by MarianBeaman | Mar 11, 2020 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Quotations
Someone has said, “Grandfather clocks come with two simple instructions” First, don’t let it run down Second, don’t wind it too tight Aunt Ruthie’s grandfather clock sat in a corner of the sitting room, a fixture during most...
by MarianBeaman | Feb 19, 2020 | Award, blog, Conflict, Literature, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Quotations, Romance, Tips, Uncategorized
Writers don’t usually get recognition beginning at age 80. And often they don’t write steamy sagas at that age either. Yet Roberta George, a Valdosta, Georgia author, has been nominated for a Townsend Prize, so says a review of her novel, The Day’s Heat,...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 27, 2019 | Family / Nostalgia, Gratitude, Memory, Nostalgia, Quotations, Uncategorized
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...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 13, 2019 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore
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...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 6, 2019 | blog, book review, Literature, Memory, Quotations, Uncategorized
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...
by MarianBeaman | Oct 23, 2019 | blog, Education, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
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: ...