Category Archives: Family

Why Are Funerals Sad Times for Some?

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Sylvia had plans to meet with her two older sisters and a cousin to attend the East Lansing, Michigan Art Fair.  This is a tradition for the gals and one they all look forward to each year with anticipation.  Plans changed when the mother-in-law of one of the sisters passed away quietly in her home.

I wasn’t going to write about this until I read today’s story on Lin’s blog.  She writes about an obit she read in the weekend paper.  It must have been a fun-loving family–especially the daughter who obviously wrote the obit.  Then I read Vanilla’s post regarding memory, and this post was formed in contemplating the writings of these two friends.

Ruth O. Peterson of Cadillac passed away peacefully at her home Tuesday evening, May 15, 2012. She was 89.

She was born in Burdell Township, Osceola County on December 24, 1922 to David & Agnes (Watson) Johnson, the sixth of seven children.  She grew up in the Tustin area, and was salutatorian and president of the 1940 class of Tustin High School.

You can see the intelligence and humor in that lovely face.  It is said of Ruth that she grew up in a house where they spoke “Swenglish”–a mixture of Swedish and English.  Someone related an exchange between young Ruth and a friend.  Fortunately, the story teller also translated for us.  There were many stories told and memories shared at the funeral.  I’d like to share two of them with you.

A daughter-in-law read a composition that was beautifully crafted.  Each stanza started with, “Mom always love me best.  I am [insert name and description in order of each of her four sons and two daughters].  It was obvious that mom loved each of them.  It made me think of the funeral for Sylvia’s mom.  They asked me to share a few words on behalf of the family.  As we talked about what to share, another of her sons-in-law summed it all up for those of us who had married into the family.  His words?  “She was my mom too.”  It is beautiful to see that love in a family and we saw it there at the celebration of Ruth’s life.

Ruth’s younger daughter related an incident from the past.  Mom was in the basement doing laundry and one of the boys was playing upstairs.  The peaceful atmosphere was interrupted by Ruth’s frantic call to her son, “Quick!  Come here I need you.”  One doesn’t tarry when mom uses that tone of voice.  The toy was dropped from the hand that held it.  Small feet hurried down two flights of stairs.  The youngster breathlessly asked his mother, “Yes, what is it?”  In a whisper, his mother said, “There is no Santa Claus.”

Our hearts go out to the Peterson family and we are comforted with them in seeing the joy of a life well lived.

Elouise Irving Harris 1920 – 2001

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Elouise Irving Harris, Sylvia’s mother, was born January 8, 1920 in Clinton County, Michigan.  She was the first of three daughters.  One week past her eleventh birthday, Elouise’s mother died. 

George, Rachel & children, Leona and Elouise – 1921

In writing of her memories, Elouise told of hoeing weeds in her father’s mint fields.  Here is part of that story: “Dad bought us coveralls to wear when hoeing mint.  Fine but made of jeans material and they covered everything but the face from the neck up and the hands.  So when we went to town we would be brown as a berry from the wrist down and the neck and face up but white elsewhere and worse yet they were hot so we unbuttoned the neck, which made a very decorative “V” and looked very good with a rounded neckline dress.”

A youthful Elouise spoofs for the family in her dad’s duds.

Sixteen-year-old Elouise was Clinton County’s first Mint Queen.  Until her death she supported the Mint Festival, and they honored her in return.

Elouise rides in the rumble seat – 1988

Here is another account from her memories: “Dad had two horses, Kit and Molly.  He really liked those horses – they were matched. He used them for cultivating and farm work.  One year he had a fellow who didn’t know much about horses.  It was a hot day and he didn’t let them rest very often.  Molly went down in the traces and they couldn’t get her up.  So she died there and dad buried her.  That fellow got fired.  Dad was really angry.  Then he got another horse called Dick.  Kit lived for quite a while after that and Dick after her.  Soon after Molly died dad started using tractors so Kit and Dick’s last years were relaxed.”

