Go little album

Go little album, far and near,

To all my friends I hold so dear,

And ask them each to write a page,

That I may read in my old age.

So begins my mother's autograph book from Robert E. Simon Junior High, New York City, 1939.

My aforementioned project of going through my mom's old photo albums, along with reorganizing my own, found me rediscovering her old autograph book. What a treasure!

I vaguely remember having such a book in grade school, but I think it's safe to say they are now extinct. The annual signing of high school year books took their place in later years. I'm not sure what the custom is now, but I hope it's not Facebook or Twitter.

I sometimes re-read my high school yearbook, with messages from former classmates. Entire pages were reserved for my best friends. But I especially love the messages saying, Never forget me. I'll always remember you." And I actually haven't a single clue who wrote it, although the author signed his or her name.

Back to my mom's autograph book. There were some really amusing rhymes back then. And many of the entries were signed: Your fellow Grad-U-8.

May you dive into the sea of ambition,

And rise with a bump of wisdom on your head.

~~~

Down by the river, carved on a tree,

Are three little words:

Don't forget me.

~~~

When you grow up and have a house,

Just give a thought of this big louse.

~~~

I wish I was the little cup,

From which you drink your tea.

And every time you took a sip,

I'd get a kiss from thee.

~~~

Then there's one that's not so nice:

 

Roses are red, violets are blue.

I have a bull dog that looks like you.

 

Although it is signed: "Your friend, Dorothy. Yours till you have traffic jam for breakfast."

 

But this one has to take the prize. My mom went on to have a set of twins!

 

I wish you luck, I wish you joy.

I wish you first a baby boy,

And when his hair begins to curl,

I wish you then a baby girl.

And when her hair is straight as pins,

I wish you then a set of twins.
 



Some writers were artistic and either wrote upside down, around the page, or drew musical notes (Never B-flat. Always B-sharp.)

 

 

I'm guessing this is actually a caricature of my mom.

 

Such an innocent time....sigh. 

I'm keeping Mom's autograph book handy. When life seems complicated, the world complex, and everything beyond my understanding,  I'll board a time machine and go back to 1939 for awhile. It makes everything look so much better.

Unveiling Nelly

Nelly Gustafson was born in 1851 in Sweden. She died in 1934, so I couldn't have actually known her.

But I feel like I do.

Nelly was a midwife in Lindström, Minnesota in the early 1900s. She graduated from Lund University in Lund, Sweden in 1870 and came first to Philadelphia where she practiced for several years. Then, hearing about the large Swedish population in Minnesota, she came to Lindström to settle with her three children around 1903. She set up her practice here, delivering babies for a fee of three dollars, or five dollars, or whatever the person could afford.

I became acquainted with Nelly when I became director of the Chisago County Historical Society in 1994. Since we didn't have a museum at the time, we had several large display cases in the lobby of the Government Center in nearby Center City. It was my job to keep them filled with interesting exhibits.

We had been gifted Nelly's midwife kit, a fairly good-sized wooden box full of rather crude instruments. The kit contained bottles with dried-up medicinal fluids, old cotton and gauze, various forceps, scalpels and assorted and sundry items needed to safely bring a new life into the world in the early 1900s.

This kit was well cared for and well organized. It was clearly a collection of tools of a professional. And I was going to display it. Over the ensuing years, I would rotate this display many times, handling this valuable artifact totally in awe of it being in my care.

I became immediately enthralled with this pioneer woman of our county, bringing to our early population a learned and professional approach to midwifery, all the while raising children on her own. (It has been said she was married to a scoundrel in Sweden.)

Nelly has been a hero of mine ever since. And now she is permanently on display at our own Chisago Lakes library in the form of a bronze statue, unveiled this past week in a ceremony and reception with a crowd of over 150.

The statue was painstakingly crafted by sculptor, Ian Dudley. I cannot say emphatically enough how fortunate we are to have this expert artist in our own local area. Ian doesn't go to work until he has thoroughly researched his subject. In this case, it included a trip to Sweden where he met people who knew the family and shared old photographs, letters and stories.

