Today is the birthday of my sister-in-law Mary Lou Williams. I knew her as Mary Lou Putteet when we were classmates at Middleburg High School in the l950’s. Mary Lou was always a very pretty girl with honest-to-goodness blond hair. I liked her even before she met my brother and became part of the family. Among other things, we had four years of Mrs. Brock’s rigorous English classes together. One thing I especially liked about Mary Lou was that she didn’t seem to mind that I had the quirky habit of carrying a dictionary around with me. She just accepted me. Sometime during our senior year she and my brother Ronald met each other. Well, you know the rest of that story. Continue reading “Mary Lou’s birthday”
Bruce memory
Tomorrow would have been my nephew Bruce’s birthday. He was Ernest and Ginny’s second son, your cousin Danny’s younger brother. He was a nice young man. At the time of this picture, Mark, Kim, and I were living with Frank and Marcella in the same house where Alline now lives. I think it was a Sunday afternoon. Continue reading “Bruce memory”
My sister-in-law Marcella
For the last several days from time to time, I have thought how I would like to go visit Marcella. I wish I could. Remember her greetings when you would visit, her smiling, inviting you in, even when it was hard for her simply to be standing? Remember the blooming plants all across her front porch? Her house seemed like a happy place though life grew harder and harder for her. And can you remember her wide kitchen with the cabinets that Frank had built for her and the big window where not-quite-ripe tomatoes were sitting in a row for the morning sun? Continue reading “My sister-in-law Marcella”