Journal: Memorial Day, 2017

I have a book someone gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago that’s full of short stories from England during the wars, particularly World War II.  I’ve never gotten it completely read.  I can’t read too many of those stories about the war in one sitting – especially about the concentration camps; they bother me too badly.  We get a newsletter a couple of times a month that has stories about persecuted Christians.  Sometimes I scan through it... sometimes I don’t.

One time when I was quite young, about ten years old, I was staying with Loren and Janice while my parents were away for a few days.  I mentioned that I felt a little guilty that I never read one of our monthly newsletters all the way through – a newsletter Daddy got from missionaries somewhere – because it made me feel bad. 

Loren said, “Does the Bible make you feel that way?”

“No,” I replied.

“Then read that.  The good news of the gospel makes us feel exactly the way we should feel.  Read a little bit of those other writings, so you know what’s going on... but don’t dwell on it.”

That cheered me, and I knew he was right.

Loren told me that he was once reading the newspaper when he was a teenager, exclaiming over all the bad things that were happening, and Daddy told him to close that up and read the Good News of the Gospel instead.  Daddy was probably tired of all that exclaiming, as only Loren could do.  heh

Not too long after Daddy passed away, we were at Mama’s house – Loren and Janice, several of the children and me. 

Loren, reading the paper, suddenly gasped and exclaimed in great horror, “Oh, NO!!!”

We all gasped, too.  “What?!!!”

“Mrs. Hortenbury died!” he informed us, eyes wide.

We all stared back, eyes just as wide.

Then, “She was 106,” he added.

We all burst out laughing, and Mama admonished us, “We really shouldn’t laugh over someone dying,” but she couldn’t keep from laughing, either.

Loren, still straight-faced, said, “Yes, and it would have been such a shock, after living that long!  You’d get to thinking you were never going to die!”

He’s such a card.  Still is.

You’ll recall that last Monday I took pictures of a large snapping turtle at Loren’s house?  Well, I was surprised to learn that the following day, May 23^rd, was World Turtle Day.  Accu-Weather posted a video of a sea turtle, complete with pretty background music.  I’ll betcha they never knew the tune they chose was Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners!

I looked up information about snapping turtles... and look what I found:

“Snapping turtles grow slowly.  Many females require more than a decade to reach maturity, and some are nearly 20 years old by the time they deposit their first clutch of eggs.  Snapping turtles often reach about seven inches in carapace (shell) length by the time they are 10 years old.  By the time they are a quarter-century in age, they reach about 11 inches in carapace length.  The largest specimens – with carapace lengths reaching or exceeding 18 inches – are likely 70 to 100 years of age.  Because of the shorter growing season they experience in the wild, snapping turtles from northern latitudes tend to grow less each year than their southern counterparts do.  This means that for two specimens of identical sizes, the one hailing from the north is usually older.”

I find that amazing – the turtle I took pictures of could well be over 70 years old.

Wednesday as soon as the livestock was fed (cats, birds), as soon as the house was in a modicum of cleanliness (that is, adequate enough to satisfy me, though I’d have to get out the dusting spray if company was coming), as soon as the bills were paid and the clothes were washed, I headed down to my sewing room to continue working on coffeepot cozy #2. 

The English sparrows are heckling the Baltimore oriole at the suet feeder.  He wants it all to himself, and shrills his loud ‘This is mine!’ whistle, opening his beak wide at the intruders.  But he’s more peep than peck, and the sparrows know it.  They flit to the other side of the feeder, peek around the corner at the oriole, and twitter.  “Hee hee!  Look at us, look at us!  nom nom nom nom nom...”  The oriole chirps loudly and leeeeans toward the offensive sparrow, who only flutters a few millimeters away and continues feasting on the suet.

Meanwhile, over in the maple tree the wren is warbling with abandon.  Just above the deck light in the eave, the baby starlings have grown enough in the last week that they no longer make tiny nestling cheeps; they are now sounding a lot like the starling youngsters they are, with their raucous squawks.

