My Portfolio

Each summer a trip my mother and her sisters looked forward to was taking the train from Roanoke to Bluefield to visit their Aunt Beulah Wagner and Uncle Dock.  It was a two-day affair, as they had to take "The Motor" (local train) from Rocky Mount to Roanoke, spend the night...

As my younger son Ed, his wife Anna, and our granddaughters prepare for a cross-country move from New Jersey to Chicago, my mind goes back to 1974, the year our family also moved from the East to the Midwest.Husband John had accepted a position with Battelle Columbus Labs and begun work...

    Though I am dog tired from a day trip to Virginia to check on my 90-year-old Aunt Eunice, I want to share with you an amazing instance of synchronicity (if such be a word).     I made the trip from Ohio for the nursing home’s Christmas Party today.  Here is...

We had been in Columbus, Ohio a year where my husband was enjoying his new job with Battelle Memorial Institute.  We had bought our first home, a split level, in a neighborhood near the school where our young sons attended.  We had very little furniture at this point in our married life - no couch...

Since publishing BIG WAVE - CAPSIZED I sent the story to my cousin Kitty Susan Hylton, who was struggling with me in the water.  After reading my account of that July 4th day in 1965, Susie sent some details I had forgotten. Our rescuers were not deputy sheriffs but county game wardens.  One of...

The summer of  1951 my family was living in the Copper Basin of Tennessee where my dad was pastor of the Methodist church in Ducktown.  This area of Tennessee was a rather God-forsaken place with few trees or vegetation able to survive the ravages of copper mining .  I remember the...

As I look back on an earlier time when my mother was experiencing the onset of dementia, I have come to realize her greatest suffering might not have been her failing memory but the feelings of being useless, unappreciated, and possibly at times unloved. I grieve to think about her frustrations...

Back in the '60s my mother's brothers Howard and Paul Webster owned a boating business that catered to people using the newly opened Smith Mountain Lake in Southern Virginia.  For the 4th of July holiday my cousin-by-marriage Jimmie Cooper was loaned one of the sailboats to take me, my sister-in-law Carolyn...

Back in the '30s a highlight to the summer for my mother and her sisters was visiting their Aunt Beulah, who lived with her family in Southwest Virginia in the village of Mud Fork near the West Virginia border.  To reach Mud Fork they would take the train from Roanoke, about...

As I look back on the year 1947, I now realize it was one of those important years.   The main event took place January 11th when I became a big sister to my brother Jim.  Yesterday happens to have been my brother's 67th birthday!   On that Saturday morning 67...

This year there was a bit of a crunch, getting ready for family to visit for the Thanksgiving weekend.  I had the weak feeling of 'will the important parts get done' along about three days before everyone was to arrive. As I began cleaning and putting away, I realized this was...

If put to the test of what I can't imagine living without, it would be courage, faith,and love.  The first of the three, I believe I had when I took my first steps learning to walk.  In those days every experience was a discovery and, having had few disappointments, I was...

                                                                                      Class of '59           ...

This is not how I imagined I would be spending my last night at my mom's home.  My idea was a quiet peaceful time, reflecting on the many happy moments enjoyed over the past 47 years visiting with family.  In reality every piece of furniture is gone now except for a...

It seemed like this day would never come!  Forever I had begged my mother to "teach me to read!"  My dad would buy me 'funny books' (comic books) at the drugstore.  My favorites were Donald Duck and Goofy.  I also had favorite stories like Goldilocks and theThree Bears, Cinderella, and Chicken...

Callie Lynch was my maternal great grandmother who lived her entire life in the same community in central Virginia where she died in 1949.  She was a mother and homemaker and had a husband who adored her. They had four sons and three daughters.  My memory of her is how thin...

My second cousin Ada Fralin was a remarkable woman for her time.  As a nine-year-old she lost her mom to cancer.  Being the only girl in the family with two brothers and a dad committed to farming, she assumed the tasks of an adult at a very young age.  She became...

  Writing about our mother would require a full book, but over the past several months since her passing I have discovered even more to appreciate about the way she lived her life. I have finally set to the task of going through her things to decide what to keep. In...

A much loved keepsake of my mother has recently found a new home in Ohio, Springfield Museum of Art. Its beginnings can be traced to the art department of Newcomb College in New Orleans and a talented potter by the name of Henrietta Bailey around 1919. We call it the Daffodil...

Having recently found the reel-to-reel tape of my grandmother Wagner's poem and the good picture of her and our PawPaw at their fiftieth anniversary celebration back in the '50s has caused me to want to remember more about her.  For as long as I knew her, she did not have an...