Half a Generation, But Not So Far Apart
My youngest sibling is eleven-and-a-half years younger than me, and he was not yet six when I left for college. I was his primary babysitter from the time he was just a few months old until I left home. In those early years, he sometimes felt as much like my own child as my brother. […]
First Grade: From Superstar to the Slow Line
I wrote last week about the autumn of 1961, when I spent three weeks in kindergarten before being promoted into the first grade. I loved my first grade experience in Corvallis, Oregon, where I was the superstar of readers in the class and had a teacher I adored. Then we moved to Richland, Washington. In […]
Retelling Tales: My Grandfather the Salesman
I’ve written before that my paternal grandfather, Laverne Ernst Claudson, was the grandparent I knew the least. Both of my grandmothers overshadowed their husbands in my young life, and I spent more time with my maternal grandparents as a child than I did my father’s parents, so I never felt I knew my Papa Verne […]
Three Weeks in Kindergarten
I started kindergarten in Corvallis, Oregon, in September 1961, when I was five-and-a-half. I was so excited to finally be in real school—I had a neighbor friend who was a second-grader, and she told me how wonderful school was. She had lorded it over me, because she went to real school, and I was just […]
Returning to Childhood With Favorite Books
I’ve written before about the importance of reading in my family when I was growing up (see here and here), and about how my husband and I read out loud to our kids when they were small (here). I recently had occasion to revisit some of my favorite children’s books. My husband boxed up a […]
A Tale of Two Kauffmans and Two Spirits
There are two landmarks in Kansas City named after city benefactors Ewing and Muriel Kauffman. Actually, there are more than two, but this post focuses on Kauffman Stadium and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, both of which are on my mind this week. The Kansas City Royals baseball team was once owned by […]
Back to Research: Oregon Land Laws in the 1840s
The reason most settlers went to Oregon was because they could claim free land. In my first Oregon Trail novel, Lead Me Home, all I needed to know about the Oregon land laws was that settlers could file land claims once they got there. But in the sequel I am working on now, which takes place […]
A Halloween Spin
As I’ve written before, I don’t usually dress up in costume on Halloween. But one year I did. It was the year my daughter wore a homemade clown costume, a hand-me-down from her cousin. When I told a friend at work that my daughter was going to be a clown, she volunteered she had an […]
Two Autumns in New England
When I attended Middlebury College in the mid-1970s, the school had a long weekend without classes in October each year. The weekend typically occurred near the height of the spectacular autumn colors, though, of course, the peak colors could never be predicted precisely. I can’t recall whether the weekend was called “Parents’ Weekend” or “Fall […]
How I Launched My Writing Career
Almost exactly ten years ago, in late September 2005, I attended a three-day diversity training program in Toronto. The program, called “Women Supporting Women”, was sponsored by Procter & Gamble. Most of the attendees were P&G employees, though they had a few guests there like me. The women attending the program learned about each other […]