First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes Seminary

Our wedding photo was taken by Mr. Rosen
my high school journalism teacher

June 17, 1972, was a beautiful day. The sky was blue. The roses were in full bloom. It was neither too warm nor too cold.

Morning of June 17, 1972, our wedding day.
Also known as the day of the Watergate break-in.

I read the paper in the morning and I have the photograph to prove it. Then my family and I prepared to be at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Ferndale, MI. I was getting married.

My cousin Debbie Becker was my Maid of Honor. Our ushers were my brother Tom and Bruce McNab.

With my brother Tom and Bruce McNab.
Photo by Mr. Rosen.

Me and my second cousin Debbie Becker
photo by Mr. Rosen

During the wedding vows when Rev. French came to "richer or poorer" I laughed. Not just in rehearsal, but in the ceremony! My sisters-in-law had warned me that I needed a good career because Gary would never make any real money. I did not know much about being a United Methodist minister's wife, but I had been warned about the financial aspect.

With my parents. Photo by Mr. Rosen.
The church had beautiful roses.

With the Bekofske family: Gary's brother and best man Keith
and their father Herman Bekofske, Gary and I, Gary's brother
Carl, and their mother Laura. Photo by Mr. Rosen.

Photo by Mr. Rosen.

The reception was in my folk's new Clawson house backyard.

With Grandma Gochenour, Gary's grandmother 'Girl' Loretta Bekofske, and Grandma Ramer.
Photo by Mr. Rosen.

Grandma Ramer was cajoled into joining the unmarried gals.
She caught the bouquet and was married before a year had passed!

Our Beaupied neighbors from Houstonia had offered their cabin for our honeymoon. Gary took the opportunity to drive me all over Up North. He grew up camping in the Upper Peninsula and knew it well. I was always a good traveler and usually fell asleep in the car. Gary would wake me up and say, "LOOK, here's Houghton-Hancock," or "Copper Harbor Lighthouse coming up!" I would rouse and take a look. And fall asleep again.

When I saw the Sleeping Bear Dunes I had to go down. And come back up again. It was the first and last time I did that.

After our week away we returned to my folk's house and picked up what we would take to our new home. Most of our wedding and shower gifts were very practical: sheets, towels, cleaning supplies, a toaster, and such. Most other items, like the Fondue and chip and dip set, were left in boxes because our apartment was so small.

Our apartment  at METHESCO was under the portico, above the door, on the second floor

We had arranged to live in the METHESCO apartments. We had a living/dining area, a kitchen that amounted to a closet, a bathroom, and a bedroom. The bed, couch, and dining table and chairs were provided. The refrigerator could be in the bedroom or the living room. The kitchen had no countertop space but someone had installed a table top attached to the wall that could be propped up on a single leg.

Gary had a student pastorate at a mere crossroads in the middle of Ohio farmland. I was just twenty and a minister's wife! I taught Third Grade Sunday School. One day siblings came in and announced their family had slept in. "Daddy woke us up and he didn't have any clothes on and his thingy was hanging down," the boy told me. It was hard looking that man in the face after that.

A family had a St. Bernard with a dog house like a minibarn. It had a sign, "Mail Pouch. Treat yourself to the beast," a play on the barn ads.

When the women gathered in the church kitchen, everyone working like clockwork, I did not know what to do. I sat with the farmers and listened to them talk about the weather and crops.

People would leave fresh produce on the seat of our car, which we found after church service. A nice couple invited us to have Sunday dinner with them. They had a pump organ which I loved to play. Another lady, Ida Mae, became a friend.

My hope of taking classes at Ohio Wesleyan was crushed when Gary lost his student aid because he now had a 'breadwinner' to support him. First, I got a job in downtown Delaware at Apple's gift shop as a clerk. I spent a lot of time dusting the display cabinets. I bought a Chinese teapot and cups that I fell in love with.

Every day Gary's clock radio went off at 6:00 am and we woke to the theme song "Zipa-doodle-doodle-doodle, doodle-doodle-day" and Dick Zip's farm report.

In the fall I got a job at the North Electric Research Company. I spent nine months in Reproduction running a blueprint copy machine. It used ammonia and gave me horrible headaches. Engineers would bring me a Mylar blueprint and I ran it through the machine to print on paper.

I worked fast and needed more to do. I was sent to help out in the archieves and library filing microfiche and blueprints.

A position as an engineering clerk opened up and I left Reproduction. I was to update files on a computer and edit reports. This was way back when a black computer screen with green type would say "Hello" and I had to type in "Hello" back to get started. As the engineers changed their hardware I updated the files, replacing 6120112 with 6120118. Sometimes I was asked to keypunch. I even got to go into the computer room where huge machines lined up along the walls, churning their mag tape on reels.

