27 YEARS AGO TODAY, MY LIFE CHANGED...

January 5, 1980. The top picture is me being carried by the fireman of the Elyria Fire Dept. The bottom post is the second half of the front page with a photo of the car and to the left of the photo is a small article about the accident. I have a flood of emotions when I see this page, which only gets pulled out once a year-after all why live with sadness and in the past?
After this front page article, people actually called the paper and wanted to adopt me...and I still had a dad-albeit critically injured. I have a whole story to tell about this day but after 27 years, I am tired of repeating it, not that I can't, but just wore out from repeating endless details. And after all this is a blog, so if you want to know more, you have to email me-you know who you are!
Time rolls on and if it were not for my faith...an unpopular subject to some...I just don't know how I could have made it through a rotten stepmother experience, dressing for high school prom alone or worrying about bills at the tender age of 16. No you can't shake my faith on this one. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say it is arrogant of some of you to think you can live your life without God. Some things never change with me: faith or the fact that I cant STAND to see kids trashing their parents verbally or otherwise..but I have to remind myself that they dont know how I feel because, thankfully, they dont have my experience to sharpen them. I dont wish being motherless on anyone...esp. as a 10 year old.
A story: my son has been wearing a winter hat (Aris) that belongs to me. I told him to please not lose it because it was given to me at my 11th birthday, 6 days after this accident. He wanted to know about the hat and I told him a neighborhood mother gave it to me at the solemn birthday party. The neighborhood mothers got together and threw me this party. And I got this grey hat and gloves from Brian's mom, my playmate down the street. It was amusing to me that my son found the sad hat "cool" after all these years.
Today I was asked how I felt, you know, anniversary and all. I told that person that after this many years, the blow has been softened and my life has so drastically done a 360 that it almost seems unreal. But when I see the front page...it is like yesterday. Thank you God, for being there that day to comfort, to protect and to lead me to you. No matter what, your still GOD. Thanks for reading...

Christmas 1975

The top photo is at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Columbus, OH. The dress I was wearing was my favorite and the doll in the background was named "Amanda" and at the time she seemed as big as me. Although her appendages were a little wacky. She could do a complete 360 with both legs in opposite directions! Ouch. I was thrilled to get this cool tea set and as you can see by the second picture, I enjoyed it once we got back to Elyria. My mom was taking the picture looking into the living room from the kitchen. Good times...!

Christmas 1972

Mommy and me. Don't let the sweet smile fool you, beneath it was a spoiled only child.

New site!

FYI: I 've added a blog about my life, check out the "likeable links" to access Nurse Hemorrhoids...you'll laugh you'll cry, you'll hurl?

Great Aunt Vera

On the phone with Vera tonight, I really began to miss her. She is still alive at 84 but I will at some point, be unable to converse with her concerning my mom. I will miss her putting down the phone for every phone number I recite to her a hundred times because she forgot it from the last time I called. I will miss her saying "yal" instead of yep or yes. I will miss her reminiscence about her husband, my uncle Harold who passed in 1973. I will miss her voice.
Tonight, I told her that I felt like she was a mother to me and that she was the most unselfish person I knew. She didn't have to buy me school clothes, supplies or take me shopping and to McDonalds on Saturdays. She has always been far too hard on herself and punishing of herself. I told her that she was not responsible for all the bad things people had done to her. (Too personal to share here). She has always been a hard working survivor. Tonight, I was proud to say that she had fulfilled the Godmother role she promised my mother she would be if anything happened to mom. She did it, mission accomplished.
ADD ON NOTE HERE: 12-12-06 I talked with her this morning and she told me about an incident (I had to ask/pry). She stated she was about 8 and she was playing on Winkles St. in Elyria with her girlfriends. She tripped on the step as she was running back to "base" in a game of hide and seek. She fell and hit her head and was bleeding. She saw blood on her dress and crying she went inside to her mother. She was crying alot and her father told her to be quiet. She could not so he punched her in the back. She said she bit her tongue so hard to keep quiet and it worked. I guess he was a very abusive man to his wife and family. I asked her how he got to be this way, although she said it was born in him, she also stated his mother was very abusive. Amazing how the cycle continues! This is why she did not have children. Her husband, Harold loved children but she would not have any. She miscarried once.
Her mother died after contracting pneumonia. The story goes that she went out to shovel before her husband got home and contracted it. The doctor (in the 1920's) went to the house and she was ordered for bed rest. The brother went to make fried eggs for himself and the dad didnt like that so he ordered his wife up from bedrest and she made the eggs. He would not let her rest so she became more ill and suffered greatly. Vera said in those days a pill was given to speed the death process and this was given to her mother. Vera was 9 and her mother begged the older daughter, Louise (my grandmother) to take care of Vera. After multiple times of asking, Louise, overcome with grief, stated she would and then their mother passed away. Louise who was married to George at the time, lived with her family in the house for about a year and moved out taking Vera as well.

