Growing With Our Grandchildren

Want more stories, tips, interviews with grandparent experts?
Sign up here to get Magical Memoir Moment emails.→

collage_v2

Hello, friends, Shirley Showalter here, co-author with Marilyn McEntyre of The Mindful Grandparent: The Art of Loving Our Children's Children, from Broadleaf Books, May, 2022. Having embraced elderhood, we invite you to do the same.

In 2013 I published Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Previously, I was a professor, a college president (Goshen College), and a foundation executive (the Fetzer Institute).

Most recent blog posts

Our hosts for the day, Terresa and Heinz-Walter Schmidt stand in front of the Oberhaus castle, now a museum, in Passau, Germany, August 7, 2024.

A Day in Passau:

What is your favorite way to travel? I love going with people I love to a beautiful place and then connect with people who live there who generously share their love of their place and its history with us. On our most recent trip, a Viking European Grand Tour of the Danube, Main, and Rhine rivers…

Read More

The Headache by Lydia, age 7

A few weeks ago, Lydia and I went to Allentown with Lydia’s mom. When I climbed into the car, I could tell that taking a long drive was not Lydia’s idea of a good time today. I sat in the back seat with my special “Frida bag” to help make the time go faster. Inside…

Read More
Genealogical fan chart made for our children and grandchildren. Showing eight generations. We have another that shows ten generations. Both are available to descendents of Swiss Anabaptists through Mennonite Life.

Digging Up a Hidden Heritage

Since I am the first person in both sides of my Mennonite family to go to college, and since my family praised “common sense” over too much “book learning,” I was surprised to discover recently that some of my earliest ancestors in America were actually public school pioneers. I should not have been totally surprised…

Read More