Gary's parents had given us their old Buick but Gary missed his VW. We bought a 1972 orange VW Superbeetle without a radio because we couldn't afford one. It cost $65 a month. Gary chose a stick shift not knowing I had never driven one.

The first time I drove it home from work I was going down the highway at 50 mph and had to make a turn into the school. I put on the brakes but I did not know about downshifting. The car did not slow down. I went over the curb and nearly into the pond! Thank God, no one was on the road or I would have killed them. That night Gary gave me a lesson on how to drive our new car. I called the car Bernard, and we had a love-hate relationship for over ten years.

Feeding the ducks at the seminary pond.
This was how I usually got rid of my failed baking experiments.

I was bored and lonely. Gary was busy with classes and studying. I did not like staying home alone. So I started auditing classes, hanging with Gary at the library, and we found new hobbies.

Gary bought me a sewing machine for our first Christmas. I had always wanted to sew. I taught myself in the evening while Gary was studying and soon I was making most of my clothes. I had to settle for inexpensive fabrics. My favorite jumper was a big yellow and purple plaid in woven acrylic. I made Gary leisure suits.

A jacket I made Gary

Me with Nasty buns.
I made the robe, one of my first sewing projects.

We took our Euell Gibbons books to the surrounding meadows and woods and brought home delicacies to try, making candied violets and sauteed day lily buds. Our folks seriously encouraged us to get Food Stamps.

A park opened up down the highway and many a Sunday afternoon we went on wildflower and nature walks with the naturalist. We learned to identify all the Ohio flowers.

We took an Organic Gardening class and that spring participated in the METHESCO garden. It cost $20 to rent a plot.

I am helping weed the garden plot before rototilling

That spring there was a rabbit's nest in the garden. I volunteered to take the babies home. We contacted a local vet and I hand fed the bunnies every three hours.

Feeding the bunnies

When Gary went to Annual Conference at Adrian Collage we had to take our wards along. We made them a bed in a dresser drawer. When the bunnies were six weeks old we took them the woods on campus and let them go.

The garden was very successful. We harvested loads of vegetables and I canned tomatoes, tomatoes and zucchinis, and green beans. We bought fruit and made jams. We bought armloads of rhubarb for a quarter and made pies and sauce. In those days I sealed the jams with parafin wax.

One night we were awoken by a pop. One of my jars of canned food had exploded. Another time we noted the plum jam had a funny flavor. It had fermented.

Gary and I watched The French Chief and borrowed library cookbooks and learned to cook and bake. Soon we made all of our bread every Sunday. We bought a wok and a Chinese cook book. We both lost over 30 pounds from eating so well!

Our first Thanksgiving dinner.

That winter we bought a pet rabbit. Gary named her Nasturtium. We liter box trained her; she trained us to pet upon demand. We collected apple branches for her to eat, otherwise, she chewed on furniture and electric cords.

Soon couples all over campus had pet rabbits.

We would drive to Columbus and Ohio State University for cultural programs. We saw the First MOOG Quartet in October, 1972. The amazing traditional folk singer, Richard Dyer Bennet, was memorable not just because of his amazing voice but also because he taught us about the music he presented. I later bought The Richard Dyer Bennet Songbook and played his wonderful variations on piano. We also saw Leonard Bernstein's Mass in October 1974. Simple Song remains a favotire.

Gary and I sang with the Delaware Community Chorus, singing the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff and participating in a Lenten Vespers service. Roy Reed, a METHESCO professor, was the director.

One day I heard that the position of Bookstore Manager was opening up. I interviewed and got the position. After several months in training, I was in charge of the campus bookstore, with Gary's help. The job allowed me more flexibility in auditing classes. Gary would cover the store while I was in class.

The METHESCO bookstore

My first class at seminary was a theology class. It was like working in a different language. I had to memorize a lot of 'ologies', like Eschatology and Soteriology. I took one class each quarter. I read Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth. I learned about Post-Exilic Prophets, The Book of Romans, the Synoptic Gospels, and New Testament Parables and Stories. I had a class in Russian Church history. I participated in class but did not take tests or write papers. I also read Carl Jung.Our last spring I took two classes when a professor wanted to use my performance to judge what grade a student would get if they only attended lectures.

With the classes and working in the bookstore I felt a part of the community. People would hang out at the bookstore and talk. One boy would talk too long and be late for class. Once a student asked if they should wait for him and the professor said that waiting for him was like 'waiting for the Parousia'!