Once back home, Ian began the process which he described in a talk preceding the unveiling. I had no idea it involved so many phases, beginning with a scale model. His knowledge of the way to present the most minute detail and his use of various metals and materials was mind-boggling to me.

Well, at last, the moment had arrived for the official unveiling.

We all held our collective breath as Ian humbly stood by the covered sculpture, his hand poised and ready to remove the orange parachute-like covering.  Neighbors greeted neighbors as the crowd gathered around. Folks were ready, cameras in hand. You could feel the expectant air as we all tried to get as close as possible for the very best view.

Finally, the parachute covering was dramatically lifted!

And then Nelly came back to life...well, in a respectful manner of speaking.

Isn't she just so elegant? 

I present to you, Mrs. Nelly Gustafson, on her way to deliver the town's next baby, riding in her carriage with the real-to-life naugahyde foot guard. So beautiful!

Following the official unveiling, a reception was held in the library featuring Swedish open-faced tea sandwiches and luscious desserts made by local caterer extraordinaire, Jon Ekstrom.

And as we enjoyed the Swedish refreshments, we were serenaded by the Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag, one of twenty groups in the Twin Cities (with thousands of groups in Sweden and about 175 in the US).

What is a nyckelharpa, you say?

Well, I just happen to know because the group distributed a card with its history and the composition of the instrument. Suffice it to say, it is a Swedish key fiddle. It looks like this:

The Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag

So there you have it. A wonderful evening, filled with everything that makes a small town great: neighbors, friends, a ceremony, music, food, local library, and beautiful summer weather.

Everything perfect to greet Nelly again. And she is most welcome here.

Opening the flood gate

I have started tackling one of the many things on my retirement To Do List. This resembles a bucket list, only a very practical one. Achievable, too, if you actually do it.

It is my photo project. It is daunting, to say the least.

It started with taking a box of loose photos belonging to my Mom, who passed 18 months ago. It's the last remaining task to wind up her affairs, which puts it all-too-neatly into a compartment, which seems sad and unfair for a person's life.

Going through her photos, dividing them among family members, was a sharp and sad reminder that she is gone. Many long, deep sighs went into sorting through the pictures, a flood gate of memories opening up, reliving so many good times -  of Mom, and all of us as a family. Missing her all over again; riding another wave of grief.


I was once given a card with this saying on it. So true, isn't it?

Well, I finished. Everything is in envelopes ready to give to my sisters, my brother, and even some cousins. The big box is empty.

Of course, this only served to remind me that my own photos needed attention.

Ordinarily a fairly well-organized person, subscribing to the notion, "A place for everything and everything in its place," somehow I fail miserably when it comes to photos.

In this case, it has meant jamming photos and keepsakes into a bedroom blanket chest that has never stored a blanket. The day of reckoning came when my own collection of my Mom's recently-sorted  photos would no longer fit into the chest. That, or I could no longer close the chest.

So...I got a banker's box, took a bunch of old file folders and labeled them in five-year time spans. Then I unloaded the full contents of the chest and started sorting.

Because I am doing this in my media center (also known as the bedroom), I needed to stick with the task or not be able to go to bed to sleep at night. I shifted piles to the floor for a few nights, then worked more speedily as I have an aversion to messes. Well, messes that I have to constantly look at.

Okay, the photos are now in their five-year-time-span folders. And now I don't know what to do with them.  Photo albums? Scan them all (we're talking thousands)? Sort by time period? Event? Make scrapbooks? What to do?

Until I figure out how to keep them all (or even whether I keep them all), all those beautiful photos and related memorabilia are in a banker's box, in five-year-time-span folders, awaiting further action. On top of the blanket chest.

But until I decide, I will savor all the memories my photos hold.

In nothing else am I rich. In nothing else am I poor.

Changing the world

Last week I had the honor and privilege of presenting a scholarship award to a graduating senior at St. Paul (Minnesota) Central High School. Each year our class awards $5,000 scholarships to anywhere from ten to thirteen well-deserving students, all of whom we feel are worthy of that extra financial boost to make their dream of a post-secondary education become a reality.

This year we had thirteen scholarship recipients. Twelve of them were presented by another committee member. But I presented the thirteenth - a special award given in honor of my very dear friend and colleague, Laura Singher Turner.