Taking a moment to remember my dad...

November 2, 1996. Ten years have passed since my father died on a gloomy, flurry filled November day. I didn't realize he was so sick. He never showed it nor complained. He was so positive I just wish I could be a 1/3 like him in that area. I miss him so much...he was so vulnerable, so needy, and taken through far too much in his 72 years. He and I were a team for so long after my mother died. As a teen I was slightly embarrassed to always have to just announce "DAD" while others announced "my dad AND mom..." One day I stood in front of my mirror and practiced saying "mom" over and over. I made my lips form the words so that I would not forget that word and how much I used to say it. Now I don't use either word very much except in reference to myself and Dave. Now it's our turn to be called that. And frankly, somedays I'm just not ready.


This was a good friend of my dad's. I do not know his name but I remember my dad speaking of him. Maybe one of you can identify? I like this picture of my dad and his buddy. Classic greatest generation here. He was probably 18-19 here. Take a good hard look at 18-19 year old's today and tell me that they had the morals, the guts and the love of country to do what these two in this picture were going off to do. Thanks, dad!



This picture was brought out a few times when my dad and I would go through photos together. It was from the 1950's. It was actually a picture that was in the Chronicle Telegram in Elyria. He and this gentleman were collecting for the March of Dimes...and if I remember right it was because he belonged to an organization like Kiwanis. It is another favorite picture of mine because it was before I knew my dad as my father. It stretches my imagination to see the man dressed up as a funny street cleaner as my dad. I love it.

I think I posted this photo from summer of 84 before...enjoy.

Visiting my cousins at the farm: 1969/1977

I got a card the other day from my cousin Kristen who is my age. Enclosed were two photos that made my heart jump and my head long for simpler times. The top photo is her sister Leah in the conservative one piece checkered suit.Leah, Leah, LEAH!! Where was your bikini at girl??!!Leah is one year older than us~Sorry Leah, can't lie! Kristen is next to her complete with pigtails and a pre-Britney Spears tummy (we were midriff showing before it was cool!) Next up is myself and DO NOT let the pose fool you: I may be standing with hands wringing and looking shy but really I gave these girls a run for their money. Probably why I was only invited out to the farm once every so many years....heh, heh!
Nope, never a dull moment I came a visitin' from the city. But that is for later in this writing. After myself is our cousin, Ben. He and I didn't really chat alot. I only remember he didn't really seem to care for us girls much but in this picture he seems fine to be swimming with us babes.
Kristen gave me the information behind the picture: She said we were at Lenwood pool on Rte 20. I don't know whether that was Monroeville or Norwalk. This is my recollection of this day. I think I was spending a week at their house on Dogtown Rd. (yes, that's really a road) in Ohio. Leah and Kristen's parents(Jack and Belle), have a big old farmhouse out there. This must have been the week we were turned loose on late 60's/early 70's station wagon and several gallons of old cans of paint. We painted that old car up like crazy. It was sitting out with big weeds surrounding it and we just went out there with our paint and brushes and went to town. The other thing that I remember about their house and all the fun I had there was being able to play in the piece of farm equipment that had soybeans in it. It was the equivalent of today's play world with all the balls kids jump around in. What was really cool about their house was the hallway up to the bedrooms was being remodeled and their parents let them color whatever they wanted on the walls. I thought that was SOOO cool. Actually today, we are remodeling our hallway and I let the kids do the same thing. It is a cool memory everytime I see the hallway. Soon, it will be covered with new wallboard but the kids will remember the liberty they had to color on the walls without getting in trouble. They can thank Jack and Belle for that! So, whenever I went out to their Dogtown rd. house I just remember having a ball. We played in the woods, we painted, we colored, we played in soybeans, we rode our bikes down the road and not a car was in sight for hours, we played in the creek, we just got to be KIDS! Since the time of this picture-the Summer of 1977-Kristen, Leah and I have lost our mothers. Mine to a car accident in 1980 and theirs to breast cancer in 2002. Jack continues to live at the farm.


