by MarianBeaman | Jul 16, 2014 | Literature, Memory, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
Birthdays The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been. – Madeleine l’Engle The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm. – Aldous Huxley...
by MarianBeaman | Jul 12, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Reflection, Uncategorized
We have to try it again. Here’s another shirt,” Jane said as she plucked one of Dad’s blue work shirts out of a plastic bag full of shirts—clean, sprinkled and rolled—all ready to iron. “Start with the yoke,” she directed. I grabbed the damp shirt out of her hand...
by MarianBeaman | Jul 2, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Travel, Uncategorized
Atlantic City, New Jersey was the beach mecca for vacationers on the East Coast in the early 1900s. Still dressed in fancy Victorian formality, vacationers caught the salt air as they strolled along the famous board-walk at the Steer Pier, a combination theatre and...
by MarianBeaman | Jun 28, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
This week at Mom’s house, I attempted to re-create a scene from my childhood – in the same house, on the same chair, with one of the same Ball-Mason jars from the mother’s stash in the cellar. The kind with tiny bubbles crystallized within the glass...
by MarianBeaman | Jun 25, 2014 | Conflict, Literature, Memory, Nostalgia, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
Jane Martin Walters never attend another Elizabethtown High School Class Reunion, and Dr. Norman P. Will no longer attends college graduations as a president emeritus at Florida State College at Jacksonville. Yet, they both linger in my memory though Jane died in her...
by MarianBeaman | Jun 21, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Romance, Uncategorized
This is the wedding portrait of my mother and father Ruth Landis Metzler and Ray Martin Longenecker October 26, 1940 June is the month for many American weddings. And so is August. Because many Mennonites were farmers, Mennonite weddings often took place in October,...