Tuesday, December 12, 2023



 

Confession--I love a real tree for Christmas.  But, I also love a fake tree that looks really fake.  Fake trees that try to look real are just a little too cheesy for me.  A nice silver tree, especially one that is well-loved and shows it here and there, is just the ticket to brighten up my home for the holidays.

Besides, a silver tree reminds me of my Grandma Lil.  She and Grandpa Ben had one in their apartment on 13th Street in St. Louis.  I don't remember a lot about Grandma Lil and Grandpa Ben, but I remember the silver tree.  I also remember the smell of the shaving soap that Grandpa used, the tile in the bathroom, and the nicely shaped wooden posts of the beds.

Several years ago, I thought of Mom's silver tree that she used to put up in her sunroom, and I dug it out of dad's basement and set it up.  It was an instant hit with the grandkids.  It is different than any they have, plus what isn't cool about a turning color wheel?  Which reminds me of how nice it is NOT to have to put lights on a cedar tree every year.  Taking them off is even worse than putting them on because by the time you take them off the tree is especially prickly.  

Now, I also have another confession.  I don't like to decorate early.  I do like Christmas decorations, but they make me feel a little claustrophobic.  It is always with a sign of relief that I take down the decorations and pack them away.  It is probably partly because we are always having to fit people into our house with a shoehorn anyway, and the tree just eats up quite a large amount of room that could be used for seating at the family dinners.

Anyway, I put decorating off as long as I could this year, but today was the day.  So I rounded up 11 of our 17 grandkids, gave them the box with the tree, and set them to it.  They did a nice job.  The Biggles and Middles helped the Littles as needed.  They always do.  I love them for it.

Afterward, Colyn found some lights and the kids decided to try to brighten up our porch.  That didn't quite work, so they decided to decorate the playhouse.  Not only did they decorate it, but they cleaned the playhouse, and then they cut a little tree down and decorated it too.

Fernnook has gotten quite festive this year with a lighted outdoor tree and gnomes at the boy's place (Ken and KJ's), and a lighted outdoor tree at the Joel Harding home.  Of course dad's house has outside lights, but it faces Highway K, not K-2.  I don't know about further down the road past us, because I haven't been down after dark lately, but now we can add our own dazzle with our lighted tree and playhouse.  

We celebrated the lovely tree and playhouse decorations with cups of hot toto (as Toliver calls it) and marshmallows.  



Friday, December 08, 2023







What would family life be without all the conversations?  The last couple of weeks, since we are in December and Christmas is soon to be upon us, the Middles and the Littles have been having some interesting debates over some of the finer points of Christmas.

The first was between two of the Middles (both 5). (And, I admit, because I have slept multiple times since I heard this one, it may be off in the exact wording, though not in the ideas expressed.)

Adeline:  I can't wait until Santa comes.

Andrew: You know Santa is just pretend.

Adeline:  No he isn't!

Andrew:  Yes he is!

Adeline:  Well, I've seen him.  I saw him at Silver Dollar City.

Andrew: That was just a person dressed up in a Santa suit.

Adeline: Haven't you ever woke up on Christmas morning and there were a lot of presents under the tree that weren't there the night before?  See, he is real.

Andrew: That's just your parents that put them there.

Adeline and Andrew together: Grandma????

Grandma:  This is something you need to ask your parents, not me! (I am not chicken or anything....)

The second conversation was more recent and was between two of the Littles (both 2).

Toliver: Santa is coming to my house.

Linus: Santa is coming to my house.

Toliver: No, he is coming to my house!

Linus: He is too coming to my house!

Linus: (Turning to look at me with a big grin) Grandma, I bewieve in Santa!

Caveat: The next evening as we were driving home from church, Linus' older brother Chappell said, "Linus doesn't believe in Santa anymore."

I am curious how that came about.

(To see a post about a different girl in our family that believed in Santa for ever-so-long go to https://fernnookfarmgirl.blogspot.com/2006/11/mayberry-meanderings-in-august-we-have.html) 


Tuesday, April 25, 2023


 











We took a jaunt to Markham Springs a few weeks ago.  It was a wonderful way to celebrate early springtime in Missouri.  I hadn't been there since I was a young thing myself, and Kent had never been.  The kids had a blast.

At Markham Springs there are five different springs.  We didn't actually see them all because the kids got sidetracked with fishing in the springfed pond.  It is a lovely, clear, basically fishless pond.  There were some small minnows that the kids were able to catch with nets and use for bait, along with the worms they had dug up from Fernnook Farm before we left home, but besides those few little minnows, the pond was fishless.  Beautiful-yes, cold-yes, clear-yes, but fishy-NO.

Still, the Fernnook Kid's Club was busy for hours with casting, and rebaiting, and moving to more likely-looking spots.  There were some great quotes overheard by Kent and me.

Kathleen to me, "Either the fish aren't biting or there aren't any fish in this pond."  Me, "There aren't any fish here."  Kathleen acknowledged this with a shrug of her shoulders and an immediate recast of her line ino the pond.

Judah to Kent, "I don't care if there aren't any fish here, I am going to fish!"

Andrew to Kent, "I just love fishing."