The bottom photo is from the summer of 1969 at a reunion at the farm. Here is my mother at the left holding me and Kristen's mom holding her...I love this picture and when Kristen sent it I just studied it because both of those women were beautiful, full of life, loving mothers and wives. We, their daughters, can only hope to live up to the legacy they left us.

DNA

Today while in my continuing quest for more knowledge I learned that a daughter actually has more of her mother's DNA than her father. When I heard this, I thought: "Oh, cool, I have more of Helen in me than Gordon." However, I have always felt like I looked and acted more like my father than my mother...Is that because I spent 27 years with him and only 10 with her? Whatever the thought, it gives me a little warm fuzzy today to think that I am a squeak bit more like my mother.

Bendix Bus Trip 1948

This was an outing with the girls from work at Bendix Westinghouse. A bus tour to Cleveland on June 15, 1948. The setting is on Broad St. in Elyria. If you know Elyria, you will recognize (somewhat) the old EST building behind the rear of the bus. The lady all the way to your left in the dark suit standing is my Aunt Vera. Behind her is the park or Ely Square. Right in the middle by the drivers window and the #8 looking more serious is Vera's sister and my mother's mom: Louise. All the way to the opposite end (rear of the bus) of Vera is my mom Helen.
Last weekend we were in Elyria and I passed over that same spot with my car. I imagined my mom and relatives right there posing for this picture. That is what I love about Elyria. Even though it is not what it used to be, it feels good to be where I can feel close to my mom and dad's old "stomping grounds" . Memories don't pay the bills, I have always said, but they sure do soothe the soul sometimes when grief seems to overwhelm you. The good memories sustain us, don't they? (Click on photo to enlarge for viewing)

Dec.1979 vs. Sept.1980

The top photo was taken at Christmas '79. The bottom was a school picture from 6th grade in 1980. When I found the top photo I studied it. I wanted to jump in the picture and prepare the little girl on Santa's lap. Something like: "Hey, the bottom is going to drop out in 2-3 weeks, shape up, love on your mom, do all you can to make things right". But that is impossible so I just compared the two pictures. The dress in the bottom picture was something I picked out at JCPenney at Midway Mall. It was pitiful shopping for myself when I longed for my mother to help me. I couldn't turn to my dad: I did not feel nor see him as a strong person to lean on. He leaned on me. I also learned at this time how to temporarily medicate myself with shopping. The "buy-high" as it is called. I'm glad that God has healed me of that area but back then it was my medicine when I was grieving.

Helen Louise: age 4

I love this picture of my mother! Her hair bow and the way her legs are cross sitting on the chair are so sweet! No Olan Mills photo places here, just a chair out in the yard with some beautiful flowers for a back drop. Don't you sometimes wish it was still that simple with kids today? I think we do way more for our kids than we have to. We buy bigger houses, more stuff and try to compete with neighbors and family. One thing I have noticed today is a lack of participation in things. Are we too busy trying to schedule in obligations that we don't have "time" to schedule family time or church time? The saddest thing to me is when an event is cancelled due to a lack of participation. Like a reunion or a church event. We went to a reunion recently and (I have seen this before) although the turnout was better than the year before, it was still scant. There were pictures there of past reunions in the 1920's-60's and the people that turned out for these family events were numerous! Not so today...why is it that family is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing that God gave us to treasure (relationships!) and we just toss it to the side? Modern things are great, if it were not for this computer I would not be able to share these memories with you from hundreds of miles away. But, just today, think about your next family (church family or your own family) gathering and decide that you will be a part of it. Expect nothing in return except to give of your time. And as my mother used to say: "Holly, life is just too short!"

Easy Rider

I don't know what kind of a bike this was that my mother was riding but it looks pretty nice. This photo is from the early 1940's. My mother was probably in Junior high. I believe it was taken near their home on Pasedena. If we found that exact same spot today we might be standing in someones house!

Schoolmates

On this particular page are some pictures that I surmise are my mother's classmates. I don't know who the girls are but there are actually more on this page than I could fit in the picture. My mother is pictured in the upper left hand corner.