A baby house finch who’s almost as big as his father is on the top curl of the rebar holding the feeders, flapping and tweeting like anything.  When his daddy lands beside him, he hunkers down low, trying to appear as babyish (chickish?) as possible, the better to get as many handouts (beakouts?) as possible.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a great horned owl hooting  nearby.  Every once in a while, we hear gunshots out here.  Sometimes someone is target practicing... sometimes they are shooting varmints that are trying to get into their chicken coops.  But one time it was too close – and one of the friendly neighbor men (most of the few neighbors we have are friendly) told Larry that when another neighbor man (husband of the erstwhile screaming banshee) was out mowing, Larry should tell his wife and children to stay on the opposite side of the house ---- because the guy was shooting at stuff as he was bouncing along on his lawn tractor!  Snakes?  Moles?  Who knows.  But he wasn’t a good shot... he was bouncing... and he was probably three sheets to the wind.

Happily, they’ve moved and are doubtless terrorizing someone else these days.  Well, not ‘happily’ for those other people; but ‘happily’ for us, at least.

Nowadays all of the neighbors are very friendly.  Nice, when such is the case.

Some quilting friends were discussing their ‘problem’ of getting on a roll with their sewing and quilting, and then staying up too late.

I know how to solve the problem of going to bed too late!  ((raising hand))

Just stay up until the a.m. hours... and then you can say you went to bed early.

“Keep in mind that chronic lack of sleep can lead to dementia,” a concerned friend wrote.  

I assured her that I am not sleep-deprived.  At least, not most of the time.  I sleep until I wake up – usually about 6 ½ - 7 hours later.  Any longer, and I’m stiffer’n a 10-penny nail, and I creak when I move.  I like sewing (or whatever) into the night; it’s so quiet and peaceful.  The phone doesn’t ring... nobody knocks on the door... no interruptions...  If I don’t get enough sleep one night, I almost invariably make it up the next, entirely without meaning to.

My sister told me some years ago about the study that showed sleep deprivation can contribute to dementia and Alzheimer’s.  So I said, said I, “Oh, my!  You’d better go straight to bed, right this minute!”

And then we laughed like idiots.  The fact is, she doesn’t get nearly enough sleep.  Never has.  She just keeps going... and going... despite heart troubles, including stents and suchlike.  She just turned 77, and is still our school principal.  (And she doesn’t have dementia.)

Late Thursday night (i.e., early Friday morning), I finished the embroidery on the main part of the cozy and got the spout cover sewn in.  More photos here.

An online friend who was having some twubbles and twials (à la Caleb, age 3) recently made a very cute doll bookbag.  After telling her how cute it was, I added, “It always helps my general attitude and perspective to churn out something complicated and cute.  (But I don’t plan to make another bag anything like the one I made Joanna for Christmas, either.  That was enough perspective facilitation, heh.)”

I said to my mother-in-law Norma Wednesday night after church, “I have a question to ask you, but you have to first promise that you won’t say ‘yes’ if you’d rather say ‘no’!”

She laughed...  nodded... and I asked if I could enter the Buoyant Blossoms quilt I gave her for Christmas in the county and state fairs, and in the AQS quilting show.

She agreed without hesitation. 

“You’re going to feel like Hester did, when I gave her a quilt and then took it away again!” I told her.  (I do give them back, though.)  😉

That quilt would be just about perfect, except my clamps pulled the backing in one place, and it’s noticeable, because it’s pieced in wide strips, and one strip makes a bit of a V shape.  Stupid clamps.  Maybe I could pin a big note on the front, “DO NOT LOOK AT THE BACKING!”

So on Friday afternoon, I entered the Buoyant Blossoms quilt in the AQS quilt show in Des Moines, Iowa, which takes place October 4-7.  It costs $35 to enter quilts in American Quilting Society quilt shows.  Now to wait and see if it’s accepted.  I have no idea if they return your money, should they reject your quilt.

I will find out later when it must be sent to Paducah.  Quilts are sent to AQS headquarters in Paducah, Kentucky, where they are inspected and categorized and then transported to quilt show venues all at the same time.  In Paducah, they have enormous warehouses for storing quilts.  The locations where they have their big quilt shows are generally huge arenas that cater to all sorts of activities and shows, so there would be no place to store quilts, and nobody to accept and care for them when they arrive.

