Big storm coming

The NWS is forecasting a big storm for us starting tonight and running into Tuesday afternoon!
Not just snow, but also sleet and freezing rain. There is a possibility of a half-inch of ice on branches, plus high winds - which could result in downed power lines. So we are preparing as best we can for a power outage. We have a wood stove and lots of wood, plus a propane fireplace insert that does not require electricity, so we can keep warm. We can cook on the woodstove, plus we have a propane camp stove. We have lots of candles. Food can be stored outside on the deck unless it is either too warm or too cold. I've filled pots and pans and buckets with water, but that only lasts a short while. So we are sort of prepared for a day-long or even two-day outage, but if it goes on longer, it starts getting a bit dicey. We'll see!

Christmas report

Here we are three days after Christmas!  The last few days have sped by, but they have been quite lovely and all has gone well. Sunday morning we went to the Guilford Church, and it was Pageant Sunday. The pageant is quite spectacular at Guilford - mainly because of very handsome animal heads that are worn in procession. It's a "wow!" moment. Also people of all ages are in the pageant from a few months old (Baby Jesus) to elders in their 80's and even 90's, and everything in between. It also integrates many of our members that have disabilities. That makes it special. Ellen also brought many plates of cookies for carolers to take to shut-ins,  but we ourselves didn't go caroling. Just too much.

The rest of Sunday was quiet. Spelling Bee, sitting by the fire, listening to Says You and All the Traditions on NPR.

Monday we went out and actually found a Christmas tree. Some places were sold out. But at Allen Brother's nursery we found one - not perfect but still nice. I got it up and put on the lights. Jim and Mary arrived around 5pm and we had supper together. I also spent some time finishing my gift to Savanna, whose name I was given in the Tolles Family gift drawing.

Tuesday was Christmas Eve Day. I had rehearsed the choir the previous Friday. What I mainly did was go visiting - I visited five people/homes in the afternoon. Shut-ins, etc. Ellen went to the movies and Jim and Mary took in Brattleboro. Everyone I visited was very glad for the visit, not least because I brought each one a plate of Ellen's cookies!

Tuesday evening was Christmas Eve, and I led the choir in Dummerston at 7pm, we came home for a quick snack and then went to Guilford for a 9:30 choir rehearsal (led by Andy Davis) for an 11pm service. Both services were very nice and Jim sang in the choir at both and said he really liked the music at both.

Christmas Day we all went to Katie and Savanna's for a gathering of the Tolles/Feinland families, 16 in all. It was noisy but fun. We draw names for gifts and I had drawn Savanna. I decided to make her one of my signature "Christmas Fantasy House" origami paper montages - the fifth one I have made. I was happy with it, and I think Savanna loved it. This gathering has traditions: it always includes singing from the Tolles Family Christmas Book, it always includes MadLibs, Christmas "crackers" at the table, tourtière (a French-Canadian pork pie which is delicious) and plum pudding for dessert (made by Ellen). It was a full day and enjoyable. It also is a lot of work for Katie and Savanna and after everyone had left, we talked with them about these traditions and whether they could make changes that would make it less exhausting for them.

Thursday we had a quiet morning at home, and I did some last-minute wrapping for John and Cynthia, and then we went to their house for a late afternoon/evening supper and Christmas. Very peaceful by contrast. That was very nice. They have made significant changes in their living-room with a new stove and a new couch. it looked very elegant but also very cozy. Their tree was a white pine off their land - but unusually bushy for a white pine.

Friday was an open, quiet day. Ahh! I worked on my annual Christmas letter and making cards (I save old Christmas cards and make new ones from them).

Today we went to the Revels in Cambridge, MA - an annual event. This was a very good one - set in America in 1933 - the year I was born - in the Depression. A lot of songs about poverty and hard times. It made me wonder about my first Christmas - when I was 9 months old. We were very poor - dad was a student in seminary and his student church in Big Rock, IL was so devastated they could not even pay him his $600 annual salary. I wonder if we even had a tree?