Gary would tell me what books the professors were talking about. We'd order them and that way increased sales. Students could place books on hold until they could pay for them. We also returned books that didn't sell for credit. In the spring I was called into a meeting with the president and other officials and told that for the first time in their history the non-profit bookstore had made a profit!

The job had its perks. We got a discount on housing, bought books at cost, and I had summers off. That meant that Gary bought a nice professional library. I got to look through catalogs for good deals. My copy of T. S. Eliot's complete poetry was one book I bought then.

I loved the Fortress Press salesman and their books always sold well. I placed so many orders I memorized their address: 2900 Queen Lane in Philadelphia.

At my parent's house at Christmas, 1973

At my parent's home 1973

I had cut my long hair. Some stylist gave me a goofy cut with a perm. The bangs and top looked like a French Poodle cut! I let it grow out.

After Gary left the student pastorate he worked in the MEHESCO library, was a student assistent to Prof. Devries, and in his last year he and another student co-taught a Hebrew class when too many students signed up for the professor to handle. When things got real tight he even stocked shelves at night in the local grocery store.

Sometimes in the quiet moments when the bookstore was empty, a poem would come to me.

Finitude

Who am I?
A small flame
sputtering
in a closed room
where no air flows

Brief light,
my gift a transitory
wisp of smoke

My world's boundary
is my shadow's reach.

Imagining

cool flowing air
infinite light
further sight

beyond 
the veiled window.

Another poem I wrote was far less serious:

I am an old Bic pen,
an empty tub of colorless plastic.
Bought cheap, used, discarded.
The consumer's whore.

We made many friends at seminary. Sometimes our floor in the apartment building would gather in the hallway, sitting against the walls, talking, singing with a guitar, and drinking tea.

Our neighbor Fred discovered he was a Shawnee Indian. He embraced his heritage and developed a wonderful outreach. His roommate Steve would sit in our apartment, Gary and Steve smoking their pipes, and we would drink tea and listen to Russian Orthodox Church music. Rich and Patti lived down the hall. Patti became the next bookstore manager. I had classes with Rich. Jim, who had been the means of my meeting Gary, was at seminary but graduated before Gary. (He did find that perfect minister's wife in another seminary student.)  And my first folk dance partner from Adrian was at seminary!

Gary and I in front of our apartment building on

his graduation day. I had made my dress.

METHESCO hoped Gary would stay for an advanced degree so I could continue to manage the bookstore. But I was eager to resume my education and Gary kept to his promise that after seminary he would support my returning to complete my education.

Some asked if I would go to seminary. I didn't even have my bachelor's degree! No way. I was going to be an English major and I still hoped to write. It was unusual for a married woman to return to college. Most wanted to start a family. I had waited for three long years. It was my turn.

I was concerned that the Bishop would appoint Gary too far from a university or college for me to complete my degree. The Detroit Conference extended along the Eastern side of Michigan and included the Upper Peninsula. One day we were in the coffee shop talking to Pro. Ed Meyer about this and he suggested we look at the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference.

After applying to the Eastern PA Conference Gary was told there were no openings for him. But later they contacted him. Rev. Hostetter's term as District Superintendent was ending and the church he was to serve needed to replace a pastor for Christian Education. Plus, the last pastor had conducted the youth choir and musical. Gary's degrees in MDiv, Christian Ed, and his courses in music and conducting at Adrian made him a perfect fit.

We drove to Philadelphia. It was memorable coming into the city on the Schuylkill Expressway and seeing Laurel Hill Cemetery on the far ravine, and then the city skyline. Going down the tree lined Ben Franklin Parkway to City Hall was so impressive with the museums, library, and Calder fountains, ending at the Second Empire City Hall.

I felt like I was coming home. I knew my Ramer ancestors had come to America through the port of Philadelphia.

We got lost and ended up on the Ben Franklin bridge, going to New Jersey. We were broke, so Gary made a u-turn on the bridge to avoid paying the toll!

While Gary went through the interviews I visited the Franklin Institute and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Standing on the steps of the PMA, looking toward Center City, I fell in love with Philadelphia.

When Gary was accepted into the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference we were thrilled.

Mom had always feared I'd marry and move to California. She had put her money on the wrong coast.

Mom, Dad, and Tom with Princess

After graduation, Gary drove our VW to Morrisville, PA to begin work. I had to stay behind, pack up, and turn over the bookstore to Patti. Everything we owned fit into a U-Haul trailer. Gary's folks came to drive me, Nasturtium, and the trailor to Pennsylvania. 

After three years at seminary, two at Adrian, and seven in Royal Oak, I was moving again.

Summer 1970: A Time of Transition

Me, June 1970, wearing a woven bark bead necklace from Finland
and a culotte dress in a very 1970s print.

