Love Letters 2020
In early February, ten church friends and I enjoyed a matinee production of Love Letters at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre in Jacksonville. Before the show, my new friends (not to be confused with my special Southern Lady friends) and I feasted on one of the two:...
Classmate Carol Shares Secrets
Last week, Carol Reighter and her husband John met Cliff and me at Panera in Jacksonville. I knew Carol from Elizabethtown Area High School as Carol Hall, headed for nursing school in Harrisburg after she graduated. My memoir Mennonite Daughter has brought us together...
Wordless Wednesday: Sleigh Ride
Meeting Liesbet: Close Encounters of the Best Kind
Who is Liesbet? Liesbet, a writer and memoirist I met in November 2015 on my blog, visited our home last week with her husband Mark and furry "daughter" Maya: A teenager when a world map captivated her attention, Liesbet has pursued her dream to roam the world ever...
A Souper Day!
Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor. ~ Marge Kennedy Has a tub of soup or stew been bubbling away on your stove tops lately? At the...
2020 Vision, Color It Beautiful
The Riddle What is black and red and green with seven significant flames? The Answer The candles of Kwanzaa, an observance designed to review the old year and establish goals for the new. The word Kwanzaa is a Swahili word and means "first fruits."...
A New Face in My Memoir Photos
Late Thursday afternoon last week, I watched Howard Landis walk toward our door, his wife Faythe following him. Facebook had revealed that Howard is related to me through Fannie Martin Longenecker, my maternal Grandmother. Now they had responded to our invitation to...
Fred, Bunny, Eva and I Reckon with Forgiveness
What do Fred Rogers, Ruth Graham, Eva Kor, and I have in common? Read on to find out! During the 2019 holiday season, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” has played in theatres all across the nation. The movie is a tribute to Fred Rogers, the legend of children’s...
Grandpa Vogt’s Christmas Table
Dr. Benjamin Vogt, my instructor in a Family History course I took in 2015 via publishing entrepreneur Jane Friedman, is a poet, gardener, and author of creative non-fiction. With his permission, I am printing this poem from the collection entitled...
Thanksgiving Collection II, a Reprise
This post first appeared on Nov 27, 2013, the year I began blogging. The grandchildren pictured near the end of this post are much older now, but the expression of gratitude remains the same. The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914) Courtesy...
7 Revelations since My Memoir Launch
Writing memoir is like “dis-robing in public,” says one author, but only if you are brave enough to include the hard parts, I say. After my memoir launch on September 14, many details of the first 24 years of my life became public. I voluntarily exposed my self...
Playing Word Games with Marian and Jill
The blurb on the back cover of Mennonite Daughter begins: What if the Mennonite life young Marian Longenecker chafed against offered the chance for a new beginning? It continues: What if her two Lancaster County homes with three generations of family were...
Time Flies and You are the Pilot
This weekend some of us set our clocks back and hour, theoretically regaining the hour we lost last spring. It's the spring-ahead/fall behind herky-jerky phenom we never quite get used to. Either way, the rhythms of our lives are temporarily interrupted until we catch...
Tell Us Your Hair Story
I'll go first: Now it's your turn!
Extracting Honey, Bee-ing Kind
Aunt Ruthie’s 1945 Diary tells stories of her daily life, but it also holds clippings of other things, like a bee swarm . . . Cartoonists of this era tried to cram lots of action into one scene. Here’s a detail: ...
Quilts and Tractors and Churns, Oh My! Glenn Longenecker’s Farm Museum
"Why is Glenn Longenecker buying so many antiques?" It was June 2017, and I noticed cousin Glenn was outbidding antique dealers at our Aunt Ruthie's property sale. He was sitting under the sales tent with several items he already bought huddled around his feet. "Don't...
Meeting Readers: The Joys of a Book Tour
Hands down, meeting readers on tour has been the highlight of the entire memoir publishing and launching business. But first, the launch party in Jacksonville, Florida! Hosted by my trusty Southern Friends, Judy Davis and Carolyn Stoner at Deerwood Country Club, the...
Mennonite Daughter in a Cornfield with a Giveaway
Reply below to win a copy of the newly released Mennonite Daughter: The Story of a Plain Girl. Winner will be chosen via Random.org and announced next Wednesday. Comments to count for the contest will close Friday, October 4 (EDT) at 12:00 noon! ...