Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 41

Meet Author Diane T. Holmes

I found Diane Holmes on a TV interview with “Hello, Iowa!” Here is a woman about my age, I thought, who’s written two books. We met in person at last year’s Indie Bookstore Day at Beaverdale Books in Des Moines, where I learned she’s a dozen years older than I am! What a remarkable woman. Her chauffeur/husband, a career fighter pilot, says she’s hard to keep up with.

Diane was raised on an Iowa farm. After high school she attended the American Institute of Business in Des Moines and married a high school classmate, Lyell, a career Marine Corps officer who flew helicopters and jets. They raised two daughters and a son while moving from state to state. Diane also worked for a large school district supervising their workers’ comp and insurance programs. She’s been through the devastating loss of an adult daughter.

You might find her books as compelling as I did. One is her memoir. The other is a novel woven out of a family mystery.

Uprooted: Family Is Where You Find It

Diane Holmes describes in her memoir, Uprooted: Family Is Where You Find It, what it’s like being born in 1932, the middle of the Great Depression. She writes about WWII through the eyes of a child helping the war efforts on the home front – victory gardens, war bonds, rationing books, and sacrificing.

Diane tells readers what she experienced in her military life being married to a career officer who flew helicopters and jet fighters and spent two tours in Vietnam. She explains how they dreaded the separations but made things work by buying two small recorders and sending tapes back and forth. She smiles and frowns, telling about raising kids moving from duty station to duty station, searching out good schools at each place. She describes going back to college to update skills then entering the workforce after nearly 25 years being away.

Holmes enjoys sharing with readers special Christmas celebrations during her lifetime. And she ends her memoir, Uprooted: Family Is Where you Find It, telling readers how she dealt with a devastating loss.

My Thoughts: This memoir, which covers the author’s life from the Great Depression and WWII until now, will especially resonate with military families. Her husband was a career Marine jet pilot, so frequent moves and separations were common, along with the sensation of being uprooted. She eventually returned to college and the workforce. Now decades later she has written two books!

Two Sisters’ Secret

From author, Diane Holmes, comes a story inspired by the life of her grandmother, Bernadine. In this work of historical fiction, the relationship between Bernadine and her older sister Elizabeth is complicated. Bitterness between them develops when Elizabeth asks Bernadine to keep a deep dark secret about her past. Later, Bernadine must endure betrayal when Elizabeth moves to West Virginia and leaves her behind. The story gives a detailed look at Bernadine’s life as she matures, marries, and raises a large family on an Iowa farm, always harboring bittersweet feelings for Elizabeth.

Two Sisters’ Secret is not just the personal story of Bernadine and Elizabeth but the story of rural America at the turn of the century and beyond – the days of horse-powered farm machinery and transportation, the transition to electric lights and telephones, the sadness, fear, and loneliness of an immigrant in the United States, and the very real hardship of the Great Depression.

My thoughts: This is a family story that needed sharing, about sisters who immigrated from Germany. The much younger one (Bernadine) was so ambivalent about leaving their home country, about being left behind in Iowa when the older sister (Elizabeth) married and moved away. Even after marrying and having so many children of her own, then widowed, Bernadine struggled.

Bernadine’s life became even more fascinating after she married a man who wasn’t really as she’d thought. And there were unpleasant surprises with two adult daughters. By then, I’d forgotten about the original secret, so when it was revealed, it came as a surprise. Well done, Diane T. Holmes!

Here is Diane’s website.

Make Memories by Glenn Stoutt

Glenn Stoutt wrote this for his grandchildren, but it’s great for us all to make part of our own lives.To our beautiful grandchildren…Make memories…          Because there’ll be some point(s) in your life you’re going to lose someone and wish you had made memories when they were here with you…–Be spontaneous…          Those are the memories that will stand out and last a lifetime…–Be adventurous…          Those are the memories that you will want to share the most with the ones you love…–Be courageous…          Those will be the memories that will remind you of how much you grew through all of those (life) challenges that were thrown at you…–Be a blessing…         Those are the memories that someone else will remember (about you) that they will share with others who need to hear…–Be happy…          Those are the memories that your brain (health) will love the most and so will the people around you…–Be patient…          Those are the memories you will remember where God was guiding you…–Be Love…          Those are the memories that will be your legacy…–1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.–So, no matter where you are in your life’s journey, never give up because God wants you to fulfill the amazing potential He has in store for you…–And know that your nonna and nonno always love each and every one of you.

Kids Played Marbles with their Superintendent

Playing Marbles

The spring of 1936, Junior and Dale Wilson played marbles with several others during dinner break at school. Dale, a freshman at Dexter High School, had won about forty of them by the end of March.

