Fay Risner's Blog, page 8

Memories of My Yesteryears

Source: Memories of My Yesteryears

Jacob’s Spirit – Novella

Source: Jacob’s Spirit – Novella

My Mom’s Angel Food Cake Story in Good Old Days Magazine a few Years Ago

Source: My Mom’s Angel Food Cake Story in Good Old Days Magazine a few Years Ago

Haunted Teapot On Whistler Street

Source: Haunted Teapot On Whistler Street

Crystal’s Beau Third book in Detective Renee Brown Series

Source: Crystal’s Beau Third book in Detective Renee Brown Series

Joyful Wisdom-Nurse Hal Among The Amish excerpt

Source: Joyful Wisdom-Nurse Hal Among The Amish excerpt

Joyful Wisdom-Nurse Hal Among The Amish excerpt

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Chapter one of Joyful Wisdom Nurse Hal Among The Amish book Ten. Book in ebook and paperback in Amazon, kindle, Barnes and Noble and nook and http://www.smashwords.com

As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

Ezekiel 34:12

Chapter One

The back screen door banged behind Jim Lindstrom. He stopped on the top step and greeted with gusto, “Good morning, world.”

The crisp March wind compelled him to tighten his straw hat on his thatch of gray hair and tug the corduroy collar on his denim jacket tight to his neck

As if in competition with the wind, the blue sky held up the brilliant sun while it sent glowing rays to warm him and his surroundings. With pleasure, Jim surveyed the landscape. The red, driving horse, Daisy, grazed in the dew-sparkled pasture. In the pig pen, grunts came from the two pigs fattening for slaughter. In the hen house, the rooster heard Jim’s shout. He crowed robustly, begging to be turned loose with his cawing hens.

The milk cow, Gloria, nosed her calf through the space in the boards on the barn’s corral. At the sound of Jim’s voice, she raised her head and bellowed, eager to be milked and eager for her calf to nurse. That bellow jolted Jim into action. He had work to do. Chores he enjoyed. He swung the aluminum milk pail beside him as he hurried to the barn.

In the meantime, Nora, his wife, smiled from ear to ear as she pumped water into the steaming aluminum dish pan. She didn’t believe she could ever be happier. She finally felt confident they made the right decision when they moved from Titonka to Wickenburg, Iowa. Listening to her husband greet the morning told Nora that Jim was happy with the move. That meant a great deal to Nora. If asked what she enjoyed, she’d say it was time spent with their only daughter Hallie and her Amish family.

She recalled some years back. Jim and she faced the bitter pill of retirement. They sold the dairy cattle and the hogs when the animals were ready for market. Jim rented out his farmland to a young man down the road. That left her husband with nothing to do. That’s when she noticed Jim lost his energetic drive. Nora worried about him until she saw him come to life each time they visited their daughter’s farm.

Now they lived practically next door to Hallie and John Lapp on the Fisher place. Jim not only had animals and chickens to care for, also had time to enjoy his grandchildren. When John needed extra help on his farm, Jim was quick to volunteer. What made Jim content made Nora happy.

As quickly as the smile crossed her face, it faded. Trepidation took its place. As she looked out the window, she swiped the last of the silverware and put the handful in the rinse pan. Oh, oh! Her sister, Tootie, tromped across the yard from the grandfather house she lived in. Usually Tootie didn’t move fast enough to make her silver curls bounce unless she had something ruffling her feathers. But what else was new! Seemed like Tootie was unhappy about things as often as she was content. Then again how bad could her problem be this early in the morning.

Nora watched Tootie’s curls spring out in the breeze like she’d had a finger in an electric socket. Feeling the length of hair on the back of her neck, Nora knew her once bobbed do was no longer short. Tootie and she needed to find a beauty shop in Wickenburg soon. Nora grinned as she thought the other alternative was to ask her daughter, Hallie, if they could borrow prayer caps to hide their hair.

Tootie had a fine house in Titonka. Her women’s groups and church work kept her busy. That’s the only activities she had. She’d never had children, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Still she wasn’t very agreeable about anything since her husband, Art Klinefeld, died seven years ago.