Elouise with daughter Sylvia at Glen Lake – ca. 1946

She was married to Leon Nelson Harris December 9, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan.  They had five children: Joyce, Karen, Sylvia, Bruce and Gaylynn.

Leon, Elouise, Joyce, Sylvia, Bruce and Karen – Christmas 2000

Elouise was a seamstress and worked many years for Sears in Lansing.  She was also very active in her church — particularly the missions program.
In March 2001 she suffered a stroke while sitting at her computer one evening.  Her husband, Leon, found her and rushed her to the hospital.  Unfortunately, she passed away Sunday, April 1, 2001.

Remembering Uncle Bob

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In anticipation of Veterans’ Day (tomorrow), let me share a little about a WWII veteran that I knew and loved.  He was Robert Hutchinson, but I call him Uncle Bob.

WWII Recruiting Poster

Uncle Bob was my father’s next younger brother.  The two of them ended up in the US Army Air Corps during WWII.  Dad pursued his dream to be a pilot.  Hostilities ended as he was about to enter the final phase of training.  Dream over.

Uncle Bob, trained as an aviation mechanic.  He became the crew chief on a P-47 called Pete the Pup, which was flown by the colonel who was the unit commander.

P-47

I remember the end of 1945.  Dad returned in time for Thanksgiving.  Uncle Bob was in Europe and came back home a bit later.  For a short while, Bob lived with us.  He found work as the town constable.  As the village (population about 2000) law-enforcement officer, he carried a shiny badge and a big revolver.  Five-year-old me was greatly impressed!  He stood tall and straight.  He was handsome with thick wavy hair.  He was soon married to Aunt Irene–a farmer’s daughter.

Here are some pictures of Uncle Bob from the ’40s:

Bob and Irene

Bob’s story is typical of many men from that era.  They volunteered or were drafted.  they trained and did their duty for the duration, or for as long as they were able, and then returned to home and family.  For dad, the return was to mother, sister Barbara and me.  For Uncle Bob, it was a return to his sweetheart Irene.  Marriage and children followed.

Uncle Bob’s 4th great grandfather, John Hutchinson from Vermont fought in the Revolutionary War and died at Valley Forge.  John’s grandson, Bob’s 2nd great grandfather, fought in the War of 1812 before settling in west New York near Batavia.

There have been others.  Today, I fondly remember my father’s brother.

Uncle Bob passed away in March of 1990.  Sylvia and I were living on the east coast, and I was not able to get back to Michigan for his funeral.  I do miss this great guy.

Our Getaway ~ Pt 7

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With Tahquamenon Falls and Paradise behind us, we headed south for the bridge back to the lower peninsula.  It was late afternoon when we crossed over the Straights of Mackinac.

And many miles to go before I sleep

We made a right turn and took US-31 down the west side of the state.  After we stopped for gas, I slipped behind the wheel.  Some time later, it was dark and we were hungry.  We had had a late lunch, so we hadn’t stopped earlier.  We pulled into the town of Elk Rapids.  Eagle-eyed Sylvia saw the pizza place, and I stopped in front of it.  Their pizza was good!

After we had eaten, Sylvia took the wheel for the final leg of our drive to Glen Lake.  It was about 10 PM when we arrived.  While I unloaded the car, Sylvia built a fire in the fireplace.  We had some popcorn and hot tea before calling it a day.

It was chilly when I awoke on Friday morning.  Sylvia had been up for some time.  She was in the kitchen reading and enjoying some hot tea in front of the stove.  Once again, she had started a fire in the fireplace.  We sat in front of that fire for a while reading.  She drank tea.  I enjoyed a cup of coffee.  As we sat there, she suddenly popped up and said, “I’ve got to get a picture of this.”

Arthritic old man reads in front of fire

Fifty years earlier, Sylvia and I had spent our two-day honeymoon here at Crosby Cottage.  The weather was very warm in 1961.  This time it would be an overnight stay.  It was very chilly and we decided not to make it a long visit.

That morning, we drove to Glen Arbor with three destinations in mind.  The first was Cherry Republic, a store that sells food stuff with cherries.  They specializes in mixes with cherries, nuts, dried fruits and chocolate.  Plenty of free samples.  And it is all so good!  We made some purchases, which we are still enjoying.

