by MarianBeaman | Jan 20, 2016 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Reflection
A long, wavelike ridge of snow . . . formed by the wind: Sastruga, a word of Russian origin. A snowdrift is a beautiful thing if it doesn’t lie across the path you’ll have to shovel or block the road that leads to your destination. Prehistoric Humps James...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 16, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
Mother’s house on Anchor Road has been sold. We sold it last fall, just a year ago. After more than seventy years, the Longeneckers do not own this house. But that doesn’t mean there are no memories or longings for home. The Welsh have a word for such a feeling,...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 2, 2015 | blog, Conflict, Education, meditation, Mennonite History, Reflection, Uncategorized
My Pilates instructor is a spring chicken, and my writing coach is young too, just thirty-nine years old, younger than either of our children. Still, They are teaching me. Since childhood, we have been conditioned to think of our teachers as older than we are. Such a...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 11, 2015 | blog, Cliff Beaman artist, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
My brother Mark was my first baby. He was born when I was 12, and I soon became a mother to him. I even have a picture to prove it, a blurry movie still from one of Aunt Ruthie’s 16 millimeter camera shoots. I most certainly bottle fed him and changed his...
by MarianBeaman | Oct 21, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Romance, Uncategorized
True Love This month would be the 75th wedding anniversary of my parents, Ray and Ruth Longenecker had they lived. True, they bickered from time to time, but I knew their love was deep and abiding. I rested in the assurance that they would never divorce. There were...
by MarianBeaman | Oct 14, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
Great Aunt Mary Grace would turn 117 this week on October 14 if she were still alive. When I was young, the Longenecker family visited Mary Grace Martin at her cottage at Mt. Gretna, PA. What I remember most about her appearance was her pleasant aura and a gap-toothed...
