At times you'd think the party was for Rebecca.

Leah had planned a Father-Daughter lantern-launching celebration for earlier in the week. Due to rainy weather it was postponed, but Sunday evening was good.

One of them did not go very far. We lost sight of the other one.

(Did anyone read this far?)

Remembering Grandma Hirschy

Four generations

Thirty years ago today my grandmother--Esther Sprunger Hirschy, left this earth. She was almost 97 years old.
Cousin Kae Hirschy Kirkwood graciously gave me permission to share her memories of Grandma.

A Lifetime Ago

I remember it was on a Saturday she died, 30 years ago today. I was 25 years old, single then, and working in the Admissions Office at Geneva College. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I still remember...

I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with Grandma throughout those 25 years, since we lived so close and went to church together. I was blessed in ways some of the other cousins were not, because they were far away in other countries or states, so it truly was a privilege to live less than a mile from Grandma. It would be an unusual day that I did not see her, at least briefly. (I’m glad to say that my son now has a similar opportunity to visit my parents almost daily, as well.)

So many things we did together! We read aloud to each other all through my life—her to me when I was a little girl, and me to her when she was an old lady. Almost every Friday night for a number of years I would spend the night with her. We read books, books, and more books! The Little Colonel Series, Anne of Green Gables and sequels, books about George Washington Carver and other famous Christians and missionaries… (Books we re-read when I was reading to her many years later!) On those Friday nights she used to make her wonderful popcorn for me and give me ice water: I ate and drank and she told me that I was going to get bloated.  I probably did! She also let me sit at her desk and cut things out of the Ideals Magazine and glue them onto paper, and she let me type on her electric typewriter. I would watch her comb out her hair and braid it for the night, and take out her dentures and put them in the cup in her bathroom. Then we would crawl into her double bed and listen to Ed and Wendy King’s “Party Line” program on the radio. We loved to try and figure out “the Party Pretzel” question that was announced at 11:00 p.m. and the answer given just before midnight. http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2013/10/20/Ed-and-Wendy-Kings-of-nighttime-talk-radio/stories/201310200233

It was a special treat for me as a child when Grandma needed to go over into “the big part” of the house—I loved to see all of those missionary trinkets from foreign lands, and the books that belonged mostly to the deRosset family on the old shelves there. I remember Grandma ironing her sheets in the big kitchen on that side of the house. I loved the neat wooden rocker there, and the walk-through coat closet in the living room. It always smelled like ferns in that room, because of the lovely potted fern that grew so well in the window facing the driveway. I loved to go upstairs to the room that had been my dad’s when he was a boy, and to think about him building his crystal set radio and using it in that room. I thought the claw-foot tub in the upstairs bathroom was so cool! I loved the basement, too, where Grandpa Hirschy’s grinding wheel was still attached to the work bench.

Other things….Grandma let me play dress-up in some of her dresses. We played Chinese Checkers; picked strawberries, sweet peas, and nasturtiums; walked to church together, and to the P.O. and to “the A-P Store” (she never called it the A & P like everyone else did, it was always “the A-P Store”). She taught me how to take sermon notes. She let me pray (on my knees) with her and the other senior citizen ladies (also on their knees) at Wednesday night prayer meeting. She would come to our house on Thursday evenings to watch “The Waltons” with us—I guess she didn’t have a TV at that time. Grandma was a favorite with my dog, Nicki, even though Grandma had a fondness for her own big old cat, Mittens.

We took Grandma on trips to Berne and other places with us—it always made the trips more fun and interesting. We played games in the car, finding things that started with each letter of the alphabet. She knew everyone in Berne, and could show us all around the points of interest.

Her Sunday dinners were so special. I would usually walk home from church with her to help get things on the table before the others arrived. Her apartment always smelled absolutely delicious when we opened that door… She taught me how to make dressing for lettuce salad, and how to wash dishes—the drinking glasses first, pots last.

When I was much older, I used to sometimes stay with Grandma at night because she was not well. I remember vividly sleeping on the couch in her apartment living room and being blasted awake at 6:00 a.m. when Grandma tuned in to “McGee” on the Christian radio station! And hearing her “do her laps around the bed” above me.

I could go on and on with the memories. Suffice it to say that Grandma was very important and special to me, and the loss of her was probably the hardest thing I had experienced up to that point in my life. I have now lived without her in my life longer than I lived with her, and yet I believe her influence impacts me every day, even though I may not realize it.

We’ll never meet again this side of Heaven, as the song says, but I am so glad to know that I will meet her on that beautiful shore….http://www.songlyrics.com/selah/in-my-lifeif-we-never-meet-again-lyrics/

Kae

March 9, 2015

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be. ~George Matheson

In loving memory of Esther “Grandma” Hirschy

July 7, 1888 – March 9, 1985

Thank you for sharing, Kae! That was beautiful!

You're right, you were very privileged to live close to Grandma. And we are all so blessed by your memories.
We had only been back from the ship less than two years when she passed away. I wonder if our children have memories of her and going to her funeral? By then her offspring and spouses, the whole family, numbered 100, I believe. Her legacy lives on.
Attached--a four-generation photo with Grandma Hirschy from 1973 that came to my attention this week. I am also entering the comments of many who joined the email exchange begun by cousin Kae.