Entries for our Platte County Fair must be entered Friday morning, June 30^th.  I plan to enter seven things:  the Buoyant Blossoms quilt, the Christmas tree skirt (that I forgot about last year), the Mosaic Sailboat quilt I gave Bobby, the Blossoms bag I gave Joanna, machine-embroidered tea towels, my sister’s coffeepot cozy, and a set of doll clothes.  Don’t let me forget that date!

I paused to watch a downy woodpecker hammering away at the last of the suet.  When he flew over to the maple tree, I went out and put a couple of new suet blocks into the feeder, and filled the sunflower seed and Nyjer seed feeders.  The goldfinches sat in the peach tree and chirped their little note-upwards trills, clearing requesting that I hurry with the filling and then make myself scarce so they could get on with lunch, pôr fąvör.

I quit with the birdwatching and got back to ‘ribboning’, as one of my girls called it years ago while watching me weave ribbon through lace.  Silk ribbon embroidery, this time.  I was working on a large cluster of daisies with French-knot and bead centers, and some embroidery-floss leaves.  Next on the agenda:  grape hyacinths.

By the time I quit and headed for bed, the embroidery and beading were done on the cozy.  The lining and battings were sewn together, and ready to be attached to the cozy.  More photos here.

Saturday, a friend wrote to say that she had tried using one of those lickety-split recipes shown in quickie videos on Facebook.  This one was for peach cobbler. 

It failed.  They couldn’t eat it; they had to throw it out.  I sent her a link to our favorite peach cobbler recipe on my recipe blog.

The only time it didn’t turn out good was back when I had an oven that had to have the preheat turned off manually – otherwise, the broiler element stayed on.

I forgot.

Why do these things always happen when one is making something for a special event?  It was for our church’s annual Fourth-of-July picnic, which we hold at our city’s large Pawnee Park. 

The top of the cobbler was almost black.  But it was a thin black, as the cobbler had bubbled, and only that top very thin layer was burned.  I tasted the stuff, and it was mmm, gooood.  People like blackened catfish and salmon, right?  People will like blackened peach cobbler.

Wrong.

We brought the big pan of peach cobbler home intact, except for the little piece I had previously removed for a taste test.

When we got ready to eat it the next day, I discovered that the thin layer of blackened crust could be lifted right off without trouble, leaving golden peach cobbler underneath.  It didn’t have the slightest vestige of burned flavor, and we devoured it with gusto.

“Could you leave the preheat on next year?” asked Larry after the last mouthful.

(I didn’t.)

Saturday, Larry came home about noon and began doing some welding on a ‘new’ trailer he needs to use soon.  Every time he used the welder, the lights flickered in the house.

I went downstairs to sew – and heard something in the breaker box fizzing and sizzling every time he welded.  He looked for the trouble... saw nothing wrong.  Then I watched while he welded... but couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from, exactly, in that box full of wires.  Once or twice, I saw an arc.  At the bottom of the box was a pile of dirt.  Huh?

After a while, Larry called Teddy to come use the welder while Larry watched the box.  Larry couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from, either – because he couldn’t even hear the noise.  The welder blew its own breaker a couple of times.  They switched places, to no avail.

Larry went and got a different cord at the shop, plugged the welder into 220 instead of 110.  Lights in the house still flickered, though.

Meanwhile, I had started sewing – but my machine would barely sew one stitch before shutting off every time I stepped on the pedal.  It generally came right back on, before I could turn off the switch.  Uh, oh.  Was the motherboard fried?  I turned it off... made sure the cord was plugged in as good as possible (it’s not as tight as it ought to be)... brushed out the receptacle...  That all seemed to help, but the problem resurfaced later in the evening.  And yes, Larry had been using the welder again.  So I’m not certain what was causing the trouble, but I do know that it will ruin the machine (if it hasn’t already), if it keeps going off and on like that.  It occurred multiple times, and then seemed to recover itself. 

