Magical Memoir Moments

High School senior

Happy 90th, Mother: This Is Your Life!

It’s finally here. My mother has been talking about this day for the last six months. “Can you believe I’m going to be ninety?” she asks in genuine amazement every time I talk with her. Her five children, their spouses, children, their spouses, and their grandchildren now number 46. And all of us are celebrating…

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Mennonites and Santa: Then and Now

This picture of Santa and me, taken when I was one and a half years old, says a lot about my childhood, but tells only half the story. You would think, looking at this picture, that my family members were big fans of Santa and had lots of decorated trees, windows and presents. You would…

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Seeing a Ghost or Entertaining an Angel: Which was It?

Have you ever seen a ghost? An angel? The physical image of a departed loved one? No? Nor have I. But my mother did. Here’s how it happened. The year was 1951. Our family of four, Mother, Daddy, baby Henry, and me, lived on a farm near Manheim, Penna.  It was a Monday morning. Mother…

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Will You Still Be Sending Me a Valentine When I'm 64? You Bet!

Do love, beauty, and Valentine’s Day belong only to the young? I don’t think so! Like Paul McCartney, I got happy seeing older people in love even when I was very young. Our culture doesn’t celebrate old-age love and beauty. So we have to teach it to ourselves and each other. Here’s a valentine to all…

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Home for the Holidays: A New Mini-Memoir Blog Series

After I left the Fetzer Institute this summer, both Stuart and I began to feel an eastward tug. Our life together has followed this path: VA, TX, IN, Haiti, IN,VA, IN, Ivory Coast, IN, NC, IN, MI, VA. Love has taken us to a circle of new places, and now love calls us home. Forty-four years…

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