Here are some photos from the week:

Animals at the Guilford Church Pageant

The "Christmas Fantasy House" montage I made for Savanna (their house decked out for Christmas)

John and Cynthia's white pine Christmas tree

Our tree

Savanna has a Christmas display of houses we made years ago - I think Ellen made the one second from left and I made the one on the right (it's a train station).

Tamar with Ben

Ben and Max enjoying each other

Ellen's cookies

Sanders Theater - site of The Revels - with the Harvard Design Center in foreground

Into the Silence

It is Dec. 21st, the Winter Solstice, and we are at the Dummerston Church, where John and Cynthia are setting up for their Into the Silence Solstice concert/meditation. It is done in a darkened church by candlelight. John plays cello, Irish whistle and guitar, Cynthia plays two different harps. The music is very beautiful. Some includes animal sound recordings - whale and seals. We provide candles, which Ellen is putting out below,  and Ellen brought soup.

A special way to observe the solstice.

Setting for Into the Silence

Nowell revived

Monday night, there was a revival concert by Nowell Sing We Clear - after their retirement 5 years ago - with all four, including Tony, on board, but joined by an upcoming generation of young singers, two of whom - Lauren Breunig and Arthur Davis - are children of Nowell members Fred Breunig and Andy Davis. It was a wonderful even - the original Nowell four were still fantastic and the young folks were worthy successors. The Latchis Theater was full to the brim and the audience was wildly enthusiastic.

The original four: Andy Davis, Tony Barrand, John Roberts, Fred Breunig

Brian, Emma and Arthur

Finale with all musicians

Yesterday we got more snow - about 4-5 inches. We were able to go in and out with the car before we got plowed out late last night.

Today is gorgeous - sunny and fairly mild.

A powerful service

The funeral for Pooja Meyer was one of the most powerful services I have ever attended. It was a wonderful tribute to her, starting with scores of her photographs being projected on to a screen (she was a budding professional photographer and obviously gifted in that area), and then many tributes from friends and family, very wonderful and appropriate music, and free expressions of emotion. Our pastor, Lise Sparrow, once again did a masterful job of preparing and leading the service, and she was assisted by many member volunteers - all this in Centre Church (which holds many more people), and thus not a familiar venue. It was full to overflowing.

Then in the evening we had a great River Singers concert, and another one this afternoon.  Both went really well. This morning was church in Dummerston - a small choir helped with the congregational singing. Pastor Shawn did triple duty, leading the service, and playing both piano and harp. It was also the Sunday School Christmas Pageant day.

Christmas Pageant in Dummerston

Pastor Shawn Bracebridge at the piano

A not quiet week

This has been quite a week. First of all, we got news on Monday that Pooja Meyer, the adopted daughter of our beloved organist at the Guilford Church, Patty Meyer (and her husband Chris) had died in an automobile accident Sunday morning. She was nineteen. This was devastating news. Pooja had been adopted from India when she was about 8 years old, and we got to know her through the Guilford Church. Patty has always held a special place in my heart - starting with the fact that before coming to Guilford, she had lived and worked in Winchester, MA, where Betsey and her family lived before they moved to Boulder. i served on the Pastoral Relations Committee with Patty for several years as well as doing many musical things with her. Ellen and I immediately drove to Guilford with the intent of taking  the family a freshly baked apple pie, but we couldn't get up the Meyer's driveway - there was fresh snow and ice - but we were able to leave it at the church with Lise Sparrow and the family got it the next day. Tuesday was River Singers and Wednesday we sang at a vigil for Pooja at GCC in the late afternoon, followed immediately by a sing for our little friend (now turned five) who is dying of brain cancer (a particularly lovely sing), followed immediately by Concert Choir (where Patty has been the accompanist !), so that was an emotional day. Today, Ellen took lunch to the Meyer family (we got up the drive ok this time - things have melted) and then went to the Vermont Country Store with Eliza. It is now awful outside - freezing rain - and I am at the pool. Tomorrow is the funeral for Pooja, where 400 or more are expected - and then River Singers concert! Dummerston Choir Sunday morning and another RS concert in the afternoon. Whew!