On the Lindstroms first visit to the Lapp farm for Hallie’s wedding to John Lapp, Nora offered to take Tootie with them. Tootie accepted, because she was very fond of her niece, Hallie. She wasn’t keen on farm life, but she was very curious about Hallie’s Amish family and also a little nervous. That’s why she bought a book to learn about Amish customs.

Nora flinched when the front door slammed shut. She dropped her dish cloth in the pan of sudsy water and dried her hands on her apron. Footsteps treaded heavily across the living room’s hardwood floor, Nora headed to the kitchen door to find out what Tootie’s dire problem was this time.

At the doorway, Nora came face-to-face with her sister. The short, chunky woman stopped short and leaned against the door facing, puffing to get her breath.

A look at Tootie’s flushed face warned Nora that something might be physically wrong with her. “Are you all right? You’re not ill are you? Is it your heart?”

“No, I’m fine.” Tootie brushed past Nora. She headed to the dish cupboard to get a coffee cup.

Since they lived in the same yard now, Nora was used to Tootie coming over for a cup of coffee early each morning. She suspected Tootie didn’t want to dirty up her coffee pot and be bothered to wash it and a cup just for herself. So why not drink her coffee at her sister’s house. Knowing her sister as well as Nora did, Tootie might reason Nora’s pot was already dirty. Instead of second guessing Tootie, Nora decided she should give her sister the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was lonely living in the grandfather house and just wanted Nora’s company.

One thing was sure. Nora didn’t think she’d ever seen Tootie in such a dither. “You don’t look fine, but I’ll take your word for it. If you aren’t sick, it must be you’re just in a real hurry to get at my coffee.”

Tootie walked slowly and steadily over to the table to keep from spilling her coffee. She set the full cup down and plopped into a chair. “You aren’t funny. Never mind my drinking this coffee which I do every morning while we visit. That’s nothing new. You ought to be used to it by now. What is new is I’m not going to take that child in no matter what that social worker says.”

Now Nora was confused. Tootie really was upset about something new. “Excuse me. I must have missed the explanation part of this conversation. Want to repeat it for me?”

Tootie rubbed her forehead like she’d worked herself into a headache. “Sorry. You didn’t miss anything. Hang on. I’m just about to fill you in. Can you at least sit with me like you usually do and have a cup of coffee? I’m too worked up to watch you flit around this kitchen while I talk.”

“I can see that.” Nora helped herself to the coffee and came to the table.

Tootie looked around her. “Jim already doing chores?”

“That man is one happy camper since we moved here. He can hardly wait for breakfast to be done so he can get outside.” Nora sat down across from Tootie and let out a long sigh. She might as well bite the bullet and get Tootie back on track. “Now tell me what this is all about. What social worker are you talking about? What child?”

“I’m going to get to that. The nerve of some people to think they can just impose on my life,” Tootie fumed and sipped her coffee.

Nora narrowed her eyes at her sister. “For goodness sakes, Tootie. Quit worrying me to death and tell me what has you so stirred up.”

“All right, but I tell you right off I am not taking in a kid.” Tootie thumped the table with her finger on every word for emphasis. “I don’t have room for her in my small house. I’m too old to be a mother. Are those enough reasons for you?” Tootie listed with an edge in her voice.

Nora’s brow furrowed. She’d seen her sister get nerved up many times. She was good at dramatics, but at least, most of those time she made sense.

Speaking slowly and calmly, Nora said, “Those reasons might be all right if I knew what on earth you were talking about?”

“I just had a call from Bernice Wittstone in Algona. You remember her,” Tootie said.

“Yes, very well. She headed every church committee and bossed the other women into doing the work. For which she took the credit, I might add,” Nora drew out every word like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

“That’s her. She woke me up early this morning. How rude of people to call so early. Now that I use a cell phone I keep it on my bedside table so it’s handy if I need it in the night. Guess that is a blessing. If I’d still been living in Titonka, I’d have ran to the wall phone in my house. I might have broken my neck getting there.” Tootie waved her hand over the steaming cup and took a sip of coffee.