Next stop, the Synchronicity Art Gallery.  Michael Crosby, a relative, has some of his sculptures on display (and for sale) at the gallery.  We spent over an hour there enjoying the many works of art.

Our final stop was at the Crystal River.  This time of year, the coho salmon have come into the river.

Coho salmon swimming in the Crystal River

This school seemed content just to circle around in endless circles playing a game of follow-the-leader.  It was relaxing and fun to watch the fish.  We also checked at the dam a way upstream from this scene.  The salmon had not progressed that far upstream.  They should be there in another week or two.

We returned to the cottage, where we enjoyed a modest lunch while sitting under the trees.  We enjoyed the view of beautiful Glen Lake as we remembered the many times we had been there before.

Crosby Cottage has a great view of Glen Lake

We watched a pair of swans gliding across the lake.  A pair of sailboats added more interest to the scene.  One of the sailors was adept the other was an obvious novice.  Eventually it was time to load the car, close up the cottage and head for home.

We made a couple of stops to stretch and change drivers.  About four miles from home we would drive pass our nearest pizza and sandwich shop.  We stopped there for a sandwich before continuing home where a warm house, cat and bed all waited for our return.  We were tired, but felt very good.  It had been a lot of fun.  The trip meter indicated 902 miles driven in three days.  It sure was good to be home.

Our Getaway ~ Pt 6

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Our drive to Paradise had recharged the car battery.  Sylvia and I each had a bowl of delicious chili at the restaurant.  The friendly waitress had let us use a wall outlet to recharge the camera battery.  We took our time, sitting, talking and eating our chili.

After lunch, we made the short drive to the lower Tahquamenon (rhymes with phenomenon) Falls.  As you enter the state park, you are greeted by a sign that says, “Take nothing but photographs.  Leave nothing but foot prints.”  That should be our attitude.  Not only when we visit places of great natural beauty, but always.

Silly tourists

As we examined the map of the lower falls area, Sylvia noticed the reflection of a couple wearing John Deere caps in the glass.  I like the effect that she captured there in front of the sign.

The reason we look so happy is that we are well fed, and our batteries are charged.  Oh yes, and it’s the two of us together and enjoying every minute of it.

Enjoying the view

A friendly fellow tourist offered to take a picture of both of us.  I asked that she put us on the right side of the frame.  Wouldn’t you know, she centered us.  You can barely see the interesting part of the river on the left side.  I hope she likes the shot that I took better.  I was a step to the right and framed her on the right.  I held the camera above my head so that the falls are near and slightly above her right shoulder.

The camera battery was not completely charged so we enjoyed our visit and took few pictures.  We knew the best would be the upper falls.  We headed there next.

Caught at the map yet again

A bit longer walk this time, but not bad at all.  The rain had stopped and the skies were clearing a bit.  While the air was cool, it was a great day for getting out and hiking (a little bit).

Upper Tahquamenon Falls

The water has a brownish tint.  This is caused by drainage from surrounding cedar and tamarack swamps.  We had seen pictures, but photos don’t compare with being there.  This is what we had driven so far to see.

Sylvia at the upper falls

We could have walked down 98 steps to the river level, but elected not to do that.  We had an excellent view from where we were and we were both a bit tired.

As I was taking the above shot of Sylvia, a tourist couple from down our way came into the observation area.  The man offered to take a shot of both of us.  He very carefully framed the shot, shifted and reset.  Finally he captured this:

What a beautiful day

Didn’t he do a great job?  I cropped the image a bit.  He had asked me if I could do that before he took the shot.  He had to hold the camera as high as he could above his head to get all of the falls in the frame.  He could have moved closer, but that would have made us appear larger and the falls smaller by comparison.  Good guy!

We took our time and enjoyed the sights and sounds.  Then we left.  Sylvia was behind the wheel as we made our way back to Paradise and turned south.  It would take about four hours driving time to reach the family cottage at Glen Lake.  She wanted to sleep there that night.  I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow in the final part of this account.