Even Superintendent Clampitt played once in a while, “but he just gets beat,” Dale reported to his older brothers who’d been in the Navy more than two years. (He also told them that two more Dexter boys were joining the navy, making fifteen from a town of fewer than 800 souls.)

As a boy, Wesley Clampitt had gone to Frog Pond country school in Guthrie County with Clabe Wilson.

At the end of March, sixth grader Junior wrote his brothers that he and Dale had collected 170 marbles all together, playing the game at school. Dale reported that about 70 of them are ones he won. “The kids sure do play a lot of marbles, at morning and noon they play down in the [school] basement.”

I’ve become the keeper of some of the Wilson brothers’ marbles. I hope some of them are in this jar. They came from Grandma Leora’s house, but she also had a “marble game,” essentially a slide for them to roll down, turn a corner, roll some more, to the bottom. Little kids enjoyed the noisy thing.

The library table under the mason jar was in the entryway of her little house in Guthrie Center. There are stains and buckled areas where a plant had been overwatered. It followed her to Guthrie Center from her mother’s home in Dexter, then to Minburn and Perry. It originally came from the Goff Victorian house in Guthrie Center, where there were two of them. My mother, as a preschooler, played on the platform underneath the desk.

These days the old mission style library table holds a lamp in our front window.

This is what the library must have looked like when it was new.

Here are different ways the game of marbles is played.

While searching for how to play the game, I ran across this delightful memoir by a man who also played the game during the Depression in east Des Moines. At least for these city boys, playing marbles was a serious business, with rules and even their own language. What a gem! The Real Rules for Playing Marbles in a Bull Ring: East Des Moines, Iowa Circa 1930 by Carl Ringwall, Sr. is only available as an ebook.

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There are more tales in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression.

 

The Scent of the Century: JOY

This photo started the rabbit trail on the history of the fragrance.

The Scent of the Century

Mom wanted to delight me with this little bottle of genuine JOY perfume when I became a mother. The, uh, aroma gave me such a headache. I’ve saved the treasure ever since 1974, but I’m still leery of even a little whiff of it. 

One photo started a delightful rabbit trail, because what I do enjoy about this little bottle of expensive perfume is its history.

The American press called Jean Patou the most elegant man in Europe. He created his own fashion house in 1914, but the Great Depression caused the market for luxury fashion to collapse. Created in 1929 by perfumer Henri Almeras in 1929, JOY was introduced in 1930. Even though pricy, it became a success, saving Patou’s company. It remains their most famous fragrance.

Voted by the public in the 2000 Fragrance Foundation FiFi Awards, JOY was chosen the “Scent of the Century.”

According to Fragrantica.com, “The nose behind this floral fragrance is [perfumer] Henri Almeras. Top notes are Bulgarian Rose, Ylang-Ylang and Tuberose; middle notes are Jasmine and May Rose; base notes are Musk and Sandalwood.”

I confess that this Iowa farm girl prefers the aroma of recently mown hay to expensive fragrances. But my little bottle of JOY is another winsome heirloom with a story.

Mother’s Day 1976, Dan was 17-months old, and I was 30 years older than that. Aurora, Colorado. (We moved back to Iowa that December.) (BTW, I sure enjoyed when that shag haircut was in style!)You know what my husband thought it was at first glance.

Georgia Wilson’s House at Panora Still Stands

Among the papers of the mother of Clabe Wilson, was the address of her house in Panora, where she lived with her younger daughters after she was widowed.

One one of our family history excursions, in 1996, Mom and I started at the City Hall in Panora.  A large map of the original town hangs on one wall, with the old addresses. The woman there determined that the new address of the house, which is still standing.

I haven’t included the address since folks live there on a narrow busy street. They may not enjoy having “Clabe and Leora tourists” checking them out!

Clabe and Leora Wilson, probably the year they were married (1914) in front of his mother’s house in Panora. This photo is on the cover of Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots.The house in Panora, Iowa, taken August 1, 1996. A vehicle was parked in front of the house, so I took the best photo I could that day.

Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

Georgia Wilson’s Panora house is on the cover of the book.

You gotta take the pencil sharpener

by Chad ElliottGrandpa Alma Blair called me on my birthday Monday. He told me he was proud of me and was excited about the new art studio. He also urged that I shouldn’t waste time and energy thinking about the house I just left. It was the house he and Grandma built for the family many years ago.He said, “You can’t get stuck in life. You have to go with the changes. Don’t sit still.”After all of this he wisely added, “But I hope you took the pencil sharpener.”I learned how to draw on the floor of my family gatherings. I used this pencil sharpener thousands of times as a kid.It is built well. It has seen lots of use over the years.I had nearly forgotten about it, until my brother Eric Elliott and I were walking the rooms one last time. He saw it and said, “You gotta take the pencil sharpener.”He, too, understood the significance of this sharpener to me as a kid.I love my family. They get me. They see the big picture.So…this old sharpener will be installed at the new Elliott Art Studio .Only a couple days left to pitch in. Thanks so much! Keep your pencil sharp.P.S. Happy Birthday Grandpa!—–Scroll down through Chad’s creative offerings. (The one of the meadowlark on the post is mine!)https://www.kickstarter.com/…/renovating-elliott-art…