“Try turning the cell phone off when you go to bed. Solves that problem,” Nora said dryly. “Now will you please get on with this story? You’ve got me worried. I have a feeling something awful has happened. Just skip to the important part and tell me quickly.”

“Something tragic happened. Peter’s son, Jeff, and his wife, Megan, have been in a car accident,” Tootie said bluntly.

“That is awful,” Nora gasped, patting her chest.

“You know how our brother used to complain that his son should never have married that gypsy woman,” Tootie declared.

“Tootie, for Heaven sakes, Megan isn’t a gypsy. Peter called her that because Jeff and Megan liked to travel. He preferred to blame it on his daughter-in-law. Our brother was like us and never went far from home so he couldn’t understand why Jeff and his wife didn’t stay home like the rest of us.” Nora paused to think about their own recent move and finished, “Like us anyway until now. Are we gypsies, Tootie, because we moved to the opposite end of Iowa to live?”

“Peter would have thought so,” Tootie retorted.

Nora pursed her lips and nodded. “Perhaps, but that was his problem not ours. How do you manage to get us off track? Please tell me what Bernice told you. Are Jeff and Megan all right?”

“No, they died,” Tootie said flatly.

Nora’s head whirled with plans that needed to be made quickly. “Oh, dear! It’s a four hour drive to Algona. We have to leave right away to travel back for their funeral. They don’t have anyone except us and their little girl as family.”

“No need,” Tootie said remotely.

“No need,” Nora repeated. “Why on earth not?”

“The funeral took place a month ago. It took Bernice all this time to find me. She finally thought to call the minister. I left my phone number with him,” Tootie explained.

“I see.” Nora’s face saddened then she remembered her nephew had a child. “Jeff’s daughter! Was she in the car?”

“Well, she is the problem,” Tootie drew out.

Nora’s empty cup collided with the table. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Tootie. Will you stop torturing me? Did she die or not?”

“No, because she stayed with a friend while her parents went on vacation,” Tootie explained, heading for the coffee pot again.

Nora rolled her eyes at the ceiling. This was going to be a two cup morning for Tootie. She’d wind up having a nervous breakdown, trying to drag out of Tootie what happened to their great-niece. She twisted around in her chair. “Praise the Lord for the fact the girl wasn’t with her parents. Wait a minute. That’s a very good thing not a problem.” She glanced at Tootie now back at the table, pouting over her coffee cup. “Hurry and tell me the rest.”

“The woman the girl is living with happens to be a daughter of Bernice’s. The child is friends with Bernice’s granddaughter. Bernice told me social services says the girl needs to be with relatives if they can find any. Bernice was only too willing to help out by hunting my telephone number for social services. Probably trying to get shut of the girl for her daughter. Coming from parents like she had, I can imagine the child is a handful.”

“Oh, Tootie! How can you say that about a child sight unseen. She just lost both parents. That’s so unkind of you,” Nora scolded. “What will happen to the poor child now?”

“I’m trying to tell you if you give me a chance. That is the problem. Bernice says I’m the only living relative. She tried to make me feel guilty by telling me the girl will wind up in a foster home if I didn’t take her in. She completely forgot I have a sister. Not that it matters. We’re both too old to put up with a child.

Bernice no sooner hung up and the social worker called. I told her she couldn’t send that child here to me. I don’t have any place to keep her.” She sipped her coffee as she eyed Nora over the cup. “Foster homes can’t be as bad as I’ve heard.” Tootie looked guiltily into her cup when she saw Nora’s narrowed eyes. “Can they?”

Nora was fuming as she tried to keep her voice steady. “Tootie, did the social worker leave a phone number?”

“Yes, she said she wanted me to take her number down in case I changed my mind which isn’t going to happen,” Tootie said obstinately.