Graduation was exciting. I wrote I had "reached success" because I had made so many friends and was "surrounded by love and friendship." The whirl of parties and people kept me high. I saw old friends and made new ones who I would never see again. There were guitars and singing, TPing trips, dancing, and swimming.

Everywhere I went I saw Kimball kids. Cars honked and hands waved. I had come to Royal Oak knowing no one. Now it was home.

I wrote free association in my diary, writing about feeling in limbo:

"I am held in mid-air,
not a part of  Kimball, the past
my loves and friends,
not a part of tomorrow and college.

I am ended.
I am waiting.
I will begin again,
seven weeks from now.

I must leave behind
my childhood."

And another time I wrote,

"I am leaving
torn again, part left behind
     part to travel onward—
I am pierced
       broken
        between time."

The summer of 1970 brought my first job, the loss of my exchange student sister, and a boy.

This magazine ad was my inspiration
I had it on my bedroom wall.

When I graduated from high school my mom was 38 years old. Dad was 39. My brother was 10. And I was still 17. We all had summer birthdays.

My family around Christmas 1969

On July 23 I helped Elina pack her suitcase. Uta and Elina's best friend Paula came to our house for dinner and then we went out for ice cream. The next day we drove Elina to Saginaw Valley College where all the Michigan exchange students were gathered before flying home. I wrote,

Mom teaching Paula to jitterbug

"July 24, 1970, Friday
We got up early— Went to Saginaw Valley College.  All night I had recalled waiting for Elina to arrive, her late plane; and now we walked in the fine rain under gray, crying skies, to take her on her way home.
The dorm room was nice—small but pleasant. Her roommate was a Swedish girl, peculiar, a hopeful writer, nice. We talked. They’ll be busy & have fun.
She [Elina] saw Hannah [another Finnish girl] and her girlfriend from Rovaniemi. The other girl turned, crying, her family moving off in a white car.
Mom said goodbye to Elina, then I. Elina was tearless, smiling, cheerful. We got in the car and drove off, waving.
Mom had her tears before we left, crying on Elina’s shoulder.
Dad later cried, on his bed.
Tom wouldn’t kiss her goodbye.
I walked into what had been Elina's room, opened the windows. I wondered what to do with the remnants, and then I cried."

Elina, Lancer 1970 photo

I needed to find a job. I first was hired for a job in telephone sales making $1.60 an hour but was looking for something better. I applied for jobs at the Main Theater and other places, but really wanted the job at Barney's, the Save-On drug store at Crooks and 13 Mile Road. I had often stopped there on my way home from school to buy a notebook, magazine, or paperback book.

I got the Barney's job as a cashier at the front register. Dad taught me how to count change back to the customer. One day a man pulled the old trick of trying to confuse the cashier. He gave me a twenty dollar bill and I gave him change. He then decided he wanted me to return the twenty and he'd return the change and asked me to give him different denominations back. I don't know if he was successful but I recall being confused.

On July 29 I wrote,

"I am officially 18, though, because of saying it’s my age for months—I feel like I’ve been 18 all year.
Uta’s leaving after tomorrow.  Alta’s coming over tonight.
I am sad—read many sad things today: Thomas Mann's Little Herr Friedemann, The Big Eye--sci-fi short stories, Mausappant. etc.
I am 18 & Mom says I’m 'on my own'. I miss Kimball. I’m anxious for Adrian."

My old beau contacted us to say he had married his girlfriend, the girl we had broken up over, several weeks previous.

On August 3 I wrote that Uta's American Mom said that Uta 'cried terribly' upon parting.

The upside of working at Barney's was seeing so many Kimball kids. But I felt I was living in a 'shadow land', with high school in my past and college in the future.

On August 15 I bought a new coat at Fields in Royal Oak. I was gathering what I needed for college.

There was a partial eclipse of the moon on August 16 and we saw the Northern Lights. Dad always knew about these things and made sure we saw them.

On August 18 I talked with my Adrian roommate on the phone. I was disappointed because she was interested only in coordinating the dorm room with matching bed spreads. I wanted to know if we had mutual interests and might be friends. The college 'matched' roommates, and in a superficial way we were 'compatible.' We were both active in school. I had been in journalism and choir and had an exchange student. She was class secretary and on Homecoming court. Quite different backgrounds!

On August 26 My friend Alta came to my house with her childhood friend, who was visiting the area with his friend Jim. I wrote that I had on bell bottom jeans, a flag t-shirt, bare feet, with my hair held back in a clip.