Seventh grade, 1940

I came across these pictures while cleaning out my cedar chest. I just fell in love with them. I love it when you come across something that you haven't seen for awhile and then it is all brand new to you again. I have to get with my Aunt Vera for some explanation on some of the photo's though. She is my last living source.
This photo is my mother's seventh grade class. My mother is pictured smack in the middle of the second row looking front to back between the two boys heads who are in the front row. Where are all her classmates now? Most are probably gone but I am sure a few must linger.
I love seeing how nice the children are dressed and the lack of commercial-laden clothes they are wearing. No Britney Spears trash here. Now...imagine a seventh grade girl today and compare it to this picture....!

Ely School 1941

Some of you still living in Elyria still drive by this school today. It is pretty much unchanged. However, the trees are a big larger! My mother went to this school in the 30's and 40's. Since it is getting close to school starting I thought I would get right in the spirit with this posting. Ely was built in 1921, I believe. 5 years before my mother was born. I went there for Kindergarten in the early 1970's. My classroom was the set of windows which stick out to your left. Oh how I wish I could ask my mother questions about her school days....

Everything old is new again...

Washington D.C. in 1965. My parents hadn't met yet so my mother was traveling with her parents. Here are two shots from her pictures of that visit. The four of us were just there last week. So when I came across these photos of her visit, it was neat that even though I was not born yet, nor thought of, here is almost the exact same picture that she took in my collection as well. Of course, a ga-zillion people have been to DC and taken that exact same photo of looking out over the National mall to the Washington Monument from Lincoln's memorial. I took the same picture last week...she took the same picture in 1965. Cool. I just wish she were here so I could compare photos with her. And with my dad. He has the same photos (DC) from a time in the 1960's. The Kennedy graves look SOOOO much different as well. John's was a mound of dirt with an eternal flame atop of it fenced in by a white picket fence and a guard. Today it is a big granite (?) monument with his words carved in, his wife beside him and no guard. Its a big deal.

Anyhow, the second picture I am unsure of what monument it is...but the ladies in the photo are on the left, my mother and the right, my grandmother Louise.

OH vs. MI

No photo to lure you into this entry...sorry. I have some things on my mind to share. Honestly, I think unless you are one who has been through losing your mother/father early in life (before 18) I don't think you can understand this:
Questions: Are their long term issues with traumatic deaths in which children are involved? Does it cause separation issues in adults? Anxiety? Is there a name for this?
These are some of the questions I have...because, frankly, I am trying to figure out what the pull back to living in my home state is? How can you have a decent, no complaints life here yet for 12 years still LONG to be back "home" with what family you have left or married into. I don't wear rose colored glasses thinking that Ohio is the answer and all will be well with family all the time! But for 12 years I have struggled to make MI my home...it was not like this for me in VA. So I have this conversation with the Lord to help me sort out WHY anyone would want to go back to an armpit like OH. No answer yet, I will keep you posted.
The craziest thing is the look in people's eyes whom I tell this longing to. I see it in your eyes when you look at me like I have a few marbles loose and that I am just unstable in some way. You don't understand why we could move from a fine job, fine community (wink, wink), and kids in h.s. I don't either. I have asked myself a million times. I have tried to talk myself into loving this place. I keep coming back to it not being my home...and I want to go home-to OH. So today, I came up with....WHO CARES IF YOU THINK WE'RE CRAZY?! I am no longer going to share these things with you, you with the "oh boy she is nuts again with this Ohio moving deal-e-o". We will just pray quietly, talk quietly and if it is the will of our Lord....MOVE VERY LOUDLY!

Introducing the 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura...

This was my mom's baby. She paid cash for it in mid-79 after her dad died and left her a little pocket change. She loved blue and this was her color. She and my dad purchased it at J.R. Dall Ford in Elyria. I remember going with them to pick it up. She got in and was a little taken aback at all the gadgets coming from the steering column. That was when Ford got the itch to try and take all their controls of wipers, cruise, turn signal, and (gasp!) horn and place as much crap as possible into two to three controls sticking out from the steering column. Brilliant-not! Confusing yes. Oh, don't forget when you want to honk that horn that you don't hit the steering wheel with your hand, you merely PRESS in on the tiny stick coming out of the column. Try to remember which black one it is. Okay, enough Ford bashing but it was dumb! So here was the sweet ride which she only got to enjoy for about 6 mos before she died. This car was not in the wreck. Our other car, a 1975 Ford Galaxy 500 (looked like a massive tank on wheels!) was totaled out. I see the house still had the yellow paint on it. In the summer of 79 the house was sided white with black shutters and still appears like that today.