That evening, Kurt and Victoria brought us some apple streusel pie and chocolate chip cookies.  She’d sold everything she had taken to the Farmer’s Market that morning, and had even gone home and made a couple more loaves of French bread that Kurt’s grandparents had requested.  The grandparents then invited them in for lunch – and fed them, among other things, the French bread they’d just bought from Victoria, despite her protests.  😊

That night, I finished the second coffeepot cozy.  I found more buttons in my mother’s old button jar for it; that will make it special for Matthew and Josie, I hope, as Mama was Matthew’s great-grandmother.  He remembers her, too; he was 7 ½ when she died.  Matthew is a few months younger than Victoria.

The wedding is in two weeks.

Several people have remarked that the coffeepot cozy is too pretty to use.  One lady responded to those remarks, “No, I think coffee stains would just add to the patina!” 

Another said, “You could make a fortune selling these!”

But, I explained, the problem is, there are about 70 hours in the thing (and 100 hours in the first one).  If I’d charge barely above minimum wage – let’s say $10 an hour, just to make it easy – that would be $700 ($1,000 for my sister’s) for labor alone. Add the price of the silk ribbon, fabric, embroidery floss, wool batting, Insul-Bright thermal insulating batting, and buttons, plus the coffeepot itself (vintage, found them on eBay – this like-new one was $43; the other one, with its somewhat crackled glaze, was $20 — and these were some of the cheapest coffeepots/teapots I could find).  The only place I could market them would be in a high-dollar boutique in Dubai.  😆

I’m glad to be done.  Now I can start working on my customer’s quilt. 

We took flowers to the cemetery after church.  Why is it always so windy, the Sunday before Memorial Day??

Last night after church, Larry went on a 30-mile bike ride, going to the far side of Genoa and back again.  He averaged over 18 mph – pretty good, considering all the hills.

Today is Memorial Day.  Larry is working on his trailer, supposedly – but I keep hearing motors and engines starting.  He just can’t leave them alone (lawn mowers, tractors, motorcycles, four-wheelers).  He’s almost done putting new wood flooring on the trailer.  He mowed the back yard a little while ago. 

Bobby and Hannah and their crew went to Stuhr Museum in Grand Island.  Caleb and Maria are kayaking at Fremont Lakes State Park.  Caleb came and borrowed Larry’s one-man kayak last night, so he and Maria can each have one (Caleb has his own).  Kurt and Victoria went to Omaha; she posted a couple of videos on Instagram of the big, beautiful homes they were driving by. 

“Driving around Omaha checking out dreamy houses we’ll never have 😄😍😍😍,” she wrote.

“Wow, quite the homes,” I responded.  “Oh, well... save up for a mansion in heaven! Then you won’t have to leave it behind just about the time you get it paid for. 😉”

“It’ll be a whole lot fancier than these, anyway 😊😊😊,” agreed Victoria.  “And come to think of it, it won’t get dusty, will it???”

My maternal cousins have been posting old family pictures, and one posted an article my Grandma Winings wrote about my Grandpa.  It’s a touching tribute.

Loren said he remembers riding to town (Arthur, North Dakota) from the family farm with Grandpa Winings – he would’ve been 7, 8, and 9 – while Daddy was in the Navy.  They were pulling wagons of grain to town, and he remembers that Grandpa Winings would sing the whole way.  He sang a good part of the day, as he worked in the field and around the farm – and his favorite song, Loren thinks, was Count Your Blessings.  My mother liked that song, too.  She doubtless grew up hearing her father singing it.  It was written by Johnson Oatman, Jr., in 1897.

Count Your Blessings

1.    When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.

2.    Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

3.    When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings money cannot buy –

Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

4.    So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Here is the article my grandmother wrote:

A TRIBUTE TO A GOOD MAN

For our grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Rollo started life on the farm and it was the center of his interest all his life and is now the center of his thoughts.  The Jack Winings home was one mile west of Lake City, Illinois.  Rollo, the second son, was born March 27, 1885, and he lived there till he went to live and farm with his brother Frank on the farm their father had bought south of Bethany.