Our Getaway ~ Pt 5

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Last week,  I left the story with us aboard the Nokomis ready to begin our tour of the Soo Locks at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.  There had been ice on the car that morning, it had been raining and gusty winds were the order of the day.  The good news was forecasters were calling for clearing skies.

A hopeful sign appeared in the sky

Shortly after 10 AM our journey started.  A voice on the speaker system told us about the various facilities located along the water front as we went by.  An hour later we were approaching the Canadian side.  Freighter traffic going through the [larger] American side meant we’d go up on the other side.

A light signals ships regarding lock status.

We only had to wait a short while before the lower gates began to open.  The red signal light meant we could not yet enter.  Soon, it turned to green and our vessel entered the lock.

Hiawatha goes through the lock with Nokomis

Our captain pulled the ship to the upper end of the lock.  Another ship from the same company pulled in behind us and the lower gates began to close.  After some time we could tell that our ship was rising.  At first rather slowly and eventually a bit faster.

Water filing the lock would lift the two ships about 21 feet.  No pumps are used.  Valves are opened to let water from the upper side fill the lock.  In the reverse process, other valves are used to release water to the lower side as ships are lowered.

It’s a very interesting process.  A diagram of how this worked was posted on an interior bulkhead of our ship.

View from topside as we prepare to leave the Canadian lock

It takes several minutes to move over a million gallons of water.  Nevertheless, the process moves along quite efficiently.  The tour was informative and fun.  Soon we would sail out on the upper side of the lock to see what was up there.

Some steel-making ingredients

We went around a Canadian steel plant.  It is immediately obvious that this is a large-scale operation.  At least it seems that way to me.  Our tour guide told of the materials and their handling as we made our way around the company harbor.

As I took the photo above, I realized the camera battery was nearly flat.  A couple of useless thoughts were going through my mind.  “Why didn’t I recharge the battery last night at Aunt Ceal’s?”  And, “Why didn’t I buy a spare battery, like my son and daughter-in-law suggested?”  As I said, useless thoughts.

A half hour later, our tour ended back at the dock where it had begun.  From the steel plant, Nokomis crossed back over to the American side where we went through the McArthur Lock on our way to the dock.

In the parking lot, I discovered that the car battery was dead.  I had left the headlights on when I parked the car.  Several tour company employees came to my rescue and with borrowed jumper cables, one of them gave me the jump to get the car started.  An hour and a quarter later, we entered a restaurant in Paradise, Michigan.  (Yes, we can now say we’ve been to paradise together.  We’ve also been to Hell, Michigan, but that’s another story.)  We were able to recharge the camera battery–at least enough to last the rest of that day.

A Belated Happy Birthday

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Yesterday, Sylvia and I made the 50-minute drive to her dad’s house near St Johns, Michigan.  Her father and brother were waiting for us when we arrived.  A few minutes later, a sister and her husband drove in too.  A few minutes later, the six of us were loaded into two vehicles and we were headed north to Mt Pleasant.  There we met another sister and her husband.  (The only ones missing were the sister that lives in Florida and her husband.)

We had a nice supper at Ruby Tuesday’s.  Then we headed to the park for cake and ice cream.  Fortunately, the rain had ended and the sun was shining–be it ever so weakly.

German chocolate cake is Dad’s favorite

We were nearly three weeks late, and we found the air a bit cooler here toward the end of September.  Dad assured everyone that it was never too late for the family to get together as we were doing at that time.

Butter pecan ice cream was served with the cake.  Sylvia had brought hot tea, lemonade and water.  (I got a cup of coffee to go from Ruby Tuesday.)

We talked at length about late summer’s travel.  One sister told us about her tour of Europe.  The other about their trip to Colorado to visit a son and pregnant (with twins) daughter-in-law.  Sylvia talked a bit about our trip (I’ll tell you more later this week).  Of course, there were pictures to share.

