Christmas calls for something special.
So i am taking this time to copy a little essay I wrote years ago honoring my wonderful Anglin
grandmother.: 
               GRANDMA GRACE
My grandmother, Grace Kitch Anglin, played a huge roll in my early formation as well as my older brother, K. Donn's.
She gave us a solid grounding that probably kept us out of trouble more than a few times. She is still sorely missed in her community and family.

Gracie Mae Kitch was born at Sandridge, a small farming area six miles west of what used to be known as Community Center where road nineteen turns north toward Nappanee.

She was the last child in her father's second marriage. His first wife had died a young woman. He remarried in mid-life and had two boys and three girls, including Grandma Grace.

According to Uncle Jack's records, the family moved to an area around Plymouth, In., named Twin Lakes when Grandma Grace was about six months old. Sometime after she was ten, the family moved to a farm outside Bourbon, In. where she grew to womanhood. 
When G.G. was in her late teens she worked in Fribley's hardware store there in Bourbon. This is where our grandfather, who we always knew as 
Daddy Wash, met her. He was two years younger so she did not take him too seriously. She had another beau, then....a Stackhouse..but she felt that he was too vain about his horses.( i remember her telling me this) Being rigidly brought up, this clouded their friendship, and she lost interest.
She told me that about that time , she had an offer from a "good" family,( a Doctor they knew,) at Culver, to come care for their young children...sort of a live-in nanny. She took the job and moved to Culver. Having previously known the doctor's wife and the area, it was a lovely situation. Adding to that, the house and grounds had beach-front on Lake Maxinkuckie, not far from Culver Military Academy.
Then she told me why she had a change of heart and, in fact, became a farmer's wife.
Daddy Wash, being a very persistant young suitor, hitched up a horse and buggy and drove all the way (about 30 miles...around 2 hours...probably at night..) to see her on her day off. 
I don't remember how many times this happened, but she was impressed enough to drop her long held view, ignore the age difference, and join the Anglin family at Angleton.

 

The view of the lake from my front window is real fuzzy. This county has zero visibility according to all the weather reports. Believe me, I have seen worse ..one evening when the lake was cooling , chunky looking fog resembling mammoth grey Legos appeared to be rushing the shore.
I found a letter written from my older first cousin , Marge Anglin to my aunt Anna Rapp when they were both in their early 20s during second world war. May 14, 1943.
    
    Dearest Anna,
    Hello, how is everything with you, honey, hunky-dory I hope. I'm fine and rather busy.
    This is a little late, but , well "Congratulations!" (recently married to GI Jess Dillman from        Rochester, In. before he shipped over-seas.)  Be happy as you can, this war won't last long. 
    
     Jack and Bill (Anglin) both, are in the army. Jack is in Camp Mc Lain , Miss. and Bill is in 
    Fort Dix, N.J.  Jack has such a sweet baby, John Henry Jr.
    
    Why don't you come over sometime?  Phyl ( Knepper, Marge's best friend ),and I think of 
    you a lot. Mary (Phyl's sister, we know as Mary Lee), is home from college now. I think she is going to Chicago to work.
    
     Gee, Anna, you should see Kayo and Janny (that's me) They are sure growing up. You know how slow and easy Kayo and Janny are...PO asked them why they had to be so slow and Janny cutely replied "Cause, I'm just like my uncle Wayne." Have you heard from Wayne? Almost everyone in your class is in the Army. I don't know where they are.

    Well, Anna, be good and write when you can.      Love, Marge
(The picture is of Marge's BF, Phyllis Knepper and Marge, on the right, when they were pre-teens.)
    

Wow....I'm impressed my Mac schooled daughter braved the tortures and perils of this Windows os to let me type my blog and get my mail on this new laptop.

The scene outside my window is a rich glowing golden yellow caused by the sugar maple leaves clinging to wet roofs and covering the ground .Some still hang on the tree making the room seem bright although it is a grey cloudy day.
I figured a few things out today which made me feel my aging brain can still work, (with the good Lords help, I am sure).
The museum is picking up antiques we no longer need...I solved an Alexa problem and got my upstairs heater  to work without bothering anyone.
This time of the year is somewhat more relaxed for me as it was in my teen years unlike a couple of my children who spent early Nov. still involved with marching band in their teens. My friends and I just goofed around, waiting until basketball season started.
Here is a an early Nov. diary entry from my teen-aged in 1941 aunt Anna Rapp.
Saturday...up at 9:00. Count (her older, married sister), cleaned the house. I went uptown and got groceries. (Uptown was Burket, where Anna lived with newly married Count and Shorty. She was finishing out her schooling at Burket although her father had remarried and moved to Rochester.)
Got dinner (actually lunch). Ate. Count went to Warsaw. I did dishes and washed my clothes. Pinned up my hair..went uptown
Wayne is in the same group as Bud Davis at P camp.(army just before WW2.)
Ball game..got beat bad by Sidney. Bed 3 am.
Sunday....up at 11:30. Dinner. Hub and Mary Alice took me out to Moores to get my senior proofs.They are not bad..look natural.We messed around all PM. Count and Shorty got home. Count got supper. Hub and M.A. stayed.  We had gobs of fun. Had fun uptown with Macy too. He is nuts!!

