Bulletin 414 May 23, 2010

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Sunday, May 23, 2010

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Photo © Ryan Hellevang
Brandon Hellevang receives diploma from President Kelly.

Photos © Ryan Hellevang
Brandon & fiancée Mikaela Kleeb, left; with Fighting Sioux cake, right.

UPDATE -- Brandon graduates University of North Dakota
by Merna Morgan Hellevang
Palm Harbor, FL

On Saturday, May 15, we were in Grand Forks, North Dakota, for the University of North Dakota commencement ceremony. Brandon received two degrees: Bachelor of Business Administration (marketing major) and Master of Business Administration. He completed the combined program in five years while he was a four-year starter on the football team as place kicker and punter (two years).

Brandon and fellow graduate Brent Larson celebrated with friends and relatives at an open house following commencement. Guests included his immediate family; his fiancée, Mikaela Kleeb and her parents, Lynn and Jeanne Kleeb of Lincoln, Nebraska; grandparents Tom and Mavis Morgan; Tim and Char Myron and Ty; Troy, Marlee, Alyssa, Angel and Jett Freesemann and 50 family friends from the Grand Forks area.

He moved out of his apartment that morning, also, and all of his belongings were in three vehicles that we took to Lincoln on Monday. He is now a Nebraska resident and begins his new job at Wells Fargo Financial on June 1.

Photo © Ken Hellevang
Ryan, Jessica & Brandon Hellevang, Mikaela Kleeb, Lindsay Hellevang & Cory Shelton.

Photo © Larry McCorkell
Above High Falls

Photo © Larry McCorkell
Scarred tree

Photo © Larry McCorkell
Rushing river

Photo © Larry McCorkell
High Falls

Photo illustration © Virginia McCorkell; photo by Larry McCorkell
Lost my grip.

UPDATE -- my other heirloom antique spinning wheel
by Sarah Dake Steinhauer
Wannaska, MN

About 15 years ago, I also inherited a spinning wheel from my great-great-grandmother who came from Sweden (on my mother's side of the family). This is the first spinning wheel I ever used and the one on which I learned to spin. It was a tad rickety, but I was able to spin quite a bit of fine yarn. This is a photo of me spinning on the wheel when I was a teenager.

Photo © Larry Dake
Sarah Dake, as a teenager, spinning on heirloom wheel. There's much more to this story, which you can find by clicking this link to Sarah's blog, Where The Wild Ferns Grow.

UPDATE -- spring returns to my street in May
by Jerrianne Lowther
Anchorage, AK

I've been working for a year on a series of seasonal photos from the bridge by the rock garden at the end of my street. Yesterday, May 20, the trees had leafed out enough to complete the series with a spring photo. At lower left is a rock garden where pasqueflowers grow. They are closely related to the mayflowers that bloom at the Ashby farm, but they are not the same. These are cultivated and come from the European species. They are darker and the plants are more robust. They bloom a bit later here. They are just starting to bloom, about a month after Donna photographed mayflowers in bloom at the farm.

Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
Spring returns to the rock garden where pasqueflowers grow in May.

Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
The Chugach Mountains tower above my neighborhood in Anchorage, Alaska.

Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
Fall colors include aspens, cottonwoods, spruce & ornamental trees.

Photo © Jerrianne Lowther
In summer, the mountains & the foothills are lush & green.

Photo © Donna Johnson
Grandkids: John & Donna Thoennes with Rylie & Brooklynn Johnson.

Photo © Donna Johnson
Chris & Jessy Chap celebrating Jessy's first Mother's Day as a mom.

Photo © Donna Johnson
Jolene & Wyatt Johnson handed the girls over to their grandparents.

Let's play a guessing game: we will run a picture of someone of the subscribers or staff members of our e-magazine. Tell us who you think it is -- we will let you know who was the first to guess it right -- and the correct guess -- in the following week's Bulletin.

Last week's Guess picture

Betty Droel supplied last week's mystery photo.
Send us some mystery photos; we will line them up in our staging area to take their turn.