Laura was a classmate in high school. Being a graduating class of over 600, she was someone I knew by name and face, but I didn't really know her as a person. After both of us played a small part in organizing our 40th class reunion, she invited me to continue being involved by joining the Scholarship Committee. I wisely took her up on it.

From then on, we became great friends, talking on the phone at least three times a week, meeting for lunches, and sharing scholarship duties, as well as our personal lives.

Laura took her scholarship committee role very seriously. Over the twenty years of our efforts resulting in over 100 student awards, Laura followed every single student personally.  She was the students' main point of contact for dispersion of their funds and so answered their questions, listened to their concerns and sometimes mini-crises, met them at computer stores to purchase a laptop, went to their homes if they needed an immediate check, got to know their families, and was often invited to attend their graduations and open houses.

The students loved her. They loved her emails of encouragement and wrote back of their progress and achievements, all of which she proudly shared with all of us committee members. In short, she was their Den Mother - or, quite literally, since she was Jewish, their Jewish Mother!

Laura Singher Turner
1945-2013

Sadly, we lost our friend and colleague very suddenly a month ago. Our program, our high school, our students, indeed our world, is less without her. We're not sure how to go on as she was truly irreplaceable, but we're trying very hard, as she would push us to do.

So we had our award ceremony as part of the school's "Senior Honors Night" last week where all scholarship awards are given and recognized. Laura's husband, sister and brother-in-law attended. We carried on, but were all acutely aware of her absence.

The special award I presented was the Laura Turner Scholarship Award. It was given to the student who best represented the ideals of equality and social justice Laura worked so hard to promote. Indeed, as applications from students were received, she always had her eye out for that student who wished to right all society's wrongs and change the world. And then she advocated strongly for that student.

We feel she led us in choosing just the right person, a lovely young woman headed to Hamline University majoring in social activism and nonprofit management. I'll be interested in following her as her mentor.

We all thank Laura for the great legacy she left for us, and the impact she had on the lives of countless young scholars.  She changed the world for them.

Fifty, you say?

Fifty!  Fifty years!

Fifty is half of a hundred. Fifty is a half-century. Fifty is a ridiculous number. Fifty is scary.

No, I am not turning fifty. That happened long ago and it was scary enough.

Yes, this is the year of my fiftieth high school class reunion. Ridiculously unbelievable.

Last week, I spent a day at my Alma mater, St. Paul (Minnesota) Central High School. Being a member of the Class of '63 Scholarship Committee, formed right after our 30th reunion to lend a helping hand to college-aspiring students in need, about 8 of us interviewed 22 well-deserving high school seniors who qualified out of 150 initial applications for a face-to-face interview. Of those 22, our task was to select 13 of them for a $5,000 scholarship award each.

Believe me, this was tough. Recounting their academic experiences, as well as their community involvement and their future goals, they made me feel like I've lived under a rock for the past 50 years. They are smart, mature, driven, and know where they're going. This in spite of the fact that some are helping to support their families.

That certainly wasn't me as a high school senior. A far cry from it, in fact.

I was the first to arrive that day, so I had time to get settled in and then watch out the second story window as the students began to arrive for the school day. Some were dropped off in cars, some emerged from an orange school bus, some were simply walking, others roller-blading, Heading toward school for another routine, perhaps ordinary, perhaps memorable, day.

St. Paul Central, ca. 1920. But it actually looked the same in 1963.
Today, it has been renovated and looks nothing like this.
Some original rooms (the assembly hall, the band room) remain the same.

As I watched them, it was me coming up those many steps infamous to Central (steps that I once sprinted up daily and now take me an eternity to mount one-step-at-a-time) to begin another school day.

Perhaps I took the Special (a direct bus) from the corner of Cleveland and Lincoln; perhaps I walked all the way to save bus fare for spending money; perhaps Mary Kay got her mother's car and drove me; perhaps Rosie's boyfriend, Bob, drove us. But it was, in my mind, clearly yesterday.

Nostalgia took over. All of a sudden, the bell was ringing and I was bustling through the hallways to get to my locker, to get to my next class on third floor on time, and, most important, to meet up with Mary Kay to pass last hour's notes between us.