Looking at vacation pictures

We had eaten our cake and ice cream and [mostly] cleared the table.  Sylvia’s sisters, their husbands and father looked at our pictures.  Sylvia, her brother and I were looking at their pictures.  The sun was dropping lower as we looked at pictures and continued to talk.  The park is located on low ground beside a river.  Thanks to the earlier rain and cool temperatures a fog began to form over the park.  You can see a bit of it on the left side of the picture above.  The sun was starting to set, and so we reluctantly parted ways to return home.  It had been a good day.

When we got to Dad’s house, Sylvia and I went in so that I could check some things on his computer.  It took a while, but we got the problems solved.  Then I scanned a photo for him.  After that, I cropped, re-sized and processed it.  The lighting made his face look harsh, which it is not.  So I softened that and increased the color saturation a bit to make him look a bit better.  Then we uploaded the photo to his Facebook profile.  No, really we did.

It was after midnight by the time I got to bed last night.  That’s why I’m a bit late getting this post up today.

Our Getaway ~ Pt 4

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We awoke on Day 2 to a chilly day.  It had rained overnight and the temperature had dropped.  It went below freezing.  No problem.  We were prepared.

That’s ice on my car

We had breakfast and said goodbye to Aunt Ceal and Cousin Nancy.  We headed east on M-28 for Sault Ste Marie and the famous Soo Locks.  It takes a little over an hour to make the detour and see the locks.  It would be a first for both of us, so we were ready to go.

Rain and sun made the drive interesting

Once again we had dramatic skies to view as we headed east toward the Soo.  Actually it wasn’t much fun driving into the sun on roads wet with falling rain.

Much of the way, we felt like we had the road to ourselves.  It took about an hour and a half to arrive at Sault Ste Marie.  In town, there are a lot of detours to route traffic around road construction and maintenance projects.  Nevertheless, we had no trouble finding our destination.

Soo Locks Boat Tours

A few minutes later, I had purchased tickets for the two-hour tour aboard the Nokomis.  We arrived in good time and soon joined the crowd waiting to board.

About twenty minutes later, they did call boarding, and we walked out to the Nokomis.

The Nokomis tour boat

It was still raining lightly, so we found seats on the lower level.  That way we could see, but be protected from the rain and the stiff breeze.

It didn’t take long to load our vessel.  The mooring lines were secured and we were ready to depart.

This woman runs the company docks

This was going to be fun.  Even if it did rain, we were going to enjoy it.  And we did.  I’ll tell you more next week.

Our Getaway ~ Pt 3

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After the stop for photos, we resumed our drive along the Lake Michigan shore on US-2.  It looked like it might rain at anytime, and later it did.  The views are stunning along this stretch of highway.

Spectacular scenery lies along US-2

We stopped to eat supper in Brevort.  When I was in grade school my family camped in the area a couple of times.  Next to the restaurant sits an ice cream store.

Bareman’s HQ is in Holland, Michigan

This ice cream store catches one eye.  I had to take a picture of this for a couple of friends.  They work for Bareman’s, which has a distribution point about 5 miles from our house.  I’d like to have some of that right now, wouldn’t you?

Sylvia was driving as we passed Little Hog Island

We would later hear the story of how hogs were taken across the ice in spring and left on Hog Island for the summer.  When the lake had frozen again, they were brought back to the barn for protection from the winter weather.  At least that’s what we were told.

The weather began to look more like rain.  Soon we began to see rain falling over Lake Michigan.

We could see rain over Lake Michigan

Skies were very interesting as bright sunshine and rain clouds fought for domination.  We began to experience rainfall, but could always see more sunlight.

Another view of sun and rain in competition

Soon, we would turn inland and head for the home of Sylvia’s Aunt Ceal.  About half an hour after taking the picture above, we arrived at our destination.

Aunt Ceal and Sylvia

We had a very nice visit and spent the night with Sylvia’s aunt and cousin Nancy.  We had driven 344 miles in about seven and a half hours.  We didn’t rush and many stops to stretch our legs.

Thus ended day one.  We were tired and very happy.  Day two would be the big day.