Editors' Note: Correct guesses appear in bold face type and incorrect guesses in normal type ... generally in the order we receive them, so the first guess received is on top.

My guess is Jim and Kathy Edwards with their darling little girls, Leah and Gina.

This must be a fairly recent picture of the Edwards family -- Jim, Kathy, Leah and Gina. (Or then, too, maybe we have been gone too long.) :)

Editor's comment: Yes, indeed, you have been gone a long time and the girls in the guess picture are shown in an update in the same Bulletin you are reading. Just find them and then decide just how long ago the guess one was taken.

The guess picture is pretty special: Jim and Kathy Edwards with Leah and Gina as darling little girls. Could this picture been taken at the home of the Wolffs at Hector? Will be great to find out the answer.

Well, what a coincidence that the whole family is pictured in The Bulletin from the Mother's Day Update to the Guess picture. I was thrilled to see the recent picture of Leah and her family, having known her best as the little girl on her dad's lap. The little cousins are pretty sweet and very much loved. That is so evident.

A series of recollections, of the five years when Bill and Lois Dake and their family lived in Minnesota, began with the episode in Bulletin 343. It's too soon to tell just how many parts there will be in this series, just after World War II. In Bulletin 349, I told more about polio (once called Infantile Paralysis) via two links, Polio and Sister Kenny, to minimize disruption of the narrative flow. Both documents are posted as a series of scanned images. We can't edit them or correct typos and they will not respond to font changes or printer settings as regular Bulletin pages do.

It has been a busy couple weeks. I have been busy getting caught up with family visits. I will tell you about that later. But for now I will tell you more about my planned summer work schedule. For instance, this is what I started this week.

Some of the family members have arranged for me to help earn some money for my board and room for my coming year at St. Cloud State Teacher's College. So far, I have several jobs lined up. My tuition and books will be paid for by the Rehabilitation Program of the State of Minnesota. But board, room, and other miscellaneous expenses are my responsibility.

My present task is one I do not feel very accomplished at -- I am helping Mom and Dad with the work they have hired me to do. I am finishing with household painting; I started it last spring before I left for Bemidji. So now I am painting the rest of the wooden dining room chairs, and then I will do some of the woodwork that got missed, too. At least it is warm and nice, so I take the chairs outside and work on them; that makes cleanup a lot easier.

Rollie and Grandpa Mellon are taking a trip that will be an overnight (some kind of a business arrangement). So they hired me to stay with Grandma one night and to help the clerk-bookkeeper (Betty Gritz) with keeping store. This one, I really look forward to. I will get in a good visit with Grandma and with Marcella and get to know Tommy a little better. And in the daytime I will work with a lady I met the last time I worked for Grandpa (the week after I came home from my trip to Texas). Betty and I get along so very well. It will be interesting to see how many of the folks I met that other time will recognize me.

I went to the "Sweet Shop" in Cokato. (Billie told me that he had heard they were looking for someone who could run a till, wait on people, and keep a day book -- so their present girl could take a vacation). So I went right up, had an interview and am hired for the first week in June. I think that will be fun, too. It doesn't pay so well, but it has a luncheon served at noon and the girl who works there tells me she does pretty nicely, with tips included.

I think I mentioned that, starting in the middle of May, Blanche wants me to help her with gardening and maybe some housecleaning and whatever. Blanche and Jim said I could use their car for going to The Sweet Shop job. They have a pickup now, too, so that should work out. I guess that is all the family-scouted or supplied jobs, but it isn't bad. Nice to have my family to go to bat for me!

And then the main moneymaker will be a job at Green Giant corn factory. I will be working on the cutter. It pays one of the best wages, and I do have experience there. I will stay at home and I have a ride arranged with one of the kids LeRoy used to go to school with. He works on that same shift and I will pay him to ride with him. The factory will begin in July and I will work there until school starts on September 12th. I will probably work until the 10th.

It is tiring and noisy and repetitious, but I have worked there since during the war, whenever I have been able to, and can pretty much pick the job I want. The only one I can't get is canning peas ... which doesn't use many women, as lots of the work is done with machines in the field. The few women who do inspection at the factory, are women right from Cokato. Some of the family fellows intend to work with the field crew.

