Magical Memoir Moments

A Pork 'n Sauerkraut New Year: Happy Birthday, Stuart!

At our house, the holiday season begins with Christmas and ends on January 11. Why January 11? That’s my husband Stuart’s birthday. We don’t clear out the wrapping paper and bows until Jan. 12. Our serious efforts to go back to low-carb eating only starts after that date also. This year, Stuart discovered a tradition…

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Woman holding chain in front of Anabaptist house

Anabaptist Women Unchained

The Radical Reformation dates back to 1525 — 500 years ago. So Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, and other assorted groups who trace their theology back to the Anabaptists are throwing a party this year. It will be a subdued one, of course, since thousands of the first Anabaptists were martyred, and we are not known as…

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Our Meet-Cute Story

The beginning of every romantic comedy features a tension-filled encounter that pits the two main characters against each other in some kind of twisted fate circumstance, otherwise known as the “meet-cute.” The actions those characters take in their first encounter will set a pattern that contains the theme of the whole book. Cue the violins,…

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Our guide holds a picture of how the field looked in 1936.

Triumph of the Will Then and Now

You have seen the images. A man stands elevated at a podium in the midst of a vast field. An enormous crowd packed into the field roars with one voice and salutes in unison — “Heil, Hitler!” Soldiers in knee-length black leather boots goose-step through the streets. Those pictures from the 1930s and 1940s are…

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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…

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From "The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God, The Atlantic, June 20, 2023. By Stephanie McCrummen. Photos by Olivia Crumm.

Separation of Church and State

The reason my family today is American and not Swiss is due to religious persecution. How to explain this? My religious ancestors left behind few words for future posterity. Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel, the earliest Anabaptists, were well-educated, ardent seekers during the early Reformation, who disputed with the leader of the Reformed movement, Ulrich…

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What’s Good About Aging?

I turned 75 years old on July 30.  This is the first birthday that seems undeniably like the beginning of old age — three quarters of the way to 100. Six years away from the average American female life expectancy of 81. No matter my fate, I am beginning to see the horizon and the…

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Cancer and Father’s Day

It began on Thanksgiving week. It has ended, for now at least, on Father’s Day week. In between were consultations with oncologists and surgeons, surgery, proton radiation treatments, and infusions of the drug Keytruda every six weeks. And now. . . Stuart’s malignant melanoma is gone! The doctor declared him to be “cancer free.” In…

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The left side is bruised but healing

Love and Its Relation to Death

“Death destroys a man. But the idea of death saves him.” –E. F. Forster We are traveling the pilgrim’s path between love and death. Our home is filling up with emblems of beauty, hope, and care from thoughtful people who have chosen to come on pilgrimage with us. Our neighbors, family, and friends near and…

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An Antidote to GrandSlump: Those Simple Little Pleasures

Perhaps you have seen this neologism from my friend Kerry Byrne: If you have grandchildren, and were lucky enough to have them all together, or even in stages, over the holidays, you know how grandslump feels. I do. After the children and grandchildren gather up their luggage and head for the car, and we have…

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