So, fish they did!

And, I was so proud of them.  The biggles helped the middles with re-baiting, fixing lines, and any other fishy things that needed to be done.  Basically all Kent, Hattie, and I had to do was watch them and enjoy the beauty of the day.

Tuesday, February 14, 2023










A Season of Sorrow

I have been intending to write this post for some time now.  I want to capture for our collective memories the events and emotions of the past year for all of us here in Fernnook.

It was just about a year ago that we began to be worried about Uncle Jim.  He wasn't right.  He wasn't himself.  But, we were not sure what was going on with him or what to do about it.  As winter melted into spring, he became more and more erratic in his behavior and less and less stable in his ability to walk.  We began to take him meals, to get involved in getting him to his doctors, and to check on him multiple times a day.  

Then Aunt Jenny fell and broke her wrist.  That entailed a middle of the night trip to the ER for my cousins, an operation, and a hospital stay that was very traumatic for her and for her family.

So, the family was stretched...some caring for Jim and some for Jenny.  A couple of days after Jenny was released from the hospital, I saw an ambulance going down the gravel around midnight.  Cousin Sandy was staying with Stacy at Jenny's home helping to care for her.  I was sure the ambulance was for Jim, and called Cousin Kenny.  It wasn't.  He told me that it wasn't for Jim, it was for Jenny, and it didn't look good.  I was so grateful that Sandy was with Stacy when her mother died.

The next morning we decided that things had gone too far with Jim and we took him to the ER.  We were pretty sure he had lung cancer, but didn't know what was affecting his thinking and walking so severely.  Well we found out.  The lung cancer had spread to his brain and he had a tumor.  He was in a hospital in St. Louis recovering from brain surgery while we were at Jenny's funeral.

We fought so hard to get him treatment in time.  We all fought so hard for him.  But it was not in God's providence.  Two weeks of severe nosebleeds, two nose surgeries, and a stroke caused by one of the surgeries put off treatment for too long.  

We all came to the end of the summer tired, sad, and numb.  

For me personally, and for Kent, this was on top of a previous year which had us facing the deaths of Kent's father, Opa, and three very close church friends.  So, emotionally, when Jim died, it seemed our cup of sorrow was full to the brim.

In December, though, a series of events began that made us all feel like we were punching bags.  First, Andrew (our grandson who has CF) was hospitalized.  We were thankful to the Lord that what looked like a possible two week stay was cut down to four days, and he did get to be home for his family to celebrate Christmas a few days after the holiday itself.

Then, we were all heartbroken when Hattie, who was 12 weeks pregnant, miscarried two days before Christmas.  She and Ethan grieved deeply, as did we, over their loss.

Two days after Christmas, Uncle Ken (visiting his daughter Kelly in Houston) had a heart attack while he and Kenny were traveling home to Fernnook.  It happened in Tyler, TX, and he spent the next 38 days in the hospital in Tyler.  He responded well to a pace maker, but developed pneumonia, a UTI, a prostate infection, esophagitis, and ended up with a PEG feeding tube.  He was unable to swallow and lost the strength in his legs, and so was unable to walk.

Meanwhile, back in Fernnook, Papa (my dad) got a partially blocked lower intestine and was hospitalized for a week.  Then he also developed pneumonia.

One night, a few weeks later, Cousin Stacy called me at 3 am to see if I could come get her daughter Lizzie, because her other daughter, Emily, was unconscious after having a seizure.  Emily had seizures from bleeding on the brain 5 years ago, but she has been doing really well for several years.  That entailed a trip to the ER and a transfer up to Barnes.  Thankfully, there was no new bleeding and they believe it was a UTI that caused the episode with her.

Then I got a call from my Uncle David's caretaker.  She told me that they were putting David on hospice.  I have only seen him a few times in my life, but he is a dear, gentle soul, and this has been very sad for me.

Meanwhile, my brother Mike had a blood vessel growing toward his pupil that was affecting his eyesight and if left untreated could cause him to lose his sight in that eye.  So, he had a painful eye operation.

All this happened while Ken was still in the hospital in TX.  Just a week and a half ago, Ken took a rough ambulance ride to Van Buren to a rehab place there, but was immediately transferred to a different ambulance and taken to the hospital in Poplar Bluff.  They kept him for a week to get his heart rate back under control, then moved him to a rehab facility in the Bluff.  That was a disaster, and Kenny pulled him out yesterday and brought him home.

He is beginning to eat again, and, we pray, will be able to regain strength in his legs soon.  

If we have seemed distant or distracted or difficult to be with, forgive us.  We don't doubt the Lord's care for us, but it has been a long, rough season of sorrow for all of us here in Fernnook.



Friday, December 31, 2021

The Imps

 Andrew to me the other day, "Grandma, I just spit on your shoe." (And yes, sure enough, he did.  A nice little pool of spit was just sitting there on my shoe.)

Adeline to Grandpa Kent as he was carrying her on a hike through the woods, "Where we are, Grandpa?"

Andrew and Adeline tonight at our New Year's Eve get-together...dancing on the table, uprooting the aloe plant, dis-leafing the parsley, in the tub washing their feet together...regular little imps.  Just missing their third partner in crime, Chappell.  



