Mom, my sister Elaine and I have had a very nice visit the last few days. Elaine left this morning to return to Western Oklahoma where she lives. Here (photo below) we are returning from church services yesterday. The chair in the photo, from Mom's house, was one of several being loaded into Elaine's van. The chair is one of a set which Mom's parents had. It is going back to the Panhandle.

Here is a photo of my maternal grandparents in August 1958. They were German immigrants who had a wheat farm and stayed in spite of the dust bowl. That "tree" is a lilac bush under which I loved to play house. I am the 7 year old to the left side of the photo. Elaine is the littler sister here. Brother Chris is the baby and Hollis is the 6 year old.


Both sides of my family lived in this area in those dust bowl days. Before I was born, my mother was a teacher and one of her students was the youngest child in this famous photo. Western Oklahoma is a land of big sky, infinite stars and endless horizons. It is not an easy landscape to fall in love with, though the theater of the sky is truly wonderful!

I am now reading "The Worst Hard Time" and find it so full of information about the area I once called home. Not an easy read, but fascinating!

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One piece of good news- we seem to be in the process of closing on Mom's house. Keeping our fingers crossed!

Crafting and scrapbooking heritage....

This photo album belonged to my grandmother, Dora Schroeder. It is a beautiful album, made for photos which were rare and treasured items.

My grandmother and two of her brothers are in these photos. But what is the dark textile in the corner?

A pair of mittens knitted for my grandmother by her mother as a Christmas gift. The year was 1912. [Note: I had to lighten this in an attempt to make the decorative stitches around the cuff stand out. They are still hard to distinguish. The mittens are actually very black and probably seldom used...being saved for "best" and treasured as they were from her mother!]