An earlier photo of Patty with Pooja, and her children Wynona and Aiden

A "quiet" Saturday

Today started out to be a day with nothing scheduled. I did sleep late, and enjoyed breakfast by the fire. But then we heard from Katie and Savanna and we may be  meeting them later for a "Crankie Fest" at Sandglass theater.

But I did so some errands - a lamp to Brown & Roberts Hardware to get a new switch, some time in the pool (first time in over a week), ATM, drug store, etc. Saturday things.

It's a beautiful day out side - sunny and cold.

Carolyn "Bunny" Hazelton

Earlier today was Bunny Hazelton's funeral at the Dummerston Church. Ellen and I sang in the choir and I gave a brief tribute. Bunny and Don were next-door neighbors 62 years ago when I became the minister in Dummerston and moved into the parsonage. Ellen and I joined with our pastor, Shawn, last Sunday and went down to Thompson House, a local nursing home, and sang for Bunny. She died later than night. My tribute will tell the story:


"My relationship with Bunny goes back 62 years. It has been one in which a great deal of love and affection has flowed back and forth. I have always been fond of Bunny, grounded in a respect for her positive attitude toward life and the way she dealt with adversity. And every time I would see her, no matter how many months or even years might have lapsed between visits, I always felt so much love and affection coming from her.

It all went back to the summer of 1957 when Shirley and I moved into the parsonage and we became  next-door neighbors to. the Hazeltons. Not long after we had moved in, their little son, Michael, was in a playpen between the two houses one day and he caught his head between the slats and died. When I learned what had happened I went to the house, but I was at a total loss for words. I was twenty-four years old, freshly minted as a minister, and nothing in my seminary training had prepared me for this.

Bunny never tired of reminding me of the time. "Larry didn't know what to do,"  she would say, "so he just sat there in the living room with us and cried".  This was my first experience with death as a minister. I had not even had a course on how to prepare a funeral service - my seminary education was strong on theology but weak on the how-to's. Somehow we got through it together. That was the beginning of a deep bond. And in some wonderful way, I think it made me a better minister.

Many years have gone by since. I have not always been very good about keeping in touch but after I became choir director here I tried to make sure we went by before Christmas to sing carols for Bunny and her family. Bunny was very musical, sometimes she played the piano with us, and she always beamed with pleasure at our being there. And she always told that story of how it all began, how we all just cried together. 

Ellen, Shawn and I sang for Bunny just hours before she died. She was no longer able to tell the story but I knew it was in her heart as it was in mine. I love this family. They have all been so caring and kind and loving. I thank God for Bunny, for gift of grace to me, and I will carry her smlle and her love in my heart forever."

Bunny Hazelton (1930-2019)

 

Cookie time

We are in the week leading up to the Guilford Church Christmas Bazaar - and as usual, Ellen is baking cookies for the cookie platters. But that isn't all. Tomorrow, we will go to a funeral for Bunny Hazelton, where I will be speaking, briefly, and we both will be in the choir. I will post about that later. Tomorrow evening, Andy Davis hopes we can sing at the Moment for Peace at Center Church, where he is leading music. That will depend entirely on how the cookies are coming - Friday eve is when we assemble cookie platters! Last night we had a Concert Choir rehearsal, Tuesday was River Singers rehearsal (both have concerts coming up soon). Wednesday afternoon we sang again with Hallowell for the little boy who is dying of brain cancer. As you can see, this is quite a week. We also got a big storm on last Sunday and Monday - we got over 15 inches!

Cookie platters being assembled

Ellen made this tree and all the ornaments on it - mostly felted

Robin made "heart" refrigerator magnets and asked me to make a sign on the theme "take heart" from a sermon I gave on Christmas Day, 1988 which she remembered!

 All this is just a fraction of the church Christmas Bazaar!  It is quite an event.

Stewart Letter #18

Note: This letter is the first one Stewart has written on "official" ASTU stationery, which was supplied to him and others free of charge.

