Dreams

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21, New International Version) 

I’ve had that paper in my drawerful of memories from my kids for a long time. It was an assignment of Val’s from when she was in second or third grade. If you can’t read it, her answer is “I have a dream that all the poor children are not poor. And that the wars will not happen.”

She wrote that years before our first trip to Kenya, over a decade before she returned to Africa for six months which would change her life. But there she was, just that little girl, dreaming of saving little kids from lives of poverty, dreaming of a world full of peace, where we all love each other.

And my dream is that Val – at least her memory – keeps making the world a better place.

        “I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.” (John 13:34-35, New Century Version) 

Trip Across the Border

Journal of Our Journesy - Chapter 15  

Oh, Canada

Our trip to Canada in 1974 was full of stories. I can hardly believe we were there for only four days. We drove north to Duluth and Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the first day, which was 296 miles. Dad had a goal of driving only 300 miles a day, so he was pleased with that. It's surprising to me that we got anywhere with that kind of mileage.

The second day, we traveled to Nipigon, Ontario, which was only 240 miles away. But halfway there is the Canadian city of Thunder Bay. For those of us living in northern Wisconsin, people used to talk about taking a trip to Thunder Bay as much as they did about taking a trip to Milwaukee.

That area of Canada is one of six places in the world that have large deposits of the semiprecious gem known as amethyst. At the time, purple was my favorite color, so I was thrilled to go rock hunting for this beautiful stone. I don't know if the whole point of the trip was to pick amethyst, but that's what we did a lot.

The campground where we stayed catered to many campers who had come to visit the amethyst fields. The manager spoke French as her first language, which was so exotic. In the morning, the day after we had taken in a large haul of the purple stone, Dad stopped in at the store in the campground office. The French woman had a collection of large amethysts. When Dad picked up one rock, about the size of my fist at the time, and asked her how much it was, she answered in a strong French accent, "five dolla."

It surprised us all that he actually paid the price. Looking it up online today, that would be over thirty-five dollars! What was Dad thinking?

Another thing we frequently did was walk along Lake Superior. At one such stop, somehow or other, Pat and I managed to climb back up from the beach through a bank of clay. Don't ask me what all this clay was doing there along the lake, but Pat and I decided that that was the place to ascend back to the parking lot. Mom was not happy with us, as our legs, shoes, and socks were completely covered in red mud.

Somehow, we managed to clean up enough to be allowed back into the camper, but we had to stop at the next wayside with running water to get properly scrubbed. We washed our legs under the ice-cold water from the hand pump until we passed inspection.

After Mom released us, I wandered off somewhere, either looking for more clay to get into or a free piece of amethyst. Pat and Mom used the facilities while Dad walked the dog. I came out of the woods where I had been roaming and decided I should go to the bathroom while I had the chance.       

When I exited the little girls' room, the camper was no longer parked where it had been. I looked around and saw it driving off!

My parents were about to leave me in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country – okay, it was only Canada, which, at the time, you could get into without any ID. But still! I was only twelve years old! And I didn't know any French!

I began my sprint. And I don't run very fast; I never could, and usually, when I ran as fast as I could, I would trip and fall flat on my face. At least that didn't happen this time.

About the time I had finished in the bathroom, my parents had decided it was time to leave. They saw Pat jump into the camper, and since we were practically inseparable, they figured I was already in. Pat, at first, thought I was in the truck's cab, but it didn't take her long to realize I wasn't. She looked through the camper window and the truck window and saw Mom, Dad, and the dog, but not me. She started beating on the window, but with the truck window in between, Mom and Dad were oblivious to her panicked attempts to get their attention.      

At that moment, Pat made a crucial decision, possibly a life-altering decision in my regard. She broke the never-go-near-the-door-when-the-truck-is-moving rule. Bless her heart.

She flung the back door of the camper open just as Dad was stopping for the stop sign before turning onto the road. I had gotten to within five or six feet of the truck by then, so I easily leaped into the camper before Dad started to accelerate.

Before I could catch my breath, Pat started laughing hysterically. Within a minute, I was laughing right along with her.  

At the next break in the trip, when we told Mom and Dad what had happened, Dad rolled his eyes. Mom was unaccustomedly speechless, torn between yelling at us and hugging us. Dad, however, did install an intercom system between the truck and the camper as soon as we got home.

(I couldn't find any pictures from this trip. The one above is from when we were camping in northern Wisconsin in 2022 and took a drive one day up to Lake Superior, still over 200 miles away from Thunder Bay.) 

Sisters

I looked back through my blog posts over the years, and there were quite a few in which I wrote about my mom's sister, my aunt Helen. I'm trying to think of a story that I haven't shared yet, but nothing's jumping out at me.

My grandmother had been a cook at a logging camp when she met my grandpa. And Aunt Helen followed in her footsteps, becoming a cook herself, but instead of at a logging camp, she worked in the kitchen at the Tripoli School. I don't know which would be more challenging – feeding roughneck loggers or voraciously hungry teenagers. She worked in that kitchen with a few other ladies for over 20 years.