Robert, Rollo, Ruth, Victor, Charles behind 

Hester, Lura holding Pauline, 1922

When he was 6 years old, he started to attend a “spring term” of school at Sunny Side School one mile north of his home and taught by Miss Anna Lacy.  The next fall he started to school in Lake City where he attended all his school years till he finished the High School course taught there.  His most vivid recollection of his attendance at Sunny Side was what he thought was a near tragedy.  His pants were buttoned to his shirt and while playing “Blackman” one of the children caught him by the pants, tearing off several buttons.  That to him was a terrible calamity and he was petrified with embarrassment.  He never forgot the teacher’s safety pins which he felt “saved his life.”

Of his High School teachers, C. L. Brewer was one he admired most and whose friendship lasted many years.  Later when Mr. Brewer was teaching in Bethany, they called on us in our home.  From what he says, I think Mr. Brewer was a great influence and inspiration.

He often mentioned the good times he had with his cousin Bill Winings and remembered the time he and some other boys went swimming in his Uncle Jim’s little creek.  When they came out to dress, their clothes were missing.  Uncle Jim tried to tell them a nearby cow ate them, but they were acquainted with Uncle Jim and his jokes.  

He had good times with Frank Shook and when we visited Frank and Nellie at their home near Windsor, he and Frank “remembered” the days they played together as kids, hunting rabbits, skating on ponds, etc.  Frank’s mother said if Frank was a bother to send him home, but Mother Winings said they loved to have him, and if the boys had work to do, Frank worked too.  Seven or eight years ago when we visited them in their home, Frank told Rollo that Mother Winings was a great influence in his life.  I am sure she would have been pleased to hear that as he was an exceptionally fine man.  One of their remembrances was hitching up their goat to a little wagon.  That was the big fun when the kids came out from town, and the goat seemed to have as much fun as they, especially when he chased the kids from town up on a fence trying to butt them.  And he knew which ones to chase.  Rollo remembered hunting rabbits, going as far as Grandpa Tohill’s farm where a swampy place made weeds for a good hunting place.  One day they stayed past the noon hour so they dressed a rabbit, washed it at a tile ditch, and roasted it over a bonfire.  What with no salt and only partly cooked, it wasn’t so good, but they ate it.

He learned to milk when small, he thinks 6 years old.  His brother Frank was over a year older than he, but he tried to do everything that Frank did.  When Frank first worked in the field and he couldn’t, he took over the garden.  His mother said they had a good garden that year.

He farmed with Frank till a year after we were married, and they had a sale of partnership, livestock, and implements and we bought a place north of Dunn.  He farmed my mother’s farm near there along with the one he bought.  He built four stone pillars on the front porch, built a concrete block garage (made the blocks, too), erected a silo and an addition to the barn.  He made improvements inside the house, changed some walls, put in a sink and bath tub, made a back porch and a cistern.

After 7 years, we sold that farm and bought a larger one northeast of Bethany near the Pulltight School where I taught my first term of school and in the old neighborhood where my Great-Grandfather Rhodes had lived.  We lived in the old house till the next winter when we moved into the new house we built on a knoll in the pasture near the road.  We also built a barn there.

Our first child Charles was born in our first home south of Bethany.  After we moved to the farm near Dunn, Robert, Ruth, and Hester were born.  Victor was born after we moved near Pulltight School and Pauline and Albert were born there.  Howard was born after we moved to the farm near Todds Point.

His father always kept several horses and Rollo got his love of horses when young.  He was always quiet and gentle with them, and many times could “break” a horse that others had failed.  The first year we were married he bought a pretty little driving team that the owner said was “unbreakable”.  Before long he was driving them one at a time with Nell, a gentle little driving horse, and soon together.  His secret with horses was, I think, they soon trusted his gentleness.  In 1934 when it was so hot and dry that rangeland on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation in South Dakota dried up and did not furnish feed for the horses the United States government sold the horses as they were dying for lack of feed and water.  Rollo went west of Aberdeen and bought a carload of 33 colts, and shipped them back to Illinois.  He kept them till the spring of 1936 when we moved to North Dakota.  He had pastured them on rented pasture beside our own and fed them on bundle oats.  That winter in our sale he sold 33 of these colts, beside 7 or 8 or our own raising and the work horses, making 54 horses and colts.  That winter he had worked every day hitching them with a gentle horse and sold them as “broke”.  He was pleased when we went back each time to Illinois to be told by men who had bought the horses that the team “worked out so gentle”, “I never had a better working team”, etc.  One team was used on the Bethany rural mail route for several years. 