It appeared Alta had told Jim about me. We talked about authors and books. I was surprised when Jim started quoting from Romeo and Juliet, holding my hand, and then he kissed me. Things were going awfully fast for a first meeting. I was a little starry eyed but also suspicious.

He returned a few days later and had his brother take a photo of us together. He made it clear he wanted to have a long distance relationship. We had fun together and unlike any boy before, we did share a love of poetry, writing, and the arts. But I wondered if he was 'snowing' me. And why would someone settle for a long distance relationship?

So I went off to college with a 'boyfriend,' someone I barely knew, who had a girl in his hometown but was talking about plans for 'our future.' I was doubtful about the whole relationship. I warned that I was not going to be tied down, that in college I hoped to met many new people and expected he would date, too.

I kept in mind a line from a favorite poem by Robert Hillyer: “Illusion shatters, the idea is much more ruthless than the real." I did not want to jump into a relationship that was not based on really knowing each other. I'd been down that road before.

College represented a journey of growth and further knowledge of the world.

In my diary I quoted Ecclesiastes,

I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge, and I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this is also but a striving after wind.  For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases wisdom, increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes, 16-18).

Then I added, "It may be true, but such is my vanity that I want to obtain much knowledge and be wise, and discover much truth, and hence I’m off to college."

I had written on my college application that I wanted to understand the Big Picture, how history and the present, the physical world and the created world, all linked together. I had great curiosity. I applied as a teaching major, too unsure to say "writer." I had thought about teaching since junior high school when I was Mrs. Hayden's class. I had 'taught' my little brother, taught friends guitar chords and piano, and personally loved school. I liked understanding something and translating what I had learned to share with others.

In my diary I wrote, "I want to go to college for the potential friendships that may come in the small college atmosphere. I plan to meet and know many people, branding some with the name of 'friend'. I want to finish my learning and want nothing to hinder it. I have many football games and concerts to attend, and many friendships to establish and keep fueled, and much to learn and to become."

I bought this wristwatch. 

I had a Hot Pot, the plastic case 'Mustang' Hi-Fi my folks bought me at K-Mart for Christmas in 1967, a Love Story poster from Jim, my Kimball class ring and the gold cross from Confirmation, my Charlie the Tuna wristwatch, and my books including Pascal's Pensees, poetry books by Stephen Crane and Robert Hillyer, my leather bound Confirmation presentation Bible, and You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe. I had my high school skirts and sweaters, the tiger stripe fur hat from Dorothy and Kathy, a poncho with Astrology signs, and bell bottom jeans.

Best of all I had confidence and hope.

Here I am out in the woods with Dad

Having Too Much Fun, Nancy (Nearly) Skips Senior Sorrow

Early summer of 1969 I was changing bedrooms again. My family was hosting an exchange student, Elina Salmi from Finland. We girls would have the two upstairs bedrooms.

My senior picture

Having a sister was a new experience. By the end of the year we were really acting like siblings. I wasn't jealous of all the attention Mom gave Elina, helping her to adjust to an American school, learning English, and dealing with homesickness. I was too busy.

Elina Salmi, my Finnish exchange student sister. October 1969.

Me, October 1969

Our family was never more active. Mom kept us on the go. She also kept a diary of everything we did this year. Several years before his death Dad compiled an album of photos about Elina. So with my diaries and scrapbook the year is well documented!

On August 22 at 2 am Elina Salmi arrived at Metro Detroit airport from Finland. My family was excited and talkative, unaware that Elina knew English but we were speaking too fast. She was tired and overwhelmed.

Elina was from Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle. She had never seen anything like the expressway with so many lanes and bridges, Detroit's skyscrapers, or the endless city that extended down Woodward Ave into Royal Oak. It was overwhelming to her.

My family kept her on the go those first weeks. I took Elina to the outdoor dance at the ice rink. We went to Stony Creek and went swimming. We dined with my Ramer grandparents. Elina, Tom, and Dad went fishing one morning and we all went to Belle Isle in the afternoon. We had a party for Elina to meet my friends. We went to the Detroit Zoo.

On Labor Day my family held a BBQ picnic in the back yard with burgers and hot dogs, potato salad, and corn on the cob. Elina was baffled by the corn, she later told us. All she knew was that Donald Duck's nephews fed corn on the cob to pigs! She thought we were feeding her pig food!

We went to the movies at the Main Street Theater, to see a ball game at Tiger Stadium, and bought cider at Yates Cider Mill. There was a block party and I lost a contact in the grass.What a whirlwind of activity!

Herald article on the exchange students. I wrote about Elina.

I became friends with the other exchange students that year: Uta Schnubbe from Hanover, Germany; Toshihiko Fukuyama from Mikata-Gun Hyogo-ken, Japan; and Mirna Guerra from Punta Arenas, Chile.

