by MarianBeaman | Aug 28, 2013 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
In Florida, most people take baths once a day. It’s too hot not to. And it’s a safe bet most people in contemporary America take more than one bath a week. Not so in the olden days. Mildred Armstrong Kalish writes of her family’s once-a-week bathing in her...
by MarianBeaman | Aug 24, 2013 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
CIRCLES: I am in a small room of our church standing in a circle of women and girls in the presence of our Bishop and Deacons who will ask each of us 2 questions: * Are you in harmony with the rules and regulations of the Mennonite Church? * Are you at peace with God...
by MarianBeaman | Aug 21, 2013 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
Rings CareBear Cliff has given me a diamond ring for Easter, baked in a blueberry muffin with a plastic bunny-rabbit stick on top. It is my first piece of jewelry ever and I’m 25 years old. Imagining everyone is as thrilled as I am, I flash the sparkling stone in...
by MarianBeaman | Aug 17, 2013 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
Bonnets “Tie your head shut!” – An oft-heard admonition from my mother, my Aunt Ruthie, and Grandma Longenecker. Translation: If you tie your head shut, you won’t get sick with colds, sinus trouble, what not. And so our heads are tied shut with...
by MarianBeaman | Aug 14, 2013 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Lists, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Southern lady friends, Uncategorized
Bee Video / Facebook The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the...
by MarianBeaman | Jul 31, 2013 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
The whole family crams into the gray 1951 Studebaker: Our family of five, Daddy, Mommy, Janice Jean and I (Mark isn’t born yet), Aunt Ruthie and Grandma–seven stuffed into an airplane cockpit, it feels like. We don’t take two cars because we are...