Nora shook her head. “Tootie, you call the social worker back and tell her Jim and I will take that child. She’s our kin, and we’re all she has. She deserves to be with us. Make arrangements and call Bernice. Have her tell her daughter we’ll pay her back for expenses of the bus trip. Do you hear me?”

“I can do that only if she will be staying with you. I don’t want her under foot at my house,” Tootie said as if this was a negotiation.

“Of course, she can stay with Jim and me. We have plenty of room. It will be fun to have a child in the house to liven things up again, and the poor dear needs a home and family,” Nora declared.

“Give this some thought. You best discuss it with Jim before you leap into a responsibility like this. He might think different. Besides, the child won’t be a thing like you remember Hallie was when she was young. This is a modern day city raised girl with all those doodads like laptops and earphones plugged in her ears. They like to play music loud enough on their boomboxes to rattle the windows,” Tootie warned.

“Listen to you. For someone who claims she doesn’t have any experience with children, you certainly know a lot about them. In case you’ve forgotten, we don’t have electricity. It will be hard for the child to use boomboxes or computers here,” Nora said in exasperation.

“Most of that equipment comes with battery backup,” Tootie informed her.

“Is that so? How old do you suppose the girl is?”

“Bernice said she’s about to turn fifteen, which is a difficult age, I think,” declared Tootie. “I know, why don’t you asked Hallie if she will take in this girl. After all, Hallie is a relative, too.”

“I will not do that and neither will you. Hallie has a large enough family and a baby to care for. She doesn’t need one more mouth to feed,” huffed Nora.

“All right, I agree. It was just a thought.” Tootie paused. “I know. What about Emma and Adam? The girl might be able to help her with the babies.”

“No, no, no! Emma has her hands full with twin babies, and one of them so very ill. You’re just trying to get out of the responsibility of taking care of Peter’s granddaughter by palming her off on someone else.”

Tootie puffed up. “Fine, Miss Know It All. What do you suggest?”

“We have no choice. We’re sending for her.” Nora amended, “if Jim doesn’t object. So, Sister, get used to the idea.” Nora dropped her cup into the dishpan. It was better to keep busy and not look at Tootie’s stubbornly-flushed face.

Tootie looked out the window and perked up at a cloud of dust on the road. “Oh, no! Something must be wrong.”

“What is it now?” Nora asked, drying her hands on her apron as she walked to the window.

“Noah coming in at a gallop,” Tootie said.

By the time Nora got to the window, Noah raced past the house to the barn. The women headed for the back door and watched. Noah dismounted and talked to Jim. In a few minutes, the two of them headed for the house.

Nora and Tootie went to meet them. “What’s happened?” Nora saw sadness on her grandson’s face.

“Baby Joesph died in the night. Mama Hal sent me to tell you.”

Tootie groaned. “When it rains it pours. Poor Emma and Adam. So sad for them.”

“Do we need to go to Emma’s right away to help her with anything?” Nora asked.

“Nah, nothing to do right now. Mama Hal was going to make Emma go to bed for a rest. We have been up all night. Adam is already building the coffin. Mama Hal just wanted you to know tomorrow afternoon and evening is the visitation. You can come early if you want and help.”

“Of course, we will,” Nora declared.

“The funeral will be the next day, so be there early for that and bring food for the fellowship luncheon after the funeral.” Noah shrugged. “That’s it. I need to get back to help Daniel and Daed with the milking.”

Jim patted Noah’s back. “Thanks aplenty for coming to let us know.”

“Yes, and tell Emma and Adam our prayers and thoughts are with them,” Nora said.

Tootie nodded she agreed with Jim and Nora as she wiped her eyes.

The History of my Virginia Bluebells

Source: The History of my Virginia Bluebells

The History of my Virginia Bluebells

Company usually gets a tour of my flowers now that they are blooming and a story about how I came by them. Right now my Virginia Bluebells are in bloom. They are truly from Virginia, because my Grandma Bright brought them back from a trip to where she was born thanks to my brother. It was a journey she enjoyed so much. I look at my flowers and remember how bringing them back helped her remember a happy time in her life, going home to Riner, Virginia.