Searching for the Missing, Decades Later–Two Books by Kenneth Breaux

Recently I’ve read two books about families, similar to my own, needing to find out what happened to a loved one who was lost during WWII. Those losses leave a hole for decades, affecting several generations. Kenneth Breaux has written two compelling books about poignant searches and their outcomes.

Courtesies of the Heart

The Book: The author takes the reader on a compelling odyssey, beginning with a wartime mystery which endured for nearly sixty years. A compelling and often gripping story of loss and discovery.

The Author: Kenneth Breaux graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1966 and was commissioned as a Naval Officer that same year. After leaving active duty, he served on a variety of vessels and concluded his career as commanding officer of a Reserve Training Group with the rank of Commander. He has worked as a corporate training developer, planning and project manager and is retired from EDS Corp.

He holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and has attended the Naval War College. In retirement he created a not-for-profit company, the M.I.A. Recovery Network, which serves as a focal point for identification and recovery of the 74,000 remaining missing in action from World War II and advocating for families of the missing. He is the author of two other books, Courtesies of the Heart, the history of an MIA recovery, and Transforming! How Managers Become Leaders.

My Thoughts: A P-51 pilot is lost in Germany but not located by the Americans for decades. He left a widow and a baby daughter, who feels his absence her whole life. The area where he fell became part of East Germany, so was inaccessible for decades. But one local man buried his remains and cared for the grave for years. This is the amazing story of how several people, speaking three different languages, eventually became a “society of the heart” through the internet and in person. The P-51 pilot’s remains are brought home for a military burial. Just incredible.

Known But to God: America’s 20th Century Wars and the Search for the Missing

also by Kenneth Breaux

The Book: There are many books written about epic battles, heroic soldiers and the remarkable events that occur during a war. This book contains little of that history. This book is about the more than 70,000 men who remain missing after America’s wars. Their names appear in our cemeteries, on gravestones marked “unknown,” on commemorative walls listing the missing or simply in after-action reports inadequate to the task of declaring a life at an end. Americans are sensitive to the injustice and incompleteness of such records. So, the United States is the only country publicly committed to searching for missing warriors’ remains and to identifying and finally honoring them. This commitment has been inconsistently fulfilled, however, and results have been mixed. This book shows how modern warfare loses its dead in ways that make them harder than ever to find after battle. It tells the story of families who never give up hope and of the volunteers and officials who try to help them. But it’s also the story of how our government too often has failed to make finding the missing possible — and what we can do about it.

My Thoughts: This important book includes chapters on the history of how US war casualties were taken care of, providing overseas cemeteries beginning with WWI. Several stories describe locating old burial grounds and the work to identify the missing. Some are never solved. One especially poignant was of a site that ended up in East Germany, where Americans weren’t allowed to even search. The Bibliography and Appendices are especially helpful.

Please visit Kenneth Breaux’s Amazon Author Page.

This Journaled Prayer from 2004

Leora’s Letters wouldn’t be published until fifteen years later, but I journaled this prayer for the book in August 2004, as part of a local Creativity, Vision, and Faith Class from artist Mike Brangoccio:

“Dale–New Guinea. [I have no idea why I began with Dale Wilson that day.] Please, Lord God, be in the writing. Actually I need you in the thinking, how it will take shape. Make me sensitive to themes & nuances & how to make sure this family’s sacrifices are never forgotten. [Five Wilson brothers served. Only two came home.]

“But help me to paint them not as saints but as ordinary people trying to do the right thing. Help me to discover why this is important, why strangers will want to read it, why they will remember.

“Lord God, you are already ahead of me with this, may the ball begin rolling for the things that will happen after the story begins to breathe on its own, that people in Dexter & Minburn & Perry will become part of the team that won’t let their memory die. I cannot do this on my own, Lord. The story is too huge & unwieldy, but last weekend somehow you got my anxiety over the hump.

“Help me to successfully place Dale’s history in the history he joined up with & was sucked into. Help me to weave the words in such a way that the story becomes important to strangers. Lord God, I don’t know what that means, but as I endeavor to put it down on paper, at some point please take over & turn the story into what you’ve intended for it.

“I sense something sacred here & am grateful to be the one to work on it. May I make wise decisions about the story & even what to do with the letters & other artifacts. Lord God, you know what I seek, what I mean about wanting the story to float ‘above the ground.’