Oliver M. Chappell


 Oliver M. Chappell

Toliver Chappell and Mary Mink’s boy

Born in 1872/3 date unknown

Died aged 11 years old

Cause and date unknown

Records lost in courthouse fire

He was Hattie Chappell Simon's brother 

In 1880 he was eight and Hattie was six


(Amazing how much Peter Harding looks like him.)



Letter from Grandpa Marion to Grandma Opal ( shared with me from Uncle Jim)

 

(From Jim to me on May 3, 2018)  Following is a letter Marion wrote to Opal in Oct 1929. It is not the complete letter but only three pages of it.  Opal would have just turned 19 and Marion was 24.  He was writing from Flint Michigan.  You must remember Marion only had a fifth grade education if that much so I made a few corrections to spelling and grammar.  From the way the letter was going Opal may have censored the last page and made sure it did not get saved.  Pure speculation on my part. We can thank Ty for locating this. He was the finder of the treasure.

Here it is:

Oct. 28th 1929

Miss Opal Simon,

My dearest loving little girl, I will write you a few lines tonight. How are you and what are you doing to pass the time off?  I wonder if you are thinking of your old lonesome boy tonight and wishing you could be with him to cheer him up.  Baby, life sure seems dull sometimes, if I didn’t have you to think about I don’t know what I would do but I know we will be together sometimes and so it makes me glad about it.  Because I can have you for always, Baby girl, isn’t that nice for us to be together for always and for me to love you for all time.  It just seems so good honey I can hardly stand to wait for I want you so bad.  Oh! Opal darling I know we will always be happy together.  For I could be happy with you anywhere on earth and I know you would always love me and we wouldn’t be jealous at one another because we wouldn’t do anything to be jealous over.  Opal darling don’t you ever doubt me for I will always be true to you, because I know I love you and I don’t want other women.  I would rather kiss you than any girl I’ve ever known and Opal darling I know just how you are.  I know it would be lots nicer if I had lots of money and I could give you anything you wanted.  But Baby girl I haven’t got it. I can only give you my love but sweetheart I can work for you and we can get by.  Opal sweetheart as much as I love you I would give you up if you could marry some man with lots of money and you could be happy with him.  But it sure would be a pain for me to have to give you up.



Thursday, December 30, 2021

Fall and Winter Doings

We at Fernnook have had a busy Fall and start to Winter.  Having Ken and Kenny Joe here have added to the ideas for fun and festivities.  One tradition we started was to enter a Fernnook float in the Doniphan Lighted Christmas Parade.  Somehow we didn't place...but we did have a blast.  Even Grandpa Jerry Martin joined the Potbelly Gnomes as an Honorary Leading Citizen of the Province of Fernnook.  Unfortunately KJ fell off the float.  It was embarrasing for him, but there were no broken bones.  His motto, as it should be, is, "Whatever it takes to get Fernook on the map!"







A few weeks later on Christmas Eve we had our traditional appetizers and gifts.  But, we broke tradition on Christmas Day, and instead of having ham and picnic sides, Ken and Kenny Joe did a reverse sear on some lovely prime rib.  To make the day more perfect, we were blessed with a lovely warm day...the kids had a blast playing kickball and riding their bikes.  Some of them (the younger set) were playing pirates in Papa Bob's boat.  Somehow the key from one of the tractors ended up in the boat, and it took Papa a good while to find it the next day (oops!)    



Thursday, September 30, 2021


 








A few nights ago several of our grandchildren were here long after dark.  It is just that time of year that the glow worms start to appear.  I love their magical, fairy-like, quick wisp of a glow that fades back into the deep dark of the night.  (For the uninitiated, glow worms are the common name of the larval stage of several beetles and even flies...in this case they are the larva of fireflys).  You only see them in September and October (or at least that is the only time I have ever seen them) after the weather begins to cool down a bit.  

So, the children were running around in the dark, some with flashlights and some without, when one of them noticed a glow worm.  Soon, they had brought me a plastic cup with a lid, and every few minutes, one would run up with another glow worm to add to those collected in the cup.  Now, if you look at the picture above, you will see what a glow worm looks like.  Really, they are a bit creepy, but that didn't phase the children.  Even the girls, Kathleen, Elsie, Opal, and Adeline were gleefully catching them and depositing them into the cup.  What a wonderful time they all had.

Later, as I was driving Joel's kids home, I told them about all the fun I had as a city kid visiting Fernnook and running around after dark with my cousins.  Kathleen said to me, "Grandma, do you ever wish you were still a kid?"

That was an easy one for me.  I loved my childhood, but I truly do believe that maturity is worth more than all that has gone before it.  I do miss people from earlier times.  I miss my mother.  I miss Grandma Opal.  How I wish I could play one more game of High Five with them and laugh until we were silly.  But, I don't want to go back to those good old days; rather, I want to somehow pull them into these new good days.

Well, I couldn't really explain all of that to Kathleen, so I just said, "No, honey, I wouldn't want to go back to being a kid.  If I did that, I wouldn't have you precious grandchildren that I love so much.  Honey, these are the good news days, and I love them!"