700 Sundays

This is a book about family.

Not food. Family.

I was lucky enough to see my maternal grandmother

on very many Sundays. Maybe one day, I will try to 

figure out how many Sundays I had with her.

You know what we had to eat? Wieners. From Pioneer

Sausage in St. Paul. No big food ceremony. A wiener.

On a fork. I loved it.

"Wiener" means Vienna sausage.

Here is a gem from the book:

"Heroes don't have to be public figures of any kind.

Heroes are right in your family.

There's amazing stories in all of our families,

you just have to ask,

"And then what happened?"

Remembering Mrs. Dahl

There is an old proverb that says,

We all die twice: Once when we die and

again when people no longer speak our name.

When I was growing up in Robbinsdale,

Gladys Dahl lived three houses away from us

in the brown brick house on the corner.

She was widowed and lived alone far longer than

made any sense. She was friendly and delightful, but 

was one of the few people I knew who was clearly

malnourished. She loved her cookies and coffee

and her cooking days were far behind her.

In addition to being a wonderful cook, my mother

had a real knack for interacting with the elderly.

Many were the times that one of us kids made the trip

across two yards to deliver her a plate of dinner.

We don't know if she actually ate it.

Eventually, she moved to the Augustana Nursing home

in the Elliot Park neighborhood in Minneapolis and the 

house was sold. We all missed her.

I don't know about you, but I recall times in the past 

like little vignettes, with an oval frame around them.

Mrs. Gladys Dahl

District # 4 Country School, 1934.

A treasure.

Mom is third from the right in the third row.

She is standing next to her best friend, Martha.

They are in the sixth grade.

Martha's sister Margaret is just above her.

Her other sister Agnes is just below her.

Miss Fredrickson is on the far right.

The twins are in the center of the second row.

I cannot be sure, but I think it is Dickie on the

left and Bobbie on the right.

Otto is the second from the right in the first row,

wearing the Mickey Mouse shirt.

District # 4 School

I heard a LOT about this school in Arden Hills growing up.

My mother and her siblings went to school here.

It was in the country, on County Road G, now Highway 96.

Ethel Fredrickson was her teacher.

The 8th grade graduation of the Rural Schools of Ramsey

County, Minnesota, was held at the Assembly Hall,

University Farm, St. Paul.

CLASS MOTTO:

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

Recovery

Feeling more Scrat-like these days!

There are still many question marks ahead,

but there are two things that keep me going.

The first is, my doctor saying,

"You'll be all right."

The second is, a fellow Wegener's patient telling me,

"One day, you won't have Wegener's anymore."

The Other Casualty Of War

This is a photo of my mother in August, 1941,

leading Prince & Queenie to the auction block.

This was traumatic.

The United States was on the verge of entering

Word War 11 and the government had taken over

their land in New Brighton, Minnesota, to build

a munitions plant. This was traumatic

.

The National Guard was called out and did not

even allow the families to gather the produce out

of their gardens! This was traumatic.

We live with this, to this day.

The blessing is that none of Dorothy's 

four brothers perished in the war.

Visit to Grandma Geisbauer

The occasion is my First Communion, May 20, 1962,

54 years ago. I was 7, Grandma was 77.

Any milestone in a child's life is important across

generations. Being unable to attend the actual event

at St. Joan Of Arc, of course, Grandma wished to

see me in my dress. So, it was off to Rice Street in

St. Paul. I lived too far away from my other Grandma.

I remember this so vividly-Grandma didn't want to

crush my veil, so her arm is barely touching me 

outside of the veil.

I wonder if she had memories of milestones at the

church of her childhood. I always ask people if they

feel a kind of pull toward places of their past.

They always say yes, as I do.

As was typical of the time, the film was not developed

until 2 years later!