From Grade School to the Nursing Home

Whenever I heard the stories about the women in my family, I was proud of their tenacity and humor. As I began writing the stories, I realized that the theme that runs through all of them is value of deep relationships with other women.

My Grandma’s childhood friend, Cleo, worked with her to earn the money for an airplane ride when they were in grade school. They continued a letter correspondence into their nineties.

For her tenth birthday party, Grandma was allowed to invite three of her friends over to make their own dinner. Helen and Deanne were still coming over for dinner and Homemaker’s meetings during my lifetime (Cleo had moved to California).

Grandma and her sister-in-law, Imogene, became friends during the Depression and remained close through wartime, years of farming, the loss of their husbands, and finally as roommates in a nursing home.

For as long as she was able, my Grandma attended the annual Rogers school reunion. Even though the school and town no longer existed, the relationships they began in childhood persisted.

I’m inspired by lifelong friendships. I don’t believe these women were immune from being annoyed or being annoying. There has never been an age when relationships were easy. But they lived in a time when you couldn’t afford to trade in friends, so they did the work of apologizing, repairing, and forgiving. They learned to let some things go and to speak up when it mattered.

Live Each Chapter Well

My great-great-grandma, Sarah, started her life in Arkansas in 1881 but was living in Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory by the 1900 census. According to family stories, when a new family settled in next to them, her mother insisted they be neighborly and help when they could. This included caring for the family’s sixteen-year-old when he contracted measles. In 1903 the two were married at the Indian Council House in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. In 1906, they loaded wagons and made their way to New Mexico territory. In 1908 they were living in a dugout while a house was being built. She lived in that house for the next fifty years.

If you zoomed in on one segment of Sarah’s life, you might conclude that she’d never be able to get settled. She was destined to be taken from one place to another, in search of a home. If you zoomed in on another segment, you might think she’d never been anywhere or seen anything other than a farm on the south plains.

The season you are in now is only one chapter of your story. Hold it lightly and live it well.

If you’d like help shifting from one chapter to another, click the contact link to schedule a free coaching session.

Stories of Kindness

My great-grandma, Willie, was born in 1907 as her parents made their way from “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma to a homestead claim in Eastern New Mexico. Only a few months earlier, her one-year-old brother had died. Those circumstances sound unbearable to me. 

Yet, in the retelling of the story, I never heard details of the hardship. That’s not what my great-grandma’s story was about.

Generations later, the story I heard was of the kindness of the strangers in that small Texas town. They provided everything the family needed for a burial and when the time came, they helped with the birth. They tended to my great-great-grandma as she simultaneously grieved for one child and cared for another. They even provided paid work for her husband so that they could linger for a while.

The women in my family’s history were strong, but they were not invincible. We could all use some help now and then.

Be kind to each other and tell stories of kindness.

Disaster and Opportunity

The thing that got me from wanting to write to being a writer was the desire to record the stories that I’d heard my grandma tell. They were tales of strong, spirited women.  

In the earlier days of their marriage, when my Granddad had returned from the war and they’d begun farming, a hailstorm came across the plains. For farmers, this was a disaster.

In the aftermath of the storm, my grandma, Maxine, saw opportunity. Hail was dreaded, but ice was a treat. 

She called all their neighbors and invited them over to make ice cream!

Grandma knew the consequences of large hailstones on a crop. She wasn’t naïve. She just refused to let disaster rule the day. 

A Teacher's Prayer for Standardized Testing

It looks like schools will need to figure out how to administer standardized tests this spring. The most generous explanation is that addressing learning gaps will begin with identifying them. The most cynical one is that the makers of standardized tests and test preparation materials lost untold millions last year and are exerting significant political pressure to make sure they didn’t lose more this year. Regardless, it seems like a good time to share this prayer.

Our God and Creator, be near us on these challenging days. 

A collection of questions composed by strangers will claim to capture the depth and breadth of my students’ learning. May the test-makers be sensitive to bias.

My students feel the weight of this day, even when they don’t understand it. May all children feel empowered to do their best.

I am anxious about the long-term impact these few hours of testing will have on curriculum, grade placement, and reputations. May I find peace in things that abide: faith, hope, and love.

Standardization has potential to shine light on the shadows of inequity and demonstrate the achievements of students and teachers who overcome the barriers of their circumstances. May the scores bring about justice.

Amen.