I really do not think I will have time to get bored this summer, as with steady work and with awaiting the arrival of the babies, it should be exciting enough.

"Just keep your arrival on track, Mr. Stork, as I want to be there for your delivery! Or at least for one of your visits!"

Photo © Kjirsten Swenson
Garden of greens & flowers, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Yesterday was a success, too; I took a Lao cooking class run by the proprietors of my favorite restaurant here. First, we visited the market. The offerings included several varieties of dried water buffalo skin, with plenty of hair and fat for flavor, to be grilled or fried at home. Vats of fish sauce with long dead fish floating on top made me less enthusiastic about this condiment. The meat section was horrifying ... they had huge buckets of congealed blood for soup, a water buffalo fetus still in its placenta, pigs' heads, frogs, and many other animal parts I'd prefer not to eat.

Photos © Kjirsten Swenson
Eggs, left; the numbers indicate how developed the unborn chick is. Apparently, Lao people eat them in various stages of development; congealed blood for soup at the market, right. I'm not sure exactly what is done with it, but it is considered a food item.

This Week's Birthdays
May 23---Don Pettit
May 25---Amy Ellen Dake Harrison
May 26---Rick Anderson
May 27---Tracer Scott Roberson (12 years old)
May 28---Jazmine Jane Hill (7 years old)
May 28---Jason Hunt
May 29---Kristi Kay Larson Indermark
Happy Birthday!

This Week's Anniversaries
May 27---Dwight and Janie Anderson (39 years)
Congratulations!

More May Birthdays
'
May 1---Frans de Been
May 4---Beau Birkholz
May 7---Ben Johnson
May 7---Kim Mellon (Tim's wife)
May 8---Kira Lynn Steinhauer (3 years old)
May 10---Curt Henderson
May 12--James Dake
May 14---Ernie Dake
May 14---Bridget Larson
May 14---Tyler James Indermark (5 years old)
May 15---Nathan Alexander Smith (2 years old)
May 16---Angelique Freesemann (11 years old)
May 17---Dwight Anderson
May 19---Ryan Hellevang
May 22---Dan Henderson

May 30---McKenna Blanche Miller (6 years old)
May 31---Mavis Anderson Morgan
May 31---Braden Mitchell Miller (3 years old)

More May Anniversaries
Z
May 2---John and Penny Pesta (2 years)
May 12---Chris and Jessy Chap (3 years)
May 14---Roddy and Alisha McNeill (5 years)
May 16---Nathan and Brenda Anderson Hill (14 years)

May 31---Tom and Mavis Anderson Morgan (53 years)

May Special Days
May 1---May Day (hanging May baskets day)
May 8---VE Day
May 9---Mother's Day
May 15---Armed Forces Day
May 31---Memorial Day

Thanks for the cute e-card. I also got your card in the mail today. Thanks for that, too!

I've had a great day!

Dwight Anderson
Wahpeton, ND

Editor's comment: I heard you did! Seems when your birthday is also your retirement day (from Robanks) that even the weather cooperates. And I hear they did not forget that your favorite cake is cherry cake with white frosting (I suppose). And most all of the Wahpeton relatives came.

I will make sure Ernie gets his card. You always pick such nice ones. Thanks.

Please drop Miss Hetty a line and tell us who, and what, we've missed. And how about a report (photos welcome) of YOUR special celebration?

Thank you, thank you again, Dorothy, for sending The Bulletin. It is the first one I've read since January! WHAT A TREAT!

I will now try to keep up my end of the story -- too much to retrieve at this time. I have recovered quite well, I believe, and it is a pleasure to be able to do things I know of to do -- still some memory not quite here, but doing well. I remembered The Bulletin! I read almost every word this morning -- treasure!

We went for a ride yesterday -- first one in months. We went around the area in central Arizona -- went through a state park where we camped a few years ago -- beautiful -- got the "bug" to do it again, so will in a few weeks. We want to do it at the end of June and into July will be in Montana for a few weeks.