Tosh and Uta, 1970 Lancer photo

Tosh taught us to enjoy rice crackers with seaweed. He missed his Saki. Mirna discovered she had TB and spent much her year in a sanitarium in Pontiac. Uta's father was pastor of a large Lutheran church. She became a judge and in 1975 she and her husband returned for a visit and we met up at my folk's house.

Me and Uta in 1975.  The photo is very faded.
I was wearing a bright green outfit I'd sewn.

Over the summer I had been still grieving over the breakup with my boyfriend but I was determined to push forward. In the fall I saw him at an event with his girlfriend and I realized I was over him. I had my crushes over the year, but at this point, I was enjoying friendships and flirtations with boys without feeling bad about not having a boyfriend.

Me, Dad and Tom at my Ramer Grandparent's house

My friends were applying to college and I realized if I really wanted to go to college I had better do something about it. I told my mom and she talked to my dad. Although Dad did not see the point of a girl having a college education, and Mom only had wanted to be a wife and mother, they agreed to support me.

On September 24 I talked to my counselor Mr. Stafford about going to college. He thought Oakland Community College was my only option because of my grades. But he worked hard on my behalf.

In September I went to a football game on a date. My little brother went with the Stephens--the Kimball Principal's family! October 9 I took my brother and Elina to the Kimball-Dondero bonfire and we went to Pasquale's for pizza afterward.

For Senior Halloween Day I wore a pilgrim dress made by our neighbor and Elina wore her Finnish traditional costume.

Elina in her Finnish dress, Joe the cat, and me as a Pilgrim

The last football game of the year was a blast, with a party afterward at Tosh's host family's home, but I was sad knowing I would never attend another Kimball football game.

Dad would sometimes pick me up at school in his old red pickup truck. Frankly, I was embarrassed as no one else had a dad with a red pickup truck coming to get them. One day some boys asked if he would help them move the Kimball Rock! I wrote that he'd broken his finger and didn't help.

October 15 was the nationwide Moratorium protesting the Vietnam War with a demonstration at Memorial Park in Royal Oak.

Herald front page article on the anti-war protest at Memorial Park, RO

Me, Grandpa Ramer, and Elina in Gramps basement

On October 22 my Grandfather Ramer was hospitalized after his first heart attack. I visited him in the hospital. He was strangely quiet and internal. I was afraid he was going to die. There was so much I wanted to know. I was thinking about becoming a teacher. He had taught high school and currently was teaching at Lawrence Tech. Gramps survived, gave up smoking, and started walking to the Berkley post office to mail the numerous letters he sent all over the country.

official rules of PAC

On October 29 PAC (Political Action Club) had a meet the candidate night. Dad and Elina came with me.

Tribune article on the PAC Meet the Candidate night

My folks had a costume Halloween party. Mom loved a party.

Actually a 1967 photo of me with dad dressed
for Halloween as a blond 'Castro' 

On Nov. 26 at 6:30 we left for a trip to Tonawanda. We visited with Grama Gochenour and Uncle Ken and Aunt Alice Ennis; Skip and Katie Marvin; and our old neighbors John and Lucille Kuhn and Alma Ensminger.

On Thanksgiving Day we went to Niagara Falls then the entire family gathered for dinner that evening. The next day we visited mom's lifelong friend Doris Waterson and her family and Dad's uncle Lee Becker and his family including my cousin Debbie. Uncle Lee was a volunteer fireman and he took us for a ride on the Grand Island fire truck.

The following day we drove to Allegheny and visited Putt's farm and my Guenther cousins and their parents who had built a cabin there.

We left Buffalo in a blizzard but drove out of bad weather after three hours. We came through the Detroit Tunnel and drove around downtown Detroit to see the Christmas lights.

I was proud to have been accepted into the A Capella Choir. The choir photo was taken on December 2. I wrote, "A- choir pic today: on stage we had to change some robes around for length. We broke out into a chorus of “The Stripper” and about 5 boys came running to the auditorium door to see what was going on."

A Capella Choir. I am in the second row, five from the right.

December 19 was my last Holiday Concert followed by an A Capella party. It had been a highlight of my year and I looked forward to the multi-choir piece and the moving concert final piece O Holy Night.

In the spring the choir sang popular songs: San Antone Rose, Blue World, and Cecelia. During the year we also sang Black is the Color of my True Love’s Hair, the Cornish folk song I Love My Love, and “Hospdi Paolime, a Russian Chant."