“Help me to find whatever it is for the Wilson story. It comes from the heart & thinking. I need the details & the research, but this other has to do with how I end up telling the details and research.

“Lord God, weave that into my heart & thinking even as I review these details & research!”

This was nearly the last writing in the little journal, as I sank farther into the misery of fibromyalgia.

I had attended several workshops during the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festivals during the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2016 that I was able attend the Cedar Falls Christian Writers Workshop.

Two years later, I joined the online group, Write That Book (now Write That Book With Tricia Goyer), where I connected with one of the presenters, Robin Grunder. She became my coauthor for Leora’s Letters, which was published in late 2019, an answer to that long-ago prayer.

About the same time, the Wilson brothers were remembered at the dedication of the Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn, Iowa, near where they’d been tenant farmers with their dad before and during the war.

A nearby storyboard shares the details of their service, and the losses of three of the five.

I’m still amazed and humbled by these answers to prayer so many years later, along with two more “Leora books” published since then. But it began long ago with a dream and many prayers, several of which were journaled.

The Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project

Wilhelm’s Way

by Teresa Wilhelm Waldof

The Book : The untold story of the humble man whose scientific innovation helped end World War II

In February 1942, leaders of the Manhattan Project had a problem: to prove a controlled nuclear chain reaction was possible, they needed pure uranium—tons of it and in less than ten months. With only a few grams in existence, there was little hope anyone could achieve such a feat. Harley Wilhelm, a chemistry professor at Iowa State College, rose to the challenge.
A sharecropper’s son and former college basketball coach, Wilhelm was an unlikely character to impact the course of world history. Nevertheless, he and his small, dedicated team of scientists and technicians surpassed anyone’s wildest expectations.
Wilhelm’s Way reveals the life and times of this unsung hero who helped America win the race to build the atomic bomb and end World War II.

The Author: Teresa Wilhelm Waldof is the world’s leading expert on the Ames Project section of the Manhattan Project. An independent scholar, her in-depth research provides for trade publication the first-ever account of the life of chemist Harley Wilhelm and the critical Manhattan Project work he led on the Iowa State campus.

Teresa speaks on her grandfather’s life and scientific contributions, the Ames Project, and the founding of Ames Laboratory. Recent speaking engagements include the 75th Anniversary of Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University Lecture Series, and the American Chemical Society Annual Convention – Midwest Region.

Outside of research and writing, Teresa is a business professional with thirty years’ experience in management, specializing in process improvements and turn-arounds. Her methods VACIP© and DRIP© can be applied to improving results in business as well as achieving goals in life.

Teresa holds a BA in speech communications and an MBA from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota, with her family.

My Thoughts: This is a story important to world history, to WWII history, to Iowa history, to the history of Iowa State University. But it’s also a masterfully written family story of the humble man who indeed influenced the outcome of WWII.

Please check out Teresa Wilhelm Waldof’s website.

The Honeymoon is Over by Rick Friday

The Honeymoon is OverRick and Juanita Friday

Like any profession there are many do’s and don’ts to consider when working with your spouse. Experience is always the better teacher and the lessons I’ve learned while working with my wife on the farm are usually what you don’t want to do.

I hope what I am about to share will keep newlyweds from tearing up their wedding vows after working together on the farm. Cows are dumb, your wife is not. While working cattle with the love of your life it’s better to have bite marks on your tongue than to have them on your backside. If you mess up and yell at your wife she will undoubtedly go back to the house, leaving you alone to realize that you are now dumber than a cow.Do not expect your wife to know what you’re thinking. Be specific with your goal. You might be a whiz at problem solving, but she’ll kick your butt in multi-tasking all day long. I have learned that it is less lethal to share a plan with your wife. This way you can both say “Would’ve, Could’ve and Should’ve,” rather than you blaming her when your plan fails. Nothing turns anger into regret faster than a cursing tongue. If you mess up, she will undoubtedly go back to the house, leaving you alone to realize that you are now the weakest link in the chain of command.When giving directions to your wife, don’t be overly specific with details. Most of the time a man’s old fashion backwoods rural redneck directions don’t fit a woman’s gene map. When giving your wife directions to where she can find you in the field, try to avoid the four cardinal directions: North, South, East and West. Do not use landmarks that no longer exist or locations where events happened before you met her. A woman’s temperature rises dramatically when she’s lost. If she has to continually ask you “Which way’s East?,” she will undoubtedly go back to the house, leaving you alone to realize that it’s the same distance whether you drive or walk; it just takes a little longer if you have to walk.A man has a limited number of sorrys he can use in his lifetime, so he should use them wisely. I’m quite certain my wife keeps a tally.Rick Friday—–Here’s couple more Rick Friday stories.