During those two short years I attended that school, I was always reassured, knowing she was close by. And if she wasn't in the kitchen, she was at her house, which was the length of a couple football fields away.

I'll always remember the taste of her baked chop suey and the nummy chocolate bars she made. 

Even though they were seven years apart in age, my mom and Helen were always close, or at least once they started raising their families. Between the two of them, they had five kids all within four years, or something like that.

When Aunt Helen passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly, in 2005, I thought that Mom would fall apart. But she handled it with the family's usual German stubbornness.

When my best friend, my sister Pat and I were little, I always imagined that we'd get married and have kids the same age, cousins who would play together and grow close, have stories to tell until they were old.

God took Pat at a much earlier age than He took Aunt Helen. And we never did have kids together, but Aunt Patti sure loved my two babies. But I can't complain; I've been blessed with a great family, and I have lots of great memories to hold on to.

 Above - Mom and Aunt Helen getting ready at my first wedding in 1985. Below - Pat and I should be getting dressed for my wedding, but instead we were laughing coz we were wearing the same brand of shirt.  

“It is Finished”

In my spare time, I’ve been trying to sew quilt fronts for our church’s Lutheran Women’s Ministry League. 

This is actually the front of my Snoopy quilt that I sewed six years ago, but have yet to finish. 

All year long, these ladies sew and put together quilts. Every fall, the organization ships them out to communities living in poverty or recovering from disasters worldwide. 

My mom worked on these quilts for years. And when I went to Kenya in 2019 and visited my Compassion child, the ladies donated one of their special quilts for me to deliver to Mueni.

Recently, I’ve been working on my second quilt top of the year. It’s always a much slower process than it should be, and I really give those ladies credit for sewing as many of them as they do.

Last Saturday night, I had a dream where I had just finished sewing a quilt top. It was in varied colors of blue and reminded me of the ocean. I had made it for my daughter, Val.

Val was at my house in the dream, and I showed it to her. I apologized that it wasn’t quite together yet. I asked if she’d like it finished by tying it together with yarn, which I could do myself, or by stitching it together, which I would ask a friend of mine to do who has a sewing machine specifically for quilting.

Val looked at the fabric, deep in thought. And then said, “Look!”

I looked at the quilt, and it was complete, both tied with yarn and machine-stitched. It was more beautiful than I would have ever thought, and I took no credit for it.

Then Val said, “It is finished.”

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (John 19:30, New King James Version)

As you probably know, those were the last words Jesus said on the cross, before He descended into hell for three days, before rising again on Sunday morning.  Later, He was lifted to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father for eternity.  

Those words in my dream were a confirmation that my sweet baby girl is in heaven for eternity as well.  

Couldn't find any pictures of Val with a quilt or even a decent one with her Grandma. But my mom took this one of Val at her house a very long time ago and it seems to capture what I wanted in a picture. 

Lots to see in my state

Journal of Our Journesy - Chapter 14  

Multiple Stops in Wisconsin

Dad had always been opposed to driving in the city. He would go great distances to avoid going through any metropolitan areas. It was surprising, then, that in 1973, we were able to get him to take us to the Milwaukee Zoo.

The Milwaukee Zoo, then as now, is considered one of the country’s finest. It was innovative in the 1960s and 1970s by replacing the old iron bars with more natural environments. Each area featured predators of a continent at the back of the exhibit, accompanied by their prey in the front, separated by a deep moat that mainly went unnoticed by the zoo visitor.

Humane accommodations for all the animals except one.

Samson, the huge lowland gorilla, was a zoo star. In his enclosure was a large scale where he liked to sit; his weight would read up to 600 pounds. He would check out the visitors watching him, pick one out of the crowd, and try to stare them down with his intense black eyes. If he saw something about you that he didn’t like, he would rush the thick Plexiglas wall that kept him contained. On several occasions over the years, he managed to crack the thick glass.

His life was a very tragic one in that large cage. Unlike those other animals who lived in environments similar to their natural ones, for some reason, they chose to force this giant to live in a sterile environment much removed from what would have been his jungle home. He was born in 1949 and moved to Milwaukee as a baby. He lived to the ripe old age of 32, but I know he would have preferred a shorter life if it meant living in the wild.

While in Milwaukee, we also saw the botanical gardens in Whitnall Park. We visited numerous flower gardens on various trips, and they all began to blend together after a while. For some reason, this particular park was memorable enough for Dad to note it in the Camper Log.  

It is the largest park in Milwaukee County, and many of its buildings were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s. Since Dad had worked for the CCC as a young man, that may have been his fascination with this park. I remember nothing about it.

The next day, we toured the Cave of the Mounds, a cave west of Madison. Again, we have been through quite a few caves. I don’t recall anything special about this cave itself, but outside, in what would be the driveway, they had set up sluices so that young geologists could sift through rock from the cave in search of gemstones or just plain interesting rocks.

Over the years, we have collected more than our share of what we thought were remarkable rocks, but we always needed more. Even to this day, my pockets somehow fill up with stones and pebbles whenever I’m at a rocky beach.     