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When a small child, my grandmother Veder Bishop Bright moved to Germania, Iowa from Riner, Virginia with her large family. She married John Bright from Olive Branch, Missouri when she was almost seventeen in 1914. My grandfather, John Bright, drove a team of horses harnessed to a wagon from Northern Iowa to Vernon County, Missouri. The horses had been sent by train from his grandfather John Lewis Bright to Germania for John to use. John was a farmer for many years then ran a couple gas stations in Iowa and worked in one in Nevada, Missouri. The last one my grandparents rented on the Lincoln Highway near Keystone, Iowa before they retired and moved to Belle Plaine, Iowa in 1962. My parents, their daughter and son-in-law, bought the gas station and house.

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After my grandfather died, my grandmother, Veder, felt lost. My brother, John, had a new car, and he offered to take our grandmother back to Virginia to visit some cousins and see where she lived as a child. She kept in touch with the cousins by letter, one had come to visit her and she very much wanted to see them one more time.

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John Bullock in 2015

John Bullock and Grandma’s Trip Home To Virginia

Sylvia Bright Bullock’s son, John Bullock, remembered this funny bread stealing moment with Grandma that was repeated many years later on their trip to Virginia. “I actually still remember the table set up in our dining room on the farm near Schell City, Mo for lunch that day in the mid 1950’s. (John was 7 or 8 years old at the time.)

Grandma and Grandpa Bright were there that day for lunch. I laid my piece of bread down by my plate on the table. I was probably playing around. Grandma figured I was done eating and meant to leave the slice of bread lay. Not ever wanting to waste food, Grandma ate my bread. When I hunted for my bread and couldn’t find it, I demanded, rather forcefully, to know who stole my bread. Grandma confessed to eating it, because she didn’t think I was going to. Everyone laughed, and Grandma never forgot she stole my bread. She made references to that day many times.”

Fay Risner to relatives – Did any of you ever see Grandma when she was so tickled her big belly shook? She laughed that hard that day along with the rest of us. Needless to say, Mom made sure Johnny got another slice of bread.

John Bullock’s account of the trip to Virginia.- After Grandpa died, I took Grandma in my new Mustang in May of 1974 to see Freda and Shirley Chafin, Riner, Va. They had come and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa sometime earlier in Belle Plaine and invited them to come to Virginia.

First morning after the over night stay in the motel, I spotted a restaurant across the street. I asked Grandma if she’d like to go over there and eat breakfast. That would be better than the free roll and coffee in the motel. She perked up and said, “If the roll and coffee was free, we’ll go back into the motel and eat. We paid enough for the room.”

Going on the trip to Virginia we were trying to make time, so we bought some lunch meat and bread to make sandwiches on the way so we wouldn’t have to stop. When we were ready to eat, we couldn’t find the bread sack. Guess we must have thrown it on the passenger seat, cause eventually Grandma realized she was sitting on it. Think she was around 200 pounds, so the bread was pretty flat. Again she had did away with my bread.

Going and coming, somewhere near the Indiana-Illinois border I think, there was a town named Veder, which she thought was funny because that was her name. We stayed there going and coming, and spent most of two days on the road each way.

We stayed at a house of her cousin, Freda Chafin. She was married to a man named Shirley. They had a house in the Blue Ridge mountains near Riner. Close by was an old gas station/grocery store, which was closed long before and they used the building for storage.

I and their son slept in a camper or trailer, while we were there. It was May and the mornings were cool, but the days grew warm. There were a lot of Southern Living magazines in the camper, and I read a lot of them. Subscribed to the magazine when I got back home. Grandma slept in the house of course.

In the morning, we’d get up and go into the house. In the kitchen, Freda had a wood cookstove with a water jacket, and a range. She only used the range when there was a lot of company there, otherwise cooked day to day meals for us on the wood stove. We’d take water from the water jacket and have hot coffee immediately. They believed in a big breakfast, a big lunch, and a big dinner. There were five women that were Veder’s Virginia cousins. Daughters of her Uncle Sam Bower, Veder’s mother’s brother.