Rollo never struck a horse with anything but an occasional slap of the lines.  The winter we had the horses he usually had an audience of callers to watch him.  We heard there were big “tales” in Findlay streets of how he could break a horse “without whipping or mistreatment”.  He hitched them with a gentle horse who he said did the breaking.  When he was in the barn lot they followed along the fences and he always had a pat for them.  It was hard for him to sell his last team in North Dakota.  They were a pretty sorrel and he kept them after he had little use for them.  Now his thoughts are of his horses of years ago and he clucks and calls out to them at night. 

All these years Rollo was milking a herd of purebred Jersey cows starting with one “Golden Comanca” on the Dunn farm and adding to them when the children were old enough to help milk till we were milking 18 or 20.  He joined the Moultrie Cattle Club that imported several bulls and belonged to the Moultrie County Milk Testing Association and his cows made fine records.  The 4 oldest children won many ribbons on their 4H calves.  He built a bank barn at the Todds Point farm and the Jerseys made a pretty picture in their stanchions.  When we had our sale in 1936 we sold 45 head of purebred Jerseys with the 54 head of horses and 108 Shopshire sheep.

It was a bitter blow to lose the Illinois farm, but we had been overwhelmed during the Depression years of 1933 and 1934 when the loan on the farm became due and the Prudential Insurance Company put such a squeeze on us that it seemed wiser to let it go.  Rollo was so brave about our loss, and I am thankful that our moving to North Dakota gave him the opportunity to gain back more than we lost and he could feel that he had not failed.  It gave him a great deal of satisfaction to give each of our children a quarter of land a few years ago.

His other interest is growing things – trees, garden, and flowers, since he doesn’t farm as he did so many years.  In 1962 he was given the State Soil Conservation Award for the trees in his shelterbelts, wind breaks, and soil practices.  We were very proud of his Certificate of Award and the very beautiful framed colored aerial picture (14 x 20) given by the state of North Dakota.   These pictures of State Award winner farms have been taken to Texas, Chicago, etc., in the North Dakota exhibit.  When he first started his shelterbelt project around the farmstead it was planned by a Grand Forks nurseryman in 1937or 1938.  He and Ruth set out the first 3,400 trees by hand with shovel and spade.  Later the plantings were done by machine.  The curved rows around the farmstead attracted a lot of attention as one of the early farmstead plantings.  The first windbreak started was ½ mile of 10 rows.  Later the agriculture leaders advocated narrow rows as they would stop wind currents for soil blowing and snow in a better way than many rows.  The Fargo Forum article said, “There probably isn’t a more weed-free tree planting in Cass County.”  The plantings all over the farm consists of the 10-row belt, 3-row, 2-row, and 1-row.  Eleven and a half miles of trees in all.  His Award Certificate says, “He has proved himself to be a good steward of the land.”  He has often said he hoped he left his farms in better condition than when he took them over.

Rollo & Lura Winings

Rollo had young dreams of being a veterinarian and all his life on the farm he was interested in that kind of work.  He often did little services for others, too.  One time when Greg’s dog broke his leg and the whole family were concerned, Greg kept excitedly saying, “Call Grandpa.”  Grandpa came and set the leg and it grew so well and straight that they couldn’t tell which leg had been broken.

He loves birds and knows them all by sight and sound.  Nothing holds his attention like birds and animals.  He had several wren houses that went unoccupied, but the tin can he put up was soon occupied and he always watched for the arrival of his friends.  He fed the birds each winter, especially the chickadees.  On the farm, he tied pieces of fat meat to a tree and the chickadees grew so tame they would alight on his hand.  They would sit on the window sill and not move when we pecked on the window.  After we lived in town he liked to watch the squirrels.  Now when we sit on the patio at the nursing home, his day is brightened if there is a squirrel or hummingbird to watch.

