Remembering Those Who Have Gone Before Us and Saying Thank You!

Today is my oldest sibling's birthday, my brother Ray. The first of ten living children he began his life in Hawaii when my dad, a recent Naval Academy grad, was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Ray always called himself the youngest Pearl Harbor survivor since my mom was only a few weeks pregnant when evacuated to the mainland. Ray ended his life here in Woodstock and continues to be loved and missed. 

Is America Collapsing Like this Ancient Barn? It's Not Hopeless!

I love Victor Davis Hanson and enjoy his columns in the Epoch Times and his interviews on TV. We don't agree about everything, but his opinions are so thoughtful and thought-provoking that I always find myself stopping to reflect as I read. The article below is one such thought-provoking, not to mention inspiring articles. Is it a metaphor for our country? I hope so, because perhaps the 1,000 years of survival mentioned by one of the contractors will be our happy fate. Let us pray for our country and all resolve to build on the strength of the past for a solid future, but always according to the will of God. May Jesus Christ be praised!

Ode to a Collapsing Barn.

By: Victor Davis Hanson

 

Part One - February 20, 2024 

My Dad Would Have Liked Donald Trump!

Raymond J. Schneider, USN
1940 Naval Academy yearbook

Every now and then I do a Google search on my dad's name. I feel like a miner panning for gold -- searching for little nuggets of family history. And today I found one, a letter to the editor  Daddy wrote to the Naval War College Review in 1984, the year before he died. It's filled with the practical common sense and respect for the people the elite Dems call "deplorables."

His letter reminds me of Donald Trump's respect for the folks in fly-over country who are often ignored by our political betters who delight in telling us what's good for us since they know it all.

Like Trump Daddy always had deep respect for the little guy, paritcularly those under his command. When other officers were holding parties to entertain their superiors, my dad would have a picnic for those who worked for him. Mom said she never expected him to make admiral because he wouldn't play work politics. His advancement was all on merit.

Celebrate Strong Women

Women of Yesteryear by Jim Thunder

I liked this article very much. There's something profoundly respectful about celebrating the lives of your ancestors. And I'm jealous of Jim for knowing so much about his past. I know very little about my family beyond my grandparents' generation. My mom was adopted and had a great devotion to her adoptive parents, but she knew nothing about her birth family except that her parents were married and she was adopted at age three.

I wish I'd asked my dad more about his family. My grandfather on his side was raised in Wisconsin. Daddy said when Grandpa was a boy he earned a nickle a cup for pulling potato bugs off the crops. My grandmother was the youngest of thirteen and an amazingly versatile woman. She could do every kind of needlework and produced some absolutely beautiful things. I still have a few. But she also learned to develop her own film and to paint and make ceramics. She taught retarded children and my mom said people whose children she schooled came up to her at Grandma's funeral and said they don't know what they would have done without her. I wish I'd known her better. My grandparents visited infrequently and we moved frequently because of Daddy's job in the Navy. She was stern and I was afraid of her as a little girl. Now as an adult I'm sorry I never got to know her.

Praise God for your own ancestors today, especially the "founding mothers" of your family. I often offer daily Mass for my ancestors, especially those who passed on the faith. And that means I'm praying especially for the first teachers, the moms, who taught their little ones to pray and to think about the things of God.

Jim includes a list of books for those interested in reading about pioneer women. What a great addition for girls after they finish The Little House books. Sounds like a treasure trove for home schoolers.

Joanna L. Stratton, Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier
Harriet Fish Backus, Tomboy Bride
Margaret A. Frink, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails
Conrad Richter's trilogy, The Trees, The Fields and The Town
Jane Jacobs, editor, A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece
Virginia Cornell, Doc Susie: The True Story of a Country Physician in the Colorado Rockies
Carol Crawford McManus, Ida: Her Labor of Love
Agnes Morley Cleaveland, No Life for a Lady (Women of the West).

RIP, Margaret Grace

Today is my mom's birthday. She was born on June 10, 1919 and died on December 19, 2002. What a lady! She was adopted at age three, but didn't find out about it until after she was married when her mother-in-law let the cat out of the bag. What a thing to learn from your mother-in-law, eh? The relationship between them was always, I think, grace-filled because of my mom who was a peacemaker. I rarely heard her say an unkind word about anyone and she always had a smile on her face. She gave us all the gift of cheerfulness.

Mom was quite a blonde beauty as a young woman, but had a brain to match. No blonde jokes about her. She started college at sixteen (Trinity in Washington, D.C. which was a faithful Catholic school at the time but disintegrated later and now is simply scandalous). During her college years she trained for the Catholic Evidence Guild which defended the faith in parks and on street corners. Frank Sheed of Sheed and Ward Publishing who visited Trinity and heard her defend the faith described her as "damn good!" She was always proud and somewhat amused by that fact. She didn't know he was in the audience.

After finishing at Trinity (1939), Mom went on to Western Reserve University law school (now Case Western Reserve) and completed two years as the only woman in the class before leaving to marry my dad, a young ensign in the Navy.

She was on the island of Oahu when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and was evacuated to the mainland shortly after, pregnant with her first child, my oldest brother. She often talked about that terrible crossing suffering from morning/sea sickness.

Mom went on to raise ten children, fight sex ed, work tirelessly in the pro-life movement, get a masters degree in education, subsitute teach for years, and be a great-grandmother (G.G.) to almost 40 young ones before she died.

During her final illness when she was in the hospital for surgery we had a little contest going with her, my sister, and I taking turns reciting poetry. Susie and I were reduced to nursery rhymes while mother was still quoting Tennyson, Shakespeare, Kipling, and other masters. She had forgotten more than I ever learned as an English major.

What a lady! I wish I were half as smart and half as kind as she was. Happy Birthday, Mom. We will not see your like again.