October always goes by in a hurry...it will be glorious looking west up main street toward the old West ward /Madison school by next week-end.
Memories of accelerating activities around school and friends about 1950 come flooding. Living on E. Main at Marge's put me right in the middle of the Canasta action that year. There were cute boys in the big group of kids playing cards. I really did not like cards but this was not just cards was it...so cool to be part of this huge trend and I did not have a boyfriend yet.
Those were halcyon days of autumn. Exciting times were just around the corner.  

I love my libraryI

Back in 2008 the library here ran a writing contest
based on library membership. My entry won that contest and was featured in the since discontinued newsletter. I ran across it the other day.

I LOVE MY LIBRARY

Miss Powers was the children's librarian.  She was cool before the word came into popular use. Very tailored and in charge, her fashionably penciled eyebrows gave her the sophisticated look of a modern woman of her generation. When I played library with my little playmates, we all wanted to be Miss Powers.

One day, my classmates and I walked across the street and down the steps to get our first library cards My name, Anglin, put me first in a long line of second graders. My nose barely cleared the top of the commanding desk.. It seemed like the library lamp on her blotter was the only light in the room and it shown down on me like a spotlight . The overhead lighting was dim with individual lights hung over the stacks of books and larger lamps on tables. After  typing fast and with a small smile, Miss Powers handed me my first, treasured, library card.

I recall reading picture books and looking through strange devices called stereopticans. They were like early viewfinders only clunkier.

In my elementary years we moved about five blocks from the library .I  walked there as often as I could. Mystery books became my new passion. Nancy Drew was very popular, but I was more interested in an adventure writer named Augusta H. Seaman. To get the full effect, I would read after bedtime , by flashlight, under my blanket until I got caught.

In the teen years, one did not want to be seen in the library I went anyway because I couldn't afford my own copies of Jane Eyre ,Ivanhoe ,and  Wuthering Heights. My kid brother was really into James Thurber's humor. He used to wake me up at three in the morning to read me "something hilarious.  I had to laugh and act interested or pay the painful consequences.

I taught myself to knit from a library book when there were few needlework books in the library .Suddenly all the popular girls were knitting. Canasta was a big card game craze in teen circles when I was interested in cute boys who played cards. guess where I got the best card plays?

When I was a young married woman, my cooking fears were calmed by "Better Homes and Gardens" cookbook from the library. The ideas on gardening, sewing, crafts and the little entertaining we did all came from there.

Through the years books on building a house, maintaining lake property, historical traveling, sailing, greenhouse growing,antiques, exercising, starting a business, computers, and on and on. In between all of these, I checked out books on baby and child care.

After my husband died, the library helped fill the void. There were writing groups that helped with family stories for genealogy, computer classes, meetings on meditation and cooking...all helping to make new friends. Just walking to the library was and is a comforting experience.

I still find promise in that little card from Miss Powers. I love my library even more, now, than before. 

Museum project:


Sally, at the museum,asked me to write a brief bio of my dad for a small book  about the artists in Kosciusko County...so I decided to do double duty by adding it here.

Born Washington Don Anglin he had a normal farm grown childhood. One of eight brothers; they were " The Anglin Boys".  His older brothers would not give him a break,
insisting that he was "took to raise". Although they were there  when he was born at home just like them.  When they were old enough to hear of such things they told him he was probably an Italian immigrant. He had black curly hair and theirs was straight. That is why they called him "Wop". At that time it was derisive term meaning"Without Papers". The name stuck his entire life.
Comic strips in the papers were major on his youth. He could hardly wait to leave the farm and become famous and rich
drawing for the "funny papers".
Circumstances intervened and he became the go-to sign painter/artist in Kosciusko County. When the Lakeland  Art Association started he was a charter member.
The new restaurant in my teen years was the Humpty Dumpty.. I watched him paint this huge picture of that nursery rhyme character falling off the wall above the booths.
There are still many of his art works in and around Warsaw.
 

 

More about Glen's Childhood.