Letter #18 Nov. 30 and Dec 5, 19441 

Letterhead stationery images

Dear Mother,
The time has seemed to pass so quickly since I have been here that I have gotten used to the routine without realizing it, although I will never become so accustomed that I would not want to return to civilian life. The army has its representatives here: four sergeants, two first lieutenants, one captain, and, until recently, a colonel.

Today we had a turkey dinner, and Charles Bruning and I are going out to Thanksgiving dinner this evening. I was surprised to find anyone here who knew anyone that I knew. Mr. and Mrs. Ferris2 were very hospitable, even taking pictures of us and records of our voices.3 By the way, Charles Bruning is a good friend of mine from a Congregational Church in North Dakota whom I met at Ft. Leavenworth on Nov. 2. He was supposed to have arrived the day before, but his orders did not come soon enough for such a long distance. I met Raymond Flynn, the boy from Chelsea, Iowa, when I got off the train at Leavenworth. He got on the same train at Marshalltown.4

Charles goes with me to church but doesn't sing in the choir. The service is broadcast over KFAB, what kilocycles, I do not know. The weather here for about two weeks was very rainy, and then the temperature went down and snow fell in large quantities. Now we have ice everywhere, and snow on top of it. The cold is easily noticeable even on a short walk over to the student union, where we eat chow. There is a radio in the large lounge and Dayton's 

Notes:
1  This letter was written in two stages. Cf. paragraph four. 

2  Stewart calls these hosts "Ferris" but in par. 4 the hosts are called "Harris." Since this is probably the same family, I'm not sure which name is correct. If I went to the archives of the Congregational Church in Lincoln (if they exist), I could probably figure this out.
3 This tells us that this family was fairly well-to-do, because any kind of home recording equipment in 1944 was expensive. I don't think cassette tape recorders existed then, so this recording was probably on a plastic disk.

4 Information about Charles Bruning and Ray Flynn is in the notes to Letter #17 in a previous blog.

Memorial Chimes5 is frequently tuned in, when the boys stretch out on the furniture at about 7:15 after breakfast. 

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This part of the letter that I am now beginning is being written on Dec.5, so you can see how rushed I am. We were invited to the Harris home for Sunday dinner on Dec. 3 again, but Chuck could not go, so I went alone. They are more generous than I deserve.6 

One-third of our first term is now over, and we have had our four-weeks tests. It is possible to flunk out at the end of four weeks, or twelve weeks, if one is bad enough. 

I am lucky that I got in when I did, or else a month later, because beginning in the January classes, no one beginning can have more than two terms, no matter how close to seventeen. In fact, anyone not enlisted in the ERC (the ACER is closed, as is the Air Corps) by Jan 1, and unable to begin classes by March 1, cannot get into the ASTRP at all. 

I will need no stationery, as this upon which I am writing was given to me by the office (Regimental Headquarters), as was to everyone else.7 

I have received the bathrobe, ping-pong paddles and balls. You needn't have sent all four paddles and six balls, since I must now loan the extras to others when I am not using them to play doubles.8 

Don't worry about my minding your opening my letters from Daddy. It would be different if you were not my Mother and he not my Father. 

On Dec. 23, Saturday, we get off at 13:00, and we must be present at Reveille on Dec. 26, Tuesday, at 6:15. If I can find a way of getting there and back in time, and be able to stay there 24 hours, I shall do it, unless the cost, as by airplane, is prohibitive. 

The church is beautiful, rather on the lines of the Capitol, which has a large base, and a single tower reaching for the sky from that, much like the Foshay Tower.9 Don't worry about my reporting for Sick Call when I feel ill, because I know that i'm not paying for it, and usually i would not miss much in the way of classes unless I had a temperature, which would send me to quarters. 

Notes:
5 Dayton's was a big department store in Minneapolis - the "Macy's" of Minneapolis. I'm not sure what "Memorial Chimes" refers to, but it could have been a radio program broadcast by Dayton's. It is very possible that Dayton's had their own radio station.

6 I'm guessing that Stewart doesn't mean this personally but reflects his feeling that as a college student in the ASTRP he isn't really making a big sacrifice as a member of the military. He's actually being paid to go to college, and that might have made him feel that he doesn't deserve any special treatment. And as he implies in the next paragraphs, he feels very lucky that he got in at all, because the program is closing down - he got in just "under the wire."