My senior photos were taken on Dec. 15, the day my brother's American anole died. He had bought it at the circus. "It was a dreadful procedure. Tom and I pushing it toward life all the way. But it was past all help. Shriveled, splotchy coloring, weak—suddenly it was motionless, its convulsive breathing stopped, its eyes glassy and staring." It used to sleep on my shoulder under my long hair. One night it curled up in my scarf and I didn't remember it until bedtime.

On December 27 we had a party with the exchange students.

Dad and Tosh, Elina, me at the piano with Mirna

Mirna from Chile turning the page as I played Christmas Carols 

I realized high school would soon be over and I cherished every moment. I wrote," It’s all so sad—the beauty found in the littlest things—like singing a song in the cafeteria with the jukebox. Everyone sang. Everyone."

I continued, "I’ll find sorrow in the beauty of parting, for I have been in the process of parting since I came here. And it is all so sad to know that soon I’ll have lost the greatest beauty I have ever known—this life, this school—the singing of songs, and the clapping of hands, the worn books, the every crevice of this building—I will lose it."

I got my driver's license in December and started driving to school. I had to fill the gas tank half full in return for using Mom's car. That took a good chunk out of my $2 a week allowance!

My typical comp grade!

On winter morning Mom asked me to drive Tom and the neighbor boys to Northwood Elementary. It was icy and I fishtailed, scaring the boys and myself.

I was in Composition. On August 12 Miss Young asked who my favorite writers were and I answered J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, Thomas Hardy, and Thomas Wolfe. She often liked my content, but I consistently received a lower grade because of my bad spelling.

1969-70 Herald Staff, Lancer photo. I am in the first row, far right.

I was writing poetry and sharing it in composition class and in the Herald. My girlfriend even sent some of my poetry to her boyfriend at college. It was pretty awful, derivative stuff.

Poetry page in the Herald. I was still imitating Stephen Crane.

Another of my Herald poems

In speech class, I discovered I could keep my composure while giving a speech, but once I sat down I shook with nerves. Government class with Mr. Meraw and Mr. Poppovitch ended the year with a mock campaign and election. We had a blast.

my government class photo from the Lancer yearbook

I had Novel class and read a lot of contemporary fiction for young adults. And World Lit with Mr. Botens. He handed out excerpts printed on mimeograph paper. I would go to the library and get the book the selections--Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Candide by Voltaire--and read the originals. I wrote, "I’ve been reading Pascal and Schopenhaur.  And Dante & Gogol (Russian, Dead Souls)" On January 23 I wrote, "Mr. B gave a great lecture. Mike M., Cindy, Diane B. and I stayed after to tell him how great his course was. I nearly cried."

I enjoyed Physical Geography with Mr. Wall. Grampa Ramer was always talking about geography and geology and oceanography. We would take a trip through the Irish Hills and he would point out the kettles and moraines left by glaciers. In the early 60s, Gramps was interested in 'the next ice age' and even had a local television channel air him talking about his theory of diverting the Gulf Stream away from the Arctic to prevent the melting of the ice.

I tried Music Theory but quickly changed to Music Appreciation. That course and Art Appreciation were a breeze. To this day I can tell the composer of a symphonic work or the artists of a painting right off.

I was reading about 10 books a month. In my diary I mention reading Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, The Web and the Rock by Thomas Wolfe, Tell Me That You Love Me Junie Moon by Marjorie Kellogg, and John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat. I wrote, "Ever read Frank Yerby?  Try his Odor of Sanctity, –I think you’ll like it, because it bears a resemblance to Avalon. Just as exciting, moving and unbelievable!"

I surprised myself by doing well on the ACT and SAT. But, I had been turned down by Alma, Central, and Albion. My counselor kept trying.

In February I learned that Adrian College had accepted me, along with my friends Nancy B., whose dad worked with my dad at Chrysler, and Lynn Martin, my friend since 8th grade. Adrian is a United Methodist college that still specializes in students who are the first in their family to go to college.

On February 26 the Political Action Club took a trip to Lansing. We had a tour of the museum and the Capital, visiting the beautiful Senate room.

In March my first boyfriend came to visit and took me to see his folks. It was the last time I would ever see him.

Also in March, The A Capella Choir went to Walled Lake for a Festival where we had to sight-read before judges.We scored top on all events!

I went on a date to the National Honor Society Hootenanny, flew kites with my Herald staff friend (and fellow New Yorker) Margie B., and visited my Girl's Choir friend Carol F. at her Oakland University dorm for a weekend. 

In April, Elina and I went to the All School Party, to the school play with a trip to Pasquale's after, and I went to the cast party after the last play. I also bought the Modern Library volume of Pascal's Pensees.