Lura, Rollo, Ruth, and Robert Winings
at the Home Place east of Bethany, 1917

When we went on trips to Florida, California, and to Yellowstone and Glacier Parks, the animals were his chief interest.  He was thrilled to feed bread to the gulls at Maurine’s beach house.  The Civil War battle sites were his main interest in the southern states and the Mammoth Cave, Carlsbad Caverns and Grand Canyon.  The cities did not interest him, only Nature.

When we began building our house to retire, Rollo put in many days working with the carpenters, even helped on the roof.  He built 3 stone steps, graded the lawn, set out pine and maple trees and shrubs.  When I mentioned selling the house, he said, “No, we will go back when I am better.”  But it is more important that we can be together.

John Jackson and Cynthia Ella Tohill Winings 

Rollo’s parents as newlyweds

One satisfactory accomplishment is our family histories and we hope our children and grandchildren treasure them.  We visited the old home of Rollo’s Great-grandfather Daniel Winings near Rising Sun, Indiana, the courthouse where we found his will of 1880, found some old Atlas articles, obituaries, newspaper clippings, several old cemeteries, wrote many letters, and visited many people.  We found several relatives in distant places who had lost contact with the family.

Few families have as much written history as we; Winings back to 1728 to Germany.  Rhodes to Scotland in 1772, Tohill to Ireland in 1794, and Adkins to England about 1760.  And my Bacon family, back to England in 1500.

We hope we leave as good records in history as our ancestors show.

Rollo has been able to do more work than a man usually can and it was due in part by his determination and part by his almost perfect health.  He has been so temperate all his life, eating what was good for him, never overeating or eating the wrong kinds of food.  He has never smoked and he certainly never drank liquor.  My ill health about 1930 was hard for him and the children, but he never complained about it.

Even in the trying years, I never knew him to be dishonest or do a thing that was questionable.  During the busy years on a dairy farm it seemed to be impossible to get the family together for Bible reading and regular attendance at Sunday School.  After we left the farm, we spent many hours with Bible reading and Sunday School lessons.  A few days ago he said, “We haven’t studied our Sunday School lesson lately.”  Now when I read to him, he goes to sleep as he does so often each day.  I hope our children do not get so busy that they do not have time or do not take time for Bible reading and study.  My neglect of it is my deepest regret.  In his teens, Rollo was baptized in the river east of Lake City and joined the Lake City Methodist Church where they were regular attendants.  Later when he moved to Bethany community he transferred to Bethany Methodist Church where I had belonged all my life.  When we moved to North Dakota we transferred all memberships of the ones who moved with us to Arthur Methodist Church.

We are happy we have such a nice family and are grateful for our children.  We hope they all take their place in history as good honest Christian men and women.

COURAGE

Courage isn’t a brilliant task,

A daring deed in a moment’s flash;

It isn’t an instantaneous thing,

Born of despair with a sudden spring.

It isn’t a creature of flickered hope

Or the final tug of a slipping rope;

But it is something deep in the soul of man

That is working always to serve some plan.

Courage was never designed for show;

It isn’t a thing that can come and go;

It’s written in victory and defeat

And every trial a man may meet.

It’s part of his hours, his days and his years,

Back of his smiles and behind his tears.

Courage is more than a daring deed;

It’s the breath of life and a strong man’s creed.

                                    Edgar A. Guest

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I have more photos in an album my mother made for me, along with a family tree.  One of these days, I’ll scan them all.

And now... I have a customer’s quilt to do.  She wants a heavy custom job – something really fancy, with feathers and ruler work an’ ever’thang.

Customers’ quilts!  I worry over them.  Why can’t a customer’s quilt turn out as good as the one I did for myself?  Will the customer like it?  What if... this, that, and the other thing?

I’ll tell you what would solve the whole problem:  A brand-spankin’-new 26” Infinity by HandiQuilter!  Ha

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,