Ungrateful!

Well here is a brat-in-action! This is my 7th birthday party in Jan. 1976. I cannot even remember what I was pouting about. Probably didn't get my way. Brat! It was my first "friends" birthday party. I think I had some kids from Roosevelt st (on the other side of town) like Julie Prowse and her bro. Some other kids were Carla and Sue Minnich. The kid in the picture is not someone I even liked! He was our pastors son: Todd Mealwitz. His dad pastored Grace Lutheran Church on East River in Elyria. I don't think Todd and I ever spoke except maybe at this party. Anyhow we are in the living room of our house on Bell Ave and I am being presented with a custom birthday cake that a lady at church made. The dress I had on was one of those long types popular in the mid-seventies and it was my favorite dress if I had to wear one. I don't remember much of the party except I was mad and I'm sure made a complete idiot of myself for that. I do know Carla present was a red vinyl Donald Duck wallet...sweet. As for this photo I have some advice for my mother on that January day: save your money, save your time and turn me over your knee...I deserved it!

My mother was not pleased...

I could have charged admission to see the look on my mother's face when she saw how picture day turned out. I think this was 1978, fourth grade. She was not happy when she I came home that day and told her we had pictures. It had slipped both of our minds. So...years later here I am in my most favorite sweatshirt of the 1970's: Convienent Food Mart: "Where the customer is King!" It's funny but when I was a tomboy kid I had favorite clothes that I would just wear and wear. And the thing is, is that I thought I looked off the hook in them. Umm, k, now I see I was extremely deceived. This sweatshirt had been worn down to a dingy white, and the dude on the front motiff was cracking from repeated washings. But I was just so comfy and confident in this. What was I thinking?!
A little dib about the store. What I remember is that Convienent Food Mart had stores mostly in Elyria. Ours was on Lake Avenue. If I could tell you everytime we went to that store it would fill this entire blog site and bore you insanely. So, here are some pieces. I remember a cashier with strawberry blonde short hair and her name was Carol. Of course she knew us by name. She would ring up our small purchases (you would NOT want to purchase groceries here, this was the equivalent of a 7-11 type dealy-o) on this old punch key register. She would always give me a pretzel rod before we left. Last I saw here there was the late 80's. CFM is no longer in business I believe. (If any Elyrians know this please post a comment by clicking on anonymous and leaving your name if you dont want to register for this site). Another time was New Years Eve. I watched a man grab a bottle of booze off the shelf place it in his coat and walk right out. The store was insanely busy and he just got away with it. I was floored as a kid! I myself, never store from the store. I also was floored when my favorite candy bars went from 20 cents to 25 cents per bar. I spent plenty of cash in that store on candy,Fla-vor-ice popsicle tubes, Faygo orange pops, Hostess ho-ho's packed in foil and loaves of their bread. Their chicken was pretty good as well. My parents would always pick up Jo-Jo potatoes from the mini deli and a pack of beer. I don't remember Carla being allowed to walk the 2 blocks up there just to purchase something...am I wrong Carla? In the late 70's, early 80's they added a little ice cream deal to the side called the (?) Shake Shack. I don't recall my mom and I there a lot so it might have been after she was gone. And one of the last times I recall going in there was in 1980. I would head up there after mom died to buy a pack of cigarettes. Can you believe this? I WAS 11! They just rung them up and I walked out. I didn't know you were supposed to inhale them until I met my husband...so much for being cool. Glad I don't smoke these days. And the LAST time I was up there was with my friend Mindy 1n 1985. My husband who was then just a friend and his brother Don had gotten ahold of my Kodak Disc camera and taken a "mooning" shot and when I got the photos back I was GROSSED out to see Don's butt. So, to one-up them Mindy and I drove over to the west side to CFM. By then the store was getting a little rough and so was that neighborhood. We went in the store and in a very cool and calm fashion while Mindy distracted the cashier I stuck the photo up with tape and the following information: "For a rear good time, call Don/Dave at XXX-XXXX and we used Dave/Don's work number so his parents would not KILL us.
Bad girls!