Me, Elina, and Mom at Adrian College, April 1970

On April 24 I visited Adrian along with my parents and Elina. I saw Estes Hall, my future dorm. 

May was eventful.

There was an Environmental Teach-In with tables in the glass hallway with information about ENACT,  Environmental Action for Survival, out of the University of Michigan. I bought a pin reading Give Earth a Change. I've been an environmentalist ever since.Read about the history of ENACT and the first Earth Day here.

On May 7 Kimball students gathered in the courtyard to attempt to lower the flag in protest of Kent State and the U.S. entrance into Cambodia.

Herald photo of student protest in courtyard

Also in May my wallet was stolen from my purse in the girl's lavatory. She took my parking tickets, Modern Dance Show tickets, and driver's license.

The Herald staff celebrated Mr Rosen's birthday with a party; we gave him a monogrammed wallet.

I went to the spring orchestra concert. When the Kimball Symphony Orchestra played music from Carousel, I sang along with “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” A boy I knew from choir jumped up from his seat, came back & said “Mr. L would be proud of you—that was great tone—I could hear you all the way from my chair—“  I stopped singing then.

Our Senior Trip was to Washington D.C. Mom warned me to be good. The sister of a classmate told me to "live it up!" Waiting to leave a boy put his hand through the door.

Waiting for the bus for Washington DC

We arrived in D.C. on May 22. I joined some of my friends in skipping breakfast to see the town. I had never stayed in a hotel before and thought it was pretty fancy. "There were three beds and four girls in our hotel room," I wrote.

On the hotel balcony, Elia in her Marimekko dress.
Shirley, my friend since junior high next to her.

OMG I slept in those? Hanging out in the motel room.

Uta and John Speer living it up

I have no idea what Happyland is, but I wrote that a bunch of us "went thru Happyland & rode on three rides together then came back on the Potomac River, on top of the boat in the damp night air."

Tosh and Shirley during our bus tour of Washington

The next day we toured the city. A group of us girls ate lunch in a restaurant near by because "the All States [cafeteria] was overflowing with kids." We sat at an outdoor table and I had crab cakes and iced coffee. I had enjoyed both when I visited Uncle Dave Ramer and family when I was fourteen. We later heard that some kids got food poisoning at the All States!

Then we went to a used bookstore where I bought Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. I really wanted the first edition of You Can't Go Home Again but I didn't have the $15. As it was I had spent most of my money eating with friends at local restaurants instead of the paid meals at the cafeteria, plus we needed to pay for our own lunch at Gettysburg on the way home. Mr. Wall told me he would have bought the book and skipped eating. 

Elina with the camera she bought in America

We stopped at Gettysburg on the way home.

Herald Staffer Martha S. was one of a group wearing a special outfit.
I first met her when we were walking to junior high
and she introduced herself to me.

The trip was fun and educational.

On May 28 my Grandmother Ramer was in the hospital in a lot of pain. This may be when she had her gall bladder operation.

My Ramer grandparents

I picked up my Senior gifts from local retailers, including a “key” necklace from Dobie Jewelers, a key chain from Meyer Jewelers (which fell apart), and a mini cedar chest- from Charles Furniture, which I still have.

We paid 50 cents to wear shorts to school!

Convocation was held on June 2. I received a Herald award based on column inches written.

My contact case, Herald and Choir pins, a Chile pin from Mirna,
Journalism award, and charm bracelet including aKimball high charm and one from Washington D.C.

I was proud to have my name read at Convocation for having been awarded a grant to attend a Michigan private college, based on my ACT score. It covered a quarter of the yearly cost! And, Elina singled me out in her speech, giving me the title of 'the best sister she could have had.'

Elina dressed for the prom
her dress fabric by Finnish designer Marimekko

June 5 was the Prom but I didn't have a date. Elina went with a nice boy on a double date. After I put makeup on Elina and saw her off I went to my friend Julie's house for a sleep over party. We went to Realtor's Park in the night and played on the playground. Years later when I saw teenagers horsing around on a playground I understood why. It was their last hurrah.

June 14 was graduation. When the choir sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” I cried. Then came all the graduation parties. We had one, too. This year I had made new friends, and kept the old.

Elina, Me and Tom

A few weeks later Elina returned to Finland. We'd had a great year. I was sad to lose my one and only sister. In his late teens my brother went to Finland to visit Elina and her family. When Elina married she brought her husband to visit us in the States. And when Elina's daughter was a senior in high school we hosted her as our exchange student daughter!

My diary for the year ended,
"It is over.

The biggest show on earth

finished."

My room. 

I had a lot to look forward to. I was going to be the first female, and only the second person in my family, to attend college. I couldn't wait.

June 1970 Herald cover