The place we were staying was his home to begin with. Sam and his second wife, Rosa Belle Comer, was in a portrait on the wall in the living room that he had placed there when he and his family lived there.

Fairly modern furniture in the living room. From the living room there was a door to the front entrance, a stairway rising up in front of the entrance to the second story. The wall of the stairwell had animal heads, deer, bobcat, etc. from hunting, many of them probably dating back years.

Across the entrance was another room, a parlor. It had a spinning wheel, one of those half back love seats. This was the parlor that boys supposedly called on the daughters and sat and held hands or whatever. Grandma said Uncle Sam drilled a hole in the wall of the living room to see into the parlor to keep track of what was going on in there. Grandma said that when Uncle Sam thought it was time for the boys to leave, he would clear his throat with a loud “huruph” of some sort, and the boys would take off fast.

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Freda Chafin, Hazel Epperley, Mosby Lovell, Nellie Kelley, Elsie Sowers daughters of Samuel Bower brother of Nannie Bishop Lindgren.

Mosby used to write Veder about what was happening in Virginia with the cousins to keep my grandmother posted on how that side of her family was doing.

From the parlor was another door that lead to the formal dining room. There was a large antique table, over a hundred years old that had belonged to the cousin’s mother, and some dish sets of the same age. All the antiques in the house weren’t something they had bought, but handed down and taken care of.

Freda had two sisters living close by in similar houses with a mixture of modern and handed down antiques, but the other two lived in town. They and their husbands came to the Riner location, but then we were expected to goto each of their homes in turn and eat there. Each one put on a huge spread, and I never ate so much in my life. Green beans and other garden vegetables were in season there, all from their own gardens.

On one trip, Shirley took us and the sisters up a mountain on the Blue Ridge to a Ranger Station at the top, which at one time he was posted to watch for forest fires. Remember it being chilly at the top and there were tame deer there looking for hand outs and petting. There was a pretty good grade on the road going up the mountain, nothing to the side of the road but a drop off, and Shirley was driving up the road, seeming to pay little attention,and half the time turned around talking to everyone behind him. I was for sure he was going to drive us off the road and over the edge. Every once in a while one of the women would yell stop, and he would hit the brakes. They had brought buckets and whenever they saw a Mountain Laurel (Rhododendron] these feisty, rather large, elderly ladies would go over the edge and dig them out. Spry bunch. Shirley wasn’t afraid of heights much. When they had strung electric wires and telephone wires from mountain to mountain high above the valley floors, he was one of the people who rode across in some kind of little chair, doing the stringing. Grandma brought back one of the Mountain Laurel and planted it by her trailer on Sylvia’s property by Keystone. It didn’t live, but the bluebells did.

On one day, they drove us through the Blue Ridge Parkway with a lot of timber and rail fences along the side. We stopped at the Moberly Mill, which was a working water mill, grinding grain. Grandma insisted on buying some buckwheat flour ground, because she hadn’t had buckwheat cakes in a long time.

The mill has closed. We also went up and visited the location where one of her Grandparents lived, Veder’s mother, Nannie’s parents Lewis and Nancy Bower. The house is no longer there. It was by a small stream. Grandma stood there and looked at it and told me she remembered when it was a big river. Not sure if she was kidding or just thinking that when she was little it seemed so big. (Fay’s note: The Bowers owned a grist mill after the Civil War to make a living on that stream. It was a river then.)

Not far from there was the Bower Cemetery where a number of the Bowers were buried, a small fenced in family cemetery. Somewhere in there Grandma saw some rocks along the roadside by an old barn, and we had to load some of those Virginia rocks in my car, so she could take them back to Iowa.

I hope you have enjoyed my reminiscing about my grandmother and my Virginia Bluebells.

Fay Risner

 

Joyful Wisdom – Nurse Hal Among The Amish book 10

Source: Joyful Wisdom – Nurse Hal Among The Amish book 10