7 This in one of several places in this letter where Stewart is obviously responding to something mother had said in an earlier letter sent to him. In fact, virtually every paragraph after this one seems to be referring to something she had said.

8 Knowing mother, she probably felt badly that she might have inadvertently caused Stewart some inconvenience by sending him too many paddles and balls.

9 See letter #17 in a previous blog for photos of the church, the capitol, and the Foshay Tower. 

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Our teeth were given a preliminary examination here at the Library, and the examiner mentioned my nice inlays! Last Saturday, the 2nd, I was ordered to the Lincoln Air Base to have my teeth serviced. In fifteen minutes, a captain drilled two cavities , one porcelain, and one amalgam. I go again tomorrow. the fellows who have some very bad teeth really suffer, but I don't have to worry because my fillings are all in good condition, and I have merely a few little cavities in front.10 


I miss you and Larry a lot, too, although I have about forty new friends that take my mind off of the fact quite a bit. Generally, this is not a bad life, since all the necessities of life are provided, but we must work to earn it.
I do not have to miss the (Sunday) evening program entirely, for I can go after 21:00 to the church and roller skate until 22:30, when the activities cease. Bedcheck occurs every night at 23:15. 

Mr. Fessler seems to be getting more than his share of bad breaks. the real issue, however, is whether he can retain himself despite all adversity.11

There are four Coca-Cola machines in the day room, which is about twenty feet from our barracks door, and several varieties of candy bars are usually on sale in the office, also on second. 

I have not as yet sent my civilian clothes home, because a sergeant said not to, for what would a fellow wear if he were sent home? Several fellows, however, have gone home and they just sent home for their clothes.12 Besides, I do not intend to leave in that manner.13 

Clayton Dalrymple, one of the graduates of M.H.S,14 1944, is now on furlough from here. He started in September, when I would have if I had passed my physical the first time.15 

I enjoy all my classes, and feel amiable toward all the professors. We skip some of the subject matter, since we will complete 1 year of engineering in 24 weeks, whereas the college freshmen would do it in 36. 

Notes:
10 Stewart is obviously feeling that all that dental work done earlier in the summer, at the Univ. of Minn. Dental College, was entirely justified.

11 The Fesslers were active in the Como Church. They had a boy my age, "Chuck," who was a friend. Mrs. Fessler and mother were fairly close friends too. I know mother stayed in touch with her over the years. I don't remember what adversities Mr.Fessler was experiencing, but Stewart's statement about "retaining himself" is another one of his remarkably mature insights for a 17-year-old.

12 Back in that day, clothes could be sent through the mail very cheaply. There were cases made for that very purpose, and they had a special postage rate. Even 6 years later, I regularly sent laundry home from college for mother to do, and it cost about 60 cents for postage to send the case.

13 I. e., he does not intend either to flunk out or be sent home because of infractions of discipline. 14 Marshall High School.

15 The name "Dalrymple" became known to us in the later forties and after: Homer Dalrymple was the minister in Anamosa just before dad arrived in 1946, and his nephew, Dean (or was it Lee?) was minister in Elgin at First Congregational Church (Stewart's church) for several years. I have not been able to find this particular "Clayton Dalrymple" on-line. There is a well-known baseball player of the same name, however. 


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Don't worry about my welfare, since I will be alright, and keep yourself well.

                                                    Your loving son, Stewart


P.S. I am also sending three pictures of myself which were taken at the PX at Ft. Leavenworth. They cost just a quarter apiece, and also they aren't very good pictures. Of course I don't photograph very well.16




Note:

16 These photos have not survived - I assume they were taken in a photo booth, and if so, they would be pretty faded even if they did exist. When I am able, I will attach a photo of mother, Stewart and me, taken in 1944 to send to dad. It will show how we all looked at about the time these letters were being written. 

Larry, Mother,  Stewart, c. 1944 (ages 11, 43 and 17 respectively)