Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

A letter to my readers

How often do you receive a real letter in the mail? The art of letter writing has slowly gone by the wayside with the new communicating device called the computer. I find it an honor to find a long hand written letter in the mailbox. January is a good month to do the things we have put off. I write this letter to you just as I would write to my family or friends.

Wednesday, January 9 in the New Year of 2002

Dear Friend,

It’s been a long time since I have had the time to write to you. The quiet moments of January find me thinking of you. I hope this letter finds you well and happy. This winter has been scarce of snow. Since I didn’t get snow for Christmas I will be just fine if the first precipitation I see comes in the form of spring rain. The warm balmy days in the first month of the new year are very welcome to most of us. Darn the luck.

This fall I had made contact with a 90+-year-old woman in Texas. This woman named Eunice was the daughter of my grandfather’s sister. I had seen old pictures of her in my grandma’s picture albums; I called her on the phone and we talked. She seemed excited to talk to me and knew exactly the ancestors I was talking about. I felt compelled to send her our family genealogy information as I had promised. Something told me too, even in the midst of the entire holiday bustle, to get this in the mail. It arrived in time for Christmas and she read it all the holiday long.

Well let me tell you! When you are compelled to do something, do it. I received a letter from her family telling me how much Eunice had enjoyed the information and they regretted to inform me she has passed away on the first day of the new year; so I will never know the answers to the question sheet I had sent. But, by our conversation I do know about the log cabin that I think my dad was born in. She told me that I was right in my placing of this cabin. It felt good to know that I got this family history to her so she could read it in her last days on earth.

I call this my memory tree because each one of the loads of ornaments has a meaning to me. Last Christmas my oldest grandson Shane told me, “Please put the big three back by the stair case like you used to have.” A few years back I had a big full tree just straight ahead as you come in the front door. The tree got to be a chore so I sold it and opted for a smaller tree, too. Thanks to my friend and her lack of space Shane got his wish. A 12 to 14 foot tree with a thousand lights adorned our foyer. Its top stretched far up in to the stairway reaching far up into the stairway, reaching almost to the top step, with the white lights reflecting from each corner. I put up this tree in mid November but at I started to take the ornaments off yesterday it seemed to me I had just put it up. It took three of us to carry it out to the storage building where we covered it with white plastic to await next November.

As I made our next year’s calendar on Monday I wrote, “put up the Christmas tree on an even earlier date, about November 11.” Pushing it you say? I say, “after 50-years-old person can celebrate Christmas any day of the year.” Especially when you love Christmas as much as I do. So today my friend and I took down all the rest of the decorations and the bareness of the house looks so sad. But, upstairs in the room that I spend most of my time, it’s always Christmas and stays that way all year. My Dickens village pieces shine with snow cover even on the hottest day of the year and a slim seven-foot pine tree stands in the corner. The timer turns on its few white lights daily. It’s my alarm clock in the morning. All that is missing is the music of the season, but that’s easy to take care of now days with a stack of Christmas CDs just inside of my desk cabinet and the computer tower at my knees. My memory can be returned to the happiness of the holiday season in just a minute. I tell people I do strange things, but I always have a method to my actions.

This afternoon, under cloudy skies, I took a walk to the hill overlooking the pond and the old Sharp Home foundations. It was a delight to hear the robins alive with busyness in the trees overhead and it was just last evening that we saw a flock of lesser blackbirds in the tall cottonwood trees in the backyard. All fall and winter the bluebirds have come to drink in the warm bird waterer by the water garden. Their blue backs give bright color to the dullness of winter.

The water garden froze for the winter with the last cold spell we had, but this week the big pond thawed out completely and I have been feeding my fish. They move with the quickness of March and just under the water the Primrose creeper has some green leaves on its woody branches.

I plan on spending January, February, and March reorganizing all my photo albums. I started this project the beginning of last year and put it away in April to go out side for Spring work so we will see how far I get this year. Of course I will keep the road warm with my trips to Kansas to visit my sons and family. That’s my favorite thing to do, and I think they know it, for I will use any excuse that comes along to head south. So picture me at my little desk facing the south window with happy photos spread all over in the warm winter sunshine. Sometimes I take time to look out the window and see the traffic on the highway so you might want to wave as you go by. In closing let me say, I love to get mail if you like to write letters. Address them to me at Bloomington, NE. 68929

Youth fades; love droops; the lessons of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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