This is enough for now -- I am going to make a stew for the neighbors who were good to us. Mrs. has had pneumonia and just out of hospital today. We have so much help and so want to help others if and when we can -- so HI from Arizona.

That's a first. A first for The Bulletin to have a sculptured bush waving a greeting to us clear over here from the Netherlands. It is a wonder how they ever create and keep them alive and trimmed so expertly, and thanks to Frans de Been for all of the excellent pictures.

I loved the picture Larry McCorkell stopped to take of the violet growing out of a rock. It truly is blooming where it was planted, which was probably by a bird.

The next Update telling of Shari uprooting to move to Florida sounded familiar. Rich and Verlaine have it in mind to move also, and are in the process of even seeing if their home will sell which it hasn't as yet. We secretly hope it doesn't, as we would miss them keenly.

Anyway, Shari seems to have all that behind her, and now her dad will enjoy having another child near him. To enjoy the grandchildren and having the support and the company of his children will perk up his days.

An adjustment always follows a major move such as they have undertaken, and we hope happy pleasant days in sunny Florida will be the result. The best gift to give parents is your time, they say, and they are right.

Grand Forks has some fine students, and now as they fan out into the world to their chosen professions we truly hope things will all fall into place for their success.

Tom and Mavis have additions all the time so we needed that Update for Mother's Day in Hillsboro.

Of course Donna Mae would have a full busy Mother's Day as she is so family oriented, and everyone loves the Grandma and Mother and Auntie and Sister and Friend that she is. I am glad she is my friend, that's for sure.

I had to laugh at the photo of the family at the Thanksgiving feast at the Steinhauers' in 2009. LTD is the only one with something on his plate. I couldn't tell what it was -- maybe the dessert, who knows?

Memory Lane gave us another perfectly clear word picture of a day in life at the Dake's farm. The washday was like we used to do it, but what a wonderful advancement to have the automatic washer and dryer era.

The life of an emergency nurse would be pretty exciting. Thanks for the details, Dorothy, and we are glad they don't resort to cigar boxes anymore -- or do they?

Kjirsten is still giving us the most interesting views of her Laos visit. Imagine sitting, with no glasses, working with that fine fabric. I am so curious about the elephant dung paper drying. How in the world do they make that, and what do they use it for? More details, please, on that one. The prickly fruit must have been edible.

If you don't believe the Quotation for the day, just ask any mother who the prettiest child in the whole world is!

We were all set to go for a drive this afternoon. Such a beautiful day here in Minneapolis-St. Paul -- just too nice to stay inside. But the neighbors came by to chat, so we ended up having a pizza and root beer floats and got caught up on the neighborhood. So, there is only time for this much of an LTTE for this time.

Our thanks again to our Editors for the consistently full and all-encompassing, all inclusive, and global articles.

To search a name in Who's Who or Who's Where: click on the link to open the page, then use CONTROL F on a PC or COMMAND F on a Mac. To search for a second occurrence of the name, use CONTROL G on a PC or COMMAND G on a Mac. (This works on ANY web page with text, unless the text is converted to an image. Chances are, it works in your e-mail, too.) HINT: Search by first name only, as most entries list the family name once but do not repeat the last name for each family member. In Who's Where you can search on state or city names, too.

Some will tell you crocuses are heralds true of spring
Others say that tulips showing buds are just the thing
Point to peonies, say when magnolia blossoms show
I look forward to the sight of other flowers though

Cultivate your roses, grow your orchids in the dark
Plant your posies row on row and stink up the whole park
The flower that's my favourite kind is found throughout the land
A wilting, yellow dandelion, clutched in a grubby hand.

EDITOR'S POLICY: If you wish to subscribe to The Bulletin, simply send me a statement of that fact. If you wish to keep receiving it I hope you will contribute to one of the columns that are running in this family epistle (at least occasionally!). My e-mail address is dma49261@juno.com

This Bulletin is copyright Dorothy M. Anderson; the contents are also copyrighted by the authors and photographers and used with their permission, and the contents are not to be used for any commercial purposes without the explicit consent of the creators.

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