No, not class notes.  Notes we wrote to each other during class, notes that contained urgent and vital information: What was she wearing Saturday night? Who was that seen with Jane at Sandy's Drive-In after school yesterday? What did my mother say when Mike brought me home an hour after curfew? Should we meet at Merriam Park library tonight and tell our moms we have research to do there? Sharing the drama of our teenage lives in notes.

As I listened to the students we were interviewing, it was difficult to imagine their life when compared to mine; indeed, all of ours in the Class of '63. It was a different time, to be sure.

And as a high school senior, had someone mentioned I would be involved in later years discerning who was most worthy of a college scholarship; that I would be attending my fiftieth class reunion this coming August, I'd have been totally mystified at what they were saying.

As we ended our day of interviews and selected the thirteen, with some agreement, a little disagreement and always negotiation, we all agreed wholeheartedly on one thing:

The world is in good hands with these remarkable individuals. Let them go forth and lead.

But a universal truth prevails: Their fifty years will go by quickly.

It's spring somewhere

We are still in Arizona, enjoying the desert in full bloom. Our Prickly Pear cactus has the most beautiful yellow buds that flower during the day, then close at night to go to sleep.

The breezes are warm as the temperatures climb to the upper 80s. We enjoy our coffee on the deck in the morning and our evening strolls.

We are from Minnesota. We spend winters here and most years are packing to head home about now.

But not this year.

It has not been a kind Minnesota winter, and that's the kindest words you'll hear Minnesotans say. It's mid-April and they are fed up. As well they should be.

It's a cruel trick of Mother Nature this year, the winter with no end. I feel for my fellow Minnesotans and I'm not gloating, nor did I write the first paragraph in a mean spirit.

There is hope, Minnesota. Spring must come. And when it does, it will be even more special. Those sights and smells will be appreciated even more after suffering through a very long seven months.

We have not been gone so long that we've forgotten. Those days that drag on and on and on and you just long to see green grass, open windows, and commence with spring cleaning and washing up golf clubs, pumping air into those bike tires, sorting fishing tackle.

Ahhhh, spring. It will come to Minnesota.  And when Minnesotans are enjoying those fresh breezes, tulips popping out of the ground, picnics and outdoor baseball games, Arizonans will be suffocating in the heat, broiling under the hot, intense sun, and getting cabin fever from sitting inside their air-conditioned hot-boxes, paying obscene electric bills to stay cool.

So take comfort, Minnesota. Spring is coming. I promise. We'll be there to celebrate it with you.

April fool

Well, it's April 1...April Fool's Day.

Yesterday was the day I felt like a fool. Guests for Easter Sunday dinner, I decided to try some new recipes.

Never, ever do that.

I was looking online for crockpot, or slow cooker, recipes so that we could go to church and have dinner cooking itself.  I found several ham recipes and several scalloped potato recipes that made it difficult to even choose between them. They all sounded great.

I chose a ham recipe that called for maple syrup and pineapple juice. It was reported to be the best ham ever!

Using half the time called for in the recipe, it was overcooked and dry, and had lost its color. The only thing that saved it was spooning the juices from the crockpot over the sliced ham on your plate.

On to the scalloped potatoes.  The recipe I selected called for a cheese sauce. Now who could go wrong with a cheese sauce?  It cooked up beautifully, so rich and creamy. Poured over the thinly sliced potatoes, it looked great going into the crockpot. Smelled good, too.

The result was awful. The sauce turned into paste, the potatoes turned brown, and again, using half the time called for, they were way overdone.

I had made a Jell-O salad in individual molds. That's about as artistic as I get. No matter what I tried (yes, the warm cloth over the molds, letting them set out at room temperature, running a hot knife around the edges), they would not unmold. I finally shook them out and they ended up looking like little blobs on a leaf of lettuce.

As our guests thanked us and said everything was delicious, I felt like the April Fool.

Thankfully, the deviled eggs turned out (it took 16 eggs to get 10 perfect ones), and the dessert was to die for...angel food cake with a can of crushed pineapple, frosted with whipped cream, topped with coconut.

Maybe our friends will just remember the dessert.