I am fortunate to have a sister-in-law who is living in this town and remembers some of the things that were written about in Michael's letter featured in the previous post.We met for coffee yesterday so some of my questions could be answered like ...who was the Billy Bodkin that Glen often spoke of? Was he the owner of the boat house or did he have the little pie bakery on the way to the boat house?  How many cottages were for rent by the amazing Mrs. Brallier and which one did the Pados rent? What were the cottages like? Im sure it was mentioned during the telling of those boyhood tales but as wives will, I was not
paying perfect attention at all times.
Turns out Glen's sister, Carol, was able to fill in a lot of gaps.
Billy Bodkin was the owner of the boat house. I remember that Glen went to the hospital to visit him when Billy was very old and ill. I think he  appreciated it and he seemed to know who Glen was.
Mr. and Mrs. Darter owned the little mom and pop store/bake goods place just down the road. Mrs. Darter  had a soft place for little barefoot boys so they consumed a lot of day old goodies.
There were at least 4 cottages between Glen's house and the lake. The Pado twins parents rented the one next door. Apparently, they had a front room, kitchen , bed and bathroom. The kitchens were provided with ice boxes (not refrigerators) .
Ice was still being delivered in those days.
A sad thing about one of those cottages, the Brallier's old Saint Bernard crawled underneath and died. Her boys were not home so Mrs. B. called Glen to hunt for her as she had been gone for several days. Glen, who had loved her dearly, had to dig her out and bury her.
I do not know if the twins are still living in Chicago because the cards stopped coming several Christmases ago. They never put any contact info on them so we never did.

Here it is the middle of June already!!!

We have already seen the good fire works for here. I mean the ones where we do not have to pack food, find a place , and sit in stop and go traffic coming home.
Sorting through papers on a cleaning spurt, I came across a letter I had received some years back from Michael Pado. I had written him  to ask about some of his memories of summers in Winona Lake and when he first met Glen. :

9-8-06
Dear Janice,

There are two difficulties to start this essay:
1.Trying to determine dates on the photos, (I had sent some copies of old pictures.)
2. Trying to select myself from my twin in the photos.

Here are some of my memories of Winona Lake (which includes Glen ) over the years .
Perhaps the first visit was around 1940.  Glen became a friend a few years later.
Marlin was on the scene a bit earlier because of the connection with the
Bralliers who owned the Lake Lawn rentals.
Three weeks or so per visit was the typical visit. My father drove down over the weekends from Gary. I remember our drives from Gary , and back, during the war (WWII)  when only 2 or three other cars passed us during the trip. My father had an"A" gasoline ration sticker that allowed him to have enough fuel for our trips.

There used to be a small bakery directly on the road to sell products to cars and walk-bys just about twenty yards toward the village. Great bread and fruit pies.

Other memories:
--The smell from the brake factory (Gatkes) ,when a certain wind developed.
--The noise from the Penn. railway on the high line.
--Walking with Glen to the boat house via the lake edge instead of the road.
--Treats at the boat house were seeing beautiful boats , especially" SunnyBoy,"
   which was a teak topped Chris Craft and the fastest boat on the lake. Our next      treat was the ice-cold Dr.Pepper from the cooler.
--A float plane landing on the lake was a great event.
--Watching Mrs. Brallier build a 10x10 foot raft from scratch in less than one
   day!!
--Learning to swim for the first time at about age seven or eight.
--Watching the bounty of fish,turtles and clams as we swam from
   the raft.
-- If there was a disagreement between us and Glen, he had this gentle refrain,
   "Ya dum nut".
--We went fishing on and off for perch and bass. For Gars, my father had the
   machine shop make a Triton spear. ;since the gar are always in shallow water.
   I don't remember ever getting one.
--Speaking of Gar, my brother and I had our greatest adventure rowing to the
   island canal and through it to the other side of  the lake. This was the side that
   was mysterious and out of sight from the Lake Lawn shore. We saw a 6 ft.
   Gar!(near the river mouth.) We then viewed the nice houses and landscape.
   However , six or seven  hours later, my mother was both upset and relieved
   when we returned.
--The few times we went to the public ,sand, beach, (then across from the old
   Winona Hotel), under shirts were required for males.  Well, this was Billy
   Sunday territory.  This reminds me of some of his events from the big gazebo
   in the park. (These boys were raised very Catholic.) We saw other non-
   religious shows in the gazebo, including a memorable magician act.
--Taking a clear, glass jar of Winona Lake water back to Gary.
--In high school(1947-'51) at Bishop Noll in Hammond commuting from
   Gary via the South Shore train, we visited Winona Lake during the summer.
--When we started driving, we made several trips in the summer to visit Glen
   and Marlin. We went to Center Lake park to swim.But our main reason was the
   10 meter tower on the pier which challenged our fear and our youth..
   I remember Minnie and her new husband joining us at Center Lake park for
   picnics.  The connection to Winona Lake was diminishing.

Having a cool off

Summer is stomping on my spring.

Spring It's Spring

I want to dance and sing"!!!  12: 15 March 20.....That line is there in my mind every year. Daughter, Cecily, stood on stage in her new spring dress ( Kate Greenaway I believe) and said that to a packed house. We were so proud.