The House on the Rock in Spring Green would have to be the one tourist trap I have visited far more than any other. In 1973, it was still mostly about the House, which, all by itself, was interesting enough with its passageways, low ceilings, and hidden seating areas. Carpet on the walls, stained glass windows, interior fountains, bookcases in recesses that were not accessible. I liked to sit back in one of those cubbies and imagine living there.

The House on the Rock was the home of Alex Jordan, a sculptor and collector. I don’t know where in the grand scheme of things he lost control, but to me, I just liked the straightforwardness of the House itself, the original Gate House, and the Mill House. Over the years, the attraction expanded beyond words.

The maze of buildings, housing thousands of collections ranging from merry-go-round horses to butterflies to room-size music machines, though very interesting to experience, detracts from the sincerity of the original structures.

As a side note, a month after returning home from southern Wisconsin, we went to Door County and Algoma. Door County is that section of eastern Wisconsin that juts out into Lake Michigan. It is yet another beautiful part of the state, and has become another tourist trap. When we went there, though, almost yearly, between the end of July and the first part of August, we had a goal other than tourism. We were picking cherries.

It is just another one of those crazy things my parents did every year. We would go over to Algoma on a Friday night and get up early to pick cherries. Then, Mom would spend the afternoon canning them in the tiny confines of the camper. Of course, she forced my sister Pat and me to remove the pits, as my mom rejected child labor laws. But I think most parents at that time were on her side, and I think that’s what’s wrong with all the generations who came after mine.

Anyway, on Sunday morning, we would pull up camp but stop to pick more cherries on the way home. As soon as we got home late in the day, Mom would start canning again. She was always that ambitious. And we were her constant slaves.

(The only pictures I could find from that summer were the deer and the rhinos at the zoo. I can picture a picture of us picking cheeries, but can't find it. Hard to believe, with all the pictures I take now, but that's thanks to the digital age.)

So many Aunts and Uncles - Weepy Wednesday, episode 3

I am the world’s worse niece. From 1978 to 2007, I lost nine aunts and uncles, and I only remember going to the funerals of two of them. Sure, I was away at college some of those years or living in Colorado, but I really think I could have made more of an effort. I do have some memories though.

I was still in high school when my uncle Bob passed away in November of 1978, following years of debilitation from Huntington’s Disease. I really don’t remember him not having those uncontrollable movements and walking like someone who is drunk. It’s a horrible disease.

His funeral was on a cold, dreary day, but at some point during the service, the sun broke through the clouds and shot its rays of hope through the beautiful stained-glass windows.

I think my Aunt Clara died from lung cancer. She smoked like a chimney her entire life as far as I know. It had been years since I had seen her, but I had a dream about her the night before she died. I can’t remember at all what it was about, but I kind of freaked out when Mom called to tell me she had passed away.

I was at college when Uncle Frank died. That was in the days before cell phones and even before there were phones in the dorm rooms. Somebody came down to my room to tell me I had a call on the pay phone at the end of the hall. I didn’t know what to say when Mom told me. Again, I hadn’t seen him in quite a few years. We grow up and move away and start having a life, one that excludes a lot of family members.

Uncle Fritz had stomach or colon cancer, I can’t remember now which. I had still been seeing him and Aunt Min, off and on, as they came down to our house to play cribbage regularly. If Mom got a phone call, or was busy with something else, she would let me play her hand. I thought I was pretty smart then. I need to start playing cribbage with Hubby more.

When the other three aunts and one uncle passed away, I have no clue what the cause of death was. I am really a slacker.

But there was Aunt Helen, by and far my favorite aunt and like a second mother to me.

I was still at work that day in December of 2005. For some reason, after everyone else was gone, I stayed to clean out one of my cupboards. Mom called on my personal line. She was at her sister’s apartment and though I don’t think she said it in so many words, I knew what she was getting at.

I drove to her apartment, where the EMTs were still working on my aunt. They wanted clarification that it was okay with the family for them to stop what they were doing, and Mom waited for me to agree with her. It was a long sad night after that. (To be continued.)

Uncle Bob, in the 1940s. How's that mustache? 

 

Aunt Clara. Every picture I have of her is in profile or sleeping. 

From left to right, Dad and his brothers, Fritz and Frank

While looking for pictures of Aunt Helen, I found this one. Aunt Helen, my sister Pat, and my baby Val are all gone. My brother Tom, with dementia, is gone mentally. Wie Traurig.

Happy Adoption Anniversary, Hannah

Hard to believe that this little niblet came home with us one year ago. I've shared some of these pictures before, but wanted to just throw them all on my blog. She is just too cute for words, so I won't write many of them.   

She loves sleeping on her back

First day home and fit right in

 

Checking out Goose. She still doesn't understand why she doesn't have long legs like her cousin.

Tolerates the cat - most of the time. 

Loves laying in her chair, looking out the window. 

Some of her Christmas presents. 

Christmas Elf

Sleeps in my bed, under the covers with her head on the pillows. Not spoiled at all.